In this hot and noble city, discarded water bottles float by gondolas on the edges of the canals and spill out of trash cans on the majestic Piazza San Marco. Because Venice has no roads, trash must be collected on foot at enormous expense. And while plastic bottles can in principle be recycled, the process still unleashes greenhouse gases.Italians are the leading consumers of bottled water in the world, drinking more than 40 gallons per person annually. But as their environmental consciousness deepens, officials here are avidly promoting what was previously unthinkable: that Italians should drink tap water.
For decades bottled water has been the norm on European tables, although tap water in many, if not most, cities is suitable for drinking. Since the 1980s, the bottled water habit has also taken hold in the United States, prompting cities from New York to San Francisco to wage public education campaigns to encourage the use of tap water to reduce plastic waste.
But here in Venice, officials took a leaf from the advertising playbook that has helped make bottled water a multibillion-dollar global industry. They invented a lofty brand name for Venice’s tap water — Acqua Veritas — created a sleek logo and emblazoned it on stylish carafes that were distributed free to households.
Because tap water is often jokingly called “the mayor’s water” in Italy, they even enlisted regional politicians to star in tongue-in-cheek billboards. “I, too, drink the mayor’s water,” proclaims Venice’s mayor, a philosopher named Massimo Cacciari, as he pours a glass.
“There are so many advantages to Acqua Veritas,” said Riccardo Seccarello, a city official, whose office is adorned by an Acqua Veritas poster into which President Obama’s picture has been Photoshopped. “Tap water doesn’t require a bottle. Its quality is controlled more strictly than bottled water. It’s really cheap. And you don’t have to walk to a market to get it.”
He also leaked a little information that city officials have made sure everyone now knows: Venice’s tap water comes from deep underground in the same region as one of Italy’s most popular bottled waters, San Benedetto.
Bottled water is a booming global industry with hundreds of brands that are advertised for their trendy appeal as well as their professed health benefits.
Twelve billion gallons of water were sold in 16 Western European countries in 2007, according to Zenith International, a market research firm, with Italy followed by Germany, France, Spain and Britain as market leaders. In the United States, per capita consumption of bottled water more than doubled from 1997 to 2007, to 29 gallons, according to the Beverage Marketing Corporation.
The growth of the industry has been a bête noire for environmentalists, who lament the amount of fossil fuel energy used to bottle water and, often, to ship it long distances. Then there is also the impact of the enormous amount of plastic waste produced by the habit. Recycling is a plus but has logistical limits and generates some emissions anyway as bottles are transported and reprocessed.
Trash is an especially costly problem in Venice, in any case, because it is collected by men with wheelbarrows along the canals. Collection costs $335 per ton compared with $84 per ton on the mainland, said Mr. Seccarello, the city official.
Three years ago Venice created Veritas, a municipal umbrella company that is responsible both for city water and for trash collection in the region. Officials of the new company realized that by promoting the former, they could reduce the latter.
In terms of trash reduction, the Acqua Veritas campaign has already been a success, Venetian officials calculate, reducing the amount of plastic trash over all to 261 tons a month now from 288 tons a year ago.
“I’ve discovered tap water; I actually like the taste better,” said Silvia Vatta, 25, a student who was buying fish at a stall near the Accademia Bridge. “We used to use bottled water because we grew up with it at home and didn’t know any better.”
Still, the campaign to promote the mayor’s water has made little headway with restaurants and stores, which make money selling bottled water. And in a city where tourists outnumber permanent residents 100 to 1, public education that concentrates on locals can go only so far in reducing plastic waste.
Nonetheless, Mr. Seccarello has a message for bottle-toting tourists: in Venice, as in Rome, public spouts are scattered about the city and the water is “perfectly safe” to drink.
In fact, many older Venetians remember a time before bottled water, which first became popular here in the 1970s after a series of scares about the safety of the water supply. Yet over the next decade its use became the norm, a sign of financial prosperity.
