3. During this year's Olympic season, the Chinese government implemented traffic controls that banned cars from the roads on alternative days. After the Olympic Games ended and the controls were lifted, the government is to place another form of regulations to reduce the rush hour traffic. Cars will not be allowed on the roads one out of five weekdays from October 11 for a six-month trial. Seoul recently tried a similar rule in reaction to skyrocketing oil prices. State-owned organizations implemented 'holjackjae' in which cars with odd number ending are only allowed to drive in the buildings on odd number dates and vice versa. Although reasons why a government wants to set up traffic controls are different (Beijing to ease the rush hour traffic and Seoul to save energy), we can think of how the state takes a role in environmental matters and its relation to the public action. And these regulations would result in the same effect - reduction in air pollution.
4. From: Reuters Published September 28, 2008 10:23 AM Clogged Beijing unveils new traffic controls BEIJING (Reuters) - Flushed with the success of Olympic traffic controls and struck by the painful return to congested normality, Beijing on Saturday unveiled plans for smaller-scale but permanent controls on its drivers. Cars will be banned from the roads one out of five weekdays, in a system based on the number of their license plate, and 30 percent of government cars will be taken off the road entirely, the official Xinhua agency reported. The new rules will kick in for a six-month trial on October 11. Department stores will open and close an hour later and the government will encourage companies to allow flexible working hours or change their shifts to ease the rush hour traffic that brings parts of the city to a near standstill. It is also considering raising downtown parking fees. After the clearer skies and smooth roads of the Olympics the city has been buzzing with discussions of whether the traffic controls that grounded cars on alternate days for two months could be extended. Under the new system all cars will be free to circulate at weekends. On Mondays cars with license plates ending with 1 or 6 will be banned, on Tuesdays those ending with 2 or 7, on Wednesdays 3 and 8, on Thursdays 4 or 9 and on Friday 5 or 0.
3. A power plant that can run from chicken manure has opened in Netherlands. This is the largest biomass power plant in the world and it can deliever renewable electricity to 90,000 homes. By using the chicken manure for power generation, which polluted the environmnet by releasing methane all over farm land, will be avoided.
4. -----------------------------------
5. Published October 3, 2008 09:45 AM 90,000 Homes To Be Powered By Chicken Manure
The world’s largest biomass power plant running exclusively on chicken manure has opened in the Netherlands. The power plant will deliver renewable electricity to 90,000 households. It has a capacity of 36.5 megawatts, and will generate more than 270 million kWh of electricity per year.
The biomass power plant is more than merely “carbon neutral”�. If the chicken manure were to be spread out over farm land, it would release not only CO2, but also methane, a very potent greenhouse gas. By using the manure for power generation, the release of methane is avoided.
The biomass power plant will utilize approximately 440,000 tons of chicken manure, roughly one third of the total amount produced each year in the Netherlands. Many European countries, including the Netherlands, suffer under an excess of different types of animal manure that pollute the environment.
3. So I got a little more interested in the EPA since I found last week's article and though this would be a nice follow-up article for the next week. It seems as though the couple of points about how at least in theory the EPA has some say, or influence over production within the United States, are shown in action here, and not in a very flattering manner. By changing the standards or the deadlines certain cities have to reach those standards, in this case for clean air, the very standards become worthless, and it seems as though the push or influence the EPA has is greatly diminished. Also, as is alluded to in the article, businesses and factories in Houston are overjoyed at the decision. The decision was actually asked for by the governor of the state of Texas. Local government often has a higher stake in environmental happenings, like we said in class. But here I think it shows that it has, as well, a very large stake in matters of economic production. When a choice must be made, I suppose for a government official seeking reelection (and reelection funds) I shouldn't hurt to give businesses a break, and convince the federal-level institution to bend the rules.
3.updated 8:04 p.m. ET Oct. 2, 2008
HOUSTON - Houston has joined Los Angeles to become the second place in the U.S. classified as having a severe smog problem, the Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday.
The EPA reclassified the smog problem in the eight-county Houston area from moderate so that the region has an extra nine years to meet federal health standards set in 1997. The state was supposed to meet the requirements in 2010 but now has until 2019.
The EPA no longer considers the 1997 standard safe for public health, but agency spokeswoman Catherine Milbourn said progress toward it will protect the public and bring regions closer to meeting stricter requirements. Story continues below ↓advertisement
Texas Gov. Rick Perry had asked the agency for the extension last year in a move praised by the business association Greater Houston Partnership.
