Posted by: Karel Boele
on 30 Oct, 2011
EcoDirectory had a stall at the Woytopia festival on the weekend. People enjoyed walking around the Eco stalls, listening to the music being played and talks on offer, the festival had a great relaxed atmosphere. EcoDirectory had its new website on show to the public, the Fuji Xerox Solid Ink printer was a success again and people were interested in the information we supplied about the Mitsubishi electric car.
Posted by: Rich Bowden
on 26 Oct, 2011
Wind turbines have, in recent times, attracted negative publicity in Australia with a number of people living near wind farms reporting health problems as a result of the constant low level noise emitted by the three-bladed turbines.
Consequently a number of anti-wind farm groups have been formed to oppose their construction. See here for a report in The Australian over an ongoing court case, which details typical allegations raised over this divisive issue.
However a radically new Australian design called the Eco Whisper Turbine has been developed with increased efficiency and reduced noise in mind. Rated at a 20kW capacity, the turbine is 23 metres high with 30 blades extending out from a 6.5 metre radius from the hub.
Posted by: sustainadelic
on 26 Oct, 2011
On October 31st, a newborn baby will take the world's population to seven billion.
Population is the elephant in the room in any discussion of the environment. One reason is that most population growth is in Asia, Africa and South America, and left-leaning greenies don't want to be seen to blame the poor nations of the "global South" for the planet's woes.
You see, the global North - the rich nations of Europe, north America, Japan, Australia - created most of our environmental problems. Capitalism, a European/American invention, drives our endless and rapacious consumption of the natural world. Colonialism turned much of the global South into a giant logging and mining operation. Most of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere were put there either by rich nations, or by developing nations such as China producing goods for consumption in those rich nations.
But we can't ignore population. It's obvious that seven billion people will use more natural resources than the billion who lived in 1800, or the two billion in 1920.
Our current rate of population growth + consumption, as a species, is unsustainable. We are using natural resources, such as forests or fish, faster than they can regenerate. The Global Footprint Network calculates September 27 was "Overshoot Day" - the day we used up our sustainable supply of nature for the year.
Some, such as James Lovelock (who formulated the Gaia Hypothesis), predict human population will crash to about a million by the end of the century. Disease will thrive in the hotter temperatures of a globally warmed world. Human food supply will collapse as farmland is exhausted through drought and over-farming, and fish stocks will collapse through overfishing and ocean warming and acidification. These things are already happening. Fish stocks are hugely depleted. Arable land around the world is turning to desert.
Posted by: Rich Bowden
on 03 Oct, 2011
EcoDirectory's owner/manager Karel Boele was recently invited to the launch of the Mitsubishi i-MiEV in Melbourne. The small car is the first volume-produced 100 percent electric vehicle to be released in Australia and we caught up with Karel to ask his thoughts on the launch and the future of the electric car in Australia.
