Via The Times, here, and the New York Times, here.

“The environmental movement has never been short on noble goals … But today, one ecological problem outweighs all others: global warming … Just one problem. Winning the war on global warming requires slaughtering some of environmentalism’s sacred cows.”

Wired has a great bunch of articles looking at the sacrifices environmentalists may need to accept in order to seriously make a dent in global warming, from nuclear power to GM crops. And ultimately, it asks whether we, better able to cope with the change than stop it, should concentrate on adapting rather than fighting? The ‘10 Green Heresies’ contents page is here.

Time magazine’s report on biofuel concerns is here.

“Government officials have secretly briefed ministers that Britain has no hope of getting remotely near the new European Union renewable energy target that Tony Blair signed up to in the spring - and have suggested that they find ways of wriggling out of it.”

For Britain to be trying to go back on promises it made only a few months ago is appalling, and shows a greater commitment to spin that stopping climate change. The full Guardian article is here.

BBC stories about the locals’ spitting, here; the smog problem, here; but more importantly the human rights abuses, here and here.

“By effectively doubling the working life of every PC, re-use provides a simple and practical way for companies to reduce their environmental footprint and successfully re-distribute such valuable learning tools.”

The BCS Ethics Forum argues that we should preferentially re-use the 125 million PCs that we get rid of each year, rather than recycling them. As the report notes, re-use can be “20 times more effective at saving life cycle energy than recycling.” Read the full article here.

“Blame the 1970s. One of the problems holding back the uptake of energy-saving light bulbs has been that many people have still not forgotten the poor-quality versions they used then.”

Matt Prescott, founder of the Ban The Bulb campaign, takes a look at the performance of some of the many energy-saving bulbs on the market today. While much more variable in their performance than incandescents, many eco-bulbs are comparable to traditional lights. From The Guardian, here.

“It is a misconception that recycling costs less. The current production is so geared towards quantity and subsidised for this type of production that, when you make it by hand and recycle the products, you are actually fighting against a lot of economic forces in the market that make you more expensive.”

PingMag has an interesting interview with Enrico Bressan, founder of designers Artecnica. The company makes fantastic items from recycled materials, including bowls made of car tyres and wicker, and lamps made from champagne bottles. PingMag article here. Via Sighmon’s Twitter, here.

“That such a constraining and technical ‘line-by-line’ process is accepted by so many as a useful or necessary approach speaks volumes about how neutered politics has become – apparently everyone must sign up to an agreed version of the latest ’science’ before any debate or discussion can begin.”

Tony Gilland asks some very valid questions about the neutrality of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Article on Spiked, here.

“Sydney in Australia has become the first city to stage a Live Earth concert, a global event intended to raise awareness of climate change … Eight other cities, including London and Washington, are holding gigs. “

While the cause is vitally important, I’m not sure that holding yet another set of concerts for a worldwide campaign is the way to promote it. Band Aid was a new, unique way to communicate an issue. 30 years on, however, these gigs just become another concert for another cause. From BBC News, here.

“China has the right to development, and the right, too, to truck for oil with sovereign governments in the Third World. But China is easily important enough, in 2007, for its growth and development to be in the whole world’s interest.”

James Woudhuysen writes on Spiked about China’s right to develop. As I’ve said before, it’s unfair to expect China to develop greenly while our wealth was borne out of a distinctly un-green Industrial Revolution. Article here.

“China is now building about two power stations every week, the top climate change official at the UK Foreign Office, John Ashton, has said … His statement came as a Dutch think tank reported that China had already overtaken the US as the world’s biggest emitter of CO2 … [But] It is estimated that the average American still pollutes between five and six times more than the average Chinese person.”

I always think it’s unfair to expect developing countries to develop greenly when the only reason countries such as Britain are developed is because we industrialised at the expense of the environment. From BBC News, here.

“Carson is both idolised by environmentalists and demonised by those concerned about the continuing devastation caused by malaria in the developing world.”

James Woudhuysen writes an interesting article about Silent Spring author Rachel Carson, asking whether her landmark book on pesticides did more harm than good - a point of view not often publicised. From Spiked, here.

“The Economist magazine has an article on Flying [sic] wind farms. Mind you, we’re not talking about ordinary, terrestrial windmills here. We’re talking about actual airborne — up to 10km in the sky — wind farms intended to harvest the immense supply of energy in the jet stream.”

Quote from Slashdot, here. The full Economist article is here (link different from Slashdot link). Found via CNET’s Buzz Out Loud, here.

“Air pollution in major cities is potentially more damaging to health than being exposed to the radioactive fallout of an atomic bomb … urban air pollution cut life expectancy by more than the radiation exposure of emergency workers sent into the 19-mile exclusion zone around the Chernobyl disaster … moving from Inverness to London could have a worse effect on your health than moving to Chernobyl.”

The Independent on a new study published today, here.

“Australia is to ban incandescent lightbulbs in an effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions, with the government saying yesterday they would be phased out within three years … Fluorescent bulbs are currently more expensive than incandescent bulbs, but use only about 20% of the power to produce the same amount of light and last longer”

There’s no good reason every country - including Britain - can’t do the same. The Guardian article is here.

Thomas Deichmann’s report is here.

“Not since Hamelin has the discovery of a rat provoked so much alarm. It was only a single creature, but it had no business being on the island of Santa Fe in the isolated Galápagos archipelago, where conservationists now strive to keep foreign wildlife at bay as effectively as hundreds of miles of open ocean did for millions of years.”

The Guardian article is here.

The Times article on this can be found here.