The threat of climate change and global warming, fueled by relentless commercialization and excessive consumption, has turned into a fighting ground for both policymakers and concerned citizens. The coming decade is set to determine not only a collective response to reducing carbon emissions, but the entire future direction for international development and the global justice movement.
Climate change is freeing the Arctic of
ice - and spurring a global competition for the natural resources
stored beneath. Countries that border the sea are staking new
territorial claims and oil giants are dispatching geologists. But what
will the tug-of-war mean for the indigenous people and wildlife? By Gerald Traufetter.
In the past 10 years, one Danish island has cut
its carbon footprint by a staggering 140 per cent. Now, with a simple
grid of windfarms, solar panels and sheep, it's selling power to the
mainland and taking calls from Shell.By Robin McKie.
Whenever someone has dared challenged the Western lifestyle to address global warming, there has been a quick and sharp retaliation - and R K Pachauri's citing of the meat problem is no exception, writes Devinder Sharma.
The push for Carbon Storage is yet another
outcome of pathological business greed and the reliance on technical fixes to
tackle symptoms, rather than the systemic sickness at the heart of
global capitalism, say Medialens.
Carbon offset schemes, as espoused by Coldplay et al, are no solution to climate change. As long as we think that we can compensate for our
consumption with a little extra cash, we come no closer to the kinds of change needed to fend off global warming, argues Melissa Checker.
Market mechanisms are unsuited in principle to the tasks
involved in combatting climate change - so why are markets set to become the backbone of world action against global
warming, asks Renfrey Clarke.