Solar Power in West Virginia

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EarthDay Birthday Celebration Means Brainstorming Ideas For Appropriate Slogans

EARTH DAY IS A SPECIAL DAY – There is a special day each year that was established in 1970 by Gaylord Nelson to raise awareness in individuals, communities, towns, governments and countries about the state of our earth.

We have come to realize that our Blue Marble has finite resources. Once human greed and actions of indiscretion removed or destroyed our land, water, and air it would take thousands of years to repair our fragile planet, if ever.

OUR CHANGING WORLD Many had no concept of the untold repercussions upon all living organisms that would result from thinking only of how to take from the earth and not give back or preserve. We are feeling the effects in our escalating human diseases, loss of rain forests that filter our air, changing climates bringing drought, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes or floods. We are observing the rapid extinction of plants and animals both on land and in our oceans.

INCREASED AWARENESS Due to the heightened awareness from past Earth Day Celebrations many have championed for preservation and replenishing our Earth. This year we hope to far surpass the original 20 million people who were involved with that first Earth Day almost 40 years ago. The need is more pressing and urgent. Our landfills are over-burdened and farm animal waste seeps into our water supplies. We scrape coal from the ground and leave eroded denuded rock. We need to find technological methods to secure nuclear waste, stop air pollution and clean up the invisible acid rain that harms every living thing.

LAWS CAN BE ENACTED Countries around the world have created governmental committees and agencies to spearhead environmental clean up and to oversee improved management of natural resources. We should legislate for better programs and ways to protect our earth. The spirit of the day includes binding people together by simply stating the cause through slogans, posting them on banners in public places and using them as public service announcements.

BUILD COMMUNITY AND AWARENESS WITH MOTTOES Slogans solidify the main theme for each year’s celebration. You may want to emphasize the grand scheme of things or focus on a particular issue. There may be off-shoots from different organizations as they gather support for their favored area. One group may consider the rivers and streams where their people fish and recreate as the top priority. Others may focus on trees, natural preserves, and all aspects of wood and forests. People living in mountain ranges may emphasize the importance of clean air and fight to prevent acid rain. Villages that live on the coasts want to keep their fisheries alive with clean oceans.

GET INVOLVED BY BRAINSTORMING SLOGANS Suggestions for stimulating discussion, approaching the issue of slogans and having fun at the same time:

1. Meditate on the idea of Earth Day. What does your intuition tell you?
2. Look around and take notice how pollution effects you? What is the most important issue?
3. Read the paper, listen to the radio, or search the latest news online. What current event topic comes up most often?
4. Talk with friends, family, community and congregation members. Get some opinions.
5. Join an environmental group in your region and read their articles.
6. Create a survey.
7. Now that you’ve got the juices flowing, begin writing the main ideas.
8. Use as many words to describe the themes and then see if any phrases or words cover these ideas.
9. Are they catchy like the hook of a song or the repeating stanzas?
10. Would the phrase fit on a button or shirt?
11. Are the words powerful? Would they motivate others to action?
13. Are the words emotional? Do they touch the heart with meaning?

http://budurl.com/EarthDaySlogan – See a list of slogans that have been used in the past or have been proposed by others visit this Hubpage
http://www.eventslisted.com/eventlaunchstrategies/ – Learn more about the Social Media aspect of EarthDay and the power of the internet and people working together towards one goal.
Please write to me if you have ideas for EarthDay Birthday Celebration Slogans.

Debby Bruck, CHOM. believes hope and healing can be accomplished through homeopathy. She sees the good in all people and prays that the people of the world will work together to repair the earth. Every little good act makes a better world.

The Holy Grail of Reduction

The hard truth is that we all need to reduce. Reduce the amount of money we spend. Reduce the amount of food we eat…and our waistlines. And reduce the amount of stuff we throw away. In fact new we look at the 3 R’s of reduce, reuse, recycle, they are actually in that order for a reason. It is a hierarchy for a reason and reduce is the Holy Grail. Put in its simplest terms reduce means that we use less of the earth’s resources and in any environmental scheme should be our first priority.

