Simon

Two new green web hosts has been added to our growing green web host list. The first one is Host Papa, a web host located in Canada who purchases Green Certificates (Green Tags or RECs). The second one is Lightbeing Creations. Lightbeing Creations is a green reseller host. They buy server space from the 100% solar powered hosting company Aiso. Aiso are one of the few that truly offers green web hosting. Live Earth choosed to host their site with them. Asio is also a member of the U.S. Green Building Council and was featured in Inc. Magazines’ Top 50 Green Companies. If you want you can learn more about Aiso here.

Missy Higgins is a popular musician in Australia. If you watched the Live Earth (7.7.07) events last year you could see her perform in Australia. Now she is trying to make her way to the US music scene in her "green" US tour. She will promote her new album, "On A Clear Night" (which is being released today), and show her "commitment and interest in the environment" by touring in a Prius and stopping at various forward thinking green places along the way. A series of videos will document Missy's "green" tour in the USA. After the jump you can watch a trailer for the videos. http://www.missyhiggins.com

Lucas Oleniuk, photographer at the Star, has made a video to illustrate climate change from still-images "taken in our own back yard." Twenty days in Ontario resulted in twenty thousand still images that make up this beautiful piece called "Airsick: an industrial devolution". "Airsick: An Industrial Devolution" is more than just another video. It is a statement, a warning, a wake-up call. And it dovetails perfectly with the Star's commitment to Earth Hour, a global action slated for March 29 - when people in cities around the world will turn out their lights for an hour to take a stand against climate change. (The Earth Hour organization calls our changing weather patterns "the greatest threat our planet has ever faced.") Watch "Airsick: an industrial devolution", and read more about it over at the Star.

In London today, all cars, except the cleanest ones, have to pay £8 ($16) a day, to enter the city of London. But starting in October this year owners of big gas-guzzling cars will need to pay £25 ($50). On a news conference Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London, said that he believes that “this ground-breaking initiative will have an impact throughout the world with other cities following suit as they step up their efforts to halt the slide towards catastrophic climate change." Ken Livingstone admits that the new tax will only have a minor impact on greenhouse gas emissions in London. But, he says the new congestion charging scheme for gas-guzzling cars will send signals that its time to change lifestyle. "I have every sympathy for a Scottish hill farmer who needs his 4×4 to get around," Livingstone said. "But there is absolutely no justification for cars producing high amounts of pollution being driven in central London." The new scheme is expected to bring in around £30-£50 million ($60-$100), every year. The money will go to fund the cost for a major cycling initiative in London. While environmental organisations and a majority of the citizens in London welcome the new scheme the motor industry is not happy. Automobile Association president Edmund King welcomes incentives for greener cars, but says that "larger families who do low mileage will be clobbered by this new tax." Tony Juniper, from Friends of the Earth Director, welcomes the new scheme but says more is needed. "Road traffic is one of the biggest contributors to climate change. Measures that get people to choose greener cars, as well as to drive less, are urgently needed. Charging gas-guzzling vehicles more to drive in central London is extremely welcome and supported by most Londoners. We are delighted that Mr Livingstone is taking a lead on this issue." Below is a video from SkyNews where Tony Juniper and Porsche go head to head on congestion charging in London: Image credit: Joshua Kaufman. Image licensed under a Creative-Commons Attribution-Share Alike license.

The United Arab Emirates, home for around 5 million people, wants to build the world's first zero-carbon city called Masdar City. In Masdar City cars will be banned. A light rail system will serve the residents inside the city as well as taking them to nearby cities. Waste water will be reused, all garbage will be recycled and organic food will be locally grown. The water will be provided through a solar-powered desalination plant. Even though the developers of Masdar City haven't said any exact percentage they plan to power most of the city by solar power. Masdar City, which will stretch out 3.5 miles and will have a wall built around the city. The wall is there to diminish the heat carried in from southerly desert winds, but also the noise from the airplanes at the nearby Abu Dhabi International airport. It all sounds good, but this Gulf desert nation has a lot to prove. For example, the United Arab Emirates has the world's largest ecological footprint per capita, 11.9 global hectares per person. You can compare this to USA who has the second-worst ecological footprint, 9.6 hectares per person. Compare this to the global average which is 2.2 hectares a person and you clearly see the problem. The country also wins (or loose depending on how you see it) the per capita carbon footprint. In the United Arab Emirates it takes 9.06 global hectares of land to take up each person's carbon dioxide emissions, in a year. The US carbon footprint is 5,66 and the world average is 1.7. After a deal with the Emirates government, the WWF will be monitoring the construction and the finished city to be sure it lives up to it green claims. The city is expected to cost $22 billion to construct and is scheduled to inaugurate in 2015.

