Bike sharing in Mexico and China

[the_future_modernes]

Hangzhou's Massive Bike-Share System Dwarfs All Others

Bike-sharing isn't just for affluent, progressive Western cities anymore. A couple weeks ago, Dani Simons from the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy wrote about Mexico City's impressive pilot program, which is succeeding in the face of typical Third-World urban challenges. And now, as this video from Streetfilms and ITDP shows, a Chinese city is taking the bike-share concept and utterly dominating it.

Hangzhou, China has, in a few short years, built a 50,000-bike system that dwarfs all other noble contenders. Montreal, Mexico City, Washington D.C., London and Paris, all of which are regularly lauded for their systems, all launched with between 1,000 and 10,000 bikes, and Paris's Velib now has 20,000 bikes. Check out this amazing video:

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Bike Sharing Thrives, Even in Mexico City's Chaotic Streets

Five years ago, it would have taken a brave soul to ride a bike in downtown Mexico City, a place often associated with nightmarish traffic (the average commute is one and three-quarter hours each day) and poor air quality. But the city has made dramatic strides to promote cycling, from Muévete en Bici, street closures on Sunday mornings that attract more 15,000 cyclists each week, to a commitment to build 100 miles of bike paths by 2012, to the launch of a world-class bike share system, ECOBICI.

ECOBICI, which started with 1,200 bikes, is small compared to other big city bike-sharing systems. Montreal, a much smaller city, launched with 5,000 bikes with 400 stations, and London started this year with 6,000 bikes and 400 stations. Still, the system is double the size of Melbourne’s and on par with Washingon, D.C.’s Capital Bike Share. And now, Mexico City has plans to expand.

ECOBICI was first installed in six central city neighborhoods that flank Reforma and Insurgentes, Mexico City’s two grandest avenues. Travel along these avenues accounts for 40 percent of the city’s daily work trips. ECOBICI makes it easier to get to and from work, as well as to the Metro and Metrobús stations along the corridors.

There are currently 30,000 registered ECOBICI users. The system has reached capacity and there's now a waiting list to sign up. ECOBICI riders take an average of 9,000 trips each day. So far, the system has recorded 1.6 million trips. And despite having a reputation as a tough town for cycling, Mexico City has only had three reported accidents requiring hospital assistance since ECOBICI began.

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Biking as transportation in Bihar, India, helps girls go to school

[the_future_modernes]

How Rs 2,000 brought Bihar's most heartening change

After 10 years of inaction where no new schools were opened and no teachers recruited, one of the best indicators of a changing Bihar is a group of girls cycling to school.
Archana Masih reports from the state.

Three times a week Deepti Kumari comes to Kilkari after school where she does things she has never done before.

She paints, makes toys from old newspapers and reads children's magazines.

The daughter of a khaini (raw tobacco) seller in Patna, Deepti spends most of her day after school in an activity centre set up by the Bihar government for underprivileged children going to state-run primary schools.

Like her, most of the children making paper birds under a tree that afternoon, had never painted or done any craft work before.

Mukesh, a Class 9 student whose father sells bananas, is learning judo and has won two medals in a district-level competition.

Shail, a Class 6 student whose father is no more and whose mother stitches buttons for a living, is learning Madhubani painting.

Children from neighbouring schools come to the centre which provides them paints, colours, craft-material, story books and has teachers for folk dance, judo, painting etc.
The centre also has a children's bank where the children deposit as little as Rs 2 and 5 and withdraw money for stationery etc.

The little boy with neatly combed hair -- his head barely reaching the top of the table -- says he is the manager for the day, showing me his deposit ledger.

In the last five years Bihar has spent half of the state budget on improving school education.

By its most successful scheme, providing cycles to Class 9 and 10 students, it greatly reduced the drop-out rate amongst girls in the state where female literacy at 33 per cent is the lowest in the country.

The first year of providing cycles in 2007-2008, brought 170,000 girls to Class 9 which has now risen to 500,000. MORE

Gehlot copies Bihar in cycle distribution

JAIPUR: Chief minister Ashok Gehlot proposes to distribute 1.42 lakh bicycles to ClassIX and Class X girls belonging to the rural areas. It seems to be inspired by the successful "bicycle revolution" of Bihar, which was seen as one of the factors responsible for the thumping victory of Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar.

The Rajasthan government will distribute cycles at a token price of Rs 100 to all such girls in the rural areas. Although the scheme was initiated during Vasundhara Raje-led BJP government and the token amount then was Rs 300, but the Gehlot government had been indifferent to it. There was hardly any focus on proper distribution of bicycles.

Bihar's "revolution: has already hogged the national limelight and Gehlot could not resist emulating it. Since 2007-08, Bihar has spent Rs174.36 crore on cycles for 871,000 schoolgirls. Girls enrolling in schools in the state have shot up from 160,000 in 2006-07 to 490,000 now. Dropouts among girls in Bihar declined to one million from about 2.5 million in 2006.

