The rise and rise of water shortage
Over the past 2000 years, population increase has been four times more significant than climate change in the rise of water shortage. That’s according to researchers from Finland and The Netherlands, who have analysed population growth, climate data and water-resource availability.
“Moderate water shortage first appeared around 1800, but it commenced in earnest from about 1900 [...]
Forest carbon stores may be massively overestimated
Rainforests may store much less carbon than we thought. It could be time to dramatically revise our estimates following the discovery that apparently similar forests hold vastly different amounts of the stuff. The finding is important because there are plans for governments worldwide to compensate tropical countries for rotecting their forests as “carbon sinks” to [...]
Climate shifts ‘not to blame’ for African civil wars
Climate change is not responsible for civil wars in Africa, a study suggests. It challenges previous assumptions that environmental disasters, such as drought and prolonged heat waves, had played a part in triggering unrest. Instead, it says, traditional factors - such as poverty and social tensions - were often the main factors behind the outbreak [...]
New detailed map shows carbon in Peru’s Amazon
A new, highly detailed map of part of Peru’s Amazon shows how much climate-warming carbon is stored there, and where cutting down vegetation has sent this greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, scientists said on Monday. The three-dimensional map could help clear the way for an international agreement to curb deforestation and forest degradation, which account [...]
US company plans to ship fresh water from Alaska to India
Photo: Dipak Kumar/Reuters
Imagine an oil tanker plowing through the ocean, hauling valuable cargo from resource-rich nations of the world to the countries that need it: but instead of oil, the tanker holds millions of gallons of fresh water.
It’s not a vision from some futuristic film or doomsday novel, but the present-day intention of companies trying [...]
Migratory birds decline in UK due to low African rain
Photo:ALAMY
Ornithologists have found that species including the turtle dove, willow warbler, tree pipit and redstart are struggling to find enough food in the weeks before they set off in the spring to fly to the UK. The scientists believe that years of poor rainfall in sub-Saharan Africa have reduced supplies of the seeds, fruits and [...]
A climate warning from the deep
Photograph: British Antarctic Survey
Bryozoans make unlikely prophets of doom. Nevertheless, scientists believe these tiny marine creatures, which live glued to the side of boulders, rocks and other surfaces, reveal a disturbing aspect about Antarctica that has critical implications for understanding the impact of climate change.
British Antarctic Survey researchers have found the dispersal of these minute [...]
Temperature records to be made public
The UK Met Office is leading the project to create a new set of temperature records from around the world. The move is being seen as a response to criticism by global warming sceptics of the withholding of data used in climate change research. The records, taken from land-based temperature recording stations around the world, will [...]
UN debuts website for tracking climate aid
Due to drought and lack of green grass for their cattles, Turkana pastoralist women are migrating in the area of Lorengippi, Northern Kenya. Developing countries are hoping for more ‘climate aid’ from rich countries. Photograph: Roger Job
The UN has today launched a new website designed to track climate funding commitments from industrialised countries in a [...]
U.S. reiterates commitment to 2020 climate goal
The United States reiterated on Friday that it was committed to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 even though the Senate has failed to pass legislation. “I am in no sense writing off legislation over time. And I’m quite sure the president isn’t,” U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern told a news conference during two days [...]
Amazon river level in Peru at 40-year low
The Amazon river has dropped to its lowest level in 40 years in north-eastern Peru, causing severe economic disruption in a region where it is the main transport route. At least six large boats have been stranded near the port city of Iquitos. The low water level is the result of a prolonged spell of [...]
Openness urged on UK’s emissions
The UK government’s chief environment scientist has called for more openness in admitting Britain’s apparent cuts in greenhouse gases are an illusion. Robert Watson says that if emissions “embedded” in imported goods are counted, UK emissions are up, not down. He says the same syndrome is true for other rich nations which offshored manufacturing industry. [...]
