UN Negotiator Urges Steps On Climate Change

"The United Nations' top negotiator on climate change Friday urged countries to press on renewing measures to curb the crisis, ahead of key meetings on the future of the fight against it.

"We must advance negotiations in Bali to put in place a long-term climate change policy," at a major greenhouse gas conference on the Indonesian island in December, Yvo de Boer, the UN secretary general's point man on the issue, told AFP." |Read more|

Mayor Nagin Announces Shelter Locations

"New Orleans city officials announced Friday evening three locations throughout the city where those living in FEMA trailers or who feel unsafe in their homes can seek refuge during tomorrow's tropical storm." |Read more|

New Orleans Inspector General Makes Appeal To Council

"New Orleans' first inspector general made his first appearance Thursday before the City Council, getting assurances that he will be given a 2008 budget large enough to do his job of uncovering waste, fraud and inefficiency in city government." |Read more|

Tornado Damages Florida Homes

"Severe weather, including a possible tornado, damaged about 50 homes, shearing the entire second story off one home, authorities said Friday.

Radar indicated a tornado spun off from a storm system that crossed through central Florida before spilling into the Gulf of Mexico, touching down late Thursday night, according to the National Weather Service." |Read more|

Governor Blanco Declares "State of Emergency" in Louisiana

"Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco declared a state of emergency late Thursday as an unpredictable weather disturbance in the Gulf of Mexico had potential to intensify and wreak havoc along the coast.

Mark Smith, a spokesman for the Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, said the governor had ordered 100 school buses to be put on standby, along with ambulances and workers for emergency evacuation shelters. In addition, he noted, the declaration allows for the Louisiana National Guard to be put on alert as well." | Read more|

Scientist Report Severe Retreat Of Arctic Ice

"The ice retreat has been particularly striking this year. The Alaskan side of the Arctic Ocean has stretches of thousands of square miles of open water; the fabled Northwest Passage through the islands of northern Canada was free of ice for weeks; and the sea route between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans north of Russia was nearly clear a week ago, with one small clot of ice around a group of Siberian islands.

Mark Serreze, a senior researcher at the snow and ice center, said it was increasingly clear that climate change from the buildup of greenhouse gases was playing a role in the Arctic warming, which is seen not only in the floating ice but also in melting terrestrial ice sheets, thawing tundra and warming seawater." |Read more|

British Insurers Launch ClimateWise

"The British insurance industry launched the new ClimateWise initiative last week in a bid to get to grips with global warming. Led by the Association of British Insurers (ABI), the project is designed to help insurers adapt to, and help mitigate, the possible effects of climate change, such as the increased risk of flooding, storms and heat waves.

ABI director general Stephen Haddrill warned that “business as usual” will see the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere treble by the end of the century, leading to climatic disaster. He says insurance companies need to reduce their own greenhouse emissions and encourage customers to reduce theirs." |Read more|

Pennsylvania's "Growth Patterns" Increases Fuel Emissions

"Pennsylvania needs a more aggressive approach to global warming based on a new report that shows an alarming increase in how many miles the average person is driving,
according to Brian Hill, President of the Pennsylvania Environmental
Council.


Sprawling development patterns are a key contributor to global warming
and an essential factor in combating it, according to the report released
today in Washington, DC, by the Urban Land Institute, Smart Growth America
and other organizations." |Read more|

Environment Becoming Favorable For "Tropical Cyclone"

"A weak low pressure system moving across Florida and into the Gulf of Mexico could become a tropical cyclone later today.

A routine and daily tropical weather outlook posted by the National Hurricane Center says that, "...the environment is gradually becoming favorable for a subtropical or a tropical cyclone to form..."" |Read more|

EU to Help Poor Nations Fight Global Warming

"The European Commission this week announced the creation of a fund to help developing nations battle climate change, putting in 50 million euros ($69 million) itself to kick it off.

