Feb 10, 2010 (6 hours from now)
BusinessGreen.com Staff, BusinessGreen , Tuesday 9 February 2010 at 00:15:00 Reports claim energy giant is expecting to raise more than $1bn in Hong Kong flotation Just days after new figures confirmed that China has overtaken the US as the world\'s fastest-growing wind energy market, the country\'s burgeoning renewables sector received a further boost following reports...
Feb 9, 2010 (1 hour ago)
Wherever Blair goes, our campaign ensures that he can never be free from the fear of arrest... What else can you do? When the entire administration is engaged in a criminal act, when there is no clear separation of powers between the government and the judiciary, when those appointed to hold the government to account are as scary as a litter of kittens, where do you turn? Do you appeal to the Attorney-General’s office to prosecute itself? The forensic failure of the Chilcot Inquiry illustrates what we learnt from the banking scandals: self-regulation doesn’t work. The independence of ...
Feb 9, 2010 (1 hour ago)
Unplggd reports on a machine that can transform waste office paper into rolls of toilet paper. It’s called the “White Goat”, manufactured by the Nakabayashi company of Japan. With the addition of a little water, the White Goat will shred up waste paper products and spit out a functional roll of toilet paper. While the end product may be a little rough around the edges, and the machine is a little unwieldy for the average user – the idea behind this machine is admirable. Watch a video demo below: This article was originally posted on the PSFK website. Read more ...
Feb 9, 2010 (1 hour ago)
Environmental researchers at Yale and Columbia Universities released the 2010 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland last month. Iceland came in first, while the U.S. trailed behind at a distant 61 st , dropping from 39th in 2008. This was the third edition of the EPI that ranks 163 nations based on a variety of environmental performance indicators. Categories include: environmental health, air quality, water resource management, biodiversity and habitat, forestry, fisheries, agriculture, and climate change. Iceland, which derives most of its power from geothermal energy and hydropower, got high marks on ...
Feb 9, 2010 (1 hour ago)
Along with several other international NGOs working in Afghanistan, Oxfam last week published a powerful paper on the damage being caused by the militarization of aid. In many ways it resembles the debate on how to ensure that Haitian reconstruction builds, rather than undermines, its battered state. In the last half hour, one Afghan woman died from pregnancy-related complications, another of tuberculosis and 14 children perished, largely from preventable causes. Eight years after the fall of the Taliban, the humanitarian and development needs in Afghanistan remain acute. Undoubtedly, Afghans have seen some improvements, particularly in the expansion of access to ...
Feb 9, 2010 (1 hour ago)
This week\'s dose of organic headlines, updates, resources, goodies, and recipes courtesy of DSnodgrass... The U.S. Department of Agriculture has released the 2008 Organic Production Survey. Since this is the initial undertaking of its type at the federal level, there\'s no solid data for comparison from prior years. Still, the survey has tremendous significance because it establishes a reliable baseline for surveys moving forward. USDA takes accounting of organic farms The survery said there are 14,540 farms that were USDA certified organic or exempt from certification because sales are less than $5,000 -- including 129 in ...
Feb 9, 2010 (1 hour ago)
Gordon Hempton is an audio ecologist who studies the world’s diminishing quiet spaces. He claims that truely silent areas (free from mechanical noise), are few and far between in today’s world. Newsweek reports: And silence, Hempton believes, is rapidly disappearing, even in the most remote places. He says there are fewer than a dozen places of silence—areas “where natural silence reigns over many square miles”—remaining in America, and none in Europe. In his book, One Square Inch of Silence: One Man’s Search for Natural Silence in a Noisy World, written with John Grossman, Hempton argues ...
Feb 9, 2010 (1 hour ago)
“ All indications are that we should be alarmed about the future of sea level rise and should be doing something about it now .” Orrin Pilkey and Rob Young , eminent coastal scientists, wrote their book The Rising Sea to provide substance for that alarm and to offer suggestions as to how we can plan ahead to reduce the severity of the impact of the rising sea. The authors begin by reminding us that it’s not a distant prospect. They describe what is happening to Alaskan shoreline villages such as Kivalina and Shishmaref, the Pacific atoll nations such as Kiribati, the ...
