Almost 10,000 solar panels have been imported from the United States and are placed in 12 lines in a six-acre field.

The £2.5m investment will be onstream three weeks before the UK government lowers the subsidy for large-scale solar energy investors.

Read full story on BBC News

Come along for an early morning woodland walk to greet the rising sun and celebrate International Dawn Chorus Day 2011.

An expert from the British Trust for Ornithology will be on hand to help identify the birds and their calls.
The entrance to Gethin Woodland is on the A470, at the Pentrebach roundabout. Turn right at the Forestry Commission sign and follow the track up to the car park.

This is a Free Event. No Need to book.

For further information: carys.solman@merthyr.gov.uk or 01685 726251

What is it? Show and Tells are an opportunity for you to learn about Transition-related topics. The first Show and Tell of 2011 will be about learning from other local Transition groups. We will be welcoming a member of a Transition group from outside of Cardiff to chat to us about their experiences. It’s a friendly, informal event where you can enjoy a drink and a chat with fellow Transitioners. Everyone is welcome – you don’t have to have had anything to do with Transition before!

There will be the opportunity to make a small donation (£2) on the door to help us cover the cost of hiring the room.

For those of you on facebook – we now have a page and you can access info about this event here: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/event.php?eid=185329491489419
It’s also on the CTP website too: http://cardifftransition.org.uk/whatson.php

New stuff: There is also a new group called CF Hub – is a real-life social network of groups and individuals involved in the environmental movement in Cardiff. It has a regular green drinks style meet up in the Milgi Yurt every month. Chat with them on Facebook at http://on.fb.me/cfhub or follow them on Twitter at http://twitter.com/cfhub

Feel free to circulate to your networks & hope to see you on the 17th!

Thanks
Cerys, Pat, Steve, Chris, Jess & Eva

– 7 til 9pm, Monday 9th March

- Dempseys Pub, opposite the castle

- £2 entry (to cover room hire)

Alan Gillard and Daniel Stollar from Gillard Associates, a Cardiff based firm of sustainable architects, will be presenting their ideas on community based housing and low carbon design and refurbishment.

Followed by an opportunity for questions and facilitated discussion.

The Bioenergy Action Plan for Wales aims to generate at least 5 terawatt hours of electricity, about 20% of our current needs, from renewable biomass by 2020. It also aims to have biomass provide 2.5 terawatt hours of usable heat energy, about 3% of our current needs. This will result in a reduction of about 3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per year in comparison with generation based on fossil fuels. It will also create new jobs.

Biomass is organic material that can be used to create renewable energy. This includes plants, trees and vegetations, as well as sewage and animal waste. Biomass is ‘carbon neutral’, in that the amount of carbon it absorbs while growing is the same as the amount it produces when burned. The Assembly Government wants to ensure that biomass is obtained from sustainable sources, whether these are in the UK or overseas, and take into account the carbon emissions associated with growing, harvesting, processing and treating it.

Welsh designers are making a strong showing with show gardens designed by some of the country’s leading gardening talents. Confirmed show gardens include one from South Glamorgan-based Michele Fitzsimmons and Sara Bentley. ‘Eats Shoots and Leaves: A Permaculture Garden in April’ is a garden based on the main themes of permaculture: productivity, lower maintenance, multi-functionalism, use of local resources and biodiversity.

Last year’s Gold medal winner Anthea Guthrie will also be at the show with ‘Slugger Off’ – a garden resistant to slugs. Another highlight is a garden from a Category B local prison in Bridgend – HMP & YOI Parc. The prison’s horticulture team is designing a show garden called ‘Choices’ based on the choices made by individuals while incarcerated. A water feature using stepping stones will symbolise personal journeys and after the show the entire garden will be rebuilt within the internal grounds of the prison.

Doctor Who’s Tardis will also be touching down at the show, with the ‘Garden in Time’ garden featuring a time travel theme. Much of the BBC series has been filmed in Cardiff and this is the perfect chance for those who missed the garden’s debut at the world famous RHS Chelsea Flower Show to enjoy the garden.

Visitors can also sample the true taste of Wales in the Experience Wales marquee which will once again filled with the very best Welsh food, drink and crafts. Other highlights at the show include the Interactive Allotment which returns by popular demand. Nature trails, street entertainers and live music will also be on hand to keep the whole family entertained.

