EcoRadio

Category: News

Add your news
You can add news from your networks or groups through the website by becoming an author. Simply register as a member of the Generator, and then email Giovanni asking to become an author. He will then work with you to integrate your content into the site as effectively as possible.
Listen to the Generator News online

 
The Generator news service publishes articles on sustainable development, agriculture and energy as well as observations on current affairs. The news service is used on the weekly radio show, The Generator, as well as by a number of monthly and quarterly magazines. A podcast of the Generator news is also available.
As well as Giovanni’s articles it picks up the most pertinent articles from a range of other news services. You can publish the news feed on your website using RSS, free of charge.
 

  • Pains, trains and automobiles

     

    Instead, the new seats had to be “embedded” into the platform concrete at a cost of $78,000.

    Senior Government sources have, meanwhile, confirmed a major infrastructure measure was under consideration.

    “There are people pushing in Government and the ALP for us to do a major transport project,” a senior Government source said. “There’s a recognition we have to fix and address congestion in western and southwestern Sydney. [Treasurer] Eric [Roozendaal] wants to do these things but he has to do it financially and be responsible.”

    Sources said senior ministers, Labor’s general secretary Sam Dastyari and powerbrokers including Eddie Obeid were pushing for the solution.

    But Treasury secretary Michael Schur is understood to be trying to kill off the project.

    “They [Treasury] say no to everything. Everything in this state runs along Treasury lines,” a Labor source said. “This Government needs to demonstrate now more than ever it’s serious about building infrastructure.”

    The Government has faced much criticism for doing little on transport since Ms Keneally came to power except announce a light rail to the CBD in the Metropolitan Transport Plan in February. “Sam [Dastyari] has been pushing transport since day one,” one senior MP said.

    One option that had been discussed and ruled out in a bid to ease urban congestion was the introduction of free public transport, but that would cost $2 billion a year. Government sources have also ruled out the construction of a second Sydney Harbour rail crossing or the Epping-to-Parramatta rail link.

    Mr O’Farrell announced last month that the Coalition would set up a $5 billion infrastructure fund and spend the money on one of the two major road projects.

    An M5 duplication has been costed at $4.5 billion.

    The funding for “planning” for the M4 East is contained in a “NSW Treasury Project Reference Detail Report” dated June 24, which also contains $190 million for the forward estimates period for the F3 to M2 Motorway Link.

    A spokesman for Ms Keneally claimed the document was based on the possibility “federal funds may in the future be available”.

    At Manly Hospital, one family has taken it on themselves to prop up the ailing health system by buying $70 office chairs to furnish a nurses’ station.

    A Northern Beaches father, who asked not to be named, was so distressed at seeing nurses at Manly Hospital sit on “second-hand” chairs he replaced them with brand new ones from Kmart.

     

     

    37 comments on this story

  • Cabinet moves towards Greens interim carbon tax:onsensus & agreement with polluters carbon tax: Consensus & agreement with polluters

    Cabinet moves towards Greens’ interim carbon tax; Consensus ≠ agreement with polluters

    Thursday 15 July 2010

    The Greens today welcomed reports that Cabinet is actively considering the Greens’ proposal of an interim carbon tax but warned Prime Minister Gillard that seeking consensus on climate action only with the big polluters is a recipe for failure.

    “Getting a carbon price in the market as soon as possible after the coming election is one of the best ways to build consensus towards real, ambitious climate action,” Australian Greens Deputy Leader, Senator Christine Milne, said.

    “Once polluters begin to pay for their pollution and Australians see that the sky is not falling in, the scare campaigns will lose their bite and we can move swiftly towards the deep emissions cuts that we need.

    “The great benefit of the Garnaut-style carbon levy the Greens have proposed is that it is designed to be strengthened as time goes on, while the Rudd government’s failed CPRS was effectively impossible to strengthen beyond its too-weak 5-25% target range after it was passed.

    “Bob Brown and I will be delighted to sit down with Prime Minister Gillard to work through how the carbon levy can get through the Senate as swiftly as possible.

    “Before she goes much further, Prime Minister Gillard must recognise that working towards a consensus on climate action does not mean getting the big polluters on side.

    “Building a consensus on climate action means working with scientists who understand the gravity and urgency of the problem, with technologists who are developing the solutions, with planners and designers who will work out how to implement the solutions, and with the community who need to embrace change.

    “Building a consensus on climate action also means working in good faith with all those in the Senate who want to achieve action, not using climate change as a political wedge as the Rudd government repeatedly did.

