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weforum
January 28
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Clinton weighs in on climate change-
Climate change is former US president Bill Clinton's gravest worry for
the world today. It is the only problem "that has the power to end the
march of civilization as we know it", he said, adding that there
should be a "serious global effort" to promote clean energy.
Issues that "aggravate rather than promote equality" and the world's
"enormous cultural and religious divides", are also serious concerns
for Clinton.
Advocating public-private partnerships, he said that "the power of
private citizens to do public good is greater than at any time in
history" because globalization and the advent of the internet
facilitate the pooling of private resources. "If we believe that there
is a global society, then a lot of the work will be done by private
citizens." However, he insisted that "we have an ethical obligation,
not only to our own taxpayer, but to people who need [aid money] to
stay alive, to make sure it is spent in the most cost effective
manner" and this is where the NGO movement can make a big difference.
Webcast http://gaia.world-television.com/wef/worldeconomicforum_annualmeeting2006/default.aspx?sn=17195
I Session summary
india climate congress http://static.teriin.org/dsds/2007/index.htm
futurehistorian.tv
Cool Idea that warmed me most in February - yours welcome too
Invisible Heating Systems-Taking Solar Power out of the road.
Sheep gave Hank Verweijemeren his epiphany.
The flocks-warming themselves on a stretch of Scottish road-inspired
him to create Invisible Heating Systems, which today look to transform
every stretch of asphalt into a solar cell.
Cook water pumped through a grid of pipes beneath the road is warmed
by the sun and, in turn, warms the surrounding gravel and sand-which
stores it, Verweijmeren says, with around 95% efficiency.
The hot water in the pipes can be used to melt snow on roads, on
runways, or even to fill your water heater.
"In Holland," he says, "the government determined that if only 15% of
the motorways were paved with this, it would produce more energy than
all the utilities in that country combined.
Fast Company, March 2007 Page. 92
futurehistorian.tv
gore*stern*branson - one of the bookmarks it generated was this
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4014
The science is in; the "skeptics" aren't what they used to be. They're
still around, of course, but their ranks have thinned, and their
funders are feeling the heat. They've been reduced to a merely
tactical danger. They're flaks, and everyone knows it. Still, this
good news comes with bad-their job was to stall, and they did it well.
And it's now late in the game.
Don't just take my word for it. In 2006, scientists schooled in the
art of careful and measured conclusion chose instead to speak frankly.
James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies
and perhaps our single most respected climate scientist, spoke for
many of his colleagues when he said that we're "near a tipping point,
a point of no return, beyond which the built in momentum and feedbacks
will carry us to levels of climate change with staggering consequences
for humanity and all of the residents of this planet."1
It's time, past time really, for at least some of us to go beyond
warning to planning, to start talking seriously about a global crash
program to stabilize the climate. Gore knows this, but he's a
politician and must move deliberately. He is moving, though, and has
already passed beyond his film's gentle implication (most visible in
the upbeat visual call to action that ran under the closing credits)
that personal virtue will suffice. During a September 2006 speech at
the New York University Law School (a speech one wag called "the lost
reel") he made some necessary, and dangerous, connections:
"In rising to meet this challenge, we too will find self-renewal and
transcendence and a new capacity for vision to see other crises in our
time that cry out for solutions: 20 million HIV/AIDS orphans in Africa
alone, civil wars fought by children, genocides and famines, the rape
and pillage of our oceans and forests, an extinction crisis that
threatens the web of life, and tens of millions of our fellow humans
dying every year from easily preventable diseases. And, by rising to
meet the climate crisis, we will find the vision and moral authority
to see them not as political problems but as moral imperatives."
The situation, alas, is worse than either Gore's movie or his speech
implies.
futurehistorian.tv
can be seen as a webcast and the information is very useful.
