Adam Minter. Adam Minter is an American writer and Shanghai correspondent for Bloomberg World View. He has covered the global recycling industry for more than a decade. His first book, Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion-Dollar Trash Trade is an “insider’s account of the hidden world of globalized recycling, from the U.S. to China and points in between.” Your new book is called Junkyard Planet. Can you explain to our readers the premise of your book? The global waste, recycling, and refurbishment industry is the hidden, multi-billion dollar backstory to the familiar globalization tale told by Tom Friedman and other popularizers of the modern economy. Nonetheless, it’s a difficult story to tell, in part because most people come to the global recycling industry with preconceived ideas about waste “dumping,” exploitation of labor and pollution.
How does China play a central role in America’s garbage exports? To be clear: the U.S. doesn’t export garbage to China. The wildcard in all of this is India. Knowledge for development. This Mexico City Building Eats Smog For Lunch. There are plenty of architects these days who are doing their best to design buildings that are energy efficient and utilize green technology. And then there’s Allison Dring and Daniel Schwaag of the Berlin-based firm Elegant Embellishments. For Torre de Especialidades, a hospital with a new tower currently under construction in Mexico City, the duo has developed a tile called proSolve370e, which will cover the façade of the building.
The tile’s shape and chemical coating will help neutralize the chemicals present in the city’s smog. Yes, that’s right, this building will literally eat pollution. Dring tells TakePart that Elegant Embellishments was formed in 2006 as a kind of architectural start-up to self-initiate projects that incorporate new and often invisible technologies. She adds that, “A common thread in our work is the visual articulation of technologies that have the potential to alleviate the ecological impact of cities but often require a reexamination of current practices.
40 years "LIMITS TO GROWTH" Car pollution, noise and accidents 'cost every EU citizen £600 a year' | World news. The perennial complaint from drivers that they are excessively taxed has been challenged by a study which concludes that road accidents, pollution and noise connected to cars costs every EU citizen more than £600 a year. The report by transport academics at the Dresden Technical University in Germany calculated that even with drivers' insurance contributions discounted these factors amounted to an annual total of €373bn (£303bn) across the 27 EU member states, or around 3% of the bloc's entire yearly GDP. This breaks down as €750 per man, woman and child. The report recommends that such so-called externalities be factored into the cost of driving, noting that even the €373bn tally does not include costs from congestion or ill health caused by lack of exercise.
The study, The True Costs of Automobility, accepts that such calculations necessarily have an element of approximation but give an important overall picture. He said: "Some 86% of passenger journeys and 90% of freight go by road. Dirt! | The Movie. Climate Justice Advocates Slam Doha's Emerging 'Sham Of A Deal' By Jon Queally.
Climate Justice Advocates Slam Doha's Emerging 'Sham Of A Deal' By Jon Queally 08 December, 2012CommonDreams.org With terms like "sluggish" "tough-going" and "extremely sour" used to describe the tone and progress of the UN climate talks in Doha on Friday, the hope for an agreement that could actually meet the ever-escalating challenges of global warming caused by human pollution was seemingly at an all-time low. Climate campaigners and civil society groups are convinced that the commitments being exchanged among the international delegates are not nearly enough, exposing the ongoing futility of trying to get rich nations to take responsibility for their outsized carbon footprints or increase their meager financial commitments to developing nations.
"The tone of the negotiations is extremely sour now," said Greenpeace international director Kumi Naidoo Friday morning. "As civil society movements," she said, "we are saying that this is not acceptable. " Earth Science FAQ: Where can I learn more about Global Warming and the Greenhouse Effect? Www.unep.org/pdf/2012gapreport.pdf. Www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2009/20090713_Strategies.pdf. Captain Charles Moore on the seas of plastic.