European Union Sustainable Energy Week 2008
28 Jan - 1 Feb 2008 Brussels and other locations.
See website for details
Europeans voice biodiversity concerns
Europeans are becoming increasingly concerned over the loss of biodiversity, according to the results of a new study. The Eurobarometer survey looked at views on animal and plant extinctions and the decline of natural habitats and ecosystems. The issues of air pollution, water pollution and man-made disasters such as oil spills were rated as the most important by respondents (27%), followed by climate change (19%).
While just 20% of Europeans in the survey felt that their lives were currently affected by the loss of biodiversity, 70% believed that it would have personal impacts in the future.
“Biodiversity loss is irreversible. Since the 1970s, the European Union has been committed to protecting nature, and we are working hard to realise our target of halting biodiversity loss on our continent by 2010,” commented Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas. “Achieving this target requires everyone across the Union to work together to ensure that our ecosystems are sustainable and healthy. Complacency is not an option.”
And how right the man is. Biodiversity loss is indeed irreversible. However that does not mean that we should not go an try to arrest this loss. It must not be.
While it many be true that over the lifespan of our planed there has always been a loss of species here and there, often due to change in clima, natural change in climate, which, we must be prepared for, this current climate change could be too.
If the latter is the case we better learn to live with it and prepare to do so. This does not, however, means that we should sit back and take the attitude that it will not make a difference whether we recycle or whatever. I am not saying this.
As I have said in a previous article, we must do both. Prepare for the eventuality that Climate Change has nothing whatsoever to do with emissions from cars, industry and homes, but still continue to reduce, reuse and recycle, and to minimize our impact on the environment, to continue planting trees, and such. Hope for the best, that is to say work to, if possible arrest and reverse the climate change, and prepare for the worst, that is to say, pepare for the eventuality that Climate Change, a.k.a. Global Warming, is not a result of human activity but a natural phenomenon, one that, as the records seem to show, arrives around every thousand years or so in the cycle of our Blue Planet.
© Michael Smith (Veshengro), January 2008
Magnolias - Bloom and Doom?
Over half the world’s magnolia species are close to extinction in the wild, says new report
Magnolias may be blooming in Britain’s gardens this spring, but in the wild it’s an altogether different story. Over half the world’s magnolia species are facing extinction in their native forest habitats, according to an authoritative new report from two leading plant conservation organisations.
The Red List of the Magnoliaceae, published jointly today by Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) and Fauna & Flora International (FFI), through the Global Trees Campaign (GTC), identifies 131 wild magnolias as being in danger of extinction, from a global total of 245 species.
The significance of this potentially catastrophic loss lies not only in the threat to the genetic diversity of the family, but also because they are a highly sensitive indicator of the well-being of the forests in which they are found. Magnolias are among the most ancient groups of flowering plants and have long been cultivated by mankind. Some specimens growing in the precincts of Chinese temples are estimated to be up to 800 years old. Still popular as ornamental plants in gardens around the world (although fewer than 15 species are common in cultivation), in the wild magnolias are a source of timber, food and medicines for local communities.
Speaking at the report launch in London, Sara Oldfield, Secretary General of BGCI and one of the report's authors, said: “We now have a choice. We can use the new information to conserve these important trees and restore their forest habitats or we can catalogue their extinction.”
“The second option”, she added, “would be a tragedy”.
Some two thirds of known magnolia species are found in Asia, with over 40% occurring in southern China. According to the report half of all wild Chinese magnolias are at risk of extinction. In the Americas, north and south, where magnolias are also found in the wild, a similar picture is emerging. In Colombia, for example, the report concludes that the threat of extinction hangs over 30 of its native species.
Underpinning the report is a comprehensive mapping exercise carried out at Bournemouth University. According to report co-author, Professor Adrian Newton, “The maps provide an excellent baseline for future monitoring and conservation planning at a time of rapid environmental change. Comparing species distribution with forest cover for a whole family of flowering plants gives us a unique snapshot of forest biodiversity.”
Drawing on the report’s findings BGCI and FFI are collaborating through the Global Trees Campaign to boost conservation efforts for threatened magnolias. Later this month, at the 3rd Global Botanic Gardens Congress in Wuhan, China (April 16 - 20, 2007), BGCI will launch a survey of botanic garden collections of threatened magnolias species. This will enable BGCI to identify precisely which threatened species are not yet held in ex situ collections (in botanic gardens and arboreta, etc.), and take action to ensure that integrated conservation measures for these species are developed and implemented.
