Tuesday, April 15, 2008

ENN: Earth Day Countdown, "Popcorn" Design Doubles Solar Energy, Recession and Green Business, Plus Much More


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Tuesday, April 15, 2008
News of Note

MINNEAPOLIS, MN - April 14 - The long-term sustainability of the fast-moving global biofuel market will depend on changes to international trade and investment rules that govern energy, environment, agriculture and rural development, according to a new paper published by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) and the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).

Top Stories

I feel like I'm caught up in a maelstrom of green, green, green! After spending thirty years slogging through the environmental trenches, we seem to have had an "overnight success." Protecting the planet is all anyone seems to be talking about these days. In fact, as someone who used to be leading the pack, I know find it hard to keep up! Companies are frantically setting up recycling programs. Organizations are issuing reports hand over fist. Entrepreneurs are churning out new green gear and gadgets faster than a mouse breeds babies.

With climate change focusing attention on water generally, WWF's Brazil Springs Movement is promoting the theme that water sources need to be considered alongside water resources. Nominated areas include springs, headwaters and recharge areas such as mountain tops. "The focus of WWF-Brazil is to mobilize the country for the protection of water resources, both in quality and quantity," said Denise HamĂș, WWF-Brazil's CEO.

WASHINGTON – Each day, we are bombarded with options -- at the local coffee shop, at work, in stores or on the TV at home. Do you want a double-shot soy latte, a caramel macchiato or simply a tall house coffee for your morning pick-me-up" Having choices is typically thought of as a good thing. Maybe not, say researchers who found we are more fatigued and less productive when faced with a plethora of choices.

OSLO (Reuters) - The world's top greenhouse gas emitters meet in Paris this week to work out ways to slow global warming with uncertainty about whether the U.S.-backed talks will help or hinder plans for a new U.N. climate treaty. Washington says the April 17-18 meeting, with a workshop on sectoral industrial greenhouse targets on Wednesday, is a step towards agreement by the end of 2008 on curbs by countries that emit 80 percent of the world's greenhouse gases.

ENN Spotlight

A new approach is able to create a dramatic improvement in cheap solar cells now being developed in laboratories.

More Top Stories

Oxford/Nairobi, 11 April 2008-An international seminar on climate change adaptation and mitigation in the tourism sector concluded today in the United Kingdom after involving 30 high level tourism and environment officials from developing countries and Small Island developing states. The seminar's delegates contributed to and took part in a series of sessions at Oxford University's Balliol College. For three days the participants received high level training and carried out interactive debates including practical ways of integrating the mitigation of and adaptation to climate change in the tourism sector.

As well as cutting our fossil fuel emissions, planting new forests, or managing existing forests or agricultural land more effectively can capitalise on nature's ability to act as a carbon sink. Research published online in the open access journal Carbon Balance and Management shows that although planting trees alone is unlikely to solve our climate problems, large-scale plantations could have a significant effect in the longer term.

How would a recession impact current trends in business sustainability? Would green initiatives be cut if companies suffered from slow growth in a "stagnation" economy? These are the questions that Kevin Klustner, CEO of Verdiem (an energy-efficiency software company) tries to answer in a recent column for GreenBiz.com. He predicts that an economic downturn may tempt some companies to phase out their sustainability initiatives, but doing so may actually aggravate financial losses.

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Member Press Releases
By: Sea Alarm Foundation
The Sea Alarm Foundation has been shortlisted for the most prestigious of all awards in the maritime sector – the internationally renowned Seatrade Awards, sometimes dubbed the "Oscars for Shipping". By: Center for Biological Diversity
As a lethal ailment continues to be discovered in wintering bat colonies around the Northeast, conservation groups announced today that they will sue the federal government unless it undertakes a review of all its activities that may be harming endangered bat species. By: Architecture 2030
Amidst increasingly dire news about the economy and climate change, Architecture 2030 released a seminal study at the Eileen Rockefeller Growald Symposium on Collaborative Philanthropy today, showing how a small investment of only $21.6 billion in the Building Sector would produce 216,000 permanent jobs and save 86.7 Million Metric Tons (MMT) of CO2 in a single year. By: Center for Biological Diversity
SAN FRANCISCO— Conservation groups have reached an agreement that brings the extremely rare yellow-billed loon a step closer to much-needed protection from threats such as oil development in Alaska and the loss of its tundra habitat in the face of global warming. By: Earth Policy Institute
"Global carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels stood at a record 8.38 gigatons of carbon in 2006, 20 percent above the level in 2000", writes Frances C. Moore in a recent Earth Policy Institute release, "Carbon Dioxide Emissions Accelerating Rapidly". By: International Fund for Animal Welfare
(Bubonitsy, Tver Region, Russia. 9 April 2008) Today, in the forest of the Tver region of Russia, researchers from IFAW (the International Fund for Animal Welfare) and veterinarians from the Moscow Zoo returned five orphaned bear cubs to the wild. Prior to the release, the team performed veterinary checks and tagged the bears for monitoring. By: Center for Biological Diversity
ANCHORAGE, Alaska— The Bush administration Tuesday took the first step toward opening up 5.6 million acres in the Bering Sea to oil and gas leasing. The proposal, published in Tuesday's Federal Register by the Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service, would allow oil development in an area north of the Aleutian Islands near Bristol Bay that has been designated critical habitat for the North Pacific right whale. By: Environmental Law Institute
(Washington) A report released this week, Improving Economic Health and Competitiveness through Tax Sharing, assesses the experience of local governments with schemes that share portions of tax revenues in order to get better development results and avoid sprawl.

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