The answer sounds like a cocktail recipe but it worth checking out more information about the open source project here

That new energy concept named a solar tower is able to generate enough electricity for 200,000 homes.In fact, this looking like a giant smokestack appurtenance would release no noxious fumes — just sun-heated air.

Some of these days was told that the demonstrated more than 20 years ago project has the basic design calls for solar collectors to warm the air near Earth’s surface in order to channel it up the tall central tower then. Turbines placed at the bottom make electricity from the updraft.

“It’s a combination chimney, windmill, greenhouse,” said Kim Forté of EnviroMission Limited in South Melbourne, Australia. (more…)

Curious breaking news from the Bulgarian capital Sofia, where the new day has started earlier for the most citizens today. Few minutes to seven solid explosion has given a start of continuing blasts and tons of turbid curls of smoke rapidly attacks the atmosphere front of the sunrise. Outfit 18 250 at Chelopechene are being located generally 1494 tons of military supplies, munitions and all kind of ammunitions with expired suitability.

It seems that all those ammunitions are blasted with a little help from someone, who expect forthcoming revision at the outfits ” was noted to me at the street from one of the workers at the depot while the evacuation of the local citizens began. (more…)

“Thinking and acting outside the box- a European contribution to the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development”. The CEEE’s 10th Conference is being organised under the aegis of the European Foundation for Education and Sustainable Development (European ESD-net) in collaboration with the Centre for Environmental Education & Research, University of Malta.
Registration form msut be soon available here.

Outlines of papers (300 words maximum) should be forwarded to Dr Paul Pace, Chairperson of the Scientific Committee by 30th June 2008 and should indicate the author’s preferred audience (i.e. Concurrent Workshop Sessions or Free Market). (more…)

The International Symposium: “ICTs and Climate Change” Organized by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
Supported and hosted by BT plc has started today and may continue tomorrow also. Some of the public global warming topic are as goes: Session 1: Climate change: ICTs to the rescue? , Corporate responsibility:Towards a climate-neutral ICT Sector
, ICTs for monitoring climate change, ICTs as a green technology, Towards a high-bandwidth, low carbon future, Adapting to climate change and Review and Wrap-up. Here you can download some pdf and word format documents around this initiative. Contact tsbtechwatch@itu.int for more information

“It really does look like microbes are sensitive to global changes. We are just not quite sure how they will respond,”

Breaking news from the world of global warm and climate change dated to the new day. The scientists warns on the forced biological diversity that comes with the global problem. Global warming and climate change may also impact the microscopic organisms, fungi and other microbial populations that support our life on Earth.

“Microbes perform a number of critical functions for ecosystems … we are only starting to understand the impact that global climate change is having on them,” were the words of Kathleen Treseder of the University of California.
Kathleen Treseder studied the effect of rising temperatures and fungi on carbon stores in Alaskan boreal forests, one area of the globe that is experiencing greater warming than others.

“There is a lot of frozen dead material under the snow pack. There is as much carbon trapped in the soil of northern ecosystems as there is carbon in the atmosphere. It is a big unknown what is going to happen if these environments heat up,” said Treseder.

Her research has been started with the hypothesis that an increase in temperatures would lead to increased decomposition by fungi and micro organisms and since one by-product of decomposition is carbon dioxide, rising temperatures should result in its greater release from the soil. What she found was that nitrogen levels in the soil increased as temperatures rose, which tends to suppress fungal decomposition rates. (more…)

The UK government and Google are starting a new online project that may help more and more people learning about climate change.

Known as “Climate Change in Our World”, this tool uses information from the Met Office’s Hadley Centre and the BAS (British Antarctic Survey). It may provide two new layers, or animated information to all users of Google Earth.
The tool was launched at the Google Zeitgeist conference.
“I think this will be a huge tool for making everybody aware of the huge climate change of our time,” prime minister Gordon Brown has told.
As it’s known for now one animation must use world-leading climate-science capabilities from the Hadley Centre to show global temperatures throughout the next 100 years under projections of greenhouse-gas emissions, along with reports of how people are already being affected by changing weather patterns or soon might be.

