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
Season of dread returns as Haiti awaits devastating hurricane season Decades of deforestation left the Carribbean island defenceless against last year’s catastrophic hurricanes. But Haiti hopes attempts to save it from the storms will save lives this year Suzanne Goldenberg guardian.co.uk, Monday 17 August 2009 14.20 BST Article history As Haiti enters the hurricane Continue Reading →
The Waxman-Markey climate bill is the best we will get from America until the corruption of public life is addressed
Whether he is seeking environmental reforms, health reforms or any other improvement in the life of the American people, Obama’s real challenge is to address corruption of public life in the United States.’ Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP
It would be laughable anywhere else. But, so everyone says, the Waxman-Markey bill which is likely to be passed in Congress today or tomorrow, is the best we can expect – from America.
Environmentalists struggle to find the right way to promote green values – and it politicians keep passing the buck
Vines on the South Downs: that is the scenario which fills environmentalists with increasing gloom. As the Today programme reported this morning, climate change can be billed as a rather attractive option in Britain. Who can complain about warmer drier summers? Doesn’t a Mediterranean climate in Kent sound rather attractive?
The reality of course is that Mediterranean climates mean forest fires, chronic water scarcity and real shortages of food but sometimes that is not how the story gets reported.
There is increasing frustration – even desperation – among many parts of the environmental movement about how to communicate with the public. It has become commonplace to argue that scaring people with catastrophic scenarios is counterproductive: terrify people with melting ice caps and floods in East Anglia and they will just switch off or become defiant, in a response of “eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die”.
Hon. Martin ParkinsonSecretaryDepartment of Climate ChangeGovernment of Australia Re: Australia’s Response to Climate Change Dear Secretary Parkinson:Thank you for your letter of 6 April, in which you provided reasoning behind the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) announced in your Government’s White Paper,1 including the emissions trading program to be implemented 1 July 2010.The White Paper Continue Reading →
Methane Hydrates
Buried deep within the permafrosts of western Siberia, safe from harm, lies something in the order of 70 billion tonnes of methane.
This methane is stored, like other vast reservoirs in the ancient frozen peat bogs, and far under the oceans, in odd structures known as Clathrates. The type of clathrates that store methane, usually known as methane hydrates, consist of molecules of solidified water inside which methane molecules are contained. Due to the high pressures under which they exist – beneath hundreds of metres of frozen peat or oceanic sediment and water – methane hydrates can contain many times more methane than could exist in the same volume of air.
A scientific research cruise following the palaeo-equator has uncovered nearly 53 million years of climate and ocean acidification history. The Integrated Ocean Drilling Program drillship JOIDES Resolution has returned to Honolulu after a two-month voyage to chart the detailed climate history of the Earth. This was the first of two voyages of the ‘Pacific Equatorial Age Transect’ project, and the first international scientific drilling expedition since the JOIDES Resolution underwent a multi-year, more than $100-million transformation into a 21st century floating science laboratory. Onboard were 29 scientists from seven nations, 25 technicians, and an international crew of 66.