Green cars are not a new thing for Toyota, which earlier showcased a variety of cars which could by all means be termed green. The company is again making news with another concept that could be a common sight on the road after a couple of decades. Toyota has showcased a hybrid concept car made from seaweed that will be shown at the Melbourne International Motor Show in Australia. The 1/X is being termed as Toyota's dream machine, which if developed could make millions of dreams come true.
The car is powered by a 500cc engine that is about a third the size of Toyota's ingenuity, the Prius. The 1/X makes use of high-tech materials like carbon-fiber reinforced plastic, which gives its collision safety. Weighing just over 400kg, the car can also be powered by electricity, giving it better speed and range.
I'd like to know how safe they intend it to be. And of course we won't see it for quite some time, if at all, since seaweed doesn't grow in Toyota's backyard or anything.
The Toyota 1/X will appear at the Melbourne International Motor Show, which started on February 27.
Apparently, I am completely clueless because when I saw the release about the first carbon free water I had to re-read the headline. I didn't realize carbon had anything to do with water.
Through a state of the art water purification process, NIKA is a clean, fresh tasting water bottled in California with additional planned sites located throughout the U.S. to reduce transport and associated carbon emissions. Currently, NIKA is sold in case quantities for home and business delivery at nikawater.org but is also planning to partner with core retailers who believe and support its mission to provide clean drinking water and safe sanitation.
NIKA Water earned Carbonfund.org's CarbonFree Product Certification after going through a rigorous life-cycle assessment (LCA). The CarbonFree Certified water is carbon neutral as NIKA is offsetting carbon emissions associated with NIKA Water's manufacturing, distribution and consumption, including disposal. NIKA has also pledged that for every bottle of NIKA Water sold, the company will ensure that another plastic bottle is taken out of the environment and recycled. To do this, NIKA is working with schools and universities around the U.S. to create plastic bottle buy-back programs where NIKA pays the sponsoring school a small fee for every plastic bottle they collect and recycle.
The offsetting by NIKA is done quarterly based on actual sales and supports Carbonfund.org's Return to Forest reforestation project in southwestern Nicaragua.
The United Nations estimates that 1.1 billion people in the world lack access to safe water and 2.5 billion people lack access to safe sanitation. It is estimated that 4,500 people die per day from waterborne diseases and causes and 90 percent of these deaths are children under the age of five. Furthermore, within the next fifty years, the world population is expected to increase by 40 to 50 percent. This population growth, coupled with industrialization, urbanization and global warming will result in increasing demand for clean water, which NIKA believes could potentially eclipse the demand for oil.
Climate change will not be taken seriously until the media highlights its significance, say researchers at the University of Liverpool.
Dr. Neil Gavin, from the School of Politics and Communication Studies, believes the way the media handles issues like climate change shapes the public's perception of its importance. Limited coverage is unlikely to convince readers that climate change is a serious problem that warrants immediate and decisive action.
Researchers found that the total number of articles on climate change printed over three years was fewer than one month's worth of articles featuring health issues. The articles offered mixed messages about the seriousness and imminence of problems facing the environment.
Dr. Gavin explains: "Our research suggests that the media is not treating these issues with the seriousness that scientists would say they deserve. The research company lpsos-MORI found that 50% of people think the jury is still out on the causes of global warming. The limited amount of media coverage - which tends to be restricted to the broadsheets - means that this statistic is unlikely to alter in the short-term."
Even CNN has been criticized for their coverage on climate change.
Stanford Professor Stephen Schneider's comments come after American television channel, Cable News Network (CNN) laid off their entire science and environment reporting teams. The climate researcher and policy analyst, who wrote chapter 19 in the intergovernmental report, blasted media bosses at a symposium at the Annual Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago on last week.
Prof. Schneider lambasted media chiefs, saying: "business managers of media organizations, you are screwing up your responsibility by firing science and environment reporters who are frankly the only ones competent to do this."