Tibetan nomads struggle as grasslands disappear from the roof of the world
Like generations of Tibetan nomads before him, Phuntsok Dorje makes a living raising yaks and other livestock on the vast alpine grasslands that provide a thatch on the roof of the world. But in recent years the vegetation around his home, the Tibetan plateau, has been destroyed by rising temperatures, excess livestock and plagues of [...]
Financing said vital for world climate change deal
A global fund to help poorer countries switch to green industrial technology is vital in any new international pact to battle global warming, Switzerland’s top climate change negotiator said on Wednesday. The official, Franz Perrez, was speaking at a news conference on the eve of a two-day gathering of environmental ministers and experts from some [...]
U.N. to study impact of incomplete climate action
The U.N. panel of climate scientists will look at the costs of “second best” ways of fighting global warming amid doubts that all countries will sign up to U.N.-led action, a leading expert said on Tuesday. Ottmar Edenhofer, co-chair of the U.N. working group looking at the economics of global warming, said the last U.N. [...]
Arctic ice: Less than meets the eye
The ice may not retreat as much as feared this year, but what remains may be more rotten than robust. Last September September, David Barber was on board the Canadian icebreaker CCGS Amundsen, heading into the Beaufort Sea, north of Alaska. He was part of a team investigating ice conditions in autumn, the time when [...]
Ellen MacArthur: ‘I can’t live with the sea any more’
The round the world record holder explains why she has turned her back on the sea to crusade for the planet.
Article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/sailing/7966301/Ellen-MacArthur-I-cant-live-with-the-sea-any-more.html
which concludes: Though she loves children – the Ellen MacArthur Trust is dedicated to helping those with cancer – she says it is “not in her mind” to start a family of her own. [...]
How do parking lots affect the environment?
Automobiles are parked for roughly 95% of their lifetimes yet we know little about how parking spaces affect the environment. Using five different approaches, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, US, determined that there are between 105 million and 2 billion parking spaces in the US for roughly 300 million vehicles. The energy consumed [...]
Why failure of climate summit would herald global catastrophe: 3.5°
Coastal megacities like Shanghai, and low-lying regions of countries such as Pakistan (above) are most at risk from rising sea levels Photo: AP
The world is heading for the next major climate change conference in Cancun later this year on course for global warming of up to 3.5C in the coming century, a series of scientific [...]
Japan plans to bind large firms to CO2 caps
Japan’s compulsory emissions trading scheme is set to start in April 2013 and cover large CO2 emitting companies, a draft of the government’s proposals showed on Monday, but several issues are still open to debate. The draft, obtained by Reuters, will be presented on Tuesday to an expert committee at the Environment Ministry, which aims [...]
UK: Housebuilders to win reduced carbon target for homes
One of the UK’s most radical environmental policies – requiring all new homes from 2016 to be “zero carbon” – is set to be scaled back amid pressure from the housebuilding industry. Builders claim the proposals would be too expensive and impossible to implement for many flats, and would result in a slump in the [...]
UN climate change panel to be warned over reports
Photo: CORBIS
A review of the practices of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been conducted in response to intense criticism of the body, whose reports are used by governments to inform policy decisions on global warming. The findings of the review are due to be handed to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon [...]
Good Companies Guide: easing the planet’s growing pains will help business to profit
A few diehards in the City still think sustainability is just for sandal-wearers. But how we deal with the major ecological and social challenges facing the world will have enormous implications for the global economy and for the prospects of the UK’s leading companies. It will also have an impact on the pension savings and [...]
How James Lovelock introduced Gaia to an unsuspecting world
(James Lovelock is of course one of our patrons)
Photo: Corbis
Once in a generation, perhaps, you get to read a book that will change the way we see the world. But it might take a whole generation to realise by how much. My copy of Gaia is a first edition from 1979: hardback price £4.95 (and [...]
Coffee threatened by beetles in a warming world
The highlands of southwestern Ethiopia should be ideal for growing coffee. After all, this is the region where coffee first originated hundreds of years ago. But although coffee remains Ethiopia’s number one export, the nation’s coffee farmers have been struggling.
