An interesting article here talking about north America (including Canada)’s resurgence in home-grown energy, mostly from ‘tight oil’ — extracted with gas from shale rock formations, using the fracking process.
Category archives: Environmental
Climate change can have severe impacts on business
Owing to Thailand’s recent floods, the country’s central bank has slashed its growth forecast for 2011 from 4.1% to 2.6%. That may not sound like much. But remember that it is now October, so most of the growth in the year has already happened (barring seasonal fluctuations for Christmas). That means output in the last …
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Severe floods in Thailand
Floods in Thailand have killed more than 300 people, inundated 1,000 factories (including those owned by Toyota, Western Digital, swamped large areas of agricultural land, and forced growth forecasts to be cut by around half (from 3.7% to just over 2%). Regional supply chains for companies including Apple have also been disrupted. Costs of clean …
Forecast impacts of climate change
It is useful to remind ourselves of the climate change trajectory we are on. This will have a significant impact for business, in terms of: Disruption/removal of production and supply chains Disruption/removal of customers willing or able to buy products and services Disruption/removal of capital as it is refocused instead to fund the protection from …
Massive die-off of trees, worldwide
This piece in the New York Times tells how trees “worldwide” are experiencing “devastation”.
An opportunity to save or destroy our last remaining coral reefs
This document summarises evidence recently presented to a parliamentary committee. http://www.vmine.net/scienceinparliament/sip66-4.pdf Pages 30-31 talk about the British Indian Ocean Territories, containing 20,000 square km of coral reefs — around half the coral reef in the Indian Ocean. The reefs there are in good condition because the islands have remained almost uninhabited (apart from one military …
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State of the oceans
In the last fifty years we have eaten more than 90% of the big fish in the sea. We have eaten more than ninety percent of the big fish in the sea: And instead we have turned the entire Pacific Ocean (the Pacific Ocean!) into a floating Garage Patch: As Charles Moore says, “We had to …
Oceans (and people) under massive threat
A group of leading world experts has met to discuss the state of the world’s oceans. Their findings, surprising even to them, are that the oceans of the world are under more severe stress than already understood. Conditions are now being created that are the same as all five mass-extinctions in the past 600 million …
Financial benefits of green spaces and ecosystems
“If the UK’s ecosystems are properly cared for, they could add an extra £30bn a year to the UK’s economy; if they are neglected, the economic cost would be more than £20bn a year… Inland wetlands, for instance, are worth £1.5bn a year in improving water quality alone, and pollinators such as bees are worth …
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Severe floods in Queensland, Australia
Brisbane, Australia faces a ‘postwar’ scale rebuild after “raging floodwaters” “devastated” three quarters of the state of Queensland. The damage affected homes, businesses, schools, hospitals, roads, sewers and drainage systems. Insurance claims are expected to reach A$1bn. 173 people died. The mining industry was disrupted and lost at least A$2.3bn ($2.3bn) in sales. Meanwhile in …