Today I had to get a few office supplies. I had to get my car, which thankfully I have, then drive 6 miles to a store to get a high lighter. As I was driving I was looking at the empty lots of died business, a torn down GM Plant, and nearly every business built on the main road with little behind it, and all one story buildings with lawns!

I thought of my 9 years living in Germany, that if I had to get something I would walk out of the apartment, and down the stairs the ground floor would be a store usually, and within a few blocks would be the post office, school, church, grocery store, and the list goes on. Things were built on top of each other, and there were no lawns because the stores were in a central location with apartments, and town houses above them.

I wonder what is the long term cost in America of this urban sprawl.
1. commute to work and to do your errands costing you the must of transporation, time and expenses.
2. The dependency on oil, and future production of green house gas emissions.
3. The city must pump, and line utilities out to the townships costing more expenses in taxes and infrastructure to allow this building out.
4. Business get to advertise and capitalize by being little pretty lawns with one story buildings right along the road that your paying to have build in your taxes to then drive on your expense on.

So why would looking at the long term image of building up and not building out not be thought of in the municipal planning? Yes business would spend more and would have more actions to conduct in the start but in the long run,
1. Taxes would be decreased
2. you might not have to drive to get a few items needed.
3. lower green house gas emissions
4. lower or eliminate commuting and congestion on the roads.
5. crazy thought but we talk about the urban centers become dead lets build up and see the jobs come back into the cities, and people able to shop, and invest locally

A stand in defence of many thousands of migratory birds was made before the European Parliament by Tosh Todorov, who lives and works on the Costa del Sol.

Todorov, Duty Manager at Club La Costa Resorts & Hotels, had been invited by the Green Party (Los Verdes) in southern Spain to present his case against European Investment Bank funding of a motorway that would detrimentally affect the birds’ migratory routes.

It was an attempt, as a member of the ‘Colectivo Ornitologico Ciguena Negra’ (Black Stork Ornithological Collective), to block what signifies for some ‘progress’ but for others a backward step in their decades-long work to protect the environment.

The planned motorway, running between Algeciras and Cadiz, would directly affect protected areas, not least of which are Natural Parks such as ‘Los Alcornocales’ and ‘El Estrecho’ whose value is exceptional and which have been declared part of the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.

The environmental impact on the area has been an issue for years. A project was introduced in 2000 to improve the existing N-340, instead of duplicating it, a decision which should make current plans null and void by default. Environmental groups agree that this is the best solution for motorways.

Present for this and other presentations on the project were: Monica Frassoni, leader of the Green Party for Europe, representatives from the European Investment Bank and the EU’s Ministry of the Environment, David Lowe, co-ordinator and secretary general of the Petitions Committee for the European Commission, Octavio Infante of SEO/Bird Life and representatives from WWF/Adena, Friends of the Earth and Ecologists in Action as well as Euro MPs from Finland, Denmark, Germany, Italy and Spain. The Director General for Transport apparently was not able to attend due to illness.

Spain already leads the list of European countries with the most km per inhabitant. According to Todorov, “The COCN has no intention to stand in the way of “progress”, but we do ask that the powers that be take care to protect and care for the environment, biodiversity and climate change.” In his opinion, the projected motorway “is a clear example of environmental and cultural destruction of the last corner of Spain that remains rural, natural and free-spirited, all because it’s free of construction.”

In addition to forward-thinking and conscientious staff members who, like Todorov, champion environmental protection, Resort Management at Club La Costa believes in programmes to help do the same – recycling of all waste and water, support for locally grown and reared foods, measures for energy reduction and more. All of Club La Costa’s 22 fully owned and operated resorts throughout Europe incorporate some or all of these programmes and plans are under way to include more.

http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-9434439-new-life.phprefnum=delihayat

hand holding a fresh young plant, symbol of new life and environmental conservation

http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-9434439-new-life.phprefnum=delihayat

hands, concepts, human, care, hand, planting, unrecognizable person, growth, keeping, carrying, outdoors, conceptual symbol, new life, rural scene, humus soil, symbol, environmental conservation, giving, plant, dirt, palm, small, holding, leaf, green, finger, beginnings, gardening, protection, fragility, environment, agriculture, conservation, organic, environmental, hands, concepts, human, care, hand, planting, unrecognizable person, growth, keeping, carrying, outdoors, conceptual symbol, new life, rural scene, humus soil, symbol, environmental conservation, giving, plant, dirt, palm, small, holding, leaf, green, finger, beginnings, gardening, protection, fragility, environment, agriculture, conservation, organic, environmental

