It’s an exceptionally inconvenient truth. Only one American in three believes that human beings are responsible for climate change: a polling result 10% down on where opinion rested the year before.  Worse, the number of Americans who believe that climate change is a hoax or a scientific conspiracy – not doubting,   just damned blank certain – has doubled since 2008.  Add in those who assert that the changes, if any, are of “no significant concern”, and you’ve got 30% of the US denying, scoffing and just walking on by.  Are the issues clearer, the people more committed, here on this side of the Atlantic?  Call for the latest evidence from Ipsos Mori – and find that the proportion of  UK adults who believe that global warming is “definitely” a reality has plummeted from 44% to 31% in the last 12 months.  And although no study of this nature has been completed in Ireland (to my knowlege), figures like these, on both sides of the Atlantic, are getting more sceptical week by week.   The real change of electoral climate is that fewer and fewer voters pay any heed to scientists and politicians.   It isn’t hard to collate the factors that drive disillusion.  Professors with a colloquial touch writing “awful” emails; a recession so tough that it blows future shock away; a cold, cold winter the Met Office didn’t forecast; scientific angst about swine flu revealed as way over the top; dodgy figures, dodgy reporting, dodgy issues way up to UN level.  These are only a few of our least favourite things. Mix them together in the stew of pre-election politics, and the result is lethal inertia.

Environmental issues have slithered down the greasy pole of public anxiety.  They won’t get much of a mention on the imminent reshuffle: no fresh commitments, no crucial pledges.  In one sense, the heat may by rising; in another, the heat is off.  And that, of course, is cause for very significant concern.  Democracies move in particular ways. Voters have to clamber on board when sacrifices are required.  They have to see the need for pain, to sense the danger of doing nothing.  They have to lead their leaders as well as follow – once they switch off, nothing good happens easily, if at all.  An Obama stalled on healthcare reform in the Senate isn’t going to be able to deliver sweeping global warming policies.   He may not be George Bush, but he already seems to know when he’s on a loser. And, without him, you can write the Chinese or Indian scripts. You can tell that the follow-ups to Copenhagen will be feebler, not stronger: true cause for despair. Kick away any mass impetus for tackling climate change as schedules of imminent necessity fade and review panels plod across the wastelands of borrowed time.  What’s to be done (except wait for a natural disaster that ends all argument – and much else besides)?  First, through gritted teeth, say what won’t work, what’s been tried already and failed.  More jaw and Gore from politicians can’t cut it. T hey have come to seem secondhand sources, merely parroting a frail scientific thesis.  That goes, alas, for journalists, too – and for pressure groups issuing lurid warnings or staging angry demos.  Those of us who are convinced, who believe in the necessity of action, haven’t changed our minds. But we’re not the point.  The audience that matters is out there, sleeping or drifting. And rousing it will demand something different, not more of the same. Yet more of the same is exactly what we seem to be getting. More re-examinations of existing evidence, monitored by the people who failed to monitor it last time.  More supposedly transparent attempts to say precisely when Himalayan glaciers will melt. More United Nations panels, flying lugubriously hither and yon in the cause of consensus. More declarations signed by hundreds of scientists on behalf of a notional “scientific community” (rather like letters to editors from umpteen economists urging cuts or no cuts).  None of it has a ring of renewed confidence. And the plain fact is that we surely need a prophet, not yet another committee.  We need one passionate, persuasive scientist who can connect and convince – not because he preaches apocalypse in gory detail, but in simple, overwhelming terms.  We need to be taught to believe by a true believer in a world where belief is the fatal, missing ingredient.

via: guardian.co.uk

Article written by Peter Preston

One of the stories that crept under my personal radar a couple of week ago related to aircraft engines. Aircrafts account of 2% of the greenhouse gas emissions. The impact of this figure is thought to be higher because the emissions are expelled at height, where they can do the most absorption of light energy. Further aircraft expel vapour trials which are thought to have an effect on the amount of light reaching the surface of the planet by dimming it.

