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		News Archive     03/01/2010 07:00 PM Duke Energy boosts solar might McClatchy Newspapers: Thousands of panels are soaking up the winter sunshine as Duke Energy launches its solar rooftops program under North Carolina's new green energy law. For the first time, in a small but significant step, Duke and Raleigh-based Progress Energy will have to make a smidgen of their electricity this year from the sun. Energy from other renewable fuels, such as wind, wood wastes and chicken manure, will join the mix in two years. Renewables have to account for 12.5 percent of ... read more 03/01/2010 07:00 PM U.S. consul general is 'eyes and ears' for Obama administration on oilsands CANADIAN PRESS: A career diplomat is keeping a close eye on the failures and successes within Alberta's oilsands and is reporting what she learns to the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama. The giant projects in northern Alberta have taken global centre stage of late, thanks in large part to climate-change talks in Copenhagen. And Laura Lochman, the U.S. consul general responsible for Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the Northwest Territories, has essentially become the eyes and ears for ... read more 03/01/2010 07:00 PM Battle to save tigers intensifies with only 3,200 left on Earth Telegraph: Conservationists say there are just 3,200 tigers left in the world as the future of the species is threatened by poachers, destruction of their habitat and climate change. The world population of tigers has fallen by 95 per cent in the past century. Free flipper! argues scientist Wild tigers in Nepal decimated by poachers Red List of endangered species 'inaccurate' claim conservationists Red List of endangered species - thousands of species at risk of ... read more 03/01/2010 07:00 PM Death toll from Brazil mudslides rises to 76 Reuters: At least 76 people have died in flooding and mudslides in Brazil's three largest states over the past four days, O Estado de S. Paulo newspaper reported on Sunday. The death toll in the state of Rio de Janeiro rose to 63. Firefighters and rescue workers removed 18 bodies from a lodge and homes that were destroyed in the early hours of Friday when a hillside collapsed in the luxury beach resort of Angra dos Reis, the newspaper said, citing authorities. Ten people died in Sao ... read more 03/01/2010 07:00 PM Freeze leads to wildfowl hunt ban BBC: The freezing conditions have led to a temporary ban on the shooting of wildfowl in Scotland. Environment Minister Roseanna Cunningham has announced that the shooting of certain species will be prohibited from Tuesday. The Scottish government has enforced a law which protects birds in severe weather. The British Association for Shooting and Conservation said it was the first suspension of its kind for 13 years. Scottish Natural Heritage advised the government that ... read more 03/01/2010 07:00 PM China battles to stop diesel polluting Yellow River Reuters: More than 700 people are battling to prevent up a leak of around 150,000 liters of diesel oil spilled into a Chinese river from reaching the Yellow River 70 kilometers away, state media said on Sunday. The leak, from a pipeline owned by China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) in northwestern Shaanxi province, was discovered on Wednesday, the official Xinhua news agency said. The company immediately closed the pipeline when the accident happened, the report added, but not ... read more 03/01/2010 07:00 PM GUARDIAN.CO.UK: Gordon Brown to launch £100bn wind energy programme Guardian: Gordon Brown will this week launch a £100bn programme to build thousands of offshore wind turbines that could power most of Britain's households during strong winds and are crucial to meeting the country's renewable targets. The Crown Estate will announce which consortia have been successful in bidding to develop the nine zones, mostly in the North Sea, in the project, which is the most ambitious of its kind in the world. The prime minister is expected to use the event to promote the ... read more 03/01/2010 07:00 PM Manufacturing sector savages Darling claim that Labour supports green jobs Guardian: The manufacturing sector has savaged suggestions from the chancellor, Alistair Darling, that Britain is benefiting from government support for a "green" jobs revolution, warning that the UK was instead in danger of "missing the boat". The industry body, the EEF, points out that over 90% of the EUR2bn earmarked for the world's biggest wind farm in UK waters – the London Array, off Kent – is being spent abroad and ministers must take some of the blame. "In Germany you get ... read more 03/01/2010 07:00 PM Slide city mayor seeks Brazil nuke plant shutdown Associated Press: The mayor of a mudslide-devastated city on Sunday urged a precautionary shutdown of