Natural Stone Pebbles News

Smog may speed up global warming

2007-08-01T15:53:00.000-07:00

Ozone in smog will accentuate global warming this century as it will damage plants and trees that help soak up carbon emissions, a study says.

Its authors fear a major factor in the climate-change equation has been badly overlooked.

They say ozone at ground level is damaging the ability of plants to absorb the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) and so limiting their ability to act as carbon sinks.

As a result, more CO2 will build in the atmosphere instead of being taken up by the land, which in turn will stoke global warming and thus worsen climate change, the researchers report today online in the journal Nature.

In the stratosphere, a thin, naturally-occurring level of ozone is a vital shield for life on earth, providing a shield against DNA-damaging ultraviolet.

But at ground level, it is a pollutant, brewed in a reaction between fossil-fuel gases and sunlight.

Ozone has long been known to be a risk to health by damaging the airways, but recent research has also highlighted its damaging effect on vegetation.

The gas enters plants through respiratory pores, called stomata, in the leaves. It then produces by-products that crimp efficiency in photosynthesis, leaving a plant that is weak and undersized.

Efforts to figure out how fast-rising levels of ozone will affect forests have been hampered by a nasty confounding factor.

The stomata factor

High levels of CO2 and ozone cause stomata to close, which means the plant takes in less of the CO2 that it needs to grow, but also less of the ozone that damages it.

The new study seeks to unravel these intertwining factors.

UK researchers built a computer model to simulate the response of carbon sinks around the world in response to ozone levels, from 1901 to 2100.

They used two scenarios, depending on whether plants were deemed to have high or low sensitivity to ozone.

This leaf has been damaged by ground-level ozone and so cannot act as efficiently as a carbon sink to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (Image: David Karnosky)

These scenarios were vetted for reliability by comparison with an experiment in which trees and shrubs in a Swiss field were exposed to artificially high levels of CO2 and ozone for seven years.

Under the 'high' plant-sensitivity scenario, ozone diminished land carbon capture by 23% over the two centuries. Under the 'low' scenario, the fall was 14%.

Lead researcher Dr Stephen Sitch of the Hadley Centre, part of the UK's Met Office, says the study does not estimate the effect of ozone for the 21st century specifically.

But he says it is clear that there would be a major contributory effect to global warming by 2100 as less airborne CO2 will be captured by the land.

"Existing calculations of the carbon cycle haven't factored in the negative effect of ozone," he says.

A rough calculation is that ozone could indirectly add "somewhere in the range of 0.5-1.25°C in warming, according to Sitch.

Earlier this year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change gave its predictions of the impact of climate change on global temperature.

But this prediction is based on concentrations of greenhouse-gases and does not factor in the indirect effect of ozone.

Unlike CO2, which spreads around the planet's atmosphere, ground-level ozone pools nearer to its source, with North America, Europe, China and India high on the list of polluted regions.

In pre-industrial times, ozone was 17 parts per billion. Today, it is 35 parts per billion and is on course for 54 parts per billion by the end of the century, says Sitch.

Source:abc.net.au

'ORANG-UTANS' HOMES WILL BE GONE BY 2022'

2007-07-30T15:53:00.000-07:00

Orang-tans could have nowhere left to live within a decade, a report has revealed.

New satellite images have uncovered levels of rainforest destruction in South East Asia which are 30 per cent faster than previously feared, says the United Nations.

It has repeated EIA’s recent call for countries, in particular Indonesia, to be helped in their fight against illegal logging.

“The rate of decline of the forests is the most alarming we have seen yet, anywhere in the world," said Christian Nellemann, one of the authors of the ‘Last Stand of the Orang-utan’ report.

The number of orang-utans, once common in the region has plummeted to only 7,000 in Sumatra and 45,000 in Borneo.

Burning of rainforests, often to make way for bio-fuel plantations like palm oil, is multiplying the threat – as well as adding hugely to global warming.

Orang-utans are often killed by loggers or captured and sold to foreign zoos and parks.
As the apes only breed once every seven years, it is feared their numbers could be seriously hit while their natural habitats vanish, says the report by the UN’s Environment Programme.

It had been estimated their habitats would be gone by 2032 but that date has now been put at 2022.

UNEP praised Indonesia’s recent crackdowns and arrests of illegal loggers but said it was only a drop in the ocean compared to the estimated 2.1 million hectares of forest cleared every year.

UNEP has echoed EIA’s calls for more help for Indonesia in the fight against illegal logging gangs.

Earlier this year, EIA’s report ‘The Thousand Headed Snake’ highlighted how corruption and failures in the Indonesian police, military and judicial system were letting timber barons off the hook.

The UNEP report was presented to the CITES conference on endangered species this week.

Speaking from The Hague, head of EIA’s Forest Campaigns Julian Newman said: “It’s not just up to Indonesia to solve this problem, it’s an international issue.

“A lot of the timber goes to international markets – to China, Malaysia and the EU. We need to close these loopholes and introduce a ban on importing illegal timber.”

It is thought 88 per cent of logging in Indonesia is illegal and is even being carried out in 37 of its 41 national parks, netting some £2 billion a year for logging and smuggling syndicates.

The UN has repeated EIA’s call for more resources for Indonesia to strengthen its enforcement and employ more forest wardens, alongside a global customs crackdown on illegal timber.

Article Source

Supermarket to sell wine in plastic bottles

2007-07-29T16:04:00.000-07:00

Wine will be sold in recyclable plastic bottles instead of glass in Sainsbury's supermarkets as part of a trial, the retailer announced today.

Sainsbury's said the move will reduce carbon emissions by cutting the weight of wine packaging. A plastic bottle is one-eighth the weight of a regular 400g (14oz) glass bottle.

UK consumers buy around one billion bottles of wine every year, using around half-a-million tonnes of glass. Reducing the weight of wine packaging to 54g (2oz) by using plastic bottles could reduce carbon emissions by around 90,000 tonnes, according to the government-funded Waste and Resources Action Programme (Wrap), which is involved in the trial.

"That's equivalent to taking 28,000 cars off the road for a year," said a Wrap spokeswoman.

Wrap will assess how successfully the plastic bottles can be recycled and will measure the environmental impact of the scheme.

Wrap said that until its environmental analysis was published next month, "it is not in a position to compare" the energy use involved in recycling a glass bottle versus a plastic bottle.

Sainbury's will initially sell an own-label New Zealand sauvignon blanc and an Australian rose in the plastic bottles. The wine will be bottled in the UK, allowing nearly twice the amount of wine to be transported in each container. Bulk shipping also reduces carbon emissions.

Barry Dick, product technologist for beers, wines and spirits at the supermarket said: "The new wine bottle looks exactly the same as a glass bottle, holds the same amount of liquid and doesn't compromise the quality of the wine in any way."

The recyclable 75cl plastic wine bottles go on sale at Sainsbury's early next month, priced at £4.99 for the sauvignon blanc and the Australian rose at £3.99.

Sainsbury's move comes after Waitrose announced last month that it will start selling milk in plastic pouches. The Waitrose announcement came following concerns that plastic milk cartons threaten the environment

Article Source: guardian.co.uk

National Trust puts 3.5m members in front line against climate change

2007-07-29T15:41:00.000-07:00

It controls 900-square miles of land and 710 miles of coastline and has far more members than the armed services, the teaching profession, the prison population, environmental groups and political parties combined.

Now the National Trust is hoping to become a new green army. To mark membership in England, Wales and Northern Ireland reaching 3.5 million - equivalent to the population of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow and Sheffield (Britain's four largest cities after London) - the trust yesterday declared that it wants to become "the largest green movement in the world".

In what the the conservation charity calls one of the most fundamental shifts in its 103-year history, the trust announced the intention to mobilise this vast public support "to drive conservation and quality of life agendas, and in particular to combat climate change".

From now on, said director-general Fiona Reynolds, the trust will advise people how to adapt their lifestyles to climate change and challenge government to be more ecologically aware. "If we think that public policy is not right, then we will say so."

In a strategy document, the trust said it was in a unique position to help counter climate change. "The biggest challenge of our time is climate change," said Ms Reynolds. "We are like a miner's canary anticipating the effects that others will feel. Our practical experience ranges from coastal erosion and 18th century drainpipes being overwhelmed by heavier rainfall, through to book collections damaged by pests now surviving warmer winters."

The trust is already confronting BAA on plans to expand Stansted airport in Essex on grounds of noise pollution, but declined to say on what else it intended to campaign. As Britain's biggest landowner it is known to want to influence agriculture to reduce damaging emissions.

"In the past we have been cautious about expressing our voice loudly. Now we recognise that we have to engage in public debate on a very wide scale. If our knowledge tells us, say, that expanding airports leads to problems, then it is right we should say so," said Peter Nixon, the trust's director of conservation. "If you have 3.5m members you can go to government with a different kind of authority."

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Texas turtles ending up in China soup pots

2007-07-25T16:13:00.000-07:00

Growing up in East Texas, Dian Avriett loved to watch the turtles sunning on the banks of local rivers and lakes. But now she says it's rare to see them on those same waterways, and the reason is clear — China's taste for Texas turtle meat.

Hundreds of thousands have been sold to dealers who ship the animals to Asia where the meat is considered a delicacy with health benefits. Some also fetch high prices around the world as pets.

"In Texas, anyone with a $50 dollar non-game permit can take as many (turtles) as they want," said Avriett, who chairs the Piney Woods group of the Sierra Club.

Global turtle populations are at risk, but conservationists said the problem is growing acute in Texas, where there are no limits on the collection of unprotected varieties.

An average of 94,442 turtles per year are taken by dealers, mostly for export from the state, according to figures from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

Data from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request showed more than 267,000 wild turtles were exported to Hong Kong from Dallas from 2002 to 2005, said Chris Jones, an environmental attorney who has lobbied for turtle protections.

Although there are no statewide statistics showing declines in Texas turtle population, Jones said abundant anecdotal evidence exists. For example in one section of the Rio Grande river that had been a trap site, an adult turtle has not been seen in 10 years.

"They are taking them so fast the scientists can't study them," Jones said.

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Ice keeps some buildings cool — and green

2007-07-25T16:07:00.000-07:00

As the summer swelters on, skyscrapers and apartments around the city will crank up air conditioners and push the city's power grid to the limit — but some have found a cool alternative.

Some office towers and buildings are keeping their AC use to a minimum by using an energy-saving system that relies on blocks of ice to pump chilly air.

"If you take the time to look, you can find innovative ways to be energy efficient, be environmental and sustainable," said William Beck, the head of critical engineering systems for Credit Suisse, a financial services multinational corporation.

The systems save companies money and reduce strain on the electrical grid in New York, where the city consumes huge amounts of power on hot summer days.

Ice cooling also cuts down on pollution. A system in Credit Suisse's offices at the historic Metropolitan Life tower in Manhattan is equal to taking 223 cars off the streets or planting 1.9 million acres of trees to absorb carbon dioxide from electrical use for a year, according to the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.

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Dams being demolished to help fish

2007-07-25T15:39:00.000-07:00

The largest dam removal in the Pacific Northwest in 40 years is under way, with 4,000 pounds of explosives used Tuesday to blast the top level of one structure into oblivion.

