Week 3: Santa's Naughty & Nice List

The big day is getting closer but some people are acting like they don't want any gifts from Santa this year.  Santa is disappointed with a few people not wanting to play nice in the sandbox. However thoughtfulness is getting others on the Nice List just in the St Nick of time.

The Naughty List

1) Jonathan Pershing, US delegation leader at the Durban Climate Summit - Greenpeace, WWF and Oxfam are all asking the USA to move aside and let the rest of the world move forward if you cannot get with the programme. The USA if fighting for voluntary pledges rather than binding agreements. After eight years of the US denying Climate Change as a issue with President Bush, there were hopes it would be better under Obama. This is yet to seem the case.

2) Matthew Gonshaw - Unfortunately for this poacher Santa doesn't deliver to jails where he will be spending the next six months after being sentenced for snatched hundreds of eggs from the nests of rare birds including ospreys, avocets and golden eagles in the UK. When police raided his London home they found over 700 eggs. This is his forth jail sentence for egg theft.

3) Executive Director, President, and CEO of Paper giant Asia Pulp & Paper (APP)Teguh Ganda Wijaya - promised to move to 100% plantation sourcing of timber for major pulp mills four times several times but has missed their self-imposed deadlines to stop using native forest timber in 2004, 2007 and 2009. Their new dead line is 2015 but Santa is getting impatient considering they are cutting down trees in vital tiger habitat.

The Nice List

1) Nine Greenpeace activists - The Nimble Nine were able to break into a nuclear power plant in risk highlighting the lack of security. This has put the nuclear power debate in France back in the spotlight. This will be a key issue in the next election.

2) Denise and Daniel Villefort - a Malibu couple who have donated $2000 to the reward fund for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for the death of a mountain lion in the Santa Monica Mountains. The Malibu City Council had offered $5000. The total is now $18,700 worth of donated funds. The mountain lion in question was a 7-year-old known to the National Park Service researchers as P-15 who had been fitted with a GPS device to research the animal's movements.

3) Clark Bunting, President of the Discovery Channel - Last week he was on the Naughty List but Santa is overjoyed that Discovery has announced that they will now show the finale of Frozen Planet which deals exclusively with the effects of climate change. Santa lives in the Arctic and is affected by Climate Change too!

4) Datuk Sam Mannan, Sabah Forestry Department Director - the department has recently awarded reforestation contracts to four contractors to restore degraded forest areas in North Ulu Segama, within the Ulu Segama-Malua Forest Reserve in Lahad Datu. This means about 800 hectares of land will be replanted with indigenous tree species and wild fruit trees in the next 12 months to ensure the survival of orang utans.

How to get on the Nice List

Buy yourself some real estate - You can buy an area of the Coral Triangle for as low as $US5 and help save the area. See http://mycoraltriangle.wwf.or.id/coralweb/about/saving.aspx for all the details.

Week 2: Santa's Naughty & Nice List

The big day is getting closer and Santa's refining his list to find out who has been naughty and nice...with a little help from me. Here is who made the list this week:

The Naughty List

1) Clark Bunting - President of the Discovery Channel - Next year the Discovery Channel will air a series called Frozen Planet, created by the makers of Blue Planet and Planet Earth. However the USA will only see six of the seven episodes as Discovery Planet has opted to not show the finale which deals exclusively with the effects of climate change.

2) Australian Immigration Department - They have declined a visa to Chris Aultman, a former US Marine helicopter pilot, who finds the Japanese whaling fleet so Sea Shepherd protesters can stop the hunt. This hinders his ability to help the campaign for this summer.

3) Japan's Taiji Whale Museum, Dolphin Base and the dolphin hunters - On the weekend pod of 9 to 11 Risso’s Dolphins fairly where into a cove at Taiji, Japan by a group of hunters. Trainers from both the Taiji Whale Museum and Dolphin Base then arrived in the cove. Three dolphins were taken for a cruel life in captivity. We suspect the Whale Museum chose two dolphins that are currently held in the harbor pens. The trainers from Dolphin Base, accompanied by the owner of Dolphin Base, chose one young Risso’s Dolphin and immediately took it to their pens. The rest of the pod was brutally killed.

The Nice List

1) Hong Kong customs officers - who found and seized a batch of rhinoceros horns worth more than $2 million as well as elephant tusks and ivory bracelets worth $50,000.

2) Roger Gillespie, Executive Chairman of Baker's Delight - Australia's largest bakery chain has announced they will not use genetically modified wheat.

3) Betty White - this sweetheart could never get on Santa's bad side but her continued support of US zoos and campaigning to make them better plus her new book Betty & Friends: My Life at the Zoo has just been released. When asked what she prefers, animals or acting, she replied, "Animals. I stayed in show business to pay for my animal business."

