Environment Forum
Global environmental challenges
from Reuters Investigates:
Solar energy vs wildlife
Sarah McBride reports on brewing battles between environmentalists in her special report: "With solar power, it's Green vs. Green."
It turns out the perfect place to build a big solar plant is often also the perfect place for a tortoise or a fox to live. This means developers of large-scale solar plants are running into legal challenges from people who one would expect to be natural allies of alternative energy providers.
Here's a map of some of the more contentious projects.
One local resident of the Panoche Valley, Sallie Calhoun, had this to say:
"I am passionate about preserving open space," she says, adding she believes the solar plant achieves that goal. "The idea that we're going to protect every lizard, every drainage, seems counterproductive."
It's a tough dilemma for environmentalists. Tell us what you think?
To read the special report in multimedia PDF format, click here.
Making REDD work for illegal loggers
Hendri, 27, an illegal logger cuts down a tree in a peat swamp forest in Indonesia's Central Kalimantan province on Borneo island. Illegal logging remains a problem for forest conservation projects because timber represents quick income for villagers needing work or to feed families. Credit: Yusuf Ahmad
It took just 30 seconds to fell the tree. Hendri, 27, a skinny Indonesian from Central Kalimantan on Borneo island, skilfully wielded the chainsaw more than half his height. The result is a thunderous crash and a tree that is quickly cut into planks on the forest floor near by.
from The Great Debate UK:
Heather Rogers on fixing “Green Gone Wrong”
How can human production be transformed and harnessed to save the planet? Can the market economy really help solve the environmental crisis?
Author Heather Rogers argues in a new book that current efforts to green the planet need to be reconsidered.
Oil sands and ethical investing at a price
At BP’s AGM on Thursday, ethical investors including the Co-Op and Calpers failed in their effort to convince BP to review its biggest planned investment in Canada’s oil sands.
Nonetheless, 9 percent of investors voted in favour of a review — a much bigger venting of shareholder angst about a single project than oil companies are used to hearing.
from UK News:
Are you losing faith in climate science?
While attending a meeting of prominent climate sceptics during the U.N. Climate Conference in Copenhagen in December (an anti-COP15, if you will), I listened to each of the speakers put forward their theory on why conventional evidence on the primary causes of climate change should be dismissed as, for lack of a better phrase, complete hokum.
Among their denunciations of widely-accepted truths regarding global warming, greenhouse gases, melting glaciers and rising sea levels was the assertion that a change in attitude was afoot; the public may have been duped into believing the mainstream scientific assessment of climate change, but not for long.
Walmart accused of hypocrisy in green initiatives
Just last month, Walmart announced that it would be moving to eliminate non-biodegradable plastic bags from stores across the United States to reduce their collection in landfills. While they’ve demonstrated positive green initiatives, this week there’s been accusations of hypocrisy because they’ve been passing off a harmful, manufactured textile as sustainable.
Environmental advocates had been applauding Walmart for their plastic bag reduction goals and the installation of more energy-efficient systems. For example, coolers that only light up when a shopper’s presence is detected. So this new accusation from the Federal Trade Commission comes at a bad time.
Are the Copenhagen climate talks failing?
In the last few days it has seemed like the only thing everyone can agree on in Copenhagen is that time is running out.
The heads of state start arriving today and descend in full force on Thursday.
Negotiators say they don’t want their leaders arguing over the placement of a comma or a set of brackets, and so everything needs to be tied up by Friday morning.
Youth groups bending the ear of business at COP15
There are numerous youth groups at the Copenhagen Climate Conference (they are known as ‘Youngos’, short for young non-governmental organisations) and they have all come here to make sure their collective voice is heard as delegates negotiate an agreement on how to tackle climate change.
Youngos represent a significant portion of the 34,000 people who have registered to attend the conference, and some have even managed to gain access to politicans and business leaders to put pressure on them on ethical business strategies.
from Commentaries:
Stella Artois becomes real hedge fund investor
It seems like a gutsy time to be advertising a hedge fund in newspapers and across billboards in London.
Until you realise at second glance that the adverts are a spoof by InBev-owned lager brand Stella Artois which is trying to boost its green and recycling credentials with some whacky marketing.
Sprouting business
Marie Larsson, Director of Operations at Toronto Sprouts, discusses the benefits of growing food in a downtown location.