Brazil's only nuclear power plants due to blocked highways while the death toll from flooding and slides rose to 75. Angra dos Reis Mayor Tuca Jordao said that while the nuclear power plants are not damaged or threatened, mudslides that that have killed at least 44 people in his city alone have disrupted escape routes needed to cope with any emergency. "We don't want any risk," said Jordao, ... read more 04/01/2010 07:00 PM Climate change agreement suiting all nations possible: UK PM Reuters: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Sunday he believed a global agreement to combat climate change might still be possible despite the limited results of last month's Copenhagen meeting. "I've got an idea about how we can actually move this forward over the next few months and I'll be working on this," Brown told the BBC, when asked what came next after the UN climate talks in Copenhagen. "I think it's not impossible that the groundwork that was done at Copenhagen could ... read more 03/01/2010 07:00 PM Sun, wind and wave-powered: Europe unites to build renewable energy 'supergrid' Guardian: It would connect turbines off the wind-lashed north coast of Scotland with Germany's vast arrays of solar panels, and join the power of waves crashing on to the Belgian and Danish coasts with the hydro-electric dams nestled in Norway's fjords: Europe's first electricity grid dedicated to renewable power will become a political reality this month, as nine countries formally draw up plans to link their clean energy projects around the North Sea. The network, made up of thousands of ... read more 04/01/2010 07:00 PM Copenhagen Accord disappointing: PM Economic Times: In a departure from the line taken by his environment minister, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expressed his disappointment over the Copenhagen Accord on climate change. Addressing the 97th Indian Science Congress on Sunday, the Prime Minister said nations "made limited progress" at the climate change conference at Copenhagen and that "no one was satisfied with the outcome". Environment minister Jairam Ramesh has maintained that India had protected its interests. Even so, Mr Ramesh ... read more 03/01/2010 07:00 PM Egypt: Rooftops Empower the Poor Inter Press Service: In one of the poorest and most populous neighborhoods of Cairo, Hussein Soliman and his family live in a small apartment that is a model of clean energy living. The two solar panels and bio-gas unit on the roof of Soliman's building in Darb El-Ahmar provide hot water and cooking gas to his two-bedroom apartment, reducing his family's carbon footprint and energy costs. The clean energy appliances, made mostly from recycled material, have reduced his household's waste have meant that ... read more 03/01/2010 07:00 PM China: Heavy snow brings Beijing to standstill Reuters: Heavy snow hit Beijing on Sunday, stranding thousands of passengers at the Chinese capital's main airport and casting an unusual quiet over normally busy streets as people stayed out of the freezing weather. More than 80 percent of flights at Beijing's Capital International Airport, the country's busiest, were canceled or delayed, state television said, with only one of its three runways open. Airports in the nearby cities of Tianjin, Hohhot and Shijiazhuang closed completely, ... read more 03/01/2010 07:00 PM Climate change far worse than thought before Indo-Asian News Service: Global alarm over climate change and its effects has risen manifold after the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Since then, many of the 2,500-odd IPCC scientists have found climate change is progressing faster than the worst-case scenario they had predicted. Their studies will be considered for the next IPCC report, but since that will come out only in 2013, the University of New South Wales in Sydney has just put together the main findings in the ... read more 03/01/2010 07:00 PM India must not lag behind in climate change initiatives: PM Press Trust of India: The Copenhagen meet made "limited progress" and no one was satisfied with the outcome, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said, while observing that taking the path of low greenhouse gas emissions was the only alternative and India "must not lag behind" on this. ( Watch Video ) Inaugurating the 97th Indian Science Congress, Singh acknowledged that results of last month's climate summit, that saw sharp differences over issues of emission cuts and accountability, had left no one satisfied. ... read more 02/01/2010 07:00 PM Climate legislation would cost Texas Instruments, other chipmakers Dallas Morning News: For decades, Texas Instruments Corp. has designed chips to boost the energy efficiency of everything from calculators to cellphones, water meters to washing machines. So Washington's embrace of clean energy would seem to be a winner for TI, which