[Bluestar]

London, Stockholm climate marchers demand action

By Jeremy Lovell

LONDON (Reuters) - Several thousand climate campaigners marched through London and Stockholm on Saturday calling on governments around the world to take urgent action to tackle global warming.

Carrying banners with slogans like "cut carbon not forests" and "actions speak louder than words" protesters in London marched in torrential rain and biting cold past parliament and through Trafalgar Square to rally in front of the U.S. embassy.

Some posters carried a picture of U.S. President George W. Bush and the words "Wanted for crimes against the planet." The United States is the world's biggest emitter of carbon gases.

British police said 2,000 people took part in the march. Organizers said they estimated the number at 7,000.

In Sweden, police said about 1,000 protesters marched through Stockholm in the rain carrying banners reading "make love, not CO2," "kids for the climate" and "flying kills" in Swedish and English.

"I've never seen so many people come to a demonstration in Stockholm," said Susanna Ahlfors, 34, marching with her two children. "If we don't act now, things will go really bad. I'm worried about their future."

The protesters urged the world to stop driving and start biking and admonished Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt for "staying quiet while the water is rising."

The marches were among 50 planned around the world and timed to coincide with a meeting of U.N. environment officials and ministers on the Indonesian island of Bali to discuss a successor to the Kyoto Protocol on cutting carbon emissions.

London, Stockholm climate marchers demand action | Environment | Reuters

[Bluestar]

Britain's wind power revolution


By Geoffrey Lean, Brian Brady and Jonathan Owen

Britain is to embark on a wind power revolution that will produce enough electricity to power every home in the country, ministers will reveal tomorrow.

The Independent on Sunday has learnt that, in an astonishing U-turn, the Secretary of State for Business, John Hutton, will announce that he is opening up the seas around Britain to wind farms in the biggest ever renewable energy initiative. Only weeks ago he was resisting a major expansion of renewable sources, on the grounds that it would interfere with plans to build new nuclear power stations.

The revelation rounds off an unprecedented week in the battle against global warming in Britain and the United States. On Wednesday and Thursday measures to boost US use of renewable energy for electricity and motor fuel and cut greenhouse gas emissions were approved in Congress. The move comes as 190 nations meet in Bali, Indonesia, to negotiate what is seen as the world's "last chance" of avoiding the worst effects of climate change.

Yesterday hundreds of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in 86 countries across the globe to demand urgent action from the Bali meeting. Several thousand campaigners marched in torrential rain through London to rally at the US embassy. Some posters carried a picture of President George Bush and the words "Wanted for crimes against the planet".

Mr Hutton's announcement, which will be made at a conference in Berlin tomorrow, will identify sites in British waters for enough wind farms to produce 25 gigawatts (GW) of electricity by 2020, in addition to the 8GW already planned – enough to meet the needs of all the country's homes.

It means that within only eight years, Britain's offshore wind industry will be twice the size of that of any other nation in the world.

The move will put the country well on the way to achieving a tough EU target of providing 20 per cent of the country's energy from renewable sources by 2020. But just six weeks ago, Mr Hutton's department, far from attempting to meet the target was trying to kill it.

In a confidential memorandum, Gordon Brown was advised that the target was expensive and faced "severe practical difficulties". It went on to warn how it would reduce "the incentives to invest in other technologies like nuclear power".

But the Prime Minister overruled Mr Hutton and insisted in his first green speech as PM last month that the target would be maintained and met. Now the Business Secretary will also announce tomorrow that he is to set up a panel under his chairmanship to work out how to hit it.

"By 2020 enough electricity could be generated off our shores to power the equivalent of all of the UK's homes," Mr Hutton is expected to say in a speech to the European energy industry in Berlin."The challenge for Government and for industry is to turn this potential – for our energy and economy – into a cost-effective reality. This will be a major challenge."

The announcement is the first step in implementing the offshore wind power revolution, which is likely to run into far less environmental opposition than proposals to build wind farms on land. Once sites have been identified, companies will then draw their plans and submit them for approval to Mr Hutton's department and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

So far two things have held them back: site identification and an assurance that the resulting installations will be connected to the national grid. This move removes the former.

Yesterday Maria McCaffery, chief executive of the British Wind Energy Association, hailed the move as a "decisive step". She added: "We welcome the Government's effort to place wind energy on a sound footing and promote Britain into a leader in this sector."

Britain's wind power revolution - Independent Online Edition > Green Living

[Blue_Phoenix]

Calling for a wind power revolution? Wow, the British have a bit of sense. All we do in this country is deny global warming exists.

[Bluestar]

Yup, because if Bush acknowledged it he'd sign the Kyoto Protocol but he doesn't want to do that because his objective is profit at any cost

anyway, Gordon Brown has said he's going to do a lot since he came into power, i haven't seen any major changes though, so we'll see. Wind farms are a good idea, especially closer to the sea. A lot of english people say it ruins the scenery but i think they look great. Europe has quite a lot too.

[Aryan_]

I bet these unwashed workshy hippies better didn't all come to London on bikes.

