Control Climate Change

News in Brief

WASHINGTON - U.S. President George W. Bush kicks off the second day of a conference on global warming on Friday under pressure from the world's major economies to accept binding limits on emissions of greenhouse gases.  Bush called the meeting as a precursor to United Nations talks in Bali in December, which will aim to launch a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty that set limits on industrial nations' emissions. Environmentalists said the conference produced nothing new and was an attempt to circumvent U.N. efforts on climate change, a charge Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice denied.

NAUTLA, Mexico (Reuters) - Hurricane Lorenzo crashed into Mexico's Gulf coast on Friday, killing three people in a mudslide and knocking out power to 85,000 homes.

In the coastal fishing town of Nautla, Lorenzo's 80 mph (130 kph) winds ripped off bits of roofs, blew down trees and scattered debris in the streets.

"It hit us hard and there is an incredible amount of rain," said Mayra Castro, 29, a waitress who spent the night mopping up water that leaked into her house through windows and under doors.

MIAMI (Reuters) - Tropical Storm Melissa formed in the Atlantic Ocean on Saturday but posed no immediate threat to land, while Tropical Depression Karen weakened, the National Hurricane Center said.

As of 11 a.m. EDT, Melissa was about 300 miles

west of the Cape Verde Islands, moving northwest at eight miles per hour (13 kilometers per hour) with winds of 40 mph, the hurricane center said.

"Little change in strength is forecast during the next 24 hours," the center's advisory said.

Santa Barbara, California - Santa Barbara, California - Researchers have discovered large undersea forests of endangered kelp in areas previously thought to be bare of the plant, in the tropics.  Using a computer model, researchers believe they've located nearly 10,000 square miles of areas that could harbor the plant.  "The ecosystems that form in these cold, deep pockets beneath warm tropical waters look more like their cousins in California than the tropical reefs just 200 feet above," said co-author Brian Kinlan, a researcher with UC Santa Barbara's Marine Science Institute. "It is very similar to what we see when we climb a high mountain. For example, high alpine country in California looks more like Alaska."

Quebec, Canada - Analyses conducted by researchers from Université Laval’s Center for Northern Studies reveal that aquatic life in Ward Hunt Lake, the continent’s northernmost lake, is affected by climate change.

Ward Hunt Lake is a body of water located on a small island north of Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic, has undergone major transformations within the last two centuries. The speed and range of these transformations—unprecedented in the lake’s last 8,000 years—suggest that climate change related to human activity could be at the source of this phenomenon.

The researchers’ conclusions are based on the analysis of a sediment core extracted in the center of Ward Hunt Lake in August 2003. This 18 centimeter long sediment core containing algae pigments and diatom remnants was used by the researchers as a biological archive in order to determine the diversity and abundance of aquatic life-forms in the lake over the last 8,450 years.

The Group - The International Civil Aviation Organisation - is run by the UN and is supposed to set global rules for the aviation industry. It has recently asked Governments not to impose air fuel taxes and refused to set carbon emission standards on planes. It gets my annual Ostrich Award for sticking its head in sand. Until it admits that we need to fly less nobody will take it seriously.

On Friday I did an interview for the BBC about Burma.

There is only one country that we responsibletravel.com has a policy of not marketing as a tourism destination and that is Burma. We market holidays to many countries with poor human rights records and so you might ask why we make a special case of Burma?

1. The democratically elected leader - Aung San Suu Kyi - has in the past stated that she does not feel that it is helpful for tourists to visit the country. She has never made it known that she has changed her mind on this matter. It is extremely unusual for tourism to be singled out in this way.

2. The UK and EU Governments are advising against British businesses investing in Burma. We do not want to undermine our Governments positions on this by sending tourists.

3. We believe that slave labour has been used to create tourists facilities, and that local people removed from these places without adequate consultation or compensation.

4. I would not want someone to travel to Burma at great expense and then wonder if it was right that they were there.

It's a very tough decision to make but I believe that these arguments are more important that the fact that is is possible to travel to Burma and do so in a way which would provide an income for local people. One day I hope to market holidays to a a free, fair and democratic Burma - I hear its a truly remarkable place.

WASHINGTON - U.S. President George W. Bush kicks off the second day of a conference on global warming on Friday under pressure from the world's major economies to accept binding limits on emissions of greenhouse gases.  Bush called the meeting as a precursor to United Nations talks in Bali in December, which will aim to launch a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty that set limits on industrial nations' emissions. Environmentalists said the conference produced nothing new and was an attempt to circumvent U.N. efforts on climate change, a charge Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice denied.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Lorenzo was downgraded to a tropical storm over Mexico on Friday hours after it swept ashore as a Category 1 hurricane, dumping heavy rain on the already waterlogged state of Veracruz.  Lorenzo lost force after it made landfall near the Gulf of Mexico port city of Tuxpan, and its maximum wind speed had dropped to 65 mph (100 kph) by 5 a.m. EDT (0900 GMT), the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.  The storm was not seen affecting Mexico's oil production but around 100,000 people living between Tuxpan and the town of Nautla further south were evacuated to storm shelters.