foresees an expanding market for its semiconductor technologies in equipment such as household appliances, solar panels and a new generation of advanced utility meters. Yet legislation to slow global warming also exposes a problem for ... read more 03/01/2010 07:00 PM Peru's mountain people face fight for survival in a bitter winter Guardian: For alpaca farmer Ignacio Beneto Huamani and his young family, life in the Peruvian Andes, at almost 4,700m above sea level, has always been a struggle against the elements. His village of Pichccahuasi, in Peru's Huancavelica region, is little more than a collection of small thatched shelters and herds of alpaca surrounded by beautiful, yet bleakly inhospitable, mountain terrain. The few hundred people who live here are hardened to poverty and months of sub-zero temperatures during ... read more 03/01/2010 07:00 PM Shell is accused of abandoning solar power customers in the developing world Guardian: Shell has become embroiled in a major row with the World Bank and green energy companies after allegations that it is unfairly refusing to honour warranties on solar power systems sold to the developing world. A widespread breakdown of its equipment in Sri Lanka and elsewhere has left the oil firm accused of abandoning a responsibility to impoverished communities while damaging the prospects of the wider renewable power sector in a world desperate to reduce carbon emissions following ... read more 03/01/2010 07:00 PM United Kingdom: What to do if ... you want to live off-grid Independent (UK): Michael Rea, 64, and his wife Dot retired to the Shetland island of Unst in 2001 and now live in a zero-carbon house. In the past year, the couple have lived near off-grid, with heating costs of just 50p a day for their 180sq m home in the most northerly part of the British Isles "We had always wanted to live in a truly sustainable way and we decided that we wanted to put a lot of energy-efficient technology into the house. "At that point we weren't actually considering ... read more 03/01/2010 07:00 PM Call this a real winter? Independent (UK): A few inches of snow, a touch of nocturnal frost and a flurry or two of sleet -- call this a winter? Why, when I was a boy there were fogs and smogs, snow from Boxing Day to March, icicles as long as golf clubs and frosts so severe the sea froze. Real winters, they were -- hard enough to see off a pipsqueak like 2009-10 and still have plenty of menace to spare. And so, in response to those who think the present season a cause for complaint, I present the 10 toughest winters in thermo-- meter ... read more 03/01/2010 07:00 PM The big freeze: Warnings of a Siberian snap Independent (UK): Freezing air from the Arctic and Siberia trapped over the UK will bring snow and sub-zero temperatures this week, experts warned yesterday. Temperatures may drop to -10C in England and Wales, with the possibility of temperatures as low as -16C, the Met Office said. Coldest will be the Midlands and North-west England. But in Scotland, where temperatures have already hit -18C, the beleaguered ski industry is enjoying its best season for years. Snow showers blew across the rest of ... read more 03/01/2010 07:00 PM Scarecrow' wind farms put rare birds to flight Times (UK): Britain's upland birds are in danger of being driven off hills and mountains by onshore wind farms. Scientists have found that birds, including buzzards, golden plovers, curlews and red grouse, are abandoning countryside around wind farms because the turbines act as giant scarecrows, frightening them away. The impact is small now because there are few wind farms but researchers warn that, with hundreds more planned, plus an increase in the size of turbines, the effect could ... read more 02/01/2010 07:00 PM Addressing Energy Crisis Through Alternatives and Efficiency at Household Level Inter Press Service: Tanzania's electricity grid is fed by a mixture of natural gas, diesel and hydropower; however, over the past few years the country has experienced severe blackouts and power rationing in urban areas due to drought and subsequent low-water levels. After seeing springs and rivers in his native Kilimanjaro region dry up, Estomih Sawe wanted to provide energy alternatives for Tanzanians. "Only 10 percent of people in this country have access to electricity. People like us, we are ... read more 02/01/2010 07:00 PM WHO Warns Climate Change Bad For Health Voice of America: World Health Organization Director-General Margaret Chan says she is disappointed a deal on climate change was not struck in Copenhagen. But she says important steps were taken that, she believes, will ultimately result in an agreement to stop or retard climate change. She says the relationship between climate change and health is obvious. For example, she says millions of people will suffer from either too much water or too little water