Category — Resources

EU ministers are meeting to set fishing quotas for 2007 amid renewed calls for a total ban on catching cod.

The European Commission has recommended a 25% cut in cod and North Sea herring catches, lower plaice and sole quotas, and a six-month ban on anchovy fishing.

Scientists warned earlier this year that only a total ban on cod fishing would enable stocks to recover.

Environmentalists have urged ministers to listen to the warnings and “change course” on fisheries policies.

However, European Commission spokeswoman Mireille Thom told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that it was also important to consider the fishing industry.

“Obviously ending fishing … on cod would be most likely to give results, but we don’t live in an ideal world,” she said.

Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) has achieved the world’s fastest wireless link.

The CSIRO ICT Centre today revealed it can get over six gigabits per second over a point to point wireless connection with the highest efficiency (2.4bits/s/Hz) ever achieved for such a system.
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Looking for that perfect eco-friendly holiday gift?  How about a 2007 EcoBabes calendar?

Supporting the California based Climate Protection Campaign, an organization working to reduce emissions in Sonoma County, the ecobabes calendar “portrays passionate, driven women pursing a vision of sustainability by modifying their daily actions and initiating systemic social change… [and] inspires and educates people of all ages to make changes in their personal and professional lives that help create a more sustainable world.”

Curious about the actual calendar? It was printed on 100% post consumer paper, with vegetable based inks, printed by a California printing company. You can purchase the calendar online and find out more about the women featured in it at the EcoBabes website.

Microsoft has been touting Vista’s new power saving features, saying that upgrading to Vista could easily save consumers and corporations $50 to $75 per computer per year in energy costs.

The question, though, is what marvelous new code makes this miracle possible. The answer? They fixed three stupid mistakes that have cost the world billions of dollars and millions of tons of CO2 in the past five years.
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Our early 21st century civilization is being squeezed between advancing deserts and rising seas.

Measured by the land area that can support human habitation, the earth is shrinking.
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Solar panels are now compulsory on all new and renovated buildings in Spain as part of the country’s efforts to bring its building rules up to date and curb growing demand for energy, ministers said on this week.

Until now Spain’s building standards have done little in seeking to improve energy efficiency.“We have to make up the time we have lost,” Environment Minister Cristina Narbona said, inaugurating a seminar on the new technical building code

The code will come into force fully next March.

This means new homes have to be equipped with solar panels to provide between 30 and 70 percent of their hot water, depending on where the building is located and on its expected water usage.

New non-residential buildings, such as shopping centers and hospitals, now have to have photovoltaic panels to generate a proportion of their electricity.

Worth bookmarking: Worldometers - real time world statistics.

Here you’l find live statistics for world population [including births, deaths, absolute population growth for the day], world expenditure on military, education, production [cars, bicycles, computers, year to date], and details statistics for education, the environment, food, water, energy and health.

Fascinating and absorbing, and scary.

BBC News reports arsenic-contaminated water can be made drinkable cheaply and simply using tiny crystals related to rust.

Scientists at Rice University in Texas say that particles of iron oxide can bind themselves to large amounts of arsenic in water. When mixed into contaminated water, the tiny crystals became coated with the poison and began behaving like iron filings.

When a strong magnet is placed above the particles, they clump together and are simple to remove.

If confirmed it could help nearly 60 million people in Bangladesh who drink water with dangerous arsenic levels.

The researchers from Rice University’s Centre for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology report their work in the journal Science.

Global Warming a Boon for Greenland’s Farmers:

Known for its massive ice sheets, Greenland is feeling the effects of global warming as rising temperatures have expanded the island’s growing season and crops are flourishing. For the first time in hundreds of years, it has become possible to raise cattle and start dairy farms.

Ferdinand Egede would be a perfectly normal farmer if it weren’t for that loud cracking noise. Wearing a plaid lumberjack shirt and overalls, he hurries through the precise rows of his potato field, beads of sweat running down his forehead.Egede, 49, occasionally picks up a handful of earth and rubs it between his solid fingers, but he isn’t at all satisfied with the results.

“It’s much too dry,” he says. “If I don’t get the irrigation going, I’ll lose my harvest.”

The cracking noise has turned into a roar. What’s happening in the sea below Egede’s fields doesn’t square well with what one would normally associate with rural life. The sound is that of an iceberg breaking apart, with pieces of it tumbling into the foaming sea.

The US population has hit 300 million today, just 39 years after it reached 200 million, the US Census Bureau estimates. A “population clock” will recorded the milestone at 0746 (1146 GMT) — a timing based on calculations that factor birth and death rates and migration. The bureau’s maths suggests that the US gains one person every 11 seconds. But it is not possible to say if the 300-millionth American will be born, or cross one of the country’s borders.