Slide 81 is particularly important since it shows that the largest
(also, fastest growing) electric energy consumption sector is 76% for
buildings. Remember that last year China increased its electric supply
by an amount (100,000 Megawatts) equal to the entire UK capacity - and
has done this in just one year! And it is all powered by coal!
Therefore, what we have in SolaRoof technology is so important since
we can not only make buildings neutral (the present target) but
actually negative - that is solaroof buildings would produce much more
carbon neutral energy then they consume. If we add this capability to
other holistic solutions such as the Anaerobic Digestion (AD) and
distributed, combined heat and power that are integrated to every
building and community (with complete CO2 carbon capture by
photosynthesis to re-make again a carbon neutral biofuel), then the
results can be a complete and strong reversal of the trends. Adopting
such technology only for new construction and most renovation would be
sufficient to move the entire world community onto a path to safety
and a secure and sustainable future (see slide 124 of Ed Mizria's
presentation) .
Unlike current building design, SolaRoof has a biotechnology approach
that allows the built environment to incorporate solutions for
controlled ecological life support systems - it is not surprising
therefore that SolaRoof is a most promising direction for development
and investment. Life supports life. Biology and Ecology are very
successful systems and we want to see technology for the built
environment modeled on a deeper understanding of these systems - and
the resulting technology is often referred to as biomimicry.
Getting our transport systems onto a biofuel footing is a very logical
thing to do and it is possible to produce enough SVO (straight
vegetable oil) to power transport systems from our SolaRoof buildings
by mass culture of algae and extration of the vegetable oil.
Additionally, the plant biomass and the other green wastes (includes
all human and livestock) is used through AD to produce quite clean
fuel: BioMethane. BioMethane and Methanol have the potential to be
used in Fuel Cells, which "burn" with a very efficient and clean
process. Also, electric vehicles can be zero emission when they are
charged by our clean, distributed and carbon neutral electrical power
systems that are integrated with our homes and communities (including
all commercial/industri al buildings).
Such vehicles could clean air as they operate and more vehicle miles
will not be a problem because these solutions are also cost effective
and use less and less materials in their construction. I don't think
that this is the place to discuss vehicles and transportation but in
general it should be appreciated that "de-materialization " is part of
the solution. Vehicle systems will become very much lighter, as
recommended by Lovins and others, yet retain safety and capability.
Lighter than air vehicles can be used for transport of materials and
goods, but in general a very small fraction of goods and materials
shipping will be needed compared to today's situation.
Heavy buildings, with high mass are costly and have little flexibility
of use and reuse. SolaRoof will not provide Thermal Mass by using
solid material - we use water thermal mass with Dynamic Liquid
Technology systems within our buildings that can contribute very
substantial Thermal Mass at little or no cost (coupling to existing
heat sink systems and using waste heating/cooling resources)
In Ed Mazria's presentation on slide 91 shows a number of approaches
to design of buildings and if you check this list you will see that
the SolaRoof technology provides an excellent solution in each
category of design innovation. Therefore, we have a practical and
systematized approach that has been demonstrated as doable even by the
DIY community - the question is, when will the mainstream sectors of
architects, engineers, academics, government researchers and private
labs to do the work to learn and apply to the best of their ability
the SolaRoof designs. We also need the know-how that is developed to
continue to flow out to the home builders and building industry
everywhere as an opensource tool kit.
What is not clear is that the present know-how, so called "passive
solar heating and cooling", which for example is shown in slide 158,
which show passive solar design and massive solid construction of the
BedZed Project in London (presented by Chris Luebkeman of Arup) and
which is assumed to be the best available approach. However, SolaRoof
presents a very different approach - our thermal mass is in liquid
form; our building envelope is mostly transparent; our green space is
not restricted to outside roof spaces but brings plants into
buildings; our envelope can maximize daylight while the standards
today call for no roof glazing and mostly vertical south facing
glazing of less then 5% of the surface area; we can maximize the plant
processes of photosynthesis and transpiration by which plants also
grow; we can have very high food and water production using these
ecological life support mechanisms of plants and thereby
photosynthesis will capture CO2; we have cost effectiveness that is
100 better than Photovoltaic for energy production and need no new
land area; by improving design of built environment and making
walkable, livable communities that can have appropriate density and
can therefore take less land area even when you have population
increase.
