Blogs & Ecology

pic: wiredVan Schalkwyk's talking tough in Poznan. The DEAT Minister is seemingly holding no punches. "Unfortunately some of our developed country partners still play hide and seek with commitments on ambitious mid-term targets. We call on them to come forward with clear targets," he said in Poznan yesterday.

namaqua national park: pic - SANParksClimate Change Park for SA.

Nic - Feedback, Monica - Mindshift, Prince Charles

The future milk bottle – made from recycled paper. The GreenBottle has developed a green solution to milk containers, to replace plastic milk bottles. The outer shell is made from recycled paper, which can be further recycled, or if left will simply decompose within a matter of weeks. Greenbottle consumes about a third of the energy used to make a plastic bottle and has a carbon footprint that is 48% lower than plastic.

This is what a zero emissions car looks like. Leave it to the Swiss to come up with the concept of Cree, a zero emissions electric car – new acronym for you ‘ZEV’ – is still at the prototype stage, but 80 of these gorgeous bugs will be produced for testing in Zurich and Basle. The team behind the car aim to bring this car to mass production and they’re asking for investors. Interesting to learn that all the development took place as early as 2001, and that they had to close their doors in 2003 due to lack of funding!

Kites – new renewable energy source . Researchers at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands have tested using kites tethered to a generator as a new source of renewable energy. Kite power requires minimal land use and minimal materials, as well as being more efficient than standard wind turbines. [thoughtsonglobalwarming]

Inspirational bike-sharing programme in Paris. Almost 1500 bike stations are spread around the city of Paris with over 20 000 bicycles and 3 million subscribers. They’ve saved roughly 10 million kilometres of car trips. Considering the rising price of petrol, this is something cities the world over should be considering. [treehugger] Other than walking, there is no more earth-friendly mode of transportation than a bicycle. Bikes have an incredibly low manufacturing footprint when compared to a motorized vehicle.

Green’s 12-year freedom from the grid. For the last 12 years, Rod Green, a retired geophysicist, has enjoyed freedom from the national electricity grid, and is now enjoying freedom from Eskom's load-shedding and unscheduled power interruptions to his farming operations in the Klein Karoo. [engineeringnews]

Sasol: doing something about SA's largest private co2 footprint?SA carbon giants back global CEO plan
Eskom, with total CO2 emissions around 210 million tons a year (more than the US's largest electricity utility), Sasol (SA's biggest private sector emitter of carbon) and Transnet have all endorsed a climate change plan to be presented to the G8 by an influential group of CEOs from many of the world's largest companies.

Some green news to get you fired up on this chilly (in Cape Town, at least) Monday morning. Some of it bad, a lot of it good, all of it green. Enjoy!

Alternatives worth exploring:

Affordable electric car coming soon…. Wouldn’t it be great to know that a functional and economical electric car is available? The Think City electric car - a four-seater with 110 mile range and top speed of 65 mph, priced under $25,000, made from 95% recyclable materials, will be available in the U.S. in 2009. (no guesses as to where the pic for advertising was taken) [gas2.org]

There is one place in which you really can make a start at ‘going green’ - your garden. If you’re still staring at an immaculate lawn with border beds kept in-check with regular cocktails of pesticides, weed killers and chemical fertilisers, it’s time to start thinking ‘out of the box’! Your garden could both feed you and become a tribute to living in harmony with all that surrounds it.

Using the principles of permaculture
Many green gardeners are adopting the principles of permaculture in their approach to gardening.

There are a couple of alarming stories indicating the increasing effects of climate change on the planet. But there are as many, if not more, about positive change and moves towards a growing global approach:

UN-backed study reveals warming trends in large ocean areas. Warming trends in a third of the world's large ocean regions are two to four times greater than previously reported averages, increasing the risk to marine life and fisheries. [uk reuters]

world water day fell on 22 March - we’ve highlighted a number of news items on water:

Sucking America dry for biofuels. To hear agribusiness boosters and politicians tell it, corn-based ethanol is a miraculous solution to the nation's hunger for liquid fuels. But as miracles go, it's not all that impressive. There is folly in turning water into fuel, and where America goes, others follow… [alternet]