Arctic Fuels

Whether it's because someone in congress is being bribed to commit treason by foreign nations, or congress is being held captive by Marxists Environmentalists, or congress worships polar bears and hates tax payers, or all of the above, congress and it's refusal to drill in Alaska and off our coasts is the sole reason you are paying higher gas prices.

Then again, maybe it's that Global Warming hoax. The true purpose of which is to turn you upside down and shake alt the money out of your pockets. A secondary purpose is to reduce the United States to third world status and enhance the position of every other nation besides the US.

Since it's founding, Cape Farewell has brought together leading artists, writers, scientists, educators and media for a series of five expeditions into the wild and challenging High Arctic, the frontline of climate change. Together they have mapped, measured and been inspired by this awesome environment and have endeavored to bring home stories and artworks that tell how a warming planet is impacting on this wilderness. Together, they stimulate the production of art founded in scientific research. Using creativity to innovate, they engage artists for their ability to evolve and amplify a creative language, communicating on a human scale the urgency of the global climate challenge. Cape Farewell is widely acknowledged to be the most significant sustained artistic response to climate change anywhere in the world.

From their expeditions they have produced an extraordinary body of artwork, educational projects and collaborations, international exhibitions across London (Natural History Museum, Whitechapel Gallery, Southbank Centre), the UK (Oxford, Liverpool, Newcastle, Folkestone and Cornwall), in Europe (Oslo, Brussels, Hamburg, Monaco and Munich), and in North America (Colorado, Chicago and New York City). The major exhibition The Art of Climate Change (exhibited in London, Liverpool and Germany) is touring internationally with the Barbican Art Gallery. Between February - April 2008 it was exhibited in Madrid and is currently being shown in Tokyo, Japan (July – August 2008).

In 2006, in collaboration with the Natural History Museum's exhibition "The Ship: The Art of Climate Change", a free exhibition of contemporary art designed to deepen the understanding of climate change, Cape Farewell published "Burning Ice: Art and Climate Change", a 176-page publication comprising nearly 200 stunning colour photographs and illustrations. The book charts the experiences of artists who have voyaged with Cape Farewell including Heather Ackroyd & Dan Harvey, David Buckland, Siobhan Davies, Gautier Deblonde, and Max Eastley, and the work they have subsequently produced. Extracts from expedition journals complement writings by novelists Ian McEwan and Robert Macfarlane warning of the impacts of climate change.

Nick Cobbing, one of the photographers on an exhibition with Cape Farewell, had a photograph from the 2007 voyage featured in Time Magazine's "Pictures of the Year" issue. The voyage was a stormy one, on a 100 year old schooner ship, to east Greenland. Below are some of the images from the resulting body of work.

Noorderlicht on Greenland.

Becalmed by ice.

Winch berg.

Aerial.

Another body of work, titled "Surface Tension", an aerial study of the unique ice formations within the glaciers and ice-cap of Greenland, was possible through Greenpeace International, another obviously very well known environmental campaign group. The Greenlandic ice-cap is a 2 kilometers thick slab of compacted snow and ice, the largest in the Northern Hemisphere-- second only to the Antarctic ice sheet. The interior is an inhospitable wilderness, which is rarely visited. Underneath the surface of this shifting creaking frozen island, the warming occurring is adding an estimated 6.7 to 7 meters of of rising global sea levels. The photographs that you will notice the most, that stand out from other Greenland or arctic projects, are those of the deep blue lakes forming on the ice sheet. Do these lakes indicate warming? Is the melt water reaching the bottom and lubricating the glacier towards thr sea? These are all questions Nick was and is asking, with scientists working to find out. The following are images from this body of work.

An iceberg made of hard dense ice reflects late evening.

A melt lake formed in the shape of a heart.

Spurs of thin ice made by the surface of a melt lake re-freezing.

A view across the ice cap, with a melt lake in the background.

The town of Narsaq viewed through a hold in an iceberg in the bay.

To view more of this amazing body of work, please visit Nick's website.

And to learn more about Cape Farwell, please visit www.capefarewell.com.

Antarctica

Since SUVs were not around 14 million years ago, global warming must be cyclical and normal and not man made...

