Photo credit: World Economic Forum

In an article in the New York Times, titled “The Climate for Change,” Al Gore lays out his climate and energy plan, which he says is needed “to begin an emergency rescue of human civilization from the imminent and rapidly growing threat posed by the climate crisis.”

In the article Gore points out that IPCC has after years of detailed study and four unanimous reports now said that the evidence for man-made climate change is “unequivocal.” Climate change deniers need to “wake up” and that “our children and grandchildren need you to hear and recognize the truth of our situation, before it is too late.”

Gore says his five-part energy and climate plan, where USA commits to produce 100% of the electricity from carbon-free sources within 10 years, will help solve the climate and the economic crisis while creating “millions of new jobs that cannot be outsourced”.

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Photo credit: azrainman

A new report from WWF says that climate change is happening much faster than the scientists have predicated earlier. The report says that we must take action on a global scale to avert devastating climate effects such as more and heavier storms, flooding, droughts, crops failures, collapse of eco systems on land and sea and rising sea levels just to name a few.

Professor Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, Professor of Climatology and Environmental Sciences at the Université catholique de Louvain and newly elected Vice Chair of the IPCC, said that “it is clear that climate change is already having a greater impact than most scientists had anticipated, so it’s vital that international mitigation and adaptation responses become swifter and more ambitious.”

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In this months issue of the environment magazine Plenty they have listed the top 20 people, 20 businesses, and 10 ideas that will “change our world”.

“There are game-changers and then there are world-changers. From Internet giants working to make renewable energy cheaper than coal, to a sea captain monitoring the ocean’s plastic waste, to the growth of intentional communities (they’re not just for hippies anymore)—welcome to Plenty’s second annual list honoring (in no particular order) 20 dynamic individuals and 20 pioneering companies that are bettering the planet, plus 10 innovative ideas that will revolutionize how we live.”

Head over to their site or purchase their latest issue to get bios and explanations on, what they call, the Plenty 20.

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Rajendra Pachauri, who currently chairs the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) since 2002 and who recently won the Nobel Peace Price along with Al Gore, said at a speech in London on Monday evening that “meat production puts more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than transport” and that “changing diets is something one should consider”.

“The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has estimated that direct emissions from meat production account for about 18% of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions,” he told BBC News.

“So I want to highlight the fact that among options for mitigating climate change, changing diets is something one should consider.”

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In 100 months it will be too late to stop climate change. Then we have passed the “tipping point” where climate change will run out of control and leave us powerless to intervene. The message comes from the new campaign One Hundred Months from the New Economic Foundation (NEF), which wants to highlight this dangerous “tipping point.”

“If you shout “fire” in a crowded theatre, when there is none, you understand that you might be arrested for irresponsible behaviour and breach of the peace. But from today, I smell smoke, I see flames and I think it is time to shout. I don’t want you to panic, but I do think it would be a good idea to form an orderly queue to leave the building,” says Andrew Simms, policy director and head of the climate change programme at NEF.

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Prominent Australian academic Economist Professor Ross Garnaut was commissioned by the right-wing, pro-Coal, State and Federal Governments of Australia to review the economic impacts on Australia of climate change; to also examine this in an international context; and to recommend policy options.

The Garnaut Review Draft Report was published recently and has made headlines in Australia ever since. This pro-Coal Australian Climate Change Report is of major importance because Australia is the world’s biggest coal exporter and if you include the CO2 from these exports, Australia’s annual per capita greenhouse gas pollution (47 tonnes CO2-equivalent per person per year) is about 10 times that of China (5) and over 40 times that of India (1).

The Garnaut Report is GOOD in that it indicates (albeit inexplicitly) a serious climate change situation; the need to act now; and a “Cap and Trade” Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) to encourage uptake of clean energy options.

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Martin Parry, Jean Palutikof, Clair Hanson and Jason Lowe, all four respected and known scientists from the IPCC, have written on The Nature about the dangers of false optimism regarding climate change. They warn that the “damages will be large” if we continue to believe that we have climate change under control.

“We have lost ten years talking about climate change but not acting on it. Meanwhile, evidence from the IPCC indicates that the problem is bigger than we thought. A curious optimism […] pervades the political arenas of the G8 summit and UN climate meetings. This is false optimism, and it is obscuring reality. The sooner we recognize this delusion, confront the challenge and implement both stringent emissions cuts and major adaptation efforts, the less will be the damage that we and our children will have to live with.”

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Mohan Munasinghe, vice-president of the intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC), said during a lecture at Cambridge University that climate change will lead to a “fortress world in which the rich lock themselves away in gated communities and the poor must fend for themselves in shattered environments.”

Climate change is, or could be, the additional factor which will exacerbate the existing problems of poverty, environmental degradation, social polarisation and terrorism and it could lead to a very chaotic situation.[...]

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Australian Climate Action Groups from Melbourne and wider afield gathered together on Saturday 9 February, 2008 for a Climate Movement Convergence at Melbourne’s Northcote High School. A major event was the launching of an important book published by Friends of the Earth entitled “Climate Code Red – the Case for a Sustainability Emergency” by David Spratt (Carbon Equity) and Philip Sutton (Greenleap Strategic Institute) (this important report can be downloaded here). A key outcome was the decision by some of these groups to form a Coalition for a Climate Emergency Declaration.

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National Geographic have made a movie out of Mark Lynas latest and most terrifying book, ever. In the book, which is called “Six Degrees: our future on a hotter planet“, Mark Lynas goes through each of the different degrees and explains how each of the degrees will affect our planet.

The movie is called “Six Degrees Could Change the World“. It is voiced by Hollywood actor Alec Baldwin and includes interviews with NASA’s Jim Hansen and IPCC Chair Rajendra Pachauri.

The movie is premiering on National Geographic Channel in the US on February 10 at 8pm ET/9pm PT, and around the world on later dates. Here are the trailers for each of the six degrees: (more…)