Robert Newman, a British stand-up comedian, author and political activist, urges for a "major" social political change to combat global warming. Newman says that "our economic system is unsustainable by its very nature." And he believes that "the only response to climate chaos and peak oil is major social change." There is no meaningful response to climate change without massive social change. A cap on this and a quota on the other won't do it. Tinker at the edges as we may, we cannot sustain earth's life-support systems within the present economic system. Capitalism is not sustainable by its very nature. It is predicated on infinitely expanding markets, faster consumption and bigger production in a finite planet. And yet this ideological model remains the central organising principle of our lives, and as long as it continues to be so it will automatically undo (with its invisible hand) every single green initiative anybody cares to come up with. Read the whole article over at the Guardian.

We all know that the meat industry is a dangerous threat to our climate and overall a questionable industry. The cattle release CO2, methane and other greenhouse gases. They also use a lot of land areas, around 25% of the earths total land area. And about one third of all farm areas are used to grow food for the cattle. According to studies the meat industry is responsible for about one fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions, in the world. That means they currently pollutes more than the whole transport sector. And by year 2050 the meat production is expected to increase with 50%. And then I haven't even mentioned the rather obvious animal suffering. But maybe, if some "environmentally concerned scientists" get their way, the meat you'll eat in the future will be produced inside a lab. Scientists from the In Vitro Meat Consortium are currently trying to produce meat from muscle tissue for human consumption. This laboratory-grown meat, or in vitro meat, should not be confused with "imitation meat", which often is produced from soy or gluten. The in vitro meat will be actual animal flesh, but flesh that never has been part of a living animal. The in vitro meat would, according to the In Vitro Meat Consortium, be healthier and contain fewer diseases. It would also reduce animal suffering and have positive effect on the environment. But some people are concerned that the in vitro meat will be of lesser quality and contain unresolved health risks than ordinary meat. Others worries that the in vitro meat will be different in appearance, taste, smell and even texture and thus reduce its appeal for consumers. Either way the in vitro meat is far from the market today. More research needs to be done and there are currently several obstacles that need to be solved first: Proliferation of muscle cells: Although it is not very difficult to make stem cells divide, for meat production it is necessary that they divide at a quick pace. This requirement has some overlap with the medical branch of tissue engineering. Culture medium: Proliferating cells need a food source to grow and develop. The growth medium should be a well-balanced mixture of ingredients and growth factors. Depending on the motives of the researchers, the growth medium has additional requirements. Commercial: The growth medium should be cheap to produce. Environmental: The production of the growth medium shouldn't have a negative impact on the environment. This means that the production should be energetically favorable. Additionally, the ingredients should come from completely renewable sources. Minerals from mined sources are in this case not possible, as are synthetically produced nutrients which use non-renewable sources. Animal welfare: The growth medium should be devoid of animal sources, although they may initially be more useful than other sources. Space travel: The growth medium should be almost completely created from the waste products in the space ship, if it is to be used in space travel. Bioreactors: Nutrients and oxygen need to be delivered close to each growing cell, on the scale of millimeters. In animals this job is handled by blood vessels. A bioreactor should emulate this function in an efficient manner. The usual approach is the creation of a sponge-like matrix in which the cells can grow, and perfusing it with the growth medium. Although more research needs to be done there is progress in this area, especially in Europe. M. A. Benjaminson from Touro College performed the first, actual, research about in vitro meat. Benjaminson managed to grow muscle tissue from a goldfish in a laboratory setting. And in 2004 researchers from Europe formed the non-profit organization New Harvest. According to them laboratory-grown meat in a processed form, like sausages and hamburgers, "may become commercially available within several years". In April 2005 the Dutch government granted a two million euro subsidy for a laboratory-grown meat project by Henk Haagsman at the University of Amsterdam. At a workshop held at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences on June 15, 2007 the In Vitro Meat Consortium was established with the goal "to facilitate the establishment of a large-scale process industry for the production of muscle tissue for human consumption through concerted R&D efforts and attraction of funding to fuel these efforts."