Even with increasing population (towards the 9 Billion) we can have
reducing land requirements for urbanized land use and the energy will
be sufficient from these buildings only from solar energy income. The
proof of this is shown in Slide 95 shows exactly how much energy is
reaching is reaching buildings is an order of magnitude larger then
the building use - even in dull, rainy, high latitude locations. The
requirement is to then use diffuse light and what limited heat
radiation is available and the large transparent envelope of the
SolaRoof building and the leaf canopy of the plants, which are growing
within a controlled environment (with CO2 enriched atmosphere) is very
capable of converting the energy to useful space heating, condensing
pure water from transpired moisture and producing food and plant
biomass for energy. If we additionally use integrated AD systems (use
all of the 5 kingdoms of life) to produce energy from this natural
cycle from all green "wastes" we recover all the energy value and all
the nutrient value.
At this time we don't design and build our structures to a SolaRoof
standard and even the standard of 50% reduction in carbon (the
2010imperative. org) or a zero carbon (like the Zero Emission Research
Institute - ZERI.ORG) goal of Architecture2030 (to go to zero carbon
by 2030) is a standard that is greatly exceeded by the SolaRoof goals
to be carbon negative in a high ratio of energy production (itself
carbon neutral energy) to the operational consumption needs.
Tom, and Duncan, you need to listen to the presentation of the webcast
of imperative2010 and to Chris Luebkeman's introductory remarks where
he talks about the fact that the stories we will tell each other about
the future that are our personal fiction and that we need to be aware
that believing in our stories can result in self fulfilling prophesy.
I tell you that I am not limited by your lack of vision for a bright
and prosperous future for all. Growth is not evil, it is good and it
is not so much what we do as how we do it. So, in a de-materializng
and carbon neutral world we can do, make, consume, travel more and no
harm is done.
Mathematics is a tool like any other and it works with assumptions. It
is the same problem that became well proved in the computer
programming community - if you have garbage in you get garbage out.
So, don't tell others that because you know mathematics or economics
that you have become the high priest of truth. You can be quite misled
by your own logic and your own numbers. It is excess of expertise that
has brought us all to the brink of planetary collapse and the die-off
that you blindly believe to be "inevitable" . Then when others show
some independent thinking you can't stand to see a contradictory point
of view. Fortunately for us, our's is not just "analysis" or point of
view - it is a point of departure and the beginning of effective
action to build together (DIY if need be) the future of sustainable
abundance - not because we are smart but because the design of the
universe and of living systems is so gracious and generous to us and
to all creatures and once we learn more from the Designer about good
design we can find solutions and we can evolve with this knowledge.
Richard Nelson
solaroof@yahoo. com
http://www.solaroof .org
http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/solaroof
SolaRoofGuy Wiki Blog
Together we can BUILD a sustainable future
----- Original Message ----
From: Bobby Yates Emory <liberty1@gmail. com>
To: solaroof@yahoogroup s.com
Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2007 6:32:17 AM
Subject: Carbon neutral (was: Re: green oil bubbles RE : Re:
[solaroof] coloured bubbles)
Chris,
Some people are already using biodiesel - if made from WVO or soybean
oil (USA), canola (Canada), or rapeseed oil(Europe) it is carbon
neutral. No additional carbon is added to the atmosphere by the use
of biodiesel (or WVO or SVO).
Some of us are working on oil from algae. It will also be carbon
neutral. It will not require that arable land be diverted from food
production for algae cultivation. Algae promises to yield much more
oil per acre than any of the above crops.