The Arabica coffee grown in Ethiopia and Latin America is an especially climate-sensitive crop. It requires [...]
Russia counts the cost of drought and wildfires
The extreme heatwave, which caused a severe drought and wildfires in Russia, might be over, but both officials and consumers are now busy calculating its cost and trying to work out its consequences. Russian deputy economy minister, Andrei Klepach, said earlier this week that the drought would take up to 0.8% off this year’s economic [...]
Time to blame climate change for extreme weather?
IT IS time to start asking the hard questions. Countless people in flood-stricken Pakistan have lost families and livelihoods. Who can they hold responsible and turn to for reparations?
Less than a decade ago, these questions would have been dismissed outright. “Many scientists at the time said that you can never blame an individual weather event [...]
Seeing a Time (Soon) When We’ll All Be Dieting [Book review]
Fifty years ago, a billion people were undernourished or starving; the number is about the same today. That’s actually progress, since a billion represented a third of the human race then, and “only” a sixth now. Today we have another worry: roughly the same number of people eat too much. But, says Julian Cribb, a [...]
Securing water resources in rural Kenya
Lack of rainfall can lead to poverty, food shortages, disease and gender inequality in rural areas. Climate change may further exacerbate the situation. Managing water resources better might help communities adapt to future climate change but this requires understanding of the hydro-climatic system in a given area. For example, we need to better understand how [...]
Europe’s coasts: reconciling development and conservation
In some cases it was their sheer beauty that led to development, in others economic potential. Whatever the causes, coastal regions today host almost half of the inhabitants of EU countries with a sea border. They host homes and workplaces, industries, holiday destinations and recreation areas. With an immense variety of habitats, ranging from salt-adapted [...]
Deluges after the deluge
The Pakistani crisis is already one of the very first order. Some 20 million people have been left homeless, along a path of destruction of more than 600 miles. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has even compared the challenges the country now faces to those during the 1947 partition of the subcontinent in which around [...]
Australian kingmakers consider climate change position
Independent MPs are today meeting to discuss whether action on climate change should be a condition of any king-making deal with Labor or the Liberal-led coalition as horse-trading begins in the wake of Saturday’s inconclusive Australian election. Rob Oakeshott, Bob Katter and Tony Windsor are aiming to decide what demands should be presented to the [...]
Rising temperatures reducing ability of plants to absorb carbon, study warns
Rising temperatures in the past decade have reduced the ability of the world’s plants to soak up carbon from the atmosphere, scientists said [on Thursday 19 August]. Large-scale droughts have wiped out plants that would have otherwise absorbed an amount of carbon equivalent to Britain’s annual man-made greenhouse-gas emissions.
Scientists measure the amount of atmospheric carbon [...]
Putin ponders climate change in Arctic Russia
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin travelled beyond the Arctic Circle on Monday to look into evidence for climate change after a record heatwave ravaged central Russia this summer. Putin, who has in the past displayed a light-hearted approach to global warming by joking Russians would have to buy fewer fur coats, flew to a scientific [...]
Fuel of the future: The new power generation
The Royal Bank of Scotland might at first seem an unusual focus for climate change activists’ ire. But since last Thursday, members of Climate Camp have been campaigning outside their headquarters in Edinburgh. The reason? They are protesting over the huge loans the bank has provided to oil companies, oil being one of the biggest [...]
We’ve gone into the ecological red
Climate scientists believe extreme weather events like the recent flooding in Pakistan will become more frequent. Photograph: Mohammad Sajjad/AP
At the weekend, Saturday 21 August to be precise, the world as a whole went into “ecological debt”. That means in effect that from now until the end of the year, humanity will be consuming more natural [...]
Britain prepares for mackerel war with Iceland and Faroe Islands
Photograph: H Taillard/Corbis
It’s summer, and off the coast of Britain anglers are enjoying a blue-grey abundance of mackerel. Barbecued, smoked, or baked in cider, this firm favourite provides a seasonal guilt-free treat, certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). But in a dispute echoing the cod wars of the 1970s, Britain and the [...]
