‘Wise Men’ Kissinger, Baker Visit Moscow as Obama Resets Ties

“Mr. Dodd, all of us here at the policy making level of the foundation have at one time or another served in the OSS or the European Economic Administration, operating under directives from the White House. We operate under those same directives…The substance of the directives under which we operate is that we shall use our grant making power to so alter life in the United States that we can be comfortably merged with the Soviet Union.”

- Rowan Gaither, the President of the Ford Foundation, during a meeting with Norman Dodd, Research Director for the Reece Committee, 1953.

Former US Secretaries of State James Baker (L) and Henry Kissinger (R) attend the ceremonial swearing-in of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the State Department in Washington, February 2, 2009. Reuters Pictures

Kissinger is among a group of U.S. “wise men,” including former Secretary of State George Shultz, ex-Defense Secretary William Perry and former Senator Sam Nunn, who will see Medvedev on March 20, the Kommersant newspaper reported today. They will also meet with Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov and ex-Chief of General Staff Yury Baluyevsky, Kommersant said.

Bloomberg | Mar 18, 2009

By Lucian Kim

March 18 (Bloomberg) — Henry Kissinger and James Baker, two former U.S. secretaries of state, will fly to Moscow for talks with Russian officials after President Barack Obama pledged to “reset” relations with Russia.

Kissinger, who met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in December, is scheduled to return later this week, according to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. Baker, traveling separately, will hold talks with American investors and address a conference on developing Caspian Sea energy resources.

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“These guys are building the bridge from the real diplomacy of the Bush Sr. administration to Obama,” said Nina Khrushcheva, an international affairs professor at the New School in New York. “Diplomatically inclined Republicans can make a better opening line because they come from successful relations in the past.”

Obama, a Democrat, is seeking to strengthen ties to Russia and win Kremlin support for his policies on Afghanistan, Iran and nuclear arms reduction. Vice President Joe Biden said in February it was time to “reset” relations after they reached a post-Cold War low under former President George W. Bush.

Kissinger is among a group of U.S. “wise men,” including former Secretary of State George Shultz, ex-Defense Secretary William Perry and former Senator Sam Nunn, who will see Medvedev on March 20, the Kommersant newspaper reported today. They will also meet with Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov and ex-Chief of General Staff Yury Baluyevsky, Kommersant said.

London Meeting

Obama, who is expected to meet Medvedev for the first time in London next month, may visit Russia in July, the Moscow-based newspaper said, citing unidentified Russian government officials. The Kremlin press service declined to comment on the report.

Kissinger, Shultz, Perry and Nunn have co-authored opinion pieces in the Wall Street Journal calling for the reduction and eventual elimination of nuclear weapons. Perry has slammed Senator John McCain’s suggestion that Russia be kicked out of the Group of Eight industrial nations.

Baker served as secretary of state when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, heralding the disintegration of the Soviet Union two years later.

Last week, former senators Gary Hart and Chuck Hagel led a bipartisan commission to Moscow, meeting with Medvedev and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. In a report published afterwards, the commission recommended the U.S. “significantly improve our understanding of Russian interests as Russians themselves define them.”

‘Very Positive’

“The reception we received in Moscow was very, very positive,” Hart said in Washington at the March 16 presentation of the report. “This was a much, much different kind of exchange, in my experience anyway over 35 years, from what we used to have in the bad, old days.”

Medvedev yesterday said Russia must modernize its armed forces in response to the eastward expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. President George W. Bush’s administration supported NATO membership bids by former Soviet republics Georgia and Ukraine, exacerbating tensions with Moscow.

Brits Turn Off The Heating In Coldest Winter for 13 years

Southern Britain endured its coldest temperatures since 1991 – the country as a whole suffered its worst winter for 13 years

Recession-hit Brits layed off the gas this winter

Sky News | Feb 17, 2009

Demand for gas in the UK dropped this winter despite Britons shivering in the coldest weather for 13 years.

As blizzards battered the country, recession-hit Brits appeared to turn down the heating and break out the woolies.

Gas consumption fell by 4% from October to mid-December compared to the same time last year.

National Grid said people cutting down on spending because of the recession was to blame for the drop in demand.

“If you take out exports there has been a 4% drop in gas demand,” a National grid spokesman said.

“(The recession) is what we think is driving it.

“Across the winter so far, if you correct for weather, we have seen local distribution zone demand down 6% compared to last year.”

Freezing temperatures and snow storms have blanketed parts of the UK this year.

Southern Britain endured its coldest temperatures since 1991 – the country as a whole suffered its worst winter for 13 years – while Aviemore in the Scottish Highlands recorded -18.4C (-1.1F).

The snow and freezing temperatures should have raised demand for gas.

