ECOLOGY

THE 12 POUND FOLDING BIKE

TIMES, UK - Sir Clive Sinclair, the veteran inventor, is about to unveil
his latest creation to the British public - a lightweight folding bike
which he hopes will revolutionize commuter travel. The man who brought
us the much derided Sinclair C5 pedal and battery-powered buggy is
planning to market his new bike this summer, priced at about L200.
Called the A-bike - because it looks like a letter A when unfolded -
Sinclair's new invention has taken him nearly 20 years to develop and
bring to production. Carried in a rucksack, it weighs only 12 lb and,
with practice, can be folded and unfolded in 15 seconds.

The frame is made from nylon reinforced with glass fibre — similar to
that used in the aerospace industry and in sports cars such as the Lotus
Elise. With wheels no more than six inches in diameter and with only one
gear it is primarily designed to be used for cycling short distances,
such as between home and a railway station, and then from another
station to your work. . .

"It's for people using planes, trains, buses and boats," said a company
source. "It's not a replacement for your normal bike, it's for the
starting part and end bit of the commute." . . .

Billed as the smallest, lightest bike on the market, Sinclair hopes to
sell 100,000 in Britain during the first year following its launch in
July, and similar numbers in other European countries, as well as Japan
and America.

In trials it has achieved a top speed of about 15 mph, although the
accompanying manual will warn cyclists that with its 6 in wheels it
would be wise to avoid dropping off curbs, attempting wheelies or any
off-road riding.

Anyone over 6 ft 4 in is likely to find that their knees bash into the
handlebars, and the company says people weighing more than [220 pounds]
should not attempt to use the bike.

Sinclair will be hoping to avoid a repeat of the commercial disaster
that was the Sinclair C5, his three-wheeled buggy. Launched in January
1985, the C5 was widely ridiculed, sales flopped and it cost him
millions. The A-bike follows Sinclair's earlier plans for the X-bike, a
scissors-like bicycle which he planned to manufacture but eventually
abandoned.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2114327,00.html

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INDIA'S WATER CRISIS

SOMINI SENGUPTA, NY TIMES - If groundwater can be thought of as a
nation's savings account for dry, desperate drought years, then India,
which has more than its share of them, is rapidly exhausting its
reserve. That situation is true in a growing number of states. Indian
surveyors have divided the country into 5,723 geographic blocks. More
than 1,000 are considered either overexploited, meaning more water is
drawn on average than is replenished by rain, or critical, meaning they
are dangerously close to it. Twenty years ago, according to the Central
Groundwater Board, only 250 blocks fell into those categories. . . Even
fertile, rain-drenched pockets of the country are not immune. Consider,
for instance, that in Punjab, India's northern breadbasket state, 79
percent of groundwater blocks are classified as overexploited or
critical; in neighboring Haryana, 59 percent; and in southern tropical
Tamil Nadu, 46 percent. . .

Indian law has virtually no restrictions on who can pump groundwater,
how much and for what purpose. Anyone, it seems, can — and does —
extract water as long as it is under his or her patch of land. That
could apply to homeowner, farmer or industry. Electric pumps have
accelerated the problem, enabling farmers and others to squeeze out far
more groundwater than they had been able to draw by hand for hundreds of
years.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/30/world/asia/30water2.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

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STUDY: EXTREME DROUGHT WILL COVER ABOUT A THIRD OF PLANET OVER NEXT
CENTURY

MICHAEL MCCARTHY, INDEPENDENT, UK - Drought threatening the lives of
millions will spread across half the land surface of the Earth in the
coming century because of global warming, according to new predictions
from Britain's leading climate scientists. Extreme drought, in which
agriculture is in effect impossible, will affect about a third of the
planet, according to the study from the Met Office's Hadley Centre for
Climate Prediction and Research. . . The findings, released at the
Climate Clinic at the Conservative Party conference in Bournemouth, drew
astonished and dismayed reactions from aid agencies and development
specialists, who fear that the poor of developing countries will be
worst hit.

"This is genuinely terrifying," said Andrew Pendleton of Christian Aid.
"It is a death sentence for many millions of people. It will mean
migration off the land at levels we have not seen before, and at levels
poor countries cannot cope with."

One of Britain's leading experts on the effects of climate change on the
developing countries, Andrew Simms from the New Economics Foundation,
said: "There's almost no aspect of life in the developing countries that
these predictions don't undermine - the ability to grow food, the
ability to have a safe sanitation system, the availability of water. For
hundreds of millions of people for whom getting through the day is
already a struggle, this is going to push them over the precipice."

The findings represent the first time that the threat of increased
drought from climate change has been quantified with a supercomputer
climate model such as the one operated by the Hadley Centre.