Peak oil alarm revealed by secret official talks
Photo: Tatan Syuflana/AP
Speculation that government ministers are far more concerned about a future supply crunch than they have admitted has been fuelled by the revelation that they are canvassing views from industry and the scientific community about “peak oil”. The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) is also refusing to hand over policy documents [...]
Afghanistan and African nations at greatest risk from world food shortages
Pakistan’s devastating floods highlight how climate change is having “a profound effect on global food security”. Photograph: Horace Murray/Reuters
Soaring commodity prices and natural disasters in Russia and Pakistan have combined to put African nations and conflict-ridden countries such as Afghanistan most at risk from food shortages, according to a report released today. Sharp price rises [...]
Extreme weather fails to heat up climate debate
We’ve had so much record heat around the world lately that the records themselves are setting records: 17 nations have reached new temperature highs, a new record for records in a year. Pakistan hit (129F) 54C, a new record for all of Asia. Moscow had never hit 100F (38C) before; lately it’s been a rare [...]
On the frontline of climate change
Getty Images
Irrigated by one of the world’s mightiest river systems, the Murray-Darling Basin yields nearly half of Australia’s fresh produce. But the basin is ailing, and scientists fear that as climate change grips the driest inhabited continent, its main foodbowl could become a global warming ground zero. The signs are already ominous: in the Riverland, [...]
Green machine: Fighting the efficiency fallacies
Which is the more effective way to reduce your household’s carbon footprint – turn off lights and appliances when you are not using them, or switch to more energy efficient devices? Environmental experts say the latter will have a far greater impact on the greenhouse gas emissions that your home is responsible for, but research [...]
Soaring temps cause mass coral killing in Indonesia: study
A dramatic spike in ocean temperatures off Indonesia’s Aceh province has killed large areas of coral and scientists fear the event could be much larger than first thought and one of the worst in the region’s history. The coral bleaching — whitening due to heat driving out the algae living within the coral tissues — [...]
Increase in ‘warm water’ dolphins off North East England coast
The white-beaked dolphin winters off the North East coast
Warmer seas could be responsible for a change in the type of dolphins spotted off the coast of the North East of England, a survey has suggested. The North East Cetacean Project found an increase in sightings of common, bottlenose and Risso’s dolphins - species associated with [...]
Cornwall Wave Hub cable laying halted
A multi-million pound project to create a testing platform for wave energy devices in Cornwall has ground to a halt. Engineers have postponed plans to float the copper cable ashore after it sank, raising fears it could become enmeshed on the seabed. The cable, which was 650ft (200m) from land on Thursday evening, will now [...]
Antibacterial socks may boost greenhouse emissions
Antibacterial nanoparticles may have more of an impact on the environment than we thought, including potentially raising levels of greenhouse gases. Silver nanoparticles are used as an antibacterial agent in a wide range of products, from odour-free socks to wound-healing bandages (see diagram). They can find their way into waste water, and have been shown to [...]
Will the Pakistan floods strike again?
Scientific analysis and discussion: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-10958760
Australia can easily cut CO2 and keep growing - business
Australia, one of the world’s top carbon polluters, can cut carbon emissions by at least 15 percent by 2020 without hurting its economy, business leaders at a climate conference said on Thursday. By espousing the right policies, the country could cut its emissions by 25 percent by 2020, the conference heard. A price on carbon [...]
Greenland ice sheet faces ‘tipping point in 10 years’
The entire ice mass of Greenland will disappear from the world map if temperatures rise by as little as 2C, with severe consequences for the rest of the world, a panel of scientists told Congress today. Greenland shed its largest chunk of ice in nearly half a century last week, and faces an even grimmer [...]
Frozen jet stream links Pakistan floods, Russian fires
Raging wildfires in western Russia have reportedly doubled average daily death rates in Moscow. Diluvial rains over northern Pakistan are surging south – the UN reports that 6 million have been affected by the resulting floods. It now seems that these two apparently disconnected events have a common cause. They are linked to the heatwave that [...]
