There's life on Pasir Ris
stars and more despite NEA warning about water quality on the wonderful creations blog
Otter at Sungei Buloh
on the tidechaser blog
Cyrene Reef
the last sunrise trip for the year on the wild shores of singapore blog and budak blog and can you sea me blog
Bee-eater taking afternoon dip in the lake
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog
Natural Treasures
in our museums on the can you sea me blog.
Asia Environmental News
some highlights on the AsiaIsGreen blog
Up to half of all amphibian species could become extinct
Grace Chua, Straits Times 20 Aug 08;
THAT croaky chorus you hear coming from drains at dusk could belong to one of Singapore's most common amphibians - the Asian toad or the banded bullfrog.
The toad has a burpy 'curr, curr' call and rough, warty skin, while the bullfrog is rotund, brown and cream, and 'sounds like a dying sheep,' according to amphibian researcher David Bickford.
Both species number in the tens of thousands here, said the National University of Singapore assistant professor, who helped unearth the only known species of lung-less frog in Kalimantan last year.
TRAPPED AND... ...SNAPPED
Desmond Ng, The New Paper 20 Aug 08;
SEEING is believing.
Especially for Mr Muhd Rizhal Senin, who loves to swim in the cool waters of Sungei Tampines off Pasir Ris beach.
For the last five years, he has been brushing off talk from others that there were crocodiles spotted in that area.
Not even the recent sighting - which was captured in a photo and inspired a hunt by the authorities - rattled him.
That was until early Sunday morning - when one appeared right before his eyes.
Mr Rizhal was riding his mountain bike home in the wee hours of the morning from Pasir Ris beach when he spotted some of his friends struggling with an animal on the boardwalk over Sungei Tampines, near the beach.
1m long
The 30-year-old decided to check it out and, to his surprise, it was a metre-long crocodile caught on a line by two anglers.
Mr Rizhal said: 'Both of them were struggling with the crocodile and trying to hold it down. I tried to help, even though I was quite afraid. We used scotch-tape and some rope to tie up the crocodile's mouth and feet.
'The skin was quite rough and felt quite strange.'
Even though it looked small, the men believe that this was the same crocodile spotted by retiree Mr Ong Wee Lee two weeks ago at a mangrove swamp near Pasir Ris beach.
Mr Ong's daughter took a photo of it and the reptile quickly crawled back into the water when the camera flash went off.
The sighting of this crocodile sparked off a hunt, albeit an unsuccessful one, by national water agency PUB and the National Parks Board then.
Mr Rizhal said he called the police, who took the tied-up crocodile away.
He added that one of his friends had accidentally snared the crocodile by the leg while reeling his line in.
They were there to catch seabass, garoupas and tilapia fish, and hauling in a crocodile was definitely not what they had expected.
Mr Rizhal said: 'They (his friends) were so shocked that I had to call the police for them. For a while, they just sat on the ground, stunned.'
His friends couldn't be contacted for an interview.
It is not difficult to see why the crocodile will make that swamp home - it was teeming with schools of tilapia fish when The New Paper was there yesterday afternoon.
For Mr Rizhal, the sight of the crocodile there meant only one thing - the end of his weekly swim in that swamp.
He had always disregarded anglers there who warned him about crocodiles.
Mr Rizhal, who is married with three children aged 2 to 6, also picks mussels in the swamp to sell or to eat.
He said: 'After seeing the crocodile, I am not going to swim here anymore. I don't think it's safe and I don't want to risk my life.'
One angler, who wanted to be known only as Imran, said he has not seen crocodiles there before.
'But I am not taking any chances too. I will just fish from the bridge. And no way am I going to swim in these waters,' he said.
The police confirmed that a crocodile was handed to them on Sunday morning.
They said that the crocodile has been transferred to a private company that deals with such animals.
The public can call the PUB 24-hour hotline at 1800-284-6600 if they spot crocodiles in rivers or reservoirs.
And the catch of the day is... a crocodile
Ang Yiying, Straits Times 20 Aug 08;
AN ANGLER fishing at Pasir Ris Park over the weekend snared an unexpected catch: a metre-long crocodile, believed to be the same reptile first spotted in the Tampines River canal over three weeks ago.
The crocodile was turned on its back after being caught and tied up with rope, so that it could not escape. It also had its mouth taped. -- PHOTO: MUHD RIZHAL SENIN FOR THE STRAITS TIMES
The unidentified man was fishing off a bridge at the same canal at about 3.30am on Sunday, when his line hooked the leg of the animal.
He reeled it in, and his friend shone a torchlight at it before they realised it was a crocodile staring back.
He lifted the crocodile onto the bridge and turned it on its back to stop it from escaping. When they were taping the crocodile's mouth with scotch tape and tying it up with rope, they called over another regular park-goer, Mr Muhd Rizhal Senin, 30, who happened to be passing by.
Mr Rizhal recounted the two men's experience to The Straits Times.
He said: 'They were shocked for a while because it's an unexpected catch. But they're also happy to have caught the crocodile.'
The sight of the three men and the crocodile caused a stir in the quiet park. Curious students and foreign workers wandered over, snapping photos and filming videos of the snared reptile.
Mr Rizhal then called the police, who took the reptile away.
It is believed to have been turned over to the Singapore Zoo. Mr Biswajit Guha, its assistant director of zoology, confirmed that the zoo received a 1m-long crocodile yesterday.
Park regular Ong Wee Lee, 70, had first spotted a crocodile in July in the mangrove swamp near the Tampines River canal in the park. His daughter took a snapshot of it earlier this month, and the reptile made headlines in local media.
Speaking in Mandarin, he said: 'It's very lucky that they caught the crocodile. It is very hard to catch...If it had remained in the canal, someone could have been bitten.'
Sujin Thomas, Straits Times 20 Aug 08;
A 62-YEAR-OLD housewife from Choa Chu Kang is among four new people confirmed to have caught chikungunya, officials said yesterday.
The new cases stretched from Kranji to Pasir Panjang, bringing the total number reported this year to 128, according to the Ministry of Health and National Environment Agency (NEA).
The most recent cases were in three areas - Pasir Panjang Wholesale Centre, Kranji Way and Sungei Kadut - that have been battling outbreaks of the dengue-like disease in recent weeks.
The woman in the latest case developed symptoms last Saturday and was hospitalised the same day. She tested positive on Monday for the virus, which causes fever, nausea and muscle aches. In rare cases it can be fatal.
This comes about a week after her 32-year-old daughter and 61-year-old husband also tested positive for the virus.
Her daughter, who developed symptoms on Aug 8, has since recovered. Her husband remains in hospital.
The three had not travelled overseas recently and had stuck around their home and their workplace, the Pasir Panjang Wholesale Centre.
Officers from the NEA have fanned out across the Pasir Panjang fruit and vegetable distribution centre and the surrounding area. So far, they have found and destroyed five mosquito-breeding sites.
In the Kranji Way cluster, a 34-year-old Indian national who works and lives at Kranji Crescent tested positive for the disease.
