While strolling through the largest garden of more varieties of bamboo than you ever knew existed (about 40), you would imagine that you’ve found yourself in a far eastern land, a place surrounded by exotic flowers and plants (impossible to pronounce), hearing only the waft of a gentle breeze combing through the long stalks in a bamboo forest.

The zen-like ambiance of this unexpected garden has actually placed you in the Mediterranean climate of the south of France, not far from the town of Alès and two kilometers (just over one mile) north of Anduze. There are 34 hectares devoted to the cultivation of bamboo and other exotic plants from the Asia.

We’ve been wanting to see La Bambouseraie for long time now, so while we were south we decided to take a drive (about an hour) from our temporary home base in Saint Laurent des Arbres.

To satisfy the thirsty bamboo, more than five kilometers (3 miles) of irrigation canals are discretely blended into the landscape. With the sunny climate, ideal soil and a dependable supply of water, the bamboo can grow more than a meter (3 feet) a day.

La Bambouseraie de Prafrance was founded in 1855, and is the very first giant bamboo forest in Europe. Eugène Mazel, a native of the Cévennes who made his fortune by importing spices, began his bamboo collection while traveling through the French colonies of the Far East. After purchasing the domaine of Prafrance from its owner, Anne de Galière, he began to build his dream bamboo garden on the property. It now features water gardens, sequoia trees from California, traditional projects (Japanese garden, Laotian village), a garden labyrinth, a greenhouse and a nursery.

Oh! and some dwarf Vietnamese pigs. They look pretty humungous to me, though.

The Japanese Zen garden is relatively new to the park (2001) designed very true to Japanese style. The sculpting of the landscape took inspiration from the year it was founded, which was the Year of the Dragon. The Japanese garden’s form is dependent on the body of water it surrounds, so you’ll see the water wind through the garden like a dragon, both existing in harmony with each other. Note that “dragon” is an anagram of Gardon, the nearest river…

Dragon in the Zen Garden

For the rest of the post and to see a lot more photos after the fold click: (more…)

Yea, what else is new. I know. Anyway, when Calimero left a comment on the GMO (genetically modified organisms) post, I wasn’t sure what he was referring to until I watched a short clip from the (week) daily 5 minutes segment of the day’s highlights called, “Zapping” on Canal Plus. Watch it here (Select “ZAPPING DU 15/05/08″).

I’m enormously disgusted by these French politicians on the subject of allowing genetically modified foods into the French food chain. With Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, who happens to be a Minister of Ecology, She’s pro-GMO! She is working on PASSING laws to allow GMO crops. However, when asked what she feeds her son, she says he only eats organic food!!! “It’s a personal choice,” she says. WTF.

With Francois Vannison, a member of the UMP, he says he is not against GMO but does realize it can pose a risk of contaminating non-GMO agriculture and organic agriculture. OH-KAY.

More stupid politicians BOUGHT and OWNED by the evil Monsanto.

The best part of this particular “zapping” is the animal with big eyes.

From reuters:

“PARIS – Hundreds of activists marched in Paris on Tuesday ahead of the expected approval of a law they say blurs the line between natural and genetically modified (GM) foods.

The bill lays down conditions for the cultivation of GM crops in France, Europe’s largest grain producer and exporter, and creates a body to oversee GMO use. The vote is due to take place late on Tuesday or on Wednesday.
Protesters, some wearing yellow hats in the shape of maize cobs and others dressed in white suits imitating scientists, gathered near the National Assembly to voice their opposition.

“We must give consumers the choice of eating quality products, with or without GMO,” said Jean Terlon, cook at the restaurant Le Saint-Pierre in Longjumeau, close to Paris.

While GM crops are common in the United States and Latin America, France and many other European countries are dubious about using the new genetic technology in agriculture.

France banned the sole GM crop grown in the European Union, a maize (corn) developed by US biotech giant Monsanto, in February because it had serious doubts about whether it was safe for the environment. GMO cultivation is still legal, however.

The new French law, which would implement a European Union directive adopted in 2001, sets the rules a farmer has to respect to grow GM crops. These include limiting dissemination of pollen to conventional fields.

