Archived material from historical editions of The Generator
Small towns unite against Woolworths7News Today Tonight – Thu Mar 27 06:34pm EST The towns that don’t like Woolworths or any big supermarket chain, are now joining together, trading advice and protest tactics.
From the Nepali Times
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The snowline is moving higher, mountain streams are rushing earlier in the year, the monsoons are erratic and giant ropes of glaciers throughout the Himalaya are retreating rapidly, swelling newly-formed lakes at their snouts.
These Himalayan symptoms of global climate change are happening within one generation. And their impact won’t just affect countries like Nepal, but also the wider Asian region.
Alarmed by the rapidity of warming and the lack of reliable data on which to make predictions, the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development is hosting an international conference on the cryosphere starting Monday.
Judged by its sewers, the world is not doing well, with only three in 10 people now having a connection to a public sewerage system.
With the world’s population expanding, a goal of improving sanitation by 2015 is slipping out of reach, despite progress in nations such as China and a few big contracts for firms to build waste treatment plants in cities from La Paz to Rabat.
A 2007 scorecard showed the sanitation goal was likely to be missed by 600 million people worldwide on current trends.
2008 is the UN’s International Year of Sanitation, and perhaps as a sign of low ambitions, the official logo shows a latrine built above a hole in the ground.
Experts say a part of the solution, especially to cut water-borne diseases for the rural poor, may lie in renewed and smarter exploitation of nature – for example through plants or soil bacteria that feed on waste.
Severe winter storms that damaged and knocked over a tenth of China’s forests in recent weeks should have a relatively neutral impact on Sino-Forest Corp. (SNOFF.PK), the Canadian-listed Chinese plantation owner, Dundee Securities analyst Richard Kelertas wrote in a recent research note.
From Science Magazine
GUANGZHOU, CHINA-From delicate orchids and magnolias to rare Chinese yews and Kwangtung pines, the flora of Guangdong Nanling National Nature Reserve is considered so precious that ecologists call the reserve "a treasure trove of species." But winter storms have reduced the biological hot spot to a splintered ruin. Snow, sleet, and ice laid waste to 90% of the 58,000- hectare reserve’s forests, says He Kejun, director of the Guangdong Forestry Administration in Guangzhou.
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By Professor Glen Barry from Earth Meanders
How cellulosic ethanol will fail, exacerbate the global forest and climate crises, and why it must be rejected along with other quick fixes in favor of an environmental sufficiency agenda
If you thought burning food for fuel — agrofuels — has been an unmitigated disaster, just wait until we start chopping up our last natural forest habitats for cellulosic ethanol biofuel. Much heralded second generation biofuels, to be based largely upon woody biomass, will be a resounding ecological disaster, and must be stopped now. It is a myth that enough unused forest and agricultural waste, and a surplus of land to grow various grasses and wood, exists to base an industrial energy source.
Humanity must stop seeking easy answers to perceived energy shortages that in fact are a result of over-population and ecological limits to growth. Agrofuels were heavily promoted for climate benefits and pursued at much expense, yet have been catastrophic to the world’s food security, habitat, water and climate. The same will be true of ethanol production from trees. Cellulosic ethanol will be the ultimate deforestation biofuel, equivalent to dismantling and burning your home to keep warm.
