Worldonfirepodcast.org

Wine: how green is your glass?

rahiman — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 10:18:35 +0000

Certification is expensive and monitoring of ingredients can be difficult so it can be hard for consumers to make an informed choice about wine. Sophie Laggan takes a look at the optionsThe only additives currently mentioned on wine labels are sulphates (SO2). Adding small amounts can protect wine during transit, prolonging shelf life and preventing spoilage. In high quantities they can be damaging to your health causing headaches and asthma like symptoms. In Europe, producers do not have to list the sulphate content on labels, although it is compulsory in the US. SO2 occurs naturally in grapes in low volumes.

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Wine: how green is your glass?

Book review: Fish

rahiman — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 10:15:55 +0000

Elizabeth J. Samuel Barkin DeSombre and readable prose makes is separating the complex politics and economics behind the fishing industry is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel
Possible solutions are presented in the form of aquaculture (fish farming or) and the choices of consumers. The Marine Stewardship Council certified and endangered lists are well embedded, but not in itself enough to make a real difference. Fish was not written by environmentalists, but the policy experts and this is evident in his clear, concise and objective prose. At no time has the curse of the controversial nature of the question have thought about. There is no argument, threats or ultimatums: fish instead describes the problem and the details of politics.

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Book review: Fish

What’s the real cost of Bernard Matthews Christmas turkey?

rahiman — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 10:18:52 +0000

This summary about “What’s the real cost of Bernard Matthews Christmas turkey”. According to well known research it claimed that the Bernard Matthews is the biggest producers of turkey most of the people eat bird during any month not only the day of Christmas. In 2005, celebrity chef, Jamie Oliver launched a campaign for children to eating more healthy foods the response for that having a huge effect on the sales during the year. In 2007, the company facing the H5N1 virus (bird flu) was traced to Bernard Matthews’s product, so it is very hard to find a bird well-priced.

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What’s the real cost of Bernard Matthews Christmas turkey?

The Good Shopping Guide (10th Anniversary Edition)

rahiman — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 10:19:17 +0000

The view that altering shopping habits can make a significant difference to the environment is bound to generate a lot of debate within the green movement. Some might argue that consumption is in itself environmentally destructive, and that simply by purchasing something else instead of, say, reducing or reusing, contributes to damaging our planet. However not everyone has the stamina to engage in environmental campaigns or to abseil off company headquarters in protest at corporate behaviour. For those who simply want to make small changes, their only means of expressing their preferences for a more sustainable lifestyle comes from changing what they buy or who they purchase from. And as The Good Shopping Guide suggests, if enough people actually change their buying habits, it hits companies and shareholders where it hurts the most: their profits.

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The Good Shopping Guide (10th Anniversary Edition)

The National Trust awards recognising pioneering eco-campaigner Octavia Hill

rahiman — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 10:13:21 +0000

www.theecologist.org/…/the_national_trust_awards_recognising_pio..
www.politicus.org.uk/blogs/green-blogs
There are three days left in which to cast your vote online for the ballot to … Sir Christopher Mallaby, Chairman of the Somerset House Trust, said: ‘We are delighted to … that Salon’s summary of his recent Times article on the Whole Way, ….. Octavia Hill was not only a founder of the National Trust; she was …One thing to say the Indepth analysis this article has is … I’ll bookmark your site and check again here frequently. ….. I think that you should write more on this topic, ….. Nonetheless, the posts are too brief for beginners. …… a person if we do originality. helpful task for bringing …Will London 2012 sponsors BP, Dow, EDF and Rio Tinto tarnish the Olympic brand? … The National Trust awards recognising pioneering Eco-campaigner
Octavia Hill. Octavia Hill was a tireless advocate for saving land and green spaces in and … Instead of heading to the supermarket for your baubles, take the green route …
Octavia Hill was a tireless advocate for saving land and green spaces in and around Victorian London. She was also a founder of the National Trust, which is launching an award to recognise modern day ‘unsung environmental heroes’

If the public was polled to come up with a list of great Victorians certain names would be pretty much guaranteed to make it, from Charles Dickens to Florence Nightingale.

One name that is likely to barely register is Octavia Hill. Yet her life’s work and its legacy has had a profound impact over the last hundred years on the way that we live today and the values that we place on issues from the environment to housing.

She achieved many firsts during her seven decades (she died in August 1912) from setting up the first ever housing association to being an early advocate of social work.

For someone with so many fingers in different pies there was a thread that connected them all which predates the welfare state and has become topical in the current political and economic climate. It was the importance of our environment (in the broadest sense) from the need for strong communities to a sense of fair play and giving people the opportunity to improve their own lives.

