Climate change, ecology, nature, environment, eco-friendly politics, non-profit projects, human rights, preservation, wildlife... all that we care about.
You might think you can do a better job than the UK government at cutting CO2, becoming more energy efficient and deciding how Britain should move towards a low carbon economy.
Well the UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change let’s you try it out – in a computer simulation, of course.
The Independent’s environment editor loves [...]
Last week I posted Bill Maher’s recent rant on climate change denial. Now it’s comedian, occasional columnist and star of Peep Show David Mitchell’s turn to vent on climate change, which he does so in his regular Guardian video feature ‘David Mitchell’s Soap Box’.
As usual with anything related to climate change in the Guardian, there [...]
Since I eat a banana almost every day I admit I’ve dreaded cutting down or giving them up based on the fact that they are not a local food and therefore not environmentally right-on. I naturally assumed they were not energy efficient due to their having to be shipped from Costa Rica or some such [...]
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 [...]
Anti-consumerism activist and DIY filmmaker Annie Leonard spent 10 years looking into the lifecycle of consumer goods. Her short, web-based film, ‘The Story of Stuff’ has been watched over 10 million times and has recently been made into a book, further detailing Annie’s extensive research into the cycle of production, consumption and disposal that has [...]
Writer and activist Naomi Klein describes in a piece for the Guardian how an overconfident BP recklessly endangered the environment and human culture of the Gulf of Mexico, believing there to be ‘little risk’ of disaster. Even if a spill will to occur, BP believed, it would be minor and easily manageable.
Now that a real [...]
Mark Boyle, aka No Money Man, has been living out of an old donated caravan on an organic farm outside of Bristol, England for over a year and a half. He eats well, keeps fit, grows vegetables and forages for necessities. He also keeps up a blog and occasionally writes for the Guardian. He’s even [...]
On Tuesday, President Barack Obama addressed the American people on national television, live from the Oval Office, in an attempt to inform and assure the nation about efforts to deal with the United States’ largest environmental disaster ever. He also urged support for a move away from fossil fuels and towards a reliance on renewable [...]
A new survey of UK residents conducted by the University of Cardiff shows that public acceptance of climate change is alive and well in Britain.
From an article in the Guardian:
The survey showed that almost three-quarters (71%) of Britons are concerned about climate change. Some 78% think the climate is changing, which is down from 91% [...]
Christopher Monckton, aka Third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, is a loud critical voice in the highly politicized publicity war against mainstream climate science in the UK. A former journalist who worked in Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government during the 1980s, Monckton also favored compulsory AIDS testing for the entire population and lifetime quarantine for those with [...]
The Guardian reports that BP has placed a cap on the broken end of the leaking wellhead in the Gulf of Mexico in order to capture escaping oil and collect it on ships above the shattered well:
The placement of the containment cap is another positive development in BP’s most recent attempt to contain the leak, [...]
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 [...]
The Chinese government is adopting an incentives scheme to preserve the Asian giant’s fragile forests and biodiversity. According to the new legislation, wealthy urbanized regions in China will be obliged to compensate areas that preserve their natural riches, notably forests that sequester carbon.
This figure – which takes into account carbon sequestration, water conservation, biodiversity protection [...]
Yesterday the Queen gave her speech to formally open Parliament. The Queen’s Speech sets out the UK government’s proposals for new laws and policies.
Included in the Queen’s Speech was the new government’s energy bill, known as the Energy Security and Green Economy Bill, from the Department for Energy and Climate Change. It is credited to [...]
Earlier this month Caroline Lucas made history by becoming the Green Party’s first Member of Parliament (MP) in the UK House of Commons. Lucas represents the constituency of Brighton Pavilion, on the south coast of England. She is also the head of the Green Party of England and Wales and was a Member of the [...]
Arctic temperatures have risen twice as fast in recent decades as temps in the rest of the world. Melting sea ice – considered part of a positive feedback loop – as well as wind, cloud and ocean current changes have been suspected of driving this rapid warming, known as Arctic amplification.
A positive feedback loop is [...]