National Grid said many industries that use gas as a raw material had cut back on consumption because of falling demand for their own goods.

Psychiatrists warn extreme environmental awareness creating a generation of “carborexics”

Dark green fanatics strive toward “zero consumption”

Psychiatrists in the United States are warning that extreme environmental awareness may be creating a generation of “carborexics”.

Telegraph | Oct 20, 2008

Dark Green ‘carborexics’: The obsessive generation of extreme environmental activists

By Tom Leonard in New York

A new survey claims that seven per cent of Americans now qualify as “dark green”, hard core recyclers and carbon footprint worriers. But it is unclear whether some of their behaviour qualifies as eco-leadership or bordering on the obsessive-compulsive.

A report in the New York Times found evidence of all manner of lifestyles that might be considered carborexic. Dark green activities in the US include running cars on waste vegetable oil and using one’s lawn as a bathroom to save water. Others sleep en masse to reduce heating bills.

Sharon Astyk, a farmer in New York state, is using a special calculator to reduce her family’s energy consumption to 10 per cent of the national average.

She and her husband grow almost all their own produce, keep chickens and turkeys, and spend less than £500 on consumer goods each year, most of which are second-hand.

Their four children often sleep in a huddle to conserve body heat. Miss Astyk said she was aware that some neighbours regarded them as “energy anorexics” but said their attitude had softened as energy prices had risen.

Anita Lavine and Joe Turcotte, a couple in Seattle, reuse the same Ziploc bag for a year.

When her two small children return from kindergarten, Miss Lavine scrubs the bag that held their soiled clothes and biodegradable nappies so she can use them the next day.

She keeps the thermostat in their home at 60 degrees Fahrenheit and is about to acquire three chickens to enhance the family’s recycling and self-sufficiency.

“My friends think I’m the craziest person,” she said.

Jay Matsueda, a Californian, runs his Mercedes on waste oil from a local restaurant and gives reusable bamboo cutlery as presents so people do not need to take plastic cutlery from takeaways.

He occasionally relieves himself on his lawn to “save a flush”, he told the newspaper.

David Chameides, a Los Angeles cameraman, is collecting all the waste he accumulates in a year in his basement and writing about it regularly on an internet blog.

But some mental health experts are worried. “If you can’t have something in your house that isn’t green or organic… if you’re criticising friends because they’re not living up to your standards of green, that’s a problem,” said Elizabeth Carl, a psychologist and specialist in obsessive-compulsive disorders.

Dr Jack Hirschowitz, a New York psychiatrist, said such behaviour qualified as a disorder if it was taking precedence over everything else in the subject’s life.

David Zucker, a sustainability specialist at Porter Novelli, a PR company which has studied America’s “dark greens”, said they were inordinately influential over other people’s behaviour.

He said the “deepest dark greens” were “bordering on the fanatic”, adding: “They’re pushing towards a lifestyle of zero consumption”.

He added: “You know Americans. We take everything to an extreme.”

Cuba claims massive oil reserves

The state-owned Cuban oil company says the country may have more than 20bn barrels of oil in its offshore fields – more than double the previous estimate.

If correct, Cuba’s oil reserves would be almost the same as those of the US.

BBC | Oct 17, 2008

Cubapetroleo’s exploration manager said drilling in the offshore wells would begin as early as the middle of 2009.

Such reserves would place Cuba among the top 20 oil producing nations.

Cubapetroleo’s estimates are based on comparisons to known oil reserves found within similar geological structures off the coasts of the US and Mexico.

The company said Cuba had undersea geology “very similar” to that surrounding Mexico’s giant Cantarell and Poza Rica oil fields in the Bay of Campeche.

‘More data’

Cuba’s share of the Gulf of Mexico was established in 1977, when it signed treaties with the US and Mexico.

The US Geological Survey (USGS) recently estimated that as much as 9bn barrels of oil and 21 trillion cubic feet of natural gas could lie within that zone, in the North Cuba Basin.

However, Cubapetroleo exploration manager Rafael Tenreyro Perez said his company’s estimate was higher because it had better information about Cuba’s offshore geology.

“I’m almost certain that if [USGS officials] ask for all the data we have, their estimate is going to grow considerably,” he told a news conference in the capital, Havana.

If correct, Cuba’s oil reserves would be almost the same as those of the US – 21bn barrels, according to the Oil & Gas Journal – and nearly twice the size of Mexico’s – 11.7bn barrels.

It could generate unprecedented wealth for the Communist-run state.

Mr Tenreyro said he expected the first production well to be drilled before the middle of next year by a consortium led by the Spanish oil company, Repsol, and that more wells could be started before 2010.

Cuba currently produces 60,000 barrels of oil a day.

