All call centres should have a data protection policy in force and should ensure that the “legals” are read to customers at the beginning of the call so that the customer can choose whether to proceed. Some are still guilty of not doing this and of expecting customers to “opt-out” of having their details shared when in fact “opt-in” (i.e. a customer has to positively agree to have their details shared) is now the most legal approach. Call centres can also store data they collect from their clients and cross-seed the lists used for one “campaign” with another. Unless customers...

Following the report published by the Gambling Review Board ("the Budd Report") last summer, the Government has produced proposals which could potentially make the UK one of the best and most responsible places to locate an online casino operation. Currently, the legislation which regulates gaming does not cover online casinos, potentially meaning that all such activities are illegal. The reason for this lies in the fact that it is the casino premises which must be licensed under current law and gaming may only legally be carried out from such licensed premises. Obviously this simply does not work with online operations...

The castle of Voruta was one of the most important castles during the reign of the first and the only crowned King of Lithuania Mindaugas (1238–1263). Here Mindaugas defended himself in 1251, in time of the internal war. Later Voruta disappeared and its location became a matter of dispute among historians. The hillfort of Seimyniskėliai near Anyksciai (which was called Varutė Hill by the local people) is the most reliable site of the castle of Voruta. The archaeological investigations of the hillfort started in 1990 (chief – Gintautas Zabiela). In 1997 the mayor of the Anyksciai region Saulius Nefas suggested...

While up in Mexico I managed to make a stop at a cenote just outside of Chichen Itza in Yucatan State. A cenote is formed when the earth above an underground river collapses and creates a sinkhole. Cenotes are common in southern Mexico because the large number of underground rivers and the limestone base provide for unstable ground. The cenote I explored was located at Ik Kil in Xcalacoop, Tinum about 30 minutes from the ruins of Chichen Itza. Above ground, the cenote looked like a huge hole about 100 feet across. The water was about 150 feet straight down...

Ward Valley has a long geologic history, but many of the valleys geological facets relevant to nuclear waste dump siting are of quite recent origin. About 10 to 20 million years ago, as the San Andreas Fault began to move and volcanoes erupted in the Berkeley Hills, tectonic forces pulled the earths crust apart in a belt that parallels the lower Colorado River. This event (known to geologists as "extension") shaped the present landscape. The lower part of the extending crust was relatively hot and therefore stretched (ductile deformation), to double its previous width. The cold and rigid upper crust...

The term "industrial ecology" has long been recognized as an evocative analogy, suggesting the benefits of designing industrial systems to more closely resemble "natural" biological systems in their cycling of materials, energy, and waste. In some cases, there has been a failure to appreciate that the relationship between human and natural systems is one of analogy, not exact correspondence. This has led to proposals to treat industrial structures and institutions as if they were gardens or forests. Thus, while industrial ecology is a powerful way to suggest new patterns of operations, it can be counterproductive when it leads to superficial...

Viewing the World Summit in Johannesburg from a safe distance, I could not help but think of Shakespeare: "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." This is too cynical, of course, for the mere fact the summit was held is important, and that it generated so much sound and fury an indication that these issues are firmly on the global agenda, and will remain so. Any multinational firm not attempting to understand and address corporate social responsibility is indeed obsolete, and it is obvious that all governments, however unwilling, are faced with responding to the issues raised in Johannesburg. But...

As noted last month, communication between the technological and environmental discourses is still fairly minimal. This is unfortunate for a number of reasons, a point made yet again by a recent National Academy of Engineering workshop on technology and climate change. And opportunities for technological initiatives are being missed as parties fixate on increasingly anachronistic policy initiatives. Thus, for example, it is increasingly clear that carbon sequestration - capturing CO2 from fossil fuel power plants, liquefying it, and injecting it into deep geologic formations - is a relatively proven technology. Moreover, it can be done at acceptable economic and energetic...

Last month's column raised the question of how the Internet and its postmodernist pastiche of time and place is liable to change social perceptions and mental models of environmental issues, firmly rooted in times and places. It hinted at another insight complicating environmental analysis and policy: technologies complex enough to have real environmental benefits are far too complicated to be understood - or even perceived - as a "green technology." This realization is yet another illustration of the poorly understood evolution of environmental concerns from "overhead" to "strategic." Environmental issues have gone from being treated only after the fact as...

The political state of global climate change is tumultuous and highly polarized, and lends itself to polemic, rather than dialog, on all sides. But there is one aspect of the commentary, regardless of where it comes, that is interesting for what it reveals about our lack of understanding of the systems with which we are involved. That is the assumption that the climate-change negotiations represent the major initiative by humanity to respond to global climate change issues. This implicit assumption reflects an important truth about the way humans and their institutions - whether firms, NGOs, governments, or academia - approach...