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).

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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“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.

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Cement, a vast source of planet-warming carbon dioxide, could be transformed into a means of stripping the greenhouse gas from the atmosphere, thanks to an innovation from British engineers.

The new environmentally friendly formulation means the cement industry could change from being a “significant emitter to a significant absorber of CO2,” says Nikolaos Vlasopoulos, chief scientist at London-based Novacem, whose invention has garnered support and funding from industry and environmentalists.

The new cement, which uses a different raw material, certainly has a vast potential market. Making the 2bn tonnes of cement used globally every year pumps out 5% of the world’s CO2 emissions - more than the entire aviation industry. And the long-term trends are upwards: a recent report by the French bank Credit Agricole estimated that, by 2020, demand for cement will increase by 50% compared to today.

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Three baby hedgehogs.

The hedgehog, water vole and hazel dormouse are among a number of British mammals that face becoming seriously endangered, research published today reveals.

Climate change and habitat loss have led to a dramatic increase in the number of mammals whose future survival is a cause for concern among conservationists, the study commissioned by the People’s Trust for Endangered Species concludes. The Bechstein’s bat, one of the country’s rarest mammals, has shown a marked decline while the number of soprano pipistrelle bats has fallen by 46% in six years.

The report, the seventh annual assessment of the state of land mammals in Britain, says that more effort is needed to help the endangered species, which now number 18 - more than 30% of Britain’s mammal species - up from 10 last year. Only two species on the UK Biodiversity Action Plan list, the otter and the lesser horseshoe bat, have increased their numbers.

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UK officials are hoping to protect genetically-modified crops from the actions of anti-gm extremists. Opponents have targeted almost all of the 54 GM crop trials since 2000. For example, recently more than 400 potato plants were destroyed on a farm at the University of Leeds in June.

Officials also hope to prosecute the groups in the same manner as they do animal rights extremists — good. While I understand and agree with their position, the action is completely hypocritical. It’s like the anti-abortionists who protest the slaughtering of babies by slaughtering doctors.

Currently, scientists must disclose the location of such trials on a government website. Awesome, whomever came up with that legislation must be an opponent to GM crops.

One site for consideration is Porton Down near Salisbury, which carries out military research and includes a science park where they could be securely developed away from the public.

But the question remains: do GM foods hold the key to global food shortages and rising prices?

Though officials are trying to protect these efforts they do want to have a new conversation about GM crops with the public. But Gordon Brown is moving cautiously because of strong opposition from previous trials.

A government source added: “We need to review the security arrangements. The rules are a charter for people who want to stop the experiments. A lot of information has to be put in the public domain and that makes it very easy for people to trash them.”

Leeds University — showing they are suckers for punishment — plans to make one final attempt. They hope a government funded fence and security cameras will thwart any attempts at sabotaging the experiment. Good luck with that.

Professor Tim Benton, research dean at its Faculty of Biological Science, said yesterday: “We need to find a way to do crop trials in a safe way and to minimize the environmental risk. We cannot carry on for the next 20 or 30 years saying it’s too scary, the public is too frightened, it is politically too dangerous. There is absolutely no way we can move towards a world with food security without using GM technology. The amount of food we need could double because the population is growing, climate change will reduce yields and we will take land out of food production for biofuels.”

Officials are trying to draw strong parallels between anti-GM protesters and those that oppose experiments on animals. In 2005 the law was changed to give police the power to prosecute such extreme actions after Huntingdon Life Sciences was targeted and attacked by animal rights activists.

Huh. Maybe there is a GM-centric division of PETA?

Source: The Independent | Image: Jams_123 on Flickr under Creative Commons

While food-based biofuels are taking the heat for rising food prices, other solutions - like algae - are gaining a more serious following. For example, the UK’s Carbon Trust has announced plans for a project to make algae bio-fuels a commercial reality by the year 2020

But the situation is much more than some “food vs fuel” finger pointing. The fact that transport accounts for one-quarter of the UK’s carbon emissions is major driving factor - pun intended: it’s also the fastest growing cause of carbon emissions in the UK. If the government’s target to reduce overall emissions by 80% by 2050 is to be met, then initiatives like this are crucial.

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With a tank of fuel for the average family car costing close to $150, high fuel prices have effectively acted as one very large carbon tax - and effective they have been. Britons have reduced fuel consumption by 20% during the past year, driving less, and driving more slowly at the same time. Sales of fuel efficient vehicles are at an all time high.

But unfortunately this is not politically sustainable. The aforementioned protest is hurting the government’s popularity badly as disposable incomes are eroded by fuel bills. Having previously made broad promises to reduce Britain’s CO2 output by up to 80% by 2050 in a bid to profess world leadership on Climate Change, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been carefully avoiding any kind of statement on environmental targets during previous months. Meanwhile Britain is set to miss most of it’s legally binding and far less ambitious climate change objectives anyway.

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VisitBritain, Britain’s National Tourist Board has launched a new program to help accommodation providers and visitor attractions in England take the first steps toward becoming sustainable businesses.

The Green Start project aims to encourage a “rapid, widespread and significant increase in the adoption of sustainable tourism principles” by offering a validated sustainable accreditation scheme.

Jason Freezer, VisitBritain’s sustainable tourism project manager, said: “VisitBritain is committed to encouraging sustainable businesses. However, nearly two-thirds tell us they need more guidance on developing their business in that way.”

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The Lightning GT is perhaps the least talked about of any of the new electric car concepts out there. But why? From the looks of the website the GT should be a fast, sexy, and expensive electric car. If the recent hubbub over Tesla or the impassioned love of Ferrari is a guide, then people should be really excited about a car that incorporates all of these characteristics.

The Lightning GT has some sweet features, like full regenerative braking, 0-60mph in 5 seconds (4 seconds projected for the sport version), and even claims to charge up to 250 miles of driving in just 10 minutes.

More after the jump!

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