    “If Prime Minister Gillard seeks consensus with the polluters outside parliament and the deniers inside parliament, she will fail as surely as her predecessor did.

    “The Greens are ready to act, we have solutions on the table and we have open lines of communication with those can make those solutions a reality.”

    Tim Hollo
    Media Adviser
    Senator Christine Milne | Australian Greens Deputy Leader and Climate Change Spokesperson
    Suite SG-112 Parliament House, Canberra ACT | P: 02 6277 3588 | M: 0437 587 562
    http://www.christinemilne.org.au/| www.GreensMPs.org.au <http://www.greensmps.org.au/>

  • ‘Uneven’ sea level rises threaten Indian Ocean coastal regions

    ‘Uneven’ sea level rises threaten Indian Ocean coastal regions

    Ecologist

    14th July, 2010

    Global warming is adversely affecting certain countries around the Indian Ocean with higher than average sea level rises, according to analysis published in Nature Geoscience

     

    ‘Uneven’ sea level rises are posing a threat to densely populated coastal areas around the Indian Ocean, according to researchers.

    Sea levels have risen across the world as a result of thermal expansion of the ocean (water expands as it heats up) and as melting ice adds more water volume.

    However, researchers from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the University of Colorado have shown that the rises are not uniform across the world and are affected by other changes in atmospheric or oceanic currents.

    In the Indian Ocean this has resulted, since the 1960s, in substantial decreases in sea levels in the south tropical region, including the Seychelles Islands and the island of Zanzibar off Tanzania.

    In contrast, sea level rises have been much higher along the coastlines of the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea, Sri Lanka and the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Java.

    In a study published this week in the journal Nature Geoscience, which could have implications for how scientists predict sea level changes, the authors blame complex atmospheric wind patterns for the uneven rises.

    ‘Complex circulation patterns in the Indian Ocean may also affect precipitation by forcing even more atmospheric air than normal down to the surface in Indian Ocean subtropical regions,’ says co-author Weiqing Han.

    ‘This may favor a weakening of atmospheric convection in subtropics, which may increase rainfall in the eastern tropical regions of the Indian Ocean and drought in the western equatorial Indian Ocean region, including east Africa.’

    The study concludes that if human-caused global warming continues then the pattern they detected was, ‘likely to persist and to increase the environmental stress on some coasts and islands in the Indian Ocean’.

    Useful links
    Patterns of Indian Ocean sea-level change in a warming climate

  • Google climate map offers a glimpse of a 4C world

    Google climate map offers a glimpse of a 4C world

    Interactive tool layering climate data over Google Earth maps shows the impact of an average global temperature rise of 4C

     

    A new interactive Google Earth map showing the impacts of a 4°C world A new interactive Google Earth map was developed using peer-reviewed science from the Met Office Hadley Centre and other leading impact scientists. Photograph: earth.google.co.uk

    Think it’s hot this summer? Wait until you see Google’s simulation of a world with an average global temperature rise of 4C.

    Using a map that was first launched by the former Labour administration in October 2009, the coalition government has taken temperature data from the Met Office Hadley Centre and other climate research centres and imposed it on to a Google Earth layer.

    It’s a timely arrival, with warnings this month that current international carbon pledges will lead to a rise of nearly 4C and the Muir Russell report censuring some climate scientists for not being more open with their data (but exonerating them of manipulating the scientific evidence).

    Unlike a similar tool using IPCC data that was launched by Google in the run-up to the Copenhagen climate conference last year, this map will be updated regularly with new data. It also has a series of YouTube videos of experts across the globe, with Met Office staff talking about forest fires in sub-Saharan Africa and researchers at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research explaining sea level rises. To go more in-depth you can follow links to government sites, such as this one on water availability in a warming world.

    Playing with the layer is surprisingly addictive, mainly thanks to Google Earth’s draggable interface. Unlike the static map of last year, it also has the bonus of showing more obviously how temperature rises will differ drastically around the world. The poles glow a red (a potential rise of around 10C) while most of northern Europe escapes with light orange 2-3C rises. Other hotspots, such as Alaska, the Amazon and central Asia, also stand out.

    Neatly, you can turn different climate “impacts” on and off. If you just want to see which regions will be worst affected by sea level rises – such as the UK and Netherlands as well as low-lying island states – you can. One limitation is that you have to zoom out to continental level to see the layer: if you’re zoomed on your street, you can’t see it.

    Climate change minister Greg Barker launched the map today alongside the government’s chief scientist, Prof John Beddington. Barker said: “This map reinforces our determination to act against dangerous man-made climate change. We know the stakes are high and that’s why we want to help secure an ambitious global climate change deal.”

