Time to Take a Break

Hello everyone,

As you have seen I have not been extremely active on this blog recently, mostly because I moved to a different country and was busy settling in.

The thing is that I also used this time to reflect on this blog and my activities around it. I have realized that I have changed and my interests have changed. When I launched this blog two years ago, green travelling was really a big activity for me. Even if I still highly interested in green issues, there are new things I would like to explore/try.

So I have decided to take a break with this blog. I will keep posting things, but probably on an irregular basis and see how it goes. In the meantime I am working on a new project that I hope to make public soon.

Stay tuned!

Discover Ecotourism in South Africa with Katherine

One of the great things about travelling stories is when the writer has the ability to make you feel you are discovering the country with him. It does not always happen, but when it does, you literally feel you are in his mind, you share the same emotions than him. And this is priceless as you can learn so much from a place thanks to him.

I recently discovered a new blog that has the potential to give me this feeling: Katherine Writes. Managed by Katherine Hales, she will bring you to South Africa where she will do a research trip to study local perceptions of ecotourism. Have a look at her blog and make your mind, but I have the feeling I am going to learn so much about SA through her experience. So thank you Katherine, and good luck!

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You Have to Know More About Monsanto

Image by David_Reverchon via Flickr

You have probably heard of Monsanto, the leader of GMO engineering. The company is infamous for developing the Orange Agent used by the US Army during the Vietnam War and other cancer inducing products such as Round-up and PCB. To sum it up, a company with a past full of lies and death for money sake.

In case you would like to discover more about this multinational, I strongly recommend you to watch the documentary 'The World According to Monsanto' made by a French journalist, Marie-Monique Robin. This shows the urgency of closely monitoring the company activities and counter them when their actions endangers the environment.

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• Monsanto Getting Lost in the Weeds (bloggingstocks.com)
• Kendall Law Group Investigates Monsanto Co. for Shareholders (eon.businesswire.com)
• Judge Puts Hold on Monsanto's Genetically Modified Sugar Beets (grantlawrence.blogspot.com)

China Is Shaking up the World of Renewable Energies

Image by warrenski via Flickr

Napoleon said, after having read a book about China, that 'when China wakes up, the whole world will be shaken up'. I think he had no idea this would especially apply to the field of green technologies. A recent article from Fast Company shows that China has become the Saudi Arabia of Wind is on track to produce more electricity through wind farm than the US.

As the Chinese market is potentially way bigger than the US one, the industry will adapt itself to the Chinese demand; The good news is that it will give a big boost to the sector and hopefully drive prices down.

If you extent this principle to the other green tech (and China is investing billions in the solar industry), you realize that China has all the cards to become the number one player in the green energies game. The only thing that could challenge this assumption is if the US move quickly to adopt a green energy bill, but the coming mid term election will for sure prevent this. This is a missed opportunity for the US in terms of leadership, and it might not come back.

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• Danish wind farms show sustainable attitude to renewable energy (guardian.co.uk)
• Iowa: The Wind Energy Capital of the United States (fastcompany.com)