Wow and Flutter

Recycling centers across California are closing, and scores of troubled youths are being tossed from “green” jobs onto unemployment rolls in the wake of Sacramento’s raid on bottle deposit funds. California’s recycling treasury, filled by consumers’ nickel and dime deposits on drink containers, had hummed along successfully for two decades until state officials left it nearly bankrupt after taking $451 million out to help balance the budget.

(via Recycling centers close, eliminating ‘green’ jobs — latimes.com)

For 7 million Kenyans who rely on the runoff of Africa’s second-highest peak to survive, evaporating springs and dry riverbeds are making life harder. In the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, reduced melts have contributed to rolling blackouts when rivers fed by the mountain are unable to run hydroelectric plants.

But for those Kenyans who still practice tribal religions and revere Mt. Kenya as the home of God, the environmental alterations mean more than a threat to their livelihood. For them, the melting ice and other changes on their mountain have triggered a crisis of faith.

“This is where our God lives and it is being destroyed,” said Mwangi Njorge, 95, one of those mostly older Kenyans who continue to make sacrifices to the deity they believe resides on Mt. Kenya. He worries that the disappearing ice is a sign of God’s fury. “God is very angry, and if things don’t change, I fear he might abandon us forever.”

The scientific community is divided over the causes of melting ice caps in Africa. But many experts believe the retreating snow on Mt. Kenya is one of the continent’s clearest examples of climate change and global warming.

(via Glorious vision in Kenya’s sky melts away — latimes.com)

As the world gets closer to the COP15 Climate Change conference, it’s important to look at from where the emissions around the world are coming. In the last year, some countries have started to clean up their act, while other countries continue to pump out carbon dioxide. Our latest Transparency is a look at the five highest emitters in each region of the world as of 2007 and whether they have increased or decreased both their total emissions in the from 2006 to 2007 and their ranking on the list of biggest emitters.

(via Transparency: The Change in Carbon Emissions | GOOD)

In the next three years, at least a dozen pure electric or plug-in hybrid cars are slated to hit the market in the U.S. Electricity-driven vehicles from giants such as General Motors Co. and Nissan Motor Co., as well as start-ups like Fisker Automotive Inc. in Irvine, will provide consumers with a wide variety of choices. These new vehicles promise to combine blinding fuel efficiency, radical new technology and futuristic styling that makes the hybrid Toyota Prius look downright staid. Battery makers and automakers alike are tooling up factories to produce big volumes of electric vehicles. Meanwhile, power utilities and regulators are scrambling to figure out just how big the market will be.

(via Electric vehicles are charging up the automotive industry — latimes.com)

Better late than never, I guess