Environmentalists agree on the issues facing us, including collapsing diversity, climate change and resource insecurity. We also agree on the causal factors, including pollution, invasive species, resource over-exploitation, waste, population growth, global industrialisation, unsustainable consumption and poor business practices.
Solutions are harder. None will solve all our problems and all face obstacles and opposition. Technological solutions, such as biofuels, fracking, shale oil, GM foods and nuclear have side effects, while renewables have limited scope. Environmentally conscious lifestyles, including less waste, travel and consumption, are increasingly adopted, but the impact may by limited given the billions seeking to improve their low living standards. Changes to corporate and governmental practices have occurred, but are far from universal, particularly in the developing world.
In my lifetime, human numbers have grown from 3 billion in 1960 to 7 billion today. By 2085, they are projected to grow to 10 billion. One can argue about the impact this makes, but it clearly does not help. We believe that a smaller population would help us to preserve the environment and live within the limit of renewable resources, as part of a comprehensive approach to the environment and sustainability.
Most would agree that improving living standards for the poor, women’s rights and access to health, including family planning, are desirable and they all tend to lead to women choosing to have smaller families. We would argue that aid for family planning to developing countries should be prioritised, both for environmental reasons and because it contributes to poverty alleviation, women’s empowerment and better health. While individual consumption in those countries is low, growing populations do affect the environment and they will not always be poor as the world industrialises.
The Internet, shale gas technologies and Google search engine all had their origins in research funded by the U.S. government. These are just a few examples, and show why now is exactly the wrong time to stop supporting cleantech innovation.
ScienceDaily (Oct. 27, 2011) — New research from the University of Missouri indicates that Atlantic Ocean temperatures during the greenhouse climate of the Late Cretaceous Epoch were influenced by circulation in the deep ocean. These changes in circulation patterns 70 million years ago could help scientists understand the consequences of modern increases in greenhouse gases.
It’s an understatement to say that the business opportunities and benefits of sustainability and innovation practices have been well established. So how do we get investors to place a financial value on green business practices?
Krogers, Target and Sodexo offer new goals or updates of their sustainable seafood programs.
It’s starting to look like the days of stand-alone, grass-roots voluntary green teams are over. Instead, get ready for the rise of Green Teams 3.0.
A farm-based anaerobic digestion (AD) plant will use cattle dung and grass silage to
power homes and businesses in Northern Ireland
Britain may be building too many waste facilities as a report out today (October 28)
forecasts an oversupply of residual waste treatment infrastructure by 2020 - even as
early as 2015 in certain areas.
TV personality and keen environmentalist Alistair McGowan has teamed up with
Nespresso to promote the brand’s latest UK coffee capsule recycling initative.
Sainsbury’s has joined forces with Biffa to send all food waste from its distribution
centres to anaerobic digestion (AD) facilities, making AD the retailer’s preferred
recovery route for this material stream.
The US Army, which speeds more than $1 billion per year on energy costs, has asked the RAND Corporation to recommend ways to collaborate with utilities in energy conservation projects.
Climate change and population growth in the United States will make having enough fresh water more challenging in the coming years, an expert on water shortages said on Wednesday.
“In 1985-1986 there were historical (water level) highs and now in less than 25 years we are at historical lows. Those sorts of swings are very scary,” said Robert Glennon, speaking at the State of the Lakes Ecosystem Conference in Erie, Pennsylvania.
Glennon, a professor at Arizona State University and the author of “Unquenchable: America’s Water Crisis and What To Do About It,” said that that according to climate experts, shorter, warmer winters mean less ice and greater exposure to the air, leading eventually to more water evaporation.
“We think about water like the air — infinite and inexhaustible but it is very finite and very exhaustible,” Glennon said.
“When you have a shorter ice season you have great exposure to the air and more evaporation. As temperatures go up it is very troubling,” Glennon said. “The cycles are going to become more acute which is very troubling.”
Tesco has been named the best UK company for its efforts in tackling climate change
by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP).
The UK environmental consultancy market is continuing to decline as new research shows the sector contracted by 8.4% in 2010, losing £113m in value to now stand at £1,230m.
Branston, one of the UK’s biggest potato buyers, has won a Tesco supplier award for its low carbon technology innovations.
