BEES Thursday 29th January

 

Cork Free Choice Consumer Group presents

 

Bees, Beekeeping

and Biodiversity

 

Well known beekeeper

Tim Rowe

will talk about  honeybees, their lives, importance, plight and the role of good beekeeping

 

Crawford Art Gallery Café

Thursday 29^th Jan at 7.30pm

Entrance 6 euro including tea or coffee

Macroom Environmental gig - 30th January

To celebrate 25 years of Macroom District Environmental Group, the Hot Guitars will play in the Lee Valley Hotel, Macroom on Friday 30th January. Tickets cost €10 each. For enquiries contact Donal at 0877409304.

Night Classes at Kinsale Community School

In conjunction with Transition Town Kinsale two interesting night courses are starting at Kinsale Community School this month:

 

Global Action Plan (GAP) Ecosaver Programme with Klaus Harvey

Learn how to save money and reduce your impact on the environment.

Six meetings looking at:

• Waste
• Water
• Energy
• Transport
• Consumerism
• Community

Monday nights 7 - 9pm (starts Monday 26th January)

€90

For more details contact Klaus at 087 6763516.

 

 

Permaculture & Practical Sustainability with Virginia Stearns and Rob Ireson

 

This course is a combination of permaculture design theory and practical sustainability skills. Come learn how to grow organic food, build simple generators, work with cob, design food forests and more.

 

Wednesday nights 7 - 9pm (starts Wednesday 28th January)

€100

For more details contact Virginia at 087 9356652 or Rob at 086 1776468.

 

Enrolment for both courses: Wednesday 21st January, 7-8pm.

 

 

The Irish Architecture Foundation's new website will go live on Friday 23rd January.

The Irish Architecture Foundation's new website will go live on Friday the 23rd January.

If you wish to contribute to the IAF and its website please contact webeditor@architecturefoundation.ie

World Ocean Council Conference 2009

WORLD OCEAN COUNCIL CONFERENCE 2009

SUSTAINABLE OCEAN SUMMIT
- in partnership with GOLDER ASSOCIATES

 A 2-day World Ocean Council event - by and for industry and designed for senior representatives from companies and industry associations - will take place in Belfast on 16-17 Jun 2009.   

This Conference is the only international, cross-sectoral industry conference on business leadership and sustainable development of the marine environment.

The Conference Theme - 'Reducing Risk, Increasing Sustainability' - includes the following theme sessions -

1. Climate Change
   
2. Marine Spatial Management
   
3. Arctic Ocean
   
4. Finance and Insurance
   
5. Ocean Sound
   
6. Marine Debris
   
7. Ship Strikes 
8. Recycling Ships and Ocean Structures
9. Sustainable Ports
   
10. Biosecurity/Invasive Species.

Who should attend -

• Renewable sector (including wind, tidal, wave)
• Shipping (including shipbuilding, recycling, ship management)
• Oil and gas (including offshore exploration, production, transport and technology)
• Fisheries, aquaculture, and seafood production and distribution
• Cruise ships and marine tourism
• Ports, harbours and marinas; Dredging
• Seabed mining; Submarine cable and pipeline
• Marine technology (e.g. marine engines, ballast water systems, etc)
• Recreation (including boat building, deep sea fishing, etc.)
• Coastal power stations; desalination.

For more information - Click Here

To download the Registration Form - Click Here

Learn how to grow your own vegetables

Grow your own Vegetables

 

A BEGINNERS WORKSHOP

 

Learn how to start a garden, plan a rotation, care for the soil, make compost, sow seeds, transplant seedlings, use tools and polytunnels

 

Venue; our farm 20 miles west of Cork,

off N22 road to Macroom

Dates; Sunday 8^th Feb or 15^th Feb

Time; 2pm – 6pm

Cost; 30 euro including light refreshments.

All welcome! Booking is essential.

