In the next few years, we as a nation will make, or fail to make, critical decisions regarding global warming pollution and clean technology investments. These decisions will have far-reaching and irreversible impacts on the lives of today’s students and the lives of their children. At this moment in time, we owe our young people at least a day of focused discussion about global warming solutions for America.
Focus the Nation is organizing a national teach-in on global warming solutions for America—creating a dialogue at over a thousand colleges, universities, high schools, middle schools, places of worship, civic organizations and businesses, and directly engaging millions of students and citizens with the nation’s decision-makers. Focus the Nation will culminate January 31st, 2008 in simultaneous educational symposia held across the country. Our intent is to move America beyond fatalism to a determination to face up to this civilizational challenge, the challenge of our generation.
Focus the Nation is an educational initiative, but we also promote civic engagement. Each Focus team will invite local, state and federal political leaders and decision-makers to come to campus and participate in a non-partisan, round-table discussion of global warming solutions. US Senators and members of congress, state representatives, mayors and city councilors, all will be receiving dozens of invitations to speak about global warming, from over a thousand institutions nation-wide. Every institution will also vote on their top five national priorities for global warming action, producing a campus and citizen endorsed policy agenda for 2008.
Currently over 1000 institutions, mostly colleges and universities, have signed on to participate, and dozens of college and university Presidents have endorsed the initiative. To maximize both education and civic engagement, Focus the Nation has four key components:
NATIONAL TEACH-IN: On January 31st , thousands of students on every campus, millions of students nationwide, participate in workshops and panels, brainstorming global warming solutions. Are you with us? Are your faculty supporting you? Ask ten, twenty, fifty faculty to stand up as educators on behalf of your future. They will say yes. To make this happen, start with the sample teach-in.
GREEN DEMOCRACY: Campus to Congress. Tell top decision-makers in this country about solutions. Invite every US senator and congressperson to engage in person. If they can’t be there physically, then they will face a student audience via a video-chat. Focus the Nation is working with leaders in the House of Representatives to make this happen, in conjunction with their efforts to green the congress. The face-to-face, intergenerational dialogue of Green Democracy will move America to confront this civilizational challenge.
CHOOSE YOUR FUTURE: Vote on the top five solutions to global warming. Proposed solutions range from a coal moratorium, to large scale renewables investment, to initiatives to strengthen forests for carbon storage. Choose the Future is the place for serious discussion about how to achieve what science and justice demand. The week leading up to January 31st, you vote, and your Focus team delivers the results to your congressional office. Every political leader in the country will hear your voice. Join the discussion today!
2% SOLUTION: A national, interactive webcast, airing live the evening of January 30th, featuring Stanford climate scientist Stephen Schneider, sustainability expert Hunter Lovins, and green jobs pioneer Van Jones. Show the webcast to launch your teach-in. Screen it at your high school, faith group, civic organization, or at a house party. Our goal—10,000 screenings and a determination TO STOP GLOBAL WARMING.
With these four components, together we will Focus the Nation.
“I believe that a business as usual scenario will guarantee disintegration of West Antarctica and parts of Greenland” — Dr. James Hansen, 2/2/07
Over the next decade, critical policy decisions will be made with irreversible consequences for the future. Dr. James Hansen, the top US government climate scientist, believes that if we do not stabilize greenhouse gas emissions soon, we may set in motion a process leading to collapse of the West Antarctic and Greenland Ice sheets, events that would raise global sea levels by over 40 feet, inundating many of the world’s major cities. This of course is just one of the myriad potential consequences of human-induced warming, with regional and global impacts ranging from hurricanes of greater intensity and duration, global water shortages, altered patterns of rainfall, drought and flood, massive forest die-back, and large-scale species extinction.
Students today face many important social, economic, and security issues. Global warming however, is unique, in that if we are to reduce the risk of large-scale, irreversible, world-wide damages, then ambitious—and potentially costly—policy solutions must be undertaken within a very compressed time frame. Failure to act soon increases the likelihood of a swing in global temperatures of Ice Age magnitude within our children’s lifetimes, only in the opposite direction. We have a window of time now to create the foundation for a just and sustainable future.
The second motivation for this project is to explore a new model of collaborative, interdisciplinary education, on a national scale. Focus the Nation will require campus-based teams of faculty and students to draw on campus expertise across the broad range of disciplines. Focus the Nation provides an exciting model opportunity to create, for one day, a true national community of scholarship bridging traditional disciplinary boundaries.
This is an opportunity for educators to take a leadership role, and catalyze a process which indeed will “Focus the Nation”. For the last 150 years we have been engaged in an unprecedented natural experiment, drastically altering the basic nature of the planet’s climate control system. Focus the Nation is engaging the country with the question: How far can we let that experiment go?
