bemoreeco

More must be done to attract young people to careers within the energy industry, it has been claimed.

Zoe Robinson, ethical development manager at Warren Evans, said that the government and private sector must work in partnership to provide opportunities within the sector for school leavers and the long-term unemployed.

She added: “The UK can only be world leaders in the green energy revolution if we have world-leading skills.”

The comments come after energy firm Centrica warned of an emerging skills gap as many undergraduates are shunning employment opportunities in the industries that will contribute to low carbon growth.

One in four parents that took part in the survey said they would not actively encourage their children to enter the science, technology and energy sectors.

Ms Robinson warned that with the government cuts taking place in the Department of Energy and Climate Change, the coalition will have to “find new ways of delivering the green agenda”.

“While the public can do its part, the government’s responsibilities to deliver on this agenda will obviously not be met by telling us all to switch off our TVs,” she added.

>>> Please read the full article here

UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee said it has removed Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands from its list of endangered sites, due to Quito’s protective efforts in the Pacific archipelago.

“By a vote of 14 to five, with one abstention,” the committee removed the islands from its endangered environments list, where it was included in 2007, said Brazil’s Culture Ministry, which presides over this week’s committee meeting in Brasilia.

“It’s important to recognize the Ecuadoran government’s effort in protecting and preserving this heritage site,” Brazilian Heritage Institute president Luiz Fernando de Almeida said in a statement.

Brazil had requested that the Galapagos be removed from the endangered list.

Located 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) west of Ecuador’s coast, the Galapagos archipelago of 13 main islands and 17 islets has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1978 for its rich plant and animal life both on land and in the surrounding sea.

In 2007, the organization declared the island chain’s environment endangered due to the increase of tourism and the introduction of invasive species.

Some 10,000 people, mostly fishermen, live on the volcanic archipelago, which rose from the Pacific seabed 10 million years ago and became famous when Darwin visited to conduct research in 1835.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s List of World Heritage in Danger includes 31 cultural or natural sites around the globe at imminent risk of degradation or destruction.

The 34th annual meeting of the World Heritage Committee this year takes place in the Brazilian capital from July 25 to August 3.

>>> Please read more here

Citroën’s DS3 is going on tour – transporting comedians Dan Adams and Christian Ancliff to their first ever Edinburgh Fringe Festival (6th to 30th August). The Citroën DS3 Ecomedy Tour will see the two stand-ups piloting a DS3 DStyle 99g and gigging all the way from London to Edinburgh – a journey of over 500 miles – all on a single tank of fuel.

The pair will put in a performance each night during the tour, playing in London, Oxford, Stratford-upon-Avon, Manchester and Glasgow before reaching Edinburgh in time for the start of their Fringe run. The DS3 Ecomedy Tour runs from 1st to 6th August and is supporting Oxford-based hospice, Helen & Douglas House.

To allow members of the public to follow all the action, Dan and Christian will be updating a special tour microsite, www.ecomedytour.com every day with videos, images and words.

Christian Ancliff commented; “It’s our first Fringe appearance, so understandably we’re fantastically nervous and very excited at the same time. Trying out our show material right across the UK during the tour will give us a great warm-up and a brilliant experience.”

Dan Adams added; “We’re testing our humour against the public and Citroën’s technology against the elements. I only hope we can match audience laughs per gig with DS3’s miles per gallon. This should be a terrific adventure for a very worthwhile cause. We look forward to sharing it with the public.”

For more information on each performance or to follow the tour activity, visit www.ecomedytour.com.

Tour updates will also be published on Citroën’s official Twitter and Facebook pages: www.twitter.com/citroenuk & www.facebook.com/CitroenUK

>>> Details: Kicks off in London on the 1st August and finishes in Edinburgh on the 6th August

>>> Visit the website here for more information

>>> For information on Helen & Douglas House click here

Below we have listed the Eco Pic of The Day July Top 10 Eco Pic’s.