When the two dams are fully removed, one this summer and the other next summer, the Sandy River will be a free-flowing river for the first time in nearly a century — and no longer a hindrance to steelhead and salmon returning to spawn.

Eight feet of the 47-foot-tall Marmot Dam was removed Tuesday and over the next two months there will be five more blasts, along with jackhammers working daily, according to the dams' owner, Portland General Electric.

Portland General Electric, the biggest utility in Oregon, is spending $17 million to remove the two dams in coordination with 23 environmental, governmental and civic organizations.

"Today, this partnership took a great step toward restoring a breathtaking river for fish, wildlife and people," Portland General Electric CEO and President Peggy Fowler said in a statement. "We celebrate the future of a watershed that will provide unimpeded salmon and steelhead passage from the slopes of Mt. Hood to the Pacific Ocean." (General Electric is the parent company of NBC, which is a partner in the joint venture that operates MSNBC.com.)

"It's incredibly significant for the entire Sandy River Basin; it's going to breath new life into the basin and it's going to provide new recreational and fishing opportunities," added Amy Kober, a spokeswoman for American Rivers, a conservation group. "This was a region that was built by dams, but we are realizing the benefits of healthy rivers. We are getting back into balance."

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ethanol from citrus peel could result in a new Florida industry producing over 60 million gallons of fuel per year

2007-07-23T16:13:00.000-07:00

FPL Energy, LLC, a subsidiary of FPL Group, has announced that it has signed a letter of intent with Citrus Energy, of Boca Raton, FL, to develop the first ever commercial scale citrus peel to ethanol plant. The cellulosic ethanol plant will be owned and operated by FPL Energy and is expected to produce four million gallons of ethanol per year. It will be located on the grounds of a local Florida citrus processor.

"FPL Energy is delighted to be working with Citrus Energy on this exciting new project to produce a clean, affordable, and domestically-produced biofuel utilizing Florida's existing citrus industry infrastructure and bringing new jobs to rural communities," said Mike O'Sullivan, senior vice president of development for FPL Energy.

"Citrus Energy's mission is to develop fuel ethanol that minimizes environmental impact and cost by using citrus waste and other biomass. FPL Energy, as the largest renewable energy generator in the U.S., is the ideal partner," said David Stewart, president of Citrus Energy.

FPL Energy said that ethanol from citrus peel could result in a new Florida industry producing over 60 million gallons of fuel per year, which could replace about one percent of Florida's annual gasoline consumption.

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Humans to blame for rain changes

2007-07-23T15:53:00.000-07:00

Human activities that spur global warming are largely to blame for changes in rainfall patterns over the last century, climate researchers reported Monday.

The report was released as record rains caused severe flooding in Britain, China and Indonesia.

Human-caused climate change has been responsible for higher air temperatures and hotter seas and is widely expected to lead to more droughts, wildfires and floods, but the authors say this is the first study to specifically link it to precipitation changes.

"For the first time, climate scientists have clearly detected the human fingerprint on changing global precipitation patterns over the past century," researchers from Environment Canada, that country's environmental agency, said in a statement.

The scientists, writing in the journal Nature, found humans contributed significantly to these changes, which include more rain and snow in northern regions that include Canada, Russia and Europe, drier conditions in the northern tropics and more rainfall in the southern tropics.

Manmade climate change has had a "detectable influence" on changes in average precipitation in these areas, and it cannot be explained by normal climate variations, they wrote.

Weather experts in Britain raised the possibility that the current rains there may be related to climate change.

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China's Demand For Recycled Wastepaper: A Blessing And A Curse For The World's Forests

2007-07-19T17:48:00.000-07:00

China's paper industry has built-up a massive recycling capacity that is shielding forests worldwide from destruction by supporting a strong international market for wastepaper as an alternative to pulpwood, according to a new report released by Forest Trends, a leading international forestry organization.

The Forest Trends report, Environmental Aspects of China's Papermaking Fiber Supply, notes that today about 60 percent of the fiber used to manufacture paper and paper board products in China is derived from wastepaper--a substantial portion of which comes from the US, Europe, and Japan. In the last ten years China's wastepaper imports increased by more than 500 percent--from 3.1 million metric tons in 1996 to 19.6 million metric tons in 2006--with most of that growth occurring between 2002 and 2006.

But the report warns that wastepaper alone is not sufficient to keep up with China's production demands, as high quality pulp and pulpwood are also being used to supply international buyers with high quality paper. The report finds that the same explosive growth that's created such a strong market for wastepaper is also boosting China's demand for pulp and pulpwood from developing countries already struggling to contain illegal and destructive logging. For example, China today buys some of its pulp and pulpwood from Indonesia and Eastern Russia where illegal, environmentally rapacious logging is widespread. And any increase in demand could exacerbate problems in those regions.

"China is by far the world's biggest consumer of wastepaper and that's a good thing because in the last four years alone, China has prevented 65 million metric tons of wastepaper from heading to landfills in the US, Japan, and Europe," said Brian Stafford, the lead author of the report and an expert on the international pulp and paper industry. "Just last year, China's use of wastepaper instead of trees to make paper products probably saved 54 million metric tons of wood from being harvested for pulp."

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Decoding Mushroom's Secrets Could Combat Carbon, Find Better Biofuels & Safer Soils

2007-07-19T16:29:00.000-07:00

Researchers at the University of Warwick are co-ordinating a global effort to sequence the genome of one of the World’s most important mushrooms - Agaricus bisporus. The secrets of its genetic make up could assist the creation of biofuels, support the effort to manage global carbon, and help remove heavy metals from contaminated soils.

The Agaricus mushroom family are highly efficient ‘secondary decomposers’ of plant material such as leaves and litter – breaking down the material that is too tough for other fungi and bacteria to handle. How exactly it does this, particularly how it degrades tough plant material known as lignin, is not fully understood. By sequencing the full genome of the mushroom, researchers hope to uncover exactly which genes are key to this process. That information will be extremely useful to scientists and engineers looking to maximize the decomposition and transformation of plant material into bio fuels.

The mushroom also forms an important model for carbon cycling studies. Carbon is sequestered in soils as plant organic matter. Between 1–2 giga tons of carbon a year are sequestered in pools on land in the temperate and boreal regions of the earth, which represents 15–30% of annual global emissions of carbon from fossil fuels and industrial activities. Understanding the carbon cycling role of these fungi in the forests and other ecosystems is a vital component of optimizing carbon management.

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Catastrophic Flooding Changed The Course Of British History

2007-07-19T16:03:00.000-07:00

A catastrophic megaflood separated Britain from France hundreds of thousands of years ago, changing the course of British history, according to research recently published in the journal Nature.
The study, led by Sanjeev Gupta and Jenny Collier from Imperial College London, has revealed spectacular images of a huge valley tens of kilometres wide and up to 50 metres deep carved into chalk bedrock on the floor of the English Channel.

Using high-resolution sonar waves the team captured images of a perfectly preserved submerged world in the channel basin. The maps highlight deep scour marks and landforms which were created by torrents of water rushing over the exposed channel basin.
To the north of the channel basin was a lake which formed in the area now known as the southern North Sea. It was fed by the Rhine and Thames, impounded to the north by glaciers and dammed to the south by the Weald-Artois chalk ridge which spanned the Dover Straits.
It is believed that a rise in the lake level eventually led to a breach in the Weald-Artois ridge, carving a massive valley along the English Channel, which was exposed during a glacial period.

Full story: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070718140833.htm

The deadly price of China's miracle

2007-07-18T16:33:00.000-07:00

What is the price of economic growth? Death?

Hundreds of millions of people are being made ill every year or dying prematurely from pollution caused by China's breakneck economic growth, a leading economic thinktank has concluded following an 18-month investigation. The OECD study, prepared at China's request, draws on work by the government, World Bank and Chinese Academy of Sciences to spell out the scale of the ecological crisis now engulfing the country, poisoning its people and holding it back economically.

It says up to 300 million people are drinking contaminated water every day, and 190 million are suffering from water related illnesses each year. If air pollution is not controlled, it says, there will be 600,000 premature deaths in urban areas and 20m cases of respiratory illness a year within 15 years.
China's water quality gives the researchers greatest concern. One third of the length of all China's rivers are now "highly polluted" as are 75% of its major lakes and 25% of all its coastal waters. Nearly 30,000 children die from diarrhoea due to polluted water each year
Although China is the world's fourth largest economy, growing 10% a year and closing rapidly on the US, Japan and Germany, its environmental standards are often closer to those in some of the poorest countries in the world, says the report. More than 17,000 towns have no sewage works at all and the human waste from nearly one billion people is barely collected or treated. Nearly 70% of the rural population has no access to safe sanitation.

Read full story: http://environment.guardian.co.uk/waste/story/0,,2128827,00.html

Stop having children to combat climate change??

2007-07-17T16:16:00.000-07:00

The simplest truths are sometimes the hardest to recognise. This month, according to the UN, world population will reach 6.7 billion, en route to a newly revised global total of 9.2 billion by 2050. The latest housing forecasts for England predict that we will need about 5m more homes in the next two decades.

The economist Jeffrey Sachs devoted this spring's Reith lectures to a planet "bursting at the seams". And the most recent Social Trends analysis from the Office for National Statistics painted a picture of a Britain driven mad by overcrowding. Meanwhile, Gaia scientist James Lovelock has been warning about ecological collapse and world resources able to support only 500 million people, with many extra millions driven to take refuge in the UK.

In the midst of all these alarms is a very quiet place where the green lobby should be talking about human population growth. Today has been designated World Population Day by the UN, but you will not see any of the big environment and development groups mounting a campaign on population. Indeed, you will be lucky if they even mention the P-word. Earlier this year, Nafis Sadik, former director of the UN's population fund, berated such non-governmental organisations for being more concerned with fundraising than advocacy. Their silence on population, she observed, was "deafening".

Read full story: http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2122949,00.html

Oil rigs could become coral farms

2007-07-17T15:51:00.000-07:00

Decommissioned oil rigs off Australia's coastline could become hubs for marine-based businesses such as coral harvesting for aquariums, a fish expert says.Professor David Booth, of the Sydney Institute of Marine Science and University of Technology, Sydney, says there are up to 60 oil rigs in Australian waters that are due to be decommissioned in the next decade.Most are in the Bass Strait between Tasmania and mainland Australia.Booth was last year involved in Federal Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources (DITR) talks on the decommissioning of oil rigs.The future of Australia's ageing oil rigs is due to be on the agenda again with the DITR to release a discussion paper in the next two months.Booth says the options for decommissioning oil rigs include: leaving them intact and in place; towing them away for dismantling; removing the platform and using explosives to topple the remaining shell; and removing the platform and leaving the remaining shell in place.In the last two cases, the shell of the oil rig forms an artificial reef.Booth says in some cases keeping part of the rig in place could benefit the marine environment.

