ANOTHER PLANET

The Mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, has made a $50 million gift to the green campaign that aims to eradicate coal fired generators. The donation, to the Sierra Club, promises to transform the 'Beyond Coal' campaign. The USA currently relies on dirty and polluting coal for nearly half of its electricity, and the campaign aims to reduce this to 30% by 2020, shutting down the oldest inefficient coal fired power stations and stopping the hugely destructive  practice of mountain top mining.In 2007 Equador said that it would leave a fifth of its oil reserves untouched for the health of the planet and to protect the stunning Yasuni National Park - a rainforest of extraordinary biodiversity - if the international communuty stumped up $350 billion (half the value pof the oil). Not much has happened and npt much money has bee stumped up! Now the Yasuni-ITT Trust Fund, administerd by thge UN, was opened up for private donations. China and Spain have paid in $100,000 and $1 million respectively and Ital have cancelled $35 million of Equador's debt - but of the fund doesn't reach $100m by December, Equador says it will swap to Plan B - and drill for oil.Amy Winehouse has did aged just 27. The singer songwriter was found dead at her Camden flat by police. Amy, who has long battled alcohol and drugs, had last been seen with her goddaughter Dionne Bromfield at London's iTunes Festival. Amongst many tributes, Mark Ronson, who produced Winehouse's epic Back to Black said "she was my musical soulmate and like a sister to me. This is one of the saddest days of my life".On a personal note, we must also say goodbye to Willie Robertson. Willie was the 'Robertson' in Robertson Taylor, music industry insurance brokers, and the main sponsors of the Greener Festival Award for the last three years. Willie has died after a short battle with cancer aged 67.  He really was a legend in the music industry and a really really decent person. He will be much missed and our condolences to his son Max, who the Greener Festival team work with, his wife Angie, daughters Saran and Sami, and all of his family and friends.A new report from Eunomia says that the amount of food waste in the UK available to anaerobic digestion (AD) developers and investors represents a "major opportunity" for the sector if it can be captured.  The Report suggests there is 6.5M tonnes a year of food waste which is already source-segregated at a regional level across the municipal, commercial and industrial sectors.  Of the 8M tonnes a year of food waste available across all sectors in the UK, Eunomia's says that 2.2M is from household sources, 5.2M from commercial outlets and 0.6M from industrial sitesUS environmental lobby group, the Environmental Working Group (EWG), has released a study measuring the environmental impact of meat and dairy products, which includes  the pesticides and fertilizer used to grow animal feed all the way through the grazing, animal raising, processing, transportation, cooking and the disposal of unused food.  Lamb is the worst offender, producing the greatest environmental impact and greenhouse gasses. Its production generates 39.3 kg (86.4 lbs) of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e) for each kilo eaten.  Beef (the overall worst offender because of the volume of production) had the second-highest emissions, generating 27.1 kilos (59.6 lbs) of(CO2e) per kilo consumed, more than twice the emissions of pork, nearly four times that of chicken and more than 13 times that of vegetable proteins such as beans, lentils and tofu. Meat, eggs and dairy products that are certified organic, humane and/or grass-fed were found generally the least environmentally damaging.  More at http://www.edie.net/news/news_story.asp?src=nl&id=20418