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article1786829.ece

GUARDIAN, UK - The most striking impact is expected in parts of southern
Europe, North Africa, western Eurasia and the US, whilst regions of
central Africa, east Asia and the high northern latitudes are due to
experience wetter climates. . . Widespread droughts would bring turmoil
to poorer countries where a lack of clean water already poses a health
threat and farmers struggle to make parched soils productive. Experts
expressed alarm at the findings and fear a rise in droughts will force
many people to search for more fertile land, leading to mass migrations
of environmental refugees.

http://environment.guardian.co.uk/water/story/0,,1887060,00.html

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CHINA RUNNING OUT OF WATER

JONATHAN WATTS, GUARDIAN - China is running out of water, while
industrial pollution is an increasing problem . . . Water, the country's
scarcest resource, is running out. Pollution, waste and
over-exploitation have combined with the expansion of mega-cities to
foul up wells and suck rivers dry. Signs of a crisis are apparent
everywhere. In the arid north, four-fifths of the wetlands along the
region's biggest river system have dried up. In the west, desert sands
are encroaching on many cities. In the south, the worst drought in 50
years has ruined crops and prompted water shortages even along the banks
of the Yangtze, the nation's biggest waterway.

Domestic newspapers are increasingly filled with grim statistics and
reports of the latest pollution spill. In June, the state environment
protection agency estimated that 90% of urban water supplies were
contaminated with organic or industrial waste. According to the water
resources ministry, 400 of the country's 600 cities are short of water.
Water has always been China's Achilles heel. The world's most populous
country has per capita water resources of 2,200 cubic meters - less than
a quarter of the world average. . .

In short, China's development model is unsustainable. For the past 30
years the government has emphasized the quantity rather than the quality
of growth. Spectacular expansion figures of almost 10% a year mask dire
inefficiency and environmental damage. . .

Environmentalists argue that China needs a fundamental change of
philosophy. Although Hu's administration has promoted sustainable
development for three years, local governments do not appear to be
listening

http://environment.guardian.co.uk/water/story/0,,1886610,00.html

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NORTHEAST U.S. COULD BE HIT HARD BY CLIMATE CHANGE

REUTERS - If greenhouse gas emissions continue on their current course,
Massachusetts may feel more like sultry South Carolina by century's end,
researchers said on Wednesday in a report on clear signs of global
warming in the U.S. Northeast. The region, comprising nine of the 50
U.S. states, is critical, since it alone is the world's seventh-largest
emitter of greenhouse gases, just behind the entire nation of Germany
and ahead of all of Canada, said Cameron Wake, a University of New
Hampshire climate scientist and a co-author of the report. . .Cities
will see more days of extreme heat, with 30 or more over 90 degrees F if
the lower-emissions path is taken; the high-emissions road would see 60
or more extreme heat days. Currently, Northeast cities have one or two
days each year with temperatures over 100 degrees F; by 2100, this
number could increase to nine days even with lower emissions, and 14 to
28 days with higher emissions, the study said.

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyid=
2006-10-04T205644Z_01_N03258792_RTRUKOC_0_US-ENVIRONMENT-
WARMING.xml&src=rss&rpc=22

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WAVE MACHINE TO PRODUCE POWER IN PORTUGAL

ABOUT MY PLANET - A Scottish company will deploy sausage-shaped tubes
off Portugal to create the world's first commercial wave power plant,
providing electricity to 1,500 homes from 2006, a partner in the
Scottish firm said on Friday. Ocean Power Delivery will build the wave
farm about three miles off Portugal's northern coast. . . OPD's Pelamis
P-750 wage energy converter is an elongated metal unit that looks like a
big semi-submerged sausage, with hinged segments that rock with the sea,
up and down and side to side, pumping fluid to hydraulic motors that
drive generators. The power produced by the generators is fed into
underwater cables and brought to land.

http://www.aboutmyplanet.com/alternative-energy/newest-alternative-energy-
portugals-wave-power-plant

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BRITISH TOWNS SWITCH TO "PAY AS YOU THROW" TRASH

BBC - More than 30 councils are fitting microchips to wheelie bins ahead
of possible "pay as you throw" schemes. It is the latest attempt to
encourage more recycling to curb the amount of rubbish that ends up in
landfill. Household rubbish would be weighed to within 500 grams on
collection trucks and the chips used to identify which property the bin
belongs to. Councils are expecting to get the go-ahead from the
government to start using the chips to charge residents. . . The Mail on
Sunday reported that an estimated 25,000 chips had been removed by
disgruntled residents in Bournemouth. . .

In some areas recycling is now compulsory, meaning if people do not
comply rubbish will not be cleared away and they could face prosecution.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5404730.stm

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GLACIER MELT THREATENS WATER SUPPLIES

DAVID ADAM, GUARDIAN, UK - The loss of glaciers in South America and
Asia will threaten the water supplies of millions of people within a few
decades, the experts warn. Georg Kaser, a glaciologist at the University
of Innsbruck, Austria, who led the research, said: "The glaciers are
going to melt and melt until they are all gone. There are not any
glaciers getting bigger any more.". . .

In August, a report from 20 UK-based environment and development groups
warned that Andean glaciers are melting so fast that some are expected
to disappear within 15-25 years. This would deny major cities water
supplies and put populations and food supplies at risk in Colombia,
Peru, Chile, Venezuela, Ecuador, Argentina and Bolivia. . .

Of 150 glaciers that once stood in Glacier National Park in the northern
US, only 27 remain. The US Environmental Protection Agency says the
biggest are a third the size they were in 1850. Continued warming could
melt them completely by 2030.

http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,1892518,00.html

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