Home/Posts Tagged ‘China’
Posts Tagged ‘China’
Animals, Pollution, Recycling, Videos & Documentaries, Jan 22nd, 2012,
We’ve got two bits of eco-news from Asia this weekend. First we’re off to Vietnam to see how megacity Hanoi is coping with a growing waste problem with the help from scientists in Germany. Enormous amounts of waste, a rising population, over-crowding, and an aging infrastructure: Vietnam’s capital Hanoi is a perfect example of a fast-growing megacity. Scientists at Darmstadt University have developed a pilot project that combines wastewater treatment, waste disposal and energy production in one. Their goal is to design a biogas plant for Hanoi that digests waste to generate electricity and heat. –Deutsche Welle Next we jet…
Tags: bengal, China, Hanoi, megacity, tiger, Vietnam, white
Science & Technology, Weird & Wonderful, Dec 12th, 2011,
A bridge that will be built on the lake in Xidong Central Park in Wuxi, China, experts have already been calling legendary, although construction has not even started yet. The projects of the Chinese architects from the L&A Design Group are known for winning voices of recognition all around the world. Futuristic design elements will connect the northern and southern parts of the park. In the middle of the pedestrian bridge an artificial island with restaurants, tea rooms, galleries and gardens will be created. The project is distinguished by smooth but dynamic lines. The bridge will have a shape resembling…
Tags: bridge, China, Wuxi
Climate & Change, Politics, ,
A last minute deal at COP17, the UN Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa, managed to secure a legally binding global treaty, even amongst those most reluctant to sign on: big polluters the US, China and India. But what does the deal entail and is it really any good? First of all, the treaty is to be signed in 2015 and enforced in 2020 – too little too late according to environmentalists and most climate scientists. But what the hell do they know? The climate ‘road map’ was the brainchild and goal of the European Union, who desperately tried…
Tags: China, climate, COP17, deal, Durban, emissions, environmentalists, India, reactions, scientists, South Africa, US
Climate & Change, Politics, Nov 30th, 2011,
COP 17 updates, anyone? Anyone care about the future of the climate, planet Earth or its human and non-human inhabitants? No? Well neither do your leaders, apparently. Wo what are they doing there, anyway? One aspect of the climate summit in Durban, South Africa seems to be various large polluting countries balking at committing to reduce emissions unless every other country does. This effectively means that none of them really want to. Not enough to take a stand. Make no mistake: the rule of the day is economic self-interest. Brazil, China, India are not considered industrialized nations and want exemption…
Tags: China, climate, cop 17, Durban, emissions, EU, global, japan, kyoto, REDD, Russia, treaty
Climate & Change, Politics, Nov 7th, 2011,
A recent BBC News article concerning the upcoming climate change summit in Durban, South Africa, which takes place at the end of the month, includes a carbon emissions chart according to countries or political/geographic areas. The article, by Richard Black, outlines the major conflicts and cleavages between various individual and groups of countries. The large rapidly industrializing BASIC group of Brazil, South Africa, India and China form one bloc with the position that they should be allowed to develop and emit, as they do not have anything near the cumulative, historic emissions of the US and Europe. The US, Japan,…
Tags: China, co2, countries, emissions, EU, US
Politics, Pollution, Oct 26th, 2011,
Last week representatives from over 170 countries met at a UN environmental conference in Colombia to work towards a ban on the exportation of hazardous waste from rich countries to the developing world. The measure is to ratify an amendment to the Basel Convention, a treaty forged in 1989 with the aim of ensuring that individual states take care of their own waste instead of dumping it in poor countries. The US, which is the top exporter of e-waste, still hasn’t signed on. The US has no rules for exporting its e-waste, most of which ends up in China as…
Tags: China, e-waste, export, japan, Philippines, toxic waste, US
Pollution, Videos & Documentaries, Jul 13th, 2011,
Nike, Abercrombie & Fitch, Adidas, Puma, Calvin Klein, Converse, Cortefiel, H&M and Lacoste are among the global megabrands named in a new Greenpeace report on hazardous river pollution by the garment industry in China. Since 1995 China has been the world’s largest exporter of textiles, attracting Western and Japanese brands to manufacture there due to cheap labor and lax regulations. Even when major international brands have self-imposed regulations on how their garments are produced, such rules are harder to monitor when outsourced to firms in other countries. Youngor Group, the Chinese company linked to the international firms, uses chemical dyes…
