Archive for 2007
SEC pressured to mandate financial disclosure of climate risk
An important initiative has been launched by Ceres and Environmental Defense to petition the US Securities and Exchange Commission to require companies to disclose the risks that climate change may pose to their financial results. Ceres and Environmental Defense are non-profit organisations which attempt to bring together investor groups, environmental organisations and investment funds to [...]
Posted by: Geoff Wells on Monday, 24th Sep, 2007
Ian Lowe’s ‘Quarterly Essay’ on climate change and the nuclear option
Ian Lowe’s Quarterly Essay entitled Reaction Time: Climate Change and the Nuclear Option is a well-informed, well-reasoned and timely contribution to the current debate. He brings an unusual level of credibility to the debate. He is an engineer and physical scientist by training, with a doctorate in physics, and currently emeritus professor of science, technology [...]
Posted by: Geoff Wells on Monday, 17th Sep, 2007
NSW emissions trading scheme under pressure
It’s perhaps not widely known, even in Australia, that the state of New South Wales has been running one of the longest-running and largest emissions trading schemes in the world, the Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme. The overview of the scheme is presented as follows: ‘GGAS commenced on 1 January 2003 in NSW and on 1 [...]
Posted by: Geoff Wells on Wednesday, 12th Sep, 2007
Wind power for corporate operations
Wind power has always been somewhat controversial, on economic, landscape and wildlife grounds. This has been particularly true in the UK, where a well-established countryside movement has resisted what they see as a decline of landscape amenity with windfarms. As the technology has advanced, however, the economics of wind power are becoming much more persuasive. [...]
Posted by: Geoff Wells on Wednesday, 12th Sep, 2007
The biofuel weed
It is increasingly being realised, as discussed in previous posts, that biofuels are incentivising damaging clearing practices in developing countries. Here is a report on a plant which has been a weed, but which now shows promise of biofuel potential that doesn’t involve such damage. Jatropha curcus, also known as Ratanjyot or Jangli erandi, is [...]
Posted by: Geoff Wells on Wednesday, 12th Sep, 2007
Organic market trends
The organic market has been expanding rapidly for some time, and is displaying some interesting, and sometimes contradictory, features. Internationally sales of all organic products were reported to have grown by 15% last year, to nearly A$50 billion, with some European countries, such as German and Italy posting gains of as much as 20%. Land [...]
Posted by: Geoff Wells on Tuesday, 4th Sep, 2007
Inuit early warnings and the human rights of global warming
The Inuits are an indigenous people who have traditionally occupied large areas the Artic Circle in Canada, Alaska, Russia and Greenland. They describe their culture as a ‘hunting culture’: it is inextricably linked to the marine and terrestrial animals of the circum polar region. The Arctic is the first global region to be seriously affected [...]
Posted by: Geoff Wells on Thursday, 23rd Aug, 2007
Full life-cycle accounting questions bio- and nuclear fuels
Here is the first quantitative study to confirm what has been probable for some time: that the move to biofuels, with the purpose of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels, may actually increase emissions, relative to the fossil fuel base. A University of Leeds study by an atmosphere scientist, Dr. Dominic Spracklen, and Dr [...]
Posted by: Geoff Wells on Monday, 20th Aug, 2007
Problematic decline in Amazonian logging
As everybody knows, the Amazon rainforest is one of the most important global ecosystems for the environmental health of the earth. As is also well known, over the past two decades it has been logged at an increasing rate: 20% of the rainforest has now been cleared. It’s therefore good news, on the face of [...]
Posted by: Geoff Wells on Monday, 13th Aug, 2007
Social sustainability impacts in India and North America
Social factors continue to present themselves as increasingly central factors in sustainable business. Here are two recent reports of significant projects, one a mining project, the other industrial, which have been subjected to close scrutiny from local populations. The first comes from Orissa, in northern India, where the UK-based mining company, Vedanta Resources, has established [...]
Posted by: Geoff Wells on Monday, 13th Aug, 2007