Channel 4 News finds that iconic species and habitats in Britain are facing ‘wipeout’. As a result it is running a special series, ‘Green and Pleasant Land’. “In just a few decades, we’ve lost 44 million birds from our skies, with some species plummeting as much as 90 per cent and facing a very real extinction. …
Continue reading “The British countryside is facing unprecedented “wildlife in crisis””
A recent article in the New York Times puts the cost of environmental degradation in China at about $230 billion in 2010. This is 3.5 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product, three times the level in 2004. “This cuts to the heart of China’s economic challenge: how to transform from the explosive growth of the …
Continue reading “The two sides of change for a sustainable future”
NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York has collated data on global surface temperatures since 1884 and turned them into a video. This 13-second excerpt shows how warming accelerated in the 1970s, all of the ten hottest years have occurred since 1998. To view the full 26 seconds of temperatures since 1884, …
Continue reading “Watch 62 Years of Global Warming in 13 Seconds”
Goldman Sachs just reported an 11% drop in earnings, on sales down 9%. They stand as a proxy for the world economy. (Financial Times, 17 July 2012) The Federal Reserve is warning that ‘business as usual’ solutions are not working, and there is a “looming economic crisis”. (Huffington Post, 11 July 2012) US debt is over $15,000 …
An interesting sign of the times, here. Lawyers for Coca Cola in South Africa have written to Sodastream complaining about their advertisement at OR Tambo International Airport. The advertisement was an ‘installation’ — a giant cage containing used cans and bottles of Coke, Fanta, Sprite and other brands, together with the tag line “Save the world from …
Continue reading “Environmentalism as competitive advantage”
Hunter Lovins talks about how we can re-grow the economy (and maybe reverse climate change) by working with nature:
On Friday 25 May 2012, Germany’s solar power plants produced a record 22 gigawatts of electric power, equivalent to 20 nuclear power plants, and half the country’s demand for electricity that day. Germany aims to be nuclear-free by 2022. It currently generates four per cent of its annual energy needs from the sun. Source: RT.com
In February this year, KPMG published a report identifying ten “sustainability megaforces that will affect every business over the next two decades.” They have identified ten good drivers of change. They just seem to have missed a trick when it comes to showing how these issues will have serious consequences for business leaders. Even inclusion of the …
The RAF yesterday acquired a new £200m C-17 transport aircraft. Known as the ‘workhorse of the RAF’ it is large enough to carry three Apache helicopters, a Chinook, or even a Tornado fast jet or three Warrior armoured vehicles. It will be used to strengthen the UK’s air bridge with Afghanistan. But how will this …
Continue reading “RAF strengthens ‘air bridge’ to Afghanistan”
The IMF recently published a working paper predicting the real price of oil will double over the next ten years. With interruptions to supply also likely to rise, it makes sense to assess and mitigate now the likely risks to your business. Here is a simple process for doing so:
