Home/Posts Tagged ‘global’
Posts Tagged ‘global’
Climate Change, Politics, Feb 6th, 2012,
Europe’s commissioner for climate action, Connie Hedegaard, has stated that the current model for economic growth is not sustainable and could result in a global economic crisis if continued. Hedegaard equated the current Eurozone crisis with a future one of global scale. She said that economic models based solely on production and consumption are a recipe for failure and only serves to encourage overconsumption. Furthermore, the environment must be taken into account and these issues must be comprehensively addressed at the upcoming summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The summit in Rio this June takes place on the 20-year anniversary…
Tags: Climate change, crisis, economic, environmental, GDP, global, growth, Hedegaard, rio
Climate Change, Politics, Jan 30th, 2012,
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon’s High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability is presenting its report today in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to address global problems of growing inequality, economic instability and environmental crisis. The report, entitled Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A Future Worth Choosing ‘contains 56 recommendations to put sustainable development into practice and to mainstream it into economic policy as quickly as possible’. From the report: The signposts are clear: We need to change dramatically, beginning with how we think about our relationship to each other, to future generations, and to the eco-systems that support us. Our mission…
Tags: fossil fuels, global, report, Resilient People Resilient Planet, sustainability, UN
Climate Change, Politics, Nov 30th, 2011,
COP 17 updates, anyone? Anyone care about the future of the climate, planet Earth or its human and non-human inhabitants? No? Well neither do your leaders, apparently. Wo what are they doing there, anyway? One aspect of the climate summit in Durban, South Africa seems to be various large polluting countries balking at committing to reduce emissions unless every other country does. This effectively means that none of them really want to. Not enough to take a stand. Make no mistake: the rule of the day is economic self-interest. Brazil, China, India are not considered industrialized nations and want exemption…
Tags: China, climate, cop 17, Durban, emissions, EU, global, japan, kyoto, REDD, Russia, treaty
Climate Change, Politics, Sep 21st, 2010,
Is environmental writer/Guardian columnist George Monbiot getting all doom and gloom Dark Mountain on us? Well, maybe not quite, but he’s taken a decisive step in that direction. In his recent piece for the Guardian, entitled ‘Climate change enlightenment was fun while it lasted. But now it’s dead’, Monbiot laments the undeniable failure of legislation, global cooperation and civil society to tackle the problem of climate change. One of the loudest voices for British environmentalism has given up on the political machine he has tried for years to influence. Because it isn’t working. Anywhere. In fact things are just getting…
Tags: Climate change, Dark Mountain, failure, global, legislation, Monbiot, warming
Conservation, Green living, Wildlife & Flora, Sep 10th, 2010,
The global boom in sushi and overfishing have gone hand in hand for the last two decades. The tuna auctions, especially the Tsukiji in Tokyo, are a kind of Wall Street. There, each day, 2,000 tonnes of fish are sold, of which fifty of bluefin tuna are auctioned and sold at the price of gold. 80% of tuna caught and consumed in the world goes through Japan. Providing fresh seafood to industrialized countries has become a greedy business. Between 1995 and 2005, ten Mediterranean countries began to exploit their waters and soon after were joined by Japanese, Korean, Russian and South…
Tags: bluefin, fish, global, japan, stocks, sushi, tuna
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
Conservation, Politics, Science & Technology, Aug 10th, 2010,
As Russia’s crops wither and burn in record heat and wildfires, the oldest and first seed bank in the world is under threat. Russia’s Pavlovsk agricultural station, located outside of St. Petersburg, was established in 1926 with the purpose of preserving plant diversity and breeding new crops in response to potential food crises. During World War II’s siege of Leningrad, twelve Russian scientists starved to death rather than eat from the seed bank. Now private developers would see it destroyed to make way for new housing. From an article in the Guardian: More than 90% of the plants are found…
Tags: berries, biodiversity, crop, developers, diversity, global, Pavlovsk, property, Russia, Russian, seed bank