"Science is not politics. You can't just get two opposing viewpoints and think you've done due diligence. You've got to cover the multiple views and the relative credibility of each view," he continued.
On February 15, a report by Chris Field, of the Carnegie Institution and a former member of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, warned that greenhouse gases have accumulated more rapidly in the atmosphere between 2000 and 2007 than anticipated.
Three weeks before that, a study by Susan Solomon, the senior scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said changes in surface temperature, rainfall and sea level are "largely irreversible for more than 1,000 years after CO2 emissions are completely stopped."
The Clean Water Act -- for 30 years the most potent defender of our nation's waterways -- is under attack and needs your help if it is to retain its vital role.
Two Supreme Court rulings, and a number of Bush-EPA actions, have turned the law upside down, opening up loopholes that polluters are lining up to exploit. It will take an act of Congress to restore this law's integrity -- and that's where you come in.
Currently, polluters are seizing on the Supreme Court rulings to argue that the Clean Water Act only protects "navigable" waters such as major rivers, thus leaving unguarded an abundance of America's streams, lakes, rivers and wetlands. We can't allow industrial polluters access to these vulnerable waterways.
The Clean Water Restoration Act, as introduced in the 110th Congress, would protect all waters from these polluters. If adopted in the 111th Congress it would restore clear protections to water bodies that were covered before the Supreme Court rulings.
But, before the Clean Water Restoration Act can start protecting us, we have to do our part to get it introduced in Congress and then passed into law.
Email your congressional representatives today and urge them to support a bill that will clarify and restore the longstanding protections originally intended by Congress.
Retail giant Victoria's Secret has entered the eco-friendly foray of organic and green cosmetics with its 'Pink Body' line of 100% vegan skin and body care products.
The packaging is even made from Post Consumer Recycled materials, with limited inks and dyes that go directly on the packaging and created removable labels.
The line consists of 4 collections: Energizing, Nourishing, Soothing and a line of Essentials. There are lotions, body washes, lip butters, sugar scrub, foot cream, hand cream and more.
The Energizing line is like a wake up call for your skin, packed with organic citrus and mint.
The Nourishing line leaves skin feeling super soft and moisturized with organic Shea butter minus the greasy feel.
The Soothing line is Hypoallergenic and infused with organic soy milk and oat extract, so it's great for extra sensitive skin.
Federal water managers said they may have to cut off all water to some of California's largest farms as a result of the deepening drought affecting the state.
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation officials said Friday that parched reservoirs and patchy snow and rainfall this year would likely force them to cut surface water deliveries completely. It would be the first time in more than 15 years such a move was taken.
Water leaders today urged Californians to make every effort to cut water consumption by 20 percent this year because of the growing likelihood of a third straight drought year.
The move would be a blow to farmers, who say the price of some crops would likely rise if they have to rely only on well water. The state estimates it would cause $1 billion in lost revenue and cost 40,000 jobs.
The state today held its water delivery forecast for the year at just 15 percent of contracted amounts. It is very rare for that forecast to flat-line, rather than grow, as winter unfolds. It means all state water contractors -- mainly cities from the Bay Area to San Diego -- will likely impose mandatory water rationing soon, if they haven't already.
"We would expect almost all of the major communities in California to go to some form of mandatory conservation," state Department of Water Resources director Lester Snow said at a Sacramento news conference this morning.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 5 has issued a document called a "Proposed Findings of Fact" in connection with the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indian's application under the Clean Water Act for authority to establish water quality standards for surface water within its reservation. EPA is expected to decide on the request later this year. If the agency approves the request, the tribe will develop specific water quality standards for bodies of water within the reservation.
The document describes actual or potential effects on water quality inside the tribe's northern Wisconsin reservation from various activities such as residential septic discharges, farming, filling in wetlands, illegal dumping, construction without a permit, and sand and gravel mining.
EPA is expected to rule on the request later this year. Comments on the "proposed findings of fact" are being accepted until Wednesday, March 18, 2009.
