April 11, 2012

Good Morning,

In this issue, there is a prime example of the fundamental drawbacks of geographical over-population, and one heck of a wake-up call. As the Nigerian population soars, the resources dwindle. Find more detail in the second article.

Until Next Time,
Erin

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Europe shows modest growth in renewables

BRUSSELS - Investments in Europe's clean energy sector grew a modest 4 percent in 2011 but it remained the globe's top destination for such dollars, a new report says. An analysis released late last week in Washington by the Pew Charitable Trusts indicated that, despite less-than-stellar growth, Europe raked in $99.3 billion in clean energy investments last year. Europe's performance was a key factor in a world-wide cleantech investment total of $263 billion -- a 6.5 percent global increase. The report said that the United States reclaimed the top spot in cleantech investments from China, which had had the lead since 2009. Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and India were also among the nations that most successfully attracted private investments last year. Phyllis Cuttino, director of Pew's clean energy program, said clean energy investment -- excluding research and development -- has grown by 600 percent since 2004, thanks to "effective national policies that create market certainty." "This increase was due in part to the number of countries that have implemented effective national policies to support the clean energy market," she said. The Pew study found "significant" investment growth in Italy, Britain and Spain, which it said helped to offset declines in other EU member states.


Nigerian population boom a threat

LAGOS, Nigeria - At its current growth rate, Nigeria will reach 300 million people in 25 years, about the population of the United States, population experts say. The boom in population in the sub-Sarahan country about the size of Arizona and New Mexico combined, could put further stresses on Nigeria's economy, healthcare system and educational and employment opportunities, The New York Times reported Sunday. Already the country's unemployment rate is nearly 50 percent and many families squeeze into 7- by 11-foot rooms. Most of the rapid increase in population in the world is taking place in sub-Saharan Africa -- of the roughly 20 countries where women average more than five children, most are in the region, the newspaper said. "The pace of growth in Africa is unlike anything else ever in history and a critical problem," said Joel E. Cohen, a professor of population at Rockefeller University in New York City. "What is effective in the context of these countries may not be what worked in Latin America or Kerala or Bangladesh," he added, concerning population control methods. The value of having a large family in Nigeria stems from a cultural pressure to show strength and importance, but also out of concern of a high infant mortality rate that has recently been curbed by vaccinations, the Times said.


Google founder worried about Web openness

LONDON - Google co-founder Sergey Brin told Britain's The Guardian newspaper "powerful forces" are scheming to curtail openness and access to the Internet. In an exclusive interview Sunday, Brin told the newspaper there are "very powerful forces that have lined up against the open Internet on all sides and around the world." "I am more worried than I have been in the past. It's scary," he said. Brin said the threats to Internet openness come from three main areas: government control, anti-piracy initiatives from the entertainment industry and so-called walled gardens such as those created by Apple and Facebook. Brin, 38, whose net worth is estimated at $18.7 billion, spearheaded Google's partial withdrawal from China in 2010 over censorship concerns. "I thought there was no way to put the genie back in the bottle, but now it seems in certain areas the genie has been put back in the bottle," he said. Brin surmised Google could not have been founded with an Internet dominated by Facebook, saying: "You have to play by their rules, which are really restrictive. The kind of environment that we developed Google in, the reason that we were able to develop a search engine, is the Web was so open. Once you get too many rules, that will stifle innovation."


Origin of Saturn's 'walnut' moon suggested

CHICAGO - A distinctive feature of Saturn's moon Iapetus that makes it look like a giant walnut may be the remains of an ancient companion moon, U.S. astronomers say. A mountain range like no other in the solar system encircles the equator of Iapetus up to 12.4 miles high and 124 miles wide, forming a ridge that makes the moon resemble a walnut. No other planet or moon in the solar system has this kind of ridge, a feature that has long puzzled astronomers. "I would love to stand at the base of this wall of ice 20 kilometers tall that heads off straight in either direction until it dips below the horizon," Andrew Dombard, a planetary scientist at the University of Illinois at Chicago, told SPACE.com. Dombard and fellow researchers suggest the ridge could be the remains of a dead moon, created by a giant impact more than 4.5 billion years ago. Rubble blasted from Iapetus in the impact could have coalesced around Iapetus as a "sub-satellite," a moon of a moon, they said. Then the gravitational pull of Iapetus could have eventually torn the companion moon back into pieces, creating an orbiting ring of debris that then rained down onto Iapetus, forming the ridge that now exists. The ridge could have formed in a short time, in cosmic terms, "probably on a scale of centuries," Dombard said.

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