"The partnership believes that improvement in air quality is important in order to maintain a robust, viable economic climate and to improve public health in the region," spokeswoman Christina Garza said.
But clean air advocates were skeptical.
"What are we doing here?" said Matthew Tejada, executive director of the Galveston-Houston Association for Smog Prevention, in a Houston Chronicle story for Thursday's editions. "We've just done a bureaucratic dance, and we're not any closer to clean air."
2. 2 articles referring to the development of the cod industry in New Foundland.
3. Both articles refer to the problem that young cod fishes are kiled, because they are bycatch in other fisheries. One article describes how a regulation on flunder fishery that would have dropped the cod bycatch by 2/9 was not implemented, although there would have been no loss in flounder catch. The other article stated that WWF alleged that creating protective zones would be the surest way to cod recreation. Furthermore it is said that there was a big growth of cod in 2005 only to be diminished by later by-catch when the fish turned three years old. Interesting is, how the first article speaks of a future meeting in spain where governments would try to implement a protective measure and how the second article makes clear that this meeting has failed. After being interested in this issue after reading "Fished Out" in the supplement binder, I find it quite surprising how human organization and behaviour still contradicts the recreation of a lucrative biosystem.
-------------------- 4.
Future of Cod on Newfoundland's Grand Banks: Decisions in Spain Next Week Could Send Cod Down the Path of Recovery or Extinction
Last update: 10:00 a.m. EDT Sept. 19, 2008 HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA, Sep 19, 2008 (MARKET WIRE via COMTEX) -- A pulse of three to four year old cod showing up on the southern Grand Banks may represent NAFO's last chance to rebuild this severely depleted population. At its 2008 Annual Meeting, being held in Vigo Spain, from September 22-26, NAFO will make decisions on catch levels for fisheries with high cod bycatch that will likely determine the fate of cod on the southern Grand Banks. If caution isn't exercised by setting low catch levels there is a good chance that this recruitment pulse of young cod will be wiped out through bycatch in other fisheries. Last year, NAFO took an important first step toward southern Grand Banks cod recovery by adopting a strategy that included an immediate bycatch reduction target of 40 per cent for 2008. Currently, NAFO fisheries are dangerously close to exceeding this target with another three months to go in the season. Cod bycatch has been high because the total allowable catches (TACs) of fisheries known for their cod bycatch have been set too high, bycatch reduction measures have not been effective, and cod nursery areas are not protected. "Establishing protected areas, including in Canadian waters and high-seas territory on the southern Grand Banks, is the surest way to allow nature to rebuild from past abuses," says Dr. Robert Rangeley, Vice President Atlantic, WWF-Canada. "Action to protect important cod habitat and minimize cod bycatch would demonstrate NAFO's commitment to rebuilding cod and the broader Grand Banks ecosystem." NAFO will also be making decisions on protective measures for vulnerable marine species and habitats, such as coldwater coral forests. In May, WWF recognized the commitment made by NAFO at an Intersessional Meeting in Montreal, to implement the 2006 United Nations General Assembly Resolution (UNGA) on Sustainable Fisheries by assessing the impacts of bottom fishing and protecting vulnerable ecosystems by the December 31, 2008. Scientists have since mapped the distribution of vulnerable ecosystems in the NAFO Regulatory Area so NAFO is poised to implement concrete on the water protection before the UNGA Resolution deadline. Next week, WWF will be in Spain, working to ensure that NAFO lives up to its commitments to minimize cod bycatch and implement management measures needed to prevent significant adverse impacts to vulnerable marine ecosystems, by January 1, 2009. Contacts: WWF-Canada, Atlantic Region Stacey McCarthy Communications Specialist (902) 482-1105 x 41 or Cell: (902) 209-6457 Email: smccarthy@wwfcanada.org Website: www.wwf.ca
-------------------
'Cod delusion' leaves devastated stocks on the brink 17:19 26 September 2008 NewScientist.com news service Debora MacKenzie
Fishing vessels on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland are this week destroying the best hope for years that the region's cod fishery, once the world's most abundant, might yet recover.
And at a meeting in Vigo, Spain, governments have rejected a simple measure that might have given the cod a fighting chance.
Cod fishing on the banks has been banned since 1992, after overfishing destroyed the stocks. Despite this, the cod have shown no signs of recovery. This was initially blamed on subtle, permanent changes to the ecosystem.
Baby by-catch But in recent years another culprit has emerged – the few young cod still being spawned are being swept up in nets intended for other fish before they can spawn themselves. On average some 1500 tonnes of three-year-old cod are destroyed as by-catch in this way on the southern banks every year.