The text is criticised by pro-GMOs who say it does not go far enough and by the antis, including deputies of the ruling majority, who say changes made in exchanges between the parliament and the upper house make it too lax.

LEGAL CONTAMINATION

Approved amendments include a rate of GM dissemination to conventional crops of up to 0.9 percent, a level fiercely contested by ecologists seeking to protect France’s biodiversity and organic crops from GM contamination.

“The problem of this law is that it legalises contamination because anything with a GMO content of less than 0.9 percent can be called GMO-free,” Romain Chabrol, a spokesman of the environmental group Greenpeace France, said.

The rate in Germany was set at 0.1 percent.

French Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo said the new law would be the “most protective in the world”.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has repeatedly said he does not want to close the door on the technology or ban research so as to limit the number of biotech companies put off by the destruction of their outdoor experiments by activists.

French cooperative Limagrain, which has a 70 percent stake in the world’s fourth-largest seed maker Vilmorin, said this year its research unit Biogemma had moved its tests on GM crops to the United States after repeated attacks on its fields.

Such attacks would be more severely punished under the law.”

Commemorating Earth Day today, which marks the anniversary of the birth of the environmental movement, I thought I’d post a photo in appreciation of nature. This is a photo of the Calanques in the south of France, not far from Cassis. I never did get around to writing about the Calanques – probably because I had so many photos to go through – but I’ll try to get to it…some time…this year

Related: Earth Day – Take a deep breath and hear the sad story of mankind

Sadly, it happened. The last several years of SATC, CSI (aka in France Les Experts), and face it, all American shows – has shaken the reason out of Europeans. What am I talking about?

Take out coffee cups. You know, you see everyone with them. Everywhere. Those ridiculous disposable paper or worse, plastic cups with plastic lids. HATE those. Don’t we need to REDUCE our waste? Don’t we know that PLASTIC is evil and toxic? What is wrong with us? Are we stooooppid? Oui, je dirais.

We saw this poster on a cafe and felt sort of disgusted. I mean, these take away cups are for espresso so they are little disposable cups. Hello…maybe I shouldn’t be complaining since it’s not like a ventimongosize cup from Starbucks (which I HATE) but I can’t help it. An espresso in France, that’s like 3 TABLESPOONS of strong coffee right there in a teeny tiny cup with a handle through which you can’t even fit your fingers. It takes like 3.5 seconds to consume in a cafe. WHY do we need to have it to go?

From AFP:

“Orly Airport, one of the two big airports serving Paris, is to extract geothermal energy from deep underground to slash its heating bills, the facility’s owners said.

Two shafts each 1,700 metres (one mile) deep will be drilled on the airport’s perimeter to access a water table warmed by heat emanating from the Earth’s hot core.

Drawn upwards by natural pressure, the water will emerge at the surface at 74 degrees Celsius (165 degrees Fahrenheit) and then be injected into the airport’s heating system. It will then be pumped back into the ground at a temperature of 45 C (113 F).

“We have the unprecedented luck of having hot water below our feet that can heat a large part of Orly without CO2 [carbon dioxide] emissions. We are the first airport in Europe to do this,” Pierre Graff, who is chairman and managing director of Aeroports de Paris (ADP), said on Wednesday.

The project, launched after a technical and financial feasibility study, will cost 11 million euros (17.27 million dollars). The Orly-Ouest terminal, part of Orly-South, the airport’s Hilton Hotel, and two business districts will be hooked up to the system from 2011.

ADP hopes geothermal will meet a third of its heating needs and coincidentally save 7,000 tonnes of its 20,000 tonnes of its annual emissions of CO2, the principal greenhouse gas.

The neighbouring towns of Orly, located south of Paris, and l’Hay-les-Roses, already use geothermal.”