Read full story: http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2007/1979748.htm?enviro

London councils push for plastic bag ban

2007-07-15T16:53:00.000-07:00

London shops could be banned from handing out plastic bags under a new law intended to make the capital more environmentally friendly.
Council leaders have suggested an outright ban on the bags, or the introduction of a 10p levy, in a bid to reduce the waste going into landfill.
The measures, proposed by the capital's 33 councils in a new London local authorities bill, will be put before MPs in November.
Merrick Cockell, Conservative leader of the London Councils organisation, said:

"The proposals for a plastic bag levy underline our commitment to addressing these concerns. We hope Londoners will join with us in commending these proposals to parliament to create a greener, safer city."

Source: http://environment.guardian.co.uk/waste/story/0,,2125825,00.html

New Study Suggests Climate Change Could Be The Root Of Armed Conflicts

2007-07-15T16:34:00.000-07:00

Climate change, and the resulting shortage of ecological resources, could be to blame for armed conflicts in the future, according to David Zhang from the University of Hong Kong and colleagues. Their research, which highlights how temperature fluctuations and reduced agricultural production explain warfare frequency in eastern China in the past, has been published online in Springer's journal Human Ecology.

Zhang and his team looked at the impact of climate change on warfare frequency over the last millennium in eastern China. The agricultural production in the region supports the majority of the Chinese population. The authors reviewed warfare data from 899 wars in eastern China between 1000 and 1911, documented in the Tabulation of Wars in Ancient China. They cross-referenced these data with Northern Hemispheric climate series temperature data for the same period.
They found that warfare frequency in eastern China, and the southern part in particular, significantly correlated with temperature oscillations. Almost all peaks of warfare and dynastic changes coincided with cold phases.

Full story: http://www.terradaily.com

Eco-City to be built in Water-Scarce Northern China

2007-07-15T16:25:00.000-07:00

Four locations in water-scarce northern China have been chosen as possible sites for an "eco-city" development with Singapore, a Chinese official was Thursday quoted as saying. The locations would allow the eco-city project to tap into Singapore's expertise in water technology, China's Vice Construction Minister Qiu Baoxing was quoted as saying in The Straits Times.
He was part of a delegation, led by Vice Premier Wu Yi, whose four-day official visit to the city-state was to end Thursday.
Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng said the plan was to build a "socially harmonious, environmentally friendly and resource conserving" city, the newspaper quoted him as saying.

Full story: http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Eco_City_Seen_In_Water_Scarce_Northern_China_999.html

Spiders can help scientists survey plant life by trapping tell-tale pollen in their webs

2007-07-11T16:20:00.000-07:00

Spiders can help scientists survey plant life by trapping tell-tale pollen in their webs, says an international team of researchers.

Dr Cheng-Sen Li, of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Beijing Museum of Natural History, and colleagues report their findings in the July issue of the journal Review of Palaeobotany and PalynologyCheng and colleagues studied pollen captured in spider webs of southern and central Yunnan, China, and showed that the sticky webs are good at capturing and hanging onto pollen grains from local plants. They say the method may be useful in plant surveys worldwide.

"The [type] of pollen and spores identified from the spider webs can reflect the
vegetation of the sampling site," says Cheng.

Read full story: http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2007/1964751.htm?enviro

India's hidden greenhouse gas source?

2007-07-11T16:11:00.000-07:00

Methane from India's dams could boost the country's official greenhouse emissions by 40%, says a new study.According to a study by scientists from Brazil's National Institute for Space Research, carbon-containing vegetation in Indian dams is causing an annual release of methane equivalent to 825 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.

"I am quite positive that surface methane emission estimations are correctly
estimated," says study lead author Dr Ivan Lima."I am confident that Indian dams
might be altering atmospheric methane although not precisely to what extent."

India's carbon emissions were around 1,890 million tonnes in 2000, according to the World Resources Institute, a Washington-based environmental think-tank. But the country has never

measured methane emissions from its 4,500 large dams and so such official estimates do not take these emissions into account.India, whose economy has surged between 8 and 9% in recent years, currently contributes around 4% of global emissions due to rising use of fossil fuels.As a developing nation, it is not required to cut emissions, said to be rising 2 to 3% annually, under the Kyoto Protocol, despite mounting pressure from environmental groups and developed nations.

Full story: http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2007/1964548.htm?enviro

China's huge dam changing weather

2007-07-11T15:57:00.000-07:00

What promises to be the world's largest dam is already changing local weather two years before building has finished, say scientists. Scientists study the Three Gorges Dam on China's Yangtze River have used modelling and actual meteorological data to suggest that the reservoir is cooling its valley, which is causing changes in rainfall.

"In China there are a lot of people who complain because of the construction of
the dam" and specifically about changes in local weather, says climate
modeller
Dr Liguang Wu of the NASA
Goddard Space Flight Center and the University of Maryland in College
Park.

To find out if the dam was really to blame, Wu and his colleagues collaborated with Chinese scientists to study the changing climate around what will soon be a 1000 square kilometre reservoir of more than 19 trillion litres of water and a hydroelectric power plant 20 times more powerful than the Hoover Dam.The researchers combined satellite data and ground weather stations to create a computer climate simulation, which they then compared to what has already happened in recent years.

Full story: http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2007/1963499.htm?enviro

Our world is shrinking: Earth is roughly 5 millimetres smaller than the last measurement made 5 years ago

2007-07-10T16:21:00.000-07:00

The world is smaller than we think, say scientists who say their new measurements could force other researchers to rejig their calculations.

Results of on international project show the Earth is roughly 5 millimetres smaller than the last measurement made five years ago.

But Dr Axel Nothnagel, a German researcher from the University of Bonn, says there is no evidence that the Earth itself is shrinking.

It's just that more accurate measurements, more data and better geophysical
models have led the researchers to come up with Earth's new size, a diameter of about 12,756.274 kilometres.

The researchers did not measure the diameter directly, however.

Nothnagel says that's impossible as the Earth has an irregular shape that indents and sticks out at certain regions by a hundred or so metres.

Their research, published in the Journal of Geodesy, used the technique of very long baseline interferometry or VLBI.

This uses radio telescopes in pairs or groups, as far away as several thousand kilometres, to receive radio waves from distant quasars.

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Penguin diet changed when humans arrived

2007-07-10T15:58:00.000-07:00

Around 200 years ago, a group of Antarctic penguins switched from eating mostly big fish to a diet of tiny crustaceans. And new research suggests humans might have forced the change.

Associate Professor Steven Emslie from the University of North Carolina Wilmington and Professor William Patterson from the University of Saskatchewan publish their findings today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers analysed more than 220 fossilised penguin eggshells from 100 to 38,000 years old.

They collected the shells from abandoned Adélie penguin colony sites from three major regions in Antarctica: the Ross Sea, East Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula.

After crushing bits of the shells with a mortar and pestle, the scientists measured the ratio of carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes to determine past and present penguin diets.

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Recycling urine answer to phosphorus supply

2007-07-10T15:49:00.000-07:00

Recycling urine may be the answer to a looming global shortage of phosphorus, an Australian researcher says.

Associate Professor Cynthia Mitchell, of the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), says the world's deposits of phosphorus are due to run out in about 50 years.

And she says recycling the 500 litres of urine each person produces a year is the solution.

"Urine is the most concentrated source of phosphorus," she says. "At the moment we dilute that through our sewage system and send it out to the ocean.
"In the industrialised world we must start moving to a resource-recovery approach rather than the current waste-treatment approach."

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Spanish Companies Pay Developer To Reduce Greenhouse Gases at Chinese Landfill

2007-07-09T16:31:00.000-07:00

Spanish companies are paying a Chinese developer to cover a landfill site with a plastic cap to collect the greenhouse gases it emits, the World Bank said Monday.

The deal is the latest the World Bank has brokered allowing Europe and Japan to meet their greenhouse gas reduction pledges under the Kyoto Protocol by cutting emissions in China.

About a dozen similar deals have been signed in China, and more than 500 others are in the works, said Andres Liebenthal, the environment coordinator for the World Bank office in Beijing.
The Tianjin Clean Energy and Environmental Engineering Co. will collect the methane and other greenhouse gases emitted by the landfill and use it to generate electricity to sell to the North China Power Grid, a World Bank statement said. Excess gases will be burned.

In addition to electricity revenues, the company will get money from a consortium of Spanish companies for reducing the amount of greenhouse gases the landfill generates, according to the statement and Liebenthal.

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Florida Raises Ill-Fated Artificial Reefs

2007-07-09T15:56:00.000-07:00

When people began dumping used tires in the ocean 40 years ago to create artificial reefs, they gave little thought to the potential environmental cost, or to how difficult it would be to pick them up.

"It was one of those ideas that seemed good at the time," said Jack Sobel, a senior scientist at The Ocean Conservancy, a Washington-based environmental group. "Now I think it's pretty clear it was a bad idea."

Now, local authorities are going after some 700,000 tires dumped off the coast of Fort Lauderdale, up the coast from Miami. A team of 40 divers from the U.S. Army, Navy and Coast Guard spent three weeks in June pulling up 10,373 sand-filled and slime-coated tires from the ocean floor.

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Everest at risk as new road conquers roof of the world

2007-07-08T15:53:00.001-07:00

The harsh strip lighting of Lhasa's cavernous railway station illuminates a tiny Tibetan girl as her mother tucks her in on an oil-stained patch of ground. Dozens more rag-wrapped pilgrims on their way to Jokhang Temple settle in cheek by jowl in the darkness. Child porters scurry back and forward carrying the brightly coloured luggage of Chinese tourists and wicker baskets of yak dung, used to fuel stoves.
Crackling loudly over the PA system, a folk singer croons longingly of the Himalayas and the beauty of Qomolongma, known in the West as Mount Everest. 'It calls Everest mother earth,' says Kelsang, a Tibetan guide, grimacing at the static. 'They play this over and over again. It is a Chinese song written about Tibet. 'Propaganda,' he says, pointing at a huge TV screen showing images of demure, dancing Tibetans. 'It's part of the myth they want the Chinese tourists to buy into. They are turning Tibet into Everestland, that way it's easier to forget the past and make us into a theme park.'

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The man making the world's worst polluter clean up its act

2007-07-08T15:43:00.001-07:00

He is not as well known as Al Gore or David Attenborough but among green campaigners, no one has a bigger role in tackling climate change than Ma Jun. As China's economic growth races on at breakneck speed and with more dirty, coal-burning power plants coming on line each year, the world's most populous nation will soon overtake the US as the biggest greenhouse gas emitter.
Ma, 39, has emerged as the powerful voice of a budding green movement that is forcing industry and China's tightly run state to be more accountable for the long-term consequences of their rush to get rich.

He founded the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, which is among those leading the charge to clean up the air and rivers of China, a monumental task. Pollution is leaking beyond its borders. Sand storms caused by desertification blast across Korea and Japan all the way over the Pacific to America. And as the dump for 50 billion tonnes of effluent annually, the rivers' toxic discharges threaten marine life hundreds of miles beyond China's seas.
The country's environmental importance was apparent last month when George Bush said he would not sign up to ambitious new goals to prevent global warming unless China was involved. President Hu Jintao rejected binding targets, but said China would reduce emissions voluntarily and has unveiled its first plan to deal with climate change. There is even talk that after years of red politics and black capitalism China may yet turn green.

