Horizons

People's insatiable appetite for mobility is sending the world's transportation systems towards unsustainable gridlock and environmental degradation, according to a new study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

In its report on worldwide mobility at the end of the 20th century, MIT's researchers note that air transport is responsible for eight to 12 per cent of transport-related carbon emissions. Because the carbon is emitted at high altitude, its potential impact on global warming is twice as great at that of carbon emitted at ground level. The study also notes that trains leave a smaller environmental footprint and are more fuel-efficient than other modes of transport. One of the many concerns is that more than 96 per cent of the world's transportation depends on petroleum. One suggestion made is that fuel-efficient new buses could run on soybean-based fuel known as biodiesel. The full Mobility 2001 report is available at http://lfee.mit.edu/

Calling all birdwatchers: the first date for recording garden birds as part of the ESB Garden Birdwatch survey is fast approaching. More than 900 people participated in the survey last year.

For newcomers to this annual recording extravaganza, here's the brief. Contact Birdwatch Ireland for a survey form and record the highest numbers of each bird (for example, pigeons, wagtails, wrens, robins, thrushes, tits, starlings and so on) that you see together each week in your garden between December 3rd and the end of February.

The information from the survey provides useful information on population trends of various bird species and weather-related movements and migrations from year to year.

For the recorder, it is an excellent way to learn more about the birds in their area. Don't forget to clean out bird tables and feeders to encourage birds into gardens, yards or indeed windowsills. Leave out peanuts and seeds only when all the existing food is gone.

Send an sae to Birdwatch Ireland, Ruttledge House, 8 Longford Place, Monkstown, Co Dublin, for survey forms, leaflets on feeding birds and gardening for birds. See also www.birdwatchireland.ie

There has been a groundswell of recycling and waste-management initiatives throughout the country as many communities baulk at the idea of mass incinerators and new landfill sites in their areas.

One organisation making a difference locally is the Irish Women's Environmental Network (IWEN). Find out more about reducing waste through recycling, composting and using less packaging by stopping at its stand outside Dunnes Stores in Portmarnock, Co Dublin, today or outside Tesco in the Nutgrove Shopping Centre, Rathfarnham, Dublin, next Saturday. Contact IWEN on 01-8732660.

Anyone keeping an eye on the fate of protected buildings in Ireland will be pleased to hear that Archers Garage on Fenian Street, Dublin, is being rebuilt.

The late Art Deco-style garage near Holles Street Hospital was illegally demolished over a bank holiday weekend in June 1999. It had been scheduled for protection on List I of the Dublin city plan. The owners were legally obliged to rebuild the garage according to its original design.

Noting the rebuilding of this 1940s garage close to the heart of Georgian Dublin, the Irish Georgian Society says in its current newsletter: "This is a major step forward in the implementation of planning law, and one can only hope it will act as a warning sign to any others who may be considering an overnight demolition job of a Protected Structure".

Under the new Planning Act, those who illegally demolish a listed building can be fined up to £10 million or imprisoned for a maximum of two years.