Origins of Democracy in Paleolithic Hunter-Gatherer Groups

A paper by Doron Shultziner, PhD, referenced in Part I of this essay and entitled, “Evolution and Liberal Democracy,”  highlights the shortcomings of definitions of democracy in the 20th century that ignore and obscure the evolutionary nature of democratic ideals.  The discussion is found in a section labeled, “Setting Democracy in a Larger Evolutionary Context,” 

Democracy at the beginning of the 21st century is a term that denotes a variety of regimes that share similar main characteristics. Democracy has a thin procedural definition and thicker definitions. The thin definition of democracy is a political system with universal suffrage and “whose leaders are elected in competitive multi-party and multi-candidate processes in which opposition parties have a legitimate chance of attaining power or participating in power” [citation in original]….Thicker definitions of democracy require effective and enlightened participation as well as human rights and freedoms beyond what is necessary for a democratic process [citations in original]. Thicker standards of democracy usually relate to liberal-democracies, namely democratic countries which are free and respectable to human rights. The two categories, however, are not necessarily synonymous [citation in original].

Defined by these criteria, however, democracy is a very recent invention that appeared only in the 20th century after women gained voting rights. The merits of these definitions have been recognized by political scientists for providing a useful analytical tool and for distinguishing democracies from other types of regimes, at least since the 20th century [citation in original]. 

Unfortunately, 20th century definitions of democracy, useful as they may be to distinguish democracies from nondemocracies at present, are not applicable to democracies prior to the 20th century [citations in original].  The famous democracy of Athens (and other Greek cities) about 2500 years ago is not a democracy by today’s definitions because not all men, women or slaves were allowed to vote or have any say about matters that influenced their lives. For similar reasons, the American democracy was lacking significant characteristics prior to the 20th century. In Switzerland, men gained suffrage as early as 1848; women in Switzerland, however, began gaining suffrage only in 1971 and the Swiss canton Appenzell Innerrhoden was forced by the Supreme Court to give women voting rights as late as 1990.  Still, it would not make much sense to argue that Switzerland became a democracy only in 1971 or 1990. 20th century definitions of democracy detach democracy from its historical roots for reasons of analytical clarity. It is not that these historical roots are not unacknowledged; rather, they are perceived to be irrelevant for the purpose of analyzing the unprecedented number of democratic transitions in the 20th century. This logic, as I intend to show in the following pages, is flawed because it fails to recognize seminal historical democracies as forerunners of a much deeper and profound phenomenon….

Egalitarian Social Structures in the Paleolithic Era

I believe that much of our ability to understand the transition to democracy is impaired by the focus on 20th century standards of democracy. I argue that shared features exist between 20th century democracies, democracies prior to the 20th century, and ancient forms of human egalitarian societies.

Estimates for Homo sapiens appearance are between 200,000 and 100,000 years ago [citation in original].  We know that all human beings lived throughout this period, known as the Paleolithic era (2 million -10,000 B.C.E), in small nomadic societies of hunters and gatherers (i.e. foragers) who were usually of an average group size of 25 people, although at times of festivals group size could reach over one hundred [citations in original].  Human beings in the Paleolithic era have [sic] had the same physiological and psychological capabilities as us (“biologically they were us” [citation in original], although their cultures and ways of life were obviously different.  These forager bands sustained their ways of life and social structures into the 20th century. Forager bands, albeit influenced to different degrees by external factors, were extensively studied around the world by anthropologists, and these studies provide valuable information regarding behavior and social structures in the Paleolithic era. 

An important characteristic of forager bands, which has become a topic of interest especially since the 1990’s, is their egalitarian social structures.  Wide agreement exists that the social structure of small nomadic societies in the Paleolithic era was egalitarian [citations in original]. Even at the present, after a long period of environmental influences, only a few examples of nonegalitarian foraging societies exist, and these too are affected by high population density and large group size, sedentary life, and other specific characteristics [citation in original]. As Boehm [citation in original] puts it, “Indeed, this egalitarian approach appears to be universal for foragers who live in small bands that remain nomadic, suggesting considerable antiquity for political egalitarianism.”  No strict hierarchical structure existed in foraging bands: decisions had to be reached through consensus, leaders usually had little, if any, substantial power over other group members, and people could come and go as they pleased [Emphasis added].