To be a part of Focus the Nation, simply SIGN UP to participate. By signing up, you are committing to help organize an educational event about global warming solutions at your institution on (or around) January 31st, 2008. This involves, at a minimum, screening The 2% Solution webcast, but the times demand, if at all possible, that we step into a real leadership role as educators in our communities. As colleges, universities, high schools, middle schools, faith organizations, businesses, and civic groups come together, we can launch a discussion far-reaching enough to change the future.
Once you sign up, you will receive bi-weekly updates from Focus the Nation that will suggest many ways to build your event. To hold global warming to the low end, we have only a few short years to act. To ensure action, we have only a few short months to Focus the Nation. Please sign up today.
THE FOCUS THE NATION RESOLUTION Once you have a launched a Focus the Nation organizing team at your institution, build support for a truly deep conversation by obtaining the endorsement of the following resolutions by your President, Head of School, CEO, Boards of Directors, Student government, Faculty Senate, or Organization. (See who has already endorsed!).
On November 3rd, Americans will demand real leadership on global warming. From coast to coast, we'll rally in our communities and invite our politicians to join us. We'll see who rises to the occasion and who has a real plan to tackle the defining challenge of our time.
With a month to go, people by the thousands have begun inviting presidential candidates and members of Congress to come speak about climate change at Step It Up events on Nov. 3 -- and we've started getting some RSVPs.
The warming climate is undermining biodiversity by accelerating habitat loss, according to Vital Signs 2007–2008.
Washington, D.C.— Consumption of energy and many other critical resources is consistently breaking records, disrupting the climate and undermining life on the planet, according to the latest Worldwatch Institute report, Vital Signs 2007-2008.
I received my monthly issue of Co-Op America recently, which mainly consists of information concerning investments and ways to cool the earth through them. This month however, there was an interesting article concerning the diet and it's effects on the environment, specifically meat diets. A 2006 study conducted by Drs. Pamela Martin and Gidon Eshel of the University of Chicago, http://geosci.uchicago.edul~gidon/papers/nutri/nutri.html, provided a neat graph that compared different meat (and non-meat) diets with their average annual greenhouse gas emissions. The results: Vegan: 0 tons, Lacto-Ovo Vegetarian: .8 ton, Poultry: .9 ton, Avg. American: 1.485 tons, Fish: 2 tons, Red Meat: 2 tons. These diets are based on a 3,774 calorie diet. All diets including meat are calculated as 72 percent plant-based, 14 percent meat, 14 percent eggs and dairy. The lacto-ovo diet is 90 percent plant based, 10 percent eggs and dairy, reflecting the actual animal product consumption o the average lacto-ovo vegetarian. You might be asking yourself, why such an outrageous amount of calories when the usual average is 2000? Well- this 3,774 number is an "FAO (UN Food and Agriculture Organization) figure that represents the number of calories produced and distributed per person in the US, meaning that while we don't necessarily eat that much on average, we eat or waste that much at grocery stores and at home." This study took into account the entire life cycle of these diets. How much energy it took to grow, harvest , transport , and prepare them. The FAO released a report this past February stating livestock accounts for 18 percent of our world global warming emissions. Switching from a Toyota Camry to a hybrid Toyota Prius would save 1 ton of greenhouse gases annually while making the switch to a vegan diet would save 1.5 tons! After reading this article, it only reaffirms what I heard on Real Time a couple of weeks ago; "One can't be an environmentalist and a meat eater." These words spoken by a representative of PETA. What really surprises me is that the fish diet is equivalent to the red meat diet in avg. annual ghg emmisions. "I am a vegetarian, but I still eat fish" doesn't cut it anymore.
U.S., E.U. push phaseout of incandescent bulbs, U.K. gets serious about carbon
From the Daily Grist Wednesday, 14 Mar 2007:The world is seeing the energy-efficient light: a U.S. coalition including Philips Lighting and the Natural Resources Defense Council will push to phase out incandescent bulbs by 2016. And following the lead of Australia and California, European Union leaders have proposed ditching the bulbs even sooner, a plan that could reduce E.U. carbon emissions up to 25 million tons a year. E.U. President Angela Merkel, who uses energy-saving bulbs at home, offered her pitch: they're "not quite bright enough, so sometimes when I'm looking for something that's dropped on the carpet I have a bit of a problem." Uh ... moving on. Yesterday, the British government proposed first-of-its-kind legislation to reduce the nation's CO2 emissions 60 percent by 2050 with a series of five-year "carbon budgets." While some wish the target were more ambitious, Prime Minister Tony Blair declared the bill -- which could become law by early next year -- a "revolutionary step" that "sets an example to the rest of the world."
