Pollution black list forces big business to act

Large multinational companies and their local suppliers in China have long been receiving criticism over environmental concerns. Part of the criticism relates to the amount of large-scale toxic pollution being created in China so that consumers in countries like Australia can have cheap goods. One man has been particularly effective in his activism and, as a result, both multinational and Chinese companies are seeking his advice on how to get their names off his list.


Ma Jun originally became aware of China's pollution as a journalist travelling around the country. He says about half of China's water systems, rivers and lakes, are seriously contaminated. His office in southern Beijing's Guang Qu Men district houses an unassuming organisation called the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs. His website, which simply publishes information from the Chinese government, has been creating waves around world. Mr Ma lists the names of factories which have been fined or shut down by the Chinese authorities because of pollution. He then prints the names of the international companies that buy products from those suppliers.

Chinese companies seek him out and ask what they have to do to get off his black list. Mr Ma then organises independent auditors to check their emissions. If they have cleaned up their production, he takes them off his website. His list of offenders now numbers more than 68,000 and the embarrassment it is causing multinational companies is forcing them to act.

"This database now is being used by some major companies in the world, like GE, like Nike, like Walmart, as a tool for their supply chain management," he said.
"Taking Walmart as an example - every month they are comparing their list of thousands of suppliers with our list of violators and when they identify polluters that have been openly announced by the Chinese government, what they do is they will call them, they will push them to take corrective actions and eventually make a public disclosure about what went wrong and how they tried to fix their problem," he said.

Why Cool It, a Film about the Self-Proclaimed "Skeptical Environmentalist," Is a Must-See

The new movie featuring the economist Bjorn Lomborg, who has been a thorn in the side of climate change activists since his book, The Skeptical Environmentalist," is provocative – and not just for the sake of being provocative.

On November 12, the cinemas will start screening Cool It!, a documentary about Lomborg and his contrarian ideas about climate change. Odds are that the runaway train will put more butts in the seats than musings about runaway climate change. No matter. "Cool It!" is not a bad film in an "Inconvenient Truth" sort of way. Like "Inconvenient Truth," "Cool It!" tries to humanize its protagonist by taking a look at his early years - Lomborg laughingly recalling how he angered his stepfather when he dug up the family garden for an experiment, sort of like Gore in his movie sheepishly recalling the time he crashed the family car.

The film could have been an ego trip, and at times, it meanders close to the edge of that cliff, but pulls back sufficiently to focus on what we need to know about Lomborg's ideas and on the work of experts exploring alternative energy technologies, climate change adaptation, and geo-engineering.

Lomborg has long been a bete noire of the green movement, likely because he accepts the reality of human-caused climate change but rejects conventional thinking about fixing the problem. There's nothing that sets off a tribe more than a member of the tribe who likes to pick fights with the family, like the roguish cousin who stirs the pot around the turkey every Thanksgiving.

Unlike a James Inhofe or a Rush Limbaugh, outsiders who are easy to dismiss because of their buffoonish tirades about climate change hoaxes and scientists plotting world domination, Lomborg is not so easily brushed off. Unlike Inhofe and Limbaugh, he has actually thought about this stuff in depth. Too often, he says, the climate change debate has devolved into shouting between two extremes - one proclaiming imminent apocalypse, the other painting sugar-plum fantasies of a greening earth. Better to chart a middle way.

Not that Lomborg's ideas don't have holes in them. They do, but any plan for cracking a nut as rock-hard as climate change will have holes in it. More about that in a bit.

The chronically casual Lomborg - has he ever worn a long-sleeved shirt in his life? - was on hand at a private screening in Seattle last week. During the post-screening Q&A, Lomborg answered questions matter-of-factly in streams-of-consciousness that layered on details and minimized spin and self-referential bloviation. He graciously acknowledged some pointed criticism that the film went overboard in making an argument that individual steps taken now - changing out inefficient lighting, for example - are of little consequence in the broad scheme of things.

So what are the particulars of Bjorn's argument? He asserts that climate activists have wasted time scaring people about climate change. Public campaigns like Earth Hour - everyone turn off your lights for one hour - are feel-good exercises that amount to a whole lotta nothin'. Politicians' promises to cut emissions significantly have come to little. Even if they had, they would have cost too much and yielded too little.

Lomborg says a better approach would be pouring money into R&D to drive down the costs of solar energy, ocean wave power, 4th generation nukes, and biofuels produced from non-edible feedstocks, so that they can compete with oil and coal. Spend money on the unavoidable need to adapt to climate change already in the pipeline - better sea walls, for example. And - many greens hate this - put some dollars into R&D for geo-engineering, just in case climate change takes off at frightening speeds, sort of like Denzel Washington's freight train.

The annual budget for his work program - $250 billion. Spend $100 billion on energy R&D and another $50 billion on adaptation. Spend another $99 billion on development basics for poor countries - clean water, education, and health care - human needs that are immediate and acute. The remaining $1 billion from the kitty would be earmarked for geo-engineering research.

Where to get the money? Charge a carbon tax of $7 per metric ton. Where to get the political will to carry out the plan? That's the question that Lomborg hasn't answered effectively. He makes a moral case for his proposal, which is well and good, but moral cases often don't get money appropriated for big projects in the absence of a compelling driver that is immediately obvious to one and all, even to knuckleheads like Sarah Palin.