Up to 70 NEA officers have been deployed in the area around Kranji Way, covering Kranji Loop, Kranji Road, Kranji Link and Sungei Kadut.
In the Sungei Kadut cluster, a 36-year-old Chinese national who works and lives at Sungei Kadut Street 1 and a 48-year-old Singaporean who works at Sungei Kadut Street 6 tested positive.
Four new chikungunya cases have surfaced
Hasnita A Majid, Channel NewsAsia 19 Aug 08;
SINGAPORE: Four new cases of chikungunya fever have surfaced. According to the Health Ministry, one of the victims is a 62-year-old woman who works at the Pasir Panjang Wholesale Centre.
Her 61-year-old husband and 32-year-old daughter were infected earlier. The older woman developed symptoms last Saturday, August 16, and was hospitalised. She was tested positive two days later.
The National Environment Agency (NEA) had found five mosquito-breeding sites at the Pasir Panjang Wholesale Centre.
Another new case of chikungunya infection linked to the Kranji Way cluster has also been reported. The victim, a 34-year-old Indian national, works and stays at Kranji Crescent. This brings the total number of cases linked to the Kranji Way cluster to 33.
Two more cases involving people working in Sungei Kadut have emerged as well, bringing the total number of cases linked to that cluster to five.
The first case involves a 36-year-old Chinese national who works and stays at Sungei Kadut Street 1. The second case is a 48-year-old local who works at Sungei Kadut Street 6.
In all, 128 chikungunya infection cases have been reported so far this year.
NEA head also urges eco-friendly features for companies
Esther Fung, Today Online 20 Aug 08;
After acquiring one of Singapore’s oldest companies in a high-profile takeover battle early this year, Ms Chew Gek Khim (picture), is now tackling another challenge on the corporate scene.
Just days after successfully taking over Straits Trading in April, Ms Chew added another feather to her cap as the chairwoman of the National Environment Agency (NEA) in April, and wants to get more businesses to be more environmentally-friendly.
“One problem we have found at the NEA is most people feel that businesses have not done anything about the environment. It may not be true,” said Ms Chew, who is also the granddaughter of banking magnate and philanthropist Tan Chin Tuan. “Businesses here are more conscious of the environment, and part of it’s for pragmatic reasons.If you consume what costs more, it’s as basic as that.”
What businesses can do, is to consider their energy consumption as higher prices becomes a staple in the business climate for now, said Ms Chew, who acknowledges that recent high oil and electricity prices have made her job easier.
Property owners of older buildings and firms that consume a lot of energy, for instance, may want to do an energy audit, she said. Property developer City Developments is one company that has undergone an energy audit and includes eco-friendly features such as photovoltaic panels in its new projects.
The NEA has funded 113 energy audits for buildings and industrial facilities, helping their owners identify annual energy savings in excess of $28 million. Of these, six are smaller businesses.
“The approach for a small business should be no different from a household,” said Ms Chew, who admits reaching out to small and medium enterprises is a problem. “Just like managing a two-man business or a sole proprietorship, it should not be different from personal finance. When it comes to a certain size, your mindset should be no different from that of managing your own home.”
She conceded that people in Singapore may find it harder to relate to climate disruptions as the country has little agriculture. The issue is to get people and businesses to take a pragmatic approach and change certain habits.
“If you want change, make it something easy for people to accept. It’s like going ona diet. If I say I will just have one meal a day it will be too difficult, but if I cut 10 per cent of what I eat, it will be manageable,” said Ms Chew, who spends about an hour with the NEA twice a month.
But it’s not just getting firms to be more environmentally responsible. “I would like to champion during my term, societal participation on environmental issues. I may not succeed, but I would like to see society take ownership of the issues at large,” said Ms Chew, who is also chief executive of Tecity Group and chairman of Straits Trading.
Goh Chin Lian, Straits Times 20 Aug 08;
MADAM Sim Lian Choon hopes that when she receives her electricity bill next month, her charges will be lower.
The 82-year-old Marsiling Road resident has just had a new energy-saving light bulb installed in her one-room rental flat.
The bulb, courtesy of the North West Community Development Council (CDC), uses 80 per cent less energy and can last 10 times longer than an incandescent light bulb.
This will make a huge difference to Madam Sim, who is unemployed and lives alone. She pays just over $50 a month on average for electricity, $10 more than a year ago.
'I live on the little savings I have,' she said in Hokkien.
The North West and South West CDCs have installed energy-saving bulbs in more than 5,000 low-income households, to reduce their power bills.
The mayors overseeing the two CDCs - Dr Teo Ho Pin (North West) and Dr Amy Khor (South West) - have been championing energy-saving measures.
They believe that providing low-income families with energy-saving lamps will help them make a start.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, in his National Day Rally speech on Sunday, cited the scheme as one of the ways in which the CDCs here are helping low-income households cope with the higher cost of living.
CDCs are not short of ideas. Among other projects are workshops that help families manage their budgets, and lessons in how to cook cheap but nutritious meals.
Other schemes provide direct assistance, such as providing students with lunches at school, book vouchers and free eye-care services.
In addition to costlier food, electricity tariffs for households went up by 5 per cent last month, to 25.07 cents per kilowatt-hour. Residents living in a one-room HDB flat like Madam Sim were told to expect their monthly bill to go up by an average of $1.20.
More needy residents, who say they have difficulty coping with higher costs, have been coming forward in search of assistance, said Dr Teo.
His CDC, for instance, saw 540 social assistance cases in the first seven months of this year. This was a 40 per cent jump from the number it handled last year.
Dr Khor said her CDC saw an 11 per cent increase in the number of financial and social assistance applications in the first half of this year.
'We are closely monitoring the situation on the ground. We have officers looking for gaps that we can fill at the local level,' she said.
In fact, her CDC has already increased its budget for food vouchers given to needy residents by 25 per cent, to $100,000, she added.
Both Dr Teo and Dr Khor said that CDCs will need more helping hands and more money, given the increased number of residents seeking help.
Dr Khor expects that programmes specifically initiated by her CDC will cost close to $1 million in the current financial year - up from $723,000 the previous year.
This means having to rope in more sponsors.
The energy-saving bulbs installed by the two CDCs, for instance, were donated by lighting company Osram Singapore and Philips Electronics Singapore.
To raise more funds, Dr Teo also launched a philanthropy club in May this year. It has 40 members so far, each of whom donates $100 a month to the North West CDC's food-aid fund.
The fund pays for dried goods and frozen food for needy families.
'We hope to encourage more companies to come forward and give a helping hand to lower-income residents in our district,' he added.
Additional reporting by Jessica Cheam
They get a second life overseas, reports IRENE THAM
Straits Times Digital Life 20 Aug 08;
LINDA Than, 54, helps her son run a PC retail shop at Funan DigitaLife Mall. PCpro Computer Services sells new PCs and also deals in second-hand ones - a business her son, Kelvin Koh, 33, has been doing for 10 years.
Its monthly collection of what is deemed as 'electronic junk' from offices islandwide easily tops 3,000 units, rising over the years.
'More and more companies are upgrading and getting rid of their old computers,' said Linda.
