Home/Posts Tagged ‘change’
Posts Tagged ‘change’
Climate Change, Politics, Videos & Documentaries, Sep 26th, 2010,
The environmental and geopolitical ramifications of melting Arctic glaciers and the rush of different nations for the region’s mineral wealth is fraught with conflict and change. Melting ice in the Arctic spells trouble for some of Greenland’s traditional indigenous Inuit and for low-lying nations vulnerable to rising sea levels. A warming climate will also change shipping routes in the region, contributing further to the opening up of the region for economic exploitation. The Arctic is becoming the new battleground for the environment. Groups such as Greenpeace, the WWF and Climate Camp actively confront the activities of oil companies, like Scotland’s…
Tags: arctic, change, climate, gas, glacier, greenland, ice, melting, mineral, oil, Russia
Climate Change, Nature, Science & Technology, Sep 25th, 2010,
Coastal population centers have always been more vulnerable to natural phenomena like storms and erosion. It’s the price we pay for the economic advantages of coastal ports and fancying living by the sea. Throughout history, storm surges have caused death and destruction in coastal towns and cities – from a 14th century storm surge that killed as many as 25,000 people in Nordfriesland, Germany to Burma’s tropical storm Nargis in 2008, which left some 140,000 dead. A storm surge happens when windstorms cause sea levels to rise, resulting in flooding like what took place in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina in…
Tags: change, climate, risk, storm, storm surge
Climate Change, Politics, Aug 26th, 2010,
The activists at the recent Climate Camp in Scotland have stirred up controversy and debate, at least in the little corner of the media that pays attention to climate change activism. After a day of ‘climate action’ on Monday, during which several windows were broken at Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) headquarters in Edinburgh, 12 Climate Camp protesters were arrested. A group of Climate Camp protesters intentionally broke the law. One of them, Dan Glass, explains their motivation in a comment piece for the Guardian entitled ‘Yes, we broke the law as climate change activists. And this is why’. Glass…
Tags: action, activism, change, climate, climate camp, Edinburgh, Kingsnorth, law, protest, RBS, Scotland
Climate Change, Politics, Aug 23rd, 2010,
Climate change activists stepped up their game and held a rash of demonstrations in Edinburgh, Scotland today. Members of the activist group Climate Camp have been set up outside the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) global headquarters in Edinburgh since last week in order to protest the bank’s financing of the fossil fuel industry. But today has seen a sudden increase in protest activity, with separate actions also taking place at Forth Energy in Leith, Edinburgh and at Cairn Energy in the city’s financial district as well as at other RBS locations. From a report in The Herald Scotland: A…
Tags: activists, bank, Cairn, camp, change, climate, Edinburgh, energy, Forth, molasses, protest, RBS, Scotland, superglue
Climate Change, Politics, Aug 22nd, 2010,
In a bit of ‘News of the Weird’ meets environmental activism, a protester glued herself to a desk in the Royal Band of Scotland’s headquarters on Friday. Hundreds of activists have been holding a Climate Camp outside of RBS headquarters, near Edinburgh Scotland in protest of the bank’s loans to fossil fuel companies, thereby facilitating climate change or ‘climate chaos’. From a Press Association report: The activist managed to enter RBS by dressing like a businessperson – as opposed to an eco warrior – and thereafter glued her hands to a desk with super-glue. She was arrested after paramedics helped…
Tags: activist, bank, camp, change, chaos, climate, glue, headquarters, protest, protester, RBS, Royal, Scotland
Climate Change, Politics, Wildlife & Flora, Aug 19th, 2010,
In advance of a major UN meeting for the Convention on Biological Diversity, the organization’s secretary-general, Ahmed Djoghlaf, recently warned of the threats posed against the natural world – and life itself – by population growth, urbanization, agriculture and climate change. Despite these increasing threats and an ongoing mass extinction in the natural world, which is almost 1,000 times the normal ‘background’ rate, governments are simply not acting to preserve biodiversity and the overall health of the planet. No country has met its targets to protect nature. We are losing biodiversity at an unprecedented rate. If current levels [of destruction]…
Tags: Ahmed, biodiversity, biological, change, climate, convention, diversity, Djoghlaf, Nature, rainforest, threats, UN
Climate Change, Nature, Aug 15th, 2010,
The massive 160 square mile (414 sq km) ice island that broke off from Greenland’s Petermann glacier earlier this month is ‘certainly a manifestation of warming’ according to Dr. Richard Bates of the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. Andrews, a geophysicist, is part of a British-led expedition in Greenland, which is measuring glaciers including the Petermann. From an article in the Telegraph: Dr Richard Bates, who is monitoring the ice alongside researchers from America, said the expedition had expected to find evidence of melting this year after “abnormally high” temperatures in the area. Climate change experts say that globally it…
