The Independent, By Michael McCarthy, January 24

A rapid and vast expansion of renewable energy is on the way in Britain to help with the fight against climate change, it was revealed yesterday.

In a mere dozen years, the amount of UK electricity generated by renewable technologies such as wind, wave and tidal power will have to reach nearly half the national total, under ambitious plans put forward by the European Commission in Brussels.

The remarkable eight-fold expansion, from today's 5 per cent to about 40 per cent by 2020, or even more, represents a true energy revolution comparable in scale to the arrival of North Sea oil.

Most of it will have to be delivered by wind energy, especially offshore, as wind is the most developed technology available.

The number of wind turbines on land in Britain is likely to grow from just under 2,000 now to 5,000, according to the British Wind Energy Association. But the really substantial increase will be in offshore wind, with turbines installed in the seas around Britain's coasts likely to increase from just under 150, to about 7,500.

New York Times, By Mark Bittman, January 27

A sea change in the consumption of a resource that Americans take for granted may be in store — something cheap, plentiful, widely enjoyed and a part of daily life. And it isn’t oil.

It’s meat.

The two commodities share a great deal: Like oil, meat is subsidized by the federal government. Like oil, meat is subject to accelerating demand as nations become wealthier, and this, in turn, sends prices higher. Finally — like oil — meat is something people are encouraged to consume less of, as the toll exacted by industrial production increases, and becomes increasingly visible.

Global demand for meat has multiplied in recent years, encouraged by growing affluence and nourished by the proliferation of huge, confined animal feeding operations. These assembly-line meat factories consume enormous amounts of energy, pollute water supplies, generate significant greenhouse gases and require ever-increasing amounts of corn, soy and other grains, a dependency that has led to the destruction of vast swaths of the world’s tropical rain forests.

Just this week, the president of Brazil announced emergency measures to halt the burning and cutting of the country’s rain forests for crop and grazing land. In the last five months alone, the government says, 1,250 square miles were lost.

John Hamilton | January 28

NPR - Countries struggling with climate change could learn a lot from a constellation of tiny islands in the Indian Ocean.

The Republic of Maldives was one of the first countries to recognize the danger of rising sea levels. It's also one of the first to come up with a plan to adapt to a warmer world.

it's alive alright...

http://agonist.org/tina/20080127/where_continents_go_to_die

as much a living entity as the cosmos herself, god forbid she ever sneeze.

This site is very cool, though not exactly work safe. Tasteful, but not for kids. -ww

Swedish Meatballs Confidential - The world's wealthiest countries could face the beginnings of societal breakdown by mid-century in the form of boiling domestic unrest over climate change according to the security think tank Oxford Research Group's new report An Uncertain Future: Law Enforcement, National Security and Climate Change [20-page pdf].

A tide of protest against polluting companies and perceived government inaction and, in extreme cases, the emergence of new forms of ecoterrorism are among scenarios outlined by the Oxford Research Group.

The report sounds a warning quite different from the conventional assumption that carbon-induced global warming could trigger waves of environmental refugees from abroad driven by the quest for food, water and shelter.

Most analysis of global warming focuses on the potential for security threats from `over there' in the form of mass migration. That may well be the case but the report's research indicates that there is a range of potential threats from civil unrest within the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States – all the Western nations, in fact - and these threats are seen as growing more acute over time, if governments continually fail to protect us from climate change.

more...

· Environmentalists say region will be devastated
· Supporters claim plan will revive timber industry

The Guardian, By David Adam, January 29

The US government has announced plans to open more than 3m acres (about 5,000 square miles) of Alaskan wilderness to logging, mining and road building, angering environmental campaigners who say it will devastate the region. Supporters say the plan for the Tongass National Forest, a refuge for grizzly and black bears, wolves, eagles and wild salmon, will revive the state's timber industry.

The Bush administration plan for the forest, the largest in the US at nearly 17m acres, would open 3.4m acres to logging, road building and other development, including about 2.4m acres that are currently remote and without roads. About 663,000 acres are in areas considered most valuable for timber production.

The move, the latest in a long-running saga over the Tongass forest, effectively reverses the "Roadless Rule" protection given to the area by President Clinton.

Denny Bschor, Alaska regional forester who approved the Tongass plan, said it would sustain the diversity and health of the forest, provide livelihoods and subsistence for Alaska residents and ensure a source of recreation and solitude for forest visitors. "What is significant in the amended plan is our commitment to the state of Alaska to provide an economic timber sale programme which will allow the current industry to stabilise, and for an integrated timber industry to become established," he said.

Population growth is a threat. But it pales against the greed of the rich.

It's easy to blame the poor for growing pressure on the world's resources. But still the wealthy west takes the lion's share.

