Celsias Expert Articles

Sweden recycles so well it needs more trash

When it comes to recycling, Sweden is incredibly successful. Just four percent of household waste in Sweden goes into landfills. The rest winds up either recycled or used as fuel in waste-to-energy power plants.

Burning the garbage in the incinerators generates 20 percent of Sweden’s district heating, a system of distributing heat by pumping heated water into pipes through residential and commercial buildings. It also provides electricity for a quarter of a million homes.

According to Swedish Waste Management, Sweden recovers the most energy from each ton of waste in the waste to energy plants, and energy recovery from ...

IPCC 5 in Haiku.

Amazing what the bout of the flu can do. International climate scientist Gregory Johnson, who co-authored the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 5th report, which came out in September, has simplified the 2000 page preview report into 19 illustrated haiku.

I feel I understand it better now!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0McGUF9hc0

Russian parliament gives amnesty to 'Arctic 30'

The Greenpeace activists who spent two months in jail after a peaceful protest in the Arctic have expressed relief after the Russian parliament voted to grant them amnesty. But they also declared: “There is no amnesty for the Arctic.”

The Duma today voted for an amendment that extends an amnesty decree to defendants who have been charged with hooliganism. It therefore includes the Arctic 30 - the 28 activists and two freelance journalists who were arrested following a peaceful protest at a Gazprom-operated Arctic oil platform three months ago today. There will be a final vote at 4pm Moscow time, but ...

Increased energy efficiency in China could “strand” Australian mining projects

The Chinese government is pushing manufacturers, and in particular, steelmakers, to be more energy efficient, reducing demand for Australian coal. Image: Johannes 'volty' Hemmerlein

Rapid increases in energy efficiency in Chinese manufacturing, especially in the steel production sector, will temper demand for Australian coal exports and put billions of dollars in investment at risk.

A new report, released by the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford, found up to A$50 billion in mining investment – including the Alpha Coal, China First, Wandoan and Mt Pleasant projects – could be “stranded”, leading to write-downs or “conversion ...

China roars ahead with renewables

Despite being the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter, China is increasing its renewable sources of energy- Image: Fernando Tomás

China’s National Energy Administration (NEA) has just released some remarkable data on the addition of new electric generating capacity in 2013. China’s electric power system has been growing at a tremendous rate to keep up with the country’s breakneck expansion of its manufacturing industry over the past decade.

China’s growing renewables

Between 2010 and 2011 China’s power system passed the 1 million kilowatt mark (kW), making it comparable in size to the US. In ...

Sumatra's unique ecosystem in danger of extinction

A new scientific organization—ALERT, the Alliance of Leading Environmental Scientists and Thinkers—has urged Indonesian officials to support World Heritage listing for a critically endangered ecosystem on the island of Sumatra.

In recent years, Sumatra’s forests have been rapidly felled for industrial plantations and slash-and-burn farming. Now the last major tract of lowland forest in Sumatra—the Leuser Ecosystem—is being imperiled as well.

“This is one of the most important conservation issues in the world today,” said William Laurance, a professor at James Cook University in Cairns, Australia and director of ALERT.

“The Leuser region is a ...

The correlation between climate change and ice cores.

For a lazy Sunday here and everywhere, here is a quick animation from one of our readers explaining ice cores and how they teach us about climate change.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BgD9xul16g&feature=youtu.be

Getting kids involved: recycling

This great article on how to get kids involved in recycling and conservation is originally from Au Pair Jobs.

In a world where technology rules and children are engaged by smart phones, video games and web surfing, it’s difficult to see beyond their own needs. As a nanny or parent, though, you have the opportunity to use technology to promote ways to give back, preserve the environment and fight pollution by incorporating these lessons into your child’s daily routines.

With a few suggestions to reduce consumption, recycle and promote organic products, you and your children can make a ...

Arctic 30 to stay in Russia.

The Russian authorities have told the Arctic 30 that they cannot leave the country, defying the ruling of an international court which ordered that they should be allowed to go home immediately.

Russia’s powerful Investigative Committee has written to one of the 30 - Anne Mie Jensen from Denmark - indicating that they are not free to leave the country. Lawyers for Greenpeace expect all of the non-Russian defendants to be treated in the same way by the authorities, meaning they would now be forced to stay in St Petersburg for Christmas and possibly well beyond.

Last week lawyers for the ...

Poaching still an international problem

Nature has funny ways of doing things. Rhinos, elephants and lions have no natural predators, but as the great flowchart in the link shows, this doesn't matter. Both the survival and demise of the species are consequences of human actions.

While around 18,000 new animal, insect or plant species are discovered yearly, other species are on the edge of extinction — including some that are newly discovered and others that have been around in some form for million of years.

The African continent alone has more than four large mammals whose populations are, for the most part, declining at ...

Climate projections for the US revealed.

For the first time, maps and summaries of historical and projected temperature and precipitation changes for the 21^st century for the continental U.S. are accessible at a county-by-county level on a website developed by the U.S. Geological Survey in collaboration with the College of Earth, Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University.

The maps and summaries are based on NASA downscaling of the 33 climate models used in the 5^th Climate Model Intercomparison Project and the current Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Report. The resulting NASA dataset is on an 800-meter grid with ...

