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Arabica Robusta

Pambazuka - Profits before people: The great African liquidation sale - 0 views

pambazuka.org/...60010

food agriculture africa development crisis security

shared by Arabica Robusta on 07 Nov 09 - Cached
  • So what do the world’s great investors have their eyes on in Africa, in addition to the usual natural resources – minerals, petroleum and timber – that they’ve always coveted? In a word, land. Lots of it. The land-grabbing 'investors' are purchasing or leasing large chunks of African land to produce food crops or agrofuels or both, or just scooping up farmland as an investment,
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 07 Nov 09
       
      Biofuels are not sustainable energy. They do not protect food resources.
  • At the moment, the grabbing of Africa’s land is shrouded in secrecy and proceeding at an unprecedented rate, spurred on by the global food and financial crises. GRAIN, a non-profit organisation that supports farm families in their struggles for community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems, works daily to try to keep up with the deals on its farmlandgrab.org website.[vi]
  • Apart from the African governments and chiefs who are happily and quietly selling or leasing the land right out from under their own citizens, those who are promoting the new wave of rapacious investment include the World Bank, its International Finance Corporation (IFC), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and many other powerful nations and institutions. The US Millennium Challenge Corporation is helping to reform new land ownership laws – privatising land – in some of its member countries. The imported idea that user rights are not sufficient, that land must be privately owned, will efface traditional approaches to land use in Africa, and make the selling off of Africa even easier. GRAIN notes the complicity of African elites and says some African 'barons' are also snapping up land.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • another big plan is buffeting Africa’s farmers. It’s the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), which claims it is working in smallholder farmers’ interests by 'catalysing' a Green Revolution in Africa. Green Revolution Number Two.
  • Arabica Robusta on 07 Nov 09
     
    "it was all summed up clearly for me by members of COPAGEN, a coalition of African farmer associations, scientists, civil society groups and activists who work to protect Africa's genetic heritage, farmer rights, and their sovereignty over their land, seeds and food. All these knowledgeable people have shown me that the answer is quite straightforward: many of those imported mistakes, disguised as solutions for Africa, are very, very profitable. At least for those who design and make them."
Hans De Keulenaer

The Cost of Energy » Blog Archive » The revolution is in the second plug - 0 views

www.grinzo.com/...volution-is-in-the-second-plug

cars consumers electric vehicles

shared by Hans De Keulenaer on 31 Mar 08 - Cached
  • With all the talk recently of EV’s being tested in various countries and three models (Subaru R1e, Mitsubishi iMIEV, Nissan Denki Cube) potentially arriving in the US in just a few years, it’s worth revisiting once more the notion of how well such a product would be received here. My longtime position has been that if you make even minimally reasonable assumptions about the vehicles–they’re safe, they’re as efficient as one would expect a small, all-electric vehicle to be, they’re affordable, and they don’t have any weird “gotcha” details–they’ll find millions of happy owners.
Energy Net

UK power prepares for a cold wind of change | Business | The Observer - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...wind-energy-power-electricity

renewables wind uk

shared by Energy Net on 11 Jan 10 - Cached
  • Energy Net on 11 Jan 10
     
    It was supposed to be a great leap forward in Britain's green energy revolution. Three of Labour's biggest beasts - the prime minister, Lord Mandelson and Ed Miliband - lined up in London on Friday to launch a new wave of offshore wind turbines the government hopes will create up to 70,000 "green collar" jobs over the next decade. But as snow brought Britain to a halt, the green dream had little hope of dominating the headlines.
  • Energy Net on 11 Jan 10
     
    It was supposed to be a great leap forward in Britain's green energy revolution. Three of Labour's biggest beasts - the prime minister, Lord Mandelson and Ed Miliband - lined up in London on Friday to launch a new wave of offshore wind turbines the government hopes will create up to 70,000 "green collar" jobs over the next decade. But as snow brought Britain to a halt, the green dream had little hope of dominating the headlines.
Hans De Keulenaer

U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu waves the banner for energy revolution - 0 views

news.stanford.edu/...steven-chu-lecture-030810.html

usa climate transition politics tutorial

shared by Hans De Keulenaer on 17 Mar 10 - Cached
  • U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, a Nobel laureate and professor emeritus of Physics at Stanford, returned to campus Monday to speak about the role of clean energy in combating global climate change. A sustainable energy revolution, he said, is not only vital in mitigating climate change, but is a critical step in ensuring U.S. economic competitiveness.
Arabica Robusta

