“Emissions are growing much faster than we’d thought, the absorptive capacity of the planet is less than we’d thought, the risks of greenhouse gases are potentially bigger than more cautious estimates and the speed of climate change seems to be faster.”

“People who said I was scaremongering were profoundly wrong.”

Lord Stern of Brentford have realised, just like many other scientists are beginning to do, that the predictions in the IPCC reports have been too soft and that climate change will be “stronger than expected and sooner than expected.”

Stern is known for the Stern Review that showed it would be much cheaper to act on climate change than doing nothing.

Turn off your lights for one hour at 8pm March 29 (that’s tomorrow) “to deliver a powerful message about the need for action on global warming.”

Households and businesses around the world are urged to turn off their lights and non-essential electrical appliances for one hour in an international event called Earth Hour 2008.

Earth Hour started out in Sydney, Australia between 7:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. on 31 March 2007. That year it was a local event in Australia, this year they are going bigger than ever. Over 11,900 businesses and over 200,000 individuals have signed up to take part in this event. Cities worldwide like Dubai (UAE), Bangkok (Thailand), Örebro (Sweden), San Francisco (USA), Toronto (Canada) and many others will also participate.

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Kansas Governor Katherine Sebelius said this when she vetoed a bill last week that would have allowed the construction of two new coal fired power plants:

Of all the duties and responsibilities entrusted to me as governor, none is greater than my obligation to protect the health and well-being of the people of Kansas.

Stephanie Cole, a Sierra Club spokeswoman, said that this…

…sends a message that Kansas is willing to be part of the solution, rather than part of the problem.

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These two quotes comes from Mark Lynas response to a controversial article on NewStatesman.com which argued global warming has stopped:

Every qualified scientific body in the world, from the American Association for the Advancement of Science to the Royal Society, agrees unequivocally that global warming is both a reality, and caused by man-made greenhouse gas emissions. But this doesn’t make them right, of course. Science, in the best Popperian definition, is only tentatively correct, until someone comes along who can disprove the prevailing theory. This leads to a frequent source of confusion, one which is repeated in the Whitehouse article – that because we don’t know everything, therefore we know nothing, and therefore we should do nothing. Using that logic we would close down every hospital in the land. Yes, every scientific fact is falsifiable – but that doesn’t make it wrong. On the contrary, the fact that it can be challenged (and hasn’t been successfully) is what makes it right.

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Sir Mark Moody-Smith, former Shell chairman, wants the EU to ban inefficient and gas guzzling luxury cars. What’s so special about this is not that he is a former Shell chairman but that he defends his viewpoint in a most refreshing and social way:

It is a social thing. We don’t say the wealthy can avoid doing what is needed by society.

When we eliminated coal fires in London we didn’t say to people in Chelsea you can pay a bit more and toast your crumpets in front of an open fire - we said nobody, but nobody, could have an open fire.

BBC has the whole story. Greenpeace UK have also covered the statement.

The European Commissioner for energy policy, Andris Piebalgs, said yesterday during the press conference where the EU unveiled its plan of action against climate change:

In a time of growing oil prices and climate change concerns, renewable energy sources is an opportunity that we cannot miss. They will help us to reduce our CO2 emissions, strengthen our security of supply and develop jobs and growth in a high tech developing sector. If we do the effort now, Europe will be the leader in the race towards the low carbon economy that the planet so desperately needs.

Press Release: Boosting growth and jobs by meeting our climate change commitments