China's Energy Usage

Wind Driven City

The watermelons will be so pissed if it turns out we can go green without altering our lifestyle. Those who are green on the outside and communist or red on the inside really just want to tell you what to do and how to live. They never really gave a rat's ass about the earth or "global warming."

According to United Nations Secretary Ban Ki-Moon, the conflict between the Janjaweed, a militia group recruited mostly from the Arab Abbala tribes of northern Rizeigat, and the African farmers, which was declared a "genocide" by United States Secretary of State Colin Powell in 2004, was caused by man-made global warming, which has destroyed many of the area's natural resources. It is believed that global climate change is responsible for the decades of drought that has plagued Darfur, bringing the two factions to violence over scarce water and cultivatable land.

It is believed that this style of violence could end up being repeated in parts of North Africa and the Middle East, due to the ever-growing population places a strain on their limited water supply. This belief also comes from the fact that these areas have been suffering a steady decline in rainfall. In Darfur alone, the amount of annual rainfall has been cut by at least half since the last figures were collected in 1917.

The current population of Darfur, according to estimates, is well over 6.5 million people, and an estimated 10,000 people are killed every month from ethnic violence (over 333 people per day). As of right now, it is estimated that over 200,000 people have been killed in this conflict, with over 2.5 million people left homeless.

There has been some relief in Darfur, however, through such programs as the United Nations World Food Programme and the International Lifeline Fund, who introduced a redesigned stove that would require less wood to burn, preserving the trees necessary for the people of Darfur to grow food. Aid groups, in addition to the United Nations, are currently seeking ways to reconcile the African farmers and the Arab nomads. As a matter of fact, Arab chiefs have agreed to revive a "peace committee" to manage the common resources they have with the local leaders of African tribes. In addition, the Sudanese government has planned a pilot project, in which they will spend $10 million to replant trees and build dams for water conservation.

While it may seem that the conflict in Darfur may not have much to do with global warming (or environmentalism, for that matter), the evidence is clear that much of the violence in this nation have been linked to deforestation and drought, which are both symptoms of climate change. The current conflict in Darfur is proof-positive that global warming affects everybody's way of life.

For more information, check out this Wikipedia article or purchase the film Darfur Now, starring American film actor and author Don Cheadle.

Here is the trailer:

However, the road to regulation seemingly stopped there.  The White House refused to open the e-mail after learning the gist of the file.  And the Council on Environmental Quality (an executive office) and Dick Cheney’s staff deleted six pages of Centers for Disease Control director Julie L. Gerberding’s testimony to the Senate which emphasized health effects of climate change.  Furthermore, EPA director Stephen Johnson released a statement about two weeks ago saying that the EPA would seek comment on whether to regulate greenhouse gases but he did not lay out a regulatory framework for doing so.  But, this week the EPA reported that it is “very likely” that more people, especially the elderly and poor, will die during hotter periods in the coming years and that we can expect more powerful hurricanes and a shrinking fresh water supply in the west.

The EPA’s capriciousness seems to be a psychological struggle between two factions: whether to side with those who want to reduce greenhouse emissions, albeit through great monetary investment, to hasten the decline of our dependence on oil and save lives (we’ll call this the “good” side); or to side with those who want to leave regulation for the next group of politicians, who are unwilling to alienate powerful friends in the oil and coal industries, and generally to spend as little money as possible in the short term (the “bad” side).  Why in the world should an agency that supposedly protects the environment be more concerned with protecting the economy?  Aren’t factors like war, the mortgage crisis, and skyrocketing fuel costs impacting the economy more than tighter automobile efficiency standards ever will?  Furthermore, the Bush administration supports voluntary regulation of emissions by Big Oil and Big Coal as a solution.  Who are they kidding?  In the past, it took Congress and the Supreme Court to enforce labor rights and desegregation; none of that was voluntary as long as business interests and profit were concerned.

