The Person of the Year is YOU!

Time magazine's "Person of the Year" is You

Sat Dec 16, 2006 10:30 PM ET

By Michelle Nichols

NEW YORK (Reuters) - You were named Time magazine "Person of the Year" on Saturday for the explosive growth and influence of user-generated Internet content such as blogs, video-file sharing site YouTube and social network MySpace.

"For seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, Time's Person of the Year for 2006 is you," the magazine's Lev Grossman wrote.

The magazine has put a mirror on the cover of its "Person of the Year" issue, released on Monday, "because it literally reflects the idea that you, not us, are transforming the information age," Editor Richard Stengel said in a statement.
"These blogs and videos bring events to the rest of us in ways that are often more immediate and authentic than traditional media," Stengel said.

"These blogs and videos bring events to the rest of us in ways that are often more immediate and authentic than traditional media," Stengel said.

"Journalists once had the exclusive province of taking people to places they'd never been. But now a mother in Baghdad with a videophone can let you see a roadside bombing or a patron in a nightclub can show you a racist rant by a famous comedian," he said.

Arctic sea ice 'faces rapid melt'

Arctic sea ice 'faces rapid melt'

By Jonathan Amos
Science reporter, BBC News, San Francisco

A new model forecasts largely ice-free summers by 2040

The Arctic may be close to a tipping point that sees all-year-round ice disappear very rapidly in the next few decades, US scientists have warned.

The latest data presented at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting suggests the ice is no longer showing a robust recovery from the summer melt.

Last month, the sea that was frozen covered an area that was two million sq km less than the historical average.

"That's an area the size of Alaska," said leading ice expert Mark Serreze.

"We're no longer recovering well in autumn anymore. The ice pack may now be starting to get preconditioned, perhaps to show very rapid losses in the near future," the University of Colorado researcher added.

The sea ice reached its minimum extent this year on 14 September, making 2006 the fourth lowest on record in 29 years of satellite record-keeping and just shy of the all time minimum of 2005.

'Feedback loop'

Dr Serreze's concern was underlined by new computer modelling which concludes that the Arctic may be free of all summer ice by as early as 2040.

The new study, by a team of scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), the University of Washington, and McGill University, found that the ice system could be being weakened to such a degree by global warming that it soon accelerates its own decline.

"As the ice retreats, the ocean transports more heat to the Arctic and the open water absorbs more sunlight, further accelerating the rate of warming and leading to the loss of more ice," explained Dr Marika Holland.

"This is a positive feedback loop with dramatic implications for the entire Arctic region."

Eventually, she said, the system would be "kicked over the edge", probably not even by a dramatic event but by one year slighter warmer than normal. Very rapid retreat would then follow.

Sooner or later

In one of the model's simulations, the September ice was seen to shrink from about 5.9 million sq km (2.3 million sq miles) to 1.9 million sq km (770,000 square miles) in just a 10-year period.

By 2040, only a small amount of perennial sea ice remained along the north coasts of Greenland and Canada, while most of the Arctic basin was ice-free in September.

"We don't think that state has existed for hundreds of thousands of years; this is a dramatic change to the Arctic climate system," Dr Holland told the BBC.

Dr Serreze, who is not a modeller and deals with observational data, feels the tipping point could be very close.

"My gut feeling is that it might be around the year 2030 that we really see a rapid decline of that ice. Now could it occur sooner? It might well. Could it occur later? It might well.

"It depends on the aspects of natural variability in the system. We have to remember under greenhouse warming, natural variability has always been part of the picture and it always will be part of the picture."

The average sea ice extent for the entire month of September this year was 5.9 million sq km (2.3 million sq miles). Including 2006, the September rate of sea ice decline is now approximately -8.59% per decade, or 60,421 sq km (23,328 sq miles) per year.

At that rate, without the acceleration seen in the new modelling, the Arctic Ocean would have no ice in September by the year 2060.

Carbon 'credit card' considered

Watts in your wallet?

Carbon 'credit card' considered

Mr Miliband called for Labour to get its idealism back
Carbon "credit cards" could be issued as part of a nationwide carbon rationing scheme, Environment Secretary David Miliband has suggested.
An annual allowance would be allocated, with the card being swiped on various items such as travel, energy or food.
Mr Miliband said people who used less than their allowance could sell any surplus to those who wanted more.

A feasibility study says many questions remain on such a plan, but Mr Miliband says "bold thinking" is needed.
Mr Miliband told the Guardian that the scheme had "a simplicity and beauty that would reward carbon thrift".
Mr Miliband, who commissioned the feasibility study, said the scheme could be working within five years.

You cannot just rely on the state
David Miliband

Send us your comments

Individuals and communities had to be empowered to tackle climate change - "the mass mobilising movement of our age".
"You cannot just rely on the state," he said.

The feasibility study was carried out by the Centre for Sustainable Energy for the Department of the Environment (Defra).
It says there are questions over whether a scheme would be acceptable for politicians and the public, but could be fairer than imposing carbon taxes.
The report seeks to separate a carbon trading scheme from the proposed ID card scheme, to avoid it being attacked on the same civil liberty basis as identity cards.

'Consistent radicalism'

Defra said the government was now developing a work programme "which should provide the information to lead to a decision on whether or not a personal carbon allowance is a realistic and workable policy option".
Mr Miliband predicted the environment would be a key issue in the next election, requiring Labour to "change our policies and our politics in fundamental ways so that we are seen as the change in the next election".
"I'm a great believer in the Arsene Wenger school of management - which is, you don't worry about the opposition, you just get your own act together," he said.

He insisted that climate change required "cumulative, consistent radicalism" rather than "one shot wonders".

Watts in your wallet?

Environmental measures in last week's pre-Budget report, including a 1.25p per litre increase in fuel duty and a doubling in air duty, were called "pretty feeble" by green groups.

Environmental group Friends of the Earth said the principle of using a limited "budget" of carbon per person was sound, but the implementation - especially as it would involve a government IT project - was a cause for concern.

Friends of the Earth climate change campaigner Martin Williams said: "What worries us is that it could take quite a long time to implement it and really we don't have that long to tackle climate change."

At a meeting in Downing Street on Monday, the prime minister met business, media and religious leaders to promote "collective action" against climate change.

The Bishop of London and the chief executives of B&Q, BSkyB, the Carphone Warehouse, HSBC UK, Man Investments, Marks & Spencer, O2, Starbucks UK, the director general of the BBC and Tesco formed a partnership to publicise "practical, simple solutions". A public campaign will be launched in March 2007.

MORE : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4479226.stm

When science depends from industry!

Industry 'paid top cancer expert'

Sir Richard was an acclaimed scientist but he hiddens that he was paid by Monsanto and falsified the results of his research! said Jean-Luc Roux
His views on the chemical were used by the manufacturers' trade association to defend it for more than a decade, The Guardian said.

The scientist who first linked smoking to lung cancer was paid by a chemicals firm while investigating cancer risks in the industry, it has emerged. Professor Sir Richard Doll held a consultancy post with US firm Monsanto for more than 20 years.

During that time he investigated the potential cancer causing properties of the powerful herbicide Agent Orange, made by the company. But a former colleague said he gave money he was paid to charity.

It does not in any sense suggest that his work was biased
Professor Sir Richard Peto

Professor Sir Richard Peto, a fellow expert in cancer, said there were no rules governing disclosure of consultancies of this type 20 years ago.

He said: "Everybody working in this area knew that Richard worked for industry and consulted for industry, and would do court cases.

"It does not in any sense suggest that his work was biased. He was incredibly careful to avoid bias."

The BBC has seen private letters which show that Sir Richard, who died in 2005 aged 92, received a US$1,500-a-day consultancy fee from Monsanto in the mid-1980s.

During that period, Sir Richard wrote to an Australian commission on the results of his investigation into whether Agent Orange, famous for its use by the US during the Vietnam War, caused cancer.

He argued in his letter that there was no evidence that Agent Orange caused cancer.

Should come clean

Professor Lennart Hardell, of the Oncology Department at University Hospital Orebro, Sweden, has also studied the potential hazards posed by Agent Orange. He was one of the scientists whose work was dismissed by Sir Richard. He told the BBC Sir Richard's work was tainted. He said: "It's quite OK to have contacts with industry, but you should be fair and say 'well, I'm writing this letter as a consultant for Monsanto."

"But he does it as president, Green College, UK - a prestige position; also the Imperial Research Cancer Organisation in the UK. "And that makes a different position of the paper because you are an official university-employed person giving this position."

Further documents obtained by The Guardian newspaper allegedly show that Sir Richard was also paid a £15,000 fee by the Chemical Manufacturers Association, and chemicals companies Dow Chemicals and ICI for a review of vinyl chloride, used in plastics, which largely cleared the chemical of any link with cancers apart from liver cancer.