FFI is already working to improve the status of the wild populations of the most threatened magnolia species in China. “We are aiming to restore wild populations of key magnolia species in Yunnan Province,” said Dr Georgina Magin, Global Trees Campaign Coordinator at FFI, “We hope to be able to extend this work to take action for other species, both in China and in other parts of the world.”
Also being launched at the 3rd Global Botanic Gardens Congress in Wuhan is China’s Strategy for Plant Conservation, designed to coordinate and strengthen the work already being undertaken by Chinese universities, botanic gardens and Government agencies to conserve Chinese magnolias. BGCI has been instrumental in assisting key Chinese agencies to develop the Strategy.
Can’t See the Trees for the Wood?
Botanic Gardens Conservation International
How many plants would you recognise in their natural habitat? If you are a botanist or a keen gardener, you’re answer would probably be “well, quite a few actually,” but research from the USA suggests that you’d be in a minority, especially if, like most of us, you live in a town or city.
In a paper to be presented at Botanic Garden Conservation International’s (BGCI) 6th International Congress on Education in Botanic Gardens, hosted by the University of Oxford Botanic Garden in the period of September 10 – September 14, 2007, US academics James Wandersee and Renee Clary outlined their theory of ‘plant blindness’, which they described as a failure to see or take any notice of the plants that occur in our everyday lives.
According to Professor Wandersee, this phenomenon is particularly noticeable in industrialised nations, where the drift to the cities means that much of the population has lost touch with any meaningful understanding of agriculture and nature. The implications of such behaviour to those attempting to arrest habitat loss, protect plant diversity and engender a sustainable way for humankind to live on this planet is obvious.
However, Professor Wandersee is optimistic that steps can be taken to reverse this process and argues that botanic gardens have a vital role to play.
‘Miracle’ cures face extinction
From a desert succulent that may ‘cure’ obesity, to a Chinese magnolia
effective against previously untreatable cancers, hundreds of the planet’s most promising medicinal plants are facing an imminent threat, warn world’s experts.
Looming Health Care Crisis: A new global study reveals that hundreds of medicinal plant species, whose naturally-occurring chemicals make up the basis of over 50% of all prescription drugs, are threatened with extinction. Sparking off fears of a global health care crisis, a consortium of leading experts acting through London-based organisation, Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI), are calling for urgent action to help ‘secure the future of global healthcare’.
With 70% of all newly-developed drugs in the United States, the world’s largest and wealthiest pharmaceuticals market, being derived from natural sources, it is clear that despite major scientific advances, the future of human healthcare is still overwhelmingly reliant on the plant kingdom.
“We are using up a wide range of the world’s natural medicines and squandering the potential to develop new remedies“ says Sara Oldfield, Secretary General of BGCI “And yet it is perfectly possible to prevent plant extinctions”.
There was a time when scientists predicted that developments in biochemistry would mean that most if not all new drugs would be simply synthesised in the lab, however in recent years it has become increasingly clear that this is unlikely to happen. For while scientists are able to artificially replicate several medicinally-active compounds found in plants, a overwhelming number of these are still eluding all attempts to copy them, or it is simply not commercially viable to do so.
Take the world’s most widely-used cancer drug, Paclitaxel, for instance. Derived from the bark of several species of yew trees, its complex chemical structure and biological function has defied all attempts of commercial synthesis, gaining it the reputation for being “the kind of drug that would be impossible to design from scratch”. Yet with, until very recently, an average of 6 trees needed for just a single dose, its use has decimated wild yew populations across the world, with 80% of the trees in China’s Yunnan Province, once famous for its yew forests, destroyed within a three year period. “The dramatic decline in a range of yew species, highlights the global extinction crisis that is facing medicinal plant species.” says Oldfield.
Nowhere is this dependence on medicinal plants more acute than in developing countries, with the World Health Organisation estimating that an astonishing 80% of the global population, some 5.3 billion people, rely on traditional plant-based medicine as their primary form of healthcare, and in many cases collection and sales of these plants provide their only form of livelihood. Yet it is exactly in these areas that these plants are under most threat, putting the rural poor at the sharp end of the looming healthcare crisis.
“The loss of the world’s medicinal plants may not always be at the forefront of the public consciousness, however it is not an overstatement to say that if the precipitous decline of these species is not halted, it could destabilise the future of global healthcare, putting many millions of lives at risk.” reports Belinda Hawkins the report author.
BGCI
Descanso House,
199 Kew Road,
Richmond, Surrey
TW9 3BW, UK
www.bgci.org
Tend to Your Garden in Winter
Although many of the perennials grown in the garden slumber through the winter months, the gardener is far from inactive.