Gore announces continents-spanning concert series, Live Earth
Never let it be said that Al Gore is not dedicated to his cause: the man will do whatever it takes to raise awareness about climate change. If it means hobnobbing at Sundance, he'll do it. Starring in a film that gets nominated for an Oscar? Not afraid. Orchestrating an event that features seven concerts on seven continents on 7/7/07? Check. Announcing said event with (slightly less luscious now that she's a brunette) Cameron Diaz at his side? Oh, if he must. The man is a modern-day martyr, and we salute him. With the help of Kevin Wall, executive producer of the 2005 Live8 concert that pushed for debt relief for poor nations, Gore will use the Live Earth shows to kick off a "Save Our Selves" campaign. "In order to solve the climate crisis, we have to reach billions of people," Gore said. "We are launching SOS and Live Earth to ... mobilize people all over the world to take action." More than 100 artists, from Snoop Dogg to Faith Hill, have already signed on. Short straw gets Antarctica.
straight to the source:Reuters, Mary Milliken, 15 Feb 2007
HEAD OF NATIONAL WILDLIFE FEDERATION SPEAKING AT K-STATE FEB. 8 AS PART OF LOU DOUGLAS LECTURE SERIES
MANHATTAN -- A leader in conservation whose focus is on global warming and protecting wildlife is bringing his message to Kansas State University as part of the Lou Douglas Lecture Series.
Larry J. Schweiger, president and chief executive officer of the National Wildlife Federation, will present "Global Warming: Good Planets are Hard to Find" at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 8, in Forum Hall at the K-State Student Union. The lecture is free and open to the public. It is co-sponsored by the Kansas Wildlife Federation.
Schweiger joined the National Wildlife Federation in 2004 with a commitment to confront global warming and to protect wildlife. He also is co-chair of the Alliance for Climate Protection's governing council. He previously served as president and chief executive officer of the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. Among his accomplishments were expanding ecological research and contributing to public advocacy and community gardening and greening projects.
Schweiger also has worked for the National Wildlife Federation as a magazine publisher, senior vice president for constituent development and conservation action, and vice president of the federation's affiliate and regional programs department.
He has served on more than 40 governing boards, commissions and committees. Among Schweiger's awards are the Distinguished Service Award for Special Conservation Achievement from the National Wildlife Federation and the Conservation Service Award from the Christian Environmental Association. He also was Pennsylvania's Environmental Professional of the Year in 2002.
UFM Community Learning Center's Lou Douglas Lecture Series on Public Issues honors the memory of Douglas, a professor of political science at K-State who was known for inspiring students, faculty and citizens to instigate change. He was a longtime member of the UFM Community Learning Center board of directors until his death in 1979.
Here's the latest from Grist and NY Times: In a monstrous anticlimax, the U.N. climate summit in Nairobi, Kenya, ended with a decision to ... review the Kyoto Protocol in 2008. "From Christian Aid's point of view that's simply not good enough, and we need some heads to be knocked together by somebody," said Andrew Pendleton of the charity organization. U.K. environment minister David Miliband put a finer point on it: "I come away from this conference with two senses: one, the world community can make progress when it puts its mind to it, but two, my goodness we really need to up the momentum, we need to increase the acceleration." Most agree that won't happen until the U.S., responsible for about 25 percent of the world's emissions, agrees to cuts -- not likely until post-Bush. "Everyone is waiting for the [U.S.]," said Paal Prestrud, head of Oslo's Center for International Climate and Environmental Research. "I think the whole process will be on ice until 2009." We'd make a melting-ice joke, but we're too busy crying.
Kenya's herdsmen are facing extinction as global warming destroys their lands
Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editorSunday November 12, 2006The Observer They are dubbed the 'climate canaries' - the people destined to become the first victims of world climate change. And as government ministers sit down in Nairobi at this weekend's UN Climate Conference, the people most likely to be wiped out by devastating global warming will be only a few hundred miles away from their deliberations. Those people, according to research commissioned by the charity Christian Aid, will be the three million pastoralists of northern Kenya, whose way of life has sustained them for thousands of years but who now face eradication. Hundreds of thousands of these seasonal herders have already been forced to forsake their traditional culture and settle in Kenya's north eastern province following consecutive droughts that have decimated their livestock in recent years.
