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May 2006
Nuclear power - no solution to climate change or peak oil
(this post is a summary, and a draft, I'm looking for the references to back it up).
With the recent call by John Howard and others to reopen the nuclear debate, it is worth addressing why Nuclear is not a good idea.
It boils down to three areas.
1: It won't solve Climate Change
2: Its not safe
3: Even if both the above were true, its not economic
Continue reading "Nuclear power - no solution to climate change or peak oil"
Posted by at 9:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
How Cuba survived Peak Oil
I found this article fascinating, and wonder what lessons it holds for Australia and the US - will we work to overcome the challenge of climate change and peak oil, will we be too late and successfully adapt to the changes they bring, or will we descend ungracefully.
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By Megan Quinn From Permaculture Activist
In Brief: "Try to image an airplane suddenly losing its engines.
It was really a crash"... A crash that put Cuba into a state of shock.
There were frequent blackouts in its oil-fed electric power grid, up
to 16 hours per day. The average daily caloric intake in Cuba dropped
by a third... So Cubans started to grow local organic produce out of
necessity, developed bio-pesticides and bio-fertilizers as
petrochemical substitutes, and incorporated more fruits and vegetables
into their diets. Since they couldn't fuel their aging cars, they
walked, biked, rode buses, and carpooled.
Continue reading "How Cuba survived Peak Oil"
Posted by at 9:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Chicago Climate Exchange
I've been interested in the idea of private climate exchanges for a while, i.e. creating a market for carbon credits independent of governments such as those of Australia and the US that don't seem to care about Global Climate Change. This article from Treehugger covers the Chicago Climate Exchange, and the reasoning behind it.
A growing group of companies, including DuPont, Dow, Ford, Bayer and numerous city governments (see the impressive list here) have signed on to a legally binding contract to reduce their emissions, and trade their right to pollute on a free market exhange based in Chicago - the CCX.
Posted by at 8:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Papyrus wins $1.2m grant for banana paper
(Advertiser 18may06) PAPYRUS Australia has been awarded a $1.2 million grant to commercialise its paper-making technology.
The money, from a Federal Government Commercial Ready grant, would be used to build a demonstration plant in Queensland.
The Adelaide-based company expects the plant, able to produce 20,000 tonnes of paper per year from banana ply, would be ready by May next year.
The company plans to sell the paper-making technology, rather than produce the paper commercially.
Papyrus managing director Ramy Azer would not reveal how much a 20,000 tonne plant would cost, but said with paper costing about $1000 a tonne to buy, but only about $150 per tonne to produce with the Papyrus technology, investors would be looking at a good return on investment.
(Full Disclosure: I was acting CEO of Papyrus most of 2004, I have no ongoing inside information.)
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Posted by at 8:32 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Gore's spoof "State of the Union" speech.
If you haven't seen it already,Al Gore did a fun spoof of the State of the Union address, my favorite bit was the about the unforseen consequences of beating Global Warming. "Rogue glaciers have taken upper Maine". Watch the video here.
Posted by at 9:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Egyptian democracy activist, Alaa arrested.
Last october I went to Bulgaria for the annual conference of the Association for Progressive Communications, an organisation I co-founded in the late 80's. While there I met an Egyptian blogger, Alaa Abd El-Fatah. Who impressed me as a voice of moderation in a part of the world full of extremism.
Alaa was arrested at a demonstration in Cairo on May 7th, 2006, alongside a
group of his colleagues. He was demonstrating peacefully along with other activists
against attempts to reduce the independence of the judiciary in Egypt. He is being held in an infamous Torah prison. The incident is summarised on freealaa.blogspot.com .....
Alaa is a secular democracy activist, and a tireless advocate of freedom, free speech and human rights. He organizes demonstrations and engages in protests against all kinds of injustices in Egypt and is the winner of the international Best of the Blogs award from Reporters Without Borders last December.
Alaa was arrested while protesting to support Egypt’s Judges fight for independence. 2 weeks earlier he had organized a “National Unity” protest to show solidarity with Egypt’s Christians who suffered a sectarian attack on 3 churches on Good Friday. Before that he was one of the few voices that urged calm and peaceful dialogue while the cartoon crisis was hitting its peak. He is a desperately needed voice of moderation and democracy in Egypt, and one of the few flickers of hope in a country whose future seems mire between the crushing rule of the regime and the fanaticism of the Islamist opposition.
I would urge anyone who values freedom of speech to protest to their local embassy - which you can find here.
Posted by at 10:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)