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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Daniel Mittler, political advisor to Greenpeace International, said this when he was about to leave the G8 Summit in Toyako, Japan:

There are a lot empty water bottles and even more coffee cups lying around the International Media Centre at the G8. The rooms are slowly emptying out and the faces of those remaining are drained and tired. As I am sure is mine. The last three days were wasted days for addressing the global crises we face. But at least we managed to counter the predictable, positive spin leaders put on the pathetic statements they put out here. For one (of gladly many) good media stories on the united NGO reaction against the G8 climate deal click here. Our Home, the Planet needs action. All it got here, was 8 leaders’ signatures who failed to do what is needed…

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How will our coastal cities look like when the ice melts and causes rising sea levels? How can we take care and give room for the millions of climate change refugees in the future? Well, the Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut might have the answer.

Vincent Callebaut has designed a “floating ecopolis” called Lilypad. Each of these floating cities has room for 50000 people. The city will be able to generate its own energy with the help from several wind turbines, wave power and solar panels. Lilypad will also be able to collect and clean rainwater for daily use around the city.

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On July 5, 2008 about 5,000 citizens of Melbourne gathered in the City Square to protest man-made Climate Change and then marched through the City Centre to make a HUMAN SIGN saying “CLIMATE EMERGENCY!” in the nearby Alexandra Gardens. An aeroplane was hired to take photos for the media - for an aerial photo of the “CLIMATE EMERGENCY!” Human Sign and other photos of this great event see: Climate emergency rally Melbourne July 5 2008 over at GreenLivingPedia.org.

The Climate Emergency Rally involved more than 50 community groups concerned about lack of Australian State and Federal Government action on climate change and variously linked to an Australian Climate Emergency Network.

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Two senior foreign policy officials from the European Union says in a new report that the EU should “brace itself” for a new and much larger wave of migration, caused by the effects of climate change. According to their report climate change “threatens to severely destabilise the planet” and will make a fifth of the worlds population homeless.

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The White House has apparently refused to open an email from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with a proposed rule that would limit greenhouse-gas emissions from new vehicles. And what is more surprising (!?) is that they managed to get it their way in the end.

I am not even surprised anymore. That’s why I will let John Stewart do the explaining:

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Dr James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and one of the worlds most prominent climate scientist, says in an article on the WorldWatch Institute website that climate change liars “should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.”

“Instead of moving heavily into renewable energies, fossil fuel companies choose to spread doubt about global warming, just as tobacco companies discredited the link between smoking and cancer. Methods are sophisticated, including funding to help shape school textbook discussions of global warming.”

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The world is starting to realise that the goal of 450 ppm as a reasonable level to balance and stabilize the CO2 in our atmosphere is based on wrong and outdated science and won’t be enough to stop man-made climate change.

More and more scientific reports show that the older science has been too “soft” in their climate change calculations. For example, we can already now see a never ending and rapid melting of the Arctic ice, something that “would happen in 20-30 years” according to the older science reports. Scientific reports earlier projected that the Arctic would become ice-free by year 2050. But newly released reports suggest it could happen as early as 2013.

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Iceland has killed two polar bears since the U.S. Department of Interior formally listed the polar bear as a “threatened” species a few weeks ago.

The first polar bear, named Björn Björnesson, came to Iceland in the beginning of June this year. The polar bear was shot as soon as he was spotted for fears he would get into the nearest village. According to the hunters, killing the polar bear was the only solution as it would take to long to get the anaesthetic that was on the other side of the island.

The polar bear had probably travelled the 29 miles (47 kilometres) from Greenland on a flake of ice and swim the last miles to Iceland.

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Top British climate scientist Professor James Lovelock FRS has warned that over 6 billion people will die this century due to unaddressed climate change. Already 16 million people die avoidably in the world each year due to deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease (see: “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007). It is already clear from declining agricultural production due to drought and massive storm surge disasters in India, Bangladesh, Burma and the US that global warming is already impacting on global avoidable mortality.

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