Monthly Archives: December 2007
Indonesia: Clean water, a basic necessity for everyone
Jakarta Post: The government said demand for clean water, particularly in Java, Bali and East Nusa Tenggara far exceeds supply, forcing people to `over-exploit’ groundwater. Demand will continue to increase in line with population growth, at a time when potable water supplies are drying up due to unpredictable changes in the weather. [...]
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Indonesia uses boats to rescue flood-hit people
Reuters: Indonesian relief and rescue workers used a helicopter and rubber boats on Monday to deliver aid and rescue people marooned on Java island after massive flooding triggered by days of torrential rain. Nearly 100 people have died and about 60,000 left homeless after the floods and a series of landslides buried houses in [...]
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All About: Cities and energy consumption
window.document.getElementById(‘post-7932′).parentNode.className += ‘ adhesive_post’;CNN: Humans can now officially be called an urban species. More than half of the global population now live in cities and the United Nations says that by 2030, 60 percent of us will live in them. People in the Tsim Sha Tsui district of Hong Kong, regarded as one [...]
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United Kingdom: Government toughens up rules for home renewable power generation
Guardian: The government appears to have seriously undermined one of its key climate change initiatives by toughening up the rules under which householders can obtain financial assistance to erect wind turbines and install solar panels. A low carbon buildings programme started in April 2006 and due to end this summer, has seen only £7.5m [...]
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My XO sour graping
The Give One, Get One program of the One-Laptop-Per-Child (OLPC) is about to end tomorrow and I have yet to get my hands on one.
My main contention is WHY is it only available in North America? I mean, I may be living in a developing country (aka third world) but there are some people here [...]
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The climate threat to Japanese rice
BBC: In Japan government scientists are trying to find ways to reduce the impact of global warming on the country’s rice crop. There are fears that the extremes of temperature that some researchers are predicting could affect both the yield and the quality of rice, a staple of the Japanese diet. [...]
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Two Steps Greener, One Back
New York Times: IN normal times, designers and engineers gather in studios and conference rooms to set the course for how cars will look and function. In 2007, though, the decisions with the greatest effect may have been those made inside courtrooms and government agencies. The game changers with the most profound influence [...]
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United Kingdom: With the will, we can save the Earth
window.document.getElementById(‘post-7932′).parentNode.className += ‘ adhesive_post’;Guardian: The world now understands that climate change is not just an environmental problem. It’s also a security, economic, political and migration problem. What are we going to do when people begin fighting not about politics, but about water? What will we do when people start arriving on our shores fleeing not [...]
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Go green – you’ll save more than just the planet
window.document.getElementById(‘post-7932′).parentNode.className += ‘ adhesive_post’;Guardian: This year you’ve seen An Inconvenient Truth and rocked at Live Earth. In 2008, you want to know what to do to help save the planet but, with financial belt-tightening in the new year, you want to be able to do it without spending more. The problem is: where do you [...]
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United Kingdom: ‘Green fatigue’ leads to fear of backlash over climate change
Guardian: British people are now convinced about the dangers of global warming, but are either baffled about how to stop it or are ignoring the issue. Analysts say few people are taking action to deal with the threat of climate change, although over the past 12 months the vast majority have come to [...]
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United States: Drought exposes delusion of perpetual growth
Sun-Herald: Water woes infuse a whispered new word into the local lexicon: ‘Unsustainable’ This was the year an unwelcome whisper was heard in Southwest Florida; a hushed murmur nearly lost amid the searing static of water shortages and water restrictions, nearly muted by the pounding pistons of development. But not quite. In [...]
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Protecting Cuba’s vast resources
New York Times: Cuba is a priceless ecological resource. That is why many scientists are worried about what will become of it after Fidel Castro and his associates leave power and, as is anticipated, the U.S. government relaxes or ends its embargo. The island, at the confluence of the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of [...]
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United States: Living with less water
Herald Tribune: A severe drought in 2007 reminded the people of Southwest Florida not to take drinking water for granted. Unless unseasonable rainfall provides relief soon, the impacts of this year’s drought will be felt well into 2008. Water conservation must be practiced on a personal level as well as regionally. County governments [...]
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Climate change reheats interest in nuclear power
Oregonian: Three-point-six degrees Fahrenheit. Any global temperature change beyond that number is what scientists say would warm the Earth to a dangerous level, melting polar ice and changing climates. That scenario is all it took to reposition nuclear power from a dead and buried political albatross to one of several carbon-neutral alternatives [...]
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Across Florida, drought appears here to stay