Feb 9, 2010 (1 hour ago)
The NRDC Action Fund released a video clip last week designed to echo Obama\'s call to move America towards a \'clean energy economy\'. Obama\'s push for clean energy was discussed in his State of the Union address. The video is part of the This is Your Moment campaign, which features a host of celebrities, such as Jason Bateman, Leonardo DiCaprio, Felicity Huffman, Justin Long, Edward Norton, and Forest Whitaker, urging Congress to pass the first-ever climate and clean energy bill, currently pending in the Senate. NRDC Trustee, Leonardo DiCaprio said “This is our moment – our moment to fight ...
Feb 9, 2010 (1 hour ago)
Friday, December 18th, 2009 was one of the saddest days of my career. The Copenhagen Climate Conference had ended with a non-binding Copenhagen Accord. And no on knew what it meant. When I returned to the negotiating center, it was as empty as the Copenhagen Accord. The NGO and government leaders had abandoned the center. And the Accord’s emission reduction commitments were blank: On January 31st, we got to see what the pledges are. The small island nation of the Maldives has committed to 100% mitigation by 2020. The Maldives foreign minister announced “The Maldives’ submission of its mitigation ...
Feb 9, 2010 (1 hour ago)
In January, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that the agency would support “reasonable steps” to reduce human exposure to Bisphenol A, or BPA by minimizing the use of BPA-based products that come in contact with foods or drinks consumed by babies or toddlers. The FDA, however, did not state there is a definite health risk from the chemical. BPA has been widely used in hard plastic bottles and metal-based food and beverage cans for more than 30 years, including reusable water bottles, plastic baby bottles, and the lining of infant formula cans. Nor did the FDA ...
Feb 9, 2010 (1 hour ago)
… goes to Mike Musgrove of the Washington P0st for his piece, “ As carmakers plug ‘green,’ Washington Auto Show consumers have plenty of questions .” As evidence of the kind of questions that puzzled consumers have about how plug-in cars work, Musgrove writes: The unmistakable message is that the day of the electric and hybrid car is at hand. But it’s also clear that there are plenty of questions among the crowd about how this alternatively fueled world is supposed to work. “What if you’re driving and you don’t have any power left?” asks John Wu, who is checking ...
Feb 9, 2010 (1 hour ago)
The only question that counts is the one that the Chilcot inquiry won’t address: was the war with Iraq illegal? If the answer is yes, everything changes. The war is no longer a political matter, but a criminal one, and those who commissioned it should be committed for trial for what the Nuremberg Tribunal called “the supreme international crime”( 1 ): the crime of aggression. But there’s a problem with official inquiries in the United Kingdom: the government appoints their members and sets their terms of reference. It’s the equivalent of a criminal suspect being allowed to choose ...
Feb 9, 2010 (1 hour ago)
Action for Nature , a youth-focused non-profit organization based in San Fransisco, is on the hunt for young eco-heroes. It is calling for nominees for their annual International Eco-Hero awards, which honor youth aged 8 to 16 for their outstanding accomplishments in environmental advocacy, environmental health, research and protection of the natural world. Previous winners of the award have gone on to receive other prestigious awards, such as the Brower Youth and Intel Science awards. A striking example of the progress of such a winner is Alec Loorz (2008 recipient) who has continued to educate youth and adults about global warming ...
Feb 9, 2010 (1 hour ago)
The second year of the Obama Era is young, but we may be seeing the emergence of Obama 2.0 – a president willing to do battle against the dark forces of stasis and negativity. Let’s hope so. Obama 1.0 didn’t want to get ahead of Congress. Obama 2.0 appears ready to go head-to-head with Democrats who have the numbers to lead but lack the discipline, and Republicans whose only big idea is to make Democrats fail – a job that has turned out to be pretty easy so far. Now the President seems open to strategy-change and ...