Though I haven’t heard about any cities in France participating, I think there are people who are making an effort to be part of this dark 60 minutes called Earth Hour…

From earth hour:

“On Saturday, March 29, 2008, Earth Hour invites people around the world to turn off their lights for one hour – from 8:00pm to 9:00pm in their local time zone. On this day, cities around the world, including Copenhagen, Chicago, Melbourne, Dubai, and Tel Aviv, will hold events to acknowledge their commitment to energy conservation [and thus lower carbon emissions]. Given our company’s commitment to environmental awareness and energy efficiency, we strongly support the Earth Hour campaign, and have darkened our homepage today to help spread awareness of what we hope will be a highly successful global event.”

More about it

From AP:

“Nantes — About 3,000 barrels of fuel oil leaked in and along the Loire River after a pipe ruptured while a tanker was being loaded at a Total refinery, the company said Monday.

Rescue teams used floating dams and Total mobilized a 200-person cleanup team to cope with the 400-ton spill at the Donges refinery in western France that began late Sunday, the company said in a statement.

Local officials said chunks of solidified oil were spotted on Atlantic Ocean estuary beaches, and fuel was seen floating along 12 miles of river Monday evening.

Total spokesman Burkhard Reuss said the cause of the rupture was not immediately clear. The company was trying to determine how long it took for the leakage of oil to be stopped, he said.

The Donges refinery produces about 230,000 barrels per day, he said.”

The French documentary, “Le Monde Selon Monsanto / The world according to Monsanto,” directed by independent filmmaker Marie-Monique Robin, airs tonight on ARTE.

The film paints a grim picture of a no-holds-barred evil corporation with a decades-long track record of environmental crimes, health scandals and endangering the population of the entire world.

It will open your eyes to many things and you’ll never look at food the same way again.

Read about it at ARTE (in French) More about it here (in English)

See the movie trailer here

From chiefengineer:

“Thousands of canisters of highly radioactive waste from the world’s most nuclear-energized nation lie, silent and deadly, beneath this jutting tip of Normandy. Above ground, cows graze and Atlantic waves crash into heather-covered hills.

The spent fuel, vitrified into blocks of black glass that will remain dangerous for thousands of years, is in “interim storage.” Like nearly all the world’s nuclear waste, it is still waiting for the long-term disposal solution that has eluded scientists and governments in the six decades since the atomic era began.

…Greenpeace questions state-run Areva’s safety figures, and accuses the government of playing down accidents and soil and water contamination. A group called Meres en Colere, or Angry Mothers, was formed in the region (Normandy) after a 1997 study showed higher than usual local rates of child leukemia, a malady linked to radiation exposure.

Now the “pros” are on a new mission to dispel a generation of scares and suspicion, saying nuclear power is less dangerous to humans and the Earth than burning oil or coal. The “antis” say nuclear energy can never offer 100 percent protection from its radioactive ingredients.

The splitting of uranium atoms in a nuclear reactor creates the exceptional heat that drives turbines to provide electricity. The processes also create radioactive isotopes such as cesium-137 and strontium-90 that take about 30 years to lose half their radioactivity. Higher-level leftovers include plutonium-239, with a half-life of 24,000 years.

Direct exposure to such highly radioactive material, even for a short period, can be fatal. Indirect exposure, through seepage into groundwater, can lead to life-threatening illness for those living nearby and environmental damage.

For now, the best scientific solution for getting rid of the most lethal waste is to shove it deep underground.

Yet no country has built a deep geological repository. Governments meet protests each time one is proposed. The Yucca Mountain waste site in Nevada was commissioned in 1982 and is still awaiting a license.

Another option is recycling. Countries such as France, Russia and Japan reprocess much nuclear waste into new fuel. That dramatically reduces the volume: Forty years’ worth of France’s highly radioactive waste is stored under just three floor surfaces, each about the size of a basketball court, at Beaumont-Hague.

Recycling, though, produces plutonium that could be used in nuclear weapons – so the United States bans it, fearing proliferation.

And not all waste can be reprocessed. The deadliest bits – such as fuel rod casings and other reactor parts as well as concentrated fuel residue containing plutonium and highly enriched uranium – must be sealed and stored away.

That’s what lurks 10 feet underground at this Normandy plant: More than 7,000 cylindrical steel canisters, each about the height of a parking meter, stacked and sealed upright in holes beneath the slick floor. Some contain compacted radioactive metal, the others hold spent fuel that has been vitrified into glass.