That said, it is also the hardest to accomplish. When I thought about all the things we do to be greener, the number of examples of reducing stumped me. I suppose the most obvious example of our efforts to reduce was the decision some months ago, not to purchase an automobile. My husband has the use of a company van, but even that is rarely used. The difficulty comes when we want to go anywhere as a family. The work van has only one bucket seat in the front that fits three people. Obviously this presents difficulties. Even on our Saturday shopping trips with my mother-in-law, I end up sitting in the back of van; a solution that is both dangerous and illegal for the children. About a year ago, when I was working full-time, we were seriously considering buying a vehicle. But in the end, we thought the expense was too much when you consider not just payments, but insurance, road tax, maintenance and gas. Instead, we signed up for StreetCar; a car rental scheme that you pay a monthly fee to join and an hourly or daily rate only when you need to use a car or van. Looking back, that was one of the best decisions we have made both for the environment and family finances.

The other obvious example I found of reduction was our decision a year ago to switch to bags for life. We now have a stack of them beneath our kitchen sink and faithfully use them for our Saturday shops. But I do admit to occasionally forgetting them when just running out to grab something quickly. When this happens though, we make certain to re-use (we’ll talk more about that tomorrow) any plastic bags we get for outings or for small bin liners. Did you know that in the UK alone 100,000 TONNES of plastic bags are thrown away each year; that is the equivalent of 70,000 cars? So if there is one thing, I can encourage you to do, it is purchase bags for life. My store sells the sturdy plastic ones for about forty pence, the jute ones are about a pound, and the pretty cloth ones are about three pounds with a portion of the proceeds going to charity. Or it is very simple to make your own if you sew.

Speaking of which, sewing and mending our clothes is another excellent way of reducing. My boys from my husband to my sons are always wearing holes in their jeans on the inside thighs. Before the economic downturn, I admit we were likely to just toss them out and purchase new ones. But since I have not been working, we have instead taken them to the drycleaners and had them patched. The cost of the repairs is less than the cost of purchasing new (although I am committed to mending them myself from now on…a further savings). And we have reduced in a very small way the demand for jeans.

Of course, as I sit at my desk in my bedroom I am witnessing another reduction…the daylight streaming in through the open curtains. One of the first things I do each morning is open the curtains and the blinds. By using natural light when and where possible, we are reducing the amount of electricity that we consume and that the power grids must generate. We are also of course saving money on our bills. My husband is a genius at this; going around and turning off and unplugging everything he can each night before bed. I admit though that being American this whole switch on the plug thing still gets me and I often forget to do that, but I am improving. Of course, another example was turning down our thermostat during the winter and wearing heavier layers of clothes instead. In fact, I can think of only a couple of days this winter when we turned our heat on before night fall at all.

These are just a few ideas of ways that our family is reducing. There are many other things that we and you can do to cut back on the things we consume and help save our earth’s precious resources. On Friday as I said, we will do a mini-inventory and I will commit to new ideas on how our family can better live the 3 R’s reduce, re-use, recycle. I will be especially focusing on reducing since this is the most important of the R’s.

Terri O’Neale is the mother of six; ranging in age from 3 to 22. She has been both a working and stay-at-home mother at various times in her life. She was also a single mother for almost five years, before re-marrying the love of her life at the age of forty. Obviously, she has a life-time of training in raising a family on a tight budget. In addition to these real life experiences, she possesses a bachelors degree in health education and a minored in environmental management in her masters programme.

Terri feels strongly that this is one of the most challenging times in history for the family, but she also believes that families with the will and resolve to address the pressing issues of saving money, becoming greener, leading healthier lifestyles and spending more time with one another can endure these challenging times and come out victorious in the end.

Through Frugal Family articles, blogs, videos and social networking, she helps modern families rediscover some lost art forms such as cooking, sewing, and gardening. The goal is not to go back in time or become fanatical, but to help all families find simple and effective ways that fit into their lifestyle to make moderate changes with huge impacts. For more information, check out her blog http://frugalfam.wordpress.com/.

Notices For New Technology

10 Tips Of Green At Home

Help Save the Environment by Recycling Cans

I like walking. Whenever I can I leave the car at home and walk. I walk to the shops, to the library, and many other places as well. Every day I see used aluminum drinks cans dropped on pathways and in hedgerows. If people want to dispose of them this way at least drop them where they can easily be picked up by someone else, and not in a hedgerow or other difficult spot where it is easy to be scratched and prickled by thorns.

