Tác giả: Đào Thu Hằng
I'm from Hanoi, Viet Nam.
I'm an author of Dot Chuoi Non (dotchuoinon.com/author/hangbelu/), a blog on Positive thinking, founded by Dr. Tran Dinh Hoanh, an attorney in Washington DC.
I'm a co-founder of Conversations on Vietnam Development - cvdvn.net, a virtual think tank. I am a co-founder of two companies in Viet Nam working on children education services. I advise companies on STEAM education, English language education for children and students in Vietnam.
I'm studying the Buddha's teaching and the teaching of Jesus. I practice mindful living including meditation.
I hold a PhD on Sustainable Energy Systems from University of Lisbon and Aalto University.
I graduated from Hanoi University of Technology on Environmental Engineering. I obtained a Master degree of the same major from Stanford University and Nanyang Technological University.
My English-language blog at: hangbelu.wordpress/.
I play table tennis as a hobby.
Vietnam increasingly reliant on imported energy
Due to limited domestic supply, Vietnam has become increasingly dependent on energy imports, putting national energy security at risk, Nguyen Van Thanh, deputy head of the Electricity and Renewable Energy Department under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, told the Vietnam Technology and Energy Forum 2018 on July 31.
An active hydropower dam
According to a report by the Electricity and Renewable Energy Department, after executing the national energy development strategy by 2020 with a vision to 2050 for 10 years, the local energy sector has achieved positive results. However, some targets have yet to be fulfilled.
Dung Quat and Nghi Son oil refineries are likely to reach a combined processing capacity of 16.5 million tons of crude oil by 2020, well below the estimate of 25-30 million tons. Tiếp tục đọc “Vietnam increasingly reliant on imported energy”
Vietnam is reducing carbon emissions by transforming pig waste into energy
Hanoi, Vietnam
Le Thi Vinh used to put up with a smoky kitchen, filled with soot particles formed in her muddy stove. That changed in late 2016, when she stopped using firewood but turned to biogas, generated from the waste of the 46 pigs she raises. The biogas generated is enough to support a family of four for three meals a day. But it’s not cheap—the biodigesters needed to make the gas cost about $600 to build, five times Le’s monthly income of VND 3 million ($130).
Le, a 53-year-old farmer, is among the 7 million living in Hanoi, Vietnam’s capital and its second most populous city. The city is filled with diesel-powered motorcycles, some 5 million, choking the air and causing traffic jams.
But Hanoi is changing. In addition to an ambitious plan to ban motorbikes by 2030, Hanoi is one of 63 provinces and cities in the country that is adopting biogas for cooking. Le used her own savings and borrowed money from relatives to build the biodigesters, which are part of a program funded by the Dutch government that uses Chinese technology. The goal of using biogas is to both breathe cleaner air and fight against climate change, one of the biggest challenges of the century.
Tiếp tục đọc “Vietnam is reducing carbon emissions by transforming pig waste into energy”
Animals and fungi enhance the performance of forests
Study based on ten years of research in subtropical forests
Date:August 1, 2018
Source:German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Summary:In addition to the diversity of tree species, the variety of animal and fungus species also has a decisive influence on the performance of forests. Forest performance comprises many facets besides timber production, such as carbon storage and climate regulation. The study is based on ten years of research in species-rich subtropical forests.
FULL STORY
Spiders and other animals are important for forest ecosystems.
Credit: Jula Zimmermann
A new study shows that, in addition to the diversity of tree species, the variety of animal and fungus species also has a decisive influence on the performance of forests. Forest performance comprises many facets besides timber production, such as carbon storage and climate regulation. The study is based on ten years of research in species-rich subtropical forests. A team of researchers led by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and the Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg has published the results in the new issue of Nature Communications. They illustrate that biodiversity must be viewed as a whole in order to maintain the performance of forests.
Tiếp tục đọc “Animals and fungi enhance the performance of forests”
Công trình Hiệu quả Năng lượng – Góc nhìn toàn diện: Thiết kế – Xây dựng – Vận hành
Công trình cần được Thiết kế – Xây dựng – Vận hành như thế nào để đảm bảo tối ưu hóa tiện nghi cho người sử dụng trong khi vẫn hiệu quả về sử dụng tài nguyên (năng lượng, nước, vật liệu….) và giảm tác động đến môi trường? Điều này đòi hỏi sự tham gia của tất cả các bên ngay từ giai đoạn ban đầu trong quá trình hình thành đến khi kết thúc các dự án xây dựng.
