Why Fukushima made me stop worrying and love nuclear power | George Monbiot | Comment is [

continue reading Why Fukushima made George Monbiot stop worrying and love nuclear power

A new report suggests restrictions on bag usage in the world’s most populous nation have saved the equivalent of 1.6 million tonnes of oil, in the year since it was introduced.

Just ahead of the first anniversary of the ban, the China Chain Store and Franchise Association estimated it had saved the country 40 billion plastic bags.

According to their survey, plastic [

continue reading China plastic bag ban ‘has saved 1.6m tonnes of oil’

350 from Hans Hansen on Vimeo.

What does the number 350 mean?

350 is the most important number in the world—it’s what scientists say is the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Two years ago, after leading climatologists observed rapid ice melt in the Arctic and other frightening signs of climate change, they issued a series of studies showing that the planet faced both human and natural disaster if atmospheric concentrations of CO2 remained above 350 parts per million.

350 graffiti art — so beautiful! | 350.org.

continue reading 350 graffiti art … so clever

One of the City’s most respected institutions has warned of “catastrophic consequences” for businesses that fail to prepare for a world of increasing oil scarcity and a lower carbon economy.

The Lloyd’s insurance market and the highly regarded Royal Institute of International Affairs, known as Chatham House, says Britain needs to be ready for “peak oil” and disrupted energy supplies at a time of soaring fuel demand in China and India, constraints on production caused by the BP oil spill and political moves to cut CO2 to halt global warming.

“Companies which are able to take advantage of this [

continue reading Lloyd’s adds its voice to dire ‘peak oil’ warnings

Turns out, bananas are a great example of how shipping food halfway around the world doesn’t always mean tons of greenhouse gas emissions. Each banana represents about 80 grams of CO2, according to calculations done by Mike Berners-Lee, author of How Bad Are Bananas? The Carbon Footprint of Everything. Compare that to, say, a kiwi fruit. If grown in New Zealand and eaten in Europe, a kilogram of kiwis represent about 1740 grams of CO2. A kilogram of bananas is 480 grams of CO2.

What makes bananas so carbon cheap?

They are grown in natural sunlight, which means [

continue reading Just look at the carbon footprint of this banana

Photographer Jane Fulton Alt’s latest series is called Crude Awakening. She writes on her web site:

Living on the shores of Lake Michigan, I am acutely aware of the disastrous toll the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has taken on all forms of life, especially as our beaches opened to the 2010 swimming season. This environmental, social and economic catastrophe highlights a much larger problem that has inflicted untold suffering as we exploit the earth’s resources worldwide.

We are all responsible for leading lives that create demand for unsustainable energy. We are [

continue reading Photographer portrays swimmers in the oil spill region

Posted by aeberman on May 21, 2010 – 10:28am Topic: Geology/Exploration Tags: deepwater horizon, gulf of mexico oil spill [list all tags]

Author’s Note: I am grateful to the many drilling and completion engineers that consulted with me on this post to arrive at plausible explanations and interpretations of what happened in the final hours on the semisubmersible drilling rig Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico. The analysis that follows is based on these discussions as well as my own 32 years of experience as [

continue reading What caused the Deepwater Horizon disaster?

Iceland, Eyjafjallajökull – May 1st and 2nd, 2010 from Sean Stiegemeier on Vimeo.

So I saw all of these mediocre pictures of that volcano in Iceland nobody can pronounce the name of, so I figured I should go and do better. But the flights to get over took forever as expected (somewhat). 4 days after leaving I finally made it, but the weather was terrible for another 4. Just before leaving it got pretty good for about a day and a half and this is what I managed to get.

Wish I had more time. I missed [

continue reading blimmin ‘eck – nature eh?