GreenMonk news roundup 11/14/2009

• Energy agency warns of ‘irreparable’ damage – Short Sharp Science – New Scientist

  “Take all the power stations in the United States. Together, they produce almost 1000 gigawatts of electricity – enough to boil several billion kettles simultaneously.

  Now imagine building another five power stations for every one that already exists in the United States. That is about the amount of electricity generation that the world is on track to add over the next 20 years. And three-quarters of the new stations will use fossil fuels.”

  tags: energy efficiency, international energy agency, iea, greenmonktv

• Mini ice age took hold of Europe in months – environment – 11 November 2009 – New Scientist

  Around 12,800 years ago the northern hemisphere was hit by the Younger Dryas mini ice age, or “Big Freeze”. It was triggered by the slowdown of the Gulf Stream, led to the decline of the Clovis culture in North America, and lasted around 1300 years.

  Until now, it was thought that the mini ice age took a decade or so to take hold. Not so, say William Patterson of the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada, and his colleagues.

  They show that at the start of the Big Freeze, temperatures plummeted and lake productivity stopped within months, or a year at most. “It would be like taking Ireland today and moving it up to Svalbard” in the Arctic,”

  tags: ice age, younger dryas, greenmonktv, big freeze, ireland

• 1933 Ford Hot Rod goes Electric – Bright Side Of News*

  At SEMA 2009, AMP=D changed every hot rodders’ perception of performance and innovation. AMP=D introduced their all-electric powered ‘33 Hot Rod. With 300+ hp [horse power] and over 660 foot pounds of torque in a 2400 pound car, it will stay with the best of the gasoline-powered Hot Rods.

  tags: hot rod, ev, electric car, greenmonktv

• Innovation: Can technology persuade us to save energy? – tech – 06 November 2009 – New Scientist

  machines designed to change humans, as the persuasive technology group of Stanford University, California, calls them, could save us huge amounts of energy and money.

  tags: energy efficiency, behaviour, greenmonktv

• Harvesting Fog Provides Drinking Water, Food to Peruvian Slums : TreeHugger

  “In Lima, Peru, more than 1.3 million people have no access to drinking water. The citizens without it are in the poorest areas, where water trucked in can cost nine times as much as it does in richer areas. So, citizens have had to either make do without running water, or, with the help of a German NGO, make dew into drinking water. “

  tags: lima, water, fog, dew, greenmonktv

• Antarctic iceberg found floating near Macquarie island | Environment | guardian.co.uk

  “Dean Miller, an Australian fur seal biologist, was the first person to spot the large white object floating past Macquarie island in the far south-west corner of the Pacific Ocean.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it. We looked out to the horizon and just saw this huge floating island of ice,” Miller told the Australian Antarctic division. “It was a monumental moment for me as it was the first iceberg I have seen.”

  Estimated to be about 50m high – from the waterline – and 500m long, the iceberg is now about five miles (8km) off the north-west of Macquarie island, halfway between New Zealand and Antarctica south-west corner of the Pacific Ocean.”

  tags: iceberg, ice melt, macquarie island, greenmonktv

• Boreal Forests: The Carbon the World Forgot « Climate Progress

  “When we think about forests and climate change, we tend to think about tropical forests. This is not without undue reason – some of the highest rates of deforestation are happening in Central and South America, Africa, and Asia Pacific. But one source of carbon, which happens to be the world’s largest terrestrial storehouse of carbon, has been mostly overlooked in international climate discussions to date. I’m talking, of course, about the boreal forest.”

  tags: boreal forest, deforestation, peat, permafrost, greenmonktv

• Are North American Companies Improving Their Climate Change Performance? | ClimateBiz.com

  “With climate change legislation finally appearing to be making some headway in the U.S., and with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) having recently issued regulations mandating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reporting by high-emitting U.S. companies, a new report from Ethical Investment Research Services (EIRIS) entitled “2009 Climate Change Tracker: North America” arrives at an opportune moment. EIRIS is a global provider of research into corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance.”

  tags: epa, ghg, eiris, greenhouse gas emissions, Ethical Investment Research Services, 2009 Climate Change Tracker: North America, greenmonktv

• Accountability for Minerals in the Eastern DRC

  The overall IT sector faces with regards to traceability through our supply chain and the activities underway at Hewlett Packard

  tags: hp, hewlett packard, traceability, conflict minerals, greenmonktv

• Explosion!: Lithium Battery Safety Still A Problem

  “As recently as August, the largest lithium battery recycler in North America — Toxco — snagged a $9.5 million grant from the Department of Energy to build out battery recycling capacity in Ohio and pledged to provide “end of life management” for advanced vehicle batteries “in a safe and environmentally sound manner.” But this weekend multiple explosions and a major fire at the company’s Trail, British Columbia recycling facility can be fairly called bad advertising for that business.”

  tags: lithium ion, batteries, explosion, safety, greenmonktv

• “SuperFreakonomics” and climate change : The New Yorker

  Another superb debunking of the SuperFreakonomics book

  tags: superfreakonomics, debunking, greenmonktv

• Powering cell phone towers with wind | Green Tech – CNET News

  “Helix Wind announced Wednesday that it’s beginning a trial run in Southern California to see if its wind turbines might be useful for powering cell phone towers.

  The manufacturer is becoming known for its small vertical-axis wind turbines that can generate electricity with winds as low as 10 mph, as well as its unique business model to finance them.”

  tags: helix wind, wind turbines, small vertical-axis wind turbines, greenmonktv

• Global warming threatens Asia’s giant cities – COP15 United Nations Climate Change Conference Copenhagen 2009

  “A number of very large cities in Asia are “extremely exposed to threats such as storms and flooding”, according to a new report by global conservation organization WWF.

  “Climate change is already shattering cities across developing Asia and will be even more brutal in the future. These cities are vulnerable and need urgent help to adapt, in order to protect the lives of millions of citizens, a massive amount of assets, their large contributions to the national GDP,” says Kim Carstensen, leader of the WWF Global Climate Initiative, at the organization’s homepage.”

  tags: global warming, climate change, asia, wwf, greenmonktv

• Warming drives off Cape Cod’s namesake, other fish – USATODAY.com

  “Fishermen have known for years that they’ve had to steam farther and farther from shore to find the cod, haddock and winter flounder that typically fill dinner plates in New England.

  A new federal study documenting the warming waters of the North Atlantic confirms that they’re right — and that the typical meal could eventually change to the Atlantic croaker, red hake and summer flounder normally found to the south.

  “Fishermen are businessmen, so if they have to go farther and deeper to catch the fish that we like to eat, eventually it won’t be economical to do that,” said Janet Nye, a fishery biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the lead author of the study.”

  tags: cod, cape cod, fish, fisheries, climate change, noaa, greenmonktv

• Report: Toyota plans bigger Prius with new battery – Yahoo! News

  “Toyota is planning a larger version of its popular Prius hybrid, which will be powered by a new kind of battery, a Japanese newspaper reported Friday.

  The new Prius, either a station wagon or SUV, is set to go on sale by the end of next year. It will be the first from Toyota Motor Corp. with a lithium-ion battery, which is more powerful than the nickel-metal hydride battery, now in its hybrids, according to the nationally circulated Yomiuri newspaper.”

  tags: toyota, prius, greenmonktv, hybrid

• BBC NEWS | Americas | Amazon deforestation ‘record low’

  “The rate of deforestation in the Amazon has dropped by 45% and is the lowest on record since monitoring began 21 years ago, Brazil’s government says.”

  tags: amazon, amazon rainforest, deforestation, greenmonktv

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.