According to the newspaper, this is a view with which the World Health Organisation disagrees.

Sir Richard's views on the chemical were used by the manufacturers' trade association to defend it for more than a decade, The Guardian said.

Sir Richard was the first to publish a peer-reviewed study, in 1951, to demonstrate smoking was a major cause of lung cancer.

Alvin Toffler The increasing role of unformal economy

Alvin Toffler: The Thought Leader Interview
by Lawrence M. Fisher

Thirty-six years after his book Future Shock, the world’s most influential futurist sees the informal economy as a basis of revolutionary wealth.

Photograph by Vern Evans

When Alvin Toffler’s book Future Shock (Random House) first appeared in 1970, Richard Nixon was in the White House, the United States was in Vietnam, and the first personal computers were still several years away. Yet with notable prescience, Mr. Toffler wrote that the years to come would be marked by information overload, an acceleration of technological change, and a resultant social upheaval that he likened to mental illness: “Citizens of the world’s richest and most technologically advanced nations will find it increasingly painful to keep up with the incessant demand for change that characterizes our time. For them, the future will have arrived too soon.”

In retrospect, Mr. Toffler was less a reliable prophet than a brilliant synthesist. Future Shock and its successors, The Third Wave (Morrow, 1980) and Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth, and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Century (Bantam, 1990) were at their best not when predicting what would happen, but when drawing from a vast array of disciplines — science, technology, sociology, and religion — to explain the circumstances of the world at large.

That is true as well for the new book, Revolutionary Wealth (Knopf, 2006), this time credited to Mr. Toffler and his wife, Heidi, who collaborated on the earlier books as well. In their latest book, the Tofflers argue that more and more economic activity takes place through processes that do not involve the exchange of currency. The rapid rise of this nonmonetary wealth system has major implications for both the global economy and for humanity in general — implications that have been unmeasured and underestimated.

That will come as no surprise to Microsoft, which now battles for market share with Linux, the free operating system software maintained by a global army of volunteer programmers, or to the entertainment industry, which successfully blocked the music file-sharing Web site Napster only to see a dozen clones rise in its place, now joined by sites offering illegal downloads of feature films. According to the Tofflers, countless other industries and institutions face waves of “prosumers,” who produce and consume products and services outside the monetary economy. This is a historic change in the way wealth is created, the Tofflers write, spearheaded (for now, at least) by the United States.

The Tofflers also see a growing de-synchronization of society’s institutions. Financiers invent new derivatives faster than governments invent new regulations; schoolteachers working from dated textbooks struggle to retain relevancy for students who Google from cell phones; and audit firms search for a way to value increasingly intangible assets. Some de-synchronization is inevitable and even positive because it spurs innovation, the authors say, but too much risks the implosion of economies, governments, even whole civilizations.

Despite the gloomy language of some of their work, the Tofflers have never been doomsayers. Amid the current era of economic, ecological, and geopolitical anxiety, we thought it particularly worthwhile to hear the Tofflers’ vision of the years ahead. Mr. Toffler sat down with strategy+business at a hotel in San Francisco. The early days of the 21st century may indeed be challenging, but as Mr. Toffler, now 77, said in opening the conversation: “What an absolutely fascinating time to be alive.”

worldwide seafood stocks will be gone by 2048 because of overfishing

November 28, 2006—Unless humans make drastic changes now, worldwide seafood stocks will be gone by 2048 because of overfishing, scientists warned earlier this month in the journal Science.

But the damage is reversible—as long as governments have the political will to protect and police large portions of the ocean, the researchers say.

Dive beneath the waves to see the many fish species threatened by humankind's ever-growing appetite, and learn what one of the scientists who issued the dire warning thinks can be done to save the oceans.

National Geographic Digital Media

SEE VIDEO ATTACHED : Time Running Out to Save Seafood

Al Gore Interview: "It Is Not Too Late to Stop This Crisis"

National Geographic News

November 27, 2006

It's been six months since the surprise hit movie and book An Inconvenient Truth transformed Al Gore from the man who, as he puts it, "used to be the next President of the United States" to global warming's archenemy

We have to stop dumping 70 million tons [64 million metric tons] of global warming pollution every single day into the Earth's atmosphere.

So, Al Gore has decided to become carbon neutral, which means we reduce CO2 [carbon dioxide, a gas that contributes to warming in the atmosphere] to the maximum and then purchase offsets to offset the remainder with reductions in CO2 elsewhere.

HOW?

Well, he has changed the lightbulbs to the more efficient kind [compact fluorescent, or CFL, lightbulbs] and switched to a hybrid [vehicle], and we use clock thermostats, and we're installing solar panels.

click on the titlr to now more

Le changement climatique : peut-on justifier de ne pas agir "au nom de l'économie" ?

Extraits de Jean-Marie Jancovici:

Est-ce que cela a un sens de chiffrer l'externalité due à l'effet de serre ?

En effet, il faut bien distinguer deux choses que l'on mélange pourtant très souvent : le coût d'évitement d'un dommage, et le coût de réparation dudit dommage. Ainsi, l'article du Monde mentionné ci-dessus agrège dans les externalités un coût de réparation des infrastructures avec un "coût d'effet de serre", sans autre précision.

Un lecteur profane aurait tendance à penser que cela signifie qu'il faudrait faire payer cette somme - modeste en l'occurrence - aux camions et voitures pour se constituer une épargne servant, le jour venu, à réparer les dégâts du changement climatique, comme on répare les routes. On est donc tenté de considérer qu'il s'agit d'un coût de dommage, ce qui sous-entend que les dommages du changement climatique peuvent se voir attribuer une contrepartie monétaire.

Or estimer un coût de dommage objectif pour l'effet de serre est tout simplement impossible, car l'espérance mathématique de ce dernier est infinie.

Peut-être, avant d'aller plus loin, faut-il rappeler ce qu'est l'espérance mathématique. Elle correspond à la notion intuitive de ce que l'on peut attendre lorsque l'on sait ce qui se passe "en moyenne" quand on répète un acte un grand nombre de fois. Quand "en moyenne" je mets 15 minutes pour aller d'un endroit à un autre, je peux m'attendre à mettre un temps voisin la prochaine fois que je ferai le même déplacement, et donc "l'espérance mathématique" du temps pour ce déplacement est de 15 minutes : c'est le temps le plus probable que je mettrai à faire le déplacement à l'avenir compte tenu de ce que j'ai mis dans le passé.

L'espérance mathématique est donc la "moyenne" de toutes les valeurs possibles d'un événement futur (et c'est toujours la valeur moyenne que nous nous attendons à trouver). Elle vaut par définition

Somme, pour tous les événements possibles, de (valeurs de l'événement possible x probabilité de l'événement possible)

On voit immédiatement sur cette formule que si l'un des termes a une valeur infinie avec une probabilité non nulle, la somme est infinie.

Pour en revenir au changement climatique, pour justifier par des arguments économiques qu'il est "rentable" ou "pas rentable" de lutter contre, il faut donc pouvoir attribuer un coût à un certain nombre de dommages possibles, ainsi qu'une probabilité de survenance à chaque dommage, pour voir si l'espérance mathématique du coût de dommage est supérieure ou pas au "coût de l'action".

En outre, l'action est pour tout de suite, alors que les dommages sont surtout pour "plus tard" ; il faut donc leur attribuer une valeur dite "actualisée", c'est-à-dire avec une décote liée au fait qu'ils sont futurs. Mais pour faire ce calcul, nous allons nous heurter à un problème de taille ! En effet, quelle valeur attribuer, en 2004, des événements suivants, tous possibles dans le cadre du réchauffement en cours :

la mort de 30% de l'humanité par maladies tropicales d'ici à 2089 ?

Un arrêt du Gulf Stream en 2120 ?

10 mètres d'eau en plus pour l'océan mondial en 2350 ?

La désertification de la moitié du globe en 2080 ?

Une divergence du processus par déstockage du carbone après 2055, et la mort de 99% des hommes en 2200 ?

Bien évidemment, aucun modèle économique n'est capable d'attribuer une valeur financière à de tels événements, ni même de leur attribuer une borne supérieure : tout dépend des hypothèses ! On peut donc dire que le "coût" de ces éventualités, si elles survenaient (surtout la dernière !), est inifini, puisque personne ne peut leur attribuer de borne supérieure. Personne ne peut non plus dire aujourd'hui que les éventualités ci-dessus sont totalement impossibles, donc que leur probabilité de survenance est nulle.

En conséquence du fait que l'une des possibilités a un coût de réparation infini (ce qui signifie qu'il n'est pas réparable, cf. plus haut), l'espérance mathématique du coût de réparation est infinie aussi, quelle que soit la probabilité de survenance de l'événement (dès lors qu'il est possible) et même quel que soit le taux d'actualisation associé à un tel dommage. De ce fait, il n'est pas possible de dire, aujourd'hui, qu'il est 'économiquement non fondé" de lutter contre le changement climatique.

