UN Climate Chief urges switch to a more vegetarian diet - Sept 08
Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has made a speech in London where he urges people to eat less meat as meat-production is a stronger causative factor (producing 18% of greenhouse gases) in global warming than is transport (producing 13% of greenhouse gases). We are happy to drive around in more eco-friendly transport, but for some reason most of us seem reluctant to give up our personal taste in flesh. If we are to serious combat global warming, some personal preferences such as diet are going to have to be changed if we are all to have a viable future. What is more, as Pachauri states, giving up meat will not only benefit the planet, but it will benefit our health as well. Time to turn vegetarian?
Biofuel Production Causes Food Shortages - May 08
Biofuels are not all that they are cracked up to be. In fact, some estimate that more energy goes into their production than is released when they are burned. But there is another more troubling aspect: biofuels use up valuable land that could otherwise be used for growing food. In fact, in many places in the world, growing biofuel crops is becoming more lucrative than growing food crops, with the result of food shortages and therefore rising food prices around the world. Already, we have seen riots taking place in developing countries at the rising cost of basic foods. This situation will continue to deteriorate so long as we, our media and our governments see biofuels as the answer to oil-dependance.
All the evidence strongly suggests that the US and the world have now reached peak oil production. From hereon, oil production will start trailing off despite rising demand. [more >>]
Global Warming At Critical Levels - Nov 2007
Professor Tim Flannery, a leading climate expert, has examined data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and concluded that the CO2 level in the atmosphere has already passed the critical benchmark of 450ppm, a level that it had not been expected to hit for a decade. This means that we may have already passed the point of no return to climate catastrophe. In the words of James Hansen, Director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies who has been examining the accelerating rate of Arctic ice melt which covers only 50% of what it did in 2001: "The reason so much of it went suddenly is that it is hitting a tipping point." This is it guys… this is the beginning of the end. If you are going to act on global warming, do it right now. Tomorrow will be too late. [Ecologist]
Monsanto British Headquater's cafe bans GM foods - 07
The catering firm Granada Food Services than runs the cafe at the British headquaters of Monsanto have taken all GM foods off the menu due to "customer concerns"!
Al Gore's highly rated An Inconvenient Truth, an award- winning film-documentary on global warming, is unmissable.
Meat is murder on the environment - 21 Jul 07
New Scientist reports this week that a single kilogram of beef (2.2 lbs) is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution than driving for 3 hours while leaving all the lights on back home! This was the conclusion of a study done by the National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science in Tsukuba, Japan, by Akifumi Ogino and published in Animal Science Journal 1740-0929.2007. This study examined many aspects of meat production including animal management, calf production and transporting feed. So one of the best things you can do to help global warming is to go vegetarian. And if you must eat meat, be aware that a Swedish study in 2003 showed that organic beef emits 40% less greenhouse gases and consumes 85% less energy, so it is equivalent to a 1h 50m car journey… which although less is still extremely wasteful.
How long can Earth supply us with the minerals? -Jun 07
Many of us are aware of the scarcity of oil, but what about other resources that we take from the Earth? What about minerals? New Scientist has published an article on this topic. Taking into account increasing consumption, it appears we have 20-30 more years of zinc, 30-40 more years of uranium (there goes the so-called future fuel), 15 years of platinum, 5-10 years of indium, 15-20 years of silver, about 10 years of hafnium, 15-20 years of antimony and 20-30 years of tantalum, to name just a few of the rare Earth metals that our modern society and technologies depend upon. What is going to happen as these minerals run out? Even gold is expected to run short in about 30-40 years, copper in about 40 years and tin in about 20 years. [Source: New Scientist May26]
If today is a typical day on planet Earth…
We will lose 116 square miles of rainforest, or about an acre a second. We will lose another 72 square miles to encroaching deserts, as a result of human mismanagement and overpopulation. We will lose 40 to 100 species, and no one knows whether the number is 40 or 100. Today the human population will increase by 250,000. And today we will add 2,700 tons of chlorofluorocarbons to the atmosphere and 15 million tons of carbon. Tonight the Earth will be a little hotter, it's waters more acidic, and the fabric of life more threadbare.