It depends on Venezuela for an additional 93,000 barrels a day, which it receives at preferential rates in exchange for the services of thousands of Cuban doctors working in Venezuela.

Energy superpower rises out of the Caspian Basin

The fields may have a minimum 4 trillion cubic meters of gas and as much as a staggering 14 trillion cubic meters.

Asia Times | Oct 17, 2008

By M K Bhadrakumar

Turkmenistan knows better than any other country that predators will go to any extent to take away its valuable possessions. Five successive empires – Scythian, Parthian, Ywati, Hun and Turkmen – invaded the area to locate the “Akhal” oasis nestled in the foothills of the Kopet Dag mountains in southern Turkmenistan, and laid waste everything that came across their way until they could take away the treasured Akhal-Teke horses as spoils of war.

The ancient race of Akhal-Teke horses, dating to 2,400 BC, were much fancied for their elegance, strength, stamina and beauty. Alexander the Great apparently took away with him hundreds of these horses as prized trophies during his campaign in Central Asia.

So Turkmenistan’s collective memory will be stirred by the announcement on Monday that the country may have in the Yoloten-Osman deposits one of the world’s four or five largest gas fields.

British consultancy firm Gaffney, Cline & Associates (GCA), making the announcement in Ashgabat regarding the first results of its audit of Turkmen gas reserves, said its low estimate under the established international and classification system is that the fields may have a minimum 4 trillion cubic meters of gas and as much as a staggering 14 trillion cubic meters.

This catapults Yoloten-Osman, in the southeast of the country, to the status of Turkmenistan’s No 1 gas field, overtaking even the fabulous Dowalatabad, whose reserves it will exceed by at least five times. It should be kept in mind that many other of Turkmenistan’s many gas fields have yet to be fully explored, and the GCA has just made its initial findings known.

Without doubt, Turkmenistan is closing its gap with Russia and Iran, hitherto listed as having the world’s largest and second-largest gas reserves at 48 trillion cubic meters and 26 billion cubic meters, respectively. If the GCA results are confirmed, Turkmenistan will have reserves just 20% lower than that of Russia and outstrip Iran by far.

It seems the late Turkmenistan president Saparmurat Niyazov stands vindicated. Just before he died in December 2006, Niyazov remarked that Turkmenistan held reserves that were adequate to export 150 billion cubic meters (BCM) of gas for the next 250 years. The world, including the then visiting German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, didn’t take Niyazov’s statement seriously.

In March, Niayov’s successor, Gurbanguly Berdimukhamedov, ordered the GCA audit to clear doubts about Turkmenbashi’s controversial claim. In a British understatement, GCA manager Jim Gillet said in Ashgabat, “Given the huge gas reserves, it is now clear that whatever the results of any final clarification, I can confirm that there is more than sufficient gas to fulfill Turkmenistan’s existing contract commitments.” Turkmenistan has contracts to supply Russia with around 50 bcm annually, China with 40 bcm and with Iran 8 bcm.

Without doubt, the maths of energy security is being reset. October 13 will stand out as a watershed in the race for Caspian energy. Like the shy Akhal-Teke, Turkmenistan comes from behind and surges ahead on the race tracks, captivating the world audience, especially the main wagerers – Russian, European, Chinese and the ubiquitous Americans. For these seasoned hands betting on the race track, this will also be pari-mutuel wagering, as the French would say, meaning “among ourselves”, with betting against each other and not against the race track.

Turkmenistan is undoubtedly a vital partner for Russia in gas supplies. The two countries have an agreement regarding gas prices and the volume of gas supplies for 2007-2009. Ashgabat has been extracting higher and higher prices from Russia for its gas supplies. The price was raised to $100 per 1,000 cubic meters last year from the level of $65. Then it was further raised to $130 for January-June 2008 and to $150 in the second half of 2008.

Ashgabat has been playing on the nerves of Russian energy giant Gazprom and its desperate need for Turkmen gas to meet its export obligations in the European market, which accounts for 70% of the Russian company’s total revenue at the moment. Gazprom sells close to two-thirds of Russia’s 550 bcm annual gas production in the rapidly growing domestic market, which compels it to secure Turkmen supplies to meet the contracted European commitments.

Russian newspaper Kommersant made an innocuous-sounding reference on Wednesday, quoting a source in Gazprom to the effect that the Russian monopoly’s famous July 25 agreement with Turkmengaz does not involve Yoloten-Osman. It seems, in other words, that Russia held in its hands a chimera when it fancied that the July 25 agreement put Gazprom in complete charge of all of Turkmenistan’s exports. Surely, that is proving to be a misconception of Himalayan proportions.

For Russia, arguably, the game now starts all over again. First and foremost, it is no longer the superpower in the world of natural gas as was widely regarded until last weekend. Turkmenistan is, unquestionably, also a gas superpower of comparable muscle power to Russia.