Water, Capitalism and Catastrophism » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names th... - 0 views

www.counterpunch.org/...r-capitalism-and-catastrophism

water climate change

shared by Arabica Robusta on 19 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • Taking the holistic view, one can understand how some of the most basic conditions of life are threatened by a basic contradiction. Civilization, the quintessential expression of Enlightenment values that relies on ever-expanding energy, threatens to reduce humanity to barbarism if not extinction through exactly such energy production.
  • or every farmer or rancher who has leased his land for drilling, there are many homeowners living nearby who get nothing but the shitty end of the stick: pollution, noise and a loss of property value.
  • What gives the film its power is the attention paid to people like Stevens who organized petition drives and showed up at town council meetings to voice their opposition to fracking. They look like Tea Party activists or Walmart shoppers, mostly white and plain as a barn door, but they know that they do not want drilling in their townships and are willing to fight tooth and nail to prevent it. For all of the left’s dismay about its lack of power, the film’s closing credits reveal that there are 312 local anti-fracking groups in Pennsylvania made up of exactly such people who will likely be our allies as the environmental crisis deepens.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • In the collection “Catastrophism: The Apocalyptic Politics of Collapse and Rebirth”, Eddie Yuen takes issue with an “apocalyptic” streak in exactly such articles since they lead to fear and paralysis. A good deal of his article appears to take issue with the sort of analysis developed by Naomi Klein, a bugbear to many convinced of the need to defend “classical” Marxism against fearmongering. Klein is a convenient target but the criticisms could easily apply as well to Mike Davis whose reputation is unimpeachable. Klein’s latest book has served to focus the debate even more sharply as her critics accuse her of letting capitalism off the hook.
  • While I am inclined to agree with Malm that it is the drive for profit that explains fracking and all the rest, and that the benefits of energy production are not shared equally among nations and social classes, there is still a need to examine “civilization”. If we can easily enough discard the notion of the “Anthropocene” as the cause of global warming, the task remains: how can the planet survive when the benefits of bestowing the benefits of “civilization” across the planet so that everyone can enjoy the lifestyle of a middle-class American (or German more recently) remains the goal of socialism?
  • Ironically, this was the same argument made in the NY Times on April 14th by Eduardo Porter in an article titled “A Call to Look Past Sustainable Development”. He refers to the West’s environmental priorities blocking the access to energy in countries such as Nepal, Bangladesh and Cambodia now flocking to China’s new infrastructure investment bank that will most certainly not be bothered by deforestation, river blockage by megadams, air pollution and other impediments to progress.
  • Yuen’s article is filled with allusions to Malthusianism, a tendency I have seen over the years from those who simply deny the existence of ecological limits. While there is every reason to reject Malthus’s theories, there was always the false hope offered by the Green Revolution that supposedly rendered them obsolete. In 1960 SWP leader Joseph Hansen wrote a short book titled “Too Many Babies” that looked to the Green Revolution as a solution to Malthus’s theory but it failed to account for its destructive tendencies, a necessary consequence of using chemicals and monoculture.
  • To think of a way in which homo sapiens and the rest of the animal and vegetable world can co-exist, however, will become more and more urgent as people begin to discover that the old way of doing things is impossible.
Energy Net

Americans Willing To Pay More for Solar | Renewable Energy World - 0 views

www.renewableenergyworld.com/...-willing-to-pay-more-for-solar

costs usa poll

shared by Energy Net on 29 Jun 10 - Cached
  • Energy Net on 29 Jun 10
     
    "A new survey conducted by Applied Materials, Inc. reveals that two-thirds of Americans believe solar technology should play a greater role in meeting the country's energy needs. In addition, three-quarters of Americans feel that increasing renewable energy and decreasing U.S. dependence on foreign oil are the country's top energy priorities. According to the survey, 67 percent of Americans would be willing to pay more for their monthly utility bill if their utility company increased its use of renewable energy and 49 percent of consumers polled would be willing to pay $5 or more each month for an increased amount of renewable energy-a 14 percent increase from the results of Applied Materials' 2009 survey. "Americans are becoming more aware of the need for responsible energy solutions, like solar power, and increasingly want their government to drive policy and investment aimed at finding alternative ways to power our homes and economy," said Dr. Charles Gay, president of Applied Solar, a division of Applied Materials. "With the right energy legislation in place, the U.S. could reap the benefits of one of the biggest economic job engines of this century - the clean energy revolution.""
Colin Bennett

Memristor revolution backed by HP - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...technology-11165087

efficiency IT

shared by Colin Bennett on 03 Sep 10 - Cached
  • Memristors promise significantly greater memory storage requiring less energy and space, and may eventually also be employed in processors.
Hans De Keulenaer

The Energy Challenge - No Furnaces but Heat Aplenty in Innovative 'Passive Houses' - Se... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...27house.html

passive house nytimes

shared by Hans De Keulenaer on 03 Jan 09 - Cached
  • From the outside, there is nothing unusual about the stylish new gray and orange row houses in the Kranichstein District, with wreaths on the doors and Christmas lights twinkling through a freezing drizzle. But these houses are part of a revolution in building design: There are no drafts, no cold tile floors, no snuggling under blankets until the furnace kicks in. There is, in fact, no furnace.
Colin Bennett

