ecoclub.com/blogs - news & views from ecoclub.com members

Interesting rank:http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_pri_...ners-per-capitaOne can spot at least 8 picture perfect tourism destinations in the top 20!And how about the alternative "Happy Planet Index" which attemps to show "the relative efficiency with which nations convert the planet’s natural resources into long and happy lives for their citizens". Some of the same tourism destinations are up there too! Strange, except if a jail is considered an efficient use of space. No wonder, who is at 2nd place, most happiest: Colombia. Hmmmhttp://www.happyplanetindex.org/list.htm

On a nature tour operator's website, I came across a sticker saying"100% (country name) owned & operated, click for 100% verification"I wonder how the 100% (why not 1000%) verification is performed. Does one has to sing the national anthem backwards? Do you get to shoot any enemies?Inoccuous but still ugly & dangerous nationalism.

The Independent's Johann Hari commenting on the recent papal comments furore, attributes it to Freud's 'Narcissism of small differences' whereby 'you are more likely to hate someone who is very similar to you, rather than someone who is drastically different'... Brilliant!http://www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=985

Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html) states:(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.(2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.With the growing importance and occurence of travel and migration, shouldn't it be amended to expressly recognise these two issues as rights?For example:(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement, residence and travel, within and outside the borders of each state(2) Everyone has the right to immigrate to any country, and to return to his country.

were recently approached by an intermediary, who wanted to do an editorial for us in a leading magazine promoting 'environmentalism and corporate social responsibility'. Great. Small detail? we would have to pay Euros 3,000. Bit my tongue and remained polite. Why?Would have loved to explain the irony to them, but after all it was just someone 'doing their job', selling ads...

"I've got the poison, I've got the remedy" goes an old hit by The Prodigy. Hearing the song again, I suddenly got the deeper meaning: The same multinational companies that produce all the ready made foodstuffs, have 'sisters' who produce the drugs to cure our unhealthy lifestyle.

Whoever has seen 'Syriana', and then yesterday watched George Clooney perform at the unofficial UN Security council session, where he was invited by John Bolton, to argue for yet another humanitarian intervention, surely must have felt the irony. As 'devil' Al Pacino said in the closing of "Devil's Advocate" , "vanity is my favourite sin"

15 years after the first internet page http://info.cern.ch was uploaded, there is no page to display at that address. www.cern.ch greets visitors with the statement "... where the web was born!" however there is precious little about the internet or its history on the website. Pity. (it works now! and there is also a picture of "the first web surfer" wow)

Watched an interesting movie on a free DVD offered by a Sunday newspaper: Beyond Borders (2003) dealing with the issue of humanitarian aid & development, how dirty NGOs must get in order to get results, ethical dillemas, and how these NGOs are unavoidably infiltrated by intelligence agencies with less benevolent agendas. The opening scene, with the protagonist disrupting a philanthropic event and spilling the champaign was pure vintage (like the champaign).

the MD of Tourism Australia, of the infamous "So where the bloody hell are you?" Australian tourism campaign?According to The Age he lost his $350,000-a-year job after 'a bitter falling-out' with the Tourism Minister.