Again, Russia will need to come terms with a “multipolar” world of gas-producing countries. It needs to revisit its entire strategy toward consolidating a world gas market. The prospect of a gas cartel – a gas OPEC – materializing any time soon now recedes into the far background. There will be disappointment in Tehran that the idea will have to be thrown out of the window, but a collective sigh of relief can be heard in European capitals.

More important, Russia will have to rework its bonding with its Central Asian partners. Turkmenistan was a vital link in the Moscow-led energy chain of Central Asia’s leading gas-producing countries – the others being Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Last year, Russia worked out plans – involving Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan – for a gas pipeline along the Caspian Sea’s eastern coast for handling Turkmenistan’s anticipated exports. In September, during Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s visit to Tashkent, Uzbekistan agreed to the Russian plan for an expansion of the Central Asian gas pipeline system for handling anticipated Turkmen gas exports.

These initiatives were predicated on the assumption that Russia must gear up to handle all of Turkmen gas exports. During last year, Russia gained rights over the gas exports of Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan on the basis of its offer to make purchases at “European prices”. The entire economics and logistics behind these complicated webs of Russian gas diplomacy in Central Asia now require updating – and rapid updating since, unlike previously, Russia’s competitors by now know its tactics and work ethics and there is consequently now no more surprise element.

The immediate Russian concern will be regarding the Nabucco gas pipeline proposal mooted by the European Union and backed by the United States as an energy project that would somewhat reduce Europe’s dependence on Russian gas supplies. Nabucco envisages the dispatch of Caspian gas to the European market via an energy hub in Turkey bypassing Russian territory. Nabucco’s viability depends on access to Turkmen (or Iranian) gas supplies.

With GCA’s announcement on Monday, the doubts have been dispelled at least in one direction – Turkmenistan indeed does have the capacity to feed Nabucco with all the gas it needs. This comes at an awkward time for Moscow when its rival project, South Stream, which aims at further tying up the European market with Russian gas supplies, is struggling to take off.

Nabucco will give South Stream a run for its money. If it materializes, it could also be a setback for the broader thrust of Russian diplomacy, which in the past two years has aimed at cultivating the countries in the southern tier of the European market – Austria, Italy, Greece and the Balkan and Central European countries. There is already immense pressure from the US on the South Stream’s transit countries to back off from far-reaching energy collaboration with Russia.

Geopolitics is just one step behind. Russia hoped to temper the eastward expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s expansion and the US designs to roll back the Russian presence in the Black Sea region by working out a system of energy dependence with the US’s allies in the region. Moscow recently offered a $4 billion loan to Ukraine for establishing two nuclear power plants in its western region. This is despite the pro-US stance of Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko.

Moscow’s strategy was working well. In a telling remark on Tuesday, at a joint press conference with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, president of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso virtually acknowledged the effectiveness of the Russian diplomacy in Europe. He said that if the EU is moving toward resuming negotiations with Russia on a new partnership deal even in the aftermath of the Caucasus conflict, that was not a “gift” for Russia but because it was in the interests of Europe. He said EU had economic, financial and investment interests to safeguard and needed to work out cooperation with Moscow in maintaining energy security.

“I think it is in the interest of the EU to keep the dialogue with Russia to promote stability in Europe,” Barroso underlined in a virtual snub to the US doctrine of isolating Russia over the Caucasus crisis.

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Pint-Size Eco-Police, Making Parents Proud and Sometimes Crazy

NY Times | Oct 9, 2008

By LISA W. FODERARO

Sometimes, Jennifer Ross feels she cannot make a move at home without inviting the scorn of her daughters, 10-year-old Grace and 7-year-old Eliza. The Acura MDX she drives? A flagrant polluter. The bath at night to help her relax? A wasteful indulgence. The reusable shopping bags she forgot, again? Tsk, tsk.

“I have very, very environmentally conscious children — more so than me, I’m embarrassed to say,” said Ms. Ross, a social worker in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. “They’re on my case about getting a hybrid car. They want me to replace all the light bulbs in the house with energy-saving bulbs.”

Ms. Ross’s children are part of what experts say is a growing army of “eco-kids” — steeped in environmentalism at school, in houses of worship, through scouting and even via popular culture — who try to hold their parents accountable at home. Amid their pride in their children’s zeal for all things green, the grown-ups sometimes end up feeling like scofflaws under the watchful eye of the pint-size eco-police, whose demands grow ever greater, and more expensive.

They pore over garbage bins in search of errant recyclables. They lobby for solar panels. And, in a generational about-face, they turn off the lights after their parents leave empty rooms.