Two-thirds of this is caught outside Canadian waters, where fishing is managed internationally by the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organisation (NAFO).
Last year, NAFO ordered a 40% cut in cod by-catch in 2008. But, says Robert Rangeley, a fisheries scientist working for the conservation group WWF, data so far this year suggest that target has already been caught – and there are three months of fishing left to go.
This could be because the number of babies spawned by adult cod each year varies widely for reasons scientists do not yet understand. And 2005 was a bumper year, with possibly six times more fish surviving than in previous years.
"If they were left to grow up, they could become the nucleus of a real recovery," says Rangely. But this year those fish became big enough to be by-catch.
Missed opportunity Meanwhile a discovery by scientists at the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans in St John's, Newfoundland, that could have slashed by-catch is being ignored.
Boats fishing for yellowtail flounder catch 85% of the Canadian cod by-catch. Joanne Morgan of DFO told NAFO last June that flounder nets catch the most cod between August and November, with a peak in September and October.
If the fishery was to shut for just those months, Canada's cod by-catch, a third of the total, could be cut by two-thirds – with no loss of flounder, which can be caught for the rest of the year. But the measure was not even discussed at NAFO's annual meeting this week.
Instead the assembled governments increased the permitted catch of flounder, and did not cut quotas for thorny skate, a catch that accounts for much of the cod by-catch outside Canadian waters and which NAFO's scientific advisors had wanted halved.
That means more dead, baby cod next year.
Endangered species - Learn more about the conservation battle in our comprehensive special report.
A very down to earth* kind of guy. I'm an environmental sociologist interested in establishing material and organizational sustainability worldwide. I'm always looking for interesting materials/technologies, inspiring ideas, or institutional examples of sustainability to inspire others to recognize their choices now. To be fatalistic about an unsustainable world is a sign of a captive mind, given all our options.
*(If "earth" is defined in a planetary sense, concerning comparative historical knowledge and interest in the past 10,000 years or so anywhere...) See both blogs.
4 comments:
1. Haerang Park
2. Clogged Beijing unveils new traffic controls
3.
During this year's Olympic season, the Chinese government implemented traffic controls that banned cars from the roads on alternative days. After the Olympic Games ended and the controls were lifted, the government is to place another form of regulations to reduce the rush hour traffic. Cars will not be allowed on the roads one out of five weekdays from October 11 for a six-month trial. Seoul recently tried a similar rule in reaction to skyrocketing oil prices. State-owned organizations implemented 'holjackjae' in which cars with odd number ending are only allowed to drive in the buildings on odd number dates and vice versa. Although reasons why a government wants to set up traffic controls are different (Beijing to ease the rush hour traffic and Seoul to save energy), we can think of how the state takes a role in environmental matters and its relation to the public action. And these regulations would result in the same effect - reduction in air pollution.
4. From: Reuters
Published September 28, 2008 10:23 AM
Clogged Beijing unveils new traffic controls
BEIJING (Reuters) - Flushed with the success of Olympic traffic controls and struck by the painful return to congested normality, Beijing on Saturday unveiled plans for smaller-scale but permanent controls on its drivers.
Cars will be banned from the roads one out of five weekdays, in a system based on the number of their license plate, and 30 percent of government cars will be taken off the road entirely, the official Xinhua agency reported.
The new rules will kick in for a six-month trial on October 11.
Department stores will open and close an hour later and the government will encourage companies to allow flexible working hours or change their shifts to ease the rush hour traffic that brings parts of the city to a near standstill.
It is also considering raising downtown parking fees.
After the clearer skies and smooth roads of the Olympics the city has been buzzing with discussions of whether the traffic controls that grounded cars on alternate days for two months could be extended.
Under the new system all cars will be free to circulate at weekends. On Mondays cars with license plates ending with 1 or 6 will be banned, on Tuesdays those ending with 2 or 7, on Wednesdays 3 and 8, on Thursdays 4 or 9 and on Friday 5 or 0.
5. http://www.enn.com/pollution/article/38276/print
1. Sally Paik
2. 90,000 Homes to be Powered by Chicken Manure
3. A power plant that can run from chicken manure has opened in Netherlands. This is the largest biomass power plant in the world and it can deliever renewable electricity to 90,000 homes. By using the chicken manure for power generation, which polluted the environmnet by releasing methane all over farm land, will be avoided.
