Floral Guernsey’s Spring Festival Week begins on 20 April 2013

March 31st, 2013 by Floral Guernsey

Floral Guernsey’s Spring Festival Week returns on Saturday 20 April 2013 with a diverse programme of events running throughout the island until Monday 29 April.

The initiative, aimed at all gardeners and budding botanists, features a number of guided walks, open gardens and talks from experts including award-winning landscape designer Cleve West, who will deliver an RHS Growing for Success talk, ‘From Spuds to Chelsea’, at Les Cotils, St Peter Port, Guernsey on Wednesday 24 April 2013.

(Cleve West, former long jumper, passionate vegetable grower, and one of Britain’s leading garden designers after winning the top award at RHS show two years in a row, will give a presentation at Les Cotils on 24 April (click image to expand – image courtesy of Floral Guernsey)

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DisabledGo public meeting on 3 April 2013 about new venues to add to online access guide for Guernsey

March 30th, 2013 by Guernsey Disability Alliance

(click image to download PDF file of flyer to your computer)

In 2012 the States of Guernsey commissioned professional disability surveyors, DisabledGo, to produce an online guide that would help disabled Guernsey residents and visitors find out whether a venue is accessible before setting out from home.

Five hundred local shops, hotels, restaurants, sports facilities and transport links were included in the guide.

In April 2013 the team from DisabledGo will return to Guernsey and, depending on the level of detail, add between 25 and 100 new venues to make the guide even more comprehensive.

The Guernsey guide can be found online by searching “DisabledGo Guernsey.” Continue reading

Guernsey charities have to 12 April 2013 to apply to be main beneficiary of St Peter Port Harbour Carnival

March 30th, 2013 by RBC Wealth Management

Deputy Michelle Le Clerc and her team before her intrepid flight over St Peter Port harbour (click image to expand – ©RLLord)

Guernsey charities are being reminded that they have until Friday 12 April 2013 to apply to be the main beneficiary of this year’s Harbour Carnival.

The event, which is sponsored by RBC Wealth Management and organised by the Guernsey Round Table, will take place on Friday 9 August 2013 and the main beneficiary will receive 50% of the amount raised, with the other 50% going to other local good causes.

Du Preez Vermeulen, Vice President of the Guernsey Round Table said “we’ve already had a number of entries but would encourage those charities that haven’t submitted applications to do so.” Continue reading

Tri-Ultimate Guernsey Challenge to raise funds for Hope for a Child on 30 June 2013

March 30th, 2013 by Hope for a Child

Tri-Ultimate Guernsey will take place on Sunday 30 June 2013 to benefit Hope for a Child.

Pembroke beach, Guernsey (click image to expand – ©RLLord)

The charity fundraising challenge will see individuals and teams swim two laps of Pembroke Bay, complete a circuit of the island by bicycle, finishing with a run or walk following the same route.

The event has been sponsored by Next Generation IT.

Emily Wild, Hope for a Child’s Fundraising Events Manager said “my father was looking for a new fitness challenge and I was looking for a new fundraising event for Hope for a Child and so we came up with the idea of an ultimate sporting challenge.”

“These type of ultimate events are really popular in the UK with people pushing themselves to the limit to raise money for charity and we hope to make Tri-Ultimate Guernsey just as successful,” she said. Continue reading

Neonicotinoid & mite pesticide used together adversely affects bee brain

March 30th, 2013 by University of Dundee

honey bees at the entrance to a hive (click image to expand – ©RLLord)

Two studies have highlighted a negative impact on bees’ ability to learn following exposure to a combination of pesticides commonly used in agriculture.

Scientists found that the pesticides, used in the research at levels shown to occur in the wild, could interfere with the learning circuits in the bee’s brain.

They also found that bees exposed to combined pesticides were slower to learn or completely forgot important associations between floral scent and food rewards.

In the research paper ‘Cholinergic pesticides cause mushroom body neuronal inactivation in honeybees‘ published on 27 March 2013 in Nature Communications, the University of Dundee‘s Dr Christopher Connolly and his team investigated the impact on bees’ brains of two common pesticides: pesticides used on crops called neonicotinoid pesticides, and another type of pesticide, coumaphos, that is used in honeybee hives to kill the Varroa mite, a parasitic mite that Continue reading

Beneficial to integrate sustainability into SMEs’ core business strategy

March 29th, 2013 by HW Fisher & Company

SMEs are a vital part of the value chain where there is a growing demand for sustainability management both from customers and suppliers (click image to expand – ©RLLord)

These days, the word ‘sustainability’ is ubiquitous, appearing on corporate agendas, in government policy and across current affairs.