For example: Lincoln got the Transcontinental Railroad built as a way to bind up a country in mortal danger of flying apart. FDR spared no expense on the Manhattan Project because the specter of Hitler's Luftwaffe armed with nukes was terrifying. We went to the moon because we feared that a chortling Khrushchev would use space as a platform to flick hydrogen bombs onto the USA anytime he fancied.

Many believe that climate change is just that sort of driver. Many, however, do not. We must change that and/or identify other drivers. And, Lomborg's argument that R&D alone will push cleaner energy sources into the market, in the absence of market signals that tell the truth about carbon pollution costs, is not entirely convincing.
Still, Lomborg has raised some provocative ideas that have added spice to a global debate that has been stuck in neutral since the Copenhagen belly flop last year. He's worth listening to.

Greens should go see "Cool It!" next month. They might find that the skeptical environmentalist doesn't have horns and a tail after all.

October is Breast Cancer Month

Pink Ribbon is the name of the international breast cancer awareness foundation and they have named October as Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

The pink that is colouring our lives during the month of October. whether commercial or sincere, shouldn’t cover the reality of breast cancer itself. Worldwide, millions of people, women and men are suffering from breast cancer every day. And each and every one of them feels the pain, the fear, the guilt, the uncertainty, the responsibility, the loss, being thrown back to the core essence of life. And let us not forget our loved ones we lost. May all of this being represented by this vulnerable appearing colour.

However, the brightness of pink at the same time stands for hope and strength of each individual to fight its personal fight. It stands for the community making this personal fight a community responsibility. It stands for all the efforts of people; fund raisers, medical staff, researchers, students, and volunteers worldwide, working together to find the cure. It stands for the industry proving its mature responsibility towards manufacturing processes, ingredients and products. It stands for equal fundamental rights for all breast cancer survivors whether born in richness or in poverty anywhere on mother earth.

Pink Ribbon stands in my view for one thing that makes Pink Ribbon unique, a worldwide solidarity of people and breast cancer organisations to stand together. We therefore dedicate October 2010 to the solidarity of all people. Let’s fight together!

To support Pink Ribbon either by donation or by buying some of the cool stuff in their shop, have a look at their website: http://www.pinkribbon.org

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How air-conditioning is baking our world

US homes use as much electricity for air conditioning as the whole of Africa, claims a new book by Stan Cox.

When you think of the causes of global warming, you may picture an SUV before you picture a central AC unit. But almost 20 percent of electricity consumption in U.S. homes goes to AC -- that's as much electricity as the entire continent of Africa uses for all purposes. So says Stab Coxin his new book, Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable Truths About Our Air-Conditioned World (and Finding New Ways to Get Through the Summer).

Cox, a scientist and agricultural researcher who lives in Salina, Kansas, doesn't paint AC as the bogeyman. Rather, he makes the point that our world has developed in many unsustainable directions overall, and air-conditioning has been a crucial part of that development. He also argues that making air-conditioners and other appliances more energ efficient isn't going to get us out of this mess. He was interviewed last week about his new book. Open a window, undo a button, and enjoy ...

Q. Why did you write a book on air-conditioning?

A. In the past half-century, a number of big, energy-guzzling technologies have really changed our lives: automobiles, computers, television, jet aircraft. All that time, air-conditioning has been humming away in the background, like a character actor you see in a whole bunch of movies. It's never the star, but it always seems to be there moving the plot along.

When I looked at the doubling in the amount of electricity used for air conditioning homes in this country just since the mid-90s, I thought, we really need to address this, because it is a big contributor to greenhouse-gas release and it's going to increase the likelihood that we're going to have longer, more intense heat waves and hotter summers in the future, and we're going to have to be running the air-conditioning even more.

Q. That seemed to be a theme throughout the book -- that the use of air-conditioning leads to a cycle where it needs to be used more.

A. Yes, the biggest example of that is probably global warming. But there are a lot of ways in which air-conditioning creates need for itself, including by eroding our heat tolerance. Once we've built office buildings and commercial buildings on the assumption of air-conditioning, then we pretty much have to use it. We've created a lot of space that's almost uninhabitable without it. In many buildings, the windows don't open at all anymore.

In the book, I put a lot of emphasis on what's known as the adaptive model of comfort. It's based on surveys of people who are working at different temperatures and asked if they're comfortable. People can psychologically adjust to buildings that are cooler in the winter and warmer in the summer. The comment I've heard most since the book came out is from people who work in offices and complain that their offices are too cold in the summer, and they have to take sweaters or use space heaters, wasting even more energy. Without eroding people's working conditions or quality of life at all, there could be a big savings there.

Q. I thought it was interesting that you linked AC to obesity, in the sense that people are indoors more often and their bodies don't have to work to adjust to the temperature changes during the year.

A. Right, that's one of the hypotheses that a group of medical researchers came up with to explain the rise in obesity -- the slower burning of energy by the body in the comfort range, where it doesn't have to work to either shed heat or generate heat (in addition to the normal explanations that people are eating more and exercising less). Another way AC could be affecting obesity is that people tend to eat more when in cooler conditions. And also, by making the indoors more attractive in the summertime, we've made it less likely that people are going to be outdoors where we're more physically active.