Humans Driving Global Warming - It's Official! -Feb 07
The Fourth Assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has just been published and removes most of the question marks regarding human involvement in global warming. It is now "very likely" that the rise in temperature that we are seeing globally is a direct result of human activity, but in its efforts to get the report past politicians, much of the leading-edge scientific research and anything remotely controversial was frozen out. For example, the report ignores the fact that the glaciers are melting far faster than theory predicts, the Gulf Stream is slowing down and could soon stop altogether, and large ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland could collapse any moment, raising sea-levels far higher than the report's ultra-conservative prediction of 3.1cm per decade. But still, the report served its purpose to help silence the Global Warming skeptics (most of whom seem to have some connection with the petroleum industries). Key to the report's success was the recent Democratic victory in the congressional elections which has softened the US' skeptical stance which has led to its vetoes of past climate proposals. With players like Bush marginalized, the question now is how we can practically minimize human involvement in this warming. [New Scientist]
Do you believe GMOs are nothing to worry about and that the large biotechnology companies like Monsanto care about your health and the environment? Get informed and visit the best source of GMO information at: www.seedsofdeciption.com.
Vanity Fair's Daisy Prince and Emily Butselaar have written a guide to green living by listing the 50 most important things you can do to save the planet. [more >>]
The myth of clean, efficient nuclear power - Jun 06 The UK government has again started looking seriously at nuclear power to meet the UK energy needs, stating that any energy source that produces zero greenhouse gases needs to be taken seriously. This perspective, however, is seriously flawed, as a report in The Ecologist magazine pointed out this month. A standard 100mw/eh nuclear reactor requires around 160 tonnes of uranium fuel each year. As concentration of uranium in the ore deposits is only 0.02 - 0.01%, to supply just one standard reactor requires 16 million tonnes of rock to be mined, crushed and chemically treated. This hugely inefficient process leaves mountains of radioactive chemical sludge, uses up far more energy in manufacture of nuclear fuels than will be released by them, and produces vast quantities of greenhouse gases in the process (some of the chemicals used are 10,000 times more potent greenhouse gases than CO2). So it is a lie when politicians present the nuclear alternative as zero-emission and efficient — they have conveniently left out all consideration of manufacture. The Ecologist also pointed out that uranium is a finite fuel, and if nuclear capacity doubles in size, the ore will run out within twenty years, whilst radioactive contamination from it will last many thousands.
Helke Ferrie urges all of us to take practical action to help save the Earth from imminent ecological destruction. We must act NOW because very shortly it will be too late. [more >>]
Earth's fresh water suppliers are fast dwindling: Aquifers everywhere are emptying out as more and more water is used by the world's farming. In fact, it is estimated that a tenth of the world's food is grown using underground water that is not being replaced by rainwater. What is remarkable is the staggering volume of water needed to produce basic crops
1 kg coffee takes 20,000 litres of water to produce
1 quarter-pounder hamburger uses up 11,000 litres
1 cotton t-shirt takes 7,000 litres of water to produce
1 kg of cheese takes 5,000 litres of water to produce
1 kg of rice takes 5,000 litres of water to produce
1 kg of sugar takes 3,000 litres of water to produce
1 litre of milk takes 2,000 litres of water to produce
1 kg of wheat takes 1,000 litres of water to produce
So the next time you have a cup of coffee or slip on a t-shirt, spare some thought about the environmental consequences of even our most basic choices. And remember that a meat-based diet needs vastly more water to produce than a vegetarian diet. [Source: New Scientist - 25 Feb 06 edition]
Pusztai's experience indicates
the depths to which the biotechnology industry will
sink to prevent the public knowledge of the dangers
of GM foods. [more >>]
Amazon Rainforest Shrinking Twice as Fast - 21 Oct 05
Ecologist Gregory Asner and his colleagues, who have been analyzing satellite images to assess the rate of destruction of the Amazon rainforest, have concluded that it is actually disappearing twice as first as scientists had previously estimated. The team, which included scientists from Brazil, used new supercomputer software and image processing to garner as much information as they could out of the satellite photos. The results, in Asner's words, were "sobering". What many illegal loggers are now doing is removing selected trees in a forest so as to hide evidence of their illegal logging, but the new software is able to take into account this prevalent but hidden type of destruction. The full results, which showed that the Amazon is being destroyed at twice the rate previously estimated, were shocking to the team who did not expect such a big discrepancy between real destruction and the previously estimated rate.
