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		News Archive     21/07/2008 07:00 AM Australia: Big tick for emissions cuts Age: AUSTRALIANS overwhelmingly say they are willing to pay more for goods and services to help reduce emissions, in an Age/Nielsen poll that also shows Kevin Rudd has popular support for how he is handling climate change. People want Australia to tackle emissions regardless of what other countries do, and they back the Government's proposed trading scheme, while admitting they have little or no understanding of it. The strong endorsement for climate change action comes as ... read more 21/07/2008 07:00 AM Australia: Rudd sails through greenhouse test despite lack of green flagellation Sydney Morning Herald: The Rudd Government is never going to win a medal for political bravery. It's not in the same league as Hawke-Keating Labor. Even so, it's done a better job with its first step towards a carbon pollution reduction scheme than many people accept. Last week's green paper has been criticised on three fronts. First are industry vested interests intent on scaring the public and the Government into giving them an easier ride than they've been promised. There's no law against rent-seeking, ... read more 20/07/2008 07:00 AM A Disappointing Truth New York Times: Al Gore gave a big speech about global warming last week. He was thunderous and prophetic. He said "the survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk." He implored the nation to stop burning dirty coal, gas and oil – in just 10 years. In a policy context, that's like sending the nation to destroy the One Ring in the fires of Mount Doom.  So here's a question: If the job is so huge and urgent, why is the ad campaign so pedestrian? Mr. Gore is spending ... read more 20/07/2008 07:00 AM Australia: Climate won't wait, Mr Rudd Sydney Morning Herald: THE first of Nelson Mandela's eight lessons of leadership is that "Courage is not the absence of fear - it's inspiring others to move beyond it". If ever our planet needed inspiring leadership it is now, as we face the twin threats of climate change and peak oil. Our leaders need the courage to take the bold, far-sighted action we need if we are to survive this challenge and emerge better off. In perhaps as little as two decades we have to radically transform our society and ... read more 20/07/2008 07:00 AM Drought threatens drinking water for a million Australians Agence France-Presse: Up to a million people in Australia could face a shortage of drinking water if the country's drought continues, a report on the state of the nation's largest river system revealed Sunday. The report said the situation was critical in the Murray-Darling system, which provides water to Australia's "food bowl", a vast expanse of land almost twice as big as France that runs down the continent's east coast. "We are in real trouble in the Murray-Darling basin," ... read more 20/07/2008 07:00 AM Growing Western cities at crossroads, report says LA Times: As outlying sagebrush was quickly devoured by starter homes and chain stores, Las Vegas began grappling with the kinds of problems that long have vexed California: Crowded classrooms. Packed freeways. Not enough water. Immigrants who struggle to learn English. Rising poverty. Similar issues have bedeviled the areas around Phoenix, Denver, Salt Lake City and Albuquerque. By 2040, Las Vegas and its four brethren will grow by nearly 12.7 million people. While a booming population ... read more 20/07/2008 07:00 AM Canada: Oil sands boom swamps the Canadian wilderness Observer: Todd Dahlman scoops up a handful of oily sand and smiles. 'This is the money - it even smells like money,' says the manager of Shell's Muskeg River oil sands mine in the Athabasca region of North Alberta in Canada. We are standing in the middle of a pit 50m deep that giant diggers have hollowed out of the earth. Some 150m beneath our feet lie almost a billion barrels of oil. With Brent crude at $131 a barrel on Friday, the oil sands frenzy is in full swing. Canada holds ... read more 20/07/2008 07:00 AM Scientists to discuss climate risk posed by wetlands destruction Agence France-Presse: Moves around the world to drain marshes and other wetlands to make space for farming could be hastening climate change, scientists gathering in Brazil from Monday will be hearing. Around 700 researchers from around the world are to descend on the central western town of Cuiaba for a four-day conference to discuss ways to preserve wetlands, the UN University, a grouping of scholars, said in a statement. They are concerned that evaporation from warmer global temperatures and ... read more 20/07/2008 07:00 AM Australia: 10000 for vigil over dying river Sunday Mail: THE controversial Hindmarsh Island Bridge will host a silent vigil on the plight of the River Murray, when up to 10,000 people bear witness to the trickling flow. Organisers are calling for anyone who cares about the Murray to come to the bridge on Sunday, August 10, for a mass visual demonstration of public anger over the river's fate. The bridge, once the focus of indigenous "secret women's business" arguments, now is a graphic symbol of the river's woes with its ... read more 20/07/2008 07:00 AM Goals for emissions cuts rely on dictators San Francisco Chronicle: When leaders from the Group of Eight nations agreed last week to cut carbon emissions in half by 2050, all the commentary debated their failure to set shorter-term goals. But all of that chatter ignores the iceberg in the room: How on earth will those nations or any others meet even that relatively modest goal? The scientific community argues that by 2050, carbon emissions must be reduced 80 percent below the level in the year 2000, if serious global warming is to be averted. I would ... read more 20/07/2008 07:00 AM United Kingdom: Ministers embrace