    The layer, of course, isn’t the only one with an environmental theme to land on Google Earth. The UN’s environment programme has one showing deforestation, WWF has a layer highlighting its projects across the globe and Google even has its own climate change “tours” for Google Earth. What other good green Earth layers have you stumbled across? And how do you rate the newest addition from the UK government?

    • The KML layer of The impact of a global temperature rise of 4C is available now (you’ll need a browser plug-in or the Google Earth app installed to view it)

  • Show us your ticker, Gillard, before you force us to vote

     

    The trouble with all this is it’s terribly reminiscent of Kevin Rudd. Lacking in courage, not thought through and thrown together at the last moment. None of these stop-gap solutions will have been legislated before the election. So is that to be Gillard’s agenda for Labor’s second term: finishing off all the stuff not finished in the first term? Is that to be as inspiring as it gets? First re-elect my government and then I’ll have time to think up my own agenda?

    I’m sure the government has plenty of announcements up its sleeve to make between now and election day, but I’m not sure they’ll add up to anything more than a grocery list. Bit of this, bit of that, tinker with this, fine-tune that. Nothing controversial, of course, and (given the budget deficit) nothing too expensive.

    Before we vote on whether to retain Gillard we need to know a lot more about her and, more particularly, where she proposes to take us.

    She tells us she believes in hard work, egalitarianism and the value of education, and she’s proud of her mum and dad. I doubt if there are many who’d disagree, but if that’s as big as her vision gets she’s not ready to be our leader.

    One of Rudd’s biggest problems was he couldn’t set priorities for himself. He took on too much, wanted the biggest and best in everything, and ended up not getting much achieved. He took on a couple of big economic reforms – the emissions trading scheme and the resource rent tax – but took them far too cheaply, underestimated the amount of explaining that needed to be done, then when the going got tough, turned turtle.

    So what are Gillard’s priorities? What does she plan to devote most of her attention to at the expense of all the other things she could focus on? Does she know but doesn’t want to tell us, or hasn’t she had time to think about it? Will she work it out as she goes along?

    We know, despite her protestations, climate change won’t be one of her second-term priorities. She says (correctly) we need to put a price on carbon, but then says she won’t get ahead of public opinion and won’t act on a carbon price until after 2012. Her next term will be spent doing the explaining that should have been done this term.

    I fear most of what passes for economic debate in the election campaign will be of little consequence. Labor dumped its emissions trading scheme and emasculated its resource super profits tax for fear of being accused of introducing ”a great big new tax”, but that won’t stop both sides accusing each other of planning to do just that.

    Both sides will express their determination to get the budget into surplus as soon as possible and eliminate our (tiny) public debt post haste, while accusing the other of profligacy.

    If there’s one thing we don’t need to worry about it’s deficits and debt. Why not? Because we worry about it so much. The Libs make such a fuss about it it’s a crime Labor wouldn’t dare to commit.

    The big economic issues facing us include how we’ll make room for a greatly expanded mining sector in an economy already close to full employment, whether there’s more tax reform in the Henry report we should be getting on with, and how we’ll fix the ever-growing shortage of housing, including improving public transport to make homes in the outer suburbs more accessible.

    Far from spending the next three years chatting about whether to get serious about combating climate change, we need to debate our unquestioned commitment to unlimited economic growth.

    Does ever-rising affluence – much of it used to fuel an unending status competition – make us happier as both sides of politics assume? Are we paying a hidden price for it in damage to our family and social relationships? Is it really possible for the rich world to keep increasing its consumption of natural resources while the developing world – led by China and India – rapidly raises its standard of living towards Western levels without this irreparably damaging the ecosystem?

    A bit too much for a prime minister from the left desperate to prove she’s not left-wing? Far too threatening a subject for either of the political parties? I fear so. Much safer to have a furious argument about great big new taxes and the budget deficit.

    Ross Gittins is economics editor.

  • Kenyan Women Light Up Villages with Solar Power

     

    Solar Energy Empowers Rural Women

    Victor Ndiege is the project manager of Green Forest Social Investment Trust (GFSIT), a Kisumu-based non-governmental organization (NGO) that is geared towards empowering women in rural areas through the provision of renewable power, easing domestic chores, especially when night falls and helping village women come up with income generating activities.

    According to research conducted by GFSIT, village women spend between Kenya Shillings (Kes) 850 and 1,200 [approximately US $10 to $15] every month on lighting alone. The women, notes Ndiege, use various sources such as paraffin and firewood to light up their homes after dark and to cook food.

