ECOGREENMUMS  ARTICLES.

SAFE CLIMATE BULLETIN 5 May 2010

URGENT REMINDER!  WE NEED YOU…   Rally to Replace Hazelwood with Clean Energy by 2012.   12.30-1.30pm Thursday, 6 May 2010 Steps of Parliament House, Spring St Melbourne   Kevin Rudd’s backflip on climate change has outraged millions of Australians who voted for action on climate change at the last election.  On top of that, while yesterday’s State Budget had some good outcomes, it failed to deliver on the big actions we need to slash greenhouse pollution.   This is our chance to call for immediate action that will see our dirtiest power station – responsible for almost 15 percent of Victoria’s greenhouse pollution - replaced with clean energy solutions.    Please forward this message to your friends.   Tell ‘em directly!   Tell our state and federal leaders directly that you want them to commit to Replace Hazelwood.    Click here to send our leaders a letter calling on them to take action at the upcoming elections.  Hundreds of you have already signed this letter, but if we want a serious commitment on Hazelwood, we're going to need thousands more.   Please sign the letter now, and forward this request to your family and friends.     See you tomorrow at the rally!   Kind regards,   Victoria McKenzie-McHarg And the Safe Climate Team   03 9341 8112 Victoria@envict.org.au

FLEXIBLE SOLAR POWER IS ON ITS WAY

So, the sceptics say, solar cells are only ever likely to be a small, disproportionately expensive part of our future energy mix. In the temperate, oft-cloudy climes of much of Europe and North America, satisfying the population's electricity needs with photovoltaics alone would mean plastering something like 5 to 15 per cent of the land surface with them.

Such criticisms might be tempered by a new generation of solar cells about to flop off the production line. Slim, bendy and versatile, they consume just a fraction of the materials - and costs - of a traditional photovoltaic device. They could be just the fillip solar power needs, opening the way to a host of new applications: solar-charged cellphones and laptops, say, or slimline generators that sit almost invisibly on a building's curved surfaces or even its windows.

Read the full article www.newscientist.com

Peter Andrews in Meredith

 

Natural Sequence Farming founder, Peter Andrews, will be conducting a full day on-farm workshop in Meredith on Tuesday May 11^th, 2010. 

For queries and bookings call Jo Klein 0438 828 042 or 03 5281 9374

 

Peter was featured on ABC’s “Australian Story” where he was the subject of the most popular episode ever and the only ever two part series of the program. He is the author of two books on Land Restoration and now travels Australia consulting on hydrology issues.

How Does Stress affect the Fetus

Last week it was stress during pregnancy gives your child asthma. Then there were the studies hinting that stress inhibits growth in the emotional areas of babies' brains, raises the risk of stillbirth and makes your child more likely to develop schizophrenia.

What's a pregnant woman to make of all this?

read the full article www.newscientist.com

Santos facing $24m leak bill

Energy producer Santos says an oil leak at its Port Bonython plant in South Australia has so far cost the company $24 million.

The company noticed the toxic seepage into ground water under its plant at Point Lowly 20 months ago during routine monitoring.

Plant manager Warren Kruger says a trench has been built to stop oil leaking into the sea.

He told a meeting of Whyalla residents the company was doing remediation work, extracting the oil and treating the affected ground water.

"You have an assurance from Santos that we also consider Point Lowly a jewel in the crown and that we will continue our investigation until we have inspected all possible sources," he said.

read article   http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/01/29/2804634.htm?site=news

Modified Maize raises fears

MONSANTO, the giant of genetically modified crops, has for the first time been forced to release raw data from toxicology studies it carried out on three strains of its modified maize. An external analysis of the data claims it shows that eating the maize could result in damage to the liver and kidneys, but this has been dismissed as unsupportable by a government agency and independent toxicologists.

With legal help from Greenpeace and the Swedish Board of Agriculture, researchers at the Committee of Research and Information on Genetic Engineering, a French anti-GM lobby group, forced Monsanto to release the data from studies in which rats were fed with the three varieties of maize for three months.

read the full article www.newscientist.com

Preventing dangerous climate change by 2100 barely feasible

Fat chance then. Even with all the green power we muster, preventing dangerous climate change by the end of the century is "barely feasible". So says an analysis of how fast low-carbon energy sources can be introduced.

For a 50:50 chance of keeping a global temperature rise within 2 °C by 2100, we must halve emissions by 2050. This is the message of climate models by Keywan Riahi of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria, and colleagues. That means 70 per cent of global energy production must be zero-emissions by 2050.

read the full article  www.newscientist.com

In-car gizmos can result in less fuel efficiency

Instead of I-spy and guess-the-colour-of-the-next-car, in-car entertainment is now more likely to feature a plug-in games console or a passenger TV screen. Meanwhile, the badly folded map book has given way to intermittent commentary from a dashboard-mounted satnav. The extra energy demands of such devices, together with ever more powerful aircon systems, can result in fuel efficiency plummeting by more than 20 per cent.

from www.NewScientist.co