GNOMEDIARIES Write for our Climate

International Day of Action in Rawabet

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:46:53 +0000

Courtesy of Sarah Rifaat. “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has”. Margaret Mead; On October 24th, I was one of thousands of individuals in 181 different countries participating in events to commemorate the “International Day of Action”.

Introduction Egypt correspondent(s)

Omnia Amr - Energy and Environment Program Consultant — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Eco Options Egypt is Egypt's first online magazine about the eco-friendly lifestyle options, products and services available in Egypt.It seeks to identify all the available “options” in Egypt and present them to Egyptians to enable them to lead an eco-friendly life style.

Introduction Chile correspondent

Prof. Alex Godoy-Fa�ndez - Environmental Services Consultant — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:00:00 +0000

Hi. My name is Alex Godoy-Faúndez and I am a columnist in main newspaper in Chile About Sustainable Development and Green Economy in Latinoamerica (http://blog.latercera.com/blog/agodoy).

Turkey, gross hydropower potential of 433 GWh/year

Hermen Vorstenbosch - GnomeDiaries Team Member — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 20:08:40 +0000

Over the last two decades, global electricity production has more than doubled and electricity demand is rising rapidly around the world as economic development spreads to emerging economies. Not only has electricity demand increased significantly, it is the fastest growing end-use of energy.

Dutch firms to build network of charging stations for electric cars

Roel Gillesen - GnomeDiaries Team Member — Tue, 12 May 2009 22:21:40 +0000

Dutch electricity grid companies have agreed to build a national network of charging stations for electric cars to encourage the purchase of this type of clean vehicles, Dutch media reported on Friday.

Th!nk gets approved in The Netherlands

Roel Gillesen - GnomeDiaries Team Member — Tue, 12 May 2009 22:12:25 +0000

Once a vehicle has been certified for roadworthiness by any member of the European Union, that vehicle can legally be sold in any fellow member country. Such is the case with the Th!nk City, which has just officially passed vehicle inspection in the Netherlands.

Solar Powered Air purifiers

Roel Gillesen - GnomeDiaries Team Member — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 20:39:42 +0000

Last week, we ran into a solar powered Air purifier. The company HengYuan Electotech has a range of solar powered products that clean the air. Besides the solar powered products, they also have Air purifiers that take maximum advantage of indoor/outdoor temperature difference, to save the maximum on engergy.

Poisonous blue algae are fond of global warming

Roel Gillesen - GnomeDiaries Team Member — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 22:00:00 +0000

Global warming enhances the growth of algae. Especially the poisonous blue-algae, because they seem to react stronger on the increase of warmth than other species. This will lead to problems over time. Especially during warm dry summers, the water quality will decrease.

Dutch Court approves flight tax

Roel Gillesen - GnomeDiaries Team Member — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 16:49:21 +0000

Last Wednesday, the dutch court approved the introduction of flight tax. The flight tax is introduced to discourage people to use air-transport. The flight tax is not contrary according the Chicago and European agreements regarding air traffic.

India and the climate change

Fabienne Dekker - India Correspondent — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 23:00:00 +0000

If you enter 'climate change india' at google.nl, you will get hundreds and hundreds of articles about the fact that climate change is accelerated by countries with big numbers of people like India who are not busy with the future at all.

My first impression: most of the locals just don't care

Fabienne Dekker - India Correspondent — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 16:13:07 +0000

I can remember my first night here in India, just coming of the airplane and already overwhelmed by what I saw: Garbage all over the street, and poor people living in it.

A brief introduction from our India correspondent

Fabienne Dekker - India Correspondent — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 15:42:48 +0000

Hello there! When I visited GNOMEDIARIES for the first time, it directly drew my attention. Reading the gnome adventures, about their travel around the world and writing about environment issues in different countries, I immediately wanted to share my experience here in India with their audience.

Powerless... So To Speak

Anthony Valadon - Hawaii Correspondent — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 10:52:54 +0000

It was only a matter of time. We had been using a borrowed 24V solar panel for nearly 7 months. The owner of the panel had said that he may need it back for a while in the future and the future had arrived.

I am not a handy sort of person. Can’t fix much of anything without guidance and tend to avoid it for as long as possible. Perhaps not the type of attitude you need to live off the grid.

Amsterdam to become a green ICT city

Roel Gillesen - GnomeDiaries Team Member — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 10:58:16 +0000

Amsterdam wants to take measures to turn the huge ICT-sector green. The capital city is the center of intercontinental data traffic and has a lot of ICT companies, data centers and related computer, internet and media companies.