To be clear: the globe as a whole is getting warmer.  I am not queer for saving polar bears but in terms of the fossil fuel supply and emissions from increasing fuel use, CO2 does need to be regulated.  Some would say, “Listen, CO2 is not a pollutant because you’re breathing it out right now, Mr. Polluty McHypocrite.”  Well, I think it is safe to say that between the six billion people on the planet and their 600-plus million cars, billions of homes, and thousands of factories and mines, that the environment was only budgeted for human respiration.  With every product of civilization—high rise building, SUV, coal-powered plant—the environment becomes marginalized by humans.  Those who are against spending money to regulate the greenhouse pollution now will be spending much more to cool themselves in a few years when the summers grow longer and hotter.  It is absurd to think that the earth does not have some defense mechanism against pesky humans who are polluting her atmosphere and oceans—hurricanes, heat waves, and wildfires are not acts of God; they are a demonstration of the action-reaction concept.

Other than self-interested denial, I really do not see why regular citizens are averse to having greenhouse pollution regulated other than the increased cost of energy.  Big Business will assuredly pass the bill on to consumers when they are forced to regulate emissions but really, can we for once solve a problem as it occurs as opposed to when it really starts to affect civilization?  The United States has, as far as civilized, industrialized nations go, the unfortunate tendency to drag its feet on issues that don’t involve going to war—civil rights, Indian rights, worker rights, segregation, slavery, social services, women’s rights, and the environment.  We finally got the first half of the list taken care of decades or centuries after a resolution would have been properly dignified; the last three issues are still (unfortunately) up for debate.  It is a shame that the types of interests that have the most influence in this country—the wealthy, who want to limit the poor’s right to medical care, housing, and food; men, who wish to limit a woman’s right to choose; and humans, who seek to limit the environment’s right to be left untouched—cannot have sympathy for the little guy on a problem which really affects us all.

EPA administrator Johnson should feel ashamed for bending to the wishes of an administration that has allowed citizens to die in Iraq, in New Orleans, and soon all over the world as a result of self-interested policies.  Are humans really better than any other creature in the environment?  Are men better than women?  Are the rich better than the poor?  Probably not, but as long as there is oil to be drilled, fetuses to agonize over, and problems to be blamed on the dregs of society, fear of change will continue to impede our progress towards a better life.

7/20

I may be wrong...but I doubt it.

the claim that anthropogenic CO₂ is responsible for the current warming of Earth climate is scientifically insupportable because climate models are unreliable

I had mentioned it at the time but had not had the time or memory to read it again. For those in need of a quick, heavily emphasized (by me) quote:

The proper response to adamant certainty in the face of complete ignorance is rational skepticism. And aren’t we much better off accumulating resources to meet urgent needs than expending resources to service ignorant fears?

Here a longer extract, from the final remarks (my emphasis):

It’s not that we, “lack … full scientific certainty,” it’s that we lack any scientific certainty. We literally don’t know whether doubling atmospheric CO2 will have any discernible effect on climate at all.

If our knowledge of future climates is zero then for all we know either suppressing CO2 emissions or increasing them may make climate better, or worse, or just have a neutral effect. The alternatives are incommensurate but in our state of ignorance either choice equally has two chances in three of causing the least harm. Complete ignorance makes the Precautionary Principle completely useless. There are good reasons to reduce burning fossil fuels, but climate warming isn’t one of them.

Some may decide to believe anyway. “We can’t prove it,” they might say, “but the correlation of CO2 with temperature is there (they’re both rising, after all), and so the causality is there, too, even if we can’t prove it yet.” But correlation is not causation, and cause can’t be assigned by an insistent ignorance. The proper response to adamant certainty in the face of complete ignorance is rational skepticism. And aren’t we much better off accumulating resources to meet urgent needs than expending resources to service ignorant fears?

So, then, what about melting ice-sheets, rising sea levels, the extinction of polar bears, and more extreme weather events? What if unusually intense hurricane seasons really do cause widespread disaster? It is critical to keep a firm grip on reason and rationality, most especially when social invitations to frenzy are so pervasive. General Circulation Models are so terribly unreliable that there is no objectively falsifiable reason to suppose any of the current warming trend is due to human-produced CO2, or that this CO2 will detectably warm the climate at all. Therefore, even if extreme events do develop because of a warming climate, there is no scientifically valid reason to attribute the cause to human-produced CO2. In the chaos of Earth’s climate, there may be no discernible cause for warming. Many excellent scientists have explained all this in powerful works written to defuse the CO2 panic, but the choir sings seductively and few righteous believers seem willing to entertain disproofs

Note: there is one thing I agree with the APS. Monckton's paper has not undergone any scientific peer review. You see, he's a Lord (a Viscount, no less) whilst on the "Council of the APS"'s side there is obviously no trace of nobility. They have been "discorteous" indeed.

