Airport Blueprint for the Environment: Vision and Action
Speaking at the opening session of the 5th Aviation & Environment Summit in Geneva, Angela Gittens, Director General of ACI World, calls on airports and their aviation partners to broaden their vision and action plan in order to be more responsive to the communities we serve.
Speaking at the opening session of the 5th Aviation & Environment Summit in Geneva, Angela Gittens, Director General of ACI World, calls on airports and their aviation partners to broaden their vision and action plan in order to be more responsive to the communities we serve.
She says, “I emphasize the role airports can and do play in advancing a blueprint for sustainable aviation. It certainly includes the reduction of carbon emissions, but it is much broader because of the essential nature of airports. An airport, no matter how big or how international in service reach, is a member of a local community and a neighbour. So our blueprint requires balancing the diverse demands of the communities we serve. Every voyage starts and stops with us, and makes the airport the symbol of aviation within each of the thousands of communities we serve worldwide.”
Airports are making measurable progress on managing carbon emissions, but also manage in parallel the very important issues of noise mitigation, protection of natural resources and local air quality.
Gittens stresses that investments in environmentally sound solutions for each of these priorities are strategic business choices made in a field of many alternatives. The ability to define, measure and mitigate in an effective way guides an airport in those choices for sustainable airport infrastructure.
ACI efforts have converged on several pathways for measurable progress. ACI World published a global best practice “Guidance Manual for Airport Greenhouse Gas Management,” a practical guide to measuring and reducing emissions. ACI Europe achieved a successful roll-out of Airport Carbon Accreditation, a fully fledged certification programme for airport achievements on inventory, emissions reduction, stakeholder engagement and carbon offsetting. ACI North America recently awarded its coveted annual Environmental Achievement Awards, which recognize the progress airports are making and encourage all airports to build on these positive results.
ACI Asia Pacific has formed an environmental liaison group for sharing best practices, chaired by Korea Airports Corporation and comprising representatives from Thailand, Cambodia, India, Hong Kong, Korea, Iran, Macau, Japan, China and Singapore. ACI Africa in 2009 and ACI Latin America and Caribbean in 2010 are hosts to environmental seminars designed to assist their region’s airports to implement best practices whether or not their regulating authorities have instituted requirements.
Gittens says, “ACI provides a full range of training courses that serve the entire airport community from entry level to executive level courses. We are applying what we have learned from the implementation of airport safety management systems: the positive effect of building top to bottom competency in a culture that spans the entire airport platform. Our environment blueprint for success will engage all the players to achieve our goals for sustainability.”
But Gittens points out, “We have a special conundrum at airports as we must constantly manage competing objectives. Global carbon reduction targets will seem distant to a community under a new flight path, and the residents will be more directly concerned about their immediate quality of life. It is noise and local air quality issues that motivate the calls for restraint on airport development.”
The need to manage these interdependent requirements is the subject of a panel session at the Summit in which Gittens will introduce the debate on how to best balance the tradeoffs, identifying operational opportunities for greater collaboration and practical next steps that can meet more than one objective.
Gittens says, “I urge all key industry players – airports, airlines, air traffic control and manufacturers – to rethink how we work together. And I also call on governments to support us in making progress towards our targets and avoid short-sighted economic measures that do not advance our achievements. It is, and will remain, a challenge to meet wide ranging community expectations, but we all have a part to play in turning a green aviation blueprint into concrete accomplishments.” PR Web
Everyday Practices to Save the Earth
1. How Can You Help
There are many ways you can help to protect the environment and reduce the pollution problems. Just think about your activities and products that you use in your everyday. Think about your usage of water and energy. What can be done? Many studies have been made in making the use of renewable energy sources available. Have you considered installing renewable energy devices such as solar panel on your house. The main problem is that you need to invest a lot of money first and then wait for some time until the investment pays out concerning your electricity usage is reduced. The problem with solar panels is that sometimes they are not effective enough especially on winter days and rainy days. The other renewable energy sources are such as wind and geothermal energy can only have desired results on certain locations and the investments can be high. The other aspect of environmental protection is waste disposal. Do you use recycling bins in your home? Do you carefully separate glass from plastic and paper. It takes a little bit of effort but think about saving the Earth’s resources.
2. The Water Usage in Your Household
Do you control the water usage in your household. The clean water is precious, so we should think about the water usage. There are many ways to economize your water usage. Just think about the water pipes and installations in your house. Sometimes the water pipes are old and corroded which leads to a water loss. You should check the pipes and taps, be sure there is no leaking. You should also think about the your house appliances such as dishwasher and washing machine. These appliances have different characteristics concerning their water and energy usage. When you buy new appliances you should check these parameters and chose carefully. If you have a garden you should consider the use of rainwater storage. When there is a rain you can store the water and use it later. In your house you can consider installing water recycling equipment. This equipment can help you save water and reuse the water that you have used for cleaning. The water circles in your house can be divided into 3 types of water: clean water, used water and waste water. The special piping systems can help you regulate the water circulation.
