Can you guess when we started extracting fossil fuels? And oil? Do you think it can go on?
Category:Risk and Terror
The Nobel War Prize?
While I munched a lunchtime sandwich I happened to switch on the news for the few minutes during which a live feed of the Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech showed Barack Obama justifying war. I was shocked. In the same breath that Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr were praised it was suggested that sometimes …
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The problem with carbon trading
While I appreciate the positive aspect of carbon trading – that it draws attention to the problem of overconsumption of energy, in particular fossil fuels – it is a distraction from focussing on the real problem of changing the way we do things. A new report of carbon trading articulates the increasing risks of focussing …
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Extinction threat to humans growing.
The headline might be more dramatic than the original: “Species’ extinction threat grows”. But it’s more to the point. If they are dying faster, nature is changing faster. Humans can not adapt to an environment much different from the one we inhabit, especially in terms of temperature, moisture, oxygen. But mostly, we’ll just run out …
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No Plan “B”
The world faces a “catastrophe” of floods, droughts and killer heatwaves if world leaders fail to agree a deal on climate change. Negotiators have 50 days to save the world from global warming and break the “impasse”. There is no plan B. This is the message of Gordon Brown at the Major Economies Forum in …
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Species extinction accelerating.
Statistics demonstrate that the extinction rates of animal species are much higher than had been predicted only a few years ago. Scientists are warning of an alarming increase in the extinction rates because of threats to biodiversity and ecosystems posed by pollution, climate change and urban spread. Freshwater species are most affected, becoming extinct six …
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The recession has not slowed humanity’s consumption of the planet.
You would have thought that an economic recession, which has slowed spending, raised unemployment and impacted trade, would have had a beneficial effect on humanity’s ecological footprint. But it has not. The Consumption Explosion continues. Humanity’s footprint is still as large as ever. Today is “ecological debt day”, the day that humanity has used the …
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US to cut missile defence plan. A good start.
The US has cancelled or postponed the plan to emplace missiles in Poland. This is good news. Increasing the volume of armaments is a ludicrous policy in a world where people are dying of malnutrition and thirst and where a gun has no practical purpose except to kill another person. The resources would be better …
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Will the new Japan stop barbaric imprisonment and death?
There are 100 people on death row in Japan. Many of them are elderly and have spent decades in near isolation. Conditions are primitive. The new government will be able to abolish the death penalty. Will Japanese people call for it? Will they allow it? It would be a healthy step towards cultural maturity if …
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Grab land! The food is running out.
South Korea’s biggest is 1.3 million hectares in Madagascar. China’s is 1.24 million in the Philippines. With rich, resource-poor nations increasingly outsourcing their food production to less developed nations, a new website aims to expose the extent of the agricultural land-grab epidemic. It’s a simple if iniquitous equation: rich countries with limited land resources snap …
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