Tag Archives: technology
Social media fuels massive Philippine anti-graft rally
Social media fuels massive Philippine anti-graft rally (AFP) / 26 August 2013 Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in the Philippine capital on Monday to voice outrage at corrupt politicians, in a modern-day “People Power” rally fuelled by social media. The march, emulated on a smaller scale in other cities around the country, was the largest anti-graft demonstration since President Benigno Aquino was elected in 2010 on a platform to fight corruption. Demonstrators gesture a thumbs down sign during a protest against official corruption at Luneta park in Metro Manila on Monday. -Reuters The protesters ranged from members of the clergy and students to businessmen, middle-class families, lawyers and other professionals, in a sign of the breadth of anger over graft in the impoverished nation. But while few called for the ousting of Aquino, whose personal ratings remain high, there was widespread fury with politicians. “We are all angry at all the stealing of the politicians. We are telling them that time is up,” said 80-year-old, retired university professor Teodoro Jurado. Organisers said the rally drew up to 400,000 people while the police estimate was a maximum of 100,000. Urban planner Paulo Alcazaren estimated 250,000-300,000 attended, based on the park’s size and aerial photographs he took. Calls for protest began circulating on Facebook and Twitter about two weeks ago after a series of newspaper articles about a major scam involving legislators’ Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF). The fund is money allocated for lawmakers to be used in their pet development projects. Critics charge they are “pork barrel” projects which have traditionally been a source of corruption. At the centre of the controversy is a businesswoman who reportedly connived with legislators to syphon off some 10 billion pesos ($230 million) from the fund. She has since gone into hiding after being charged with the illegal detention of a whistleblower. Middle-aged physician Paz del Rosario, one of the protesters, said she attended “to be part of a historic event”. “Hopefully this will be the start of a bigger thing. All walks of life are here. This is from social media, the Internet, tweets and texts. There is no leader here,” she said. Many protesters wore pig masks and oinked in unison at noontime to condemn the legislators’ pork barrel. The influential Archbishop of Manila, Cardinal Luis Tagle, called on the crowd to be “honourable” and to work together for the less fortunate. “Let us look upon the oppressed and the poor as our true brothers. Let us listen to the heartbeat of our nation and the voice of God,” he said. Church leaders have previously played crucial roles in calling support for protests in the largely-Catholic Philippines, such as the 1986 “People Power” revolt that helped topple dictator Ferdinand Marcos. In 2001 a popular uprising overthrew the graft-tainted president Joseph Estrada. In the 1986 revolt, radio stations had helped summon the populace while in the 2001 uprising, it was cellphone SMS or “text” messages that brought many protesters out. Aquino had previously planned to expand the PDAF in his 2014 budget so that each senator would receive 200 million pesos ($4.5 million) while each member of the House of Representatives would get 70 million pesos. But in the face of growing anger last week, the president announced that he was suspending the releases of money and vowed to reform the system. At a speech marking the country’s national heroes’ day, Aquino said the government would catch those who stole state funds. “We will do everything in our power to find those who conspired to take advantage of the PDAF’s good intentions, and to hold them accountable,” he said. National police spokesman Senior Superintendent Reuben Sindac said the rallies were all peaceful, and the Manila marchers even cleaned up the park afterwards. Continue reading
Comment: Look To The Trees For Truly Green Technology
Cris Brack Green alternatives such as wind and solar may be touted as the solution to our environmental problems such as climate change, but how green are they really? Wind and solar rely on technologically-sophisticated industries and infrastructure including rare earth batteries, highly-processed composite building materials, computer controlled switching and balancing programs and continuous maintenance. There are natural alternatives to such technologies that are arguably “greener”. So, why aren’t we looking to make our technologies truly green? Wind, solar … wood Fire is probably the greatest discovery of humankind, if not the discovery that set us on the path to becoming civilised and social. Wood still fuels the energy needs of millions in Africa, China and India. Perhaps surprisingly, it also fuels the energy needs of many thousands in Europe, Canada, the US and even Australia . Why do we in the developed word seem to have forgotten its power? Wood fuel has numerous advantages over wind or solar. Wood can be grown right where it is needed – even along the boundaries of residential properties, around commercial enterprises or even in urban and peri-urban parks. While it is growing, trees look good and provide a temporary home for birds and other wildlife – certainly not something that can be said for every wind farm. A continuous supply of winter home heating can be produced by selecting relevant tree species (or group of species) and progressively planting them around a “quarter acre” residential block. Each year, one seventh of the boundary could be planted and after seven years the owner could begin harvesting, drying, burning and replanting the oldest trees. A suburban house with over one dozen trees, planted at different times around its boundary, which could grow over half a tonne of firewood every year. Google Earth Changing the trees species and the harvesting rotation lengths could allow co-production of products such as honey or flowers without ultimately endangering fuel reserves. Such a system would however require some management. Neighbourhood groups could coordinate their individual plantings and use of the trees to encourage community projects, including planting in parks, that benefit from trees at different stages of their life or allow longer life spans for selected trees. Such a system could continue pretty much indefinitely and may rightly be classified as sustainable yield: renewable energy with very little need for unnatural elements or practises. But somehow the use of wood as a fuel source is specifically included from a range of renewable energy and environmental improvement schemes, despite its advantages. Timber! The timber industry could benefit from similar rethinking. Plantations are gaining a reputation as the “green” option for the production of solid timber for use in