i dont understand why car makers are not using LED lights on the Ceiling inside the Car's because most students/ CEO's/ Executives, would like to read Books/ use Netbooks/ notebooks, ............during evening and night while traveling from office to home, ................... while stuck in metropolitan city Traffic, ..............( do ponder)
04/28/2011
02/25/2011
02/12/2011
CLIMATE CHANGE ON THE PLANET EARTH 2011:
Sudden death for thousands of trees
A deadly disease described as the "foot and mouth" of trees is wiping out forests across the country.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/8247580/Sudden-death-for-thousands-of-trees.html
Report: Urgent action needed to avert global hungerhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12249909
"We know in the next 20 years the world population will increase to something like 8.3 billion people," he told BBC News."We know that urbanisation is going to be a driver and that something of the order of 65-70% of the world's population will be living in cities at that time.
"We know that the world is getting more prosperous and that the demand for basic commodities - food, water and energy - will be rising as that prosperity increases, increasing at the same time as the population."
He warned: "We have 20 years to arguably deliver something of the order of 40% more food; 30% more available fresh water and of the order of 50% more energy.
"We can't wait 20 years or 10 years indeed - this is really urgent."
Invasive Species Could Trigger Next Massive Extinction
According to an expert, the rate of species loss today is higher than anything documented in the fossil record and many creatures could soon go the way of the dinosaurs.
"bio-diversity crisis."
2010 hits global temperature high
2010 was the warmest year since global temperature records began in 1850 - although margins of uncertainty make it a statistical tie with 1998 and 2005.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12241692
Global unemployment has reached dangerous levels, ILO report showsILO data provides an alarming picture of joblessness, especially among the young, that surely threatens more political instability
More than 1.5 billion people – half the global working population – in vulnerable or insecure jobs.
At 6.2%, the global unemployment rate doesn't sound that alarming, but the overall figure conceals some worrying trends. Although the developed economies of the west account for only 15% of the earth's working population, they accounted for 55% of the increase in unemployment between 2007 and 2010.
the ILO estimates that in north Africa as a whole "an alarming" 23.6% of economically active young people were unemployed in 2010.
Egypt and Tunisia usher in the new era of global food revolutions
The global reservoir of unforested cropland is 445m hectares, compared to 1.5 billion in production. But the low-lying fruit has already gone, and the vast investment needed will not come soon enough to avoid a menacing shift in the terms of trade between the land and the urban poor.
World carbon dioxide emissions data by country: China speeds ahead of the rest
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jan/31/world-carbon-dioxide-emissions-country-data-co2
Sir John Beddington on foodThe chief scientific adviser to the British government talks about his report on the world food system and why the era of cheap food is over
http://www.economist.com/blogs/multimedia/2011/01/sir_john_beddington_food
World food prices at fresh high, says UN"And higher commodity prices could sap the world's ability to consume because more and more of our income will be going on energy and food."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12119539
Food needs 'fundamental rethink'Fussy eaters
Professor Lang lists a series of "new fundamentals", which he outlined during a speech he made as the president-elect of charity Garden Organic, which will shape future food production, including:
· Oil and energy: "We have an entirely oil-based food economy, and yet oil is running out. The impact of that on agriculture is one of the drivers of the volatility in the world food commodity markets."
· Water scarcity: "One of the key things that I have been pushing is to get the UK government to start auditing food by water," Professor Lang said, adding that 50% of the UK's vegetables are imported, many from water-stressed nations.
· Biodiversity: "Biodiversity must not just be protected, it must be replaced and enhanced; but that is going to require a very different way growing food and using the land."
· Urbanisation: "Probably the most important thing within the social sphere. More people now live in towns than in the countryside. In which case, where do they get their food?"
Professor Lang said that in order to feed a projected nine billion people by 2050, policymakers and scientists face a fundamental challenge: how can food systems work with the planet and biodiversity, rather than raiding and pillaging it?
"We all know that waste is everywhere; it is immoral what is happening in the world of food.
"In Europe, 30% of the food grown did not appear on the shelves of the retailers because it was a funny shape or odd colour.
Growing appetite
The latest estimates from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) show that another 40 million people have been pushed into hunger in 2008 as a result of higher food prices.