ERC Broadband announced today that it has signed an agreement with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) to provide broadband services to NCDC. NCDC, based in Asheville, provides NOAA’s climate data to millions of people. ERC Broadband is a vital partner in NCDC’s mission to acquire and deliver these data. The new agreement formalizes the partnership between NOAA/NCDC and ERC Broadband and underscores how ERC Broadband is helping Asheville build its role and reputation in the national climate services community.
Working with public, private and non-profit concerns, ERC Broadband’s goals are to grow the regional technical infrastructure and bring next generation Internet and advanced technology to the region. By accomplishing its goals, ERC Broadband is improving the overall quality of life in the area. ERC Broadband is celebrating its fifth anniversary this month.

“The new agreement stems from recognition that ERC Broadband is enhancing the national presence of NOAA’s NCDC, and that of the National Weather Service as well,” said Hunter Goosmann, General Manager of ERC Broadband. “ERC Broadband is creating awareness of and interest in climate data, and we are working with NCDC to establish and support the growth of its programs throughout the United States.” (more…)

The international fight to control climate change heads to a new arena in next month. This and some more optimistic news were announced yesterday by the international informational agencies. As we have found, it is about when the Senate is going to debate a bill that could cut total U.S. global warming emissions by 66 percent by 2050. This great news are giving us much doze of hope, that the policy of the George W. Bush might be changed. As our readers know, The US is the only major industrialized nation outside the carbon-capping Kyoto Protocol. (more…)

8:30 a.m.-5:15 p.m., Tuesday, May 23, and Wednesday, May 24.

Al Gore’s talk is at 7:30 p.m. today (Tuesday, 23rd)

The majority of the conference will be held at Wheeler Hall Auditorium, UC Berkeley. The presentation by Al Gore will be at Zellerbach Auditorium on campus. A map is online here. (more…)

We Said WHAT? Assembly Bill 32 today at Sacramento! The seminar series for non-specialists on the science, technology and policy aspects of climate change that should start today, May 22nd 2008 at 12:00 PM should be presented by:

Department of Land, Air and Water Resources, UC Davis
John Muir Institute of the Environment, UC Davis
UC Davis Air Quality Research Center
UC Institute for Research on Climate Change and its Societal Impacts

For more info, contacts: Prof. Terry Nathan (trnathan@ucdavis.edu) Dr. Philip Duffy (pduffy@llnl.gov)

Speech held at the Yomiuri International Economic Society, Tokyo 17 April 2008 by Fredrik Reinfeldt, Prime Minister.

Combining a Climate-Friendly Policy with Economic Growth

Check against delivery.

Thank you for the honour and opportunity to address the Yomiuri International Economic Society.

It is a real pleasure for me and my delegation to visit your country. I hope my visit will lead to a further strengthening of the ties between our countries.

It was an tremendous honour for my wife and me to have lunch with Their Imperial Majesties yesterday. It was also a great honour for Sweden that their Imperial Majesties visited Sweden last year.

Today, we live in a world of many challenges and opportunities. However, if I am to focus on one issue that will have an impact - not only on us - but on future generations - it is climate change.

My speech here today will rely on one fact and one statement: that our climate is changing and that economic growth can help us tackle it.

We know a few things for sure.

We know that the climate is changing. It is a global change that affects all of us. It means that, step by step, our world is getting warmer.

And we know that mankind is the major cause of this development.

Even if we do not fully understand the exact consequences climate change will have in different parts of the world, we do know that in some parts of our world global warming will result in water shortages, drought and deserts spreading.

In other parts it will lead to more extreme weather conditions, such as storms and flooding.

We refer to this as something that will happen in the future. But the fact is, it is already happening today. And while some of us only witness it when we turn on the news, others experience it at first hand.