Climate change ‘partly to blame’ for sweltering Moscow
Global climate change is partly to blame for the abnormally hot and dry weather in Moscow, cloaked in a haze of smoke from wildfires, say researchers. The UK Met Office said there are likely to be more extreme high temperatures in the future. Experts from the environmental group WWF Russia have also linked climate change [...]
Hotter nights threaten food security - rice at risk
Production of rice — the world’s most important crop for ensuring food security and addressing poverty — will be thwarted as temperatures increase in rice-growing areas with continued climate change, according to a new studyby an international team of scientists. The research team found evidence that the net impact of projected temperature increases will be [...]
The world’s first really green oil deal
The Tiputini river on the border of Ecuador’s Yasuni National Park, which is threatened by oil drilling. Photo: EPA
The world’s first genuinely green energy deal is about to be sealed. In a plan which could be a blueprint for saving large tracts of the planet from exploitation, a greater value is being put on a [...]
Australians change their mind about climate change
Fewer Australians believe that humans are responsible for climate change, but despite this, the market for environmentally friendly products such as LED bulbs is growing and manufacturers are releasing increasingly innovative and eco-friendly products.
An August 6 report by Gallup Worldview has revealed that while Australians are still concerned about climate change, fewer blame it on [...]
Huge ice island calves off Greenland glacier
An ice island four times the size of Manhattan broke off from one of Greenland’s two main glaciers, scientists said on Friday, in the biggest such event in the Arctic in nearly 50 years. The new ice island, which broke off on Thursday, will enter a remote place called the Nares Strait, about 620 miles [...]
Climate change could destroy 80 per cent of rainforest by next century
Lee Foster/Alamy
Rainforests currently hold more than half of all the plant and animal species on Earth. However, scientists say the combined effects of climate change and deforestation may force them to adapt, move, or die. By 2100, this could have altered two-thirds of the rainforests in Central and South America, about 70 per cent in Africa. [...]
Pakistan: Floods send food prices higher
Women outside a store in the town of Mianwali, in the northwestern part of Punjab Province, stand in mud up to their shins - mud left behind by floodwater which has now begun to recede - waiting to buy wheat flour, but are annoyed by the small quantities being doled out. “They are selling just [...]
Wheat prices soar in Russia drought
Wheat prices have hit a two-year high as Russia cut its grain harvest forecast by millions of tonnes following its worst drought for decades. The harsh weather has destroyed one-fifth of the wheat crop in Russia, which is currently the world’s third major exporter of the grain. Alexander Belyayev, the deputy agriculture minister, said this [...]
China overtakes US as world’s biggest energy consumer
Declarations of love do not get much more highly charged than the one Zhao Xiuxia received from her husband recently on an LED screen bigger than a football pitch. “Dear wife, I adore you. You work so hard for our family. Let’s struggle together for a better life,” scrolled the giant letters on an electronic [...]
US Environmental Protection Agency rejects challenges to labelling carbon emissions a pollutant
US climate sceptic lobbyists’ attempts to stop greenhouse gas emissions from being labelled as a pollutant were last week rejected by The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Climater sceptics and coal lobby groups, including the Peabody Energy Company, had challenged the EPA’s ruling from December 2009 that climate change caused by GHG emissions was a [...]
Mediterranean marine life in greatest peril, census shows
A dragon fish. Photograph: Dr. Julian Finn/Museum Victoria/PA
Marine life in the Mediterranean faces the greatest risk of damage and death, the Census of Marine Life shows. “Enclosed seas have the risk that, when you impact it and throw chemicals or other garbage into it, it will not go away so easily as it will from [...]
Australia agriculture faces climate upheaval: scientist
Land available for agriculture in Australia, one of the world’s largest food exporters, is in danger of shrinking because of climate change, a leading scientist said on Tuesday. More grain was also likely to be grown in the north as climate change cuts production in the drier south with more marginal areas turned over to [...]
