Green News Roundup 3/17: Pollution a Sin, Wal-Mart’s Not Green (Duh), and Glaciers Are Melting Fast

We’re happy to have our new Editorial Intern and Writer Caroline Rau getting started this week with a new feature that looks back on the previous weeks bit of green news. Here are a few good stories you might have missed last week.

Pope Decrees Pollution a Sin

The Pope stated in an interview with the Vatican’s Newspaper that modern sins include genetic manipulation and polluting the earth. The Vatican has also installed electricity-generating photovoltaic cells on it’s grounds and facilitated conferences on Global Warming. Praise Jebus! From Reuters.

The “Emerald Isle” may become the “shit-brown” Isle

Happy St. Patty’s Day! While we were busy polluting our eco-system with toxic green dyes and our livers with Guinness, a report from the Irish American Climate project reported that Climate Change is threatening to turn the lush green of Ireland brown. Let’s drink more to forget. From ENN.

Daylight Savings May not actually Save Energy

We may have “sprung forward” for no reason. Don’t you hate when that happens? Since only parts of Indiana participate in daylight savings (the parts that aren’t too busy drinking Colt45 in their trailer to notice the time) UC Santa Barbara was able to study the energy “saved” by day light savings. It wasn’t much. Which probably means we need to focus more energy chuggers like air-conditioning instead. From WorldChanging

China Shuts Down Mount Everest

Until May 10th, the north face of Mount Everest will be a no-go zone due to overcrowding and “environmental pressures.” Recently, over 17 tons of trash have been cleared from the Moutain’s hiking trails. From Green Daily and TreeHugger

Walmart not Green

Walmart’s CEO Lee Scott Jr. announced that Walmart is not a green company. To use a turn of phrase from Junior High, Duh Hickey. Scott did say however, that steps are being taken by the giant superstore chain to reduce packaging and energy use not for the sake of the planet, but for cost efficiency. From Wallstreet Journal

CEO’s Predict Regulations on Climate Change will Save Jobs

At a conference hosted by the Wall Street Journal near Santa Barbara, C.E.O’s backed by the Governator himself demanded that Washington step up to create a cohesive energy policy. They argued that tax subsidies supporting green energy would create jobs for Americans.From Environmental News Network

Con-Way Freight loses Speed to save the Earth

Con-Way’s freight trains will be reprogrammed to run around three miles slower per hour in order to save over 3 million gallos of fuel and 70 million pounds of Carbon Emissions. Whoo-Whoo! From Green Biz

Island of Plastic in Pacific is Here to Stay

So there is this huuuuge wad of plastic (we’re talking twice the size of the good ole U.S. of A) floating in the Pacific. And there’s not much we can do to stop it. Suckness. The plastic kills wildlife, fucks with the food-chain, and inhibits the growth of plankton who help deal with all our access C02 but there is no techology as of yet to get rid of the hulk of crap. From Green Daily

Glaciers Melting at Fastest Rate Recorded

The UN Environment Program found that Glaciers have been losing more ice in recent years than they ever have in the past five Millenia. The rapid melting could cause massive flooding and a change in land and food security. A vast change in energy consumption is needed to avoid all that shit. From Treehugger

The Vatican Declares that Polluting the Earth is Now a Sin

Pollute the Earth, Go to Hell.

The Vatican has deemed pollution and genetic manipulation sins. Reuters has it:

Asked what he believed were today’s “new sins,” he told the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano that the greatest danger zone for the modern soul was the largely uncharted world of bioethics.

“(Within bioethics) there are areas where we absolutely must denounce some violations of the fundamental rights of human nature through experiments and genetic manipulation whose outcome is difficult to predict and control,” he said.

The Vatican opposes stem cell research that involves destruction of embryos and has warned against the prospect of human cloning.

Girotti, in an interview headlined “New Forms of Social Sin,” also listed “ecological” offences as modern evils.

In recent months, Pope Benedict has made several strong appeals for the protection of the environment, saying issues such as climate change had become gravely important for the entire human race.

Under Benedict and his predecessor John Paul, the Vatican has become progressively “green”.

It has installed photovoltaic cells on buildings to produce electricity and hosted a scientific conference to discuss the ramifications of global warming and climate change, widely blamed on human use of fossil fuels.

Hey, here’s an idea for the Pope- how about telling your flock of billions to put on a fucking condom every now and then. Putting a few solar panels on your roof is a drop of a drop in the sea of impact the billions of breeding-like-rabbits Catholics have.

The upside to this is that Heaven will be free of oil executives, Republican Senators, and Madonna. Praise be to the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Link [Reuters]