We all want the latest cars, the grooviest clothes and the shiniest gadgets. But what of the price to the planet? Is it possible to go shopping with a clear conscience? Can environmentally sound products still be objects of desire? The cutting-edge environmental website treehugger.com thinks so. Here, its editor, Michael Richard, shows Josh Sims how a new breed of inventors is coming up with the goods – and they don’t cost the earth THE ECO KETTLE It is estimated that, on average, we boil twice the volume of water needed every time we use our kettles. With a 3kW kettle that’s the same as wasting the energy of around 50 light bulbs. And standard kettles are often highly inefficient – a stove-top kettle, for instance, requires energy to heat the handle and shell in addition to the water. But British designer Brian Hartley’s Eco Kettle solves these problems at a stroke. You fill it up, and then use the measuring button to release the exact amount of water you require – from a single cup to a full jug – into a separate chamber for boiling. It is also insulated to keep the water hot. The result […]
HAMPTON, Iowa — Northern Iowa could have one of the nation’s largest wind farms by 2008. Iowa Winds LLC wants to build a 200- to 300-megawatt farm covering about 40,000 acres in Franklin County. A county zoning board will consider approving permits for the $200 million project next month. ‘It’s something new and renewable,” said Amber Schwarck, a spokeswoman for the Iowa Falls-based company. ‘It’s great for national security, so we can start depending on ourselves and the wind.” Iowa ranks third in the nation in wind energy behind Texas and California, according to the American Wind Energy Association. The Franklin County Wind Farm would help Iowa keep pace with those states and create 30 to 40 technical jobs maintaining turbines, said Schwarck. A pay scale was unavailable. Company officials said the farm could be the nation’s largest — depending on the permits and the county’s power grid infrastructure. The project would be built near Bradford and involve 193 landowners in the townships of Grant, Hamilton, Ingham, Lee, Morgan, Oakland and Reeves. If the county approves the project, construction would start next spring and take about a year, said Franklin County Supervisor Michael Nolte. […]
WASHINGTON — As they prepare for a critical pre-election legislative stretch, Congressional Republican leaders have all but abandoned a broad overhaul of immigration laws and instead will concentrate on national security issues they believe play to their political strength. With Congress reconvening Tuesday after an August break, Republicans in the House and Senate say they will focus on Pentagon and domestic security spending bills, port security legislation and measures that would authorize the administration’s terror surveillance program and create military tribunals to try terror suspects. ‘We Republicans believe that we have no choice in the war against terror and the only way to do it is to continue to take them head-on whether it is in Iraq or elsewhere,’ said Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the majority leader. A final decision on what do about immigration policy awaits a meeting this week of senior Republicans. But key lawmakers and aides who set the Congressional agenda say they now believe it would be politically risky to try to advance an immigration measure that would showcase party divisions and need to be completed in the 19 days Congress is scheduled to meet before breaking for the election. […]
JAMESTOWN — They were known as the ’20 and odd,’ the first African slaves to set foot in North America at the English colony settled in 1607. For nearly 400 years, historians believed they were transported to Virginia from the West Indies on a Dutch warship. Little else was known of the Africans, who left no trace. Now, new scholarship and transatlantic detective work have solved the puzzle of who they were and where their forced journey across the Atlantic Ocean began. The slaves were herded onto a Portuguese slave ship in Angola, in Southwest Africa. The ship was seized by British pirates on the high seas — not brought to Virginia after a period of time in the Caribbean. The slaves represented one ethnic group, not many, as historians first believed. The discovery has tapped a rich vein of history that will go on public view next month at the Jamestown Settlement. The museum and living history program will commemorate the 400th anniversary of Jamestown’s founding by revamping the exhibits and artifacts — as well as the story of the settlement itself. Although historians have thoroughly documented the direct slave trade from Africa starting […]
Ford, America’s No 2 carmaker, must change its business model in order to reverse the company’s sliding fortunes, its chairman and chief executive has told staff. In an e-mail to Ford’s 300,000 employees, Bill Ford said that the company would consider turning to outside executives and alliances with other carmakers. He said: ‘The business model that sustained us for decades is no longer sufficient to sustain profitability.’ Mr Ford said that he had organised his approach to solving the company’s problems by focusing on three areas: accelerating its North American turnaround effort; leveraging its global assets; and leadership. ‘It is important to note that all of the issues that some onlookers view as ‘problems’ for our company are issues that I view as opportunities,’ he wrote. ‘These should not be days of ‘fear’ for the people of the Ford Motor Company, as one headline put it recently.’ He added that there was a ‘sense of uncertainty over specific tactics until some key decisions are made’. He said the company was updating its business model and altering its structure to make Ford ‘a stronger, more competitive company’. Last week The Times reported that the pace […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