4. -----------------------------------
5. Published October 3, 2008 09:45 AM
90,000 Homes To Be Powered By Chicken Manure
The world’s largest biomass power plant running exclusively on chicken manure has opened in the Netherlands. The power plant will deliver renewable electricity to 90,000 households. It has a capacity of 36.5 megawatts, and will generate more than 270 million kWh of electricity per year.
The biomass power plant is more than merely “carbon neutral”�. If the chicken manure were to be spread out over farm land, it would release not only CO2, but also methane, a very potent greenhouse gas. By using the manure for power generation, the release of methane is avoided.
The biomass power plant will utilize approximately 440,000 tons of chicken manure, roughly one third of the total amount produced each year in the Netherlands. Many European countries, including the Netherlands, suffer under an excess of different types of animal manure that pollute the environment.
6. ---
7. http://www.enn.com/agriculture/article/38332
1. Moctar Aboubacar
2. The EPA and clean air standards
3. So I got a little more interested in the EPA since I found last week's article and though this would be a nice follow-up article for the next week. It seems as though the couple of points about how at least in theory the EPA has some say, or influence over production within the United States, are shown in action here, and not in a very flattering manner. By changing the standards or the deadlines certain cities have to reach those standards, in this case for clean air, the very standards become worthless, and it seems as though the push or influence the EPA has is greatly diminished. Also, as is alluded to in the article, businesses and factories in Houston are overjoyed at the decision. The decision was actually asked for by the governor of the state of Texas. Local government often has a higher stake in environmental happenings, like we said in class. But here I think it shows that it has, as well, a very large stake in matters of economic production. When a choice must be made, I suppose for a government official seeking reelection (and reelection funds) I shouldn't hurt to give businesses a break, and convince the federal-level institution to bend the rules.
3.updated 8:04 p.m. ET Oct. 2, 2008
HOUSTON - Houston has joined Los Angeles to become the second place in the U.S. classified as having a severe smog problem, the Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday.
The EPA reclassified the smog problem in the eight-county Houston area from moderate so that the region has an extra nine years to meet federal health standards set in 1997. The state was supposed to meet the requirements in 2010 but now has until 2019.
The EPA no longer considers the 1997 standard safe for public health, but agency spokeswoman Catherine Milbourn said progress toward it will protect the public and bring regions closer to meeting stricter requirements.
Story continues below ↓advertisement
Texas Gov. Rick Perry had asked the agency for the extension last year in a move praised by the business association Greater Houston Partnership.
"The partnership believes that improvement in air quality is important in order to maintain a robust, viable economic climate and to improve public health in the region," spokeswoman Christina Garza said.
But clean air advocates were skeptical.
"What are we doing here?" said Matthew Tejada, executive director of the Galveston-Houston Association for Smog Prevention, in a Houston Chronicle story for Thursday's editions. "We've just done a bureaucratic dance, and we're not any closer to clean air."
------------------
5.http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26999596/
1. Bjoern Schmidt
2. 2 articles referring to the development of the cod industry in New Foundland.
3. Both articles refer to the problem that young cod fishes are kiled, because they are bycatch in other fisheries.
One article describes how a regulation on flunder fishery that would have dropped the cod bycatch by 2/9 was not implemented, although there would have been no loss in flounder catch.
The other article stated that WWF alleged that creating protective zones would be the surest way to cod recreation.
Furthermore it is said that there was a big growth of cod in 2005 only to be diminished by later by-catch when the fish turned three years old.
Interesting is, how the first article speaks of a future meeting in spain where governments would try to implement a protective measure and how the second article makes clear that this meeting has failed.
After being interested in this issue after reading "Fished Out" in the supplement binder, I find it quite surprising how human organization and behaviour still contradicts the recreation of a lucrative biosystem.
--------------------
4.
Future of Cod on Newfoundland's Grand Banks:
Decisions in Spain Next Week Could Send Cod Down the Path of Recovery or Extinction
Last update: 10:00 a.m. EDT Sept. 19, 2008
HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA, Sep 19, 2008 (MARKET WIRE via COMTEX) -- A pulse of three to four year old cod showing up on the southern Grand Banks may represent NAFO's last chance to rebuild this severely depleted population. At its 2008 Annual Meeting, being held in Vigo Spain, from September 22-26, NAFO will make decisions on catch levels for fisheries with high cod bycatch that will likely determine the fate of cod on the southern Grand Banks. If caution isn't exercised by setting low catch levels there is a good chance that this recruitment pulse of young cod will be wiped out through bycatch in other fisheries.
