Medio ambiente (Continuación)

ReflexionesNaturaleza, ,

Think about climate change long enough and you soon realise that it's more than our lightbulbs that we're going to have to change. Colleagues have already argued on these pages this week, as delegates gather in Bali to hammer out a global accord to avert this catastrophe, that a much more fundamental overhaul will be required, a war on carbon as fierce as the 1940s war on fascism. Madeleine Bunting suggested a return to wartime rationing, in order to curb a hyper-consumerism that is palpably unsustainable.

One could go further, arguing that it is not just excessive consumerism but capitalism's very nature that makes it incompatible with the survival of our planet.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesNaturaleza,

When you warn people about the dangers of climate change, they call you a saint. When you explain what needs to be done to stop it, they call you a communist. Let me show you why.There is now a broad scientific consensus that we need to prevent temperatures from rising by more than 2C above their pre-industrial level. Beyond that point, the Greenland ice sheet could go into irreversible meltdown, some ecosystems collapse, billions suffer from water stress, and droughts start to threaten global food supplies.

The government proposes to cut the UK's carbon emissions by 60% by 2050. This target is based on a report published in 2000.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesNaturaleza,

The battle to find the funds

Easy. They must sustain a two-pronged approach: mitigation and adaptation. The only suitable response is a binding international framework to curb greenhouse gas emissions beyond the Kyoto protocol, which expires in 2012. We have to take steps to increase the resilience of vulnerable communities to the impact of climate change. To achieve the global development agenda, we must integrate environmental policies with social and economic policies. It will take huge resources to fund the adaptation to the actual impact of climate change on communities around the world. Funding must be a part of any serious solution to the climate change predicament we face.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesNaturaleza,

We have read the science. Global warming is real, and we are a prime cause.

We have heard the warnings. Unless we act, now, we face serious consequences. Polar ice will melt. Sea levels will rise. A third of our plant and animal species could vanish. There will be famine in Africa and Central Asia.

Largely lost in the debate is the good news: We can do something -- more easily, and at far less cost, than most of us imagine.

These are the conclusions of the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the scientific body that recently shared the Nobel Peace Prize.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesNaturaleza,

The Bali summit on climate change, which starts next week, will seek to lay the foundations for a new global agreement on reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that cause rising temperatures and climate change. Ambitious targets for emission reduction must be at the heart of that agreement, together with effective market mechanisms that encourage emission trading between countries, rich and poor. The problem of climate change involves a fundamental failure of markets: those who damage others by emitting greenhouse gases generally do not pay. Climate change is a result of the greatest market failure the world has seen.

The evidence on the seriousness of the risks from inaction is now overwhelming.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesNaturaleza,

The good news on climate change is that the world wants to do something. It's no longer just the Europeans and a few fellow travelers; a recent survey suggested that 96 percent of South Koreans and 66 percent of Ukrainians regard global warming as an important threat. The latest report from the Nobel-anointed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change got the blanket media coverage it warranted. In the United States, business and congressional leaders have decided action is inevitable.

Then there is the bad news: None of these fine sentiments will matter unless a critical mass of countries unites around a real policy.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesNaturaleza,

Los contaminantes atmosféricos con niveles preocupantes en la Europa más desarrollada son las partículas en suspensión (PM), el dióxido de nitrógeno (NO) y el ozono troposférico. Además, los valores límite legales de los dos primeros se superan principalmente en zonas urbanas, donde vive la mayor parte de la población. Según datos del Ministerio de Medio Ambiente, el 60% de zonas con elevado tráfico rodado de España superan el valor límite diario de NO fijado para el 2010, mientras que el 40% y el 70% de ellas superan los valores límite anual y diario de PM fijados ya desde el 2005.