If you look solely at what the production and use cycle does to the
atmosphere, both of the above solutions are carbon neutral. But if
you also include in your thinking the petro-diesel that is not pumped
out of earth and burned, then both of the above reduce the amount of
CO2 added to the atmosphere compared to what would have happened if
the people in the first two paragraphs were not doing the work they
are doing.
We invite you to join us in protecting the environment.
And this is something you can do right now - you don't have to wait
for the 22nd century or for something to be invented. All of the
above is practical today. (It does assume diesel vehicles - most
large lorries worldwide already are - plus a few cars in the USA and
about half of current production of cars in the UK and Europe. Other
solutions are underway for spark ignition engines.)
Bobby
On 2/20/07, christopher macrae <chris.macrae@ yahoo.co. uk> wrote:
can someone please tel me - suppose our amazing race gets to the 22nd
century in tact, is the solaroof network forecasting that by then the
cars we use will be consuming green oil whoch decarbonises as it
exhausts?
is this techincally possible or not? If it is posible what bookmarks
do I need to show first to scientists or congressmen who deny
possibilities as well as truths
chris macrae
climate debate at omidyar http://www.omidyar. net/group/ community-
general/news/ 1671/65/
http://crisisclimat e.tv
Richard Nelson <solaroof@yahoo. com> wrote:
What we often fail to "see" is that the properties of water for
radiant energy absorption is itself very elegant. Nature has a
wonderful design ready for use to use to best affect when we work with
water. The solar radiation is about 50% IR and this is the spectrum
you would want to block to create cool shading. Water is transparent
to the visible spectrum and the apparent "reflection" of high
expansion bubbles is due to scattering. Thus, when we use the bubbles
for shading in the mid-day there is a reduction of the peak visible
(what the plants need is the portion called the PAR radiation) but
much more penetration into the leaf canopy because of the scattering.
This is just what cloud cover does.
The night time use of the liquid bubbles for shading is very
effective. We think that at this time it would be better if the
bubbles were less transparent. But remember that at night the
radiation that is trying to leave through the transparent roof/wall
system is not in the visible spectrum but it is long wave thermal
radiation (connected directly with the temperature of the relatively
cool bodies that are radiating this energy) from the leaf canopy. It
happens that liquid bubbles are in fact very opaque to this radiation
and therefore to this energy the bubbles will appear as if to be
solid. The empty roof will not resist this loss of radiative energy
because plastics are transparent to the solar IR and to the long-wave
thermal radiation. Without bubbles in the roof the warmth from the
interior is lost through the glazing.
However, when it is too hot (in the summer or in the tropics) it is
good that the roof can be left transparent and can cool down over
night. This is the benefit of not building fixed properties into the
covering materials and leaving the dynamic control to the bubbles that
can be there when needed and gone if that is better. At night we do
not need reflective foil or methods to make the bubbles opaque because
they are already very effective at reflecting the thermal energy and
trapping it inside the structure. The leaf canopy inside will not see
the cold night sky - it will see the controlled temperature of the
bubbles (again, similar to cloud cover).
I don't doubt that there are going to be some very useful ways to
manipulate the color or reflective values etc of bubbles. I would just
like there to be a greater appreciation of how much the simple water
based liquid bubble system can be effective without adding complexity.
It is great to be able to just get on with applying this simple method
to change radically the heat/cooling loads of buildings.
futurehistorian.tv
Dear Member,
Vienna, March 5, 2007
The Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP) today
announced a call for project proposals which support the development
of markets for renewable energy and energy efficiency. The project
call is REEEP's largest in its four year history with more than 3
million Euro available for projects in least developed countries and
emerging market economies.
The project call received funding from a consortium comprised of
Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Norway and the United Kingdom. Norway,
the new major donor of REEEP and the United Kingdom will be pooling
funds allowing for larger investments into projects. Ireland and
Italy will continue their focus on Africa and New Zealand will bring
small island states in the Pacific into focus.
