Climate Change to Hit Health

CANBERRA - Climate change will have potentially devastating consequences for human health, outweighing global economic impacts, researchers said on Friday, calling for urgent action to protect the world's population.


"While we embark on more rapid reduction of emissions to avert future climate change, we must also manage the now unavoidable health risks from current and pending climate change," said Australian researcher Tony McMichael, who co-authored a study in the British Medical Journal.

"This will have adverse health effects in all populations, particularly in geographically vulnerable and resource-poor regions," he said.

McMichael, from Australia's Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, said increased wildfires, droughts, flooding and disease stemming from climate change posed a much more fundamental threat to human wellbeing than economic impacts.

A 2006 report by former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern said climate change had the potential to shrink the global economy by between 5 and 20 percent, causing a similar impact to the Great Depression.

But McMichael said climate shift would bring changes to the pattern of infectious diseases, the effect of worsening food yields and loss of people's livelihoods. While it was unlikely to spawn entirely new types of diseases, it would impact on the frequency, range and season patterns of many existing disorders, with between 20 and 70 million more people living in malarial regions by 2080, he said.

And the impact would be hardest in poor countries, said the researchers, including co-author Sharon Friel from the Australian National University, Tony Nyong from Nigeria's Jos University and Carlos Corvalan of the World Health Organization.

"Infectious diseases cannot be stabilised in circumstances of climatic instability, refugee flows and impoverishment," McMichael said. "Poverty cannot be eliminated while environmental degradation exacerbates malnutrition, disease and injury."

McMichael said immediate decision-making was needed to involve health professionals in planning for the impact of climate change.

Kevin Parton, from Australia's Charles Sturt University, said the report was a wake-up call that the world needed to be doing more to eradicate diseases such as malaria.

"The health risks are massive, and the best way to mitigate them is to minimise the extent of climate change. Global community health is the climate change issue," he said. (Editing by Alex Richardson)


Story by Rob Taylor

Tropical glaciers and global warming - ABC Podcast

Glaciologist Lonnie Thompson pioneered the science of tropical ice core analysis. Ice cores, he says, are like tree rings, giving a long and accurate record, and clearly show the evidence of global warming. Thompson has been studying tropical glaciers for 30 years and Dan Grossman accompanied him on his 27th trip to Peru, to the Quelccaya ice cap.

Podcast

Presenter:

Prof Lonnie Thompson
Glaciologist Ohio State University
http://www.geology.ohio-state.edu/faculty_bios.php?id=52

Facing New Mileage Rules, Porsche Preps a Hybrid S.U.V.

IT is hard to imagine a less likely candidate for the hybrid treatment: the Porsche Cayenne, a 5,000-pound S.U.V. that ranks among the fastest, most powerful trucks ever built.

But Porsche insists that its deep-pocketed clientele — whose concerns have involved acceleration, not conservation — will still appreciate a Cayenne that uses less fuel.

The German sports car company, which first announced its hybrid program in 2005, revealed the result at auto shows last fall in Frankfurt and Los Angeles. The Cayenne Hybrid combines a 34-kilowatt electric motor with a 3.6-liter, 290-horsepower V-6 and nickel-metal-hydride battery pack. The company says the Cayenne will be able to cruise on electricity alone — at least for short distances — at speeds up to 75 m.p.h.

Porsche plans to have the hybrid in showrooms by 2009 or 2010.

The company pegs the hybrid’s overall fuel economy at 24 m.p.g., a third better than the gas-only Cayenne with a V-6. Anticipated improvements in technology may raise the rating to 26 m.p.g., and Porsche is studying the potential of lighter, stronger lithium-ion batteries.

Porsche is among manufacturers, including Toyota, General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, that are hybridizing S.U.V.’s and pickups to bump up mileage. A historic 40 percent jump in mileage standards, the largest in decades, is forcing automakers’ hands, and S.U.V.’s will not be immune: manufacturers’ car and truck fleets must average 35 miles per gallon by 2020, without the breaks that have benefited heavier sport utilities, pickups and minivans.

“We have to go back and do our homework like everyone else,” a Porsche spokesman, Chris Wall, said.

That reckoning may be more difficult for a company like Porsche, an exclusive manufacturer of high-performance cars whose relatively low mileage cannot be offset by sales of thrifty compact cars (though the impending purchase of VW may change that). And Porsche customers are known for their exacting standards in power and performance, factors that can be at odds with fuel economy.

“The situation is unique for us and a few other small companies,” Mr. Wall said. The new rules “definitely make things interesting.”

For more than 20 years, Porsche has paid annual fines totaling $57 million for failing to meet the federal corporate average fuel economy standard. In 2006, it was fined $3 million for its fuel-thirsty Cayenne and $1.6 million for its cars.

Tony Fouladpour, a Porsche spokesman, noted that while Porsche’s fleet falls short of CAFE standards, no model consumes enough fuel to subject buyers to a guzzler tax.

“Whatever requirements we have to meet, our engineering will get us there,” Mr. Fouladpour said.

Porsche has not set a price on its hybrid. Current base prices range from $44,295 for the base Cayenne (with a V-6) to $94,595 for the Cayenne Turbo.

