Energy

Life Support Needed For Coral Reefs

Stephen CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, ECOLOGY, Energy, ENVIRONMENT, News, OCEAN , ,

By Stephen Leahy


FORT LAUDERDALE, U.S., Jul 8 (IPS) – Coral reefs need to be put on “life support” if they are to survive climate change, but their ultimate survival is dependant on major reductions in fossil fuel emissions, say experts.

“We’re going to hear lots of bad news about corals in the next few decades,” Rich Aronson, president of the International Society for Reef Studies, told 3,000 scientists, conservationists and policy makers at the 11th International Coral Reef Symposium (ICRS) in Fort Lauderdale, Florida Monday.

Climate change is making the ocean too warm and too acidic for most corals species to survive beyond the year 2050, many marine scientists now believe.

“The situation is serious to the point of desperation,” Aronson told IPS in an interview.

Past and present carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels have already altered the oceans, leading to declines in corals in many areas. This trend will continue for decades even if it were possible to eliminate all emissions today, scientists say. Current emissions are running at eight to nine gigatonnes a year and rising, resulting in dramatically altered oceans where few of the current coral species will be able to survive.

“This is a pivotal moment. We must act strongly and immediately if we are to have coral reefs as we know them,” Aronson said. Continue reading →

Coming Clean on Carbon Emissions

Stephen CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, economics, Energy, News

By Stephen Leahy

JOHANNESBURG, Apr 30 (IPS) – Thousands of companies supplying some of the world’s largest corporations know climate regulations are coming and are agreeing to measure their emissions of climate-altering greenhouse gases.

“Companies, including those in least developed countries, are worried about the risks of extreme weather, water shortages and so on that climate change poses,” said Paul Dickinson, CEO of the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), an independent not-for-profit organisation in Britain that is coordinating the effort.

Multinationals like Tesco and Unilever may not generate huge amounts of carbon emissions from their own stores or head offices, but their suppliers — which number in the thousands and are located all over the world — certainly do. It would be foolish to pretend these were not part of a corporation’s carbon footprint, Dickinson told IPS. Continue reading →

Failure on Global Warming “Un-American”

Stephen CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, ECOLOGY, Energy, ENVIRONMENT, News, Science/Tech , ,

By Stephen Leahy

KINGSTON, Ontario, Jun 25 (IPS) – North America’s abject failure to meet the challenge of climate change has been “un-American”, environmentalist and scientist David Suzuki told delegates Tuesday at the World Wind Energy Conference, the first ever in the region.

“We’re facing an ecological crisis, a crisis far, far worse than Pearl Harbour,” Suzuki said.

Twenty years ago this week, one of the United States’ leading scientists warned Congress of the imminent danger of climate change and said that waiting decades to take action was too risky. Now James E. Hansen of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has published new research indicating that greenhouse gas concentrations have pushed the climate near a dangerous tipping point that will unleash far-reaching changes in the atmosphere and oceans that could take millennia to reverse.

100% Renewable Energy Can Power Nations experts say

To prevent a climate crisis, Hansen calls for deep reductions in carbon dioxide emissions, beginning almost immediately, including a phase out of coal-fired power plants by 2030. Continue reading →

Soaring Energy Costs May Force Low-CO2 Living

Stephen CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, economics, Energy, ENVIRONMENT, News, sustainability , ,

By Stephen Leahy

Jun 5 (IPS) – Climate change is a global problem but individuals and communities can take simple measures to cut their carbon emissions in half, experts said Thursday on World Environment Day.

The U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) launched a “Kick the CO2 Habit” campaign in Wellington, New Zealand today to encourage low-carbon lifestyle choices at home and when travelling.

“The public have the power to change the future — have the power to personally and collectively influence economies to ‘Kick the CO2 Habit’,” said Achim Steiner, UNEP executive director.

UNEP released a kind of “Rough Guide” to low-carbon living, entitled “Kick the Habit: The UN Guide to Climate Neutrality“, which is available free online.

The knowledge and technology to dramatically reduce carbon emissions already exist, mainly through improvements in energy efficiency. What have been lacking in most countries are incentives to make changes. Now the hard stick of high energy prices has given the public new interest in reducing energy costs, which also reduce carbon emissions. Continue reading →

International Enviro Standards Needed for Biofuels

Stephen Biodiversity, CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, ECOLOGY, Energy, ENVIRONMENT, News, sustainability , ,

By Stephen Leahy

BONN, Jun 5 (Tierramérica) – The adoption of international standards for the sustainable production of biofuels emerged as a controversial approach at the recent United Nations conference on biodiversity here.

The still-vague proposals suggest that they would “promote the sustainable production, conversion, use, and trade of biofuels”, and revolve around reducing “perverse incentives” like farm subsidies in Europe and the United States.

“In 33 years of ethanol production, Brazil has never bothered to set up sustainability standards,” said Camila Moreno, a researcher with the Brazilian environmental group Terra de Direitos.

Also known as agro-fuels, made from crops like maize, sugarcane and soybeans, they face criticism from those who blame them for the current global food crisis.

The biofuel market is also accused of aggravating the destruction of ecosystems by pushing other crops to cut down forests and expand the farming frontier. Indeed, halting the growing tide of extinctions of plant and animals species was the focus of the Bonn meeting. Continue reading →

Six Experts On Why Ethanol is a Dumb Idea

Stephen CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, Energy, ENVIRONMENT, News , ,

In response to the many questions and concerns about ethanol/biofuels and impacts on food prices and climate change here are the six or seven articles I’ve done on the subject in the past year.