The REEEP call is an open tender seeking projects from priority
countries - China, India and Brazil and from across the developing
world. Based on the experience gained over the last two years with a
bottom-up approach to selecting projects, REEEP will be piloting a
combination of bottom-up and top-down commissioned strategic
projects.
REEEP is inviting countries with specific legislative or regulatory
needs or development finance institutions with need for financing and
business models to develop a project directly with REEEP. It is hoped
that by assisting governments with lowering risk within the renewables
and energy efficiency sector and working with development agencies to
encourage business and finance models, finance can be attracted into
new markets.
REEEP has also decided to further increase the importance of energy
efficiency in its portfolio and throughout emerging markets. The
project call will be seeking bidders for the production of a REEEP
Report on Energy Efficiency - in order to accurately portray the
benefits and role that energy efficiency can play in improving energy
security, lowering carbon emissions, and enhancing industrial
competitiveness, covering the market, policy, stakeholders and key
initiatives.
The call for project proposals will also commission work around
reducing the risk of investing into renewables and energy efficiency,
synthesizing REEEP experiences from its 50 previous projects and
replicating successes achieved in the 18 completed projects.
Dr. Marianne Osterkorn, REEEP International Director stated that the
partnership can now add value across a number of areas. "We can now
fund larger and longer term projects and in addition to our bottom-up
approach, the targeted approach will help to strategically accelerate
key markets for renewable energy and energy efficiency".
Members & Associates can download bid documents at:
http://www.reeep.org/groups/6thcallforproposals
To become an Associate, please fill-out the form at:
http://www.reeep.org/trampoline/createaccountpublic2/
REEEP previously disbursed € 2.2 million euro in 2006 and € 1.1
million in 2005.
futurehistorian.tv
Brazil cannot often claim to be a world leader in technology, but
standing here in the blistering sun of rural Sao Paulo surrounded by
towering stalks of sugar cane, any observer can easily accept the
country?s boast that the future of clean and renewable fuel lies
within its grasp. U.S. President George W. Bush arrives in Sao Paulo
on Thursday and the decision to focus his two days of talks on ethanol
amounts to a tacit recognition that Brazil is the country the
developed world must woo if it is to develop a progressive and
coherent policy on alternative fuel.
The talks will be between two nations that are both partners and
rivals on ethanol. Brazil and the United States together produce
almost three-quarters of the world's ethanol, and with concern over
CO2 emissions growing almost daily they are both keen to find a clean
and efficient substitute for fossil-based fuels. But - no surprise -
they don't agree on the best way to do it.
The U.S. makes its own ethanol from corn and it is reluctant to cede
any more advantages to the Brazilians, who have decades of experience
producing ethanol and whose sugar cane-based version is three times
more efficient than the corn one. Brazil's ethanol is also around a
third cheaper to produce. The U.S. levies a $0.54 cent per gallon
tariff on Brazilian ethanol and does not give Brazil access to
programs such as those Washington provides Caribbean and Central
America which grant nations from the region a special dispensation to
export sugar-based ethanol to the U.S. Those exports provide 7% of all
ethanol consumed annually in the U.S. American politicians, especially
from corn-producing states, are fighting to maintain those barriers,
and Bush administration officials have said the President will not
even discuss lowering tariffs in this week's talks with his Brazilian
counterpart.
That doesn't make sense to Brazilians, and not only because prices of
corn and corn-based foodstuffs are rising in the U.S. as producers
devote more and more of their crop to fuel rather than food. President
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva pointed out that for a country eager to
promote free trade such tariffs are a hypocritical barrier to the
rapid development of alternative fuel sources. "The high tariff that
the United States imposes on ethanol makes no sense," Lula said
earlier this week, in a clear message to his visitor. "[The Americans]
talk a lot about free trade but they like to protect their own
products."
Brazilian producers will continue to push the U.S. for a tariff
reduction, or at least some sort of favored nation status. But until
they get a positive response they will take their expertise elsewhere.