under climate change. Chan says ... read more 29/12/2009 07:00 PM Decade's end: Climate's lost decade now leads to a last decade Associated Press: TheIt dawned with the warmest winter on record in the United States. And when the sun sets this New Year`s Eve, the decade of the 2000s will end as the warmest ever on global temperature charts. Warmer still, scientists say, lies ahead. Through 10 years of global boom and bust, of breakneck change around the planet, of terrorism, war and division, all people everywhere under that warming sun faced one threat together: the buildup of greenhouse gases, the rise in temperatures, ... read more 29/12/2009 07:00 PM Canada: Quebec adopts California's auto emission standards Reuters: Quebec will become the first province in Canada to adopt California's strict auto emissions standards, the province's environment ministry said on Tuesday. The new rules will come into effect on January 14 and will impose increasingly stringent limits on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from cars and light trucks made between 2010 and 2016 that are sold in the province. Emissions from vehicles will be cut by about 35 percent over the four years, from 187 grams of carbon dioxide ... read more 29/12/2009 07:00 PM Franch constitutional body rules against carbon tax Reuters: France's planned carbon tax cannot be applied because it includes too many exemptions, a French government body ensuring laws are constitutional ruled on Tuesday, in an embarrassing setback for the government. The tax on carbon-emitting products, meant to encourage consumers to save energy and use less fossil fuels, is one of President Nicolas Sarkozy's most loudly defended initiatives and was meant to come into effect on January 1, 2010. "The exemptions included in the carbon ... read more 29/12/2009 07:00 PM Climate Problem Is Really A Justice Problem Counter Currents: Copenhagen was obviously a failure--if you judge it by "the numbers,' the formal emission targets and financial commitments that are needed to support a fair, effective, emergency global climate mobilization. If you judge it, that is, by what is necessary. The more pressing question, though, is whether Copenhagen was a failure when judged against what was possible. This is a much more difficult question, and has far more to do with judgment than with calculation. And much more to do ... read more 31/12/2009 07:00 PM Snow isn't erasing lingering drought San Francisco Chronicle: The recent dose of foul weather has raised the spirits of California's water lords, but measurements taken Wednesday in the Sierra Nevada show there is still not enough snow to ease drought conditions. The ritual trek into the snowy wilderness to survey the state's frozen water supply found less snow than normal for this time of year in the Sierra, but more than last year. "What we're finding this year is really pretty close to last year," said Frank Gehrke, chief of snow ... read more 01/01/2010 07:00 PM Malta: December was one of the warmest on record Times of Malta: December was the second warmest on record at Balzan with a mean monthly temperature of 16°C. MeteoMalta said that hte warmest ever December since temperature records started being taken at Balzan in 1987 was of 16.2°C in 1989. The temperature was especially warm in the last 10 days when it was regularly over 20°C with Christmas Day being the warmest day of the month with a maximum temperature of 24.1°C. This was not, however, the warmest December day ever because the ... read more 30/12/2009 07:00 PM Below-average snow fans California drought fear Reuters: Snow levels in the U.S. West's Sierra Nevada mountains are below average again, raising concerns of a fourth year of drought in California, the agricultural powerhouse and most populous state, water managers said on Wednesday. California is "looking at the real possibility of a fourth dry year," Chief Deputy Director Sue Sims said in a statement. A network of electronic sensors showed 85 percent of average water content in snow this week, up from 76 percent of average last ... read more 31/12/2009 07:00 PM Gore: Carbon Polluters Like Big Tobacco CBS News: This month, a poll of 3,000 Americans showed 49 percent were not that worried about global warming. That's up from 39 percent in 2007, when Al Gore's book and documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" was the hot topic in the climate change debate. So, does the political will to save the planet from the potential harm from global warming still exist in the U.S.? According to Gore, who has authored a new book called "Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis," the movement is ... read more 02/01/2010 07:00 PM An elemental challenge for China and the world Independent (UK): Though rare earth elements are not, geologically speaking, all that rare, they are still largely unknown to