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Pakistan to host 8th World Wind energy conference in December 2008

Pakistan shall be hosting the 8th World Wind Energy Conference from December 4 to December 6, 2008 in the port city of Karachi. Canada is hosting the 7th Conference in February 2008.

World Wind Energy Association (WWEA) is an international non-profit association embracing the wind sector worldwide, with members in 80 countries. WWEA works for the promotion and worldwide deployment of wind energy technology.


Reference: http://www.wwindea.org/home/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=197&Itemid=76

http://www.wwindea.org

Changing laws is far more important than changing the light bulbs

The Climate campaigner Al Gore urged world policymakers to change laws “not just light bulbs” in tackling global warming, and a UN official said world market turmoil must not be allowed to delay action.

An annual meeting of world political and business leaders in Davos, Switzerland, this year has scheduled a record number of sessions and workshops on global warming. But a sharp downturn on markets and fears of recession have dominated discussion.

“If we get distracted by the aberrations that you see in the financial market right now it would clearly be very unfortunate,” said Rajendra Pachauri, head of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Gore, in a swipe at U.S. President George W. Bush’s environmental record, said the election of a new president in November could only bring an improvement.

“In addition to changing the light bulbs, it is far more important to change the laws and to change the treaty obligations that nations have,” Gore told delegates, in apparent reference to what he sees as the Bush administration’s reluctance to initiate legislation on environmental control.

Courtesy: ENN: http://www.enn.com/business/article/29925

Google oil and Google Wind power?

This was'nt unexpected; Clean, greeen anergy is one of the big things that we shall see in the days to come

Google and HP have jumped onto the renewable energy bandwagon.

Google, the Internet company with a seemingly limitless source of revenue, plans to get into the business of finding limitless sources of energy.

The company, based in Mountain View, Calif., announced Tuesday that it intended to develop and help stimulate the creation of renewable energy technologies that are cheaper than coal-generated power.

Google said it would spend hundreds of millions of dollars, part of that to hire engineers and energy experts to investigate alternative energies like solar, geothermal and wind power. The effort is aimed at reducing Google’s own mounting energy costs to run its vast data centers, while also fighting climate change and helping to reduce the world’s dependence on fossil fuels.

“We see technologies we think can mature into very capable industries that can generate electricity cheaper than coal,” said Larry Page, a Google founder and president of products, “and we don’t see people talking about that as much as we would like.”

The company also said that Google.org, the philanthropic for-profit subsidiary that Google seeded in 2004 with three million shares of its stock, would invest in energy start-ups.

Google says its goal is to produce one gigawatt of renewable energy — enough to power the city of San Francisco — more cheaply than coal-generated electricity. The company predicted that this can be accomplished in “years, not decades.”

Google is only the latest Fortune 500 company to embrace green technologies. Also Tuesday, Hewlett-Packard said it would install a one-megawatt solar electric power system at its manufacturing plant in San Diego, and buy 80 gigawatt-hours of wind energy in Ireland next year. H.P. said that together, the agreements would save it around $800,000 in energy costs.

You can follow the complete story at

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/28/technology/28google.html?hp

Happy Planet Index

New Economics Foundation, a London based independent think-and-do tank has developed a Happy Planet Index that combines environmental impact with well-being to measure the environmental efficiency with which countries provide long and happy lives.

You can get some of the details at http://www.happyplanetindex.org/index.htm and calculate your own index by answering a very simple questionnaire on the website.

Interestingly, the United States ranks 150th out of 178 countries. Europe is not placed much better; Austria being the best at 61st, Portugal at the bottom on 136th. The Pacific archipelago of Vanuatu has been ranked first. Columbia is ranked second, Costa Rice third, Panama fifth, and Cuba sixth showing happier trends in these countries.

Pakistani professor among Nobel Peace Prize (2007) winners

WASHINGTON, Oct 13: Pakistani professor Adil Najam, now teaching at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, US, is amongst the team of scientists and experts in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that shares the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former US Vice President Al Gore. The 2007 Peace Prize, announced in Stockholm, Sweden, on Friday includes a gold medal and $1.5 million, is to be shared between Al Gore and the IPCC for enhancing the understanding of the science of climate change.

The IPCC is a panel of the world’s most eminent and leading scientists working on global warming and it produces its scientific assessment every 4-5 years.These assessments, especially the most recent one, have been influential in moving global climate policy, including changes in US and other country positions on the subject.

Prof Adil Najam has served as an expert on this prestigious panel for eight years, and as a Convening Lead Author for its most recent report. Along with other scientists on the panel he helped shape the findings of the IPCC, especially on issues related sustainable development and other developing country interests.

Dr Adil Najam holds a doctorate and two Masters degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a specialisation in negotiation from Harvard Law School, and an engineering degree from UET, Lahore.

He has taught at MIT, Boston University, University of Massachusetts and currently at Tufts University. He is author of more than a dozen books.

Courtesy: http://www.dawn.com/2007/10/14/nat5.htm

Funny :)

Wind power is very popular because it has a lot of "fans"

:-)