With a solid background in ethanol production - Brazilian gasoline is
23% ethanol and two out of every three cars sold are Flex models that
can run on either gas or ethanol - Brazil is in the driver's seat.
Lula wants to export more ethanol to consumers and more expertise to
governments - especially in Africa, Asia and Latin America - that want
to start their own ethanol industries.
Brazil recently built ethanol plants in Jamaica and Nigeria. It is in
talks with more than a dozen governments in countries as diverse as El
Salvador and South Africa to build others. At home, it is set to spend
$14.6 billion on 90 new ethanol plants over the next five or six
years. It expects to up annual production to 35.7 billion liters (9.4
billion gallons) in 2013 from 17 billion litres (4.5 billion gallons)
today, according to figures from the National Agency for Industrial
Development. Brazil also hopes to export equipment, machinery and
personnel as well as increase its ethanol exports sixfold within the
same period, said Roberto Giannetti, the director of Foreign Trade at
the Federation of Industries of Sao Paulo state. "Brazil is keen to
transfer technology and help those countries produce ethanol for
internal use and for export," Giannetti said. "I think Brazil is
conscious of the situation and it is willing to invest."
In a spirit of cooperation before the presidential summit, the U.S.
and Brazil last week joined with China, India, South Africa and the
European Union to form the International Biofuels Forum, a U.N.-
sponsored group that has made its main goal establishing international
norms for ethanol so it can become recognized and traded as a
commodity. It is a move forward, but it is a small one. This week,
Brazilians will be pressing the U.S. to take its foot off the brake
and let the true ethanol superpower move forward.
futurehistorian.tv
I thought you might be interested in this article which appears to
provide leads as to which cities are collaborating in becoming green
fastest. I got my version of this from http://www.wbcsd.org/ which I
strongly recommend if you dont already know of it
Will London be EU's 'greenest' city?
EurActiv.com, 2 March 2007 - London Mayor Ken Livingstone announced a
comprehensive plan on 27 February to cut the city's greenhouse-gas
emissions by 60% within 20 years.
Background
Big cities are increasingly taking the lead in the fight against
global warming. As heavy emitters of greenhouse gas, some are going
beyond federal or national political efforts to deal with the climate-
change challenge. In the US, the mayor of Seattle has been joined by
more than 400 other city mayors in the US Mayors' Climate Protection
Agreement. http://www.seattle.gov/mayor/climate/
In London, Mayor Ken Livingstone launched his Climate Change Action
Plan http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor/environment/climate-change/docs/ccap_fullreport.pdf
on 27 February 2007. It is not the first initiative by the radical
Labour politician to attempt to 'Green' the UK capital - in 2003, he
introduced a congestion charge (later increased) for all cars driving
in the city centre (see Wikipedia). It also established the C40 Large
Cities Climate Leadership Group http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor/environment/climate-change/c40.jsp
in partnership with the Bill Clinton Foundation.
London is the world's eighth-largest emitter of carbon dioxide. It
produces more than 44 million tonnes of CO2 each year (excluding
aviation emissions). Without action, London's carbon emissions are
projected to grow to 52 million tonnes by 2025.
The EU is also looking into the urban dimension of several of its
policies. It is preparing a Green Paper on urban
transporthttp://ec.europa.eu/transport/clean/green_paper_urban_transport/index_en.htm
, which is expected to be published in September 2007.
Issues
With its climate-change action plan, London aims to reduce carbon
emissions by 60% from 1990 levels by 2025. The main policy measures
foreseen in the plan are:
A Green Homes programme , including large subsidies for home
insulation and a special service to help Londoners implement energy-
savings in their homes;
a Green Organisations programme , targeting the commercial and public
sector with the aim of implementing energy-savings in buildings by
turning off IT equipment and lighting at night;
a Green Energy programme aiming at moving a quarter of London's energy
supply away from the national grid and onto local decentralised
systems by 2025 (mainly via CCHP, combined cooling heat and power),
and;
a Green Transport programme providing continued investment in public
transport, walking and cycling, promoting low-carbon vehicles and full-
carbon pricing for transport (highest-polluting vehicles would pay 25
pounds sterling per day and zero-emission vehicles would travel
free).
