Category: Archive

Natural gas seals Gaza’s pain

admin /28 January, 2008

Mark Turner, The Electronic Intifada

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and appointed Prime Minister Salam Fayyad attend a signing ceremony between OPIC (Overseas Private Investment Corporation) and the Palestinian Investment Fund in the West Bank city of Ramallah, July 2007. (Omar Rashidi/ MaanImages/POOL)

Israel claims its recent military campaign in the Gaza Strip, stepping up air strikes and shelling of the beleaguered coastal strip, are retaliation for continued rocket attacks originating in Gaza that despite their consistency cause scant damage and few actual casualties. But the reasons may include motivations with roots back in 2000, when the British firm British Gas Group (BG) discovered proven natural gas reserves of at least 1.3 trillion cubic meters beneath Gazan territorial waters worth nearly $4 billion.

Cleaner stove saves lives

admin /22 January, 2008

Sachin Joshi/Colorado State University Global Innovation Center POLLUTION Open fires are common in many homes in developing countries.

When Kurt Hoffman visited Tanzania in the 1970s as a young product-development researcher, he could hardly bear to enter village huts to ask questions.

“I couldn’t stand the smoke, the pain in my eyes and the coughing,” he said. “And yet the women and children were sitting there the whole time,” enveloped in smoke from traditional open pit fires or poorly functioning stoves.

Some 30 years later, when Mr. Hoffman returned to the field in his position as director of the Shell Foundation, a charity in Britain established by the Shell Group, not much had changed.

“To find that it still exists,” he said, “I was appalled by it. I said to myself, ‘There has to be a better way.’ ”

And there may be. The foundation has partnered with Envirofit International at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, to introduce the first market-based model for clean-burning wood stove technology to the developing world.

This year, the team plans to begin distributing 10 million stoves, focusing first on India, Brazil, Kenya and Uganda at a variety of prices over five years. Mr. Hoffman played a leading role in the development of the Shell Foundation’s ‘Breathing Space’ program, founded in 2002, one of the first to focus on the problem of indoor air pollution.

UK warns of imminent bee death

admin /22 January, 2008

By Jasper Copping – from the UK Guardian

Honeybees will die out in Britain within a decade as virulent diseases and parasites spread through the nation’s hives, experts have warned.

Whole colonies of bees are already being wiped out, with current methods of pest control unable to stop the problem.

	Disease is killing off Britain’s honeybees

The British Beekeepers Association (BBKA) said that if the crisis continued, honeybees would disappear completely from Britain by 2018, causing "calamitous" economic and environmental problems.

It called on the Government to restart shelved research programmes and to fund new ones to try to save the insects.

Tim Lovett, the association’s president, said: "The situation has become insupportable and the Government is unwilling to take steps to avoid disaster.

"We’re increasingly unable to cope with threats as they arise. No bees means a huge cost to agriculture, without touching on the ecological and environmental issues. We’re facing calamitous results."

Last year, more than 11 per cent of all beehives inspected were wiped out, although losses were higher in some areas.

See previous stories on Ebono.org.

• Bee death scary
• GM Crops and bees

Cloned meat good enough to eat

admin /21 January, 2008

From the Sydney Morning Herald  

MEAT and milk from cloned farm animals are safe to eat, the US Government has announced, in a move that paves the way for the sale of the food.

But production limits are expected to keep the products from reaching grocers’ shelves for years, and customer scepticism has prompted the US Department of Agriculture to ask for an indefinite delay to educate shoppers before they are given the choice.

After reviewing numerous scientific studies, the US Food and Drug Administration found that food derived from cloned cows, pigs, goats and their offspring is as safe to eat as products from conventionally bred livestock. Stephen Sendoff, director of the FDA’s food safety division, said: "The likelihood that anything would go wrong from a food safety standpoint is unimaginably small."

Howard Whelan on Wilderness

admin /20 January, 2008

The new film Into the Wild is being launched in Australia and has got people talking about the value of wilderness experiences. Because the Generator is actively engaged in protecting the wilderness and thinking about how we can plan future development to live in harmony with the planet, we talked to local adventurer, Howard Whelan. Continue Reading →

Sea Shepherd work commended

admin /20 January, 2008

Giovanni and Malcolm had Antarctic expedition leader, Howard Whelan on the show on January 21st, 2008. Giovanni had put together a compiliation of interviews with Paul Watson, and other Sea Shepherd activists on the Generator over the last twelve months. Listen to Howard with the lads, discussing the work of Sea Shepherd. For up to Continue Reading →