Proforma has been in the print and promotional items industry for over 30 years, being named #1 Promotional Item Distributor by Promo Marketing magazine and #1 Business to Business Supplier in North America by Entrepreneur Magazine. Since 2005, John Simonetta, the owner of Proforma Simonetta Freelance, has focused on providing clients with creative eco-friendly promotional solutions, items like the NOT A PAPER CUP – http://3.ly/z44 – and E.C.O FLEECE JACKETS – http://3.ly/Vb4
An Ecological Footprint is the measurement used to calculate how much human pressure we place on our planet.
You can now find out your own individual pressure – at first it may horrify you but so long as you do something about it, that can only help.
I have just taken a test to find out what my Ecological Footprint is. What a shock! I am horrified to learn how high it is as I thought I was living “green”.
Global Footprint Network stated that if everyone lived the lifestyle of the average American, we would need 5 planets. My results stated I would need 4.6 planets.
When I hear the term “clean coal” I can’t help but wonder what it could possibly mean? Coal to me is black and dirty and produces horrible black and smelly smoke when it is burned. The term “clean coal” is used to refer to any process used at a new or existing facility which will significantly reduce sulfur dioxide emissions or other green house gases in the fight against global warming.
Around 50% of electricity production in the USA is through coal fuelled power stations. The clean coal technology term is used to describe the process by which carbon is captured and sequestrated (confiscated and stored). There are currently estimates that clean coal technology reduces emissions by as much as 77% so there are still at least 23% of emissions that are not captured.
The other issue is of course in the storage of pollutants and radionuclides. Significant amounts of fossil fuel energy are required to mine coal and transport it to power stations. Disposing of pollutants and transporting the waste also require large amounts of fossil fuel energy and therefore the whole notion of “clean coal” technology seems questionable at the very least.
Coal mining can strip away mountains, hills and natural areas and can cause enormous environmental destruction due to subsidence, erosion and degradation. While there is no question that “clean coal” technology reduces green house emissions it does not compare to the efficiency and environmentally friendly solar and wind technologies. These should surely be the methods Australia pursues. We can only hope.
We have all heard the debate in relation to climate change regarding the use of Nuclear Power as a potential replacement for our coal fueled power stations. Is Nuclear power clean and green? Will nuclear power decrease the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions and thus decrease global warming?
In 2007 around 15% of the world’s electricity came from nuclear power. The United States produces the most nuclear energy in the world with nuclear power providing 19% of its electricity supply. France supplies more than 78% of its electricity through nuclear reactors and the European Union as a whole relies on nuclear power for around 30% of its total electricity needs.
The reality is that enormous amounts of fossil fuel are used to mine, mill and enrich Uranium that is needed to fuel a nuclear power plant as well as construct the enormous concrete reactor. Nuclear reactors have a 30-40 year life cycle and massive amounts of fossil fuel energy are required to complete the dismantling process. There is also enormous fossil fuel energy required to transport and store the nuclear waste which is buried underground.
Scarily radioactive waste like Strontium 90 remains radioactive for 600 years. Plutonium is the most significant element in nuclear waste and is so toxic and carcinogenic that 500 grams of the waste evenly distributed around the globe would be enough to cause cancer for every man, woman and child on the planet and Plutonium waste remains toxic for 500,000 years.
When considering radiation it is easy to look at Dentists when they X-Ray your teeth. The dentist will leave the room because any amount of radiation is dangerous if you are exposed to it often enough. The USA currently has more than 55,000 metric tons of nuclear waste that it has stored with each reactor producing a further 25-30 tons of nuclear waste annually.
Australia currently has no commercially operational or planned nuclear reactors. Our focus should be on the harnessing of solar and wind for our energy production. The Kyoto Protocol requires that we produce 20% of our energy needs through renewable means by 2020.
I would like to see our politicians commit to the British plan of producing enough off shore wind farms to produce all of the energy required to power the entire nation by 2020. If nuclear power is too dangerous for Iran to have we should not be looking to increase its use anywhere in the World.
Regenesi is an Italian company that designs and manufactures objects from materials that have been recycled.
Created by Entrepreneur Maria Silvia Pazzi the quintessential thought process behind every item is that is must adhere to strict aesthetic and sustainable criteria.
The company uses everyday materials that include glass, cardboard, aluminum, and plastic, to produce bags, crockery, lamps and much much more, all the time believing that “there is no contradiction between being function, eco-compatible and beautiful.”
A guide to using rainwater and greywater at home
by Stuart McQuire
It’s time to think of other ways to secure water for the home. This book shows you how.
Water Not Down the Drain is a comprehensive guide to sustainable water use around the home. With Australia experiencing one of its driest phases in history, everyone has to think about how they use the water available to them and find ways to reduce their day to day water use. The good news is that with rainwater and greywater, people have more water available to them than they think.
Topics include:
Making the most of the water you have
Saving water, including tips on how to use less water
Top water greenhouse savers
Calculating how much water is available including rainwater, greywater and stormwater
Where can you use rainwater, greywater and stormwater
Rainwater tanks and where to place them
Tank types including under floor tanks
Regulations
Rebates
Selecting a greywater system
Greywater health and safety
Watering systems for greywater
Composting toilets and complete treatment systems such as worm farms
Wise watering in the garden
How to use stormwater at home
Water Not Down the Drain includes case studies from author Stuart McQuire’s house, including examples of how he uses rainwater, greywater and stormwater. Useful tips and advice appear throughout the book to help you make changes at home.