The Linkage Between Technology and Democracy

As Shultziner points out:

The Paleolithic era, however, ended with the invention of agriculture 10,000 years ago, human beings began to settle permanently in one place and to grow plants and animals for their subsistence. This period in human history is known as the Neolithic era. Gradually, sedentary agriculture became the dominant mode of life in most areas of the world inhabited by humans (but not in all areas). The invention of agriculture revolutionized the environmental conditions human beings once lived under, and consequently remarkably changed social structures. Small egalitarian foraging societies were replaced by larger scale sedentary settlements, some of which later became empires. As these sedentary settlements developed and grew, central authoritative power of large scale societies came into being. Put differently, the invention of agriculture resulted in far-reaching consequences on the social structures of human beings.

Shultziner aids understanding by putting the “entire time-span of human history, into an intriguing, one-day, temporal scale.

In order to put the emergence of democracy, and the transitions to democracy, in the right context, then, it would be helpful to compare the scope of this phenomenon to the entire time-span of human history, namely at least 102,000 years (if not 200,000) since Homo sapience began to dwell on the earth. A helpful perceptual scale and illustration would be to compare the relative portion of historical periods to their equivalent in a one-day scale. For more than 21.5 hours of the day (more than 90% of human history), human beings lived in small egalitarian societies of foragers. The emergence of agriculture and the beginning of the Neolithic era occurred in the last 2.5 hours of the day. The Athenian democracy briefly emerged and disappeared 36 minutes before midnight. The modern territorial sovereign state system that began to crystallize after the Peace of Westphalia (1648) was created in the last 8 seconds of that day. Democracy, as a type of regime that qualifies to 20th century definitions, emerged barely 2 seconds ago! In this context, and by 20th century standards of the term, democracy is a very recent development in human history [Emphasis added].

Shultziner goes on to state:

Although democracy by 20th century definition may be a very new phenomenon, I argue that its historical roots and causes lie in ancient times, long before the Athenian democracy came into being [citation in original].  In order to gain a better understanding of why we witness a fast rate of transitions to democracy in recent history we are required to look more closely at the egalitarian social structures under which human beings lived through the Paleolithic era.

In Part III of this essay, I shall discuss the development of these egalitarian social structures as they relate to the culture of early man and their linkage with what is known about social behavior in other species.

woman holds in her hand a tuft grass, she takes care of environment

woman holds in her hand a tuft grass, she takes care of environment

grass,holding,hand,care,concept,environment,environmental,green,protect,protection,environmental conservation,outdoors,one person,horizontal,casual clothing

woman holds in her hand a tuft grass, she takes care of environment

woman holds in her hand a tuft grass, she takes care of environment

grass,holding,hand,concept,environmental,green,protect,protection,environmental conservation,one person,adult,young,female,woman,young adult,young woman,horizontal,casual clothing,growth,hair

hand with grass, care of environment

grass,holding,lawn,hand,backgrounds,green,plant,tuft,nature,human,field,environmental,turf,horizontal,land,outdoors,environment,meadow,sun,food

The Beginning

I love him and then I didn’t. I loved it and now I hate it. I loved it, then I lost it. The switch happens at times without notice. Normally, we move from one mode of thinking to another. Some call it growth, others call it fickle. No matter which side of the path you walk there are always borders trying to keep you steady. Sigmund Freud and his theories busily boxed in your emotions, tendencies, social parameters, and answered the whats and whos of normalcy. If he were alive today would any of us be normal? So why not create your own normal. Throw out the mirror stage with the paradigms. Release yourself for one day. Dive into his perception of madness, just for a second. Dare to see someone else in that mirror and see what happens. Now do not go out and commit some heinous crime for giggles. This is an internal deconstruction. Keep it neat. Go back and rewrite the messages you were fed from birth. In other words, re-become self. I chose to exaggerate this methodology because it must be a complete, no holds barred washing. Embrace the Afterdeath experience.