Click the link to see the picture;

1 - The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

2 - Plastic bottle catamaran crosses Australian finish line

3 - Scrapped taxis in India

4 - Ecover factory recycle bins

5 - Dead whale found pinned to alaska cruise ship

6 - Creating art out of plastic debris

7 - Heathrow Terminal 1 recycling bins

8 - Fight for your right to clean air emissions equality

9 - Ecover orginal advertising

10 - Dead Oystercatcher killed by plastic waste

The level of carbon emissions produced by new vehicles in the UK has dropped by almost five percent, according to new figures.

 Data from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) highlighted that there was a 4.7 percent drop in average emissions rates of vehicles registered in the first six months of 2010.

It was also noted that registrations of alternatively-fuelled cars more than doubled to 11,468 units in the first half of the year.

Paul Everitt, chief executive of the SMMT, commented: “Continued vehicle manufacturer efforts to improve fuel efficiency and cut emissions has further reduced average carbon dioxide output during a better than anticipated first half of 2010.”

It is thought that the scrappage scheme, which saw people receiving cash incentives to trade in their old cars for a newer, more energy-efficient model, has helped drive vehicle emissions down.

Mr Everitt added that the remainder of the year will be challenging for the industry now that the scrappage scheme has ended.

>>> Please read the full article here

Clean water campaigners Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) and four of the UK’s best Stand Up Paddle-boarders aim to cross the English Channel and set two new Guinness world records in one go, with a relay team and a solo paddler taking on the challenge. The SAS 2010 Challenge will launch on the day with optimum conditions, during the week of the 18th – 25th of June.

Launching from either Shakespeare’s Bay or Sapphire Hoe the champion paddlers will be aiming to raise £10,000 for SAS’s campaigns, celebrate the organisations 20th anniversary and mark International Surfing Day (double check date20thof June). Success is a real possibility and the relay team are the first ever team to attempt the famous crossing. They include 2009 UK stand up paddleboarding champion Jock Patterson, Matt Argyle (Chairman of the British Stand Up Paddle Association (BSUPA) and ranked 2nd in the UK for stand up paddleboarding) and Simon Bassett (BSUPA head coach) will be joined by 2005 European, reigning Welsh longboarding champion and SAS South Wales rep Elliot Dudley, for his solo attempt. All of the paddlers have been training hard, putting in hundreds of lonely hours on the water and are extremely determined to claim these world records and raise as much money for SAS as possible.

Stand-up paddleboarding has become extremely popular amongst recreational water users across the UK and this will be the first official attempt of its kind. The current record was set by a prone paddleboarder, the USA’s Michael O’Shaughnessy in 2006 in 5 hours and 9 minutes. During the week of the 18th – 25th of June, SAS and the paddlers will be poised, waiting for the best tides and conditions in which to complete the grueling, 21 mile crossing in record time.

The event has been put together by SAS with the support of BSUPA, and the paddlers aim to raise £10,000 in sponsorship money to support SAS’s campaigns to protect surfers, waveriders, waves and beaches around the UK. If you would like to sponsor the 2010 Challenge please go to www.justgiving.com/2010challenge and make a donation. You can also check out the paddlers training blog on www.supglobal.com.

Elliot Dudley, solo record paddler, says: “I am really looking forward to taking on this famous challenge and I hope that I will be reaching France as a world record holder. What makes this even more exciting is the opportunity to raise both money and awareness for SAS. As a passionate surfer and SAS Rep, I feel that the work SAS is doing is vital for the UK’s marine environment”

Hugo Tagholm, SAS’s Executive Director, says: “These guys are the best paddlers in the country and we are hoping for a great attempt. It’s fitting that in our 20th year SAS are still pushing the boundaries and supporting the development of recreational watersports. All the money raised will help us to continue developing our campaigns, making recreational waters safe for all. Good luck to the boys!”

A leading collection of dead snakes, spiders and scorpions housed at a research centre in Sao Paulo, Brazil, has been destroyed by fire.

The curator of the Butantan Institute said the destruction of the entire collection was a “loss to humanity”.