GLOBE 2014 keynote speaker line-up announced

Vancouver, CANADA – The 13th edition of the GLOBE Series of events, a leading sustainable business summit, has unveiled its keynote speakers for the upcoming event being held March 26-28, 2014 in Vancouver, Canada.

Framed around the thematic concept of ‘Building Business Resilience through Sustainability Strategies & Innovation’, the GLOBE 2014 agenda explores today’s economic, social, and geo-political climate and its impact on emerging opportunities for advancing the business of the environment.

The keynote speakers include consultant physicist Amory Lovins, Co-Founder & Chief Scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute; Hans Engel, Chief Financial Officer, BASF SE & Chairman and CEO, BASF Corporation and ...

New Zealand product will help reduce Chinese air pollution

A new wool and rice straw blended upholstery fabric, which has been developed by a Wellington company, goes into commercial production next year with the potential to create significant demand for New Zealand crossbred wool, while helping solve a massive air pollution problem in China.

The Formary is a Wellington textile design and development company that creates solely sustainable interior textiles. It already has a track record with its WoJo® upholstery fabrics brand created from recycled jute fibre from coffee sacks blended with New Zealand wool.

But the wool-rice straw blended textile appears to have a much bigger future. One ...

Oceans acidify at an alarming rate

This article is from the Environmental News Service.

Climate change is causing the world’s oceans to acidify at rates not seen for the last 55 million years, and the only way to moderate this danger is to reduce human emissions of carbon dioxide, conclude 540 scientists from 37 countries in a new report.

Their conclusion is the outcome of the Third Symposium on the Ocean in a High CO2 World that took place in Monterey, California in September 2012. The findings of these experts were presented in a report to the Conference on Climate Change that took place in ...

Renewable Energy in East Africa is Praised.

Last month we reported that Ethiopia had just opened the largest wind farm in Africa. A third of Ethiopia, the continent's second most populous nation, conducts their day to day without any access to electricity. The new wind farm has the potential to change the lives of millions.

Ethiopia is briskly pacing towards its goal of zero net emissions from energy production by 2025, a very laudable goal!

The BBC has recently highlighted two more examples of renewables success in East Africa.

In both, here and here, the potential of geothermal energy, wind and hydro-electric energy is discussed.

Improving soil quality by not ploughing.

Recently there have been many reports about the negative sides of ploughing. The productivity of our soils has constantly increased thanks to the invention of the plough millennia ago, but now ploughing could be a cause for the decline in soil productivity.

Dr John Baker, an international soil scientist who studied at Massey University, says that ploughing also contributes to global warming and our greenhouse gas emissions.

“When a farmer ploughs and cultivates a paddock it releases CO2 into the atmosphere. The vast majority (95 percent) is released from soil with the other five percent coming from tractor exhausts,” according ...

London's largest street light investment drives energy efficiency forward

One of the famous red double decker buses in London on route 185 to Lewisham Station, London, UK

Transport for London (TfL) has agreed on a new energy efficient lighting programme to help reduce the cost of lighting the TfL Road Network (TLRN). It is one of the largest 'invest to save' strategic road lighting projects ever undertaken in the UK with the hopes of lowering operating costs and improving reliability.

The programme will involve a new system to monitor and manage street lighting and dynamically control levels of lighting depending on use. In addition, the project will see the ...

EcoQube: An aquarium that feeds you.

Two students from University of California San Diego (UCSD) have designed an exciting project that ticks all the boxes. It is educational, functional, aesthetic and easy to use. In their own words, they have created “a natural, self-sustainable ecosystem that is easy to care for”.

‘Aquarium enthusiasts’ Eric and Kevin have designed an aquaponics system –called the EcoQube- as compact as an aquarium, but unlike your usual fish bowl, here there is close to no maintenance involved, and you can grow herbs or flowers.

They have also developed a curriculum, with easy activities, to teach kids and adults how the ...

Microplastics cover our seas.

This article by Julia Reisser and Charitha Pattiaratchi comes from The Conversation- Australia.

Each square kilometre of Australian sea surface water is contaminated by around 4,000 pieces of tiny plastics, according to our study published today in journal PLOS ONE and data repository Figshare.

These small plastic fragments, mostly less than 5mm across, are loaded with pollutants that can negatively affect several marine species, from tiny fish and zooplankton to large turtles andwhales.

Plastic pollution hazards to Australian species and ecological communities are therefore likely broader than those officially recognised.

Understanding the plastic pollution issue

Unfortunately, part of ...

PV for everyone, IKEA makes solar accessible.

IKEA is now offering ’off the shelf’ solar power packages to UK consumers, in a move that could help to mainstream domestic solar power systems. It is the first major retailer to offer a comprehensive home photovoltaic installation service, having teamed up with Hanergy, a thin-film PV supplier, to produce the package.

According to Giles Bristow, Director of Programmes at Forum for the Future, “Schemes such as this have the promise to significantly reduce the upfront costs to UK homeowners and make these technologies so much more accessible. Purely by virtue of IKEA offering this bundle in their stores, consumers ...