Alvin Tan, who runs hardware waste disposal firm Scrap Tech Trading, handles 30 per cent more unwanted PCs today than he did two years ago. He blamed technology's fast pace of becoming obsolete.
The fiercest disposers are large firms, usually multinationals and systems integrators, as well as government agencies and schools.
Data collected by research firm GfK Asia show that corporate and home users here bought more than 200,000 new PCs between January and June this year. This compares with 145,000 new PCs bought in the same period last year.
In the coming months, some 60,000 computers of civil servants here will also be dumped. The upgrade is part of Singapore's $1.3 billion outsourcing deal to provide standard systems to government agencies.
The thousands of old computers that PCpro collects are refurbished and exported to PC dealers in places such as Malaysia, Indonesia, China, India and Africa.
Sales to charities and low-income families here are low because of lack of bulk orders, required to offset the thin margins. 'It's easier to sell in bulk to overseas dealers,' said Ana Tan, the boss of E-Pex PC.
It used to import old computers from the United States but with the abundant supply in Singapore in recent years, it no longer has to do so.
That said, rivalry for used products has stiffened over the years too.
Corporations and government agencies usually invite bids from dealers for their unwanted equipment. The highest bidder gets the deal.
Second-hand traders have more control over prices with consumers who can trade in their old PCs at some Funan DigitaLife Mall and Sim Lim Square shops.
Old desktops or laptops go for between $50 and $800. Technicians at some dealers will also fix non-working parts. These 'junk' can be resold overseas for $120 or more a piece.
Be a techie and still save the earth; THAM YUEN-C gets tips from two greenies
Straits Times Digital Life 20 Aug 08;
November Tan (right), 27
Master's student in Geography at the National University of Singapore and a nature blogger
"My tech list is quite long. I have a DSLR, compact camera, laptop and PC. I maximise my tech resources though.
I spend time on the computer but a lot of my activities online are dedicated to spreading the environmental message.
The whole idea is that you're not using technology for only fun things but for advocating environmentalism and conservation.
We can't reach out to many people with flyers, and flyers leave a big carbon footprint too. By using the computer and the Internet to spread our message, we increase awareness more easily, so you can see it as justifying use of technology in a way.
With Wi-Fi available in some of our parks, we can instantly blog or Twitter about what we see. The other day, I saw seven otters at Pulau Ubin and I sent a message to Twitter. My friends who saw it passed on the message.
Also, I try to turn everything off at the main supply at the end of the day instead of leaving gadgets on standby mode."
Tan Hang Chong (above), 35
Management consultant and member of Nature Society Singapore
"Tech gadgets can lead to waste and add to power consumption but, in some cases, they can also make you greener.
When I first got a pager, I stopped buying watches as my pager could tell time. Now that I have a mobile phone, I don't buy alarm clocks. I also don't need an organiser, because my phone tracks my appointments.
I think integration of a few devices into one has helped people become more green. When gadgets become multifunctional, you can replace a few gadgets with just one. That's one of the advantages of technology.
If I buy a gadget next, I'll get a phone with a PDA and also GPS, so I won't need a separate GPS device for my nature treks.
Also, get things second hand; it saves you money.
When my PC monitor died, I got the next one through freecycle. It's a forum where people offer their old gadgets or anything else they don't want, instead of throwing them away.
You should just buy what you need, rather than buy what you want.
That's a green way to live a tech life."
The green light to save earth
Individuals and companies are showing a bigger eco conscience. TAN CHONG YAW and THAM YUEN-C look at the growing trend
Straits Times Digital Life 20 Aug 08;
RIA Tan, 47, buys gadgets only when she needs them.
She held onto her last mobile phone for seven years before junking it for a new one and then only because she could no longer find a replacement battery for the old geezer.
Ria is no luddite when it comes to technology though.
The director of corporate affairs in a public-sector agency, who also runs a nature website, WildSingapore, owns digital cameras and computers.
'I'm not such a hairy back greenie that I think we all have to live in caves,' she quipped. 'But you should buy a gadget because it's a tool, and not because it's a toy.
'Most importantly, it has to be energy efficient.'
It appears that the big boys of IT have a green conscience too.
In Springboard Research's August 2007 report, Green IT takes Centre Stage, the IT market research firm observed that 'large IT vendors have recently begun to introduce green IT products and solutions'.
The making of tech products add huge doses of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the report noted. For example, an average-sized server emits the same amount of carbon dioxide and other harmful gases as a sports utility vehicle.
Recognising this, the report added that big IT players are trying to stop using toxic ingredients in the making of gizmos from PCs to monitors, and designing them for reuse and recycling, among other things.
Saving costs
If accounts from the big boys that Digital Life interviewed are anything to go by, there is merit in that study.
This month, PC maker Dell trumpeted to the media that it had gone carbon neutral - five months ahead of schedule.
Since setting this goal in September last year, the Texas-based giant had aggressively pushed a global energy-efficiency campaign and upped its purchases of green power like wind and hydroelectricity.
So, Dell now takes out as much carbon dioxide as it emits into the atmosphere.
Dell also provides free recycling of its products in more than 40 countries. Fill up a form at www.dell.com.sg/recycle and a Dell agent will pick up your product at your doorstep. HP, which is easily a leader in eco efforts with its own strategies in as early as 1987, has a recycling programme for its commercial and enterprise customers in over 50 countries.
Last year, chipmaker Intel reused or recycled 87 per cent of its chemical waste and 80 per cent of its solid waste which ranges from latex gloves to wood waste.
But is all the green talk a whitewash? After all, IT firms were notorious for their 'ungreen' ways.
Springboard Research's top prediction was that cost savings will drive green IT investments.
'It's just good business,' said Tod Arbogast, Dell's sustainable business director, told Digital Life.
Besides upping its green cred, Dell has saved more than US$3 million (S$4.2 million) annually.
Intel has saved more than 500 million kWh of electricity since 2001 - enough power for 80,000 Singapore homes for more than a year.
Gaining traction
Green IT covers eco-friendly processes for the whole life cycle of IT products. An early instance of it was the Energy Star programme, begun in 1992 by the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
The Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS), which took effect on July 1, 2006, created a greater momentum. The European Union made it law for companies to restrict the use of six hazardous materials in the making of electrical and electronic goods. Materials like lead, mercury and cadmium are out.
The message: comply or send your goods elsewhere.
Now, even China, in an attempt to change its ungreen reputation, is singing the RoHS tune. Its version of RoHS passed on March 1, 2007, goes beyond substance restrictions to include labelling: Product labels must say that they do not contain the banned substances, matching those of the EU RoHS.
No screen savers allowed
On an individual level, companies like KPMG have their own green schemes in place.
Sharad Somani, its director of global infrastructure and projects group, said that monitors at the company's office at Hong Leong Building are programmed to go into the standby mode or power down when not in use. Screen savers, which serve no purpose, are banned.
Single-sided printers have been phased out too. New printers bought all use low energy and, by default, print double-sided pages.
At Republic Polytechnic, wireless projectors save on the metals and plastics that would go into the VGA cables used to connect notebook PCs to the projectors.