Feeding cities has a greater impact on us and our planet than anything else we do, yet few of us are aware of the process. Industrialisation has made it seem easy, but with peak oil looming and climate change upon us, that illusion is wearing off. We urgently need a new urban model – one that treats city and country as a single, organic whole.

Carolyn is an architect and prize-winning author. She has run successful design units at Cambridge University, London Metropolitan University and the London School of Economics, where she was inaugural studio director of the Cities Programme. She was Rome Scholar in 1995-6, researching the historical urban order of the Ghetto. She has presented on BBC TV’s One Foot in the Past, has written for Blueprint Magazine and is a regular columnist for Building Design. Her book Hungry City: How Food Shapes Our Lives (2008), won the Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Award for Non-fiction and was recently featured on a special edition of Radio 4’s The Food Programme.

This FREE talk will take place on Tuesday 17 February 2009 at 7.00pm in the Cardiff Centre for Lifelong Learning, Senghennydd Road, Cardiff. Room E0.15. All welcome – no booking required.

On MONDAY 12TH JANUARY 2009, between 7 – 9pm,

@ DEMPSEYS PUB, on CASTLE STREET (CORNER WOMANBY STREET) CARDIFF.

Entry: £2 on the door (to cover cost of hiring room)

All welcome.

Speaker is… Molly Scott-Cato – Reader in Green Economics and Economics Speaker for the Green Party who will share her thinking about what transition means for the way we organise our economic life, and specifically in relation to trade and money. Followed by an opportunity for questions and a facilitated exercise/discussion

For further information, please contact info@cardifftransitionproject.org.uk

At a Walking and Cycling and Conference in Cardiff, the Minister for Environment, Sustainability and Housing, Jane Davidson, said the Welsh Assembly Government would be investing £250,000 to train more than 100 instructors to teach the new standards across Wales.

The aim is to increase the number of qualified instructors that can deliver cycle training to a consistent standard that prepares children and adults to cycle on today’s roads.   Ms Davidson said:

The Welsh Assembly Government is committed to getting more people to cycle – as a form of transport; as a means of becoming more physically active; and as a way of getting out and enjoying our countryside.

We all need to reduce our carbon footprint, and cycling can help to make a real difference here – especially since the majority of car journeys are less than 5 miles long. With the cost of motoring on the rise, cycling is a cheap, healthy, and sustainable means of transport.

So I’m delighted to announce today this new initiative which the Assembly Government is funding this year to encourage more people to cycle.

The Cycle Training National Standards have already been adopted by a small number of local authorities in Wales, but the new money and the partnership with CTC – the UK’s national cyclists’ organisation – will help ensure coverage across Wales.

Working with the CTC Charitable Trust and the Sports Council, the £250,000 funding over three years will be used to get the National Standards adopted across Wales alongside the successful Bikeability brand.

CTC Director Kevin Mayne said:

We call Bikeability cycling proficiency for the 21st Century. It gives parents and children the confidence to make their daily journeys by bike under real conditions. We are delighted that the Welsh Assembly is encouraging more people to cycle. The funding will also enable us to employ a Cycle Training Development Officer who will be dedicated to supporting all the providers of cycling activities in Wales as they get more people on their bikes.

Ms Davidson said:

CTC estimate that around 10% of year 6 pupils in Wales receive some cycle training, but rarely is this undertaken on roads. We want to see this changed dramatically through a programme of work to get over 100 instructors trained in the National Standards who will then provide appropriate cycle training to schools and to adults. A new project officer is also being recruited to help co-ordinate this work.

Nestling in the shadow of Conwy’s town walls, an unloved patch of scrubland contains the last remnants of a centuries-old orchard containing rare varieties of apples, pears and the unusual Denbigh plum.

But a campaign has now begun to restore the untended site, crammed with the finest Welsh fruits of yesteryear, to its former glory.

Mark Watson-Jones, organiser of the Conwy Community Orchard Group, said the trees still bear fruit every summer and autumn although many decades have passed since the trees received any tender loving care. Most of the fruit now goes to waste because the site is so overgrown.

Fulls story on the Icwales website here