Tag Archives: globes

The biggest star at the Golden Globes this year was climate change

Early during the Golden Globes on Sunday night, an emotional Jennifer Aniston read a statement from Russell Crowe, who was being honored for his role in the Showtime miniseries The Loudest Voice. Crowe could not be there to accept the award himself; he was in his native Australia protecting his family from catastrophic wildfires that have ignited millions of acres and killed 25 people.

“Make no mistake,” Aniston said, reading Crowe’s statement. “The tragedy unfolding in Australia is climate change based.”

Crowe’s warning was just the first of many to come from the stage during the 77th annual Golden Globes. Multiple actors used their few moments onstage to talk about the climate crisis and voice support for Australians facing devastating wildfires.

Patricia Arquette, who won the award for best supporting actress in a series for The Act, begged viewers to vote in 2020, so as to avoid future disasters like the one unfolding in Australia. “For our kids and their kids, we have to vote in 2020,” she said.

Cate Blanchett, who was presenting an award, said, “When one country faces a climate disaster, we all face a climate disaster, so we’re in it together.” She also gave a shout-out to volunteer firefighters who are battling flames in Australia.

Joaquin Phoenix, who nabbed an accolade for Joker, said it was time for climate-conscious celebrities to start walking the walk. “It’s great to vote, but sometimes we have to take that responsibility on ourselves and make changes and sacrifices in our own lives,” he said, adding: “We don’t have to take private jets to Palm Springs for the awards.”

Fittingly, the extravagant ceremony itself was greener than usual. Stars dined on the ceremony’s first-ever all-vegan menu and drank water out of glass instead of plastic bottles. The Hollywood Foreign Press Assocation even said it plans to “upcycle” the red carpet that stars walk in on — that is, they’ll reuse it for future events. As for the private jets, we’ll see if Phoenix’s version of flygskam has any impact.

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The biggest star at the Golden Globes this year was climate change

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Enviros bash industry-backed “green” building program

LEED it ain’t

Enviros bash industry-backed “green” building program

Wonderlane

Not every building that looks green actually is.

Corporations that stand to lose the most from a widespread shift toward genuine green building practices are doing what they can to preserve the status quo. For years they’ve been smearing LEED, or Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design, the nation’s preeminent green building certification program. They have lobbied lawmakers to ban the use of LEED certifications for government buildings — and they have succeeded in some states, such as in Maine. And they’ve cooked up their own green-building certification program: Green Globes.

The Sierra Club and Greenpeace are now counterattacking. They’ve launched a new initiative, Greenwash Action, to expose the forces behind Green Globes. From a Greenwash Action report:

Green Globes is a creature of the chemical, plastics and conventional timber industries. It is being peddled as a cheaper and easier alternative to the better-known LEED green building rating system, and claims to deliver the same environmental results. But if you really want to understand Green Globes, you need to know who’s behind it.

Green Globes is administered by an organization called the Green Building Initiative (GBI). Not only have the chemical, plastics and timber industries stacked GBI’s board of directors, their relative handful of “members and supporters” are mostly entities from the same industries that pay-to-play as much as $50,000 a year. These include trade associations and lobbying groups like the American Forest & Paper Association, The Vinyl Institute, the American Chemistry Council, and the Society of the Plastics Industry that are themselves funded by the huge and powerful corporations whose interests underlie Green Globes and drive its agenda.

Lloyd Alter of Treehugger, who has been tracking the attacks on LEED for years, says the environmentalists’ efforts to defend LEED “will be an uphill struggle.”

“I wish Greenwash Action had a larger backing than just Greenpeace and the Sierra Club, who will be immediately labelled as lefty treehuggers,” he writes. “But somebody has to do this.”


Source
A closer look at Green Globes, Greenwash Action
Greenwash Action fights back against the attacks on LEED green building certification, Treehugger

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Enviros bash industry-backed “green” building program

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