It is easy to forget that the effects of Actual Global Warming are not just warmer average temperatures. The real threat is extreme weather situations becoming more frequent, more powerful and more likely to cause more damage.

Speaking at the MD of Bighorn’s Living in the Natural Environment speakers series earlier this month, Dave Sauchyn with the Prairie Adaptation Research Collaborative discussed the likely effects that climate change may bring to Alberta. In the prairies, the extreme weather situations could include floods and droughts, tornadoes and lighting storms and in the Rockies, flash floods and mudslides are also a potential danger.

“The big issue is not the averages, but how the extremes will change. The problem is not warming, it is the climate extremes. The big question is not how much warmer will it be in winter, but when are we going to get the next 25-year drought, because it is coming.”

Sauchyn knows the climate is changing, but also knows that is always has been. Some warming is natural. Over the past 150 years, that natural trend can be seen in the temperature records data. However, in the last 30 years, there is difference between the warming that would be expected to occur naturally and the temperatures observed.

“If you look at the entire period going back to 1975, there is a very clear and quite dramatic increase in global temperature. Climate change is a trend, it is a tendency, it is not what is happening today, this winter or the last couple of years. It is what has been happening the last 150 years and what we expect to occur over the next century.”

The discrepancy occurring over the past 30 years has been put through various models and the only explanation for it is the increasing amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Whether the nations of the world actually acknowledge and/or take action on greenhouse gas levels or not, societies the world over are going to have to adapt to a changing climate and the extreme events that will accompany it.

“If you think we have had warming already, wait until you see the warming we expect over the next century, depending of course on the amount of greenhouse gases we expect people to produce. It would not be possible for us to be here today if we did not adapt, but we have to adapt even more to sustain our economy and communities with a changed climate.”

Climate change is a matter of science, not belief. I can believe that pi is exactly 3 that doesn’t make it so. No, science is about what you can measure, and no the fashion world has had a blow struck for empirical fact. Danish design company Diffus has designed a very special dress. Unlike other dresses this one contains tiny electronic circuits that detect CO2. All it needs to go with it is some high tech lingerie that can detect right wing nonsense.

dress detects warming gas

The US has avoided Nuclear power since the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island, an accident that was caused by the partial core meltdown of one of the reactors at the site in Pennsylvania, which resulted in a release of radioactive gases into the atmosphere. The move ticks many of the boxes of Obama’s agenda, helping to reduce emissions and prevent climate change whilst ensuring a more secure energy future, as well as creating jobs.

According to BBC News just one nuclear plant will cut carbon pollution by 16 million tons each year when compared with a similar coal plant. It won’t persuade all the environmentalists, but it is an argument that does weigh heavily with some of them. Nuclear Power stations have much less emissions that conventional coal power stations, but can still lead to environmental damage when disposing of nuclear waste.

“To meet our growing energy needs and prevent the worst consequences of climate change, we’ll need to increase our supply of nuclear power. It’s that simple.” President Obama

There are currently 104 operating nuclear reactors across 31 states in the US, which provide about a fifth of the country’s electricity. Meanwhile, there are currently 56 new nuclear reactors being built around the world.

The Red Arrows will also be taking part – without their planes, and hope to raise around $40,000 for the RAF Association’s Wings appeal ‘Miles More Minute’.  Its not clear whether or not they will be running in formation and any smoke might annoy the other runners.

I can’t find a definitive list of all the celebrity runners in the marathon this year, apparently it will be available from 05 April, previous runners have included Gordon Ramsay, Steve Redgrave and Patricia Potter.

The London marathon raises the largest amount for charity of any one day event in the world, this year marks the event’s 30th anniversary and the cumulative total raised is expected to top £500 million.

Australians have the biggest ecological footprint out of any people on the planet, cause the extinction of more mammals than any other country.

Recently overheard a loud whining response from an Australian when asked why they celebrate Australia Day – (note it’s interesting that there is no reference to the landing of the British near Sydney)

We have pride in our nation, we have pride in our sporting teams, we have significantly better hospitals, government, court system, safety net, pension system, banking system than the UK. We never went into recession our unemployment only rose to 5.6%. political correctness does not rule here, plus we have the best two major citys in the universe Sydney and Melbourne. And surrounded by the warm blue pacific ocean as we are sinking to nothing our tiny carbon footprint we are the lucky country, none better. We pity you Brits having to shell out loads of money for flights to Australia just to grab a few weeks of paradise.

Don’t listen to the Aussies talking themselves up – it’s what they do best. In reality their country is likely to be seeing environmental refugees fleeing the place before long: for ’sun-drenched’ read dangerously high UV readings with the highest skin cancer rate in the world’. 80% of the country is inhospitable and its economic strength is built on digging huge wounds out of the earth and selling the rocks to the Chinese.

