Most recent items first

 

Visit www.kubatana.net Zimbabwe's civic and human rights web site incorporating an on line directory for the non-profit sector

Even the silent ants
Trampled upon by giant elephants
Do sing a silent song
They shall surely know
How to shoot
The great foot
Weighing heavily on them
~ Albert Nyathi

<TV Clips> Crude Movie, clips from new hard hitting documentaries exploring climate change

<website> 2008 - International year of the potato

<pdf arcticle>Growing pains, the human cost of cut flowers in UK supermarkets. War on Want special, just in time for valentines day

<pdf article> What's your consumption factor?
Geography prof. Jared Diamond on population and resources. The average first world citizen causes 32 times more environmental impact than the average developing world citizen. A very thought provoking read

<link> Eco-equity: Greenhouse Development Rights
The Greenhouse Development Rights framework is designed to support an emergency climate stabilization program while, at the same time, preserving the right of all people to reach a dignified level of sustainable human development free of the privations of poverty. See website and download summary

<Photo Gallery> Congo, One Hundred years of darkness,
Marcus Bleasdale
Deep in the heart of Congo, millions struggle to survive after more than a century of instability brought on by brutal colonists, military dictatorships and war. The landscapes and the difficulties of life have changed little since the days of Joseph Conrad’s Congo.....

remarkable photography and commentary - <see it here>

<Article> Rethinking the meat-guzzler
New York Times piece on the impact of intensive meat production

Global demand for meat has multiplied in recent years, encouraged by growing affluence and nourished by the proliferation of huge, confined animal feeding operations. These assembly-line meat factories consume enormous amounts of energy, pollute water supplies, generate significant greenhouse gases and require ever-increasing amounts of corn, soy and other grains, a dependency that has led to the destruction of vast swaths of the world’s tropical rain forests.<more>

—<PDF>Worldwatch Climate Issue Brief— Bali Factsheet

A Guide to the Issues Facing Decision Makers in Bali and Beyond. As the critical second week of negotiations in Bali, Indonesia, gets under way, delegates from more than 180 countries are struggling to hash out a post-2012 international climate pact consistent with the Parties’ shared commitment to prevent dangerous interference with the world’s climate system.

<link> Al Gore's Nobel acceptance speech: text and video

Ban Ki-moon UN secretary general speaks at the Bali climate conference......."Climate change is as much an opportunity as it is a threat. It is our chance to usher in a new age of green economics and truly sustainable development."

"The science is clear, climate change is happening, the impact is real, the time to act is now," he warned, adding that price of inaction - including floods, famine, rising sea levels and loss of biodiversity - would be far higher than the costs of taking action.
<see more>

Honey Bee networks: How it all began, spreading innovation

<link>Honey Bee Multimedia Kiosks Bring a Creative Buzz to Rural India

<link>Zero Carbon Britain. Centre for Alternative Technology's action plan on how to wean the UK off its Oil addiction over the coming 20 years
<download>(4MB) Zero Carbon Britain, alternative energy strategy

China on Pace to Become Global Leader in Renewables
If China's commitment to diversifying its energy supply and becoming a global leader in renewables manufacturing persists, renewable energy could provide over 30 percent of the nation's energy by 2050. This is the major conclusion of Powering China's Development: The Role of Renewable Energy, written by Beijing-based researcher Eric Martinot, a Worldwatch senior fellow, and Li Junfeng, Vice Chair of China's Renewable Energy Society in Beijing.

"A combination of policy leadership and entrepreneurial savvy is leading to spectacular growth in renewable energy, increasing its share of the market for electricity, heating, and transport fuels," said Martinot. "China is poised to become a leader in renewables manufacturing, which will have global implications for the future of the technology."

More than $50 billion was invested in renewable energy worldwide in 2006, and China is expected to invest over $10 billion in new renewables capacity in 2007, second only to Germany.