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More than 40 years on, Spain revisits a nuclear accident

2007-07-05T16:15:00.000-07:00

The year was 1966, the height of the cold war and the final years of the Franco dictatorship, when an American B-52 bomber carrying four thermonuclear bombs collided with a supply plane above the village of Palomares in south-eastern Spain.
Two bombs landed intact, one just outside the village of 1,200 people in the province of Almería, the other salvaged, unscathed, by a fisherman five miles offshore in the Mediterranean, at a depth of 760 metres (2,500 feet). The third and fourth bombs were damaged by a chemical explosion on impact, releasing about 20kg (44lb) of plutonium into the centre of Palomares and surrounding hills.

Nobody died or is known to have developed cancer, but Spain's worst nuclear accident took three months and the work of 1,600 US specialists to clean up before it was promptly forgotten outside of Spain. The amnesia was helped along with a now legendary stunt by the former minister of tourism under Franco, Manuel Fraga, who took a much-photographed swim in the Mediterranean with the American ambassador to prove the waters - and budding tourist industry - were safe.
More than 40 years later, the Spanish nuclear regulatory agency and a national research centre on the environment, energy and technology, CIEMAT, have concluded the first large-scale study of the extent of radioactive contamination around the village, now perched in the middle of the nationwide building frenzy.

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McDonald's goes green - but not all customers are lovin' it

2007-07-05T16:04:00.000-07:00

McDonald's is a company on a mission. Tired of being held up as an example of corporate evil and greed, the fast food chain has been hitting out at critics with a series of environmental and social initiatives designed to prove that it cares.
Not content with that, the company is also going through a full makeover, redesigning some of its restaurants in a way that it hopes will revitalise the sites and attract more customers.

On Monday, the group announced its latest initiative: to turn its spent cooking oil into biodiesel fuel to power its vans in the UK.
This is the latest in a series of environmental and health moves. Recently, for example, the group swapped over to non-hydrogenated cooking oil in its restaurants.

The menus have changed to varying degrees over the past few years, with the introduction of sustainably grown coffee, organic milk and toasted deli sandwiches.

In the UK, a sheet of paper on customers' trays shows a photo of George Horton, a 43-year-old farmer in Wiltshire and a McDonald's supplier, who produces the food they eat. Even Greenpeace, which has worked with McDonald's on making sure the soya they source from Brazil is produced by companies that do not destroy the rainforest, says the company has been progressive. Pat Venditti, forest campaigner at the charity, says: "What we've seen is that they have taken a very good leadership role in terms of how they approach environmental issues."

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Temperature rises 'not caused by sun'

2007-07-05T15:48:00.000-07:00

s
Claims in a controversial Channel 4 programme that recent rises in global temperatures have been caused by the sun have been disproved by scientists.
The programme, the Great Global Warming Swindle, claimed that instead of greenhouse gases from human activity being to blame for a recent surge in temperatures, a change in solar activity was responsible because it influenced the number of cosmic rays that strike the Earth.

The film presented such changes in the sun as a viable alternative explanation for rising temperatures, and was widely cited in discussions of a recent poll that showed 56% of the UK public doubted the scientific cause of climate change.

But the new analysis, to be published in a Royal Society journal on Tuesday, shows that global warming since 1985 cannot have been caused by an increase in solar radiation or by a decrease in cosmic rays.
Mike Lockwood, a physicist at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the UK, said: "It is absolutely clear that the sun is nothing to do with the recent warming.

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Why rock won't save the planet

2007-07-05T15:34:00.000-07:00

This Saturday, Live Earth, a series of huge concerts around the world, will use music and modern media, in the words of the organisers, to "trigger a global movement to solve the climate crisis".
I sincerely hope that it works, but I fear that our refusal to acknowledge climate change has very deep roots - too deep to be addressed by feel-good concerts. After all, we have known about climate change for a surprisingly long time. The first serious warnings came in 1965 and climate change has been at the top of the political agenda for 15 years.

For years, the assumption has been that if people only knew more about the seriousness of the issue, they would act. We have had a decade of terrifying research, voluminous reports, portentous political statements, interactive websites, Sunday supplement pull-outs, and screaming banner headlines.

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The Hague Announces Project To Warm 4,000 Houses Using Geothermal Heating

2007-07-04T17:30:00.000-07:00

The Dutch city of The Hague on Wednesday announced plans to use geothermal heating -- water from a hot well deep underground -- to warm 4,000 households and several industrial buildings, as part of a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Although the idea of using underground warmth to heat homes is not new, the plan would be the largest attempted in the Netherlands and is unusual in its design.

Water of 75 degrees Celsius (170 degrees Fahrenheit) was discovered at a depth of 2,200 meters (7,200 feet) in the southwest of the city, The Hague's housing department said in a statement.

"This geothermal energy will be transported to the district heating network through heat exchangers," the statement said. "Via this network of pipes the energy eventually will be distributed to the houses," which would be equipped with underfloor heating instead of a radiator.

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Analysis: Behind China's smokescreen on climate change

2007-07-04T17:24:00.000-07:00

The Chinese government's irresponsible stance toward mitigating climate change, based on its developing country status, is increasingly untenable. China is the world's fourth largest economy and, according to a new report, is now the top emitter of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas heating up the planet.

Global warming is an unintended consequence of the global trading system. Now is not the time for finger pointing between the developed and developing worlds: CO2 and other gases are nearing cumulative crisis levels. Culpability for shifting polluting industries from rich to poor countries goes to both sides, and demonstrates that a favorable investment environment does not promise investment favorable to the environment.

China continues to be both a beneficiary of globalization, with capital and technology inflows creating jobs for its massive population, and its benefactor, providing markets with low-cost products. This process began nearly 30 years ago when China abandoned Maoist principles in pursuit of profit as the guiding ideology for its political economy.

The policy of economic reform and opening to the outside world permitted foreign investors and hardworking individual Chinese new opportunities to generate wealth, raising the collective level of prosperity and taking hundreds of millions of people out of absolute poverty at the expense of the world's ecosystem.

President Hu Jintao heads a communist coterie reared in the ethos of an authoritarian one- party state, lacking accountability and with a deeply entrenched sense of entitlement to dispensation regarding global obligations. Neither view helps Hu and crew meet new challenges such as acknowledging China's role in the greenhouse gas problem and taking the lead in searching for a solution.
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Surge of Dead Seabirds Alarms Scientists

2007-07-04T17:02:00.000-07:00

Hundreds of dead seabirds that washed up along the Southeast coast in recent weeks apparently starved to death, but experts don't know why.

The deaths of the birds -- similar to gulls and called greater shearwaters -- have wildlife officials worried about possible changes in the ocean that could have affected the fish that the birds usually eat.

"It's got a lot of folks talking and wondering," said Jennifer Koches, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "Is this a canary in the coal mine issue? Is there something that serious going on out in the ocean that it should be causing us serious alarm?"

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ECONOMIC GROWTH TO END SOON, FOREVER!!

2007-06-13T17:03:00.000-07:00

Peak Oil is the idea that the world’s oil production will soon reach a peak and then begin to decline. This will have epoch-changing effects on a growing globalised world economy where over 60 per cent of energy demand is met by burning oil and gas, and where 95 per cent of transport is driven by oil. Over the last couple of years the status of the peak oil idea has been transformed from that of a Chicken Little conspiracy theory to one commanding the public attention of national governments. The weeks before Easter 2007 were a truly momentous period for the peak oil debate. Highly respected figures in the oil industry, such a energy investment banker Matt Simmons and legendary Texas oilman T.Boone Pickens, abandoned their usually restrained commentary to declare that world oil production was now at its peak and would henceforth fail to meet future demand increases.

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Why global warming has brought the G8 to boiling point

2007-06-13T16:31:00.000-07:00

2004, climate change did not even rate a mention in the summary of the Group of Eight (G8) summit at Sea Island, Georgia.

Today, it is the issue that may make or break the rich nations' get-together in Heiligendamm, Germany.

Summit host German Chancellor Angela Merkel faces an unenviable choice. She can insist that the summit endorse an ambitious plan for tackling greenhouse gases, although to do so would dangerously isolate President George W. Bush.

Or she can climb down and submit to a fudge that will badly damage her standing at home and across Europe.

This potential crisis has been brewing for months, driven by science and public opinion, say seasoned watchers of the climate debate.

"The public knows climate change is here, now, and is demanding political leaders to lead by example," Hans Verolme of environmental group WWF told AFP. "Expectations are high."

Here's why climate change is now such a big deal:

-- AN ESCALATING THREAT: This year, the UN's top scientific panel declared climate change was already on the march and the effects would be harsh and, for poor, vulnerable countries, potentially catastrophic.

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Solar could go mainstream as China enters market

2007-06-13T16:03:00.000-07:00

Solar power could go mainstream within three to four years as Chinese companies boost production of solar panels and the key ingredient for their function, according a report released yesterday.

Solar accounts for less than 1 percent of the world's electrical capacity, mostly due to the high cost of manufacturing the panels and the scarce availability of their key component, purified polysilicon.

But according to a study by the Worldwatch Institute, the development of advanced technologies and the emergence of China as a low-cost producer could push solar into the mainstream.

Last year, China passed the United States to become the world's third largest producer of solar panels, trailing only Germany and Japan.

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Salvage Logging, Replanting Worse

2007-06-12T16:20:00.000-07:00

Contrary to the conventional wisdom, scientists have found that logging big dead trees after a wildfire and planting young ones makes future fires worse, at least for the first 10 or 20 years while the young trees create a volatile new source of fuel.

The findings by scientists from the U.S. Forest Service and Oregon State University raise questions about the long-standing practice of salvage logging on national forests at a time when global warming is expected to increase the size and numbers of wildfires and the annual cost of fighting them is running around $1 billion.

In the first study of its kind, scientists examined satellite images, aerial photographs, and records of logging and replanting to look at areas that burned in the 1987 Silver fire in southwestern Oregon and again in the 2002 Biscuit fire.

"It was the conventional wisdom that salvage logging and planting could reduce the risk of high-severity fires," said Jonathan R. Thompson, a doctoral candidate in forest science at Oregon State, who was lead author of the study appearing this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "Our data suggest otherwise."
They suggested that the large stands of closely packed young trees created by replanting are a much more volatile source of fuel for decades to come than the large dead trees that are cut down and hauled away in salvage logging operations.

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Bear Detection Kits Seen as Having Potential To Curb Illegal Trade

2007-06-12T15:49:00.000-07:00

"Bear detection kits" may help crack down on an illegal trade in bear products supplied by Asian farms where animals are locked in cramped cages, a conservation group said on Tuesday.

The portable kits, which use technology similar to that in a home pregnancy test, can isolate bear proteins in traditional Asian medicines in five minutes, according to the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA).

The bear detection kits, developed with a forensic group called Wildlife DNA Services, are far simpler and quicker than existing procedures that require laboratory equipment, it said.

"The activity that takes place in bear farms is inherently cruel and unnecessary," WSPA head Peter Davies said in a statement released on the sidelines of a June 3-15 U.N. conference on wildlife trade in The Hague.

