By Anna Valmero
INQUIRER.net

COLLABORATION between the government, private sector and the academe is the key theme tying all the panel recommendations at the fourth en banc meeting of the Congressional Commission on Science and Technology and Engineering (COMSTE) held October 6.

The six COMSTE panels presented in the meeting include agriculture and food, electronics and semiconductors, energy and environment, health services, IT and IT-enabled industries and science, math and engineering education.

Of the six, COMSTE chairman and Senator Edgardo Angara said food and energy will be the body’s top priority.

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By Alexander Villafania
INQUIRER.net

QUEZON CITY, Philippines – House Representative Edcel Lagman of Albay and Akbayan Representative Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel launched a petition to cancel the P503.65 million loan for 26 medical waste incinerators used by government-run hospitals.

The petition aims to cancel the payment of the remaining P100 million for the medical waste incinerator project, which started in 1996.

The loan from the Austrian government, through Bank Austria, is expected to be paid by September 2014.

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By Izah Morales

INQUIRER.net

EVERY year, computer and mobile phone manufacturers release new model units.

Sometimes, you’re tempted to buy a new one. So what will you do with your existing unit? Throw it away? Doing so will add to the million of tons of electronic waste accumulated every year.

Citing a study done in 2002, Ted Smith, founder, Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC), said 300 million computers became obsolete in 2004. Making up those computers were 4 billion pounds of plastic, 1 billion pounds of lead, 1.9 million pounds of cadmium, 1.2 million pounds of chromium and 400,000 pounds of mercury.

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By Anna Valmero
Inquirer.net

History saw the waning and waxing of the campaign for environmentalism. Today more than ever, green consciousness has grabbed the attention of different industries worldwide.

Al Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” is one of the agents that called the attention of every citizen about the human impact on the environment. The film presented the doom that might happen to the Earth and those that live in it if global warming continues at an unabated rate.

According to the film’s website, at least 279 species of plants and animals are already affected by global warming that has started moving closer to the poles. Moreover, the flow of ice from glaciers in Greenland has more than doubled over the past decade. Both scenarios can impact the environment in terms of displacing other populations of plants and animals in their natural home or habitats, which might cause extinction and break nature’s balance. This can be related to the so-called butterfly effect: “A butterfly flapping its wings in one place can, in principle, alter the subsequent weather pattern in a distant place.”

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WITH the recent oil price shock, where we saw the price of oil going up to around $140 a barrel, the question is whether that is enough political impetus for us to go into renewable energy in a big way.

By a big way, we mean that we make the investments now in “renewables.” The problem is that renewable energy, technology-wise, is still being perfected, so that means it is not yet cheap. But if nobody invests, it will never become cheap because industry holds back on R&D, because there is no demand. So it becomes a chicken and egg situation. Given that the so-called carbon credits from developed countries can pay for up to 10 percent of the cost of the project upfront, it is still not attractive for some.

Enter the Philippine Renewable Energy bill. When passed, it will actually give a lot of incentives to investors to go into renewable energy (RE). Aside from the fact that RE is a good way to contribute to the climate change effort, if the RE bill is passed, it may actually make good financial sense to go into RE. Because right now, the climate change advocates root for the use of renewables but when you talk to the financial folks, they’ll tell you now is not yet the time.

But what is the right time? After the oil crunch of the 70s, we should have gone big time with renewables. But naysayers said at that time, “Now is not the time.” So now the world is slowly realizing that, now is the time. Because if not now, when? When the oil runs out? That will be too late.
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