Many people have a twinge of conscience about the environment and what we can do voluntarily to help save it. Recycling cans is what we can do easily. All you need do is separate them from the rest of the rubbish and either take them to a recycling centre or leave them in your “recyclables” bin, to be collected by, in our case, the local council.

The one thing we must not do is put them in landfill, because they don’t biodegradable.

Instead of throwing away empty aluminum cans away here are four ways to reuse them.

1. Used ring pull cans could be used as a miniature vase for a flower or two.

2. Rinse out used cans and use them in the garden shed for storing small items such as nails and washers.

3. You could use an old can to practice your putting. Take it to the office and put it on the floor any time you want to practice your putting.

4. Rather than leave your pens and biros scattered all around the house why not put them all together in a used can.

This is just four ideas of what to do with used empty cans. You might well be able to think up many more ideas for recycling cans.

Philip Woodrow is a part time author who writes on a variety of issues of personal interest including: Help save the environment and Recycling cans

Titan News Episode - Part Three

Recycle – Composting Food Waste Takes Care of Two Things at Once

Years ago my dad taught me the benefits of composting food waste. It had nothing to do with any type of “green” movement or being environmentally friendly, no, it had everything to do with reintroducing nutrients back into the soil.

Here is what he taught me then and it still holds true today. By burying your food waste and kitchen scraps (no steak bones though), you are providing a quality food source for the creatures that live in your soil. From micro organisms and those creatures that the human eye can not see, up to worms, which of course we do see.

See, what happens is these creatures eat the food (and of course each other) and then finally the worms eat basically everything and their castings (worm poop) create the best nutrients your soil could ever have. By continually supplying your garden soil with food waste you are feeding the earthly creatures and they reward you with healthy soil. Now where can you get a trade off like that!

Ok so here is how you do it. Get yourself a fairly large Tupperware bowl. One large enough to hold at least a week’s worth of food scraps. Then after each meal dump everything and anything into that bowl. Just do not put steak bones in there, they wont biodegrade or be eaten by the worms. Banana peels, apple peels, coffee grinds, fish, vegetable scraps, egg shells and basically anything you don’t eat, all qualifies.

When your Tupperware bowl gets full, take it out to your garden and dig a hole about a foot to two feet deep and then dump the food scraps into the hole. Fill in the hole with the dirt and mark the spot with a stick or something else so that you do not dig up that area again for another three months. You need to give those little rascals some time to eat it all.

Now you simply repeat this process as the Tupperware bowl gets full. If you find that you live in colder climates where the ground may freeze for lengthy periods of time, then consider starting a warm box to recycle your food scraps. That goes beyond the scope of this article but I am sure if you Googled the search term “vermicompost” you will get all the information you will ever need.

So what are the two things I was talking about earlier? Well obviously the first is you are adding nutrients to your soil through composting food waste. The second is by composting your food waste you are limiting the amount of garbage that ends up in a landfill. The average four person house hold creates about 8 pounds of food waste per week. If every family in America followed this process we would eliminate nearly one billion pounds of food waste garbage a year. Now that is a lot of trash!

Do your part and compost your food waste. The worms in your garden will love you for it and so will everyone else in the environment.

About the Author
Bruce Tucker is a contributing writer to Mike’s How-To Blog, a blog that covers a wide variety of topics and how to do them. You can also follow him on Twitter.

Water Efficiency – Water Used in Generating US Electricity

In my four-article series on water use (The Resource Matrix), I took you on a journey to reveal the layers of The Resource Matrix in order to help you understand how water will be a highly contested commodity tomorrow, possibly as much as oil is fought over today.

You learned about your water footprint and a website where you can calculate it, virtual water and virtual water transfers, whereby choices here affect water availability elsewhere, to the point of some people not having enough water to drink in order to produce inexpensive dyed cotton, along with insane choices such as growing crops in the desert.

You learned that on average it takes 1854 to 3000 gallons to produce one pound of beef.

Yep, it’s it’s been a great journey through the sidetrip city of the Resource Matrix.

Today, we’ve found the on-ramp to the Green Lighting Interstate and are driving to take a look at water use in generating electricity.

For a simple reason. It takes a lot of water to produce electricity.

How much? 5% of all US water? 10%? Can’t be as high as 25%?

Electricity and water?

I thought the issue was fossil fuels and greenhouse gases

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) estimated water use in the United States in 2000.

