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SSEE Qld Student Award Night and Paul Hawken visit
White roofs are not a silver bullet for cooling planet, study finds
Seemed like a cool idea: paint the world's roofs white to reflect more sunlight, and it could help cool down both cities and the planet. A new study, however, finds it's a lot more complicated – even as it dispels climate change deniers' claims that urban "heat islands" are a major cause of apparent temperature increases.
The land covered by urban areas more than doubled between 1992 and 2005, to about 0.128% of Earth's surface, Mark Z. Jacobson and John E. Ten Hoeve of Stanford University report in the Journal of Climate. Roofs and roads cover about half of that land, and help heat up urban areas by preventing evaporation of water and absorbing sunlight. Exactly how these urban heat islands affect global temperatures, however, has been unclear. But Jacobsen says some skeptics of climate science have argued that heat islands – and not the buildup of warming gases in the atmosphere – may be responsible for observed temperature increases, since some monitoring stations are near urban areas.
Continue reading...BBC Frozen Planet – in pictures
China angry over Burma's decision to suspend work on £2.3bn dam
Burma's decision to suspend the country's biggest hydroelectric project has shocked and enraged China, the government's most influential backer on the international stage.
Senior officials in Beijing have castigated their south-east Asian ally and threatened legal action. It emerged that they were not consulted before President Thein Sien of Burma announced last Friday a halt to building the $3.6bn (£2.3bn) hydropower dam on the Irawaddy – known as the Myitsone project – because it was "against the will of the people".
Continue reading...Scottish nuclear leak 'will never be completely cleaned up'
Radioactive contamination that leaked for more than two decades from the Dounreay nuclear plant on the north coast of Scotland will never be completely cleaned up, a Scottish government agency has admitted.
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) has decided to give up on its aim of returning the seabed near the plant to a "pristine condition". To do so, it said, could cause "more harm than good".
Continue reading...Want to know more about the Carbon Tax? Come to the SSEE September techical session.
SSEE 2011 International Conference - Don't miss out on Early Bird registration
West Bank villagers' daily battle with Israel over water
The South Hebron Hills, sweltering in 34C heat and in its second consecutive year of drought, is a landscape of brutal contrasts. There is enough water here to support lush greenhouses, big cattle sheds, even ornamental plants. It arrives in large, high-pressure lines. And there appears to be no limit to the bounty it can bring.
Cheek by jowl with the water towers and red roofs of the Israeli settlers in this area of the West Bank is a landscape of stone boulders, tents and caves. The Palestinian village of al-Amniyr looks from afar like a rubbish tip until you realise that the rubbish is people's dwellings, which have been destroyed in attacks targeting their water cisterns.
Continue reading...Pollutionwatch: Riots caused air pollution peaks
One of London's longest running air pollution monitoring sites was at the heart of the rioting that began on Tottenham High Road on Saturday 6 August. The intensity of the fires meant that much of the smoke was lofted away from the immediate area; however, the monitoring site measured two hours of pollution that was around 10 times greater than average. Interestingly the air pollution was not just the small particles typical of smoke but it also contained many larger particles, presumably owing to dust from falling debris as fire damaged buildings began to crumble.
The fire at Reeves furniture store in West Croydon on the evening of Monday 8 August was shown live on news programmes. Flames leapt into the sky and could be clearly seen over 8kms away. Once again the heat from the fire lifted the smoke high. A gentle westerly wind carried smoke before it came to ground around 600 metres away in East Croydon at around 9pm. Here air pollution reaching around 20 times average levels was measured until early the following day. Although the fires caused large air pollution peaks the UK health guidelines, based on exposure averaged over the whole day, were not exceeded.
Continue reading...Beijing set to become world's busiest aviation hub with new mega-airport
Beijing is moving to overtake London as the world's busiest aviation hub with the construction of a third airport that could have as many as nine runways.
The new mega-project – part of a huge expansion of China's airline industry – has alarmed environmental groups, who warn aircraft will increasingly contribute to the country's already dire pollution problems and high greenhouse gas emissions.