The nearly 80,000 preserved snakes and the thousands of specimens of spiders and scorpions were used in research.

Live animals housed nearby that are used to produce serums and vaccines were not harmed, the institute said.

“The entire collection was lost, the biggest collection of snakes in the world,” curator Francisco Franco said. “It’s a loss to humanity.”

A firefighter said the flammable liquid used to preserve the specimens helped spread the fire.

The cause of the blaze is being investigated.
Some of the specimens in the 100-year-old collection were of rare or extinct species.

>>> Please read the full article here

As Grand Designs Live opens, TV presenter Kevin McCloud selects 10 products from recycled scourers to insulating blinds

Sting plus – upholstery made from nettles

There are lots of points to make about this fabric. But the main one is that it does everything a synthetic fabric can achieve (meeting fire ratings, “rub tests”, resistance to fading and so on) while being made out of nettles and old wool, the two things you’ll be almost guaranteed to find in a British field, together with barbed wire. There’s nothing barbed about this fabric, however – it may be ethical but it doesn’t sting or itch. Like linen, which is another natural fabric made from plant fibre, Sting is beautiful and glamorous.

Smile Plastics recycled plastic worktops

When it comes to specifying sheet materials for a new kitchen or some cupboards, recycled plastics often get overlooked, usually because they look like frozen sick. Smile Plastics, however, have begun making sheet plastics made from single source plastics: recycled and chopped CDs for example, which give the material the iridescence of abalone or mother-of-pearl. This is upcycled plastic. I chose it for this list because I wanted designers and architects to see it and specify it, as well as consumers.

Parans solar lighting

This product is almost too technical to describe. An egg-crate panel of little rotating eyes follow the sun all day long like a sunflower, collecting direct sunlight and distributing it through a building via a network of fibre-optic cables. This is ideal for introducing light into earth-sheltered or buried buildings or the thousands of London homes now retro-fitted with three underground storeys. It is brilliant. Literally.

Giles Miller – cardboard furniture

Giles is a designer-maker of extraordinary pedigree who examines the value and the usefulness of everything he utilises. So he forces us to re-evaluate materials like corrugated cardboard as not only durable and utilitarian, but also beautiful. We already ran the Grand Designs Awards and these are judged by a panel of luminaries from the worlds of design and sustainability. But choosing this range of cardboard furniture and the other green products here was a much simpler exercise – and much more personal. These are products and inventions that I’ve chosen because I like them, I’ve used or tested them and I wanted them to get more exposure.

Hemcrete – greener concrete

Hemcrete is a walling material that can be sprayed or cast like concrete, but it’s made from lime and hemp. It performs both as an insulant and as a thermal-mass and it locks up carbon as it grows. The average hemp house can stow away about 20 tonnes of CO2 into its walls this way, about 40 kilogrammes for every square metre of wall in comparison with a traditional brick, block and cavity wall which is responsible for the production of about 100kg for every square metre. And hemp is the second-fastest growing crop on the planet after bamboo, so it can be slotted in between other crops during a growing season. It also requires almost no inputs and enriches the soil.

EcoForce – recycled everyday homewares

I remember clearly the day – as if it were yesterday – that someone told me that toilet roll wasn’t made from recycled paper. What do you mean? Surely it’s got to be, it only gets used once? The same goes for scourers and cleaners. You’d sort of expect throwaway bits of foam and gritty green plastic to be of the very cheapest grades of recycled plastic. But not a bit of it. They’re all manufactured from virgin petrochemicals. I can understand that the acrylic used for making DVDs, that are read by lasers and spun at 200mph, needs to be perfect and crystal clear. But not my clothes pegs.