Time will tell about the position (and nobility) of Jeffrey Marque, the Editor of the FPS that has seen his July 2008 comments severely rebuked by the Executive Committee of the FPS. Who's going to choose what will be published in the October 2008 issue, is anybody's guess.

Interestingly, the FPS and the APS did not make too much of a fuss in the past, when publishing "heretical" climate-related opinions. For an example, see Gerald E. Marsh's "Climate Stability and Policy" in April 2008.

Mr Marsh is not exactly your average AGW proponent: he argues that current CO2 levels are too low and contributing to climate instability, suggests that even 750ppmv could still be not enough to stop an upcoming, catastrophic Ice Age. and recommends that the IPCC switch its focus towards "determining the optimal range of carbon dioxide concentrations that will stabilize the climate, and extend the current interglacial period indefinitely".

For some reason, the above did not cause any digestive pain at the FPS, either with its Editor, with its Executive Committee, or with the Council of the APS itself.

Is Monckton's paper simply too hot to handle? Plenty of nutrients for conspiracy theorists there, no doubt.

Just in case you missed it, what follows is a complete video of Al Gore's speech. Please watch and feel free to comment, whether you believe in global warming or not, and let the viewing public know where you stand.

I'm as good at shitting on your Earth as bears are at mauling small children.

I'm that guy, who buys a lighter in the corner shop, and asks for a plastic bag, even though it costs 5 pence.

I'm that prick who'd rather change regular light bulbs once a month, than go green, and buy energy saving light bulbs.

I'm that guy who will never make any effort what so ever to use public transport. I will use my car, I will pollute the atmosphere, I will leave my appliances on standby, I will waste paper and litter the streets, I will throw my cigarette ends out my car window. I will continuously, and with great passion and zeal, shit all over you green accomplishments and your Earth!

The best part is, that I do it, because of you.

I do it on principle. I am the Eco warriors worst nightmare, I'm like a miniature, less humane version of China.

Energy Saving light bulbs are shit. Everyone looks yellow and sickly under their light. Sorry but I'd rather indulge in vanity than have to walk around looking like I'm wearing clothes that I pissed on the night before.

I ask for plastic bags on purpose for even the smallest of items I buy, even when I don't need a bag. Why?

Because I will do everything in my power, until the day I die, to undo what you cretins are doing.

I will make no attempt to use public transport. Why?

Because Buses are nothing but glorified pleb wagons. I travel in style.

I don't arrive for a date or a meeting, or arrive at work, by climbing off a shitty, rusted, piss canister! I arrive well dressed, in a car.

That eight hour session where I left my computer on standby?

Do you know why I did that?

No?

Would you like to know?

It was done, (and has been done, every fucking day, for the last fucking year) because, you (as in the Eco warriors), are possibly the worst advertisement ever conceived for going green.

You are pretentious, you are arrogant, you are condescending to those who are better than you. You buy bullshit by the bucket load, then walk past me in the street like I'm some kind of leper because I smoke and litter.

You aren't green because you care, you're green because it makes you feel like a big fucking person inside, it fills you with a secret feeling of overwhelming power, it boosts your ego. You do it, because man loves to think he's going to annihilate himself, it makes him value his life and his time here that little more. It makes him think he's special in some way.

You think you're making a difference.

And this, this is the part I love... You aren't.

You are a lamb. A moronic lamb, walking into a welsh man's slaughter house, and I'm standing on the side lines, laughing as you are dismembered.

In a sick, twisted way, I hope your initiative succeeds, I will lose freedoms and basic civil rights, but I can live without them, so long as 20, 30, maybe even 40, years from now, I can look at you with a smirk and laugh at what you've done to yourselves.

And all you will be able to do is remember back to the days when you weren't continually strapped for cash because of an initiative that you helped turn into a culture, when you were young and full of misplaced energy, I hope, that as you remember these things, you will remember those who opposed you, and I hope you will remember them well, I hope you'll remember what better humanitarians they were than you.

Because that is what I am, a humanitarian!

