Consumers think Green is not so cool
Source: IPPR
"Given the runaway popularity of the 10:10 campaign, which the Guardian is backing, it would be churlish to offer it anything but praise. By providing a meaningful, tangible and immediate focus for action, it has been a clear success in attracting the support of thousands of individuals, companies and other organisations that are concerned about climate change.
But just how widespread will its appeal be? In light of new research from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) published in its Consumer Power report, the 10:10 campaign may actually be failing to resonate with a large swath of mainstream consumers."
Squeezing more oil from the ground (journal article)
by Leonardo Maugeri
from Scientific American, October 2009, pp. 36-43
"Amid warnings of a possible"peak oil", advanced technologies offer ways to extract every last possible drop. Key concepts of tha article are: forecasts that global oil production will soon start to deciline and that most oil will be gone in a few decades may be overly pessimistic; thanks to advanced technologies wells will be able to extract half of the oil known to be underground, up from the current 35%; increased productivity could make oil last at least another century."
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E-government cluster boots up with $250k funding (journal article)
by Georgina Swan
from CIO Government, 10 September 2009
"A technology cluster aimed at supporting and strengthening government ICT industries in Australia will inject $150,000 into the industry in 2010, with a commitment for a further $100,000 per annum through to 2011-12.
The e-government cluster is a partnership between National ICT Australia (NICTA), the ACT government, several major international companies, ACT companies and other research organisations including the ANU.
It aims to develop technology that will enable governments to deliver better services, reduce costs and open up new opportunities for businesses. "
Water Utilities Cite Aging Equipment, Regulations, and Funding As Top Challenges. (journal article)
by Jay Landers
from Civil Engineering, September 2009
"The article presents a survey developed by the University of Cincinnati relative to the most formidable challenges facing U.S. drinking water and waste water utilities for the next 50 years. The survey includes 42 questions distributed to the members of the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies, National Association of Clean Water Agencies, and the National Association of Water Companies. It shows that the challenges include aging infrastructure and funding shortfalls."
Abandoning Babylonian principles to rebuild our irrigation infrastructure (journal article)
by Iven Mareels
from ATSE Focus, August/September 2009
"The world's present water management is ... considered unsustainable because of the observed ecological deterioration of most of our natural water systems, but actually estimating the water resource that is readily and sustainably available for human activity is difficult. It is severely hampered by the paucity of quality data. Groundwater data in particular are scantily available. Australia reflects the world water situation well. Australia's water is already recognised as an activity-limiting resource that is further challenged by population growth and climate change: most of our urban communities are used to water restrictions; our farmers are subject to vastly reduced irrigation allocations; and our main river system, the Murray Darling, suffers severe environmental stress. In spite of this, our water infrastructure (like the rest of the world) is still largely fixated in the Deakin era, and our operational practices are definitely Sumerian/Babylonian in nature (although admittedly no longer temple-based) and suffer from low efficiency. This does not augur well for the future. "
Climate change scenarios: David Karoly (video)
Source: SlowTV / The Monthly
"In this talk, climate expert David Karoly lays out the likely future climate change scenarios - and how dependent they are on human actions now - while presenting the latest scientific findings on the earth's climate . Karoly is a professor in the University of Melbourne's school of earth sciences and a member of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists. His work on the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change brought him international recognition. "
Influence of research funding and science policy on university research performance: a comparison of five countries (journal article)
by Laura Himanen, Otto Auranen, Hanna-Mari Puuska, Mika Nieminen
from Science and Public Policy, Volume 36, Number 6, July 2009 , pp. 419-430(12)
"The ability of universities to efficiently produce high-standard knowledge has become an important goal in science policies of many developed countries. Thus, many countries nowadays steer universities based on performance monitoring and competition. This article analyzes the connection between the competitiveness of the university funding environment and research performance in five OECD countries in 1987-2006. Besides funding, other science policy factors are analyzed using the framework of four state steering models. Results indicate that the university funding environment has become more competitive in all the compared countries, but the extent and pace of this development varies. Countries also differ in relation to steering models but all have employed policy elements typical of at least two models. In terms of competitive funding environment and research performance, there is no straightforward relationship between the two. With reference to the state steering models, the most traditional model which emphasizes university independence from the state seems to be the most beneficial to research performance. "
What Local Policy Makers Should Know about Urban Road Charging: Lessons from Worldwide Experience (journal article)
By Daniel Albalate and Germè Bel
from Public Administration Review Vol 69 No 5 2009, pp. 962 - 974
"Congestion costs are emerging as one of the most important challenges faced by metropolitan planners and transport authorities in developed economies. In the United States, these costs were as high as $78 billion in 2005 and are growing as a result of rapid increases in travel delays. In order to solve the current and severe levels of congestion, the U.S. Department of Transportation has recently started a program to initiate congestion pricing in five metropolitan areas. In this context, it is important to identify factors that influence successful implementation, as well as the problems or difficulties associated with charging projects. The authors review, synthesize, and analyze worldwide experience with urban road charging in order to extract lessons for policy makers who are considering the implementation of congestion pricing projects and for those who are interested in the introduction of traffic management tools to regulate entrance to city centers. "
Defining regional research priorities: a new approach (journal article)
By Hariolf Grup, Sybille Hinze and Barbara Breitschopf
from Science and Public Policy Vol 36 No 7 Aug 2009, pp. 549-559
"This paper outlines a new approach to defining research priorities at a regional level. The methodical approach relies on a combination of bibliometric indicators and qualitative data and aims at the identification, selection and evaluation of medium-term relevant research fields. This type of analysis of quantitative and qualitative data contributes to what is called evidence-based policy making. By linking bibliometric information with questionnaire-based assessments by more than 480 scientists in the federal state of Baden-Württemberg (Germany), strategic research fields were pre-selected for potential policy action. Overall, the study shows that strategic decisions for shaping and advancing research processes demand not only methodical proficiency in bibliometrics but also a broad knowledge of the structure of the research landscape and forward thinking on a broad canvas."