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Patio heaters produce more CO2 than a small city

2007-06-12T15:40:00.000-07:00

The government should ban patio heaters, say environmental campaigners Friends of the Earth. A recent survey by British Gas suggests there could be a massive increase in the use of patio heaters following the introduction of the smoking ban this summer. (Green Building)

Earlier this year Friends of the Earth revealed that leading garden chain Wyevale are to stop selling patio heaters following concerns about their impact on climate change. Subsequently garden centre chain Notcutts told the environmental campaign group that they will follow suit and "have now elected to sell through current stocks of Gas and Electric Patio heaters and not to stock in the future".

Estimates of the impact that patio heaters have on climate change vary. The Energy Saving Trust has worked out that a propane patio heater with a heat output of 12.5kW will produce around 34.8kg of CO2 before the fuel runs out (after approximately 13 hours). This is equivalent to the energy required to produce approximately 5,200 cups of tea (or 400 cups for every hour of operation)

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Are You Eating Dinner on a Piece of Rainforest?

2007-06-11T16:14:00.000-07:00

Love your new dining room table ... but did you ask the salesman whether it's made from chopped up rainforest trees?

A growing number of furniture shoppers are doing just that when they buy new home decor, concerned about the effects of shrinking rainforests on global warming and the extinction of rare species of flora and fauna that inhabit these forests.

"There's a lot of inexpensive places where you can get furniture from, but I ask myself - where is it being manufactured, where does the wood come from?" said Stephanie Zhong, a 38-year-old designer from Los Angeles.

"If people were more aware of it, they would choose to be a little bit more informed about what they are sitting on, the table they are working at," Zhong added.

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Logging May Wreck Orangutan Forests in a Decade, UN Says

2007-06-11T16:07:00.000-07:00

THE HAGUE -- Illegal logging could destroy the last forest strongholds of orangutans within a decade and the world should do more to help Indonesia halt smuggling both of apes and of timber, a U.N. report said on Monday.

Burning of forests, sometimes to clear land to grow palm oil for biofuels, was adding to threats to endangered orangutans which live on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra, according to a report issued at a U.N. wildlife conference.

"Indonesia cannot and should not have to deal with this issue alone," Achim Steiner, the head of the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP), said in a statement. He urged more funding for wardens and a global customs crackdown on illegal trade.

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Panel Votes To Ban Bottom Trawling in Northern Bering Sea

2007-06-11T15:59:00.000-07:00

An advisory fisheries panel voted Sunday to put 180,000 square miles (466,200 square kilometers) of the northern Bering Sea off-limits to bottom trawling, a form of fishing that conservation groups say is destructive to vulnerable habitat for numerous species.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council, which advises the federal government on fisheries in federal waters off Alaska, made its unanimous decision Sunday at a meeting in Sitka after asking the public to weigh in with options for about 330,000 square miles (854,700 square kilometers) of the entire Bering Sea. Options adopted now go through the regulatory process with the National Marine Fisheries Service.

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Aborigines volunteer land for nuclear waste

2007-06-07T21:10:00.000-07:00

The latest twist in the saga of what Australia's federal government might do with its nuclear waste sees aboriginal people offering a piece of land in the Northern Territories for the job. (EDIE)

Although Australia is rich with uranium deposits which fuel reactors the world over, Australia is not itself a major nuclear player, having a handful of small reactors for research purposes but no large power stations.

However, the question of how to dispose of the waste from these research facilities along with that from industrial and medical sources has been a major headache for central government. But now the aboriginal Ngapa clan has proposed a 1.5 sq km site, part of its 200sq km holding near Muckaty Station, roughly half way between Alice Springs and Darwin in the Northern Territories.

If it gets the go ahead, the site could be used to store both low-level nuclear waste such as contaminated soil and lab equipment and intermediate level waste including that from hospital radiotherapy departments and Australia's reactors.

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Bogus claims lead to 'chainsaw massacre' of London's trees

2007-06-07T20:53:00.000-07:00

Up to 2,000 London street trees have been given the chop in the past five years, condemned by usually unwarranted subsidence claims, a London Assembly report has revealed. (Environment Times)In some boroughs as much as 40 per cent of trees removed have been due to insurance claims. Yet the Assembly's Environment Committee heard that barely one per cent of these claims were probably justified. A recent survey showed that, over the past five years, 40 per cent of the 325 trees removed in Hackney, 16 per cent of 1,500 trees in Brent and ten per cent of the 600 trees in Camden have been removed because of subsidence claims. In total London has lost around 40,000 street trees with 48,000 planted over the last five years. However London has suffered an overall loss of broadleaf trees and many of the new trees that have been planted are smaller, ornamental varieties. Ornamental varieties do not have the same environmental benefits as broad leaf trees, which play a vital role in protecting the capital from the effects of global warming.

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Oil companies must pay for spills

2007-06-07T20:46:00.000-07:00

The Filipino Government has introduced a law which will require all major companies which ship oil through the island nation's waters to pay into a fund that can be used to tackle future spills. (EDIE)

The Oil Compensation Act has been seen largely as an acknowledgement of criticism over the government's slow response to a huge spill of the coast of Guimaras last year, the worst in the country's history. The spill occurred when an oil tanker sank off the coast of the idyllic island last August, causing extensive damage to both the sensitive environment and the livelihood of local fishermen.

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G8 make historic climate deal

2007-06-07T15:09:00.000-07:00

World leaders will work with the United Nations to slash greenhouse gas emissions in a new deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol by 2009. The agreement was sealed at the G8 summit on the Baltic coast, and importantly has the buy-in of the world's largest polluter, the United States, as well as the other members Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia. However the historic agreement falls short of setting hard targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as wanted by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
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Ecuador to world: Help us, and we won't drill in the rainforest

2007-06-06T23:13:00.000-07:00

In response to intense pressure from indigenous and environmental organizations opposed to drilling for oil in an Amazon rainforest, this May Ecuador asked the world for financial help, according to the Environmental News Service.
The oil fields under Yasuni National Park are estimated to contain 900 million to 1 billion barrels of oil, about one-quarter of Ecuador's total reserves. In about a year, international oil companies will be allowed to bid for the right to drill.To avoid this fate, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa is asking the international community for about $350 million a year.

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Vatican goes solar

2007-06-04T16:14:00.000-07:00

The Vatican City State is to get a solar energy installation, craftily sited on the roof of one its few large modern buildings.

The Vatican's "green" statements of recent months culminated in a speech in April by the Pope urging politicians to "respect creation" while "focusing on the needs of sustainable development".

China unveils climate change plan

2007-06-04T16:04:00.001-07:00

Country vows to 'blaze new path to industrialisation' and invest in green energy, without committing to emissions targets.

A pond filled with dead fish on the outskirts of Wuhan, in Hubei province. About 125,000kg of fish have reportedly died in China in the last three days due to water pollution. Photograph: Reuters

But in a blow to efforts to tackle global warming, the world's second biggest producer of greenhouse gases refused to accept binding targets for emissions, saying wealthy developed nations must take the bulk of the responsibility for the problem.

The announcement of the 62-page action plan appeared aimed at deflecting criticism ahead of the G8 plus six summit in Germany this week and a series of key international meetings on the environment.
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U.S. Pressures G8 Nations to Weaken Stance on Global Warming

2007-06-04T15:37:00.000-07:00

The United States has been working behind the scenes to stop the next Group of Eight (G8) summit in Germany next month from setting clear goals to fight global warming and from calling for urgent talks to negotiate a new climate strategy to replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012, according to documents obtained by Reuters.
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Green watchdogs warn I.Coast's tropical forests at risk

2007-05-31T20:19:00.000-07:00

Ivory Coast's rare tropical forests risk vanishing due to excessive exploitation by timber logging firms, environmental watchdogs warned Thursday.

"Of the 123 companies in timber exploitation, only two respect the forestry regulations," Jacob N'Zi, head of Ecological Group of Ivory Coast (Geci), told AFP.

Geci accused the firms of ignoring a 2,000 to 10,000 cubic metre annual quota imposed by authorities for timber harvesting.

"If we are not careful, at this rate Ivory Coast forests will disappear in 10 years," N'Zi said.

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NASA Administrator Not Sure Global Warming A Problem

2007-05-31T16:23:00.000-07:00

Michael Griffin NASA Administrator has told America's National Public Radio that while he has no doubt a trend of global warming exists "I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with." In an interview with NPR's Steve Inskeep that will air in Thursday's edition of NPR News' Morning Edition, Administrator Griffin explains: "I guess I would ask which human beings - where and when - are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that's a rather arrogant position for people to take."

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Source:terradaily.com

Native Australian shrubs

2007-05-28T20:41:00.000-07:00

myrtle wattle
spike wattle
hedge wattle
golden wattle
hop wattle
sweet wattle
prickly moses
swamp sheoak
silver banksia
hairpin banksia
showy bossiaea
sweet bursaria
common cassinia
drooping cassinia
prickly currant-bush
common correa
smooth parrot-pea
sticky hop-bush
common heath
hop goodenia
golden tip
mountain grevillea
yellow hakea
furze hakea
prickly guinea-flower
erect guinea-flower
austral-indigo
prickly tea-tree
heath tea-tree
swamp paperbark
scented paperbark
snowy daisy-bush
tree everlasting
boolace bush
common rice-flower
handsome flat-pea
elderberry panax
hazel pomaderris
victorian christmas bush
rough bush-pea
golden spray
pink-bells
dusty miller
large kangaroo-apple
mutton-wood

New energy rules could unleash an economic boom and help quash climate change

2007-05-28T16:18:00.000-07:00

In 1997, as the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change was being negotiated, the U.S. Senate voted, 95-0, to reject any agreement that "would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States." The senators were acting on the widespread fear that the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy would hurt American businesses and cost millions of jobs. Those were the beliefs and the politics of the times.

Ten years later, it's increasingly clear that it will be more costly not to act on global warming than to act. Clean, renewable, efficient energy will not be a burden but a boon -- the next in a series of revolutions, beginning with telecom and digital that have invigorated our economy with new ideas, new industries, and new jobs.

Voters, investors, activists, business leaders, and policy experts are pushing for clean energy to create jobs, limit climate change, and reduce America's dependence on foreign oil. And yet, progress is slow: oil imports and carbon emissions continue to rise. Why?

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Carbon emissions have sped up since 2000

2007-05-27T16:06:00.000-07:00

World emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide increased three times faster after 2000 than in the 1990s, putting them at the high end of a range of forecasts by an international climate change panel, scientists report. Carbon emissions grew at a 3.1% annual rate between 2000 and 2004, compared to 1.1% per year in the previous decade, according to the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Lead author Dr Mike Raupach, from Australia's CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research and the Global Carbon Project, says that nearly 8 billion tonnes of carbon were emitted globally into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide in 2005 compared with 6 billion tonnes in 1995.