Their grand total: 408 billion gallons per day withdrawn for all uses.

The number 1 spot, weighing in at 48%, was thermoelectric power.

Irrigation earned the runner-up prize at 34%.

The 195 billion gallons need to come from somewhere, and actions have consequences. Environmental ones, as in 40 million fish in the Great Lakes killed each year due to being trapped against water intake devices. That’s a lot of Friday night fish dinners.

How much water is used in generating electricity?

Large fossil fuel and nuclear plants require incredible quantities of water for cooling and ongoing maintenance.

Water for thermoelectric power is used in generating electricity with steam-driven turbine generators. It uses 48% of all water in the US.

According to the Pace Energy and Climate Center, the amount of water used for power plant cooling varies by each specific power plant’s electricity generating technology and size. Nuclear reactors require the most water for cooling, and baseload fossil fuel power plants come in second.

The Salem Nuclear Generating Station alone takes 3 billion gallons a day from the Delaware Bay, according to the Pace Energy and Climate Center.

Nationally:

• Steam electric generating plants across the nation draw in more than 200 billion gallons per day.
• Nuclear and fossil fuel power plants drink over 185 billion gallons of water per day.
• Geothermal power plants add another 2 billion or so gallons a day.
• Most renewable energy technologies require little or no water for cooling.

These numbers are starting to sound like the same ones the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve Bank use.

Imagine watching your favorite science program where astronomers explain that the universe is 78 billion light-years wide (78 billion units of 5,878,630,000,000 miles). There is absolutely nothing in our experience to help us wrap our mind around it.

How much is 3 billion gallons per day?

The Delaware Bay feeds Salem Nuclear Generating Station 3 billion gallons a day.

Imagine this rectangle: a football field with end zones (360 feet long x 160 feet wide). Then add to it walls on each side of the rectangle to create a container to hold the 3 billion gallons you pour into it.

How high do you need to make those walls to contain 3 billion gallons? 6915 feet high. Or 1.3 miles.

Maybe 6915 feet high is still hard to imagine. So how deep do you cover the field in order to feed the Salem plant every minute? Answer: 5 feet deep. Every minute.

48% of all water use: We’re Number One!

How much is 195 billion gallons per day?

Using the USGS figure for 2000, thermoelectric power nationwide used 195 billion gallons a day, or 48% of all water used in the US. My guess is the water use has grown since then.

How high are the walls on our football field now? 449,475 feet or 85 miles high. We’re back to US Treasury and astronomy numbers again.

So, let’s get a higher-level view to help us.

Lake Erie holds 116 cubic miles of water.

Nationally, thermoelectric power uses 195 billion gallons a day – or 64.2 cubic miles a year.

We drain Lake Erie every 22 months.

But the water used is returned to its source.

So what’s the issue about water use?

Power generation returns 98% of the water back to its source (bay, lake, river, ocean).

It’s the environmental consequences.

The Pace Energy and Climate Center explains it neatly:

Withdrawal of large volumes of surface water for either power plant cooling or hydropower generation can kill fish, larvae and other organisms trapped against intake structures (impinged), or swept up (entrained) in the flow through the different sections of a power plant.

Examples include:

• The Salem Nuclear Generating Station is responsible for an annual 11 percent reduction in weakfish and 31 percent reduction in bay anchovy.
• At the Indian Point 2 and 3 reactors on the Hudson River, the number of fish impinged totaled over 1.5 million fish in 1987.
• The 90 power plants using once-through-cooling on the Great Lakes kill in excess of 40 million fish per year due to impingement. (Once-through cooling needs a continual flow of new water, and uses 30 to 50 times that of a closed cycle system. Closed cycles cool down water from steam then reuse it.)

The diversion of water out of the river removes water for healthy in-stream ecosystems:

• Stretches below dams are often completely de-watered.
• Fluctuations in water flow from peaking operations create a “tidal effect,” disrupting the downstream riparian community that supports its unique ecosystem.
• A dam’s impoundment slows water flows, which hinders natural downstream migration of many fish species.
• By slowing river flows, dams also allow silt to collect on river and reservoir bottoms and bury fish spawning habitat. Silt trapped above dams accumulates heavy metals and other pollutants. Disrupting the natural flow of sediments in rivers also leads to erosion of riverbeds downstream of the dam and increases risks of floods.
• The impoundment of water by hydropower facilities fundamentally reshapes the physical habitat from a riverine to an artificial pond community.
• This often eliminates native populations of fish and other wildlife.
• Dams also impede the upstream and downstream movement of fish and other wildlife, and prevent the flow of plants and nutrients. This impact is most significant on migratory fish, which are born in the river and must migrate downstream early in life to the ocean and then migrate upstream again to lay their eggs (or “spawn”).
• As mentioned above, withdrawal of water into turbines can also impinge or entrain significant numbers of fish.

