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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on November 7th, 2008 He’s not bananas, just first to grow them in a UK home.
By James Woodward
A plant enthusiast has shaken the horticultural world after successfully growing dozens of bananas in a British domestic property for what is believed to be the first time. Mike Hillard, 64, bought three musa japonica plants two years ago to provide shade at his energy-efficient home, Tranquility, in Stroud, Gloucestershire. But despite being told they would not bear fruit, the property development managing director can now gaze up at 16ft (five metres) of growth bearing more than 70 bananas. Mr Hillard, who has grown plants since he was 11, was surprised when the plants flowered and and stunned when they then produced four “hands” of fruit, each holding about 18 bananas. He called the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) who said the news was so rare he “should get down on the prayer mat”. The RHS has told him is the only person in Britain known to grow bananas in the home. The bananas bloomed in his hi-tech solar room, which stays between 10C and 16C above outside temperature all year, and is just warm enough for the east Asian crop to grow healthily. Now Mr Hillard intends to fry them up in a tasty curry. He said: “This has all been done by the English sunshine in my solar room, which provides my house with an oxygen-rich atmosphere. It has been called the most energy-efficient house in the world. I was surprised when they flowered because I was told, ‘Oh they’ll never grow fruit’. Now they are growing into a forest, and I’ve got seven babies. I asked the Royal Horticultural Society and they told me to get down on my prayer mat because they had been trying for years to get theirs to bear fruit. Mine have grown to four or five inches and they are edible. “Perhaps there is a Lord somewhere who has done it too but I don’t know where he is. It looks like a giant beehive and the trunk is full of water. You would call it a palm. The leaves grow about 5.5m up, nearly touching the roof.” He said that he would be cooking the bananas in a slap-up meal despite the RHS’s warnings that the fruit will taste odd. He said: “I love bananas and will probably cook them like a plantain; they will be very nice fried with rice.” Mr Hillard says he is “taking on” the scientific community’s findings about global warming, saying the problem is much more advanced than accepted wisdom suggests. Leigh Hunt, the Royal Horticultural Society’s principal horticultural adviser, confirmed that Mr Hillard was probably the first British grower to achieve the feat in a house. He said: “This is likely because he was growing musa basjoo [the Japanese banana], a species that wasn’t grown very often in the UK until the fashion for tropical gardens came in. “So while it has been perfectly possible to flower musa basjoo in tropical glasshouses, such as at Kew, but it has been unlikely for amateurs to grow it because they weren’t sold very often and gardeners had little interest in growing them because they required mollycoddling during the winter [they are not fully hardy]. “Unfortunately, the fruits that musa basjoo produce are unpalatable, mainly because they contain seed. Ripening may not happen as the low light levels of a British winter are not conducive for good growth. Commercial bananas don’t contain seeds because they are generally the seedless variety, dwarf Cavendish.” Mr Hillard, a pioneering environmental architect, designed Tranquility as a four-bedroom “eco-house” made of Cotswold stone, which has total annual energy costs of less than £150 a year. The former naval officer wrote his first environmental paper aged just 18 and has written several books addressing environmental issues, including climate change, food and poverty. Heating the house last year cost just £60 and he uses rainwater for showering and washing up. Last month, Graham and Daphne Bath, from Hampshire, revealed that a banana tree they had been growing in their garden for the past nine years had borne fruit for the first time. Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on November 7th, 2008 IEA urges 10000 CCS projects to run by 2050 - Forbes.com Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on November 7th, 2008 EU leaders to debate new model for world finance - 07.11.2008 - 09:15 http://euobserver.com/9/27060/?rk=1 http://euobserver.com/9/27054/?rk=1 EU leaders to debate new model for world finance November 7, 2008, EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - EU leaders are meeting in Brussels on Friday (7 November) to have lunch, with an overhaul of the international finance system the sole item on the menu. France - currently sitting at the EU’s helm - has tabled a three-page document consisting of five key priorities that “should be agreed no later than on 15 November,” when global economic players meet to discuss the same topic in Washington. The French priorities seek regulation of all aspects of financial markets. The priority list, seen by EUobserver, suggests that no market segment, territory and financial institution, including hedge funds, should escape regulation or supervision. It urges obligatory registration of the rating agencies; the convergence of accounting rules; and a review of the way in which the fair‑value rule in financial institutions is applied. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) should also be given primary responsibility to recommend the necessary measures to restore confidence and stability as well as the necessary funds and the appropriate instruments to support countries in difficulty, Paris says. The French EU presidency wants to see all five priorities translated into “concrete, operational proposals” within 100 days from a G20 summit in mid-November. At the time, French finance minister Christiane Lagarde said the French initiative enjoyed “massive support” among member states, except for a suggestion to “encourage an internationally co-ordinated response to the macroeconomic challenges to come.” This point was objected to by countries such as Germany, one EU diplomat told EUobserver, as it could imply a possibility to shape economic policies above the national level. According to another diplomat, some ministers expressed concerns about potential over-regulation, with Sweden reportedly objecting tight regulation of hedge funds. “We should not turn financial markets into steady waters,” the diplomat said. ———————- Obama and EU to reinvent global politics, pundit says The Obama administration will play a big role in “reinventing” the international system, especially on the financial side, in strong partnership with the EU, US foreign policy expert David J. Rothkopf said on Wednesday. A former trade offical in the Clinton administration and a consultant on foreign affairs and emerging markets, Mr Rothkopf was talking from Washington during a video-conference organized by the Brussels branch of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, an international think-tank associated with the US State Department. President Barack Obama is likely to visit Europe in the first months of his mandate. US-EU relations will “clearly” improve, with a second trip to Europe probably taking place in the first months of his mandate, Mr Rothkopf said. The tendency of the Democratic Party to be “more comfortable” with multi-lateralism and listening to its European partners will also contribute to improving relations, he said. But there was also a “necessity” for this partnership to improve, Mr Rothkopf argued. “We can’t do things alone, we need partnerships and burden sharing. I would expect a debate within NATO about a broader role and sense of burden sharing,” he said, mentioning Afghanistan as an example where European help is needed. “Problems within Europe are going to have an impact on this as much as US obligations are, to the extent that the EU is divided on some of the big issues of the time and on the nature of the common foreign policy and common defence policy,” Mr Rothkopf added. Mr Rothkopf emphasised the need for a global financial regulator – something the G20 meeting in Washington on 15 November is still unlikely to agree upon, with the outgoing Bush administration opposing this idea and the Obama team yet not in charge. But G20 leaders would probably agree to meet again in the first months of 2009, when both the creation of such a body, as well as the reform of the IMF could take a more concrete shape. He spoke of a “regulatory renaissance” and of of “fusion capitalism”, by which he means seeing European and Asian visions of capitalism and how markets are to be regulated take greater prominance on the international stage, and not just the so-called Washington Consensus. Yet on the down side, Mr Rothkopf warned against “blazing new trails on protectionism” that would isolate economies and only aggravate problems. In terms of what a global financial regulator would look like, Mr Rothkopf mentioned the EU as an example of “creating super-national structures,” while also noting the problem of enforcement. “Getting everybody in a room and agreeing on principles is easy – this is what we are probably going to get on 15 November – but next year we’ll see whether we’ll get institutions that have the ability to enforce new global standards on the international financial markets. That’s going to be the challenge,” he said. Any financial agreement would also foresee a leadership role for the US, in coalition with the EU and other countries, Mr Rothkopf projected.