Among other ideas once floated for disposing of nuclear waste have been shooting it into space (deemed too risky because of the volatile rocket fuel) or injecting it in the ocean floor (stalled because testing its feasibility is too costly), or shipping all the world’s waste to a collective nuclear dump….”

Read the article

Cheap cheap fish! Here’s an ad (from one of the hypermarches in France) for the fish called Pangas (also known as Pangasius, Vietnamese River Cobbler, Basa Fish and White Catfish). I took it as a reminder to alert you to the dangers of this weird fish. I learned about Pangas not long ago. It’s online here: Documentary all about Pangas.(in French)

Poisson ou poison?

Pangas, which are industrially farmed in Vietnam along the Mekong River, has only been recently introduced to the French market, but in a very short time, it’s gotten very popular in France. The French are slurping up Pangas like it’s their last meal of ramen. It’s dirt cheap, is sold de-boned and it has a mild flavor and texture; people compare it to cod and sole. But as tasty as some may find it, there lurks something immensely unsavory about it. I’m not saying there aren’t problems with other food like pork and other meats, I’m just making a point about this particular fish and hope it will serve as very important information for you and your future choices.

Here’s why I think it should be avoided like the plague:

1. Pangas are infested with high levels of poisons and bacteria. (arsenic, industrial effluents and toxic and hazardous by-products of the growing industrial sector, metal contaminants, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), DDT and its metabolites (DDTs), chlordane-related compounds (CHLs), hexachlorocyclohexane isomers (HCHs), and hexachlorobenzene (HCB)). The Mekong River is one of the most polluted rivers on the planet and this is where pangas are farmed.A sidenote: our friend lab tests pangas and tells us to avoid eating them due to high amounts of contamination. They are still accepted by large markets and they still sell them to the general public knowing they are contaminated.

2. Pangas are packed frozen in contaminated river water. Ew.

3. Pangas are environmentally devastating, a most unsustainable food you could possibly eat – You know how you should “buy local” in order to create the least amount of environmental harm as possible? This is the very opposite end of that spectrum of sustainable consumerism. Pangas are raised in Vietnam. The food fed to Pangas comes from Peru (more on that below), their hormones (which are injected into the female Pangas) come from China. (More about that below) THEN, they are transported from Vietnam to France. That’s not just a giant carbon foot print, that’s a carbon continent of a foot print.

4. There’s nothing natural about Pangas – They’re fed dead fish remnants and bones, dried and ground into a flour, from South America, manioc (cassava) and residue from soy and grains. Obviously, this type of nourishment doesn’t even remotely resemble what they eat in a natural environment. But what it does resemble is the method of feeding mad cows (cows were fed cows, remember?) What they feed pangas is completely unregulated so there are most likely other harmful substances and hormones thrown into the mix. The pangas grow 4 times faster than in nature…so what is exactly in their food? You guess is as good as mine.

5. Pangas are Injected with PEE – Honestly, I don’t know how they figured this one out but they’ve discovered that if they inject female Pangas with hormones derived from the dehydrated urine of pregnant women, the female Pangas grow faster and produce their eggs faster (one Panga can lay approximately 500,000 eggs at one time). Essentially, they’re injecting fish with hormones (they come all of the way from a pharmaceutical company in China) to speed up the process of growth and reproduction. That just can’t be good. Ok, now some of you crazy ass people out there might not mind eating fish injected with dehydrated pee and if you don’t good for you, but just consider the rest of the reasons to NOT eat it.

6. You get what you pay for – and then some. Don’t be lured in by insanely cheap price of Pangas. Is it worth risking your health?

7. Buying Pangas supports unscrupulous, giant, greedy evil corporations that don’t care about the health and well-being of humans. They only are concerned about selling as many pangas as possible to unsuspecting consumers. These corporations only care about bottom line.

8. Pangas will make you sick – If (for reasons in #1 above) you don’t get immediately ill with vomiting, diarrhea and effects from severe food poisoning, congratulations, you have an iron stomach! But you’re still ingesting POISON not poisson.