Bộ Quy chuẩn Kỹ thuật Quốc gia về Công trình Hiệu quả năng lượng (QCVN 09:2017/BXD) do Bộ Xây dựng ban hành năm 2018 là phiên bản cập nhật của QCVN 09:2013/BXD do thực trạng áp dụng những năm vừa qua còn ở mức rất thấp. Song song cập nhật, điều chỉnh trong hành lang pháp lý từ phía cơ quan nhà nước, mỗi dự án xây dựng cần có sự tham gia từ tất cả các bên tham gia (đơn vị đầu tư, nhà thầu, tư vấn, thi công xây dựng, vận hành….) ngay từ khâu hoạch địch mục tiêu bền vững cho đến khi thiết kế, vận hành và kết thúc vòng đời công trình để đạt được tiêu chí bền vững, hiệu quả năng lượng và tài nguyên. Tiếp tục đọc “Công trình Hiệu quả Năng lượng – Góc nhìn toàn diện: Thiết kế – Xây dựng – Vận hành”
Brace yourself for more record heat
Current high temperatures in the northern hemisphere are set to continue. Climate change means we’re likely to experience very hot summers more often — even though we’re already struggling with health consequences now.
Europe is in the throes of a heat wave, and it’s not letting up — on the contrary. More hot air is coming over from Africa, and is even bringing desert dust with it.
Southwestern European countries are being hit especially hard. Authorities in Portugal issued a nationwide health warning, including for dust from the Sahara. Warnings were also issued for 40 of Spain’s 50 provinces. The southeastern Portuguese town of Beja is expected to see a peak of 47 degrees Celsius (117 degrees Fahrenheit) on Saturday.
Tiếp tục đọc “Brace yourself for more record heat”
Qua sông: Top 5 shocking ways to cross a river in Vietnam
Vietnam Building Energy Efficiency Week 2018
If you are interested in Sustainable Development in Energy, Architecture and Construction, you should save the date for Vietnam Building Energy Efficiency Week 2018.
Vietnam Energy Efficiency Network (EEN-Vietnam) collaborates with Goethe Institute to organize Vietnam Energy Efficiency Building Week 2018 (VEEBW2018),with the participation of domestic and overseas organisations and companies in the fields of design, building, technical solutions as well as professional community & universities to showcase outstanding solutions, projects, innovation suitable for local climate and highly applicable for Vietnam market.
Time: 25.08.2018 – 01.09.2018
Venue: Goethe Institute Conference room, 56-58-60 Nguyen Thai Hoc street, Ba Dinh District, Hanoi
For more information and registering (free), please visit: http://bit.ly/register-VEEBW2018 Tiếp tục đọc “Vietnam Building Energy Efficiency Week 2018”
TUẦN LỄ CÔNG TRÌNH HIỆU QUẢ NĂNG LƯỢNG VIỆT NAM 2018
Một chương trình rất tốt, đặc biệt cho các bạn sinh viên tìm hiểu cơ hội thực tập liên quan đến kiến trúc và xây dựng bền vững – ĐTH
Nếu bạn quan tâm đến Phát triển bền vững trong Năng lượng và Kiến trúc Xây dựng thì không thể bỏ qua Tuần lễ Công trình Hiệu quả Năng lượng Việt Nam 2018 sắp tới được diễn ra tại Viện Goethe Hà Nội.
Mạng lưới Hiệu quả Năng lượng Việt Nam (EEN-Vietnam) phối hợp với Viện Goethe tổ chức Tuần lễ Công trình HQNL Việt Nam, với sự hợp tác tham gia từ các tổ chức, doanh nghiệp trong và ngoài nước trong lĩnh vực thiết kế, xây dựng, cung cấp giải pháp kỹ thuật, Hội ngành nghề, trường đại học nhằm
mang đến các dự án trình diễn điển hình, giải pháp, sáng kiến kỹ thuật trong và ngoài nước phù hợp với điều kiện khí hậu, tính ứng dụng cao, phù hợp với thị trường xây dựng Việt Nam.
Thời gian: 25.08.2018 – 01.09.2018
Địa điểm: Phòng Hội thảo, Viện Goethe, 56-58-60 Đường Nguyễn Thái Học, Quận Ba Đình, Hà Nội.
Link Đăng ký tham gia miễn phí và Thông tin chi tiết vui lòng xem tại: http://bit.ly/register-VEEBW2018
#VEEBW2018
TUẦN LỄ CÔNG TRÌNH HIỆU QUẢ NĂNG LƯỢNG VIỆT NAM 2018
VIETNAM ENERGY EFFICIENCY BUILDING WEEK 2018 Tiếp tục đọc “TUẦN LỄ CÔNG TRÌNH HIỆU QUẢ NĂNG LƯỢNG VIỆT NAM 2018”
Early Warning System Innovations in Vietnam: HOW SMS TECHNOLOGY CAN ENSURE EDUCATION CONTINUITY
Disaster-prone Vietnam is susceptible to rapid-onset emergencies like storms, typhoons, and flooding annually. During these times, children are unable to go to school due to unsafe conditions and parents fearing for their children’s safety. Approximately 70% of the population is living in coastal and low-lying areas, resulting in high vulnerability to extreme weather events intensified by climate change and global warming.
