Two years ago scientists issued a series of studies showing that a carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere of more than 350 parts per million (ppm) would be disastrous for life on earth. Right now the atmospheric concentration of CO2 is 390ppm and the 350 campaign on Saturday will be to call on leaders to set goals to reduce this to under the 350ppm threshold.

Around South Africa there will be a series of events celebrating the 350 declaration. Johannesburg celebrations will include the Jozi 350 Climate Action Day at Emmerentia Dam, and the Tree planting for carbon offset. Cape Town events will include the Human 350 on Table Mountain and the 350 melting iceblocks on Muizenberg beach.

The campaign has also attracted support from a number of prominent people including Bishop Desmond Tutu, who penned an article in support of 350.org which has been published in major US newspapers. In Unity doomed apartheid. Next up: climate change, Tutu wrtites: “In South Africa, we showed that if we act on the side of justice, we have the power to turn tides. Worldwide, we have a chance to start turning the tide of climate change with just such a concerted effort today.”

A full list of SA events can be found on the 350.org website.

Copyright: iStockphoto

The South African government has rejected the Agriculture Research Council’s (ARC) application to provide genetically modified potatoes to local farmers, saying it was concerned about its safety and economic effect, reports Business Day.

“This is probably the most significant victory of my career,” said Mariam Mayet of the African Centre for Biosafety (ACB), which spearheaded the campaign against the GM potatoes. “For a pro-genetically modified government to refuse a commercial application on safety grounds is quite ground breaking.”

The ACB campaign focused on the ARC’s application for commercial release of its SpuntaG2 potato, which has been engineered to kill the tuber moth, a common pest that damages crops in the field and in storage.

Potatoes SA, fast food outlet McDonald’s, and food retailers Pick n Pay and Fruit and Veg City have also expressed objections to the ARC’s application, saying they were concerned about consumer choice.

Full story: Business Day.
African Centre for Biosafety statement

The hail starts to pile up around the back steps.

Living in Johannesburg we’re used to regular summer thunderstorms. So much so that they are the first thing we miss when not in Johannesburg. But Friday night’s version of a highveld thunderstorm was a lot more than we bargained for and Project Green took a heavy knock.

Early on in the afternoon it was obvious a storm was coming, but after countless false alarms with just a handful of raindrops, I didn’t take it too seriously. I did cover as much of the seedling table as I could with fine plastic mesh that I had lying around, just in case, and left it at that.

As with most thunderstorms it started fast and hard. And within a minute or so, when it was obvious this storm was going to be a big one, it was already almost too hard to get outside. A minute or two after that and the hail starting pelting down so we had to watch from the back door and hope things survived the storm.

All told the storm lasted about half-an-hour, but by the end of that time absolutely everything was white with hail, and not a herb (the closest to our back door) peeked above the layer of ice. The front path was almost a foot deep in hailstones and the vegetable garden in the back (at the bottom of the slope) was as much under water as anything.

After half an hour we ventured outside to see the damage. The herbs were smothered, the vegetables underwater and the pots of tomato and green pepper seedlings I had not managed to put under cover were smashed to pieces, just a handful of stems poking out the ice.

The green pepper and tomato seedlings didn't survive the storm very well.

Fortunately the seedling table with its half-length cover had avoided the worst of the storm. I was pleased about that because I had trays full of lettuce, basil, thyme and chillis that were almost ready to go into the garden. I also had a tray full of 288 recently planted seeds of lettuce, parsley, thyme and spinach that had just started to show themselves and wouldn’t have survived the hailstones if they had not been covered. The portion of the seedling table not covered with the extra mesh was a sad sight with whole trays submerged in ice and leaves full of bruises and holes.

The beauty of the seedling table outside is that the seeds get the benefit of the sun and the rain and the gentle breezes mostly prevent them from getting fungal diseases. The downside is that occasionally along comes a storm too big for the baby plants to survive and you can quickly lose a lot of plants. And when that happens you wish you had a greenhouse rather than table with a tiny mesh covering. But, fortunately, these type of storms don’t come along all that often so it’s a risk I suppose you have to take. Although I am now considering having handy a fine, strong mesh covering for the next time a large storm looms.

Muizenberg. Copyright ifijay http://www.flickr.com/photos/ifijay/

31 of South Africa’s beaches will be awarded Blue Flag status on Thursday in recognition of their cleanliness and positive environmental management. The 31 beaches span 13 of South Africa’s municipalities and is almost double the number of beaches awarded Blue Flag status last year. Last year just 18 beaches around the country received Blue Flag status, nine of those in the Western Cape.

The Blue Flag award is run by the Foundation for Environmental Education and is given to beaches and marinas that have met stringent standards of water quality, safety, environmental education and information and general environmental management criteria, set by the FEE. Globally almost 4,000 beaches and marinas globally are being awarded Blue Flags.