This brings the overall number of undernourished people in the world to 963 million, compared to 923 million in 2007.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7795652.stm
Food speculation: 'People die from hunger while banks make a killing on food'It's not just bad harvests and climate change – it's also speculators that are behind record prices. And it's the planet's poorest who pay
As food prices soar again to beyond 2008 levels, it becomes clear that everyone is now being affected. Food prices are now rising by up to 10% a year in Britain and Europe. What is more, says the UN, prices can be expected to rise at least 40% in the next decade.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2011/jan/23/food-speculation-banks-hunger-poverty
How can we feed the world and still save the planet?Underinvestment and market failures have trapped many countries in a vicious cycle of low productivity and exposure to price hikes, says Olivier de Schutter, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food
"Since the early 1990s, the food bills of developing countries have increased by five- or six-fold," says de Schutter. "This addiction to cheap food leads to balance-of-payments problems and then political instability. It deprives countries of their abilities to feed themselves."
Mass tree deaths prompt fears of Amazon 'climate tipping point'
Scientists fear billions of tree deaths caused by 2010 drought could see vast forest turn from carbon sink to carbon source
• Amazon 'could shrink by 85% due to climate change'
• Rate of tree deaths in western US 'rising due to climate change'
Climate tipping points
Scientists know from the geological record that the Earth's climate can change rapidly. They have identified a number of potential tipping points where relatively small amounts of global warming caused by human activities could cause large changes in climate. Some tipping points, like the losses to the Amazon forests, involve positive feedback loops and could lead to runaway climate change.
Arctic ice cap: The white ice cap is good at reflecting the Sun's warming light back into space. But when it melts, the dark ocean uncovered absorbs this heat. This leads to more melting, and so on.
Tundra: The high north is warming particularly fast, melting the permafrost that has locked up vast amounts of carbon in soils for thousands of years. Bacteria digesting the unfrozen soils generate methane, a potent greenhouse gas, leading to more warming.
Gas hydrates: Also involving methane, this tipping point involves huge reservoirs of methane frozen on or just below the ocean floor. The methane-water crystals are close to their melting point and highly unstable. A huge release could be triggered by a little warming.
West Antarctic ice sheet: Some scientists think this enormous ice sheet, much of which is below sea level, is vulnerable to small amounts of warming. If it all eventually melted, sea level would rise by six metres
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/feb/03/tree-deaths-amazon-climate
Amazon could shrink by 85% due to climate change, scientists say• Scientists say 4C rise would kill 85% of the Amazon rainforest
• Even modest temperature rise would see 20-40% loss within 100 years
It found that a 2C rise above pre-industrial levels, widely considered the best case global warming scenario and the target for ambitious international plans to curb emissions, would still see 20-40% of the Amazon die off within 100 years. A 3C rise would see 75% of the forest destroyed by drought over the following century, while a 4C rise would kill 85%. "The forest as we know it would effectively be gone," Pope said.
Chris Jones, who led the research, told the conference: "A temperature rise of anything over 1C commits you to some future loss of Amazon forest. Even the commonly quoted 2C target already commits us to 20-40% loss. On any kind of pragmatic timescale, I think we should see loss of the Amazon forest as irreversible."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/11/amazon-global-warming-trees
North Korea appeals to foreign governments for food aidEmbassies ordered to approach foreign capitals directly as international food needs assessment gets under way
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/10/north-korea-appeals-foreign-food-aid
Wolverine to Vanish From U.S. Due to Warming?UN 'concerned' by world population growth trends
The world population is already poised to reach 7 billion later this year and this figure potentially could double to 14 billion by 2100 if action is not taken
World population peaks at 9.4 billion in 2070 and then starts to decline.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12338901
Unilever warns of price rises as food costs soarUN food price index up 3.4% from December, the highest level since the organization started measuring food prices in 1990
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/feb/03/food-prices-new-record-high
Global food prices hit new record highGlobal food prices have hit a new record high, amid fears that the escalating cost of bread and meat is adding to the turmoil in the Middle East.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/8300590/Global-food-prices-hit-new-record-high.html
Food Prices and Global InstabilityTHE REAL REASON BEHIND EGYPTS REVOLUTION IN 2011 & FALL OF HOSNI MUBARAK.
A number of countries have upped their imports of staples such as rice and wheat. Egypt is already the world's largest importer of wheat. How do food prices affect import-dependent countries?
We have seen a real sharp increase in policies executed by governments to basically control and limit export or create stockpiling of food supplies. In early 2008, key rice-producing countries, particularly in Southeast Asia, [decided] to hoard their supplies, not share in the global marketplace, and essentially drove up prices in their neighbor countries in ways that led to riots and dire conditions. This year, our issue with wheat is a direct outgrowth of the terrible fires that in Russia and in Ukraine, coupled with a disappointing wheat outlook for the drought-hit regions of Latin America. So wheat is expensive right now.