Earlier this year the charity commissioned livestock specialist Dr David Kimenye to examine how the herders are coping with the recent drought, uncovering a disastrous story. Over two months, Dr Kimenye talked to pastoralists in five areas across the Mandera district, home to 1.5 million people. The study discovered that: · Incidence of drought has increased fourfold in the Mandera region in the past 25 years. · One-third of herders living there - around half a million people - have already been forced to abandon their pastoral way of life because of adverse climatic conditions. · During the last drought, so many cattle, camels and goats were lost that 60 per cent of the families who remain as herders need outside assistance to recover. Their surviving herds are too small to support them. The new findings follow recent warnings from the UK Met Office that if current trends continue one-third of the planet will be desert by the end of 2100. The scientists modelled how drought is likely to increase globally during the coming century because of predicted changes in rainfall and temperature around the world. At present, according to their calculations, 25 per cent of the Earth's surface is susceptible to moderate drought, rising to 50 per cent by 2100. In addition, the areas susceptible to severe drought - 8 per cent - are expected to rise to 40 per cent. And the figure for extreme drought, currently 3 per cent, will rise to 30 per cent. And what is doubly worrying about Kimenye's research is that it has revealed that a system of nomadic pastoralism that has, over the centuries, been able to cope with unpredictable weather patterns and regular drought has been brought by climate change to the point of utter extinction. It is a fact not lost on those who have been forced out of their historic lifestyle to settle at the Quimbiso settlement. Nearby is a stinking pit where the bones of the last of once thriving herds were dumped and burned - victims of the worst drought in living memory. The families who until a few months ago herded these animals across northern Kenya and beyond now huddle in this riverside settlement, their children prone to malaria and other illnesses, but at least close to a reliable source of water. Now they are completely dependent on aid handouts for most of their food. 'Our whole life has been spent moving, but we are desperate people. People who have lost our livelihood,' says Mukhtar Aden, one of the elders at the Quimbiso settlement. 'We didn't settle here by choice, it was forced upon us.' Everywhere are tales of huge livestock losses. In one roadside settlement, which now depends on selling milk from its few remaining animals to passing trucks, a man produces a book recording the dark days of the drought. One entry, for 15 February, shows that the community lost more than 500 sheep and goats and 250 cattle in a single day. And while rain did came to the region for the first time in more than a year last month, it was too late for the makeshift roadside communities who no longer have animals to put out to pasture. Wargadud is another sizeable community running along either side of the region's main road. The chairman of Wargadud's water users' association is Abdullahi Abdi Hussein, who describes how the periods of rain have got shorter and the dry spells longer - changing the pattern of four seasons on which the pastoral communities depended. And while there were always droughts, he says: 'Decade after decade it has been getting more severe. It has only been getting harder and harder and more and more serious.'
Climate change could send the global economy into a serious recession, according to a report released today by United Kingdom chief economist Nicholas Stern. The study also makes recommendations on ways to slow and potentially stop further climate change. Most studies on the effects of global warming have predicted that the detrimental effects on the world's economy will be minimal to modest. Those forecasting a more radical impact assume that changes in weather patterns will wreak havoc on fishing and farming and will displace millions of people via hurricanes, droughts, floods, and other extreme weather events. Yet even these studies don't go far enough, according to Stern's report. Part of the problem, he and colleagues note, is that previous economic studies underestimated the rise in global temperatures caused by climate change. Using a more accurate estimate, the group predicts that climate change could slash the global gross domestic product by 5% to 20%. On the positive side, countries could reduce this loss to 1% by investing in more environmentally friendly technologies, according to the report. Toward that end, Stern's team calls for an integrated international approach to tackling global warming. But it also reminds rich nations that they have to bear the brunt of the economic investment, especially those in Europe and North America that are responsible for 70% of all carbon dioxide emissions to date. "There is much in the report that most people can agree with, such as sustained investment in research on developing new carbon free technologies," says economist Richard Richels, director of global climate change research at the Electric Power Research Institute, a non-profit based in Palo Alto, California. But he notes that the report makes certain assumptions to calculate the costs of curbing global warming, such as assuming that countries will adopt the cheapest ways to reduce emissions. This might not always prove feasible, he says, in which case he says the costs would be much higher. "This is not an argument for inaction, but can affect what is realistic in the short term."
If you happened to miss Charles Benjamin's speech the other night (which soo many did) you can check out this website to see what he talked about and to see what you can do to help this issue of Kansas helping to increase global warming.
Some things that we as a group can do right away:
Buy compact fluorescent lights and encourage other students to do so too.
Write letters! - to anyone endorsing or allowing these new energy plants to be built
Spread the news , inform students through events and tabling- making fliers to pass out info
This is a collective blog for SEA at Kansas State University. Its purpose is to provide a dynamic forum for the collective sharing and discussing of environmental news both global and local. Want to write to this collective blog? Sign up here!
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Focus the Nation
http://www.focusthenation.org/
We Stand at a Critical Time in History
In the next few years, we as a nation will make, or fail to make, critical decisions regarding global warming pollution and clean technology investments. These decisions will have far-reaching and irreversible impacts on the lives of today’s students and the lives of their children. At this moment in time, we owe our young people at least a day of focused discussion about global warming solutions for America.
Focus the Nation is organizing a national teach-in on global warming solutions for America—creating a dialogue at over a thousand colleges, universities, high schools, middle schools, places of worship, civic organizations and businesses, and directly engaging millions of students and citizens with the nation’s decision-makers. Focus the Nation will culminate January 31st, 2008 in simultaneous educational symposia held across the country. Our intent is to move America beyond fatalism to a determination to face up to this civilizational challenge, the challenge of our generation.
Focus the Nation is an educational initiative, but we also promote civic engagement. Each Focus team will invite local, state and federal political leaders and decision-makers to come to campus and participate in a non-partisan, round-table discussion of global warming solutions. US Senators and members of congress, state representatives, mayors and city councilors, all will be receiving dozens of invitations to speak about global warming, from over a thousand institutions nation-wide. Every institution will also vote on their top five national priorities for global warming action, producing a campus and citizen endorsed policy agenda for 2008.