The book, Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable Truths About Our Air-Conditioned World (and Finding New Ways to Get Through the Summer), is available on Amazon.cpm

Three receive prestigious environment award

Three President’s Award for the Environment were given out in Singapore on Friday at the Istana by President S R Nathan.

The recipients are Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (GST) Singapore Pte Ltd, Nan Hua High School, and Singapore Polytechnic.

The award is the highest accolade in Singapore that recognises individuals, organisations and companies for their significant contributions to Singapore’s efforts in achieving environmental sustainability.

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Singapore’s real estate site operations director Tan Puey Hwee said: "We notice that a lot of times the office air—conditioning is very cold, but employees are complaining it’s very hot because they’re all wearing jackets.

"So with support from the management, we have adjusted the temperature over time, so now a lot of employees are not wearing jackets in the office, while the temperature is set at a comfortable level".

The company’s all—round effort has earned it the prestigious environmental award, together with Nan Hua High School and Singapore Polytechnic. This is the first time the five—year—old award is going to a polytechnic. The polytechnic’s efforts in going green include planting more trees, building a block out of re—cycled material, and installing motion sensoring devices that can dim lights. Singapore Polytechnic principal Tan Hang Cheong said: "We are going through a programme of retrofitting.

"Our buildings, many of them are 20, 30 years old, so we are gradually trying to improve. "So when we remodel the classroom, remodel the lecture theatres, we will introduce all these energy—saving devices within the buildings". Next year, the school will also introduce a module on the environment for every student to become environmentally aware.

Money could grow on trees, depending on carbon price

Giving trees a value is one solution for halting deforestation, but deciding how much a forest is worth is proving challenging. Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, otherwise known as REDD, offers vast potential for companies, developing nations and native forests. But its viability is threatened by the absence of a liquid market and a clear signal by policymakers on how REDD would be funded.

For now, REDD credits are not included on Europe’s emissions trading scheme, the world’s largest carbon-trading system. And while several REDD projects are getting closer to selling their credits on the voluntary market, those hoping to benefit from the scheme say most investors are not willing to bear the risks just yet.
“We’ve found some buyers that have been willing to pre-pay for credits,” said Todd Lemons, the CEO and chairman of for-profit conservation company Infinite Earth. But despite interest from investment funds that he says have earmarked “billions” specifically for REDD, none have invested in the company’s Indonesia project. Hong Kong-based Infinite Earth is part of the EnVision group, which develops natural resource projects for profit. The company was created in 2008 to develop the Rimba Raya Reserve, a 90,000-hectare peat swamp forest in Central Kalimantan.

Lemons said the reserve will serve as a buffer against palm oil plantations encroaching on the neighboring national forest, home to rare flora and fauna, such as Bornean orangutans. An Indonesian company is listed as the project owner.
Since its start, Infinite Earth has pooled more than $3.5 million from international private investors, such as Shell Canada and the Clinton Foundation, to fund the project’s development. They received the first signal that their investment was making headway in August, when Infinite Earth’s method for calculating carbon credits from forestry projects was approved under the Voluntary Carbon Standard.
Few methodologies have lined up to undergo VCS’s approval process, which requires double validation from two separate auditors.

Infinite Earth’s was the first international REDD methodology the VCS fully approved, and on September 22 a reforestation project in Tanzania became the first forestry investment to earn carbon offsets after credits were issued and placed in the VCS registry.

The news is drawing attention from investors reluctant to make the foray into forest-carbon trading. Forestry projects have already been operating on other registries, such as California’s Climate Action Registry, but project experts say VCS is the most credible standard. Once a forestry project begins trading there, it could open the door for REDD to be included in the UN-based compliance market.
If that happens, it could unleash billions of dollars toward climate change mitigation efforts.

The Rimba Raya project alone could create around 75 million credits, or offsets, by avoiding the release of carbon that results when peat swamp forests are converted for agriculture (this is based on the idea that one metric tonne of CO2 equals one credit). Given today’s average UN-certified carbon price at between 10 to 15 Euros per credit, those credits could add up 1.1 billion Euros million in potential revenues.

For now, however, Infinite Earth has pre-sold only 10 percent of its credits, and at a price well below the US$10 a tonne needed to guarantee returns to investors.
And while Infinite Earth has bid its time through the verification process, unclear regulations and the months or even years companies must wait before they can issue offsets have dampened enthusiasm.

Most prefer to wait until the market gains some certainty. Without a formal exchange to publish information about buying and selling, few buyers can determine the true value of an offset, and there is no way to ensure credits are not being sold more than once.

4 Energy Technologies That Could Replace Oil and Coal

New large-scale projects are revolutionising the energy sector, using sunlight, wind, waves and even trash, rather than oil, coal or nuclear power. This weekend, US President Obama toured the BrightSource project, which will be the largest solar-thermal plant in the world.

Every time there's an energy-related disaster, it boosts the prospects for clean alternatives. The devastating explosion at the Upper Big Branch coal mine killed 29, and got people wondering if all that ancient coal shouldn't just be left in the ground. And the oil spill from the Deep Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico led to new restrictions on offshore drilling, and rising public sentiment for cleaner alternatives.