Is the LED revolution coming? - 0 views

blogs.zdnet.com/emergingtech

lighting LED efficiency

shared by Colin Bennett on 29 Dec 08 - Cached
  • Colin Bennett on 29 Dec 08
     
    Still, it's certain that a new generation of lighting devices based on LEDs will become available and reduce our carbon dioxide emissions.
Energy Net

'Major discovery' from MIT primed to unleash solar revolution - MIT News Office - 0 views

web.mit.edu/...oxygen-0731.html

renewables hydrogen

shared by Energy Net on 31 Jul 08 - Cached
  • Michael G on 31 Jul 08
     
    cheap way to generate hydrogen from solar power
  • Energy Net on 01 Aug 08
     
    Scientists mimic essence of plants' energy storage system In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a marginal, boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source, MIT researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy for use when the sun doesn't shine.
Jeff Johnson

Electric Cars at the Paris Auto Show - TIME - 0 views

www.time.com/...0,8599,1847544,00.html

cars electricity transition

shared by Jeff Johnson on 09 Oct 08 - Cached
  • Jeff Johnson on 09 Oct 08
     
    In the vast exhibition halls in southern Paris one color dominates: green. From the carpeting and lighting to the artificial lawn trimming and acid-green cocktail dresses worn by countless exhibition assistants, the message is hammered home that the industry has staked its economic future on the green revolution.
Colin Bennett

Energy storage nears its day in the sun | Environment | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...idUSL222164020080222

batteries storage

shared by Colin Bennett on 25 Feb 08 - Cached
  • MONACO (Reuters) - Energy storage is an unglamorous pillar of an expected revolution to clean up the world's energy supply but will soon vie for investors attention with more alluring sources of energy like solar panels, manufacturers say.
Sergio Ferreira

Free-Energy Battery Inventor Killed at Airport? - 0 views

pesn.com/...-powered_battery_inventor_dead

revolution storage

shared by Sergio Ferreira on 06 Dec 07 - Cached
  • inventor of a revolutionary, affordable, clean energy technology
  • He was apparently on his way to Europe where he was to secure major funding for the development and commercialization of his technology, which could make oil obsolete
  • DeGeus was the inventor of a thin wafer-like material/device that somehow specially aligned the atoms or electron currents ongoing in that material, so that the wafer produced a constant amperage at a small voltage – continuous real power, or in other words a strange kind of “self-powering battery
Hans De Keulenaer

Home Hydrogen Production ... An Emerging Revolution? | EcoGeek | Hydrogen, Power, Home,... - 1 views

www.ecogeek.org/1035

hydrogen homes

shared by Hans De Keulenaer on 09 Oct 07 - Cached
  • This views electrolysers as a key path for dealing with the intermittency challenge. Again, a great vision, but the financial, infrastructure, and technical challenges must be judged against alternatives.
davidchapman

What Solar Power Needs Now - 0 views

www.renewableenergyaccess.com/...story

renewables

shared by davidchapman on 14 Aug 07 - Cached
  • davidchapman on 14 Aug 07
     
    What can be done to dramatically accelerate-or at the very least evaluate the potential for-a true evolution/revolution in solar energy?
Colin Bennett

With green "in," home automation's time is here - 0 views

www.greenbang.com/ations-time-is-here_10938.html

buildings building automation

shared by Colin Bennett on 30 Jul 09 - Cached
  • Colin Bennett on 30 Jul 09
     
    Intelligent consumer use of our limited energy supply is now recognised as one of the major factors in the green revolution. According to the Smart Energy Home Initiative, which brings together companies to overcome the barriers that prevent sustainable houses from being the norm, buildings consume 40% of the energy used in Europe and contribute to 36% of greenhouse gas emissions, with the loss in monetary terms estimated at €60 billion a year. Using home automation technology for energy control can reduce power consumption by limiting use to where and when it is most needed … therefore saving money on energy bills without affecting quality of life.
Hans De Keulenaer

Une révolution dans la production de cellules solaires < Technologie - Enerzi... - 0 views

www.enerzine.com/...ion-de-cellules-solaires+.html

costs photovoltaics oerlikon

shared by Hans De Keulenaer on 02 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Selon le chef de la division commerciale, Andreas Dill, "l'astuce consistait à combiner notre grande expérience en matière d'équipement d'impression de disque optique (CD/DVD/Blu-ray) avec notre technologie de pointe de nano-enduction." Il en résulte, Solaris, la première machine nanotechnologique unique pour l'enduction, conçue pour la production de masse.
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