Another note: due to the prodigious amount of availability of Pangas, be warned that it will surely end up in other foods: surimi (those pressed fish things), fish terrines, and probably in some pet foods. (Warn your dogs and cats!)

Watch this Report on Pangas

(Video excerpt from Capitale on M6, which aired about 3 months ago)

Links: Buying fish in France, Le Panga, nouvelle abération de la mondialisation ?, carnival of the green

From Reuters:

“French film maker Luc Besson is to make a full length movie inspired by French photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand‘s “Earth from the Air” images of the planet, French retailer PPR, the film’s sponsor, said on Monday.

The film, with the working title “Boomerang,” is intended to contribute to “raising awareness of the dire condition of our planet,” PPR said. It is due to be released on World Environment Day — June 5 — in 2009.

It follows in the wake of Al Gore’s Oscar winning “An Inconvenient Truth” and Leonardo DiCaprio’s “The 11th hour.”

Any profits from “Boomerang” will go to a foundation set up by Arthus-Bertrand to promote sustainable development, PPR said.”

Why Travel to France is having weird technical problems, which should be fixed shortly. Regular posting should resume in the near future. In the meantime, here are some recent news items from France:

Jose Bove – started a hunger strike yesterday against genetically modified foods in France. A decision regarding OGM (GMO) in France should be reached by the end of the month. (article in French)

Free Cars in Paris? – the Mayor of Paris is proposing the introduction of Voiturelib’–2,000 electric-powered vehicles that subscribers can drive off without booking at dozens of sites, 24 hours a day, and then leave anywhere in the city.

No Smoking – France finally banned smoking in restaurants, bars and cafes effective January 1, 2008, which is a breath of fresh air!

Remember the EU Constitution France Voted Against? It’s here to stay (without the votes of EU countries) in the form of the Lisbon Treaty

Feminists in France have petitioned the French government to remove the title Mademoiselle or Miss from official administrative documents

France bans the word “E-mail” in government documents

U.S. expats facing tax ‘sticker shock’ - and Lousy Health Care to Boot

French Ministers get graded and evaluated, Sarkozy is exempt from being evaluated.

Calais Mayor Defies Sarkozy – A welcome center for asylum seekers heading to Britain from France was opened despite objections from the government.

A balloon that floats above Paris’ André-Citroën park monitors the air pollution levels every hour. If the balloon is green, your lungs have nothing to worry about since it means the air quality is good. A red signifies poor air quality and orange means mediocre air quality. All findings are recorded on the Air Quality Now website.

[via]

Here’s a video with our favorite aerial photographer giving a shout out to Google Earth. (He takes some funky farm animal photos too.)

Download it and you can view 500 photos from environmentalist and French photographer and Yann Arthus-Bertrand as a layer in Google Earth.

Video – The Earth from Above (Google Earth)

[via]

From ENN:

French farmer Jose Bove, who became a worldwide celebrity for his fight against junk food, said on Monday he would go on a hunger strike to win a one-year ban on genetically modified (GMO) crops.

Speaking at the Millau Court of Justice in southern France, where his four-month jail sentence for trashing a GMO field in 2004 was commuted to a fine, Bove said he would start his unlimited hunger strike on January 3, along with 10 to 15 other activists.

The walrus-mustachioed, pipe-smoking Bove, sometimes dubbed France’s Robin Hood, spent six weeks in jail in 2003 for smashing up a McDonald’s restaurant in protest at tariffs imposed by the United States in retaliation for a European Union ban on imports of North American hormone-treated beef.
While GMO crops are common in the United States, France — Europe’s biggest grain producer — along with other European nations remain highly suspicious of them.

Supporters say it could lead to hardy strains to help…

Continue reading

From Cleantech:

“A prominent researcher shared a nuclear secret today that he said not even everyone in the U.S. Department of Energy knows.

Is the U.S., in fact, storing a large amount of nuclear waste produced by France’s nuclear reactors?

That was the suggestion in a keynote today at the ThinkEquity ThinkGreen conference in San Francisco by Dr. Yogi Goswami, former President of the International Solar Energy Society, and prolific author and University of Florida professor.

