James Lovelock has been warning us that the weather is going to get bad for about as long as I’ve been alive. About 50 years. His predictions, far-sighted though they were, have come true. He even invented the ‘Gaia hypothesis’ that, although poo-pooed and bah-humbugged at the time, has come to form the basis of …
Continue reading “A rather depressing interview with James Lovelock”
“”The Colorado study has caused a stir in the soil world… accompanied by a sobering analysis … that we are repeating the mistakes of past civilisations, over-exploiting the land until it goes beyond the point of no return, and leads to a vicious circle of famine, and then social disintegration.”” Dust to Dust: a man-made …
Continue reading “Dust to Dust: a man-made Malthusian crisis”
This four minute video shows the latest scientific (fact-based) consensus on some of the major impacts of climate change. It demonstrates the near-certainty of what is already expected, and introduces the idea of a ‘carbon budget’: the maximum amount of carbon equivalents we can consume, and the short remaining time before that budget will be …
Continue reading “The clock is ticking to create the no-carbon business”
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””
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”
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”
Lots of people talk about “thinking global, acting local”. This guy does a good job of putting it into practice. He paints a clear picture that runs from the strategic rise of China to the practical need for better education, less regulation, more environmental responsibility, and more socially-inclusive wealth creation.
During the last 20 years, global carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels have increased by almost 50 per cent in the last 20 years. The rate is accelerating — in 2010 they increase by just under six per cent. This is dramatic news for the ability of Earth to support life. In the light …
Bosnia, Serbia and other parts of the Balkans are facing their worst drought for decades. The river Danube, usually one of eastern Europe’s busiest transport routes has eighty or more cargo ships at a standstill. Traffic on the river is “practically non-existent”. In Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria crop production for 2012 is in jeopardy . Bosnia …
Continue reading “How climate change is impacting businesses in the Balkans”
Anybody still unsure why climate change is an issue for business can read this story where the recent floods in Thailand were cited by Sony as one of the three reasons for turning their $0.6bn profit forecast turned into a $0.8bn loss. The entire country of Thailand’s growth forecast was slashed from 4.1% to 2.6%. …