If EPA approves the request, the Bad River Band could carry out the Clean Water Act's water quality standards program on its reservation, just as EPA has approved Wisconsin to carry out Clean Water Act programs for waters outside reservations. Two other tribes in Wisconsin have been granted this status.
Additional information, including a Frequently Asked Questions section, is available on Region 5's Web site.
President Obama's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced it will reconsider the midnight memo issued by former EPA Administrator Steven Johnson which sought to prohibit controls on global warming pollution from coal-fired power plants.
The decision should halt virtually all new coal plant development until EPA decides how to address global warming pollution from coal plants.
On Friday, a panel of federal judges ruled in favor of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in a controversial mountaintop removal mining case. The ruling would permit mining companies to conduct devastating mountaintop removal coal mining operations without acting to minimize stream destruction or conducting adequate environmental reviews.
As a result, Appalachia could be facing as many as 150 new mountaintop removal coal mining operations, 90 in West Virginia alone, which would destroy huge swaths of the Appalachian Mountains.
"Either Congress or the Obama administration need to reinstate the Stream Buffer Zone rule and to pass the Clean Water Protection Act," said Tierra Curry, conservation biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity. "But better yet, mountaintop removal should be prohibited and the burning of coal immediately phased out to save the planet from dangerous climate change."
Since mountaintop removal coal mining began in 1970, an estimated 1.5 million acres of hardwood forest have been lost, over 470 mountaintops have been blasted, and 1,200 miles of Appalachian streams have been buried.
Coal can be mined in a cleaner fashion and in a more limited fashion. A panel should be put together to make sure this happens and that the regulations are not violated in any way.
On 9 February 2009, due to intense rainfall a landslide took place on the western mountainous city of Tartagal in the province of Salta.
A massive landslide of water and mud then hit the town of Tartagal, northern Argentina, leaving at least 12 people missing and over 1000 evacuated.
Environmentalists and indigenous communities quickly pointed the finger towards the clearing of native woods as one of the reasons behind the phenomenon. Even though the government and other organizations rushed into denying any relation, Argentine president Cristina Fernandez went into her office and signed the final ruling of a native woods protection law that had been laying on her desk for over a year.
Greenpeace Argentina says that over 4 thousand hectares of woods were cleared from the river's coastlines and surroundings, an area equivalent to three times the size of the city of Tartagal.
The Civil Defense (Defensa Civil) in the province of Salta informed that 10,000 people have lost their homes, 742 people have been evacuated and eight temporary shelters have been opened to shelter the affected families. The most immediate needs identified by the local authorities are safe water, food items, clothes, bed clothes, footwear, mattresses, diapers and the rehabilitation of sanitary systems.
Update:
Heavy rains persisted in the northwestern city of Tartagal, in Salta. The situation is hampering the return home of more than 600 people. Argentinean president announced on February 13 a USD 45.4 million fund to reconstruct houses, roads, sewage and gas systems. More than 87,000 food rations, 2,400 mattresses, 1,300 blankets, bed linen and mineral water has been distributed in the affected zones, according to authorities. No further needs have been identified.
Locali Conscious Convenience Stores is taking grab n' go to a whole new level. The new convenience store is encouraging its customers to Think Globally While Acting Locally and with so many delicious offerings the prospect doesn't seems too difficult.
According to CEO Horos, the small-format, environmentally-focused hybrid grocery and convenience market "will be a hip version of the mom and pop corner store. Locali will also be a place for people in the community to connect with each other and their food sources. There will be an emphasis on local and organic food artisans, producers and growers in the inventory line up. However, refined sugar, hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup and genetically modified products will be missing from the shelves," he says.
Locali conveniently connects the community to eco-friendly food, beverage and lifestyle products. By providing easy access to socially and environmentally responsible goods, Locali promotes conscious consumerism and healthy living.
Research, funded by multiple agencies and conducted by the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science and Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine, found that swimmers using public ocean beaches increase their risk for exposure to staph organisms, and may increase their risk for potential staph infections once they enter the water.
"Our study found that if you swim in subtropical marine waters, you have a significant chance -- approximately 37 percent - of being exposed to staph -- either yours or possibly that from someone else in the water near you," explained Dr. Lisa Plano, associate professor of pediatrics and microbiology and immunology at the University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine, who collaborated in the study, the first large epidemiologic survey of its kind.
"This exposure might lead to staph infection since people colonized with the bacteria carry it into the water with them. Those with open wounds or who are immune compromised are at greatest risk of infection." The good news: results show the potentially virulent variety of antibiotic resistant staph, commonly known as MRSA, makes up less than three per cent of staph from the beach waters sampled during the study.
While people shouldn't avoid beaches, the research team recommends taking precautions to reduce the risk of infection by showering thoroughly before entering the water and after getting out. More research is needed to understand how long staph (including MRSA) can live in coastal waters, and the uptake and infection rate associated with the beach exposures.
Britain proposed on Thursday to allow all households from 2012 to apply for loans and cash to save energy and cut carbon emissions, costs energy companies are likely to meet and pass on to all consumers.
Green groups welcomed the plans but criticized a perceived lack of clarity and timidity in timing and funding.
"We need to move from incremental steps forward on household energy efficiency to a comprehensive national plan," said Energy and Climate Change minister Ed Miliband.
"Energy efficiency and low-carbon energy are the fairest routes to curbing emissions, saving money for families, improving our energy security and insulating us from volatile fossil fuel prices," he told reporters and trade and policy experts.
One proposal under the plans, open for consultation from Thursday, would allow any household to get a loan to pay for insulation or to install renewable sources of heating, and repay that from the resulting energy savings.
"We want to ensure that this great British "refurb" is based on a plan which over time covers every area and every house in every area," Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband said today in a speech in London. "Families are losing up to 300 pounds ($428) a year from inadequate energy efficiency."
The U.K., enduring its worst winter since 1991, is planning to save energy and cut residential greenhouse-gas emissions to almost zero through a "sustainable makeover" on each of the country's 27 million households.
The aim was for all UK homes to make near-zero carbon emissions by 2050, the energy and climate ministry said in a statement announcing its "Heat and Energy Saving" strategy.
President Barack Obama had some firm words for critics of his economic stimulus plan in his first presidential news conference on Monday night, using some of his most forceful comments to defend the green energy investments in the plan. "Why would that be a waste of federal money?" he asked. "We can have a respectful debate about whether or not we should be involved in energy policy, but don't call it wasteful spending," he continued.
"We're creating jobs immediately by weatherizing homes ... and we're saving money for taxpayers $2 billion when it comes to federal buildings." Earlier in the day, at a town-hall meeting in Elkhard, Ind., Obama also talked up clean energy and the jobs it can create.
First Lady Michelle Obama made similar points during a speech to employees of the Interior Department on Monday. "At a time when so many Americans are out of work, sound energy and environmental policies are going to help create thousands of jobs through the economic recovery and reinvestment plan that Barack is out there promoting today," she said.
In other, but related, news.
US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Tuesday moved away from "drill-only" energy policies as he blocked a last-minute attempt by the administration of George W. Bush to push through the sale of offshore leases to gas and oil companies.
"On January 16, the last business day of the Bush administration, the administration proposed a new five-year plan for offshore oil and gas leasing," Salazar told a news conference.
What Salazar called a "midnight action" by the previous administration favored big oil while ignoring developers of renewable energy.
It would have moved forward from 2012 to 2010 the creation of a new energy development plan that would affect some 300 million offshore acres on the outer continental shelf (OCS), from the US eastern seaboard to the Pacific Ocean off California, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and Alaska.
"For the last eight years, America has taken one road to energy independence, which was drill, drill, drill," said Salazar.
"I intend to do what the prior administration failed to do and that is to build a framework for offshore renewable energy development so that we can incorporate the great potential for wind, wave and ocean current energy into our offshore energy strategy," Salazar said.
