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April 2006
Chernobyl's 20th anniversary - 200,000 lives lost?
Its ironic that 20 years after Chernobyl should have taught us the danger of nuclear power, the industry is trying to convince the world to give it another chance. Claims have been made on Australian radio recently giving absurdly low numbers for the toll of the accident. The British Guardian newspaper has a more realistic estimate, and the whole story is worth reading.
A report by the International Atomic Energy Agency and seven other United Nations bodies estimated 4,000 people would die as a result of Chernobyl. The report was greeted by relief and disbelief. Many studies from the World Health Organisation, independent scientists and campaign groups had predicted a far more catastrophic impact. In response, a group of disbelievers, led by the European Green party, commissioned their own study, The Other Chernobyl Report, or Torch, which estimated a toll of between 30,000 and 60,000 premature deaths. Last week the international Greenpeace campaign group released another study by 50 scientists claiming 200,000 lives would be lost, nearly half from cancers.
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RenewUS - a climate movie with a happy ending
Could this kick off a movement to do something about Climate Change?
From Joel Makower
I thought you'd be interested in this just-released 4-minute
flash movie on climate that I produced -- a project of Stonyfield
Farm, the yogurt folks, and two nonprofits. It's just been
launched -- promoted 10 million yogurt lids, millions of e-
mails, etc.
Go to www.renewus.org to view it.
It's a "documentary" from the future -- 2056, to be exact. It tells what happens in 2006 -- "the year that everything changed" -- when people came together on the Internet to take action on climate change. You'll see fun references to McDonald's, Ford, even Martha Stewart.
Posted by at 9:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
'Dirty dozen' accused over fossil fuels
From The Age:
Twelve of Australia's leading political, business and media figures have been accused of conspiring to mislead the public about climate change.
Speaking at the Australia-New Zealand Climate Change and Business Conference yesterday, Dr Clive Hamilton dubbed the group - including Prime Minister John Howard, businessman Hugh Morgan and The Australian's editor-in-chief, Chris Mitchell - "the dirty dozen".
Dr Hamilton is the executive director of the Australia Institute and was invited to the conference in Adelaide to deliver a speech titled "The state of the debate over climate change in Australia".
Nominating 11 men and one woman, Dr Hamilton accused the group of doing "more than all others over the past decade to prevent any effective action to reduce Australia's burgeoning greenhouse gas emissions".
"I hope that in 50 years' time as Australians swelter in debilitating heatwaves, battle fierce bushfires, fight over dwindling water resources, lament the loss of unique species and tell stories recalling the wonders of the Great Barrier Reef, they will be reminded of the names of those who refused to act in the face of overwhelming evidence of what lay ahead."
Continue reading "'Dirty dozen' accused over fossil fuels"
Posted by at 5:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Biodiesel available in Byron Bay
There are only 5 outlets in Australia where biodiesel is available to the general public, and one of them just opened up in Byron Bay TODAY
Many of us have met Simeon and Anthony Michaels. For the last 2 years Anthony has been supplying fresh cooking oil to restaurants in the Northern Rivers. He has also been collecting the used cooking oil and sending it down to Newcastle to be manufactured into Biodiesel.
Today Anthony has “closed the loop” on his eco-system by bringing the biodiesel back up to Byron to be sold locally – congratulations Ants on your opening day.
Continue reading "Biodiesel available in Byron Bay"
Posted by at 6:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Time magazine cover story: Global warming: Be worried, be very worried
Tuesday, March 28, 2006 - Time Magazine
Polar Ice Caps Are Melting Faster Than Ever... More And More Land Is
Being Devastated By Drought... Rising Waters Are Drowning Low-Lying
Communities... By Any Measure, Earth Is At ... The Tipping Point
The climate is crashing, and global warming is to blame. Why the crisis hit so soon--and what we can do about it By JEFFREY KLUGER
No one can say exactly what it looks like when a planet takes ill, but it probably looks a lot like Earth. Never mind what you've heard about global warming as a slow-motion emergency that would take decades to play out. Suddenly and unexpectedly, the crisis is upon us.
It certainly looked that way last week as the atmospheric bomb that was Cyclone Larry--a Category 5 storm with wind bursts that reached 180 m.p.h.- -exploded through northeastern Australia. It certainly looked that way last year as curtains of fire and dust turned the skies of Indonesia orange, thanks to drought-fueled blazes sweeping the island nation. It certainly looks that way as sections of ice the size of small states calve from the disintegrating Arctic and Antarctic. And it certainly looks that way as the sodden wreckage of New Orleans continues to molder, while the waters of the Atlantic gather themselves for a new hurricane season just two months away. Disasters have always been with us and surely always will be. But when they hit this hard and come this fast--when the emergency becomes commonplace--something has gone grievously wrong. That something is global warming.
Read the rest of the story on Time Magazine's site or below.
Continue reading " Time magazine cover story: Global warming: Be worried, be very worried"
Posted by at 9:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
The Meatrix2
Once again, those crazy cartoonists have produced a hit.
If you loved the Meatrix, check out the sequel Meatrix 2
Posted by at 9:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Can we still avoid Dangerous Climate Change
James Hansen is one of the world's leading climate scientists, and is director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
He has recently attracted attention for criticising the Bush administration for suppressing scientific information that it didn't like. There is an interesting article from the NYTimes on this controversy.
I recently read the text of one of the talks that caused the controversy, its got some pretty convincing graphs to show just how close we are to the Tipping point at which we can no longer avoid irreversible side effects. Check it out here.
Posted by at 8:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)