The IPCC has released its latest report on climate change. In summary: Climate change has already impacted natural and human systems on every continent. Climate change is also damaging global food production, cutting our supply of fresh drinking water, and damaging our infrastructure. Coastal flooding could reduce global economic production by 10 percent by the end of the century. And the widespread damage already …
Category archives: Problems
IPCC and renewable energy — the view from Texas
So, the IPCC has concluded that averting climate change catastrophe is ’eminently affordable’. Of course it is — it always was. Quibbles about the ‘cost’ of averting climate change have always been spurious, partly because the cost of not taking action will always be greater (ie death), and partly because any ‘cost’ will always show …
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Why we need a new system for business
and some example solutions:
Population is not the issue
Charles Eisenstein writes: “If everyone on Earth lived the lifestyle of a traditional Indian villager, it is arguable that even 12 billion would be a sustainable world population. If everyone lives like an upper-middle-class North American (a status to which much of the world seems to aspire), then even two billion is unsustainable. “This means …
Climate change and human survival
Even the British Medical Journal is talking about climate change. “The IPCC has already concluded that it is ‘virtually certain that human influence has warmed the global climate system’ and … its new report outlines the future threats of… increased scarcity of food and fresh water; extreme weather events; rise in sea level; loss of …
Bad news, good news…
Two stories here, one describing the problem, one addressing part of the solution. First, a new study by Nasa shows yet again that global industrial civilisation could collapse in coming decades, just as many previous empires and civilisations have done. Echoing Jared Diamond (TED talk here, synopsis here) they find the key factors driving the risk of …
A rather depressing interview with James Lovelock
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 …
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Dust to Dust: a man-made Malthusian crisis
“”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 …
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Interview with Peter Lacey, Managing Director (Asia Pacific) at Accenture Consulting Services
A very interesting interview here with Peter Lacey, Managing Director (Asia Pacific) at Accenture Consulting Services. We particularly notice two things that he says: First, carbon reduction in every product and service in the world needs to be of the order of seven to eight times what it is today. That means that for in …
Increasing issuance of corporate green bonds
French utility giant EDF this week set a new high in the market for corporate ‘green bonds’, issuing £1.2 billion (euros 1.4 bn) worth of bonds tied to returns from its renewable assets. Although the bond is only a small fraction of the total market, the fact that the issue was two-times over-subscribed suggests there is …
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