Cyprus Mail www.cyprus-mail.com
Thursday, October 18, 2012
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Kudos for Cyprus’ eco-army camps Island is leading the way in Europe in the ‘greening’ of the bloc’s military By Stefanos Evripidou
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YPRUS HAS won plaudits from a widely circulated European newsletter on diplomacy and defence for its eco-friendly army camps. The ‘Europe Diplomacy & Defence’ newsletter applauded Cyprus for developing the first military installation in Europe to receive certification for implementing the EU’s EcoManagement and Audit Scheme (EMAS). “While most Ministries of Defence (MoD) in Europe remain insensitive to environmental issues, Cyprus is currently showing proof of its concern to ensure defence activity can be compatible with energy efficiency and rational use of resources,” said the newsletter. The Cyprus Defence Ministry’s in-house environmentalist and civil engineer, Eftychia Ioannou, told the Cyprus Mail that the Cypriot MoD decided to implement EMAS on a pilot basis in the the Stylianos Kalbourtzis military camp in Delikipos. In 2011, implementation of the scheme began to make the artillery camp Europe’s first eco-camp. By May, 2012, EU inspectors gave the necessary certification, elevating Cyprus’ National Guard to the somewhat unfamiliar position of being a role model for the rest of Europe’s armed forces.
One of the objectives was to “establish clear lines of accountability for environmental outcomes” as well as report on environmental performance as part of a process of continual improvement, said Ioannou, a member of the MoD’s Environment Committee. The camp received investment to enhance its energy efficiency, resulting in the insulation of walls and roofs, double-glazing, and use of low-energy bulbs. The installation of photovoltaic panels allowed the camp to produce its own energy, resulting in 30 per cent of the camp’s electricty consumption coming from its own solar energy. Ioannou notes that the National Guard spends €5.5 million a year on electricity. According to the ministry official, in 2011, all the measures taken reduced CO2 emissions at the camp by 1.3 per cent compared to the previous year. In addition, the ministry planted 600 trees near the camp to further neutralise CO2 emissions. Ioannou highlighted that the MoD has also implemented a water management policy resulting in the recycling of water used for showers and laundry (grey water) for use in flushing toilets. The waste water recycling system uses treated water for irrigation of green areas while Ioannou
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An Indonesian man on a boat salvages scrap items in a river choked with trash in Surabaya City in East Java province yesterday (AFP)
People who skip breakfast are more likely to be fat BRAIN scans show that skipping breakfast makes fatty, high calorie foods appear far more attractive later in the day, according to researchers. Scans of 21 people showed the brain was more attracted to food if breakfast was missed so people had more food at lunch. Scientists said it made losing weight challenging as missing meals made calorific food even more appealing. Nutrition experts say breakfast is known to take the edge off appetite. However, researchers were curious about what happened inside the brain to alter the food people choose to eat. Twenty one people, who were all normal weight, were shown pictures of calorie
packed foods while they were positioned in a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine at Imperial College London. On one day they were given no breakfast before the scans and on a different day they were fed a large, 730 calorie, breakfast an hour and a half before. The researchers said skipping breakfast created a “bias” in the brain in favour of high calorie foods. The results, presented at the Neuroscience 2012 conference, showed the brain changed how it responded to pictures of high calorie foods, but not low calorie foods, when breakfast was skipped. They showed part of the brain thought to be involved in ‘food appeal’, the orbit-
ofrontal cortex, became more active on an empty stomach. When the researchers offered the participants lunch at the end of the study, people ate a fifth more calories if breakfast was missed. Dr Tony Goldstone, from Imperial College London, was quoted by the BBC as saying: “Through both the participants’ MRI results and observations of how much they ate at lunch, we found ample evidence that fasting made people hungrier, and increased the appeal of high calorie foods and the amount people ate. “One reason it is so difficult to lose weight is because the appeal of high calorie food goes up.”