Anti-whaling activists involved in a collision with a Japanese whaling ship near Antarctica accused whalers of using water cannon and acoustic weapons against them and vowed on Saturday to further obstruct the hunt.
The U.S.-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which Tokyo sharply rebuked after Friday's collision, also said whalers had thrown golf balls and chunks of metal at its ship the Steve Irwin.
"The Sea Shepherd ship Steve Irwin continues to stand guard behind the Japanese floating abattoir called the Nisshin Maru, despite repeated assaults by frustrated and increasingly violent Japanese whalers," Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson said.
"The three Japanese harpoon boats are not in the area but the Sea Shepherd crew is prepared to obstruct them should they return," he said in a statement.
Japan's whaling fleet is in Antarctic waters for an annual hunt aimed at catching about 900 whales. Although Japan officially stopped whaling under a 1986 global moratorium, it continues to take hundreds of whales under a loophole allowing whaling for research purposes. Though most of the meat ends up in grocery stores and markets.
The Japanese-based Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR) says the crew of the Steve Irwin twice rammed the Yushin Maru 3 in Antarctica.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has denied the claims.
Clouds of dust rising above the harsh scrub herald the arrival of more livestock at a borehole in northeastern Kenya, the end for some of a 45-km (28-mile) trek for water that must be repeated every few days.
Drought is starting to bite in east Africa's biggest economy and the government has declared a state of emergency, saying 10 million people may face hunger and starvation after a poor harvest, crop failure, a lack of rain and rising food prices.
It said rains at the end of 2008 were generally poor after three successive poor seasons. In the area around Waregadud in Mandera, rainfall was just 10 to 20 percent of normal levels in the October-December period.
The Mandera region bordering Ethiopia and Somalia -- like much of Kenya -- is prone to drought. The lack of rain has left dams dry, pasture is dwindling and herders say tension is rising as animals and humans compete for resources.
The northwestern pastoral areas of Kenya faced an acute food and livelihood crisis due to a combination of livestock diseases, below normal rainfall and ethnic conflict. The Districts of Baringo and East Pokot were particularly hit hard by drought and were in need of emergency food assistance. Assessments conducted by the KRCS identified 87,092 persons as facing starvation.
A recent ethanol study by the University of Minnesota suggests that corn-based ethanol maybe more harmful (climate change, greenhouse gases, health effects) and costly to the environment than gasoline itself. With this said, it is important to note that quite a bit of the US production of ethanol is currently reliant on first generation biofuels, such as corn.
"To understand the environmental and health consequences of biofuels," says Jason Hill, one of the lead author's of the report. "We must look well beyond the tailpipe to how and where biofuels are produced."
According to the findings in this study, for each billion gallons of fuel produced and expelled into the air through a vehicles exhaust, the combined health and greenhouse costs are $469 million for gasoline and somewhere between $472 million to $952 million for corn ethanol, the variance being dependent on whether the biorefinery heat source is coming from natural gas, coal, or corn stover.
They found that ethanol made from corn would result in health costs of as much as 93 cents per gallon compared to 34 cents a gallon for gasoline.
The results for ethanol varied according to how the fuel is produced. Ethanol produced by coal-fired plants fared the worst. Ethanol from plants that use natural gas still came out with higher costs than gasoline.
Ethanol made from prairie grasses fared much better than gasoline or corn ethanol at 24 cents per gallon.
Researchers from Stanford University and the Energy Department also were involved in the study.
Update on Australia: Australian bushfires killed at least 14 people in the southern state of Victoria on Saturday as a heatwave sparked more than 40 blazes across the state and neighboring New South Wales, police said.
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It seems the issue of drought is spreading.
Millions of people and cattle in north China face shortages of drinking water because of a severe drought, the government said on Saturday, promising to speed up disbursement of billions of dollars of subsidies to farmers.