electric car revolution Independent: Gordon Brown is to launch the biggest revolution in the way Britons drive since the development of the internal combustion engine. He will meet manufacturers this week to try to persuade them to mass-produce electric cars, and is considering a remarkable plan to sell the cars cheap, together with their fuel, that is modelled on mobile-phone contracts. The scheme, which has already been taken up by Israel and Denmark, would sell heavily subsidised vehicles – or even give them away – in ... read more 20/07/2008 07:00 AM Pope urges Australian youths to spurn materialism Associated Press: Pope Benedict XVI said Sunday a "spiritual desert" was spreading throughout the world and he challenged young people to shed the greed and cynicism of their time to create a new age of hope for humankind. Speaking at a Mass before some 350,000 Roman Catholic pilgrims and a likely television audience of millions more, Benedict wrapped up the church's six-day World Youth Day festival. He urged the young people in his more than 1 billion-strong flock to be agents of change ... read more 20/07/2008 07:00 AM Report Analyzes Booming Megapolitan West New West: A new report by the Brookings Institution assesses the dramatic population growth and economic and demographic shifts redefining the southern Intermountain West. As all eyes turn to the West for the Democratic National Convention, now exists "a teachable moment for the region itself and us to convey the new realities on the ground," said Mark Muro, fellow and policy director at the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program. "The region is perpetually ... read more 20/07/2008 07:00 AM Australia: Report reaffirms Murray-Darling crisis Australian Broadcasting Corporation: A new report to the Federal and state governments has reaffirmed the dire conditions in the Murray-Darling Basin. The eighth report from senior officials to the Prime Minister, premiers and chief ministers has found that water availability in the basin is serious and deteriorated earlier this year. It says based on current levels there will be enough water for critical human needs over the next year, but further contingency measures might be required if levels drop more than ... read more 20/07/2008 07:00 AM Scientists achieve chemical breakthrough that converts sawdust into biofuel Asian News International: A team of Chinese scientists has made a chemical breakthrough that efficiently turns the lignin in waste products such as sawdust into the chemical precursors of ethanol and biodiesel. In recent years, the twin threats of global warming and oil shortages have led to growth in the production of biofuels for the transportation sector. But as the human digestive system will attest, breaking down complex plant molecules such as cellulose and lignin is a tricky business. The ... read more 20/07/2008 07:00 AM Soaring food prices felt around the globe San Francisco Chronicle: People around the world are experiencing sticker shock at the grocery store, the result of runaway economic forces that show no signs of abating. Here in the United States, the price of eggs jumped 29 percent last year. Dairy products are up more than 7 percent. And the price of corn has tripled in the past four years. It's even worse worldwide. Globally, the food price index calculated by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations rose by nearly 26 ... read more 20/07/2008 07:00 AM Australia: We're not hiding behind the Pope, says Penny Wong Australian: CLIMATE Change Minister Penny Wong says the release of the Government's green paper on emissions trading was not deliberately timed to coincide with the historic visit by Pope Benedict XVI. The paper was released last Wednesday, when much of the country - and the media - was distracted by the Pope's visit to Sydney and by World Youth Day events. "To be honest that certainly wasn't top of (our) mind, Laurie, when we set the date,'' Senator Wong told the Nine Network's ... read more 20/07/2008 07:00 AM Australia: Earth Hour wins top environmental award Sydney Morning Herald: EARTH HOUR, the campaign that encouraged people to turn off their lights for an hour to raise awareness about climate change, has won a national environmental award. The venture of conservation group WWF, Fairfax Media, publisher of The Sun-Herald, and Leo Burnett for the City of Sydney won the gold Banksia Award at a ceremony in Melbourne on Friday night. Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Environment Minister Peter Garrett were among guests at the awards, which recognise ... read more 20/07/2008 07:00 AM Evangelicals often clash over global warming Orlando Sentinel: When Orlando-based missionary and author Grady McMurtry talks about science and the Bible today at St. Cloud Church of the Nazarene, one question is bound to come up: How should evangelicals respond to the burning issue of global warming? Relying as much on his degrees in agriculture and environmental science as on his theological education, McMurtry uses Scripture to argue his case that there is no global warming, no thinning of the Earth's ozone layer. In lectures devoted ... read more 20/07/2008 07:00 AM United Kingdom: Global warming: green campaigners blamed for 4x4 attacks Guardian: Green campaigners are being blamed for vandalising a number of 4x4 cars in Marston, Oxford, on Thursday night. The owners of six vehicles found that tyres had been let down and warning letters plastered to the windscreens. 'Driving an SUV is an unacceptably selfish act in the face of this global emergency,' the notes state. 'Your destructive vehicle and scores of others across Oxford have been disabled as part of a wider struggle to avert a global emergency.' A Land Rover ... read more News Archive     Back to Homepage
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