“Kids have really turned into the little conscience sitting in the back seat,” said Julia Bovey, a spokeswoman for the Natural Resources Defense Council, a leading environmental group that recently worked with Nickelodeon on a series of public service announcements and other programming called “Big Green Help.”

“One of the fascinating things about children is that they don’t separate what you are doing from what you should be doing,” Ms. Bovey said. “Here’s this information about how we can help the environment, and kids are not able to rationalize it away the way that adults do.”

In Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, Jan Schmidt, a stay-at-home mother, and Mark Goetz, a professor of furniture design, have watched, amazed, as their 4-year-old son chastises them for letting the water run while they brush their teeth. “He’ll come over and turn it off and say, ‘Every day is Earth Day,’ ” Ms. Schmidt said. “He learned it at school.”

Their older child, 12-year-old Elly, extols the clothesline in her bedroom the way other girls her age might show off a new beanbag chair. An aspiring marine biologist, Elly raised $250 last year to protect coral reefs by selling handmade earrings at school. And she was a big factor in the family’s decision to hang on to their current car instead of buying a bigger one.

“With Elly, there’s sort of an unspoken thing about not buying an S.U.V.,” Ms. Schmidt said.

Elly elaborated: “I wouldn’t be happy if they bought an S.U.V. because they’re not fuel efficient, and they pollute more than other cars.”

They learn this stuff everywhere. In the summer, the Pixar film “Wall-E” served up an ecological parable of a planet so punished that it had to be abandoned. The Girl Scouts recently added patches including “Environmental Health,” “Get With the Land,” “Earth Pact” and “Water Drop.” Scholastic, the global children’s publishing, education and media company, has teamed up with the American Museum of Natural History to create Web sites and magazines about climate change and other environmental issues.

A Scholastic message board where children share eco-friendly tips, called Save the Planet, has had three million page views in the past year.

And school districts across the country are adding lessons on the environment to their curriculums in many subject areas, as well as enforcing idle-free zones in school driveways, switching to plant-based cleaners, doing away with pesticides and, in some places, installing solar panels.

In the Byram Hills School District in Armonk, N.Y., middle-school teachers plan to roll out new material related to the environment starting in January.

“We’re trying to integrate it into anything where it naturally fits,” said Jackie Taylor, the district’s superintendent. “It might be in a math lesson. How much water are you really using? How can you tell? Teachers look for avenues in almost everything they teach.”

Katie Ginsberg, co-founder and executive director of the Children’s Environmental Literacy Foundation, a nonprofit group in Chappaqua, N.Y., has trained hundreds of teachers from Massachusetts to New Jersey in issues of sustainability and environmental science. More than 1,500 students attended the group’s annual expo, Students for a Sustainable Future, at Pace University this spring.

“In 2002, the environmental education children were getting was very isolated,” Ms. Ginsberg said. “It was emphasized mainly on Earth Day and an occasional field trip to a nature center. We started looking for different paradigms of environmental education around the world.”

But the green initiatives in schools have not been universally embraced. Some critics say such lessons are a distraction as districts struggle to meet minimum standards on math and reading tests. Others say turning children into stewards of the environment is an inappropriate use of taxpayer money.

And even parents who are impressed by their children’s commitment to remake the world can also sometimes feel, well, badgered. Paul Wyckoff, a writer in Hunterdon County, N.J., said his 15-year-old son, Will, yells at him for “leaving the car idling for a few seconds in the driveway.” He has even taken to turning off nightlights to save energy.

“My philosophy is get the big stuff,” Mr. Wyckoff said. “I think he takes it too far. But I’m proud of him. I think he’ll moderate with age.”

Given that children often lack a sense of social boundaries, things can get sticky when their haranguing extends beyond the home. Liz DiVittorio, of Raleigh, N.C., a mother of three, recalled walking with her 10-year-old son, Michael, this summer after a rainstorm and seeing a neighbor running his sprinkler.

“My son looked at him and said, ‘Why are you watering your lawn? It just rained,’ ” said Ms. DiVittorio, who works for a software company. “I sat there and cringed.”

For middle schoolers, money is fairly abstract — and therefore no object. Sarah Hodder and Dr. Peter Allen of Chappaqua have three boys, the oldest of whom, Charles, 10, is itching to go solar.

“Any time we pass a house with solar panels, he says, ‘Why can’t we do that?’ ” said Ms. Hodder, co-chairwoman of the Roaring Brook Elementary School Environmental Committee. “I always say, ‘Talk to Daddy.’ A lot of these steps are cost-prohibitive, although ultimately in the long run they’re good for the environment and the wallet.”

Ms. Hodder said that in the short term, she and her husband are making more modest changes, with the children’s support, like turning down the heat, composting, walking to school and “not buying so much stuff.” But as enthusiastic as Ms. Hodder is about protecting the environment, the children seize on her lapses, as when Peapod delivers the groceries in plastic bags.