As part of Save the Children in Vietnam’s risk reduction work, the country office has been working to improve the way hazard risk information is shared. Partnering with local government agencies and mobile companies, Save the Children initiated an SMS disaster early warning system that provides weather information to the vulnerable coastal provinces of Thua Thien Hue, Quang Nam, and Da Nang. Tiếp tục đọc “Early Warning System Innovations in Vietnam: HOW SMS TECHNOLOGY CAN ENSURE EDUCATION CONTINUITY”
Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change
Editor’s Note
This narrative by Nathaniel Rich is a work of history, addressing the 10-year period from 1979 to 1989: the decisive decade when humankind first came to a broad understanding of the causes and dangers of climate change. Complementing the text is a series of aerial photographs and videos, all shot over the past year by George Steinmetz. With support from the Pulitzer Center, this two-part article is based on 18 months of reporting and well over a hundred interviews. It tracks the efforts of a small group of American scientists, activists and politicians to raise the alarm and stave off catastrophe. It will come as a revelation to many readers — an agonizing revelation — to understand how thoroughly they grasped the problem and how close they came to solving it. Jake Silverstein
No more dams, float solar panels instead: experts
After studying alternatives to mitigate the impacts of pending dam projects in Laos and Cambodia, experts say, just say NO.
The catastrophic collapse of a dam during unusually heavy rain on July 24 in Laos’ southern Attapeu Province has greatly enhanced the importance of two separate reports by the California-based National Heritage Institution (NHI) on two massive dam projects planned by Laos and Cambodia that would fatally degrade the vital core of the world’s most productive riverine ecosystems and its agriculturally rich Delta.
One report, in fact, specifically addresses the threat posed by plans to construct nearly a dozen massive hydropower dams on the the Xe Kong, the very river system bore the brunt of the upstream dam collapse. Within a couple of days of the dam collapse one of its tributaries the Xe Kong swelled to just short of the 11.5 meters “alarm” level at a measuring station some 287 kilometers downstream in Cambodia. Some 3,000 people narrowly escaped the rushing mass of water, while some 27 are said to be dead and hundreds more are missing.
Both studies were led by Gregory Thomas, an American with extensive experience studying fisheries and sediment issues on tributary river dams in Vietnam and Laos, and more than a dozen international and regional co-authors and contributors.
The first report, The NHI’s Sambor Alternatives Assessment, was prepared under a 2014 Memorandum of Understanding with the Cambodia Ministry of Mines and Energy and submitted in December 2017.
Tiếp tục đọc “No more dams, float solar panels instead: experts”
Exclusive: Illegal Tiger Trade Fed by ‘Tiger Farms,’ New Evidence Reveals
A shocking video and new intelligence suggest that legal and illegal captive tiger facilities fuel Asia’s tiger trafficking—with brutal efficiency.
Fewer than 4,000 tigers remain in the wild, but more than 8,000 are held in captive facilities in Asia. Investigations have shown that many of these facilities breed and slaughter tigers for the illegal trade.
PHOTOGRAPH BY DARIO PIGNATELLI, GETT
IN THE LIVING room of a house at the end of a narrow country road in central Vietnam, a little way off the main highway, the skeleton of a tiger was laid out on the floor—the only complete one they had for sale, the man told the pair of visitors.
It was an attractive offer for someone looking to make tiger bone wine, a coveted brew made from bones soaked in rice wine, but what the visitors were interested in were the live tigers.
Tiếp tục đọc “Exclusive: Illegal Tiger Trade Fed by ‘Tiger Farms,’ New Evidence Reveals”
HIV infects 1 teen girl every 3 minutes: UN
Teenage girls are unfairly bearing the brunt of the AIDS crisis, a UNICEF report has found. A lack of information, campaign fatigue, and sexual violence are partly to blame.
One girl between the ages of 15 and 19 becomes infected with HIV every three minutes, according to a UNICEF report published on Wednesday. The organization warned that gender inequality was causing a “crisis of health” for young women.
The data unveiled at the International AIDS Conference in Amsterdam showed that teen girls are bearing the brunt of the AIDS epidemic.
“The epidemic’s spread among adolescent girls is being fueled by early sex, including with older males, forced sex, powerlessness in negotiating about sex, poverty, and lack of access to confidential counselling and testing services,” said the report.
UNICEF chief Henrietta Fore elaborated: “In most countries, women and girls lack access to information, to services, or even just the power to say no to unsafe sex.HIV thrives among the most vulnerable and marginalized, leaving teenage girls at the center of the crisis.” Tiếp tục đọc “HIV infects 1 teen girl every 3 minutes: UN”
A new draft of Cuba’s constitution drops communism and allows same-sex marriage
- Cuba is drafting a new constitution for the first time since 1976, and the new document doesn’t mention communism.
- The new constitution also allows private property as part of the focus on socialism instead of communism.
- The draft also allows same-sex marriage, sets up the position of prime minister, and places term limits on presidents.
- Lawmakers can adjust the draft before it is approved and put to a national referendum.
HAVANA (Reuters) – A draft of Cuba’s new constitution omits the aim of building communism, recognizes private property, and opens the door to gay marriage, in a sign of changing times, although it keeps the Communist Party as the guiding force of the one-party system. Tiếp tục đọc “A new draft of Cuba’s constitution drops communism and allows same-sex marriage”
