Business & management:
• Taking a boss hostage during disputes between them and their staff is becoming an increasingly common protest gesture in France.
• Switzerland has opened up its legendary system of bank secrecy and agreed to hand over information on wealthy clients suspected of tax evasion, following international pressure.
• Since the 1960s, teachers mainly in the US but also in the UK, have used Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz as an allegory of the economic depression of the late 19th Century.
• Resolution of equal pay claims in the UK is bogged down, with a 500% rise in claims in the last 4 years leaving employment tribunals struggling.
• A Pacific Institute report has concluded that the impacts of declining water quality and availability will be “far-reaching” for business and industry in the developed as well as the developing world.
Education
• The report on bullying in NZ schools is available from the website of the Children’s Commissioner.
• UK research conducted on behalf of the Good Schools Guide confirms what many parents of daughters have found - girls are far more likely to thrive, pass exams and stay in education if they go to a single-sex school.
• The first Maori language curriculum for mainstream schools was launched today. The launch is “a milestone for race relations in general because it will enable all NZ children to experience some Maori language from the very beginning of their schooling.”
Environment & sustainability:
• Local Government Climate Change Adaptation Toolkit was launched at the 'Adaptation to Climate Change Forum' in Melbourne in early March.
• According to China’s top climate change negotiator, consumer countries should take responsibility for the carbon emissions generated in the manufacture of goods, not the producer countries that export them.
• An executive officer of the Sydney Coastal Councils Group that has just received a report on climate change says, “Councils …...are a bit scared to declare the risks to their communities because they are waiting for direction from the state government”.
• The Swedish city of Kalmar is a coastal industrial city that has become the model for what all of Sweden hopes to achieve in becoming carbon neutral by mid-century.
• IBM has published a report that examines the opportunities and challenges of strategic water management. Five case studies provide perspectives from projects around the world.
• An economist at the Copenhagen climate change conference has said that the Kyoto protocol is “inefficient and ineffective” and should be dropped in favour of global carbon taxation. Scientists at the conference produced a list of 6 key messages about climate change.
Law & Government:
• Proposals about a Digital Rights Agency have been launched in the UK as part of the Digital Britain report, to trigger debate on the subject. The report highlights attitude changes in the digital age, saying consumers are no longer prepared to be told when and where they can access content.
• An Australian report on local government and the constitution, says that local government “is and always has been weak - a "servant" of the states - but recognition in the Australian constitution would have its dangers”.
• The Sustainable Public Lighting in Australia Toolbox is a 'one-stop-shop' which enables councils to access reports, tools, guidelines, policy and news to keep up-to-date on sustainable public lighting.
People, culture & diversity:
• The British Library thinks it has “mislaid” 9000 books, while 4 million volumes are to eventually transfer from the Bodleian Library in Oxford to a storage site in Swindon.
• Symantec’s Online Living report has found that UK parents believe their children are online for 18.8 hours per month, when the true figure is 43.5 hours.
• The Australian Local Government Association has an “Ageing Toolbox” called “Planning for an ageing community”.
• An international expert on child-friendly cities is in NZ from 18-24 March to talk about how cities can be made better for children, and will be attending the NZ Community Boards' Conference.
Science, technology & transport:
• The Centre for Independent Studies, an Australian policy think tank, has produced a report on the Australian car industry that suggests intervention by the Australian government may not succeed in saving the industry there.
• Pedestrian behaviour when crossing roads varies greatly, depending on the country. A proposal to use count down timers on crossings in London has raised the suggestion that it will make pedestrians “feel inferior” to drivers.
• Digital security is an increasingly serious issue. A BBC programme has shown just how easy it is for someone to create their own low-value botnet (a network of hijacked home computers), and a survey of London commuters suggests that 4.2m Britons store data on their mobiles that could be used in identity theft if the mobile is stolen.
• A conference in the UK has been told that the paper-like layered interfaces of systems like Windows, Linux and Mac OS requiring mouse, keyboard and desktop graphical interfaces will be replaced by gesture and touch interfaces.
Thursday, 19 March 2009
Thursday, 12 March 2009
From the LOGIS news alert subscriptions (ending 12/03):
Business & management:
• A Cheshire salt mine still in operation is being used to store valuable archives, book collections and artifacts.
