Category: Archive

Most people are completely unaware that the overwhelming majority of paints used to paint their homes, workplaces hospitals and schools are extremely toxic, painter Steve Williams told The Courier Mail (27 May 2006, p.84).

Non-toxic paints are available: “The vast majority of well-known paint brands contain high levels of solvents that contain volatile organic compounds and can give off toxic fumes for up to five years,” he said. This is why in February Mr Williams and business partner Georgia Farrell set up The Natural Painting People, a tailored painting and decorating service dedicated to using non-toxic paints to get quality finishes inside and outside of the home.

They’re better for your home, too: “Our paints are free from dangerous additives and we believe also perform better than conventional petrochemical paints,” he says. “One of the major advantages of natural paints is that they let surfaces breathe; this is a very handy thing living in the sub-tropics as it means the structures that have been painted can regulate moisture content.”

Sustainable trades network envisaged: The Natural Painting People have also begun a Sustainable Trade Network, and are looking to encourage waterwise plumbers, environmentally friendly floor polishers, electricians specialising in solar power and the like on board.

The Courier Mail, 27/5/2006, p. 84

Source: Erisk Net  

Governments and aid agencies should encourage people to stay put rather than promoting migration, according to Optimum Population Trust, a British group that campaigns for a sustainable population.

Deserts expand as people leave … The Daily Telegraph (31 May 2006, p.25) reported the think tank had told a British parliamentary inquiry on population that parts of the planet damaged by climate change, soil erosion and water shortages merely deteriorated further once their inhabitants fled.

… while net global consumption rises: Migrants also typically increased their ecological footprint – the damage each person inflicts on the environment – by moving from low-consuming to high-consuming countries.

A moving planet: The number of migrants worldwide surged from 175 million to 185-192 million between 2000 and 2005, with 30 million forced from their homes by a variety environmental factors including floods, famine and over-population.

Priority shift needed: "The priority must surely be to prevent or cure environmental damage, and help people to remain in their homes and communities, not abandon damaged areas of the planet," the group said in a report. "Currently, however, excess immigration into countries which are already densely populated can cause substantial environmental damage and economic costs, the effects of which may not be seen until the pressures on land and natural resources become intense."

Britain keeps squeezing them in: Britain, for example, was more densely populated than China. England is the world’s fourth most crowded country behind Bangladesh, South Korea and The Netherlands with migration accounting for more than 80 per cent of population growth.

The Daily Telegraph, 31/5/2006, p. 25

Source: Erisk Net  

A NEW South Wales country Labor MP who campaigned against the privatisation of Snowy Hydro said he was delighted by the Federal Government’s decision to scuttle the sale. Read more on The Daily Telegraph online  

Sydney-based green energy marketer Jackgreen forecasts a net profit after tax in the vicinity of $5 million for 2006-07, reported The Australian Financial Review (31 May 2006, p.28). It quotes one analyst as saying it is difficult to project the company’s price-earnings ratio.

Slow start … Jackgreen sells electricity in NSW, Victoria and South Australia entirely sourced from wind farms and hydro generators. Despite a slow start after a backdoor listing in December 2004, it finally received its financial services licence in March last year.

… but unique selling point: While it has had to draw on the support of its institutional investor, Babcock & Brown, and raise a further $2.09 million, Jackgreen has a unique selling point: its renewable energy costs the consumer no more than its coal-based cousins.

Households coming on board: Since March last year, Jackgreen has signed up 10,000 households for three years and hopes to provide electricity for 100,000 homes by June next year. The shares, which listed at 20¢ before falling to 7¢ last year, closed on Monday at 40¢.

Expensive strategy: A fund manager who did not wish to be named says: "Jackgreen’s equal [pricing] strategy has been expensive but it gives people what they want." In 2004, Jackgreen surveyed 3000 households and more that 90 per cent said they would sign up to green energy if it cost them no more than other energy.

Opposition not on strong ground: The analyst says: "The issue is that Origin and others have to generate green energy anyway to meet the government’s 2 per cent target and they then charge the customer more for it."

The Australian Financial Review, 31/5/2006, p. 28

Source: Erisk Net  

Last week, Beijing was suffering from rising temperatures, sand sweeping down from the Gobi Desert and high levels of pollution caused by 2.5 million cars and the reconstruction of the city for the 2008 Olympic Games, reported The Australian (31 May 2006 p8). Suddenly, on Friday evening, a rainstorm emerged, apparently from nowhere.

Rainmaker rocketry: In fact, it was "rocket rain". For its true genesis lay in shells fired by technicians of the Beijing Weather Modification Office. They contained cigarette-sized sticks of silver iodide, which produce ice crystals when seeded within moist clouds, and turn to rain as they fall to warmer air.

Temporary relief: The skies then cleared, producing a miraculously fine Sunday. The city’s 15 million or so inhabitants, enduring the worst drought in northern China for 50 years, applauded.

Sealed city surfaces isolate water table: But a water technology expert said on 30 May that the impact of a single downpour on Beijing’s steadily dwindling water table would only be marginal, because of the extent to which the city’s surfaces are compacted by building works and new roads. The result is that most of the rainwater evaporates before it can find open, receptive ground into which to sink.

50b tonne annual raindance: China and Thailand are the major users of artificial rain. In China’s new five-year plan, it says it will create 50 billion tonnes of rain every year, deploying greatly increased resources into rain-making research, which it began in 1958.

Giving Mother Nature a hand: Throughout the country, 23 of the 34 provinces have established weather modification bureaus like Beijing’s, which use dozens of aircraft and several thousand anti-aircraft guns, as well as about 4000 rocket launchers, to seed clouds with iodine to produce rain. Chinese meteorologists say such efforts can only increase rainfall by 10-15 per cent at best, however. And without cloud cover, the weather modification artillerymen can do nothing.

The Australian, 31/5/2006, p. 8

Source: Erisk Net  

Chinese environmental experts fear worsening pollution could kill the Yangtze within five years, the Xinhua news agency said on 30 May, calling for an urgent clean-up, reported The Sydney Morning Herald (31 May 2006 p10).

Problem not to be ignored: "Many officials think the pollution is nothing for the Yangtze," Xinhua quoted Yuan Aiguo, a professor with the China University of Geosciences, as saying. "But the pollution is actually very serious," the agency added, warning that experts considered it "cancerous".

All the usual culprits: Industrial waste and sewage, agricultural pollution and shipping discharges were to blame for the river’s declining health, experts said.

A long and winding waterway: The Yangtze, the third longest river in the world after the Nile and the Amazon runs from the remote far western province of Qinghai and Tibet through 186 cities including Chongqing, Wuhan and Nanjing, before emptying into the sea at Shanghai.

Receives waste water, expected to provide potable supply: The river absorbed more than 40 per cent of the country’s waste water, 80 per cent of it untreated, said Lu Jianjian, from the East China Normal University. "As the river is the only source of drinking water in Shanghai, it has been a great challenge for Shanghai to get clean water," Xinhua quoted him as saying. Most of the Yellow River, the second-longest in the country and the cradle of early Chinese civilisation, is so polluted it is not safe for drinking or swimming, Xinhua said in May last year.

The Sydney Morning Herald, 31/5/2006, p. 10

Source: Erisk Net