G’day

For politicians, the appeal of spending billions on acting on climate change is not great at a time when most of their economies are still shrinking. This is perhaps the key subtext as to why the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference was a complete failure. Now the New Economics Foundation (Nef) has released a new report claiming that global economic growth “is not possible” if nations are to tackle climate change. The report also claims that only “unprecedented and probably impossible” carbon reductions would be needed to hold temperature rises below 2C.

“We urgently need to change our economy to live within its environmental budget. There is no global, environmental central bank to bail us out if we become ecologically bankrupt.”

As bleak as it sounds, it does not mean we are all doomed. It simply means that if we carry on as the way things are, we are doomed. This is a fact. Western economies are built on a lie, that you can consume the worlds recourse as much as you like for as long as you like. The blueprints of our economies are unsustainable: fact. Continuing to ignore this fact will be the end of us, but seems to be the number one priority for politicians and business leaders. Our economies simply cannot keep growing forever. We are trapped in a cycle of boom and bust and sooner or later the busts will become too big to fix.

The report concluded that for a economic growth rate of just 3%, the carbon emissions of the global economy would need to fall by 95% by 2050 from 2002 levels. This would require an average annual reduction of 6.5%. “Magic bullets – such as carbon capture and storage, nuclear or even geo-engineering – are potentially dangerous distractions from more human-scale solutions”

The only way to prevent dangerous climate change is to fix our broken economic system. We could have economic growth whilst preventing climate change, but with the current system we can have only neither. It may well be in most individuals personal interests to continue to ignore these facts but it is in humanities best interest that we go back to the drawing board and design a system that works for everybody and our planet.

The world’s response was virtually immediate, within a matter of hours international institutions began to organise and collect donations for the Haiti earthquake appeal. In the UK, the magnitude of the disaster in Haiti and the increasing number of fraudulent appeal websites being set up led to the DEC (Disasters Emergency Committee) taking control over the Haitian fundraising campaign. The DEC comprises of 13 UK based charities and a number of public and corporate companies, including a variety of media and broadcasting outlets. In times of great natural disaster the DEC is tasked with uniting and coordinating Britain’s fundraising efforts in a way that will help maximize funds and ensuring that they are spent in an ‘effective and fully accountable way’.

A number of international organizations are already on the ground and relief efforts throughout the island began almost immediately. Despite the valiant work of hundreds of volunteers, the Red Cross estimates that over 3 million remain injured and homeless, and nearly 50,000 people were killed in the Haiti earthquake. President Obama has pledged $100m in aid as well as a contingent of 2,000 US Marines and a further 3,000 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division to help with the relief efforts. Over 300 medical personnel are also being sent to Haiti, in a speech in Washington President Obama stated that “every element of our national capacity, our diplomacy, and development assistance, the power of our military and most importantly, the compassion of our country will be used to aid the relief efforts – To the people of Haiti, we say clearly and with conviction, you will not be forsaken, you will not be forgotten.”

Please help the appeal

Singing birds, budding flowers and April Showers. Spring brings all these things and the joy of spring cleaning. So here are 5 tips on how to be green when you are spring cleaning:

1: Sustainable Sweeping

Don’t use a vacuum cleaner if you don’t need to. Spring brings in pollen, buds and other wonders from flowers in the spring. Don’t waste energy if on a vacuum if you can use a broom to sweep out the dust back outside.

2: Use Cloths Instead of Paper

Reduce your paper waste by using a cloth, rag or a piece of old clothing to clean your surfaces. These are reusable unlike paper towels.

3: Vinegar

Vinegar can be a powerful weapon in the fight against dirt and germs in your home. This acidic liquid can be added to baking soda to make a natural drain cleaner, and it can be added with salt to make a pasty chrome sink cleaner.

4: Recycled Furniture

Furniture production is cause for a lot of consumption of the earths resources. If you do decide to throw out and old tatty sofa, don’t just take it to the tip. There are plenty of places that will take in old furniture to clean and resell. Also if you are looking for new storage to pack away stuff that was previously cluttering up your home, you can organize what’s inside your home with a recycled storage unit. Companies such as Way Basics offers completely recycled and easy to put together storage units. The best part about the company, besides its cool creations, is that its employees work towards helping victims of natural disasters obtain the furniture that they desperately need.

5: Use Your Windows

No not the operating system, the ones on your house. Open them up and give them a good clean. Clean windows can even help reduce the need for heating and cooling of your home.

This year electric cars and vans are due to take Detroit by storm. All the major manufacturers, including GM, Chrysler and Ford, are set to display a variety of low CO2 emitting vehicles that will use a mixture of electric and hybrid petrol technologies. The shift towards ‘greener vehicles’ and a more eco-friendly automotive sector is a strategy currently being developed by both the Obama administration and the ‘big three’ in order to revive the US’ ailing car industry. The idea behind the initiative is to reinvigorate the sector, while at the same time, securing renewed investment and helping to tackle CO2 emissions responsible for global climate change.

