The era of the lawn in the West is over.
The record rainfall and storm surges that have brought flooding across the UK
are a clear sign that we are already experiencing the impacts of climate change.
Unfortunately, the current pace of progress is not nearly rapid enough, with many rich industrialised countries being
slow to make the transition to cleaner and more efficient forms of economic growth.
Fortunately poorer countries, such as China, are showing leadership
and beginning to demonstrate to the world how to invest in low-carbon growth.
It's very unusual to have so many powerful storms come
in one after the other in such a short space of time;
we haven't seen anything like this since about 1991.
The climate is changing and as the climate changes we can anticipate quite a radical change in weather conditions.
Summer 2012–13 was the warmest on record nationally,
spring was also the warmest on record and winter the third warmest.
We have had two back-to-back dry years, and a third one will really increase the detrimental effects.
The North Pole probably looks a bit different than you would expect right now. Because, at this very moment, it's actually a lake.
In my mind, we are heading for a different planet to the one that we have been used to.
Now we know that it is warmer than most of the past 11,300 years.
This is of particular interest because the Holocene spans the entire period of human civilisation.
In 50 years, no one will care about the fiscal cliff or the Euro crisis. They'll just ask, "So the Arctic melted, and then what did you do?"
We call on all people and nations to recognise the serious and potentially irreversible impacts of global warming
caused by the anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse
gases and other pollutants, and by changes in forests, wetlands, grasslands, and other
land uses.
Today the great gift of God’s Creation is exposed to serious dangers and lifestyles which can degrade it.
Environmental pollution is making particularly unsustainable the lives of the poor of the world …
we must pledge ourselves to take care of creation and to share its resources in solidarity.
The oiloholics
America and China, in their different ways, are drunk on oil consumption.
Those who deny the science or choose excuses over action are playing with fire.
It takes five square miles of cleared mangrove forest to produce just over two pounds of shrimp --
and that land is typically left depleted within ten years and rendered unusable for another forty.
By comparison, the devastation left behind from cattle-ranch deforestation seems, well, quite rosy.
If price spikes don’t change eating habits, perhaps the combination of deforestation, pollution, climate change, starvation,
heart disease and animal cruelty will gradually encourage the simple daily act of eating more plants and fewer animals.
Vegetarian is the New Prius
The entire global CO2 budget to 2100 is used up by 2040.
Slower, less, better, finer.
It’s a pity we’re still officially living in an age called the Holocene.
The Anthropocene — human
dominance of biological, chemical and geological processes on Earth — is already an undeniable reality.
Imagine our descendants in the year 2200 or 2500. They might liken us to aliens who have treated the Earth as if it were a mere
stopover for refueling, or even worse, characterize us as barbarians who would ransack their own home.
