Tag Archive for 'Environment'

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Sun Awareness Week Starts May 5th 2008

Published on Wednesday, May 7, 2008 in Environment and News. 0 Comments Tags: Environment, Europe, Health, Summer, Sun, UK.

England might not be known for it’s sunny hot weather, but these last few days have been absolutely boiling. It makes sense then, that the British Association of Dermatologists (BAD) have announced this week to be Sun Awareness Week.

Sun Awareness Week

I went for a picnic in the park on the Bank Holiday Monday just gone and didn’t bother putting any sun cream on. I honestly didn’t expect it to be that hot, but I quickly regretted it as I now have red arms and legs. I’m not even a sun-bather, but I can see how quickly the sun can get to you. From a 2006 study in Europe, the UK has the highest skin cancer rates for children, aged 0 to 14, and teenagers, aged 15 to 19.

I think it’s because living in England we don’t always see the sun as a big threat and so we often go without the sun cream or don’t bother using the high factor stuff. At a time when global warming is making every other headline, it makes sense that our little part of the world is getting hotter, too.

The labelling of Sunscreens will actually be changing next year, due to the need for higher factor cream.

New Label
 Factor
Low 6 – 10
Medium 15 – 25
High 30 – 50
Very High 50+

Two important tips that I pulled away from BAD’s press release were to do with applying sunscreen and I wasn’t doing either of these previously.

  • • Apply sunscreen thickly – The considered ‘bare minimum’ of application is around 36 grams (six full teaspoons), but applying too little significantly decreases the cream’s affect and means you need to reapply it much more quickly.
  • • Reapply at least every 2 to 3 hours – And also immediately after swimming or anything else which may have caused the cream to rub off.

So slap that lotion on when you’re out. I actually can’t bear it in the sun anyway, I’m always looking for the shade. Finally, if you’re at all worried, BAD remind everybody that mole checks are completely free! Just get in touch with your GP.

Save the World in an Hour

Published on Monday, March 3, 2008 in Environment and News. 0 Comments Tags: Environment, Events, Green, Worldwide.

Earth Hour

When 2.2 million people in Sydney all turned off their lights for an hour in 2007, it reduced their overall energy consumption by over 10% for that hour. I think that’s a pretty neat achievement for something so easy to do. We had a similar thing shortly after with Lights Out London and that worked, too. This year, WWF have decided to take the step a little further by asking the entire world to participate. Come March 29th 2008 at 20:00, all you have to do is turn off your lights for an hour.

Of course, it won’t be the world all taking part at exactly the same time; the action will take place as each time zone hits 8pm. Current capital cities that have announced coalition include Bangkok, Chicago, Copenhagen, Dublin, Melbourne and Montreal. You can see the full list of entrants here and more are expected to join over the month.

I think Earth Hour is a good idea simply because of how easy it is. A lot of environmentally friendly acts can take time that people generally don’t have to spare. Being able to join in something so easy that makes a big difference, is exactly the kind of thing anybody can get involved with. It’s like how recycling used to be so difficult years back, you’d have to pile up everything and wait for a chance to visit the bottle banks and then drive elsewhere to recycle all the paper. Now in the UK, virtually everywhere has weekly recycling collections for most types of packaging and that’s easy for everyone to do.

Earth Hour won’t really save the world, but it’s a decent step that gets you thinking about how easy it is to save energy here and there. Plus you can help no matter where on Earth you are at the time.