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December 2006
Satish Kumar on Christmas
Thanks to Sally McKinnon at Ethos Foundation for pointing me at this.
In his November/December 2006 Resurgence editorial "A Far Cry from Christmas" Satish Kumar suggests that as Christmas approaches we are continue to see rampant consumption and little spirit, peace or relationship. Satish writes:
"By all means let us replace fossil fuel with bio-fuel where appropriate, but we have to do more than that - we have to replace our quantitative consumerism with a qualitative lifestyle. We need to move away from more and global to less and local; from accumulation of unnecessary clutter to enjoyment of the good things in life like art, music, friendship and free time. We need to shift from waste to frugality, from consuming to making, from illusion to imagination, from desire to delight and from consumption of natural resources to an appreciation of the natural world. If we do that then Christmas will again be an occasion of great celebration rather than an excuse for more consumption. And then again the secular and the sacred, the material and the spiritual will be recognised as being two sides of the same coin."
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Building the Change: The 2030 Climate Challenge
Gil Friend has a good article on the 2030 Climate Change challenge that I blogged about previously.
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Can Renewable Energy Replace Coal - the "Base Load" question
Can renewable energy replace coal?
Recent months have seen a new push from the coal and nuclear industries to discredit renewable energy. The common criticism is that renewable energy cannot provide ‘baseload’ power and therefore cannot replace coal-fired power stations. Greenpeace energy campaigner Mark Wakeham tackles the renewables sceptics (who not so long ago were climate sceptics) and answers some common questions.
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Building Sector Unites to Confront Global Climate Change
The building industry seems to have really come together to show that strong targets can be set across an entire industry
From their press release......
Santa Fe (December 1, 2006) - recognizing that the Building Sector is
responsible for almost half of all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions annually,
key leaders in this Sector have banded together to confront the
global-warming crisis. Last week, the American Institute of Architects
(AIA), U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), American Society of Heating,
Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), Architecture 2030 and
about 20 other leaders attended a special meeting at the 2006 Greenbuild
International Conference and Expo, a conference presented annually by the
USGBC. According to Rick Fedrizzi, President, CEO & Founding Chairman of
USGBC, "Eliminating the built environment's negative contribution to climate
change is not just a strategic priority, it's our collective responsibility
to generations to come. Science tells us we have 3650 days to meet that
goal, and urgent action is required."
During the meeting, the group reached a consensus on three critical issues
facing the Building Sector as it works to bring energy consumption and GHG
emissions in this sector under control: the need for a common goal, the
definition of this goal and a baseline to measure progress against. "The
building industry is coming together around the common goal of Architecture
2030's targets for reductions in energy use. The organizations and
individuals in this meeting need to reach out to the entire industry,
encouraging them all to work together in achieving these targets.", said
R.K. Stewart, President-elect of AIA.
In a show of solidarity and commitment, these leaders have adopted 'The 2030
Challenge' targets. The 2030 Challenge, a global initiative officially
launched by Architecture 2030 in January 2006, calls for all new buildings
and major renovations to reduce their fossil-fuel GHG-emitting energy
consumption by 50 percent immediately, increasing this reduction to 60% in
2010, 70% in 2015, 80% in 2020, 90% in 2025, and finally, that all new
buildings would be carbon neutral by the year 2030. Terry Townsend,
President of ASHRAE, stated that, "ASHRAE is committed to developing the
tools needed to accomplish the Architecture 2030 challenge."
Building Sector Unites to Confront Global Climate Change (p2)
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