So it is possible, but not completely proved, that flying gives us the worst of all possible worlds – heating the air and dimming the surface.   In the UK  Business Secretary, Mr Peter Mandelson, has announced that £45 million of taxpayer’s money will be spent on funding a “partnership” (as these things are fashionably bit inaccurately called) between nine Universities and Rolls-Royce, who produce aircraft engines, in a quest to discover ways of making aircraft engines more efficient. If the research finds a more efficient engine, there is no guarantee that the world’s airlines and military will adopt it. The nine Universities concerned would be better to focus research on projects less grand but with better environmental effect.It is an interesting contrast to the way that the Government has treated water heating, where for £45 million, there are existing ways to reduce emission. The aircraft industry has over the years received many hand outs form the taxpayer.  Justification of this is that “The knowledge, skills and high-end production … give us huge opportunities to benefit as global demand for low carbon products grows.” Yes, the opportunities are so huge that Rolls-Royce needs a hand out in order to take advantage of them. By all means invest in low carbon research which is important, but when the ship is sinking it is not the time for the crew to start re-arranging the deckchairs.

This is what the failure of the climate talks means.

The last time global negotiations collapsed like this was in Doha in 2001.  After the trade talks fell apart, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) assured the delegates that there was nothing to fear: they would move to Mexico, where a deal would be done. The negotiations ran into the sand of the Mexican resort of Cancun, never to re-emerge. After eight years of dithering, nothing has been agreed.

When the climate talks in Copenhagen ended in failure just last December, Yvo de Boer, the man in charge of the process, urged us not to worry: everything will be sorted out “in Mexico one year from now.”(1) Is Mexico the diplomatic equivalent of the Pacific garbage patch: the place where failed negotiations go to die? (more…)

WHEN it comes to adopting green parenting practices, being environmentally aware is not the same thing as being environmentally friendly, says green parent and ‘ mumpreneur’ Claire Lancaster, founder of Dandelion Lounge, a personalised stationery service with a focus on families.

” If you asked my mum raising a family in the Seventies if she was ‘environmentally friendly’ she wouldn’t have been able to answer the question, simply because the term would have meant nothing to her,” says Lancaster.

But in the Seventies, her mother opted for reusable terry-towelling nappies, walked everywhere, purchased from a local farm and greengrocers and didn’t go abroad for holidays. (more…)

We know the greenest option for a business card: scratch the info off a card already handed to you, replace it with your own, and recirculate it.  Nothing greener than reuse!   But…it isn’t exactly professional looking. Could a POKEN also be a green solution? It ditches paper and shares social network information digitally just by “high fouring” someone who also has a POKEN.  Everything from email to Twitter and Facebook information can be transferred with a touch. (more…)

As the economy gradually recovers from the past year’s big slump, changes are expected in consumer behavior: according to a recent survey, in 2010 UK and American shoppers are to pay much more attention to transparency and ethical responsibility in their food and beverage purchases.

A survey by market research organization Mintel reveals that, despite a widespread growing confidence and adaptation to overcome the previous restraints, consumers will be adapting to the new economy, moving away from excessive spending toward moderation and higher attention to ethical sourcing and sustainability. (more…)

Struggling to think of a present for someone who has everything? Here are some lovely ideas that are also green and sustainable.

First up, tickets (or a gift voucher) for a theatre, concert or an arts venue. After all, who doesn’t enjoy an evening out?

Alternatively, a year’s membership of a favourite organisation.

One lovely option for people in Dublin, is to become a friend of the National Gallery of Ireland.  It costs €65 (individual) /€80 (family), and includes a year long programme of talks and other events.

How about a plant from your garden?

Or the offer of an evening’s babysitting or to cook them dinner . . .

We all love getting and giving presents. But sometimes, it can be hard to find the perfect present.

I find that the simple, and green and sustainable solution, is to give people something ‘insubstantial’.

As an added bonus, these presents don’t need any packaging, and won’t add to the world’s growing clutter mountain. (And let’s face it, most of us  probably have enough stuff already, anyway.)

Give a gift voucher for a local arts venue, and you are supporting jobs and the local community, while encouraging people to support the arts too.

The list of insubstantial possibilities is as long as your imagination.

And if you like these ideas, you’ll find plenty more useful suggestions in Drive like a Woman, Shop like a Man — Greener is Cheaper.  This practical guide to sustainable living is packed with over 100 tips that will save you time, money and resources.  Just €8.99, in all good bookshops.  And some of the tips will save you literally hundreds of euros!

(c) Mary Mulvihill, 2009

As you may or may not know 96% of the Universe is “missing”.  Please kindly check your cupboards to see if you are unwittingly hiding some of it.  Thank you!