Of the 31 beaches being awarded Blue Flags tomorrow, seven of them will be in Cape Town, one more than the city received last year. Last year, six beaches were awarded Blue Flags: Clifton Fourth, Mnandi, Bikini in Gordon’s Bay, Muizenberg, Strandfontein and a section of Camps Bay.The Western Cape last year had a total of nine beaches with Blue Flag status with Grotto, Hawston Beach and Stilbaai adding to the City of Cape Town haul.

The 31 beaches being awarded Blue Flag status will be announced tomorrow by Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk.

More at IOL and News24

But with two of the biggest storms in quick succession the seedlings have endured more than they would like. The storms have also washed out the weaker plants, wiped out seeds and left a real jumble on the seedling table. Because of this I decided to do a clean-up over the weekend and work out which of the plants and seeds were worth saving.

Surprisingly (perhaps) it was the various chilli plants, which have been pretty quiet until now, that seemed to be thriving. I had almost forgotten about the chilli seeds we had planted a month ago but quickly over the past week they have shot up from being barely visible to now being very obviously “there”.

So, on Sunday I washed out 20 small pots from the garage and set about transplanting all the chilli seedlings into their own pots using a mixture of seedling medium (bought from a nursery) and potting soil. After all this time of waiting expectantly for some of the chillies to appear it’s a rewarding feeling to now have 20 pots of chilli. Apart from the mixed hot chillies (a packet bought along the way) I also have Habanero and Serano chillies as well as a collection of sweet peppers.

While the technology that will enable in-flight Internet services is depending on Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) approval, it will be provided through an exclusive agreement with US-based Row 44 who is already successfully offering in-flight Wi-Fi Internet to Southwest Airlines, Alaska Airlines and in 2010, through Norwegian Air Shuttle. After extensive testing in the US, the first complete set of hardware will arrive in South Africa shortly. This will be used to setup a ground-based proof of concept (POC) here in South Africa to test the complete solution including the Satellites that will be used for the commercial product.

WirelessG also holds an exclusive agreement for the African continent, but are still investigating options to see how soon, and to which extent they will be able to provide in-flight Wi-Fi into Africa and is actively investigating potential airline prospects to identify valuable business partners.

Carel van der Merwe, CEO of WirelessG, says the company is already in negotiations with local airlines, and while the solution is already in POC phase, no information is being released as to which carrier will launch the service first.

Because Row 44’s in-flight broadband system is satellite-based and leverages the extensive Hughes satelllite network, WirelessG and Row 44 will be able to provide African airlines’ passengers with uninterrupted high-speed connectivity in-flight, no matter where they fly—including flights across multiple countries and over water.

WirelessG has successfully integrated its converged billing platform to this new technological environment. This platform, which has undergone extensive testing against the WirelessG converged billing service, will connect via satellite to provide a full range of Internet services such as web browsing, email access, VPN connectivity and web-based SMS.
Van der Merwe says the new solution will dovetail perfectly into G-Connect’s current converged Internet solution and extend the ADSL, Wi-Fi hotspot and 3G Internet access currently on offer from the service into the cloud.

The in-flight Internet service will be available to all passengers on participating flights for a fee, while G-Connect users can benefit from the service as they will be able to use their current G-Connect accounts onboard the aircraft.

“With the G-Connect sign-up process being free of cost and contracts, we are expecting many travelers to utilise the advantage of our in-flight offering,” says van der Merwe.

“We have always focused on innovating within the telecoms space in order to provide increased value to our customers. We were the first provider to offer a 3-in-1 service (ADSL, 3G, Wi-Fi), and a wallet for managing connectivity spend. All that is required now, is to legitimise the US approved Supplemental Type Certificates (STCs) through the South African CAA. Once we have received this approval, we are able to launch the POC aircrafts and then be the first to offer in-flight Internet access in Africa,” explains van der Merwe. “Being able to provide such a highly necessary and useful product, makes us really proud.”

“WirelessG has built the dominant Wi-Fi hotspot presence across Africa and maintains agreements that extend its services globally,” said Frederick St.Amour, Row 44’s Vice President of Business Development. “By extending its coverage to aircraft in flight, they continue to demonstrate the innovation and leadership for which they are well known. As a result, air travelers in Africa will enjoy in-flight broadband services much sooner than they would have otherwise. Row 44 is thrilled to join forces with WirelessG to bring a wide range of connectivity services to the African skies.”

This just in – Internet marketer and entrepreneur Randolf Jorberg just blogged the news that eTRAVELi has acquired Cape Town based Travelstart’s Nordic operations – this adds just another success story to serial entrepreneur Stephan Ekberghs list of achievements. Travelstart is a South African company and generated sales of approximately ZAR 1.5 billion during 2009. eTRAVELi and Travelstart combined produce a monster booking engine with expected revenues of 5 billion (Rand and Swedish kronor are nearly on par) in 2010. The report does not state the acquisition price, we are waiting for a reply from Stephan with further details.

