Green publishing since 1990 |
Eco is the newspaper of the green movement. It is a not-for-profit company, and is not politically aligned. Formerly appearing in traditional paper format as "Green News" in 1990, Eco has been online since 2005. Any profits will be distributed to charities including Greenpeace, Oxfam, The Worldwide Fund for Nature, Cool Earth, and Friends of the Earth.
The advantage of an online newspaper for the green movement is that while there is some environmental impact, the computers involved in the paper's production and readership are in use anyway, there is no paper used, and limited pollution from transporting the product, over and above that already occurring from the use of computers.
With your support we will build a green newspaper to be proud of, that will offer news, inspiration, and employment opportunities.
Eco aims to promote greater awareness of the natural environment by showing a more holistic and systems-based view of world news. We seek to preserve a natural environment that will sustain civilised human life and as much of world’s beneficial flora and fauna as can be saved in the face of the rapid environmental changes that are now inevitable due to human-driven climate change. It may be possible to mitigate these changes if we act fast enough.
Human-driven climate change has created the need for a new awareness and system of morality. We need an ecological imperative where the polluter gives way to the non-polluter.
This was highlighted in an article in “The Guardian” on 24th May 2005, by the writer George Monbiot.
He comments that, faced with a choice between market freedom and human life, governments have chosen to preserve the former.
George’s analysis continues:
“Everything we thought was good turns out also to be bad. It is an act of kindness to travel to your cousin’s wedding. Now it also an act of cruelty. It is a good thing to light the streets at night.
Climate change tells that it kills more people than it saves. We are killing people by the most innocent means: turning on the lights, taking a bath, driving to work, going on holiday. Climate change demands a reversal of our moral compass, for which we are plainly unprepared. It is hardly surprising that no government really wants to confront us.”
So we need to have an ecological imperative to guide our lives, to provide that moral compass. The word Eco derives from the Greek word for home. We believe the time has come for a new analysis of what is going on in the world, our shared home, and a new system of morality and accounting that takes the environment into account as well as all the other value systems we are used to.
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Al Gore, Former U.S Vice-President:
"I have come to believe that we must take bold and unequivocal action: we must make the rescue of the environment the central organising principle for civilisation. Whether we realise it or not, we are engaged in an epic battle to right the balance of our Earth, and the tide of this battle will turn only when the majority of people in the world become sufficiently aroused by a shared sense of urgent danger to join in an all-out effort."
If you would like to support Eco please write to:
Cheques payable to "Eco"
Thank you for your support.
Letterbox Stickers
One little label can save a thousand trees
Eco is targeting the appalling waste of free newspapers. They come though our doors unrequested, and most simply get (at best) recycled unread, more likely thrown away, a criminal waste of energy and resources. We are offering stickers reading "No free newspapers or junk mail please". Do order extra to deliver in your road or distribute to green friends, or your local environment group. Just send us your name and address and indicate the number of stickers you would like. Cost is £1 per label, minimum order £5, payable to "Eco" to - Eco, P.O Box 4466, Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire BA15 5AY.
Please note that to stop junk mail in its tracks you will also need to register online with the Mailing Preference Service or phone 0845 703 4599 to request an application form.
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Eco -A carbon neutral business
As an online newspaper Eco does not consume any paper resources, or produce the emissions from transportation involved in traditional newspapers. To offset the emissions from our server and computers Eco is purchasing rainforest through the Cool Earth charity.
What is a meme, and how can it save the world?
The term meme was invented in 1976 by the scientist Richard Dawkins, in his ground-breaking book “The Selfish Gene”. He defined it as an idea that is passed on from one person to another, a concept that can outlive its biological host, the cultural equivalent of a gene. Unlike genes, which require a successive generation to be passed on, memes can replicate and mutate at a phenomenal rate in our increasingly connected world.
To give an example of memes, there is a meme for supporting Crystal Palace football club, not walking under ladders, believing in God, playing the tuba, or owning a red Ford Focus. Memes can be trivial, or they can lead to peaceful revolutions, as when the Berlin Wall came down, and brought the Cold War era to an end.
At Eco, we believe there needs to be an urgent peaceful green revolution, in which environmental awareness, and a desire for change, leads us to care for our world's environment better. We need to reach an urgent tipping point of consciousness to be reached before we reach the tipping point of climate change, when it becomes too late to save a planet capable of supporting life.
The internet gives the opportunity to spread an idea around the world to millions of people, in the space of minutes. Please copy the following message into an email, and send to everyone in your address book, and see what happens when a meme’s growth becomes exponential:
Please forward to everyone in your address book:
http://www.ecozine.co.uk
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