The problem is that people's memories are short, and the old arguments – coal is "native energy," offshore oil offsets foreign imports – reassert themselves to reinforce the status quo.
Thankfully, new technology, with the help of investments in renewable energy forecasted to reach $200 billion in 2010, is going to change that and in future, energy will come from mother natures renewable recources: Wind, sun, waves and organic waste.

Wind power:
Wind power has been used by man for ages. With technologies developed by market leaders Vestas and Siemens, wind power is already contributing a large part of the energy consumption in parts of the world. Mainly in Europe where the large windmill parks are scattered off shore.

Solar power:
Many of the biggest projects are either in Europe or involve European companies. Abengoa Solar announced this week that it had started commercial operation near Seville, Spain of its 50-megawatt Solnova 1, which uses parabolic trough solar technology. The plant can power 25,700 homes, or offset 31,400 tons of carbon dioxide.

Wave energy:
Wave energy is still a technology awaiting widespread commercialisation, though costs are coming down rapidly. The biggest problem is cost. These facilities are very capital intensive, ranging from $4,000 to $15,000 per kilowatt. Significant breakthroughs in capital cost would be needed to make this technology cost competitive. Ocean-based systems take a beating, especially since it's roughly true that the rougher the water the more energy they can produce.

Trash-to-energy:
Investments in Biodigesters, that converts organic waste to biofuel, are increasing and many projects are emerging around the world. In Singapore, IUT Global has set up a large scale biodigester that will be able to supply the Singaporean and Asian market with biofuel.

Cancer-proof your body

The lab researchers (and their test-rats) have spoken. They're saying that these 7 simple life strategies can stave off cancer. Start eating and doing today.

1. Drink Pomegranate Juice
Pomegranate – rich in polyphenols, isofavones and ellagic acid – is a potent cancer buster. Not only has tests shown that it helps to keep your prostate and lung cancer free, new research also points towards staving off Alzheimer's.

2. Eat Blueberries
Ppterostilbene, which is found in blueberries, has colon cancer-fighting properties. Eating blueberries also mean a big dose of vitamin C (14mg per cup), making you 50 per cent less likely to develop pre-malignant oral lesions (according to New England Research Institute).

3. Relax...
Stress and anxiety makes you die younger – its a science-proven fact, says Purdue University researchers. Their studies also show that an anxious and neurotic man is likely to die of some type of cancer. Want to live longer (or at least not die from worrying)?

4. Order Sushi
Our friendly lab-rats also stayed more resistant to skin tumours when they were bombarded with UV rays after being fed brown seaweed, which is low in calories and fat but provides polyphenols, fibre, calcium and iron. Not just that, the polyphenols from the brown seaweed diet actually shrank existing tumours by 43 per cent. For the average guy, the dosage required to reap these benefits is just one or two tablespoons. Eat them dried or roasted for the additional benefits of vitamins A and C.

5. Go Outside
The power of vitamin D as a potent cancer fighter has been confirmed by a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Women who supplemented their diets with 1,000 international units of vitamin D every day had a 60 per cent to 77 per cent lower incidence of cancer over a four-year period than did women taking a placebo. “I don’t think the effect is limited to women,” says Joan Lappe, PhD, the lead study author. “Vitamin D is necessary for the best functioning of the immune system – it causes early death of cancer cells.”

6. Clear Your Air
Here's the truth: There is no safe level of exposure when it comes to second-hand smoke. And the greater the exposure, the higher the risk. A recent American Journal of Public Health study reveals that non-smokers working in smoky places had three times the amount of NNK, a carcinogen, in their urine than non-smoking workers in smoke-free joints had. And their levels of NNK rose six per cent for every hour worked. Thankfully, our new non-smoking rule in public places means we can all breathe easy, even at a pub while you down a vodka with pomegranate juice.

7. Exercise Regularly
A tiny dose of exercise can do a whole lot of good, says a study in the International Journal of Cancer. The research showed that men who exercised just once a week had a 30 per cent lower risk of metastatic prostate cancer than did men who didn’t work out at all. Increasing the frequency, duration, and intensity of the exercise correlated with a further, gradual reduction in risk.

There you have it – even a 15-minute run every Sunday will help keep the big C at bay. What are you waiting for?

Cerebral malaria may have passed from gorillas to us

Humans may have originally caught malaria from gorillas, scientists say. Until now, it was thought that the human malaria parasite split off from a chimpanzee parasite when humans and chimpanzees last had a common ancestor.But researchers from the US, three African countries, and Europe have examined malaria parasites in great ape faeces.They found the DNA from western gorilla parasites was the most similar to human parasites.

Cerebral malaria
Malaria is caused by a parasite called Plasmodium, and is carried by mosquitoes. The most common species found in Africa, Plasmodium falciparum, causes dangerous cerebral malaria. Over 800,000 people die from malaria each year in the continent.
Until now, scientists had assumed that when the evolutionary tree of humans split off from that of chimpanzees - around five to seven million years ago - so had Plasmodium falciparum. This would have meant that humans and malaria co-evolved to live together. But new evidence suggests human malaria is much newer. Dr Beatrice Hahn of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, in the US, is part of a team that had been studying HIV and related infections in humans and great apes.