How to get on the Nice List

Sign the petition asking Clark Bunting, the president of Discovery Channel to show all seven episodes of Frozen Planet. To sign the petition, click here.

My Simple Christmas List

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. ~Confucius

When you take a second to look at the world we live in, the messages constantly thrown at us seem to be the way to happiness and success is through acquiring. "He with the most toys wins" so to speak. If you can just get enough money to get those few things that will cheer you up. Think of the well used term "retail therapy". When I used to live in Toronto, I remember the busiest place on a public holiday as the sun was shining outside would be the city's largest shopping centre, the Eaton Centre. There would be crowds of people, like little ants, scurrying from shop to shop, collecting bag after bag of "goodies" with the profits of a week's hard work. The strange thing is, the next day on the train to work, these same worker ants didn't look happier. Perhaps they just needed a few more weeks' pay, to buy a few more things, and then they'd look happy....I'm still waiting to see those happy worker ants.

Take a look at the people you know and their socio-economic position. I am blessed to have a range of friends from staving artists to those with high paying roles for luxury companies. What stands out is that the more you earn doesn't equate to less stress and more happiness. Rather those earning more just have different stresses. Yes, my poorer friends are stressed about making ends meet, but my friends with a bigger pay packet are getting bosses calling them at 930pm at night, have higher expenses to maintain their larger car, house and set of gadgets and seem to have less time to spend with those they care about. More income seems to lead to more balancing of responsibilities.

So are the richer happier at all? It seems more of a case of the happiest people don't have the best of everything, they make the best of everything. Think about what makes you happy, truly happy, and often the answers are simple things; spending times with loved ones, being in nature, music. The ability to simplify our lives could have the ability to make us happier. A simpler life also often means a smaller carbon footprint too! Check out this talk by Graham Hill on less stuff equals more happiness.

Here are some gathered thoughts they may help you simplify your life.

• Do the things you own take away from time you could spend with the people you love? Washing the car, cleaning the pool, working overtime to pay for the extra "mod cons" can all just begin to feel like you are on a hamster wheel while trying to keep up with the Joneses
• When you go food shopping do you buy more than you need? I have seen fridges where friends purchased mushrooms a month ago and they are still sitting in the fridge. If you plan what you are going to eat for the week  you save on food wastage, money, time to clean out the fridge and this isn't just good for you, it's good for the environment.
• When contemplating a purchase, a friend and I challenge each other, "Do you want it or need it?" If I was to contact you in a year would you be glad you purchased this item?
• Planning a party? Often simple ideas are the best. The more you include, the more you have to worry about. You don't want to spend the whole party ensuring everything runs smoothly.
• Unclutter your house. Feng shui 101 says an uncluttered house prevents the flow of positive energy and can increase feelings of stress and being overwhelmed. If doing the whole house seems like a mammoth task, do one room per weekend. If you can send excess to recyclers or charities you get double points!
• Have a place for everything...and put it there.This saves you from your space being cluttered with piles everywhere. If it doesn't have a place, create one for it or get rid of it.
• One concept that I'll keep from my days at McDonald's employee is "Clean-as -you-go". Not only does it keep your house clean and uncluttered, it frees up time later to have to tidy later. You may still have to spend an time sweeping the kitchen and cleaning the bathroom but it'll be a lot less time than if you have to put everything away first.
• Add another decluttering weekend to your computer.
• And the biggest thing to unclutter is your wardrobe. For a new way of thinking about clothes checkout this talk by Jessi Arrington:
  

Consumerism is at it's peak at this festive time of year. It seems to be a traditional tune amongst the Christmas carols as people moan, "Christmas is not what it used to be.It's all about gifts, purchases and debt". This is a key time to contemplate decluttering and making this Christmas a little more simple. Ask yourself for Christmas, "what do I need, rather than what do I want". I asked myself this question and the answer I came up with, "there's nothing I need for Christmas".

This causes a problem as family will start asking for suggestions and you start racking your brain to give them a list. Otherwise you could end up with a pile of things you neither want, nor need. So I came up with a list. I want a polar bear, a tiger, a panda, a bilby, an orangutan and a gorilla. Well actually I don't the real animals, rather to adopt them (life gets a little more complex when you have a zoo in your backyard I am sure!).

There are many organisations that offer symbolic adoptions that will benefit animals around the world.

