How the Media Abandoned the Environment | EcoTech Daily

This raises many interesting points which should concern all parents. And anyone else with any concept of the role of a free press in a democracy How the Media Abandoned the Environment | EcoTech Daily

Wii shall overcome.

First, allow me to thank those of you who emailed in response to publication of this blog. And so I'll see about putting in a comments section. However, I worry about seeing abusive posts from the types who seem to take science as a personal affront; you may already have seen their output elsewhere.Since these people are often impervious to rational argument,reason and normal discourse,it is pointless arguing with them. A wise man once advised me thus: "Never argue with idiots. First they drag you down to their level. Then they beat you due to their experience" I will always be willing to engage with anyone who wishes to have serious discussion, but pointless shouting matches won't be entertained. Why Wii in a Green Blog? Well,this is about making money and there's no doubt that Nintendo is good at that. Latest figures show the motion-sensing handset game platform is selling 90 units a minute. This beats X-Box and SP3 hollow. Partly because Nintendo took the brave decision to marry motion sensor technology with cheap off-the shelf commodity components they got a ferocious slagging from hard-core gaming reviewers and other media besotted with bigger,louder,faster and ever-increasingly dear shoot-em-ups. Thing is that as Microsoft and Sony squared up to each other,seeking to top each other, the delivery of the promise became more and more expensive. Parents and gamers out there may think X-Box or PS3 as expensive, yet the manufacturers actually subsidise their consoles. No, it isn't an outbreak of corporate generosity; they intend to screw their profit out of their customer on the games.Both companies have thrown shed-loads of shareholders money concentrating on a wrong model, both seeking to dominate the market. The existing market. As was. The big breakthrough for Nintendo was when some genius there decided to focus on growing the market for gaming. Reinventing gaming, their revolutionary concept was make games for people who don't play games, people like me, who suspect that teenage boys are going blind in their bedrooms in an entirely different way than ones in my day when we used quill and ink. To record our experiences I hasten to add. In a diary or whatever. Though the geeks may have sneered, when Nintendo launched the Wii, and let's face it, it is a silly name, I saw a game that allow my nephews to play computer games with my mother,a device offering easily understood games such as tennis without some monster trying to kill her! I knew they were onto a winner. I even wanted one! I started saving towards buying shares in Nintendo, hoping to buy before the analysts noticed. I also spent an awful lot of hours late last year looking to buy a couple as Christmas presents. (Relations should ignore last sentence) And as Nintendo actually make a nice big fat profit on every console sold and the DS is zipping along nicely, too. For the investor this stock has held its price pretty well through the current mess, Have a look at NTDOY Now gentle and patient reader you may be still wondering why I consider a piece of electronic kit green.Briefly, it reuses old technology, it gets gamers moving and has caught on with seniors, allowing them play and interact with others such as their grandkids rather than to feel frozen out.Which a has a benefit to us all. My take on tech is do more with less. More nest time

The Dollar and the Euro

Wise Green Capitalists with €s to invest should consider the current weakness of the almighty Dollar as an opportunity to take advantage,and get their hands on stocks quoted in $$. The dollar will not just keep declining,and has been firming up a bit lately,and if you fancied putting some cash in a $ share,well,right now $2000 costs a whole lot fewer Euros than a few months back. I am a small investor and $2000 is real money to me. Just saving that amount to put into my own future is not without pain. First to go were the dancing girls... Getting the money together was always going to be too tough for an impulsive and disorganised creature like me.(Mind you, I preferred to think of it as being "Creative", rather than more time in the pub) The Irish Government had a brilliant idea some years ago at a time when it was worried about the economy overheating. It wanted to encourage a saving habit. Special Saving Investor Accounts allowed the public the public sign up to a 5 year saving schemes,in which the Government would top up by 25% the money you paid in. After 5 years Equities beat all "safer" investments. This scheme was inspired, because who could resist free money from the State? It is something which is rare. And the conditions and entry level allowed people on welfare find a safe haven for small savings and a decent return. At first there was real pain in saving as SSIAs were Direct Debits,but it didn't take long to adjust. It is so much easier when the money is taken away before you have the chance to spend it and soon it was just another monthly outgoing. The Celtic Tiger raised the Minimum Wage from about €5.65 in 2001 to €8.65,and the low paid were mostly taken out of the tax net. So saving became painless, and when the 5 years were up about 20-25% of the population collected lump sums of €16-23000. And financial houses and banks etcetera all fell over themselves to snare that painless saving habit. Wow. That is a long digression! What I hope to explain is how important it is to save, and then invest in something that pays a better return. Why am I talking about this? Because if you are like me and you are a virgin investor you make your choice of stock,call a broker and buy. I was,perhaps, lucky in my choice. I had done my research and watched this firm before buying the shares for a while as they kept going up. I may have been lucky but my choice was influenced by the use of common sense; I could see more and more iPods around and I keep adding to Apple shares when I can. So if you want to invest for more than 5 years in American shares do it now.You will be able to buy more shares for the same amount of Euros, and the dollar will recover.

Wind Generates Investment and Profit.