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Cyclones may blast turtles to extinction

2007-05-21T19:29:00.000-07:00

Full story: Cyclones may blast turtles to extinction

Source: http://www.turtles.org/atlgrnd.htm

More severe tropical cyclones expected as a result of climate change may lead to the extinction of the green sea turtle in some areas within 100 years, researchers say.The cyclones are expected to threaten how well the turtles nest and hatch eggs, placing pressure on already endangered populations, some of which are also threatened by fish trawling.Researchers including PhD candidate David Pike, from the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Sydney, report their findings online in the journal Oecologia.

Full story: Cyclones may blast turtles to extinction

Southern Ocean carbon sink filling up fast

2007-05-21T16:49:00.000-07:00

Click here to read the full story: Southern Ocean carbon sink filling up fast

The Southern Ocean around Antarctica is so loaded with carbon dioxide that it can barely absorb any more, so more of the gas will stay in the atmosphere to warm up the planet, scientists report.

Human activity is the main culprit, says researcher Dr Corinne Le Quéré, who calls the finding very alarming.The phenomenon wasn't expected to be apparent for decades, says Le Quere, from the UK's University of East Anglia. "We thought we would be able to detect this only in the second half of this century, say 2050 or so," she says.

Click here to read the full story: Southern Ocean carbon sink filling up fast

Aquarium fish 'threaten biodiversity'

2007-05-20T15:57:00.000-07:00

Read the full story Aquarium fish 'threaten biodiversity'

The millions of exotic fish imported each year to fill Australia's aquaria and ornamental ponds are a ticking time bomb for the continent's biodiversity, say some experts.

And they say Australia will find it hard to protect itself unless international trade laws are reformed.

"There is no doubt that aquarium fish that are being imported into Australia every week carry pathogens that have the potential to cause severe ecological impacts," says the University of Sydney's Professor Richard Whittington, a specialist in the health of aquatic animals.

Read the full story: Aquarium fish 'threaten biodiversity'

Antarctic reveals treasure trove of life

2007-05-17T16:05:00.000-07:00

Carnivorous sponges, 585 new species of crustaceans and hundreds of new worms have been discovered in the dark waters around Antarctica, suggesting these depths may have been the source of much marine life, European researchers report.

Read more:Antarctic reveals treasure trove of life

Xericaping Favourite!

2007-05-15T16:10:00.000-07:00

Please support our xeriscaping competition that is aimed at encouraging waterwise landscape designs.

click on the link to be redirected: Xeriscaping

Xeriscaping competition: vote for your favourite

2007-05-07T20:00:00.000-07:00

Australians have learnt how to live with drought conditions. Click on the link to see some amazing xeriscaping transformations and vote for your favourite:
Xeriscaping competition

online directory for australian enviro-friendly products

2007-05-06T22:13:00.000-07:00

Green Pages is the new mecca for envirofriendly products in Australia.

this is the online directory of business that we might need on an everyday basis, but with a twist: it only features enviro-friendly products.

"Green Pages Business is the vehicle that will put big business in touch with the innovators working in environmental sustainability, The Green Pages Business directory lists companies involved in energy, finance, consulting, architecture, construction, office supplies, recycling, media, packaging, transport and water, who are leaders in sustainability."
"We believe Green Pages will dramatically increase the market share of sustainable business. We've created a first in Australia, if not the world." says Katie Patrick , the founder of Green Pages.

click on this link to explore:green pages

From drought-stricken to drought-tolerant

2007-05-06T19:11:00.000-07:00

If you live in Australia, you know how hard it has been lately, and it is not going to get better. Everything around us is dying as we prepare for an uncertain future. And then something inspiring happens.

living WITH drought

DecoR Pebble Garden Beauty Contest

2007-05-03T20:19:00.000-07:00

DécoR Pebble Garden Bauty Contest

Water-wise garden designs play a crucial role in making our communities beautiful, and most of all, sustainable.
DécoR Pebble, Australia's leading supplier to decorative pebbles and stones, decided to run the 'garden beauty contest' to reward their customers who used pebbles from the Australian Natural Stone range to create a garden that displays water-wise garden principles.

To vote for your favourite garden, simply click on the picture below and you will be redirected to the page containing the TOP 5 etnries.

You can vote 05-May-2007 until 24-May-2007 5pm!

Xeriscaping plants: List of succulents.

2007-04-30T17:08:00.000-07:00

Here is a list of succulents. Please note that the images that you see originate from Flickr. Unfortunately, I do not any images of beautiful succulents, so I have linked up to Flickr.com photos. This is a rather small list of succulents, but I have to tell you, the images are absolutely breath taking. I plan to provide you with a longer list and will make sure that I have the images readily available. For now, you will need to do a bit of clicking.

Aloe brevifolia
Aloe ferox
Aloe polyphylla
Aloe rauhii
Agave americana 'Variagata'
Agave Stricta
Crassula Falcata
Crassula Perforata
Crassula Argentea 'hobbit'
Echeveria Pulvinata
Echeveria Pulvinata 'Ruby Blush'
Echeveria purpusorum
Echeveria agavoides
Echeveria nodulosa
Echeveria subrigida
Echeveria setosa
Echeveria agavoides
Echeveria 'Perle Von Nurnberg'
Echeveria elegans
Echeveria multicaulis
Echeveria Black Prince

when are our gardens as waterwise as they can possibly get?

2007-04-26T21:55:00.000-07:00

It is a fact that we have to be very waterwise during this period of harsh drought. Many of us are struggling to keep our previous gardens against all odds. While gardening is considered a relaxing and calming hobby, lately it has been nothing more but a nerve-racking pastime.

A lot of money, time, efforts, tears and sweat are being invested into ensuring that our gardens become as sustainable and waterwise as they should be. Many come to the stage where there is not much that can be done apart from demolishing the current garden and start from scratch. Easier said than done! All that time and effort and sweat.But what can we do? Has it come to the stage where the only reality is either watching your garden, your tour de force, die or do you destroy it yourself and create a waterwise garden? Are these the only options? Who knows? It is perhaps safe to say that in some regions in good old australia, this may be the only two options. There is only so much that gardeners can do to make their gardens waterwise. Sooner or later it will come to the stage where nothing more can be done; any more work done becomes nothing more than a drain on our already limited natural and personal resources.

To find out the latest hints and tips on how to make your garden more waterwise, click on the link: xeriscaping: creating sustainable gardens

To see images of successfully transformed gardens, click on this link: xeriscape gardens

Green roof symbolises charm of metropolis Sydney

2007-04-17T16:01:00.000-07:00

Gracing Sydney with their astounding architectural and sculptural splendor are the extravagant Monument Apartments designed by Melbourne based Wood Marsh Architects. Hailed as the icon of exceptional design, the breathtaking structural design of their iridescent metallic exterior is contrasted with a tranquil garden, adding to the enigmatic beauty of this architectural tour de force. This outstanding design is a representation of a new period for residential projects as well as the limitless application possibility of DécoR Pebble's expansive product range. While this project is rare in apartment-living, it is only one of the many projects of architectural and landscaping masterminds that Melbourne based DécoR Pebble has been a key supplier for. The design utilized is unparalleled in its sculptural design epitomizing the charm of metropolis Sydney. The creation of the serene gardens has been dependent on the massive array of decorative pebbles available through the DécoR Pebble product range.

For the design of the gardens, DécoR Pebble has supplied landscape designers with over 30 tones of decorative pebbles, including the Indo Black and Sulu Black array of the DécoR Pebble range. While Monument is an icon of extravagancy in Sydney, the involvement in the design of the sculptural gardens has been an icon for DécoR Pebble's extensive product range and evocative of their reputation as Australia's leading supplier of decorative pebbles. The aura of the sculptured gardens is one of sophisticated lavishness, climaxed by a carefully created design comprising a scenic water feature as the focal point of the garden, decorative pathways, artistic mosaics, a vast array of fauna matching and complementing other colours of the garden, all highlighted with different colours of decorative pebbles. To see images of this ground-breaking design project click here:green roof

Xeriscaping: Drought-Tolerant plants

2007-04-15T19:42:00.003-07:00

Australia is a big dry. Extended dry periods and harsh water restrictions are impacting on gardens immensely. The fact that many of our gardens are not up to scratch when it comes to ensuring that water-wise plants are being used, does not make this situation easier. People who are not prepared to give up and are fiercely fighting to save their gardens should be commended for their effort. However, it is time to face reality and do the right thing. Now, we must fight to save water. Using drought tolerant plants in our landscape designs helps minimise the amount of water that is being used. There are many Australian native and non-native plants that have evolved to survive in the toughest environments. There are many beautiful plants that are able to flourish in the driest conditions.

What are some of the drought tolerant plants?

Billardiera
Callistemon viminalis
Grevillea lavandulacea
Melaleuca glaberrimma
Catharanthus roseus
Dietes bicolor
Gazania hybrids
Pelargonium cultivars
Myoporum parvifolium
Indigofera australis
Lomandra longifolia
Dianella revoluta
Callistemon citrinus
Correa ‘Dusky Bells’

Xeriscape Landscape: australian garden

2007-04-12T16:21:00.000-07:00

In an attempt to create a landscape that conserves our precious and limited water supplies, Vermont resident Geoff has transformed his, once beloved, tennis court into a Xeriscape landscape. While this landscape features a dry creek river bed, very fancy, it also includes two golf greens, even fancier. Apart from the very practical and obvious benefits as a result of the two golf greens, Geoff's garden also preserves water, protects our fragile ecology and promotes the use of the sometimes undervalued beauty and practicality of Australian flora. While this landscape is absolutely breathtaking it presents the ideal way to use water wisely.

What motivated Geoff?
Sufficient water supply is increasingly becoming a fundamental issue for the future prosperity of our nation. Rising population figures have increased the demand on our already limited supplies. In addition, seasonal fluctuations in rainfall and periodic droughts are signals that a change is due desperately.

The effect of climate change is expected to have extensive effects on gardens and landscapes. Predictions that you may have heard of are not mere sci-fi-outlooks. We all have become aware of some of the effects, with hardly any rainfall and periods of summer drought and bush fires.

The Xeriscape landscape that was once a tennis court is a dry creek river bed and is based on the principles of the fairly new phenomenon of Xeriscaping. As such, the landscape is founded on sensible horticultural principles, which help save water. In conjunction with his landscape designer, Geoff has been able to design a landscape that is easy to maintain, minimises the occurrence of weed and uses less water and fertilisers.

To read more and see images, click on the link: Xeriscape garden design

Latest trend designs using natural stacked stone

2007-04-10T17:24:00.000-07:00

A striking façade that goes beyond visual appeal is a vital matter. This leads to the question how do you design and create a frontage that is both practical and beautiful? The latest trends in new home design feature some sort of stone wall façade, which leads to the assumption that these trends are market-driven. What do you do if you are already a home-owner and are not interested in buying a new home yet like the look of a stacked stone façade? Well, give the front of your home a facelift. With DecoR Pebble's quality and affordable range of stone wall cladding, nothing is stopping you from having a frontage that cries out "latest trend".
Click on the link below to see images of stone wall cladding applications and be inspired: stacked stone

Stylish sustainability?