Continue reading...Underground river 'Rio Hamza' discovered 4km beneath the Amazon
Covering more than 7 million square kilometres in South America, the Amazon basin is one of the biggest and most impressive river systems in the world. But it turns out we have only known half the story until now.
Brazilian scientists have found a new river in the Amazon basin – around 4km underneath the Amazon river. The Rio Hamza, named after the head of the team of researchers who found the groundwater flow, appears to be as long as the Amazon river but up to hundreds of times wider.
Continue reading...Planet Earth is home to 8.7 million species, scientists estimate
• Damian Carrington: Counting the Earth's living riches is a landmark moment
Humans share the planet with as many as 8.7 million different forms of life, according to what is being billed as the most accurate estimate yet of life on Earth.
Researchers who have analysed the hierarchical categorisation of life on Earth to estimate how many undiscovered species exist say the diversity of life is not equally divided between land and ocean. Three-quarters of the 8.7m species – the majority of which are insects – are on land; only one-quarter, 2.2m, are in the deep, even though 70% of the Earth's surface is water.
Continue reading...North sea oil spill 'worst for a decade'
The flow of oil from the worst spill in UK waters in the past decade, at one of Shell's North Sea platforms, has been "greatly reduced" but not yet stopped completely, the government said on Monday.
Conservationists warned that the leak could harm bird life in the area, at a delicate time in their development, as the oil company worked to minimise the damage.
Continue reading...19th century cyclists paved the way for modern motorists' roads | Carlton Reid
Wooden hobbyhorses evolved into velocipedes; velocipedes evolved into safety bicycles; safety bicycles evolved into automobiles.
It's well known that the automotive industry grew from seeds planted in the fertile soil that was the late 19th century bicycle market. And to many motorists it's back in the 19th century that bicycles belong. Cars are deemed to be modern; bicycles are Victorian.
Continue reading...Aung San Suu Kyi: China's dam project in Burma is dangerous and divisive
Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of Burma's pro-democracy opposition, has called for a halt to a massive Chinese hydropower project on the Irrawaddy river that has alarmed environmentalists and added to a long-running conflict between tribal militias and the government in Rangoon.
The Nobel laureate stepped into the fray on Thursday with a personal statement calling for greater protection for Burma's most important river, which is threatened by logging, pollution and the construction of a cascade of at least seven dams, a project managed by China Power Investment.
Continue reading...Is it a cyclist's right to 'take the lane'? | Laura Laker
Ask any urban cyclist about "taking the lane", and even if they haven't heard of the term, they have probably done it. Although widely regarded as safe practice, this often gets negative responses from other road users. So who is right?
"Taking the lane" or taking "primary position" is essentially riding in the centre of the lane. Cyclists do it a) when passing parked cars whose doors may suddenly open; b) to prevent traffic overtaking dangerously in narrow roads and c) when manoeuvring or turning.
Continue reading...Escaping Silos – Paul Gilding Secured as Key Note speaker for SSEE 2011 Conference
Britain's richest man to build giant Arctic iron ore mine
Britain's richest man is planning a giant new opencast mine 300 miles inside the Arctic Circle in a bid to extract a potential $23bn (£14bn) worth of iron ore.
The "mega-mine" – which includes a 150km railway line and two new ports – is believed to be the largest mineral extraction project in the Arctic and highlights the huge commercial potential of the far north as global warming makes industrial development in the region easier.
Continue reading...Green groups bitterly divided over future of Chagos islanders | Fred Pearce
An American environment group with strong links to the US government is privately opposing proposals by leading British environmental scientists for some of the exiled inhabitants of the Chagos islands in the Indian Ocean to be allowed to return home.
The islanders were ejected by Britain 40 years ago to make way for the giant US base at the Diego Garcia atoll. Last year, the British government announced the creation of the world's largest marine protected area round most of the Chagos islands – with the likely exception of Diego Garcia.
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