• The UN World Tourism Organisation says that the tourism industry has a key role to play in helping the world recover from the current financial crisis. Tourism growth in the Asia-Pacific region is expected to ease, while the Americas and Europe will be impacted the most.
• In an address delivered on International Women’s Day, Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner Dr Judy McGregor made the point that while every NZer is concerned about job security as the economic recession bites, women suffer a double whammy because of the gender pay gap.
• A recent US study has found that shopping online has less of an environmental impact than going to a traditional bricks-and-mortar store.
Education
• A school in the UK is trialling the use of facial recognition software to confirm attendance, rather than using the old-fashioned roll-call. Using biometrics in schools in the UK is widespread, but some campaigners say that schools’ use of biometrics is "a disproportionate response to a nonexistent problem".
• The chief executive of a UK university says that in the 21st century, higher education must adapt to serve the needs of a much wider section of the community than simply fresh-faced 18-year-olds.
Environment & sustainability:
• Water banking has been suggested recently for NZ’s future water management. Western states in the US have invested heavily in water banking, and the Washington State Dept of Ecology has released a report, Analysis of water banks in the Western states, which covers legislation, policies and programmes.
• An American think tank brought together prominent climate change deniers for a convention in New York this week. Although 58% of Americans believe human activity is causing climate change, many don’t see a need for urgent action. (For an alternative view of the background of the deniers, visit Grist, a US environmental news and commentary website.
• David J C Mackay is Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. He has just written a detailed analysis of sustainable energy, and the book is available for download from the Web.
• James Lovelock (developer of the Gaia theory) has joined a former UK environment minister to condemn the European carbon trading scheme, saying it has proved to be "disastrous" and a "scam" in which companies have profited with no effect on emissions.
• A growing number of scientists and business leaders have concluded that there will need to be a 60-80% reduction in worldwide emissions in the next two to three decades, but climate impacts from greenhouse gas levels expected by 2050 will persist for about 1,000 years regardless of how well decision makers reduce future emissions.
Health & wellbeing:
• The World Lung Foundation and the American Cancer Society have launched the 3rd edition of the Tobacco Atlas (note also the World Health Organisation’s Tobacco Atlas) which includes interactive maps of global statistics relating to many aspects of the tobacco industry and its impact on health.
• The latest issue of Australasian Leisure Management refers in an article to the Australian draft national planning guidelines in the “Healthy Places and Spaces” project. Fact sheets, a consultation report , the draft and presentations are available via the website.
• Paranoia is a mental disorder once thought to afflict 1% of the population but now, according to studies, it affects a quarter of us. Environment, social influence, and the role of the media are discussed in a new book that discusses why paranoia may be on the rise.
• Mental health difficulties are most pronounced in countries that are rich but have high levels of income and social inequality. It is inequality that has the most profound and far-reaching consequences for individuals and wider society. These are conclusions from a report for the World Health Organisation on mental health in Europe.
Law & Government:
• The Reserves and Other Lands Disposal (ROLD) Bill has finally passed its first reading. The bill covers areas all over the country, including Albert Park and volcanic cones in Auckland.
• The introduction of “young mayors” in the UK has had a positive impact on issues that affect or are of concern to teenagers and raises involvement in the democratic process. As a result the initiative is to be expanded.
People, culture & diversity:
• European archives have been dealt a devastating blow with the collapse of the 6-storey building containing the Cologne archives. Microfilm duplicates of some of the archives are in a central warehouse in the Black Forest, but 26k of original materials were held in the 1971 building, dating from as early as 922.
• A large and powerful group of leaders’ wives in the Arab world, not well-known in the West, is influencing policies and attitudes towards women in 15 of the 22 Arab countries.
• A UK headmaster has suggested that giving teenagers another 2 hours to sleep in the morning would improve their ability to learn. Unfortunately, for any parents who might object scientists are proving that there is a good reason for letting teenagers have more sleep.
• According to David Armano, technology doesn't change human nature, but it changes human behaviour, because it allows us to communicate more quickly and easily. That results in networks, which have begun to take the place of institutions in the function of major roles in society. Armano describes this in his presentation “The microsociology of networks”.
• A new book argues that the single root cause of almost every social problem common in developed societies is inequality.