“One small bit of information that most people don’t know, even in our Department of Energy: a large majority of the nuclear waste from France is actually shipped to the U.S.,” Goswami said.

“It’s stored in…”

Continue reading

From greencarcongress:

France’s Ministry of Ecology (Ministère de l’écologie, du développement et de l’aménagement durables) announced a new feebate system based on CO2 emissions for new vehicle purchases.

Under the scheme, a bonus will be paid to purchasers of new passenger cars emitting less than 130 g CO2/km, which now represents about 30% of sales. The bonus will be supplemented by an extra payment when the acquisition of the vehicle is accompanied by the scrapping of a vehicle that is more than 15 years old. Conversely, buyers of new vehicles that emit more than 160 g CO2/km will pay a penalty. This will affect approximately 25% of new vehicles sold. Buyers of vehicles emitting between 130-160g CO2 will not receive a bonus nor will they pay a tax. This “neutral zone” will apply to about 45% of vehicle purchases.

The payments and the penalties are based on a sliding scale—the less (or more) carbon dioxide emitted, the greater the payment or penalty, respectively. The threshold points for payments or penalties will advance 5 g CO2/km every two years to encourage ongoing development efforts.

To encourage the development of extremely low emission vehicles—especially electric vehicles, the government has a special bonus of €5,000 (US$7,300) for the purchase of vehicles emitting less than 60 g CO2/km….

continue reading

From ecorazzi:

French fries. French toast. French Eco-Friendly Christmas? You better believe it!! Paris (not Hilton) just unveiled plans to follow New York City’s lead and bring in the New Year with their own resolution: a greener, more energy efficient holiday season.Paris Mayor, Bertrand Delanoe, and French singer and actress, Vanessa Paradis, were on site at the annual lighting of the trees which kicks off the holidays and has been a Paris tradition for 26 years. However this year marks a new tradition…

Continue reading

EquitExpo, the international Fair Trade Expo starts today and continues through the 29th.

The expo serves to promote fair trade (fair price), as well as social and environmental standards in areas related to the production of a wide variety of goods – and focusing in particular on exports from developing countries to developed countries.

Expect conferences, round tables, merchants and exhibitors from 30 different countries. Also featured are: concerts, theater plays and a cyber café.

French farmers, fishermen, and craftmen will be present at the farmer market of EquitExpo, next to the organic restaurant.

EquitExpo 2007
Sport Center of l’Île de Vannes
15 bd Marcel Paul
93450 L’Île Saint-Denis – France
Entrance: free

Tags: france, french, equitexpo+2007, fair+trade, europe, commerce+in+developing+countries

“Earthships have been around for some time. While some comments on our first post suggested there is something a little cult-like about the movement, they still seem to be cropping up everywhere, having now crossed the Atlantic to Brighton, UK. But the spread doesn’t end there – reading the latest newsletter of the Permaculture Association UK we learned that there is now an Earth Ship Normandy project, taking the concept to the northern shores of mainland Europe too. The Earthship, which by the sounds of things is nearing completion, will be available soon for vacation rentals (the site says September, but no rates or availability info is posted just yet):

‘The French earthship will be a fully furnished, 3 bedroomed gite with a kitchen and bathroom. It will have the fixtures and fittings of any other more conventionally designed house, but with an eco-twist. For those interested in Permaculture, the planters inside the earthship will have this design system in mind to encompass the design of the physical structure. This rental offers the opportunity of experiencing earthship living first-hand and the viability of making this a blue print for large-scale sustainable developments in the future. Ger is a charming rural village in the heart of Normandy only 1 ½ hours drive from the Ports. There are extensive forests in the area and endless walking and cycling routes nearby through the beautiful Normandy countryside. This is an extremely unspoilt corner of Europe and one which guarantees a peaceful holiday break.’”

From Unusual Vacation Rental in Northern France at Treehugger

and other wines. Global Warming is going to seriously crimp your wine life…well, and your life in general.

