April 2009
→ Me
(30th April 2009)
By the way, thanks to the indefatigable energy of my wonderful agents, my book has now been sold to eight countries. Namely: Italy, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, China (where it will be published in simplified Chinese), Taiwan (where it will be published in complex Chinese), Japan, and Korea. All very exciting.
→ Victoria
(30th April 2009)
The city of Victoria, British Columbia, was ordered three years ago by the B.C. Environment Commission to stop pumping raw sewage into its waters. Debate is still going on. For a snapshot of a town deciding how to deal with its shit, and all the local interests that tug the debate one way and another, here is something by Victoria News.
(30th April 2009)
The Environment Agency announces that it has sorted out sewage overflows in England and Wales. Or, in EA-speak, it has "has taken further action on sewage overflows in England and Wales to ensure they pose a minimal risk to the quality of rivers and seas." By the end of last year, 6, 000 of the "highest risk overflows had been rebuilt, improved or eliminated, ...
(30th April 2009)
Hurrah for the US's General Services Administration, which owns and manages more than 1500 federal buildings in the country, and for the Pentagon. Both plan to use some of their stimulus money ($4.5 billion for the GSA; $7.4 billion for the Pentagon) to green their roofs. At the Interior Department headquarters in Washington D.C., a 5000 square foot roof garden is already in place. In ...
→ Nolambur
(30th April 2009)
The Times of India reports on how India's galloping urbanization and construction often gets ahead of itself. In Nolambur, formerly a village outside Chennai, but now a growing town, residents who bought flats failed to notice that there was no sewer system in place, and that the sewage treatment plant in the block didn't work. Sewage is everywhere. '"We occupied the flat six months ...
(30th April 2009)
Baltimore Sun reporter Frank Roylance points out that rain may be free, but as soon as it hits the ground, water isn't. So the City of Baltimore, Maryland, will celebrate National Drinking Water week next week with a series of events designed to highlight its important job. Citizens will be invited to visit a reservoir, a water filtration plant, a water treatment plant, and ...
(30th April 2009)
I recently appeared on Late Night Live, Australia's pre-eminent late night show, hosted by (in the words of an Australian friend of mine), the country's "most mellifluous old lefty," Phillip Adams.