"It's a year since financial education became a compulsory part of the curriculum for England's 11 to 16 year olds. But do you know the answers to some of the questions in their lessons?"

Inspired by insects of the desert, who get water by harvesting night dew between their legs, and by fog nets in Chili, an Italian designer invented water towers to harvest water from the air.

The first prototypes of Warkawater towers have been built in Ethiopia. Now, there is a crowdfunding campaign launched on crowdfunding platform GoFundMe: http://www.gofundme.com/warkawater. This campaign will also explain you in detail how this miracle works.

Wind power is reported to have generated enough energy to supply 1.9 million homes in Scotland or 35.9% (April 2016). This is great news for those in favour of new ecological and sustainable power supplies. Together with solar power, ecologically generated power is really starting to make a dent on overall supplies, contrary to those who have been sceptical in the past. 

This was also one of those are unusually positive weeks in the climate change area and sometimes those ‘good weeks’ are few and far between. However the Paris deal was signed by the key players in New York and climate change moved to centre stage in the Australian federal election also. The historic agreement on climate change marked a major milestone with a record 175 countries signing on to it on the opening day. But world leaders made clear more action is needed, and quickly, to fight the relentless rise in global temperatures.

Follow, discuss and help keep up the momentum on Finance Eco Money See also https://www.finance-eco-money.org/fempower/crowdfunding/item/empowering-and-financing-solar-powered-desalination 

All media are enthusiastic about the constant increase of car-pooling; in France, it grows by 100% per year, its champion being Blablacar with 2 million passengers per month.

But is car-pooling really good for the planet? Not so sure, in fact.

For sure, 2 million passengers per month represent something considerable, representing more than 2 000 double-size trains.

Studies show that mostly, car-pooling websites attract users who consider that train or plane are too expensive. For sure, for 2 persons or more, fares of train journey cannot compete with sharing cost of riding by car, and if you are alone, only low-fare train tickets can compete with car.

But what about CO2 emission?

The myTripSet too on website SNCFVoyages.com, which compares prices and CO2 emissions, gives some interesting information. Train is widely the least CO2 emitter. E.g. a journey Paris-Nantes in TGV emits only 4 kg of CO2. To be compared to 75 kg of a car * and 90 kg of plane. SNCF estimates that average CO2 emission level of train is 13 g per person and per km.

OK, then car-pooling is not environment friendly if we look at gross figures.

Anther argument, does car-pooling lower the number of cars on roads?

It would be great, but truth leads us to answer no in fact: even if they don't have paying passengers, most drivers would not cancel their journey and, mostly, they would not travel by train either.

On the other side, most passengers do not own a car: if not travelling by car-pooling, most passengers would have cancelled or postponed their journey, instead of travelling by train which they often cannot afford. Then, contrarily to a common idea, long-distance car-pooling websites (like Blablacar) ease and increase the number of travels by car, and they take some customers to train, which is more ecological.

This is also valid for home-to-work daily rides: car-pooling permits to share parking places but its use is an incentive to come to work by car instead of using bus or train. Once again, not very ecological.

As a conclusion, car-pooling is not very environment-friendly. However, the other arguments are still valid, like not travelling alone on a long journey, sharing cost or increasing your security (spontaneous and local car-pooling like www.zenoncar.com permits to find a driver to return home if you are unable to drive your own car, e.g. drunk or injured).

I remember when we were in Oxfordshire back in 1989 there was a programme to reintroduce red kites into England and Scotland. http://www.yorkshireredkites.net/index.php/red-kite-info/history-red-kite-reintroduction-programme

Now there is a lecture here in Luxembourg university to explore the controversy between Red Kites and wind power. http://www.chronicle.lu/categorieslivingthings/item/16893-lecture-to-explore-controversy-between-wind-farms-and-rare-red-kites 

We look forward your thoughts and ideas and to following this on https://finance-eco-money.org/discover/ecology-energy  

On Thursday 10 March 2016 Citim (Centre for Information on the Third world,55 avenue de la Liberté, L-1931 Luxembourg) launched "Need for Seed" a project to Examine Food Sovereignty, Food Security and cultivated biodiversity.