Tags: Adidas, brands, China, Converse, garment, Greenpeace, H&M, Nike, Pollution, Puma, river, textiles
Actions, Apr 19th, 2011,
A truck containing several hundred dogs was stopped by activists on a road in Beijing on Friday. A supportive crowd of some 200 people gathered and the driver was eventually paid off to give up his canine cargo, many of whom were in poor health. Though the eating of dogs is not uncommon in some Chinese provinces, these dogs were not livestock. They had apparently been stolen from their owners – some still had collars to prove it, though the driver claimed they had been purchased. The interception of the dogs was the latest bold action by pet-lovers in China,…
Tags: activists, China, dogs, meat, slaughter, truck
Business, Politics, Sustainable living, Apr 8th, 2011,
Many of us who use Apple computers have a hard time imagining using any another machine. Likewise, most iPhone users probably loathe the thought of switching to a “normal” mobile phone. My own MacBook is 4 ½ years old and held together by Duck Tape, but still works a charm. And I’ve no intention of bloody going back to a clunky PC either. But there are some ethical points about Apple that bother me, despite their clean, forward-thinking image. For one, the company’s constant upgrading of its products promotes excessive consumption and has elicited accusations of purposefully withholding technology. Apple…
Tags: Apple, China, iphone, mobile phones
Climate & Change, Pollution, Science & Technology, Feb 22nd, 2011,
More and more goods are being shipped from China to Europe in an unstoppable relationship based on cheap production and ever-increasing consumption. This means more energy and greenhouse gas emissions. But freight companies are also developing and implementing ways to become more energy efficient and lower their emissions. Danish shipping giant Maersk has ordered 10 new mega ships (with an option for 20 more) to be used between China and Europe. These floating blocks of skyscrapers can carry 20% more than the largest freighters currently at sea and are too big to be used at ports in the Americas. Ocean…
Tags: China, emissions, Europe, freight, Gottard, Maersk, ocean, rail, shipping, trains, trucks, tunnel
Climate & Change, Politics, Dec 8th, 2010,
Last Monday’s Climate talks in Cancun could lead to a breakthrough in the climate negotiations. China, one of the nations most looked at in Cancun, has made a proactive offer to have its personal reduction targets binding by submitting them to an international United Nations resolution by the end of the week. By doing so, China is taking on a very positive and flexible position, and maybe even providing a way out of negotiations blocked by many different factors. Offering to have its personal reduction target objectives written down in a binding international agreement puts pressure on other countries, especially…
Tags: binding climate treaty, Cancun Climate Conference, China, cop16, emission target reductions, japan, Kyoto Protocol, U.S.
Climate & Change, Nature, Science & Technology, Wildlife & Flora, Nov 12th, 2010,
The Chinese are well known for their strange experiments and use of nature. Just think about China’s rainmaking escapades, the country’s unstoppable need for damn building and it’s bewilderment over artificial snowflakes. Well this winter, the Chinese have yet another quiet unusual plan. To help solve the water shortage in Peking, the country is putting everything into place to collect and melt snow into water. One hundred cubic meter of snow should be processed hourly this winter. Parts of the collected snow will be turned into water; some of it will be dumped in neighboring rivers. By doing this, China…
Tags: China, climate change, global warming, melted snow, peking, water shortage, water shortage in Peking
Sustainable living, Weird & Wonderful, Wildlife & Flora, Nov 4th, 2010,
Asians are known to treat animals quiet differently than Europeans or Americans do. But their latest invention really gives me the creeps. Hungry commuters can now grab live crabs from vending machines on their way home. In the municipality of Nanjing in China crab dishes are already very popular. With the vending machines, the Twin Lake Crab Company, a big crab seller in China, wants to make crab more easily available to consumers. A living crab from the vending machines costs between € 2 and € 6 (between $ 3 and $ 9) depending on the size of the crab…
Tags: China, chinese crabs, consumption, crab, crab sales, live crabs in vending machines, vending machines
climate change, Politics, sustainable living, Videos & Documentaries, Oct 12th, 2010,