Reportedly brokering 50,000 bookings a month on the Travelstart SA platform, Travelstart is a travel giant in the e-commerce market of South Africa and I do seriously hope that this is not the last positive news we hear from this travel powerhouse, operating from Cape Town.

Update from Stephan -

Just to clear some basic facts:
The Deal covers our european business and our brand in Europe.
We will still continue to do business outside of EU with our new global HQ in Cape Town.
Our main efforts will be directed towards continental Africa for a while as well as launching a global kick ass mobile app.
Our ZA business is doing very well and we expect to break the 1 billion zar mark in 2011.

Come by and see us at 56 Shortmarket.

I have written some personal reflections on the sale on my blog:
http://ekbergh.blogspot.com/2010/01/when-to-let-go-2930-decade-with.html

(edit – we have fixed our confusing headline)

AdMod records the number of ad requests its system generates, meaning this leap has come about through more people downloading and using ad-supported apps via the Android market.

Here are the higlights of AdMob’s latest metrics:

• 97% increase in worldwide requests from Android devices, totalling to 1 billion ad request between October-December
• 98% of the ad requests came from HTC devices in October, 56% in December from HTC devices and 30% from Motorola DROID.
• Among the Android devices that generated more than 3% of ad requests are Motorola DROID, HTC Dream, HTC Magic, HTC Hero, Motorola CLIQ, HTC Droid, HTC Dream, HTC Magic and HTC Hero.
• Motorola DROID received 30% ad requests in December making it the number one Adroid handset in terms of ad requests.

Interestingly, these data have to come in just in time for Google’s announcement of the Nexus Phone. And even more interesting is the fact that AdMob is already owned by Google.

Will the Nexus One phone add spike to Android’s current achievement in terms of ad request?

Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq:SYMC) today announced it will be tracking malicious activity on the Internet relating to the soccer World Cup, which starts on June 11. On its dedicated Web site, www.2010netthreat.com, Symantec will provide data, commentary, safety tips and useful links for football fans surfing the Internet for news, tickets and information on the tournament.

According to Paul Wood, senior analyst at Symantec Hosted Services, the tournament, which attracts the attention of more than 1 billion soccer fans worldwide, is becoming a theme for cybercriminals. “Historically, any large-scale sporting event has shown an increase in all kinds of cyberthreats,” said Wood. “Phishing attacks increased by 66 percent during the Beijing Olympics in 2008. The fact that two undersea communications cables landed on South African shores last July will exacerbate the threat levels; history also shows that malicious activity increases in a country after new bandwidth is made available.”

Symantec has already installed additional network sensors in South Africa and southern Africa to monitor traffic and feed information to customers who are looking to take steps to secure their networks against additional threats. “As an example, two of our configured partners in Africa have submitted unique malicious files that have not been seen elsewhere by Symantec,” said Wood.

Much of the threat activity will not be new to the world of cybercrime – so-called 419 scams, spam and phishing attacks will face users in the guise of special offers for the event. “The rule is, if something looks too good to be true, then it’s likely to be a scam,” said Gordon Love, Africa regional director, Symantec. “Also, in all cases these days a cybercriminal is looking to steal a user’s personal information – identity details, bank account numbers, passwords and credit card numbers – to steal money from a user. The 2010 Net Threat site will aim to tell people how they can protect themselves against such attacks.”

Internet users must be on the alert for new varieties of scam. “Attackers are even going as far as ensuring their fake Web sites or sites they have ‘poisoned’ with malicious code appear at the top of search results,” said Love. “Users tend to assume that the sites that appear first tend to be legitimate, and may click on them without first examining the source.”

By the time the World Cup kicks off, 3.1 million tickets will have been sold. More than 400 million people worldwide will watch each match on television. The number of fans using the Internet to find tickets, accommodation, flights and ways to stay connected to this year’s most popular sporting event will amount to hundreds of millions.

“The site will provide people with the information they need to protect themselves on the Internet,” said Love. “However, attackers are always finding new ways of duping people into disclosing their personal information. Being well informed and alert is as important as keeping up to date with the latest protection software updates.”

Google Street View trikes arrived in South Africa in November last year, when they started collecting imagery of historic landmarks, heritage sites, scenic panoramas and sports venues around the country. South African Tourism compiled a list of 20 special locations on which the public voted. As a result, Google’s Street View team has been visiting the places that the South African public really wanted them to cover, everywhere from Soweto to Kruger National Park, and from Blyde River Canyon to the Kirstenbosch Gardens.

The Google trikers have been met with excitement from those they’ve crossed paths with along the way, including tourists who’ve said how useful they’ve found Street View for planning their holidays elsewhere. Street View is not always the first thing that comes to mind when seeing the Trikes though…in fact, in Kirstenbosch Gardens, a group of schoolchildren were convinced that the Trikers were actually ice-cream men!

More Google maps news