I admit it is hard to keep your head cool when you read such news, and this despite having discovered the power of positive psychology. To a new study the world has lost ten percent of its wilderness in as little as 25 tiny years…
Conservation
Fighting the drought, water efficiency in California
For our Economics classes at Pinchot last year, I – with a few friends and classmates – worked on water in California. My part was focusing on the inefficiency and the leaks occuring in the State. The findings are quite unsettling.
New Caledonia and France create huge Marine Protected Area
More good news people ! New Caledonia – and France – are creating a marine protected area (MPA) of huge size : 1.3 million square kilometers : the parc naturel de la mer de Corail.
This park will be amongst the largest MPAs in the world. Thanks to that, 16 percent of the waters under French jurisdiction are now under an MPAs status, compared to just four percent before.
The management and the financing will be done by the local government, while France will care about the security and police of this critical hot spot for biodiversity.
Conservation goes forward in Indonesia
According to the Guardian a million hectares – 10,000 square kilometers – of rainforests in Indonesia should be conserved thanks to plans by Asian Pulp and Paper, one of the world’s biggest paper companies. While this sounds nice, green groups such as Greenpeace said it won’t stop loggers from deforesting the area. An explanation of this is that the company didn’t … Read more
Japan replaced half of its nuclear reactors by efficiency
We have seen it many times over, energy efficiency is a key component to the energy transition, alongside with renewable energy sources. Energy sobriety / conservation is another often overlooked tool.
As I was reporting all the way back to 2011, after Fukushima, Japan had cut by 15 percent its power usage thanks to conservation measures between 9 a.m. and 8 p.m. on weekdays to prevent blackouts.
According to Climate Progress : ” Japan has managed to replace half its missing nuclear power capacity through energy efficiency and conservation measures that endure three years later. “
Buenos Aires switches to LED lights, saves money
The capital city of Argentina, Buenos Aires, have switched its 125,000 streetlights to LED. This will cut energy consumption by half and will last five times longer. With 13 million inhabitants, it is the second largest city in South America.
To TreeHugger : ” That’s just one city. It’s estimated that if cities around the world made a switch to LED tech like Buenos Aires, savings would add up to €130 billion ($180 billion) in reduced energy costs each year. “
” It would also prevent 670 million tons of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere each year. Not bad for streetlamps! ” This just shows that energy efficiency works.
United States on an energy conservation quest
President Obama is willing to save his country a lot of money : $40 billion, or around 30 billion euros, annually. These huge sums of money equal to reducing energy use in commercial buildings 20 percent by 2020. As Elisa Wood wrote on Cleantechies : ” To achieve the goal, the Obama administration in 2011 … Read more
WWF : Stop wildlife crime
According to the WWF : ” In 50 years of conservation, we have never seen wildlife crime on such a scale. Wildlife crime is now the most urgent threat to three of the world’s best-loved species—elephants, rhinos and tigers. “ ” The global value of illegal wildlife trade is between $7.8 and $10 billion per … Read more
France unveils measures to decrease energy use
Here is another post I wrote for Cleantechies, this time on energy conservation : ” Even after the election of François Hollande as President of France, an energy conservation measure of the previous government will be implemented.” ” The Sarkozy government wanted to require shops and offices to turn off their unnecessary lights at nights. … Read more
The importance of good insulation
My current apartment in Valenciennes – Northern France – is located in a recent building (2000). And far from me the idea of bragging, but until temperatures dropped below zero (Celcius) I almost didn’t not use my electric heaters.
My flat has double glazing windows and quite well insulated thick walls. The thermometer located in my flat indicates 19°C indoors while we are nearing zero outdoors, and this with little to no heating.
This is empirical proof that good thermal insulation – or weatherproofing – not only works but also saves a LOT of money as you just use little to no heating.
A $370 billion idea for European buildings
Here we go again with a brand new article on Cleantechies. This time, we focus on one of my favorite topics : insulating buildings with a new study on the very matter. Here is the introduction : ” According to a new study presented by the Renovate Europe Campaign, weatherizing European buildings in an important … Read more