ZA Furries

I'm still in touch with people in Vienna and news from there sometimes finds it's way to me. Like these stories which are really cool!

In the future (immediately?) all new buildings in Vienna will have to install solar panels on the roofs! That should really help with green energy production. One of the benefits of having a Green party in coalition government! I just wish we would do something like that here.
https://metropole.at/solar-roofs-for-al ... in-vienna/

Solar works in Austria. Earlier in the year, Toumal (owner of SoFurry) posted about his energy use with solar panels on his home. Over the past year, he had been able to get 70% of his energy needs from the sun! Vienna also has an amazing public transport system which would be really nice to have in SA. Although the cities here are not really well-designed for it. In any case, like a couple European cities, Vienna is going to be banning cars in the city centre!
https://www.wien.info/en/vienna-for/sma ... r-car-free

That should make things quieter, safer and cleaner. I've seen the haze over Pretoria. The air here is far from clean... I'm glad I'm not in the super built up areas.

It's really frustrating because it's really important to improve our environment but there's so little that we can actually do in South Africa. The government doesn't care and most of us probably require a car to travel around at all and can't afford to install our own solar panels. There's at least diet that we can control.

At least some positive SA news, I see we're getting a big solar power station in the Northern Cape. That's something at least. Apparently, there are a bunch of major SA projects planned for the future.
https://www.businessinsider.co.za/busin ... cts-2020-6

If you're interested in other green news, Denmark has apparently put together a pretty tight law to force the government to address climate change.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2020 ... ge-illegal

And Ireland might be getting it's "greenest government ever." And they're Irish, so that's got to be pretty green!
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-53147271

On the other hand, over here, Standard Bank is planning to fund an oil pipeline and is pretty dismissive of criticism about it. Apparently in their world being committed to "transition away from carbon intensive economic activity and to environmental sustainability" is not at all in conflict with funding fossil fuels. I'm actually with Standard Bank so I sent my own letter of complaint to them. I doubt it will accomplish much but I guess it's better than nothing. Astounding how people go about doing the very things which are destroying our environment.
https://www.news24.com/fin24/companies/ ... n-20200704

Rakuen Growlithe wrote: ↑Fri Jun 26, 2020 5:01 pm At least some positive SA news, I see we're getting a big solar power station in the Northern Cape. That's something at least. Apparently, there are a bunch of major SA projects planned for the future.
https://www.businessinsider.co.za/busin ... cts-2020-6

Ive driven past the solar farm by De Aar a few times, and it makes me happy to see it.
https://deaarsolar.co.za/

It was also wild to see a whole berg full of wind turbines a few dozen km before Drie Sisters, towering over the landscape.
https://khobabwind.co.za/wind-farms-tra ... fontein-2/


IK they've been there a while, but nice to see.

It's good to see some progress at least! There's so little good news being shared these days.

For more bad news, or at least a restatement of old bad news, there's a piece at the BBC about how summers in some places could become too hot for humans to live there.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-53415298

There's a nice article about Freiburg's environmental efforts: http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/2020071 ... n-a-forest
Some of the highlights are how the city hall actually produces more power than it uses and solar panels on stadiums also put power back into the grid. And it's happening in Germany, which also doesn't get as much sun as South Africa. We could be doing so much better here!

Unrelated, but I'm making steps to go a bit greener. ^^

Adagio wrote: ↑Sun Jul 19, 2020 12:12 pm Unrelated, but I'm making steps to go a bit greener. ^^

Oh?

Rakuen Growlithe wrote: ↑Sun Jul 19, 2020 1:07 pm

Adagio wrote: ↑Sun Jul 19, 2020 12:12 pm Unrelated, but I'm making steps to go a bit greener. ^^

Oh?

I fixed that inverter a while ago, and I recently bought a battery, gonna get a solar panel installed next ^^

Adagio wrote: ↑Sun Jul 19, 2020 1:34 pm

Rakuen Growlithe wrote: ↑Sun Jul 19, 2020 1:07 pm

Adagio wrote: ↑Sun Jul 19, 2020 12:12 pm Unrelated, but I'm making steps to go a bit greener. ^^

Oh?

I fixed that inverter a while ago, and I recently bought a battery, gonna get a solar panel installed next ^^

Nice! I saw there's supposed to be some new development in solar panels which might make them even more efficient (https://www.businessinsider.co.za/tech/ ... ity-2020-7) but it's all still at the experimental stage. Otherwise we all have to just build our own little islands to live on like this one Canadian couple (https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/19/us/c ... index.html).

Although I can't wondering if we would save a lot more electricity (and have fewer emissions) if we actually insulated houses and used double glazing as standard. Heating in winter and cooling in summer have got to be major energy uses but South African homes have virtually zero insulation.

A little bit more on green news. Some UK citizens' group released a report on ways to combat climate change in the UK. They've suggested a tax on frequent flyers, phasing out SUVs, banning cars from city centres (several European cities have done that) and a 20-40% reduction in eating red meat. There's some other stuff too but I haven't read the full report.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54087176