Last year, at the UN climate conference in New York, I heard the appeals from leaders of small island nations for assistance to help them cope with flooding.

I heard how leaders from developing countries bore witness to the effects of climate change on their countries.

So the fact that the climate is changing is independent of the measures we take today. It is already a fact. Does this mean there is nothing we can do?

There is a tendency in the climate debate to resort to doomsday prophecies.

Some might find that constructive - but it doesn’t appeal to me. I believe such rhetoric triggers nothing but inaction.

I am convinced of three things.

I am convinced that we should listen to people’s worries about what is happening to our world.

I am convinced that we should listen to the analyses and conclusions of leading scientists.

I am convinced that when people worry about climate change and leading scientists tell us that this thing is for real - then we must not just listen - we must take action.

According to the IPCC, emissions of greenhouse gases need to be reduced by at least 50 per cent by 2050. Even larger emissions reductions may be required.

Recent scientific findings indicate that the increase in global temperature will be larger, and the effects of global warming will be greater, than previously anticipated.

The consequences of climate change and anticipated temperature increases will significantly impair our capacity for economic growth.

This is the case simply because they will affect basic factors such as access to water, food production, health, and the environment.

It is with great interest that I read Prime Minister Fukuda’s speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos. A speech where he focused on many of the challenges we are facing in our world today.

At my meeting with Mr Fukuda yesterday, I commended him on his insights on the issue of climate change. As the chair of the G8 Hokkaido Toyako Summit in July, Mr Fukuda has a key role in preparing the G8 countries for the agreement on a new climate regime after 2012.

There is no time to lose in addressing climate change, Mr Fukuda stated in his speech. I agree. We already have the available means and the technology to take action today.

In line with this, I applaud Mr Fukuda’s climate initiative on national targets. But at the same time, I urge Japan not to see new technology as the only solution. New green technology is necessary, but it will not be enough.

If governments are serious in tackling the issue of climate change, they also need to make the public aware of the need to promote an environmentally-friendly society.

I firmly believe that pricing mechanisms are needed to promote a sustainable society.

Setting an appropriate carbon price is essential for the transition to sustainable energy use. This is something that is applied both at EU level, through the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, and nationally through Sweden’s own carbon tax.

Undoubtedly, the leverage for the climate would be vastly more effective if similar cost-efficiency schemes could be introduced more widely at international level. I welcome initiatives underway in Japan in this respect. (more…)

The Thirty-ninth Meeting of the Executive Board has started just today at UN Campus, Langer Eugen, Hermann-Ehlers-Str. 10, 53113 Bonn, Germany.
As You remember, the Observer registration deadline was 23 April 2008.
It is important to know that webcast open session on 15 and 16 May 2008 might be available, check the documents under consideration at the meeting:

Proposed agenda (80 KB)

Draft Workprogramme (116 KB)

Annotations to the proposed agenda (298 KB)

Annex 1 - Draft Validation Verification Manual (568 KB)

Annex 2 - Status of income and expenditure (106 KB)

Forum on climate change and water will featuring UCSC climate scientist Lisa Sloan, professor of Earth and planetary sciences will starts today at Santa Cruz sponsored by local public water districts and environmental agencies. The forum, titled “Tools for Addressing Climate Change and Local Water Resources,” is designed to inform water resource managers and the public about the probable impacts of climate change on local water resources, how to plan for these impacts, and how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The forum be held from 1 to 4 p.m. at the University Inn, 611 Ocean Street, followed by a reception. The event is free and open to the public, so please do not hesitate to join them.

“There is rapidly increasing interest in planning for future climate change, especially water-related climate changes in California,” Sloan said. “Nearly all modeling studies of the next 50 years indicate a likely large reduction in snow accumulation throughout the state, and likely a reduction in rainfall as well. We need to start addressing these likely impending changes and considering how various communities and groups throughout the state will cope with them.” (more…)