Creativity: people, environment and culture, the key elements in its understanding and interpretation (journal article)
By Paulo C. De Miranda, Jose Aranha and Julia Zardo
from Science and Public Policy Vol 36, No 7 Aug 2009, pp. 523-535
"This paper discusses three aspects of entrepreneurship: people (innovators, entrepreneurs and amateurs) at the core of creative production who 'function' as agents of transformation; culture which helps to motivate people and create a value system (embedded contexts) and; the environment where innovations and entrepreneurial settings function as productive factors to stimulate more creativity. Looking from these three angles we present a triple helix for innovation related to creativity or the creative industry. Relying on a substantive report issued in 2008 by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, we explore aspects linked with the creative industries or the economies that form part of it. Despite differing views on the definition of the term 'creativity', the paper tries to analyse creative people as entrepreneurs, proposing a triadic approach to understand and interpret it, thus presenting our second, more consolidated, triple helix for creative entrepreneurship. We also draw on practical knowledge to discuss the core elements of our triple helix."
TECHNOLOGY CHOICE AND ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS IN A TRADE AND ENVIRONMENT CONTEXT (journal article)
By Akira Yakita
from Australian Economic Papers Vol 48 Iss 3 2009, pp. 270 - 279
"Assuming that an environmentally-friendly technology not only reduces pollution emissions but also strengthens the preference of consumers for goods produced with such a technology, we show that a legally stipulated choice of cleaner technologies, requiring resources and hence reducing output, can improve the welfare of the economy even when other economies do not choose such technologies, and that the driving force can be the terms-of-trade effect. Therefore, even a unilateral regulation on the choice of technology would be approved in the economy when the environmental awareness of consumers is sufficiently raised."
Kings of the road go green
by Phil McKenna
from New Scientist, Vol. 203, Issue 2721
"A concept vehicle called the Innovation Truck unveiled in April by Daimler Trucks North America is designed to show what is possible by tweaking a vehicle's aerodynamics. In wind tunnel tests it used 3 per cent less fuel than an unmodified truck - which rolled out across the entire US truck fleet would save about 4.3 billion litres of fuel annually. This translates into an annual cut in CO2 emissions of over 11 million tonnes.
More ambitious plans are afoot. Engineers and industry leaders at an RMI conference on freight-vehicle efficiency in April concluded that readily available and inexpensive technologies could boost efficiency by up to 23 per cent, and even doubling or tripling fuel efficiency might be within reach."
Urban Structure and Commuting in Australian Cities (journal article)
by Peter Rickwood and Garry Glazebrook
from Urban Policy and Research, Volume 27, No 2 June 2009, pp. 171-188
"Studies looking at the relationship between urban form and travel behaviour have generally considered spatial information at coarse metropolitan or local government area scales. We analyse ABS census data at the Collection District level for the metropolitan areas of the mainland Australian state capital cities, and at various spatial scales for an in-depth analysis of commuting in Sydney. The analyses suggest that the relationship between travel behaviour and urban form is complex, and that simple analyses of density alone are likely to overstate the effect of both metropolitan and neighbourhood scale population density on mode choice, but that these variables serve as useful proxies for more complex measures of urban structure."
Theory and Practice in Metropolitan Strategy: Situating Recent Australian Planning (journal article)
by Raymond Bunker and Glen Searle
from Urban Policy and Research, Volume 27 No 2 June 2009, pp. 101-116
"Over the last several years, metropolitan strategies have been produced for the five mainland state capital cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. The distinctive characteristics of Australian urban planning mean that they can be shown to reflect an Australian paradigm of planning. However, this paradigm is rewritten in different ways in each strategy reflecting the particular institutional circumstances and political culture of each state. In doing so there is some strong reaffirmation of this paradigm, but also indications of a more relational and transactive manner of planning adding further process to product. Here there is some resonance with recent developments in planning theory and to some extent in practice, largely in Europe. "