Science, technology & transport:
• A report from UK think tank Demos “Knowledge Nomads” explains who this new, global breed of scientists are, what motivates them and why their movement around the world is so important.
• A UK commentator explains why simply building technological infrastructure won't be enough to drive digital innovation in the UK.
• US & Japanese researchers have been able to prove the existence of a "spin battery," a battery that is "charged" by applying a large magnetic field to nano-magnets in a device called a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ). Meanwhile, research continues on how to get more energy out of lithium batteries, and MIT researchers believe that they have found a way to do this with only simple changes to the production process.
• A UK Nielsen survey of users' habits found that 67% of all those going online were spending time at social network and blogging sites, and that they are becoming more popular than personal e-mail.
• A US congressional investigation has revealed that plans to refurbish Trident nuclear weapons had to be put on hold because US scientists "lost knowledge" of how to make a mysterious but very hazardous material codenamed Fogbank.
• Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, has said that browsing habits can now be monitored as if someone had put a "TV camera in one's room". He believes the integrity of the internet is under threat if online "snooping" goes unchecked.
• The city of Yokohama will jointly participate with Nissan in a 5-year project aimed at achieving zero emission-mobility. This follows a joint study completed in November last year, and the project will mean that the city adopts a zoning system with a zero-carbon central zone and a low-carbon zone in the outer areas.
• The British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority has contracted a company to develop electronic vehicle charging infrastructure guidelines for planning design and installation of the infrastructure for plug-in vehicles.
• Mercedes has joined the sceptics who question the feasibility of the battery-swapping idea behind the Better Place concept for electric vehicles. Mercedes says they exhaustively studied the idea in the 1970s, and rejected it as potentially dangerous.
• The first new research for more than 50 years in the UK into the relationship between street lighting and road traffic accidents, will be published in the next few weeks. The report is not expected to support the widely held belief that street lighting reduces accidents by up to 30%. However, there are acute public fears that any switch-off will lead to higher crime rates.
• Energy generation using the ocean is on the rise with increasing numbers of commercial sites already generating power around the world, and a large number of other projects being tested.
• A Cheshire salt mine still in operation is being used to store valuable archives, book collections and artifacts.
• The UN World Tourism Organisation says that the tourism industry has a key role to play in helping the world recover from the current financial crisis. Tourism growth in the Asia-Pacific region is expected to ease, while the Americas and Europe will be impacted the most.
• In an address delivered on International Women’s Day, Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner Dr Judy McGregor made the point that while every NZer is concerned about job security as the economic recession bites, women suffer a double whammy because of the gender pay gap.
• A recent US study has found that shopping online has less of an environmental impact than going to a traditional bricks-and-mortar store.
Education
• A school in the UK is trialling the use of facial recognition software to confirm attendance, rather than using the old-fashioned roll-call. Using biometrics in schools in the UK is widespread, but some campaigners say that schools’ use of biometrics is "a disproportionate response to a nonexistent problem".
• The chief executive of a UK university says that in the 21st century, higher education must adapt to serve the needs of a much wider section of the community than simply fresh-faced 18-year-olds.
Environment & sustainability:
• Water banking has been suggested recently for NZ’s future water management. Western states in the US have invested heavily in water banking, and the Washington State Dept of Ecology has released a report, Analysis of water banks in the Western states, which covers legislation, policies and programmes.
• An American think tank brought together prominent climate change deniers for a convention in New York this week. Although 58% of Americans believe human activity is causing climate change, many don’t see a need for urgent action. (For an alternative view of the background of the deniers, visit Grist, a US environmental news and commentary website.
• David J C Mackay is Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. He has just written a detailed analysis of sustainable energy, and the book is available for download from the Web.
• James Lovelock (developer of the Gaia theory) has joined a former UK environment minister to condemn the European carbon trading scheme, saying it has proved to be "disastrous" and a "scam" in which companies have profited with no effect on emissions.
• A growing number of scientists and business leaders have concluded that there will need to be a 60-80% reduction in worldwide emissions in the next two to three decades, but climate impacts from greenhouse gas levels expected by 2050 will persist for about 1,000 years regardless of how well decision makers reduce future emissions.
Health & wellbeing:
• The World Lung Foundation and the American Cancer Society have launched the 3rd edition of the Tobacco Atlas (note also the World Health Organisation’s Tobacco Atlas) which includes interactive maps of global statistics relating to many aspects of the tobacco industry and its impact on health.