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on November 7th, 2008
From: info at csmworld.org Dear Colleagues, As we gear up to the climate talks in Poznan (Poland) in December 2008, CSM is delighted to announce the following upcoming events in London and Delhi in November. Kind regards, WEDNESDAY 12TH NOVEMBER ‘Climate Change, Trade and Innovation: Chinese and Indian Perspectives’ Venue: Chatham House (Royal Institute of International Affairs), London. Time: 5:00pm - 7:30pm In partnership with Chatham House, Tomorrow’s Company and Chinadialogue.net Description: China and India and the world’s rising economic giants. What role can they play in building a positive agenda on trade and climate issues? Come and hear from two experts from the region: Professor C.S. Kiang, Peking University Environment Fund and Mr Rajeev Dubey, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. Further information & registration details: Programme Agenda - http://www.csmworld.org/public/pdf/Chath…, Invitation - http://www.csmworld.org/public/pdf/CH-In… MONDAY 17TH NOVEMBER ‘Indian Business & the ’Global Deal’ on Climate Change – An information session’ Venue: Hotel InterContinental, The Grand, New Delhi. Time: 2:00pm – 4:00pm In partnership with Businessworld Description: ‘In 2009 world governments will agree a Global Deal on climate change in Copenhagen. A successor to the Kyoto Protocol, this will mean changes to the CDM and the context for carbon markets. Come and hear what it will mean and how to build a progressive Indian business agenda for the process.’ Further information & registration details: Invitation - http://www.csmworld.org/public/pdf/csm_b…, Registration Form - http://www.csmworld.org/public/171108pro… FRIDAY 21ST NOVEMBER ‘The Tata Group - An Indian icon’s response to the sustainability and climate change challenge’ Venue – London, RSA (tbc) Time: 2:00pm – 4:00pm An event under the ‘UK-India Leadership Platform on Climate Change’ Description: The Tata Group is one of India’s legendary industrial houses. A household name in India, the Group is now known internationally through its acquisition of brands such as Corus and Tetley Tea and for its launch of the Nano car. Come and hear how the Group is addressing the joint challenge of sustainability and climate change. Further information & registration details: Registration Form - http://www.csmworld.org/public/211108pro… ——————————————- CSM - Kolkata Office : 39 Hindusthan Park Kolkata 700 029, India Bangalore : +91 98451 89383 London : +44 7866 600607 Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on November 6th, 2008 http://www.truthout.org t r u t h o u t | 11.06.2008 Steve Weissman | Obama Won, Greenspan Shrugged, but Capitalists Tool On —– What Obama’s Election Means Abroad —– Obama Considering Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for EPA Further: Caroline Kennedy, who helped Obama lead his vice presidential search, is being considered for U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, although some Obama officials doubt she would take the post. Obama is indebted to the Kennedy family for a hearty endorsement at a crucial point in the Democratic primaries. The EPA enforces clean air and clear water laws. Kennedy, an environmental lawyer and son of the late senator and attorney general Robert F. Kennedy, has long championed a cleaner water supply for New York City. ———————— Making sure that at least one Kennedy gets appointed is very important, Making sure that two Republicans are part of the new Administration would be a shrewd move - Colin Powell at Education would be thus an excellent choice, for Secretary of Defense, keeping on Secretary Robert Gates, would be a great move that while showing a modicum of continuity in matters of National Security, this will also be a continuation of change in respect to the move - out of Iraq and a different sort of involvement in the Pakistan-Afghanistan arena. To Back up keeping on Robert Gates, we found the following article from “Tikun Olam” Magazine of August 14th 2008: http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_… Georgia: Thank God Gates is Defense Secretary, Not Rumsfeld. You remember that tiresome evangelical favorite: “What would Jesus do?” Well, here’s a version I’m glad I don’t have to think about, concerning the current Georgia crisis: What would Don do? ————- We find the idea of Colin Powell at Education, the great administrative finale for a man who was Security Adviser, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Served under a variety of Presidents, and knows that real security of a country comes from the education level of its citizens. Further - Powell and Gates - could be the best moves of inclusion to the defeated Party in these last elections. Powell, without changing parties, even backed Obama when he saw how deep of a change this country needs, and he is ready to help lead the GOP out of its present self created desert. What better position then a improved education system that makes sure that modern ideas, and not adherance to old dogma and ignorance, is what can help the GOP out of its self imposed state of underdevelopment. Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on November 6th, 2008 An American dream Amid the excitement and frenzy of election night, one man stayed calm and collected – the next president. Rupert Cornwell reports on a historic night and examines the huge challenges facing Barack Obama The Independent of London, Thursday, 6 November 2008. The most striking thing about Barack Obama is not his youth, his oratory, or even the colour of his skin. It’s simply that he knows what he’s about. The vast crowd spread out before him in Chicago late on Tuesday night was transported with joy. America and most of the rest of the world hailed the moment as if it were the Second Coming. But there in the midst of the frenzy, at this moment of supreme accomplishment, stood Mr Obama – cool, collected and already focused not on the historic victory he had just won in defeating the Republican John McCain and becoming America’s first black president, but on the monumental problems he will confront, and that will not await his inauguration on 20 January 2009. This outcome had been predicted (this time, mercifully, the polls were pretty much spot-on). But when the epochal event finally came to pass, it was still hard yesterday for most people to come to grips with it. The implications for the foreign and domestic policy of the US, for how America sees itself and how the world sees America, are too vast. The one person who appeared to grasp exactly what had happened, and what it might mean, was… Mr Obama himself. In two-and-a-half months’ time, he will take the helm of a country embroiled in two draining wars, with its name tarnished around the world, with a slumping economy and bleeding financial system, facing a federal deficit of a mind-boggling $1 trillion. No president since Franklin Roosevelt, three-quarters of a century ago, has faced such challenges. But as the country’s very foundations have trembled, the one point of calm has been a man of 47, his name all but unknown barely four years ago, and by conventional political yardsticks with next to no experience to speak of. Yet as he spoke yesterday to America and the world, Mr Obama projected an almost preternatural sense of destiny, as if he had been preparing for the moment all his life. “A new dawn of American leadership is at hand,” he said, and a world long disenchanted with American leadership ached to believe him. Mr Obama’s mission is now to transform his country. But even before he starts, he has transformed its political geography. The continental divide evident in the two most recent elections is no more. The cleavage between the coasts and the upper Midwest coloured Democratic blue; and the heartlands, the West, and the South that remained a uniform Republican red, has been blurred to the point of invisibility. On Tuesday night, Mr Obama captured the Republican strongholds of Ohio, Florida and Virginia. Yesterday, even more remarkable, he was declared the winner in Indiana, a state that previously had voted Republican in every election since 1964. He is the first Democrat to win more than 50 per cent of the national vote since Jimmy Carter in 1976. He has secured the most convincing electoral college victory in a two-candidate contest since the elder Bush’s rout of Michael Dukakis in 1988. Not since Ronald Reagan has a president entered the White House in a stronger position. Mr Obama prevailed in every major demographic group except the over-65s. He may draw on a colossal reservoir of goodwill, even among many of his opponents. President George Bush, not noted for his generosity to Democrats, yesterday hailed the extraordinary nature of what had happened. “All America”, he said, “can be proud of the history that was made”. Condoleezza Rice, the thoroughly Republican Secretary of State (but of course an African American) seemed almost moved to tears. The election was “an extraordinary step forward” she said. The Republicans have lost at least 16, and perhaps as many as 25, seats in the House of Representatives. In the Senate they have lost at least six seats, though they will prevent the Democrats from reaching the 60 required to break a filibuster, and have thus retained the power to block legislation. In reality however, Republicans are leaderless and ideologically bankrupt. Mr Obama may well be given more trouble by his friends than his opponents – by a Democratic leadership on Capitol Hill giddy with victory and eager to tip the country further to the left than it wants to go. America cannot wait to see the back of Messrs Bush and Cheney. It is fed up with negative campaigning and with the politics of slash and burn. It is tired of the endless, unproductive fights on Capitol Hill. That is why it has elected a first-term senator who is still relatively uncontaminated by Washington. Every victorious presidential candidate says he wants to govern across the political divide: even the super-polarising George W Bush did so in 2000 and 2004. But if anyone means it, Mr Obama does. This election may have swept an African American into the White House, and given Democrats simultaneous control of the White House and Congress for the first time since 1992. But as the President-elect knows full well, the US remains a centre-right country. Back in 2004, Mr Obama first made his name with an electrifying speech in which he proclaimed there was not a “blue America” or a “red America”, but a single United States of America. On the printed page, those words read like a cliché. But like most clichés they are true – or at least Americans fervently pray they are true. During the campaign, the Republicans constantly pointed out that he had among the most, if not