Going through a trial shakes loose everything we know and love about ourselves. Standing on line at a food pantry for the first time puts one in a place outside of the self we knew already. Picture a construction worker, Mike, who has made a good living for 15 years. In his mind, this life will go on forever – he is still young at 33. There are 3 cars in his driveway; one family car, a brand new pick up, and his toy. He may also have a boat. Not yacht size, but still a sign of prosperity as neighbors pass his neatly kept home. He has three children; 10, 7, and 3. His wife, Ellen, has never worked since their marriage. Before that, she was a waitress in a corner restaurant.

Ellen watches the home shopping channels between clipping coupons and catching sales at the malls. Their home is a collage of Southern Living, Better Homes & Garden, House & Home, and Chicago Home & Garden magazines. Lunch with the girls is always at her home. It always concludes with a replication of the latest infomercial, along with product demonstration and price. The girls fawn, and one by one excuse themselves for another appointment.

 Mike falls from a 15 ft. ladder at work and is rushed to the hospital. His leg is fractured in three places. No matter, he has also severed his spinal cord on a metal shard poking out of the ground. Mike has minimal health insurance, which includes a $500 co-pay. There is no savings nor retirement plan deep enough to cover his rehabilitation or mortgage costs.  After two years, the couple is financially, mentally, and socially dead.

The couple has sells their home to pay for hospital and aftercare costs. Their lives in the small apartment on the other side of town, affords them little after rent and utilities. Ellen is forced to seek out the food pantries in her area. This is the beginning of her life in the Afterdeath.

The RICS survey

Interesting corporate reporting shows that China and Brazil are taking Sustainability more seriously than USA and others, according to the RICS survey.

Why, whenever you get a group of business people together of any stature, do they quickly boast their sustainability consciousness and then quickly add the rider, usually as an under their breath  aside, some pejorative about it being a drag on commerce (again adding …”don’t quote me, of course!” ).

Speak out and grasp real sustainability

If our captains of industry think sustainability is optional and an inconvenience, tolerated for political correctness, then let them have the courage to be open and say so publicly. Their reluctance to lift their heads above the parapet is cowardly and damaging to industry if they are correct.

If, as most people increasingly believe, we confront a global problem of enormous magnitude that has to be addressed with urgency and resources, then our leaders of commerce need to understand they are blindly leading us into an environmental cataclysm if they fail to grasp real sustainability.

Surely they understand that these are the alternatives and they are either failing to provide leadership or are placing commercial self interest above what they should know needs to be done.

Sustainability = Common Sense Management

MASCo Sustainability has demonstrated repeatedly that sustainability represents the highest levels of efficiency and commercial effectiveness. Our clients have discovered, albeit reluctantly or belatedly, that they can make better profits from sustainable management of resources and materials. Many of our proposals and recommendations can be seen as commonsensical, but you would never believe how many companies fail to see the obvious and whose management do not understand what’s  happening in the workplace.

Commercial confidentiality prevents naming and shaming, but the evidence of profligate waste, poor planning and the failure to integrate management thinking we have well documented  for future reference.

Before it is too late, corporations and the wider  business community need to address Sustainability with vigour and sincere commitment.

We have “forgiven” or chosen to defer our anger with failed bankers….this time, we need to establish that the right to make profit is a two sided privilege that carries responsibility that cannot be waived if things go badly wrong next time.

Find out more about MASCo Sustainability by contacting us.

Via BBC:

China says it will cut the intensity of carbon dioxide emissions per unit of gross domestic product in 2020 by 40- 45% from 2005 levels, says state media.

The “carbon intensity” measurement is unique to China and analysts say it will not necessarily cut emissions.

It came ahead of December’s UN climate change summit in Copenhagen, which Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao will attend.

The falling polar bears have upset a lot of people. Thousands of angry YouTube comments, death threats to Plane Stupid, complaints to the ASA, and the usual outrage brigade in the British press:

• The UKIP MEP Godfrey Bloom told the Telegraph, “This is a graphic and hysterical advert which will cause unnecessary distress and alarm.”
• Climate change skeptic and “potty peer” Lord Monckton of Brenchley called the ad “a fraudulent piece of scaremongering”.