Presentations are uploaded to a server which links to the desired projector. That way, there's no need to power a notebook to run the presentation, saving energy.
The polytechnic also adheres to a paperless office regime. For example, contract documents are signed not with pen and paper but digitally on tablet PCs.
Corporate branding plays a part in green IT. 'It's a statement on technology leadership,' Nick Jacobs, Intel Asia Pacific's regional PR group manager told Digital Life.
Consumers benefit. Tod said: 'When we optimise our logistics infrastructure - we reduce our costs and our customers get their products faster.'
Be a jolly green giant
Straits Times Digital Life 20 Aug 08;
BEING a green geek is not hard. Here are steps you can take to cut down on your tech-related power consumption, carbon footprint and environmental guilt.
Buy energy efficient products
A computer alone, turned on for about four hours a day, consumes some 35kWh worth of electricity a month. That's $9 to the monthly electricity bills, and 0.03 metric tons of greenhouse gases to the environment. The same amount released from burning 11 litres of petrol.
Buy energy-efficient gadgets - computers, printers, DVD players, LCD TVs and many other gizmos affixed with the Energy Star label. They use 20 per cent to 30 per cent less power than regular devices. More savings for you and kinder to the Earth.
Turn off at source
To keep their gizmos ready to go with one click of the remote control or button, gadgets remain on standby mode, even when turned off.
So they're really sucking power from your sockets.
Standby power accounts for up to 10 per cent of home electricity use here.
Switch off all gadgets at source - the wall switch.
Watch what you use
No one really thinks about the power sucked up by the mobile phone charger dangling from the wall socket all day, or the printer and scanner that are plugged in but has not been used for years.
It's easy to ignore power wastage, when it doesn't really show.
So, track your power consumption and see how much you're really wasting.
ETrack (www.etrack.com.sg), a little tracking device developed here, measures your home's total power usage and also that of individual items.
Keep gadgets out of landfills
A new computer every three to four years and a new mobile phone in an even shorter time. That is what consumers here are used to, said research firm IDC's Bryan Ma.
Thousands of these items could end up in rubbish bins or landfills every month.
Donate to people who need them through charity organisations. Or, give them away for free to other greenies who don't mind old items.
Go to the website Freecycle (www.freecycle.org/group/Singapore/Singapore/Singapore).
Also, return to sender: Dell takes back old Dell stuff, while HP takes back products from its business customers.
Making changes for the future
Companies are going green in a big way and improving the ways they do business to save the earth. TAN CHONG YAW finds out
Straits Times Digital Life 20 Aug 08;
Packaging
THEN
# Packing materials - like styrofoam inserts - keep gadgets safe in transit from the factory to your house. They are made from petroleum, which can persist in landfills for centuries.
# Polystyrene, polyethylene and polyurethane are the usual suspects for packing materials. They are light, strong, water-resistant and cheap. They are molded into shapes or made into loose fill like packing peanuts. One brief use and straight to the landfill they go as lasting reminders of our retail exuberance.
NOW
# Through design - like getting rid of unnecessary outer shells or consolidating multiple orders into one pack - packaging materials can be reduced. So less space is needed and less fuel used in transportation and less waste sent to the landfill.
# Old newspapers and plants - like plant fibre from palm plantations can be molded to fit a product's exact shape. Fairly soft and flexible, molded paper pulp products (above) are light and absorb impact just as well.
Toxic substances
THEN
# Plenty of hazardous materials in PCs - like lead and mercury, both potent neurotoxins. Brominated fire retardants - common chemicals used in plastics - and cadmium are carcinogens.
# Cathode-ray tube (CRT) monitors give better colour precision. However, they are three times heavier, consume three times more power than LCDs and worst of all, have loads of hazardous stuff, like lead (more than 1kg), mercury and barium.
NOW
# Manufacturers have reduced or avoided the use of these chemicals. Partly to comply with legislation and partly for cred as technology leaders.
# A liquid crystal display monitor takes up much less space than a CRT one, produces less heat, is less of a power guzzler and lasts longer. It emits no electromagnetic radiation. Contains only traces of mercury.
Energy usage
THEN
# Energy is a must in the manufacturing process. Most energy is derived from the burning of fossil fuels - depleting a non-renewable resource and spewing tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
NOW
# Companies reduce energy usage, use green energy - like wind, solar and hydroelectricity - and plant trees to offset their emissions.
Logistics
THEN
# PCs, LCD monitors and HDTVs packed into containers sit in warehouses or are handled many times before arriving at their final destination.
# Counting on an efficient transportation system, the locations of factories doesn't rank high in decision-making.
NOW
# To reduce emissions and fuel use, companies site hubs close to their factories and air and sea ports. Ocean freight - the most eco-friendly - are preferred. Air transportation used only for speed.
# Shipping routes are redesigned to minimise air freight and consolidate shipments.
Bernama 19 Aug 08;
MELAKA, Aug 19 (Bernama) -- The Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry will submit to the Cabinet late next month a comprehensive proposal to include nuclear energy as an energy source for generating electricity.
Minister Datuk Dr Maximus Ongkili said the working paper, which was ready, covered the political, economic, social, technological, environmental, legal and security aspects.
"After it is tabled to the cabinet, an announcement will be made on our commitment to further preparations," he told reporters after opening an international conference and workshop on protection from radiation and launching the book, "Radiografi Industri-Prinsip dan Praktik", here last night.
Dr Ongkili said the Malaysian Nuclear Agency was the lead agency to coordinate and manage the planning, preparations and development for the use of nuclear energy as a power source in the country in future.
Malaysia had experts who had studied and researched nuclear technology as a safe new source of power.
"This nuclear energy is vital following the increase in the world fuel price and our limited oil reserve. Moreover, nuclear energy is cheap and clean," he said.
Malaysia looking at nuclear energy use
Channel NewsAsia 19 Aug 08;
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's cabinet will deliberate next month on whether to adopt nuclear energy to combat high global oil prices, a minister said Tuesday.
Last month, state utility Tenaga said it could construct the country's first 1,000 MW nuclear power plant at a cost of US$3.1 billion after being asked by the government to look at the option.
"After it is tabled to the cabinet, an announcement will be made on our commitment to further preparations," Science, Technology and Innovation minister Maximus Ongkili told state news agency Bernama.
"This nuclear energy is vital following the increase in the world fuel price and our limited oil reserve. Moreover, nuclear energy is cheap and clean," he added.
Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak said in June that Malaysia may consider adopting nuclear power to meet its long-term energy needs amid surging global oil prices.
Currently, half of Malaysia's power plants run on gas. Other sources include coal and hydropower.
Last year, the government said it would build Southeast Asia's first nuclear monitoring laboratory to allow scientists to check the safety of atomic energy programmes in the region.
- AFP/yb
Richard Black, BBC News 19 Aug 08;
A wild dolphin is apparently teaching other members of her group to walk on their tails, a behaviour usually seen only after training in captivity.
The tail-walking group lives along the south Australian coast near Adelaide.
One of them spent a short time after illness in a dolphinarium 20 years ago and may have picked up the trick there.
