Environment and Green Living News
Travelling from Italy to Central America takes a long time, an intermediate stop in France or Spain and many hours flying over the ocean. But when you arrive in one of the most beautiful island within the Caribbean you probably forget to be so tired.
Continue reading " Italy and “La Ruta Del Café”, a Project of Eco-Tourism in Dominican Republic "
By Guest author
The following is a guest essay by author, advocate, and renewable energy industry analyst Paul Gipe. His latest book, Wind Energy Basics, will be published by Chelsea Green in early 2009.
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In a startling reversal, Britain’s Labour government has put on the table a feed-in tariff proposal for "microgeneration." The proposed feed-in tariffs will pay homeowners, farmers, and community groups for the electricity they generate with renewable energy.
The move represents an ideological breakthrough. Long an ardent supporter of Renewable Obligation Certificate trading systems and plain old-fashioned subsidies as the sole means of developing renewable energy, Britain’s Labour government has abruptly changed course.
Britain, along with its English-speaking allies in the United States, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, has been a staunch proponent of the "Washington Consensus" of neoliberal economic orthodoxy. In this world view, the only mechanisms that can be used to develop renewable energy and hew to ideological purity are quota systems coupled with Tradable Green Certificates. In Britain this policy is called the Renewable Obligation; in North America, it is known as Renewable Portfolio Standards.
However, outside the schools of economics aligned along the Chicago-London axis, others have argued that feed-in tariffs are a more effective and less costly market mechanism for rapidly developing renewable energy. These include prominent British economist Sir Nicholas Stern, as well as continental European economists who are less well-known in North America.
The specific proposal by the new Minister of Climate Change, Ed Miliband, is less significant than the fact the government felt compelled to act. Prime Minister Gordon Brown narrowly escaped a backbench revolt in the House of Commons earlier this year over exclusion of a feed-in tariff in Britain’s long-awaited energy bill. Meanwhile, in the House of Lords, debate on the inclusion of feed-in tariff provisions continued despite the government’s attempts to quash the subject.
Nevertheless, Miliband’s proposal is timid and vague.
For example, the proposal limits individual projects to no more than 3 MW. That’s enough for rooftop solar systems, but not big enough for most community wind projects. It’s clear that the government doesn’t want a program of feed-in tariffs to threaten its quota system, despite the fact that there’s widespread acknowledgement that Britain will miss its renewable energy targets and now pays more for renewables than its European neighbors that use feed-in tariffs.
The existing Renewable Obligation has mostly benefited commercial wind development in Britain’s highlands. What the British call microgeneration — rooftop solar, for example — has been dependent upon the waxing and waning of traditional up-front subsidies. As a consequence, Britain lags well behind Germany, Spain, Italy, and France — all countries using feed-in tariffs — in the development of rooftop solar photovoltaics.
Even in wind energy, Britain is falling increasingly behind continental nations. By the end of 2008, France, Britain’s long-time cross-channel rival, will operate nearly 1,000 MW more wind-generating capacity than Britain, despite being a relative newcomer to wind energy development. (See "French Wind Growth Continuing.") France uses an innovative feed-in tariff policy.
British renewable energy campaigners, notably Friends of the Earth, have called for more specifics in the proposal and for increasing the maximum project size to at least 10 MW — equivalent to about five modern wind turbines. Friends of the Earth is also calling for prices (the feed-in tariffs) to be differentiated by technology — solar is paid one price, wind another, and so on — a feature found in all countries successfully developing renewable energy.
Elsewhere, a number of Australian and American states, as well as Canadian provinces, are considering feed-in tariffs:
By Tom Philpott
Turin, Italy – At Slow Food Nation in San Francisco back in August, drinking bottled water was simply not done. At several points, the event’s organizers had installed dispensers that proudly poured filtered city water. Socially, clutching a plastic water bottle was tantamount to digging into a greasy McDonald’s bag for a handful of fries.
The water situation couldn’t have been more different at Terra Madre. The event offered no free water — to quench your thirst, there were stands peddling bottles of a brand called Lurisia in points throughout.