Pour ceux que la comptabilité ne rebute pas : rions un peu Toute comptabilité se doit d'être prudente. Supposons que le législateur (ou même simplement le juge, puisque le principe de prudence de la comptabilité est déjà contenu dans le Code de Commerce), dans sa grande sagesse, oblige toute entreprise qui utilise des combustibles fossiles - c'est-à-dire toute entreprise, de fait, puisqu'il suffit d'avoir des locaux chauffés pour émettre des gaz à effet de serre - à passer dans ses comptes une "provision pour remise en état du climat", à due concurrence de ses émissions cumulées de gaz à effet de serre (ce qui aurait un sens, puisque cette entreprise contribue à dégrader le climat, à due concurrence de ses émissions cumulées de gaz à effet de serre). Cela revient, d'une certaine manière, à attribuer à cette entreprise sa quote part des dégâts futurs, la valorisation monétaire de ces derniers ne faisant l'objet d'aucune actualisation. Comme il n'y a pas de limite monétaire au montant des dégâts futurs, il n'y en a pas non plus pour la quote part revenant à l'entreprise, et donc un tel principe conduirait à rendre n'importe quelle entreprise déficitaire. Et pourtant, sur le plan conceptuel, est-ce qu'une telle règle serait si absurde ?

Et si on veut vraiment compter, ca donne quoi ?

En novembre 2006, l'ancien économiste en chef de la Banque Mondiale, Sir Nicholas Stern, s'est néanmoins livré à une analyse de type "évaluation économique des dégâts". Il a donc pris les simulations climatiques régionales, qui sont ensuite utilisées pour alimenter des simulations agronomiques, a rajouté par dessus des hypothèses économiques sur les dommages (il a supposé, par exemple, que les dommages causés par le vent croissait comme le cube de la vitesse, ou que la production agricole suivait une courbe en cloche en fonction de la température, etc), puis il a mis des hypothèses économiques là-dessus et en est sorti avec un chiffre : si nous ne faisons rien contre le changement climatique, il nous coutera plusieurs dizaines de points de PIB en 2050 par rapport à une croissance "normale".

L'objet ici ne sera pas de discuter les hypothèses - et donc le résultat : vous seriez profondément endormi (et moi aussi probablement) avant que je n'arrive au bout. Il est plutôt de commenter quelques citations trouvées dans le résumé de ce rapport, parce qu'elles me semblent très bien traduire, en langage économique, des évidences "physiques" de ce dossier, et qu'elles restent valables quel que soit le niveau des dommages. J'ai assorti ces déclarations - dont je rappelle à nouveau au lecteur qu'elles sont "signées" par un individu qui a été un des plus grands argentiers de la planète - de quelques commentaires personnels.

Citation : "Climate change presents a unique challenge for economics : it is the greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen."
Traduction proposée : Le changement climatique offre un défi unique pour l'économie : c'est le dysfonctionnement du marché le plus grand et le plus étendu que nous ayons jamais vu."
Commentaire jancovicien : Voilà ce que donne (sans surprise pour votre serviteur) l'économie orthodoxe quand l'économiste prend la peine de se documenter sur les processus physiques qu'il commente. Question : avant de propager des inepties, les Lomborg et autres Fourçans ont-il seulement pris la peine de savoir de quoi ils parlaient autrement qu'en lisant le journal ?

Citation : "The evidence gathered by the Review leads to a simple conclusion : the benefits of strong, early action considerably outweigh the costs."
Traduction proposée : Les éléments rassemblés par les auteurs amènent à une conclusion simple : les bénéfices d'une action résolue et immédiate sont considérablement supérieurs aux coûts".
Commentaire jancovicien : avec une telle affirmation, où est la défense des modestes ? Dans l'effort immédiat, qui certes va leur coûter, ou dans le laisser faire, qui va leur coûter bien plus quand il faudra passer à la caisse, eux compris ?

Citation : "The [economic] analysis should not focus only on narrow measures of income like GDP".
Traduction proposée : "L'analyse ne doit pas se centrer uniquement sur des indicateurs étroits de revenu comme le PIB"
Commentaire jancovicien : Ca ne vous rappelle pas un certain ouvrage ?

Citation : "CO2 emissions per head have been strongly correlated with GDP per head."
Traduction proposée : "les émissions de CO2 par habitant ont été fortement corrélées au PIB par habitant"
Commentaire jancovicien : sans stratégie de rupture, le "business as usual" continue donc à augmenter les émissions.... tant que ca passe, et ca cesse de passer bien avant que la Chine n'atteigne seulement le niveau de consommation d'un Polonais. Vouloir le bonheur des peuples à long terme et encourager autoroutes, aéroports, et grandes surfaces est donc paradoxalement antinomique. Amusant, non ?

Citation : "Stabilisation of greenhouse gases at levels of 500-550ppm CO2-e will cost, on average, around 1% of annual global GDP by 2050. This is significant, but is fully consistent with continued growth and development, in contrast with unabated climate change, which will eventually pose significant threats to growth."
Traduction : "la stabiliation des gaz à effet de serre à 500-550ppm de CO2-equivalent nous coutera, en moyenne, 1% du PIB en 2050. C'est significatif, mais toujours compatible avec la croissance et le développement, par opposition à un changement climatique non maîtrisé, qui va au final constituer une menace sérieuse pour la croissance".
Commentaire jancovicien : la prolongation tendancielle, si on ne fait rien, ce n'est pas la croissance non contrainte, c'est la décroissance subie. Que disait le Club de Rome en 1970 ? Exactement la même chose, avec exactement les mêmes échéances...

Citation : "Uncertainty is an argument for a more, not less, demanding goal, because of the size of the adverse climate-change impacts in the worst-case scenarios."
Traduction : "L'incertitude est un argument en faveur d'un objectif plus ambitieux, et non moins ambitieux, à cause de l'ampleur des impacts dans le pire des scenarios"
Commentaire jancovicien : dire "je n'agis pas parce que je suis pas sûr de ce qui va se passer" est donc un argument économique non recevable (incidemment c'est facile de s'en rendre compte : si vous n'êtes pas sûr que votre enfant se fera renverser s'il traverse la rue les yeux bandés, est-ce une raison pour le laisser faire ?).

Citation : "Establishing a carbon price, through tax, trading or regulation, is an essential foundation for climate-change policy."
Traduction : "donner un prix au carbone, via la taxe, un mécanisme de quotas, ou des régulations, est une fondation essentielle pour une politique contre le changement climatique".
Commentaire jancovicien : comme le même auteur a déjà exposé que lutter contre le changement climatique, c'est social (puisque le prix de la prévention est inférieur au prix des conséquences, prévenir est donc social), et que toute lutte passe par une taxe carbone ou équivalent (comme des quotas allant en baissant continûment), la taxe carbone, c'est social ! Il suffisait de le dire....

Citation : "In order to influence behaviour and investment decisions, investors and consumers must believe that the carbon price will be maintained into the future."
Traduction : "Pour influencer les décisions concernant le comportement et les investissements, les investisseurs et les consommateurs doivent croire que le prix du carbone sera constant à l'avenir".
Commentaire jancovicien : pas de taxe qui monte et descend à la petite semaine, en fonction de qui a crié le plus fort la semaine d'avant, quoi... mais une vision claire de l'avenir, avec une règle bien établie pour le long terme. Ca ne vous rappelle pas étrangement la conclusion d'un certain livre ?

Citation : "A shared global perspective on the urgency of the problem [is] essential to respond to the scale of the challenge."
Traduction : "un consensus sur l'urgence du probleme (est) essentiel pour répondre à l'ampleur du défi".
Commentaire jancovicien : Voilà qui légitime tous les efforts pour que les media parlent plus et mieux du problème, clairement.

Citation : "It is still possible to avoid the worst impacts of climate change; but it requires strong and urgent collective action."
Traduction : "il est toujours possible d'éviter les pires impacts du changement climatique, mais cela demande une action collective forte et urgente".
Commentaire jancovicien : no comment...

***

Earthshakers: the top 100 green campaigners of all time

The Environment Agency has invited experts to name the people who have done most to save the planet

David Adam, environment correspondent
Tuesday November 28, 2006
The Guardian

Top of the list is Rachel Carson, a US scientist whose 1962 book, Silent Spring, is credited by many with kick-starting the modern environmental movement. Her account of the damage caused by the unrestrained industrial use of pesticides provoked controversy and fury in equal measures. Barbara Young, the Environment Agency's chief executive, said: "She started many of us off on the road to environmental protection."

At number two is the maverick economist EF Schumacher, a German national rescued from an internment camp in the English countryside by John Keynes, who went on to achieve worldwide fame with his green-tinged economic vision.