the general public. That, however, could be about to change. The likes of lanthanum and holmium could soon be names as familiar to us as gold and oil. The explanation is scarcity. Global demand for these materials is booming, tripling over the past decade from 40,000 to 120,000 tonnes. Rare earth elements are used in a host of technologies from iPhones, to fibre-optic cables, to ... read more 02/01/2010 07:00 PM Arctic melt top weather story of decade Canadian Press: The big Arctic melt of 2007 which shocked scientists and served as an environmental wake-up call for the planet is the top weather story of the decade, if not the past 100 years, says one of Canada's leading climatologists. The Canadian Press asked Environment Canada senior climatologist David Phillips to comb through his 100 top weather news stories since 2000 and rank the country's Top 10. While Western Canada dominated the list with floods, fires, drought, record ... read more 02/01/2010 07:00 PM Is global warming making avian flu virus more lethal? Indo-Asian News Service: A research team comprising a computational biophysicist, an evolutionary biologist and a mathematician from the University of Idaho (U-I) will soon begin probing these viruses to find an answer. "It's a pretty simple experiment, but it's a wild ... idea," said Holly Wichman, professor of biology and the evolutionary biologist of the group. "But, if it turns out that our idea is right, it could have enormous implications," added Marty Ytreberg, professor of physics and the ... read more 01/01/2010 07:00 PM Bad year for biofuel ends on a dour note Associated Press: An alternative fuel for diesel engines is off to a shaky start this year though it emits fewer pollutants and cuts down on petroleum use because it's made from environmentally friendly waste and vegetable oil. A federal tax credit that provided makers of biodiesel $1 for every gallon expired Friday. As a result, some U.S. producers say they will shut down without the government subsidy. Biodiesel's woes come on top of a year of problems for the fledgling biofuel industry - an ... read more 02/01/2010 07:00 PM Solar showdown in California tortoises' desert home Associated Press: On a strip of California's Mojave Desert, two dozen rare tortoises could stand in the way of a sprawling solar-energy complex in a case that highlights mounting tensions between wilderness conservation and the nation's quest for cleaner power. Oakland, Calif.-based BrightSource Energy has been pushing for more than two years for permission to erect 400,000 mirrors on the site to gather the sun's energy. It could become the first project of its kind on U.S. Bureau of Land Management ... read more 31/12/2009 07:00 PM EU carbon price ends '09 down 21 percent for year Reuters: European Union carbon futures slipped in light trading on Thursday to end the year down 21 percent from 2008 closing prices. Dec-10 futures for EU Allowances closed down 17 cents or 1.3 percent at 12.53 euros a tonne in an abbreviated trading session on London's European Climate Exchange (ECX). Dec-10 volume was quiet at 725 lots traded by the exchange's midday close. Spot EUAs trading on France's BlueNext finished the year at 12.33 euros per tonne of carbon ... read more 31/12/2009 07:00 PM France to propose new carbon tax Reuters: France's government wants to salvage a carbon tax, scrapped on constitutional concerns, by closing loopholes for some businesses, Economy Minister Christine Lagarde said on Thursday. The French Constitutional Council annulled the tax, hailed by President Nicolas Sarkozy as a ground-breaking tool to fight climate change, on Tuesday on the grounds that it offered too many exemptions. After the Constitutional Council complained that some 93 percent of industrial emissions were ... read more 02/01/2010 07:00 PM United States: Landfill will use methane to make energy Sun News: Houston County is about to become one of the first in the state to use garbage from its public landfill to make electricity, thanks to a deal signed in December between the county and Flint Energies. The methane gas, which is produced by the natural decomposition of garbage underground, is now being "flared,' or burned off, but will now become a source of income. Flint, an electric co-op whose members are most concentrated in Houston County, will buy the gas and use it to make ... read more 02/01/2010 07:00 PM Concern as China clamps down on rare earth exports Independent (UK): Britain and other Western countries risk running out of supplies of certain highly sought-after rare metals that are vital to a host of green technologies, amid growing evidence that China, which has a monopoly on global production, is set to choke off exports of valuable compounds. Failure to secure alternative long-term sources of rare earth elements (REEs) would affect the manufacturing and development of