No more sleeps

Today is climate change protest day at a coal plant in Washington DC.

For any protesters heading out there today, the forecast for Washington is a top of -2 degrees C (up from -11 degrees C), snow, and winds of 16 km/h.

Check out the webcam. Liveblogging here and looking forward to the photos.

The Nerd Wars Update III

For those of you who haven't been keeping up with the Crikey vs Bolt/Blair saga, we bring you this visual summary of events so far.

Nerd Wars Update II

Tizonas has the latest (UPDATE: post removed) on the Nerd Wars, having preserved a truly vile thread from the stalkers.

What deserves the attention of Eric Beecher, publisher of Crikey, is not just the very predictable fact that they were wrong, but the disgraceful comments they are publishing - and we will not be repeating them here.

Since Crikey is paying close attention to the IP addresses of its commenters, maybe it could track down those responsible.

UPDATE: More from RWDB and the Timster is onto it.

UPDATE II: Spot the Dog in comments says the Tizona's post in question has been removed, which is perhaps for the best. However, Crikey owes Tim Blair another personal and public apology.

The Fairfax greenwash

With the ShadowLands' office bird cage in dire need of lining, we recently purchased for ourselves a copy of the Sydney Morning Herald.

At the top of the page, we were surprised to see a little green stamp proclaiming, "Made with recycled paper". Like many items in this newspaper, it got us to wondering - how true is it?

And like many items in the newspaper, the answer turns out to be - not very.

This item from the SMH's Fairfax stable-mate, The Age gives us a clue, without telling quite the whole story.

Indeed, some of the pulp comes from forestry operations and - we'll have to take their word for it here - the thinning of pine plantations. Is this good for the environment? Many environmentalists would argue it's not, as pine plantations supersede natural forests that provide environment for natural populations of native animals. And surely, the cutting of these trees does not help in the overall carbon balance sheet.

The Age also notes that Australians recycle more than 75 per cent of their newspapers. But does all of this go back into newspaper production?

Turns out no. To find out exactly how much recycled paper goes into your daily newspaper, we had to turn to google cache.

Deep in amongst there somewhere, you will find that about 40 per cent of newsprint produced by one of Australia's few major manufacturers is from recycled newspaper. It turns out, unsurprisingly, that the Sydney Morning Herald would be much limper than it already is without large amounts of the hard stuff that comes from trees.

So to state, as the Herald does, that their newspaper is made from recycled paper is true, but also devious and misleading. It appears only about 40 per cent of their newspaper is made from recycled newspaper, and the rest from baby pine trees.

Is this bad? In terms of the environment, not at all. Forestry is a vital and sustainable industry. However, to state that their newspaper is made from recycled paper is like declaring that Australia consists of Catholics, or Bloody Mary's consist of tomato juice. It's true, but it's also dishonest.

And when that newspaper is used to lecture others about honesty and the environment, that's when it becomes plain old hypocrisy.

Hollywood to solve middle east problem

The creators of South Park once foresaw a world where actors played a major part in fighting against - and for - terrorism in Team America - World Police. Now life is imitating puppetry - it's just a million times lamer.

A visit to Iran by a delegation of Hollywood types, including actress Annette Bening, is in jeopardy after being criticised by a representative of the Iranian Government for taking part in movies that were insulting to Iran.

Bening has previously spoken out about Sarah Palin. Now I guess she will be speaking out on behalf of Iranian women or, to take a specific example, the upcoming stoning of Ashraf Kalhori. Or at least about the importance for artists to have freedom of expression - right?

Should they pack a cardigan?

The ShadowLands has a feeling in our waters that this bunch of intrepid British scientists travelling to the Arctic are going to learn about the "ground truth" the hard way, rather like Lewis Pugh.

Arctic sea ice extent at the moment, by the way, is about 14 million square kilometres, or around twice the size of Australia.

Dave's excellent adventure

Doug Ross on Italian Dave's trip to America.

And in unrelated news: the latest zionist conspiracies

and inside a protest at NYU.

Last chance to save planet clarification

CORRECTION: Previous items we posted may have suggested that Rio, Johannesburg, Bali, Bangkok, and Poznan, were each the last chances to save the planet.

However, the European Union Environment Commissioner has confirmed that the last chance to save the planet is actually Copenhagen.

Man taps foot while wearing leather pants

Few websites are as committed as The ShadowLands when it comes to bringing you stupid internet fads as they arise. Behold the literal video version of White Wedding.