“Emissions from ethanol are 93 percent higher than gasoline,” said David Tilman, an ecologist at the University of Minnesota and co-author of one of the papers published Thursday in the journal Science.

See: Ethanol Worse Than Gasoline

“The U.S. has led the fight to stem global hunger, now we are creating hunger,” said Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, an environmental think tank in Washington.

See: Biofuels: Another Good Reason to Hate American Policy

“Subsidising biofuels is just about the dumbest way to go.” –– Todd Litman, director of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute — Subsidies for 2007 est $13-$15 billion

Ethanol: The Great Big Green Fraud

“We consider sweet sorghum an ideal ’smart crop’ because it produces food as well as fuel,” said William Dar, director general of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics.

See: Food & Fuel: The New Magic Bullet Biofuel?

“It’s not just the World Bank, regional development agencies, progressive development groups in Europe and many countries are all investing in agrofuels,” says Anuradha Mittal of the Oakland Institute,

See: Record $Financing For Biofuels, Not Food

“Cellulosic ethanol is just the next big money-maker for the agro-chemical and biotech corporations,” says Andrew Boswell of Biofuelwatch, a British environmental NGO.

See: (Cellulosic) Greenest Ethanol Still Unproven

GE Trees: Poor Countries Can’t Control

Stephen Africa, Biodiversity, CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, ECOLOGY, Energy, Forests, News, Science/Tech , ,

Courtsey of Museo d\'Arte Contemporanea, Turin, Italy

by Stephen Leahy

BONN, May 29 (IPS) – An intense North-South debate over genetically engineered trees has sidetracked delegates at a U.N. conference on biodiversity here: African nations want a global moratorium, while a few rich countries led by Canada say it should be up to individual countries to regulate.

While 168 nations that are part of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) debate the issue, a new two-year U.N.-funded study warns that developing countries simply don’t have the capacity to manage or monitor biotechnology.

“Africa doesn’t have the technical and scientific capacity to fully debate let alone enforce rules around biosafety of biotechnology,” said the study’s co-author, Sam Johnston of the United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies (UN-IAS) in Tokyo.

“Genetic contamination by GE plants is a huge issue and it’s increasing,” Johnston told IPS in Bonn.

Continue reading →

Food & Fuel: Can Sorghum Be The New Magic Bullet Biofuel??

Stephen Agriculture/Food, CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, developing world, Energy, ENVIRONMENT, News , ,

By Stephen Leahy

Korcula, CROATIA, May 13 (IPS) –

A new crop that provides food, animal feed and fuel at the same time promises to help developing countries redirect money spent on oil imports to benefit their own farmers. Is sweet sorghum biofuel’s “holy grail”?

Biofuels are widely blamed for driving food prices higher, sparking food riots in many countries. At least 25 percent of the U.S. maize crop is diverted to biofuel, and extensive areas in Indonesia, Malaysia, China and Brazil are also devoted to growing fuel rather than food.

With sweet sorghum, however, only the stalks are used for biofuel production, while the grain is saved for food or livestock feed. It is not in high demand in the global food market, and thus has little impact on food prices and food security.

“We consider sweet sorghum an ideal ‘smart crop’ because it produces food as well as fuel,” said William Dar, director general of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). Continue reading →

Energy From Dirt Wins $200K Prize

Stephen Africa, developing world, Energy, News, Science/Tech, sustainability ,

“Literally, This Is Energy From Dirt”

ACCRA, Ghana May 10 (IPS) – You’ve heard of solar power, and also wind power. Now, you might start hearing about soil power as well.

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) that make use of the energy given off by soil microbes are amongst the technologies that hold promise for bringing power to developing states, where electricity is often scarce.

The cells also form part of a project that has just won a grant of almost 200,000 dollars in the ‘Development Marketplace’ competition, for which results were announced at ‘Lighting Africa 2008‘; this May 5-8 conference took place in the Ghanaian capital of Accra. The project, developed by six students at Harvard University in the United States, was one of 16 winners selected from 52 finalists competing to bring innovative lighting products to the 74 percent of Africans without access to electricity.

The Development Marketplace competition was held under the ‘Lighting Africa’ campaign, launched towards the end of last year by the World Bank Group. Lighting Africa aims to provide 250 million people on the continent with safe, reliable and economical lighting products and energy services that do not make use of fossil fuels, by 2030. Continue reading →

Keeping Darkness At Bay In Africa – Kerosene to the LED

Stephen Africa, developing world, Energy, ENVIRONMENT, News, sustainability ,

By Stephen Leahy

ACCRA, May 8 (IPS) – In many of Africa’s towns and villages, only smoky kerosene lamps keep the darkness at bay after sunset. However, kerosene is a dangerous and increasingly expensive source of light for Africans who do not have access to electricity — about three-quarters of those living on the continent, according to the World Bank.

Lighting industry entrepreneurs are hoping alternative devices such as solar-powered LED lights will replace the kerosene lamps.

“Africans spend more than 18 billion dollars a year purchasing kerosene,” said Russell Sturm, who heads up the sustainable energy team at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group.

“And that estimate was done when oil was 35 dollars a barrel, so there is an enormous market for lighting,” he told IPS, adding that the prices of LED devices and solar panels had dropped dramatically over the past three years, and were now competitive with kerosene costs. The price of oil passed the 120 dollar per barrel mark for the first time earlier this week. Continue reading →