Es verdad que estos problemas ambientales urbanos presentan una dimensión europea.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesNaturaleza,

Desde el final de la guerra fría, se han venido abajo barreras de todo tipo y la economía mundial ha cambiado de manera fundamental. Hasta 1989, el mercado mundial comprendía entre 800 y mil millones de personas. Hoy es tres veces mayor, y sigue creciendo. De hecho, estamos presenciando una de las revoluciones más radicales en la historia moderna. La "sociedad de consumo occidental" está pasando de ser un modelo válido para una minoría de la población mundial a ser el modelo económico dominante en el mundo. A mitad de este siglo, sus leyes podrían tal vez regir las vidas de 7.000 millones de personas.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesNaturaleza, ,

Why don’t polar bears eat penguins? Because their paws are too big to get the wrappers off, obviously. It’s not a joke you hear so often these days, though, because polar bears are now a serious business. They’re the standard-bearers of a tear-jerking propaganda campaign to persuade us all that, if we don’t act soon on climate change, the only thing that will remain of our snowy-furred ursine chums will be the picture on a pack of Fox’s glacier mints.

First there came the computer-generated polar bear in Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth; then that heartrending photo, syndicated everywhere, of the bears apparently stranded on a melting ice floe; then the story of those four polar bears drowned by global warming (actually, they’d perished in a storm).…  Seguir leyendo »

EuropaUnión Europea, , ,

When Britain and Germany raced to scale up their aircraft industries for war in the 1930s, the British competed rather well. Recovering from a late start, we rapidly produced machines capable of winning the Battle of Britain.Today, the two nations are on the same side in a different battle, but Germany alone is mobilising as fast as it did 70 years ago. Our common enemy is global warming, and it is already at our gates. But while our German allies are turning out the renewable energy equivalents of Messerschmitts by the factory-load, Britain is again slow to spring into action. Worse, as we learned yesterday, officials responsible for UK mobilisation have told the prime minister it is impossible for us to build modern-day Spitfires in any number.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesNaturaleza,

Pocas son las certezas, nada tan escaso en este mundo como las certidumbres; pero una de las más contundentes es que estamos multiplicando la incertidumbre. La incesante agresión a los procesos esenciales para la continuidad de lo natural; la demolición de la complejidad; y, sobre todo, la siembra de desconciertos en los ciclos ecológicos rompen las reglas del juego de la vida. Los beneficios del progreso se tambalean, fundamentalmente porque los elementos que sostienen a todo y a todos han sido saqueados. Esa imponente, y única verdadera riqueza, que son los aires, las aguas, las tierras y la vivacidad zozobran tras dos siglos de mal uso y peor consumo.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesNaturaleza,

Despite growing interest in clean energy technology, it looks as if we are not going to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide anytime soon. The amount in the atmosphere today exceeds the most pessimistic forecasts made just a few years ago, and it is increasing faster than anybody had foreseen.

Even if we could stop adding to greenhouse gases tomorrow, the earth would continue warming for decades — and remain hot for centuries. We would still face the threat of water from melting glaciers lapping at our doorsteps.

What can be done? One idea is to counteract warming by tossing small particles into the stratosphere (above where jets fly).…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalEconomíaReflexionesNaturaleza, ,

I worked as environmental adviser for the World Bank Group, headquartered in Washington, for 23 years. I joined because I believed the bank wanted to improve the lot of the poor and conserve the environment. Before going to Washington I did an environmental study for the government of Tucurui, the first big dam in Amazonia. A vast part of the forest was flooded, so I saw at first hand the huge environmental and social cost of misguided development projects.

The bank knew how impassioned I was but hired me none the less. I thought I would work with colleagues to prevent blunders in the future.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesNaturaleza,

El Premio Nobel de la Paz concedido a Al Gore es un homenaje apropiado para un líder que ha sido profético, audaz y hábil en su tarea de alertar al mundo sobre los peligros del cambio climático causado por el ser humano. Gore ha compartido el premio con alguien menos conocido, pero tan merecedor como él. El Panel Intergubernamental sobre el Cambio Climático (PICC) es el organismo de la ONU encargado de valorar los conocimientos científicos sobre el cambio del clima. El hecho de que haya obtenido el Premio Nobel transmite tres mensajes importantes.