2007-04-01T15:54:00.000-07:00

Green roofs are regularly publicised for their ecological advantages, but not many people are aware of green roofs input to modern architecture. It is important to look past green roof’s ecological function and give way to design and architectural trends they bring about.
DécoR Pebble has been a major supplier of decorative pebbles and recycled crushed glass for many green roof projects, which present a great deal more to the urban scenery than simply the apparent environmental benefits. The (sad) truth is that not everyone may be inspired by these ecological benefits. As such, we need to communicate the fact that green roofs are not only aesthetically appealing, but there is also the possibility of having ‘wicked’ and uncanny green roofs, inspired by post-modern art that many of us still do not appreciate.

stone wall cladding: affordable stone wall cladding from DecoR Pebble

2007-03-05T20:31:00.000-08:00

stone wall cladding

stone wall, stone cladding, stone wall, stacked stone, wall cladding.....whatever you want to call it...DecoR Pebble has it.

Want affordable stone wall cladding? Need quality stone wall cladding ? Looking for a specific colour in stone wall cladding that you cannot find anywhere else?

DecoR Pebble recently introduced their range of quality stone wall cladding into the Australian market place, and so far our range of stone wall cladding has been a huge success!!! Why? Well, we have the best price for our range of stone wall cladding. We have also increased our range and added another 25 new colours and textures. This means that you have a huge range of stone wall cladding colours and textures to choose from.

If you want to see our full range of stone wall cladding, and I bet you do, click on the link below:

stone wall cladding

stone wall, stone cladding, stone wall, stacked stone, wall cladding.....whatever you want to call it...DecoR Pebble has it.

Green roofs: Why are green roofs important to our future?

2007-03-05T14:31:00.000-08:00

Even though a green roof is an ancient concept, many of us fail to realise the importance of green roofs and what exactly they are. We are constantly bombarded with messages telling us that our climate is dramatically changing and that we need to do something about this. Green roofs are a solution. So, why should we go green?

Most of us live in the concrete jungle, what is also referred to as an urban environment: a nice and sophisticated term for something rather dull. We have been living in such an environment that we forgot what a green space is, and we find it more difficult to understand the significance of having a green space. That is my opinion anyway…

So why a green roof?

· Green roofs improve insulation: reduce heating and cooling (green roofs could decrease urban temperature)
· Green roofs are known for their ability to reduce storm water run off: storm water run off carries contaminants, including hazardous heavy metals from paved surfaces and rooftops. Storm water run off has been identified as a major source of water pollution.
· Filter pollutants and CO2 (carbon dioxide) out of the air
· Green roofs can even lengthen the life span of roofs resulting in decreased maintenance and savings in replacement costs (economic benefit)
· Green roofs reduce the Urban Heat Island Effect: Conventional building materials absorb the sun’s radiation and reflect it back as heat, making cities hotter than surrounding suburbs. Reductions of the Urban Heat Island Effect will also minimise the spreading of dust and production of smog. This, in turn, can potentially reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
· A green roof provides habitat for plants and animals
· Leisure facility for building users
· Sound insulation
· Aesthetic appeal
· Green roofs can increase the value of the property and marketability

Decor Pebble: customer comments

2007-02-26T19:53:00.000-08:00

Hi,

Just want to share with you some of the great feedback we received from our customers:

"We recently ordered 40 bags of the black polished pebbles, the Le grande black...?. They arrived yesterday and just want to say that they look fantastic. The quality of your pebbles and the colours are really great. Thank you very much!" J. from Kew.

"I subsribed to your newsletter a couple of months ago and it is excellent. The content and the presentation of the newsletter is very professional and relevant. Keep up the good work!" M.K. NSW

"Your range of decorative pebbles is unbelievable" Martin, VIC.

"Thank you very much for your assistance in helping me decide which product to use to cover my driveway. I had no idea that the pebble mix and decorative concrete were two completely different products. The exposed aggregate was laid last week and we used your Indo Red pebbles. It looks absolutely fantastic. " K. Wheelers Hill

need a face lift? want affordable wall cladding?

2007-02-22T15:17:00.001-08:00

The range of natural stacked stone available from DecoR Pebble is the ideal material for exterior cladding for both commercial and residential architectural applications. The nature and texture of this stone wall cladding also allows it to be used as an internal wall material.
This stone cladding range offers outstanding ambiences. Unlike synthetic stacked stone, this building material is made of quality natural slate stone and is available at a fraction of the cost you will elsewhere.
The DecoR Stacked Stone comprises six popular colours: the rustic rough charm of Russet, the intensity of Onyx, the icy contemporary allure of Ivory, the warm serene tones of Bisque and the iridescent enchantment of Shimmer. The uneven and rocky surface characteristic of the colour Shimmer contains very small light reflecting particles that produce a slight sparkle that creates a captivating allure, particularly under light. This is a durable and premium building material that is ideal for wall cladding. Whether your design necessitates accentuation or an entire stone wall cladding, DecoR Stacked Stone is the right cladding stone.

This wall cladding range comes in panels that measure 600x150mm and are 20-40mm thick.
Covering your walls with this cladding stone allows you to soften the boundary between interior and exterior areas. Whether you need this material as an exterior wall cladding or interior cladding, you are guaranteed to obtain a quality cladding stone at the most competitive price.

For a stone wall cladding that is made of quality natural stone, look no further then our very popular range.
For more information, click on the link: stone wall cladding

Stone Wall Cladding: unique designs with affordable natural stone

2007-02-15T15:42:00.000-08:00

Wall cladding made of stone is the latest trend in the design industry. Stone wall cladding that is made of natural stone gives any outdoor or indoor setting an everlasting yet modern ambience. A stone wall adds vigour to any surrounding, due to the textural and colour distinctions in the stone. Whether you are renovating or starting from scratch, stone wall cladding will provide you with a stunning wall cladding, while offering easy installation.

If you got a garden that needs a make-over, a stone wall cladding can create a warm and interesting finish.

DécoR Pebble, Australia’s leading brand name in decorative pebbles and stone, offers superior quality natural stone wall cladding for residential, commercial, interior and exterior landscaping, building and design projects. With over 30 colours, textures and finishes to choose from our stone wall cladding range, you are guaranteed to find the perfect wall cladding to make your project unique and attractive.

The stone wall cladding colours offered by DécoR Pebble include ivory, russet, onyx, shimmer, alpine and bisque as well as another 26 colours of stone. Products supplied by DécoR Pebble include decorative imported pebbles, Australian pebbles, stone wall cladding, crazy paving, crushed glass, glass flooring and pebble-mix. This extensive range which is offered at the most competitive prices, make DécoR Pebble the leading brand name in decorative pebbles and stones.

To see the full range of stone wall cladding that is available, click on the following link Stone Wall Cladding.

Question and Answer: Stacked Stone as wall cladding.

2007-01-28T19:56:00.000-08:00

Here is a question one of our website visitors sent to me previously. Rather than just send him the answer, I thought I should share the information with everyone as I get this question quite often:

“Hi Sales Team,

I am in the middle of a renovation process and have been hunting for a wall cladding that is made of stone. When I came across your website, I realised that your stacked stone is what I am looking for. Can I apply the stacked stone to any surface? I want the stacked stone for the exterior of my brick house. Please help!”

Answer:

Our DécoR Stacked Stone is suitable for any application where the surface is solid enough to hold the weight. A brick wall is solid enough to hold the weight, especially when used with Mapei Isolastic and Kerabond. Check out our website at www.decorpebble.com.au and click at “Stacked Stone”. There you are able to download comprehensive and easy to follow installation instructions.

I hope this helps.

Decorative pebbles and stone for water features

2007-01-24T13:59:00.000-08:00

Water features that include pebbles are an epitome of pure beauty. The relaxed feeling that one gets as water gently slides over small, multi-coloured pebbles is one of the many benefits. The calm brook-like tones of the pebble water feature provides a feeling of tranquillity that can help transform any space into a haven. Pebble water features give an unmatched blend of visual and audible pleasure. With DécoR Pebble’s extensive range of quality imported decorative pebbles and stones, you are guaranteed to find the right pebble and stone to make your pebble water feature unique and perfect for your style and setting.

Rocks and Pebbles in a dry garden

2007-01-01T19:34:00.000-08:00

Recent summers in Australia have become increasingly arid. This deficiency in moisture has presented a real challenge for many keen gardeners. Many are choosing to remove some of the lawn in the garden, as a result of a limited supply of water and the lack of enthusiasm to maintain a lawn in these dry and harsh conditions.
What do you do?

Replace your lawn with pebbles and stones.

Bring the essence, colour and beauty of the natural world to your living area.

2006-12-18T16:44:00.000-08:00

Using DécoR Pebble’s extensive assortment of quality and decorative pebbles and the new range of DécoR Met l’art stainless steel tiles, an award winning mosaic artist has manifested her creative vision into a lasting tour de force.
The overall mosaic design, which has been created as part of DécoR Pebble’s showroom facelift, reveals alluring colour, complex patterns, delicate and unambiguous variations in texture and colour. This stunning design is an exquisite mosaic art that brings together contemporary living and an ancient art. The use of DécoR Pebble’s decorative landscape products, which are reminiscent of the company’s reputation as Australia’s leading brand in the decorative landscape products market, combined with the imagination, quality and dexterity of the mosaic artist resulted in this piece of eternal splendour.

More specifically, this mosaic design includes solid stained glass, mirrored glass, ceramic tiles as well as tiles from the new DécoR Met l’art range. The overall design is complemented with a picturesque mosaic floor covering created utilising DécoR Pebble’s very popular Ming Snow White, Ming Aqua and Ming Muyu pebbles. The end result is a masterpiece that has accomplished luminescent interaction of shapes, textures and colours. The complete setting speaks loudly to onlookers and brings to life all of the elements of mosaic art. With over 100+ colours and sizes available through the DécoR Pebble range, you are guaranteed to find the right size, texture and colour of pebbles to reveal your imagination in a decorative mosaic.

Whether for interior or exterior design installations, this pebble mosaic is a sought after option for any decorator and designer who wants to make a statement. The Mosaic artist who created this stunning design can assist you in the translation of your ideas and inspirations into a unique and beautiful mosaic.

To see the full range of landscape products, visit our website at http://www.decorpebble.com.au/. To see the design, visit our showroom on 84-90 Highbury Road in Burwood, VIC.

The right floor covering enhances the most prestigious of locations

2006-12-04T17:07:00.000-08:00

Pebble-Mix as a floor covering is not only a functional floor. Pebble-Mix reveals the possibility of using the floor as a central component of the complete colour and design process of any exterior and interior. The current colour selection and the possibility of colour customisation for larger projects, presents limitless possibilities to create the effect and floor covering you desire. This floor covering creates a flawless floor finish that is second to none.

Pebble-Mix is a floor covering and is a blend of pebbles pre-mixed with an acrylic resin. This floor surface offers a compact, easy to clean, long lasting floor covering that enhances the look of dull concrete.

Although Pebble-Mix has been around for 30 years, it is still the ideal choice in prestigious and contemporary projects and is specified by architects such as Nation Fender Katsalidis, John Wardle Architects, Studio 35 Architecture and many more.