the most, liberal voting record in the Senate. “The truth is, he’s a socialist,” one normally judicious Republican senator intoned. But Mr Obama in office will not behave like one. Though his mandate for change is sweeping, he is likely to govern from the centre. Yes, the US is entering a period of more activist, interventionist government. The economic crisis, the urgent need to improve the nation’s education, health care, and infrastructure, demand no less. Indeed, one of President Obama’s first acts will be the signature of a massive new economic stimulus programme (that is, if a lame duck President Bush has not done so already, in the waning weeks of this administration). But it is also a truism of American politics that really important legislation can only pass with bi-partisan support, and if ever really important legislation is needed, it is now. Yesterday Mr Obama was in Chicago, working out at the gym, but also working with his closest advisers on the transition and the make-up of his cabinet. Never has an incoming administration more urgently needed to hit the ground running. To signal his intentions, Mr Obama will probably soon name a Republican to one of the two top national security jobs, either Secretary of State or Secretary of Defence. He may also choose a non-party figure to be Treasury Secretary, right now the most important cabinet post of all. Democratic sources revealed last night that Rahm Emanuel, a former aide to Bill Clinton, hadbeen appointed his WhiteHouse chief of staff. From day one, they will have their work cut out. Abroad, the Obama administration must find a way out of Iraq, and prevent the war in Afghanistan, and the situation in neighbouring Pakistan, from slipping out of control. It will be dealing with a resurgent, prickly Russia – which chose yesterday of all days to announce it was moving missiles to its Baltic region to counter the “threat’” posed by the US missile defence installations in Europe. It must restart work on the stalled Doha round of global trade talks. At home, the new president not only has to tackle the immediate economic crisis. He must deliver on lavish election promises of middle-class tax cuts and the expansion of health care coverage, even though these can only push the federal deficit still higher. He must build a credible energy policy. He must place the US at the forefront of the battle against global warming. On the campaign trail, the disconnect between the candidates’ economic rhetoric and the grim daily economic reality experienced by voters was often almost surreal. Now Mr Obama has somehow to bring his country down to earth, yet without destroying the enchantment that lifted him to power. In Grant Park, the President-elect made a start. The changes would come: “We as a people will get there.” But the journey would be long, and the problems so great that they might not be solved in a year or two years, or even by the end of his first term. Again and again, he wove into his speech his campaign refrain of “Yes, we can”. But he uttered the phrase less as a triumphant statement of fact than as a quiet aspiration. Henceforth Mr Obama and the Democrats will no longer have the most unpopular president in modern US history to kick around. If they mess up, and on occasion they will, the fault will be theirs alone. But if the overwhelming weight of expectation is Mr Obama’s greatest problem, he by every indication knows how to handle it. Just as during the tough stretches of the campaign, everyone else might lose their heads – but not him. One way or another, the man about to become the 44th president knows what he’s about. “I wish God speed to the man who was my former opponent and will be my president. I call on all Americans… to not despair of our present difficulties but to believe in the promise and greatness of America.” “I am especially proud because this is a country that’s been through a long journey inovercoming wounds, and making race not the factor in our lives. That work is not done, but yesterday was obviously an extra-ordinary step forward.” “Your victory has demonstrated that no personanywhere in the world should not dare to dream of wanting to change the world for a better place.” “I congratulate President-elect Obama on his historic victory. Now it’s time to begin unifying the country so we can take on the extraordinary challenges that this generation faces.” “It feels like hope won. It feels like it’s not just victory for Barack Obama. It feels like America did the right thing. It feels like anything is now possible.” Related Articles
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on November 6th, 2008
All-night parties cheer Obama in EU capital. 05.11.2008 @ 09:57 CET EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - EU officials, expats working for the European headquarters of multinational firms, Erasmus students and locals from every quarter of the Belgian capital partied on Tuesday night (4 November) in anticipation of a victory for Barack Obama in the US presidential vote. Over 2,000 US expats and other international workers crammed into the Brussels Renaissance hotel down the road from the European Parliament for a party organised by the American Chamber of Commerce Belgium and the local chapters of Democrats Abroad and Republicans Abroad. The crowd celebrated as results came in on the huge screens through the night, despite the time zone difference.