The cleanest kilowatt is the one never used:

Back to those compact fluorescent lamps and LEDs

PowerScorecard.org explains the solution:

By re-directing electricity dollars to support environmentally benign energy resources, consumers are empowered, in states that offer supply choice, to influence the existing generating resources that are deployed to meet demand.

They can also support the construction of new and cleaner electricity resources that will be built to meet overall growth in demand in the future. By supporting these power options, consumers can minimize many water use and consumption impacts. Still, directing your dollars to cleaner power products in no way helps remediate damages that already have occurred. Consumers can stop the construction of new hydropower facilities or alter conditions of siting and operation, but they cannot undo previous environmental degradation that occurred at existing hydropower facilities.

In short, reduce your use of electricity.

More Info:

We used several sources for this article, including the PowerScorecard.org website, which is produced by the Pace Energy and Climate Center, which is part of the Pace University School of Law’s Center for Environmental Legal Studies, Pace University, White Plains, New York.

On PowerScorecard, you can get:

• Ratings of Electric Power Choices for some service areas.
• More info on electricity and the environment:
  • Technologies
  • Climate change
  • Acid rain
  • Ozone depletion
  • Water use (our article today)
  • Water quality
  • Land: on-site and off-site impacts

Thanks for letting us keep you updated . . .

To your green, brighter future,

Cinnamon Alvarez,

A19

And now I would like to offer you free access to powerful info on energy efficiency that’s easy to read and cuts through all this “green” information clutter — so you can literally start making positive changes today.

You can access it now by going to: http://www.a19.com/pub/articles/

From Cinnamon Alvarez: Founder, A19 — woman-owned green manufacturer of hand-made ceramic lighting fixtures

When Sea Levels Rise

It is no new scientific fact that there is a slow steady increase of temperature; we’ve been studying and recording changes for a few decades. For some reason people are only now starting to take notice of how desperate the situation is.

Due to the increased temperature, sea levels are on the rise. It now is easier for boats full of scientists to access the Northwest Passage for research due to the polar icecaps melting . Areas that were once almost unreachable are now becoming navigational and the search for precious gems, gold, and oil is on! There is no end to mans greed.It makes sense that when the sea levels rise the ground surfaces slowly disappear. We will lose our agriculture farmlands. There may not be enough food needed to sustain ourselves, let alone other countries that we already support. Many farmers will lose their farms and their lifestyle.

Should sea levels on the rise be a worry about freshwater? Our drinking water is not a luxury it is a necessity and is as important for people, plants, and animals. The possible damage to freshwater due to rising sea levels should be a major worry to all of us.

For hundreds of years polar bears have been the king of the Arctic ice and roamed over vast areas of icy tundra. But with the icecaps melting away, and the distance between ice flows becoming greater, many polar bears have drowned from exhaustion before reaching shore. It also makes hunting their primary source of food, the seal, more difficult. Dying of hunger is now a probable fate for many of them.

The total extinction of many of the world’s beloved land animals may be just around the bend due to rising sea levels.

Show some concern about the environment and save money at the same time by searching for eco friendly products from sites like http://www.EnergySavingProject.com.

The author is a specialist in environment, energy efficiency and renewable energy.

Detroit Auto Show, WTOL News

Green Transportation – No Bailouts Necessary

Unless you have been trapped in a cave for the last seven months you are well aware of the disaster overtaking the American automobile industry. Our government is using billions of taxpayer’s dollars to prop up an industry that has been one of the leading facilitators of numerous ills in our society, which will also take billions of dollars to repair, if it is even possible to do so. 

Air pollution which contributes to increased medical costs, urban sprawl, a negative balance of payments from importing oil and global warming can all be traced at least in part to our addiction to the automobile. Now that I’ve ranted about the autos effect upon our society I also greatly acknowledge that we all, myself included, greatly enjoy the mobility and freedom provided by the pernicious machine. We can’t live with ‘em and we can’t live without ‘em. What are we to do?