Currently over 1000 institutions, mostly colleges and universities, have signed on to participate, and dozens of college and university Presidents have endorsed the initiative. To maximize both education and civic engagement, Focus the Nation has four key components:
NATIONAL TEACH-IN: On January 31st , thousands of students on every campus, millions of students nationwide, participate in workshops and panels, brainstorming global warming solutions. Are you with us? Are your faculty supporting you? Ask ten, twenty, fifty faculty to stand up as educators on behalf of your future. They will say yes. To make this happen, start with the sample teach-in.
GREEN DEMOCRACY: Campus to Congress. Tell top decision-makers in this country about solutions. Invite every US senator and congressperson to engage in person. If they can’t be there physically, then they will face a student audience via a video-chat. Focus the Nation is working with leaders in the House of Representatives to make this happen, in conjunction with their efforts to green the congress. The face-to-face, intergenerational dialogue of Green Democracy will move America to confront this civilizational challenge.
CHOOSE YOUR FUTURE: Vote on the top five solutions to global warming. Proposed solutions range from a coal moratorium, to large scale renewables investment, to initiatives to strengthen forests for carbon storage. Choose the Future is the place for serious discussion about how to achieve what science and justice demand. The week leading up to January 31st, you vote, and your Focus team delivers the results to your congressional office. Every political leader in the country will hear your voice. Join the discussion today!
2% SOLUTION: A national, interactive webcast, airing live the evening of January 30th, featuring Stanford climate scientist Stephen Schneider, sustainability expert Hunter Lovins, and green jobs pioneer Van Jones. Show the webcast to launch your teach-in. Screen it at your high school, faith group, civic organization, or at a house party. Our goal—10,000 screenings and a determination TO STOP GLOBAL WARMING.
With these four components, together we will Focus the Nation.
“I believe that a business as usual scenario will guarantee disintegration of West Antarctica and parts of Greenland” — Dr. James Hansen, 2/2/07
Over the next decade, critical policy decisions will be made with irreversible consequences for the future. Dr. James Hansen, the top US government climate scientist, believes that if we do not stabilize greenhouse gas emissions soon, we may set in motion a process leading to collapse of the West Antarctic and Greenland Ice sheets, events that would raise global sea levels by over 40 feet, inundating many of the world’s major cities. This of course is just one of the myriad potential consequences of human-induced warming, with regional and global impacts ranging from hurricanes of greater intensity and duration, global water shortages, altered patterns of rainfall, drought and flood, massive forest die-back, and large-scale species extinction.
Students today face many important social, economic, and security issues. Global warming however, is unique, in that if we are to reduce the risk of large-scale, irreversible, world-wide damages, then ambitious—and potentially costly—policy solutions must be undertaken within a very compressed time frame. Failure to act soon increases the likelihood of a swing in global temperatures of Ice Age magnitude within our children’s lifetimes, only in the opposite direction. We have a window of time now to create the foundation for a just and sustainable future.
The second motivation for this project is to explore a new model of collaborative, interdisciplinary education, on a national scale. Focus the Nation will require campus-based teams of faculty and students to draw on campus expertise across the broad range of disciplines. Focus the Nation provides an exciting model opportunity to create, for one day, a true national community of scholarship bridging traditional disciplinary boundaries.
This is an opportunity for educators to take a leadership role, and catalyze a process which indeed will “Focus the Nation”. For the last 150 years we have been engaged in an unprecedented natural experiment, drastically altering the basic nature of the planet’s climate control system. Focus the Nation is engaging the country with the question: How far can we let that experiment go?
To be a part of Focus the Nation, simply SIGN UP to participate. By signing up, you are committing to help organize an educational event about global warming solutions at your institution on (or around) January 31st, 2008. This involves, at a minimum, screening The 2% Solution webcast, but the times demand, if at all possible, that we step into a real leadership role as educators in our communities. As colleges, universities, high schools, middle schools, faith organizations, businesses, and civic groups come together, we can launch a discussion far-reaching enough to change the future.
Once you sign up, you will receive bi-weekly updates from Focus the Nation that will suggest many ways to build your event. To hold global warming to the low end, we have only a few short years to act. To ensure action, we have only a few short months to Focus the Nation. Please sign up today.
THE FOCUS THE NATION RESOLUTION
Once you have a launched a Focus the Nation organizing team at your institution, build support for a truly deep conversation by obtaining the endorsement of the following resolutions by your President, Head of School, CEO, Boards of Directors, Student government, Faculty Senate, or Organization. (See who has already endorsed!).
Read More...
Posted by Jeff at 7:08 PM 0 comments
Labels: civic discourse, education, global warming, teach-in
0 comments:
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Monday, October 08, 2007
Step It Up 2007 for Climate Change
On November 3rd, Americans will demand real leadership on global warming. From coast to coast, we'll rally in our communities and invite our politicians to join us. We'll see who rises to the occasion and who has a real plan to tackle the defining challenge of our time.
