Wind farms in Italy threaten to wipe out the Golden Eagle, farmers` organisation Coldiretti and national environmental organisations declared recently. As concern about climate change and sustainable, eco-friendly alternative energy grows, it‘s surprising that an industry with so much potential – the wind industry – is under fire from environmental groups.
If you think your electricity bill is bad, you should see the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan’s. Having to import 95% of your energy makes for a fairly expensive monthly bill. In response to this ongoing electricity and energy challenge, Jordan has signed a 10 year agreement with Russia for the provision of four new nuclear power plants, desalination stations and related research facilities.Earlier this month, the government of Ontario (Canada’s largest province by population) suspended the process for the building of two new nuclear reactors, citing skyrocketing costs and responsibility to taxpayers as the main deterrent.“Emission-free nuclear power remains a crucial aspect of Ontario’s supply mix,” Smitherman said Monday. “Unfortunately, the competitive bidding process has not provided Ontario with a suitable option at this time.”
The proposed 10 year, multi-billion dollar project may eventually be restarted, but government spokespeople confirmed that all bidders have been asked to extend their proposals indefinitely. Read the rest of this entry »
Ever wonder who leads the world in global warming emissions? And by how much? A report released this month by the New Zealand government gives us this information.
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Tuvalu is the tiny nation in the Pacific that sued the Bush administration because of sea level rise that was destroying its ability to sustain itself. (Tuvalu’s flag is number three above, with the stars of the Southern Cross.)
Climate change was affecting Tuvalu early - its gorgeous islands are only 3 feet above sea level. Crops were being destroyed by encroaching seawater from rising sea levels. Plans were being made to emigrate the entire nation to New Zealand by the end of the century.
Now it appears Tuvalu’s remaining 12,000 residents have a stay put and fight back plan:
In a meeting with environment and energy ministers from other European countries yesterday, Sweden’s Minister of Environment, Andreas Carlgren, said that global economic problems should in no way slow movement to address climate change. Other leading European ministers agreed.
Economic problems today are in many ways a result of environmental missteps in the past. If we want a healthy economy in the future, we have to take the environment into account more than we have. The Swedish Minister of the Environment agrees and says that there should be no hesitation to combat climate change due to the current economic situation. Read the rest of this entry »
The EU is cutting electricity use equivalent to Sweden and Austria’s annual usage. In total, after previous ecodesign regulations, the savings will be greater than Italy’s total consumption by 2020.
The European Union (EU) agreed to cut carbon emissions by 20% by 2020 earlier this year. They stated: “The challenge is to spark a new industrial revolution that will deliver a low-energy economy, whilst making the energy we consume more secure.” In another move to spark this new industrial revolution, the European Commission added 4 new eco-design standards this week to the 5 they had previously set.
The four new eco-design measures will save as much electricity as Sweden and Austria use annually. Combined with the previous five measures, the electricity savings will be more than the total annual usage of Italy!
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New Zealand is considered a world leader in environmental topics of all kinds. It is a leading producer of organic produce, it conserves vast amounts of natural and ecologically diverse land, and it has taken a leading step in goals to reduce greenhouse gases and stop or slow climate change. As early as 1992, New Zealand became a part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. However, a report released by the New Zealand government this month shows that they have experienced a sharp rise in greenhouse gas emissions since last year. The reason? Climate change.
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Thousands are thrown back into the sea each year.
“It’s a large predator that devours fish, squid, seals and other marine life, and it also ruins the lines and nets of the halibut fishermen,” says Leif Fontaine, the head of Greenland’s fishing and hunting association.
“Entire trawlers are sometimes full of sharks and they are caught everywhere, especially off the east and west of Greenland, to the fishermen’s great dismay,” says Bo Lings who used to work on a big trawler.”
In Uummannaq, Greenland sharks represent more than half of the waste disposed of by the local fishermen.
They can weigh a ton and be 23 feet long.
In a macabre When Life Deals You Lemons - Make Lemonade kind of news item: Researchers are considering that perhaps we could safely reuse radioactive land: to grow crops for biofuel.
Growing food is still too dangerous in southeastern Belarus because the region is still so contaminated by fallout from Chernobyl that crops grown there cannot safely be eaten by humans for hundreds of years, until the radioactive isotopes decay.
Yet 1.5 million mostly older people have not left, and some are in fact growing some grain on the contaminated land anyway. The radioactive material concentrates in roots and stalks, which they just plough back into the ground after harvesting. As a result; the soil is still almost as contaminated now as it was after the accident.
Things could not be much worse there than they are now and the Belarus government is open to new ideas. So when an Irish company had the idea of remediating the soil by planting a biofuel crop, Belarus was more open to the idea than you might imagine:
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