Photo credit: Bitpicture

Norway Sets 2015 Target
Norway’s Finance Minster, Kristin Halvorsen, has proposed to ban petrol cars by 2015 in order to lower CO2 emissions and encourage car manufacturers to begin making more environmentally friendly models. That would mean only electric, biofuel, hydrogen or hybrid cars could be bought in the Scandinavian country by that date. Speaking about the proposal, Ms. Halvorsen said, “This is much more realistic than people think when they first hear about [it]. The financial crisis means a lot of those car producers that now have big problems know they have to develop their technology, because we also have to solve the climate crisis when this financial crisis is over.” However, the ban would not apply to used cars – petrol or diesel – bought before 2015.

This proposal is both interesting and surprising, as Norway is the world’s sixth-largest oil exporter. Indeed, Ms. Halvorsen ’s proposition is likely to be subjected to heated debate, as the idea has some opponents, even within the government itself.

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The Republican presidential contender John McCain yesterday tried to make fun of Barack Obama at a biker rally with his hard-core voters saying Obama’s new energy plan was all about inflating your tires. At the biker rally John McCain said that “my opponent doesn’t want to drill. He doesn’t want nuclear power. He wants you to inflate your tires.” Later in an interview he said that “we are not going to achieve energy independence by inflating our tires.”

Besides the fact that John McCain is not telling the truth about what Obama said he is also completely wrong about the effectiveness of proper tire inflation.

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Only a few weeks after the release of the Draft Report of the seriously flawed, pro-coal, Australian Garnaut Climate Change Review (4 July, 2008; see my critique on Green Blog, “Pro-Coal, Australian Garnaut Climate Review Damns Coral, Australia & World”), the Australian Federal Government has released a so-called “Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme” Green Paper (16 July, 2008).

Unfortunately the Australian Federal Government Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) Green Paper is FATALLY FLAWED and if adopted globally would be a DEATH SENTENCE for the planet’s biosphere.

Australia is referred to as “Downunder” by people in the Northern Hemisphere but in so many things Australian mainstream media and politicians turn the truth upside-down as well – and this is outrageously so in relation to man-made climate change. The Liberal-National Party Coalition State and Federal Oppositions and the Labor Party State and Federal Governments (these major parties being referred to collectively as the Lib-Labs) pay public lip-service to the problem of global warming but their de facto policies support Australia’s world-leading coal exports and Australia’s 92% fossil fuel-based power generation.

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German engineers have devised a way of tugging merchant vessels along with huge, computer steered kites, known as Skysails, that catch the ocean winds. It marks the beginning of a revolution in the way that ships are powered. The sails are calculated to be able to reduce fuel consumption by 30-50 per cent,depending on the wind conditions. The system could be applied to about 60000 vessels out of the 100000 listed in the Lloyd’s register.

Orders are already coming in ranging from trawlers to a super-yacht. If the world fleet is equipped with sails, it is calculated that 142 million tones of CO2 could be saved per year!

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