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Leader of the Australian Nationals in the Senate, Barnaby Joyce, has said that the international trade lobby is squashing Australian farmers and small business people through uneven trade practices and poor labelling laws. Discussing the fight to label Australian grown food he noted, “The majors are saying you can’t have branding because it discriminates against Continue Reading →
A concentrating solar power (CSP) plant in Spain that uses panels to reflect light on to a central tower to produce electricity. A pilot scheme using CSP has been started in Iran. Photograph: AP
According to officials, Iran has started 2009 by inaugurating a pilot solar plant in Shiraz, Fars province. It is a concentrating solar power (CSP) system, using parabolic mirrors to focus sunlight onto a tube of water that is super-heated to make steam that is then used to turn electricity-generating turbines.
Despite two slaps on the wrist from the UK Advertising Standards Authority for greenwash, international petroleum giant Royal Dutch Shell has launched a new advertising campaign claiming that renewable energy dominates the company’s thinking. Interviewed by Gaurdian columnist, George Monbiot, the chief executive officer of Shell, Jeroen van der Veer, responded incoherently to the charges. He said “running advertisments about alternative energy and not 90% of our other activity, I don’t think that – then I say, transparency, honesty to market, that’s nonsense.” Shell announced in 2001 that it intended to invest $US1billion in renewable energy over five years, but now refuses to release those figures. Van der Veer claims that the figures would be misused and “many people say they are too small.” The company has released a public relations film called ‘Clearing the Air’ which Monbiot describes as “so gobsmackingly bad it makes you want to tear your clothes off and run screaming down the street.”
The government of The United Arab Emirates has called for help to build a zero waste, zero footprint city near Abu Dhabi. The city of Masdar invites innovators, incubators, research and development, pioneers and solution providers to create, work and live in Masdar City. The government describes the project as a pioneering exercise designed to show the world how future cities should be built. The government is determined to invest its revenue from finite hydrocarbons into building a sustainable economy and provide a future for its citizens.
The fall in global food prices as a result of the economic downturn may have reached the bottom according to international agency GlobalDairyTrade. The agency reported that an increase in spot prices for whole milk powder in late December is a sign that buyers are re-entering the market. As a result of the global economic Continue Reading →
Ian Lowe, Pres. Australian Conservation Foundation, Dec 31, 2008
CURRENT global trends in energy supply and consumption are patently unsustainable — environmentally, economically, socially … What is needed is nothing short of an energy revolution.” I have said similar things myself, but this quote is from a new “World Energy Outlook” by the International Energy Agency.
The change is as amazing as if the Pope were to support contraception or the Business Council to call for stabilising the population. Until last year, the energy agency was still deep in denial about the problems of climate change and peak oil, and was talking about world energy use doubling and an increasing use of coal.