If you’re a renter living in a small apartment, the chances are you’re not allowed to hang your clothes on the balcony - most bodies corporate forbid it. Instead, you’re probably forced to use a clothes dryer. It’s bad for the environment and bad for your bank balance.
And it is not only low income rental accommodation that has these rules! It is the same case where I live. I do air dry my washing on racks indoors but the whole clothes dryer thing is so unnecessary.
We do need to include renters, especially low-income renters, in the solution to climate change.

Adapting to climate change can be as cheap as allowing people to hang out their washing, but it can also involve considerable expense.

Low-income families can’t afford to install solar panels or buy hybrid cars. But enormous reductions in emissions are possible through much simpler and easier means. These include installing gas heating, insulation and compact fluorescent light globes, buying energy efficient refrigerators and other appliances, sealing gaps, and giving people better access to public transport.

We need solutions and we need them fast. In 2010, the new emissions trading system will be introduced, which will push up the price of energy. And because basic energy costs make up a higher proportion of low-income earners’ weekly income, they’re going to be hit the hardest.

Technorati Tags: low income earners combat climate change, climate change, ISO 9001, go green, green, global warming, climate change

Some endangered species may face an extinction risk that is up to a hundred times greater than previously thought, according to a study by University of Colorado in the journal Nature, Professor Brett Melbourne, said “By overlooking random differences between individuals in a given population, researchers may have badly underestimated the perils confronting threatened wildlife,” “Many larger populations previously considered relatively safe would actually be at risk,”

There are more than 16,000 species worldwide threatened with extinction, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). One in four mammals, one in eight birds and one in three amphibians are on the IUCN’s endangered species “Red List”.

In a study released on Wednesday by Melbourne said the current models used draw up such lists typically look only at two risk factors.

• One is the individual deaths within a small population, such as Indian tigers or rare whales. When a species dwindles beyond a certain point, even the loss of a handful of individuals can have devastating long-term consequences, Melbourne explained. There are less than 400 specimens of several species of whale, for example, and probably no more than 4,000 tigers roaming in the wild.
• The second commonly-used factor is environmental conditions that can influence birth and death rates, such as habitat destruction, or fluctuations in temperature or rainfall, both of which can be linked to climate change.

These factors must be widened in order to give a fuller picture of extinction risk. They say that two other determinants must be taken into account: male-to-female ratios in a species, and a wider definition of randomness in individual births and deaths.

“This seems subtle and technical, but it turns out to be important,” Melbourne said in an email. “Population sizes might need to be much larger for species to be relatively safe from extinction.”

The new mathematical tool will be most useful for biologists who want to assess the survival prospects of species such as marine fish whose numbers can suddenly fluctuate and for which data is limited, the authors say.

Technorati Tags: extinction risks, extinction, extinction risks are vastly underestimated, International Union for Conservation of Nature, IUCN

This has been an issue for years with people wanting sunlight to grow vegetables and having ‘discussions” between neighbours and planners for the right to sunlight. This has taken on a new twist with the right to collect sunlight on solar panels.

One recent example from Hunter’s Hill in Sydney has left the home owners both out of pocket because of loss of the $8,000 solar rebate and also because the local planners has just approved a development next door that will shade the panels they have just spent $40,00 0 to install.

The home owner said “The whole idea was to reduce our carbon footprint - we knew it would never pay for itself - but that will now be pretty much worthless. We weren’t going to make any money out of doing this. We were basically just trying to do the right thing.”

The 20 panels cover half their roof, and generate about 4.2 kilowatts of electricity when in full sun - enough to meet the energy needs of an average house. The property next door is being renovated, with an extra storey and a parapet to be added.

Should the right to sunlight be a planning consideration? I would have thought so!

Technorati Tags: our right to sunlight, sunlight, growing vegetables, growing veggies, Hunters Hill, Sydney, global warming

Associate Professor Richard Denniss of the Crawford School at The Australian National University has been studying the likely effectiveness of the New Zealand Government’s Emissions Trading Scheme for his paper The NZ Emissions Trading Scheme – why is it so bad and can Australia’s be any better?

“Given the recent consternation in Australia over very small reductions in the price of petrol, it is difficult to see how we are going to have a sensible debate about an effective Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) in Australia,” he said.

“The worst thing Australia could do would be to follow New Zealand down the path of incurring all the costs of an ETS, while missing out on all the economic and environmental benefits. He stated that New Zealand has gone for the worst of both worlds, but hopefully Australia can do better.”

He says that Australian policy makers need to look across the Tasman to learn a number of valuable lessons before the introduction of any national Emissions Trading Scheme, to ensure the New Zealand experience is not repeated here. It is to be hoped that powerful industry groups are not allowed to insulated themselves from the emissions trading.

Technorati Tags: emissions trading, lobby groups, emissions trading scheme, ETS, Australia, New Zealand

$2.8 Million has been allocated by the Federal Government for this planning. This included mapping coastal urban areas for inundation risks from climate change in as Perth, Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide.

The project will be implemented in collaboration with key national organisations such as the Cooperative Research Centre for Spatial Information, the Australia and New Zealand Land Information Council, Geosciences Australia, CSIRO, and relevant state government agencies and commercial terrestrial mapping and monitoring companies.

They are also looking at how climate change affects variations in offshore wave characteristics will be developed by combining climate modeling and spectral wave modeling.