Louis Michel, EU Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, proposed the global alliance to help developing nations deal with and adapt to the effects of climate change." |Read more|

Groups Vow To Clear "Coastal" Hurdles

"Senior Army Corps of Engineers officials agreed Wednesday to work with state officials and representatives of environmental and other nongovernmental groups to quickly identify and solve scientific and engineering concerns to speed construction of four major coastal restoration and hurricane protection projects.

The agreement resulted from a request of an environmental leader who suggested forming small teams to solve problems that might crop up in preparing to build major projects. The request came during a meeting of corps and state officials working on proposals to protect the state's coast from storm surge from large hurricanes with independent scientists and environmental and civic groups." |Read more|

Environmentalists Split Over Duke's Plan For Plant

"Duke's new facility would produce about 45 percent less carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour of electricity it generates than the current plant; however, because it will produce nearly 10 times the power, total carbon dioxide emissions will increase.


The company has pledged to study options for capturing at least some of that carbon dioxide and storing it underground. It is a move many think holds promise for reducing air pollution, but it is dividing Indiana environmentalists.


Those opposed to the plant say the technology for storing the gas is cost-prohibitive and unproven. Supporters argue it will be a major step forward in the effort to stop global warming." |Read more|

Study Sheds New Light On Global Warming

"METHANE released from wetlands turned the Earth into a hothouse 55 million years ago, according to research released yesterday that could shed light on a worrying aspect of today's climate-change crisis.

Scientists have long sought to understand the triggers for an extraordinary warming episode called the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), which occurred about 10 million years after the twilight of the dinosaurs.

Earth's surface warmed by at least five degrees Celsius in just a few hundred or a few thousand years. The Arctic Ocean was at 23 degrees Celsius _ about the same as a tepid bath _ before the planet eventually cooled." |Read more|

San Francisco Will Go "Dark" To Save Energy

"The Golden Gate Bridge, City Hall, Alcatraz and other parts of the city will go almost completely dark for an hour next month as part of a campaign to conserve energy and fight global warming.

Organizers of Lights Out San Francisco are asking city residents and businesses to install energy-efficient bulbs and turn off all unnecessary lights for an hour on the night of Oct. 20, a Saturday. The goal is to save 15 percent of the electricity consumed on an average Saturday night." |Read more|

"Climate" Enters State Investment Equation

"Oregon Treasurer Randall Edwards joined environmentalists, institutional investors and financial officers from other states Tuesday in formally petitioning securities regulators to force publicly traded companies to disclose the emerging risks they face from global warming.

The coalition also asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to immediately scrutinize the adequacy of companies' climate change disclosures under existing laws.

The group maintains that most companies haven't been giving investors the full story on their climate change risks, whether it's a bank or insurance company looking at more extreme weather events or a utility facing potentially expensive climate change regulations." |Read more|

Al Gore opens FEX SIM Launch

"The launch of a clean technology market on Wednesday had some serious pulling power including the former United States vice-president Al Gore.

Mr Gore was at the launch in Sydney of the FEX Sustainability and Cleantech Investment Market (FEX-SIM), and spoke about global warming and the opportunities it presented for businesses and for companies aiming to become sustainable." |Read more|

Governor Ritter & Congressman Udall To Testify Before Congress About Renewable Energy

"Renewable energy and global warming are among the topics Colorado's Governor Bill Ritter will testify about in Washington, D.C. this Thursday. He will appear before the U.S. House Select Committee on Energy Independent and Global Warming.

Ritter is expected to talk about the economic and environmental benefits of implementing a renewable energy standard like Amendment 37, a voter approved measure passed in Colorado in 2004. Amendment 37 requires 10 percent renewable energy production for the state by 2015. Colorado is the first state in the country to approve a measure like Amendment 37." |Read more|

Scientists Warns Of Climate Change Impact

"Climate change could mean higher temperatures, less winter precipitation and less spring runoff for the Southwest, a climatologist says.