[MossadConspiracy]

Originally Posted by Bluestar

Yup, because if Bush acknowledged it he'd sign the Kyoto Protocol but he doesn't want to do that because his objective is profit at any cost

anyway, Gordon Brown has said he's going to do a lot since he came into power, i haven't seen any major changes though, so we'll see. Wind farms are a good idea, especially closer to the sea. A lot of english people say it ruins the scenery but i think they look great. Europe has quite a lot too.

why couldnt the USA acknowledge that global warming is a problem but refuse to sign onto the agreement?

[Kona_Silat]

The greenhouse effect or whatever it is called is a myth..its a just liberal propaganda.

[ChotooMotoo]

Originally Posted by Kona_Silat

The greenhouse effect or whatever it is called is a myth..its a just liberal propaganda.

Nope. It's very real. I wouldn't expect you to understand that though, being the illiterate neocon that you are.

[Kaminyu]

Originally Posted by Kona_Silat

The greenhouse effect or whatever it is called is a myth..its a just liberal propaganda.

Climate change is a reality, and Global Warming is a part of it. The only issue of contention, is how much of a role humans play in it. The climate has always been changing, hence the Ice Ages. Since we are still warming up from the last one, "global warming" is to be expected. However, what some argue is unnatural, is the rate at which it is warming, and feel this is due to CO2 emissions. Others say that the data shows no such correlation, and consider the current Global Warming to be natural.

[Skinwalker]

The argument that climate change is natural - ie. CO2 increase in the atmosphere,- needs to be placed in context. In the past when CO2 has risen steeply and ice ages occurred, a super volcano was usually found to be the culprit. Geologists have discovered this from soil samples world wide as well as ice samples. The closes thing to a super volcano event in recent times was Krakatoa in the late 1800's. That doesn't explain the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and its sharp increase in the last 50 years or so as industrialization in the extreme has taken over.

[Bluestar]

Originally Posted by Aryan_

I bet these unwashed workshy hippies better didn't all come to London on bikes.

Of course there weren't, there were coaches which came from all over the country. Public transport is a more favourable way of travelling for those who want to limit their carbon output. I think most environmentalists are against the use of cars for:

(A) only individual purposes
(B) short distances
(C) used even when public transport is available

Originally Posted by MossadConspiracy

why couldnt the USA acknowledge that global warming is a problem but refuse to sign onto the agreement?

Some states are very green conscious, others aren't. It would be useful if they signed some sort of treaty to ensure there is consistency throughout the US since it is responsible for 25% of the worlds carbon output. The Kyoto protocol is good in the sense that it helps third world countries as they can sell carbon credits to the richer countries (or the "annex" countries). Thus reversing the relationship between developing and developed countries which has existed since the times of industrialisation. Even the Kyoto agreement being criticised now though, as most of the members demand only to sign up with their own limitations which they set for themselves

George Monbiot was speaking there too, i'm a huge fan

[Kadhim]

the US since it is responsible for 25% of the worlds carbon output.

25 % of the human output. Human CO2 output overall however is only about 5% or less of the overall global production of CO2.

[Skinwalker]

Don't forget though that burning rainforests is also a major contribution to global warming.

Greenpeace urges Indonesia to stop burning forest

by Staff Writers
Singapore (AFP) Nov 8, 2007

Greenpeace urged Indonesia on Thursday to stop its "reckless" destruction of rain forests to plant palm oil in the archipelago, which will host a global climate summit next month.

The environmental group also called on foreign food and cosmetics companies to shun "bad" palm oil produced as a result of deforestation in Indonesia.

"Indonesia's peatlands are some of the richest stores of carbon in the world, and their destruction is one of the most reckless and avoidable contributions to global warming," Greenpeace said in a statement released here.

Emmy Hafild, executive director of Greenpeace Southeast Asia, urged consumer goods producers such as Unilever, Nestle and Procter and Gamble to boycott palm oil produced by plantations involved in illegal forest clearing.

"Some of the best-known brands in the world are literally cooking the climate," Hafild said at the launch here of "Cooking The Climate," the group's new report on the palm oil industry, part of its preparations for the Bali summit.

The December 3-14 talks, expected to involve more than 100 government ministers, are aimed at securing an international agreement to negotiate a new regime to combat climate change when the current phase of the landmark Kyoto Protocol to fight global warming ends in 2012.

Greenpeace also urged Indonesia's two closest neighbours, Singapore and Malaysia, to press Jakarta to enforce laws banning the destruction of forests with peat layers deeper than three meters (9.9 feet).

Singapore and Malaysia are hit every year by choking haze from fires fuelled by the forests' rich peat content, and Greenpeace said forests with peat layers as deep as eight meters have been destroyed.

Greenpeace's Hafild also said additional demand from the transport sector for biofuel was contributing to a "gold mine mentality" toward palm oil production.

Demand for palm oil has been boosted by the growing popularity of biofuel to ease dependence on traditional fossil fuels blamed in large part for climate change.

But Greenpeace International forests campaigner Sue Connor said destroying forests to produce palm oil in order to replace fossil fuels as an energy source was like "throwing petrol at a fire to put it out."

[Bluestar]

Originally Posted by Kadhim

25 % of the human output. Human CO2 output overall however is only about 5% or less of the overall global production of CO2.

Excellent, in that case, all bush needs to do is change the attitudes of his people and he could meet the agreements of the Kyoto Protocol without even having to buy carbon credits If only!