Business Eurozone crisis How Greece could leave the eurozone – in five difficult steps

US bank Citigroup now reckons there is a 75% chance that Greece will pull out of the single currency within the next 18 months. This would set a precedent, and the eurozone could quickly unravel if other vulnerable members like Spain and Italy were to follow suit.

The fallout from a Greek exit would quickly wipe 20% off Greece's GDP, send inflation soaring to 40%-50%, and see Greece's debt-to-GDP ratio soaring over 200%, say analysts at French bank BNP Paribas.

Such predictions are obviously estimates – the actual outcome would depend on how large a devaluation Greece would take if it reverted to the drachma. Dawn Holland at UK thinktank the National Institute of Economic and Social Research expects a 50% fall in the value of the currency. By comparison, the Argentinian peso lost 70% in value after the country's bankruptcy a decade ago.

How Greece could leave the eurozone – in five difficult steps

Group pushes U.N. to define ´zero waste´

"There´s a lot of people trying to use zero waste to tout their environmental commitment and, in those cases, they´re misusing the term," he said. "For instance, the zero-waste-to-landfill claim many times is, in essence, another way of saying, ´We burn the materials,´ [or], ´We don´t recycle,´ or ´We´re not able to recover.´

"Other users of the term ´zero waste´ believe recovering energy from the waste stream is part of the zero waste equation. A purist definition of ´zero waste´ wouldn´t accept that because by burning the material, you´re not capitalizing on the embodied energy in that material stream and that resource stream. You´re just getting some crude level of energy out of it. You´re not using the innate qualities of the material."

Group pushes U.N. to define ´zero waste´

減少碳排放，不應是使用核電的理由

其實，聲稱核電的生產成本較化石或再生能源低，或者說核電比化石環保，是未計算開採核燃料和清理核廢料的成本和環境問題。另外，開採鈾、運作核電廠以及儲 存核燃料都要用大量水，排出的水提高周遭水溫，同樣影響環境。再者，無論核意外的機率多低，還是有機會發生，而且後果難以想像。福島核災後，日本政府被迫國有化東京電力公司，因為東電根本無力支付巨額的賠償和應付清理福島第一核電廠所需的龐大開支。政府要注資1兆日圓 。如何處置帶有輻射的核瓦礫以及其他半衰期長達數百甚至數十萬年的核廢料，至今仍沒有共識。計算成本，不能只看生產電力的那一刻。

減少碳排放，不應是使用核電的理由