Para empezar, los principales científicos especializados en cuestiones climáticas y la mayoría de los Gobiernos del mundo han colocado la ciencia del clima en el centro de los debates sobre política mundial.…  Seguir leyendo »

EspañaNaturaleza, ,

A principios de octubre, el Parlament de Catalunya aprobó una resolución en la que propuso que el caudal ambiental del río Ebro se mantuviera en el futuro en una horquilla entre 7.000 y 12.000 Hm3/año. Esto implica una cantidad que supone entre el 30% y el 60% de la aportación media anual del río. Además, no se trata de dejar en el río un caudal fijo, sino de aplicar un régimen de avenidas y de mínimos prefijado en función del año hidrológico (con máximos de, por lo menos, 2.000 m3/seg). Esto ocurre cuatro años después de que un grupo de investigadores debatiéramos en Bruselas, frente a la Comisión Europea y contra el Gobierno de España (sin ningún apoyo del entonces Gobierno catalán) el mismo tema y defendiendo una cifra similar.…  Seguir leyendo »

EspañaNaturaleza,

En estos últimos meses ha habido un gran despliegue mediático para debatir si el cambio climático es un hecho o una suposición. El Nobel de la Paz al Grupo Intergubernamental sobre el Cambio Climático (IPCC en sus siglas en inglés) y a Al Gore ha condenado a los ya escasos detractores del fenómeno a la marginalidad más cavernaria. Ahora, el tema ya no es la discusión, sino la acción. El Protocolo de Kioto, con sus limitaciones, va en esta línea, la única internacionalmente reconocida de que disponemos. Corresponde, pues, emplearse en cumplirlo, más que lamentarse. En concreto, se precisan decisiones políticas responsables sobre el sistema socioeconómico por entero.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAmérica, , ,

I am a carboholic. As Americans, we are all carboholics, but I am more so than most. The company I run, NRG Energy, emits more than 64 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere each year -- more than the total man-made greenhouse gas emissions of Norway.

And we are only the 10th-largest American power generation company. Imagine the CO2emissions of Nos. 1 through 9.

Why do we do it? Why does America's power industry emit such a stunning amount of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere in this age of climate change?

We do so because CO2emissions are free.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAméricaReflexionesNaturaleza, , ,

The Arctic ice cap melted this summer at a shocking pace, disappearing at a far higher rate than predicted by even the most pessimistic experts in global warming. But we shouldn’t be shocked, because scientists have long known that major features of earth’s interlinked climate system of air and water can change abruptly.

A big reason such change happens is feedback — not the feedback that you’d like to give your boss, but the feedback that creates a vicious circle. This type of feedback in our global climate could determine humankind’s future prosperity and even survival.

The vast expanse of ice floating on the surface of the Arctic Ocean always recedes in the summer, reaching its lowest point sometime in September.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesNaturaleza,

Montana is burning again. This summer, some of the nation's worst wildfires incinerated homes, barns and fences, killing livestock and forcing families to evacuate. Wildfires have increased fourfold since the 1980s, and they are bigger and harder to contain because of earlier-arriving springs and hotter, bone-dry summers. Last year's fires broke records; this year could be worse. As courageous firefighters beat back the flames, insurance companies continue to pay out billions for wildfire losses across the West.

Meanwhile, Florida is bracing for the duration of the hurricane season even as rebuilding continues from the eight hurricanes that crisscrossed the Sunshine State in 2004 and 2005.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesNaturaleza,

If talking could cut greenhouse gas emissions, then this would be a good week for international action on climate change. It opened with more than 80 speeches from governments at a special session on the issue at the UN, and will close with a two-day "summit" in the White House bringing together all the world's major emitters. The bad news is that we are still heading steadfastly in the direction of an avoidable climate catastrophe.

The special session was a bold effort by the secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, to instill urgency into climate negotiations. His aim: to prepare the ground for an international treaty with real, enforceable limits on greenhouse gas emissions.…  Seguir leyendo »