A lot has been written about the currently nonexistent plug-in electric car. This machine when it finally hits the market could help solve some of our problems but current pricing estimates place the car in the forty thousand dollar range. I’m sure of one thing, it won’t solve many problems if you don’t sell them and at that price I’d hedge my bets.

However, there is one personal transportation option on the market that fits into all of President Obama’s initiatives for energy self sufficiency, global warming (reduction of green house gases), health care (exercise and weight loss), environmental protection (reduction of air and water pollution), and infrastructure renewal.   That option is the Electric Bicycle.

The electric bike using lithium batteries (traditional lead-acid is very environmentally harmful) can go, depending on load factors and riding habits, roughly twenty miles at twenty miles an hour on one charge. It is almost completely silent, gives off no emissions, does not use foreign oil, does not require much room to operate or park, never needs a tune up and provides exercise. It eliminates many of the drawbacks of riding a traditional bicycle for basic transportation while having few of its own. I recognize that not many of us are hardy enough to ride a bike in the rain, snow or freezing cold but that applies as well to motorcycles, motor scooters and traditional bicycles. The electric bike can get you farther, faster without arriving at your destination soaked in sweat. It can operate in many places where other motorized vehicles cannot and makes taking hills a cinch. Riding five or ten miles to work is no big deal and you can simply pedal around bottled up traffic. Usually the lightweight batteries easily detach from the bike and can be carried into your place of work or school for recharging.

Some electric bicycles offer high tech extras such as LiFePO4 batteries that are good for a thousand recharges, regenerative braking that helps recharge the battery much as a Prius does, and internal gearing to generate more torque for uphill climbs. Most electric bikes use what is referred to as a hub motor. This is not a traditional gear or belt-drive motor but is built directly into the hub of one of the wheels. This motor contains two internal rings of opposing magnets that when power is applied causes the wheel to spin. Such motors need little service and never require oil changes, spark plugs or new belts.

Electric bikes come in several of styles. There are the traditional “beach cruiser” and mountain bike styles as well as electric folding bikes, tricycles and “road bikes”.   The electric folding bikes are particularly interesting. Smaller and lighter than a traditional bicycle, they easily fold up and fit into a car trunk and can be carried on a commuter or subway train with little effort. You can take the train to your stop, unfold the bike and pedal on your way. They are also useful for those who live in tight quarters and have no external place to store their ride.

For those of you that are moderately handy with tools, there are a number of electric bike kits on the market that allow you to adapt an ordinary bicycle into an electric bike. One company, Worldwide Electric Bikes, has a particularly well-designed kit that has many of the features I previously mentioned. These electric bike kits do not require a high level of mechanical ability to install. A few common hand tools, a basic understanding of how things go together and the ability to read directions is all that is required. However, if you don’t know the difference between a crescent and a hex wrench, you may wish to buy a pre-made bike or have someone install the kit for you. If you do choose to go the kit route, you can end up with a much more powerful and sophisticated bike for substantially less money than a factory built electric bike. 

Electric Bicycles in all forms have long been a staple of personal transportation in Europe and Asia where there are hundreds of thousands in operation. In the United States bicycles have traditionally been dominated by the toy or recreation market or for the dedicated enthusiast. In both Europe and Asia, cycling has been a traditional means of basic transportation. I believe that this is going to be more and more the case in this country. People are avidly seeking relief from the high financial and societal cost of automobiles. The electric bicycle, while not a panacea, is definitely poised to help provide a portion of that relief.

Electric Bicycles are inexpensive to purchase, require no license or insurance, have a negligible cost of operation and are totally “green”. So, what’s not to like?

 

http://www.worldwideelectricbikes.com

Green Tech News

Is Australia’s Emission Trading System Going to Work Effectively

In Australia the government are introducing an emission trading or cap and trade scheme.  There are major concerns about the level of reduction the government wants to sign up to and also whether it will actually work.

As Australians we do need to take action about carbon reduction.  We are both the most vulnerable continent for feeling the effects of global warming and also we are the worst greenhouse emitters per head than any other country on the planet.  We emit even more than the USA and Canada who are our nearest competitors for this wooden spoon.  This is at least in part due to our huge coal industry.