I have written about NTR before. Last year NTR sold off their Airtricity subsidiary in two tranches. Having got a huge chunk of cash many investors hoped or even expected that they could look forward to receiving fat dividends. It looked a bit like the company was abandoning wind power. And now comes the good news: they are back in the game. Before I paste the link I should declare again I own shares in this company,but I don't think my miniscule holding will change anything the company should choose to do,no matter how I bitch. And they keep their cards very close to their chest. Now comes the news they are back in the back in in the wind business with this $150M investment. 150 Turbines and 200MW of wind power apparently contracted for. Now that's serious money. And I weome them back because it will allow them to develop more sites http://www.rte.ie/business/2008/0424/ntr.html Anyone reading can make their own minds up,but I think this company has much to offer. With oil hitting record prices,we need to recover as much energy as we can from from stuff we normally chuck out. Hippie fantasies are beginning to come true,especially the ones which involve recycling goods,and making appliances more energy efficient,so as to reduce personal wastage. It does seem sensible and profitable to get as much energy and so on, as possible from waste. http://www.rte.ie/business/2008/0424/ntr.html http://www.ntr.ie/default.asp

Earth Day 2008

Earth Day 2008

The Green Capitalist notes that the hoo-ha for Earth Day seems to caused very little media coverage over here; perhaps the media feel they did the right thing last month covering the turn your lights off for an hour event,after or with short notice. Nonetheless anything done to raise awareness of Green issues is to the advantage of the Green Capitalist,who will be able to fund a comfortable and sustainable retirement. And since the climate change deniers have had their lines delivered to them,pretty much. It is a campaign which originated with a certain Frank Luntz. We know who this guy is,as he has run focus groups for RTÉ,prior to our elections last year,and these were shown on television. And I doubt many people in this country have realised just what this man has been responsible for. If,in times to come we have Global Warming Courts,like we have War Crimes Courts at present, then this man will have,like Eichman, have a lot to answer for. Read Luntz Memo here. It is always useful to have an insight into opposition thinking and strategy. But I remain puzzled by the stance conservatives have taken on environmental issues. Traditional and original conservative loved the land,and being rich, took a dim view of industrialists despoiling the land. I believe that the political landscape will change over time as more and more conservatives who have retained the ability to think realise how they have been both manipulated and conned. And when they wake up to this,there will be hell to pay What I really don't understand is how these people, the spin-meisters and their employers, can be so blind. Don't they have grandchildren? On a more cheerful note,there is increasing activity in the Green and Clean Tech areas,and with oil at $117 today, there will be more money coming our way. Now the thing is that simple fact is that higher prices for oil means that more and more technologies will become economically viable. Some will fail commercially,but those of us who invest early in carefully selected and rigorously researched firms will multiply their investment many times over. And no words of mine should be taken as investment advice; I'm not qualified to tell you what to do with your money. An Irish firm has just invested $63M in thermal solar technology in the US. NTR or National Tool Roads. You can read the story here and rwst assured that this company not only has a good record but has been enormously profitable foe shareholders who got in early when it launched Airtricity,their wind subsidiary recently sold at enormous profit. NTR invest €63M ($100M) in Solar Thermal. The future is either Green and growing,or Brown and dying.

Darwen drives for growth.

It has been a long time since I did my duty by my blog. So I apologise to my reader. Sorry, Mammy. Since my last posting a lot, has happened in the markets,and most of it has been bad. But for those involved in investing in Green ventures it has not been bad. In fact,it has been pretty good. Solar PV has romped ahead, huge amounts of money have been poured into Alternative Energy start-ups and into existing companies. I wrote about Tanfield before,and I hold a small amount of shares in the company. Some would have taken profit when it hit the heights,but I didn't, as I prefer to buy and hold. So now I have come across another venture run by the entrepreneur who built up Tanfield. The new company is Darwen,and it makes buses and coaches. It also has Roy Stanley as owner of half the shares. He's the man credited with building the success story of Tanfield,the zero-emissions vehicles builder which has achieved such success already. Tanfield have developed vans and light trucks running on electricity and which are ideally suited for City deliveries. These vehicles have a decent range,with 200km between charges,and 80 kmh top speed. Now this man has bought an ailing bus and coach-builder which has a long history and culture. East Lancashire Coachbuilders was also going bust. He has added other elements to the business ,including LPD. See for yourself at http://www.darwengroup.com/products.html The Green Capitalist wasn't able to buy these shares when I first came across them last week, when they were around 38p. They have jumped to 48p in the last few days on the back of announcing a new £5m 38 bus order. What is a bus-builder doing in this blog? Well,it is simple really. The more people can be encouraged to use public transport the better. And the British Government is investing in public transport which is good for Darwen. Not only this:as concern about climate change grows,so will demand for buses. Add to this the commitment to develop hybrid buses together with the experience of electric vehicle drive-trains brought from Tanfield. Now, many companies are looking a hybrid solution,but few have the resources to put the entire package together. So I reckon these are worth watching. I'm not qualified to give financial advice but if I could risk €1000 or so, I'd certainly buy Darwen.

Why I've been failing to update and apology.

First we have innate laziness. Also lack of discipline,as my father would have called it. To go slightly off-topic for a moment, my late father was a veterinary surgeon in the Ireland of the 50s, through good times and bad. He also had a sharp and dry wit. Once,as I was trying to demolish a wall on a hot day,he came to inspect progress. I made the mistake of mentioning the fact that I was sweating profusely. To which came the response: 'A pint of your sweat would cure all known diseases!'. This amused everybody around for a while. And though it looks cruel,it isn't.(At the time,people like me got shuffled into University, because someone knows someone,and we were the right sort of people,just) My father was a man of wit and wisdom.