Simon

Refugee children waiting with their family for a food distribution. Photo by Nicolas Rost. 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. Javier Solana and Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the EU's chief foreign policy coordinator and the European commissioner for external relations, says that within a decade "there will be millions of environmental migrants, with climate change as one of the major drivers of this phenomenon," and that "Europe must expect substantially increased migratory pressure." The report says that the devastating effects of climate change will be "felt far away from Europe," but that the problems will eventually come knocking on its door. People, especially the poor, will suffer in places like south Asia, the Middle East, central Asia, Africa and Latin America. "This could be in the form of mass migration, destabilisation of parts of the world vital to European security, radicalisation of politics and populations, north-south conflict because of the perceived injustice of the causes and effects of global warming, famines caused by arable land loss, wars over water, energy, and other natural resources." Javier Solana and Benita Ferrero-Waldner also say that the new world order caused by climate change will undermine the democratic and civil UN system. "The multilateral system is at risk if the international community fails to address the threats. Climate change impacts will fuel the politics of resentment between those most responsible for climate change and those most affected by it ... and drive political tension nationally and internationally." It will be interesting to see if EU will continue on the path to a fortress society or if it will open up its borders to environment refugees. If our leaders doesn't decide to do anything adequate to stop climate change I personally find that to be, unfortunately, very unlikely. No matter how much we in the EU need "fresh blood" to keep our welfare systems going, we will probably in a near future have turned the once democratic institution of EU into an ecofascist fortress.

White rhinoceros in Kruger Park. Photo by Esculapio. It wasn't long ago since the Caribbean monk seal was officially listed as extinct by the US Government. And now the IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, reports that the Northern white rhino (Ceratotherium simum cottoni) is "on the brink of extinction". According to older reports the only remaining population of Northern white rhino is restricted in the wild to Garamba National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The population was 30 in April 2003 but was reduced due to poaching to only four confirmed animals by August 2006. Now in 2008 the IUCN haven't been able to find any Northern white rhinos at all. Dr Martin Brooks, Chair of the IUCN SSC African Rhino Specialist Group says: "Worryingly, recent fieldwork has so far failed to find any presence of these four remaining rhinos. Unless animals are found during the intensive surveys that are planned under the direction of the African Parks Foundation, the subspecies may be doomed to extinction." Although the future seems very dark for the Northern white rhino the population of the African black rhino (Diceros bicornis) has had a small boost from 2005. The population has increased from 3730 in 2005 to 4180 in 2007. But the African black rhino still remains as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List. Dr Richard Emslie, Scientific Officer of the IUCN SSC African Rhino Specialist Group, says that: "This is fantastic news for the African black rhino. However, these magnificent creatures are not out of the woods yet. They are still classed as Critically Endangered and face increasing threats of poaching and civil unrest. There is no room for complacency." The report concludes that poaching still remains as the biggest threat for rhinos in both the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe. "Even though protection from poaching is critical, effective rhino conservation must also include intensive monitoring and biological management to ensure annual growth rates of at least 5 % per year so that surplus rhinos are made available to create new populations," Dr Martin Brooks said.

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: "The White House avoided implementing the EPA's recommendations [on global warming] by informing the agency they would not open the email. The White House is treating the American environmental policy like a spam boner pill ad!" Bush and his climate criminal buddies will surely be remembered in the history books.

Image shows Spirit of Dubai - The Palm, on the UK leg of her 2006 tour. Note the scale of the airship from the two technicians standing below her. Photo by: Antony McCallum I have written in the past about airships as a green option to today's dirty aviation. Since the disaster with Hindenburg in May 1937 we haven't heard much from them. But now, when the fuel prices are rising, more and more people are looking towards their direction again. This week the US navy announced that they were going to acquire a Skyship 600 (see picture above), which is almost as large as a Boeing 747. The manned airship will help the US coast guard chase smugglers between Florida's southern coast and Cuba. George Spyrou, president of Airship Management Services Inc, said that the airship is "considered a very green machine," and added that a "regular jet uses more fuel to travel from the gate to the taxiway than we would to fly for a whole week."

