Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for May 2012

WWF & The REDD Menace in Tanzania: Christopher Booker

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“LAST November, Prince Charles, as president of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) UK, flew to Tanzania to hand out Living Planet awards to five community leaders involved in WWF projects around the delta of the Rufiji River, which holds the world’s largest mangrove forest. Part of their intention has been to halt further damage to the forest by local farmers, who have been clearing it to grow rice and coconuts. This is because the mangroves store unusual amounts of carbon (CO2), viewed as the major contributor to global warming…

“Shortly before the Prince’s arrival, it was revealed that thousands of villagers had been evicted from the forest, their huts in the paddy fields torched and their coconut palms felled. This was carried out by the Tanzanian government’s Forestry and Beekeeping Division, with which WWF has been working. But Stephen Makiri, the head of WWF Tanzania, was quick to insist that WWF had never advocated expelling communities from the delta, and that the evictions were carried out by government agencies”.

Read more here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/9246853/How-climate-change-has-got-Worldwide-Fund-for-Nature-bamboozled.html

How climate change has got Worldwide Fund for Nature bamboozled
The Telegraph, May 5, 2012 by Christopher Booker

Legal Challenge to Mandated Renewable Energy in the EU

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IS there any reason why Irish citizens should be paying for renewable energy contracts, which were awarded without proper authority or planning permissions, which were granted in a manner which was not legally compliant?

According to Pat Sword the contracts are illegal along with the European Unions attempts at enforcing them. Mr Sword is a chemical engineer with considerable technical experience in the design and implementation of renewable energy projects. But now he’s spear-heading a legal challenge that has just had the The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) rule in his favour, in particular that the manner in which the EU is implementing its renewable energy programme (20% renewable energy by 2020) is not in compliance with the Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters.

Here is a Q&A Mr Sword did on the Convention after returning from a September 2011 Compliance Committee meeting in Geneva.

 

 

Mr Sword explains the situation today in the following letter:

Dear Jennifer

This has been a highly complex case of environmental law, for which the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee has issued its draft findings and recommendations today…

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Bad Moon Rising

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TIDES are a consequence of the gravitational attraction of the earth to both the moon and the sun with the moon generally being more than twice as strong as the sun because it is so much closer to the earth. The moon rotates around the earth with the lunar day approximately 50 minutes longer than then the mean solar day. When the sun and the moon are both pulling in the same direction higher tides, known as spring tides occur.   Really high spring tides are known as king tides.

Gradually the moon and the sun will fall out of step until their pulls are opposing resulting in neap tides.

The size of tides is not only affected by the direction of the gravitational pulls from the moon and the sun, but also their distance from the earth that changes because their orbits are elliptical. The astronomical phenomena while complex are predictable forming cycles that repeat with characteristics unique to each place on earth, tending to vary in predictable ways with topography and sea depth.

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