In fact, winter in the garden can be as busy as any other season of the year.
Here are some essential gardening tasks that are recommend green fingers take care of when it gets frosty outside:
1./ Check in on your plants: Examine the greenhouse (or cold frame) regularly for any sign of pests or disease it could be harboring. Remove any dead flower heads, yellowing leaves, and other plant debris before mold starts to form, to cut the risk of infection.
Heavy snowfall can settle on conifers and evergreens with larger surface areas, causing the branches to buckle or break under all that heft. Knock the snow off to help reduce damage, because a torn branch leaves an open wound for infections in spring.
2./ Protect them from the cold: Insulate your greenhouse and cold frame with bubble wrap or similar insulation, because reducing drafts saves on heat loss and plant casualties.
Outdoor evergreens, container plants, tall plants, and plants introduced since the previous winter will need protection if the weather takes a nasty turn. (They can be severely damaged by wind, which can loosen roots.) Consider planting a windbreak or shelter to reduce the airflow.
Another problem caused by the wind is foliage drying out, which happens when freezing gusts draw moisture from leaves faster than it can be replaced. Erect a screen of woven plastic mesh or horticultural fleece on the windward side of vulnerable plants to reduce the wind's effects and protect the leaves. During heavy frosts, some plants may even benefit from being bundled up in protective fleece, which absorbs some of cold.
3./ Prepare the soil: Because winter frost can break down sticky clay soil better than any cultivation tool, it can be an ally when it comes to preparing heavy soils. This is the time to incorporate compost or other organic conditioners that will improve soil structure and boost plant growth.
4./ Deal with construction and landscaping jobs: Because sections of the garden will be bare, it's easier to see the garden layout and make changes for the coming spring. If the soil isn't too wet to be structurally damaged by foot traffic and wheelbarrows, you can take the opportunity to install or improve drainage systems.
5./ Handle repairs and maintenance, and that includes repairing handles: Consider the lack of vegetation a bonus, because this is an ideal time to drain and clean pools and ponds, as well as repair pond sides, walls, and liners. Or use this time to re-level, change the shape, increase the shape and size of borders, and reseed areas where growth is sparse. However, no work should be carried out if the grass is frozen, because footprints made on frozen grass can cause it to turn brown.
Repair, sharpen, clean, service, and otherwise maintain tools that are used in your garden, whether the lawnmower, the strimmer, bill hooks, secateurs, etc. A well-maintained tool or piece of machinery will give you good service for many, many years and will make life and work easier.
Michael Smith (Veshengro), January 2008
M&S offers £5 for clothes given to Oxfam
Marks & Spencer, Britain's biggest fashion retailer, announced on Tuesday, January 15, 2008 that it, together with with Oxfam, was launching a clothes recycling scheme. Individuals who donate unwanted clothes to Oxfam will receive a £5 M&S voucher in return, with the exception of donations of lingerie, underwear, swimwear, hosiery and socks. To be perfectly truthful; the latter items, e.g. lingerie, underwear, swimwear, hosiery and socks, used, do not belong into a thrift store but into a rag bag or rag recycling scheme.
Marks & Spencer has teamed up with Oxfam to reduce the one million tonnes of clothing sent to landfill each year, and that's a lot of rags. In the so-called "clothes exchange", vouchers will be valid for one month against purchases of £35 or more of M&S clothing, homeware or beauty products.
But there is a snag, folks. Each bag of clothes donated to Oxfam shops must contain at least one item of M&S clothing, no matter how old. So, they are not all that daft, are they, giving away vouchers for any kind of bag old old clothes being brought to Oxfam. So, rather than being a great incentive in helping reduce the mountain of rags thrown into the by giving people incentive to bring in their used clothes to Oxfam it is, so it would appear to this write, not much more than just a nice PR stunt and gimmick. “Seen to be green”, is the motto here, apparently.
The clothes exchange will run for a six-month trial from January 28. Some 790 branches of Oxfam across the UK and Republic of Ireland will give out the vouchers, which will be valid for only a month. Barbara Stocking, director of Oxfam, said: "Recycling and reusing clothes - and anything else we can sell - has always been central to Oxfam's fundraising, as well as being good for the environment." No one can deny the truth in the statement by Oxfam but, I am afraid that knowing some of the practices this charity has employed in the past to solicit financial donations from people this writer has his reservations as to how green the thoughts really are here.
A spokeswoman for Ethical Consumer magazine welcomed the M&S initiative, but called on the retailer to take the lead in "using recycled textiles for the new clothes they want us to buy".