Tags: Bates, change, climate, glacier, greenland, ice, island, melt, Petermann, Richard, temperatures, warming
Climate Change, Nature, Aug 13th, 2010,
While individual events like heat waves, cold snaps, floods and droughts cannot be attributed to man made climate change on an individual basis, scientists at the World Meteorological Association (WMO) say global warming exacerbates the intensity of recent extreme weather. The floods in China, Pakistan and Afghanistan, the heat wave and resultant wild fires in Russia and the intense rain in central Europe all point to the fact that extreme weather events have tripled since 1980. From an article by Reuters: Recent extremes include mudslides in China and heat records from Finland to Kuwait — adding to evidence of a changing…
Tags: change, China, climate, events, extreme, fires, flooding, floods, global, heat, Pakistan, Russia, scientists, warming, wave, weather
Climate Change, Politics, Aug 8th, 2010,
According to representatives of both poor and rich nations, there has been no progress at the climate talks held in Bonn, Germany this past week. In fact there has been the opposite: regression and pessimism concerning potential progress. The EU climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard said she believes the negotiations have ‘gone backwards’. From a BBC News report: Unfortunately, what we have seen over and over this week is that some countries are walking back from progress made in Copenhagen, and what was agreed there. –chief US negotiator Jonathan Pershing Despite frustrating developments at Bonn and the aforementioned ‘negative Nancys’, Christiana…
Tags: Bonn, change, climate, copenhagen, Germany, pessimism, progress, talks
Climate Change, Politics, Aug 3rd, 2010,
Former UK Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband thinks the new coalition government’s energy policies are a ‘huge disappointment’ to industry and to the country. Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he? He’s in the shadow cabinet and that’s sort of their job. Yet it seems Miliband is indeed more pro-active in terms of helping green industry than his replacement, current Energy and Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne. From BBC News: On a range of issues such as wind power, renewable heat and the green investment bank the government was going “backwards not forwards” compared to the Labour administration,…
Tags: Cameron, change, Chris, climate, coalition, David, energy, environment, Geoffrey, government, Green, greenest, Huhne, Lean, Lib Dem, Miliband, secretary, Tory, UK
Climate Change, Science & Technology, Jul 30th, 2010,
A new Met Office report, compiled of several recent studies, documents what scientists consider undeniable evidence of a changing climate and warming planet. 10 indicators of global warming were incorporated in the report, including rising land and sea-surface temperatures, ocean heat, sea levels and humidity; and a reduction in Arctic sea ice, glaciers and springtime snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere. From an article in the Wall Street Journal: The State of the Climate 2009 report, published Wednesday as a special supplement to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, was compiled by 300 scientists from 48 countries and drew…
Tags: change, climate, evidence, global, hottest, indicators, Met Office, record, report, scientists, temperatures, warming
Climate Change, Politics, Jul 28th, 2010,
Cap and trade or emissions trading schemes can be confusing. They have been touted as the chief market-based solution for limiting greenhouse gas emissions, preserving valuable natural resources like forests, while making money for rich and poor countries alike. The far right and climate change skeptics hate them for obvious – and sometimes less obvious – reasons: they hate government meddling in the free market and regulating business and industry to the point that they believe in a vast ‘socialist’ conspiracy involving all prominent climate scientists. Or is it just a simple question of which class and which industries will…
Tags: activist, cap and trade, carbon, change, China, climate, copenhagen, Decodcidio, emissions, environmentalist, European, exchange, hacked, justice, market, scheme, social, trading
Climate Change, Wildlife & Flora, Jul 25th, 2010,
Butterflies in the UK are on the decline due to human activity and now the British public is being urged to participate in a nationwide survey called The Big Butterfly Count. During Save Our Butterflies Week – July 24th to August 1st – residents of the UK are asked to take 15 minutes to go out and count butterflies in cities, parks, forests and fields. But it’s not just because butterflies are pretty insects, they also play valuable roles in ecosystems and are seen as environmental bellwethers. From an article in the Guardian: Butterflies and moths are sensitive to environmental…
Tags: big, Britain, butterflies, butterfly, change, climate, count, damselflies, England, environmental, moth, survey, UK
Climate Change, Politics, Jul 21st, 2010,
The UK’s independent advisory body established under the Climate Change Act has stated that Britain needs to invest more in low carbon technologies in order to meet its goal of cutting 1990 emissions levels by 80% by the year 2050. The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) was established with the purpose of reporting to the UK’s parliament regarding the country’s progress in cutting greenhouse gas emissions. The fear is that Britain will be left behind if it does not fund technological development in green industries such as solar and wind. The CCC’s report comes after the UK’s new coalition government…