“The Choice Between Poverty and Poison” Parts of China are awash in electronic waste, or “e-waste”; a rising tide of circuit boards, glass monitors and other bits and bobs of computers that we don’t want anymore due to their having become passé and no longer suited to our hyper-modern, technology and consumer-driven lifestyles. Chinese towns, such as the now infamous Guiyu in the south of the country, are dedicated e-waste recycling centers, dominated, darkened and scarred by the toxic trash industry. In very poor and basic conditions, metals such as lead, copper and gold are extracted from recycled e-waste via…
Tags: China, computer recycling, computer waste, e-waste, electronic waste, Recycling
Climate & Change, Politics, Oct 6th, 2010,
The UN climate talks currently underway in Tianjin, China are smaller, more subdued and well organized when compared to the major international event at Copenhagen last December. But in the end they are still about China vs. the United States. Tianjin is being seen as an opportunity to find some common ground before the UN summit in Cancún, Mexico later this year, but the chief US envoy is frustrated at the level and speed of progress taking place. Instead of actual progress he sees backtracking. From a report in the Guardian: What is frustrating in these negotiations is to see…
Tags: China, climate, climate change, copenhagen, low expectations, talks, Tianjin, UN, US
green living, Science & Technology, Weird & Wonderful, Oct 5th, 2010,
It’s been months since I’ve written anything about green architecture, but that certainly didn’t stop people from dreaming or designing new ideas. Museums, retirement homes, shopping centers, schools and office spaces are created (or at least drawn up) all the time, but these particular designs caught my attention for one reason: they all float (or have floating-like qualities). Check them out: Xiamen Museum Designed by MAD Architects and destined for Xiamen City in China, this is one of the most unique museum ideas I have ever seen. The Xiamen Museum is an odd shaped, 3-story structure that would cover about…
Tags: China, float, green architecture, green design, hang, Italy, Ja StudioInc, MAD Architects, Michael Jantzen, orbit, Orbiting Eco-House, Slow Uprising, Xiamen Museum
Climate & Change, Politics, Oct 4th, 2010,
This week the final UN climate talks leading up to the summit in Cancun Mexico will be held in Tianjin, China, a large manufacturing city of over 12 million people. In the aftermath of a failed climate summit in Copenhagen last December, hope for any binding treaty between nations is slim. Kyoto part 2 seems like a politically impossible pipedream. Good news for the fossil fuel industry, bad news for most everyone else. If we believe the scientists, that is. From a Reuters article: Scientists say the world is on track for temperatures to rise well beyond 2 degrees Celsius,…
Tags: Cancun, China, climate, summit, Tianjin, UN
Nature, Videos & Documentaries, Sep 29th, 2010,
A tidal bore is when waves of water rush through a narrow passage against the natural current of a body of water. Tidal bores are actually tidal waves, which are often mistakenly confused with tsunamis. Sometimes the phenomena of seawater being funneled through a river mouth can be quite spectacular, such as the annual tidal bore in China’s Qiantang River. From ITN News: Each year, just after the mid-Autumn festival, when the moon is at its fullest, a huge waves rolls along the wide mouth of the Qiantang near Hangzhou in China’s eastern Zhejiang province. Watch this dramatic video footage…
Tags: China, Qiantang, river, tidal bore, video, waves
Climate & Change, Science & Technology, Sep 16th, 2010,
Future fossil fuel infrastructure set to be built between now and 2060 will have the strongest effect on climate change, according to a report in the journal Science. The global demand for energy is quickly rising, while political agreements and regulations to curb the resultant rise in greenhouse gas emissions have so far failed. A new study from scientists in the US and Canada has calculated that most of the ‘key’ impacts of climate change could be avoided if no further CO2 power plants were built and that the real risks come from fossil fuel-based energy infrastructure which has yet…
Tags: China, climate change, co2, coal, emissions, energy, fossil fuel, future, greenhouse gas, infrastucture, science
Business, Politics, Videos & Documentaries, Sep 14th, 2010,
Xinjiang autonomous region is China’s frontier land for renewable energy. China has poured cash into wind energy projects in Xinjiang, fuelling a boom in the country’s largest and most western region. Because of the Chinese government’s investment in renewables, like the wind farms of Xinjiang, China has recently been named the best place to invest in green energy. But for many people in Xinjiang, particularly the Muslim Uyghur community who make up its largest ethnic group, the ‘wind rush’ is just another stage of colonization by the People’s Republic of China. Uyghers have for the most part not benefitted from…
Tags: boom, China, energy, Muslim, Uyghur, wind, Xinjiang
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