About the author
Stuart McQuire’s household used to be above average suburban water users. Since then they have reduced their mains water use by 96 per cent. In fact, they use just two and a half buckets of mains water per day, but still have a thriving garden full of fresh produce. All other water comes from the site either as rainwater or recycled water. Stuart began using rainwater and greywater in the early nineties to save water, and his home has gained a national and international profile for its role in pioneering environmental technologies and sustainable living.
Stuart McQuire is an environmental scientist and past president of the Alternative Technology Association. This is his second book about water. In this book, he shares his journey to sustainable water use and shows readers what he’s done at home. Stuart’s house is surrounded by a permaculture garden with 20 fruit and nut trees, and features grid-connected solar electricity, solar hot water, rainwater tanks, water recycling, composting and chooks. The book includes photos of Stuart’s water smart house and garden.
To understand the deadlock in the debate on global climate change, look no further than your iPod.
The vast majority of the world’s MP3 players are made in China, where the main power source is coal. Manufacturing a single MP3 player releases about 7.7kg of planet-warming carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
iPods, along with thousands of other goods churned out by Chinese factories, from toys to rolled steel, pose a question that is becoming an issue in the climate-change debate.If a gadget is made in China by an American company and exported and used by consumers from Stockholm to São Paulo should the Chinese government be held responsible for the carbon released in manufacturing it? Present agreements such as Kyoto look at emissions on a country-by-country basis, requiring participating nations to reduce greenhouse gases released within their borders.
In other words, the manufacturing nation pays for the pollution. Many are arguing, however, that the next global climate treaty should take into account a nation’s emissions “consumption.”
Experts, environmentalists and scientists argue that the emissions are embedded in goods that move around the world through trade.Therefore if Australia imports iPods from China, Australian’s should share some responsibility for the pollution produced in making them.
In other words, judgment should be based on a “consumer pays” criteria.
The average surface temperature has warmed one degree Fahrenheit (0.6 degrees Celsius) during the last century, according to the National Research Council.
The temperatures were relatively unchanged from 1880 to 1910, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
They rose till about 1945, cooled until about 1975 and have risen steadily to present day.There are several possible reasons for the warming, scientists say.
A change in the Earth’s orbit or the intensity of the sun’s radiation could change, triggering warming or cooling.
The reason most cited for the current warming trend is an increase in the concentrations of greenhouse gases, which are in the atmosphere naturally and help keep the planet’s temperature at a comfortable level.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, for instance, has increased by 35 percent since the dawn of the industrial age, according to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, commonly referred to as the IPCC.
The presence of methane is now 151 percent above pre-industrial levels, but the rate of increase has slowed in recent decades, according to the EPA.
Meanwhile, nitrous oxide increased by about 18 percent during the past 200 years.
Many scientists and experts who have studied global warming believe the increase is primarily the result of human activities, like the burning of fossil fuels, emissions from vehicles and the clearing of forests.
Quite simply, for the last 30 years, there’s no way there’s anything natural that can explain it.
There are, however, skeptics who are less convinced of the role of human’s in climate change, arguing that the current warming trend is the result of natural variability, where a planet goes through phases of warming and cooling (as is the case of any fluid-covered planet) and thus the human contribution to it is minimal.
The greatest point of contention is the possible implications for future political and economic policies for the world’s nations.
The lower end of the range could cause more intense hurricanes, droughts, wildfires and flooding, Schneider said. The higher end could lead to the catastrophes commonly associated with the visions of Hollywood filmmakers.
Therefore, whilst scientists cannot agree exactly how much the planet is going to warm up, most are convinced with major certainty that it is indeed going to get warmer.
The science of how the Earth is warmed is relatively straight-forward.
Energy and light from sun go through the Earth’s atmosphere and strike its surface, which warms the planet.
The Earth emits the energy, but it is trapped in the atmosphere by naturally occurring greenhouse gases — like water vapor and carbon dioxide — which help maintain a warm, comfortable temperature for life to exist.
The earth’s temperature is generally about 60 degrees Fahrenheit (about 16 degrees Celsius).
Without the naturally occurring greenhouse gases, the temperature would plunge to about 0 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 18 degrees Celsius).
The ozone layer is on track to a full recovery, with the latest sets of satellite images showing the hole is shrinking.
“Apart from the (unusual) 2002 hole, this is the smallest hole for at least a decade,” CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric scientist, Dr Paul Fraser, said.
The hole in the ozone layer has been progressively shrinking since the phase-out of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and halon gases in the 1990s.
“I think our long term prediction is still basically out to 2060 before we’ll get long-term recovery,” Dr Fraser said.
“We’ve got this large reservoir of CFCs and halons sitting in the atmosphere, slowly leaking into the stratosphere where it does the ozone destruction,” Dr Fraser said.“The slow leakage means it will around for a long time. We’re paying for the sins of the past.”
He added that increased levels of greenhouse gases are likely to push delay an ozone recovery by a few decades. Simon Turner
To understand the deadlock in the debate on global climate change, look no further than your iPod. 
The science of how the Earth is warmed is relatively straight-forward. 
“This is the smallest hole for a decade”.