“They’ll say, ‘Mom, I thought we weren’t supposed to use plastic bags,’ ” she said.

Douglas and Alison Distefano, of Rumson, N.J., who have two children, dubbed their fifth grader, Olivia, “the recycling militant general.”

“For us, Earth Day is a reason to go outside,” said Mr. Distefano, an executive with Soltage, a solar energy company. “But for them it’s a religious holiday.”

Ann Tedesco, a psychologist in Armonk, said her daughter Celeste, 9, “is always policing the regular garbage bins to make sure we’re not throwing paper away in there,” adding: “She particularly enjoys catching her older sister.”

Dr. Tedesco’s husband, Rick Alimonti, a lawyer, recalled how their son, Lucas, 7, kept reminding him to turn off the engine while waiting outside school.

“I was only idling for a minute, and I explained that it uses more gas and pollutes the atmosphere more to turn the engine off and back on again,” he said. “I looked it up afterward to make sure I wasn’t exaggerating.”

He was in the clear: Several blogs asserted that idling for a minute or less is preferable to shutting off and restarting the engine.

Traditional lightbulbs banned by EU

Incandescent filament light bulbs use up to five times as much energy as efficient lights Photo: GETTY IMAGES

Traditional light bulbs are to be banned from 2010, EU energy ministers have decided.

Telegraph | Oct 10, 2008

By Louise Gray

The high energy filament bulbs are being phased out in order to improve energy efficiency and meet climate change targets.

The switchover, which will affect all of the European Union’s 500 million citizens, was first ordered at a Brussels summit last year as part of an ambitious energy policy to fight climate change.

A meeting of EU energy ministers, including the UK’s new secretary of state for energy and climate change Ed Miliband decided to go ahead with the ban.

The move has previously proved controversial.

Traditional light bulbs are around 38p compared to £1.38 for the cheapest low energy models and campaigners have complained about affordability, as well as the cost of having to adapt fittings for the new bulbs.

The fluorescent bulbs generally take time to warm up and there have been complaints the light is too dim and has a tendency to flicker.

There are also worries over how the bulbs will be disposed of. Under new regulations for hazardous waste, councils are obliged to recycle low energy bulbs at considerable cost to the tax payer.

Incandescent filament light bulbs use up to five times as much energy as efficient lights such as “compact fluorescent lamps” (CFLs).

Advocates claim that replacing the worst-performing lamps with today’s best available technology will reduce domestic energy consumption for lighting by 60 per cent in the EU, equivalent to saving 30 million tons of CO2 pollution every year.

However questions remain over the cost, health impact and aesthetic quality of the new low-energy fluorescent bulbs.

There have been concerns low energy bulbs can cause headaches, rashes and even sunburn. If the bulbs break the toxic mecury inside can cause migraine and dizziness. The bulbs are also too big for some old-fashioned fittings, can look out of place in historic homes and are generally more expensive – although the EU has vowed cost will come down before 2010.

The Health Protection Agency warned consumers they should not stay close to open energy saving bulbs for more than an hour.

Environmental groups welcomed the ruling.

Mariangiola Fabbri , World Wildlife Fund energy policy officer, said legislation is needed to ensure energy efficiency.

She said: “Keeping energy efficiency as an optional tool will not lead us towards the much needed 30 per cent greenhouse gas emission reduction by 2020.”

Energy ministers also discussed the controversial target to generate 20 per cent of energy from renewables by 2020 at the meeting. The UK has argued that aviation should be removed from the target because it is not yet possible to run aeroplanes on renewables and it could ground the industry. But most other EU ministers at the meeting agreed aviation should remain part of the target.

The EU council is due to meet next week to discuss the target to reduce carbon emission by 20 per cent by 2020. Previously the EU had pledged this will be increased to 30 per cent as long as the rest of the developed world does the same.

But environmentalists fear this pledge will be dropped in the light of the economic crisis, scuppering hoped of an ambitious world target at the UN climate change talks planned for Copenhagen next year.

Go to a climate party — change your lifestyle

The movement Climate Action has grown explosively since the start in May 2008, which shows that people are passionate about climate change. Photo: www.klimataktion.se

Sweden.Se | Oct 3, 2008

by: Christine Demsteader

Open your front door to friends and the future of the planet. The climate party is the new Tupperware party in Sweden, where the only thing on offer is a change of lifestyle.

It’s a Saturday afternoon in the Stockholm suburbs and Eva Brandtell has invited six friends over to her place for a party. In the last year, Eva has become increasingly aware of the threat to the environment, having seen the climate change debate hitting the headlines in newspapers and on TV.