A noticeable ommission in the London Climate Change plan is aviation .
With several airports, aviation accounts for one third of London's CO2
emissions, but the city has little grip on this sector. Therefore the
only measures it can advocate in the plan are support for EU efforts
to curb emissions from aviation, a promise to challenge further runway
expansion at UK airports and educating Londoners to use alternatives
to air travel.
Positions
One of the London mayor's main objectives is to convince Londoners to
change their behaviour. "To tackle climate change you do not have to
reduce your quality of life, but you do have to change the way you
live," Livingstone said.
Links
EU official documents
Commission DG Environment: Climate Change portal (2006) Climate Change
portal
EU actors positions
Greater London Authority: Action today to protect tomorrow. The
Mayor's Climate Change Action PlanAction today to protect tomorrow.
The Mayor's Climate Change Action Plan
http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor/environment/climate-change/docs/ccap_fullreport.pdf
, (27 Feb 2007) [Executive summary
http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor/environment/climate-change/docs/ccap_execsummary.pdf
]
This article sourced from EurActiv.com http://www.euractiv.com/
Visit EurActiv.com for more news and articles and
sign up to EurActiv.com's Update E-mail
futurehistorian.tv
11 april Mark wrote to introduce http://biovoyager.wordpress.com/
during my easter week in London I learnt these updates:
Tav and Espians are staring a 90 day effort to reach a million people
out of a building off Brick Lane; the main effort will be 24 days
staring late june; the whole is intended to be a launch for a 24 days
and outreach to a million sustainability people from any city;
probably the world's most ambitious attempt to deeply connect
sustainability youth across cities
Rick's greenest 100 person ampitheatre will now Sprout alongside the
QE2 concert hall on the South Bank in July for definite opening in
Augsut; all pro bono sustainability meetings can hire space for free;
it will be seen on the skyline by millions
his supergreenhouse opens in cambridge in July; its primarily been
developed by a guy whose vegetable businesses emanate from Italy and
connect both Almeria and the Netherlands; sounds like a huge practical
breakthrough to which vips of climate and clean food should be invited
to make early tours
futurehistorian.tv
By Mark Turner & Fiona Harvey
Climate change threatens to prolong the war on terrorism and foster
political instability that governments will be unable to cope with, an
influential panel of 11 retured US generals has warned.
Their urgent message comes on the eve of a special United Nations
Security Council meeting on the security implications of climate
change....
The new US military report, commissioned by the government-financed
Center for Naval Analyses, lays out strong support for a link between
climate change and terrorism.
Admiral T. Joseph Lopez, the former commander-in-chief of US Naval
Forces, Southern Europe and a member of the panel, said: "Climate
change can provide the conditions that will extend the war on terror.
In the long term, we want to address the underlying conditions that
terrorists seek to exploit, but climate change will prolong those
conditions. It makes them worse."
The report describes climate change as "a threat multiplier for the
instability in some of the most volatile regions of the world", which
will "seriously exacerbate already marginal living standards in many
Asian and Middle Eastern nations, causing widespread political
instability and the likelihood of failed states."
To make matters worse, the military experts warned climate change
offered a challenge much more complex than conventional security
threats because of its potential to create "multiple chronic
conditions, occurring globally within the same time frame".
As governments failed, they said, the US might be drawn more
frequently into unstable situations abroad, and at home could
experience "mounting pressure to accept large numbers of immigrant and
refugee populations". ....
"We will pay for this one way or another," said Anthony C. Zinni,
former commander of US forces in the Middle East. "We will pay to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions today, and we'll have to take an
economic hit of some kind. Or, we will pay the price later in military
terms. And that will involve human lives. There will be a human toll."