One aspect of her campaigning zeal that makes her very relevant today was her recognition – years ahead of it becoming fashionable – of the importance of green spaces and the environment in terms of our health and well being.

This is captured in her own words where she talks about the fact that ‘we all need space; unless we have it we cannot reach that sense of quiet in which whispers of better things come to us gently [and we need] places to sit in, places to play in, places to stroll in, and places to spend a day in.’

In one breath she could link the debate around slum housing in Victorian Britain to the need for access to green space. Research is increasingly showing that seeing green whether in a tower block or living in a small hamlet is good for you. It also has a direct and interesting link into the rise of the happiness movement and the search for measuring progress beyond simple economic measurements.

Octavia Hill was a tireless campaigner in the efforts to save commons and land in and around London, such as Parliament Hill. She was also one of the three founders of the National Trust. The early years of the organisation focused on acquiring places of ‘natural beauty and historic interest’ such as Wicken Fen in Cambridgeshire and land in the Lake District.

Inspired by the national parks movement in the US and the ideas of the great John Muir, the young National Trust was the embodiment of Octavia’s environmental thinking and today it manages 250,000 hectares of countryside and 710 miles of coastline in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Her journey and tireless efforts to show the value of the outdoors, whether the fells of the Lakes or our local parks, helped lay the foundations for a century of change in the countryside. The post second world war settlement enshrined in law the importance of our green spaces with the creation of the national parks and the countryside rights of way Act established the ‘right to roam’.

Yet there are still very real pressures on the places we treasure – spectacular forests or a patch of green on the edge of a town – today.

The public reaction to the Government’s proposed sell-off of Forestry Commission land in England in early 2011 and the national debate about changes to the planning and its possible impact on our green places show that Octavia’s vision is both topical and relevant a century after she died.

It’s the rich legacy of Octavia Hill combined with our national passion for the natural world that has led to the setting up of the Octavia Hill Awards.

These awards are about the army of unsung environmental heroes across the land that care deeply about their local green places and have helped to enrich the lives of local communities.

Whether it’s someone that has led efforts to prevent an allotment site being sold off for development or a group that has set up a community woodland or orchard they have made a difference, sometimes against the odds and through sheer hard work.

Without this dedication, commitment and rolling up of sleeves our towns, cities and countryside would lack the richness of these special places. It’s the self help ethos that Octavia embraced which has led to people coming together to create community growing spaces or running local nature reserves.

The awards also want to recognise the role that individuals have played in inspiring other people and the next generation to care for the natural world.

If Octavia Hill was alive today she would be at the forefront of the battle to get the natural environment and its values and importance on to the political agenda.

Find out more about the Octavia Hill Awards and nominate people for one of six categories. The closing date for nominations is 16 January 2012

Mike Collins is a senior National Trust press officer

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The National Trust awards recognising pioneering eco-campaigner Octavia Hill

Nitrogen from humans pollutes remote lakes for more than a century

rahiman — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 10:13:13 +0000

The effects on remote forests, lands and lakes are largely unknown, Schindler said. An increasing body of evidence, however, shows that the biological composition of microscopic communities in Arctic lakes changed with the arrival of human-derived nitrogen. This global nitrogen pollution may interact with climate change to produce a “double whammy” that could alter remote lakes in ways not seen in the past 10,000 years, Schindler saidThe authors conclude that climate, natural sources of nitrogen, and normal chemical processes on land and in water cannot account for the chemical signals they observe.

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Nitrogen from humans pollutes remote lakes for more than a century

Climate change may bring big ecosystem shifts, NASA says

rahiman — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 10:13:00 +0000

“For more than 25 years, scientists have warned of the dangers of human-induced climate change,” said Jon Bergengren, a scientist who led the study while a postdoctoral scholar at Caltech. “Our study introduces a new view of climate change, exploring the ecological implications of a few degrees of global warming. While warnings of melting glaciers, rising sea levels and other environmental changes are illustrative and important, ultimately, it’s the ecological consequences that matter most.”

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Climate change may bring big ecosystem shifts, NASA says

Biofuels not food the biggest driver of ‘land grabbing’ deals, says report

rahiman — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:12:19 +0000

In Africa, the impact of biofuels was even stronger with 66 per cent of land purchases used for biofuels. Food was next highest at 15 per cent. The report, ‘Land Rights and the Rush for Land’, involved the collaboration of over 40 different organisations in the research process – the biggest study to date. Report author Michael Taylor, from the International Land Coalition, says they were surprised by the dominance of biofuels in land grabbing deals.The report highlighted land grab deals that went wrong and left local populations

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Biofuels not food the biggest driver of ‘land grabbing’ deals, says report

Climate change driving tropical birds to higher elevations

rahiman — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 10:12:06 +0000

Tropical birds are moving to higher elevations because of climate change, but they may not be moving fast enough to keep up, according to a new study by Duke University researchers. It provides new evidence of their response to warming, but also shows there is a delay in their response. Forero-Medina and his colleagues used survey data collected on bird species in the region in the 1970s by John Terborgh, research professor emeritus at Duke, to compare past and present distributions, and understand the effects of 40 years of warming on tropical birds.

