"This past summer, we asked Earth Day Network supporters to submit public comments to the EPA on the proposed Power Plant Mercury and Air Toxics Standards rule. Thousands of you responded. Today, we learned that thanks to the efforts of people like you in the envrionmental community, the EPA has now finalized these rules.
According to the EPA, reduced emissions from this new air toxics rule will save as many as 17,000 American lives per year by 2015, and will prevent up to 120,000 cases of childhood asthma. On the rule that took 20 years to finalize, EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said “by cutting emissions that are linked to developmental disorders and respiratory illnesses like asthma, these standards represent a major victory for clean air and public health – and especially for the health of our children.”
Wednesday 21 December 2011
Great news from The Soil Association
Not in my Banger
We started the year under the threat of legal action simply for voicing our concerns about a proposed new 'mega farm' in Derbyshire. Midland Pig Producers submitted a planning application to build a mega pig unit in Foston, Derbyshire, for 2,500 sows and 20,000 piglets. The Soil Association made a formal objection to the plans based on the threat we believe this type of farming system can pose to human health.
You supported us with your petition signatures and donations and the campaign really gathered momentum, and over 13,000 written objections were submitted.
After months of wrangling, South Derbyshire District Council finally rejected the proposed plans. Derbyshire County Council is expected to announce the final decision in the next couple of months.
Our strategy
We launched our new strategy earlier in the year: 'The Road to 2020 Towards healthy, humane and sustainable food, farming and land use'.Building on our past successes, and putting a strong emphasis on innovation and on reaching out to a wider audience, the strategy is based around two major themes: ‘facing the future’ and ‘good food for all’, underpinned by an ongoing commitment to 'enabling change'. If you’ve not already had a look – read it here.
Food for Life Partnership
The year has finished in wonderful style with the Soil Association led Food for Life Partnership awarded the prestigious BBC Radio 4 Derek Cooper Award at the Radio 4 Food & Farming Awards.
For five years the Soil Association and its partners in the project have been working with schools and communities across England to transform their food cultures, and the award is fitting recognition for the impact the scheme has had. As Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, talking about the Food for Life Partnership at the ceremony, said:
‘The positive effect of the work is absolutely unambiguous. It’s proven academically, but more to the point, it’s proven in the bright eyes and busy attitude of the kids and the fantastic commitment of the headteachers... It couldn’t be more important and we have to see this succeed.’
Now, at the end of 2011, the Food for Life Partnership is celebrating:
• 4,250 Food for Life Partnership schools
• 28% more children eating five or more portions of fruit and veg in Partnership primary schools
• a five-fold increase in trading community supported agriculture projects during the last four years
• over 450,000 Catering Mark meals served every day
• improved welfare assurance inspections for up to 5 million laying chickens
Thank you again for all your incredible support and we look forward to working with you in 2012.
The Soil Association
We started the year under the threat of legal action simply for voicing our concerns about a proposed new 'mega farm' in Derbyshire. Midland Pig Producers submitted a planning application to build a mega pig unit in Foston, Derbyshire, for 2,500 sows and 20,000 piglets. The Soil Association made a formal objection to the plans based on the threat we believe this type of farming system can pose to human health.
You supported us with your petition signatures and donations and the campaign really gathered momentum, and over 13,000 written objections were submitted.
After months of wrangling, South Derbyshire District Council finally rejected the proposed plans. Derbyshire County Council is expected to announce the final decision in the next couple of months.
Our strategy
We launched our new strategy earlier in the year: 'The Road to 2020 Towards healthy, humane and sustainable food, farming and land use'.Building on our past successes, and putting a strong emphasis on innovation and on reaching out to a wider audience, the strategy is based around two major themes: ‘facing the future’ and ‘good food for all’, underpinned by an ongoing commitment to 'enabling change'. If you’ve not already had a look – read it here.
Food for Life Partnership
The year has finished in wonderful style with the Soil Association led Food for Life Partnership awarded the prestigious BBC Radio 4 Derek Cooper Award at the Radio 4 Food & Farming Awards.