<newspaper clip> The western appetite for biofuels is causing starvation in the poor world. "Biofuels is a crime against humanity"

<Video Clip>London Mayor, Ken Livingstone on Climate change and how the top 40 global cities are reponding to its challenges

< newspaper clip> Qu: Which country has got a potential oil reserve of 6 times that of Saudi Arabia.
A: Canada. Locked up in the Athabasca Oil sands in Alberta

So phew! Peak Oil concerns over then is it? - enough to go all round? not exactly if you read this article. A Part from the fact that they can only access 10% of it, its extraction is having a huge and disastrous environmental impact. Apart from ripping apart a huge landscape, oil sands need a lot of energy to be processed: 1 barrel of natural gas is used to produce two of crude. So whilst only running at a few percent of its potential capacity Athabasca oil sands will already soon be Canada's biggest contributor to global warming; nearly as much as the whole of Denmark. This is not an acceptable alternative to the sweet light crude from the Gulf, that has already had a bad enough impact on the planet, surely this madness to develop this resource.

Channel4/Green blog

RISC website editor Steve Jones, talks about an impending Peak Oil energy shock on the new Channel4 Green website

YouTube video: A very upbeat, clear and convincing presentation, encouraging immediate action in response to climate change

A green tipping point? TIME magazine on Gore's Nobel peace prize

http://www.realclimate.org; Web resource by Climate scientists - a treasure trove of climate articles, statistics and informed debate

RISC Reading room explores issue of peak oil

Many analysts are saying Global oil production will peak by 2020 at the latest, maybe much earlier, maybe it has already, so why aren't we talking about this more? In this recent Guardian article John Vidal explores the key subject of Peak oil in the Guardian Newspaper

US Government Accountability Office, Report on Peak Oil
US goverment report, makes interesting reading

http://www.peakoil.net/
scientific commmunity studying peak oil

Post Carbon Institute US site, covering a number of initiatives exploring post oil responses, from energy farms, relocalisation strategies and more

www.energyand capital.com
investment analysts look at implications of peak oil

Gulf News comment on current oil prices

www.powerswitch.org.uk
www.energybulletin.net
www.theoildrum.com

http://www.culturechange.org/
http://www.endofsuburbia.com/

End of suburbia: Is a most thought provoking documentary exploring the extraordinary dependency sub urban society has on cheap energy, especially oil. Its a 'must watch' and an excellent tool for stimulating debate.

Transition towns: In response to the enormous challenges brought up by end of Sub Urbia tha transition town model has been developed, as tool for regions to develop local resposes to energy dependency issues. .

Story of one Transition town: Lampeter

 

IPCC: Climate Change 2007: The Phisical Science Basis
This is a full summary of the most up to date and definitive report on climate change.

Africa – Up in smoke 2
The second report on Africa and global warming from the Working Group on Climate Change and Development

2007: It's Getting Hotter...Now What?
[From www.worldwatch.org]

Looking for something to do now that scientists are predicting that 2007 might be the hottest year ever? Let your friends know about the report, American Energy: The Renewable Path to Energy Security, and visit AmericanEnergyNow.org to learn more about the potential of renewable energy technologies to power the United States, the world's largest guzzler of climate-altering fossil fuels.

New Year's thoughts...

Here are some extremely interesting and thought provoking comments from www.edge.org/

GOT OPTIMISM? THE WORLD'S LEADING THINKERS SEE GOOD NEWS AHEAD

While conventional wisdom tells us that things are bad and getting worse, scientists and the science-minded among us see good news in the coming years.

That's the bottom line of an outburst of high-powered optimism gathered from the world-class scientists and thinkers who frequent the pages of Edge, in an ongoing conversation among third culture thinkers (i.e. scientists and other thinkers in the empirical world who, through their work and expository writing, are redefining who and what we are.)

The 2007 Edge Question marks the 10th anniversary of Edge, which began in December, 1996 as an email to about fifty people. In 2006, Edge had more than five million individual user sessions.

So here's the 2007 Edge Question:
What Are You Optimistic About? & Why?

Climate Change:
Latest resources and debate

"If the world is waiting for a calm, reasonable, carefully argued approach to climate change, Nick Stern and his team have produced one. They outline a feasible adjustment policy at tolerable cost beginning now. Sooner is much better."

