Category: Archive

New island off Greenland

admin /1 May, 2007

By Michael McCarthy, Environmental Editor

The Independent – UK  

The map of Greenland will have to be redrawn. A new island has appeared off its coast, suddenly separated from the mainland by the melting of Greenland’s enormous ice sheet, a development that is being seen as the most alarming sign of global warming.

Several miles long, the island was once thought to be the tip of a peninsula halfway up Greenland’s remote east coast but a glacier joining it to the mainland has melted away completely, leaving it surrounded by sea.

Shaped like a three-fingered hand some 400 miles north of the Arctic Circle, it has been discovered by a veteran American explorer and Greenland expert, Dennis Schmitt, who has named it Warming Island (Or Uunartoq Qeqertoq in Inuit, the Eskimo language, that he speaks fluently).

The US Geological Survey has confirmed its existence with satellite photos, that show it as an integral part of the Greenland coast in 1985, but linked by only a small ice bridge in 2002, and completely separate by the summer of 2005. It is now a striking island of high peaks and rugged rocky slopes plunging steeply to a sea dotted with icebergs.

Wave Power for Scotland

admin /30 April, 2007

Naomi Fowler, on the Science Report, ABC Radio National , reports on the launch of the Pelamis, a wave energy converter, which will provide energy for homes on the world’s largest commercial wave farm in Orkney, Scotland. For a fascinating eplanation of how the Pelamis works and to learn just how much electricity can be Continue Reading →

Wave Power for Scotland

admin /30 April, 2007

Transcript Robyn Williams: In all our discussions of energy technologies (you may have seen Four Corners last week) little has been said about wave power. Does it rate? Naomi Fowler reports from Scotland. Naomi Fowler: What you can hear is the huge bright-orange Pelamis or sea snake wave energy capture device being towed out to Continue Reading →

Biofuels behind deforestation surge

admin /28 April, 2007

By Stephen Leahy

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0322-01.htm
 
Nearly 40,000 hectares of forest vanish every day, driven by the world’s
growing hunger for timber, pulp and paper, and ironically, new biofuels and
carbon credits designed to protect the environment.

The irony here is that the growing eagerness to slow climate change by using
biofuels and planting millions of trees for carbon credits has resulted in
new major causes of deforestation, say activists. And that is making climate
change worse because deforestation puts far more greenhouse gases into the
atmosphere than the entire world’s fleet of cars, trucks, planes, trains and
ships combined.

"Biofuels are rapidly becoming the main cause of deforestation in countries
like Indonesia, Malaysia and Brazil," said Simone Lovera, managing
coordinator of the Global Forest Coalition, an environmental NGO based in
Asunción, Paraguay.

"We call it ‘deforestation diesel’," Lovera told IPS.   

Micro wind turbines for cities

admin /28 April, 2007

Buzzing Hong Kong is better known for keeping lights on all night and the air conditioner running full blast, not saving energy. But engineers in the city have introduced an innovative wind energy technology than can help both rural and city residents protect the environment and cut down on energy costs — without having to spend a fortune on an expensive device.

A large wind turbine on a small outer island is one of Hong Kong’s few sources of renewable energy. One of the reasons not more are being built is that the wind in the city is simply not strong enough, a problem it shares with many places worldwide.

Engineers at the University of Hong Kong and a private renewable energy company have developed a new micro wind turbine that can generate electricity even if wind speeds are as low as two meters per second.

Unviable drought effected towns targeted for evacuation

admin /27 April, 2007

According to The Courier Mail, (26/04/2007, p.11), Opposition spokesperson for local government and planning, Howard Hobbs, said the State Government should do everything possible to ensure the survival of towns with dwindling water supplies. Hobbs was responding to an "Armageddon" plan being discussed by the Water Services Association to force people out of unviable dry communities.

Situation grim but not out of control: Mayors of Emerald and Kingaroy did not anticipate Kumbia and Willows will need to be evacuated, but acknowledge the situation was serious and required continued state support.

A costly proposition: The state was spending hundreds of thousands of dollars carting water for Killarney, in Warwick Shire; Builyan, in Calliope Shire; Kumbia in Kingaroy Shire and Willows Gemfields in Emerald Shire.

No plans to evacuate: Local Government Minister Andrew Fraser’s office released a statement saying there were "no plans in place to evacuate" the four towns. However the comment was removed from a later statement.

State support unsustainable: A spokesperson said the state hadn’t confirmed the information with councils, which had drafted plans for “long-term remedial measures" to guarantee water. The state paid for "short-tem" disaster relief to cover most of the cost of water carting, but as the drought continued, that was unsustainable.

Tankers only source of water: Killanney would dry up without regular truck deliveries. "Everyone is talking about it. They very concerned," said Killarney resident Myrtle Ross. I don’t know what we’re going to. A lot of people are sinking bores but not much water runs out."

Residents refuse to budge: Alwyn Hamblin, who has lived in Leyburn for 63 years, said the drought was the worst the town had experienced. His rain gauge was empty, but Hamblin wouldn’t go anywhere. ‘The only way they’re moving me out is in a pine box," he said. Michael Maloney, another Leyburn resident, said it was up to the Government to provide water to his town whatever it cost because residents paid rates.