Despite this, it is a term that is still often fundamentally misunderstood and therefore often avoided as a concept.

Sustainability is coming to everyday business and mainstream accountancy. It is to be embraced and not feared.

Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) might consider sustainability a topic for large corporations, but as SMEs account for over 98% of all business in the developed world then collectively they could effect a greater impact than multinationals.

SMEs are also a vital part of the value chain where there is a growing demand for sustainability management both from customers and suppliers, especially for those businesses who Continue reading

Recovering hydrogen from waste incinerator ash as an energy source

March 29th, 2013 by Lund University

Every year, millions of tons of environmentally harmful ash from waste incinerators is produced worldwide.

The bottom ash is dumped in landfills or in some countries it is used as construction material.

Bottom ash from La Collette incinerator in St Helier, Jersey (click image to expand – ©RLLord)

Bottom ash is left in the open air to age and make it safer because newly produced bottom ash is not chemically inert.

Aluminium in the bottom ash will react with calcium hydroxide and water to form Aluminium hydroxide and hydrogen gas.

Injecting carbon dioxide through the bottom ash can accelerate this process to make the bottom ash safer.

The hydrogen gas produced by bottom ash has been known to react explosively if used inappropriately in construction.

Dr Aamir Ilyas, in the department of Water Resources Engineering at Lund University in Sweden, has developed a technique to safely capture the hydrogen gas produced by the bottom ash. Continue reading

Political & economic short-termism driving civilisation to destruction

March 29th, 2013 by University West

Climate scientists have shown through their research that the ongoing rise in global temperature will cause the sea level to rise, which will drown coastal communities, and cause severe weather, which will kill many people.

So why don’t politicians act on these findings?

Social scientist Stellan Vinthagen shows that today’s power relations prohibit change.

The world is heading towards a catastrophic global average temperature increase of 4°Celsius.

The consequences are a rising sea level, droughts, floods and lethal heat waves.

Stellan Vinthagen, Associate Professor of Sociology at University West in Sweden, states that it is the prevailing power structures that make politicians paralyzed. And he sees social scientists as a key group for this to change. Continue reading

Guernsey hosts renewable energy forum

March 28th, 2013 by Guernsey Finance

Members from South West Marine Energy Park, Guernsey’s financial services cleantech group and members of the States of Guernsey Renewable Energy Team (RET), attended a joint cleantech forum in Guernsey on 21 March 2013 (click image to expand – ©RLLord)

Members of the South West Marine Energy Park (MEP) visited Guernsey on 21 March 2013 to learn more about the financial services expertise the Island can offer the cleantech sector.

The group’s visit came as a result of Guernsey’s representation at a Regen SW renewable energy reception at the House of Commons on 11 September 2012, which raised awareness of how Guernsey could use its expertise as a leading international finance centre to provide financial products and services to the cleantech sector.

Given the strong interest in Guernsey’s offering, a joint forum in Guernsey was arranged for South West MEP members and the Island’s financial services cleantech group, as well as members of the States of Guernsey Renewable Energy Team (RET). Continue reading

Atlantic hurricane storm surges will increase with global warming

March 26th, 2013 by National Oceanography Centre

Extreme storm events of the magnitude of Hurricane Katrina will occur more frequently because of climate change, according to a study involving the National Oceanography Centre in Liverpool.

The research, published in the paper ‘Projected Atlantic hurricane surge threat from rising temperatures‘ in ‘Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA (PNAS) concludes that the threat from hurricane-induced storm surges in the Atlantic will increase significantly as global temperatures rise.

Storm surges are localised increases in sea level, brought about by hurricanes, that can devastate coastal populations.

The Rocquaine Bay sea wall collapsed during a storm surge on 10 March 2008 (click image to expand – ©RLLord)

During the 2005 Hurricane Katrina event, it was the storm surge that caused the widespread coastal flooding of New Orleans. Continue reading