New: Try my AI Bot new film

CATEGORY

Environment and Green Futures

Barack Obama on food and climate change: ‘We can still act and it won’t be too late’ – brilliant stuff (via TheGuardian)

“During the course of my presidency, I made climate change a top priority, because I believe that, for all the challenges that we face, this is the one that will define the contours of this century more dramatically perhaps than the others. No nation, whether it’s large or small, rich or poor, will be immune from the impacts of climate change. We are already experiencing it in America, where some cities are seeing floods on sunny days, where wildfire seasons are longer and more dangerous, where in our arctic state, Alaska, we’re seeing rapidly eroding shorelines, and glaciers receding at a pace unseen in modern times.”

Barack Obama on food and climate change: ‘We can still act and it won’t be too late’
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/may/26/barack-obama-food-climate-change
via Instapaper

Here's my take on this 

Read More

Electric cars and cheap solar could halt fossil fuel growth by 2020 (The Guardian)

“Polluting fuels could lose 10% of market share to solar power and clean cars within a decade, the report by the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London and the Carbon Tracker Initiative found.

A 10% loss of market share was enough to cause the collapse of the coal mining industry in the US, while Europe’s five major utilities lost €100bn (£85bn) between 2008 and 2013 because they did not prepare for an 8% increase in renewables, the report said.

Big energy companies are seriously underestimating the low-carbon transition by sticking to their “business as usual” scenarios which expect continued growth of fossil fuels, and could see their assets “stranded”, the study claims.”

Electric cars and cheap solar 'could halt fossil fuel growth by 2020'
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/02/electric-cars-cheap-solar-power-halt-fossil-fuel-growth-2020
via Instapaper

Read More

Thomas Piketty proposes flight tax to raise climate funds (and I’d be inclined to support it)

This makes sense to me - even thought I'd be hit hard by it, myself

“Air travel should be taxed to protect the world’s vulnerable from drought, flooding and sea level rise. A €180 ($196/£130) levy on business class tickets and €20 on economy class would raise the estimated €150bn a year needed for climate adaptation.  That is one proposal by French economists Lucas Chancel and Thomas Piketty to address global inequalities between high-polluting individuals and the victims of climate change.

“Taxing flights is one way to target high emitting lifestyles, especially if we tax business class more than economy class,” Chancel told Climate Home. “A tax on air tickets to finance development programs already exists in some countries. What we need is to increase its level and generalise it.”

Piketty – author of Capital, a bestseller on wealth inequality – and Chancel outline huge disparities in people’s carbon footprints across the world. One-tenth of people are responsible for 45% of global emissions. “Economic inequalities are reaching record high levels and reducing them constitutes a key challenge to policymakers in the coming decades,” said Chancel.

“It’s the same thing with carbon: another huge challenge that puts our societies at risk. If we fail to address both, our societies can collapse.””

Thomas Piketty proposes flight tax to raise climate funds
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/nov/05/thomas-piketty-proposes-flight-tax-to-raise-climate-funds
via Instapaper


Gerd Leonhard 
Futurist, Author, Keynote Speaker, CEO The Futures Agency

Read More

newsletter

* indicates required
latest book