Black Mountain Sheepswool insulation – natural insulation

We all know about sheepswool insulation that comes from New Zealand or other far-flung outreaches of the world of sheep. It is highly breathable, natural, people-friendly and hygroscopic, regulating the moisture content in a cavity such as a wall. Very, very useful in timber framed buildings where condensation and moisture can dissolve the building into wet rot. And Black Mountain is British. Home-grown. Many of our sheep are bred to be shorn twice a year but only get fleeced once because the market for wool is so depressed. If we all bought sheepswool for our attics the flocks of Britain would be much more comfortable.

Newform Energy – combined solar electricity and hot water

Since Becquerel used selenium to experiment with photovoltaics in 1836, and Horace de Saussure captured solar heat in his homemade “hotbox” in 1767, the two disciplines of using solar energy to produce either electricity or hot water have remained separate. Until a very short while ago when some brilliant German physicists decided to circulate the water from solar thermal panels around the electronics in solar photovoltaic panels providing – bingo – a faster-than-normal supply of hot water. The resulting panel also produces electricity more efficiency than a standard photovoltaic panel.

Heatsaver Shades – insulated blinds

Heatsaver is an American firm that make insulated window blinds from the multilayer thin insulation sold for roofspaces which looks like the covering of a Nasa spaceship. Heatsaver uses a less complex structure in its product, which has the appearance of interlined cream linen Roman blinds and the thermal performance of several inches of plastic foam. Their secret, however, lies in a specially designed channel on the wall, in which the blind slides, forming an effective seal. There is no better way of keeping heat inside a building with large glazed walls or a listed building that is single-glazed.

Tirex from Interface Flor – flooring made from recycled rubber

We throw away 486,000 tonnes of tyres every year in Britain. Tirex carpet tiles are recycled — with a minimum of processing — by slicing old tyres and rubber machinery belts into long French fries and then bonding them together side-on. The durable fabric webbing that is inside the tyre wall is exposed as the top surface of the carpet and the resulting texture is a revelation. Interface Flor sell it as “entrance matting” but Tirex doesn’t look anything like a tyre. Its colours are grey and brown. It is elegant and sophisticated and every office in the world and quite a few homes ought to be carpeted with it.

>>> Please read the full article here

The issue of energy-efficiency has leaped into the public consciousness in recent years. Consumers are being bombarded with advice about the best way to save electricity, save money and save the planet.

But has this onslaught of information left many members of the public sceptical about the quality of advice being given? The results of a new survey would suggest that this indeed is the case.

Over 9,000 consumers in 17 countries took part in the study, conducted by Accenture, which aimed to identify the changing attitudes relating to energy-efficiency.

At first glance, the results seemed positive. Three-quarters of those who took part said they thought they knew how to “optimise” their energy consumption, for example by operating their appliances at off-peak times.

However, under the surface it was revealed that many harbour a distrust for the companies supplying their electricity.

Globally just 29 per cent of those asked said they trusted their energy supplier to provide them with information about how to best use their electricity. This figure was even lower in the UK.

Britain’s consumers were shown to be the third least trusting, behind Germany and Sweden, with just 17 per cent believing their provider could offer them valuable advice.

Trust in retailers, manufacturers and communications firms was shown to be even lower at 13 per cent, with trust in online sources being slightly higher at 20 per cent.

Accenture also analysed the views of the respondents to energy-management programmes, which would allow providers to remotely limit the amount of power supplied to houses.

Concerns raised about these schemes include issues with privacy, as many did not want their energy consumption viewed, and energy companies profiteering.

However, what worried consumers the most is a possible increase in their electricity bills. Almost half said this would be their main reason for not joining a scheme.

It could be too early to write off education as the best way to switch consumers on to energy efficiency, especially as all political parties are currently running round the UK telling people how important green issues are.

But they say that money talks and the question is, is that the only way to get the public to listen?

>>> Please read the full article here

This year Earth Hour is on the 27th March.

Hundreds of millions of people around the world came together on March 28 2009 to make a bold statement about their concern about global climate change by doing something quite simple – turning off their lights for one hour.

WWF’s Earth Hour^TM symbolises the concept that, by working together, each of us can have a positive impact in the fight against climate change.

Check out out the 2009 Earth Event here.