TOP STORY

Report: Climate Change 'Will Cause Civilisation To Collapse'

"An effort on the scale of the Apollo mission that sent men to the Moon is needed if humanity is to have a fighting chance of surviving the ravages of climate change. The stakes are high, as, without sustainable growth, "billions of people will be condemned to poverty and much of civilisation will collapse".

var articleheadline = "The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'";

This is the stark warning from the biggest single report to look at the future of the planet...Backed by a diverse range of leading organisations such as Unesco, the World Bank, the US army and the Rockefeller Foundation, the 2009 State of the Future report runs to 6,700 pages and draws on contributions from 2,700 experts around the globe."  [The Independent]

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Scientists Predict Wild Weather In The Year Ahead

"Climate scientists have warned of wild weather in the year ahead as the start of the global "El Niño" phenomenon exacerbates the impact of global warming. As well as droughts, floods and other extreme events, the next few years are also likely to be the hottest on record, scientists say." [The Guardian]

Court Overturns Bush-Era Smog Rule

"A federal appeals court today struck down a Bush administration rule for controlling industrial emissions that form smog.  The rule had allowed power plants and factories to avoid installing the most recent controls for smog-forming chemicals like oxides of nitrogen. Instead, excessive pollution from one factory was permissible if the factory participated in a regional cap-and-trade program and bought pollution credits to cover their excess emissions.  The three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the rule 'is inconsistent with the Clean Air Act.'" [Green, Inc. - New York Times]

Nine Zones Identified As Key Climate ‘Tipping Points’

"Nine regions of the world face massive, abrupt and potentially irreversible changes over the next century because of manmade global warming, researchers have said. Scientists from 52 countries identified nine zones in which they assessed the world’s most dramatic climatic “tipping points” would be located and how long the decline would take. Each region was judged to require just a small change in conditions to have a huge and disproportionate impact on the environment."[London Times Online]

Buses May Aid Climate Battle in Poor Cities

"[L]ong, segmented, low-emission buses are part of a novel public transportation system called bus rapid transit, or B.R.T. It is more like an above-ground subway than a collection of bus routes, with seven intersecting lines, enclosed stations that are entered through turnstiles with the swipe of a fare card and coaches that feel like trams inside. Versions of these systems are being planned or built in dozens of developing cities around the world — Mexico City, Cape Town, Jakarta, Indonesia, and Ahmedabad, India, to name a few — providing public transportation that improves traffic flow and reduces smog at a fraction of the cost of building a subway" [New York Times]

OPINION

Krugman: Boiling The Frog [New York Times]