Green Options

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).

Researchers at the University of York have recently come up with a method of recycling that seems like it fell from the pages of a science fiction novel. They want to turn discarded television screens into components for biomedicine.

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.

It’s beginning to become a perennial question I ask myself when a celebrity goes on an environmentally-themed speaking tour or does something “green” I’m supposed to appreciate.  Should I care?

This time, I woke up to read news about how today is the first day of Prince Charles’s South American environmental-themed tour. First country up: Chile. Among his activities he will participate in a round table discussion about global warming and also will attend a kick-off event for an energy efficiency campaign, all while along the side of conservation-credible Chilean President Michelle Bachelet. But the fun doesn’t end there.

Six Greenpeace climate change activists have been cleared of causing £30,000 of criminal damage at a coal-fired power station in a verdict that is expected to embarrass the government and lead to more direct action protests against energy companies. Article by John Vidal of the Guardian.

The jury of nine men and three women at Maidstone crown court cleared the six by a majority verdict. Five of the protesters had scaled a 200-metre chimney at Kingsnorth power station, Hoo, Kent, in October last year.

A tree that used to have a No Parking Sign nailed to its trunk has been discovered to be a new species.

Fourteen new trees have been discovered by botanists from Wales and England. The former No Parking sign tree lives in Devon between two close villages, Lynmouth and Lynton.

A collaboration between several conservation organizations has yielded a very promising prospect for England.

Ben Samphire was a 31 year-old from Bristol with a PhD, who was volunteering in Ecuador to gain experience in primate conservation.

The young man was participating in research about a rare monkey species, when he may have been mistaken for a thief by a local landowner who attacked him. Police are still looking for the killer. The death of a British citizen was confirmed by authorities in Ecuador.

Leading economists – including Nicholas Stern – call for immediate $400bn global fund to generate clean power, insulate homes and create jobs.

Governments across the world must commit to hundreds of billions of pounds in green investments within months in a combined attack on the global economic crisis and global warming, according to leading economists including Nicholas Stern.

The team says some $400bn (£277bn) should be channelled to support low-carbon technologies such as home insulation and renewable energy. Given the urgency of both the economic and climate crises, it wants the green investment made by this summer and to total 20% of the £1.4tn likely to be spent globally as fiscal stimulus.

The Environment Minister of Northern Ireland, Sammy Wilson, called British TV ads on climate change ‘propaganda’ and banned them.

The TV ads were made by the British government and are part of their ‘Act on CO2′ campaign which encourages citizens to reduce their consumption of electricity and fossil fuels. You can view the ads on the Directgov website (Requires Flash Player). The first ad ‘Standby’ doesn’t reference climate change that much. It does appear to emphasize reducing electricity consumption to save money for a family, and a narrator states that turning off appliances could save 300 British pounds per year.

Moving vehicles will generate electricity for street lights and road signs in a London trial.

“Green” speed bumps that will generate electricity as cars drive over them are to be introduced on Britain’s roads. The hi-tech “sleeping policemen” will power street lights, traffic lights and road signs in a pilot scheme in London that could be rolled out nationwide.

Speed bumps have long been the bane of motorists’ lives, but these will capture the kinetic energy of vehicles.