With a month to go, people by the thousands have begun inviting presidential candidates and members of Congress to come speak about climate change at Step It Up events on Nov. 3 -- and we've started getting some RSVPs.
http://www.stepitup2007.org/
Article at Daily Grist...
Step it Up
Bill McKibben is organizing Step It Up 2, a national day of climate action. A scholar-in-residence at Middlebury College, McKibben is the author of The End of Nature, the first book for a general audience on climate change, and, most recently, Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future. He serves on Grist's board of directors.
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Posted by Gerry at 5:01 PM 0 comments
Labels: climate change, global warming
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Friday, September 14, 2007
Report from the World Watch Institute
This is a sobering report from the World Watch Institute. See the whole story at: http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5340/print
Window to Prevent Catastrophic Climate Change Closing; EU Should Press for Immediate U.S. Action
By Worldwatch Institute
Created Sep 13 2007 - 1:00pm
The warming climate is undermining biodiversity by accelerating habitat loss, according to Vital Signs 2007–2008.
Washington, D.C.— Consumption of energy and many other critical resources is consistently breaking records, disrupting the climate and undermining life on the planet, according to the latest Worldwatch Institute report, Vital Signs 2007-2008.
To see the rest of the report:
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5340/print
.
Type the rest of your post here.
Read More...
Posted by Jeff at 8:33 AM 2 comments
Labels: climate change, consumption, global warming
2 comments:
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Monday, September 10, 2007
Your Diet and the Environment
I received my monthly issue of Co-Op America recently, which mainly consists of information concerning investments and ways to cool the earth through them. This month however, there was an interesting article concerning the diet and it's effects on the environment, specifically meat diets. A 2006 study conducted by Drs. Pamela Martin and Gidon Eshel of the University of Chicago, http://geosci.uchicago.edul~gidon/papers/nutri/nutri.html, provided a neat graph that compared different meat (and non-meat) diets with their average annual greenhouse gas emissions. The results: Vegan: 0 tons, Lacto-Ovo Vegetarian: .8 ton, Poultry: .9 ton, Avg. American: 1.485 tons, Fish: 2 tons, Red Meat: 2 tons. These diets are based on a 3,774 calorie diet. All diets including meat are calculated as 72 percent plant-based, 14 percent meat, 14 percent eggs and dairy. The lacto-ovo diet is 90 percent plant based, 10 percent eggs and dairy, reflecting the actual animal product consumption o the average lacto-ovo vegetarian. You might be asking yourself, why such an outrageous amount of calories when the usual average is 2000? Well- this 3,774 number is an "FAO (UN Food and Agriculture Organization) figure that represents the number of calories produced and distributed per person in the US, meaning that while we don't necessarily eat that much on average, we eat or waste that much at grocery stores and at home." This study took into account the entire life cycle of these diets. How much energy it took to grow, harvest , transport , and prepare them. The FAO released a report this past February stating livestock accounts for 18 percent of our world global warming emissions. Switching from a Toyota Camry to a hybrid Toyota Prius would save 1 ton of greenhouse gases annually while making the switch to a vegan diet would save 1.5 tons! After reading this article, it only reaffirms what I heard on Real Time a couple of weeks ago; "One can't be an environmentalist and a meat eater." These words spoken by a representative of PETA. What really surprises me is that the fish diet is equivalent to the red meat diet in avg. annual ghg emmisions. "I am a vegetarian, but I still eat fish" doesn't cut it anymore.
Read More...
Posted by Hannah at 4:26 PM 7 comments
Labels: Environment, food, global warming
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Friday, March 16, 2007
A Little Light Music
U.S., E.U. push phaseout of incandescent bulbs, U.K. gets serious about carbon
From the Daily Grist Wednesday, 14 Mar 2007:The world is seeing the energy-efficient light: a U.S. coalition including Philips Lighting and the Natural Resources Defense Council will push to phase out incandescent bulbs by 2016. And following the lead of Australia and California, European Union leaders have proposed ditching the bulbs even sooner, a plan that could reduce E.U. carbon emissions up to 25 million tons a year. E.U. President Angela Merkel, who uses energy-saving bulbs at home, offered her pitch: they're "not quite bright enough, so sometimes when I'm looking for something that's dropped on the carpet I have a bit of a problem." Uh ... moving on. Yesterday, the British government proposed first-of-its-kind legislation to reduce the nation's CO2 emissions 60 percent by 2050 with a series of five-year "carbon budgets." While some wish the target were more ambitious, Prime Minister Tony Blair declared the bill -- which could become law by early next year -- a "revolutionary step" that "sets an example to the rest of the world."
