UN warns of mountain meltdown
March 17, 2008
Posted in Green News
The average rate of melting and thinning in 30 mountain glaciers located in nine mountain ranges around the world doubled between 2004 and 2006, the UN Environment Programme said yesterday.
Switzerland’s World Glacier Monitoring Service has been tracking glaciers for more than a century. Its director, Dr Wilfried Haeberli, said: “The latest figures are part of what appears to be an accelerating trend with no apparent end in sight”.
Achim Steiner, UNEP’s executive director, said: “Millions if not billions of people depend directly or indirectly on these natural water storage facilities for drinking water, agriculture, industry and power generation during key parts of the year,” said. “There are many canaries emerging in the climate change coal mine. The glaciers are perhaps among those making the most noise and it is absolutely essential that everyone sits up and takes notice,” he said.
Photograph: Mount Cerro Torre, Argentina © Peter Zaharov, iStockphoto.com
Read more
News in brief
March 17, 2008
Posted in Green News
BEACH BUMMER – Four of Durban’s swimming beaches have lost their “blue flag” status because of unacceptable faecal pollution readings, Sapa reports. This comes less than a week before the start of the Easter school holidays. The blue flag is an “eco-label” awarded by independent non-profit organisation Foundation for Environmental Education.
BIG GAME SPENDERS – Dubai World, the investment arm of the government of Dubai, has bought into three South African game reserves for an undisclosed amount – Shamwari (Eastern Cape), Sanbona Wildlife Reserve (in the Western Cape) and Jock Safari Lodge (near the Kruger National Park) – Business Day reports. Dubai World acquired Cape Town’s Victoria and Alfred Water Front in 2006.
ANOTHER BIOFUELLED BOEING - American carrier Continental Airlines, Boeing and GE Aviation have announced plans to conduct a biofuels demonstration flight early next year using a Boeing Next-Generation 737. Last month a Virgin Atlantic Boeing flew from London to Amsterdam on a biofuel mix. The three companies are looking identify sustainable fuel sources that don’t impact food crops, water resources or contribute to deforestation, and which can be produced in sufficient quantities. Read more at EnergyDaily
CLOSING PRICE - Think nuclear power stations are expensive to build? Well decommissioning them doesn’t appear to be cheap either. Britain’s Sellafield nuclear site is expected to cost billions of pounds to decommission. At present, a number of consortia are at bidding for a 20-billion pound (about R320-billion) decommissioning contract, the Observer reports. According to Britian’s Independent, the Sellafield site’s main activity over the past few decades has been reprocessing used reactor fuel, separting out plutonium and uranium from nuclear waste. The Thorp reprocessing plant will reportedly close around 2011 when its contracts run out.
Greener buildings could slash carbon emissions
March 14, 2008
Posted in Green News, Lifestyle
The role of the transport and fossil fuel sectors in generating greenhouse gas emissions has gained the attention of politicians and business. But more attention needs to be paid to the impact of the building sector has on climate change. Basic changes in building design and construction could cut emissions by 35 percent in North America alone, according to a report by the Commission for Environmental Co-operation. Read more
SA isn’t joining in Earth Hour campaign
March 13, 2008
Posted in Green News
WWF South Africa is not campaigning with other WWF offices around the world on Earth Hour this year, the local organisation says. At 8pm on March 29, millions of people around the world will switch off their lights for one hour. It is envisaged as a way that ordinary people can take a stand against climate change.
South Africans already face energy challenges because of Eskom’s load shedding, says Peet du Plooy of WWF South Africa. “The ability to save energy as a matter of choice is no longer an option, but a necessity,” he says.