Energy efficiency financing could grow from $20 billion today to as much as $150 billion, if businesses, banks and other institutions would work together more strategically to unlock funds for green building, a new report from Capital-E says.
The National Renewable Energy Lab has released the first set of a promised flood of data around renewable energy, with the hope of making it easier to create sustainability applications for individual use.
Like oil in the 20th century, water could well be the essential commodity on which the 21st century will turn.
Human beings have depended on access to water since the earliest days of civilization, but with 7 billion people on the planet as of October 31, exponentially expanding urbanization and development are driving demand like never before.
Water use has been growing at more than twice the rate of population increase in the last century, said Kirsty Jenkinson of the World Resources Institute, a Washington think tank.
Water use is predicted to increase by 50 percent between 2007 and 2025 in developing countries and 18 percent in developed ones, with much of the increased use in the poorest countries with more and more people moving from rural areas to cities, Jenkinson said in a telephone interview.
Electric buses in the news from the likes of BYD, Smith Electric Vehicles and Proterra.
The University of Brighton has appointed DS Smith Recycling to introduce separate food and wood waste collections across its Sussex campus to increase recycling levels.
New research from a smart grid industry group finds that the time for pilot projects is over, and lays out a checklist of best practices for utilities to engage their customers prior to and during smart meter rollouts.
A sample of smart grid activity to identify key themes and best practices for customer engagement.
Crop scientists in the United States, the world’s largest food exporter, are pondering an odd question: could the danger of global warming really be the heat?
For years, as scientists have assembled data on climate change and pointed with concern at melting glaciers and other visible changes in the life-giving water cycle, the impact on seasonal rains and irrigation has worried crop watchers most.
What would breadbaskets like the Midwest, the Central Asian steppes, the north China Plain or Argentine and Brazilian crop lands be like without normal rains or water tables?
Those were seen as longer-term issues of climate change.
But scientists now wonder if a more immediate issue is an unusual rise in day-time and, especially, night-time summer temperatures being seen in crop belts around the world.
Interviews with crop researchers at American universities paint the same picture: high temperatures have already shrunken output of many crops and vegetables.
“We don’t grow tomatoes in the deep South in the summer. Pollination fails,” said Ken Boote, a crop scientist with the University of Florida.
Recycled stationery specialist Remarkable has won a contract with Waitrose to stock its
entire range of eco-products across the supermarket’s 240 stores in the UK.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said on Friday it will postpone its final rule aimed at slashing air pollution from coal plants for a month, but made it clear it plans to move forward on the regulations.
The EPA said it needs the extra time to review 960,000 comments it received on its draft rule, but plans to finalize it by Dec 16.
A group of 25 states has launched a court case over the rule, seeking a delay of at least a year for what they argue is an expensive measure that will shut down old coal-fired power plants.
Analysts have said American Electric Power and Duke Energy could see shutdowns because of the rule, which would require many plants to install scrubbers and other anti-pollution technology.
But the EPA, which has also been sued by environmental groups to finalize the rule, said the regulation is needed to prevent illnesses and deaths caused by air pollution.
“In a court filing today, EPA made clear its opposition to efforts to delay this historic, court ordered standard by a full year,” the agency said in a statement.
Autodesk’s director of sustainability talks about how software can transform the depth and scope of the design space, the importance of forging strategic partnerships and how the company strives to lead by example.
You can lower the levels and impact of noise pollution in your home in surprising ways; for example, start with your exhaust ventilation fans.
In true global warming, the whole worlds warms up. A common argument against global warming is that the climate has always varied in any particular place or time. For this argument to be true if it warms up one place, some place it cools down on average. However, Svante Björck, a climate researcher at Lund University in Sweden, has now shown that global warming, i.e. simultaneous warming events in the northern and southern hemispheres, have not occurred in the past 20,000 years, which is as far back as it is possible to analyze with sufficient precision to compare with modern developments. Svante Björck’s study thus goes 14,000 years further back in time than previous studies have done. He eventually claims that the current global warming trend is unique in this time frame.
The Chinese government has today given short shrift to proposals from a group of US solar firms for new import duties on low-cost Chinese solar panels, which they allege have benefited from ‘illegal’ subsidies.
San Francisco adds a new tool to its array of resources to green commercial buildings. Though created in the City by the Bay, the online platform can be used as a reference by owners and tenants in just about any U.S. town.