Lurisa was in fact a major sponsor. The company had a huge display in the middle of the Salon de Gusto, featuring little shrines to bottled water and even offering classes to children to teach them the importance of (bottled) water in a healthy diet. At least the Lurisia water tasted great (Elizabeth Royte, excuse me).
The other thing that got on my nerves was the coffee situation. Levazza, a large-scale coffee roster based in Turin, was also a major sponsor. And it evidently got the exclusive right to sell espresso on the floor of the Salone de Gusto. At several stands throughout the floor, they sold espresso made not from fresh-ground beans, but rather from preground beans packed in little plastic pods.
Amid a bounty of glorious wine, cheese, cured meat, and more, Levazza was peddling an industrial and inferior product (and generating loads of plastic waste). Any bar in Turin pulls a better shot than what was on offer on the floor of the Salone.
If only the concession had gone to Rome’s great Caffe Sant’Eustachio.
By Tom Philpott
Turin, Italy — Perhaps the most surreal — and newsworthy — moment of Terra Madre came during the closing ceremony last Sunday, with some 7,000 to 8,000 people packed into an Olympic stadium. As with other large-scale gatherings during Terra Madre, the speeches were translated into eight languages on the fly, into little headsets.
That’s when we learned that the Italian government had maneuvered to get an audience for Terra Madre officials at an upcoming meeting of the G8 nations. We found out in a dramatic and even comical way.
A youngish guy wearing a dark, sleek suit played emcee for the evening. It was kind of like watching an Italian variety show — he zipped back and forth across the stage, cracking little jokes as he introduced speakers.
Everything was going swimmingly — until he introduced Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini, who would address us not in person but via taped video on the large screens suspended from the ceiling. The address would last 1,000 seconds, the emcee informed us with jarring specificity; we should listen especially to the last 100 seconds.
The Frattini video opened to polite silence. He said some nice and banal things about Slow Food, regretting his inability to attend Terra Madre. Then he began to drone on about the global food crisis, and you could feel the audience getting tense. At some point, he seemed to praise the G8’s response to the crisis — the hundreds of millions of dollars in aid money it had pledged.
Now the crowd turned restive. To roughly sum up the prevailing assessment of the G8’s performance with regard to the global food crisis: the rich nations had come up with too little aid to make much of a difference, and taken no action to reckon with the crisis’ core causes, such as Western biofuel programs, unfair trade, the systematic squashing of small-scale farmers, etc.
As the minister — i.e., his projected image — went on about the G8, isolated whistles began to cut the air. Soon, loud jeers rang out from around the auditorium, punctuated by shrill whistles, scornful hand clapping, and the loud stamping of feet. Some folks theatrically turned their backs; one man sitting near me, an aging Italian hippie, thundered again and again, "No!"
Before you knew it, the hapless minister’s 1,000 seconds were up — and the final 300 or so had been drowned out by the collective outburst. Despite the anger, the mood was jolly; people were cackling at the spectacle of the politician’s ill-received speech.
Retaking the stage, the poor emcee seemed in a panic. "Don’t jeer me," he beseeched. "I’m just the announcer!" He quickly summoned Carlo Petrini, who took the role of a scolding but indulgent uncle.
He shot a mock glare at the crowd, more amused than angry — but clearly disappointed. The politician had spoken for too long, Petrni admitted, because that’s what politicians do. But we should have listened!
Then came a lecture about the importance of listening to people you don’t agree with. And then: If you had listened to the end of the speech, you would know what the minister had announced: That Terra Madre representatives would be invited to address the G8 on behalf of the Italian government.
He hinted that Vandana Shiva and Alice Waters would be giving speeches before the G8. Shouldn’t we accept this invitation, he intoned? The crowd roared again, this time in approval.
Perhaps learning a lesson from the politician, Petrini kept his remarks uncharacteristically brief, and turned the stage over to a series of excellent musicians from all over the world. For the next hour or two, Terra Madre turned into a frenetic dance party.
Continue reading " Terra Madre notes: Shiva to address the G8? "
