About Eco - Founded 2005
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Why do we need a
green newspaper?
What does Eco stand for?
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.
In his book, "The Age of Consent", George also calls for a democratically elected world parliament, a democratised United Nations General Assembly, and International Clearing Union to tackle Third World Debt, and a Fair Trade Organisation to restrain the rich and emancipate the poor. We have a global marketplace, and we share the world's natural environment, yet we need effective and fair global institutions.
The advantage of an online newspaper for the green movement is that while, as with most of the modern world, 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.
The green movement deserves its own newspaper, not something tacked onto one of the existing papers. With your help and support we will build a green newspaper to be proud of, that will offer news, inspiration, and employment opportunities. If we get to the stage of making profits, these will be distributed to charities including Greenpeace, Oxfam, The Worldwide Fund for Nature, Cool Earth, and Friends of the Earth.
Writing for Eco
We are delighted to receive articles to be considered for publication in Eco, although at present we are not able to pay for them. Do let us know about the subjects close to your heart so that we can share them with other readers.
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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.
So if you support the principle of what our publication”Eco” wants to achieve, in promoting care for our world and all its people and natural environment, please help us. You don't even need to join Eco. Just 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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Sponsors and donors sought
We urgently need donors and sponsors to make Eco a success, and would like to hear from business owners who can offer discounts or entry price reductions to Eco readers.
We would also like donors or sponsors in order to start the following 3 new campaings:
1. Orchards for schools - Eco would like to sponsor schools to start planting orchards within their grounds, that will offer free, organic, healthy food to their pupils with no food miles involved!
2. Think before you drive/fly sticker campaign - Eco would like to produce a new range of stickers saying "Remember climate change - please think before you drive or fly - is your journey really necessary " to go on envelopes and for general publicity.
3. Switch off sticker campaign - Eco would like to produce a new range of stickers with the message "Remember climate change - please switch off when no longer needed" to go next to light switches and appliances.
If you would like to donate to one of these campaigns or just make a donation, please do get in touch:
Cheques payable to "Eco" can be sent to the address above.
Thank you very much for your support.
"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." Al Gore, Former U.S Vice-President
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The Earth is under attack.
Join the resistance!
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.
Eco is a not-for profit company, and is not politically aligned.
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.
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.
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