The government’s participation in the automotive industry has not been without controversy however. Many Americans have become increasingly sceptical about the $80bn that the Obama White House has pumped into Detroit. Unemployment within the Detroit and Michigan area still stands at around the 15% mark and there has been no real positive sign of this changing, even after the American government stepped in with an unprecedented bailout. The show itself is reportedly costing $10m to host; critics have denounced this outlay as a further extravagance on the already overburdened tax-payer.

Aside from the $80bn bailout, the Obama administration has also invested millions in the ‘cash for clunkers scheme’; a programme designed to boost the auto industry by allowing consumers to trade in old vehicles and used vans for newer models. On the CARS website the US government proudly boasts that within a few short weeks “nearly 680,000 older vehicles were replaced by new, more fuel-efficient vehicles.”

President Obama has taken a huge gamble on this matter, his hope, along with many other Democrats, is that the new style Detroit Motor Show and its ‘Electric Avenue’ will be enough to return Detroit to its rightful place as the car capital of the world.

Vroom vroom

Dubai as an emirate remains fixated with ‘the biggest and tallest’.  For example, on the then Abu Dhabi Road – The World Trade Centre was the tallest structure in the Middle East for years.  The driving force in all things Dubai however, remains the perhaps manic desire to make as much money as possible by whatever means.  Superlatives (technical and ambitious) attributed to the Burj Dubai are all very well, however its success and resulting appreciation is measured by its owners solely in how much cash it can earn.

The Burj Dubai Tower is an incredible feat of engineering and architecture and fits into ‘green’ standards for masterplanned communities. There is not time enough to explain the principles of that however. Anyway over the top, ostentatious fireworks and lasers were part of the opening ceremony to which VIP along with the builders were invited.

Video of base jump from Burj Dubai

The base jumpers are keen supporters of charity events and have said that any funds raised from this event will go to fund office space withinn the building for non profit organisations.

The political system is not the only broken part of your country. The banking system collapsed in 2008 and what has changed? Nothing. Change must come from you.

Don’t fear change. Without change there is no progress. Don’t let people tell you that the way things are is OK. Don’t forget that we live in a world where trillions of dollars are given to millionaires who gambled all of your money away, when there are millions of people dying of starvation and curable illnesses because they can’t afford to live. A charity could have ended world hunger tens of times over with a fraction of the money used in the bailouts of the banks. What are you going to do about it?

Fascinating read – the Wall Street Journal chose to feature this summary of medical progress, much of it just over the last few decades. Those of us living now really do have much to be thankful for! It would be a shame to destroy the system which has made this progress possible.

Healthy Progress

In the middle of all the negative press around obesity, hypertension (high blood pressure), an aging population, etc., we need to remember that we have those problems because we have solved so many others. As a society, we have made unprecedented progress around health in the last century. Life, it turns out, is long! We do not  take the time to celebrate that enough and think about the broader implications.  Our challenge now is to inject life and productivity into the extra years we have been gifted and think more creatively about the entire human lifespan. We are living in a time of remarkable possibilities!

Blood Pressure – Help Yourself to Good Health

Experts agree that there are many things you can do to benefit your own health which are both simple and free.

Lifestyle changes that will lower blood pressure and improve your health:-

• Getting adequate sleep can help you lose weight, fight infections, recall memories and think more clearly.
• Taking half an hour exercise daily stimulates the cardiovascular system and helps control blood pressure
• Spending just a half hour each day in the sunlight absorbing vitamin D can reduce your risk for a variety of cancers, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, osteoporosis and many other diseases.
• Eating less salt in food has been shown to dramatically improve blood pressure levels – evidence

Death rates dropped significantly for eight of the 15 leading causes of death in the U.S., including cancer, heart disease, stroke, hypertension, accidents, diabetes, homicides and pneumonia, from 2006 to 2007 – source

The death rate from coronary heart disease dropped 34% from 1995 to 2005, though it is still the biggest single killer in the U.S. Deaths from cardiovascular disease dropped 26% over the same period. Deaths from stroke dropped 29% since 1999.  Source

By analising some of those improvements more carefully it is illuminating to see that a big contributor in the decrease in cancer, high blood pressure and heart disease is from the Government’s efforts to reduce smoking.

It’s helpful to put everything in perspective. We should appreciate the advancements and innovation in our society that alleviate human suffering. We live like kings compared to our great grandparents.

After months of discussion and the climax of the climate change talks in Copenhagen, US President Barack Obama proclaimed that a meaningful deal had been reached to the worlds press. Good news yes? Well it would be if it were true. Here is what was actually achieved in Copenhagen:

193 countries “recognize the scientific view that” they need to limit global temperatures rising no more than 2C (3.6F) above pre-industrial levels.

