Category: General news

Managing director of Ebono Institute and major sponsor of The Generator, Geoff Ebbs, is running against Kevin Rudd in the seat of Griffith at the next Federal election. By the expression on their faces in this candid shot it looks like a pretty dull campaign. Read on

Africa’s apocalyptic mood

admin /3 January, 2010

Africa’s apocalyptic mood

Religious fervour and the effects of climate change may combine with explosive effect over the coming months and years.

The story is told of how two Ghanaian old ladies emerged from church one Sunday morning in June 1967. During the service, the minister had asked for prayers for the people of Israel, who were at war.

 

“Akosua”, one lady turned to the other, “what are we going to do?”

 

“Do about what?” the other asked, perplexed.

 

“Didn’t you hear the priest? Jerusalem is about to be destroyed!”

 

“Oh that … “

 

“Yes. You and I have been paying our church dues regularly. We have been coming to morning service without fail. But now that we are approaching the time when we shall leave this place of suffering and go to Jerusalem, our heavenly home of eternal peace, they say that that place, too, is going to be destroyed.”

 

“It’s not fair!” the other old lady assented. “All our good deeds have been done in vain!”

 

This story illustrates a phenomenon very common indeed in Africa: many Christians on the continent take what the Bible says about almost anything quite literally.

 

It is therefore extremely worrying that climate change is already changing the Africa’s environment irreversibly.

Copenhage changes the ground on which we stand

admin /29 December, 2009

 

Copenhagen changes the ground on which we stand

The moral equivalent of slavery 66

 
21 Dec 2009 11:18 AM
by Ken Ward
 

abolition handbillAbolitionists were considered outrageous in their day … and yet.Library of CongressThe problem with relying on World War II as the historical parallel for an energetic, last-minute drive by the U.S. to save the world from climate cataclysm, is that it depends on domestic climate impacts equivalent to Pearl Harbor to kick the whole thing off. I have argued that only such conditions—say, two Category 5 hurricanes passing over Florida in a single season—will be powerful enough to knock business-as-usual-thinking off kilter, and that U.S. environmentalists ought to prepare for rapid, non-linear action within chaotic social circumstances. The problem with that analysis is that it will probably come too late to change the outcome, and it’s too grim to sustain hope.

Past decade the warmest since records began in 1850

admin /28 December, 2009

Past decade the warmest since records began in 1850

DEBORAH SMITH SCIENCE EDITOR

December 9, 2009

Michel Jarraud, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization, holds up a temperature chart during a press conference at the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen.

Michel Jarraud, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization, holds up a temperature chart during a press conference at the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen. Photo: AP

THIS year has been the third-hottest on record in Australia, and is ranked as the fifth-warmest globally.

A report by the World Meteorological Organisation, published last night, concluded that the decade from 2000 to 2009 was the warmest since instrumental climate records began in 1850.

In 2009, only the United States and Canada experienced conditions that were cooler than average. ”Given the current figures, large parts of southern Asia and central Africa are likely to have their warmest year on record,” the report said.

Published as world leaders gathered in Copenhagen to consider climate change, it highlights extreme weather conditions around the globe this year, including three ”exceptional heatwaves” in Australia, China’s worst drought in 50 years and the wettest October in the US in 115 years.

How do I know China wrecked the Copenhage deal? I was in the room

admin /27 December, 2009

How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room

As recriminations fly post-Copenhagen, one writer offers a fly-on-the-wall account of how talks failed

• Ed Miliband: China tried to hijack climate deal
• The key players and how they rate

A woman listens to Barack Obama's speech at Copenhagen climate change conference 18 December 2009

A woman listens to Barack Obama’s speech at the Copenhagen climate change conference on 18 December. Photograph: Axel Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images

Copenhagen was a disaster. That much is agreed. But the truth about what actually happened is in danger of being lost amid the spin and inevitable mutual recriminations. The truth is this: China wrecked the talks, intentionally humiliated Barack Obama, and insisted on an awful “deal” so western leaders would walk away carrying the blame. How do I know this? Because I was in the room and saw it happen.

China’s strategy was simple: block the open negotiations for two weeks, and then ensure that the closed-door deal made it look as if the west had failed the world’s poor once again. And sure enough, the aid agencies, civil society movements and environmental groups all took the bait. The failure was “the inevitable result of rich countries refusing adequately and fairly to shoulder their overwhelming responsibility”, said Christian Aid. “Rich countries have bullied developing nations,” fumed Friends of the Earth International.

Copenhagen: it’s time Europe started acting like it truly means what it says

admin /26 December, 2009

Copenhagen: it’s time Europe started acting like it truly means what it says

The Copenhagen talks have ended in chaos and confusion with the multilateral process stretched to the point of collapse. It seems distrust and narrow self-interest have won the day. From Sandbag.org.uk, part of the Guardian Environment Network

COP15 : Cool Globes exhibition in Kongens Nytorv in Copenhagen

A girl stretches up to the top of a globe to point out Denmark while her friend giggles at an art installation entitled Cool Globes, an exhibition about combating global warming and climate change in Kongens Nytorv. Photograph: Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images

The Copenhagen accord exists and has been heralded by some as a new beginning, involving a wider number of countries in a common effort to avert catastrophe. Despite its unclear legal status, countries who support it should now record nationally derived targets in an annex before the end of January 2010. This raises the question of what targets will countries enter and can they be increased?

Preparing for the inevitable

admin /25 December, 2009

Preparing for the Inevitable

John James. www.planetextinction.com

The great party of the twentieth century is coming to an end.

Unless we start preparing our survival kit we will soon be just another species eking out an existence in the few habitable regions.

We should NOW be preparing for the rise of sea levels, spells of near-intolerable heat and storms of unprecedented severity. We need NOW to develop strategies to ensure reliable access to food and water, and how distribute food with minimal petrol. We need NOW crisis teams to prepare for unprecedented and massive migration, disease and epidemics? We need NOW to ensure our national security.

We cannot wait. Ten years from now could well be too late.

This never happens in peacetime – for it generally takes a generation or more for new concepts to become mainstream. Global warming is a national emergency. We need to plan it as a war in which everyone will be mobilised.

Since the world is too big and too divided to organise as one,
each individual nation will have to do it for themselves.

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