environment – Page 2

Coins database: what the Guardian’s specialists think

4 June, 2010 by Einar Thorsen Leave a Comment

Juliette Jowit on the environment:

The most striking thing about Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) is simply that more than half last year's £3bn budget was spent on the UK's nuclear waste legacy.

[…]

Act on CO2 is only a small part of overall spending on reducing pollution (£800m went on insulating buildings alone), oil and gas makes up most of UK energy but a relatively tiny spend (excepting their gargantuan tax concessions). But the raw numbers reflect criticisms of previous government policy: that it did not talk tough enough to voters on emissions, it hypocritically talked up a zero-carbon economy while encouraging fossil fuels, and it did not take adaptation seriously enough.

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Is this BP’s last option to stop the spill?

25 May, 2010 by Einar Thorsen Leave a Comment

Alex Thomson:

They have 16 men out there experienced in capping the Kuwait wellheads which Saddam’s troops blew up.

I saw what Saddam did in Kuwait and I saw what BP did in the Gulf – the Kuwaiti oil fires were child’s play on every level of comparison. Surface as opposed to extreme depth. In air as opposed to water. Ignited oil as opposed to gushing liquid crude into pristine deep ocean.

[…]

So you have to ask – who on earth are BP to trust when it comes to talking about the terrible mess they have made? Precisely the question they really are asking on Capitol Hill, right now.

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Environmental news site Grist adds humour to reader donations campaign

24 May, 2010 by Einar Thorsen Leave a Comment

Jennifer MacDonald on Grist's fundraising campaign for environmental journalism:

we have noticed how the economic downturn hit environmental reporting particularly hard, with several eco-columns and publications going under in the last year. So we decided, why not mimic campaigns to save endangered species, which in a way journalists really are? Grist is known for our zany fundraising campaigns. We’d rather err on the side of humour than earnestness. The element of humour is there, painting our staff members as wild animals, but we also hope to strike a chord of urgency, showing our readers that we really do need their support as an independent, non-profit news site.

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Journalism with depth – Philly Inquirer goes 3-D – Editors Weblog

24 May, 2010 by Einar Thorsen Leave a Comment

Colin Heilbut:

“The Inquirer’s move follows a recent global trend in experimenting with 3-D daily papers. Belgian newspaper La Dernière Heure was the first European paper to use 3D technology in a publication, and their efforts resulted in an increase in circulation from 85,000 to 115,000 copies. The Sun, a British tabloid owned by News International, will be releasing their own 3-D World Cup edition on June 5th. Despite the increased sales and higher premium publishers can charge for 3-D advertisements, the technology remains cost prohibitive to use on a regular basis. It also remains to be seen if this sort of gimmick can help make a substantial impact on a publication with as much red ink as the Inquirer.”

Cost-prohibitive? Right. What I don’t get is why there doesn’t seem to be an outcry against the environmental impact of such experimentation… environmentally-prohibitive?

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Del.ici.us tags: 3d newspapers experimentation future teaching-example environment

Citizens map the Gulf oil slick with balloons and kites – MIT Center for Future Civic Media

11 May, 2010 by Einar Thorsen Leave a Comment

We're not trying to duplicate the satellite imagery or the flyover data (though we’re helping to coordinate some of the flyovers and trying to make sure the data is publicly accessible). We believe in complete open access to spill imagery and are releasing all imagery into the public domain."

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Del.ici.us tags: maps mapping citizenmedia civicmedia oil spill environment publicdomain activism visualization