The project has been successful in Bihar as the money is given directly to the girls, who are required to show that they bought the cycle. However, it is yet to be seen as how the project is executed in Rajasthan.MORE

2011 Goldman Prize Winner from South America: Welcome El Salvadorean Franceso Pineda

[the_future_modernes]

2011 Goldman Prize for South & Central America: Francisco Pineda, El Salvador

Living under the constant threat of assassination, Francisco Pineda courageously led a citizens' movement that stopped a gold mine from destroying El Salvador's dwindling water resources and the livelihoods of rural communities throughout the country. Learn more at http://www.goldmanprize.org/2011/southcentralamerica.

This video is narrated by actor and environmentalist Robert Redford.

The Goldman Environmental Prize is the world's largest award for grassroots environmentalists.

Learn more at http://www.goldmanprize.org

Francisco Pineda
El Salvador Oil & Mining

Living under the constant threat of assassination, Francisco Pineda courageously led a citizens’ movement that stopped a gold mine from destroying El Salvador’s dwindling water resources and the livelihoods of rural communities throughout the country.

Mining and Water

For small farmers and communities in rural El Salvador, water is more valuable than gold. Without country-wide water delivery infrastructure, people in these areas must rely on the bodies of water nearby to feed their crops and sustain their personal needs. However, it is estimated that 90 percent of the country’s surface water bodies are contaminated. Nearly all municipal and industrial wastewater is discharged into rivers and creeks without treatment, reducing clean water availability for rural populations. Only three percent of the country’s natural flowing rivers remain pristine. The clean water that still flows in the Rio Lempa, El Salvador’s longest river with a watershed extending to nearly half of the country, is absolutely essential to the lives and livelihoods of the region’s rural people. A total of four million people rely on this water source.

Mining represents the greatest threat to El Salvador’s water supply. The US-Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) has made doing business in El Salvador easier for foreign companies, and thus exploration permits have been issued for a variety of development projects, including gold and silver mines. Gold mining is notoriously damaging to the environment. Mine operators often employ a process known as cyanide leeching, whereby cyanide, a highly toxic chemical, is mixed with water pulled from local supplies and applied to rock deposits to extract the gold within them. The toxic runoff then spreads to surrounding land and often ends up contaminating rivers, creeks and groundwater. MORE

Goldman Prize Winner Francisco Pineda Risks His Life to Battle Gold Mining Operation

( Read more... )

THE ACTIVISTS WHO HAVE DIED:

Jan 2011 El Salvador: Fallen Anti-Mining Activists Honored with Vigil

( Read more... )

2009 Headlines:

The Story of MARCELO RIVERIA Pacific Rim Silent in Wake of Violence Against Anti-mining Protesters in Cabañas, El Salvador

( Read more... )

The Mysterious Death of Marcelo Riveria

( Read more... )

El Salvador: Ramiro Rivera Shot to Death in Cabañas

( Read more... )

They pay the price for our luxuries.

El Salvadorean gov't tells Monsanto to go away

[the_future_modernes]

El Salvadoran Government & Social Movements Say No to Monsanto

On the morning of Friday, May 6th President Mauricio Funes of El Salvador’s left-wing FMLN party, arrived at the La Maroma agricultural cooperative in the department of Usulután for a potentially historic meeting with hundreds of small family farmers. Usulután has often been referred to as the country’s bread basket for its fertile soil and capacity for agricultural production, making it one of the most strategic and violent battleground zones during El Salvador’s twelve year civil war between the US-supported government and the FMLN guerrilla movement.


Once again, Usulután has entered the spotlight for its agricultural reputation. The FMLN, which initially formed around an ideology of national liberation from US hegemony, has now adopted the goal of “food sovereignty,” the idea that countries hold the right to define their own agricultural policies, rather than being subject to the whims of international market forces. On Friday, officials representing the Ministry of Agriculture and the local governorship accompanied President Funes in inaugurating a new plan aimed at reactivating the country’s historically ignored rural economy and reversing El Salvador’s growing dependence on imported grains.


The opening ceremony for the new plan was hosted by the Mangrove Association, a non-governmental organization established by members of a grassroots social movement called La Coordinadora del Bajo Lempa y Bahia de Jiquilisco (known locally as La Coordinadora), which has been supporting initiatives for food security and environmental sustainability in Usulután for over 15 years. MORE

The Chemical Industry poisons us all but fights regulation

[the_future_modernes]

The Economic Benefits of a Green Chemical Industry
in the United States Renewing Manufacturing Jobs While Protecting Health and the Environment PDF Report.

