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Crucifying the planet
Big Gav, Peak Energy (Australia)
A rich offering of links and excerpts, mostly on climate change today.
(15 April 2006)
Britain now ‘eating the planet’
Mark Kinver, BBC
The UK is about to run out of its own natural resources and become dependent on supplies from abroad, a report says.
A study by the New Economics Foundation (Nef) and the Open University says 16 April is the day when the nation goes into “ecological debt” this year.
… The report uses a number of examples that it says illustrate how resources are being wasted, including:
* In 2004, the UK exported 1,500 tonnes of fresh potatoes to Germany, and imported 1,500 tonnes of the same product from the same country
* Imported 465 tonnes of gingerbread, but exported 460 tonnes of the same produce
* Sent 10,200 tonnes of milk and cream to France, yet imported 9,900 tonnes of the dairy goods from France
The authors say this shows how current trade systems are inefficient at a time when there is concern over energy supplies and greenhouse gas emissions.
“If you do not have the right signals within the economy to tell you when you are doing something very environmentally wasteful, then you cannot expect it to stop,” says Mr Simms, the report’s lead author.
(14 April 2006)
3 degrees: Chief scientist warns bigger rise in world’s temperature will put 400 million at risk
Andrew Grice, The Independent
Sir David King issued a stark wake-up call that climate change could cause devastating consequences such as famine and drought for hundreds of millions of people unless the world’s politicians take more urgent action.
Britain and the rest of the European Union have signed up to a goal of limiting the temperature rise to two degrees. In his strongest warning yet on the issue, Sir David suggested the EU limit will be exceeded.
According to computer-modelled predictions for the Government, a three-degree rise in temperatures could put 400 million more people at risk of hunger; leave between one and three billion more people at risk of water stress; cause cereal crop yields to fall by between 20 and 400 million tons; and destroy half the world’s nature reserves.
(15 April 2006)
Related story from The Guardian.
“Too Hot Not to Handle” on HBO Apr 22
HBO
Heat waves. Melting glaciers. Rising sea levels. Catastrophic storms. Migrating viruses. Population displacement. Over the past 100 years, the mass consumption of fossil fuels, especially in America, has contributed to a dangerous warming of the earth that has adversely impacted the way we live. The cautionary documentary TOO HOT NOT TO HANDLE offers a guide to the effects of global warming in the United States. Premieres on Earth Day, Saturday, April 22 at 7:00pm ET/PT.
(April 2006)
Interview and preview at original.