City of Eindhoven turns off the lights

Roel Gillesen - GnomeDiaries Team Member — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 18:30:17 +0000

The City of Eindhoven, a city in the south of The Netherlands will be the first city to turn of the lights at night. Eindhoven has become known because of the light bulb, manufactured at the Philips factories. Eindhoven is also known for its yearly 'light route'.

Hole in Ozon layer much smaller this year

Roel Gillesen - GnomeDiaries Team Member — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 09:13:08 +0000

The ozonlayer above the Artics is about 30 percent smaller this year then the record size of last year. According to measurements of the ESA satellite 'Envisat' the shortage of ozon is 27,7 million tons this year. Last year this was 40 million tons.

Dutch buy more durable as before

Roel Gillesen - GnomeDiaries Team Member — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 14:30:03 +0000

A third of the Dutch say they buy more durable products. Last year, this was only a quarter of the population. This is investigated by the agency 'Senter Novem' of the economic ministry of The Netherlands.

Retreat of glaciers since 1850

The GnomeDiaries Team — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 22:00:00 +0000

The Little Ice Age was a period from about 1550 to 1850 when the world experienced relatively cool temperatures compared to the present. Subsequently, until about 1940 glaciers around the world retreated as the climate warmed.

Strange bugs find their home in The Netherlands

Roel Gillesen - GnomeDiaries Team Member — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 06:00:00 +0000

The next few years, we’ll see more and more strange bugs in The Netherlands. This is because of the changing climate, says pest control expert “Fred Verseijden”. More and more bugs accidentally come across our country and survive the warm winter.

The Netherlands are not prepared for disasters

Roel Gillesen - GnomeDiaries Team Member — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 12:51:32 +0000

Officials of several Ministries have shown that The Netherlands is behind on maintenance regarding the protection against epidemics, floods and computer regulated systems. This is a conclusion of the NOS (Dutch Broadcasting Foundation) after studying reports they received from the Government.

CO2 emission decreased for the second year in a row

Roel Gillesen - GnomeDiaries Team Member — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 19:31:19 +0000

The emission of CO2 (carbon dioxide) has been decreased for the second year in a row now. Last year, the emission was 208 billion kilo's, of which the major part was CO2. This has been reported today by the "Dutch central bureau for statistics" and the "environment and nature plan bureau".

Sustainable Dance Club

Roel Gillesen - GnomeDiaries Team Member — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 18:33:04 +0000

Ever wandered if just having fun and working on a better environment can be combined? Look no further! Now there is “Sustainable dance club”. This unique concept consists of technology that produces energy by dancing people. The dance floor produces energy from the movements of dancing people.

Shared cars popularity boosting

Roel Gillesen - GnomeDiaries Team Member — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 12:47:48 +0000

More than 20,000 Dutch use the approximately 1100 cars, companies such as GreenWheels and ConnectCar issue for sharing. Last year the line grew according to the association for shared Car Use with approximately 45 percent.

Investments in Windmills doubled

Roel Gillesen - GnomeDiaries Team Member — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 10:23:08 +0000

Investments in Windmills have been doubled last year to 793 million Euro's. The Netherlands now have approximately 1848 windmills, that produce a total of 1615 megawatt; enough to provide 1 million households of power.

Windpower is cheaper than Nuclear power

Roel Gillesen - GnomeDiaries Team Member — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 10:15:00 +0000

Wind power will get cheaper than Nuclear power. The price for both energy sources is already comparible, but the price of Nuclear power will get higher because additional costs will be charged to pay for the prevention of terrorist actions. Windpower will be cheaper due to technical enhancements.

Warmth from Earth-Core used for heating houses

Roel Gillesen - GnomeDiaries Team Member — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 16:05:39 +0000

The city "The Hague" in the Netherlands will be the first Dutch municipal that will use warmth from the ground to heat houses. (Geothermal Heating)

The water from the houses will be circulated from the houses to the ground at a depth of 2500 meters. When the water cools off, this water will be transported to the ground again. The water from 2500 meters deep, has a temperature of 75 degrees.

Dutch energy sector invests more in grey than in green

The GnomeDiaries Team — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 21:59:45 +0000

AMSTERDAM - five big energy concerns in the Netherlands have far staged plans to invest together for € 5 billion in high CO2 producing coal energy factories. Mean while these energy companies try fever to get themselves a green image by big advertising campaigns and tv comercials.