Study on Benefits of a Green Chemical Industry

James Heintz: People think the EPA can regulate dangerous chemicals, but current legislation is not effective

Transcript

PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay in Washington. In 1976, an act was passed called the Toxic Substance Control Act. It grandfathered about 62,000 chemicals and, according to most critics, was rather weak in enforcing chemical companies to really disclose to the EPA what their chemicals were made of. It put the burden of proof onto the EPA to prove that these substances would not cause harm, where the chemical companies did not have any burden, really, of proof on them. And as a result, there was a new act that's been proposed. It's called the Safe Chemicals Act of 2011. It was introduced by Senator Lautenberg from New Jersey, and he produced a little video on YouTube to introduce his act. And here's a little clip from it. MORE

Study: Regulating Dangerous Chemicals Does Not Cost Jobs

Transcript

PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay in Washington. According to a new report, even low-end estimates of health costs of exposure to hazardous industrial chemicals amount to thousands of deaths and billions of dollars. In terms of children's health outcomes, 100 percent of cases of lead poisoning are a result of chemical exposure, 10 to 35 percent of asthma cases, 2 to 10 percent of certain cancers, and 5 to 20 percent of neurological problems. In California, in regard to deaths specifically linked to occupational health and safety factors, 80 to 90 percent of cancer deaths, 100 percent of occupational lung disease deaths, 40 to 50 percent of deaths associated with neurological disorders, and 40 to 50 percent of deaths associated with renal disorders [are] attributable to industrial chemical exposures. As a result of these kinds of statistics, many people are calling for a reform of the Toxic Substance Control Act of 1976. But chemical industry associations and defenders say any reform, any more regulation, will lead to less jobs, more outsourcing of production. Well, a new study by James Heinz and Robert Pollin of the PERI institute, sponsored by the Blue Green Alliance, has actually come to the conclusion that more regulation would lead to more jobs, not less. Now joining us from Amherst, Massachusetts, is one of the authors of that study, James Heinz. Thanks for joining us, James.MORE

Speaking of chemicals and global warming

[the_future_modernes]

Business Lobby Resists Ban on ‘Perverse’ Emissions - Part 1

BRUSSELS, Jun 2, 2011 (IPS) - For years, European governments and corporations have made use of a loophole in the Kyoto protocol on climate change to make exorbitant profits. According to some sources, this lucrative scheme has caused more pollution than ever before.

The Kyoto protocol allows European companies to ‘offset’ their excess emissions of greenhouse gases by buying emissions reductions in developing nations. This provision is called the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The eligibility of the overseas projects and the issuance of emission credits - which in this case are called Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) - are controlled by a council at the U.N., the CDM Executive Board.

In June 2010, two environmental NGOs - CDM Watch, based in Bonn, and Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), with offices in Washington, DC and London - discovered that European governments and corporations were grossly misusing the CDM. Fifty-nine percent of all CERs originated from the same 19 projects, though a total of 2,800 projects were registered. These 19 projects all produced HCFC-22, a refrigerant gas that is banned in the U.S. and Europe under the Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer because of its ozone-depleting properties. In developing countries the gas must be phased out by 2030.

HCFC-22 is also a ‘super green house gas’ that is 1,810 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Furthermore, HFC-23, the unwanted by-product of the manufacture of HCFC-22, is 11,700 times more harmful than carbon dioxide.

When the producers of the refrigerant choose to burn the by-product HFC-23 instead of venting it into the air, they are eligible for heaps of credits under the CDM. Burning one tonne of HFC-23 would bring in 11,700 CERs or emission credits for the plant burning the gas.

It turned out this was a very lucrative business. Burning the equivalent of one tonne of carbon dioxide only cost 25 U.S. cents while the credits could be sold on the European market for not less than 19 dollars.

These projects soon attracted Western investment banks that wanted to share in the profits: JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Rabobank and Fortis. Next to these banks, the Italian, Dutch and British governments appear several times on the list of investors. Large energy companies including E.ON (Germany), Nuon (Netherlands), RWE (Germany), Enel (Italy) and Electrabel (Belgium) are also involved as project participants. MORE

Business Lobby Resists Ban on ‘Perverse' Emissions - Part 2

Just weeks before the 2010 U.N. COP16 climate talks in Cancún, Europe’s climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard proposed a ban on all HFC-credits in the European system of emissions trading (ETS) to take effect Jan. 1, 2013. On that date, the second phase of the ETS is due to end, after which new rules could apply.

Industry lobby groups and business organisations resisted the ban. Brussels-based NGOCorporate Europe Observatory made use of Freedom of Information Regulations here to obtain documents and reconstructed the full story.

BusinessEurope is the most influential lobby group in Brussels, representing 40 industrial and employers’ federations from 34 European countries. In October 2010, BusinessEurope’s Director- General Philippe de Buck sent a letter to Hedegaard and Commissioner of Industry and Entrepreneurship Antonio Tajani in which he spells out his opposition to limiting the use of credits from the CDM.

BusinessEurope also made use of a new employee, who had just finished three years of work at the European Commission of Enterprise and Industry. In an email to his former colleagues at the Commission, this employee refers to a recent goodbye drink and expresses his wish to keep on working together in his new lobbying function. In an attachment, he forwarded the position paper of BusinessEurope - which opposes the ban.
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