State television quoted disaster relief officials as saying 4.4 million people and 2.1 million cattle lacked adequate drinking water. Official media have described the drought as north China's worst in half a century.
However, meteorological officials said there were signs that better rainfall in coming weeks would ease the crisis. Rainfall is forecast for the next 10 days, the official Xinhua news agency quoted the China Meteorological Administration as saying.
Xiao Ziniu, director of China's National Climate Center, was quoted as saying most of north China's wheat belt was expected to receive slightly less than or nearly normal rainfall in March.
The Environmental Defense Action Fund challenged filmmakers and concerned citizens to explain in just 30 seconds how capping global warming pollution could help solve our oil addiction.
Out of 100 submissions, they had five finalists. Then they asked folks like me and the rest of their Action Network to vote on our favorite for the Climate Activists' Choice Award.
And since there was such a response in votes the Environmental Defense Action Fund purchased 8,520 pounds of carbon. (They had promised to buy 100 pounds of carbon for every 100 votes.)
Australia has been suffering its worst heat wave on record, the first time temperatures exceeded 110 degrees Fahrenheit for three days running. It's been so hot that on Thursday, the low at Melbourne airport was 87 degrees F.
Melbourne is the capital of Victoria state, where three rural towns were under threat from wildfires spreading quickly in the furnace-like conditions, Country Fire Authority deputy chief fire officer Geoff Conway said.
Australia, the driest inhabited continent on earth, is regarded as highly vulnerable. A study by the country's blue-chip Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation identified its ecosystems as "potentially the most fragile" on earth in the face of the threat.
But it's not just Australia who has to be worried.
Extreme drought is likely to increase from under 3% of the globe today to 30% by 2100 -- areas affected by severe drought could see a five-fold increase from 8% to 40%.
Experts worry that Australia, which emits more carbon dioxide per head than any nation on earth, may also be the first to implode under the impact of climate change.
Even with recent record rains and tropical cyclones, harvests and livestock are suffering; and so is their economy.
One of the ideas was to Trap CO2 in Carbon Scrubbers...
Further intrigued am I.
Researchers at Columbia University say that soon they may have a working carbon scrubber which could take one ton of CO2 out of the air per day.
Which immediately made me wonder where they would then put the CO2. To which I found a response from the Columbia University researchers. "Klaus Lackner, a physicist at Columbia University in New York, and his colleagues have a few ideas, which they outlined in their patent application: the scrubber could be connected to greenhouses, where the CO2 would boost plant growth; or use it to grow algae, which could be used for fertilizer, food or fuel." It seems these folks have the answers.
The problem is that this scrubber costs $200,000 to make. And we all know how much money is floating around these days, or lack-there-of rather.
This particular machine is up for the $25K prize to be won at the Virgin Earth Challenge.
In other carbon related news, the city of Philadelphia is launching a new Carbon Offset Website. The site was built by The Energy Coordinating Agency which is a private, non-profit corporation dedicated to ensuring that low and moderate income people have access to safe, affordable and reliable sources of energy and water.
Volcanic ground is a challenging place to drill water wells. In central Nicaragua, situated on volcanic bedrock, only 3 of every 10 wells drilled produce sufficient water for even one household.
As part of a larger, National Science Foundation-funded research project titled "Remote Sensing for Hazards Mitigation and Resource Protection in Latin America," a Michigan Technological University graduate student in geological and mining engineering and sciences designed a map using remote sensing images to locate underground fractures.
Jill Bruning, who recently received her Master's degree from Michigan Tech; faculty advisor John Gierke, an associate professor of geological and mining engineering and sciences; and other students then took the map to Nicaragua for field testing. The goal of their research was to determine which data-processing tools work best with various types of remotely sensed images, field observations and other data to create an effective, efficient method for identifying the best places to drill in challenging terrain.
Michigan Technological University (2009, February 1). Drill Here! Locating Drinking Water Under Challenging Conditions. ScienceDaily.
(Credit: Image courtesy of Michigan Technological University)