Jonathan Porritt, head of the Sustainable Development Commission, is third, with the wildlife broadcaster David Attenborough, fourth. James Lovelock, the UK scientist who developed the Gaia theory of life on earth, is fifth.

The US former vice-president turned documentary film maker Al Gore is placed ninth, while David Bellamy, the television botanist who angered some campaigners with his contrary stance on global warming, still makes the list at 18. There are journalists too, including the Guardian's George Monbiot (23) and Paul Brown (80). And some surprises: few would consider an oil boss an eco-hero, but Lord John Browne has done enough to turn BP around to make the list at 85.

Comments:

Congratulation to Paul Johnson - Greenpeace chief scientist - for his place 40 at the palmares

surprinsing!

29 Arnold Schwarzenegger, bodybuilder turned actor turned US politician

Expecting!
89 Dalai Lama, spiritual leader

Secret plan to impose EU-wide carbon limit

Secret plan to impose EU-wide carbon limit

By Stephen Castle

24 November 2006

Europe should set a new, unilateral, target for cutting CO2 emissions, agree legally binding plans to boost renewable energy and bring cars into its carbon trading scheme, according to a European Commission document.

The blueprint, drawn up by the Commission's vice-president, Gunther Verheugen, marks a significant shift in thinking as officials in Brussels seek to "green" their economic policy. While the Commission, led by José Manuel Barroso, has sought to boost "growth and jobs", environmental policy has so far been seen as a separate policy area.

In a letter to Mr Barroso and other Commissioners obtained by The Independent, Mr Verheugen, who is responsible for industrial policy, suggested several controversial plans, including the idea of bringing car drivers into the EU emissions trading scheme.

His intervention has sparked a vigorous debate in Brussels. One critic of the European Commission vice-president accused him of "trying to jump on the green bandwagon without knowing the issues very well."

However, his defenders say that Mr Verheugen is one of the few senior figures in Brussels trying to reconcile the need for economic growth with growing concerns over the environment.

Citing the findings of the recent report by Sir Nicholas Stern on the economics of climate change, Mr Verheugen calls for the EU to adopt a "realistic, unilateral target" for cutting CO2 emissions by 2020.

No specific figure is mentioned though the document hints that a reduction of 10-15 per cent on 1990 levels might be tolerable for the EU. This type of target would imply "electricity price increases in Europe of some 10 per cent". The cost of CO2 per tonne in Europe's emissions trading scheme (ETS), currently around €8 (£5.40), and expected to rise to €17 from 2008-12, would be increased to "up to €30".

By contrast, research "suggests that 2020 unilateral targets of more than 15 per cent off 1990 levels could imply significant costs", the document says.

At present the EU is struggling to meet its international commitments. Projections suggest that the EU countries will only just meet their Kyoto targets of cutting CO2 emissions by 8 per cent of 1990 levels by 2012.

Beyond unilateral action by Europe, Mr Verheugen also argues that the EU should agree to "a second, more ambitious, set of targets through international agreements if the other main emitters are willing to equally take substantial commitments to act against climate change".

While environmentalists agree on the principle of a unilateral target, they see the 10-15 per cent reduction on 1990 levels as far too low.

However, Mr Verheugen takes more risks with his call to include car use in the EU's emissions trading system. Plans are already under way to include aviation in the scheme, but the Commission vice-president goes further.

He argues: "We need to extend the system to bring in other sectors - eg cars - as well as other gases. There is no justification for excluding these from the ETS - we must avoid the proliferation of stand-alone schemes."

The document does not make clear how drivers would be brought into the scheme and the idea marks a departure from existing Commission policy. This is directed at forcing car manufacturers to improve fuel efficiency and curb CO2 emissions.

Mr Verheugen also argues for a "binding European target for all renewables". He adds: "We should not fall into the trap of attempting to 'pick the winner' and we should, therefore, provide incentives, in a technology-neutral fashion, based on the environmental benefits of different renewables."

The letter is timed to influence the debate in Brussels before the launch of a package of energy proposals next year, and a decision on what Europe's post-Kyoto target should be for the period after 2012.

Moratoire pour la protection des fonds marins refusé par l'ONU

Moratoire pour la protection des fonds marins refusé par l'ONU - 23 novembre 2006 - 19:15 (Par Pierre Melquiot)

Les Nations Unies ont tranché aujourd'hui en défaveur d'un moratoire pour la protection des fonds marins et des espèces de grands fonds, malgré les alertes répétées des scientifiques ainsi que des associations écologistes dont Greenpeace. « Une nouvelle peu engageante pour la protection des océans, » pour Greenpeace qui estime que « la protection des grands fonds marins coulée par une poignée de pays. »

Les négociations pour décider d'un moratoire sur le chalutage de grands fonds ont « été sabotées aujourd'hui par une poignée de pays emmenés par l'Islande, qui mettent l'intérêt de quelques pêcheurs au dessus des besoins d'autres pays, des conclusions de scientifiques et des organisations écologistes » estime l'association.

« L'accord final est plus mité qu'un pull marin , indique de New York Karen Sack, conseillère politique de la campagne Océans de Greenpeace International, c'est le statu quo destructif qui a été privilégié comme outil de gouvernance des océans. La communauté internationale devrait manifester son indignation envers l'Islande qui, à elle seule, a réussi à faire couler ce moratoire pour la protection des grands fonds marins qui devait assurer la sécurité alimentaire des générations futures. L'Islande ne doit pas être fière, tout comme les autres états qui ne se sont pas levé pour faire entendre la voie de la protection pour le futur des océans. »

Alors que de nombreux pays, parmi lesquels l'Australie, la Nouvelle Zélande, les états insulaires du Pacifique, les Etats Unis, le Brésil, l'Inde, l'Afrique du Sud, l'Allemagne et la France, et finalement même le Canada et la Communauté européenne soutenaient le moratoire sur le chalutage de grands fonds, le compromis s'est fait sur le plus petit dénominateur commun, et donc le plus pauvre.

Pourtant récemment, une étude scientifique alarmiste prévoyait la disparition des espèces commerciales de la planète à l'horizon 20501. De plus, de nouvelles données économiques font ressortir que les chalutiers de grands fonds ne sont rentables que grâce aux nombreuses subventions qu'ils reçoivent2.

« Les nations qui se sont opposées au moratoire sur le chalutage de grands fonds doivent se rendre compte que ce statu quo n'est absolument pas positif pour leur industrie. Les ressources des océans ne sont pas infinies et l'exploitation des ressources de grands fonds ne peut pas continuer à ce rythme, déclare Aurèle Clémencin, chargé de campagne Océans de Greenpeace France. La communauté internationale ne peut se contenter de voir les océans pillés par des flottilles sans foi ni loi. Une approche radicalement différente est nécessaire pour protéger la vie marine. »

Les pays favorables au moratoire doivent se saisir de l'opportunité que représente la résolution sur les pêcheries, qui sera votée le 7 décembre prochain, pour protéger les habitats vulnérables, en restreignant l'accès au marché des espèces de grands fonds et en appelant à la création d'un réseau global de réserves marines qui doit couvrir l'ensemble des océans de la planète. Cette prise en otage d'une décision internationale par un seul pays ne doit pas se répéter à Dubrovnik où les états membres de la Commission Internationale pour la Conservation des Thonidés de l'Atlantique doivent prendre des mesures drastiques d'urgence pour la conservation de cette espèce. La France aura là une responsabilité prépondérante dans le poids des positions européennes sur les mesures de restriction à prendre.

Four Conditions for Sustainability

The Natural Step Framework Four Conditions for Sustainability

By Terry Gips, President, Alliance for Sustainability
The scientific consensus principles on which the Natural Step Framework (NSF) is based were used by Swedish physicist Dr. John Holmberg and NS founder and Swedish medical doctor and oncologist Dr. Karl-Henrik Robert to generate four basic “system conditions” or conditions for sustainability that are the focus of the NSF and have been modified as stated below:

The Natural Step Framework holds that in a sustainable society, nature won’t be subject to systematically increasing:
1…Concentrations of substances extracted from the earth’s crust;
2…Concentrations of substances produced by society;
3…Degradation by physical means;
And, in that society,
4…human needs are met worldwide. (Source: Natural Step US, 2002 www.naturalstep.org)

To address the first three, strategies include both dematerialization (using less resources to accomplish the same task), substitution of alternatives, more efficient use of materials and the 3 Rs and 1 C: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Compost. To make these four principles more accessible to the public, the Alliance for Sustainability has been developing an easy-to-understand, practical way of addressing the principles:

1. What We Take From the Earth: Mining and Fossil Fuels – Avoid “systematically increasing concentrations of substances extracted from the earth’s crust.” Simply, we need to use renewable energy and nontoxic, reusable materials to avoid the spread of hazardous mined metals and pollutants. Why? Mining and burning fossil fuels release a wide range of substances that do not go away, but rather, continue to build up and spread in our ecosphere. Nature has adapted over millions of years to specific amounts of these materials. Cells don't know how to handle significant amounts of lead, mercury, radioactive materials and other hazardous compounds from mining, often leading to learning disabilities, weakening of immune systems and improper development of the body. The burning of fossil fuels generates dangerous levels of pollutants contributing to smog, acid rain and global climate change.