Here are links to some of my favourites:

Jane Goodall Institute: http://www.janegoodall.org.au/chimpanzees/become-a-chimp-guardian - from $15/month

WWf Australia: http://onlineshop.wwf.org.au/adopt-an-animal.html - from $50

WWF Canada: https://wwfstore.donorportal.ca/c-11-wildlife-adoptions.aspx?wwfcahp - from $40

Toronto Zoo: http://www.torontozoo.com/SupportTheZoo/AdoptAnAnimal.asp - from $25

Melbourne Zoo: http://www.zoo.org.au/ZVF/Adopt_an_Animal - from $15/month

Australia Zoo: https://www.australiazoo.com.au/get-involved/adopt-an-animal/ - for $50

Perth Zoo: http://www.perthzoo.wa.gov.au/shop/adopt-an-animal/ - from $50

Oceana: https://store.oceana.org/catalog/adoption - from $30

Free The Bears: http://www.freethebears.org.au/web/Shop/?cat=Sponsorship - from $200

Australian Orangutan Project: http://www.orangutan.org.au/adoptions - from $55

Adopting an animal for Christmas still gives family and friends an opportunity to give at Christmas, it helps you keep your life simple, it contributes to a great cause and is a strong message to others about what you stand for. So this year for Christmas, keep your list simple, and give to those who truly need.

Who has been naughty and who has been nice on Santa's List?

With the population reaching seven billion earlier this year Santa has his work cut out for him determining who had been naughty and who had been nice. I am good friends with Santa (click here to listen to our chat a couple of year's ago on Christmas Eve in iTunes) so he has asked me to help. Each week he has asked me to compile a list of who has been naughty and who has been nice and it would be helpful if you could check it for us twice. Of course I am sure Santa will double check it to see if they really deserve a gift on Christmas.

The Naughty List

1) The Pemberton Poacher - Although Santa knows who it is, the Pemberton Wildlife Association is still looking for and have offered a $1,000 reward for the killer of a 317kg grizzly bear who was found shot to death, with body parts missing, in the Pemberton Meadows area near the turnoff to the Hurley Forest Service Road on 17th November. If you have any information you can contact the B.C. Conservation Officer Service on 1-877-952-7277.

2) Lakshmi N. Mittal of Steel industry giant Arcellor-Mittal, Dr. Hans Engel of chemicals industry leader BASF, Dr. Marius Kloppers of mining giant BHP Billiton, Charles G. Koch of the US energy industry’s Koch and Brian Dames of South Africa’s electric utility Eskom – these five individuals are leaders of giant multinational companies who, along with others, literally spend “the equivalent of the GDP of entire nations to block progress on climate legislation and ensure that fossil fuel and nuclear subsidies continue to give unfair advantage to dirty energy, above the safe, clean renewable energy future the public demands.” as according to Greenpeace International executive director Kumi Naidoo and a new report.

3) Vincent de Rivaz, CEO of EDF - The French utility company has been fined €1.5 million for hacking into the computer networks of Greenpeace. Pascal Durieux, EDF's head of nuclear production security in 2006, was handed a three-year sentence with two years suspended and a €10,000 fine (about $13,000) for commissioning the spying.

The Nice List

1) Clement Kwok, The Chief Executive of the Peninsula Hotel Group - The luxurious hotel chain with nine hotels in Asia has taken shark fin soup off all their menus in a bid to help save the depleting numbers of sharks in our oceans. 73 million sharks are currently killed each year for shark fin soup.

Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent

2) Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent - who at a recent talk at the Lory Student Center Grand Ballroom on the CSU campus shared his belief that sustainability is currently the world's greatest issue and that corporate partnerships to promote sustainability, such as Coca-Cola's new deal with Coca Cola need to become the norm.

3) Japanese tuna boat captain Kazuhiro Yamazaki - has designed new fishing gear, called the ‘Yamazaki Double-Weight Branchline,’ which causes hooks to sink deeper into the water, out of site of hungry birds. The new invention reduced seabird bycatch by up to 90% without reducing fishing catches. The invention won the World Wildlife Fund’s 2011 International Smart Gear Competition.

4) Zhang Junming, Guan Jianhong, Li Shiheibu and the other members of a group a "panda seeking" team - they spent five days surveying panda habitat in the mountains of southwest China's Sichuan province, looking for traces of the endangered animals. "This place is known as 'China's Bermuda Triangle,' as several people were reported missing here in the 1960s and 1970s," said Zhou Longlin, deputy chief of the reserve's administration. Although they saw no pandas, they found evidence via droppings and foot prints and concluded 33 pandas reside in the area.

How to get on the Nice List

Join WWF's Living Planet Community at http://community.wwf.ca. It's a great way to get a whole bunch of green living tips and get a true measurement on your reduction green house gas emissions. Feel free to join my group Adam Barralet's Bloody Good Things To Do once you've open your account. I'll put in a good word for you with Santa.