“At first it was only for fancy stuff, but then it became the style,” said Renato Bonacin, 61, an artisanal metal worker who recently retired.
Because Venice’s water comes from a deep clean aquifer, perhaps, many here never entirely converted to bottled water. Two years ago, 72 percent of Venetians still sometimes drank tap water. That figure has risen to 79 percent.
Many people still prefer to filter tap water because it can contain mineral sediment. Acqua Veritas advises people to let it sit for a few minutes if there is a residual whiff of chlorine, which is used in the system to ensure hygiene.
Giancarlo Demuru, walking with a cane and dressed all in white, said that 20 years ago he used bottled water even to make tea, because Venice’s water then tasted slightly salty. But it has improved with better water management, he said.
In light of the Acqua Veritas campaign, he now uses bottled water only when guests want fizzy water. But the city now has an answer for that, too: it is offering discounts on carbonators.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Greenpeace Parody of Newspaper Spotlights Climate
The environmental group Greenpeace on Thursday distributed a spoof version of The International Herald Tribune, in an effort to draw attention to climate change as European Union leaders gathered to discuss the issue in Brussels.
“Heads of state agree historic climate-saving deal,“” the parody proclaimed on Page 1, along with a picture of President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission. It was dated Dec. 19, 2009, the day after the end of the planned United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.
The newspaper said in a statement that it had contacted Greenpeace and asked it to remove any fake Web pages from its site, and that it had received no advance notice of the project. The Herald Tribune is owned by The New York Times Company.
“The I.H.T. is a trusted resource for world opinion leaders and to have our name and image paraded among this community as a politically motivated publicity stunt is wholly contrary to our values of independence and accuracy,” the paper said in a statement.
Gerd Leipold, executive director of Greenpeace International, urged the newspaper to consider the spoof a “compliment” to the paper’s “history of excellent coverage on a variety of issues, including climate change.”
Greenpeace said 50,000 copies of the spoof I.H.T. were distributed, mostly in Brussels. In a letter to the newspaper, Mr. Leipold said the goal was to show “world leaders, and all of us, the future we might have if they do right by the planet.”
“Heads of state agree historic climate-saving deal,“” the parody proclaimed on Page 1, along with a picture of President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission. It was dated Dec. 19, 2009, the day after the end of the planned United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.
The newspaper said in a statement that it had contacted Greenpeace and asked it to remove any fake Web pages from its site, and that it had received no advance notice of the project. The Herald Tribune is owned by The New York Times Company.
“The I.H.T. is a trusted resource for world opinion leaders and to have our name and image paraded among this community as a politically motivated publicity stunt is wholly contrary to our values of independence and accuracy,” the paper said in a statement.
Gerd Leipold, executive director of Greenpeace International, urged the newspaper to consider the spoof a “compliment” to the paper’s “history of excellent coverage on a variety of issues, including climate change.”
Greenpeace said 50,000 copies of the spoof I.H.T. were distributed, mostly in Brussels. In a letter to the newspaper, Mr. Leipold said the goal was to show “world leaders, and all of us, the future we might have if they do right by the planet.”
NASA Launches Lunar Orbiter Ahead of New Human Moon Mission
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NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter launched at 5:32 pm EDT Thursday aboard an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The satellite will relay more information about the lunar environment than any other previous mission to the moon.
NASA will use the data the orbiter collects to design the vehicles and systems for returning humans to the moon and begin establishing a lunar outpost by 2020.
Twelve people have landed on the Moon and walked on its surface. All are men from the USA who traveled to the Moon as part of NASA's Apollo program during the period from December 1968 to December 1972.
The orbiter, known as LRO, separated from the Atlas V rocket carrying it and a companion mission, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, and immediately began powering up the components necessary to control the spacecraft.
The flight operations team established communication with LRO and commanded the successful deployment of the solar array at 7:40 pm. The operations team continues to check out the spacecraft subsystems and prepare for the first mid-course correction maneuver.
