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.
Train project goes off the rails
Train project goes off the rails
MATT O’SULLIVAN
March 11, 2010
THE NSW Government faces another transport project running into financial difficulty after a ratings agency warned of a possible funding shortfall in a contract to deliver 626 train cars to Sydney’s rail network.
Less than three weeks after the Premier, Kristina Keneally, canned the $5 billion CBD Metro, Moody’s cut the credit rating of the largest privately funded transport project in NSW history, from investment grade to junk status, due to fears of ”higher risks in its financing structure”.
The $3.6 billion contract for the next generation of Chinese-made trains was running five months late and has been further undermined by a lack of confidence in debt markets.
Moody’s said the consortium’s financing vehicle, Reliance Rail Finance, could be exposed to a potential funding gap of $357 million from early 2012 or ”higher funding costs or both” if its two guarantors went bust.
Humans driving extinction faster than species can evolve, say experts
Humans driving extinction faster than species can evolve, say experts
Conservationists say rate of new species slower than diversity loss caused by the destruction of habitats and climate change
• Ghost orchid comes back from extinction
- guardian.co.uk, Sunday 7 March 2010 22.59 GMT
- Article history
The IUCN lists west African giraffes as an endangered species. Conservationists say the rate of new species is slower than diversity loss. Photograph: Graeme Robertson
For the first time since the dinosaurs disappeared, humans are driving animals and plants to extinction faster than new species can evolve, one of the world’s experts on biodiversity has warned.
Conservation experts have already signalled that the world is in the grip of the “sixth great extinction” of species, driven by the destruction of natural habitats, hunting, the spread of alien predators and disease, and climate change.
EU exporting ‘one third. of CO2 emissions to poorer contries
EU exporting ‘one-third’ of CO2 emissions to poorer countries Ecologist 9th March, 2010 Study shows industrialised countries are ‘outsourcing’ carbon emissions to countries like China, one quarter of whose CO2 emissions are from exports European countries are ‘outsourcing’ almost a third of their carbon dioxide emissions to less industrialised countries, according to a new study. Continue Reading →
Is Arctic methane on the move?
Is Arctic methane on the move?
In today’s atmosphere, methane is a stronger greenhouse gas per molecule than CO2. Is now the time to get frightened?From RealClimate, part of the Guardian Environment Network
- guardian.co.uk, Monday 8 March 2010 11.22 GMT
- Article history
Methane is like the radical wing of the carbon cycle, in today’s atmosphere a stronger greenhouse gas per molecule than CO2, and an atmospheric concentration that can change more quickly than CO2 can. There has been a lot of press coverage of a new paper in Science this week called “Extensive methane venting to the atmosphere from sediments of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf“, which comes on the heels of a handful of interrelated methane papers in the last year or so. Is now the time to get frightened?
No. CO2 is plenty to be frightened of, while methane is frosting on the cake. Imagine you are in a Toyota on the highway at 60 miles per hour approaching stopped traffic, and you find that the brake pedal is broken. This is CO2. Then you figure out that the accelerator has also jammed, so that by the time you hit the truck in front of you, you will be going 90 miles per hour instead of 60. This is methane. Is now the time to get worried? No, you should already have been worried by the broken brake pedal. Methane sells newspapers, but it’s not the big story, nor does it look to be a game changer to the big story, which is CO2.
China and India join Copenhagen accord
China and India join Copenhagen accord
China and India formally endorse the last-minute climate agreement struck at the Copenhagen summit
- guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 9 March 2010 17.36 GMT
- Article history
The head of the Chinese delegation, Xie Zhenhua, (standing left) and the Indian environment minister, Jairam Ramesh (seated) during an inter-governmental preparatory meeting at the Copenhagen summit. Photograph: Martin Argles
China and India wrote to the UN’s climate secretariat today agreeing to be “listed” as a parties to the Copenhagen accord, the last-minute agreement that emerged from the chaos of the UN’s summit in Copenhagen.