Contact; Caroline and Eddie Robinson,

carolinerobinson@eircom.net

021-7330178

Coal Quay Market Saturday mornings

Open days for Sustainable Energy: Mallow area

Cork County Council's Energy Agency in collaboration with Tipperary
Energy Agency is organizing an event titled "Open Days for Sustainable
Energy" as part of the 3rd European Sustainable Energy Week (EUSEW
2009). The EUSEW is the key annual reference point for sustainable
energy issues in Europe. The events organised during EUSEW cover key
topics that highlight the multi-sector nature of sustainable energy
development and stress the need for everyone to work together towards
a common goal.

The activities planned for our event will be visits to dwellings where
renewable energy technologies have been already installed. During the
visits the house owners will open their houses to review the systems,
share their experiences with the attendees, and with the support of an
energy expert, the operation of the systems will be explained to the
participants. The visitors will have the opportunity to review the
system and ask questions and they will be given an information pack
with information about alternative energy technologies as part of the
visit.

Within the Cork County Area, the schedule of visits is as follows:

1. Saturday 24th January: Visit to a private house in Mallow with
solar thermal heating system (solar panels),

2. Saturday 31st January: Visit to the "Nano Nagle Centre" in
Ballygriffin where examples of biomass and solar integrated systems,
geothermal heat pump and small scale wind turbine will be shown,

3. Saturday 7th February: Visit to a private house in Castletownroche
with Solar thermal heating (solar panels) and Biomass boiler (wood
pellet).

Further information on the event and on the EUSEW initiative can be
found on www.tea.ie and www.eusew.eu websites or contacting the phone
number below.

Tel: +353 (0)22 43610
e-mail: energyoffice@corkcoco.ie

Signals - Key Environmental Issues facing Europe 2009

Signals is published by the European Environment Agency (EEA) at the start of each year and provides snapshot stories on issues of interest both to the environmental policy debate and the wider public for the upcoming year.

http://reports.eea.europa.eu/signals-2009/en/EEA-Signals-2009-EN-web.pdf


What is Signals......................................................................................................................4
Editorial...............................................................................................................................5
Climate change mitigation — Not just hot air..............................................................................6
Climate change adaptation — If the well runs dry.....................................................................10
Biodiversity — Killer slugs and other aliens..............................................................................14
Air pollution — Every breath you take......................................................................................18
Agriculture and environment — Taking CAP in hand...................................................................22
Marine — Fish out of water....................................................................................................26
Energy — If bioenergy goes boom..........................................................................................30
Waste — Not in my back yard................................................................................................34

Special Area Plan for Cork Airport

Cork County Council are currently conducting a public consultation in relation to a Special Local Area Plan (SLAP) for Cork Airport. The plan will look at the future operational requirements of the airport to allow it to grow over a 30 + year time horizon.

http://www.corkcoco.ie/co/pdf/526673536.pdf

Transition Town Kinsale Screening of Powerdown TV Show

Transition Town Kinsale is privileged to be screening a couple of
episodes of the brand new Irish produced Powerdown TV Show at the
Carmelite Friary, Kinsale, on Monday 19th January at 7.30pm, followed
by a Q & A session with producer Davie Philip from Cultivate , Dublin.

The Powerdown TV Shows are a series of programmes which explore
solutions to the twin challenges of peak oil and climate change.

Employer Bicycle Scheme

As part of the Finance Bill for 2009, the Government has introduced a
tax incentive scheme to promote cycling to work. This covers the
purchase of a bicycle and related safety equipment for up to € 1000.

For those of you who might not have heard about the scheme yet, this
is how it will work in principle:

If an employer provides an employee with a bicycle (for free) for the
(main) purpose of cycling to work, this will be exempt from taxation
as benefit-in-kind for the employee.

If an employer provides an employee with a bicycle for the (main)
purpose of cycling to work, and the costs are to be covered by the
employee through a salary deduction, there will be no income tax or
PRSI to be paid for this amount (similar to the Travel Pass scheme),
so the employee can save up to almost 50% of the price (depending on
the individual tax level).

Employees can avail of this scheme once in a five-year-period.

For more detailed information on the Government's scheme, you can
visit the following links:

www.revenue.ie/en/practitioner/law/bik-exemption-for-bicycles.pdf

http://www.bikescheme.ie