Action: We can support policies and take action to reduce our overall energy use. We can drive less, carpool, use public transportation, ride bikes or walk. We can conserve energy through energy-efficient lighting, proper insulation, passive solar, and reduced heating and cooling. We can support a shift to renewable energy such as solar and wind power instead of nuclear, coal or petroleum. We can also decrease our use of mined metals and minerals through recycling, reuse and preferably, reduced consumption. We also can avoid chemical fertilizers.

2. What We Make: Chemicals, Plastics and Other Substances – Nature must not “be subject to systematically increasing concentrations of substances produced by society.” Simply, we need to use safe, biodegradable substances that do not cause the spread of toxins in the environment. Why? Since World War II, our society has produced more than 85,000 chemicals, such as DDT and PCBs. Many of these substances do not go away, but rather, spread and bio-accumulate in nature and the fat cells of animals and humans. Cells don't know how to handle significant amounts of these chemicals, often leading to cancer, hormone disruption, improper development, birth defects and long-term genetic change.

Action: We can support green procurement policies and use non-toxic natural cleaning materials and personal care products. We can decrease our use of plastics and reuse the ones we have, such as plastic bags, plates, cups and eating utensils. We can stop using CFCs and other ozone-depleting substances. We can use safe, natural pest control in our schools, parks, homes, lawns and gardens. We can support farmers in becoming sustainable and eliminating hazardous pesticides by voting with our dollars for certified organic food and clothing. We can support the elimination of factory farm feedlots and manure ponds that cause air and water pollution.

3. What We Do to the Earth: Biodiversity and Ecosystems – Nature must not “be subject to degradation by physical means.” Simply, we need to protect our soils, water and air, or we won't be able to eat, drink or breathe. Why? Forests, soils, wetlands, lakes, oceans and other naturally productive eco-systems provide food, fiber, habitat and oxygen, waste handling, temperature moderation and a host of other essential goods and services. For millions of years they have been purifying the planet and creating a habitat suitable for human and other life. When we destroy or deplete these systems, we endanger both our livelihoods and the likelihood of human existence.

Action: We can purchase certified, sustainably-harvested forest products rather than destroying rainforests. We can reduce or eliminate our consumption of products that are not sustainably harvested, such as certain types of fish and seafood. We can shop with reusable bags rather than using more paper bags. We can decrease our use of water and use composting toilets that return valuable nutrients to the earth. We can fight urban sprawl and encourage the cleaning up of brown fields and other contaminated sites. We can support smart growth and safeguard endangered species by protecting wildlife habitat.

4. Meeting Basic Human Needs - "Human needs are met worldwide.” Simply, we can use less stuff and save money while meeting the needs of every human on this planet. Why? The US makes up only 4% of the world's population but consumes about 25% of its resources. The people living in the lowest 20% by income receive only 1.4% of the world's income. Just to survive, they see no choice but to cut down rainforests, sell endangered species, and use polluting energy sources.

Action: Make business, government and nonprofits aware that we can achieve the ten-fold increase in efficiency needed to become sustainable, and, in some cases, a 100-fold increase in productivity that will save money, create jobs and reduce waste as part of a new Industrial Revolution. We can encourage discussions about basic needs (see the work of Manfred Max-Neef ), ask if we really need more stuff, and design our workplaces, homes and organizations to give us more of what we want (healthy, attractive and nurturing environments) and less of what we don't want (pollution, stress and expense).

To get more information, contact the Alliance for Sustainability (612-331-1099, iasa@mtn.org, or www.allianceforsustainability.net) or the Natural Step-US (415-318-8170, www.naturalstep.org). Terry Gips is an author (Breaking the Pesticide Habit and The Humane Consumer and Producer Guide), economist, ecologist, NSF facilitator, President of the Alliance for Sustainability, and President of Sustainability Associates, an environmental consulting firm. He can be reached at 2584 Upton Ave. S., Minneapolis, MN 55405; T: 612-374-4765; F: 612-377-6019; or e-mail: tgips@mtn.org

Copyright April 3, 2003 Terry Gips, Alliance for Sustainability

---

The following links provide real world experiences of how each principle can apply to our society.

1. Reduce Mining and Use of Fossil Fuels
   
   • "Beware Hidden Costs of Mining Ventures" by Jane Reyer -- opinion editorial concerning mining development on the Iron Range of Minnesota
2. Eliminate Hazardous Substances Produced by Society
   
   • "Protecting Children From Toxic Threats" by Dr. Jill Stein
   • "3M to Stop Making Many Scotchgard Products" by Kathy Fieweger
   • "More Waters Test Positive for Drugs" by J. Raloff
3. Protect Biodiversity and Ecosystems
   
   • "Do We Need the International Year of Ecotourism?" by Anita Pleumarom, Tourism Investigation and Monitoring Team
4. Efficient Use of Resources to Save Money, Reduce Waste and Meet Human Needs
   
   • "Finding Meaning In a Cup of Coffee" by Rodney North
   • "The Natural Step Framework's Fourth Condition for Sustainability And Manfred Max-Neef's Basic Needs Analysis" by Terry Gips
   • "The Natural Step In" by Ed Kopp -- based on Max-Neef's basic needs
   • "The Right Amount" by Alan AtKisson
   • "Statistics on Poverty and Inequality" by Jeff Gates

The Biomimicry

"A new power tool to face the environmental crisis and allows the emergence of sustainability" - Jean-Luc Roux

Biomimicry (from bios, meaning life, and mimesis, meaning to imitate) is a new science that studies nature's best ideas and then imitates these designs and processes to solve human problems. Studying a leaf to invent a better solar cell is an example. I think of it as "innovation inspired by nature."

The core idea is that nature, imaginative by necessity, has already solved many of the problems we are grappling with. Animals, plants, and microbes are the consummate engineers. They have found what works, what is appropriate, and most important, what lasts here on Earth. This is the real news of biomimicry: After 3.8 billion years of research and development, failures are fossils, and what surrounds us is the secret to survival.

Like the viceroy butterfly imitating the monarch, we humans are imitating the best and brightest organisms in our habitat. We are learning, for instance, how to harness energy like a leaf, grow food like a prairie, build ceramics like an abalone, self-medicate like a chimp, compute like a cell, and run a business like a hickory forest.

The conscious emulation of life's genius is a survival strategy for the human race, a path to a sustainable future. The more our world looks and functions like the natural world, the more likely we are to endure on this home that is ours, but not ours alone.

The energy input of the industrialise model is extreme and the toxic byproducts are odious.

Nature takes a different approach. Because an organism makes materials like bone or collagen or silk right in its own body, it doesn't make sense to "heat, beat, and treat." A spider, for instance, produces a waterproof silk that beats the pants off Kevlar for toughness and elasticity. Ounce for ounce, it's five times stronger than steel! But the spider manufactures it in water, at room temperature, using no high heats, chemicals, or pressures. Best of all, it doesn't need to drill offshore for petroleum; it takes flies and crickets at one end and produces this miracle material at the other. In a pinch, the spider can even eat part of its old web to make a new one.

Imagine what this kind of a processing strategy would do for our fiber industry! Renewable raw materials, great fibers, and negligible energy and waste. We obviously have a lot to learn from an organism that has been making silk for some 380 million years.

The truth is, organisms have managed to do everything we want to do, without guzzling fossil fuels, polluting the planet, or mortgaging their future. What better models could there be? ( extract of Janine Benyus interview)

The Biomimicry Guild functions within an ecosystem~ we are subject to the same biological rules that govern the interactions of organisms that coexist in a common habitat. We are striving to evolve organizational dynamics that mimic mature ecosystems. As such, we:

1. Consider waste as a resource.

2. Diversify and cooperate to fully use the habitat.

3. Gather and use energy efficiently.

4. Optimize rather than maximize.

5. Use materials sparingly.

6. Don't foul our nest.

7. Don't draw down resources.

8. Remain in balance with biosphere.

9. Run on information.

10. Shop locally.

The Collective Intelligence

The Collective Intelligence

The main stakes for humanity are not hunger, poverty, sustainability, peace, healthcare, education, economy, natural resources or a host of other issues but our capability to build new social organizations that are able to provide solutions. Our main stake is Collective Intelligence.