NASA scientists expect to establish communications with LCROSS about four hours after launch, at approximately 9:30 pm.
"This is a very important day for NASA," said Doug Cooke, associate administrator for NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate in Washington, which designed and developed both the LRO and LCROSS missions. "We look forward to an extraordinary period of discovery at the moon and the information LRO will give us for future exploration missions."
The spacecraft will be placed in low polar orbit about 31 miles, or 50 kilometers, above the moon for a one year primary mission.
Using a suite of seven instruments, LRO will help identify safe landing sites for future human explorers, locate potential resources, characterize the radiation environment and test new technology.
LCROSS will seek a definitive answer about the presence of water ice at the lunar poles.
LRO's instruments will help scientists compile high resolution three-dimensional maps of the lunar surface and also survey it at many spectral wavelengths. The satellite will explore the moon's deepest craters, exploring permanently sunlit and shadowed regions, and provide understanding of the effects of lunar radiation on humans.
"Our job is to perform reconnaissance of the moon's surface using a suite of seven powerful instruments," said Craig Tooley, LRO project manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt.
"NASA will use the data LRO collects to design the vehicles and systems for returning humans to the moon and selecting the landing sites that will be their destinations," he said.
High resolution imagery from LRO's camera will help identify landing sites for future explorers and characterize the moon's topography and composition. The hydrogen concentrations at the moon's poles will be mapped in detail, pinpointing the locations of possible water ice. A miniaturized radar system will image the poles and test communication capabilities.
"During the 60 day commissioning period, we will turn on spacecraft components and science instruments," explained Cathy Peddie, LRO deputy project manager at Goddard. "All instruments will be turned on within two weeks of launch, and we should start seeing the moon in new and greater detail within the next month."
"We learned much about the moon from the Apollo program, but now it is time to return to the moon for intensive study, and we will do just that with LRO," said Richard Vondrak, LRO project scientist at Goddard.
All LRO initial data sets will be deposited in the Planetary Data System, a publicly accessible repository of planetary science information, within six months of launch.
Goddard built and manages LRO, which is a NASA mission with international participation from the Institute for Space Research in Moscow. Russia provides the neutron detector aboard the spacecraft
Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2009. All rights reserved
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter launched at 5:32 pm EDT Thursday aboard an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The satellite will relay more information about the lunar environment than any other previous mission to the moon.
NASA will use the data the orbiter collects to design the vehicles and systems for returning humans to the moon and begin establishing a lunar outpost by 2020.
Twelve people have landed on the Moon and walked on its surface. All are men from the USA who traveled to the Moon as part of NASA's Apollo program during the period from December 1968 to December 1972.
The orbiter, known as LRO, separated from the Atlas V rocket carrying it and a companion mission, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, and immediately began powering up the components necessary to control the spacecraft.
The flight operations team established communication with LRO and commanded the successful deployment of the solar array at 7:40 pm. The operations team continues to check out the spacecraft subsystems and prepare for the first mid-course correction maneuver.
NASA scientists expect to establish communications with LCROSS about four hours after launch, at approximately 9:30 pm.
"This is a very important day for NASA," said Doug Cooke, associate administrator for NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate in Washington, which designed and developed both the LRO and LCROSS missions. "We look forward to an extraordinary period of discovery at the moon and the information LRO will give us for future exploration missions."
The spacecraft will be placed in low polar orbit about 31 miles, or 50 kilometers, above the moon for a one year primary mission.
Using a suite of seven instruments, LRO will help identify safe landing sites for future human explorers, locate potential resources, characterize the radiation environment and test new technology.
LCROSS will seek a definitive answer about the presence of water ice at the lunar poles.
LRO's instruments will help scientists compile high resolution three-dimensional maps of the lunar surface and also survey it at many spectral wavelengths. The satellite will explore the moon's deepest craters, exploring permanently sunlit and shadowed regions, and provide understanding of the effects of lunar radiation on humans.
