Monday, 20 July 2009
ANU Climate Change Institute » Report: Climate Change 2009 - Faster Change and More Serious Risks
Today the Australian Government Department of Climate Change released a new report prepared by Professor Will Steffen. The report draws on the science of climate change since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fourth Assessment Report which was released in 2007.
Download the new report here: Climate Change 2009: Faster Change and More Serious Risks
Download Prof Steffen’s 2001-2005 report: Stronger Evidence but New Challenges
For further information follow link to Dept of Climate Change website
Dept of Climate Change FAQ’s: Climate Change Science - Frequently Asked Questions
Follow link to Senator the Hon Penny Wong’s Press Release 9 July 2009
See ABC news reports and audio on G8 response to climate change
ABC reporter Sabra Lane’s report and interview with Prof Steffen on the World Today on 9 July 09
The Australian National University website homepage report
ANU Climate Change Institute » Report: Climate Change 2009 - Faster Change and More Serious Risks
Huge Earthquake Strikes Single Building in 'Shake Test' - Science News | Science & Technology | Technology News - FOXNews.com
At midnight in Japan on Tuesday, July 14, one of the worst earthquakes in human history took place in Miki City.
But the massive quake — which measured a 7.5 on the Richter scale — only struck one building, a seven-story wooden structure exposed to a simulated earthquake inside a Japanese laboratory. Happily for the U.S. engineers who designed the building, it did not fall down.
The full-scale building sat on a metal shake table that rocked it violently back and forth.
The table, designed to hold up to 2.5 million pounds, reproduced forces based on those recorded at a 1994 earthquake at Northridge, Calif., but scaled up by 180 percent to simulate an earthquake so violent it would only occur on average once every 2,500 years.
"We have more hungry people in the world, than we ever had in the history of human kind." | EarthTrends
"After decades of progress fighting global hunger, the last few years have seen a precipitous increase in the number of hungry people in the world. Kostas Stamoulis, the Secretary General of the Committee on World Food Security, puts it starkly, "we have more hungry people in the world [today], than we ever had in the history of human kind." The recent trend in hunger, shown in Figure 1, projects a historic high in 2009 with 1,020 million people going hungry every day. (FAO, 2009) "No part of the world is immune. All world regions have been affected by the rise of food insecurity," states FAO's Director-General Jacques Diouf. Two years ago the hunger rate also began to rise; meaning the number of hungry people grew faster than world population. These latest figures are not encouraging for the Millennium Development Goal of halving, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.
Tuesday, 14 July 2009
Save the Planet – Manchester Report
Manchester Report: Carbon capture plants part-fired with wood
Staffan Gortz explains the potential of carbon capture and storage plants that burn a mix of coal and wood
Manchester Report: Adding lime to the sea Tim Kruger explains how putting lime into the oceans could stop or even reverse the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere
Manchester Report: Thorium nuclear power Kirk Sorensen explains how the nuclear energy fuel thorium could replace coal to meet our energy needs
Manchester Report: Energy bonds Tim Helweg-Larsen explains how energy bonds could be used to fund Britain's renewables revolution
Manchester Report: Carbon conversations Rosemary Randall explains how psychology and emotion are key to driving the behavioural change needed to reduce our carbon footprints
Manchester Report: Biochar Laurens Rademakers explains how turning crop wastes and other biomass into charcoal and spreading it on tropical soils can sequester carbon and boost crop productivity
Manchester Report: Giant algae stomachs Mark Capron explains how kelp and algae farmed at sea can be digested in a giant underwater 'stomach' to create fuel and bury carbon
Manchester Report: Hydrogen fuel cell cars Hugo Spowers explains how hydrogen fuel cell-powered cars can lower transport emissions
Manchester Report: Solar power Jeremy Leggett explains how solar photovoltaic technology is poised to become the fastest-growing energy market in the world
Manchester Report: Ceramic fuel cells Mike Mason explains how domestic fuel cells can efficiently and cheaply provide electricity and hot water
Manchester Report: Efficient cooking stoves Peter Scott explains how simple and inexpensive biomass cooking stoves can slash emissions, save forests and avoid lung disease
Manchester Report: Cloud-making ships Stephen Salter explains how ships spraying minuscule droplets of seawater into the air could create clouds that would reflect more solar energy and reverse global warming
Manchester Report: Regenerating grasslands Tony Lovell explains how grazing cattle in a way that imitates the movements of wild herds could lock huge quantities of CO2 into the world's dry soils
Manchester Report: Concentrated solar power Gerry Wolff explains how concentrating solar power in deserts could supply enough electricity to power the whole of Europe
Manchester Report: New indicators of human development Andrew Simms explains why we need to stop measuring the success of our economy and develop new indicators that reflect the ecological efficiency with which we deliver long and happy lives
Latest environment video | Environment | guardian.co.uk
Monday, 13 July 2009
RUSSIAN GAS SUPPLIES
7th January 2009 Who's to blame for the gas crisis in Europe? Rado report:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7815000/7815199.stm 8th January 2009 Bulgaria feeling the impact of gas cut offs, TV report:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7818086.stm14th January 2009 Russian gas now floowing to the EU, TV report:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7827851.stm
17th January 2009 How gas crisis is hurting Europe, TV report:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7834854.stm18th January 2009, a deal between Russian and Ukraine, TV report:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7835951.stm
20th January 2009, report on radio about the restoration of supplies:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7839000/7839479.stm
Excellent A2 blog also look at ENERGY Label
BBC NEWS | World | At a glance: G8 summit agenda
The Italian town of L'Aquila is welcoming leaders of the G8 group of industrialised nations for its annual summit, just three months after it was hit by a strong earthquake.