Scientists studying the group say tail-walk tuition has not been seen before, and suggest the habit may emerge as a form of "culture" among this group.
"We can't for the life of us work out why they do it," said Mike Bossley from the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS), one of the scientists who have been monitoring the group on the Port River estuary.
"We're doing systematic observations now to determine if there's something that may trigger it, but so far we haven't found anything," he told BBC News.
Rich culture
In the 1980s, Billie, one of the females in the group, spent a few weeks in a local dolphinarium recovering from malnutrition and sickness, a consequence of having been trapped in a marina lock.
She received no training there, but may have seen others tail-walking.
Now, other females in the group have picked up the habit. It is seen rarely in the wild, and the obvious inference is that they have learned it from Billie.
"This indicates that they do learn from each other, which is not a surprise really, but it does also seem that they exhibit elements of what in humans we would call 'cultural' behaviour," said Dr Bossley.
"These are things that groups develop and are passed between individuals and that come to define those groups, such as language or dancing; and it would seem that among the Port River dolphins we may have an incipient tail-walking culture."
The "cultural" transmission of ideas and skills has been documented in apes, while dolphins off the coast of Western Australia are known to teach their young to use sponges as an aid when gathering food.
Jayne Margetts, ABC News 20 Aug 08;
Conservationists say they have major concerns about Australia's contribution to the shark fin industry.
Using data from the Australian Quarantine Inspection Service, the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) has revealed hundreds of tonnes of shark fin are being exported from Australia every year.
They say on a conservative estimate that is the equivalent of 10,000 adult sharks.
The WWF is using the figures to add weight to its call for the Queensland Government to ditch a proposal to issue specific licenses to target sharks.
The Federal Government says a final decision is yet to be made but it will take a precautionary approach.
WWF's Dr Gilly Llewellyn says the appetite for shark fin overseas which Australia appears to be feeding, is insatiable, and in the past 13 months 230 tonnes of shark fin have been exported from our shores, mainly to Asian markets.
"Using a really conservative estimate using the largest possible size of shark, using a low fin to weight ratio, that's still 10,000 sharks that would have needed to be killed for that amount of fin," she says.
Dr Llewellyn says there is no scientific evidence to show whether that amount of shark fishing is sustainable.
She is calling on the federal and state governments to make conservation a priority.
"Start protecting places like Osprey Reef out in the Coral Sea, one of the few places in the world where sharks come in large numbers, they aggregate there," she said.
"Another key action that we're calling for is that we want the Queensland Government to shelve its plans for creating a shark fishery literally in the Great Barrier Reef world heritage area."
Government changes
But the Queensland Government denies its proposed changes to fishing licences would mean the creation of a dedicated shark fishery.
Mark Lightowler from the Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries says it aims to reduce the amount of shark being taken from Australian waters.
"Currently there's around 1,400 licences that can be utilised to take shark in Queensland waters. The proposal is to reduce that to 200 licences and restrict the catch to a precautionary level of 700 tonnes," he said.
But conservationists say it is nothing more than an administrative change that will not reduce the amount of shark being caught.
Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett says he is yet to reach a final agreement with the Queensland Government over its proposed changes.
But he intends to take a precautionary approach.
"I want to be absolutely convinced on the basis of the material that comes to me that we can agree with the Queensland Government on a management plan that sees fisheries managed sustainably and which doesn't see impacts on fish species and an impact that has been reflected in the figures that have been released today," he said.
Director of Marine Science at Macquarie University, Associate Professor Rob Harcourt, says research in the North Sea has shown the devastating impact that overfishing shark can have.
"There was a whole change right through the ecosystem and the scallop fishery collapsed because with the loss of the sharks the rays increased dramatically and they ate all the scallops and so the fishery collapsed because of the fishery for sharks, so you lost two fisheries," he said.
"Ecosystem effects can happen when you take out a top predator."
Marlowe Hood, Yahoo News 19 Aug 08;
The habitats of wild bird species are shifting in response to global warming, but not fast enough to keep pace with rising temperatures, according to a study released Wednesday.
Researchers in France also found that the delicate balance of wildlife in different ecosystems is changing up to eight times more quickly than previously suspected, with potentially severe consequences for some species.
"The flora and fauna around us are shifting over time due to climate change," said lead author Victor Devictor, a researcher at the French National Museum of Natural History.
"The result is desynchronisation. If birds and the insects upon which they depend do not react in the same way, we are headed for an upheaval in the interaction between species," he explained in a telephone interview.
These "mismatches" are likely to become greater over time, and could eventually threaten some birds with extinction, he added.
The study showed that the geographic range of 105 birds species in France -- accounting for 99.5 percent of the country's wild avian population -- moved north, on average, 91 kilometres (56.5 miles) from 1989 through 2006.
Average temperatures, however, shifted northward 273 kilometres (170 miles) over the same period, nearly three times farther.
The fact that some birds have responded to climate change had already been noted in individual species.
What surprised Devictor and his colleagues was that the shift held true for virtually all birds in France, and that the gap with the rising temperatures was big and getting bigger.
"The response is faster than we thought, but it is still not fast enough to keep up with climate change," he said.
Earlier studies looked at the impact of global warming by comparing "snapshots" -- taken years or decades apart -- of the range across which a given species lived.
But trying to define the outer boundary of a shifting habitat is extremely difficult because data is, by definition, scarce.
Devictor took another approach, taking advantage of France's French Breeding Bird Survey, which has gathered data collected by hundreds of ornithologists from more than 1500 well-defined plots since 1989.
This made it possible to look at the entire distribution of a species over a continuous period, he explained.
The northward shift of most species "is most likely changing at its maximal possible rate, which is insufficient to catch up to climate change," Devictor said.
"This discrepancy may have profound consequences on the ability of species to cope with climate change in the long run."
The study was published in the British journal Proceedings of The Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.
Mason Inman, for National Geographic News 19 Aug 08;
Grazing musk-oxen and caribou may help protect the fragile Arctic ecosystem from the effects of global warming, according to a new study.
Large grazers could help the region by feasting on woody shrubs and plants that would otherwise take over as temperatures rise and change the way the Arctic looks and functions.
If shrubs dominated, they would darken Arctic lands and absorb more heat from the sun, enhancing warming due to greenhouse gases.
"Careful management and conservation of existing populations of musk-oxen and caribou, as well as other large herbivores, should be a priority in plans to mitigate the effects of climate change on ecosystems," said study leader and Pennsylvania State University researcher Eric Post.
"Until now, these animals seem to have been regarded more as background noise than as an active component of the ecosystem's response to warming," said Post, a National Geographic grantee. (The National Geographic Society owns National Geographic News.)
Grazing Control
As carbon dioxide levels continue to increase, the Arctic is heating up faster than almost anywhere else.
This additional warmth will likely boost the growth of woody shrubs at the expense of grasses in the Arctic, according to the study published online this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"Keeping [large grazers] in the picture will help maintain other components of the Arctic as we know it, or at least moderate the effects of global warming," Post said.