So far, so good: most climate change stuff slips by unnoticed – at least we don’t have that problem. More interesting, though not entirely unexpected, is the criticism we’ve had from environmentalists. This criticism runs along familiar lines – here are the main themes:

• SHOCK TACTICS DON’T WORK
  Writing on Comment Is Free, Ed Gillespie was one of the first to question the ad. He argues that shock tactics don’t work: “the danger is that by pumping up the high octane drama of an ad, you increase the risk of viewers feeling manipulated and dismissing it as pure propaganda”. This is indeed a real risk – but what’s the alternative? A “medium-octane” ad would be easy to ignore; we needed to make an ad that would get noticed.

  Messages about the damaging impact of flying aren’t new, but UK passenger numbers continue to grow. Many of these flights are unnecessary: Paris is still the top destination from Heathrow, with up to 60 flights each day – despite the obvious Eurostar alternative. Who are these people? What planet have they been living on? They’ve developed immunity to the usual messages about climate change: a more hard-hitting message might just work.

• GUILT IS COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE
  Tom Crumpton of IdentityCampaigning.org suggests that making people feel guilty about flying may be counter-productive, driving them “to deploy other psychological ‘coping mechanisms’, such as projecting their guilt onto others (e.g. the response that: ‘it’s not my fault, when China is building a new coal-fired powerstation every few days…’).”

  This ad doesn’t set out to make people feel guilty. Instead, it sets out to make people feel that unnecessary short-haul flying is socially unacceptable. Drink-driving is now socially unacceptable, thanks to years of government communications – including some pretty shocking executions. Flying from Heathrow to Edinburgh should be no less acceptable – no matter how many coal-fired powerstations there are in China.

  There are 46 million domestic air passengers each year – and these numbers are increasing. Taking a domestic flight is sticking two fingers up at the environment: these are the people our ad is really aimed at. I hope they find it uncomfortable viewing.

• NEGATIVE CAMPAIGNS DON’T WORK
  This really is pretty negative stuff. Many people argue that negative campaigning isn’t helpful: people disengage with climate change unless there’s a positive vision set out: too much stick, not enough carrot. Undoubtedly more work needs to be done to bringing to life a positive vision of the future: see my earlier post on this. But our ad isn’t about positive or negative: it’s about confronting frequent flyers with the consequences of their actions. We’ve made a piece of film that we hope will make them feel differently about jumping on a short-haul flight.

• THE “LUNATIC FRINGE” ARGUMENT
  Plane Stupid are used to drawing criticism for their provocative style of activism: disrupting meetings, breaking into airports, custard throwing. Their actions have been described as irresponsible, childish publicity stunts. The graphic nature of this ad has been similarly criticized: writing on Do The Green Thing, Andy Hobsbawm says that the ad “reinforces [people’s] perceptions of environmentalists on the lunatic fringes raging against the system”.

  Far from being on the lunatic fringe, climate change is mainstream: politicians and brands queue up to pledge allegiance. And yet short-haul air travel continues to grow. Polite approaches aren’t working. That’s why we’re delighted to be supporting Plane Stupid.

One of the surprising things about the criticisms we’ve received is the certainty with which people argue their points, as if there were only one right answer here. Well, I don’t think you can ever be 100% sure that a strategy like this is right, but I’m 100% sure that existing approaches aren’t working: public attitudes are shifting in the wrong direction, and short-haul air travel continues to grow. It’s a difficult brief, but we hope that this disruptive ad will be more effective at getting people to think twice before taking unnecessary flights.

MUST WATCH!!!!

Watch the short clip

3102706    สรีรวิทยาเกี่ยวกับสภาวะแวดล้อมในปศุสัตว์    Environmental Physiology in Livestock

สภาพแวดล้อมชนิดต่างๆ ที่มีผลต่อพฤติกรรมของสัตว์ การควบคุมอุณหภูมิภายในร่างกาย การควบคุมเกลือแร่และน้ำภายในร่างกายรวมทั้งผลผลิตในปศุสัตว์ ศึกษาการปรับตัวของสัตว์ต่อสภาพแวดล้อมชนิดต่างๆ ศึกษาวิธีการวัดการเปลี่ยนแปลงในแต่ละชนิดของสภาพแวดล้อม ศึกษาวิธีการวัดการตอบสนองทางสรีรวิทยารวมทั้งการเพิ่มผลผลิตในปศุสัตว์

(Physical environments; thermoregulation; salt and water regulation; adaptability of the animals; physiological response; production in farm animal.)