I long for the day when people will stop carving up their rights and giving them away, I long for the day when people will grow weary and tired of political correctness, I long for the day, when you all grow the fuck up, and get the fuck off your high horses, and realise, you are selling out and hurting your own, more than you are saving them.

You are not helping the next generations, you are creating a dire inescapable situation for them, where carbon will be taxed, where flights will be more costly than ever, where every person will be expected to "do their bit" in the name of keeping the imaginary monster at bay...

The world isn't going to end because you washed your clothes above 60 degrees Celsius, the weather won't get unbearably hot because you left your t.v. on standby, people won't die in their masses if you throw an empty crisp wrapper on the floor.

Every time you tell me that "we need to work together to save the planet," or enquire in your little accusatory tone as to how much energy I save a month, I die a little inside, because it pains me to see morons like you, believing you are better than you are. You are locusts, you are filth, you are everything that should be despised in man-kind, spineless, unquestioning imbeciles!

I am vain, I use regular light bulbs, I waste water, occasionally I litter, I pollute your beloved Earth.

What exactly is wrong with that? Are we not entitled to enjoy our time on Earth? Every day I am continually asked, NAY! DEMANDED! BY LAW, to make concessions in the the way I live! I am demanded to look after myself, to look after others, to look after the Earth, because apparently, "we're all in this together."

You know what? Fuck that shit, you lot are in this together, I'm not part of your lurid, mentally diseased culture. I'm of a higher breed, a better stock. I don't buy into your bullshit, I don't need you. You need me.

"We're all in this together." - No, we aren't, you just need us to be, because you're too weak to ever achieve anything on your own, you need to create a culture of lambs following sheep. Morons following retards. The blind following the blind!

Why is it continually demanded of me that I never let so much as one ounce of a self-interested action out anymore?

I can no longer for one second give into laziness and litter, even if it's very rare that I do it, I can no longer enjoy a bath, or use plastic bags for convenience sake without being made to feel dirty, like a pariah.

And that, you Eco fag, is exactly why I do it.

We as a society are being asked to do something that is above and beyond the call of duty. It's time to realise that.

It is not your duty to save the environment, you have a choice.

I've made mine.

It consists of one rather simple motto:

Fuck your environment.

The Wired story talks about moving other animals as well, due to global warming and deforestation.

Hell, it even says they could possibly relocate African animals to the American Great Plains. It would be fucking awesome to see in elephant roaming around Montana or something.

Check out the article http://www.wired.com/science/planetearth/news/2008/07/species_relocation

-Pizzlor

One issues they face is the fact that six of the top greenhouse gas polluters in the world had agreed that year to reduce their emissions by 30% by 2050. Carmille Garcia, when asked her opinion of this, answered

"I think this is all a ploy for those polluters to get a chance to meet Ed Begley Jr."

One person at The Onion who is always good for a laugh is one Doyle Redland (voiced by Pete Mueller), who makes a commentary that the new Ford hyrdogen vehicles would end up depleting the world's hydrogen supply by 2070. You can listen to it on The Onion's podcast.

Another article on The Onion pokes fun at Ann Veneman, then Secretary of Agriculture. They poked fun at Veneman by saying that she had just finished reading the novel "Fast Food Nation", even though the book had been published two years earlier. According to the article:

Veneman vowed that, upon completing "Fast Food Nation", she will immediately go out and buy Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring".

Now, political figures aren't the only ones who are being targeted, but major events, such as the Million Man March, were being satirized, when they wrote an article that snowmen (yes, you read that right) were marching to the capitol in Washington, D.C., to protest global warming.

I have always been able to turn to The Onion for a good laugh when I have needed one, and the "Obligatory Green Issue" delivers on all fronts. Please remember that they are not making fun of environmentalists and global warming, but merely having fun with it. Now, there's nothing wrong with that, is there?

They also had a party, which was a house warming for Ryan and a celebration of the end of term. Karim (Ryan's roommate) does a pretty good Michael Jackson.

On my last day there, Ryan and I went to see the Australian War Memorial.

It was pretty cool, but we had to kind of rush through because it was so late in the day.

At the end of the weekend, I rented a car.

It was not all that difficult getting used to driving on the wrong side of the road.

At one point, I stopped for gas and found this big boy guarding the door to the gas station.

