Category: Climate chaos
The atmosphere is to the earth as a layer of varnish is to a desktop globe. It is thin, fragile and essential for preserving the items on the surface.150 years of burning fossil fuel have overloaded the atmosphere to the point where the earth is ill. It now has a fever. Read the detailed article, Soothing Gaia’s Fever for an evocative account of that analogy. The items listed here detail progress on coordinating 6.5 billion people in the most critical project undertaken by humanity.Â
admin /22 February, 2009
Well respected author and publisher, Geoffrey Heard, wrote last week that the Royal Commission into the Victorian Bushfires must recognise that the fires are a symptom of climate change andmake addressing the underlying cause of climate change the top priority in protecting the state against further such events. “We are not in dought,” he wrote, “we are in a well forecast and well documented general drying of the south-east of [Australia]. He also noted that the reuse and recycling of water, as well as the expansion of forested areas around existing water catchments is critical to protect the drinking supply from the impacts of both fires and their underlying cause, climate change.
admin /15 February, 2009
Ministers should prepare the British people to “adapt” in the longer term to a landscape devastated by climate change, including the possible abandonment of parts of London and East Anglia, a leading industry body warns today . Action to curb carbon emissions is failing, so the UK should immediately change the way it designs buildings, Continue Reading →
admin /15 February, 2009
Award winning NASA scientist, James Hansen, has described coal-fired power plants as ‘factories of death’ and the trains carrying coal as ‘death trains.’ Writing in the UK Guardian last week, he said that the Australian government was elected on the promise to act on climate change but is ‘not a green government it is black, the colour of death’. His article describes the reactions of British, German, Australian and United States leaders to his pleas to take swift action on climate change. He wrote that the science has crystalised in the last three years and it is now unambiguous that we face a major emergency and must act before it is too late. World leaders are in denial, he says.
admin /8 February, 2009
Around 2,000 people surrounded Parliament House in Canberra last weekend wearing red and carrying banners emblazoned with the slogan Climate Emergency. It was the first day’s sitting of Parliament for 2009 and the protestors had travelled to Canberra to let the Australian government know how angy they are about Rudd’s lack of action on climate Continue Reading →
admin /8 February, 2009
Insurance companies have begun altering their policies to deal with the threat of climate change. Most house and buildings insurance now includes sea level rise due climate change and storm surges under the heading Sea Movements in the list of things which are excluded from the cover. Some companies offer separate policies to cover sea level rises and related incidents. Insurer IAG explored the possibility of a whole of life coastal insurance package, which would return a fixed amount to a home owner if their house and land is inundated by the sea. Writing in Money Management last week, Comminsure’s Jeffrey Scott said that the life insurance industry will also have to perform a risk analysis of climate change because of the likely increase in disease from plagues of mosquitoes and mice.
admin /8 February, 2009
The energy secretary of the United States, Stephen Chu, told the LA Times last week that he expects California’s water supply to disappear and agriculture to fail as a result of climate change. “I don’t see how they can keep their cities going,” he said in a frank interview. Other media have described the scenario painted by the Nobel Laureate as ‘stark’ but it is in keeping with the serious approach to climate change taken by the new administration. President Obama has held daily meetings on the nation’s response to climate change and officials have adopted a “science first” approach, noting that economic recovery depends on food security and minimising natural disasters.