DNA analysis
To study the DNA of infections in wild apes, you cannot use blood samples. So the team collected 2,700 samples of faecal material from two species of gorilla - western and eastern - and from common chimpanzees and bonobos, also known as pygmy chimpanzees.They tried sequencing Plasmodium DNA from the faeces with techniques that use a large sample, and drew a genetic family tree to see which parasites were related. Dr Hahn said "When we did conventional sequencing, the tree didn't make any sense, because each sample contained a mixture of parasites."
They diluted the DNA so that they had just one parasite's genome represented in a single sample, and then amplified the DNA from there. This means they were able to separate the DNA from different species of the parasite much more effectively.They then found the tree made much more sense. But they also found some surprising results.The human Plasmodium was not very closely related to chimpanzee Plasmodium, as had been thought - but it was very closely related to one out of three species of gorilla Plasmodium from western gorillas in Central and West Africa.There was more genetic variety in the gorilla parasites than in human parasites, and Dr Hahn said this means the gorilla is likely to be the "reservoir" - the origin of the human parasite. "Other studies have just looked at chimps, so didn't find the gorilla parasite," said Dr Hahn. She added that some studies have looked at animals in captivity - so it is possible any parasites have "jumped" from their human keepers.

Cross-infection
The researchers, who report their findings in Nature, are now going to investigate further to see exactly how different the gorilla and human parasites are. Dr Hahn says that it is possible they are even the same species, and that cross-infection between humans and gorillas may be going on now. Members of the team Dr Martine Peeters and Dr Eric Delaporte of the University of Montpelier in France are working with hunters and loggers in Cameroon, who spend a lot of time in the forests. They will investigate whether these workers carry malaria parasites from the gorillas, which would suggest that new infections from other species can still happen.They also do not yet know how badly apes are affected by malaria. Dr Hahn said that the team would now like to find out whether apes are able to catch the malaria parasite, without getting ill or dying in the way that humans do.

Testers 'fabricating air pollution reports'

You have got to be kidding me!!! Fabricated air pollution reports in a highly developed and alledgedly environmentally concious country, Australia. What's next???

A former employee of an Australian air testing company alleges data is being fabricated and fraudulently provided to regulatory bodies and is going unchecked by the government. The former employee - who has now left the industry - alleges that shortcuts were habitually taken when testing for air pollution from smoke stacks during his three-year tenure with the company.

"While I was there, there wasn't any formal training. You were thrown in the deep end and the equipment was a piecemeal piece of equipment to do what was required, but not to do anything properly.

"I even saw on numerous times my superiors turning up on site with me to do the work and then saying that they couldn't be bothered doing the sampling.
"I've also seen them, for dioxins and furans, which were very expensive tests that had to be done, instead of doing the six-hour sample I've seen them pretend to have taken samples onto filter papers."

The scientist says he and colleagues were pressured to cut corners.
"Being hurried off site, not being given enough time. If it would take a whole week to get a job completed, you would get it completed in two days because you're required elsewhere. So you were sent off somewhere else and the figures were made up so that you could get two large jobs done in a week instead of just the one."
The man says he has obtained copies of reports that support his claims since leaving the company.

And he says he believes the fraudulent behaviour is going undetected and could be widespread within the industry.

He alleges the National Association of Testing Authorities (NATA) and the Department of Environment and Resource Management are not sufficiently regulating compliance to standards.

"The Environmental Protection Agency is requesting that industry provide them with reports by NATA-accredited bodies that detail the levels of air emissions that they have," he said.

"But when these reports are submitted they are taken at face value and they're not being properly scrutinised by either NATA or the EPA. So there is nothing to show that these are being done properly, and I have evidence to show that they haven't been done properly if they were to be checked."

He says the effects of non-compliance could be detrimental for the public. "If we don't have accurate figures on what is being emitted into the air, in Gladstone for example, we have no way of knowing if levels are being exceeded past safe community levels - and the air could have high levels of lead, high levels of dioxins, of carcinogens, or poisons into the atmosphere which could then cause sickness."

The scientist also says that due to non-compliance going unchecked, councils make uninformed decisions about industry expansions. And he says similar discrepancies in air testing could be occurring in the coal seam gas industry.

"If they got the incorrect information about the amount of pollutants that are being put into the atmosphere, they are unable to accurately determine whether to go ahead with expansions, because they don't have a correct baseline to know what the air pollution levels are at any one time."

He says during his time at the company he saw large companies go from struggling to pass compliance tests, to easily passing environmental standards.
"NATA needs to start doing their job properly," he said.

"Unfortunately they're not an independent body because they are paid for by the stack testing companies themselves ... so there is no independence there. "But ideally we should look more towards the American model, where the environmental protection agency have their own sampling officers who are fully experienced in stack testing and actually will perform surprise visits to stack testing companies when they're on site, are able to audit reports, and have a requirement that raw data is included in the stack testing reports so that anyone can have a look and ensure that things are being done to the standard.

"At the moment there are no requirements that you include your raw data in Australia. And every testing company should have that data. It should be no problem for them to include it in any report that they submit, to show that things were done to the standard."

Innovative green technologies help China's drive to save energy and cut emissions!

The Chinese government’s investment in research and development of green technologies has exceeded 10 billion yuan (1.47 billion U.S. dollars) for the 2006-2010 period.

