Global Warming : Polar Bears

Global Warming. It may seem like an impossible problem: The Arctic ice is melting, storms are becoming fiercer, the resulting climate change is upsetting invaluable ecosystems, and the pollution is damaging our health.

But there is still time. Reversing the trend of global warming trend is possible and depends not only on the efforts of environmental scientists and researchers, governments of all nations, and leaders of business and industry, but just as importantly, it depends on the daily habits of regular people.

It is these regular people that this campaign hopes to inspire. The PSAs take a powerful, emotional approach to reach Americans with the message that global warming is an urgent problem that requires their immediate action.

The PSAs drive audiences to the website www.fightglobalwarming.com. The site provides information on the the causes, science, and consequences of global warming. A large part of the site focuses on what every person can do to reduce their energy consumption and therefore do their part to help slow and reverse global warming.

India to observe 'Earth Hour' on March 28

India will join rest of the world by observing 'Earth Hour' to save energy as well as environment on March 28.

The people will be observing the Day by switching off all the lights and electrical appliances for an hour from 8.30 pm to 9.30 pm.

Began with one hour switching off lights at Sydney in Australia two years back, the 'Earth Hour' was observed in 35 countries last year in an attempt to reduce the carbon footprint, the World Wide Fund for Nature (India) Education officer Dr Goldin Quadros said.

This year India, especially Delhi and Mumbai will participate, he said adding that WWF was getting support from the government as well as the corporate houses.

Lights would be switched off or dimmed at 11 PVR cinemas in Delhi and Mumbai and corporate offices.

As per WWF this year, 50 lakh citizens of 377 cities from 74 nations are participating in this initiative.

Kick-starting the 'Earth Hour'campaign at the at green technology festival of the Chemical Engineering department at IIT `Azeotropy' , Mumbai Mayor Dr Shubha Raul said it was important to cut down carbon level and the municipality will be keen to help in the endeavour.

She has called for a meeting of all the corporators to brief them about the `Earth hour'on Monday and WWF will have a video show for them.

(via Economic Times)

India's light bulb phase out: setting a smart example

How many light bulbs can 1 billion people change? About 400 million wasteful incandescent bulbs, in India’s case.

Today, India has put in place a market mechanism that will phase out incandescent bulbs, making way for a cleaner energy future. The Bachat Lamp Yojana programme will replace 400 million incandescent bulbs with CFLs by 2012, which would save about 55 million tonnes of CO2 each year.

It's truly amazing how big the savings can be from strong action on energy efficiency. With this decision, India will be cutting the same amount of emissions that would come from four coal-fired power plants. If the whole world followed India's lead, eliminating wasted electricity from lighting, the cumulative effect would be equivalent to shutting down around 220 coal-fired power plants.

In this case, India has used a mechanism set up under the Kyoto protocol to bring down the cost of compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs) for ordinary people. The more efficient bulbs were previously 80 - 100 rupees and will now be only 15 rupees, the same price as an incandescent bulb.

The funding comes via the cleaner development mechanism (CDM), effectively a way for developed nations to fund emissions reductions in developing nations. This programme sets an example of how nations can work together now to cut emissions, but a much bigger deal is needed urgently to stop runaway climate change.

Industrialised countries must agree to fund around USD 140 billion a year to help economies in the developing world cut emissions, protect tropical forests and adapt to the effects of climate change. Of course, countries too must implement tough domestic targets to ensure that global greenhouse gas emissions reach a peak by 2015, and start declining rapidly thereafter, reaching zero by 2050.

In India, lighting makes up 20 per cent of all residential electricity consumption, so this is a good first step. We at Snowcem Paints congratulate the Indian government, and hope it is going to carry out more actions in its plan, along with targets and timelines.

Energy efficiency is a really smart way to reduce demand and reduce CO2 emissions quickly, but it is only one half of the solution to climate change. The other is to quit coal and to replace it with non-polluting renewable energy sources like wind and solar - a real energy revolution.

India's rapid pace of development means its CO2 emissions are going up. It also faces peak power shortages even now, so a clean energy revolution will deliver big solutions to these big challenges.

(via Greenpeace.)

Mediterranean sea level could rise by over two feet, global models predict

A Spanish-British research project has come up with three future scenarios for the effects of climate change on the Mediterranean over the next 90 years, using global models from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The conclusions show that ocean temperatures in this area will increase, along with sea levels.