Ice-free Arctic won’t soak up more carbon
To date there’s been one small grain of comfort for scientists facing the prospect of a seasonally ice-free Arctic. They’ve believed that the new expanses of open water in the summer would absorb more carbon dioxide, going some way to limit warming. But now researchers from the US, China, Korea, Japan and Canada have found [...]
Warming world: A clearer picture of global warming since the 1850s
CHARTS showing the warming of the Earth normally look like spaghetti thrown across the page. This chart, adapted from a compendious “State of the climate” report published by America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration this week, simplifies things by offering only decadal averages, and making clear the uncertainties by showing the 95% confidence ranges on [...]
UK house insurance premiums to rise dramatically as climate change increases flood risk
Climate change will increase the risk of flooding in the UK, which could lead to dramatic rises in insurance premiums for homeowners and businesses and make some areas of the country uninsurable, the Association of British Insurers has warned. “Flood risk is the main catastrophic risk in the UK and we know that climate change will [...]
Global warming pushes 2010 temperatures to record highs
A Pakistani boy cools off as temperatures reached 51C in a heatwave last month. Photograph: MK Chaudhry/EPA
Global temperatures in the first half of the year were the hottest since records began more than a century ago, according to two of the world’s leading climate research centres. Scientists have also released what they described as the [...]
Global warming blamed for 40 per cent decline in the ocean’s phytoplankton
A large bloom of phytoplankton - which has been described as ‘the basis of life in the oceans’ - floating in the north-eastern Atlantic, as seen from space
The microscopic plants that support all life in the oceans are dying off at a dramatic rate, according to a study that has documented for the first [...]
Ten key indicators show global warming “undeniable”
Melting glaciers, more humid air and eight other key indicators show that global warming is undeniable, scientists said on Wednesday, citing a new comprehensive review of the last decade of climate data. Without addressing why this is happening, the researchers said there was no doubt that every decade on Earth since the 1980s has been [...]
Spain sees temperatures rising 3 to 6 degrees by 2100
Spanish daytime temperatures will rise by an average of between 3 and 6 degrees Celsius by 2100, and rainfall will tumble to 15-30 percent of recent levels, according to forecasts on Tuesday by the Met Office. The Met Office said it produced the forecasts in order to plan for the impact of climate change. “Madrid [...]
China Three Gorges flooding set to peak
China says flood waters at the Three Gorges Dam will peak within the next 24 hours, after torrential rain further up the Yangtze river over the weekend. More heavy rain is expected in parts of southern China from now until Thursday.News has only just emerged of a bridge collapse in Henan province on Saturday in [...]
Is agriculture the next big investment thing?
Hedge funds, with billions of pounds in assets, are recklessly gambling on food prices, with speculators driving massive price volatility that threatens the most vulnerable people on the planet. That’s the view of the World Development Movement (WDM), which issued a damning report this week arguing for a regulatory clampdown on hedge funds and banks [...]
US Senate drops bill to cap carbon emissions
A major climate change bill that would have capped carbon emissions has been abandoned by Democrats in the US Senate in the face of opposition from both sides of the house. Under pressure from falling popularity ratings, Barack Obama had hoped the bill would add to the two biggest legislative successes of his presidency: the [...]
UK seas cleaner but getting warmer and higher: government
Britain’s coasts have become cleaner but sea levels and temperatures are rising due to climate change, a government report said on Wednesday. The five-year study by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) examined how climate change has affected sea levels and temperatures, species in the sea and pollution. The report includes evidence [...]
An evil atmosphere is forming around geoengineering
In 1892 Edvard Munch witnessed a blood-red sunset over Oslo, Norway. Shaken by it, he wrote in his diary that he felt “a great, unending scream piercing through nature”. The incident inspired him to create his most famous painting, The Scream. The striking sunset was probably caused by the eruption of Krakatoa, which sent a [...]
Climate change creating ’super marmots’ that are bigger and more abundant
A marmot in the Rocky Mountains. Photo: Alamy
Scientists claim longer summers have led to marmots - which are ground-dwelling ’squirrels’ - waking up earlier from hibernation, giving them more time to reproduce and gain weight before the next hibernation period. The population is also increasing in size because marmots are reproducing earlier so their offspring [...]