Zhang Laiwu, vice minister of science and technology, made the remark Thursday at a press conference in Beijing, also saying that China had developed key technologies that could cut greenhouse emissions.

China has applied energy-saving technologies to traditional industries including steel, power, building materials, chemicals and agriculture, which have enhanced their competitiveness, he said. China has also issued supportive policies for new-energy industries. For instance, the pilot program of energy-saving and new-energy vehicles has been implemented in 25 cities, and the government has provided subsidies for the purchase of 5,000 vehicles, he said.

Also, more than 1.6 million LED lights were being used in 21 cities in a pilot program to promote the use of LED lights, which will save more than 164 million KWH of electricity annually, he said.

Another interesting story this month revealed that China has succeeded the United States as the most attractive location to invest in renewable energy projects. China's clean energy market - particularly in solar, biomass and wind - are presenting golden opportunities for investors.

Green driving

Most people are quite concerned about the state of our natural environment these days, and with good reason.

We are all looking for ways to lessen our impact on the environment and to be more well informed citizens of the world; well, most of us anyway. There are many ways to “go green” and to lead a more environmentally friendly lifestyle, but most of us don’t think about the fuel consumption when driving our car as a way of going green. Most people just look at it as a way of cutting fuel cost, however, driving green has great benefits for the environment. Here are a few tips that will help you reduce your fuel cost AND reduce your impact on the environment:

Pay attention to traffic: Speeding, accelerating and braking hard can deplete efficiency by 33%
Underinflated tires: Tires that are underinflated by 20% increases fuel consumption with 5-10%. Check your car's manual to find out how much air should be in your tires.
Aircondition increases the fuel consumption with up to 15%
Empty your trunk: Driving with extra weight in the trunk can increase the fuel consumption with up to 5%

These tips will help you reduce your car's fuel consumption, but of course it would be better for the environment (and your wallet) if you don't drive your car at all and take the bus, your bicycle or set up car pooling with your collegues.

Show me your dance moves, and I'll tell you if you are healthy

Scientists say they've carried out the first rigorous analysis of dance moves that make men attractive to women.

The researchers say that movements associated with good dancing may be indicative of good health and reproductive potential. "When you go out to clubs people have an intuitive understanding of what makes a good and bad dancer," said co-author Dr Nick Neave, an evolutionary psychologist at Northumbria University, UK. "What we've done for the very first time is put those things together with a biometric analysis so we can actually calculate very precisely the kinds of movements people focus on and associate them with women's ratings of male dancers."

Dr Neave asked young men who were not professional dancers, to dance in a laboratory to a very basic drum rhythm and their movements with 12 cameras.

These movements were then converted into a computer-generated cartoon - an avatar - which women rated on a scale of one to seven. He was surprised by the results. "We thought that people's arms and legs would be really important. The kind of expressive gestures the hands make, for example. But in fact this was not the case," he said.

"We found that (women paid more attention to) the core body region: the torso, the neck, the head. It was not just the speed of the movements, it was also the variability of the movement. So someone who is twisting, bending, moving, nodding."
Movements that went down terribly were twitchy and repetitive - so called "Dad dancing".

Dr Neave's aim was to establish whether young men exhibited the same courtship movement rituals in night clubs as animals do in the wild. In the case of animals, these movements give information about their health, age, their reproductive potential and their hormone status. "People go to night clubs to show off and attract the opposite sex so I think it's a valid way of doing this," Dr Neave explained. "In animals, the male has to be in good physical quality to carry out these movements. We think the same is happening in humans and certainly the guys that can put these movements together are going to be young and fit and healthy."

Dr Neave also took blood samples from the volunteers. Early indications from biochemical tests suggest that the men who were better dancers were also more healthy
INTERESTING!!!!

The benefits of wild salmon vs. farmed salmon

For all the sea food lovers out there - Are the health risks of eating the commonly sold farmed salmon? It could seem like, you should check whether the salmon you buy is farmed or wild.

Salmon farming, which involves raising salmon in containers placed under water near shore, began in Norway about 50 years ago and has since caught on in the U.S., Ireland, Canada, Chile and the United Kingdom. Due to the large decline in wild fish from overfishing, many experts see the farming of salmon and other fish as the future of the industry. On the flip side, many marine biologists and ocean advocates fear such a future, citing serious health and ecological implications with so-called "aquaculture."

George Mateljan, founder of Health Valley Foods says that farmed fish are "far inferior" to their wild counterparts. "Despite being much fattier, farmed fish provide less usable beneficial omega 3 fats than wild fish," he says. Indeed, U.S. Department of Agriculture research bears out that the fat content of farmed salmon is 30-35 percent by weight while wild salmons' fat content is some 20 percent lower, though with a protein content about 20 percent higher. And farm-raised fish contain higher amounts of pro-inflammatory omega 6 fats instead of the preponderance of healthier omega 3s found in wild fish.

