Top Stories
Bottled Water: The Video.—reliability
medium.
Video--Annie Leonard has a new video about bottled water. "In the
U.S., the advocacy group Corporate Accountability International is
using the day to tell people to stop buying bottled water. ... The
group is a highlighting an entertaining video by Annie Leonard, an
author who is know for her animated video 'The Story of Stuff'". From Boston
Globe Green Blog. [Naturally Ms.
Leonard's criticisms only apply where tap water is safely drinkable.]
UN report: World's biggest cities merging
into 'mega-regions'.—reliability high.
"The phenomenon of the so-called 'endless city' could be one of the
most significant developments - and problems - in the way people live
and economies grow in the next 50 years, says UN-Habitat, the agency
for human settlements, which identifies the trend of developing
mega-regions in its biannual State of World Cities report. The largest
of these, says the report - launched today at the World Urban Forum in
Rio de Janeiro - is the Hong Kong-Shenhzen-Guangzhou region in China,
home to about 120 million people. Other mega-regions have formed in
Japan and Brazil and are developing in India, west Africa and
elsewhere. ... said the report's co-author Eduardo Lopez Moreno: 'They
[mega-regions], rather than countries, are now driving wealth.'" Story
in The
Guardian. Access the report here.
Companies,
Industries, Products, Markets and Supply Chains
The Water-Saving Toilets of the Future.—reliability
medium.
"If you're using a toilet built before 1994, you are wasting 3.5
gallons or more per flush, and if you've got a toilet made after the
U.S. Congress's Energy Policy Act of 1992 mandated only 'low-flow'
models be sold after 1994, then the good news is you're only wasting
1.6 gallons per flush." Article lists and profiles "some of the
water-saving toilets of the future, hopefully coming soon to a water
closet near you." Story and pictures at GreenBiz
blog. [Indoor
plumbing is good, but wasting water is bad.]
General Electric to build offshore wind
manufacturing plant in UK.—reliability high.
"The US conglomerate General Electric (GE) announced plans for an
offshore wind turbine manufacturing plant in Britain, creating up to
2,000 jobs. The company said it had not yet decided where to build the
facility, but its plans would result in about £100m being invested in
Britain, creating clean energy jobs at both the new site and in the
supply chain. ... "This investment is tied to the successful deployment
of the UK government's port development fund," a company statement
said." See The
Guardian.
Government,
Regulation and Geopolitics
Rising seas settle fight over isle.—reliability
high.
"For nearly 30 years, India and Bangladesh have argued over control of
a tiny rock island in the Bay of Bengal. Now rising sea levels have
resolved the dispute for them: the island's gone. New Moore Island in
the Sunderbans has been completely submerged, said oceanographer Sugata
Hazra, a professor at Jadavpur University in Calcutta. Its
disappearance has been confirmed by satellite imagery and sea patrols,
he said. 'What these two countries could not achieve from years of
talking, has been resolved by global warming,' said Hazra." See MSNBC
from AP. [Sea
level rise and geopolitics.]
Taiwan: Help for a Tiny Nation Facing Rising
Waters.—reliability high.
"Taiwan pledged Tuesday to rescue Kiribati, a tiny South Pacific ally,
from rising sea levels in a move intended to raise Taiwan’s
international profile." Story in New
York Times from Reuters. [More diplomacy of
sea level rise.]
Transportation Department Embraces Bikes and
Business Groups Cry Foul.—reliability high.
New York State "Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has announced a
'major policy revision' that aims to give bicycling and walking the
same policy and economic consideration as driving. ... It calls on
state and local governments to go beyond minimum planning and
maintenance requirements to provide convenient and safe amenities for
bikers and walkers. 'Walking and biking should not be an afterthought
in roadway design,' the policy states. Transportation agencies are
urged to take action on a number of fronts, including the creation of
pathways for bike riders and pedestrians on bridges, and providing
children with safe biking and walking routes to schools." Some
objected: "'Treating bicycles and other non-motorized transportation as
equal to motorized transportation would cause an economic catastrophe,'
warned Carter Wood, a senior advisor at the National Association
of Manufacturers." See story in New
York Times Green Inc. blog.
Science and
Economics
UN body to look at meat and climate link.—reliability
high.
"UN specialists are to look again at the contribution of meat
production to climate change, after claims that an earlier report
exaggerated the link." A recently reported analysis says that the
comparison the UN report made between meat production and transport was
flawed, since the meat analysis considered the full life cycle then
compared the results with narrower figures on transport's impact. "One
of the authors of Livestock's Long Shadow, FAO livestock policy officer
Pierre Gerber, told BBC News he accepted Dr Mitlohner's criticism. 'I
must say honestly that he has a point - we factored in everything for
meat emissions, and we didn't do the same thing with transport,' he
said. 'But on the rest of the report, I don't think it was really
challenged.' FAO is now working on a much more comprehensive analysis
of emissions from food production, he said." From BBC News.
Press release on Dr. Mitlohner's 2009 study here,
and abstract here.
[Meat production
may not generate more GHG emissions than transport, especially in the
U.S. where transport emissions are so huge. But some meat production
causes much greater emissions per pound of product than other meat
production, and enormous water use too. This will be an ongoing debate.]
[Crossposted from HaraBara.com courtesy of HaraBara, Inc. Copyright © 2010 HaraBara, Inc.]