Thats about it… There is NO legally binding agreement to any country on any further actions on curbing emissions or contributions to climate change. The deal “promises” to deliver $30bn (£18.5bn) of aid for developing nations over the next three years, despite UN recommendations that rich countries provide $100 billion per year in aid to developing nations most vulnerable to climate change.

The implementation of the dubbed “Copenhagen Accord” will be reviewed 2015, about a year-and-a-half after the next scientific assessment of the global climate by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

So what does this mean for us and for climate change? Well quite frankly it means nothing. It is certainly as far from a “meaningful deal” as you could possibly get. After climate change has been so vigorously shoved into the limelight, it is likely to go quiet over the next few years, until we hear the updated statistics and forecasts from the IPCC in 4 years time. With the worlds economy in the state it is in right now, you can bet that we will see little if no effort by major polluters between now and 2015 of becoming greener, as in the eyes of world leaders and business CEO’s, the inconvenience of adapting to greener ways is far too costly to bother, when they will face no punishment for failing to act now.

I have said it many times, world leaders and big business leaders (who often arguably have more power) prioritize economies and making money over human lives and quality of life. As long as they do this taking action on climate change is too big a risk to take. When you reverse it and value the people of this world over businesses and money the way it should be, not taking action on climate change now is too big a risk to take. It’s a sad world we live in.

Worldwide, the driving public has come to rely on the auto as a versatile tool of mobility – fulfilling the daily commuting and errand-running tasks while at the same time available for overnight or long-distance trips. While many drivers have the luxury of secured parking adjacent to their own electric supply, many others don’t. Urban drivers who park on the streets, suburban occupants of garden apartment complexes, people who park in attended or unattended garages, students on campuses, etc. all leave their cars overnight at a distance from their own homes. Others, traveling salesmen, routemen, etc. spend nights in different motels, with or without secure parking. Still others, mainly recreational car users, take their cars to locations which are intrinsically lacking in recharging facilities – a mountain stream, the beach, remote desert locations, etc.

Many drivers in the USA car hire for long drives. Choice for a trip from New York to Florida for winter sun is fly and pick up car hire at Orlando airport or drive on for hours and then they only want to stop for the 5 minutes it takes to refuel, their auto, drain their kidneys, and get a fresh coffee (with or without the greaseburger). Whatever car they use for the daily commute is versatile enough to accommodate them on these longer trips – for business, family, recreation, or sheer wanderlust. Many of these trips are not optional from a personal or family standpoint – the weekly trip to help a sick relative, moving-in-or-out kids’ at college dorms, etc. which can only be accomplished with a private auto within the allocated time.

None of these people can expect to be accommodated by an electric-only vehicle; they need the flexibility to make their own schedules, to come and go when necessary, and to “drive through the night” and return to work the next day. To assume that buyers will look to preclude use of a vehicle for any of the above situations (or the myriad of similar ones that haven’t been mentioned) and to assume that they will continue to use the vehicle for its entire service life without need to rely on gas stations leaves a pretty narrow audience.

The magic of the general purpose auto has always been its versatility. The horror of the electric-only car is its complete and total abdication of status as a multipurpose tool for living, and the loss of personal freedom that has been the linchpin of the mass appeal of private autos since the 1927 introduction of the Ford Model A.

In a statement Sainsbury’s announced that having completed a successful trial in 2006 and after the initial purchase of 20 vehicles in 2007, the company was now prepared to continue its modernisation programme in an effort to meet its commitments regarding CO2 emissions. Back in 2007 Sainsbury’s announced an ambitious plan to turn their entire online delivery fleet 100% green by 2010. However, with only a few weeks till 2010 left, it looks like the retailer may have faltered slightly on proposals, but their intentions were good nonetheless.

The additional 50 vehicles due to be delivered within the next year are manufactured by the Smith Electric Vehicles company, based near Newcastle. The company has enjoyed a series of successes within the last few years and has made a number of vans for several prominent delivery and van hire companies including Royal Mail, DHL and TNT. The company currently has several models including the Edison 3.5-4.6t van and the Newton 7.5-12t lorry.

Although Sainsbury’s has made a noble and forward thinking step by transferring the majority of its inner London fleet to electric vehicles, the cynic in me suggests that the companies decision to change has more to do with the current tax relief of up to £5,000 on electric vehicles, the lack of an applied congestion charge for EV’s and the newly derived EU emission limits which are due to be implemented within the next two years. When you add all of this up it makes a great deal of sense for a company as big as Sainsbury’s to switch to environmentally friendly vehicles. Still despite their reasons, whatever they may be, it’s still a progressive step in the right direction….