UN climate summit: Leaders take small stps towards action on climate change.
UN climate summit: Leaders take small steps towards action on climate change
Outpouring of new pledges of action was precisely what UN chief Ban Ki-Moon intended when he called the summit
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- guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 23 September 2009 01.50 BST
- Article history
Barack Obama speaks during a summit on climate change at the United Nations in New York. Photograph: Mike Segar/Reuters
For a man known for his diplomatic reserve, the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, was unusually upfront about his frustration with the pace of talks for a treaty to stop global warming yesterday. “The world’s glaciers are now melting faster than human progress to protect them – or us,” he said at the opening session of his climate change summit.
Yesterday, though, the world leaders did begin to move, not as quickly as the UN chief would have liked, not entirely in the same direction or towards a clearly defined goal. But it was movement.
Climate change is killing our people
Climate change is killing our people
UN leaders should know: climate change is destroying my village in Uganda – flooding our homes and ruining our crops
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- guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 23 September 2009 08.30 BST
- Article history
There are no seasons any more in eastern Uganda. Before, we had two harvests every year, but now there’s no pattern. Floods like we’ve never seen came and swept up everything. It rained and rained until all the land was soaked and our houses were submerged in the water. This forced us to move to higher ground, where we sought refuge. By the time we came back home, all the houses had collapsed, our granaries were destroyed and food was washed away. The remaining crops were rotten, and our food was no more.
City dwellers have smaller footprints
A report from the International Institute for Environment and Development released last week indicates that city dwellers emit an average of two thirds of the emissions of those who live in cities. Larger cities and their transport networks tend to be more efficient but the details depend on a large number of factors. Residents of Continue Reading →
Algae Biofuels: From Pond Scum to Jet Fuel
Earlier this summer, Exxon Mobil announced that it plans to produce algae-based biofuels in partnership with Synthetic Genomics, a biotechnology company founded by human genome pioneer Dr. J. Craig Venter. Yet even with its US $600 million investment, Exxon representatives have said that large-scale production of algal biofuels is still “5-10 years away.” Indeed, there are many pros and cons to using algae as a biofuel feedstock, as well as hurdles to its commercialization.
The Algal Advantage
Algae have indisputable advantages as a biofuel feedstock. Of all the green fuel options, “only algae appear to have the potential to provide the huge quantities of renewable oil required for substantially displacing petroleum-based transport fuels,” said Dr. Yusuf Chisti, Professor of Biochemical Engineering at Massey University in New Zealand, whose laboratory researches the cultivation and processing of algae for biofuel production.
SA towns to get water the Murray can’t buy
SA Water Minister Karlene Maywald announced plans yesterday to buy more than 11 billion litres of water that SA irrigators originally tried to sell to the Commonwealth to aid the Murray.
The Commonwealth recently rejected attempts by some irrigators to sell water back to the Murray, because the current round of their $3.1 billion buyback scheme was over-subscribed.
Major pushes sustainable farming into mainstream
A PUSH to make Australian agriculture part of the environmental solution, rather than being considered the problem, emerged from what may prove to be a historic meeting at the weekend.
About 80 people, including farmers, scientists and consultants, met at the invitation of former Governor-General Major-General Michael Jeffery at Batemans Bay, NSW, for a discussion on the future of food, farming and agriculture’s role in land restoration.
The dicussion will progress toward action via Outcomes Australia, a group chaired by Maj-Gen Jeffery that “takes the business of problem-solving outside the square”.