Home/Posts Tagged ‘Independent’
Posts Tagged ‘Independent’
Climate Change, Nature, Politics, Aug 20th, 2010,
The mismanagement of irrigation, compounded by drought and a drop in commodity prices, has spelled disaster for Australia’s most important agricultural region. The waters of the Darling River and the massive Murray irrigate a region that produces almost half of Australia’s fresh produce. But the worst drought in over 100 years has plunged the Murray-Darling Basin into crisis causing economic hardship and many farmers to pack up and leave. Australian climate scientists see the country as ‘extremely vulnerable’ to climate change and the Murray-Darling Basin as a ground zero for global warming. Climate change advisors to Australia’s government have warned…
Tags: agricultural, australia, Australian, Basin, climate, Climate change, Darling, drought, Independent, Kathy Marks, Murray, Murray-Darling, region, river
Politics, Aug 14th, 2010,
Workers in China don’t just have to fight ruthless parent corporations, oppressive subcontractors and draconian labor laws. They also have our insatiable desire for newer, cheaper and more cutting edge goods to contend with. Chinese factory workers, who build our mobile phones, laptop computers and plastic knickknacks, have long worked in conditions tantamount to slave labor. They often live in dormitories located on the factory grounds, which sleep ten to a room, where they are forbidden to cook, to have sex, listen to music or take showers. Talking is not allowed while working and breaks are non-existent. Shifts are around…
Tags: China, computers, corporations, factory, government, Hari, Independent, Johann, labor, phones, slave, Western, workers
Climate Change, Politics, Aug 4th, 2010,
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 it, as he explains in a recent article: Doing it yourself gives an unusual and vivid insight into the difficulties faced by real policymakers in grappling with our energy future. The software tool that makes it possible is called the 2050 Pathways Calculator…
Tags: Britain, carbon, Climate change, cuts, DECC, Department, emissions, energy, environmental, government, Green, Guardian, Independent, McCarthy, policy, power, schemes, UK, wind
Science & Technology, Weird Stuff, Jun 15th, 2010,
Scientists at the university of Colorado have discovered evidence that suggests that much of Mars was once covered by ocean. From an article by Australia’s ABC News: To test their theory Dr Hynek and Mr Di Achille used global databases of known deltaic deposits and valley networks, together with topography data from a laser altimeter aboard NASA’s Mars Observer spacecraft which is orbiting the red planet. If Mars had that much water 3.5 billion years ago, what happened to it? And did it once support life? While turning its sights towards Mars and Jupiter, NASA has turned away from the…
Tags: asteroid, Earth, Independent, Mars, moon, NASA, Obama, ocean, President, space
Climate Change, Science & Technology, Jun 2nd, 2010,
Marek Kohn is a British science writer who has written about topics including evolution and drug use. In his latest book, Turned Out Nice: How the British Isles will Change as the World Heats Up, Kohn takes on the topic of climate change and how Britain and Ireland might turn out after a century of global warming. A review in the Independent summarizes Kohn’s vision of London 2100′s: His account of London is sobering. The best guess is that the metropolis will become as much of a meteorological as a cultural hotspot, with summer temperatures regularly in the 40s. Parks…
Tags: 2100, book, Britain, climate, Climate change, future, global warming, hot, Independent, Kohn, london, Marek, park, science, Turned Out Nice
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,
Journalist Johann Hari is once again on the attack against the ties that bind environmental groups and big polluting corporations. (It’s all about money, in case you didn’t know). In a recent article for the Independent, Hari treads similar ground as he did in his piece for The Nation entitled ‘The Wrong Kind of Green’. Hari is consistently polemical and comes from a strong standpoint, but as usual, he makes very good points that hardly any other journalists are talking about. It has taken two decades for this relationship to become the norm among the big green organisations. Imagine this…
Tags: activists, corporations, deforest, environmental, Green, Hari, Independent, Johann
Climate Change, Mar 22nd, 2010,
Known as a city of smog, the Mexican capital of Mexico City has significantly cleaned up its act – with a little help from Mother Nature. From an article in the Independent: “The pollution problem is still there, but it is a fact that we have been fighting pollution for more than 20 years and the improvement is undeniable,” said Gustavo Alanis, with the NGO Mexican Center for Environmental Law. Favorable weather along with developments in transportation infrastructure, such as increasing bicycle traffic and revamping the city’s bus system, have helped improve air quality in the Mexican megacity. Another huge…
Tags: air quality, Britain, EU, Independent, Mexico City, nitrogen oxides, Pollution, UK
Climate Change, Politics, Feb 10th, 2010,
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' src='http://gf3.statico.be/wp-content/themes/greenfudge/thumbnails/7217.jpg' alt='skepticism-politics-and-profits' class='art-teaser' width='95' height='95' /> The current public ‘debate’ on climate science and global warming is for the most part essentially an ideological argument. Since climategate and ‘glaciergate’, the onslaught to discredit any scientist whose research supports ideas of anthropogenic global warming has grown noticeably. Yet those who are most vociferous in their denunciations of the IPCC, climate scientists and environmentalists as ‘warmists’ and ‘alarmists’ are usually not debating from a scientific standpoint, but from that of ideology or politics. Such propaganda wars seem to be lending support to groups that could be called ‘soft skeptics’, who are not flat out deniers of climate change…
Tags: climate, Climate change, debate, deniers, Exxon, ExxonMobil, Independent, oil, Politics, scientist, skeptics
Climate Change, Nature, Politics, ,
Malaysian palm oil lobbyists have apparently succeeded in keeping – and even increasing – the amount of biodiesel sourced from palm oil used in European cars and power plants. In an effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions, the European Commission’s Renewable Energy Directive (RED) requires 10% of fuels in the EU to come from renewable sources. Yet despite palm oil being technically renewable as a fuel source, its cultivation is a serious threat to rainforests and peatlands in Malaysia and Indonesia. On top of deforestation and the loss of ecosystems and species such as orangutans, the slash and burn methods…
Tags: biodiesel, biofuel, Brazil, European, greenhouse gas, Independent, Indonesia, Malaysia, palm, palm oil, rainforest, Renewable Energy Directive, sugar cane
Nature, Politics, Feb 8th, 2010,
Vedanta Resources plc, an India-based mining firm, has been the subject of much criticism from the press and activist groups – including Amnesty International and Survival International – due to questionable human rights and environmental practices. In October 2008, The Ecologist reported that the partly British-owned company was to establish a bauxite mine on a hill that is crucial to the survival of the Dongria Kondh, a tribal people living in the Indian state of Orissa. The Dongria Kondh people depend on the rich ecology of the hill, which is also central to tribe’s cultural and religious life. Halifax Pension…
Tags: British, Church of England, company, Dongria Kondh, ecologist, Independent, India, Indian, investments, mining, Orissa, shareholders, shares, Vedanta
Climate Change, Politics, Dec 16th, 2009,
The European Union has pledged ₤6.5 billion (€7.2 billion or $10.5 billion U.S.) in aid to the developing world in order to deal with climate change. The aid is considered ‘fast track’ and will be delivered to poor countries over the next 3 years. The largest contribution will come from the U.K., with Prime Minister Gordon Brown promising ₤1.5 billion, followed by France and Germany, who pledged ₤1.2 billion each. Though the multi-billion euro climate fund is welcome, such ‘fast track’ money should not be seen as a long-term solution, according to some activists: “Short term funding is necessary but…
Tags: Brown, Climate change, climate fund, developing world, George Soros, Gordon Brown, Independent, Soros
