Industrial farming puts ecosystems at risk of collapse, warns Prince Charles | Environment | guardian.co.uk

Industrial farming puts ecosystems at risk of collapse, warns Prince Charles | Environment | guardian.co.uk

Industrial farming puts ecosystems at risk of collapse, warns Prince CharlesFarming methods must be low-impact, organic and low-carbon to protect natural resources for the long term. Prince Charles has warned that the world's ecosystems face collapse because of a dangerous over-reliance on industrial farming systems that work against nature rather than with it.

In a speech to launch a new sustainable farming project with the supermarket chain Morrisons, the Prince of Wales said farming needed to shift quickly to low-impact, organic and low-carbon methods to survive into the long term. The prince directly attacked farms that "treat animals like machines by using industrial rearing systems". Although he did not mention it directly, his criticisms echo fears about the UK's first diary "super farm" planned for Lincolnshire, where 8,000 cows will produce milk 24 hours a day and will be housed in four open-sided barns. He also criticised the increasing use of "green" labelling and award schemes which failed to protect natural resources in the long term and which "contributes to the failure of the entire system upon which it depends."

He said experts predicted that demand for food will rise by 50% by 2030, while humanity will also need 30% more water and 45% more energy. Fresh water supplies were finite and oil close to its peak. For every nine barrels of oil used today, only one barrel of readily exploitable oil was being found. "The mathematics do not exactly add up," he said. "We have to come up with a better way of producing our food that maintains the health of the earth's natural systems so that we work much more closely with them rather than so carelessly to spite them. And because we will have to do so in a commercial environment hounded by the spiralling cost of the diminishing oil supply it would pay us perhaps to do so quickly, now rather than later when it may be too late." He added: "So far we have enjoyed the considerable luxury of ignoring these things. We've tended to believe many of nature's services are free."

JET Assisted Vertical Turbine of Wind-Hydro Kinetic Applications

Wind-Hydro Kinetic Tidal/River/Canal Power Barge with Vertical Axis JET Mono- directional Rotating Turbines in Omnidirectional Water/Wind Flow.
Wind/Hydro-kinetic power plant with JET blades on vertical shafts (cross flow turbines)based on a floating anchored pontoon structure VAWT Patented JET turbines formed by hollow blades with elliptic-like cross-section.

The blades with side inlet aperture and outlet nozzles at blade trailing edge. It is a radical new patented blade design that increases flow-to-power efficiency significantly and helps to increase turbine performance at low and moderate flow speeds and in turbulent flow as well. Easy starting turbines. Patent pending. Integrated power train with a common electric alternator

Vision Signs MoU with SolFocus for 8 CPV Solar Plants in Saudi Arabia | Green Prophet

Vision Signs MoU with SolFocus for 8 CPV Solar Plants in Saudi Arabia | Green Prophet

Saudi Arabia has taken another step toward integrating solar power into its energy mix: Vision Electro Mechanical Co. (Vision) has signed an MoU with California-based SolFocus to build eight solar power stations in the kingdom, starting with a 130-kilowatt solar plant in the Bahra industrial complex near Jeddah, according to ameinfo.com.

Vision, a subsidiary of Jeddah-based Construction Products Holding Company (CPC), was established in August with a mandate to develop, manufacture and operate solar power plants in Saudi Arabia. The solar plant at CPC’s Bahra complex will be the largest in the region to utilize concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) technology for generating electricity. (Two smaller CPV arrays, developed by MST and ZenithSolar, are installed in Israel.)

Man builds plane of Scrap

How far are you willing to go in chasing your dream? For one 42-year-old father of two, it means everything including spending all his savings. Gabriel Nderitu intends to fly a homemade aircraft. But the first hurdle is building it. Here is his story.

ORGATEC 2010 - Modern Office & Facility

ORGATEC

Working time is living time

Experience modern life in office and facility.
From 26th to 30th october 2010 in cologne.

U.K. Pledges 2.2 Billion Pounds for Clean Energy - BusinessWeek

U.K. Pledges 2.2 Billion Pounds for Clean Energy - BusinessWeek

The U.K. government pledged 2.2 billion pounds ($3.5 billion) for clean energy projects as it cut spending across other departments, saying it was safeguarding efforts to create jobs in new industries.

Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne earmarked as much as 1 billion pounds for a carbon capture and storage project that may go to Iberdrola SA and another 1 billion pounds for a Green Investment Bank. Another 200 million pounds will go for offshore wind technology and port facilities needed to handle the turbines.

“When money is short, we should ruthlessly prioritize those areas of public spending which are most likely to support economic growth, including investments in our transport and green energy infrastructure,” Osborne told Parliament today.

The measures were part of a broader package slashing 81 billion pounds of spending to curb a record budget deficit. Prime Minister David Cameron aims for his Conservative-led administration to be the “greenest” ever, targeting a 32 percent cut in CO2 emissions and 15 percent of U.K. energy coming from renewable sources by 2020.

Senate climate change deniers funded by BP and other major polluters | World news | The Guardian

Senate climate change deniers funded by BP and other major polluters | World news | The Guardian

Analyis finds climate change deniers in US Senate like Tea Party favourites DeMint and Inhofe have received over $240,000

BP and several other big European companies are funding the midterm election campaigns of Tea Party favourites who deny the existence of global warming or oppose Barack Obama's energy agenda, the Guardian has learned.

An analysis of campaign finance by Climate Action Network Europe (Cane) found nearly 80% of campaign donations from a number of major European firms were directed towards senators who blocked action on climate change. These included incumbents who have been embraced by the Tea Party such as Jim DeMint, a Republican from South Carolina, and the notorious climate change denier James Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma.

The report, released tomorrow, used information on the Open Secrets.org database to track what it called a co-ordinated attempt by some of Europe's biggest polluters to influence the US midterms. It said: "The European companies are funding almost exclusively Senate candidates who have been outspoken in their opposition to comprehensive climate policy in the US and candidates who actively deny the scientific consensus that climate change is happening and is caused by people."

It's official: Denmark has the world's greenest hotel :: EnergyPortal.eu

It's official: Denmark has the world's greenest hotel :: EnergyPortal.eu

Denmark's first CO2 neutral hotel building, the Crowne Plaza Copenhagen Towers, located in the Ørestad district of Copenhagen, has been named 'The World's Greenest Hotel' by Skål International, the world's largest travel and tourist organisation, reports Ritzau. The 4 star hotel won the EcoTourism Award 2010 in the Urban Accommodation category, thus affirming its exemplary status as an environmentally-conscious model for the hotel industry. Less than a year old, The Crowne Plaza Copenhagen Towers is a beacon of green innovation from top to bottom. Its electricity is supplied by Northern Europe's largest facade-mounted photovoltaic solar cell plant, while below ground lies its unique technology for regulating the building's indoor climate - Denmark's first groundwater-based cooling and heating system. The rooms are equipped with low energy TVs and lighting, and all the shampoo bottles, toothbrushes and shower caps are biodegradable. The restaurant uses local ingredients for its menus, and all kitchen waste is used as feedstock for producing biogas and fertiliser. And in the fitness centre, guests can use exercise bicycles that generate electricity for use in the building.