Post and Christian Pedersen, also at Penn State, used plots in western Greenland to measure the effects of these grazing animals.
Fences kept several patches free of grazers. Some of these patches were also enclosed by clear plastic walls, which raised temperatures inside by 2.7 to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 to 3 degrees Celsius), simulating future warming.
In the plots off-limits to grazers, shrubs such as dwarf birch spread, crowding out grasses, which make up nearly half of the biomass in western Greenland studied by Post.
But in patches that were open to grazing—and also enclosed to raise temperatures—the mix of plants was much the same as today.
Musk-oxen seem to be responsible for most of the grazing, the study found.
"Not only are animals like caribou and musk-oxen themselves affected by climate change, they also affect how the Arctic responds to climate change," Post added.
"Intense" Effects
"For decades the Arctic has been considered to be regulated 'bottom up,'" meaning that scientists thought that fewer nutrients in the soil determined how Arctic plants grow, said plant ecologist Laura Gough of the University of Texas in Arlington.
But the new study shows that "mammals have the potential to counteract effects of warming on Arctic systems," added Gough, who was not involved in the new study.
"It is true that herbivores are relatively few in number in [the] tundra compared with warmer areas, but their effects can be intense," she said.
Although large grazers are sparsely spread across the Arctic—altogether there are about five million caribou and tens of thousands of musk-oxen—they eat enough plants to shape the ecosystem.
Shrubs are darker and absorb more heat, so if they spread due to continued global warming, this would create a "positive feedback" that makes the warming worse.
By preventing or delaying this change, grazers could help temper the warming of the planet, said Arctic ecologist Greg Henry of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.
"This could be a very important finding as some predictions of effects of the increased shrub cover are equivalent to doubling the [atmospheric] CO2 again," Henry said.
PlanetArk 20 Aug 08;
KENAI NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, Alaska - Here in a 13,700-year-old peat bog, ecologist Ed Berg reaches into the moss and pulls out more evidence of the drastic changes afoot due to the Earth's warming climate.
Rooting through a handful of mossy duff, Berg, an ecologist for the US Fish and Wildlife Service, shows remains of shrubs and other plants taking hold over the last 30 years in a patch of ground that has long been too soggy for woody plants to grow.
In other words, the ground is drying out, and the peat bog is turning into forest.
"There has been a big change," Berg said. Core samples taken from the bog show moss nearly 22 feet (6.7 meters) under the ground, with no sign of trees or shrubs growing here for centuries, Berg said.
In 50 years, the bog could be covered by black spruce trees, he said.
Welcome to Alaska, where the blow of climate change will fall harder than on any other US state.
Records indicate that Alaska has already experienced the largest regional warming of any US state -- an average 5 degrees Fahrenheit (3 degrees Celsius) since the 1960s and about 8 degrees Fahrenheit (4.5 degrees Celsius) in the interior of the state during winter months.
"We've got mounds of evidence that an extremely powerful and unprecedented climate-driven change is underway," said Glenn Juday, a forest ecologist at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks.
"It's not that this might happen, Juday said. "These changes are underway and there are more changes coming."
'BEETLES TAKE NO PRISONERS'
In a state that is one-third forest, the change will take the form of droughts, forest fires, and infestations of tree-killing insects like spruce beetles and spruce budworm moths.
Further north near the Arctic Circle, receding sea ice has major implications for polar bears, seals and dozens of species, as well as native humans who depend on the land to sustain them.
But here on the scenic Kenai Peninsula south of Anchorage, rising temperatures are partly to blame for an outbreak of bark-infesting beetles, which thrive in warmer climates.
Altogether more than 3 million acres (1.21 million hectares) of spruce have been killed in south-central Alaska since 1992, the biggest recorded outbreak in North American history.
"Beetles take no prisoners," Berg told reporters during a tour of the refuge. "It's a Mafia-style execution."
Today's beetle-infested forest is tomorrow's subdivision, and the beetle has set off a flurry of land speculation. "The realtors loved it," Berg said, describing how the new trend is to market clear-cut lands as "emerging view properties."
While wetlands like the ones Berg studies have acted as a speed bump for forest fires, the drying pattern has scientists worried about an uptick in forest fires.
Scattered at the outskirts of the bog are seedling black spruce trees, which burn more easily than white spruce and could provide a "fuel bridge" to allow fires to burn across peat bogs, which have long acted as a fire retardant.
Peat bogs are about 50 percent composed of carbon, and drying or burning would release heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
(Reporting by Chris Baltimore, Editing by Sandra Maler)
Anasuya Sanyal, Channel NewsAsia 20 Aug 08;
SAMUT PRAKARN : Bangkok could be hit by its worst storm in 50 years in the coming months, according to a Thai scientist who also warned the country about the threat of a tsunami in 1998.
The storm, along with 100 kilometre per hour winds and record high sea levels, could potentially create waves of 4.5 metres high - completely inundating coastal communities along the Gulf of Thailand.
The warning from Thai climate and ocean experts came during the prime months for typhoons and cyclones, which could trigger the phenomenon called "storm surge".
But critics said these predictions are sowing unnecessary panic among Gulf residents, who are already alarmed by the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar in May.
Climate scientists said the communities along the Gulf would be the most vulnerable in the event of a storm surge, but they also admitted that the likelihood of a storm entering the Gulf is low. However, that has not done much to ease the worries of residents.
Some experts said what is being called scaremongering is better than long-term negligence.
Dr Seree Supratid, director of Thailand's Natural Disaster Research Centre, said: "In terms of disaster management, you have to think about the worst case scenario first. For example, if people are aware of this possibility, they will (be prepared) and will help their families, and they will be safe."
In Bangkok, government preparedness plans for emergency drills and leaflets have not yet come to fruition.
But residents in Samut Prakarn, 29 kilometres south of Bangkok on the Gulf, are confident they will be given ample warning if a storm approaches. They are less sure, though, about what may happen afterwards.
"I have nowhere to go and I don't have relatives who live somewhere else. If it's only flooding, it's still okay for me. But if it's a major storm, I'm worried it might destroy the whole house," said one old lady who resides in Samut Prakarn.
Another resident said: "The local government has given us no official warning about the storm surge. But I've seen my neighbours starting to panic. Some have already moved."
Budget constraints and property disputes have made building a sea wall impossible.
However, experts said a good warning system, awareness campaign and flood prevention measures in the event of a major storm and possible surge could be the difference between life and death. - CNA /ls
Yahoo News 19 Aug 08;
Japan is planning to label consumer goods to show their carbon footprints in a bid to raise public awareness about global warming, an official said Tuesday.
Under the plan, a select range of products from beverages to detergent will carry markings on the carbon footprint -- or how much gas responsible for global warming has been emitted through production and delivery.
Similar labels have been introduced in other developed countries such as Britain and France.
"We hope that displaying carbon footprints will raise awareness among consumers as well as companies of their emissions and motivate them to emit less C02," said trade ministry official Shintaro Ishihara, who is unrelated to Tokyo's governor by the same name.
The ministry's research shows one example of carbon footprint using potato crisps.