This is a key issue in the corporate world as well. Today most large companies encounter insurmountable difficulties when dealing with the complexity and the unexpectedness of the world when operating against a global backdrop. They undergo conflicts of interest in many areas – between profitability and sustainability, secrecy and transparency, values and value, individual and collective dynamics, and knowledge fertilizing – that opens – and competition – that closes.

What most medium and large organizations have in common is an infrastructure based on pyramidal hard-coded social maps, command and control, labor division, and a monetary system stimulated by scarcity. Until recently, this social architecture was the only information system at our disposal to pilot and organize complex human edifices. We call it pyramidal intelligence. It remains efficient as long as the environment remains stable, but it becomes vulnerable and inefficient in fluctuating contexts, namely when markets, knowledge, culture, technology, external interactions, economy or politics keep changing faster than the capability of the group to respond.

Evolution has provided humankind with specific social skills based on collaboration and mutual support. These skills reach their maximum effectiveness within small groups of 10 to 20 people, but no more, where the individual and collective benefit is higher than what would have been obtained if everyone remained alone. We call it original collective intelligence. As individuals, we all know what it is because it is very likely that we have experienced it at some degree in our lives.

Well-trained, small teams have interesting dynamic properties. These include transparency, a gift economy, a collective awareness, a polymorphic social structure, a high learning capacity, a convergence of interest between the individual and collective levels, interactions characterized by human warmth, and, above all, an excellent capability to handle complexity and the unexpected.

Is it possible for large organizations to benefit from the same properties? Can they become as reactive, flexible, transparent, responsive, and innovative as small teams? Can they evolve even further, toward a global Collective Intelligence? Can they conjugate their interests with overriding concerns of humanity such as ethics, sustainability, etc…? The answer today is a resounding yes. It is not only possible, but absolutely necessary for not just the efficiency of these organizations but above all for the well-being of human society.

The aim of this paper is to provide the key concepts underlying collective intelligence and to explore how modern organizations and individuals can concretely learn how to increase their collective intelligence, i.e. their capability to collectively invent the future and reach it in complex contexts. This will draw the guidelines of a universal governance, provide an outline of the next democracies and help us forecast an economy in which competition and collaboration as well as values and value are reconciled. By Jean-Fraçois Noubel

Joint the Ecological deal proposed by Nicolas Hulot

Please download (in French) the document an English version should be available soon.

Their is no more time to face the ecological climate change disaster. Take it has an opportunity to build another world which will respect human, live and the beauty of our planet earth. Citizens, politicians, scientists, NGOs, associations, indivuduals should
act together to face the compexity of the problem. The right tools will be networking, collective intelligence, systemic approach ... All together we will be able to give dignity again to the human race. Nicolas Hulot helps us to make a step further.

http://www.pacte-ecologique-2007.org/nicolas-hulot/pdf/presentation_pacte_eco.pdf

U.S.: Climate Change Climate Changing

Haider Rizvi
OneWorld US

Mon., Nov. 20, 2006

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 20 (OneWorld) - There are signs that key U.S. officials are ready to take on global warming, even as much of the world community failed to show its will to deal with the impending threat at a recent global conference.

Despite intense calls for new and radical actions, last week delegates at the UN-sponsored meeting in Kenya agreed on many outstanding issues, but not on further cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

Environmental groups widely described the outcome as a failure, but not all were expressing despair. Though equally unhappy with the results, some believe that meaningful global action on climate change is not a distant possibility.

In Nairobi, while delegates failed to set a deadline for concluding international negotiations on further cuts in emissions beyond 2012, they did agree to continue their discussions in the future.
As the next round of international talks takes place in Bali, Indonesia, in 2008, proponents of strong action against global warming say they hope that by then the United States may be in position to play an effective role in taking the world in a more positive direction.

Scheme to cut 'carbon footprint'

A scheme designed to help companies measure the total amount of carbon emissions from their goods and services has been launched by the Carbon Trust.

The "cradle-to-grave" initiative will provide businesses with a profile of products' pollution, from the sourcing of raw materials through to disposal.

A recent poll by the Trust showed that 66% of people asked wanted to know the "carbon footprint" of their purchases.

The carbon audits aim to identify ways firms can cut energy use and emissions.

Planet in Peril: Atlas of Current Threats to People and the Environment

Planet in Peril: Atlas of Current Threats to People and the Environment

Planet in Peril: Atlas of Current Threats to People and the Environment is the English translation of Le Monde diplomatique’s recently published Atlas 2006. It is the result of a long-standing cooperation between Le Monde diplomatique and GRID-Arendal (1).

These pages offer a holistic and well-researched analysis of today’s global issues and their impact on human population and the environment.

Written by an international team of specialists, these pages from the Atlas illustrate through text and maps, graphics and diagrams the interplay between population and the world’s ecosystems and natural resources both in the short and long terms. It brings together a wealth of information from the most up-to-date sources on such key issues as climate change, access to water, exploitation of ocean resources, nuclear energy and waste, renewable energy, weapons of mass destruction, causes of industrial accidents, waste, export, hunger, genetically modified organisms, urban development, access to health care and ecological change in China.

With its expansive scope, richly detailed information, and inviting design, the Atlas is an indispensable resource for understanding the planet we live in.
Polar ice caps melting faster

Global warming is not affecting the planet evenly and most of the existing models forecast that it will be greater in the northern hemisphere. With an overall increase of 2°C, temperatures in the Arctic could increase by a factor of two or three. The southern hemisphere, would also be affected, though less severely.
Polar ice caps melting faster

The Kyoto protocol came into force on 16 February 2005, heralding the advent of a more mature attitude. Mankind, we were told, had finally woken up to the increasing pressure that it is exerting on the environment. Unfortunately a closer look shows that such claims have more to do with wishful thinking than actual fact.
Water becoming a rarity

Despite the international community’s commitments many people still do not enjoy the right of access to clean water and half the world’s population is in danger of running short of this vital commodity in 30 years.

Ocean resources under threat

The planet’s one ocean - for the various oceans form a single ecosystem - covers 361m square kilometres, or 71% of the Earth’s surface. Exploitation of renewable and non-renewable resources has steadily increased. Some renewable resources are the focus of keen rivalry. No sooner do we realise their potential than they threatened by over-exploitation.
Nuclear power for civilian and military use

Nuclear power only makes a minor contribution to world energy consumption. Given the average age (about 22 years) of the nuclear reactors still in service and nuclear power stations’ limited share (barely 2%) of the market for new electricity production facilities, the situation is unlikely to change in the immediate future. In the meantime there is still no solution to the problem of nuclear waste and the risk of proliferation.
Renewable energy, fact and fiction

Renewable energy technologies have made considerable progress. Windmills and solar panels, modern wood-burning boilers, biofuels, bioclimatic buildings are all widely available, often at competitive prices.

Weapons for rich ... and poor

Weapons of mass destruction (WMD) have only one thing in common, their potential for killing large numbers of people. The term covers nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, as well as ballistic missiles, their main vector. On the sidelines dirty bombs belong to the arsenal of terrorism.

Who causes industrial accidents?

The Johannesburg summit in 2002 emphasised the part that business would have to play in achieving sustainable development. But in many cases we are still waiting for tangible results, with large firms taking advantage of the laxity of national governments.
Waste, recyclers and recycled

Promoting growth based on intensive productivity and consumption has major disadvantages, one of the most serious being the huge volume of waste produced and the problem of its disposal. Statistics fail to convey the full measure of the problem, particularly for industrial waste, now a commodity for international trade transported long distances around the world.
The South depends on its exports

Since the 1970s the price of raw materials has followed a downward trend, subject to great instability. But developing countries, heavily in debt and dependent on their exports, are increasingly reluctant to bow to the demands of rich countries, as the failure of the Cancun negotiations demonstrated.

Losing the battle against hunger

In 2000 there were 852 million undernourished people on Earth. Over the last five years their number has increased every year by about 4 million. Without a radical change of course we will not achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goal (of reducing by half the proportion of people suffering from hunger by 2015). The reasons for this failure are all too familiar.

GM organisms, too much, too soon

The issue of genetically modified organisms draws together strands from the debate on the global market and the concept of progress. It is a perfect illustration of how market forces come into play much more quickly than the precautions that seem appropriate given the current state of research. We are consequently already eating genetically engineered foodstuffs without it being possible to guarantee they are entirely safe.
GM organisms, too much, too soon<
GM organisms, too much, too soon
Urban development trends

Urban culture, with its values, fads and fashions, now governs the entire planet. But from one continent to the next the form and pace of urban development vary, even if motor vehicles and their attendant infrastructure are omnipresent.

Widening health care gap

Unequal access to health care is the cruellest, most widespread attack on human integrity. Coming on top of longstanding differences in standards of living, the balance of power that lets North dominate South inflicts chronic bad health on whole countries, sapping any attempt at development.