straight to the source: The New York Times, Matthew L. Wald, 14 Mar 2007
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Posted by Gerry at 10:48 AM 0 comments
Labels: cfl, CO2, energy conservation, global warming
0 comments:
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Monday, February 19, 2007
It's Official: He Rocks
Gore announces continents-spanning concert series, Live Earth
Never let it be said that Al Gore is not dedicated to his cause: the man will do whatever it takes to raise awareness about climate change. If it means hobnobbing at Sundance, he'll do it. Starring in a film that gets nominated for an Oscar? Not afraid. Orchestrating an event that features seven concerts on seven continents on 7/7/07? Check. Announcing said event with (slightly less luscious now that she's a brunette) Cameron Diaz at his side? Oh, if he must. The man is a modern-day martyr, and we salute him. With the help of Kevin Wall, executive producer of the 2005 Live8 concert that pushed for debt relief for poor nations, Gore will use the Live Earth shows to kick off a "Save Our Selves" campaign. "In order to solve the climate crisis, we have to reach billions of people," Gore said. "We are launching SOS and Live Earth to ... mobilize people all over the world to take action." More than 100 artists, from Snoop Dogg to Faith Hill, have already signed on. Short straw gets Antarctica.
straight to the source: Reuters, Mary Milliken, 15 Feb 2007
http://www.reuters.com/article/homepageCrisis/idUSN15457957._CH_.2400
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Posted by Gerry at 9:36 AM 2 comments
Labels: Al Gore, global warming, news
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Monday, January 22, 2007
Lecture!
HEAD OF NATIONAL WILDLIFE FEDERATION SPEAKING AT K-STATE FEB. 8 AS PART OF LOU DOUGLAS LECTURE SERIES
Source: Marcia Hornung, 785-539-8763, hornung@k-state.edu
News release prepared by: Erinn Barcomb-Peterson, 785-532-6415, ebarcomb@k-state.edu
Monday, January 22, 2007
HEAD OF NATIONAL WILDLIFE FEDERATION SPEAKING AT K-STATE FEB. 8 AS PART OF LOU DOUGLAS LECTURE SERIES
MANHATTAN -- A leader in conservation whose focus is on global warming and protecting wildlife is bringing his message to Kansas State University as part of the Lou Douglas Lecture Series.
Larry J. Schweiger, president and chief executive officer of the National Wildlife Federation, will present "Global Warming: Good Planets are Hard to Find" at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 8, in Forum Hall at the K-State Student Union. The lecture is free and open to the public. It is co-sponsored by the Kansas Wildlife Federation.
Schweiger joined the National Wildlife Federation in 2004 with a commitment to confront global warming and to protect wildlife. He also is co-chair of the Alliance for Climate Protection's governing council. He previously served as president and chief executive officer of the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. Among his accomplishments were expanding ecological research and contributing to public advocacy and community gardening and greening projects.
Schweiger also has worked for the National Wildlife Federation as a magazine publisher, senior vice president for constituent development and conservation action, and vice president of the federation's affiliate and regional programs department.
He has served on more than 40 governing boards, commissions and committees. Among Schweiger's awards are the Distinguished Service Award for Special Conservation Achievement from the National Wildlife Federation and the Conservation Service Award from the Christian Environmental Association. He also was Pennsylvania's Environmental Professional of the Year in 2002.
UFM Community Learning Center's Lou Douglas Lecture Series on Public Issues honors the memory of Douglas, a professor of political science at K-State who was known for inspiring students, faculty and citizens to instigate change. He was a longtime member of the UFM Community Learning Center board of directors until his death in 1979.
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Monday, November 20, 2006
U.N. conference ends with little progress on climate action
Here's the latest from Grist and NY Times:
In a monstrous anticlimax, the U.N. climate summit in Nairobi, Kenya, ended with a decision to ... review the Kyoto Protocol in 2008. "From Christian Aid's point of view that's simply not good enough, and we need some heads to be knocked together by somebody," said Andrew Pendleton of the charity organization. U.K. environment minister David Miliband put a finer point on it: "I come away from this conference with two senses: one, the world community can make progress when it puts its mind to it, but two, my goodness we really need to up the momentum, we need to increase the acceleration." Most agree that won't happen until the U.S., responsible for about 25 percent of the world's emissions, agrees to cuts -- not likely until post-Bush. "Everyone is waiting for the [U.S.]," said Paal Prestrud, head of Oslo's Center for International Climate and Environmental Research. "I think the whole process will be on ice until 2009." We'd make a melting-ice joke, but we're too busy crying.
NY Times link
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Tuesday, November 14, 2006
African nomads to be first people wiped out by climate change
Kenya's herdsmen are facing extinction as global warming destroys their lands
Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editorSunday November 12, 2006The Observer
They are dubbed the 'climate canaries' - the people destined to become the first victims of world climate change. And as government ministers sit down in Nairobi at this weekend's UN Climate Conference, the people most likely to be wiped out by devastating global warming will be only a few hundred miles away from their deliberations.
Those people, according to research commissioned by the charity Christian Aid, will be the three million pastoralists of northern Kenya, whose way of life has sustained them for thousands of years but who now face eradication. Hundreds of thousands of these seasonal herders have already been forced to forsake their traditional culture and settle in Kenya's north eastern province following consecutive droughts that have decimated their livestock in recent years.