Eager to find out more, she’s throwing a climate party, with coffee, cake and a portion of planet saving on the side. Tomas Walch — IT consultant, campaigner and brains behind the idea — introduces himself: “Hi, my name is Tomas,” he says. “I’m a fossil fuel addict.”
Spreading the word

The causes and effects of global warming are on the agenda with the underlying message that it’s time to act now.

“The climate party is a very powerful way of getting the message through,” Walch says. “It’s personal, through somebody you trust; a friend who has invited you to her/his home.

“People are open-minded and prepared to listen. It’s not only about encouraging people to adopt a new lifestyle but influencing them to spread the word.”

Only 10 minutes into his presentation and the guests are already responding: “So what can I do to help?” one climate partygoer asks.

Power to the people

Walch’s diary is filling up with party requests, especially since he joined forces with the recently formed Swedish movement Climate Action (Klimataktion).

Lina Hjort, a Stockholm mother of two and Climate Action board member, promotes the climate party idea. “Climate Action is about activating people and these parties are a good example of the way the organization works,” she says.

“Having kids is perhaps one reason why I got involved. It’s about what kind of planet we give to our next generation.”

Climate party goers listen attentively to Tomas Walch preaching about a greener lifestyle. Photo: Lars Epstein / Scanpix

Formed in May 2008 by a group of like-minded people, Climate Action is a non-religious, non-partisan organization, founded by the people, for the people.

“It’s important that everyone feels they have a place in this movement, regardless of background, profession or age,” Hjort says. “It’s doesn’t matter how many books you have read or how knowledgeable you are. What matters is that you have passion and want to do something about climate change.”

The grass roots group has grown rapidly into a national network, with 16 local branches spread around the country. On a local level, Climate Action is working toward influencing policy change in transportation and infrastructure. Operational groups have been set up in areas such as energy, city planning and traffic and information sharing. Collectively, the aim is to lobby policymakers on a national level to achieve further carbon emission cuts and the introduction of a climate budget.

“It’s early days, but our first achievement is probably that we have grown so quickly and we have a truly diverse membership,” Hjort says. “It proves there was a need for this kind of movement.”
Grass roots are greener

Climate Action achieved early recognition through a petition in a national newspaper, when 56 scientists, journalists and commentators pledged to support their cause.

Katarina Eckerberg, professor in political science at Umeå University and deputy director at the Stockholm Environment Institute, signed up. “I sympathize with what the movement is doing and, as a citizen, I also want to make my voice heard,” she says.

Many parents want to be able to offer their kids a climate friendlier future.

“If you really want change, the local level is the place to start. It’s necessary for politicians to listen and take action, and I believe this kind of bottom-up organizations can really make a difference.

“Newspapers are full of information about consequences, but not the solutions. This is a way for people to find solutions and act on them.”

Waste of energy

Yet, parts of the scientific community have a different opinion on the matter. According to Lars Franzén, professor in physical geography at the University of Gothenburg, the media is doing society a disservice.

“The media are simply adding to the hysteria, blaming everything on climate change,” he says. “And here in Sweden, people have a conscience about environmental problems and feel the need to act.”

Franzén believes the hype is part of a misleading, global political agenda and lack of energy is the burning issue. “Fossil fuels as an energy resource are not endless,” Franzén says. “Politicians need us to stop consuming them, and the trigger they are using is climate change.”

However controversial an issue, climate change continues to be widely debated, reported on and acted upon in Sweden. Climate change has even become the reason for a rather unconventional celebration, the climate party.

China marches past USA to stake claim to Iraqi oil

China has secured Baghdad’s first post-Saddam Hussein oil deal by reviving a 1997 concession to exploit reserves on the al-Ahdab field south of the capital.

Telegraph | Sep 7, 2008

By Damien McElroy in Acre, Iraq

The two countries are expected to formally sign an agreement later this month that will earn the state-controlled China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) a fixed price for every barrel it produces in Iraq.

While China opposed the Iraq war and stood back from post-war rebuilding, Beijing has quietly outflanked its global rivals to grab a large slice of Iraq’s oil industry. The pioneers of its overseas quest for fuel are already exploring vast tracts in the Kurdish north of the war-torn nation.

With an extensive foothold in the only part of the country where new oil wells have been built since 2003, Chinese firms are already believed to have more personnel than their American rivals.

America contested every step of China’s drive to expand its oil industry in central Asia and Africa for more than a decade, viewing the push overseas as a boost for Beijing’s diplomatic standing.

Beijing’s success in the latest battleground represents a double blow for Washington whose troops are still fighting daily for Iraq’s security. With the return of stability, Baghdad hopes that its output can triple to six million barrels per day.