The Porsche saves additional fuel by using electricity to power its air-conditioning, brake vacuum pump and steering. The hybrid Cayenne’s peak torque will rise to more than 400 pound-feet, easily topping the 273 pound-feet of the gas-only V-6 version. The increased torque should help offset the 330 additional pounds of the hybrid drive system and batteries.

UAE About to Start Building Green City in Desert

DUBAI - The United Arab Emirates plans to start building a multi-billion-dollar green city in the desert in the first quarter of this year, as the oil producer looks to become a pioneer of alternative energy.


The zero-carbon, zero waste city -- actually a town of up to 15,000 residents -- is being steered by Masdar, an initiative set up by the Abu Dhabi government to develop sustainable and clean energy.

It is one of a string of projects that the world's fifth-largest oil exporter is eyeing as it looks to reduce some the world's highest per capita greenhouse gas emissions, Masdar's Chief Executive Sultan al-Jaber told Reuters.

"We will break ground on the city in the first quarter," Jaber said.

Taking old cities from the Arab world as inspiration, the plans show narrow streets, squat buildings and no cars. Solar panels will act as awnings to shelter pedestrians from the sun.

Transport will be futuristic travel pods that do not consume gasoline. Solar and wind energy will power the city and its water desalination plant.

"We recognise the carbon footprint of the UAE and are working on a number of fronts to help reduce our emissions. Our objective is to make Abu Dhabi the centre of the future of energy."

According to a UN Development Programme report issued last year, UAE greenhouse gas emissions were 34.1 tonnes per head in 2004, the third highest in the world after Qatar and Kuwait and well above US per capita emissions of 20.6 tonnes.

The alternative energy projects also aim to place the UAE at forefront of the future energy industry after oil and enhance its reputation at a time of growing concern over climate change.

Jaber declined to estimate the cost of building the city in the harsh desert climate, but said it would be above previous estimates in local media of US$5 billion. It will be part funded by the Abu Dhabi government with partners investing the rest.

The city will house around 14,000 to 15,000 people and have workspace for around 50,000, he said.

UK architects Fosters & Partners, famed for such designs as Berlin's Reichstag and London's Wembley Stadium, are the master planners. The first stage of construction should be finished in 2009 and the entire city completed in 2016, Jaber said.

Masdar aims to build a 30 megawatt solar power plant to power the construction and intends to attract companies working on clean and sustainable energy to the city.

The earliest stage involves the construction of a graduate research institute dedicated to alternative energy. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is collaborating with Masdar on development of the institute.

Masdar is working with the World Wildlife Fund to ensure the city meets WWF principles of sustainability, Jaber said.


CARBON CAPTURE, INVESTMENT

Masdar plans to develop a nationwide network of carbon capture and storage projects (CCS) to pump greenhouse gases into oilfields, reducing emissions while boosting oil output.

CCS, an as yet commercially unproven technology, should free up natural gas that is now reinjected to push oil out of oilfields. The UAE needs the gas for power generation to meet rising demand as petrodollars fuel an economic boom.

Canada's SNC-Lavalin is finalising a feasibility study for the project and Masdar hopes to have a better idea of how to proceed by the second quarter this year, Jaber said.

Masdar is investing in energy and sustainable technology companies through a US$250 million clean technology fund. The fund is a joint venture with Credit Suisse and the UK's Consensus Business Group, which invests in companies that may have technology that can be commercialised in the UAE in future.

"We have been investing in early stage companies, mainly solar and wind, we've invested in a number of them," he said.

Abu Dhabi is one of seven emirates in the UAE, and holds over 90 percent of the country's oil reserves. (Reporting by Simon Webb, editing by Anthony Barker)

Earth Hour 2008 launches

More than ten of the world’s major cities have pledged their support for Earth Hour 2008, the WWF led-climate change initiative that has gained worldwide momentum. Earth Hour will take place at 8pm on Saturday March 29 next year with more cities expected to sign up in coming weeks.

Sydney, host of the inaugural Earth Hour campaign held on March 31 this year, will be joined in 2008 by Melbourne, Brisbane, Chicago (USA), Copenhagen (Denmark), Toronto (Canada), Manila (Philippines) and Tel Aviv (Israel) and other cities in turning off lights for one hour in a global demonstration of the world’s readiness to tackle climate change head on.

Sustainable IT Provision Report - Butler Group

Report Abstract

Corporate, Social, and Environmental Responsibility (CSER) has become a significant issue for every enterprise, and is particularly pertinent for IT management which must focus on supporting the requirements of the organisation in this area. The challenges of meeting these responsibilities have brought into sharp focus the need for IT to be more proactive, along with including the required capabilities into IT strategy and governance procedures.

For the report please follow this link "Sustainable IT Provision Report - Butler Group"

Local Cooling

If you want to do your bit for the planet, and your energy bill, this is one app you ought to be running. The geo-friendly utility disciplines your computer's power save modes, curbing CO2 emissions and energy use.

Fight global warming from your desktop! Local Cooling automatically optimizes your PC's power consumption by using a more effective power save mode. You will be able to see your savings in real-time translated to more environmental terms such as how many trees and gallons of oil you have saved. An easy-to-use interface allows users to change their default power settings, meaning savings on electricity bills for the users, and a reduction in the amount of Greenhouse Gas that results from powering a computer.

Version 1.0.4 adds a hibernate option on the advanced page, adds HTTP proxy support with auto detection, and remembers your window state when restarted, among other new features and fixes.

Download here