Temperatures in New Mexico could increase by a few degrees by the end of this century, said Gregg Garfin, project manager of the Climate Assessment Project for the Southwest at the University of Arizona." |Read more|

Young Entrepreneurs Target Global Warming

"An increasing number of young people are concerned about global warming, according to recent studies, and some are working to fight it through business initiatives, such as credit cards that invest in renewable energy.

Andy Rossmeissl and Jake Whitcomb, both 24, founded Brighter Planet in late 2005 after taking an environmental economics course together at Middlebury College in Vermont. Challenged by their professor Jon Isham to devise innovative ways to bring more people into the discussion about climate change, Rossmeissl and Whitcomb decided to take a business approach.

"We were pretty inspired from the beginning. The ideas started to take a life of their own, and we just sort of ran with it," said Rossmeissl.

They founded Brighter Planet, a for-profit business with the goal of creating products that involve consumers in combating global warming." |Read more|

Electronics Help Predict Global Warming

"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that the ice-packed caps may disappear between 2050 and 2100, but the panel admits that its prediction of the year they completely melt is only a guess. Now, by making detailed measurements of the polar ice's permeability, using models originally conceived for solid-state semiconductors, scientists are refining global warming predictions. University of Utah mathematician Ken Golden is currently on an Australian research ship in the Antarctic, pioneering the electronic modeling of ice permeability." |Read more|

Global Warming Increases Infectious Diseases

"Global warming likely will lead to an increase in infectious disease around the world, as viruses, microbes and the agents that spread them flourish, experts at a medical conference warned Tuesday.

The problem is already evident and has become particularly acute in just the past decade, according to researchers at a meeting of the American Society for Microbiology." |Read more|

States Tackle Global Warming

"State governments, impatient with the lack of leadership from Washington on global warming, are going it alone with some nods of encouragement from the federal bench.

Last week, a U.S. District Court judge in Vermont ruled against the auto industry in its lawsuit challenging that state's efforts to curb emissions of greenhouse gases emitted by cars and light trucks. The ruling could add momentum to similar initiatives being undertaken in several other states." Read more..

Polluting Factories Will Operate During 2008 Olympic Games

"Beijing has not demanded polluting factories around the capital suspend operations ahead of the 2008 Olympic Games to improve air quality, the Financial Times reported Tuesday.


Liu Qi, chairman of the Beijing Games organizing committee and the capital's highest-ranking official, said in an interview that factories would have to watch their emissions but would not have to shut for the August 2008 Games.

"The main thing is to strengthen factories. Â’ management of gases and reduce emissions of pollutants," Liu, chief of the Beijing Communist Party, was quoted as saying. "We have not made any demand for suspensions of operations."

Liu, who serves on the powerful Politburo of the ruling Communist Party, had previously said that some factories may be ordered to close before and during the Games to improve air quality.

Beijing is one of the world's most polluted cities and poor air quality has long been a grave concern for athletes, officials and fans.

Speaking at the one-year countdown celebrations last month, International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge said events could be rescheduled if pollution was extremely bad.

"Definitely the endurance sports like the cycling race where you have to compete for six hours, these are examples of competitions that might be postponed or delayed to another day," Rogge said.

"We are completely confident that Olympic athletes will be able to take part in their competitions normally next August," Liu told the Financial Times."

Impact of Wall Street on Climate Change

"Two environmental groups and the financial officers of 10 states and New York City are asking the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to require companies to disclose the risks that climate change could pose to their bottom lines. The petition was expected to reach the commission Tuesday, representatives of the groups said.

The action by Ceres, a coalition of environmental activists and investors, along with Environmental Defense and investors managing $1.5 trillion in assets is the second in recent days to focus attention on the potential impact on Wall Street of climate change." Read on

Judge Dismisses Suit Blaming Automakers For Contributing To Global Warming

"A US court on Monday dismissed a lawsuit lodged by California officials demanding millions of dollars in damages from six automakers blamed for contributing to global warming.