low-carbon technology, which relies on the unique properties of the 17 metals ... read more 02/01/2010 07:00 PM Precious metals that could save the planet Independent (UK): Baotou was of little interest to the outside world for millennia. When one of the first visitors reached its walls in 1925, it was described as "a little husk of a town in a great hollow shell of mud ramparts". Some 84 years later, this once barren outpost of Inner Mongolia has been transformed into the powerhouse of China's dominance of the market in some of the globe's most sought-after minerals. The Baotou Rare Earth Research Institute is home to some 400 scientists whose work has ... read more 02/01/2010 07:00 PM Biomass power isn't just a Western Mass. issue Patriot Ledger: As political leaders strive to make the region more energy-independent in 2010, there's no question solar panels and wind turbines will be part of their vision. But the role that wood-fueled power plants can play is increasingly becoming a topic for heated debate. The state Department of Energy Resources informed biomass plant developers a month ago that it would delay certifying those projects as renewable energy sources for up to a year. The agency had just hired the Plymouth-based ... read more 02/01/2010 07:00 PM 'Cash for caulkers' - a boon for energy and the economy Boston Globe: TWO FACTS are driving the Obama administration`s "cash for caulkers`` proposal to offer homeowners rebates for energy-saving projects. The first is that 17 percent of the nation`s construction workers are still unemployed and could use the work. The second is that homes are responsible for 21 percent of the nation`s carbon dioxide emissions, twice as much as passenger cars. President Obama should send a bill to Congress as quickly as possible to get the program up and running. In one ... read more 02/01/2010 07:00 PM Customer revolt may threaten rollout of smart grid Bloomberg: Consumer backlash and cost concerns may cause delays in the nationwide rollout of "smart" utility meters at the center of the Obama administration's $8 billion push to update the U.S. electricity grid. Gary Kawano installs a new meter outside a home in Boulder, Colo., as part of the smart electrical-grid system being put into place in the university city. Consumer backlash and cost concerns may cause delays in the nationwide rollout of "smart" utility meters at the center of ... read more 02/01/2010 07:00 PM Scientific illiteracy clouds climate-change politics Billings Gazette: The most disappointing thing about the small number of political leaders denying the science of climate change is that it reveals the extent of scientific illiteracy in America. Today big businesses that profit from our failure to halt CO2 emissions deny the science of climate change the same way that big tobacco challenged science that linked smoking to lung cancer decades ago. Everyone with a high school education should know that skepticism -- research aimed at disproving findings ... read more 03/01/2010 07:00 PM On issues like global warming and evolution, scientists need to speak up Washington Post: The battle over the science of global warming has long been a street fight between mainstream researchers and skeptics. But never have the scientists received such a deep wound as when, in late November, a large trove of e-mails and documents stolen from the Climatic Research Unit at Britain's University of East Anglia were released onto the Web. In the ensuing "Climategate" scandal, scientists were accused of withholding information, suppressing dissent, manipulating data and more. ... read more 01/01/2010 07:00 PM Sounding the alarm on climate change in the Arctic Globe and Mail: Sheila Watt-Cloutier Birthplace : Kuujjuaq, Nunavik, Northern Quebec Age : 56 Sheila Watt-Cloutier was involved in educational reform before entering active politics about 15 years ago. In 2002, she was voted international chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, an international organization representing the interests of Inuit in Canada, Alaska, Russia and Greenland. She has now left active politics, but continues her crusade. Sheila Watt-Cloutier's case that the ... read more 02/01/2010 07:00 PM Colombia: Women Empowered by Restoring Desertified Land Inter Press Service: Indigenous and rural women from southern Tolima, a province located in the heart of Colombia, are lending a hand to the bleak land around them, with the aim of simultaneously recovering the ecosystem and regaining their own dignity, in a community effort that is changing their environment and their lives. Manos de Mujer (Women's Hands) is the name of the non-governmental organisation working since 2001 in Natagaima, a town some 100 kilometres south of the provincial capital, Ibagué. ... read more News Archive     Back to Homepage
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