He was extremely friendly, if also lazy. ;-)

Sejak dua tahun yang lalu, Pemadaman Listrik di DKI semakin merajalele. Hampir setiap siang atau malam setiap area di kebanyakan wilayah padam selama 6 jam. “Ini sebuah kejahatan !” kata Pakar Telematika Rio Suryo. Sekolah Tinggi Telematika di bilangan Menteng miliknya selalu menjadi sasaran pemadaman.

“Mau bagaimana lagi !, pasokan energi untuk listrik masih sangat terbatas !” begitu komentar Direktur PLN ketika ditanya pada satu kesempatan. Sementara itu Pembangkit Listrik Tenaga Nuklir batal dibangun karena protes keras masyarakat.

Namun saat ini, masa itu sudah lewat. Dominasi PLN sebagai pemasok listrik sudah lewat. PLN sudah tidak lagi bisa hanya ‘jualan listrik’ saja, PLN sudah saatnya berempati pada kebutuhan masayarakat akan layanan. Kini PLN mulai kewalahan karena turunnya demand pelanggan sejak masyarakat mulai memanfaatkan solusi yang ditawarkan oleh perguruan tinggi yang bekerja sama dengan LSM – LSM dan beberapa pengusaha kecil dan menengah.

Hal ini sudah pernah terjadi dengan Pertamina beberapa belas tahun yang lalu sejak terlena mendominasi pasokan minyak di Indonesia, kemudian tersadar pangsa pasarnya turun sejak hadirnya pesaing seperti Shell dan Petronas yang lebih memahami kebutuhan nasabah atas layanan. Setelah melakukan transformasi menjadi perusahaan yang mengedepankan Emotional Benefit, Pertamina kini telah menjadi perusahaan yang diacungi jempol dengan layanan yang bermutu dan memuaskan. Saat ini malah Pertamina tengah mempersiapkan diri untuk menjadi perusahaan yang mengedepankan Spiritual Benefit, dimana mereka tidak hanya mencari keuntungan semata, tetapi lebih mengedepankan kemaslahatan umat.

Beberapa project Pertamina yang akan diujicobakan adalah penggantian bahan bakar fosil dengan bahan bakar air dan implementasi Blue Energy. Project ini diharapkan akan menurunkan kadar polusi dan lebih Earth Friendly. Project ini juga didanai oleh The Global Warming Awareness Program dari PBB.

Kembali ke PLN, mungkinkah kini saatnya mereka melakukan Transformasi ?. “Sudah cukup dengan jargon penghematan !”, begitu kata ketua LSM Laskar Mandiri. “Sudah saatnya kita swasembada listrik !”. Solusi itu antara lain adalah penyediaan panel surya yang sangat murah karena dibuat dari material bekas. Para mahasiswa teknik perguruan tinggi mengajarkan dengan gratis bagaimana membuat panel tersebut kepada para pekerja bengkel di sekitar Jakarta.

Masyarakat sangat menyambut gembira solusi ini karena dapat menggantikan pasokan listrik sampai 20% - 50% setiap harinya, tergantung konsumsi dan besar panel surya yang dipasang di atap rumah dan tentu saja murah.

(PB)

Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger is an Austrian-American bodybuilder, actor, businessman and politician, currently serving as the 38th Governor of the state of California. He is married to journalist Maria Shriver and has four children.

During his first term as governor, Schwarzenegger signed a bill creating the nation's first cap on greenhouse gas emissions, which set new regulations on the amount of emissions that utilities, refineries and manufacturing plants were allowed to release into the atmosphere. Schwarzenegger also signed a second global warming bill that prohibits large utilities and corporations in California from making long-term contracts with suppliers who do not meet the state's greenhouse gas emission standards. Both bills were part of a plan to reduce California's emissions by 25 percent by 2020. In 2005, Schwarzenegger had issued an executive order calling to reduce greenhouse gases to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

Schwarzenegger signed another executive order on October 17, 2006 allowing California to work with the Northeast's Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in order to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by issuing a limited amount of carbon credits to each power plant in participating states, which is set to be in effect in 2009.

In addition to using his political power to fight global warming, the governor has taken steps at his home to reduce his personal carbon footprint. Schwarzenegger has adapted one of his Hummers to run on hydrogen and another to run on biofuels. He has also installed solar panels to heat his home.

