Do-Or-Die-Decade News

China - 2 to 52: While China is soon to construct “two new renewable-energy power stations … [a] wind farm in Gansu and wave-power project in Sichuan province … China will continue to open new coal-burning power stations at a rate of more than one a week.”
http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=52&id=259462007

A glaring emission/omission: According to an analysis by Christian Aid, the UK has been underestimating its contribution to greenhouse gas emissions by more than 30%: “millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases produced by some of the UK's top firms are not being declared.”

The study’s conclusions are stunning: “emissions associated with FTSE 100 company activity worldwide amount to 12 to 15 per cent of the global total. This figure contradicts Tony Blair's claim the UK produces around 2 per cent of the world's carbon emissions.”
http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=52&id=265432007

The problem at the poles worsens – from not likely to almost unavoidable: “New studies of Greenland and Antarctica have forced a UN expert panel to conclude there is a 50% chance that widespread ice sheet loss ‘may no longer be avoided’ because of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

“Such melting would raise sea levels by four to six metres [13 to 19 feet] … would cause ‘major changes in coastline and inundation of low-lying areas’ and require ‘costly and challenging’ efforts to move millions of people and infrastructure from vulnerable areas. The previous official line, issued in 2001, was that the chance of such an event was ‘not well known, but probably very low’.”
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2016243,00.html

Some good news as well: From the Netherlands comes an innovative LED bulb developed by Lemnis Lighting.

“Apparently, this 3.4 watt bulb is a serious replacement for a 40 watt incandescent bulb. The lumens per watt is about equal to a compact fluorescent bulb, but LEDs have a much longer bulb life. It is also more eco-effective when compared to other LED lamps, because the production does not include phosphor.”
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/02/new_led_lamp_ph.php

Do-Or-Die-Decade News

Devastating Climate Change: “The world's scientists yesterday gave their starkest warning yet that a failure to cut greenhouse gas emissions will bring devastating climate change within a few decades … An average global temperature rise of 4C would wipe out hundreds of species, bring extreme food and water shortages in vulnerable countries and cause catastrophic floods that would displace hundreds of millions of people. Warming would be much more severe towards the poles, which could accelerate melting of the Greenland and west Antarctic ice sheets.”
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2005116,00.html

To download a summary of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007 report: http://www.ipcc.ch/

"It's suicidal," says Elizabeth Kolbert, author of “Field Notes from a Catastrophe.” She writes: “as the latest I.P.C.C. report makes clear, change is not something that anyone at this point has a choice about. All that is at issue—and it is critically at issue—is how disastrous the change will be. Already enough CO2 has been pumped into the air to alter life on earth for thousands of years to come. To continue on our current path because the alternative seems like too much effort is not just shortsighted.”
http://www.stopglobalwarming.org/sgw_read.asp?id=113233262007

The counter-reaction began as soon as the report was issued – the clearest clarion call yet for urgent action – According to the UK Guardian: “Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.” Not surprisingly the call came from a U.S. conservative think-tank, the American Enterprise Institute, which got $1.6 million from Exxon Mobil. AEI “offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Travel expenses and additional payments were also offered.”
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2004397,00.html

$25 million to cleanup CO2. On Friday February 9, 2007 tycoon Richard Branson, with Al Gore at his side, announced his prize “for the first person to come up with a way of scrubbing greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070209/ts_nm/climate_prize_dc