Robert M. Solow Nobel Prize economist 1987

See the Stern review on the economics of climate change, This is the latest in depth government sponsored report on the impact of cliamte change, with links to notes, and quotes

[See Real Climate, Climate science from Climate Scientists][see also Tyndall Centre for Climate research data] [see John Vidal comment on their latest statistics] see also [Climate Change Instant Expert with New Scientist]
[Al Gore makes major speech on climate change solutions] The Oil Drum discussion about energy and our future
Fighting the wrong war - insightful article and debate on www.guardian.co.uk

RISC previous Book of the month: Crude interventions; united states, oil and the new world disorder by Gary Leech. See also Monbiot's news book Heat, how to stop the planet burning

Its time to Stop feeling guilty and get active.
There is no easy fix for climate change - New Internationalist:There are no easy answers. Solving climate change requires difficult choices to be made. But if seen in the context of wider social change, the movement is vast and strong. After all, there are vibrant global movements seeking to bring lasting and meaningful debt cancellation, end fossil fuel subsidies, reform the world trade system, and reinvigorate democratic control over our economies. Seen in this light, progress on any of these fronts has real benefits for the climate. According to Patrick Bond of the South African Centre for Civil Society, ‘If the World Bank were not holding the reigns on most Southern states’ monetary policy, more local fiscal resources could be used for renewables.

The future of the earth is under a cloud due to climate change, says comprehensive new study; a rise of 3C would be catastrophic, but is not inevitable. "We can't just do what we do at the moment, what we call business as usual. We have a few decades to make very significant changes"

GM Freeze
There is a draft proposal by the European Commision, with support from UK government to allow 0.9% of accidental GM contamination in our food with out labelling it. Further information www.gmfreeze.org

Power and influence of the media - just how much does it affect our perceptions?
Viasit here for a great collection of acticles from the University of Glasgow media unit

Soya's impact on the Amazon
A handful of the world's largest food companies and commodity traders, including McDonald's in the UK, are driving illegal and rapid destruction of the Amazon rainforest, according to a six-year investigation of the Brazilian soya bean industry.

Has the U.S. Media Reached a Tipping Point on Global Warming?
In a remarkable shift with far-reaching policy implications, prominent U.S. news organizations are declaring the debate on climate change "over."

John Madeley on the WTO, talk given at Reading univ Feb 2006
Time was when international trade negotiations were conducted by a few consenting adults behind closed doors. How times have changed. Today they are everyone’s business.

Let the poor call the tune
If poverty in Asia is to be wiped out in a decade, the poorest have to be helped to help themselves,

Gardening, Vegetables and health
Cancer and cardiovascular disease are natural consequences of ageing due to damage by reactive oxygen species. By eating a diet rich in fruit and vegetables we can bolster our natural defences against ageing and reduce our risk of contracting these diseases. Gardeners tend to eat more and a greater variety of veg, gardening is also known to reduce stress.

Reclaiming The Commons: The Work of Social Movements
Theresa Wolfwood, from the Barnard-Boecker Centre Foundation, Victoria, BC, CANADA made this presentation for the Reading International Solidarity Centre. October 27, 2005. The theme of reclaiming the commons will be covered at a debate at RISC in October

How Kenya is caught on the thorns of Britain's love affair with the rose
Rising demand for flowers leads to trade-off between economy and environment in Kenya's cut flower indistry

Barriers to Malaria eradication
Simple barrier methods are cost effective and save may lives, but what is stopping the uptake of this initiative?

Worse than fossil fuel
Environmental journalist George Monbiot reveals the devastating impact that bio diesel development is having on the rainforests. This is a real wake up call to all people concerned about climate change, there are no easy ways to produce more energy, biodiesel is perhaps the worst fuel yet invented!

Rude awakening
Sir Jonathon Porritt has spent more than three decades highlighting green issues, from the 'in-yer-face' days with Friends of the Earth to advising today's government. He tells the Guardian's John Vidal why, now, capitalism is the agent of change.

We need to start caring about fish, or there won't be any left to eat
The world's oceans are being plundered and nobody seems to be willing or able to stop the slaughter

Was I wrong about big business?
Corporations are ready to act on global warming but are thwarted by ministers who resist regulation in the name of the market argues Monbiot

The overwhelming human and financial impacts of Hurricane Katrina are powerful evidence that political and economic decisions made in the United States and other countries have failed to account for our dependence on a healthy resource base, according to an assessment released today by the Worldwatch Institute.

