“The bill imposes cuts on greenhouse-gas emissions and creates a cap-and-trade system requiring power plants, manufacturers and other polluters to buy emissions allowances… “To convince skeptical Democrats to back the bill … agreed to lower emissions caps and renewable fuel standards… gives away nearly 85 percent of the emissions allowances for free to utilities, manufactures, oil refiners, and other industries.” Read more here. “If fully utilized, the emissions ‘offset’ provisions would allow continued business as usual growth in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions until 2030, leading one to wonder: where’s the cap in the “cap” and trade?” Read more here.
News
Who’s Afraid of Genetically Modified Bread?
CANADIAN, US and Australian wheat organisations recently released a joint statement asking for the development and commercialization of higher yielding varieties through biotechnology – through genetic modification.
Clearly wheat farmers are feeling left behind with the statement including the comment: Lack of private and public investment in wheat research has left wheat development behind the advances in competing commodity crops, and has also led to a shortage of scientific expertise in wheat research generally.
I’ve been aware for some time of important research being conducted in South Australia, at the Centre for Plant Functional Genomics (ACPFG), focused on developing new drought and frost tolerant varieties of wheat and barley.
Frost tolerance has become an issue because plant breeders have been selecting for early maturing varieties in order to escape potential summer drought. But, this has now exposed crops to frost during flowering. There is apparently variation for traits for frost and salt tolerance in the “crossable” gene pool for wheat and barley, but there are far better genes in other plants and these would need to be transferred through genetic modification.
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Rhinoceros Born in UK
A newly born baby Eastern Black Rhinoceros calf sits with her mother, click here for the picture.
Millions of Pounds for Sir Nicholas
Philanthropist Jeremy Grantham has given British universities £24m in a bid to save the planet … and Nicholas Stern £12m for climate change economics and Copenhagen… Read more here.
Skeptics to Gather in Washington
More information here.
World’s Largest Solar Power Station
SYDNEY – Australia plans to build the world’s largest solar power station with an output of 1000 megawatts in a A$1.4 billion (US$1.05 billion) investment … The plant would have three times the generating capacity of the current biggest solar-powered electricity plant, which is in California. Read more here.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.