"Our job is to perform reconnaissance of the moon's surface using a suite of seven powerful instruments," said Craig Tooley, LRO project manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt.
"NASA will use the data LRO collects to design the vehicles and systems for returning humans to the moon and selecting the landing sites that will be their destinations," he said.
High resolution imagery from LRO's camera will help identify landing sites for future explorers and characterize the moon's topography and composition. The hydrogen concentrations at the moon's poles will be mapped in detail, pinpointing the locations of possible water ice. A miniaturized radar system will image the poles and test communication capabilities.
"During the 60 day commissioning period, we will turn on spacecraft components and science instruments," explained Cathy Peddie, LRO deputy project manager at Goddard. "All instruments will be turned on within two weeks of launch, and we should start seeing the moon in new and greater detail within the next month."
"We learned much about the moon from the Apollo program, but now it is time to return to the moon for intensive study, and we will do just that with LRO," said Richard Vondrak, LRO project scientist at Goddard.
All LRO initial data sets will be deposited in the Planetary Data System, a publicly accessible repository of planetary science information, within six months of launch.
Goddard built and manages LRO, which is a NASA mission with international participation from the Institute for Space Research in Moscow. Russia provides the neutron detector aboard the spacecraft
Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2009. All rights reserved
India develops malaria vaccine!
The scientists at the international Institute of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) in New Delhi are involved in the research on malaria for the past few years.
According to the reports, the vaccine is expected to reduce the severity of the disease.
The scientists at the institute have tested almost 20 vaccines. One of them is showing good results.
The scientists believe the progress of the research of the vaccine depends on the phase one trial.
The vaccine for malaria will not work as other vaccines. The centre is developing a vaccine for infants initially. It will boost the immunity of children to fight against the disease.
According to the reports, the vaccine is expected to reduce the severity of the disease.
The scientists at the institute have tested almost 20 vaccines. One of them is showing good results.
The scientists believe the progress of the research of the vaccine depends on the phase one trial.
The vaccine for malaria will not work as other vaccines. The centre is developing a vaccine for infants initially. It will boost the immunity of children to fight against the disease.
Global warming fuelling malaria vaccine need
Global warming has led to a rapid increase in the number of malaria cases, thereby fuelling the need for lifesaving vaccinations to those in need, says an expert.
Experts fear that the drastic changes in the climate may further increase
the number of cases in the coming years.
?Forty-one percent of the human race lives in areas of high malaria transmission,? said Dr. Sylvain Fleury, Chief Scientific Officer at Mymetics, a Swiss vaccine biotech currently developing a vaccine with the potential to control malaria in developing countries.
?Because Europe, North America, and North Asia are now significantly colder than regions of high malaria incidence, developed nations have felt immune from the malaria threat, but that sense may soon be upended,? Fleury added.
Studies have shown that even a modest temperature increase can extend the proliferation of malaria-bearing mosquitoes.
Therefore, as temperatures rise, billions of people could find themselves living in regions of high malaria incidence.
?The best way to prevent the spread of malaria into warming areas of the globe is to find a solution before the situation worsens,? said Dr. Fleury.
?If we can begin to curb the spread of malaria in high threat areas, the eventual reach of the disease will be seriously limited,? he added.
Due to global warming malaria has already returned to the areas such as
Peru that had already eradicated the disease forty years ago.
America saw 1,337 cases, including eight deaths, as recently as 2002 – the importance of developing a vaccine for the disease is becoming more and more urgent.
Experts fear that the drastic changes in the climate may further increase
the number of cases in the coming years.
?Forty-one percent of the human race lives in areas of high malaria transmission,? said Dr. Sylvain Fleury, Chief Scientific Officer at Mymetics, a Swiss vaccine biotech currently developing a vaccine with the potential to control malaria in developing countries.
?Because Europe, North America, and North Asia are now significantly colder than regions of high malaria incidence, developed nations have felt immune from the malaria threat, but that sense may soon be upended,? Fleury added.