WWF South Africa says that even though it is not campaigning, it is still 100 percent committed to energy efficiency initiatives such as the global Earth Hour campaign. But it is rather placing emphasis on urging South Africans to focus on developing energy efficiency as a way of life. Read more
Dolphin saves stranded whales
March 13, 2008
Posted in Conservation
A conservation official in New Zealand said he saw a bottlenosed dolphin guide two stranded pygmy sperm whales safely back to sea on Wednesday, AFP reports. A three-metre long mother whale and her 1,5m calf appeared to have been confused by a sandbar off Mahia Beach on the east coast of the north island. Human attempts to rescue the whales were failing when the dolphin, which is well-known in the area for playing with local swimmers, arrived and “escorted” the whales back to the open sea.
Via :: TerraDaily
Wave-powered boat to cross the Pacific
March 13, 2008
Posted in Transport
A Japanese engineering professor named Ken-ichi Hori has created a 3-ton catamaran make from recycled aluminium that is propelled using wave energy. On March 16 the seasoned eco-sailor will attempt to sail from Hawaii to Japan in the boat, a distance of about 7,000km, the longest distance travelled in a wave-powered boat. The journey is intended to prove that wave-power can work in real-world conditions. The Suntory Mermaid II travels at a maximum speed of five knots, so the journey is expected to take about two and a half months – a normal diesel-powered boat would apparently take about 10 days. The boat has an engine and sail for emergencies. Read more at New York Times, MSNBC and Popular Science
Top 10 questions shaping Earth science
March 13, 2008
Posted in Green News
A new report by the US National Research Council has identified the 10 questions driving the geological and planetary sciences in the 21st century. Some of the questions present challenges that scientists may not understand for decades, if ever, while others are more tractable and significant progess could be made in a matter of years, the report says.
The questions are not listed in order of importance. Read more
China tells West to drop the climate change lecture
March 12, 2008
Posted in Green News
China wants developing countries to stop lecturing it on its increasing emissions. China’s foreign minister yesterday pointed out that the per capita emissions of greenhouses gases in China were less than a third of the average in developed countries. “China’s aggregate emission is large. This is because China has the largest population in the world, but China’s per capita emission level is very low,” Yang said. In addition, a large part of China’s emissions resulted from the manufacture of goods bought by consumers in western countries, he said.
Via :: IOL
Space junk keeps falling on my head …
March 12, 2008
Posted in Green News
We humans are a messy bunch, not only has our rubbish turned into a problem in our cities, but tons of it is whizzing around above our heads in space. There are now 9,000 pieces of space junk, weighing more than 5,500 tonnes, orbiting the Earth, according to Nasa. They range from an astronaut’s glove lost in a 1965 space walk by Ed White, to solar panels, cameras, pliers, bits of exploded space craft and God know’s what else, reports Britain’s Observer newspaper. It’s amazing that to date only one person seems to have been injured by falling space debris – an Oklahoma woman who was hit on the shoulder by a piece of a rocket’s fuel tank.
Some of the junk is very high up, about 36,000km above the Earth’s surface, in what’s known as geostationary orbit, which is apparently where communications satellites are programmed to hover. There are reportedly about 200 dead satellites in this part of space at present. But other bits of space trash are just a few hundred kilometres above Earth in low Earth orbit. Space experts warn that this debris proses the most problems. A space shuttle had a near-miss with a piece of old satellite in 1991 and, in 2006, pieces of another satellite came very close to hitting a passenger plane, reports the Observer.
Space experts now say that the space debris has reached critical proportions and is a risk to future space missions. We really do need to clean up our act.
Via :: The Observer
Diesel fumes may damage your brain
March 11, 2008
Posted in Green News
A team of Dutch researchers did an experiment to test the effects of exposure to diesel fumes on the brain by putting 10 volunteers into a room filled with exhaust from a diesel engine for one hour, reports Reuters. The volunteers’ brain waves were monitored with an EEG. The level of fumes was similar to that found on a busy road or in a garage. After about 30 minutes, the brain wave patterns displayed a stress response, which suggests changes in information processing in the brain cortex. More research is needed to determine the clinical effect of this stress and whether it has any long-term effects. Previous studies have found very small particles of soot are able to travel from the nose and lodge in the brain.
Via :: Planet Ark
« go back — keep looking »