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Climate change driving tropical birds to higher elevations

Industrial ‘inertia to change’ is delaying development of zero carbon homes, report finds

rahiman — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 10:11:55 +0000

Tackling rising CO2 emissions from the residential sector could make a vital contribution towards mitigating climate change, according to a new report from the UCL Bartlett School of Planning.
Setting out the best strategies for achieving this goal by studying examples of good practice globally, the Zero Carbon Homes Project was inspired by a progressive new policy introduced in 2007 by the UK government to ensure that all new homes built post 2016 would be zero carbon. It was this move that marked the most radical approach to residential carbon reduction to date.
Dr Jo Williams, principal investigator of the Zero Carbon Homes Project from the UCL Bartlett School of Planning said: “Since 2007 very little has happened in the UK, at least in part due to the economic crisis and subsequent housing slump. However there are other factors at play here not least a lack of political support and significant institutional inertia to change.” The findings of the project were recently published in the book Zero Carbon Homes — A Road Map.
Housing currently generates 7% of global CO2 emissions, according to 2009 International Energy Agency Statistics. In Europe this figure rises to 10%, with CO2 emissions in the US even higher at 20%. However, currently the largest regional increase in CO2 emissions for residential buildings is in developing Asia (accounting for 42%) and the Middle East/North Africa (accounting for 42%), providing a real challenge to the mitigation of climate change.
Dr Williams said: “Zero carbon homes are technically feasible to build, and with the right legislative and fiscal framework they are also affordable as demonstrated in Europe and the USA. With rapid reduction in the price of low carbon technologies and rising energy costs, zero carbon homes will make increasing economic sense, even in the short-term.”
Yet while the technology exists, the research highlights that currently the biggest barrier to the development of zero carbon homes internationally are the construction and energy industries, particularly the energy industry. The project identified lots of examples of good practice globally, but few where low carbon prototypes had become widespread across cities or regions.
For wider deployment of low carbon development to occur it would require that the international regulatory framework forced the energy industry to diversify their current portfolios, to become suppliers of low carbon energy and of services to reduce energy consumption.
“In the absence of an international framework the onus rests on nation states or individual cities to have the political courage to support the delivery of this agenda,” said Dr Williams.
So far purely market-based approaches to the deployment of zero carbon homes haven’t worked, even when there are high concentrations of green consumers. As in the past, where wider deployment of prototypes had occurred within nation states and cities it had been driven by legislation, in conjunction with some form of subsidy in the early phases of deployment.
With the limited market demand for zero carbon homes, house purchase decisions aren’t based on the energy efficiency of a house, let alone its CO₂ emissions. The research demonstrated that cost, location and design are the most important factors influencing purchase decisions, even amongst green consumers. However, if in those three respects housing is comparable, the potential for energy savings does become a consideration for consumers.
“It is important to have a range of options when providing zero carbon homes, to offer a diversity of designs, price and location. However, our studies found that the simpler you make it for the consumer to have installed and operate low carbon technologies, the greater market interest,” said Dr Williams.
“Consumers want to be able to move from house to house without having to be taught how to use the technology provided in their new home. Most also don’t want to have to make the decision as to whether they want PV or a ground-source heat-pumps installed. Universal user-technology interfaces, companies offering management and maintenance services and house-builders who make the technological decisions on the part of the house-purchaser will all help to increase market demand.”
She added: “The bigger picture is that zero carbon homes are a win-win option. Of course they reduce CO₂ emissions thus slowing the process of global warming, but they also significantly reduce energy costs for the householder. They increase the potential for cities and nations states to be more energetically self-sufficient, an important consideration when we are entering a period of fuel scarcity.”
There are also potential economic and social benefits which accrue from the development of zero carbon homes. The research suggests that zero carbon developments can offer a potential investment opportunity. For example a 10% return on investment was reported for a community energy project in Germany, more lucrative than putting it in a savings account or investing in an ISA.
The new infrastructure required for zero carbon homes has also led to the creation of associated new industries and jobs with the obvious social and economic benefits. In some models where residents are more involved in the management and maintenance of the new infrastructure it has also helped to build stronger social networks within local communities.

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Industrial ‘inertia to change’ is delaying development of zero carbon homes, report finds