China a key factor in tomorrow’s climate

China is fast becoming the workshop of the 21st century world. But a shortage of raw materials abroad and increasingly serious environmental problems at home are already threatening continued growth.

Stern report: should recognise limits to growth

Doomed to failure

The carbon reduction proposals in the Stern review are not enough to save the planet. We must recognise that there are limits to economic growth
Stephan Harding
Monday November 13, 2006

Guardian Unlimited

Sir Nicholas Stern's recent review proposed a series of measures we must implement immediately to "decarbonise" the global economy, including emissions trading, technological cooperation and the reduction of deforestation. Stern concluded that "with strong and deliberate policy choices, it is possible to reduce the emissions in both developed and developing economies on the scale necessary for stabilisation while continuing to grow".

While I was greatly persuaded by the recommendations made by the Stern review, this is where I believe he misses something vitally important. Simply put, growth, of the wrong kind, no matter how decarbonised, will wreck the planet.

Natural limits

The Stern review ignores a fundamental lesson of ecology: that every species operates within the limits of its surroundings - this is the notion of "carrying capacity". The review effectively acknowledges that there is a limit to the greenhouse gasses we can release into the atmosphere if we wish to avoid dangerous climate change, but it overlooks the many other ecological limits, as yet only dimly recognised by mainstream economists.

There are limits to the acreage of wild ecosystems that we can convert into farmland, housing estates, car parks, and the other apparently essential items of civilisation if we are to avoid destabilising the health of the global ecosystem on which our economy depends. Similarly, there are limits to our extraction of minerals, to our use of water and to our disturbance of the planet's nutrient cycles.

It is now clear that we have overstepped every one of these limits, and that yet more growth will take us even further in the wrong direction - it would take about three extra planets to provide the resources for everyone on earth to 'achieve' the living standards of the average UK citizen.

Balancing act

Perhaps we need to distinguish between two fundamentally distinct kinds of growth. There is the suicidal growth that our mainstream culture is so hell-bent on pursuing, despite the widening gap between rich and poor and the damage it will do to our complex, self-regulating natural world. The alternative is "intelligent growth", which recognises that we must move towards a steady-state economy in which the living standards in the south could grow whilst those of the north decline until both converge on a steady and equitable per capita share of what the earth can spare us.

Intelligent growth recognises that certain things must be encouraged to grow - the development and deployment of renewable technologies, the restoration of degraded ecosystems, the recreation of vibrant local communities and economies, and the adoption of ecologically diversified farming practices. Policies inspired by intelligent growth would stimulate those non-material things that can grow without limit - strength of community, love of the earth, creativity and spirituality. These are, after all, the sources of our deepest satisfactions and of our sense of well-being.

By choosing to ignore the problem of growth, the Stern review, much needed as it is, does no more than reform an economic system that seems doomed to prompt and spectacular failure. Desperate times call for stronger medicine and perhaps it is time for a radical change of paradigm. Perhaps we need to embrace an old idea that inspired the likes of Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill and EF Schumacher: that there are limits to growth.

· Stephan Harding is coordinator of the MSc in Holistic Science at Dartington's Schumacher College and the writer of Animate Earth: Science, Intuition and Gaia. To order a copy for £9.95 with free UK p&p call 0870 836 0875 or go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop

Little progress at climate summit

Little progress at climate summit

Xan Rice in Nairobi
Saturday November 18, 2006

Guardian
Environmental campaigners expressed anger last night after a UN climate change conference in Nairobi seemed to be about to end without major breakthroughs.

As talks continued, more than 180 countries had tentatively agreed to review the Kyoto protocol, which requires rich countries to limit greenhouse emissions, in 2008. But there was no deal on a deadline for setting new global targets that will apply after 2012, when Kyoto expires. Nor were there any signs that the US and Australia, which have rejected the treaty, would consider signing a successor agreement, or that industrialising countries such as China and India would agree to cut their carbon emissions in future.

The Kyoto review would show how much or how little progress has been made in tackling global warming. If the latter, the results could put pressure on rich nations to agree steeper cuts and on developing countries to limit emissions.

Barbara Helfferich, a European commission spokeswoman, said the timing of the review would ensure there was no gap between Kyoto and "son of Kyoto".

But environmentalists were unhappy with the outcome. "It means that the Kyoto show is still rolling on, which is good," said Andrew Pendleton of Christian Aid. "But if you look at the scale of the problem, the results we have seen are timid."

For more information on the Kyoto protocol click on the following web site

http://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/items/2830.php

'Smart' homes to eat their rubbish

'Smart' homes to eat their rubbish

Chief scientist targets a zero-waste Britain to absorb the shock of global warming
Gaby Hinsliff, political editor
Sunday November 19, 2006

Observer
A new generation of 'smart' buildings, which can consume their own rubbish and power themselves, is needed to help Britain withstand the shock of global warming, the government's chief scientist will warn in a call for an end to a culture of waste.

British temperatures will rise for the next 30 years even if future greenhouse gas emissions are reduced, Sir David King will say in a speech tomorrow. As the damage wrought by existing pollution feeds slowly through the world's ecosystems, it is essential that the public adapts to change, he will argue.

His call comes as the Blairite think-tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research, publishes a report today calling for Britain to become a 'zero waste' country, where rubbish is recycled or reused instead of dumped in landfill sites. It says taxes should be applied to disposable products such as razors and cameras, encouraging people to buy more lasting products. The study argues consumers should learn to repair and reuse items rather than throwing them out, as well as recycling more.

The think-tank report wants manufacturers to be compelled to design durable products that can be reused rather than throwaway plastic that will need regular, and profitable, replacement.

More controversially, it recommends that councils should charge householders for taking away non-recyclable rubbish: Britons throw away more than 300 million tonnes of rubbish every year and recycle less than half of it.

'We have become an increasingly throwaway society, reliant on cheap, disposable and hard to recycle goods,' said Nick Pearce, the think-tank's director. 'Business needs to take greater responsibility for the whole life of a product.' Denmark, Sweden and Belgium all impose taxes on non-recyclable products, the report reveals.

King told The Observer that Britain should prepare for major changes to help it withstand hotter summers and wetter winters. These should include setting aside land around major cities as housing-free flood plains, which could regularly be flooded during flash downpours that will become more common. The greatest flood risk will be inland rather than along the coast.

King is also overseeing a project to design smarter buildings capable of withstanding a 'rather hot 21st century'. The building of the future would need to be wireless rather than cluttered with the electrical paraphernalia of a typical office or home, drawing 'whatever energy it can from its own environment' via geothermal, wind or solar energy.

Such buildings would be lit by natural daylight harnessed through 'light pipes' - channels up to the roof designed to let light flood through rooms. The buildings would have their own waste recycling on site, in a drastic change from what he called the 'Victorian environment' in which most Britons still live.

'Adaptation is as important as mitigation,' he added. 'I think it's arguable that the crisis in Darfur is a political crisis driven by the impacts of climate change: it's now demonstrable that the 32,000 fatalities in central Europe in 2003 [during the summer heatwave] are a climate change-driven natural disaster.

'We have little chance of avoiding dangerous climate change: it will take something like 30 years for the Earth's climate system to catch up with what we have done to it. The next 30 years of change is in the pipeline and we are going to have to adapt and prepare.'

Other technological advances, he said, included 'smart' transport systems allowing travellers to use their mobile phone to get instant information on how long a journey by public transport to any destination would take.

King added that he increasingly hoped that a new global deal on cutting greenhouse gas emissions, succeeding the Kyoto treaty, could be reached within two years. John Howard, Prime Minister of Australia, which with America refused to ratify the Kyoto deal, recently signalled a willingness to discuss a new treaty. That, King said, was an optimistic sign: 'I think John Howard's position is unlikely to have moved without discussions with the White House.'

4 billion
Number of throwaway cartons we get through in a year. They are typically made of several materials which are difficult to recycle.

7 million
Number of tonnes of food dumped into landfill every year, even though it is easy to recycle at home, by making compost.

£424
The amount of money each Briton wastes on average per year on food that is bought but never eaten.

Stern report: the key points

The Stern review, which was commissioned by the Treasury and carried out by the former World Bank chief economist Sir Nicholas Stern, is expected to say that the world economy faces an economic downturn comparable to the great depression of the 1930s if it fails to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

BUT

Shifting the world onto a low-carbon path could eventually benefit the economy by $2.5 trillion a year

The dangers

· All countries will be affected by climate change, but the poorest countries will suffer earliest and most.
· Average temperatures could rise by 5C from pre-industrial levels if climate change goes unchecked.
· Warming of 3 or 4C will result in many millions more people being flooded. By the middle of the century 200 million may be permanently displaced due to rising sea levels, heavier floods and drought.
· Warming of 4C or more is likely to seriously affect global food production.
· Warming of 2C could leave 15-40% species facing extinction.
· Before the industrial revolution level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere was 280 parts per million (ppm) CO2 equivalent (CO2e); the current level is 430ppm CO2e. The level should be limited to 450-550ppm CO2.
· Anything higher would substantially increase risks of very harmful impacts. Anything lower would impose very high adjustment costs in the near term and might not even be feasible.
· Deforestation is responsible for more emissions than the transport sector.
· Climate change is the greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen.