The Green (Living) Review in addition to the call by the Ethical Consumer magazine would like to encourage people instead of buyin new all the time to actually buy their clothes (and other items) used, often they are even new or as new, at Charity Shops, such as Oxfam, but more so even in those that support local causes, such as in the North-East Surrey area where Green (Living) Review is based, the St Raphael's Hospice Shops and those of the Children's Trust. Think local!
While there certainly are worthy causes in the Charity Shop realm – all of them in the main – it would be much better if we would support our local charities and their shops before we would the big national and even international ones. Think local.
© Michael Smith (Veshengro), January 2008
Scientists urge Government: tougher CO2 cuts
Monday 21 January 2008
WWF-UK has enlisted the support of Britain's leading environmental scientists to call on the Government to commit to tougher carbon emission cuts in the Climate Change Bill in an open letter to the Government in five major UK newspapers.
David Nussbaum, chief executive of WWF-UK, said: "The Government has a unique opportunity to set an example to the rest of the world by introducing groundbreaking legislation on climate change."
"Today some of Britain's most eminent climate and environmental scientists have added their voices to the growing calls for emission cuts based on the latest science - that means cuts of at least 80% by 2050," he said.
Open letter to Government: UK newspapers
The letter is written by the current Chair of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution (RCEP), Sir John Lawton, and his predecessors, Sir Tom Blundell, Chair at the time of the 2000 report as well as Sir John Houghton and also the Foreign Member of the US National Academy of Sciences Professor Norman Myers. The scientists have signed the letter in their personal capacity.
The open letter to the leaders of the main political parties is published in today's The Times, The Guardian, The Telegraph and The Independent.
The letter explains the need to cut the UK's CO2 emissions by at least 80% by 2050, outlining how the Government's current target of a 60% reduction in the UK's CO2 emissions by 2050 is based on an out of date report by the (RCEP) published in 2000.
Call for 80% CO2 emissions cut
Sir John Houghton, the first Chair of Scientific Assessment for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said: "The UK has always been proud of its leadership in the issue of climate change. To keep in the lead, the Government needs to keep in step with the science that is now strongly pointing towards cuts in emissions of at least 80% by 2050 if we are to mitigate against dangerous climate change. Furthermore there is convincing modelling to show that these cuts are achievable and affordable."
Scientific reports
The recent report, 80% Challenge: Delivering a low carbon Britain, published jointly by WWF-UK, Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), found that it is technically feasible and affordable for the UK to cut its CO2 emissions by at least 80% by 2050 - including our share of emissions from international aviation and without using new nuclear power.
Alternative solutions could lie in energy efficiency and a rapid roll out of renewable and decentralised energy, potentially combined with fossil fuel power stations equipped with working carbon capture and storage.
Recent statements by Sir Nicholas Stern, the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and the UN Human Development Report 2007/2008 also make clear that developed countries must make emissions reductions of at least 80% by 2050.
WWF-UK is also calling on the UK Government to include emissions from international aviation and shipping in the Climate Change Bill.
Source...
O2 reduces its impact on the environment by 196 tonnes of CO2 a year
At O2 they know that climate change is one of the most serious challenges facing society, and that every company has an important role to play in tackling it.
O2's goal is to make energy conservation a way of life for their company and to minimise their impact on the environment. They have three main areas of focus:
1. To reduce and conserve the energy we use.
2. To source more of our energy from renewable sources.
Sabien Technology helps companies reduce their carbon emissions, energy consumption and therefore save money. Based upon established technology M2G, Sabien's approach is proven to reduce carbon emissions and energy consumption by up to 35%.
As part of their carbon reduction strategy and working with Sabien Technology, O2 conducted an extensive pilot that delivered average savings in energy consumption of up to 27%, O2 is now working to roll out the M2G technology throughout its UK buildings.
Paul Eggleton, Energy Manager at O2, said: "We have been very impressed with the performance of the M2G units. They have lived up to all expectations and because they are so easy to fit there was no interruption in service to the two trial buildings.”
"We are now rolling out M2G to other corporate offices in our portfolio and look forward to seeing significantly reduced gas bills.”
Sabien and M2G delivered
The pilot took place in two locations with 9 M2Gs fitted on 9 boilers used to heat the space and water of the offices. The results of the pilot demonstrated average energy savings of 27% and 16%. A positive return on investment at each site of less than 14 months and 7 months respectively, with annual carbon savings of 196 tonnes.
For more information on Sabien Technology and the M2G please visit us at www.sabien-tech.co.uk or call us on 0800 082 67 67.
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