Pole to Pole (Aukje van Gerven)

The GnomeDiaries Team — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 20:52:58 +0000

The Pole to Pole Leadership Institute is an international non profit organization: inspiring, connecting and empowering youth to confront the critical issues of today. They want to inspire youth by undertaking never before attempted journeys, educate youth (about, for instance, climate change) by sending out Education Teams in Europe and North America, and undertake action by sending Advance Teams to diverse projects in Africa and Europe to work with environmental and humanitarian issues.

Car runs on pressed air (Update!)

Roel Gillesen - GnomeDiaries Team Member — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 12:27:05 +0000

The French engineer Guy Nègre, who works in the Formula One racing world, developed a car that runs on pressed air. The car contains a tank with air pressed at 300 bar and the principal is the same as a normal engine. Air moves the pistons in the engine that make the car move forward.

World's first floating wind farm to be built in North Sea

Claire Soares — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 20:21:28 +0000

The world's first floating wind turbine could be up and running in under two years after the German engineering giant Siemens teamed up with a Norwegian energy group yesterday to try to generate electricity in the middle of the North Sea.

�Which produces more CO2, volcanic or human activity?�

Anthony Valadon - Hawaii Correspondent — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 01:36:30 +0000

Since I live only 5 miles, (as the crow flies), from an active volcano known as Kilauea, I will start there.

It’s been erupting since 1983 and certainly must be contributing to global warming and pollution.

Europe experiments with underground storage of CO2

Roel Gillesen - GnomeDiaries Team Member — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 16:05:21 +0000

The platform “Energy Transition” advises to store the Dutch and German CO2 emission in underground empty gas fields. Reducing the CO2 emission is not possible without this underground storage, says Catrinus Jepma, professor Durable Energy in Groningen and Chairman of the platform.

A brief introduction from our Hawaii support correspondent

Anthony Valadon - Hawaii Correspondent — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 23:56:53 +0000

Aloha and mahalo to the folks at GnomeDiaries.com for offering me this opportunity to participate in this voluntary project. I support this idea on several levels for several reasons:

The first is I have been passing around a traveling gnome since September of 2006. Since Bud the Gnome began his journeys I have met many interesting people and Bud and his tiki travel companion, Tiki Jr., have visited some cool places. It’s fun.

Dutch keep nervous eye on climate

Frederic Bichon — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 13:50:29 +0000

The Netherlands is marking the 75th anniversary of one of the world's civil engineering wonders, the Zuiderzee closure dam, while nervously watching to see how climate change threatens its famed sea defences.

Economical cars cheaper for leased car drivers

Roel Gillesen - GnomeDiaries Team Member — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 19:52:55 +0000

Drivers of leased cars who choose for a fuel efficient car, will pay less. Not only in gas, but also for leasing it. Polluting cars will be more expensive in lease price, says Jan Kees de Jager (picture); State Secretary For Finance.

Introduction Roel Gillesen Dutch support correspondent

Roel Gillesen - GnomeDiaries Team Member — Thu, 31 May 2007 23:00:00 +0000

Hi Everybody,

I live in The Netherlands. Currently I am working as a Technical Consultant and Co-founder of GnomeDiaries.com
For 8 years now, I have been active in the Software industry and still liking it. Personally I am pretty environment aware if I say so myself.

Dutch people are willing to pay for measures to reduce climate change

The GnomeDiaries Team — Mon, 28 May 2007 17:38:29 +0000

However, there is only one condition; All the Dutch people have to pay. That becomes clear from a research of the environments and nature plan office. Also Dutch people find that the government must help the citizens with leading a more durable life style, for example with subsidies.

Climate report: Poor will suffer most

By ARTHUR MAX, Associated Press Writer — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 16:55:08 +0000

BRUSSELS, Belgium - The world faces increased hunger and water shortages in the poorest countries, massive floods and avalanches in Asia, and species extinction unless nations adapt to climate change and halt its progress, according to a report approved Friday by an international conference on global warming.

EU Sets Binding Targets for Switch to Green Energy

Paul Ames, Associated Press — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 02:00:00 +0000

BRUSSELS, Belgium - European Union leaders drafted an agreement Friday promising to take the lead in fighting global warming by setting binding targets to cut greenhouse gases and ensure a fifth of the bloc's energy comes from green power sources, such as wind turbines and solar panels.

Balkenende: most ambitious climate program ever

The GnomeDiaries Team — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 01:00:00 +0000

BRUSSEL – “This is the most ambitious climate program ever.” That is what prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende from The Netherlands said Thursday about the proposals that are on the agenda for discussion with all the European Union leaders Thursday and Friday in Brussels.