Damselflies in distress forced back to UK by climate change
Photo: Dave Smallshire
Damselflies don’t sound like they’d do anything as dramatic as invading anywhere, and the dainty damselfly sounds like it would do so least of all. But that’s what’s happening in southern England, as several species of these delicate, smaller relatives of the dragonflies cross over from the continent and start establishing populations here. [...]
British seas: More fish, cleaner and greater biodiversity, says Defra
Thousands of holidaymakers heading to British beaches this summer will be cheered by a major government report into the state of the UK’s seas. Coastal waters are getting cleaner, fish stocks are improving and species diversity in estuaries is increasing, according to the most authoritative examination ever carried out of UK seas. But while the [...]
First half 2010 hottest ever, but is it climate change?
The first six months of 2010 brought a string of warmest-ever global temperatures, but connecting these dots to long-term climate change patterns remains frustratingly difficult, experts say. Not only was last month the hottest June ever recorded, it was the fourth consecutive month in which the standing high mark was topped, according to the US [...]
Climate change threatens poverty fight, report warns
Climate change threatens to undo years of work to tackle poverty in developing countries, a report warned today. The study by Forum for the Future and supported by the Department for International Development (DFID) said strong, urgent action was needed in poor countries to address the impacts of climate change alongside efforts to boost economic [...]
Scientist urges government to address ‘peak phosphate’ risk
Peak oil presents the world with an energy crisis once supplies start to dwindle any time from 2015. But another growing crisis is looming, with potentially devastating consequences for the world’s food supply.
Phosphorous is an essential nutrient for plant growth, along with nitrogen and potassium. It is a key component [...]
UK needs to invest more in low-carbon technologies
(Reuters) - Britain needs to invest more in low-carbon technologies to reach its goal of cutting harmful greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050, a climate advisory body to the government said Monday.
The UK aims to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050 from 1990 levels to [...]
10 ways vegetarianism can help save the planet
The average British carnivore eats more than 11,000 animals in their lifetime, each requiring vast amounts of land, fuel and water to reach the plate. It’s time to think of waste as well as taste
If we really want to reduce the human impact on the environment, the simplest and cheapest thing anyone [...]
Waste Britain: UK’s emissions could be cut at flick of a switch
Simple measures such as turning electrical appliances off at the mains and installing energy-efficient lightbulbs could slash the UK’s carbon dioxide emissions by about 40 megatonnes a year, or up to one third, according to new research which says that cutting electricity consumption is up to 60 per cent more effective [...]
Comparative photos of Mount Everest ‘confirm ice loss’
Photos taken by a mountaineer on Everest from the same spot where similar pictures were taken in 1921 have revealed an “alarming” ice loss.
The Asia Society (AS) arranged for the pictures to be taken in exactly the same place where British climber George Mallory took photos in 1921.
“The photographs reveal a [...]
Britons urged to count trees to fight climate change
(Reuters) - A British museum is urging the public to record trees in parks, streets and gardens as part of a three-year survey to uncover how climate change is affecting the environment.
London’s Natural History Museum is enlisting the public’s help to locate, identify and count trees to find out which [...]
Hudson Bay polar bears ‘could soon be extinct’
Polar bears in the Hudson Bay area of Canada are likely to die out in the next three decades, possibly sooner, as global warming melts more Arctic ice and thus reduces their hunting opportunities, according to Canadian biologists.
The animals in western Hudson Bay, one of 19 discrete sub-populations of the species [...]
Tropical butterflies join polar bear on climate threat list
Species in tropical regions could suffer as much impact from climate change as those at higher latitudes. That’s according to scientists at Stanford University, US, who looked at how well animals and plants have evolved to cope with variations in temperature and rainfall.
Doxocopa pavon
“Polar bears have become an icon for [...]