Feb 9, 2010 (1 hour ago)
Community-based renewable energy projects in Vermont, Wisconsin, Colorado and California were granted over $20 million from the U.S. Department of Energy on Jan. 21, which matches $167 million in local government and private sector funding. The five community projects involve generating energy from biomass, wind power, solar energy and biogas and are expected to create enough energy to displace the equivalent of emissions from 10,000 homes. DOE views projects like these at the community level as essential components of the nation’s energy portfolio. Smaller, more localized renewable energy projects will serve as models for small government, campuses ...
Feb 9, 2010 (1 hour ago)
Not much in terms of effective policy came out of the 2009 climate conference in Copenhagen, or COP15. In fact, the best that can probably be said is that nations agreed to disagree; poor ones unwilling to take on carbon emission reductions that would stunt their industrial growth, and rich ones unwilling to take the blame for emissions that have, to date, caused most of the problems and benefited rich nations most of all. To highlight this ambivalence, on January 26 Yvo de Boer, United Nation’s senior climate change official, noted that governments could either comply with proposed emissions ...
Feb 9, 2010 (1 hour ago)
Up until January, most of us hadn’t heard of the Arctic Oscillation, or AO, a pressure system at sea level over the Arctic that has its opposite number at higher latitudes, or about 37-47degrees North. Currently operating in negative phase, the AO is apparently responsible for the extreme cold weather from France to Florida, where manatees and orange trees are dying in equal measure due to freezing weather. The cold winter isn’t all that surprising. The trend (of colder winters in the U.S., at least) started in the winter of 2006-2007, causing many who had believed the ...
Feb 9, 2010 (1 hour ago)
When James Lovelock, Edward O. Wilson and Ian McEwan jostle to praise a book I assume it will be worth attention. Stewart Brand’s Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto doesn’t disappoint. The title echoes the Whole Earth Catalogue which he founded over forty years ago as an ambitious reference aid for skills, tools and products useful to a self-sustainable lifestyle. Times have changed and Brand has changed with them. Climate change has become a clear and present danger. He has become more of a pragmatist, though no less of an environmentalist. His pragmatism leads him to regard with ...
Feb 9, 2010 (1 hour ago)
Designer Xuan Yu has developed the ReThink , a clothes hanger that forces the user to recycle in order for the device to be useful. The ReThink itself is a simple hook with two empty housings, into which the user adds their own used soda bottles. Courtesy of PSFK . More cool stuff on Celsias: Waste and Want The Power of No Regrets Follow us on Twitter!
Feb 9, 2010 (1 hour ago)
This week\'s dose of organic headlines, updates, resources, goodies, and recipes courtesy of DSnodgrass... The following is a disconcerting reminder that despite an increasing availability of organics to consumers, industry regulation is still dicey. H&M\'s \'Organic Cotton Fraud\' If H&M’s quick promise to stop destroying unsold clothing appeased you enough to shop its eco-friendly spring line, I have some bad news for you. What you thought was a cute organic cotton outfit may actually be made of genetically modified cotton. That’s what the German edition of the Financial Times is reporting. For those who ...
Feb 9, 2010 (1 hour ago)
Dr. Andrew Light, in this CAP repost , explains how the commitments already made by the world\'s nations leave us only 5 gigatons short of the 2020 target scientists agree is necessary to minimize climate change damages. This past December, 192 countries gathered for the 15th meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen, Denmark. Ambitions for the Copenhagen meeting were high. UNFCCC members had agreed at their 13th meeting in Bali, Indonesia in 2007 that December 2009 would be the deadline to determine a course of action forward on a plan for global reduction of carbon dioxide emissions following the end of the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol in 2012. The UNFCCC’s midterm goal for climate safety is stabilizing temperature change increase caused by humans to no more than 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels. According to analysis from Project Catalyst hitting this goal requires a 17 gigaton decrease in annual greenhouse gas emissions to 44 gigatons per year from the projected increase of global emissions of 61 gigatons by 2020 if we continue polluting at current rates (Figure 1). The tense two weeks of negotiations in Cope..
