Schultz Environment Blog

Environment in a broad sense,transports and energy issues. From my local point of view with a global touch!

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

First day of my holiday
Today was the very first day of my vacation and I'm pleased to say I really enjoyed it. It's amazing how relaxing it can be to simply wander about in the garden, in and out of the house, sit by the appletree and just think about the smaller and finer things in life. There are a few blackcurrentbushes in the garden and today they were ripe. Just imagine how many kilograms of carbon dioxide that is saved everytime someone picks berries from his own garden instead of driving the 5 or so kilometres to the mall for factorymade jam. As a sad end to a beautiful day my computer went down and it looks like the harddrive is damaged forever along with all our photos and so on. It's fascinating how vulnerable cyberspace can be! (hence the absence of a picture).

Tuesday, July 10, 2007


Ecotourism is now Uganda’s second largest foreign exchange earner!
The fate of Mabira Forest Reserve –home to 30% of bird species found in Uganda- continues to hang in the balance as President Museveni and some elements of the Ugandan government attempt to hand over a quarter of its area for sugarcane cultivation. BirdLife International and NatureUganda (BirdLife in Uganda) continue to argue that the economic benefits of retaining Mabira in its present form will easily exceed the ‘short-sighted’ gains quoted by the government in the proposed forest ‘give-away’. Uganda ratified the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in 1993 and has a fairly good track record in upholding the treaty so far. Let us see if the government will withstand the pressure from the sugar company, the Metha group. There is a lot of sugarcane cultivation in the world now and Uganda has the lowest yield of sugarcane per hectare compared to other countries in Africa.

Tuesday, July 03, 2007


More Environmental friendly cars in Sweden
Yesterday the Swedish minister for Environment, Andreas Carlgren, together with the car manufactures organisation in Sweden, presented the figures for the sale of cars for the first half year 2007. This year, 23 058 environmental friendly cars has been sold the first six months. That means 25 % more than last year the same time, which means that 15, 2 % of all sold cars in Sweden were Environmental friendly cars, e.g. less emissions of CO2 than 120 g/km. But, still Sweden is only at the sixth place among the European-15 countries. Belgium, Spain, France, Italy and Portugal are ahead of Sweden in the way of selling environmental friendly cars, or small cars using less fuel. In 2005 all the other 9 countries were also ahead of Sweden, so of course that’s why the Minister wanted to have a press conference about the figures this year. He also wanted to show what the premium of 10 000 SEK who all persons buying an environmental friendly car gets, has meant for the sale figures. By the way this year there are more cars registered in total, 152 049, than last year the same time, an increase with 5, 4 %, is that a step in the right direction? There were also 25 318 heavy vehicles registered the first six months, an increase by 9, 8 % compared with last year. Sweden is a rather elongated country with a great demand of transports. I have just read an abstract of a book from a Swedish author about “What future does the car have”. He, Per Kageson, reviews which technical solutions that are most sustainable and presumable for the future. He discusses the hybrid cars, the electric cars as good possibilities but it takes some technical steps ahead before they are competitive enough. Maybe the diesel engine isn’t that bad in the long run, he say’s? What do you think?