“Say Goodbye to French Wines. Wacky temperatures and rain cycles brought on by global warming are threatening something very important: Wine. Scientists believe global warming will “shift viticultural regions toward the poles, cooler coastal zones and higher elevations.” What that means in regular language: Get ready to say bye-bye to French Bordeaux and hello to British champagne. [LA Times]

Say Goodbye to Light and Dry Wines. Warmer temperatures mean grapes in California and France develop their sugars too quickly, well before their other flavors. As a result, growers are forced to either a) leave the grapes on the vines longer, which dramatically raises the alcoholic content of the fruit or b) pick the grapes too soon and make overly sweet wine that tastes like jam. [Washington Post]

Say Goodbye to Pinot Noir. The reason you adore pinot noir is that it comes from a notoriously temperamental thin-skinned grape that thrives in cool climates. Warmer temperatures are already damaging the pinots from Oregon, “baking away” the grape’s berry flavors…”

[From Top 100 Ways Global Warming Will Change Your Life]

Perhaps not the most exciting conferences for some, but definitely an important one regarding environmental city living, “l’écologie à la ville” is the first Université d’été du WWF (French division of the World Wildlife Federation). It’s a 2-day conference held at the Paris HQ of WWF in France. On the program: keynote by Jean-Louis Borloo, Environment Minister; workshops topics include: problems with health in the city, sustainable energy, biodiversity in public and private places, the paradox of organic between growth in demand and imports, innovations in eco-friendly buildings and homes, how to reduce your carbon footprint, consumers and their impact on the environment and more; speakers: Dany Dietman, author of Déchet ménagers : le jardin des impostures, Jean L’heritier, President of Slow Food France, and many more. Also, there will be organic breakfasts and lunches!

Click here to download the full program and a registration application (in French).

Regular Fees: 100 euros for 1 day or 150 euros for 2 days
Reduced Fees for NGOs and students: 50 euros for one day, 75 euros for 2 days

L’Université d’Eté du WWF
l’écologie à la ville – September 13 & 14, 2007
Espace Planète Attitude au siège du WWF-France
1 Carrefour de Longchamp, 75116 Paris (16ème)
Contact et registration:
Email: universite@wwf.fr
Tel: +33 (0)1 55 25 84 25
Website: WWF

On sale soon in France: An innovative washing machine that needs no detergent. This means a coupla things: 1) no harsh phosphates and other chemicals into the environment and; 2) No need to buy detergent!

How does it work? Basically, the machine changes the water molecules and breaks them down into specific elements, which then work to sterilize the clothes. If you absolutely have to use detergent, there’s an option to do so (but if you were to do that, why would you want this washing machine in the first place?)

Available soon for €699 ($954).

More information from the site: Wash20 (in French)

[via freshome]

It all started chez Mr. Pott, the Potter. (Yes, that is his real name.) We were being led to the kiln where all his creations cook down to their glorious art forms. As we wandered along the winding path, a putrid cloud of fumes wafted toward me and overwhelmingly assaulted my nose. I was certain I was going to puke. It was nauseating. If you can imagine an effluvious melding rotten cat vomit with sewage after a 5-week long, city-wide bout of extreme irritable bowel syndrome, (aka The Runs) then that is what it smelled like.

Ahead of us, Mr. Pott turned around abruptly to warn us of the smell. “Thanks for the warning,” I said, as I repressed projectile vomiting a gag. He apologized and told us it was his purin d’orties. (nettles “manure” or fertilizer. It’s nettles soaked in rainwater.). I’d never heard about it. He mentioned that it not only was a natural insecticide that works but it was also a nutritious fertilizer “tea” for garden vegetables.

Upon further research, I found out that nettles is somewhat of universal super miracle ingredient being beneficial (even curative) to allergies and health problems, as well as serving as sort of a magical elixer in the garden. You can also cook it like spinach for a vitamin rich delish potage or other dish. There are undoubtedly endless uses for this undeservedly maligned weed.

I decided to try to make some purin d’orties too. Here’s my batch. It doesn’t stink yet as it needs to brew for a few more weeks. I’ll probably cover it when we start to smell something funky.