A bag of crisps emits 75 grams (2.63 ounces) of carbon dioxide. Forty-four percent of the C02 comes from growing potatoes and another 30 percent from production of the processed food.
Another 15 percent comes from the packaging, nine percent from delivery and two percent from disposal of the bag.
The ministry plans to launch the project during the next fiscal year, which starts in April 2009. The exact number of products that will carry the labels is yet to be decided.
More than 20 companies joined a trade ministry panel in June to look at carbon footprints.
The companies -- including leading retailers Aeon and Seven & I Holdings along with Sapporo Breweries -- will show carbon footprint labels at an exhibition of environmental friendly products in December, Ishihara said.
British households are being unfairly targeted by the Government in the drive to cut refuse and other waste, an influential House of Lords committee warns today.
Robert Winnett, The Telegraph 19 Aug 08;
Ministers should focus their efforts on getting supermarkets and other businesses which are responsible for producing the vast majority of waste to cut back rather than "solely making demands of consumers".
The peers also express concern over the country's increasing "throwaway society" and urge that firms acting "irresponsibly" by creating unnecessary waste should be penalised financially.
Lord O'Neill, who headed the Lords inquiry, told The Daily Telegraph that British consumers faced "excessive packaging". He also accused supermarkets of being "overly cautious" when putting best-before dates on fresh food which was encouraging consumers to throw produce away prematurely.
Gordon Brown called on British households last month to reduce food waste but the latest analysis suggests that supermarkets must share the blame.
The House of Lords Science Committee has published its 127-page report amid growing public anger over draconian refuse collection rules. Millions of families across the country have lost their weekly rubbish collections yet face fines if they overfill bins or fail to recycle. Ministers are also trialling new "pay-as-you throw" bin taxes.
However, in today's report, the Lords argue that the Government is wrong to single out consumers for criticism and penalties as they are responsible for less than 10 per cent of Britain's waste.
Lord O'Neill, a former senior Labour MP, said: "The target regime for local authorities must be changed, so instead of a focus only on individuals' waste, priority is given to ensuring businesses are doing their bit to reduce waste. An important step would be to introduce true individual producer responsibility for waste associated with a company's products so manufacturers who behave irresponsibly face financial consequences and those who are doing the right thing are supported."
He added: "There is excessive packaging on a number of items - chocolate biscuits, Easter eggs and so on - and people should be alerted to the fact that this is not an efficient way for businesses to operate. Wasteful packaging was something we thought needs to be addressed."
The peer also criticised the application of best-before dates. "Early sell-by dates enables supermarkets to turn round their stock more quickly and they are obviously loathed to expose themselves to legal action if there is something wrong with their food," he said. "Therefore, perfectly good food may be thrown away because of a mixture of supermarkets being overly cautious and being keen to move stock along."
The report was welcomed by the Conservatives. Eric Pickles, the Shadow Secretary for Communities and Local Government, said: "This independent report highlights the failings of the Government to tackle the vast amount of waste produced by businesses, and the lamentable record of this Government in helping firms increase their recycling. Labour Ministers seem obsessed with hammering householders with heavy-handed bin taxes, bin fines and bin cuts, despite the fact that domestic rubbish is a small fraction of the total amount that we throw away."
The Lords' inquiry also call on the Government to offer lower VAT rates for products which have longer life-spans and for those that can be easily repaired rather than replaced.
VAT should also not be levied on electrical repairs in a bid to end the UK's throwaway culture where companies make higher profits if consumers discard their products regularly. The report concludes that there needs to be a radical shift in focus to cut waste from consumer goods - ranging from cars to electrical goods to food packaging - rather than simply penalising households who produce too much waste.
"Such a change could lead to manufacturers adapting their business model to encourage more sustainable consumption amongst their customers," the Lords conclude.
Cheap clothes which are designed to be thrown away after only being worn a few times are also singled out for criticism. "The Committee looked at the growth of 'fast fashion' and point out that the increased use of cheap fabrics for clothes intended to be worn for a short period of time and then thrown away makes recycling of fabric more difficult and is reflective of an increasing 'throwaway society'", the report states.
The Lords analysis was also welcomed by local authorities who have campaigned for supermarkets to cut their packaging which they claim is often excessive.
Paul Bettison, chairman of the Local Government Association's Environment Board, said: "Businesses need to match the efforts local people have made in recent years to reduce this country's reliance on landfill. It is unfair for them to profit at the taxpayers' expense as councils are left to deal with the rubbish they create.
"Reducing packaging is vital if we are to avoid paying more landfill tax and EU fines, which could lead to cuts in frontline services and increases in council tax. The days of the cling film coconut must come to an end. We all have a responsibility to reduce the amount of waste being thrown into landfill, which is damaging the environment and contributing to climate change."
An estimated 32 million people have now lost weekly refuse collections across the country. It recently emerged that ministers have quietly abandoned proposals that would have ensured that local waste authorities could only scrap weekly collections or impose bin taxes following a unanimous council vote.
Environment minister Joan Ruddock defended the Government's approach. ``It's quite wrong to suggest that the Government is over-focused on individuals when it comes to waste," she said. "The landfill tax escalator specifically targets business and commerce as high waste producers. We have a big programme of engagement with business and have invested over £650m in the last three years."
Paul Eccleston, The Telegraph 19 Aug 08;
Sending plastic bottles and paper to China for recycling causes less environmental harm than burying them in landfill sites.
The amount of CO2 produced in shipping unwanted waste 10,000 miles to China for reprocessing is less than would be produced by burying it and using brand new materials.
The findings emerged from a study by WRAP - the Government-funded company set up to advise on waste - to assess the environmental impact of exporting materials for recycling.
Greater awareness and a big increase in collection centres has seen household recycling in the UK jump dramatically from seven per cent to 30 per cent in the past 10 years.
The UK now recovers more paper for recycling than the paper industry can cope with but it is in great demand from emerging economies such as China which doesn't have enough forestry of its own.
And it is a similar story with recovered plastic bottles where China acts as a valuable 'sink market' mopping up what the UK cannot cope with.
Exports of recovered paper increased from 400,000 tonnes in 1998 to around 4.7m tonnes in 2007 and exports of recovered plastics increased from less than 40,000 tonnes to more than 500,000 in the same period.
China now accounts for more than half of the UK's exports of recovered paper and more than 80 per cent of recovered plastics.
But environmentalists worried that the benefits of recycling were being cancelled out by the emissions caused in transporting the waste to China.
The WRAP study calculated that sending one tonne of recovered paper from the UK to China produced between 154kg- 213kg of CO2 and transporting one tonne of recovered plastic bottles ranged between 158kg-230kg of CO2.
But the CO2 levels represented less than a third of the carbon savings produced from recycling.
The transport emissions became even smaller - less than 10 per cent of the overall amount of CO2 saved by recycling - because the waste can travel in containers that would normally be empty because the UK imports more than it exports to China.
WRAP's chief executive, Liz Goodwin, said: "It may seem strange that transporting our unwanted paper and plastic bottles such a distance would actually be better for the environment but that is what the evidence from this study shows.