Cooling caused wars and drought in China
(Reuters) - As Chinese policymakers grapple with an expected increase in extreme weather due to global warming, a study has found that periods of cooling between AD 10 to 1900 also caused a wave of disasters, war and upheaval.
Droughts and locust plagues caused by cooler spells probably triggered internal wars, [...]
Indian Ocean sea level rise threatens millions
(Reuters) - Sea levels are rising unevenly in the Indian Ocean, placing millions at risk along low-lying coastlines in Bangladesh, Indonesia and Sri Lanka, scientists say in a study.
Researchers from the University of Colorado and the National Center for Atmospheric Research say the rising sea levels are caused in part [...]
Insight: carbon dioxide suppresses increase in rainfall
As the Earth warms, we expect changes in rainfall and associated alterations in the frequency and strength of droughts and flooding. These will be difficult to predict, so understanding how rainfall responds to different aspects of climate change – such as increases in greenhouse gases and surface-temperature changes – will [...]
Is straw the building material of the future?
Straw houses could help to cut carbon emissions – and new research proves that they won’t blow down
Building his house of straw didn’t do the first little pig any favours, but a modern take on straw-bale construction may well be the grand design of the future if results coming out of the [...]
Feeling the heat: Unlocking the Arctic’s frozen secrets
Forecasts suggest that this year will see the amount of sea ice in the Arctic retreat to one of the lowest extents since satellite records began. So what will be the impact of an Arctic devoid of sea-ice during the summer in the future? Science writer Richard Hollingham has joined a [...]
Egypt plans 100MW solar power plant
Second major solar plant announced as country edges towards target of generating 20 per cent of energy from renewables by 2020
The Egyptian Electricity Ministry has unveiled plans to build a new $700m 100MW solar power plant between 2012 and 2017 that should further establish the country as one of the leading [...]
‘Soulless corporations are the enemy of the environment,’ says Pavan Sukhdev
It is up to society and its leaders to ensure that companies do not become cancerous, says leading UN official
Modern businesses are “soulless corporations” that are in danger of becoming a “cancer” on society, a leading UN environmental official warns today.
Companies usually take a short-term view of the importance of the [...]
Rising sea drives Panama islanders to mainland
Panama (Reuters) - Rising seas from global warming, coming after years of coral reef destruction, are forcing thousands of indigenous Panamanians to leave their ancestral homes on low-lying Caribbean islands.
Seasonal winds, storms and high tides combine to submerge the tiny islands, crowded with huts of yellow cane and faded palm [...]
Air pollution comes under scrutiny
You might not be able to see it but you will almost certainly feel it at some point in your life. Air pollution is on the rise, bringing with it a whole host of health problems and altering the world’s weather and climate. For Gregory Carmichael, an atmospheric chemist at the [...]
Carbon emissions by local authority
For the first time the carbon emissions of every local authority have been released. Find out how yours does
Data released today slices up the 8.3 million tonne carbon footprint of local authorities’ buildings and transport - equivalent to 1.6 per cent of the UK’s CO2 emissions in 2008 - in England [...]
European Union could cut emissions by 95% with renewables – Greenpeace
Report by Greenpeace International and European Renewable Energy Council says savings would outweigh €2tn investment
A Welsh windfarm. Renewables could supply 92% of European Union energy, according to the Greenpeace International report. Photograph: Alamy
The European Union could obtain 92% of its energy from renewable sources such as wind and solar by [...]
What’s the carbon footprint of … the Iraq war?
In addition to all its other impacts, the Iraq war has caused huge amount of carbon pollution.
The carbon footprint of war:
690 million tonnes CO2e: a ‘limited’ nuclear exchange
250–600 million tonnes CO2e: the Iraq war since 2003
The direct human costs of wars are so great that it might seem flippant to think [...]
Regulation is holding back green power, says Drax
Europe’s biggest coal-fired power station is calling for changes to the Government’s renewable energy regulations to enable Drax to convert one of its six coal generators to run on biomass.
Engineers are set to start work converting the facilities immediately and the green generator could be up and running within 18 months. [...]