For five years the Soil Association and its partners in the project have been working with schools and communities across England to transform their food cultures, and the award is fitting recognition for the impact the scheme has had. As Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, talking about the Food for Life Partnership at the ceremony, said:
‘The positive effect of the work is absolutely unambiguous. It’s proven academically, but more to the point, it’s proven in the bright eyes and busy attitude of the kids and the fantastic commitment of the headteachers... It couldn’t be more important and we have to see this succeed.’
Now, at the end of 2011, the Food for Life Partnership is celebrating:
• 4,250 Food for Life Partnership schools
• 28% more children eating five or more portions of fruit and veg in Partnership primary schools
• a five-fold increase in trading community supported agriculture projects during the last four years
• over 450,000 Catering Mark meals served every day
• improved welfare assurance inspections for up to 5 million laying chickens
Thank you again for all your incredible support and we look forward to working with you in 2012.
The Soil Association
Avaaz victories
| Avaaz has become one of the most powerful people-powered organisations for good. They just sent this, and it makes great reading! | ||||
 Avaaz is on fire, at 10.5 million people and rising fast. But we're also deepening our activism -- and with the combination of depth and huge numbers, we're winning, over and over again. Scroll down to see some great examples from the last several weeks. We're not just effectively delivering petitions, we're running safe houses and smuggling routes to protect democratic movements, challenging corporations by bringing lawsuits or calling all their shareholders, donating millions to equip human rights defenders with the latest technology, and powerfully delivering the voices of our community direct and in person to presidents, billionaires, ambassadors and cabinet ministers. It's working -- scroll down to see how. In recent weeks alone, we've helped win victories on everything from banning cluster bombs and sanctioning Syria to saving the Internet and the UN climate treaty: |
ON THE FRONT-LINE OF THE ARAB SPRING
 Wissam Tarif, a friendly Avaaz campaigner -- called “the most dangerous man in the world” by Syria’s brutal regime When no other organization could, our network smuggled in over $1 million USD of vital emergency relief to communities under brutal siege in Syria. We also smuggled activists and their families, at risk of torture or death, out of the country. Our secret safe houses shelter dozens of top activists from regime thugs, giving them a protected base from which to operate. Assad’s murderous regime is not happy about it -- Syrian state TV called our campaigner “the most dangerous man in the world” to the regime. We’ve also matched front-line support to democratic movements with fierce global lobbying of our governments to squeeze brutal regimes -- millions of Avaazers successfully campaigned for powerful European oil sanctions and Arab League sanctions on Syria. |
 An Avaaz member sports our giant Murdoch head at a protest outside British Parliament. From London to L.A., Giant Murdoch appeared at protests all over the world It was the biggest deal of Murdoch’s career, growing his extremist global media empire by 50% through acquiring a huge UK-based company -- BSkyB. Everyone said we couldn’t stop it, but Avaaz members thought differently, sending 668,784 messages and 30,000 phone calls to members of the UK Parliament, and running stunt after stunt as well as 2 opinion polls that showed massive public opposition. Avaaz was also the only organization to promise to legally challenge the government in court if they approved the Murdoch deal. The Minister responsible for the deal was so rattled that he repeatedly postponed approval for months, publicly blaming Avaaz. The delay gave us space to build awareness of a huge corruption scandal in the Murdoch empire until finally, the deal was dead. We haven’t stopped there -- we need to roll back the Murdoch threat and fundamentally reform our corrupt media. Avaazers recently used our new tool to call all the shareholders in Murdoch’s biggest companies, NewsCorp and BskyB, creating the largest shareholder rebellions in the companies’ histories! And in Australia, where Murdoch controls 70% of the print media -- we helped defeat Murdoch's attempt to snatch a $223 million TV contract from the public broadcaster and pushed the government to create a far-reaching inquiry into Murdoch and media reform. |