OSLO- A record melt of Arctic summer sea ice this month may be a sign that global warming is reaching a critical trigger point that could accelerate the northern thaw, some scientists say. "The reason so much (of the Arctic ice) went suddenly is that it is hitting a tipping point that we have been warning about for the past few years," James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told Reuters. The Arctic summer sea ice shrank by more than 20 percent below the previous 2005 record low in mid-September to 4.13 million sq km (1.6 million sq miles), according to a 30-year satellite record. It has now frozen out to 4.2 million sq km.

WASHINGTON - U.S. drivers would pay a 50-cent tax on each gallon of gasoline they pump to encourage less fuel use and cut greenhouse gas emissions, under draft legislation to fight global warming released on Thursday. "In order or reduce greenhouse gas emissions and make the planet safe and healthy for future generations it will take a significant investment from all of us," said Rep. John Dingell, the powerful chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. "A fee on carbon emissions requires a tithe from all citizens and industries, but no one entity will be unfairly leveled with a devastating burden," Dingell said about his climate change proposal.

The UK's biggest power companies are failing to show leadership on climate change and to adopt cleaner business models to deliver a sustainable low-carbon UK economy, according to two new reports commissioned by WWF-UK. The reports compare the climate change targets and policies of the six biggest power companies.RWE npower and EDF Energy performed poorly in both reports, showing the least progress in addressing climate change issues.

NAUTLA, Mexico (Reuters) - Hurricane Lorenzo crashed into Mexico's Gulf coast on Friday, killing three people in a mudslide and knocking out power to 85,000 homes.

In the coastal fishing town of Nautla, Lorenzo's 80 mph (130 kph) winds ripped off bits of roofs, blew down trees and scattered debris in the streets.

"It hit us hard and there is an incredible amount of rain," said Mayra Castro, 29, a waitress who spent the night mopping up water that leaked into her house through windows and under doors.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Even as Tropical Storm Karen weakened over the central Atlantic on Friday, weather models showed the storm could turn westward toward Puerto Rico or the East Coast of North America over the next five days.

Elsewhere in the Atlantic, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said Tropical Depression 14 formed about 210 miles southwest of the Cape Verde Islands.

Karen, meanwhile, was about 805 miles east-northeast of the Windward Islands of Dominica, Martinique, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent, the Grenadines and Grenada at about 11 a.m. EDT, the NHC said in a report.

It was too soon to say where, if at all, either storm would make landfall.

SAN JOSE and SANTA CLARA, Calif., - SunPower Corporation, a manufacturer of high-efficiency solar cells, solar panels and solar systems, and Agilent Technologies today announced they'll install a 1-megawatt solar tracking system at Agilent's Santa Rosa, Calif., campus on top of a canopy structure in the campus parking lot, providing both shade in the lot and solar electric power for the facility. A lot of power.

The SunPower Tracker, which follows the sun's movement throughout the day. Using SunPower solar panels, the highest efficiency panels on the market today, the system is expected to generate an estimated 1.8 million kilowatt-hours per year, offsetting more than 33 million pounds of carbon dioxide over the next 30 years. This is equivalent to planting more than 4,700 acres of trees or removing 3,300 cars from California's roadways.

Recycling Versus Precycling

Recycling is an important part of the environmental movement, and people everywhere are accomplishing more and more of it as public awareness continues to grow.

But there is a new effort under way in the recycling world – one that requires more thought than action. It’s called precycling.

It has the power to preserve natural resources, as well as reduce demands on landfills. Precycling even has the power to remove toxic materials from store shelves. It involves reducing the amount of waste created every day by carefully choosing items at the store.

By thinking about how products are packaged while walking store aisles, consumers’ purchases can greatly reduce the amount of packaging that soon ends up in the trash.

When considering a product’s nutritional value, also consider its packaging. Is is made of recycled materials? Does its packaging make environmental sense?

With consumers consistently making these choices, manufacturers will continue to modify and perfect the way they package their products.

Although both are necessary tools for protecting the environment, precycling is more efficient than recycling. It makes everyone accountable for their actions long before recycling is even necessary.