In order to understand and correctly predict risks for the Mediterranean coast, researchers from the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies (IMEDEA, a joint centre run by the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB) and the Spanish National Research Council, CSIC) and the National Oceanography Centre of Southampton in the United Kingdom have analysed simulations based on three scenarios related to climate change and the rise in greenhouse gases. Their goal was to predict the temperature, sea level and salinity of the Mediterranean in the 21st Century.

"The most positive scenario assumes that greenhouse gas concentrations remain constant at their levels in the year 2000, and even in this case climate change still has an impact. The most negative scenario is based on diverse levels of economic development all over the world, with an ongoing increase in greenhouse gas production throughout the 21st Century," Marta Marcos, the study's lead author and a researcher at the UIB, tells SINC.

The study, which has been published recently in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans, shows what could happen in the Mediterranean. The models predict that higher concentrations of gases will lead to an increase in temperatures throughout the entire sea.

In the most positive scenario, the changes are least, with temperature increases of less than 1ºC expected to be recorded in the Mediterranean by the end of the 21st Century. The other two scenarios envision an increase in greenhouse gases over coming decades, and foresee an increase in the temperature of the sea of up to 2.5º C. In addition, the results show that the temperature increase will accelerate during the 21st Century.

In the long term, sea levels could alter due to changes in temperature (warming leads to an increase in volume) as well as additional mass. "The level of the whole Mediterranean will rise by between 3cm and 61cm* on average as a result of the effects of warming," says Marcos.

There is "greater uncertainty" in terms of the mass likely to be added as a result of melting ice at the poles and from continental glaciers, and this aspect is not incorporated in the study. The most important area in terms of understanding sea level rise is the coasts, "but it is here that we know least because of the low spatial resolution of the models" the expert adds.

Read more.

Could just one degree change the world?

Witness how drastically our world could change if the earth warms by just one degree.

New wind turbine design good for rural, urban environment

Wind power is one of the fastest growing forms of alternative energy in the world. More and more, wind power mills are seen in the countryside, in large wind farms and for the most part, away from city life. But a new form of wind power is now designed to work in an urban environment. VOA producer Zulima Palacio has the story. Mill Arcega narrates.

Why must architects prove their worth?

You can currently buy two rival sets of Alfred Hitchcock films on DVD. One includes such masterpieces as Strangers on a Train and I Confess; the other boasts Psycho , The Birds and Vertigo . You might ponder why there are two sets, and what principle of selection is involved - but just look at the logos: one box contains films Hitch made for Metro Goldwyn Mayer, the other films for Universal. Long after his death and his acceptance into the pantheon of the greatest directors who ever lived, Hitchcock is still at the same time a studio property whose films are assets of today's MGM and Universal.

This brings me to the beautiful Kaufmann Desert House in Palm Springs, designed by Richard Neutra in 1946 and currently up for sale. With its clean low linear form set against desert mountains it actually resembles the modernist house at Mount Rushmore in Hitchcock's North by Northwest. But that's not why I've dragged in the master of suspense. Rather, the way the sale of the Neutra house is being promoted raises the same questions those boxed sets do about art and pragmatism.

Christie's is auctioning the Kaufmann Desert House as a work of art, hoping to redefine what was recently considered a derelict building ripe for demolition into a $25m (£12.4m) aesthetic masterpiece. What's surprising is that anyone should doubt this. The house is an extraordinary achievement from the golden age of American modernism, by a renowned designer. Why does Christie's have to labour the point that it is "art"? Why would anyone mistake it for anything else?

Because it's a house. Architecture is made to be used; it can be art but it isn't always. As a house, the old Kaufmann place has fallen into disuse and doesn't reflect the consumer aspirations of the rich today. Still it is of interest to connoisseurs of design, hope Christie's.

Architects are like film directors, it seems to me, because both have to accept and work within tough commercial realities. An architect's dream house must also be a house to live in. A film director's vision must persuade backers to invest. It's amazing how many trials and tribulations film-makers must endure even when everyone recognises them as serious artists; it doesn't matter how much critics revere you, you still have to bring in your latest project on budget and pitch the next idea. Hitchcock recognised this and even relished it; where other directors let Hollywood destroy them he gleefully walked the line between making art and producing product.

All of this raises the question of what makes art, which is defined as such by art galleries and the art world, so much more privileged? Visual artists are protected by galleries and curators in a way no film director or architect can ever expect. To put it another way, an architect or a film director is less of an artist in the world's eyes than someone whose job description says "artist".

(via The Guardian.)