Climate change & climate action

What was the “breaking news” I promised at the beginning of the last posting? Well, yesterday I sat in on a discussion group that decided to put forward a major proposal to the council of War Resisters International, suggesting an investigation of the feasibility and desirability of WRI addressing the extent to which climate change, and in particular the threat of runaway climate change, affects the anti-militarist and social justice struggles it is currently involved in, or supporting.…

Within this book, there’s a thoughtful treatise against climate change struggling to get out. It never quite makes it, which is a shame, as Alastair McIntosh has some important things to say. One of the main problems is structure. Part one deals with the science of climate change and political dilemmas; part two, with a spiritual response.

The trouble with this approach is that the book becomes neither one thing nor the other, particularly when the style veers between dense analysis…

The climate conference in Copenhagen is a turning point in world history. The protests in Denmark and around the world before and during the conference are therefore of enormous importance.

As a species, we are now fully conscious of the effects of our actions on the world’s climate and therefore on all the interlocking ecosystems on which human and other forms of life depend. At Copenhagen, the world’s governments could give their informed consent either to a scientifically-…

Rich countries and corporations have grown wealthy through a model of development that has pushed the planet to the brink of climate catastrophe. They have over-used the planet’s ability to absorb carbon dioxide.

Drastic measures now have to be taken to prevent runaway climate change, making it impossible for poor countries to grow their economies in the same way. Put another way, the rich world has “colonised” the earth’s atmosphere. This process has mirrored and perpetuated…

Climate Justice Action is a new global network of people and groups committed to take the urgent actions needed to avoid catastrophic climate change. The network is open to individuals and groups that agree with our Networks Goals, Principles for Working Together and Call To Action.

Among the many groups that are part of the network are: Climate Watch Alliance (Nepal); Focus on the Global South; Friends of the Earth (Engand, Wales and Northern Ireland); Human Rights Defenders…

Civil disobedience “has a role” in opposing climate change, says former US vice-president Al Gore, talking to the Guardian: “Civil disobedience has an honourable history, and when the urgency and moral clarity cross a certain threshold, then I think that civil disobedience is quite understandable, and it has a role to play. And I expect that it will increase.”

Meat production is responsible not for 18% but 51% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to a study by a former lead environmental adviser to the World Bank and a current adviser. In a Worldwatch Institute report, Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang argue that the methane, land use and respiration impacts of billions of farm animals have been underestimated .
They estimate that farm animals cause 32 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, more than the combined impact of…

Only 41% of Britons accept that climate change is largely human-made, according to a Populus poll for The Times in early November.
Only 28% of Britons believe climate change is “far and away the most serious problem we face as a country and internationally”.
Despite this scepticism, there is a clear majority of 69% to 26% supporting limits on CO2 emissions and making companies pay for their emissions, even if this results in higher prices for goods and energy.

Global warming is likely to be “at the top end of the IPCC [International Panel on Climate Change] scenario”, according to professor Corinne Le Quéré of East Anglia university, leader of a Global Carbon Project study into the Earth’s (declining) capacity to absorb carbon dioxide.
“If the agreement [at Copenhagen] is too weak, or the commitments are not respected, it is not 2.5C or 3C we will get: it’s 5C or 6C – that is the path we’re on,” said Le Quéré on 17 November.
A rise of…

This inspiring book draws on the practical experience of Transition Initiatives and provides all the information and inspiration needed to start a local food project. “It’s all about devising abundant, beautiful, fun and delicious food projects.”

The main part of the book is made up of all the different categories of local food projects from shared allotment and garden projects through Community Supported Agriculture Schemes to food co-operatives and school projects. Each one is…

Plaid Cymru MEP Jill Evans hosted a visit of climate campaigners from Wales to Brussels in mid-October. Campaigners urged European politicians to act decisively ahead of the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen later this year.

The Welsh group visiting Brussels, many of whom participated in Climate Camp Cymru, included Vicky Moller, an Ecotour operator; Sue Hutchinson, a town councillor; Siobhan Ashe from Newport, Pembrokeshire; James Cass from the Centre for Alternative…

Saturday 17 October. 1.03pm. The first tweet comes in on my mobile phone: “The fences are breached. There’s people on top of the coal pile. The Swoop is go!”

Having driven from the west coast of Wales, we’re still half a mile down the road from Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station, but we can see the helicopter circling. Moments later and the Bike Bloc stream past, bells ringing, clown faces grinning, beat-box booming – this is magic.

Passing the main gate, a throng of…

The Little Mermaid, Tivoli Gardens, Probably The Worst Beer In The World: these may be some of the tourist attractions, but what will draw people to Copenhagen this December is the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP15. Sponsored by, among others, BMW, DHL and SAS (Scandinavian Airlines), and revealing no discernible sense of either shame or irony because of that, COP15 runs from 7-18 December.

Sometimes referred to as Kyoto 2, COP15 is supposed to conclude a…

At the end of September, Richard Betts, head of climate impacts at the Met Office Hadley Centre, described a temperature rise of 4oC as “an extreme scenario”, but also “a plausible scenario” within people’s lifetimes. He added: “the most severe scenario is looking more plausible”.
According to scientists, a 4oC rise over pre-industrial levels could threaten the water supply of half the world’s population, wipe out up to half of animal and plant species, and swamp low coasts.

…

Please ask your MP to sign Early Day Motion 2057 (from Colin Challen MP) on climate change. It asks for “substantial emissions reductions of 10% by the end of 2010”; domestic flights and unabated coal “to be phased out by the end of 2010”; “at least two hours of prime time TV per week” to be used to explain the gravity of the crisis to the public; and the creation of a million green jobs by the end of 2010.