December 18

Financing climate protection projects

Today's sustainable Xmas gifts:

A card game on climate change and climate protection strategies.
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4 DVDs «A Crude Awakening - The Oil Crash».
OilCrash, produced and directed by award-winning European journalists and filmmakers Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack, tells the story of how our civilization’s addiction to oil puts it on a collision course with geology. Compelling, intelligent, and highly entertaining, the film visits with the world’s top experts and comes to a startling, but logical conclusion – our industrial society, built on cheap and readily available oil, must be completely re-imagined and overhauled. The idea that the world’s oil supplies have peaked, or will soon, is gaining mainstream currency. Robert B. Semple, Jr., associate editor of the New York Times editorial board, writes in the paper’s March 1, 2006, online edition: “The Age of Oil — 100-plus years of astonishing economic growth made possible by cheap, abundant oil — could be ending without our really being aware of it. Oil is a finite commodity. At some point even the vast reservoirs of Saudi Arabia will run dry.

The DVDs are gifts, which are intended to be passed on to further people, who could be interessed to see this. The Swiss group Films for Earth has distributed over 3000 films on sustainability issues which are passed on this way.
>> www.firstclimate.com

Our quiz questions

1:	How does the fuel switch project mentioned contribute to environmenal sustainable development? By replacing wood as a fuel source by rice husks the project...
	... prevents deforestation of rain forests.
	... encourages people to eat rice rather than the more energy intensive meat.
	... prevents the rice husks from decaying in waste disposal and producing methane emissions through anaerobic decomposition.
	... reduces CO2 emissions.

2:	How does the project contribute to social and economic aspects of sustainable developement?
	The infrastructure of the ceramic plants is renewed.
	The technology developed is replicable for other energy-intensive industries.
	The reuse of rice husks provides additional income to farmers of the region.
	The price of rice has sunk due to the additional income of rice farmers.

3:	«Carbon offsetting» or «going carbon neutral» has become an increasingly appreciated strategy of companies to tackle the risks of climate change. What are the advantages of this approach?
	Optimal geographic location: Renewable energies can be promoted in places that are most suitable for them. E.g. solar energy in Southern Countries.
	Technology transfer: Investing in carbon mitigation often brings modern technological know how to developing countries.
	Transparency and Simplicity: It is very simple to measure carbon offsets with a thermometer, so that even very small groups can offer «going carbon neutral» on the market.
	Optimal investments: The market mechanisms of carbon trading result in the investments being made where they have the highest impacts at minimum cost.

4:	Firstclimate.com has been involved in over 160 projects across all continents. Which types of projects to they include? Tipp: See Firstclimate: Project Types
	Renewable Energy
	Methane capture / Methane avoidance
	Reforestation
	Nuclear power plants
	Energy efficiency