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." Dr James Hansen wrote the guest opinion entry titled "Global Warming Twenty Years Later" in light of his testimonial to the US congress, 20 years after his 1988 June 23 testimony. In it he warns that "we have used up all slack in the schedule for actions needed to defuse the global warming time bomb," and that the "climate is nearing dangerous tipping points." According to Dr James Hansen we only have two years left to act. He also wrote that the "safe level of atmospheric carbon dioxide is no more than 350 ppm" and that the 450 ppm (two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) goal, that for example the European Union has agreed on, "is a recipe for global disaster, not salvation." Dr James Hansen urges that the "time is short" and that the 2008 USA election is "critical for the planet". But when our politicians remain silent and at "loggerheads" we, the "citizens must lead." "We must demand a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants. We must block fossil fuel interests who aim to squeeze every last drop of oil from public lands, off-shore, and wilderness areas. Those last drops are no solution. They yield continued exorbitant profits for a short-sighted, self-serving industry, but no alleviation of our addiction or long-term energy source." As Dr James Hansen says, "time is short." So should we really wait for the mobs of climate change refugees to take out their revenge or should we start prosecuting these liars and climate criminals right now?

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. 450 ppm is wrong. 350 ppm is, and should be, the new goal. We are currently at 385-387 ppm and that number is increasing faster for each day that passes by with no end in sight. That means we won’t be able to just stop or lower our greenhouse gas emissions. We need to stop and even negate all emissions. No wonder the world's leaders are choosing to ignore the number 350. The yearly Tallberg Forum, in Tällberg, Sweden, is about to start. During the five days the forum is held hundreds of people from around the world will discuss "how, on Earth, can we live together?" One of their main talking points will be the Earth's limits and especially the 350 ppm CO2 limit. Yesterday the Tällberg Foundation published a full page ad in the New York Times, the Financial Times and the International Herald Tribune with the title "350. Remember this number for the rest of your life." The full page ad was signed by 150 of the world's most respected climate scientists, politicians and business leaders calling upon "all nations in the ongoing climate negotiations to adopt 350 as the target to be reached peacefully and deliberately, with all possible speed".

Japanese police have arrested two Greenpeace activists, Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki, for exposing a whale meat scandal in Japans government-sponsored whaling programme last month. According to the police the activists are "being investigated for allegedly stealing a box of whale meat which they presented as evidence." Junichi Sato is a well-known anti-whaling blogger in Japan and Greenpeace claims that this was, on the eve of the International Whaling Commission meeting, "an intimidation tactic by the government agencies responsible for whaling." The Japanese media are, according to Brian from Making Waves, saying that this arrest is "a warning to other activist groups that as the G8 approaches, voices of dissent in Japan will not be tolerated." "This was not a police action - it was an intimidation tactic by the government agencies responsible for whaling - and the kind of harassment of whistleblowers that a modern democracy should not allow. Our first news that an arrest was imminent came from Japanese television stations. Someone leaked the information to ensure images of Greenpeace activists in handcuffs appeared on news reports in Japan. More than 40 police officer raided our offices and the homes of the activists, and spent 10 hours seizing cell phones, documents, and computers, despite the fact that we had documented every step of how we obtained the whale meat, turned the full dossier over with the evidence, and made ourselves available to police to help with the investigation at any time. A simple phone call could have brought Junichi and Toru to the police station. Instead, the government made a public spectacle of shutting Greenpeace down." Jun Hoshikawa, Greenpeace Executive Director, says that the arrests are the counterattack from the Japanese Government for exposing the black market trade of stolen whale meat from the government-supported whaling fleet. "This is the backlash. We've uncovered a scandal involving powerful forces in the Japanese government that benefit from whaling, and it's not surprising they are striking back. What is surprising is that these activists, who are innocent of any crime, would be arrested for returning whale meat that was stolen from Japanese taxpayers. In whose interest were these arrests made? Because it would appear to us that this is an intimidation tactic by the government agencies responsible for a scandal." Greenpeace are now asking people to take action, they also demands that Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki will be released from custody and that the real criminals are put into jail instead.