The developing world through British eyes.
A very revealing VSO research document into our attitudes to the developing world post Live Aid; 'The Live Aid Legacy defines the roles in our relationship with the developing world. We are powerful, benevolent givers; they are grateful receivers. There is no recognition that we in Britain may have something to gain from the relationship.'

There is more to the 'famine' in Niger than drought and locusts
Niger's president Mamadou Tanja may be right when he tells the BBC there is no famine in his country. Medecins Sans Frontieres blames Niger's pursuit of free market policies for escalating the crisis in Niger

Warming hits 'tipping point' Siberia feels the heat
It's a frozen peat bog the size of France and Germany combined, contains billions of tonnes of greenhouse gas and, for the first time since the ice age, it is melting says Guardian correspondant

Curry spice may protect against cancer
Scientists hope they are unravelling the secrets of how a prime curry ingredient helps protect against cancer. They have found the active agent in turmeric, the spice that colours and flavours many Asian meals, can block a cancer-promoting protein.

GM crops created superweed, say scientists
Modified rape crosses with a wild plant to create tough pesticide-resistant strain. British GM test reveals unanticipated gene migration from rapeseed to charlock.

DEFRA Report on Food Miles
>>summary version (300k pdf)<<
>>full document (1mb pdf)<<
The globalisation of the food market, coupled with out of town superstores and has greatly increased the distance or 'food miles' produce travels. This government sponsored report examines the increasingly significant environmental impact of the food market and its implications for sustainable development.

"We can't let America play Nero while the planet burns."
Says Robert Redford before the Sundance summit on climate change - yes folks only in America! Adressing the convention of US cities mayors New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D), who served as energy secretary under President Clinton, kicked off the retreat with a feisty call to arms: "Let's face it, if we wait around for the federal government to act, we aren't going to see anything happen," he said. Though Richardson has been a pioneer in promoting renewable energy at the state level, he argued that "even the states are not as accelerated as the cities" when it comes to implementing climate initiatives. "I know where the power is, and I know it's with you guys." (from www.grist.org)

Former president of Ghana, Jerry Rawlings comments on the G8
"There should more of a focus on fairtrade than on AID"

Link:Sokwanele: This is Zimbabwe
Weblog from Zimbabwean residents cataloging the daily harrassment and challenges ordinary people are facing under the Mugabe regeme.

Nigeria: How Kleptocracy kept the people poor
Debt relief to Nigeria marks a change in policy - in what is both africa's richest and possibly most corrupt nation

Blair may snub Bush at G8 summit over climate change
Leaked papers reveal huge gulf between Europe and Bush as PM ponders political gamble. The US admits it is addicted to cheap oil from the Middle East and wants to duck out of facing up to its responsibilities - whilst Europe seems to be squaring up to rise to the challenge of emissions reduction

The 11 year old wife
New York Times article calling for Bush - when he meets Musharraf to raise the issue of how women rape vicitms are treated in Pakistan. Pakistan's hudood laws, which have been used to imprison thousands of women who report rapes; If rape victims cannot provide four male witnesses to the crime, they risk being whipped for adultery. The subject has become the centre of huge weblog/ email campaign in the States

Esprit de Gore
The man formally known as the next president of the USA; Al Gore, is transforming himself into a fiery climate evangelist, read this piece from Grist.org environmental magazine

Millions to link up for world's poor
MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY brings together a wide cross section of nearly 400 charities, campaigns, trade unions, faith groups and celebrities who are united by a common belief that 2005 offers an unprecedented opportunity for global change. Up to 20 million Britons are expected to protest against world poverty as part of the biggest mobilisation against global inequality ever seen

Worldwatch debate on Climate change
Visit Worldwatch for a very informative questions and answers session, with Janet Sawin, a leading resercher on Climate change
Links to recent studies quoted in the debate:
http://www.seen.org/PDFs/Wrong_turn_Rio.pdf. The World Bank’s perspective on its work and climate change is available at: www.worldbank.org/climatechange.