A written ruling issued by a federal judge in the Northern District of California said it was not for courts to decide the extent to which car makers could be held accountable for producing harmful greenhouse gases." More of story

Reducing "Meat Consumption" Decreases The Effects of "Global Warming"

"Cutting world meat consumption by 10 percent would significantly slow down the impact of global warming, a new research has found.

Writing in the latest edition of medical health journal The Lancet, the scientists advised people in rich countries to limit their meat consumption to the equivalent of one hamburger per person per day to help reduce global warming.

"Worldwide, agricultural activity, especially livestock production, accounts for about a fifth of total greenhouse-gas emissions, thus contributing to climate change and its adverse health consequences, including the threat to food yields in many regions," write the authors.

Researchers believe that cutting global red meat consumption from an average of 100g per person per day to 90g would cut the gases emitted by cows, sheep and goats that contribute to global warming.

"Particular policy attention should be paid to the health risks posed by the rapid worldwide growth in meat consumption, both by exacerbating climate change and by directly contributing to certain diseases," the study added.

Nearly 22 percent of the planet's total emissions of greenhouse gases come from agriculture. Livestock production, including transport of livestock and feed, account for nearly 80 percent of agricultural emissions, mainly in the form of methane, a potent heat-trapping gas.

"A substantial contract in meat consumption in high-income countries should benefit health, mainly by reducing the risk of ... heart disease... obesity, colorectal cancer and, perhaps some other cancers," the research said.

"An increase in the consumption of animal products in low-intake populations, towards the proposed global mean figure, should also benefit health," the study added."

Wildlife Enthusiasts Urge Others To Become More Environmentally Friendly

"Wildlife enthusiasts are trying to persuade people to take action to be more environmentally friendly over the next two weeks.

Climate change is likely to have as much impact on wildlife as the human race, causing confusion for animals and putting plants at risk. But Westcountry wildlife trusts haven't given up the fight against global warming.

From Saturday, and for two weeks, the South West's eight wildlife trusts is hosting a festival of events to carry the climate change message."

climate change

Climate Change Alters Natural Ecosystems

"Around the world, scientists have found that climate change is altering natural ecosystems, making profound changes in the ways that animals live, migrate, eat and grow. Some species have benefited from the shift. Others have been left disastrously out of sync with their food supply. Two are known to have simply disappeared.

If warming continues as predicted, scientists say, 20 percent or more of the planet's plant and animal species could be at increased risk of extinction."

"Green" Model Homes To Be Erected In New Orleans

"New Orleans recovery director Ed Blakely said Saturday that the office will erect a "Recovery Village" in City Park consisting of eight model homes demonstrating "alternative" building methods such as steel framing, concrete, insulating panels and modular construction.

The village, which Blakely said should open sometime in October, is intended to spread awareness of what he said are cheaper, faster and more environmentally sound alternatives to traditional wood-frame construction." Read more..

Manila's Cardinal Urges Filipinos To Help Save The Environment

The Cardinal enumerated ways on how Filipinos can help save the environment in their own individual ways like the use of less electricity and gasoline, planting trees, segregating garbage, and turning away from a highly consumerist and wasteful lifestyle.

On the national level, he said the government should encourage and prioritize the use of renewable sources of energy, which the Philippines is abundantly blessed with.

Rosales, however, stressed that Filipinos will not be successful in developing a new attitude unless they are sustained and nourished by a new vision.

"Let everyone be part of the solution, not of the problem. Let us all together save and love our beautiful land, our beautiful world," he said.

A Global Warming and Climate Change conference is being organized by the Archdiocese of Manila’s Ecology Desk on Saturday, Sept. 22, and Sunday, Sept. 23, at the College of the Holy Spirit of Manila, Mendiola, Manila.

"As stewards of God’s creation, we have a responsibility to uphold its integrity, raise our voices against its abuse, and act together to promote its (environment) protection," Read on..