Recommended actions

· Three elements of policy are required for an effective response: carbon pricing, technology policy and energy efficiency.
· Carbon pricing, through taxation, emissions trading or regulation, will show people the full social costs of their actions. The aim should be a global carbon price across countries and sectors.
· Emissions trading schemes, like that operating across the EU, should be expanded and linked.
· Technology policy should drive the large-scale development and use of a range of low-carbon and high-efficiency products.
· Globally, support for energy research and development should at least double; support for the deployment of low-carbon technologies should be increased my up to five times.
· International product standards could be introduced.
· Large-scale international pilot programmes to explore the best ways to curb deforestation should be started very quickly.
· Climate change should be fully integrated into development policy, and rich countries should honour pledges to increase support through overseas development assistance.
· International funding should support improved regional information on climate change impacts.
· International funding should go into researching new crop varieties that will be more resilient to drought and flood.

Economic impacts

· The benefits of strong, early action considerably outweigh the costs.
· Unabated climate change could cost the world at least 5% of GDP each year; if more dramatic predictions come to pass, the cost could be more than 20% of GDP.
· The cost of reducing emissions could be limited to around 1% of global GDP; people could be charged more for carbon-intensive goods.
· Each tonne of CO2 we emit causes damages worth at least $85, but emissions can be cut at a cost of less than $25 a tonne.
· Shifting the world onto a low-carbon path could eventually benefit the economy by $2.5 trillion a year.

· By 2050, markets for low-carbon technologies could be worth at least $500bn.

· What we do now can have only a limited effect on the climate over the next 40 or 50 years, but what we do in the next 10-20 years can have a profound effect on the climate in the second half of this century.

Read the Stern review here

Stern Review final report
The pre-publication edition of the Stern Review Report on the Economics of Climate Change is available to be downloaded below either on a chapter-by-chapter basis or in parts covering broader themes. The report is available in Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF). If you do not have Adobe Acrobat installed on your computer you can download the software free of charge from the Adobe website . For alternative ways to read PDF documents and further information on website accessibility visit the HM Treasury accessibility page .

Hardcopies of the report (ISBN: 0-521-70080-9) will be available from December at a charge of £29.99 + £3.50 postage and packing. Copies can be ordered via fax on +44 (0)1223 315052 or via post from the following address: Science Marketing, Freepost, Cambridge University Press, The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge, CB2 1BR.

Table of contents

Summary of conclusions
Preface and acknowledgements
Introduction to Review
Executive summary (full)
Executive summary (short)

Drastic action on climate change is needed now - and here's the plan

The government must go further, and much faster, in its response to the moral question of the 21st century
George Monbiot
Tuesday October 31, 2006

Guardian
It is a testament to the power of money that Nicholas Stern's report should have swung the argument for drastic action, even before anyone has finished reading it. He appears to have demonstrated what many of us suspected: that it would cost much less to prevent runaway climate change than to seek to live with it. Useful as this finding is, I hope it doesn't mean that the debate will now concentrate on money. The principal costs of climate change will be measured in lives, not pounds. As Stern reminded us yesterday, there would be a moral imperative to seek to prevent mass death even if the economic case did not stack up.

But at least almost everyone now agrees that we must act, if not at the necessary speed. If we're to have a high chance of preventing global temperatures from rising by 2C (3.6F) above preindustrial levels, we need, in the rich nations, a 90% reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions by 2030. The greater part of the cut has to be made at the beginning of this period. To see why, picture two graphs with time on the horizontal axis and the rate of emissions plotted vertically. On one graph the line falls like a ski jump: a steep drop followed by a shallow tail. On the other it falls like the trajectory of a bullet. The area under each line represents the total volume of greenhouse gases produced in that period. They fall to the same point by the same date, but far more gases have been produced in the second case, making runaway climate change more likely.

So how do we do it without bringing civilisation crashing down? Here is a plan for drastic but affordable action that the government could take. It goes much further than the proposals discussed by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown yesterday, for the reason that this is what the science demands.

Study Sees ‘Global Collapse’ of Fish Species

If fishing around the world continues at its present pace, more and more species will vanish, marine ecosystems will unravel and there will be “global collapse” of all species currently fished, possibly as soon as midcentury, fisheries experts and ecologists are predicting.

Report on the Impacts of Biodiversity Loss on Ocean Ecosystem Services (Science)

What can be done now to protect marine life and many species of fish that could face extinction by mid-century if overfishing continues?


The scientists, who report their findings today in the journal Science, say it is not too late to turn the situation around. As long as marine ecosystems are still biologically diverse, they can recover quickly once overfishing and other threats are reduced, the researchers say.

But improvements must come quickly, said Boris Worm of Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, who led the work. Otherwise, he said, “we are seeing the bottom of the barrel.”

“When humans get into trouble they are quick to change their ways,” he continued. “We still have rhinos and tigers and elephants because we saw a clear trend that was going down and we changed it. We have to do the same in the oceans.”

Biomimetism the nature link for sustainable development

Janine Benyus: The Thought Leader Interview
by Amy Bernstein

The biomimicry pioneer is teaching executives that the solutions to their most challenging problems lie in nature.

Photograph by Vern Evans
Within the current wave of corporate environmentalism, inspired by the threat of global climate change, large-scale thinkers are prominent. Many proclaim a new role for companies: to move beyond compliance with regulations to a leadership stance in the green, energy-efficient economy of the future. But in the long run, the most effective thinkers in this arena may well be those who start small, just as nature does. By emulating the patterns and designs and strategies in plants, animals, and ecosystems, they argue, corporations can become cleaner, leaner, and more consistently innovative. For the past decade, one of the most influential voices in this school of thought has been that of Janine Benyus.

Ms. Benyus was the first to identify the nascent discipline, which she dubbed “biomimicry” and galvanized with her groundbreaking 1997 book of the same name. Biomimicry, writes Ms. Benyus, is “the conscious emulation of life’s genius.” To practice biomimicry, a technologist must turn away from conventional “heat, beat, and treat” industrial processes, and study “what works in the natural world, and more important, what lasts.” For example, ceramic manufacturing could emulate the self-assembly of abalone shells; adhesive tape could be patterned after geckos’ feet; and computer chips could be designed to assemble themselves through crystallization, just as microscopic algae called diatoms assemble their shells. More important, each of these innovations (and many more) could be produced with a fraction of the environmental liability — and in many cases the cost — of conventional industrial processes. In nature’s innovation and resilience, Ms. Benyus sees the keys to achieving sustainability, which former Norwegian President Gro Harlem Brundtland defined as the capacity of society and industry to “meet the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.”

A biologist by training, Ms. Benyus never set out to become a guru of sustainable business. In the course of writing several books on wildlife and animal behavior, she came to appreciate “the exquisite ways that organisms are adapted to their places and to each other.” The observation led her to a profound realization: “In seeing how seamlessly animals fit into their homes, I began to see how separate we managers had become from ours,” she writes. She set out to identify the people “who know that nature, imaginative by necessity, has already solved the problems we are struggling to solve.”

What she found was like-minded individuals “working at the edges of their disciplines, in the fertile crescents between intellectual habitats.” Sensing that there were broader applications at the intersection of ecology, commerce, technology, and materials science, she cofounded the Biomimicry Guild in 1998 and developed models for applying biomimicry to industrial design and systems. Among her growing list of clients are Levi Strauss, NASA, Nike, Patagonia, Procter & Gamble, S.C. Johnson, and General Electric.

When she wrote her book a decade ago, she noted that there was no formal biomimicry movement as yet, but that people responded to the idea with enthusiasm. “Biomimicry has the earmarks of a successful meme; that is, an idea that will spread like an adaptive gene throughout our culture,” she says.

Ms. Benyus met with strategy+business at her house at the foot of the Bitterroot Mountains in western Montana, surrounded by the largest contiguous wilderness in the lower 48 states. Warmed by a stove burning wood pellets on a frigid February morning, Ms. Benyus explained why biomimicry is catching on with business and where it’s going.

S+B: You say that there has been no formal biomimicry movement until now. Do you see one taking shape?
BENYUS: Absolutely. When I started working on the book in 1990, my source material was all small scientific journals. Very obscure. None of the people doing this kind of work knew each other, and they all had different terms for the same concepts and different ways of describing their work. But now, when they write grant proposals and research papers, they all talk about doing “biomimicry” or “biomimetic research.” It’s now a known term.


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This article is from Autumn 2006
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