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, Science & Technology, Jul 24th, 2010,
Despite the recent economic downturn, the green energy market has grown to the point of eclipsing fossil fuel – at least in terms of the creation of new power capacity in Europe and the United States. In 2009 renewables accounted for over 50% of new power capacity in the US and 60% in the Europe. Green power also grew globally. From an article in Red Herring magazine: Nearly 80 GW of renewable power capacity was added globally, including 31 GW of hydro and 48 GW of non-hydro capacity. Wind power and solar PV additions totaled a record high of 38…
Tags: capacity, China, energy, global, Green, investment, North Sea, power, renewable, Solar, UK, UN, wind
Climate Change, Jul 17th, 2010,
June 2010 has gone on record as the hottest June since temperatures have been documented, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The scientific body’s National Climatic Data Center records go back to 1880 and also show the January-June and April-June periods to be the warmest ever recorded. Though temperatures were warmer than average throughout much of the globe, Peru, central and eastern US and both eastern and western Asia experienced the most markedly hotter temperatures. Southern China, Scandinavia and the northwestern US were actually cooler than average, as was Spain. From an AFP report: In June,…
Tags: ever, global, hottest, ice, June, NOAA, record, recorded, temperatures, US, warmer, warmest
Climate Change, Politics, Science & Technology, Jul 7th, 2010,
An analysis based on national emissions targets suggests that global temperatures will rise by 4C (7.2F) by 2100. Six months after over 100 governments pledged to limit their countries’ emissions in order to keep temperatures from rising more than 1.5-2C (2.7-3.6F) above pre-industrial levels a major international study of over 60 nations, called the Climate Scoreboard, has calculated that temperatures are set to double if current targets are held to. Another study by Climate Analytics, at the Potsdam Institute in Germany, suggests there is “virtually no chance” world governments will keep the temperature rise to below 2C, and the rise…
Tags: albedo, climate, Climate change, global, ice, melt, melting, NASA, polar, rise, satellite, sheet, snow, study, targets, temperatures
Climate Change, Green living, Politics, Jul 6th, 2010,
The UK-based 10:10 global campaign was founded in September of 2009 by the director of the environmental documentary film The Age of Stupid, Franny Armstrong. The idea of 10:10 is simple – to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 10% in 2010. This means everyone, on both individual and organizational levels – businesses, schools, religious organizations, sports clubs, hospitals and people – wasting less and saving more. Even the UK’s new coalition government, along with 9 other governments, has signed on. To those who say this is insignificant, remember this: the UK’s public sector has a bigger carbon footprint than the…
Tags: 10:10, campaign, carbon, Climate change, environment, gas, global, greenhouse, money, UK
Climate Change, Green living, Politics, Jun 26th, 2010,
The Guardian recently featured an opinion piece on the commodification of water, by Nestle bigwig and former CEO Peter Brabeck-Letmathe. The article basically questions the assumption that all water use should be considered a basic human right and argues that water use which goes ‘beyond basic sanitation, cooking and drinking’ should be charged for. The era of water at throwaway prices is coming to an end. I have long argued that we need to set a price that more accurately values our most precious commodity; the OECD and the World Bank are also moving in this direction, and have recently…
Tags: Brabeck-Letmathe, commodity, crisis, freshwater, global, Guardian, Nestle, Peter, resource, South Africa, water
Climate Change, Politics, Jun 23rd, 2010,
Back in 1989 UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher called on the UN for action against man-made global warming. Maggie warned that rapid increases in the use of fossil fuels, the rise of industrial agriculture and population growth were ‘a massive experiment’ on the planet. James Delingpole quotes Thatcher in a recent piece for the Telegraph: Recently three changes in atmospheric chemistry have become familiar subjects of concern. The first is the increase in the greenhouse gases—carbon dioxide, methane, and chlorofluorocarbons—which has led some to fear that we are creating a global heat trap which could lead to climatic instability. We…