If we do not act now to stop this
biotechnological insanity, our descendants will look
back with incredulity at a generation that sold every
last family heirloom for a quick cash fix. [more >>]
Bageant contemplates Richard
Duncan's Olduvai Theory — the fast approaching
human "die-off" that will occur within
our lifetime if electricity production continues
to slide. [more >>]
Superweeds
Appear After UK GM Field Trial - Jul 05
The first superweeds — weeds resistant to herbicides
— have been discovered in the UK just two
years after the end of a three year field trial
for GM oilseed rape. The discovery, made by scientists
from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH)
— a government research agency — came as they were monitoring gene flow from Bayer's herbicide-resistant GM rape seed to wild plants.
The weed in question is charlock, and it is found
alongside rape seed throughout Europe. What is
most disturbing about this new discovery is that
industry scientists and the UK government have
always insisted that "horizontal" gene
flow in this manner is impossible. And this environmental
bombshell comes at a time when the UK is trying
to overturn the EU's ban on GM products. The Ecologist
reports that "the first international register
of GM contamination showed Britain is one of
the countries most affected. There have been eight
incidents of normal crops, food or animal feed
being tainted with GM… since the crops were introduced
into the global environment in 1996; only the US,
with 11 such incidents, has a worse record."
If we want to save this planet,
we need to learn to live with minimum physical impact.
But minimum physical impact can only come from practicing
minimum psychological impact… [more >>]
Peter Rae's rational and
impassioned appeal for more caution in new methods
of food production. [more >>]
GLOBAL
WARMING is becoming an increasing
problem to the Earth's ecosystem, with
the single biggest contributor fiddling
whilst the ecosystem burns. This week's
issue of New Scientist Magazine (10 Sept
05) lists ten steps necessary to take to
avert the calamity that mankind is currently
facing:
1.
Wear
Clothes Indoors: One of the easiest
ways to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions
is to reduce the indoor heating in your
home and wear more clothes instead. (Also,
turn down any air-con — do you really
need it so cold?)
2.
Minimise Car
Journeys: Cars represent one of
the worst contributors to global warming.
By taking the bus or train, you can reduce
your greenhouse gas emissions by 60%.
3.
Start Composting: The
organic rubbish that we throw out is compacted
down into landfill sites where it becomes
a breeding ground for greenhouse gas producing
bacteria called methanogens. This does not
happen with composting.
4.
Cut Down on Plane
Flights: Emissions from flights
now account for 6% of personal greenhouse
gas emission. This could be dramatically
cut down by reducing flights, especially
short-haul were train alternatives exist.
5.
Choose A Greener
Car: If
you drive a gas-guzzling SUV then you are
just asking for environmental damage. Today
there are plenty of relatively green and
economical cars to choose from, including
new electrics and hybrids.
6.
Get Low-Energy
Household Appliances: Household
appliances use up loads of energy, so when
you replace them choose low-energy options.
Also, if not necessary, don't leave appliances
on stand-by.
7.
Eat Less Meat
and Dairy: Huge amounts of greenhouse
gases are produced by the meat and dairy
industries. So cutting down on them is
good for global warming. Also, try to choose
home-grown food to reduce transport emissions.
8.
Reduce, Reuse
and Recycle: We are all encouraged
in this society to be rampant consumers
which produces huge amounts of CO2 in manufacturing.
Reducing consumption, and reusing/recycling
we help support the environment.
9.
Be Greener in
the Office : Turning off lights,
switching off computers at night, using
both sides of paper, using energy-saving
appliances and recycling makes a huge difference.
10.
Choose a Green
Burial: Opting for a simple natural
burial and save the enormous amount of
resources currently used in modern burials
(vaults, bronze caskets etc.)
What will it mean to raise our babies on water contaminated with low levels of birth control drugs and athlete's foot remedies plus Viagra, Prozac, Valium, Claritin, Amoxicillin, Prevachol, Codeine, Flonase, Ibuprofen, Dilantin, Cozaar, Pepcid, Albuterol, Naproxen, Warfarin, Ranitidine, Diazepam, Bactroban, Lotrel, Lorazapam, Tamoxifen, Mevacor, and dozens of other potent drugs, along with hair removers, mosquito repellants, sunburn creams, musks and other fragrances? No one knows, but evidently we're going to find out, learning by doing.
UN Climate Chief urges switch to a more vegetarian diet - Sept 08
