Posted by Greenbang on November 30th, 2007
Here’s an article from our pals at the Matter Network…
Washington, DC — A diverse group including investment bankers, energy executives, government officials and clean energy advocates came together in agreement that the environmental cost of energy should be factored into its price, and that Congress must develop policies that move away from fossil fuels.
The money managers on Wall Street, self-described conservatives, a Bush Administration official and energy company BP spoke as one in declaring that fossil fuels have gotten a free ride in emitting greenhouse gases, and that the day of reckoning is long overdue.
Speaking at the American Council On Renewable Energy (ACORE)’s Phase II of Renewable Energy in America meeting on Thursday, Katrina Landis, the Vice President of BP Alternative Energy said she is “looking forward to a world with an industry wide carbon price.” Landis, whose employer is one of leading sellers of fossil fuels in the world, said she favored a cap and trade system of selling emission credits over a carbon tax.
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Posted by Greenbang on November 30th, 2007
Plans afoot for the UN ministers in Indonesia when they visit for climate talks next week; they’re going to be given bicycles to get around the area.
Reuters reports:
“Delegates from nearly 190 countries will gather on the resort island on Monday to launch a concentrated effort to hammer out a new deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol, a pact to curb global warming that expires in 2012.”
To help offset an estimated 47,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide expected to be emitted during the 12-day event, the government will clear the conference site of cars and lay on about 200 bikes instead to help people move around the area, Agus Purnomo said. “We want people to leave their cars at the main gate and switch to bicycles,” Purnomo, the meeting’s executive chairman, told a news conference.
Greenbang has some advice for visitors:
Pack light. Take sunscreen.
Posted by Greenbang on November 30th, 2007
Around 375,000 plastic bottles have been collected in Ealing since a new plastic recycling service has been introduced.
The London council have changed their policy on collecting plastics at the kerbside due to 87% of residents requesting the service. Although only implemented on November 19th, ECT have reported that the equivalent weight of more than one bottle per resident has been collected to date.
Lets Recycle say
“The plastic recycling scheme is just one part of a £3.2 million waste and recycling improvement programme in Ealing which the council hopes will boost its 25% recycling rate by 5% by early next year.”
Will Brooks (Ealing’s cabinet member for the environment and street services) said:
“Thanks to our residents’ response to our new and improved recycling service we are moving quickly in the right direction and recycling more.”
£3.8 million has been invested in the services this year and the aim is to recycle 30% of the borough’s waste by Spring 2008.
“Under Ealing’s new recycling service, all refuse and recycling is being collected on the same day and there is same-day pick up for missed refuse collections reported before 5pm.”
Lets Recycle reported when plans went underway in may of 2007; the turnaround being made relatively quickly, so the efforts made by The London Council and ECT are saluted by Greenbang.
Posted by Greenbang on November 30th, 2007
Italy has been victim to nearly 300 cases of chikungunya fever - a virus spread by mosquitos, Associated Press reports, even though the virus is more commonly seen in Africa and Asia.
National Geographic report:
“While the mostly nonfatal outbreak was largely the result of increasingly global trade and travel ties, some experts believe it is a sign of how global warming is creating new breeding grounds for diseases long confined to subtropical climates.”
“Officials at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said the particularly mild winter in Italy allowed mosquitoes to start breeding earlier than usual, giving the insect population a boost.”
Anxious experts say the tiger mosquito might be capable of spreading more dangerous diseases like dengue fever and yellow fever.
“Dengue would certainly be more worrying than chikungunya,” said Denis Coulombier, the ECDC’s head of preparedness and response. “It is something we need to keep an eye on, because the possibility is there.”
Posted by Greenbang on November 30th, 2007
The Building Research Establishment Trust (BRE) have released results from a recent study suggesting that fitting a wind turbine to the side of your house (in built up towns and cities) is likely to add to your carbon footprint, The Guardian reports.