The Guardian, By George Monbiot, January 29

I cannot avoid the subject any longer. Almost every day I receive a clutch of emails about it, asking the same question. A frightening new report has just pushed it up the political agenda: for the first time the World Food Programme is struggling to find the supplies it needs for emergency famine relief. So why, like most environmentalists, won't I mention the p-word? According to its most vociferous proponents (Paul and Anne Ehrlich), population is "our number one environmental problem". But most greens will not discuss it.

Is this sensitivity or is it cowardice? Perhaps a bit of both. Population growth has always been politically charged, and always the fault of someone else. Seldom has the complaint been heard that "people like us are breeding too fast". For the prosperous clergyman Thomas Malthus, writing in 1798, the problem arose from the fecklessness of the labouring classes. Through the 19th and early 20th centuries, eugenicists warned that white people would be outbred. In rich nations in the 1970s the issue was over-emphasised, as it is the one environmental problem for which poor nations are largely to blame. But the question still needs to be answered. Is population really our number one environmental problem?

[...]

In other words, if we accept the UN's projection, the global population will grow by roughly 50% and then stop. This means it will become 50% harder to stop runaway climate change, 50% harder to feed the world, 50% harder to prevent the overuse of resources. But compare this rate of increase with the rate of economic growth.

[...]

So economic growth this century could be 32 times as big an environmental issue as population growth. And if governments, banks and businesses have their way, it never stops. By 2115, the cumulative total rises to 3,200%, by 2138 to 6,400%. As resources are finite, this is of course impossible, but it is not hard to see that rising economic activity - not human numbers - is the immediate and overwhelming threat.

[...]

None of this means that we should forget about it. Even if there were no environmental pressures caused by population growth, we should still support the measures required to tackle it: universal sex education, universal access to contraceptives, better schooling and opportunities for poor women. Stabilising or even reducing the human population would ameliorate almost all environmental impacts. But to suggest, as many of my correspondents do, that population growth is largely responsible for the ecological crisis is to blame the poor for the excesses of the rich.

The Guardian, By Ian Sample, January 31

Warmer waters in the north Atlantic have made hurricanes stronger and more frequent in the past decade, according to a study by British scientists.

The finding has raised fears that global warming could unleash more devastating storms in the region, if sea temperatures continue to increase.

A rise in surface water temperatures of 0.27C between 1996 and 2005 was responsible for 40% of the increase in Atlantic hurricane activity, researchers at University College London's Hazard Research Centre found.

"This is the first time we've been able to quantify how much the increase in hurricane activity is due to warmer sea temperatures," said Professor Mark Saunders, who led the study.

The Guardian, By John Vidal, January 31

Bales of heather fell from the sky onto a peat plateau in the Peak District yesterday, in the latest attempt to halt what scientists believe is a dangerous emitter of carbon dioxide.

Instead of acting as a natural store, or sink, for CO2, peat bogs such as the district's Bleaklow are leaking the gas, a process which experts put down to exposure to 200 years of pollution, overgrazing and fire. The gas is thought to be a big contributor to climate change.

Helicopters interrupted the January tranquillity of a few sheep and muddy walkers to drop billions of heather seeds embedded in bales of brash, or cut heather, which should start sprouting in the spring. The seeds will also be spread across the moorland by volunteers in the coming weeks.

The rate of CO2 emission from eroded peat bogs is a matter growing concern for scientists: along with neighbouring Peak District hills such as Kinder Scout, it is thought the 700 sq km of the southern Pennine hills could be leaking as much CO2 as a town of almost 50,000 people. Britain's peat bogs store the equivalent of 10 times the country's total CO2 emissions.

[...]

On the moor, landscape expert Rebecca Burtt was supervising the drops. "This is pioneering work," she said. "We've been encouraging cotton grass, bilberries, crowberry and heather to grow. The ultimate plant we want up here is spaghnum moss. The [degradation] comes from a combination of old industrial pollution and sheep stopping anything growing back."

Global meltdown: scientists isolate areas most at risk of climate change

· Experts assess point at which it is too late to act
· Disastrous repercussions of warming are spelled out
· Graphic: world tipping points [PDF]

The Guardian, By Ian Sample, February 5

Scientists have long agreed that climate change could have a profound impact on the planet; from melting ice sheets and withering rain forests, to flash floods and droughts.

Now a team of climate experts has ranked the most fragile and vulnerable regions on the planet, and warned they are in danger of sudden and catastrophic collapse before the end of the century.

In a comprehensive study published today, the scientists identify the nine areas that are in gravest danger of passing critical thresholds or "tipping points", beyond which they will not recover.

Although the scientists cannot be sure precisely when each region will reach the point of no return, their assessment warns it may already be too late to save Arctic sea ice and the Greenland ice sheet, which they regard as the most immediately in peril. By some estimates, there will not be any sea ice in the summer months within 25 years.

===

The Independent's Steve Connor also penned an article: Scientists identify 'tipping points' of climate change