OK so scientists can’t explain why the Universe is expanding at an accelerating rate rather than slowing down as you would expect, so they have come up with the idea of dark matter and dark energy to explain it.
There’s no proof of either, but it’s a nice idea and helps justify spending billions on  Hadron Colliders that might blow us all up, but hey it’s all in the name of science isn’t it so it has to be worth it right?

And scientists have recently detected signs of what they believe might be evidence of what dark matter might actually made up of.
They call this stuff – Weakly Interacting Massive Particles or WIMPS for short.  It’s true, check it out if you don’t believe me!

And they have recently detected some anomalies from deep space that might be signs of these WIMPS existing they say.

However why they needed to spend all that time, effort and money looking for WIMPS is a bit baffling really when all they had to do was fly to Copenhagen for the COP15 Conference and find a whole plethora of them there!

In case you are wondering what these weakly interacting massive particles might themselves be made of then the egos of all these so called world leaders could be close.  And the bigger the egos the less time they spent there.

The only person who seemed to have any decent grip on the need and the urgency of the situation was the Danish Environment Minister who was hosting the event and she was fairly quickly replaced by, yes you guessed it, a man with a rather large ego because other men who also had rather large egos didn’t like the way she was handling the conference!

So looks like WIMPS make up 96% of the known Universe!

So what might the other 4% be made of?
How about – S.T.U.F.F.?  – Strong, Tiny, United, Free-Radical, Forces
They may all be tiny but together they build a future where everyone is included and  everyone is part of the solution.
And although it might only make up 4% of the Universe that’s still quite a lot of STUFF to be getting on with!

WIMPS might not give a STUFF about the rest of the world, but who knows before you know it, 
“S.T.U.F.F. the Future” could be the new logo for the next decade?

Tony Kearney
20/12/09
www.whoownsthefuture.com

Having been in Copenhagen for some of the COP15 process over the last two weeks and watching like everyone else the – will they, won’t they – charade played out by the world’s leaders one is forced to ask the question – did the Conference end in abject failure or was it in fact a success?

It is hard to see the Conference as being any kind of success, but then that depends on how we define success and what eyes we use to look at the gathering with.

Yes, of course we all hoped that the world’s politicians would all see the greater reality and notice that not only was there an elephant in the room, but there was a stampeding herd of them forcing us all to realise that we are in fact standing on the edge of a cliff with nowhere to go as the herd approaches.

However…..

Success is defined as being able to see the reality of one’s situation clearer than one saw it before.  For if one sees the truth more clearly then one is better equipped to take meaningful and positive action in order to improve things for the better.

So ……

What we now know is that if we wait for the world’s politicians to take meaningful, equitable, sustainable and bigger picture action in order to secure a better future, the elephants will be upon us long before the politicians will be.

This is in fact a good thing.
Whilst we wait for “others” to act first we all miss our own window of opportunity to be the change we want to see happen in the world.
For in truth what can a few hundred politicians really do in the real world that 6,500,000,000 can’t do by all making one small change each day towards seeing the world becoming a fairer and safer place for all?

The Genie is in fact out of the bottle and to the surprise of some if not many, the name of the Genie on the bottle is not in fact that of Barrack Obama.

However, if you look closely again at the name on the bottle it might just be yours!

The charade of Copenhagen is over and the truth has been revealed.
The power moves back to the people and there is something so right about that fact.
Remember how the Governments of the world were shamed by their people’s overwhelming response to the needs of the Asian Tsunami?

We therefore have a precedent for what is needed and for what works.

You might not be the President but you can for sure be the Precedent!

It may not sound like “tree-hugging,” but cutting down a real tree for Christmas is actually greener than going with the artificial kind.

Because of concerns over deforestation around the world, many people naturally worry that buying a real tree might contribute to that problem, Springer says. But most Christmas trees for sale these days are grown not in the forest but on tree farms, for the express purpose of being cut.

Live trees actively photosynthesize as they grow from saplings, which removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The tree farms that grew the trees also replant after the trees are cut.

Artificial trees, on the other hand, don’t come out even in the carbon balance. Petroleum is used to make the plastics in the trees and lots of carbon dioxide-creating energy is required to make and transport them.

So get chopping guys and enjoy your beautiful real christmas tree without any guilt!

via:  www.enn.com