Seeing as my son's first birthday party kicks-off at dawn (Oktoberfiesta), I'm still slacking on posts. So here's an article to tide you over till Monday.
UN issues 'final wake-up call' on population and environment
By James Kanter
Published: October 25, 2007
PARIS: The human population is living far beyond its means and inflicting damage on the environment that could pass points of no return, according to a major report issued Thursday by the United Nations.
Climate change, the rate of extinction of species and the challenge of feeding a growing population are among the threats putting humanity at risk, the UN Environment Program said in its fourth Global Environmental Outlook since 1997.
"The human population is now so large that the amount of resources needed to sustain it exceeds what is available at current consumption patterns," Achim Steiner, the executive director of the program, said in a telephone interview. Efficient use of resources and reducing waste now are "among the greatest challenges at the beginning of 21st century," he said.
The program described its report, which is prepared by 388 experts and scientists, as the broadest and deepest of those that the UN issues on the environment and called it "the final wake-up call to the international community."
Over the past two decades the world population has increased by almost 34 percent to 6.7 billion from 5 billion; similarly, the financial wealth of the planet has soared by about a third. But the land available to each person on earth had shrunk by 2005 to 2.02 hectares, or 5 acres, from 7.91 hectares in 1900 and was projected to drop to 1.63 hectares for each person by 2050, the report said.
Read more HERE.
Showing posts with label emissions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label emissions. Show all posts
Friday, October 26, 2007
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Let's hope for a trickle down...
A huge verdict has been won in Vermont with major implications on the rest of the country. No, it doesn't involve Adam and Steve...
The Law Offices of Mathew F. Pawa, the representative firm of the state of Vermont, have won a major environmental case against Green Mountan Dealers, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, DaimlerChrysler, and General Motors. In the fall of 2005 the state of Vermont passed new regulations that establish greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions standards for new
automobiles (similar to that of California). The aforementioned motormen filed a complaint seeking relief from this law...and lost!
It's amusing they would bring such a suit, given their commitment to Environmental Stewardship:
GM's Environmental Responsibility
DaimlerChrysler's Sustainability Initiatives
For complete press coverage, check out these press releases from Pawa:
The New York Times
Christian Science Monitor
The Wall Street Journal
The Jurist
Other intertube coverage can be found here:
Google News
World War 4 Report
CNS News
YubaNet
Eco-Justice Blog
Top Yeti Gadget XR (great breakdown of the story)
Congratulations to Mr. Pawa and the rest of their firm. I wish them continued good luck in their future endeavors.
The Law Offices of Mathew F. Pawa, the representative firm of the state of Vermont, have won a major environmental case against Green Mountan Dealers, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, DaimlerChrysler, and General Motors. In the fall of 2005 the state of Vermont passed new regulations that establish greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions standards for new
automobiles (similar to that of California). The aforementioned motormen filed a complaint seeking relief from this law...and lost!
It's amusing they would bring such a suit, given their commitment to Environmental Stewardship:
GM's Environmental Responsibility
DaimlerChrysler's Sustainability Initiatives
For complete press coverage, check out these press releases from Pawa:
The New York Times
Christian Science Monitor
The Wall Street Journal
The Jurist
Other intertube coverage can be found here:
Google News
World War 4 Report
CNS News
YubaNet
Eco-Justice Blog
Top Yeti Gadget XR (great breakdown of the story)
Congratulations to Mr. Pawa and the rest of their firm. I wish them continued good luck in their future endeavors.
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Tapping the trailer park...
Are tornadoes emissions free?
Louis Michaud is a madman, but like most people gone mad he's obviously brilliant. Oddly brilliant. Brilliant to the point of being crazy. How about I just call him a dreamer.
Anybody with a tooth can tell you just how powerful a tornado really is, but Michaud wants to tell you how powerful it could be. His dream is to harness the power of the vortex for energy gain, and although the idea sounds vaguely similar to my Hurricane Drink Mixer, I'll let it slide.
Michaud has spent his life's work, about four decades, studying tornadoes and hurricanes. He believes it is possible to engineer man-made vortexes (a word?) in a controlled environment in order to produce clean, emissions-free energy...enough energy to power 200,000 homes at full-scale!
"I'm talking about a 200-megawatt device, which would be 200 metres in diameter," says Michaud. That's enough electricity for 200,000 homes.
"The vortex would be one to 20 kilometres high, and have 10 turbines (at the bottom) each producing 20 megawatts."
Read the rest of the article in the Toronto Star.
The Vortex Engine Patent from Wikipedia:
The concept of a Vortex Engine, independently proposed by Norman Louat [1] and Louis Michaud [2], aims to replace large physical chimneys with a vortex of air created by a shorter, less-expensive structure.
Michaud's patent claims that the main application is that the air flow through the louvers at the base will drive low-speed air turbines (21), generating twenty percent more electric power from the heat normally wasted by conventional power plants. That is, the vortex engine's proposed main application is as a "bottoming cycle" for large power plants that need cooling towers.
The application proposed by Louat in his patent claims is to provide a less-expensive alternative to a physical Solar updraft tower. In this application, the heat is provided by a large area of ground heated by the sun and covered by a transparent surface that traps hot air, in the manner of a Greenhouse. A vortex is created by deflecting vanes set at an angle relative to the tangent of the outer radius of the solar collector.
A similar proposal is to eliminate the transparent cover. [3] This scheme would drive the chimney-vortex with warm seawater or warm air from the ambient surface layer of the earth. In this application, the application strongly resembles a dust-devil with an air-turbine in the center.
Louis Michaud is a madman, but like most people gone mad he's obviously brilliant. Oddly brilliant. Brilliant to the point of being crazy. How about I just call him a dreamer.
Anybody with a tooth can tell you just how powerful a tornado really is, but Michaud wants to tell you how powerful it could be. His dream is to harness the power of the vortex for energy gain, and although the idea sounds vaguely similar to my Hurricane Drink Mixer, I'll let it slide.
Michaud has spent his life's work, about four decades, studying tornadoes and hurricanes. He believes it is possible to engineer man-made vortexes (a word?) in a controlled environment in order to produce clean, emissions-free energy...enough energy to power 200,000 homes at full-scale!
"I'm talking about a 200-megawatt device, which would be 200 metres in diameter," says Michaud. That's enough electricity for 200,000 homes.
"The vortex would be one to 20 kilometres high, and have 10 turbines (at the bottom) each producing 20 megawatts."
Read the rest of the article in the Toronto Star.
The Vortex Engine Patent from Wikipedia:
The concept of a Vortex Engine, independently proposed by Norman Louat [1] and Louis Michaud [2], aims to replace large physical chimneys with a vortex of air created by a shorter, less-expensive structure.
Michaud's patent claims that the main application is that the air flow through the louvers at the base will drive low-speed air turbines (21), generating twenty percent more electric power from the heat normally wasted by conventional power plants. That is, the vortex engine's proposed main application is as a "bottoming cycle" for large power plants that need cooling towers.
The application proposed by Louat in his patent claims is to provide a less-expensive alternative to a physical Solar updraft tower. In this application, the heat is provided by a large area of ground heated by the sun and covered by a transparent surface that traps hot air, in the manner of a Greenhouse. A vortex is created by deflecting vanes set at an angle relative to the tangent of the outer radius of the solar collector.
A similar proposal is to eliminate the transparent cover. [3] This scheme would drive the chimney-vortex with warm seawater or warm air from the ambient surface layer of the earth. In this application, the application strongly resembles a dust-devil with an air-turbine in the center.
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