California should try to add solar energy systems to 1 million homes by 2017 to save electricity and cut pollution from power plants, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said on Friday. To implement the energy plan would require home builders to offer solar panels as an option for new homes in the state by 2008. Home buyers would get an estimate of costs and energy savings from installing a solar system, and the state Energy Commission would offer rebates to add photovoltaic solar panels. The program could save 2,700 megawatts of electricity during peak demand periods and offset more than 50 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions a year, the governor’s office said in a release. One megawatt is power for about 1,000 homes.
“This proposal is about smart, innovative and environmentally friendly technologies that will help improve the state’s ability to meet peak electricity demand while cutting energy cots for homeowners for years to come,” Schwarzenegger said.
Funding for the plan would come from an initial $200 million already approved by the state Legislature for renewable technologies.
I believe this is a very big step forward, and hope other countries will follow, specially Arab countries which have sun shining all around the year.
Source: Reuters

An exhibit on ecologically friendly architecture in Germany “Made in Germany: Architecture & Ecology” opened in Barcelona on July 6, and will travel to 14 other cities before it closes, in April 2006. The exhibit highlights the country’s position at the forefront of a growing movement in ‘green’ building techniques.
The German architect and engineer Werner Sobek has made quite a splash with his home, called R128, which he completed in 2000. The house — perched on a hillside in Stuttgart — is made entirely of glass, allowing unobstructed views over four full stories. It also relies exclusively on infrared sensors instead of handles, with doors popping open and faucets shutting on and off at the wave of a hand.
R 128 is one of nine buildings featured in the exhibit. The buildings featured range from personal homes, such as R128 and a solar-housing settlement near Freiburg, to a daycare center whose roof collects rainwater used to flush the toilets, to a ‘zero energy’ subterranean train station (lit by cathedral-like skylights at ground level). There is also a “zero emissions factory,” a high rise that makes use of thermal energy, and the “Heliotrope,” a solar-energy powered building that rotates to follow the sun.
In 2002, a similar exhibit in the United States — called Ten Shades of Green — featured nine instances of ecological architecture from around the world. Of these, four were German. This overwhelming presence is a testament to a general interest in conservation in Germany, and to considerable government financial support. Details…
I just adore environment-friendly houses, and my dream is to have one 🙂

Animal Rights Activists and supporters of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals , PETA, have gathered yesterday from different countries to march through the streets of Pamplona/ Spain against bullfighting. The protesters were either wearing underwear or were topless. They had planned to run totally nude but could not because they didn’t get the necessary town hall permit.
Isabel Gonzalez, head of an anti-bullfighting organization in Belgium, said: “The animals suffer, and nobody has the right to mistreat them just to stage a fiesta,” she also said the running of the bulls also is inhumane because runners pull the bull’s tails, kick them and “the animals run in a state of panic.”
This year’s festival begins Tuesday. The first of eight bull runs is scheduled for Wednesday. More Details
Personally I think bullfighting just for passing time and having fun is really cruel and should be stopped. Animals should not be tortured nor mistreated. Therefore I join the protesters and give them the full right to march against such a cruel act, on the other hand, I think in order to protest you need your voice to be heard and not your naked body to be shown. I mean marching with your clothes off will not give any extra effect to the protest, it will only give disrespect to the human body, make the protest look cheap and give joy for the ones watching… in case of beautiful bodies that is 😉
I really don’t get it! I mean anyone who wants to make change and show a strong will in fulfilling a certain purpose would go like: Ok I will march nude, or I will stay for days in the nude, or I will make a nude marathon. This is just pathetic, and no matter how great the purpose behind it is, involving nudity in it adds nothing, really. So please people you have brains, use them to reach out for everyone without having to humiliate yourselves over and over again. PLEASE!

The other day water was cut in our neighborhood as well as in the whole region of “Les Berges du Lac” where I happen to work. People were pissed off, they were swearing with their faces showing displeasure and dissatisfaction. On the streets, all what one can see is people going to the nearest water source available to fill whatever they could find in front of them: empty bottles, empty cans, empty buckets … etc. Some went to the closest mini-market and bought as much water supply as they could bare to carry.
All of a sudden, people couldn’t survive an extra minute without a drop of water. When in fact, at that time of the day (at around 10 a.m.) few are the ones who’d actually need to wash their hands, or water the plants, or , or ,or. But it’s always like that, when there is something missing, you feel a sudden need for it even if you don’t seriously need it. During the month of Ramadan for example, when Muslims fast, a person feels like eating a main dish at 8:30 a.m. When in a place with a “NO SMOKING PLEASE” sign written at the door, one can no longer resist the temptation of a cigarette in his/her pocket. It’s human nature I guess, whenever something is no longer available, missing, or not allowed, you find people suffering to get this unavailable thing or do that prohibited act. There are some interesting Arabic sayings that are used to express such things; when something is not allowed to be done we say: “Kol mamnou’o marghoub”: everything prohibited is wanted. When you have someone you got bored of, or you started hating and then you leave that person, or they’re no longer there (dead or left you, or whatever) then we say: “ma bti’iraf kheeri la tjarrib gheeri”: you wont appreciate my value, until you try someone else.
There is also this very funny, yet meaningful saying which applies to the situation in where water was cut, it says: “zay il hammam illi maqtou’ah maytoh”: like a public toilette or a public bathing place (Hammam) when water is suddenly cut. This saying is used in any situation where chaos, panic, noise and similar status of mess are to be described, because when people are taking a shower in a public place and need water the most, then it’s suddenly not available, people run out for help to wash away the soap in their eyes, or to warm their cold bodies, and they all create such a fuss. In short Les Berges du Lac was just like a Hammam run out of water 😛
And among all those angry people, I was the only happy face with a big smile, not because I hate water, and not because I enjoy watching people suffering, but because I know this is the only way people would be reminded of how important water is, so they’d finally WAKE UP and stop wasting it.
As a matter of fact, I believe one of the most effective ways to make people more aware of the problem our planet is facing in terms of water availability is to cut the water every now and then in each country. In Jordan they used to have 2 days every week where they’d pump water for citizens to use, and the rest of the week, people should manage with what they’ve saved in these days. But they didn’t do it because they wanted people to be more aware, they did it because they had so low rain levels in winter. So it always depends on the water collected from winter that they either cut water or left people to enjoy consuming water as much as they want because they have a lot of storage. But even if the main point was saving just for lack of water available, still it worked positively because I grew up so aware of one fact: water is the most important, and it’s not always there, so we have to use it economically.
I hope people try to save as much water as they can, each in their field of life. At work, home, schools, universities, everywhere. And let me end this post with a verse from Quran that says: “Wa ja’alna min al ma’ie kola shay’in hay”, which means: water is the source of all living forms. And water doesn’t stand for H2O in the form we drink only, but all forms derived from these elements. Water is the source, let’s make it last.