(3102706 จุฬาลงกรณ์มหาวิทยาลัย)

3102726    การควบคุมอุณหภูมิและสรีรวิทยาสภาวะแวดล้อมในปศุสัตว์    Thermoregulation and Environmental Physiology in Livestock

กลไกการเปลี่ยนแปลงและการปรับตัวของปศุสัตว์ระหว่างที่มีการเปลี่ยนแปลงอุณหภูมิสภาวะแวดล้อม ปัจจัยที่มีอิทธิพลต่อความสามารถในการทนต่อความร้อนในสัตว์ชนิดต่างๆ

(Mechanism of bodily changes and adaptation of livestocks during alteration in environmental temperature; factors influencing heat tolerance in animals.)

(3102726 จุฬาลงกรณ์มหาวิทยาลัย)

Fausty’s Libertarian Blog
November 24, 2009

This is no conspiracy theory.

Mark Wallace posted a rather chilling article and accompanying spreadsheet on Conservative Home on the population figures the Optimum Population Trust would like to see in each country of the world.

Mark’s article:

The Optimum Population Trust, for those of you who haven’t yet come across them, are an odd bunch. Bluntly, they believe the best way to save the planet is to get rid of as many human beings as possible.

On the plus side, at least they are being more honest than most greens in their open contempt for human beings. The reality of many in the environmentalist movement is at core a deep anti-humanism, an arrogant dislike for people who are somehow too stupid to see the problem with their pursuit of a happy life and a healthy family.

On the down side, the OPT’s aims are actually pretty worrying – verging on sinister, even. Buried in their website is a  detailed spreadsheet [Excel link] laying out their ideal “sustainable” populations for each country. And those “ideal” populations are a little worrying, if you try to imagine the reality of them.
Read the full article

While some urban areas have dramatic drops in recycling rates, some counties improve theirs by the double digits.

by Dawn Dickson Van Ness

While a few rural counties increase their recycling rates and turn a modest profit, inconsistence of recorded rates, the depressed value of recyclables, and lack of a proven method hinder other localities.

The Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission reported that Virginia localities spent $48 million to recycle in their communities, but the funds are chiefly coming from urban populations like Virginia Beach and Richmond. According to Steve Ferguson, Nottoway County Planner, recycling in rural counties is unfeasible due to population density, cost prohibitive pick-up, unreliable community participation, and the drop in value of recyclables like aluminum.

“I would say 99.9% of all recycling is in the urban areas where they have curbside pick-up,” said Ferguson. “Virginia Beach has something like 380 people per square mile. Nottoway is more like 40 per square mile.”

But while the population density, or lack thereof, is problematic, it is not prohibitive in all cases–out performing urban areas with curbside pickup, counties like Madison and Patrick are showing that rural recycling can be done.

Recycling in Patrick County

Geri Hazelwood, the assistant to the Patrick County Administrator, found it is not only possible, but if run like a start-up business, it can grow itself.

“Oh, we are real rural,” said Hazelwood. “Forty people per square mile, maybe.”

When asked what makes their program work, Hollenworth pointed to the small business owners and a local organizer.

“It takes a personal investment,” said Hollenworth. “But with community support and someone who knows how to structure and coordinate a program like we were fortunate enough to have, it can be a real good thing. We hope to keep increasing our numbers each year. And instead of paying out $1,409 for trash disposal, we were paid $1,824 for recyclables. That’s a nice difference.”

Recycling efforts in some communities, whether city, town, or county, were erratic with some doubling their recycling rates and others losing ground in the double digits.

Due to recycling businesses closing, the loss of population or the loss of a large business, some areas are loosing ground when it comes to recycling.

Recycling Going Out-of-Business

Sharon Mills, a representative of EMI which buys recyclables and runs transfer stations in Patrick County, has seen recycling businesses going out-of-business.

“If you look at October, you see the recycled trade materials went from $150 a ton to $12,” said Mills. “The recycling business is going to need time to recover.”

Madison County: Small Recycling Business Model

Even so, recycling is helping rural counties by providing some money from selling recyclables and saving money that otherwise would be paid to landfill. Madison County increased its recycling rate and reduced refuse by being thorough and creative.