• The latest issue of Australasian Leisure Management refers in an article to the Australian draft national planning guidelines in the “Healthy Places and Spaces” project. Fact sheets, a consultation report , the draft and presentations are available via the website.
• Paranoia is a mental disorder once thought to afflict 1% of the population but now, according to studies, it affects a quarter of us. Environment, social influence, and the role of the media are discussed in a new book that discusses why paranoia may be on the rise.
• Mental health difficulties are most pronounced in countries that are rich but have high levels of income and social inequality. It is inequality that has the most profound and far-reaching consequences for individuals and wider society. These are conclusions from a report for the World Health Organisation on mental health in Europe.
Law & Government:
• The Reserves and Other Lands Disposal (ROLD) Bill has finally passed its first reading. The bill covers areas all over the country, including Albert Park and volcanic cones in Auckland.
• The introduction of “young mayors” in the UK has had a positive impact on issues that affect or are of concern to teenagers and raises involvement in the democratic process. As a result the initiative is to be expanded.
People, culture & diversity:
• European archives have been dealt a devastating blow with the collapse of the 6-storey building containing the Cologne archives. Microfilm duplicates of some of the archives are in a central warehouse in the Black Forest, but 26k of original materials were held in the 1971 building, dating from as early as 922.
• A large and powerful group of leaders’ wives in the Arab world, not well-known in the West, is influencing policies and attitudes towards women in 15 of the 22 Arab countries.
• A UK headmaster has suggested that giving teenagers another 2 hours to sleep in the morning would improve their ability to learn. Unfortunately, for any parents who might object scientists are proving that there is a good reason for letting teenagers have more sleep.
• According to David Armano, technology doesn't change human nature, but it changes human behaviour, because it allows us to communicate more quickly and easily. That results in networks, which have begun to take the place of institutions in the function of major roles in society. Armano describes this in his presentation “The microsociology of networks”.
• A new book argues that the single root cause of almost every social problem common in developed societies is inequality.
Science, technology & transport:
• A report from UK think tank Demos “Knowledge Nomads” explains who this new, global breed of scientists are, what motivates them and why their movement around the world is so important.
• A UK commentator explains why simply building technological infrastructure won't be enough to drive digital innovation in the UK.
• US & Japanese researchers have been able to prove the existence of a "spin battery," a battery that is "charged" by applying a large magnetic field to nano-magnets in a device called a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ). Meanwhile, research continues on how to get more energy out of lithium batteries, and MIT researchers believe that they have found a way to do this with only simple changes to the production process.
• A UK Nielsen survey of users' habits found that 67% of all those going online were spending time at social network and blogging sites, and that they are becoming more popular than personal e-mail.
• A US congressional investigation has revealed that plans to refurbish Trident nuclear weapons had to be put on hold because US scientists "lost knowledge" of how to make a mysterious but very hazardous material codenamed Fogbank.
• Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, has said that browsing habits can now be monitored as if someone had put a "TV camera in one's room". He believes the integrity of the internet is under threat if online "snooping" goes unchecked.
• The city of Yokohama will jointly participate with Nissan in a 5-year project aimed at achieving zero emission-mobility. This follows a joint study completed in November last year, and the project will mean that the city adopts a zoning system with a zero-carbon central zone and a low-carbon zone in the outer areas.
• The British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority has contracted a company to develop electronic vehicle charging infrastructure guidelines for planning design and installation of the infrastructure for plug-in vehicles.
• Mercedes has joined the sceptics who question the feasibility of the battery-swapping idea behind the Better Place concept for electric vehicles. Mercedes says they exhaustively studied the idea in the 1970s, and rejected it as potentially dangerous.
• The first new research for more than 50 years in the UK into the relationship between street lighting and road traffic accidents, will be published in the next few weeks. The report is not expected to support the widely held belief that street lighting reduces accidents by up to 30%. However, there are acute public fears that any switch-off will lead to higher crime rates.
• Energy generation using the ocean is on the rise with increasing numbers of commercial sites already generating power around the world, and a large number of other projects being tested.
Thursday, 5 March 2009
From the LOGIS news alert subscriptions (ending 05/03):
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.
• 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.
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