Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for June 14, 2006

International Whaling Commission Meeting Starts Friday in The West Indies

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The 58th Annual Meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) is being held from 16 to 20 June 2006 at the St. Kitts Marriott Resort and the Royal Beach Casino in Frigate Bay, St. Kitts, West Indies. The website “Kujira Portal” will broadcast the IWC meeting’s highlights and press conferences starting from this Friday, 16 June 2006.

So if you live somewhere like Australia you have a choice, you can stay up all night watching the soccer (World Cup in Germany) or the ‘wailing’ at the IWC.

The scientific papers underpinning the discussion are available at the Scientific Committee home page of the IWC website under the section titled ‘In-depth Assessments’ (http://www.iwcoffice.org/_documents/sci_com/SC58docs/sc58docs.htm).

David@Tokyo will no doubt be blogging on the event from Tokyo.

Sally Warriner in Southern Sudan: I Salute You

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“I would rip off someone’s arms at the moment to get to a clean, crisp, delicious, fresh salad and grilled fish which was not going to reappear again within 30 minutes in mutant form. Tonight is my cooking night, so I have to go to the store and choose which can of bland vegetable will be to added to spongy potatoes and fried onions. None of which I can eat at the moment, but everyone else will.

Probably what I will have will be a Tusker (the very excellent Kenyan beer) and a couple of cigarettes. Sadly I have succumbed to the aid organisation affliction – but I just had to give myself a break on something, and it is only three at night, never during the day.”

That’s a quote from my friend Sally Warriner who’s just been published by Online Opinion, click here for the article titled ‘Everything is not gwar in Sudan’. Sally is a medical worker right now in war torn southern Sudan.

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I was working as an entomologist in the northern Sudan in May 1990:

Sudan May 1990.jpg .

I’m the one in blue jeans and blue shirt. There was no beer or cigarette for me then. Alcohol was, and I think still is, banned in northern Sudan. I survived on the meal a day I got, if we got, to the next Forestry Research Station by about 11am.

I was travelling along the Blue Nile with a couple of Sudanese foresters. We survived on chai tea in the evening. Since that trip to the Sudan in 1990 I’ve been grateful for a meal in the evening. I remember going to bed feeling so hungry!

Double the Number, Half the Price: Toyoto’s Vision for Hybrid Cars

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Toyota is reported at CNN to be going to double the number of hybrid cars in its vehicle line-up soon after 2010 meaning it has targetted sales of 1 million hybrid cars annually.

I wonder what percentage of total sales this will make hybrids?

Toyota has also indicated it wants to halve the cost of hybrids.

Competitors including DaimlerChrysler are claiming diesel is the way to go with a 20-30 percent better fuel economy than gasoline cars and they are more affordable. I guess you can also run the diesel cars on biodiesel and in this way move from oil dependence.

And its the move from “oil dependence” and also “reducing pollution” that Toyota claim is driving their “endorsement” of the hybrid tecnology.

… and I wonder how much of the Prius marketing is about positioning the brand ‘Toyota’ as environmentally responsible?

Honda Civic Australia is trying to go one better. The company will guarantee the planting of 18 trees through Greenfleet when you buy your next Civic Hybrid. That’s apparently enough trees to absorb all the vehicle’s greenhouse gas emissions for three years.

I wonder how many trees you would need to plant to cover the emmissions from the manufacture of the car itself?

… and I wonder where they are planting the trees?