By Zachary Shahan •
October 14, 2009
Looking to create products for the real world as soon as possible, a new research center in the UK is aiming to speed up the development and installment of a variety of low carbon technologies to ensure a greener future for us all.
This new £50 million ($80 million) center hopes to do this through more coordinated and focused efforts from four universities and a regional development agency. The four universities that have teamed up are Hull, Leeds, Sheffield and Yorkshire, and they are working with the regional development agency Yorkshire Forward. The name of the new center is Centre for Low Carbon Futures (CLCF).
By Zachary Shahan •
September 30, 2009
England is working to combine two of the world’s cleanest methods of transportation through a new initiative.
A handful of strongly funded programs are geared to get more people bicycling to and from rail stations in England.
By Dave Harcourt •
September 9, 2009
The small Australian town of Bundanoon is credited with having started the resistance to bottled water, that has now through an initiative by Thames Water, reached as far as Buckingham Palace.
What’s Driving This?
Ever since
- it became clear that the energy input to bottled water could be visualised as a bottle a quarter full of crude oil
- it was shown that the energy required to produce bottled water is 2000 times that to produce tap water
- Watkiss revealed that England imported 20,000 litres ( 5,500 gallons) of water from Australia but at the same time exported 20,000 litres of British water to Australia
- Australia suffered a drought that was so severe than it drove many farmers off the land
there was little doubt that things would start to happen.
By Jake Richardson •
July 21, 2009
Huw Irranca-Davies, the British Fisheries Minister has joined a list of actors, celebrities and activists demanding the Japanese restaurant Nobu stop serving the endangered bluefin tuna on their menus.
By Kelly Rand •
June 25, 2009
In 2007, Rowan brand yarns introduced PureLife a wonderful selection of 100% organic cotton. In the following years Rowan has expanded their PureLife line to address other areas of sustainability.
Rowan still offers their organic cotton yarn in DK weight that is naturally dyed using plants. New this season is their 4 ply organic cotton yarn, also dyed with natural plant dyes. The shades of this yarn are soft, subtle and sweet, perfect for summer knitting.
Editor’s note: Brenna Dardolph is a student at the University of Kansas who recently finished Prof. Simran Sethi’s course Media & the Environment.
When we were seven, my good friend Julia’s parents finally quit smoking. The cause? Their little first grader’s nagging. As part of her elementary school curriculum, Julia was learning about the perils of smoking. It was her concern that finally convinced her parents to kick the habit.
As much as we believe parents shape their children, rarely do we consider that the opposite may be true. But the British government apparently does. Recently, seventeen local councils called on citizens, including children as young as seven to become the nation’s environmental watchdogs– to be on guard for littering, noise pollution and other environmental infractions. Participants in programs like “Eyes for Islington” in Islington or the “Junior Street Champions” in Luton receive information about collecting evidence and reporting environmental crimes. As a writer in the Independent pointed out, it is a chance for Britain’s youngsters to leave their computer games, get out their notebooks and commit themselves to a better community.
By Jennifer Lance •
May 13, 2009
Growth charts in the UK have not been updated since 1990 and were originally created based on the physical development of formula fed babies.
Using the new growth charts, more children will be classified as overweight.
London wants to allow cyclists to pick up one of 6,000 bikes at the 400 docking stations planned for the capital by 2010.
Londoners will soon be able to hire bikes in the centre of town for short journeys, under plans announced this week by the mayor, Boris Johnson.
By Alex Felsinger •
April 13, 2009
Huh? What kind of protest involves 114 people “conspiring” to enter and vandalize a power plant? Sounds like a few dozen were involved in logistics, and the rest had volunteered to go along for the ride. Does their willingness to participate really constitute conspiratory thought?
Boris Johnson announces commitment to making electric cars ‘first choice for Londoners’, pledging £20m ($29m) of the GLA budget. Written by Alok Jha and shared over the Guardian Environment Network.
London mayor Boris Johnson announced today his intent to make the city the electric car capital of Europe. He said he wanted to introduce 100,000 electric cars to the capital’s streets and to build an infrastructure of 25,000 charging points in public streets, car parks and shops.
Under recommendations from the UK Green Building Council, otters could return to urban rivers, bats could roost under bridges, swifts could flock to office blocks and peregrine falcons soar above cathedrals. Written by Felicity Carus and shared via the Guardian Environment Network.
What do the Westfield shopping centre, Canary Wharf and a Victorian museum have in common? They are all at the vanguard of a move to encourage biodiversity in buildings that could take on an unprecedented scale if guidelines published today are adopted.
