Green Options

As the Senate version of pending climate legislations, Kerry-Boxer’s CEJAPA, heads for mark-up on Tuesday, voices calling for $15 billion annually for clean energy research and development are starting to gain traction. Earlier this week, Google’s Director of Climate Change and Energy, Dan Reicher joined the ranks of think tanks such as, Brookings Institution, Third Way, and the Breakthrough Institute, not to mention President Barack Obama, when he called on the Senate EPW committee to include this funding in the bill.

According to Reicher’s testimony (emphasis in original):

“Chairman Boxer, it is essential that Congress address this serious energy R&D short-fall by incorporating President Obama’s goal of $15 billion per year in federal energy R&D spending in final climate legislation.”

This testimony followed on the heals of a letter and discussion paper from the nation’s leading universities to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, emphasizing the need for a bottom line investment of $5 billion dollars annually in R&D, significantly more than would be allocated under both House and Senate version of climate and energy legislation.

Qatar’s Ministry of the Environment is working with Damascus-based Arab Center for the Studies of Arid Zones and Dry Lands (ACSAD) to convert Qatar’s desert regions into pastoral and agricultural lands. Greening the Qatari desert is a priority for the government, attempting to undo the effects of modern rangeland management techniques.

Massive untapped solar radiation advantage of Africa - click for numbers

This positive report on the opportunities for Renewable Energy in South Africa is a starting point for a series of posts that will report on developments in and linked to the use of Renewable Energy in South Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Where is Renewable Energy Going in South Africa?

An almost ten fold growth in revenue from renewable energy is predicted by business research and consulting firm Frost and Sullivan’s. This emerges from their Southern African Renewable Energy Equipment Market analysis, which sees the current renewable industry in South Africa having revenues of only $28.4 million in 2008 but projects a growth to over $250 million by 2015.

This post consists of a few lines and a link to what’s happened since some of my recent posts where there has been significant action. Each item is identified and linked by the date and title of the original post.

July 2009 - Sable Antelope - One Sold for $ 385 000 and Giant Species Rediscovered in Angola.

Three more Giant Sable Antelopes, have been sighted in Angola. This brings to six the number of this rare species, which was feared to have become extinct, that have been sited in the last few weeks.

July 2009 - Mauling of Baboon by “Fighting Dogs”, Reopens the Cape Peninsular Baboon Debate

Two men were attacked by Pit Bulls in Ocean View ,the same Township in Ocean View this week, prompting a warning from welfare group TEARS.

Walmart has won approval to build a Supercenter on the edge one of the most important battlefields from the Civil War: the Wilderness Battlefield.

Wilderness was the location when Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant first met in battle, on May 4, 1864. Altogether, on both sides of the fighting, 160,000 soldiers total took part with approximately 29,000 killed or wounded. It was the beginning of the turning point of the Civil War.

Supervisors in Orange County, Virginia voted Monday night to grant a permit to the corporate giant, despite public outcry, especially from historians and Civil War buffs.

Jim Campi, of the Civil War Preservation Trust, is against it because,

What Walmart is proposing would absolutely transform the landscape. Walmart is proposing a superstore closer to a national park boundary than any previous Walmart, and this is right on the boundary of the national park.

Only one-quarter of the historic battlefield is protected, so the controversy has surrounded the question, “What is a battlefield?”

In an uplifting and rare story from a very precious and endangered area of the world, we can see why those of us who are working for better environmental preservation should continue to work for good in all situations.

17 dams recently built on the Mekong River in Southeast Asia are threatening fisheries, destroying a vast ecosystem, and starving millions. And 11 more dams are currently in the planning process.

The dams already in place are blocking fish from traveling upstream to spawn, and the new dams– many of which will sit nearer the river’s headwaters– could threaten the entire river ecosystem. 65 million people currently live and rely upon the Mekong for their sustenance and livelihood, and about 80 percent of their protein intake comes from the river’s fisheries.

Rumors are gathering pace that Toyota is working on a two-door coupe version of its ultra-popular Prius hybrid, possibly scheduled to hit the market sometime in 2012.

The latest reports suggest that the Japanese outfit is currently developing a compact 2+2 Prius-based hybrid sports coupe featuring a beefed-up version of its 1.8-liter 2ZR-FXE four-cylinder engine, capable of achieving around 134 hp – 36 hp more than the sedan counterpart.

Although the higher power levels are likely to affect the Prius’s impressive fuel mileage, insiders are speculating that the company’s Hybrid Synergy Drive system will keep this to a minimum.

The decimation of the Amazon due to increased logging, mining and road construction is causing vampire bats in Peru to feast more regularly on the blood of humans.

National Geographic has reported that as human population grows and local wildlife numbers decrease because of development throughout the region, vampire bats have no where else to turn but human blood. As a result, outbreaks of rabies are increasing, and it’s killing people in places where its occurrence has previously been rare.

Results recently published in the journal Global Change Biology show a population drop of 60% in worldwide caribou and reindeer numbers over the last three decades.

The dramatic decline in population is likely due to climate change and increased industrial development in boreal forests around the world.

25% of all the world’s large-scale terrestrial migrations have already ceased due to habitat loss and human-caused changes to the landscape, and it may not be long before all migrations disappear entirely.

That according to a new study, which warns that with continued population growth, development and habitat encroachment, storied epics like those of wildebeest parading across the Serengeti or herds of bison rumbling across North American plains shall become tall tales of the past.