The head of the Australia Institute’s Think Tank says that the Federal Government’s emissions trading scheme will have too many permits and will not reduce carbon emissions.

The Australia Institute’s executive director, Dr Richard Denniss, said the scheme’s flaws related to the 5 to 15 per cent emissions reduction targets, which he described as ”ridiculously low”, and he said there would be too many permits.  Dr Dennis said that “We won’t achieve the policy goal, which is to reduce emissions.”

Dr Denniss told the Senate that ”[If] we pass this legislation, we’ve got it for the next 10 years. And anyone that’s got a good idea a year later, it’s not going to help. This legislation is designed to not be tinkered with.”

Professor Clive Hamilton, from the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, said the proposed scheme had damaged Australia’s reputation. A reduction target of at least 25 per cent needed to be set if the Government wanted credibility on the world stage.   Australia would be better off taking no policy than the proposed model to the December climate change talks in Copenhagen, he said.

”It not only lowers the ambition of the world community but also excludes Australia from being a forceful player in negotiating … a strong international agreement.”

It is hard to see how exempting large emitters ignoring the 1.9 million small to medium businesses is going to help us reduce our carbon footprint. These same small businesses are currently suffering from financial stress, the business owners and managers are overworked and simply don’t feel able to handle anything new. Many don’t really understand what global warming is about or why it matters. 

We urgently need unambiguous communication so that small to medium businesses accept the reality of the need for change and also how easy it can be to make significant reductions with minimal time input and save money at the same time.

We also need to help low income households reduce their carbon footprint with more efficient heating and cooling and effective public transport.  We should NOT be giving them even more cash hand outs as “compensation” as currently promised by the government.  All households need to come on board and stop wasting power.

We need a clear message that going green applies to all of us, is easy and saves money – just “go for a grumpy walk and just turn it off”.  If every small business and householder just went around each office and home and did this it would be relatively easy for every one to reduce their carbon emissions and their power bill by 15-20%. At present we are told it will be difficult and it only applies to big business.  Such a wrong message – we all need to pull together.

A Brief given to the Victorian Government advises that the state should only bother with green measures if they are more cost-effective than alternatives.  They have been told to rethink programs such as subsidies for solar farms and hybrid car fleets because these will not contribute to any additional emission cuts under the federal scheme.

The Greens have concerns about the cost of emission permits being reduced by the actions of households, councils and governments, hence reducing industry’s incentive to cut emissions. This is more than simply an economic debate. Individuals and households should also be reducing their emissions. Achieving sustainability is a grassroots exercise that involves the entire community, and Australians are becoming aware of the need to remake the economy and society. The momentum must not be lost.

An additional concern is whether the legislation and also the international agreements reached in Copenhagen will be flexible enough to take account of emerging technology.  At present this does not appear to be the case.  Senator Wong, the Minister for Climate Change, rejected spending on biochar, a form of carbon capture in soil research because that is not listed in the protocol.  Thankfully some soil carbon storage research will now be funded in the agriculture budget but that begs the requirement for the legislation to be flexible and allow for new and future technology.

If the ETS cannot deliver real carbon reductions it is really a form of “greenwash” saying we signed Kyoto and have done something before the next election. The big problem is that the government looks ahead 3 years to the next election, Big Biz CEO’s also look to the short term of their contracts and bonuses.  Who looks ahead for our children?

Jean Cannon is an energy management and sustainable business consultant. If you would like more information about how to go green in your home or business and increase your business profits why don’t you go to http://www.itiseasytobegreen.com and download a chapter of my book of almost the same name and find out how to reduce your carbon footprint.

Journalism For Development

The impression created by the media over years has been held with mixed feelings. Whereas some media corporate world are known to have positively helped transform societies politically, economically, culturally and technologically; some other have only torn the world apart through negative reporting that supports aggressive confrontation, glorifying terror activities to make eye-catching headlines with selfishly money motive.

Similarly, the aggressive, corrupt and oppressive groups and individuals (religiously, politically or economically) have been glorified in the way that sustains situation that steadily extinct some societies.