This is a huge problem when you look at a country like Egypt. There aren't a lot of things they can do to vastly increase their farmland. Overall, Egypt is tremendously dependent on the Nile as their major water source. The way farming [used to happen] is the Nile would flood annually and it expanded out as much as a mile inward and then retreated, leaving behind a thick fertilized soil layer. But since the building of the Aswan dam, that flood cycle has not occurred. And as a result, the soils are depleted of all natural supply of nutrients that plants rely upon. So, Egypt is in a particularly tough situation. Dependent on fertilizer, dependent on various other chemicals to keep their soils going and all of that fluctuates with oil prices.
Globally, food prices already have reached record highs, surpassing 2008 levels and, by some estimates, they may rise another 20 percent this year. What kind of impact this had on the world's poorest?
When the skyrocketing prices suddenly surged between the end of December 2007 and March or April of 2008, the World Bank predicted that several hundred million people around the world would be pushed backwards into worst food insecurity and poverty as a direct result. We see that all over the world, the first [thing] that a poor family does in the face of rising food prices is to cut back on protein and cut back on fruit and vegetables. As we look out another fifteen years from now, a whole generation of children in poor countries are shorter than they would have been and may indeed have decreased intellectual performance because their bodies are starving for protein and [essential] nutrients.
http://www.cfr.org/health-science-and-technology/food-prices-global-instability/p24018
How extreme weather could create a global food crisis2010 was among the hottest and wettest years on record – we are entering a period of climate and food insecurity
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2011/feb/04/extreme-weather-global-food-crisis
Polar bears having fewer cubs due to global warmingPolar bears numbers could plummet with climate change, according to a new study that showed females are giving birth to fewer cubs due to the loss of sea ice.
Light pollution disrupting sleep and wildlife, says rural body
"Light pollution damages the character of the countryside, blurs the distinction between town and country, and denies people the experience of a dark, starry sky.
"But this isn't just about the effect on star gazing or countryside. Light pollution can disrupt wildlife and badly affect people's sleeping patterns."
Wildlife campaigners, including the RSPB, claim excessive lighting at night can cause problems for birds, nocturnal mammals, and insects.
Lighting up buildings at night can severely affect bats' ability to navigate and hunt, while birds are disorientated into thinking the dawn is constantly approaching.
In Britain, owl numbers are falling, which it is claimed is partly due to the reduction in suitable feeding areas caused by light pollution.
Gadgets: Built to Not Last
Of course, everything ends up broken, obsolete and unusable at some point. The trouble is, the companies that make our consumer electronics are deliberately or carelessly decreasing the useful life of our gadgets so they can sell us another one sooner.
The strategy is called "planned obsolescence," or "designed for the dump," as one organization colorfully puts it.
The light bulb industry pioneered the idea of planned obsolescence in the 1920s and 1930s. Philips (PHG), General Electric (GE) and other bulb makers formed a shady organization called the Phoebus cartel to, among other things, make sure light bulbs couldn't last more than 1,000 hours.
A wide range of industries have gradually embraced planned obsolescence, increasingly designing products that can't be easily or affordably repaired, or that "wear out" after a short time.
Disposable dishes, "sporks," razors, diapers and more -- ours has become a throw-away culture, even as the environment is being overwhelmed by trash.
http://www.cio.com/article/657683/Gadgets_Built_to_Not_Last
Planned obsolescencePlanned obsolescence is a business strategy in which the obsolescence (the process of becoming obsolete—that is, unfashionable or no longer usable) of a product is planned and built into it from its conception.
http://www.economist.com/node/13354332
The Story of Electronics (2010)The strategy is called "planned obsolescence," or "designed for the dump," as one organization colorfully puts it.
The Story of Electronics (2010)
From: storyofstuffproject | November 03, 2010 | 317,504 views
The Story of Electronics, releasing Tuesday, NOVEMBER 9, employs the Story of Stuff style to explore the high-tech revolution's collateral damage—25 million tons of e-waste and counting, poisoned workers and a public left holding the bill. Host Annie Leonard takes viewers from the mines and factories where our gadgets begin to the horrific backyard recycling shops in China where many end up. The film concludes with a call for a green 'race to the top' where designers compete to make long-lasting, toxic-free products that are fully and easily recyclable.
Our production partner on the electronics film is the Electronics TakeBack Coalition, which promotes green design and responsible recycling in the electronics industry.
http://www.youtube.com/user/storyofstuffproject
Planned Obsolescence, Perceived ObsolescencePlanned obsolescence
Power point slide, video.
Planned obsolescence
01/30/2011
01/21/2011
01/15/2011
Kenwas
Business School Graduate,How to save the Planet Now? To Save Brands or to save the Planet Earth.
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