At best we will limit the extent of global warming, but Kyoto barely helps. Does humanity have the foresight to save itself?
Sometimes we need to think the unthinkable, particularly when dealing with a problem as dangerous as climate change - there is no room for dogma when considering the future habitability of our planet. It was in this spirit that I and a panel of other specialists in climate, economics and policy-making met under the aegis of the Stockholm Network thinktank to map out future scenarios for how international policy might evolve - and what the eventual impact might be on the earth’s climate. We came up with three alternative visions of the future, and asked experts at the Met Office Hadley Centre to run them through its climate models to give each a projected temperature rise. The results were both surprising, and profoundly disturbing.
James Hansen, director of the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, makes the 20th anniversary of his groundbraeking statement to Congress by saying there’s no time left to delay in defusing the global warming time bomb.
Tomorrow I will testify to Congress about global warming, 20 years after my 23 June 1988 testimony, which alerted the public that global warming was underway. There are striking similarities between then and now, but one big difference.
Unless we reduce our current CO2 emissions from 387 parts per million (ppm) to below 350ppm we will not avoid catastrophic climate change, says NASA’s Jim Hansen.
Meanwhile international negotiations seek to set a ceiling of 450ppm, while carbon emissions continue to rise rapidly.
This IS without a doubt the greatest challenge our civilisation had ever known. More and more information is emerging daily about the threat to our world as we know it.
I don’t believe in scare mongering and I loathe negativity. However there comes a time when the facts “ must out”. We need to know. We need to understand and…yes…we need to “ feel the fear and do it anyway”. But what can we do? It’s such a huge beast. So intangible.
The UK’s food supply could be at risk from threats such as climate change, high oil prices and terrorism, it has been claimed.
The Conservatives said self-sufficiency in producing meet, fresh vegetables and eggs has declined in the past decade. Leaving the country more vulnerable to external impacts such as terrorism, population increase and global warming.
According to figures obtained by the Tories, the proportion of fresh vegetables we use that are grown in the UK is down from 70% in 1997 to 58% last year, while the figure for pork has dropped from 118% to 69%.
Feeling down. Just a tad overwhelmed by the latest on the credit crunch,prices, global warming overwhelm? Do yourself a favour. Just spend four minutes watching this..
Last week, we flooded the European Parliament with tens of thousands of emails and phone calls in the hours before the crucial vote on the EU climate and energy package — and it worked! Congratulations! We successfully beat back the industry lobbyists and won a package better than many had hoped for.[1]
But incredibly this victory could be short lived — sign off by the heads of Europe’s governments is required at this Wednesday’s EU summit. And with the financial crisis topping the agenda, there are worrying signs that Europe’s leaders will step back from both the Parliament’s vote and their own earlier commitments.[2] Read More »
Pierre Rabhi is one of the most eminent ecologists of our time
He was born in Algeria, the son of a blacksmith and brought up by a European couple. He received a French education, at the same time staying in touch with his North African roots.
During the Algerian war he worked in Paris but left, with his French wife, to settle in the Ardeche region.
On discovering organic agriculture he started to apply his findings on his small farm, with a heard of goats, growing crops on the arid, rocky slopes of southern Ardeche.
Eva, tell me a little about yourself. How did it all begin?
For the last few years I’ve been trying to take action, meaningful action on Climate Change. For some year’s I’d had the feeling of concern about the environment and the impact our culture in the West is having on it.
As I grew up more and more information became available about how bad things were and I just felt overwhelmed. I went into despair because I hadn’t learnt to take action and for me that’s what makes the difference.
I think that if you ‘take on’ the situation with the environment without also taking action it gets very depressing.