“There are grants to get you started,” said Mercury Payton, County Planner for Madison County. “We found you have to have a personable sort who is able to talk to all the farmers and business owners. Just go visit, touch base regularly and ask, ‘You have anything you want out of here?’”

Payton said rusting machinery and appliances were overlooked items that were worth money as scrap metal.

“Fallen trees and scrub brush can be chipped and shredded, so you have mulch then,” said Payton. “Just take a look around: brush, tires, oils, appliances, farm equipment. Then you have paper, bottles, and cans. Let one operation help support another. Aluminum may not pay right now, but use the grant money and other money from the farm equipment to get through the year. Price will go back up.”

Networking and Learning about Recycling Operations in Fairfax

With a business approach and a committed organizer, said Payton, all that is needed is some good business sense and the sense to talk to those who are efficient.

“Those boys in Fairfax know what they are doing,” said Payton. “You can visit, see what they are doing and how they are doing it, then adopt a smaller model.”

Payton said that getting as much into a box truck or trailer is important.

“We got a compactor for our glass so that we break it down,” said Payton. “You put more in a trailer and have less pick-ups. Make the most of it.”

Ferguson said glass was recommended, ironically so, to be crushed for roads.

Both Payton and Miller were eager to share their success stories, while acknowledging that they were facilitated by recycling companies, like EMI, which were already operating in their areas.

Location Location Location

EMI was started in the ‘80s not for recycling, but for shredding confidential documents; they then later expanded their business to include recycling.

“With companies like mine, we can provide drop-off trailers to areas that can not operate their own transfer stations,” said Mills. “You can’t bring it to us, we can come to you. We do 2.5 million tons a month and have 70 trailers. I give estimates based on transportation cost and scheduling. With every statement the landfill expense is calculated so the customer can see how much they saved.”

EMI has also assisted counties to dispose of electronics and oil by coordinating drives with schools and the cub scouts.
Electronics, batteries, and oil are items which are hazardous or contain hazardous components which will leach toxins into ground water.

Recycling Inconsistencies and Conversion Quandaries

Virginia has reduced the amount of refuse by several hundred thousand tons, and it has maintained an average recycling rate higher than the national average or the averages in nearby state; but there here is some difficulty calculating how well or poorly areas are doing. There also is a problem with records the counties are maintaining.

Steve Coe, Environmental Program Specialist at the Department of Environmental Quality for Virginia, said the challenge is to accurately reflect how Virginia is doing to reduce its waste production and increase recycling.

“Because of the way recycling is reported, different reports don’t reflect one another,” said Coe, explaining why the percentages and amounts reported by localities do not match on the Recycling Rate Report and the DEQ’s Waste Management Report.

“Also, when it comes to landfills, a ton of one item doesn’t take up the same amount of space of another item,” said Coe.

“You can’t convert tons into cubic yards. A ton of glass bottles, a ton of aluminum cans and a ton of appliances is different for all sorts of reasons.”

Geri Hazelwood, the assistant to the Patrick County Administrator and the person responsible for reporting recycling rates in her community, said when she started, not all businesses participating in recycling were on the worksheets provided by the DEQ.

“We created a new spreadsheet and filled in all the numbers,” said Hazelwood. “Before that, they weren’t being recorded.”

Without an accurate record of how well a locality is doing, there is less proof that rural areas can recycle effectively.
The inconsistency raises a red flag for Virginia’s mission to become a greener state; this with the drop in the value of recyclables and lack of community organizers in rural areas demonstrates Virginia’s need to do more before tonnage increases and recycling rates begin to drop.

Good News for Now

The good news, according to Coe, is that although times are not favorable for recycling, the economy has forced business and consumers to behave differently.

“Four years ago, and you can’t point to any one event, there was a change,” said Coe. “Manufactures used more plastic and thinner aluminum. People started buying in bulk because of the economy. And it became more popular to be ‘green.’ There is more education and awareness, but more than that, there is more material for the recycling stream. And some of it is lighter.”

Required Recycling Programs in Every County

If a county does not have a visible recycling program, there must be something in place or an exception made.

“Every county is required by Virginia code to have a program in place,” said Coe. “Although some may have an exception because of economics. But each has someone in charge of that program and they are listed on the DEQ website.”

Like in Nottoway county, some counties are not held to the same recycling standards as other areas because of population density and poverty rates.