Tags: Britain, carbon, CCC, change, climate, committee, emissions, energy, government, Green, invest, low, Solar, tech, technologies, UK, wind
Climate Change, Health, Politics, Jul 20th, 2010,
During the last few days the British press has run some relatively prominent articles once again highlighting the correlation between meat eating and climate change, also resulting in a few additional commentary pieces and the usual backlash. Perhaps biggest of all is the Observer Food Monthly magazine’s OFM vegetarian recipe special edited by none other than the McCartney family (Sir Paul, Mary and Stella). Far from simply a collection of recipes – including several from Gwyneth Paltrow and other veggie celebs – the OFM special contains interviews with each of the three McCartneys, plus one piece that specifically connects environmentalism…
Tags: change, climate, Dominic, footsoldier, Kenya, Lady, Lawson, Lettuce, Lord, McCartney, meat, Observer, Paul, PETA, skeptic, vegetarian, vegetarianism, veggie
Climate Change, Politics, ,
Six nations pledged to either go carbon neutral or low carbon at a meeting this past weekend in the Maldives. All are developing countries and most are low-lying island nations, which are particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels resulting from climate change. Though these countries contribute almost nothing to climate change, their commitments to cutting greenhouse gases are a strong political statement in the lead-up to the UN climate change meetings in November and December in Mexico. The government of the Maldives issued this statement, as quoted in an AFP report: Antigua and Barbuda, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, the Maldives, the…
Tags: carbon, change, climate, Costa Rica, countries, developing, emissions, Ethiopia, greenhouse, island, Maldives, nations, neutral, sea levels, vulnerable
Green living, Health, Jul 16th, 2010,
A recent piece for The Ecologist, entitled ‘Biomass Britain: do fields of energy crops spell an end to grazing livestock’, explores the possibility of a revolution in the UK’s land use. 70-80% of land in the UK is used by the British livestock industry. The possibility of a near-complete shift from livestock farming to the growing of food crops and biomass for energy production may sound revolutionary to some and catastrophic to others. It would mean the de-industrialization of Britain’s meat industry and a 60-70% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, according to The Ecologist article. It’s a revolutionary vision that…
Tags: biomass, British, carbon, change, diet, emissions, energy, farming, forestry, industry, livestock, meat, Peel, plant, Scotland, Scottish, UK, wood
Climate Change, Conservation, Wildlife & Flora, Jul 12th, 2010,
Just as zoos underwent an image makeover in the 1990s from carnival-like places to gawk at exotic animals into ‘bastions of conservation,’ so are formal gardens similarly being re-branded. No longer just ornamental green urban escapes, the world’s leading botanical gardens are focusing on conservation and biodiversity. In a time when ecosystems and biodiversity are degrading at an alarming rate, formal gardens play an increasingly important role. Not only do they act as museums or places to conserve rare plants, but also as centers to build up plant species so that they might once again flourish in the wild. That’s…
Tags: assisted, biodiversity, botanic, botanical, botanist, change, climate, Conservation, formal, gardens, migration, plant, species, tree
Climate Change, Nature, Politics, Wildlife & Flora, Jun 9th, 2010,
2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity, under the auspices of the UN and the Convention on Biological Diversity. This week in Busan, South Korea, governments will meet to discuss the establishment of the Intergovernmental Panel of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, modeled after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Environmental groups and the governments of France and Japan champion the creation of such an organization. The need for recognition and knowledge about how humanity benefits from and depends on ecosystems is crucial to future development, sustainability and the integrity of the natural world. Simply put, we cannot exist by…
Tags: biodiversity, change, Climate change, ecosystem, EU, Europe, European, intergovernmental, platform, policy, UN
Climate Change, Politics, May 20th, 2010,
It seems to be the same old story when it comes to the prospects of a binding emissions deal happening in Cancun next November, or any time soon for that matter. India’s environment minister doesn’t think it will happen and China is not expected to impose limits their CO2 emissions. So far, non-legally binding commitments offer less than what is needed for the ‘crucial’ 2 degrees Celsius limit deemed necessary by scientists to avoid runaway climate change. From an AFP report: The Copenhagen accord called for nations to work together to stave off warming to 2.0 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit)…
Tags: Celsius, change, China, climate, deal, Earth, emissions, Stern, UN