Precycling gives consumers environmental clout by urging them to think before they buy, which in turn forces companies to think before they produce.

Already there are plenty of companies involved in precycling. Procter & Gamble and Lever Brothers are both reducing the amount of their packaging, as well as using recycled plastic for their products.

Another retailer, Target, has created an environmental program for its children’s department. And Price Pfister is touting the water conservation features of its new water faucets. The list goes on.

Of course, recycling and conservation efforts are still vital to the health of the environment. But now, precycling has given both the environmental movement and the business world a powerful new tool to use in promoting that health.

By Kevin Graham

A review of history shows that climate change occurs in the course of development. It is both an environment issue and a development issue. But ultimately, it is a development issue. As pointed out in the United Nations framework convention on climate change, most of historical and current global emissions of greenhouse gases originated in developed countries, while per capita emissions in developing countries are still relatively low. The share of global emissions originating in developing countries will grow as they work to meet their social and development needs. To prevent climate change from endangering human survival ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Sept. 28, 2007 -- BP became a founding member of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Energy Initiative this week to explore energy conversion of low-carbon feedstocks.

HARTFORD, Conn., Sept. 28, 2007 -- ING announced this week its intent to buy enough renewable wind energy to power its U.S. operations as part of its bid to become carbon neutral by the end of the year.

NEW YORK, Sept. 28, 2007 -- The nation's largest retailed promised to only sell concentrated liquid laundry detergent to save water, plastic and cardboard. The move is one of several high-profile commitments made at the third Annual Meeting of the Clinton Climate Initiative.

Unprecedented warm temperatures in the High Arctic this past summer were so extreme that researchers with a Queen’s-led climate change project have begun revising their forecasts.

“Everything has changed dramatically in the watershed we observed,” reports Geography professor Scott Lamoureux, the leader of an International Polar Year project announced yesterday in Nunavut by Indian and Northern Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl. “It’s something we’d envisioned for the future – but to see it happening now is quite remarkable.”

LONG BEACH, California (Reuters) - Two of the nation's biggest power companies are teaming up with a solar start-up to create one of the world's largest solar power projects, which they say could make electricity at a competitive price.

PG&E Corp, FPL Corp and solar thermal power generator Ausra Inc unveiled plans on Thursday for utility-scale solar plants which they claim will produce electricity at a price comparable with conventional fossil-fuel power plants.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Tropical Storm Lorenzo formed in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday and headed for the Mexican coast but was unlikely to affect oil production in the area.

Lorenzo will probably hit the coastline on Friday in the state of Veracruz. It had wind speeds of 60 mph (95 kph) and showed no sign of reaching hurricane strength.

"No significant change in strength is forecast during the next 24 hours" the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

SILVER SPRING, Md. - NOAA's National Weather Service will begin issuing more geographically specific warnings for tornadoes, severe thunderstorms, floods, and marine hazards starting October 1. The new "storm-based warnings" will allow forecasters to pinpoint the specific area where the threats are highest, reducing the area warned by as much as 70 percent when compared to today's county-by-county system.

 

The best part of the London Design Festival is the surprise of discovering something new and wonderful. This show, The New World, Design from Five Continents, is sponsored by the British Council, an agency promoting international design links. And international it is--Heath Nash from South Africa, Paula Dib from Brazil and Padmaja Krishnan from India, plus Slovenian and Mexican designers. Both Nash and Dib have been written about in treehugger and it is thrilling to see their work in the flesh. Nash is a South African who works in recycled...

AP - Myth: The president refuses to admit that climate change is real and that humans are a factor. Myth: The U.S. is doing nothing to address climate change. Myth: The United States refuses to engage internationally.

AFP - US President George W. Bush was to make a rare sortie into the climate-change arena on Friday, making a closely-watched speech at his forum gathering the world's 16 biggest greenhouse-gas polluters.

Here's your deep breath for the day. A chance to step back and consider. Filmmaker Larry Huntington shares the great power of nature at the Iguazu Waterfall on the border of Argentina and Brazil. (US, 2005, Short, 6min). You've still got until September 29th to enter your film in the Wild & Scenic Film Festival

Don't put a bombardier beetle in your mouth, or like Charles Darwin, you may find out the hard way how they got the name 'bombardier'. The bombardier beetle can rapidly spray a noxious 100°C (212°F) liquid when it is peeved. Not only can it conjure a boiling liquid on demand but the spray mechanism is no small engineering feat, using a chamber less than one millimeter long the beetle can control the direction, consistency, and rapidity of their defensive spray. Andy McIntosh, Professor of Thermodynamics and Combustion Theory at the University of Leeds was certainly impressed:

"Nobody had studied the beetle f...