"Due to the feedlot conditions of aquafarming, farm-raised fish are doused with antibiotics and exposed to more concentrated pesticides than their wild kin," reports Mateljan. He adds that farmed salmon are given a salmon-colored dye in their feed "without which their flesh would be an unappetizing grey color." Some aquaculture proponents claim that fish farming eases pressure on wild fish populations, but most ocean advocates disagree. To wit, one National Academy of Sciences study found that sea lice from fish farming operations killed up to 95% of juvenile wild salmon migrating past them. And two other studies -- one in western Canada and the other in England -- found that farmed salmon accumulate more cancer-causing PCBs and dioxins than wild salmon due to pesticides circulating in the ocean that get absorbed by the sardines, anchovies and other fish that are ground up as feed for the fish farms. A recent survey of U.S. grocery stores found that farmed salmon typically contains 16 times the PCBs found in wild salmon; other studies in Canada, Ireland and Great Britain reached similar conclusions.

Another problem with fish farms is the liberal use of drugs and antibiotics to control bacterial outbreaks and parasites. These primarily synthetic chemicals spread out into marine ecosystems just from drifting in the water column as well as from fish feces. In addition, millions of farmed fish escape fish farms every year around the world and mix into wild populations, spreading contaminants and disease accordingly.

Who would have known that fish farms are actually that bad to the environment? And that the fish are far from being as healthy as their wild counterpart. I will for sure be checking next time I buy salmon!!

Clean Up the World Weekend 2010

In 2010 the campaign's flagship event; Clean Up the World Weekend will be held from the 17-19 of September.

Clean Up the World is a community based environmental campaign that inspires and empowers communities from every corner of the globe to clean up, fix up and conserve their environment.

Now in its 18th year, Clean Up the World, held in conjunction with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), mobilises an estimated 35 million volunteers from 120 countries annually, making it one of the largest community-based environmental campaigns in the world. The campaign brings together businesses, community groups, schools, governments and individuals in a range of activities and programs that positively improve local environments.

Since the first Clean Up the World campaign in 1993 the improvements achieved due to the efforts of millions of concerned volunteers around the world have been astounding. Examples of community-led Clean Up the World activities include:
• Recycling and resource recovery
• Tree planting
• Education campaigns
• Water reuse and conservation
• Competitions
• Exhibitions
• Fix up projects.

Clean Up the World encourages participants to organise an activity on, or around this weekend and celebrate their environmental achievements.
Getting involved is easy! Communities can conduct activities such as clean up events or organise environmental awareness raising activities. Groups, organisations, businesses and communities around the world unite and take action at a local level to address the global issue of climate change.

Check out the Clean Up the World for events in your community as well as information on how to register YOUR event: www.cleanuptheworld.org

Greenpeace board Cairn drilling rig off Greenland

Environmental campaigners slip through security boats to scale Cairn Energy oil rig in dawn raid.

Greenpeace claims to have shut down offshore drilling by a British oil company at a controversial site in the Artic after four climbers began an occupation of the rig just after dawn.

The environment campaigners said the four protesters evaded a small flotilla of armed Danish navy and police boats which have been guarding the rigs in Baffin Bay off Greenland since the Greenpeace protest ship Esperanza arrived last week. The rigs are operated by the Edinburgh-based oil exploration company Cairn Energy, which last week prompted world-wide alarm among environmentalists after disclosing it had found the first evidence of oil or gas deposits under the Artic.

Several multinational oil companies, including Exxon. Chevron and Shell, are waiting for permission from Greenland to begin deep sea drilling in the Arctic's pristine waters.

Campaigners claim this led to a dangerous rush to exploit one of the world's last major untapped reserves in one of its most fragile locations. The US Geological Survey last year estimated there may be 90bn barrels of oil and 50tn cubic metres of gas across the Arctic.

The campaign group said: "At dawn this morning our expert climbers in inflatable speed boats dodged Danish Navy commandos before climbing up the inside of the rig and hanging from it in tents suspended from ropes, halting its drilling operation.
"The climbers have enough supplies to occupy the hanging tents for several days. If they succeed in stopping drilling for just a short time then the operators, Britain's Cairn Energy, will struggle to meet a tight deadline to complete the exploration before winter ice conditions force it to abandon the search for oil off Greenland until next year."

The occupation comes after a nine-day stand-off between Greenpeace and the Danish navy, which has sent its frigate Vaedderen to the area, deploying elite Danish commandos on high-speed boats to patrol a 500m exclusion zone around the rigs.
Last week the Danes warned the Esperanza it would be forcibly boarded and its captain arrested if it breached the security zone. After Greenpeace launched its helicopter to take photographs, the security area was extended to include a 1,800m high air exclusion zone.

Greenpeace argues that the Arctic drilling programme is extremely perilous because of the sea ice and intense weather conditions in the region, and claims it is one of the 10 most dangerous drilling sites in the world. The Baffin Bay area is known as "iceberg alley". Last week, it filmed a support vessel trying to break up an iceberg using high pressure hoses.

It says the risks posed by this operation go "far beyond" the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico; in the Arctic an oil spill would destroy the region's vulnerable and untouched habitats, while the cold water would prevent any oil from quickly breaking up. Any emergency operation to tackle a disaster would encounter huge technical and logistical problems in such a remote area.
Cairn Energy argues it is there at Greenland's invitation, to help bolster and strengthen the island's economy. It also insisted its drilling operations obeyed some of the world's strictest environmental and safety regulations. "We've put procedures in place to give the highest possible priority to safety and environmental protection," it said.