The event facilitated a free, public, exchange of information on world-wide seed issues, primarily concerning the dangers of genetically modified food and was introduced by Jean Feyder, Ancien Ambassador for Luxembourg at WTO (World Trade Organisation), Geneva and member of the ASTM Board of Directors and author of "La Faim Tue" (Hunger Kills). ASTM stands for Action Solidaire Tiers Monde (Third World Action Solidarity).

Frank Adams, founding member of the Luxembourg SEED network and an expert on cultivated biodiversity & food quality showed slides and lead a group discussion, with several other practisioners from the cultivated biodiversity space, in Luxembourg: Steve Schwartz of Kraizschouschteschgaart and Klouschtergaart, Georges Moes of Natur & ëmwelt, as well as Estrella Catarata, director of the Philippine Network of Food Security Programmes (PNFSP). Madam Catarata is one of ASTM's partners from the Philippines and she informed the group of the current situation regarding small Filipino farmers and their efforts to save seed sovereignty in their country.

The group emphasised the importance of simple and traditional seeds as the basis for the constant struggle on food sovereignty from the north to the south of our planet. Today the standardisation of seeds especially from genetically modified plants endangers our heritage and the precious biodiversity of our food and livelihood.

With the "Need for Seed" project, CITIM, in collaboration with three local players, Network SEED Luxembourg, the private initiative Kraizschouschteschgaart, and Natur & ëmwelt, want to encourage and help us to bring the greatest possible biodiversity to our own gardens and also to help consumers and growers alike to reclaim their self-sufficiency in food production.

MFTSE Affairs S.A., aims to support this new venture and share opinions on FEM.lu

We basically want to build an interactive web-site for the exchange of financial and ecological ideas and knowledge amongst the general public and different financial players in a totally transparent and non biased way. Our ultimate aim is to help society realise that finance and ecology are essential elements to business for good, reaching the poorest of the poor and eliminating extreme poverty.

An enthusiastic speech by Chris Doude van Troostwijk of Luxembourg School of Religion & Society: "Ideas awake philosophers from a Kant perspective he declared". (Immanuel Kant argued that moral principles were simply products of reason. Kant believed that the incorporation of consequences into moral deliberation was a deep mistake, since it denies the necessity of practical maxims in governing the working of the will. According to Kant, reason requires that we confirm our actions to the categorical imperative which is an absolute duty).

GR Business Days, which took place on the Wednesday 17th and Thursday 18th June, has become an important rendez-vous for business, SME’s and innovative start-ups. Clearly, GR Business Days which is organized by the Luxembourg Chamber of Commerce is now more than just a show, demonstrating the considerable dynamism of the Greater Region internationally.

The Inaccessible Pinacle on the Isle of Skye. Abseiling off the summit having climbed the other side, October 2014. Probably one of the hardest Munro's (all mountains over 3,000 ft in Scotland). Nothing compared to the challenges before the finance industry, helping to change the approach to poverty and the environment. 

Very good and encouraging traction has been recieved recently ranging from agreement with different bodies to promote MFTSE's business to co-operation interest from the fund association - Alfi, especially concerning Financial Literacy. We will soon be able to capitalise on all this as we publish more articles, obtain feedback and build the web-site: finance-eco-money.lu.

Climate Change: The Week That Was for 27 August 2015

Can you find positive ways to help, no matter how small?

Stephen Platt was a guest speaker at a The Institute For Global Financial Integrity in Luxembourg recently. He spoke about the role the international financial services industry has played in facilitating and laundering criminal funds and property.

This was the basic declaration of Lydia Bourguignon at the conference at Lycée de l'Athénée, salle Folmer, Luxembourg ville, yesterday 24 September 2015.