Feb 9, 2010 (1 hour ago)
h/t NewEnergyNews See also Science bombshell explodes myth of clean coal: Mountaintop “mining permits are being issued despite the preponderance of scientific evidence that impacts are pervasive and irreversible and that mitigation cannot compensate for losses.”
Feb 9, 2010 (2 hours ago)
Tom Young, BusinessGreen , Tuesday 9 February 2010 at 16:03:00 Nuclear giant invests in solar thermal energy French nuclear firm Areva announced yesterday its acquisition of US firm Ausra as it moves into the solar market for the first time....
Feb 9, 2010 (2 hours ago)
Researchers with the petroleum company Saudi Aramco have found a way to use a laser to “fingerprint” oil. The innovation promises a number of benefits, including better quality control at refineries. The laser device takes mere nanoseconds to excite an oil sample\'s fluorescence spectra, which is then analysed to provide a “spectral fingerprint” of the sample . The instrument is also sturdy and portable, which will enable it to be used in the field to assess petroleum quality. “(W)e\'re also working on a remote sensing version that can be used in helicopters to detect and identify oil spills and seepage into water,” said Ezzat M. Hegazi, senior research scientist at Saudi Aramco and leader of the instrument design effort. Among the device\'s potential uses: Measuring the exact ratios of different types of crude oil in any particular blend down to 0.001 per cent; Detecting illegal blending of fuel oils; Assessing an oil sample\'s water and sulphur content; Identifying oil spills; and Monitoring viscosity in oil pipelines. The research team says the laser instrument can also serve as an additional investigative tool in assessing geological formations ..
Feb 9, 2010 (2 hours ago)
Kenneth Richter, BusinessGreen , Tuesday 9 February 2010 at 15:37:00 Friends of the Earth’s biofuels campaigner Kenneth Richter argues that biofuel targets are a distraction from tried-and-tested ways of reducing transport emissions In his article, Antony Blakey alleges that groups such as Friends of the Earth are “vilifying” biofuels. In fact, Friends of the Earth is supportive of biofuels such as biodiesel...
Feb 9, 2010 (3 hours ago)
Suzanne Goldenberg, The Guardian - Published under licence by, BusinessGreen , Tuesday 9 February 2010 at 15:31:00 US President demonstrates faith in climate change research The Obama administration today founded a service to study and report on global warming. It will put scientists and data from the national weather service and various departments of the...
Feb 9, 2010 (3 hours ago)
Do you work for a firm that\'s taking steps to be a socially responsible business? If so, we\'d like to ask you a few questions in this brief survey . We\'re interested in learning more about how much your organisation is spending on corporate social responsibility, who\'s in charge of funding those efforts and what sort of value your business gains from its CSR programmes. The survey has just four questions, so should take less than a minute to complete. Let us know what your company is doing in CSR and take the survey now by clicking here . Share this on del.icio.us Digg this! Share this on Reddit Stumble upon something good? Share it on StumbleUpon Share this on Technorati Post this to MySpace Share this on Facebook Tweet This! Subscribe to the comments for this post? Share this on Linkedin Related posts: How does your firm handle corporate social responsibility? Event warning: Business for Social Responsibility conference in San Francisco Survey: UK firms wasting water, energy … and money
Feb 9, 2010 (3 hours ago)
Jurdy finds a better use for government paperwork … Share this on del.icio.us Digg this! Share this on Reddit Stumble upon something good? Share it on StumbleUpon Share this on Technorati Post this to MySpace Share this on Facebook Tweet This! Subscribe to the comments for this post? Share this on Linkedin Related posts: Jurdy: Catching forty (green) winks Jurdy: Food for thought Jurdy: Inauguration day distractions
Feb 9, 2010 (3 hours ago)
Tom Young, BusinessGreen , Tuesday 9 February 2010 at 14:55:00 Resolution follows similar decision by Shell shareholders last month A group of investors has filed a resolution demanding that BP does not invest in drilling in Canadian oil sands, which emits more CO2 than conventional drilling....