3. The Usage of Different Products
Do you excessively use plastic products such as plastic bottles, cups, bags and so on? These products are often disposed and can not be recycled. What you should consider is to reduce the usage of plastic.. You can think about the alternatives, you should re-use the plastic containers, cups and bottles. The one-time used plastic cups can be harmful for environment, as well as plastic bags. When you buy soft drinks you should consider to buy glass bottles and then recycle them. The plastic waste is one of the biggest environmental problems and the solutions are all up to you. The each and every one of us can make a change, take a step towards a cleaner environment.
4. The Transportation
Do you own a car? Have you thought about what kind of engine does your car have? The big engines usually consume a lot of petrol and have a considerable pollution impact. Do you drive a car everyday to your work? You can say that there is no public transportation to your house, or if there is, it is running slowly and rarely. You can think about getting a smaller car, on a long term this investment pays well. In big cities you should always use public transportation and avoid driving a car because traffic jams can be really annoying. And not only that, traffic jams are very bad for the environment, they are responsible for a large amount of air pollution. Riding a motorcycle or a bicycle, can get you thorough the traffic jam.
5. Take the First Steps to Make Your Environment a Better Place
Now it is time for action. You can think about the other ways you can save the Earth. The future of our planet is depending on each and every one of us. You take the step forward, think about the future. I am open for your suggestions. Thank you for reading this article. Hope you can make some practical efforts.
I am currently living in China, improving my language skills. I have an experience in language learning. I have worked in foreign countries such as Spain, Switzerland, Austria and now China. I like foreign cultures, travel, meeting new people. I spend a lot of time studying self-improvement methods. I am a Chemical Engineer with a specialization in Environmental Protection and Technology. Thank you for reading my articles, please contact me for any further improvements and suggestions. Sasa Sijak – http://cn.linkedin.com/pub/sasa-sijak/24/49a/b69- Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sasa_Sijak
Earth’s Easter Island and the Doom of Humanity
Listen: Here
In the beginning was a mystery and the mystery was thought-provoking enough that some people felt that extra-terrestrial beings created it. Many years ago, Dutch sailors noticed an isolated island in the middle of the dark Pacific. Headed by the navigator Jacob Roggeveen, the explorers decided to land on what appeared to be an island of sand dunes. The Europeans, especially the Spaniards, were already exploring the New World and encountering strange sites-the Spanish viceroy of Peru already reported that the Incan capital was protected by high walls built by the Devil himself. So on 5 April 1722, there was an eerie feeling sweeping over the Dutch sailors as they approached the strange island.
If the Spaniards were horrified by the demonic walls of the Incas, the Dutch sailors were soon to find out that the devil-while Europe was facing the demons of Christianity-have been building his fortresses across the American continent and towards the Pacific. As they drew nearer the island they noticed large stone images floating over the dunes. “We could not comprehend how it was possible that these people, who are devoid of heavy thick timber [or] strong ropes, nevertheless, had been able to erect such images, which were fully thirty feet high,” wrote Roggeveen in his journal. And then they discovered that it was not dunes they were looking at but barren hills devoid of forests and timbers.
Thousands of stone images extremely larger than the simple phallic monuments of Southeast Asia dotted the bald island. “The great mystery that struck all early visitors was not just that these colossal statues stood in such a tiny and remote corner of the world, but that the stones seems to have been put there without tackle, as if set down from the sky,” said the historian Ronald Wright, and added, “The figures stood there mockingly, defying common sense.” And there is indeed a certain degree of common sense education that can be learned from these statues of the “Devil”; but one may ponder as to what evil the statues caused or was the Devil a narcissist who carved his face on a thousand stones.
Rapa Nui, as the Polynesians called the island, “was once well watered and green, with rich volcanic soil supporting thick woods of the Chilean wine palm, a fine timber that can grow as big as an oak.” Around 500 CE, Wright explains, “migrants from the Marquesas of the Gambiers arrived in big catamarans stocked with their usual range of crops and animals.” Rapa Nui became a thriving society of around 10,000 people divided into nobles, priests and commoners. But what catastrophe occurred in Rapa Nui that made the famous Captain James Cook, who visited the island later after the Dutch, wrote that nature had “been exceedingly sparing of her favours to this spot”?
Just like the other Polynesians, the inhabitants of Rapa Nui worshipped their ancestors through the erection of statues. It became a source of pride: the larger the statue, the greater the prestige. And as generation to generation the urge for greater prestige increased, the statues too increased in size; dramatically “demanding more timber, rope, and manpower. Trees were cut faster than they could grow.” The inhabitants were consuming the natural resources of the island like greedy piranhas swarming over their prey. But just as most things in this world, the perfection of an art also means the destruction of it. The sabre-toothed cat once perfected the art of killing the mammoths that they hunted them down to the last one. The extinction of the prey also meant the extinction of the predator; and in the island’s case, the greater the monuments became-the more they reach perfection-the greater the pace of the destruction of the environment.