 Leaders of the march closed their speeches by pointing to the Avaaz banner and stating: “We have the support of the whole world!” Avaaz staff delivered our petition to top Bolivian cabinet ministers in a long and stormy meeting. Our widespread solidarity strengthened the legitimacy of the indigenous protesters whom Morales tried to marginalize, and threatened his desired reputation as an environmentalist. The pressure worked! After our campaign, Morales canceled construction, repealed the decision granting permission for the project, and pledged to protect the impacted TIPNIS national park and indigenous territory -- the crown jewel of the Bolivian Amazon -- forever! We'll hold him to that promise. |
 Our massive petition was delivered by a cluster bomb survivor to the French chair of the conference Many delegates used our petition to strengthen their arguments in negotiations. Our powerful banner, placed right outside the conference room -- together with 1000 fliers that the Avaaz team plastered throughout the conference center -- sent an unmistakable reminder to the negotiators about the opposition they faced back home. The US initiative failed -- together we helped save the lives of thousands of innocent civilians. |
 More than 800,000 Avaaz members fought to save the Kyoto Protocal at the climate meeting in South Africa EU Climate Chief Connie Hedegaard said: "Thanks to the over 800,000 people from around the world -- your voices made a vital impact at the end of the talks.” |
 Avaaz campaigner Maria Paz Cambronero delivers our petition to top White House officials President Obama’s team responded, and Avaaz organized a 1 hour meeting with top White House officials to deliver the petition. We’ve now been told privately that Obama is likely to oppose the bill as it stands. When we started, insiders all told us the bill could not be stopped, now they’re all telling us the bill may soon be dead in its current form -- that’s people power! |
 Avaaz members campaign against corruption in India We helped win that round -- a bill is coming before Parliament now! The Times of India hailed Avaaz as "a key player in the Jan Lokpal initiative." |
 Avaaz members and campaigner Giulia Innocenzi protest draconian limits on free speech Italian Avaazers sent 200,000 emails and flooded Facebook and Twitter. We mobilized hard-hitting public demonstrations covered by top media and shelved the law for good! Now Italian democracy is free from Berlusconi -- and we are still going strong. |
With hope,
Ricken, Dalia, Luis, Allison, Ari, Maria Paz, Wen-Hua and the entire Avaaz team
Sunday 4 December 2011
Process desalinates water, produces hydrogen and treats wastewater
There are many efforts to invent ways to make water desalination a low energy consumption process. Water purification usually requires a lot of energy as well, while utility companies need large amounts of water for energy production. Their goal is to find a low-energy-required treatment technology. Researchers from the University of Colorado Denver College of Engineering and Applied Science may have discovered an answer.
Bioengineered algae could be used to produce hydrogen from water
Many kinds of algae and cyanobacteria are capable to use the energy from sunlight in order to produce compounds needed for their own survival, and during that process they split water molecules and release hydrogen, which holds promise as a clean and carbon-free fuel for the future. A group of researchers found a way to increase hydrogen production with a bioengineered enzyme they developed.
Biosolar hydrogen production with green algae
A fuel cell combines hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity, heat, and water. In order to produce energy, fuel cells use oxygen and hydrogen. Hydrogen is high in energy, yet an engine that burns pure hydrogen produces almost no pollution. It’s also the most plentiful known element in the universe. Despite its simplicity and abundance, hydrogen doesn’t occur naturally as a gas on the Earth. However scientists have discovered how oxygen stops green algae from producing hydrogen. The findings could help those working towards “solar H2-farms” in which microorganisms produce hydrogen fuel from sunlight and water.
Pilot plant in UK cleans waste water and produces fuel
A new industrial plant that uses algae to clean waste water has opened in Gloucestershire, run by scientists from the University of Bath and environmental innovation company Aragreen. The pilot facility will demonstrate the efficacy of algae as a sustainable water polishing technology, using waste water from a nearby Welsh Water plant. The algae will then be harvested and used in the production of saleable products.
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