Tags: Bob Ward, climate, Climate change, global, Left, Maggie, Margaret, Right, skeptic, Thatcher, warming, wing
Climate Change, Green living, Politics, Jun 7th, 2010,
According to the World Water Council, the use of renewable water resources increased six times during the 20th century, while the global population only tripled. As the amount of people on Earth increases into the 21st century – some 40 to 50% over the next 50 years – industrialization and urbanization will likewise grow, putting more strain on the environment and on global fresh water resources. But much of the world already lacks an adequate water supply and sanitation conditions. From the Pacific Institute: That 1.2 billion people lack access to clean water is surely one of the greatest development…
Tags: crisis, fresh, freshwater, global, global water crisis, resources, water, World
Climate Change, Politics, May 30th, 2010,
Belief in global warming plummeted amongst the British public after the climate change conference in Copenhagen last December, according to a BBC poll early this year. A similar poll commissioned by the London Times also showed increased skepticism regarding climate amongst those surveyed. Belief in climate change amongst scientists has not changed, but in the war of the press, the climate skeptics – often called climate deniers – did gain significant ground in Copenhagen’s wake. From a May 24th article in the New York Times: Two independent reviews later found no evidence that the East Anglia researchers had actively distorted…
Tags: climate, Climate change, copenhagen, environment, global, Guardian, Independent, poll, press, skepticism, skeptics, Telegraph, Times, UK, war, warming
Climate Change, Nature, Politics, May 28th, 2010,
At a UN climate conference in Oslo, Norway this week, nations agreed on an increase in aid from rich to poor countries to protect the Earth’s forests and curb global carbon emissions. UN figures state that deforestation and forest degradation are responsible for 17% global emissions. Preserving forests is widely regarded as the least expensive way to cut these emissions. From a Reuters report: The Oslo Climate and Forest Conference, attended by representatives of 52 countries, agreed on a non-binding framework to funnel aid promised by the rich world and set up monitoring standards to ensure money flows are based…
Tags: agreement, carbon, climate, conference, deforestation, degradation, emissions, forest, forests, global, IndonesiaI, Norway, Oslo, plan, REDD, UN
Green living, Weird Stuff, ,
Remember when you were a kid and loved to play with Legos? (Actually, I know quite a few adults that still collect them today). Over the years, pieces can go missing, sets become lost or broken and all that hard work (before the time of step-by-step, color-coded instruction manuals) amounts to nothing. Today, you might have a box or bag of Lego pieces in your attic, bedroom or basement and you may wonder what you could possibly do with them. You don’t have enough to build a house or a zoo exhibit, that’s for sure, and you certainly don’t want…
Tags: Dispatchwork Project, global, Jan Vormann, Legos, recycle, repair, reuse, toys
Climate Change, Nature, Wildlife & Flora, May 10th, 2010,
Economic growth and the quest for raw materials in developing nations are threatening to devastate global biodiversity, according to a forthcoming UN Global Biodiversity Outlook report. Ahmed Djoghlaf, head of the Convention on Biological Diversity is reported as claiming the current rate of extinction to be 1,000 times its ‘natural historical background rate’. From an article in the Telegraph: Population growth, pollution and the spread of Western-style consumption are also blamed for hitting plant and animal populations. The dangerous behavior already practiced by industrialized developed nations will increase dramatically as it is adopted by the developing world. China, India, Brazil…
Tags: animal, biodiversity, developing, extinction, global, nations, plant, report, species, UN
Climate Change, Politics, Science & Technology, Apr 1st, 2010,
The world’s current water crisis is driving countries with water shortages to build more desalination plants. As fresh water sources dry up and desalination technology becomes cheaper, the process of extracting fresh water from salt water is increasing in poorer countries such as India and Ghana, but also in wealthier nations and even in densely populated London, England – which is anything but dry. From an article in the Guardian: People do desalination when they run out of opportunities, and the problem is the world overall is running out of opportunities: groundwater is overexploited to the extent it’s becoming saline…
Tags: crisis, desal, desalination, expensive, global, water