Available in seven different colours, from the subtlety of Sandstone to the vigour of Autumn, Pebble-Mix is taking contemporary designers and architects into the future.
The Pebble-Mix company is an innovator and a leader in pebble mix flooring. The product is suitable for commercial, residential, interior and exterior applications, and can be laid vertically or horizontally offering very attractive results. It can be applied in areas such as porches, patios, swimming pool surrounds, driveways, walk paths, and even walls. If you seek safety, quality, reputation and a modern look Pebble-Mix is the right floor covering for you. For more information on this product, visit our website at http://www.pebblemix.com.au/

Natural paving stone

2006-11-26T16:14:00.000-08:00

This patio has been transformed using the new range of DécoR Crazy Pave available at DécoR Pebble (Aust) Pty Ltd, adding an earthy texture and warmth to this outdoor living area. The satisfied owner says that the patio looked very worn-out prior to the project and the end result in a stylish, uncluttered and earthy appearance that blends attractively with the overall design and feel of the house.

The DécoR Crazy Pave range is a paving stone that is made of natural stone, available in two different colours. The stone pavers come in interlocking tiles, which are approximately 600mmx600mm. Since this pave stone interlocks, it minimises installation costs as there is not need to cut them. This paving material is ideal for residential and commercial paving.

For more information visit our website at www.decorpebble.com.au

stacked stone cladding: NEW Premium Range| Unbeatable Price

2006-11-12T20:10:00.000-08:00

DécoR Pebble, Australia’s leading brand name in decorative landscaping pebbles and stones, supplies the landscaping and building market with quality natural stacked stone at the most competitive price available. DécoR Pebble’s new range of Stacked Stone is a remarkable contemporary wall cladding that is perfect for accenting retaining walls, pillars and water features for both external and internal applications.

We have offer a new range of stacked stone which consists of 25+ unique colours and textures. Stacked stone walls are currently very popular in the building and design industry. With our new range and competitive prices, you are guaranteed to find the ideal cladding while satisfying budget requirements.
The new range of stacked stone is a premium range of cladding that needs to be pre-ordered. This exclusive collection is ideal for larger commercial jobs, as the minimum order quantity is 100m². This means that you can finally use a product that will give your design projects that unique look and selectiveness you have been seeking, as not every project will require 100m² of stacked stone.

Decorative Pebbles: the different shades of white

2006-10-26T18:29:00.000-07:00

DécoR Pebble (Aust) Pty Ltd has introduced a new white pebble to its popular range of imported decorative pebbles.

The new colour is named 'Alabaster' and varies slightly in colour with very light shades of grey and very pale brown coming through. The new pebble is available in the following sizes: 5mm, 10-15mm, 15-20mm, 20-30mm, 30- 50mm and 50-80mm.

large range means more options

2006-10-08T18:33:00.000-07:00

DécoR Pebble (Aust) Pty Ltd is Australia's leading brand name in decorative pebbles and stones.
Visit our website at www.decorpebble.com.au to see for yourself.

What can decorative pebbles be used for?

Here are some ideas:
- a dry creek river bed of pebbles running through it
- create borders in your garden using pebbles
- combine with pavers
- create decorative patterns

Got your own ideas but need the right colour and texture?

Visit www.decorpebble.com.au
Chances are we have got the right pebble for you!

Arid beauty for our environment

2006-09-27T16:31:00.000-07:00

Dry sustainable gardens take into account the hot and arid conditions we are facing. Continuous and ever-increasing water shortages and restrictions means that we need to alter the way we design our gardens and move away from the green tropical allure. Also, dry gardens are the perfect solution for busy Australians as they are easy to maintain and form a great milieu for barbeques and get togethers.
One way to obtain this is to use plants that require minimum watering and DécoR Pebble’s extensive range of imported and Australian decorative landscaping pebbles and stones as lawn replacement, landscaping décor and mulch to create a truly Australiana garden. Check out our website at www.decorpebble.com.au to see the full range that is currently available at the most affordable prices from Australia’s leading brand name in decorative pebbles and stones.

DécoR Crushed Glass range of recycled coloured glass

2006-09-18T18:07:00.000-07:00

DécoR Pebble’s range of DécoR Crushed Glass provides an extensive assortment of colours to choose from. With 30+ colours, you are guaranteed to find the perfect colour for your design projects. Among its many uses, the DécoR Crushed Glass can be used as a landscaping décor, decorative mulch, aquarium gravel, seeded exposed aggregate and many more. Combining the recycled coloured glass with a carefully planned garden design or even indoor environment can create an aesthetic area. Using our range of DécoR Crushed Glass adds a distinctive touch to landscaping projects.

DécoR Crazy Pave

2006-09-12T19:01:00.000-07:00

The new range of quality and affordable DécoR Pebble Crazy Pave can help you transform any living area whether it is indoors or outdoors.
Enhance a worn-out veranda or add a decorative finish to harmonise a new patio. DécoR Pebble Crazy Pave provides texture and depth to a simple area. The product comes in interlocking tiles which are approximately 600mmx600mm and is available in two colours, Bisque and Russet. Laying the interlocking pavers saves installation costs as there is no need to cut them. We also have a range of sealers available that can be used to darken or highlight the colours of the stone. Because the DécoR Crazy Pave is made of natural stone, no two sheets of the crazy pave are identical.
While this new range has only recently been introduced, it is proving very popular already.
Give your home or project the sought after earthy appearance with this new range. For more information, visit http://www.decorpebble.com.au/

From mulch to design. DécoR Pebble's range takes you there

2006-09-03T18:23:00.000-07:00

Mulching is an integral part of gardening. It provides a protective layer, keeping moisture in the soil through dry periods. Mulching can become a vital element of landscape designs.
Using pebbles and stones as mulch can be extremely appealing and fashionable. DécoR Pebble range of imported decorative pebbles is the ideal design component to allow for a mulch that is aesthetically pleasing. The company’s range of Australian Nature’s Stone, a lower cost bulk stone is also a great source of mulch. Using pebbles as mulch provides a protective blanket that will not break down.

FREE multi-media product guide available from Australia's leading supplier of decorative landscaping materials

2006-08-30T19:45:00.000-07:00

DécoR Pebble, Australia's leading supplier of quality landscaping stones and pebbles, has recently released a multi-media product guide. The CD features the company's full range, including images of products and past projects, technical information, installation instructions and other relevant information. Landscapers, designers, architects and builders will benefit from this CD as it provides an easy to use and navigate catalogue of the company's quality landscaping range. To get your copy of the multi-media product guide, send an email to

mersi@decorpebble.com.au

Ecological designs for the future

2006-08-22T15:27:00.000-07:00

The new DécoR Glass Flooring is one of the most resilient, easily maintained flooring materials offering never-ending colour and design potential. With over 50 different colours, ability to mix and match and even incorporate logos into designs, DIY-ers, designers, landscapers, builders and architects can make a distinctive and innovative environmental statement. For more information, please visit www.decorpebble.com.au

DécoR Stacked Stone in Sydney

2006-08-06T16:24:00.000-07:00

The new range of quality natural DécoR Stacked Stone will be warehoused in Matraville Sydney. Available at only $75 per m² (+GST), this product is the cheapest there is.
Call us on 03 9888 9888 to find out more.

DécoR Pebble at Landscape Australia EXPO

2006-07-25T16:30:00.000-07:00

Following DécoR Pebble's successful launch of three new products at DesignBuild Melbourne 2006, the company exhibits at Sydney's Landscape Australia EXPO. The products to be exhibited include the new quality natural DécoR Stacked Stone, DécoR Glass Flooring as well as the company's extensive range of imported decorative landscape pebbles.

Seeded Exposed Aggregate

2006-07-19T17:59:00.002-07:00

Seeded concrete used in paved areas is becoming increasingly popular with clients able to select from a wide range of colour pigments to shade the concrete and then choose an imported decorative pebble from companies such as DécoR Pebble to match or contrast the mortar colour.To install, concrete is placed, screeded and bullfloated to the finished level. After the bleedwater has evaporated, the selected aggregate is sprinkled over the surface. The aggregate is fully embedded by tamping and wood floating. Aggregate size is generally 10-15mm, although larger sizes can be used without difficulty.Aggregate exposure begins when the surface can bear the weight of the pavior without making an impression deeper than 2mm. A broom together with a continuous water spray then washes away the cement paste, exposing about a third of the seeded pebble. A light acid wash and the application of a clear acrylic sealer cleans up the surface and highlights the natural full colour of the selected aggregate.

NEW DécoR Glass Flooring available at DécoR Pebble (Aust) P/L

2006-07-10T18:51:00.000-07:00

Selecting flooring is an imperative element of design and development.
The new range of DécoR Glass Flooring is a state of the art floor surface that is ideal for flooring applications. The DécoR Glass Flooring is made of 80% recycled coloured glass and can be used as a decorative surface finish for floors, walls and external surfaces. DécoR Glass Finish is available in 24 standard pre-mixed and 29 pure colours and can be applied onto concrete, brick, asphalt, masonry and timber surfaces.
The coating used for the application of colour to glass granules is a polyurethane with great resistance to ultra violet light, abrasion and weather. The colours applied are those typically used in high performance paints.
DécoR Glass Finish is highly durable, slip-resistant, and affordable, Australian made and owned product. Being made from recycled glass, it is highly environmentally friendly. In addition, while other alternative flooring products can be applied only internally, the DécoR Glass Finish is safe to use for exterior applications, including patios, pool surrounds and driveways.

DécoR Stacked Stone ONLY $75m² (+GST) available throughout Melbourne

2006-07-05T16:44:00.000-07:00

DécoR Stacked Stone has only just been released in the decorative finishes market and is proving to be extremely popular already. The reason for this trend is the fact that this product is currently very in vogue. Architects, builders, designers and landscapers are increasingly more utilising the stacked stone in their projects due to the exquisite beauty and practicality that the product provides.

Buy our quality natural stone at ONLY $75m² (+GST).

Don't pay $100-$180 per m² (+GST)

The DécoR Stacked Stone is currently available in 7 locations in Melbourne including Hallam, Deer Park, Keysborough, Glen Iris. Call DécoR Pebble on 03 9888 9888 for more information.

Quality stainless steel mosaic tiles

2006-06-25T18:27:00.000-07:00

Australia's leading brand name in decorative pebbles and stones has released a brand new product that is truly unique in concept.
The new range of DécoR Met l'art stainless steel mosaic tiles comprises 25 unique patterns and styles that can be selected from. The DécoR Met l'art is a product that is guaranteed to enhance the most presitigious of locations.

What is a sustainable landscape?

2006-06-18T15:42:00.000-07:00

A sustainable landscape is a vigorous and durable landscape that has been designed in a way that it tolerates and lasts over the long term free of the need for resources such as water. This is an approach to landscaping which highlights plant health and longevity. A landscape that is developed with sustainable practices will improve the ecology. We need to create landscapes that are compatible with the Australian ecological conditions.
Using DécoR Pebble’s range of decorative pebbles and stones to create dry rock gardens is one of the many ways of designing landscapes that are not harsh on our environment. The rocks or pebbles can be used as mulching materials and decorative ornaments.
Visit http://www.decorpebble.com.au/ to see the full range of decorative products that can be used to create your own sustainable landscapes.