    “This has negative effects on the environment as they have to cut down trees for firewood, while paraffin poses health risks to the women and their families on inhalation of the harmful fumes from paraffin lamps,” said Ndiege. “In that case, we identified solar energy as the most affordable alternative energy source that we could use in the villages. We partnered with the Barefoot College in India, which trains semi-illiterate rural women to fabricate, install and maintain solar lighting systems in the villages.”

    Ndiege said that the women acquired vital solar engineering skills that they are currently applying in the remote villages of Olando and Got Kaliech. Under the Village Solar Committees (VSCs) program, village folks will contribute between Kes 500 and 800 [approximately US $7 to 10] in monthly subscriptions from each household to keep the program running.

    “The village women have also started income generating activities that include a posho mill that is powered by solar energy to generate some income for the women groups and a small workshop where local youth can gain skills and eke out a living while supporting the village solar program as well,” explained Ndiege.  

    According to Ndiege, the GFSIT is importing a new batch of solar kits from India to be installed in other villages within Gwassi Division. This is largely to take advantage of the reduced importation taxes levied on solar kits by the Kenyan government as well as a means through which more rural villages can now switch on to solar energy.

    Lighting Africa

    Phoebe Jondiko, one of the women involved with the program, said that the solar project is a welcome relief for the rural folks in her village because its remote location and hilly terrain make it difficult to access energy from the national grid system under the Kenyan government-led initiative dubbed rural electrification program (REP).

    Currently, only 20 percent of Kenyan households are connected to the national grid. Patrick Nyoike, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Energy, said it is virtually impossible to connect every Kenyan household to the national grid system by 2030 due to the huge capital investments needed. This is in spite the fact that the Rural Electrification Authority (REA), the government agency mandated to connect rural areas to the national grid, has so far pumped more than $552 million over the last four decades into the program.

    Said Nyoike: “National power grid connections require huge capital investments with the scattered nature of rural settlements that require off grid stations making this unattainable in the near future.”

    According to Zachary Ayieko, the CEO of REA, solar energy offers a huge power potential for the nation since solar energy in Kenya could potentially generate up to three times the current daily national grid requirements. Because of this the REA has entered into a partnership with the International Finance Corporation to spearhead a new initiative called “Lighting Africa.”

    Ayieko said that this ambitious project is currently running on a pilot basis in Kenya and Ghana, with a view to lighting up more than 2.5 million households in the next two years and an estimated 250 million households across Africa.

     Though the initial costs of a solar kit are higher as compared to kerosene lamps, the overall cost of the solar kits is lower because there are no operational costs attached to them.

    “Prices range between $10 and $93 for the solar kits depending on their capacity as compared to the monthly average of $10 spent by each household on kerosene,” said Arthur Itote, the project manager at the Lighting Africa Private Enterprise Partnership for Africa (LAPEPA).

    In order to make the solar kits readily available and affordable to the rural poor, LAPEPA is working on starting a microfinance business model that will allow poor village folks make small payments over time until they have fully paid off the kits.

    Joyce Matunga says that the solar energy kits can also be used to power irrigation pumps. This, she said, would be a big step forward as the farm produce would then generate income for poor households and the ripple effects across the villages will be poverty alleviation as a long-term benefit.

    The Barefoot College is located in Tilona, India and is the brainchild of Indian-based social-entrepreneur Bunker Roy. This is the first time the college is partnering with a Kenyan-based community organization. The college has so far trained more than 100 semi-illiterate rural women and electrified more than 5,500 households in about 72 remote villages in 15 third-world countries.

    And while Kenya is racing to adopt green energy technologies to power its booming economy into a middle-income economy in less than 20 years’ time, solar energy will play a pivotal role in Kenya’s green energy policy. This has been exemplified not only in the solar energy lighting program in rural Kenya, but in the new data center coming up in Nairobi.

    With Kenya being the regional ICT hub, the Kenya Data Networks (KDN), a Nairobi-based internet service provider, has plans to build the first ever solar powered data center in Nairobi.  The data center will be the only one of its kind in Africa. Building cost estimates are around Kes 600 million [US$ 7.5 million].

    According to CEO Kai Wulff, KDN is also planning to use solar energy to power most of its digital villages spread in remote parts of the country under the Green Solar Power initiative. Wulff said that the initiative will be a two-pronged project that will take technology closer to the village folks through the provision of fast and cheap internet connections, while at the same time, providing cheap power to power the rural ICT centers.

    Denis Gathanju is a freelance journalist based in Africa.