Business & management:
• The World Economic Forum’s Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report 2009, places NZ 20th out of 133 countries, but a local tourism executive says that improvements to infrastructure and removing other barriers to development would make the industry even more competitive against other international visitor destinations.
• The title of this year’s World Trade Organisation Public Forum in September is “Global Problems, Global Solutions: Towards Better Global Governance”.
• America is now facing an unusual oil crisis. Supertankers that once raced around the world to satisfy the demand for oil are now staying moored offshore, fully loaded. The vast oil storage farms on land in the US are almost out of room, as oil companies and investors “stash” crude oil, while they wait for the market and demand to rise again.
• A conclusion about whether shorter working weeks save on energy consumption and costs may still be a little way off, although European countries using a shortened work week have shown that there are rises in productivity.
• A Harvard Business School paper argues that the beneficial effects of goal setting have been overstated and that systematic harm caused by goal setting has been largely ignored.
Education
• School phobia (well known in Japan) is on the increase elsewhere. In the UK, up to 3% of students experience anxiety at the start of the school day, but the problem is thought to be under-diagnosed.
• Three practical models, developed to assist businesses and their training partners in providing effective support for learners using e-learning in the workplace, have been released by the Australian Flexible Learning Framework.
• According to new research, people who spend money on "brain trainers" to keep their minds agile may get the same results by simply doing a crossword or surfing the internet.
Environment & sustainability:
• Seaweek is on this week (ending on the 8th), with events all over the country to help people discover what's special about our ocean and what they can do to make a difference.
• A new FAO study shows that the contribution of planted forests has become increasingly critical to future wood supplies.
• Vancouver City has created a Greenest City Action Team that will recommend immediate action steps to significantly improve Vancouver’s environmental performance and strategies for advancing green economic initiatives.
• An estimated 10 billion tonnes of ballast water are being carried around the globe each year, and more than 3,000 species of plants and animals are being transferred daily. A Global Industry Alliance has been launched with the International Maritime Organisation, which will assist the development of cost-effective ballast water treatment technologies, and new ship design options such as 'flow thru' ballast tanks and ballast-free ships.
• California’s Pacific Institute has released a report Water Scarcity and Climate Change: Growing Risks for Businesses and Investors that identifies water-related risks specific to eight key industries.
• Green campaigners are now aiming at America’s liking for extra-soft, quilted and multi-ply toilet roll made from virgin wood, saying that it causes more damage than gas-guzzlers, fast food or McMansions.
• The UK’s Green Building Council is proposing that every commercial or public building should be required to undergo a green "MOT" of its energy efficiency, water use and the waste it generates.
• The environmental implications of a move to a plug-in grid for vehicles are more complicated than realised. The complexity stems from the multiplicity of vehicles, electricity-generating technologies and assumptions behind future projections for both.
Health & wellbeing:
• Research by the World Cancer Research Fund shows that apart from the third of cancers caused by smoking, another third could be prevented by nutrition, physical activity and obesity controls. The latest policy report, Policy and Action for Cancer Prevention provides recommendations for 9 groups of society who can influence these factors.
• The NZ Council of Christian Social Services report, Grassroots Voices focuses on family and whanau experiences of receiving support services from Christian social services and government agencies.
• A UK think tank report on mental health has concluded that five simple steps incorporated into daily life can fortify mental health, and can contribute to a more productive and fulfilling life.
• Glasgow University research shows that children in the UK watching more than 2 hours of television per day are more likely to develop asthma.
• Research by British psychologists suggests that people who carry a “bright side” gene pay less attention to negative things going on around them and focus instead on the happier aspects of life. They end up being more sociable and are generally in better shape psychologically.
• Researchers at Harvard Medical School have now shown that sometimes you can be positive by being negative and that people who tried to repress frustration (or anger) at work were more likely to feel trapped under a glass ceiling than those who found ways to let it all out.
Law & Government:
• Local government in the UK is being heavily impacted by the recession. Half of councils have cut jobs in the last few months, and 7 out of 10 are expecting further redundancies. Although demand for services will rise during the recession, council incomes are dropping while local tax is capped. A new government report advocates the creation of a price comparison website that will give the best deals and prices on £42bn of services procured by councils every year, and councils will have to disclose the pay and perks of their chief executives under new measures designed to crack down on town hall "fat cats".
• The Building Act and the laws covering swimming pools and shop trading hours are included in a government-wide review of red tape and unnecessary bureaucracy.
People, culture & diversity:
• The annual report on the cultural sector in NZ has been released. The number of people employed in this sector has increased by 21%, compared with an increase of 15% in total employment.
• UK statistics show that the teenage lifestyle now costs £9000 per year – things that were once luxuries are now “just part of the kit that the average teenager expects to own”. One commentator compares the costs for a disabled child.
Science, technology & transport:
• Researchers in China have discovered that chicken manure can be used to biodegrade crude oil in contaminated soil. The bacteria in chicken manure break down 50% more crude oil than in soil that lacks it.
• A UNEP report shows how annual savings of six billion barrels of oil and 2 gigatonnes of CO2 are achievable through an ambitious world wide programme, and shows how the world wide car fleet can reduce fuel consumption per kilometre by 50% by 2050.
• The Rocky Mountain Institute has launched an initiative intended to help communities prepare for plug-in vehicles, including full battery electric, plug-in hybrid electric and converted hybrid or internal combustion vehicles.
• A university survey of public opinion in the US, shows that half of all Americans expect another country to emerge this century as the world’s leader in addressing technological challenges that range from the economy to global warming.
• A US company is working on a project to turn roads into solar roads. Panels that can generate power from solar energy would be embedded in the road surface.
• Hybrid automotive engines are not a recent invention. This year sees the 100th anniversary of the first US hybrid car patent, awarded to an inventor in Belgium.
• University of South Australia researchers say "talking" cars could be on the road as soon as 2012 and the technology could reduce fatalities by half.
• Lotus have developed a new vehicle engine that takes aspects of a conventional 2-stroke, and adds a few neat tricks to that proven technology to create an engine truly flexible enough to run on almost anything, from 87 Octane to tequila to VP Nitromethane.
Thursday, 5 March 2009
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