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Our
Environment & Energy needs...
Energy
supply has been a major element of our civilization for hundreds
of years. Energy consumption has grown to a level today
of approximately 0.9CJoule per person per day. This corresponds
to the equivalent of burning 32
kg of coal per person per
day.
The
majority of this power is generated by burning fosil fuel like
coal, oil, and gas, which causes air
pollution to such an
extend that today we are facing the effects of global warming
that is almost out of control.
Wind
energy is non-polluting, clean, and renewable. The fuel, (wind),
is free energy and can
provide a stable, long-term energy supply. Wind energy constitutes
a large, particularly untapped power source, which is available
to you, at a cost that is affordable. Help
clean up our earth's environment, consider a Winglette
wind generator, for a long term energy supply.
The
Kyoto Protocol:
The
Kyoto Protocol is now in force following its signing by the
Russians and most of the world is thus officially collectively
fighting against global warming. But this fight is a zero-sum
game in that the Kyoto Protocol and some of its mechanisms demand
that emission non-compliance at one end is balanced exactly
by emission reduction at the other, with air-pollution transgressors
having to buy credits, referred to as carbon credits. Whoever
puts too much pollution into the air must buy carbon credits
from someone else who has reduced the amount of air pollution
emitted.
South
Africa:
Developing
countries like South Africa can earn from this, as developing
countries like South Africa at this stage do not have to reduce
their greenhouse gas emissions as developed countries have to
do, though South Africa will itself have to comply sometime
to in the future, when the next Kyoto commitment comes up in
2013.
That
leaves South Africa - which is itself a polluter at a disproportionately-high
emission level - with medium-term carbon-credit opportunities.
South Africa contributes to less than a percent of the world's
gross-domestic product, but emits 2 % of the world's air pollution
and, in reducing this, it can earn marketable carbon credits.
The
South African government is already taking Kyoto steps and has
set up the UN-liaising National Committee for Climate Change,
which is housed in the offices of the Department of Environmental
Affairs, and also the Designated National Authority, which is
housed within the Department of Minerals and Energy, and these
two bodies will collectively be the movers the and shakers of
global carbon trading and other hot-stuff..
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