“The BRE took data from sites across Manchester, Lerwick and Portsmouth and analysed the likely performance of three models of turbine. In Manchester two-thirds of the 96 different options studied for siting turbines produced a carbon dioxide impact that could never be paid back. Building, installing and maintaining the units would, on balance, exacerbate global warming. The same was true in a third of cases in the coastal city of Portsmouth.”
Martin Wyatt, the chief executive of the BRE Trust says.
“People need more information to ensure they are not doing the wrong thing.”
“The likely output of a micro-wind turbine on a pitched roof house in a large city such as Manchester would be less than 150kWh a year; 2% of the energy consumption of an average house.”
“But in a windy location such as Wick in northern Scotland, the output is likely to be around 3,000kWh a year - about 40% of energy use.”
Full Guardian Story here
Posted by Greenbang on November 30th, 2007
It’s just a few days before key United Nations climate change talks start in Bali, and Friends of the Earth International have declared that biofuels must not be promoted as a solution to climate change.
The government talks are scheduled for 3 - 14th December and FoE warned that an increase in the use of biofuels would have disastrous social and environmental impacts. However they are already said to be promoted as a major solution to climate change at the UN discussion.
The demand for biofuels (or ‘agrofuels’) is increasing considerably - predominantly in over-consuming industrialised countries, yet recent studies from around the world highlight that the agrofuels boom is having severe social and environmental impacts.
“Forest dwelling communities are being displaced, often violently, from their territories to make way for agrofuels plantations run by multinational corporations that expropriate land and water resources.”
“Large areas of forest lands traditionally used by Indigenous Peoples have already been expropriated for monoculture plantations, for example for palm oil in Indonesia where it is estimated that 100 million people mainly on forests and natural resource goods and services.”
“Paradoxically, while agrofuels are being promoted as a solution to climate change, the draining of peat lands and cutting down of tropical forests for their cultivation is releasing huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, far more than would be saved by resorting to agrofuels”.
More details on the Friends Of The Earth site
Posted by Greenbang on November 29th, 2007
CHINA WATCH China’s first eco city – Dongtan which lies in eastern China now has its sister city in the northeast: Tianjin.
According to AP, China and Singapore will jointly build up an environmentally friendly city Tianjin in China’s northeast.
Tianjin, the third largest city in China, is only 147 kilometers away from Beijing.
Greenbang China has been there - it feels like walking through the time tunnel to Beijing in the 1990s. As a costal city located on Bohai Gulf in the Pacific Ocean, Tianjin is no better than Beijing in its environmental protection. If you go there in spring, you will experience the same sand storm as it is in Beijing.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Singapore’s prime minister agreed Sunday to jointly develop Tianjin to be an environmentally friendly city in northeastern China.
“This eco-city, to be built in Tianjin, will become another highlight in our relations,” Wen said after signing an agreement with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to launch the project.
The two sides will share expertise and experiences in urban planning, environmental protection, resource conservation, recycling, use of renewable resources and wastewater reuse, the statement said.
Posted by Greenbang on November 29th, 2007
Greenbang has made a Facebook group - “Supermarkets could do more to cut packaging waste”.
The plan is to get enough members, get some MPs on board and then take it to the supermarkets and the papers.
So join up…
Posted by Greenbang on November 29th, 2007
Greenbang’s mate…is in need of some recycled rubber for a project.
Does anyone know anyone who might be able to help?
Posted by on November 29th, 2007
One day when the world is a friendlier place, Droogs are taken off our streets once and for all, and Clockwork Orange references are seen as an example of good blogging rather than a passé reference to an aging film, we will all live in eco-friendly houses.
In the morning, when you wake up, after the house brushes your teeth and dresses you like a Wallace and Gromit machine, it will tell you how, over the last 24 hours, it has been saving the world one solar panel at a time.
To get ready for this day the UK Government has a 2016 zero carbon commitment to housebuilding. Which is lovely.
And now, to facilitate the target being reached the Callcutt Review of house building has recommended government and the housebuilding, construction products and energy supply industries should jointly commission a delivery unit to monitor, co-ordinate and guide the zero carbon programme.
Greenbang finds this all very positive.