Arsenic pollution of drinking and irrigation water has emerged as a massive health threat in Bangladesh and India, where wells drilled into aquifers have turned out to be tapping poisoned water. When the water is used to irrigate rice paddies, arsenic also accumulates in the crop. According to one estimate, 3,000 people may be dying in Bangladesh each year because of arsenic contamination.
BUT good news is: Water contaminated with arsenic can be cleaned by growing ferns in it, US scientists say. For Ferns suck up arsenic quickly and cheaply.
Wanna know more? Cick Here

Bamboo, which is a giant, woody grass, is called the “wood of the poor” in India and the “friend of the people” in China because of its diverse use in everything from food and cooking to furniture, paper, musical instruments, boats and houses.
A joint report released on Tuesday by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR) found that around 600 species are “endangered”, with less than 20,000 square kilometers of native habitat. And some 250 varieties have less than 2000 square kilometers of land (the size of London) left to live in. The report’s findings mean the many vulnerable species that rely almost entirely on bamboo for food and shelter, such as lemurs, giant pandas and mountain gorillas, face an even greater struggle for survival. On the other hand, millions of people rely on wild bamboo for food, furniture and construction material. Worldwide, more than 2.5 billion people trade in or use bamboo. The international market in bamboo products is worth more than US$2 billion per year, i.e. bamboo loss will harm humans as much as animals.
“But it is not too late to do something about this,” says ecologist Valerie Kapos, who helped draw up the report, “Now we need to look much more closely at the dynamics of what is going on. We need to look more closely at the processes that are threatening the species, determine which species are the most threatened and take conservation action in the areas where those species are concentrated”.
I hope all people would play a role in preserving nature, through research, work, and even daily life activities. And I really wish that those beautiful rare species wont be some history mentioned in “once upon a time” bed stories and fairytales.
More about the report, bamboo and rare species endangered are available in Reuters and Nature .

Temperatures are warmer, ocean levels are rising, the snowpack is dwindling and melting earlier, flowers bloom earlier, mountain glaciers are disappearing and a six-year drought is killing trees by the millions.
“The West has become habitated because of the ability to store and have a reliable water supply,” said Martin Hoerling, a research meteorologist who studies climate for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “Simply the tMany scientists blame greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and ozone for causing global warming because the pollutants tend to trap the sun’s heat in the atmosphere. But some contend the warming is just natural climate variability and humans have nothing to do with it.
emperature effect is going to put a much greater strain on water availability.”
Warmer temperatures only help the beetles reproduce more quickly, leading to more lost trees. Some types of beetles that used to propagate two generations in a year now can produce three.Mike Wagner, a regents’ professor of forest entomology at Northern Arizona, predicted a beetle outbreak years ago in northern Arizona when he saw how abundant older trees were in overcrowded forests. When the drought began, the beetles were ready. By 2002, trees weakened by drought were unable to fend off the beetles, and they were soon overcome. Tens of millions of trees across the West have been killed at a rate never seen before.”Absolutely unprecedented,” said Wagner,. “We’ve never had these conditions before, never had that combination.”Scientists expect another devastating beetle outbreak this year.
And while most scientists agree humans are to blame for at least part of that warming trend, as Whitham, a regents’ professor of biology at Northern Arizona University , said: . “If we aren’t causing it, we’re certainly contributing to it. Humans can take a drought and make it even worse.” Frontiers of Freedom, a Washington, D.C. public policy group, doesn’t believe humans have anything to do with the gradual warming of the Earth. These things happen. That’s just the way nature has always been,” said George Landrith, president of Frontiers of Freedom. “Variability has always existed. There’s nothing new about that.”
Scientists say continued warming across the West will mean a smaller snowpack that could affect ecosystems that depend on stream flows and water temperature. Soils and vegetation will be drier, increasing fire risk and prolonging the fire season. Plants and trees will be able to grow at higher elevations, threatening ski resorts. Sea levels will continue to rise, putting beaches and cities at risk.
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