The organisers set up a debate between representatives of the Republicans and Democrats. But the audience was clearly in favour of senator Barack Obama, who won 93 percent of the votes cast at a straw poll at the event, with only seven percent favouring his Republican rival, John McCain. To Matt Graves, a 37-year-old French-speaking Texan who has lived in Belgium for 14 years, the election of senator Obama was a dream come true. Proudly wearing his cowboy hat with the inscription “Texans for Obama,” Mr Graves told EUobserver that his home state is not all “red,” despite the Texas end result coming out in favour of senator McCain. “These are historical elections, it’s absolutely amazing,” he said, convinced that the new president will “greatly improve” relations with the European Union. Belgian nationals were also present at the celebrations, such as Eric and Micheline Mathay, a couple who had also joined the election party for French President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007. “Mr Obama is the American Sarkozy,” the 52-year-old accountant told this website, noting that Europeans have very high expectations from the newly elected US president in terms of a better dialogue on international affairs. But Mr Obama’s popularity was likely to drop after the honeymoon ends, Mr Mathay argued, just as with the French president. An Obama presidency would mean not only more dialogue and involvement with the Europeans on the world stage, but also more responsibilities for the EU countries, argued Jamie Shea, the head of NATO’s policy planning unit during the debate ahead of the first results. The cost of multilateralism, for the EU countries, would soon be felt when “President Obama picks up the phone to Germany and France and tell them to commit more troops for the war in Afghanistan,” he said. In terms of the consequences of the first truly global financial crisis, Mr Shea said that multi-lateralism would also mean that rich countries such as Saudi Arabia and China would soon feel entitled to more voting rights in the International Monetary Fund than, for example, Luxembourg or Belgium, if their contribution is required to stabilise the markets. This would also pose a challenge for the EU, especially in the context of a US president having to face pressure from a Democratic congress to keep his campaign promises in terms of social programmes and thus increase spending - in turn inflating the country’s $33 trillion debt, Mr Shea argued. To Michael R. Kulbickas, chair of Republicans Abroad Belgium, an Obama presidency would mean lower military spending. “There is a danger that a reduced defence budget means fewer security guarantees for EU countries, especially eastern European ones,” he told EUobserver. In terms of dealing with Russia, Mr Obama would prefer “appeasement” at the expense of countries such as Georgia and Ukraine, the Republican argued. Across the city from the European quarter, outside the cafe at the Maison du Peuple [the people’s house] - bedecked in red-white-and-blue bunting and red-white-and-blue Obama posters - a raucous crowd was trying to get into an election party hosted by the Party of European Socialists. If there was a single McCain supporter amongst the gathered hipsters and immigrants in the student-heavy and working-class neighbourhood of St Gilles, he made himself well-disguised. The square stretching out from the cafe, built as a house of working class self-education for Belgian trade unionists in the last century, was more packed than could ever be likely for any domestic election. Zach Ellis, a young backpacker from New York happened across the event having not long got off the train in Brussels, and was dumbstruck that so many Belgians were paying attention to the election. “It’s awesome - the energy, the sympathy of the people in the street. They want somebody who’s committed to ending our wars overseas - wars I don’t want to fight in.” His new European friend, Martti Kaartinen, a “stagaire” with the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation, said he found out about the party via the internet, adding that the campuses of the francophone Universite Libre de Bruxelles and the Dutch-speaking Vrije Universiteit Brussel were covered in Obama posters. “All of Europe is behind Obama. He’s going to bring back some of the good things we think of about America,” he said, while also preparing to be disappointed. “People here see him as a kind of European, but he’s an American really, and a politician. Democrats have started wars as well.” Julio Diankenda, who moved to Belgium from the Congo when he was three, said he thought of Obama as a great symbol of hope for immigrants both in the US and in Europe. “He tells people in Africa they can come from immigrant backgrounds and even be president. That’s important for people to recognise here in Europe too.” “Obama is the sole candidate that is in accord with Europe. On the financial crisis, climate change - all the essential elements, his is a progressive programme, a humane discourse that is in accord with the grand ensemble of Europe.” He admitted that there were differences between a European Socialist view of the world and that of a free-market American Democrat, however. “We can’t demand that he agree 100 percent with Europe. The reality is different in the United States.” His colleague, Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, the president of the European Socialists, agreed that despite ideologi |
