Low-cost ‘green’ house signals way of future

The completion and handover of the first low-cost house that uses solar and wind energy to a Mfuleni mother yesterday has been tipped as a precedent for future low-cost housing in the Western Cape.

The “green” house allows the owner access to free lighting and hot water through “green” architectural methods as well as solar panels, and wind power from locally manufactured wind turbines.

Europe Finds Clean Energy in Trash, but U.S. Lags

HORSHOLM, Denmark — The lawyers and engineers who dwell in an elegant enclave here are at peace with the hulking neighbor just over the back fence: a vast energy plant that burns thousands of tons of household garbage and industrial waste, round the clock.

Far cleaner than conventional incinerators, this new type of plant converts local trash into heat and electricity. Dozens of filters catch pollutants, from mercury to dioxin, that would have emerged from its smokestack only a decade ago.

Water Day: Why business needs to worry (by Chairman of Nestle)

Monday is World Water Day, but I suspect relatively few will have noticed.
While the world is rightly moving to address the challenges presented by climate change and depleting supplies of fossil fuels, the same awareness and consensus does not exist when it comes to addressing our usage of water. Yet the harsh fact is that we will probably run out of water long before we run out of fuel.

Tomorrow’s Cities (video) by Luke Younge

“Tomorrow’s Cities”, a succinct and inspiring film (15 minutes long), presents a compelling and easy to understand account of the major developmental challenges facing our cities in South Africa and more broadly cities of the global south. Framed within these challenges, the film unfolds a vision, through the voice of a school child and exciting use of animation, and proposes practical solutions towards achieving breathable, sustainable, equitable and low carbon urban futures.

The film is intended as a learning tool to raise discussion and awareness and ultimately inspire action toward the development of sustainable and equitable, low carbon cities.

Tomorrow’s Cities from Luke Younge on Vimeo.

Online in Brazil’s shanty towns

The internet has created many new opportunities for people to get richer around the world.  But are the benefits of access to the net filtering down to the very poorest in society? A shanty town in Brazil is a good place to find out.

Babilonia is a favela, a slum district, of about 80,000 inhabitants, most of them very poor.  It’s located in Brazil’s second city Rio de Janeiro, close to the world famous Copacabana beach.

Nuclear power is too risky

If our nation wants to reduce global warming, air pollution and energy instability, we should invest only in the best energy options. Nuclear energy isn’t one of them.

Every dollar spent on nuclear is one less dollar spent on clean renewable energy and one more dollar spent on making the world a comparatively dirtier and a more dangerous place, because nuclear power and nuclear weapons go hand in hand.

White Roofs May Successfully Cool Cities, Computer Model Demonstrates

Painting the roofs of buildings white has the potential to significantly cool cities and mitigate some impacts of global warming, a new study indicates. The new NCAR-led research suggests there may be merit to an idea advanced by U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu that white roofs can be an important tool to help society adjust to climate change.

The Relationship between Planning and Environmental Management in South Africa: The Case of KwaZulu-Natal

In South Africa, environmental management is a separate legal and institutional system parallel to planning, and the two are poorly integrated. This paper uses an institutional analysis of the relationship between environmental management and planning in the KwaZulu-Natal province to understand the tensions that arise. The basis for tension is identified in the divided legal and institutional systems; duplication in the regulatory systems; their overlapping but also divergent purposes; inadequate strategic plans; institutional divides; lack of capacity; as well as in divides arising from less tangible elements, including different discourses, practices, policy communities and identities. Movements towards integration need to consider both the formal system and these intangible dimensions.

Nobel Economics: The Relevance of Elinor Ostrom’s Win

By Glenn Ashton. Ashton is a writer and researcher working in civil society. Some of his work can be viewed at www.ekogaia.org .

The nomination of Elinor Ostrom for the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences is a timely recognition not only of her work but also of the mess that conventional economic theory has landed us in. It is probably safe to say that the awarding of the prize to Ostrom is as close to inciting revolutionary economic activity that the Royal Swedish Academy on Sciences, who decide the recipients, can get.

Egypt’s fertile Nile Delta falls prey to climate change

The Nile Delta, Egypt’s breadbasket since antiquity, is being turned into a salty wasteland by rising seawaters, forcing some farmers off their lands and others to import sand in a desperate bid to turn back the tide.