Their content hardly provided or suggested solutions to alarm-triggering headlines. And much of the media activities have lacked an element of social responsibility that is tangible to give a voice to the voiceless and direct transformative opportunities to the poor, disabled and other disadvantaged groups

Journaling is a key communication tool. All organisms by nature communicate either verbally or non-verbally, yet attempting to make sense of whatever cues that are exchanged or evaluated.

True, we tend to be evaluative of one another whilst trying to figure out what intentions the other party could have towards you. The aim can be to help measure up the relationship that possibly could be developed, whether health or not.

Of course, in certain encounters some people could be threatened, suspicious, lack confidence, defensively withdraw or get on well in a healthy and rewarding relationship. This, indeed, is how communities can influence attitudes and behavior towards one another. That way, we could manage, control and direct directs and behavior. What a powerful tool a pen can be!

But success through journaling it self needs a period of training and practical experience, such that we can communicate to effectively make or unmake relationships or evolve life through the aspects of observing, reading and listening to words and actions of others and things.

The primary motivators to writing is the element of having an opinion yet unique. As part of research steps, one would be required to publish a final report or summarized article from the investigations, results and analyses carried out. Other researchers or students would want to review literature about statements pending investigation. From their successes, investigators either get awards or promotion.

Through practical experience, some people make careers out of their abilities and skills to communicate effectively as writers, as advertising agents, as interpreters and, as counselors or therapists.

Secondary employment too could be provided by journalism like driving, distribution, sale or retailing, legal advising et cetera. Eventually, those associated to it could become social icons or global media giants.

On the other hand, journaling could have important health benefits as stress reliever. By writing about one’s traumatic experience, sufferer could drop so much mental toxins off him or her.

And, at the same time it would help improve on analytical and problem-solving skills crucial in successful dealing with the ever emerging challenges encountered in day-to-day life.

From the natural or ecological sense, journaling or communication significantly help to connect different elements of the eco-system -through the principles of interconnectivity and interdependence.

And through media, we can help improve the dangerous global situations as nuclear conflicts, to make the world a better place for everyone to live in. But this would only be so if we formed a common objective in solidarity to it (non-violence) under the principle of conscious non-violence through tolerance and respect for divergent views.

Waiswa Jacob Situation Health Analyst DISHMA-CONSULT P.O. BOX 8885 KAMPALA-UGANDA Tel. +256774336277 or +256754890614 http://www.situationhealthanalysis.blogspot.com

Advanced Solar Energy Technology

Do We Want Too Much?

What can be done about this increasingly worrying contribution to global warming?

The most important options to reduce aircraft CO2 emissions are:

Changes in aircraft and engine technology; use of alternative fuels, such as (sustainably produced) biofuels; regulatory and operational measures such as improvements in air traffic management; economic measures such as inclusion of aircraft emissions in emission trading schemes.

But, as Giovanni Bisignani, manager of International Air Transport Association (IATA), stated: “Emissions trading schemes only make sense with efficient infrastructure. The IPCC estimates that there is 12% inefficiency in air traffic management globally: we produce up to 73 million tonnes of carbon emissions each year by aircraft flying inefficiently due to air traffic management limitations”. **

On a personal level we could ask ourselves especially in the developed world: “Do we really need to fly so frequently?” The use of telework, teleconference and video conference could be largely increased to plan work and meetings. Can’t the development of land and air transportation infrastructures be balanced better according to the real needs of people and businesses? Trains could connect cities better and more cheaply for example in Europe, where the prices are not competitive with those of many flights anymore (and night train services have been reduced if not cancelled).

Life styles do matter because if millions of people want to have cheap weekends in relatively close tourist locations, many flights are needed to satisfy their desires and consequently a lot of pollution is generated. Also, our per capita emissions could be cut also by reducing the “surplus” trips, by slowing down our life rhythms and enjoying more local attractions in our free time. Who knows? We could discover the “exotic” in our own neighborhoods without flying to the Caribbean Sea…

Furthermore the relationship between the costs and the environmental externalities (i.e. costs not included in the economy like health damages caused by pollution) needs to be considered as well: there are higher marginal impacts for short-distance flights that should be considered in prices paid by passengers.

All these political, technological and personal choices are some of the good examples needed by the developing countries to follow the 21st century’s Western society along a new sustainable path which looks like the only good alternative forward.

**”Talks to reduce aircraft global-warming emissions

For further information on Climate Change please visit the Responding to Climate Change website – http://www.rtcc.org

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