The latest Chinese outpost on the ground is a mountain camp pitched 1,400 metres above sea-level by CNPC, which has signed a contract to conduct the exploration of a 44 x 12 mile tract. The sensitivity of the Chinese presence is betrayed by the camp’s heavy fortifications. It is overlooked by watchtowers and surrounded by a square earth berm.

Scientists in the 100-strong team only leave to conduct surveys in heavily-armed convoys. Fierce-looking members of the Surchi, a notorious local tribe, stand guard at the gate.

The chief CNPC geologist at the site, Chao Shu-he exudes a missionary zeal. “The Chinese have opened the door to co-operation,” said Mr Chao. “China is more and more developed and it’s our patriotic duty to contribute to development, even if we are far from home.”

Oil executives complain that China is the only big country prepared to work in Iraq. DNO, a Norwegian firm that produces 10,000 barrels a day in Kurdistan, said it solicited “dozens” of well-known firms before signing a drilling contract with another Chinese firm, Great Wall Drilling.
“The Chinese are strong in service contracts but not in exploration rights,” said Asti Hawrami, the Kurdish oil minister. “They are not taking on the risks but they are playing a strong, important role in the industry.”

“China wants security of oil supply but they also want a finger in every pie,” said Paul Stevens, an expert at Chatham House. “The Chinese now sit like death’s head at the feast, waiting for the slightest chance to get into Iraq.”

Clifford Chance, the international law firm, reported last month that up to 30 billion barrels of oil lies beneath the Kurdish territories, where fire worship around the pools of crude at the surface has a long tradition.

Such estimates have drawn a rush of wildcat firms but, because of a political dispute between the regional government and Baghdad, big American and British oil firms are notably absent.

Western majors have been warned off by threats from Hussein al-Shahristani, the Baghdad oil minister, to blackball firms seeking production in the north. However that injunction does not appear to have applied to CNPC.

As the American military presence in Iraq shrinks, the al-Ahdab deal is one of a host of signs that Beijing is well-placed to rival US ties to post-war Iraq.

An affinity with Chairman Mao Zedong, a leader who killed 10 times as many as the vilified Saddam, drew President Jalal Talabani to China last year. But when President Talabani paid $100 million for Chinese-made Kalashnikov rifles, America was so displeased it sent all Iraqi security forces on a training programme to use US M4 rifles.

Carbon Neutral Pyramid to House 1 Million People

The Ziggurat Pyramid will stand 1.2 kilometres in height and cover 2.3 square kilometres in area

Biometrics (facial and fingerprint scanning) security will be used throughout the pyramid

Dubai Express | Aug 21, 2008

Eco-wonder: The Pyramid city

By Derek Baldwin, Senior Reporter

A proposed pyramid city for the Dubai desert will stand 1.2 kilometres in height, dwarfing the Burj Dubai – the tallest tower in the world – by hundreds of metres.

The solar-powered pyramid project – dubbed Ziggurat after the ancient Mayan pyramids – was announced this week by Timelinks, an eco-design firm that plans to unveil the engineering wonder at Cityscape Dubai later this year.

If completed, it’s expected to be the largest man-made residential structure on the planet, with its foundation covering more than two square kilometres.

“The pyramid will be more than a kilometre tall and will house one million people inside,” a source close to the project told XPRESS. “It will be completely self-sustainable.”

Nature power

Using solar and wind power, the mega structure will create its internal weather. Steam generated from solar power and collected through photovoltaic cell panels on the pyramid’s exterior might well be piped from the ground level to the uppermost heights of the pyramid’s interior and then released, instantly turning into rain, which may then fall on the lush garden communities inside the pyramid.

An eco system, full of vegetation, mild temperatures and regular rainfall, may make this a highly marketable city for people living in dry desert conditions.

In a statement, Ridas Matonis, Timelinks Managing Director, said: “Communities [Ziggurat] can be almost totally self-sufficient energy-wise. Apart from using steam power in the building, we will also employ wind turbine technology to harness natural energy resources.”

Matonis said the pyramid project requires 90 per cent less land than a traditional city. “Cities can be accommodated in complexes that take up less than 10 per cent of the original land surface. Public and private landscaping will be used for leisure pursuits or irrigated as agricultural land.”

Not a pipe dream

“Timelinks has patented the design and technology incorporated into the project and has applied to the European Union for a grant for technical projects,” the firm said. “A number of eminent professors will be on hand to explain the technicalities of how the Ziggurat project works and how these communities can be integrated in master projects.”

Fast facts

•     The Ziggurat Pyramid will stand 1.2 kilometres in height and cover 2.3 square kilometres in area

•     The design means that it might use 90 per cent less of a footprint than a traditional city hosting one million people

•     Biometrics (facial and fingerprint scanning) security will be used throughout the pyramid

•     No cars will be needed because the pyramid will have its own internal transport network