Studies have shown that even a modest temperature increase can extend the proliferation of malaria-bearing mosquitoes.
Therefore, as temperatures rise, billions of people could find themselves living in regions of high malaria incidence.
?The best way to prevent the spread of malaria into warming areas of the globe is to find a solution before the situation worsens,? said Dr. Fleury.
?If we can begin to curb the spread of malaria in high threat areas, the eventual reach of the disease will be seriously limited,? he added.
Due to global warming malaria has already returned to the areas such as
Peru that had already eradicated the disease forty years ago.
America saw 1,337 cases, including eight deaths, as recently as 2002 – the importance of developing a vaccine for the disease is becoming more and more urgent.
Global warming: latest evidence
Following is an encapsulation of the latest evidence on global warming, published in reports issued in February and early April by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The UN's top scientific authority on global warming is meeting in Bangkok this week and will issue its third report on Friday, this time touching on ways of tackling greenhouse-gases.
Past warming
■ Evidence for man's warming of the climate system is now unequivocal. From 1906 to 2005, global surface temperatures rose by 0.74 degrees.
■ Global warming over the past half century has been nearly twice that of the century as a whole, coinciding with a surge in greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels. Eleven of the past 12 years rank among the dozen warmest years on record.
■ Ocean warming now extends to a depth of at least 3000 metres as the seas take up heat from the air. Mountain glaciers and snow cover have declined in both hemispheres. Sea levels rose globally by 1.8 millimetres a year from 1961 to 2003, a pace that accelerated to 3.1 millimetres per year from 1993 to 2003.
■ The top layers of the Arctic permafrost have warmed by up to 3.0 degrees since the 1980s. The maximum area of seasonally frozen ground has decreased by about 7 per cent in the northern hemisphere since 1900.
Forecast for 21st century
■ By 2100, global average surface temperatures could rise by between 1.1 and 6.4 degrees compared with 1980-99 levels, depending on levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the air. Within this range, the likeliest rise will be 1.8 to 4 degrees.
■ Sea levels will rise by between 18 and 59 centimetres, although this could be amplified by accelerating melting of icesheets.
■ Warming will occur most over land at high northern latitudes and least over the Southern Ocean and the North Atlantic.
■ Carbon emissions this century "will contribute to warming and sea level rise for more than a millennium", due to the timescale required for greenhouse gases to degrade.
Likely impacts this century
■ Heatwaves, flooding, drought, tropical storms and surges in sea level are among the events that "will become more frequent, more widespread and/or more intense" this century.
■ By mid-century, water availability is likely to increase in high latitudes but fall by up to 30 per cent in mid-latitudes and the dry tropics, some of which are already badly water stressed. Water from glaciers and snow melt is also projected to decline, reducing resources for regions where more than a sixth of the world population lives.
■ Between 20 and 30 per cent of plant and animal species are likely to be at increased risk of extinction if increases in global average temperature exceed 1.5 to 2.5 degrees.
■ Food production will rise slightly at mid to high latitudes if the global temperature increases 1 to 3 degrees but fall beyond this range. At lower latitudes, especially seasonally dry and tropical regions, crop productivity is projected to decrease for even small local temperature increases (1 to 2 degrees), which would increase the risk of hunger.
■ By the 2080s, sea level rise will place "many millions" of people at risk of flooding and tropical storms. The mega-deltas of Asia, Africa and small islands are the most vulnerable."
■ Malnutrition, deaths from heatwave, storms and drought, diarrhoea, malaria and other pest-borne diseases are some of the heightened risks.
Economic cost
■ There is no consensus on the cost of global warming, as calculations depend on different factors, such as storm damage and the impact on biodiversity. Every tonne of CO2 emitted into the air costs from $US10 to $US350 ($12 to $425), according to the estimates.
■ Investing money now in measures to cope with the future threat and reduce emissions could reduce and delay some of the impacts, although these actions are also limited by political, technical and financial constraints.