Last year, NAFO took an important first step toward southern Grand Banks cod recovery by adopting a strategy that included an immediate bycatch reduction target of 40 per cent for 2008. Currently, NAFO fisheries are dangerously close to exceeding this target with another three months to go in the season. Cod bycatch has been high because the total allowable catches (TACs) of fisheries known for their cod bycatch have been set too high, bycatch reduction measures have not been effective, and cod nursery areas are not protected.
"Establishing protected areas, including in Canadian waters and high-seas territory on the southern Grand Banks, is the surest way to allow nature to rebuild from past abuses," says Dr. Robert Rangeley, Vice President Atlantic, WWF-Canada. "Action to protect important cod habitat and minimize cod bycatch would demonstrate NAFO's commitment to rebuilding cod and the broader Grand Banks ecosystem."
NAFO will also be making decisions on protective measures for vulnerable marine species and habitats, such as coldwater coral forests. In May, WWF recognized the commitment made by NAFO at an Intersessional Meeting in Montreal, to implement the 2006 United Nations General Assembly Resolution (UNGA) on Sustainable Fisheries by assessing the impacts of bottom fishing and protecting vulnerable ecosystems by the December 31, 2008. Scientists have since mapped the distribution of vulnerable ecosystems in the NAFO Regulatory Area so NAFO is poised to implement concrete on the water protection before the UNGA Resolution deadline.
Next week, WWF will be in Spain, working to ensure that NAFO lives up to its commitments to minimize cod bycatch and implement management measures needed to prevent significant adverse impacts to vulnerable marine ecosystems, by January 1, 2009.
Contacts:
WWF-Canada, Atlantic Region
Stacey McCarthy
Communications Specialist
(902) 482-1105 x 41 or Cell: (902) 209-6457
Email: smccarthy@wwfcanada.org
Website: www.wwf.ca
-------------------
'Cod delusion' leaves devastated stocks on the brink
17:19 26 September 2008
NewScientist.com news service
Debora MacKenzie
Fishing vessels on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland are this week destroying the best hope for years that the region's cod fishery, once the world's most abundant, might yet recover.
And at a meeting in Vigo, Spain, governments have rejected a simple measure that might have given the cod a fighting chance.
Cod fishing on the banks has been banned since 1992, after overfishing destroyed the stocks. Despite this, the cod have shown no signs of recovery. This was initially blamed on subtle, permanent changes to the ecosystem.
Baby by-catch
But in recent years another culprit has emerged – the few young cod still being spawned are being swept up in nets intended for other fish before they can spawn themselves. On average some 1500 tonnes of three-year-old cod are destroyed as by-catch in this way on the southern banks every year.
Two-thirds of this is caught outside Canadian waters, where fishing is managed internationally by the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organisation (NAFO).
Last year, NAFO ordered a 40% cut in cod by-catch in 2008. But, says Robert Rangeley, a fisheries scientist working for the conservation group WWF, data so far this year suggest that target has already been caught – and there are three months of fishing left to go.
This could be because the number of babies spawned by adult cod each year varies widely for reasons scientists do not yet understand. And 2005 was a bumper year, with possibly six times more fish surviving than in previous years.
"If they were left to grow up, they could become the nucleus of a real recovery," says Rangely. But this year those fish became big enough to be by-catch.
Missed opportunity
Meanwhile a discovery by scientists at the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans in St John's, Newfoundland, that could have slashed by-catch is being ignored.
Boats fishing for yellowtail flounder catch 85% of the Canadian cod by-catch. Joanne Morgan of DFO told NAFO last June that flounder nets catch the most cod between August and November, with a peak in September and October.
If the fishery was to shut for just those months, Canada's cod by-catch, a third of the total, could be cut by two-thirds – with no loss of flounder, which can be caught for the rest of the year. But the measure was not even discussed at NAFO's annual meeting this week.
Instead the assembled governments increased the permitted catch of flounder, and did not cut quotas for thorny skate, a catch that accounts for much of the cod by-catch outside Canadian waters and which NAFO's scientific advisors had wanted halved.
That means more dead, baby cod next year.
Endangered species - Learn more about the conservation battle in our comprehensive special report.
--------------------------------
5.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/future-cod-newfoundlands-grand-banks/story.aspx?guid=%7BF6ECA6DB-DE5D-42BE-B924-43910ADCAE9B%7D&dist=hppr
--------------------------------
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/endangered-species/dn14826-cod-delusion-leaves-devastated-stocks-on-the-brink.html
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