Zero Waste Australia

A biotechnology company using animal tissue to repair human heart valves, hernias and tendons claims Australia is missing out on a lucrative market for tissue engineered from kangaroos because the native animals cannot be farmed here.

State environmental regulators Wednesday released a near-final version of California's landmark plan to slash greenhouse gas emissions, emphasizing for the first time the key role expected for the kind of innovation that has long kept Silicon Valley humming.

The message delivered by Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the state's Air Resources Board, was clear: Businesses, especially small and midsize operations, will be the among the primary drivers behind the state's sweeping goal of reducing emissions to 1990 levels within 12 years.

Britain has become the first country in the world to make a legally-binding commitment to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 80per cent by the middle of the century.

Ed Miliband, the new Climate Change and Energy Secretary, said that
the current target of 60 per cent was not stringent enough to tackle
global warning.

He told MPs that the Government would not "row
back" on green issues, despite the pressures on the economy of the
current downtown.

For decades, scientists and resource managers have known that wildfires affect forest soils, evidenced, in part, by the erosion that often occurs after a fire kills vegetation and disrupts soil structure. But, the lack of detailed knowledge of forest soils before they are burned by wildfire has hampered efforts to understand fire's effects on soil fertility and forest ecology.

IN A greenhouse gas-conscious world, finding ways to cut methane emissions from dairy cattle is taxing the minds of researchers.

In Victoria, efforts are focused on dietary supplements. Experiments are showing that by feeding dairy cows with plants that contain more oil, the cattle produce fewer methane emissions.

Some European and US research is concentrating on what goes into the cow's mouth - it's all about improving nutrition, creating a higher-quality feed that not only increases milk production, but cuts the cow's carbon impact.

Carbon market capitalists have turned rice husk into a hot profit opportunity for the milling industry. Rice companies are earning big bucks selling husk as fuel to electricity plants that wish to earn carbon credits. And whether or not the earth is cooler, they have received a mega infusion of power.

Companies and governments are turning to emissions trading as a weapon to fight climate change, in a carbon market worth US$64 billion last year.

Cap-and-trade schemes force participants -- often energy-intensive industries -- to buy permits to emit greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, which is produced from burning fossil fuels. New Zealand's parliament on Wednesday passed the Labour government's climate change bill, which will introduce emissions trading from 2009.

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AUGUSTA, Maine-As the state increases its emphasis on energy conservation in view of high energy prices, the Maine Housing Authority is expanding classes for energy auditors.

Energy audits help homeowners decide what energy efficiency improvements will save the most energy and which are the most cost effective.

MaineHousing Director Dale McCormick says the agency is doubling to 24 the size of its two monthly energy auditor classes.

Residents of a the Brookland Greens housing
estate at Cranbourne, south-east of Melbourne, have been urged to leave their homes because of the leak, which

If a neighborhood block party or backyard picnic for friends and
family is on the books for Labor Day weekend, don't let your good times
go to waste.