Technorati Tags:   Projects to help Australia’s vulnerable coastal communities plan for the effects of climate change, Australia’s vulnerable coastal communities plan, Australia, climate change, Cooperative Research Centre for Spatial Information, Australia and New Zealand Land Information Council, CSIRO

The South Australian Government and the Property Council of Australia (SA Division) have teamed up to undertake a $2 million project to improve the energy efficiency of commercial buildings in Adelaide’s CBD.

The State Government is to provide $2 million over four years to extend the operation of an existing program to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions produced by existing commercial buildings in Adelaide.

The Building Tune Ups-2012 project aims to improve the energy performance of all eligible commercial office buildings in the Adelaide CBD and has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions produced by Adelaide’s existing commercial building stock by about 70,000 tonnes annually.

Technorati Tags: energy efficiency, commercial buildings, Adelaide, South Australian Government, Property Council of Australia

The Hon Peter Garrett MP Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts has announced that Australia’s first engine emissions test facility for heavy duty vehicles will be built in Western Australia with $2.76 million in Australian Government funding, announced today by Environment Minister Peter Garrett. ‘This project will assist with funding the development of the first facility in Australia capable of testing heavy duty vehicle engines to international certification level testing for both regulated and greenhouse gas emissions,’ Mr Garrett said.

Technorati Tags: Hon Peter Garrett, MP minister for the environment, MP, Peter Garrett, Peter Garrett MP, Australia, engine emissions test, emissions, greenhouse gas emissions, global warming

Hi Jean

In response to your posting about green cars - are you aware of these? As I understand this engine was designed by someone in Meolbourne. Now - here’s a local industry worth getting behind.

Regards
Laurence

This is the same company who, a few months back,
came out with a car that costs only $2,500.00 new

(but it’s not available in the US, why does that not surprise me?).

A non polluting vehicle that eliminates the reason to buy gasoline from off shore companies.
How bad is that?

AMAZING AIR CAR!

The Compressed Air Car developed by Motor Development International (MDI) Founder Guy Negre might be the best thing to have happened to the motor engine in years.

The $12,700 CityCAT, one of the planned Air Car models, can hit 68 mph and has a range of 125 miles. It will take only a few minutes for the CityCAT to refuel at gas stations equipped with custom air compressor units. MDI says it should cost only around $2 to fill the car up with 340 liters of air!

The Air Car will be starting production relatively soon, thanks to India’s TATA Motors. Forget corn! There’s fuel, there’s renewable fuel, and then there’s user-renewable fuel! What can be better than air?

Check it out yourself and see - What A Cool Car! Enjoy!

This six-seater taxi should be available in India this year -2008!

Now If We Can Just Get It In The USA and Australia and England and Europe!

Technorati Tags:   CityCAT, Air Car models, Air Car, TATA Motors, new car with no gasoline

EU health experts warn that Europe could face an increase in outbreaks of diseases carried by insects and rodents as the climate on the continent becomes hotter and wetter.

Climate and environmental changes being predicted by experts will alter the risk to Europe from vector-(mosquito, ticks, rats etc) borne diseases,” ECDC head Zsuzsanna Jakab said in a statement.  “We are likely to see the spread of diseases such as tick-borne encephalitis, or even chikungunya fever, to places where they have not been seen before,” she added.

In addition to climate change, the European Union agency also said the risk of such vector-borne diseases, which affect millions of people worldwide each year, was growing due to “globalisation and the increased travel and trade that it brings.”

An example of the increased threat was seen last year, when a traveller who had been infected in India with chikungunya fever was bitten in northern Italy by a type of mosquito that can carry the disease and that recently arrived in Europe.

Nearly 250 people subsequently came down with the illness in what some experts said could be the first such outbreak outside the tropics.

“Authoritative climate scenarios for the future predict that many parts of Europe will become hotter and wetter,” and  these changes are likely to impact on disease vectors, such as mosquitoes  The agency cautioned that tick-borne encephalitis (TBE), which is considered one of the most dangerous infections of the central nervous system.

Motorized bicycles might look like a solution to the rising oil price and global warming, but a court ruling has found some cannot be legally used on NSW roads - even though the Roads and Traffic Authority previously advised owners they could.

People have previously been told that they did not require registration, and all users had to do was wear a helmet and obey the road rules. As many as 10,000 such bikes, known as E-bikes, may have been sold in NSW on the basis.that the law specifies that “pedal cycles” with “one or more auxiliary propulsion motors” up to 200 watts do not require registration.

However in May last year, Deborah Alice Matheson was riding her Eazyride bike on a street in Nyngan at about 30 kilometres an hour, using its motor, when she was stopped by police. She was charged with driving an unregistered vehicle. She was convicted at Nyngan local court this year and fined $500.  Last Thursday week, the Supreme Court upheld the verdict, without recording a conviction. Justice Peter Johnson found the magistrate who found Ms Matheson guilty had not erred in ruling that the bike motor was not “auxiliary” but primary, and its pedal power was secondary.

One cyclist, Craig Donarski, has been riding his electric bicycle to work almost every day for two years. He says the trip from Lilyfield to Circular Quay takes him 22 minutes, and it costs him about 10cents to 12cents a week in electricity to charge the batteries on his bike.
“It’s the cheapest form of transport past the pushbike … It makes bike travel possible for people who don’t have the levels of fitness or strength to ride a normal pushbike. It just seems absurd … when we are worrying about anything from peak oil to greenhouse gases to parking, to make these things illegal.”

BLIMEY!!
This rates with the stupidity of evaporating the water from Coal seam gas and electricity regulators stating that a business on a windy oastline wanting to power it with wind turbines cant because they are too big to be domestic and too small to be commercial.

Are there any other stupidities out there?