It emerged last week that BP had withdrawn from applying to join in the Greenland oil exploration programme, a direct consequence of the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
Sim McKenna, one of the Greenpeace climbers on board the Cairn rig, said: "We've got to keep the energy companies out of the Arctic and kick our addiction to oil, that's why we're going to stop this rig from drilling for as long as we can.
"The BP Gulf oil disaster showed us it's time to go beyond oil. The drilling rig we're hanging off could spark an Arctic oil rush, one that would pose a huge threat to the climate and put this fragile environment at risk."

Morten Nielsen, deputy head of Greenland police, said the four protesters would be arrested and prosecuted. "The position of the Greenlandic police is that this is a clear violation of the law, the penal code of Greenland. The perpetrators will be prosecuted by the Greenlandic authorities," he said.

"But what we intend to do, how and when, is an operational detail it wouldn't be smart to advise Greenpeace about." Speaking from the island's capital, Nuuk, Nielsen confirmed that the police had rescue vessels close by the protesters in case any fell into the water, which was only a few degrees above freezing. He denied the police and navy had been outwitted by the protesters setting off at dawn.

"We have to evaluate the downside of any interception," he said. "The highest value we have to preserve is life and if the result of intercepting the Greenpeace activists would bring the police or for that matter the activists' lives in jeopardy, we are not going to intercept right now."

Are our toilet habits affecting the environment?

It is estimated that in our lifetime we spend up to three years on the loo, using an average of 110 rolls each year, but new research has delved deeper to uncover the toilet habits of the nation.

The survey looked at everything from technique to differences between the sexes, but one of the biggest questions dividing the people in the survey was "Do you scrunch or fold the loo roll?". According to the research, 68% fold their toilet paper before wiping and only 15% of us scrunch it.

And the results backed up the traditional belief that women are more likely to scrunch while men are more likely to fold, but only by a bit; one fifth of women admitted to scrunching their toilet paper compared to 10% of men, whereas three quarters of men admitted to folding against 63% of women.

Age is also an interesting factor, as the results showed that the older a person gets the more likely they are to fold their loo roll - which could come down to them having a little more time to spend a penny.

Only 57% of 18 to 24-year-olds admit to folding before wiping, whereas three quarters of those over 55-years-old claim to do the same thing. Meanwhile, men like to have something to read on the loo, 59% compared to just 43% of women. The reading material of choice is newspapers (45%), books (33%) and magazines (46%) ,whereas some of us are more high-tech reading mobile text messages (21%), internet pages on phones or laptops (17%) with others simply looking to take life less seriously, as 4% read joke books.

When it comes to waste, women are worse than men as 86% use up to 15 sheets of toilet roll every time they go to the toilet compared to 74% of men. However, 3% of men do admit to using over 25 sheets per visit which would be sure to block most toilets as well as being a complete waste and bad for the environment.
Many of those aged between 25 and 34-years-old are clearly still mummy and daddy's little angel, as 12% admitted that their parents still purchase their toilet roll for them.

And girls who live with their boyfriend should watch their supply, as the research shows 0% of boyfriends will replenish the stock if it runs out.(hmmm one can wonder what they will do if the girlfriend doesn't buy new stock!!!)

Illegal trade: Tiger cub found in luggage

A two-month old tiger cub was found sedated and hidden among stuffed-tiger toys in the luggage of a woman at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi International Airport on Sunday.

The 31-year old Thai national was scheduled to board a Mahan Air flight destined for Iran when she had trouble checking in her oversized bag. Airports of Thailand (AOT) staff suspected something amiss when they scanned the bag and x-ray images showed an item resembling a real cat. Officers from the Livestock Development Department and the National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department were then called in to open the bag for inspection and discovered the tranquilized cub.

Investigations are underway to determine if the cub was wild caught or captive-bred, where it came from and the suspect’s intended final destination.

Tiger populations in Thailand and throughout Asia are critically threatened by poaching and trade to meet the international demand for tiger parts, products and, as illustrated in this case, live tigers.

Tigers are categorized as Endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN Red List of Threatened Species) and listed under Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) prohibiting international commercial trade. Both captive and wild caught tigers fall under the same regulations.

I really don't understand what makes people pay unrealistic sums of money for endangered animals, ignoring the fact that is so important to keep the animals in their natural habitats or sanctuaries where the possibity of breeding excists.

Non-stick pans can affect our hormones, new research suggests

Norwegian study highlights the effects of PFC and PCB chemicals on human health.

A group of chemicals found in common household items may be having dangerous effects on our hormones, new research suggests. A study on sheep and cells grown in the laboratory by Norwegian vets found that perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) found in water resistant clothes and non-stick frying pans can affect the body's steroid hormones including oestrogen, testosterone and cortisol. These hormones are necessary for regulating a number of bodily functions in humans and animals, including our ability to reproduce.

The research also discovered similar effects caused by polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), a group of chemicals that have been banned since the 1970s but continue to persist in the environment.

Limit exposure

Study author Dr. Marianne Kraugerud, from the Norwegian School of Veterinary Science, said consumers could limit their exposure to both chemicals.
'To regulate uptake of PFCs, one could try to limit the use of clothes treated with water and grease repellent containing PFCs.

'It may also be wise to use cookware coated with non-stick "Teflon"-type coatings with care, especially when damaged. Alternatively, one may consider going back to the good old-fashioned cast iron frying pan,' she said.