On June 30, 2008, Schwarzenegger joined with California state treasurer Bill Lockyer and Tesla Motors to announce Tesla's decision to locate its new manufacturing facility in California. In addition, he announced that, as part of the state's ongoing commitment to clean technology, California will be instating a new program that waives the sales tax on investment in new manufacturing equipment for Zero Emission Vehicles.

Bleached Coral Resulting from Global Warming

Sea temperature rises due to warming bleach and weaken the algae that give the underwater sea life its vibrant colour, and make it more susceptible to diseases.  When corals die off, so do the other plants and animals that depend on coral reefs for food and shelter, and this can lead to the collapse of entire ecosystems, so this is not just a small, centralized problem.  Reef building polyps are the most vulnerable to global warming.

As reefs are home to over 25 percent of marine species, the loss of reefs could also hurt coastal fishing.  The Caribbean has the highest number of highly threatened corals world-wide.  The Indo-Malay-Philippine archipelago also has the highest proportions of vulnerable and almost threatened species in the Indo-Pacific.

"We either reduce our CO2 emission now or many corals will be lost forever," warned Julia Marton-Lefevre, IUCN Director General.

Twenty Russian scientists are to be evacuated from their camp on a drifting ice-floe in the Arctic after it started disintegrating sooner than expected.

The Russians had set up research station "North Pole 35" on the floe last September when it measured a safe five kilometres long and three kilometres wide, and their original plan was to stay on it until this September.

But after enduring the permanent night of the Arctic winter and surviving the threat of polar bears, the scientists now find that their temporary home has shrunk to just 600m by 300m and faces complete break-up as it drifts towards a current known to contain relatively warm waters.

This evacuation comes as Canadian researchers report that the melting of the Arctic ice this year started at least four weeks ahead of the long-term average.

Separate teams of scientists in Canada and the US have forecast that this year's seasonal melt of Arctic sea-ice may well reach or exceed last year's record thaw in which the ice retreated to an extent not predicted for several decades.

Don't miss the boat, folks.

Our politicians continue to do that; but, they aren't risking their butts on an ice floe.

not in the issues of man
not in the abilities of the leaders of the world's richest nations,
or the government of a country,
or the people in charge of eskom,
or the managers at my (soon-to-be-ended) job.

Am I so relieved my confidence is in an eternal God
and I am not affected by
the fuel price rising,
the sea level rising,
the food price rising,
the climate crisis,
the impending war in the Middle East
or Iran vs Israel vs USA

What peace I can have, peace that doesn't make sense, peace when all else is failing. I don't have to believe that the peoples of the world can agree on anything, or that seeking within myself is going to make me a better human, or that the people of the world give a hoot about the coming generation, or the dolphins. So what if all people can see is themselves, and the fact that global warming is melting ice so that polar bears are drowning won't stop them driving down to the cafe to get another packet of smokes, just because they can, and after all, it is their right - they have free will, don't they?

It would, in my humble opinion, have been much more useful to do something with that $1.4M that would make it unnecessary for future generations to worry about global warming.

Donating the money to Friends of the Earth or to one of the many universities engaged in sustainability research would have been a proactive means of achieving practical progress. Researchers can do a lot with a million here and there. (Not to mention avoiding the carbon cost that manufacturing, installing and promoting the monument entails.)

Needless to say, in the typically brutal entrepreneurial fashion (the one that is responsible for much of the muck we're in at the moment) it's much 'cooler' to look like you're doing something about it, than to actually help cool the climate down.

It would also have been much simpler.

G8 vows to halve greenhouse gases
World leaders have agreed to set a global target of cutting carbon emissions by at least 50% by 2050 in an effort to tackle global warming...

Africa's broken promises
Both the leaders of the industrialised world - the G8 - and the presidents of Africa are failing to keep the promises they made at Gleneagles summit in Scotland in 2005...

If I were a climate change campaigner I'd be particularly angry at the result. Richard Black at the BBC sounds particularly pessimistic

So far, then, this G8 summit has confused the issue rather than clarifying it.

The lasting impression is that unless there is something big happening that can be linked to global warming, Governments will simply and slowly drift away from it.