Between 20 and 30 per cent of plant and animal species are likely to be at increased risk of extinction if increases in global average temperature exceed 1.5 to 2.5 degrees.
■ Food production will rise slightly at mid to high latitudes if the global temperature increases 1 to 3 degrees but fall beyond this range. At lower latitudes, especially seasonally dry and tropical regions, crop productivity is projected to decrease for even small local temperature increases (1 to 2 degrees), which would increase the risk of hunger.
■ By the 2080s, sea level rise will place "many millions" of people at risk of flooding and tropical storms. The mega-deltas of Asia, Africa and small islands are the most vulnerable."
■ Malnutrition, deaths from heatwave, storms and drought, diarrhoea, malaria and other pest-borne diseases are some of the heightened risks.
Economic cost
■ There is no consensus on the cost of global warming, as calculations depend on different factors, such as storm damage and the impact on biodiversity. Every tonne of CO2 emitted into the air costs from $US10 to $US350 ($12 to $425), according to the estimates.
■ Investing money now in measures to cope with the future threat and reduce emissions could reduce and delay some of the impacts, although these actions are also limited by political, technical and financial constraints.
Environmental Alarms Raised Over Home Electronics
The choice might not be quite that stark, but an energy watchdog is alarmed about the threat to the environment from the soaring electricity needs of gadgets like MP3 players, mobile phones and flat screen TVs.
In a report Wednesday, the Paris-based International Energy Agency estimates new electronic gadgets will triple their energy consumption by 2030 to 1,700 terawatt hours, the equivalent of today's home electricity consumption of the United States and Japan combined.
The world would have to build around 200 new nuclear power plants just to power all the TVs, iPods, PCs and other home electronics expected to be plugged in by 2030, when the global electric bill to power them will rise to $200 billion a year, the IEA said.
Consumer electronics is "the fastest growing area and it's the area with the least amount
Electronic gadgets already account for about 15 percent of household electric consumption, a share that is rising rapidly as the number of these gadgets multiplies. Last year, the world spent $80 billion on electricity to power all these household electronics, the IEA said.
Most of the increase in consumer electronics will be in developing countries, where economic growth is fastest and ownership rates of gadgets is the lowest, Waide said.
"This will jeopardize efforts to increase energy security and reduce the emission of greenhouse gases" blamed for global warming, the agency said.
Existing technologies could slash gadgets' energy consumption by more than 30 percent at no cost or by more than 50 percent at a small cost, the IEA estimates, meaning total greenhouse gas emissions from households' electronic gadgets could be held stable at around 500 million tons of CO2 per year.
If nothing is done, this figure will double to around 1 billion tons of CO2 per year by 2030, the IEA estimates.
In a report Wednesday, the Paris-based International Energy Agency estimates new electronic gadgets will triple their energy consumption by 2030 to 1,700 terawatt hours, the equivalent of today's home electricity consumption of the United States and Japan combined.
The world would have to build around 200 new nuclear power plants just to power all the TVs, iPods, PCs and other home electronics expected to be plugged in by 2030, when the global electric bill to power them will rise to $200 billion a year, the IEA said.
Consumer electronics is "the fastest growing area and it's the area with the least amount
Electronic gadgets already account for about 15 percent of household electric consumption, a share that is rising rapidly as the number of these gadgets multiplies. Last year, the world spent $80 billion on electricity to power all these household electronics, the IEA said.
Most of the increase in consumer electronics will be in developing countries, where economic growth is fastest and ownership rates of gadgets is the lowest, Waide said.
"This will jeopardize efforts to increase energy security and reduce the emission of greenhouse gases" blamed for global warming, the agency said.
Existing technologies could slash gadgets' energy consumption by more than 30 percent at no cost or by more than 50 percent at a small cost, the IEA estimates, meaning total greenhouse gas emissions from households' electronic gadgets could be held stable at around 500 million tons of CO2 per year.
If nothing is done, this figure will double to around 1 billion tons of CO2 per year by 2030, the IEA estimates.
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