Click on the headline (link) for the full text.
Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage
Rob Hopkins on the transition movement (Audio)
Global Public Media
TransitionCulture.org‘s Rob Hopkins talks in detail with GPM’s Andi Hazelwood about the movement across the UK to transition to a low fossil fuel future and about his own group, Transition Town Totnes. Hopkins also successfully counters the excuses and arguments against transition efforts.
(13 July 2007)
Don’t peak? Sorry, the oil crunch is inevitable
Group aims to boost energy awareness
The Forest Grove News-Times (Oregon)
With gas prices rising again and global warming still in the headlines, a new Washington County group is looking at the issue of our dependence on crude oil.
Organizers of Washington County Peak Oil say they are motivated by the looming crisis caused by the peaking of world petroleum supplies and by a hopeful vision of future possibilities.
The group, which launched last week, aims to boost awareness about the global oil supply and its economic, environmental and social implications.
It also hopes to serve as a community network to identify and share strategies to effectively deal with an oil shortage and promote constructive and sustainable solutions in the county.
One of the founders, Peter Lunsford, explained the group’s goals in an e-mail exchange with the News-Times last week.
(11 July 2007)
Sheri Liao, Global Village Beijing (Audio and transcript)
Sheri Liao, Global Public Media
Sheri Liao is founder and president of Global Village Beijing, the foremost non-governmental organization (NGO) working towards a greener China. In this presentation to the World Affairs Council in San Francisco, she discusses the battle that Chinese environmentalists face when taking on polluters and unsustainable businesses, and outlines the ways in which progress is being made. Yes, there is an environmental movement in the world’s most populous nation, and Sheri Liao is at the forefront.
Sheri Liao is also the environmental advisor to the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the upcoming XXIX Olympiad in Beijing, 2008. Ms. Liao was a visiting scholar on International Environmental Politics at the University of North Carolina but gave up a career stateside in order to help develop environmental education in China. She returned to her homeland to found the Global Village of Beijing in 1996. …
From the transcript
…A very important thing to mention is ‘Consumption’. We have to change our lifestyle. I believe that the biggest problem in China, I think the majority of people have… fallen in love with lifestyle… especially the U.S. lifestyle. Many people want… one or two cars… a bigger house… and use a lot of one-time use products, and they’re giving up their traditional values which emphasize the harmony between mind and body… individual and society… and people and nature.
Chinese lifestyle, before, was “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” but now they are giving up. So this is, I think, one of the main causes of the environmental problem. So we should change the value of life, we have to establish the public participation mechanism that changes people’s behavior. This is a comprehensive task that needs a partnership between government, NGO, and companies together. So, as an NGO who’s dedicated to an environmental lifestyle, I would like today to mention more about the ‘consumption’ issue.
First of all, we have to “green” our life, if we want to “green” China. We have to “green” every individual’s lifestyle. You know, environmental protection in China in the past 20 years starts from pollution control… and then eco-conservation… but since 1996, I think, my organization and other NGOs have explored a third area, which is the third area of environmental protection besides pollution control and eco-conservation. The third area is “green life”…. lifestyle.
(24 May 2007, but just posted)
In trash-strewn Italy, a city cleans up
Irene Caselli, The Christian Science Monitor
In a region with a chronic waste problem and 12 percent recycling rate, one mayor successfully led a recycling revolution.
—
Mercato San Severino, Italy – As another summer heats up in southern Italy, the unsorted garbage piling up on the sidewalks is starting to stink. It’s a decade-old problem to which locals have resigned themselves. If one sidewalk is too full, they cross the street. And when too much garbage accumulates, they set it on fire.
But recycle? Forget it. Up until recently, no self-respecting southern Italian would partake in what many here deride as an obsessively-orderly and time-wasting foreign habit.
Except Giovanni Romano. As mayor of Mercato San Severino, a town of 20,000 just south of Naples, he set out in 2001 to change the town’s viewpoint on the issue. Today, it boasts a recycling rate five times as high as the regional average of 12 percent, and its streets are free of trash.
For over a decade now, boroughs in the Campania region have been battling against waste – a situation that came to a head last month when the European Union (EU) took legal action against the Italian government.
Since Italy declared a state of emergency for its waste in Campania in 1994, the government-appointed garbage commissioner has made recycling a top priority for local governments. But poor infrastructure, economic interests of the local mafia, and local mismanagement have put recycling on the back burner, leaving councils to struggle with their huge waste output.
So how did Mercato San Severino manage to do things differently? It just required some organization, explains Mr. Romano, who is now deputy mayor.
(12 July 2007)
A model for community action.
White welcomes advances on green energy town proposal
Naoise O’ Donovan Coogan, Kilkenny Advertiser (Ireland)
New Carlow Kilkenny Green Party Deputy, Mary White has made her maiden speech in the Dáil. She raised the issue of her desire to make Carlow the first self-sufficient green energy town in the country.
Deputy White said, “I’m delighted to have had the opportunity to request that the government conduct a feasibility study into making Carlow the first green energy town in Ireland. Given Carlow’s skilled work force, suitable landbanks and research facilities there is massive potential for this idea to be advanced in the context of achieving the national bioenergy targets.’
‘I was interested to hear that the Government intends to launch a public consultation on Ireland’s bio-fuels obligation later this year and that this will present a further opportunity to advance my proposal.’
In her speech Deputy White said, “this is especially important in light of the need for an indigenous fuel supply, concerns with peak oil, the consequences of climate change, and the need to meet our Kyoto targets. The national bioenergy plan has an ambitious target of 33 per cent for renewable electricity by 2020. It sets a bio-fuel target of 5.75 per cent for road transport fuel for 2010, and a target of 5 per cent renewable share in the heating sector by 2010.
“Carlow is ideally placed to establish itself as the leader in renewable energy among towns across Ireland.”
She called on the Government to initiate a feasibility study to explore the possibility of developing local value chains for renewable energy systems on how to heat large buildings in Carlow by biomass and by using microgrids connecting buildings that are close to each other, and in using district heating systems.
(12 July 2007)
The Vatican to Become World’s First Carbon Neutral Sovereign State
Press release, Business Wire
By agreement with the Vatican, Planktos/KlimaFa is now pleased and honored to announce that the Holy See plans to become the first entirely carbon neutral sovereign state, and it has chosen KlimaFa ecorestoration offsets to achieve this historic goal. In a brief ceremony on July 5th the Vatican declared that it had gratefully accepted KlimaFa’s offer to create a new Vatican Climate Forest in Europe that will initially offset all of the Holy See’s CO2 emissions for this year.
… His Most Reverend Eminence Cardinal Paul Poupard presided at the event and stated, “As President of the Pontifical Council of Culture; I am honoured to receive this donation from the leaders of Planktos-KlimaFa. This donation means an entire section of a national park in central Europe will be reforested. In this way, the Vatican will do its small part in contributing to the elimination of polluting emissions from CO2 which is threatening the survival of this planet.
“As the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, had recently stated, the international community needs to respect and encourage a ‘Green Culture,’ characterized by ethical values. The Book of Genesis tells us of a beginning in which God placed man as guardian over the earth to make it fruitful. When man forgets that he is a faithful servant of this earth, it becomes a desert that threatens the survival of all creation…”
…The new Vatican Climate Forest will be created in Hungary’s Bukk National Park under the auspices of the KlimaFa Climate Parks program. Its dimensions will be determined by the Vatican’s 2007 energy usage and the success of its current emission reduction efforts. KlimaFa has received EU JI Track 1 approval to plant thousands of hectares of new native species, mixed growth forests under the permanent protection of European national park systems.
(12 July 2007)