In terms of development and environment, global capitalism can be compared to a dinner where a rich few eat all the food and leave the bill with their poor, unwilling hosts after tossing a stingy tip and some dinner notes onto the table.
The colonized, indigenous and poorest peoples of the world are the ones who [...]
Bolivia has been hosting an international summit, named the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, in the city of Cochabamba. The talks began on the 19th and finish today.
From a report by the Environmental News Service:
More than 20,000 indigenous, environmental and civil society delegates from 129 countries were in [...]
Though some flight restrictions are still in place due to remaining concerns about the ash cloud over Europe, most airspace has reopened. Now airlines face the massive task of getting hundreds of thousands of passengers home. Combine this with the criticisms already being directed towards European governments and the airline industry; and the possibility that [...]
Just as areas of European airspace was set to reopen for air traffic, Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano began erupting anew, sending more ash into skies over Europe.
According to a CNN report, half of European flights were set to resume, with major airports in France and Germany operating significant amounts of flights. Norway briefly allowed flights from [...]
The death toll from the earthquakes that struck western China last Wednesday has passed 1,700. The quakes occurred in Qinghai province, a mainly Tibetan region of the country; and resulted in 1,706 deaths and 12,128 injured with 256 still missing according to a piece in Sunday’s Guardian.
Yesterday, China’s president Hu Jintao visited Qinghai and promised [...]
The Telegraph reports that the ash cloud from Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano that lingers over much of Europe could continue to be blown over the UK until Friday, but specific conditions will depend on wind directions and the height of the ash plume.
An article in the Guardian tells of how the UK government is attempting to [...]
Nearly all flights in UK airspace are grounded until Saturday at 01:00 since eruptions of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano on Iceland yesterday began sending vast amounts of ash into skies across Scandinavia and the British Isles.
Some 17,000 flights are likely to be cancelled across Europe today.
According to a report from BBC News, ‘airspace of the Netherlands, [...]
As China’s economy grows, so does the amount of rubbish it produces – by 10% each year. The Chinese government is struggling to keep up with the consumer society its economic policies have created. The resulting dumps and landfills – both official and illegal – are an ever-increasing blight on the country’s growing metropolitan areas.
One [...]
The world’s wealth, science and tech are increasingly concentrated in so-called ‘mega-regions’ – the merging of large cities into industrialized and urbanized areas of over 100 million inhabitants. According to a UN-Habitat report, mega-regions already exist in Japan, Brazil and China – the largest being the Hong Kong-Shenhzen-Guangzhou region – and are forming in Africa [...]
The buzz around London’s new Strata SE1 skyscraper isn’t coming from the 3 wind turbines that crown its razor-like pinnacle, but from the attention this futuristic piece of architecture is garnering.
The tower is part of a project to regenerate the central London neighborhood of Elephant and Castle. The rejuvenation project has been praised by a [...]
The much-anticipated novel on climate change from the man known as ‘England’s national author’ is finally hitting the shelves.
Solar by Ian McEwan follows a Nobel laureate physicist named Michael Beardwell, who later becomes a green energy entrepreneur. According to a review in Saturday’s Guardian by Christopher Tayler, Solar is a timely, yet non-preachy story set [...]
Species extinction is a hot issue. All the reasonably decent papers, TV nature shows and news programs are running stories on bluefin tuna, African elephants, tigers and fluffy polar bears more than ever before. Heck, the New York Times even ran a story about the greater sage grouse – a plains bird from the American [...]
British companies with financial ties to Canada’s controversial tar sands oil operations will face considerable pressure this week from UK environmental lobbies and investors with ethical concerns.
The tar sands of Alberta, Canada are the world’s largest deposits of bitumen, a heavy, black form of crude oil extracted via surface mining. Generally considered to be of [...]
A British government adviser has warned that major changes in land management are necessary to deal with the effects of climate change and a growing population over the next 50 years.
Professor John Beddington, who is chief scientific adviser to the UK government, warned of ‘competing issues’ that without proper management – including an integration of [...]