"As more and more of this material is being sold to China we wanted to know the impact that was having on the environment, and specifically whether the CO2 emissions from the transport outweighed the benefits of the recycling.
"Although this study is only part of the environmental impact story, it is clear that there are significant CO2 savings that can be made by shipping our unwanted paper and plastic to China.
"In some cases, we just aren't able to reprocess everything we collect or there isn't enough of it to do so. In these cases, shipping it to China, which has a high demand and need for material, makes sense in CO2 terms.
"WRAP will continue to build both the environmental and economic case for domestic recycling."
Sending waste to China saves carbon emissions
John Vidal, guardian.co.uk 19 Aug 08;
Sending old newspapers and plastic bottles 10,000 miles for recycling in China produces more carbon savings than landfilling it in Britain and making new goods, reveals a study from the government body charged with reducing UK waste.
In the last 10 years annual exports of paper, mainly to India, China and Indonesia, have risen from 470,000 tonnes to 4.7m tonnes, while exports of old plastic bottles have gone from under 40,000 tonnes to half a million tonnes.
Now the counterintuitive conclusions of the report from the Waste Resources Action Programme (Wrap) suggest that the advantage of recycling over landfilling is so great that it makes environmental sense to ship waste right round the world if it can be used again.
The journey taken by the waste involves travelling hundreds of miles within Britain to ports, then thousands of miles on some of the world's biggest ships to China, and then more road travel to recycling plants. But for paper, this odyssey incurs only a one third of the climate-warming emissions that are saved by recycling, the report says. For plastics, the report found it even more advantageous to export for recycling.
There is a further factor in favour of exporting the waste. The imbalance of trade between China and the UK means that the majority of container ships head back to China empty and produce CO2 emissions whether or not they are carrying cargo. "If you take this into account, the transport emissions are even smaller – less than one-tenth of the overall amount of CO2 saved by recycling," says Wrap.
The study estimated the transport emissions from exports to China and compared them with benchmark savings from recycling. It found that 1300kg-1600kg of CO2 was saved for each tonne of waste.
"The growth in exports is in part a success story, reflecting the rapid development of the UK's collection infrastructure and increase in recovery rates. Exports to China are bridging the gap between plastic bottle collections being established and the future development of domestic reprocessing capacity," says the report.
However, the report does not consider the environmental or social advantages of establishing a significant UK manufacturing industry to produce goods from the recycled waste and the authors stressed that it does not show that exporting waste was desirable.
Liz Goodwin, chief executive of Wrap, said: "It may seem strange that transporting our unwanted paper and plastic bottles such a distance would actually be better for the environment but that is what the evidence from this study shows."
"We do not have a manufacturing base here. Ideally, it would be dealt with here. But we would far prefer to see it recycled in China, where it is a resource, than landfilled in Britain", said a spokesman for Wastewatch, an independent group.
Nichola Groom, PlanetArk 20 Aug 08;
LOS ANGELES - Google Inc Tuesday said it would invest more than US$10 million in an emerging geothermal energy technology as part of its effort to lower the cost of electricity from renewable sources.
Google's philanthropic arm, Google.org, said the investment would go toward enhanced geothermal systems (EGS), a technology that circulates water through hot rocks in the ground, producing steam to power a turbine.
Conventional geothermal technology relies on finding naturally occurring pockets of steam and hot water below the Earth's surface.
"This is an exciting new approach to geothermal that could meet thousands of times US energy needs," Dan Reicher, head of climate and energy initiatives for Google.org, said in an interview. "It's 24-7, it's potentially developable all over the country ... and for all that we really do think it could be the 'killer app' of the energy world."
"Killer app" is a tech term used to describe revolutionary software.
Geothermal technology is a good complement to solar and wind farms, Reicher said, because their electricity output is intermittent.
Google's investment includes US$6.25 million for Sausalito, California-based EGS company AltaRock Energy Inc, part of a US$26.25 million round of funding AltaRock announced on Tuesday. Other investors include Microsoft Corp co-founder Paul Allen's investment firm, Vulcan Capital, and Silicon Valley venture capital firms Khosla Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Advanced Technology Ventures.
Google will also invest US$4 million in Potter Drilling Inc, a Redwood City, California-based company that is developing deep hard rock drilling technology for use with EGS.
The company also announced a US$489,521 grant for Southern Methodist University's Geothermal Lab to update geothermal mapping of North America.
Last year, Google said it plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to help drive the cost of electricity made from renewable sources below the price of power generated from dirty coal-fired plants.
The company is focusing its efforts on three technologies: solar thermal, advanced wind, and EGS. It has previously invested in Pasadena, California-based solar thermal company eSolar Inc and Alameda, California-based high-altitude wind company Makani Power Inc.
Google is also interested in investing in electricity transmission and distribution, Reicher said. (Editing by Gerald E. McCormick and Steve Orlofsky)
Andrea Thompson, LiveScience.com Yahoo News 19 Aug 08;
Dips in the sun's activity have triggered centuries-long droughts in eastern North America, according to a new study that examined the geologic record stored within a stalagmite from a West Virginia cave.
The link between periodic droughts and changes in solar activity initially was proposed by geologist Gerald Bond. He suggested that every 1,500 years, weak solar activity caused by fluctuations in the sun's magnetic fields cooled the North Atlantic Ocean and created more icebergs and ice rafting, or the movement of sediment to the ocean floor. This caused less precipitation to fall, creating drought conditions.
The climate record preserved by trace elements such as strontium, carbon and oxygen in stalagmites is clearer and more detailed than records previously taken from lake sediments. During dry periods, strontium is concentrated in stalagmites. Carbon isotopes also record drought because drier soils slow biological activity.
For the new study, researchers cut and polished a stalagmite taken from Buckeye Creek Cave, and drilled out 200 samples. The metals and isotopes in the stalagmites' growth layers were weighed and analyzed to determine how the concentrations changed over time.
The stalagmite's record provides evidence that there were at least seven major droughts during the Holocene era in eastern North America. Some of these, from about 6,300 to 4,200 years ago, were particularly pronounced, lasting for decades or even entire centuries.
"This really nails down the idea of solar influence on continental drought," said geologist Gregory Spring of Ohio University and the study's leader. The results of the study are detailed online in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Modern droughts may not follow this same pattern of periodic long-term droughts caused by weak solar activity, as cooling in the North Atlantic Ocean today actually increases moisture and precipitation.
The climate record does suggest that North America could face a major drought event again in 500 to 1,000 years, though Springer said that human-induced global warming could offset the cycle.
"Global warming will leave things like this in the dust," he said. "The natural oscillations here are nothing like what we would expect to see with global warming."
In fact, new research from the University of Arizona in Tucson has linked human-driven changes in the westerly winds to drought conditions in the American Southwest, which has been plagued by drought for much of the last decade.
Since the 1970s, the winter storm track in the western United States has shifted northward, bringing fewer winter storms and less rain and snow to the region, the researchers found. This precipitation deficit can affect water resources later in the year and cause more and larger forest fires.
These findings will also be detailed in Geophysical Research Letters.
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