Earlier this year the charity commissioned livestock specialist Dr David Kimenye to examine how the herders are coping with the recent drought, uncovering a disastrous story. Over two months, Dr Kimenye talked to pastoralists in five areas across the Mandera district, home to 1.5 million people.
The study discovered that:
· Incidence of drought has increased fourfold in the Mandera region in the past 25 years.
· One-third of herders living there - around half a million people - have already been forced to abandon their pastoral way of life because of adverse climatic conditions.
· During the last drought, so many cattle, camels and goats were lost that 60 per cent of the families who remain as herders need outside assistance to recover. Their surviving herds are too small to support them.
The new findings follow recent warnings from the UK Met Office that if current trends continue one-third of the planet will be desert by the end of 2100. The scientists modelled how drought is likely to increase globally during the coming century because of predicted changes in rainfall and temperature around the world.
At present, according to their calculations, 25 per cent of the Earth's surface is susceptible to moderate drought, rising to 50 per cent by 2100. In addition, the areas susceptible to severe drought - 8 per cent - are expected to rise to 40 per cent. And the figure for extreme drought, currently 3 per cent, will rise to 30 per cent.
And what is doubly worrying about Kimenye's research is that it has revealed that a system of nomadic pastoralism that has, over the centuries, been able to cope with unpredictable weather patterns and regular drought has been brought by climate change to the point of utter extinction.
It is a fact not lost on those who have been forced out of their historic lifestyle to settle at the Quimbiso settlement. Nearby is a stinking pit where the bones of the last of once thriving herds were dumped and burned - victims of the worst drought in living memory.
The families who until a few months ago herded these animals across northern Kenya and beyond now huddle in this riverside settlement, their children prone to malaria and other illnesses, but at least close to a reliable source of water. Now they are completely dependent on aid handouts for most of their food.
'Our whole life has been spent moving, but we are desperate people. People who have lost our livelihood,' says Mukhtar Aden, one of the elders at the Quimbiso settlement. 'We didn't settle here by choice, it was forced upon us.'
Everywhere are tales of huge livestock losses. In one roadside settlement, which now depends on selling milk from its few remaining animals to passing trucks, a man produces a book recording the dark days of the drought. One entry, for 15 February, shows that the community lost more than 500 sheep and goats and 250 cattle in a single day.
And while rain did came to the region for the first time in more than a year last month, it was too late for the makeshift roadside communities who no longer have animals to put out to pasture.
Wargadud is another sizeable community running along either side of the region's main road. The chairman of Wargadud's water users' association is Abdullahi Abdi Hussein, who describes how the periods of rain have got shorter and the dry spells longer - changing the pattern of four seasons on which the pastoral communities depended.
And while there were always droughts, he says: 'Decade after decade it has been getting more severe. It has only been getting harder and harder and more and more serious.'
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Labels: africa, global warming, news
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Saturday, November 04, 2006
Warming World, Cooling Profits?
Climate change could send the global economy into a serious recession, according to a report released today by United Kingdom chief economist Nicholas Stern. The study also makes recommendations on ways to slow and potentially stop further climate change.
Most studies on the effects of global warming have predicted that the detrimental effects on the world's economy will be minimal to modest. Those forecasting a more radical impact assume that changes in weather patterns will wreak havoc on fishing and farming and will displace millions of people via hurricanes, droughts, floods, and other extreme weather events. Yet even these studies don't go far enough, according to Stern's report. Part of the problem, he and colleagues note, is that previous economic studies underestimated the rise in global temperatures caused by climate change. Using a more accurate estimate, the group predicts that climate change could slash the global gross domestic product by 5% to 20%.
On the positive side, countries could reduce this loss to 1% by investing in more environmentally friendly technologies, according to the report. Toward that end, Stern's team calls for an integrated international approach to tackling global warming. But it also reminds rich nations that they have to bear the brunt of the economic investment, especially those in Europe and North America that are responsible for 70% of all carbon dioxide emissions to date.
"There is much in the report that most people can agree with, such as sustained investment in research on developing new carbon free technologies," says economist Richard Richels, director of global climate change research at the Electric Power Research Institute, a non-profit based in Palo Alto, California. But he notes that the report makes certain assumptions to calculate the costs of curbing global warming, such as assuming that countries will adopt the cheapest ways to reduce emissions. This might not always prove feasible, he says, in which case he says the costs would be much higher. "This is not an argument for inaction, but can affect what is realistic in the short term."
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Labels: academicjournal, global warming, news
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Friday, October 13, 2006
Charles Benjamin
If you happened to miss Charles Benjamin's speech the other night (which soo many did) you can check out this website to see what he talked about and to see what you can do to help this issue of Kansas helping to increase global warming.
Some things that we as a group can do right away:
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Posted by Megan at 10:46 PM 0 comments
Labels: global warming, take action
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