Here are some of the topics they will be discussing:
India prays for rain as water wars break out | World news | The Observer
The monsoon is late, the wells are running dry and in the teeming city of Bhopal, water supply is now a deadly issue. Gethin Chamberlain reports
India prays for rain as water wars break out | World news | The Observer
Saturday, 4 July 2009
OECD Factbook eXplorer for analysing country statistics
A new online tool puts the power of information in the hands of anyone who's interested, and turns data into animation.
Video availabe from the BBC here
Britain 74th in world happiness rankings - Telegraph
Costa Rica is the greenest and happiest country on the planet, according to the rankings developed by think tank the New Economics Foundation, followed by the Dominican Republic and Jamaica.
The UK comes in at 74 out of 143 countries behind post-Soviet Georgia at 72, the military dictatorship Burma at 39 and Sri Lanka, which has been scarred by civil war, at 22.
The highest ranking country in the EU was the Netherlands at 43 followed by France at 71 and Germany at 51.
The United States, was ranked at 114, Canada at 89 and Australia at 102. Zimbabwe and other poor African nations, where life expectancy and happiness is low, came bottom of the table.
Economists said the richer countries came lower in the ranking because of the high carbon footprint of the population, measured by looking at how much of the world's resources people consume per capita.
Levels of life satisfaction, calculated from a worldwide poll, were also not necessarily high in rich countries where violence and inequality continue to be a problem.
In the UK the low ranking was largely due to social problems or what has been labelled "broken Britain" and the high carbon footprint of most of the population.
If everyone in the world wanted to live as people do in the UK, it would require the resources of more than three earths.
Nick Marks, who devised the rankings, said that there are still high levels of inequality in the UK as well as community breakdown and unhealthy lifestyles.
"There are a lot of people who are unhappy particularly at the lower income end of the spectrum but it is not only financial inequality, it is the longer working week, a lack of social cohesion through a sense of belonginess to the community or the geographic area, indebtedness, low levels of volunteering and more passive lifestyles," he said.
He urged politicians to pay more attention to life satisfaction over GDP.
"The big message of these rankings is that we have to produce a system that makes people happier without costing the earth," he said.
Defra, UK - UK Climate Projections
A concerted programme of action in response to climate change is being pursued across the Government, led by DECC and Defra.
Starting with the publication by Defra of the latest UK Climate Projections, Ministers will this summer set out the building blocks of a ‘five point plan’ designed both to reduce emissions at home and abroad and to protect and prepare for the changes that are already inevitable.
Manchester Report: Plans for renewable energy bonds among 20 climate ideas to save the world | Environment | guardian.co.uk
The British public could invest their savings in the UK's renewable energy revolution and reap the financial rewards of helping to save the planet, under ambitious plans to be discussed this weekend.The Public Interest Research Centre, a thinktank based in Wales, says the government could sell "energy bonds" to pay for the required investment. The scheme would be similar to war bonds, which galvanised financial support in Britain during the second world war.
The idea is one of 20 radical solutions to the threat of global warming to be proposed during presentations this weekend in Manchester. The event, organised by the Guardian and the Manchester International festival, will publish a report on the ideas, which will be distributed ahead of key UN talks on a new climate treaty in Copenhagen in December.
6 climate plans1 . Methanol 2. Algal Fuels 3. Ocean cloud seeding 4. Bio char 5.Global population control 6. Energy Bonds
Fears for the world's poor countries as the rich grab land to grow food | Environment | The Guardian
The acquisition of farmland from the world's poor by rich countries and international corporations is accelerating at an alarming rate, with an area half the size of Europe's farmland targeted in the last six months, reports from UN officials and agriculture experts say.
New reports from the UN and analysts in India, Washington and London estimate that at least 30m hectares is being acquired to grow food for countries such as China and the Gulf states who cannot produce enough for their populations. According to the UN, the trend is accelerating and could severely impair the ability of poor countries to feed themselves
Fears for the world's poor countries as the rich grab land to grow food | Environment | The Guardian
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