Patrick County demonstrates that this need not hinder recycling efforts.

Need for a Reliable Recycling Business Model, Big and Small

With a larger overall population in Virginia, an untapped rural population that potentially could reduce, reuse, and recycle, and several years of high profile campaigns and initiatives, Virginia has managed to increase its recycling rate by 0.1% in the past two years. Whether that has to do with inaccurate records, change in consumer and business behavior, more awareness, or more material in the recycling stream, or all of the above, leaves questions as to how well Virginia is really doing and whether rural counties can do more. But without monetary initiatives, organization, and a rise in the value of recyclables like aluminum, rural areas of Virginia will continue not to recycle while garbage is imported from other states to rural landfills.

Charts Generated from Virginia Waste Management Data and U.S. Census Data

The reduction in waste is a combination of changing consumer habits, education about recycling, packaging reduction by manufactures and more material in the recycling stream, according to Steve Coe, Environmental Program Specialist at the Department of Environmental Quality for Virginia.

With an ever-growing population, Virginia has a larger potential to reduce, reuse and recycle.

They’re Not Green Parts 1 & 2

via BBC:

US President Barack Obama will go to the early stages of December’s UN climate summit in Copenhagen, but will not stay for crucial talks at the end.

Mr Obama will be in the Danish capital on 9 December on his way to Oslo to pick up his Nobel Peace Prize, a US administration official said.

The talks will attempt to draw up a new global climate treaty to supplant the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

So far more than 60 world leaders have said they will attend the summit.

Observers say the attendance of such figures as Mr Obama will raise expectations, although the talks are not expected to result in a new treaty.

via BBC:

Large sums promised to developing countries to help them tackle climate change cannot be accounted for, a BBC investigation has found.

Rich countries pledged $410m (£247m) a year in a 2001 declaration – but it is now unclear whether the money was paid.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has accused industrialised countries of failing to keep their promise.

The EU says the money was paid out in bilateral deals, but admits it cannot provide data to prove it.

The money was pledged in the 2001 Bonn Declaration, signed by 20 industrialised nations – the 15 countries that then made up the European Union, plus Canada, Iceland, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland.

They said they would pay $410m per year until 2008 – a total of $1.6bn.

But only $260m has ever been paid into two UN funds earmarked for the purpose, the BBC World Service investigation has found.

“There have been promises which have not been fully materialised. There is an issue of trust,” says Ban Ki-moon.

3109201    อนามัยสิ่งแวดล้อมและชุมชน    Environmental and Community Health

การบำบัดน้ำเสียจากปศุสัตว์ การจัดการของเสียและการนำเอาของเสียจากปศุสัตว์ไปใช้ประโยชน์ ผลกระทบของการปศุสัตว์ต่อชุมชนตลอดจนการแก้ไขปัญหา ความเป็นพิษ และผลกระทบต่อสิ่งแวดล้อมและห่วงโซ่อาหาร การประเมินความเสี่ยงต่อสุขภาพ

(Wastewater treatment; management and utilization of waste from animal farms; impact of animal farms on community and solutions; toxicities and impacts of chemicals on environment and food chain; health-risk assessment.)

(3109201 จุฬาลงกรณ์มหาวิทยาลัย)

via Detroit News:

Washington –Honda Motor Co. has the most fuel efficient fleet in the United States, followed closely by Hyundai Motor Co., the Environmental Protection Agency said Friday in releasing preliminary figures for 2009.

All vehicles sold in the 2009 model year are expected to average 21.1 miles per gallon in “real world” driving, which is one-tenth of a mile better than in the 2008 model year.

Final 2009 figures will be released next year in October or November. The preliminary numbers are based on sales data and confidential product reports and sales estimates from the companies and usually don’t vary much from the final tallies, which are based on actual sales.

// // <![CDATA[
RD = window.location.href.substr(7,window.location.href.indexOf('/',7)-7);
channelId = 13732;
var mcmp = 'all_bpfuels_widget2_ron';
var buyerId = 1;
var mochilaDomain = 'SnapTimes';
m3_r = Math.floor(Math.random()*99999999999);
document.write('');
document.write('
');
// ]]>

The EPA also released final numbers for the 2008 model year, reporting the nation’s fleet improved 0.4 miles per gallon from 20.6 mpg in 2007 to 21.0 mpg.