Global News October 2007

Berkeley going solar - city pays up front, recoups over 20 years, October 26 ^[1] News USA

Global Water Initiative created in response to world water crisis, October 25 ^[2]

Climate change, the rate of extinction of species, and the challenge of feeding a growing population put humanity at risk, October 25. GEO-4 is the most comprehensive UN report on the environment, prepared by about 390 experts and reviewed by more than 1 000 others across the world. GEO-4 recalls the Brundtland Commission's statement that the world does not face separate crises - the "environmental crisis", "development crisis", and "energy crisis" are all one. This crisis includes not just climate change, extinction rates and hunger, but other problems driven by growing human numbers, the rising consumption of the rich and the desperation of the poor. ^[3] topic

Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) growth has increased 35 per cent faster than expected since 2000, October 23 ^[4] A team of scientists from the University of East Anglia, the Global Carbon Project and the British Antarctic Survey have found that inefficiency in the use of fossil fuels increased levels of CO₂ by 17 percent, while the other 18 percent came from the decline in the efficiency of natural land and ocean sinks which soak up CO₂ from the atmosphere. “The decline in global sink efficiency suggests stabilisation of atmospheric CO₂ is even more difficult to achieve than previously thought. We found that nearly half of the decline in the efficiency of the ocean CO₂ sink is due to the intensification of the winds in the Southern Ocean,” Dr Corinne Le Quéré of the University of East Anglia and British Antarctic Survey. The study also states that global CO₂ emissions were up to 9.9 billion tons of carbon in 2006, 35 percent above emissions in 1990 (used as a reference year in the Kyoto Protocol). topic

"Peak oil could trigger meltdown of society," say Energy Watch Group (EWG), October 22 ^[5] According to EWG world oil production peaked in 2006 and production will start to decline at a rate of several percent per year. EWG say their analysis does not rely primarily on reserve data which in the past have frequently turned out to be unreliable, but rather is based primarily on production data which can be observed more easily and which are more reliable.

Over 38.7 million people, in 110 countries have broken the Guinness World Record – set last year at 23.5 million - for the largest number of people to “STAND UP AGAINST POVERTY” in 24 hours. October 18 ^[6] topic

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Al Gore win Nobel Peace Prize, October 12 ^[8] topic, topic

October 6 is Ecological Debt day – the day when humanity has consumed all the resources the planet will produce this year. ^[9] topic

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