construction or high-value products. The management required in plantations includes ploughing, ripping, spraying and fertilising for preparation, followed by more spraying and fertilising over time. Exotic species are used to avoid losses from local pests and diseases. This intensive management is designed to ensure that final harvest revenues don’t happen so far into the future that the “time cost of money” erodes the net profit. While not as intensive or invasive as agriculture, and orders of magnitude less intensive than the industries associated with plastic, steel or concrete products, plantations are never-the-less more intense and less natural than native forest management. In native forests, local or endemic species are kept even though growth is slower. Fertiliser is not applied, partially because its cost cannot be justified but also because the local species are commonly adapted to local soil fertility. Similarly, weedicide application is rare. Producing wood products in such a forest is slower, and to produce the same amount requires a larger area. One hectare of intensively managed plantation can produce the same amount of solid wood product as 30-to-50 hectares of native eucalypt forest. But the managed native forest will have a greater diversity of tree sizes and stages, and only relatively small areas of disturbance. The vast majority of the forest simply grows and changes in a natural way , which is orders of magnitude better for birds and animals. There is a strong branch of forest management in Europe called “ nature-based forestry ” or “ near natural silviculture ” that attempts to make human induced disturbances during harvesting or regeneration as close to natural-like conditions as possible. Visitors need special training to detect the difference between the human induced changes and the natural ones. But, like high-technology systems, plantations are seen as the “green” alternative to low-technology native forest management. Green values The “green” alternatives market has been captured by systems that require high levels of technology, energy inputs and processing. Is the ultimate green goal is to leave nature altogether, replacing nature-based solution with technological ones – perhaps ultimately living in space stations powered by solar cells measured in kilometres? Machines could make our air, water and nutrients out of raw mineral stocks mined from asteroid belts without impinging on natural earth at all. A “green” but precarious future totally reliant on sophisticated technology. To be green and natural, we must re-engage with nature. Recall battles over battery chickens. The battle against that industry could not have commenced until the connection between the product (the egg) and the system (chickens in backyards or battery farms created by us) was re-established. Many urban children have never seen a farm or even touched a chicken. Similarly a battle for green and natural alternatives can only be commenced once the connection between natural systems that produce goods and services are appreciated and compared with unnatural and energy demanding systems that they have been replaced by. Cris Brack does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations. Continue reading
The Latest Clean Energy Cocktail: Bacteria And Fungus
BY JEFF SPROSS ON AUGUST 23, 2013 By throwing together a common fungus and a common bacterium, researchers are producing isobutanol — a biofuel that gallon-for-gallon delivers 82 percent of gasoline’s heat energy. The more common ethanol, by contrast, only gets 67 percent of gasoline’s energy, and does more damage to pipelines and engines. And the University of Michigan research team did it using stalks and leaves from corn plants as the raw material. The fungus in question was Trichoderma reesei , which breaks down the plant materials into sugars. The team used corn plant leftovers in this case, but many other forms of biomass like switchgrass or forestry waste could also serve. The bacterium was Escherichia coli — good old-fashioned E. coli — which then converted those sugars into isobutanol. Another team of researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison recently came up with a similar process by studying leaf cutter ants, but their work produced ethanol instead. The University of Michigan team also got the fungi and bacteria to co-exist peacefully in the same culture and bioreactor. That means fewer cost barriers to commercializing the process: “The capital investment will be much lower, and also the operating cost will be much lower,” Xiaoxia “Nina” Lin, the team’s leader, explained. “So hopefully this will make the whole process much more likely to become economically viable.” The big advantage of a cellulosic biofuel like this is twofold. One, because it can be produced from crops that don’t double as a food source, demand for it won’t drive up food prices or contribute to global food insecurity. Traditional corn-based ethanol obviously competes with one of the world’s most basic and widely-used foods, and American and European demand for it has contributed to spiraling food costs and crises in Guatemala and across the developing world. Studies looking into the 2008 food crisis determined that biofuel policies contributed to the problem, compounding the threat of global food insecurity, which in turn helps drive geopolitical upheaval and destabilization. Two, by driving up demand for food crops, traditional biofuels encourage individuals and countries to clear ever more natural land for agriculture. Grasslands and natural forest store more carbon from the atmosphere than cropland. So the growth in biofuel production, means less natural ecology to absorb carbon, leaving more greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. On top of that, agriculture involves its own carbon emissions from driving tractors and such. So put it all together and traditional biofuel production is largely self-defeating in terms of the final amount of carbon dioxide left in the atmosphere. But if a process like this one produces biofuel purely from waste materials — stuff left over from crops we would’ve grown regardless, on land we would’ve cleared regardless — those biofuels will deliver a much bigger net positive when it comes to fighting climate change. “We’re really excited about this technology,” said Jeremy Minty, another member of the team. “The U.S. has the potential to sustainably produce 1 billion tons or more of biomass annually, enough to produce biofuels that could displace 30 percent or more of our current petroleum production.” And it’s not just fossil fuels that could be replaced, either. Petrochemicals are also used in making a host of other products, especially plastics. The research team hopes their work could be adapted to replace the petrochemicals used in those processes as well. HT: CleanTechnica Continue reading
