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Archive for the Category » Global Warming «

£3m invested from region’s green fund

Wednesday, August 06th, 2008 | Author: Chris Brown

Yesterday, there was an article published in Business Weekly that gives the impression that the EU really cares about the environment, and about the owners of small businesses.

The reality is that the EU cares about neither!

The first point to note is that the £3m supposedly given from the EU is in fact our money - Britain being the 2nd largest contributor to the EU’s budget.

Secondly, the whole Global Warming story is already debunked, and revealed as nothing more than pseudo science, used to enable the ’state’ to exert ever more control over our daily lives.  In other words, there would be better uses for these funds.

Interestingly the ‘Business Weekly‘ article also reveals a high level of co-operation/interaction between the academic world and the unelected Regional Development Agency - the body that has risen Phoenix like from the ashes of the Regional Assembly - many academics having been seduced by financial enticements from the vast educational propaganda budget of the EU: And of course, the Regional Development Agencies only exist to further regionalise England ( split up into easily controlled (by Brussels) regions).

Do read the article below, but do so with the knowledge that you are reading propaganda!

Written by News Desk
Tuesday, 05 August 2008

The East of England’s ERDF concentrates on low-carbon investments. Small firms in the East of England are to benefit from £3 million of European funding to help them go ‘low carbon.’

The first two projects to receive support from the East of England’s £88 million European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) will help businesses cut their energy bills and CO2 emissions and match companies up with the right universities to develop low-carbon projects.

The region’s ERDF programme, which has a nationally unique focus on low-carbon economic growth, will also help to drive EU-wide energy reduction targets and the government’s recently published Renewable Energy Strategy.

£2.1 million is going to the Resource Efficiency East (REE) scheme, which will help small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) become both more resource efficient and at the same time more competitive. REE will help businesses to cut their energy bill and carbon emissions and other resources over the next three years giving firms a sharper competitiveness edge.

A further £628,000 will go towards setting up a project to improve the links between academic expertise and innovation in universities across the East of England and regional businesses looking to develop commercially important low carbon technologies and products.

The successful application for funding for the i-10 Low Carbon Transfer project was made by the University of Cambridge on behalf of a group of eleven East of England universities.

This project will include a brand new ‘taster scheme’ to encourage SMEs to engage with academic hubs in higher education institutions for ground-breaking work on low-carbon issues.

David Morrall, European Programmes Director at EEDA, which manages the region’s European Regional Development Fund, said: “The new £3 million of funding in the region, the first two grants made under the ERDF programme, will help small businesses go ‘low carbon’. The funding will take forward the plans in the government’s recent Renewable Energy Strategy.

“Both the REE and i-10 projects represent innovative ways of developing regional businesses through low-carbon initiatives. I look forward to seeing the fruits of these schemes and to EEDA supporting many similar projects across the region in the coming months.”

Source

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Scientists meet over concerns for wetlands

Wednesday, July 30th, 2008 | Author: News Team

It is reported that some 700 scientists are attending a major conference in Brazil for the purpose of drawing up an action plan to protect the world’s wetlands. Conference organisers say a better understanding of how to manage the vital ecosystems is urgently needed. The conference has been called due to concern over rising temperatures, which are not only accelerating evaporation rates, but also reducing rainfall levels and the volume of melt water from glaciers.

Although only covering 6% of the Earth’s land surface, they store up to around 20% of terrestrial carbon.

The five-day conference, which is co-organised by the UN University and Brazil’s Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso, will examine the links between wetlands and climate change.

Conference co-chairman Paulo Teixeira says: “Humanity in many parts of the world needs a wake-up call to fully appreciate the vital environmental, social and economic services wetlands provide. These included absorbing and holding carbon, regulating water levels and supporting biodiversity.

Meanwhile Konrad Osterwalder, who is the rector of the UN University, said that people in the past had viewed the habitats as a problem, which led to many being drained. he added: “Yet wetlands are essential to the planet’s health,” he explained. “With hindsight, the problems in reality have turned out to be the draining of wetlands and other ’solutions’ we humans devised”.

The conference follows a growing number of scientists warning that if the decline of the world’s wetlands continues, it could result in vast amounts of carbon being released into the atmosphere and compounding the global warming problem significantly. Critically, It is estimated that drained tropical swamp forests release 40 tonnes of carbon per hectare each year, while drained peat bogs emit between 2.5 to 10 tonnes. Yet data suggests that about 60% of wetlands have been destroyed in the past century, primarily as a result of drainage for agriculture.

It therefore makes sense to reduce the stress on wetlands caused by pollution and other human activity, as this will improve their resilience and effectiveness as “carbon sinks”. Wetlands should be considered “natural sponges” and their role as sources, reservoirs and regulators of water is largely under appreciated. In addition they also cleanse water of organic pollutants, prevent downstream flood inundations, protect river banks and seashores from erosion, recycle nutrients and capture sediment.

The conference organisers claim the ecosystems, many of which have biodiversity that rivals rainforests and coral reefs, were in need of complex long-term management plans. They hope, as one conference objective, to highlight the range of measures needed, such as agreements that covered the entire catchments of the wetlands.

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