The shocking information that I stumbled on, however, was that selling purin d’orties is strictly prohibited in France. Um. You can’t sell water soaked in nettles? That is weird. In addition to that, it is now illegal to publish information on purin d’orties in France. But! It is ok to use purin d’orties that you make at home. (This proves that it is safe to use, but how the heck can you get info if it’s illegal to publish details about it??!) Strange Strange Strange. Not to mention RIDICULOUS. While we’re on the subject of ridiculousness, I also found out that it is illegal in France to publish that hot water kills weeds in alleys. I’m not kidding. It’s a good thing my blog lives on a U.S. server.

In any case, as we all know, evil takes on many forms. Evil can be ridiculous and quite often is, as we’re witness to today. Evil can look at you straight in the eye, lie with a smile and you wouldn’t even know it was lying. Evil can be a weed killer company, a pesticides/fertilizer company, a seed company. Maybe they’re all the same company?

As we might be able to surmise by now, there are only a few usual suspects responsible for this kind of heinous legislation: government (Le ministère de l’Agriculture) and the fertilizer industry (which includes the pharmaceutical, biotech, chemical, pesticides, seeds and GMO industries). And for good measure we might as well throw in the other evil industries: the oil industry, which is the same as the plastics industry and the food industry. They are all bad, bad, bad to the core. This is no exception. It looks as though the industry has lobbied the government (in other words: paid dubious amounts of cash to the agriculture minister and other officials) to pass this most subversive of laws for the benefit of the company whilst being detrimental to the earth and consumers. Anyway. As one of the most destructive industries, they are endangering the health of this planet, and its inhabitants. How much more unscrupulous and unethical can they get? I’m sure they’ll never fail to have something else up their sleeves.

Back to the case of nettles. Nettles fertilizer is so effective that it’s probably better than anything you can buy at the garden store. But it has so many more uses. How do people love nettles? Let them count the ways: 1) Dilute your nettles fertilizer “tea” and spray it on your plants for a safe insecticide that knows how to get rid of the bad bugs and keep the good ones (especially good for veggies like tomatoes); 2) If sprayed, it will also be a foliar fertilizer rich in iron, vitamin C, nitrogen, beta-carotene, B complex vitamins, phosphorous potassium, oligoelements, enzymes, chlorophyll, magnesium, calcium, silica, iodine, and amino acids. You can also enrich the soil by directly watering the ground around your plants; 3) The diluted fertilizer is known to stimulate your plants immune system, building their resilience to diseases and insects; 4) Undiluted nettles tea is a very impressive natural weed killer that will not harm your health, the soil or the environment; 4) Nettles leaves are also a great addition to the compost heap being rich in nitrogen they provide the fuel for the bacteria to accelerate the break down of the more “brown” compost; 5) Dry the nettles leaves to make an infusion tea that will give you an iron boost if you’re feeling run down. This tea is also a safe, gentle diuretic—considered restorative for the kidneys and bladder, and used for cystitis and nephritis. 6) As an expectorant, it’s recommended for asthma, mucus conditions of the lungs, and chronic coughs. Nettle tincture is also used for flu, colds, bronchitis and pneumonia; 7) Nettles are a traditional food for people with allergies as they are filled with formic acid, histamine, acetylcholine, serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine), plus unknown compounds; 8.) Nettle tea compress or finely powdered dried nettles are also good for wounds, cuts, stings, and burns; 9) Other uses include treating gout, glandular diseases, poor circulation, enlarged spleen, diarrhea, and dysentery, worms, intestinal and colon disorders, and hemorrhoids. 10) Eating nettles or drinking the tea makes your hair brighter, thicker and shinier, and makes your skin clearer and healthier—good for eczema and other skin conditions.

Last Note: Strangely, there is no mention of the garden uses of Nettles in Wikipedia. Hmmm.

Sources and Related Links:

Round-up is a descendent of Agent Orange
Ex Monsanto Executives now in the Bush Administration
Interdiction d’informer sur les phytosanitaires naturels non-homologués
Nettles
How to Make Nettles Fertilizer Tea/Insecticide