Man was the catastrophe of Rapa Nui. It is indeed chilling to hear when Wright wrote that by 1400 CE, “no more tree pollen is found in the annual layers of the crater lakes.” Chaos took over as the contest for resource set in. There were skirmishes between families and tribes, and “the Europeans heard tales of how the warrior class had taken power, how the island had convulsed with burning villages, gory battles, and cannibal feasts.” The “mini-civilization” of monuments, great houses, and large villages was pushed back to the early culture of the Cro-Magnons as their resources dwindled down to the last chickens they have kept. As the land resources minimized dead, sea foods could have been the only salvation. However, no timber meant no new boats; and as the last old boat faded away into oblivion, the people were doomed. Cook described them as “small, lean, timid and miserable.”
There is a very strong analogy between the island called Rapa Nui and the planet called Earth-the former was destroyed by man’s insatiable nature while the latter is being ravaged by man’s incalculable cruelty. One can remember the Brothers: “Human beings are a disease in this planet. You are a plague.” Environmentalist can argue that humanity must save earth, but one must also remember that in the 99.9% of the Earth’s existence it withstood the burning hell of gravitational pull, the sea of fire created by wicked storms, ice ages that can freeze even a refrigerator, the appetite of the dinosaurs, and the impact of a thousand asteroids. Earth always had a period of rejuvenation; so there is no need to worry about earth, it can handle itself. The question is: can humanity handle Earth handling itself?
The answer is obvious enough: we hang on a balance of a 50-50 survival rate. What happened in Rapa Nui was not just an omen; it was a warning by Earth: “you can worship a million gods beneath a billion souls of your ancestors, or you can roll them all into one, I do not care. When the time comes when I declare war on humans and the living species that damaged me, no army of God will be powerful enough to stop me from changing myself!” And the earth is indeed dramatically changing. Temperatures have enormously risen since the beginning of modern civilization. Perhaps humanity may have pushed its experiment of civilization to its limits-always wanting to make the largest statue. Like Rapa Nui, everything will have an end.
Armageddon is not the coming of God on Earth; it is the day the Earth will reclaim everything it lost from the quick burst of human greed and human arrogance. Perhaps humanity should learn that what it is doing is suicide-religion made humanity blind to the fact that they came out of Earth, children of its soil, nurtured by its air, given life by its resources. The time we placed the gods and the goddesses on the pedestal of our consciousness was the time the Earth stood still. Time to relearn, what was unlearned! Then maybe, just maybe, the story of what happened on Isla de Pascua (Easter Island, also called Rapa Nui) may bring a new life for humanity.
Artchil Daug finished his Bachelor and Masters degree on History from the Mindanao State University – Iligan Institute of Technology. He was also a former columnist of the Philippine Post and presently a contributor to the university textbooks on Philippine history. He is currently a History Instructor in the said university and specializes on the life and works of Jose Rizal, general Philippine history, Asian Civilization, Philosophy of History, and History of England. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Artchil_Daug
5 Ways to Keep the Environment Clean
With the ever increasing use of technology and industries flourishing the amount of pollution in our environment is increasing at a rapid pace. Keeping our environment clean is a very important part of our lives in these days. It is important to focus on this as we have to make sure that the environment is preserved for future generations. Water pollution and litter are considered to be two of the main cause of the environment being dirty.
In order to clean the environment there are 5 steps that we can follow:
• The 3Rs are considered to be the most important and easiest way to keep our environment clean and refrain it from pollution. Reduce, recycle and reuse are the famous 3 Rs that can keep our environment clean. By reducing the usage of harmful materials, and recycling items such as paper and glass and at the same time reusing goods that can be reused will reduce the pollution levels in the air and keep the environment clean.
• Planting more trees increase the oxygen level in the atmosphere. This way there is an increase in the total oxygen level thus resulting in cleaner air to breathe and keeping environment clean.
• Many people tend to litter. This is a bad habit as littering causes a rapid increase in pollution levels. Instead of throwing garbage on the roads, there should be recycling bins on every corner of the road so that people do not litter. This will help in keeping the environment clean.
• Cigarettes are another harmful item that increases the air pollution as well as the well known health benefits.
• By using eco friendly and biodegradable cleaning items the environment will be a better and cleaner place for humans to live in and by the continuous use of these products the environment will improve for future generation.
These tips are helpful in keeping our environment clean.
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I’m a full time student and live with my husband Brad and 2 year old baby girl Yoli. We have 2 cats and I’ve always been fascinated with the makeup and beauty industry. I love to do research on a number of topics, beauty and makeup being my favorite. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jasmine_Sanchez