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Victims of Hurricane Katrina are seeking to sue carbon gas-emitting multinationals for helping fuel global warming and boosting the devastating 2005 storm, legal documents showed.

The class action suit brought by residents from southern Mississippi, which was ravaged by hurricane-force winds and driving rains, was first filed just weeks after the August 2005 storm hit.
“The plaintiffs allege that defendants’ operation of energy, fossil fuels, and chemical industries in the United States caused the emission of greenhouse gasses that contributed to global warming,” say the documents seen by AFP.

The increase in global surface air and water temperatures “in turn caused a rise in sea levels and added to the ferocity of Hurricane Katrina, which combined to destroy the plaintiffs’ private property, as well as public property useful to them.”

More than 1,200 people died in Hurricane Katrina, which lashed the area, swamping New Orleans in Louisiana when levees gave way under the weight of the waves.
The suit, claiming compensation and punitive damages from multinational companies including Shell, ExxonMobile, BP and Chevron, has already passed several key legal hurdles, after initially being knocked back by the lowest court.

Three federal appeals court judges decided in October 2009 that the case could be heard. But in February the same court decided to re-examine whether it could be heard this time with nine judges.
Other companies named in the suit include Honeywell and American Electric Power, with the residents charging that “the defendants’ greenhouse gas emissions caused saltwater, debris, sediment, hazardous substances, and other materials to enter, remain on, and damage plaintiffs’ property.”
They allege that companies had a duty to “avoid unreasonably endangering the environment, public health, public and private property.”

The district court, which initially rejected the case, ruled that it was “a debate which simply has no place in the court.”
The court argued that Congress first had to enact legislation “which sets appropriate standards by which this court can measure conduct.”
Mississippi residents must now wait for the appeals court to fix a new hearing, in principle within the next three months.

A decision would then be due by the end of 2010, and both sides could also then take the case to the Supreme Court.

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By Victoria Gill

A century of whaling may have released more than 100 million tonnes – or a large forest’s worth – of carbon into the atmosphere, scientists say. Whales store carbon within their huge bodies and when they are killed, much of this carbon can be released. US scientists revealed their estimate of carbon released by whaling at the Ocean Sciences meeting in Portland, US. Dr Andrew Pershing from the University of Maine described whales as the “forests of the ocean”.

Dr Pershing and his colleagues from the Gulf of Maine Research Institute calculated the annual carbon-storing capacity of whales as they grew. “Whales, like any animal or plant on the planet, are made out of a lot of carbon,” he said. “And when you kill and remove a whale from the ocean, that’s removing carbon from this storage system and possibly sending it into the atmosphere.” He pointed out that, particularly in the early days of whaling, the animals were a source of lamp oil, which was burned, releasing the carbon directly into the air.

“And this marine system is unique because when whales die [naturally], their bodies sink, so they take that carbon down to the bottom of the ocean. “If they die where it’s deep enough, it will be [stored] out of the atmosphere perhaps for hundreds of years.”

In their initial calculations, the team worked out that 100 years of whaling had released an amount of carbon equivalent to burning 130,000 sq km of temperate forests, or to driving 128,000 Humvees continuously for 100 years. Dr Pershing stressed that this was still a relatively tiny amount when compared to the billions of tonnes produced by human activity every year.

When whales die [naturally], their bodies sink, so they take that carbon down to the bottom of the ocean.
Dr Andrew Pershing, University of Maine. But he said that whales played an important role in storing and transporting carbon in the marine ecosystem. Simply leaving large groups of whales to grow, he said, could “sequester” the greenhouse gas, in amounts that were comparable to some of the reforestation schemes that earn and sell carbon credits.

He suggested that a similar system of carbon credits could be applied to whales in order to protect and rebuild their stocks. Other scientists said that he had raised an exciting and interesting problem.

Dr Pershing said: “These are huge and they are top predators, so unless they’re fished they would be likely to take their biomass to the bottom of the ocean [when they die].”

Read the full article at BBC News

By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent

The Met Office is to re-examine 160 years of global temperature records following the ‘climategate’ scandal.

The project, in partnership with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), will gather the original temperature records from thousands of weather stations around the world. The readings will be double-checked and new information that has become available, such as improved understanding of atmospheric change, will be added. The data will then be independently analysed to assess how the temperature has changed over different regions.

The new analysis, that will take three years, will not only provide a more detailed picture of global warming but boost public confidence in the science of climate change.

Climate change sceptics claim that emails stolen from the University of East Anglia show scientists were willing to manipulate global warming data in a scandal known as ‘climategate’.
In another scandal known as ‘glaciergate’ the UN body in charge of climate change science, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), was forced to retract a claim that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035.
However leading scientists, including the Royal Society, insist the case for man-made global warming is convincing and it remains a threat to the world.

Vicky Pope, Head of Climate Change Advice, at the Met Office, said the new global temperature analyses would not change the trend of global warming.
But she said it would verify the existing data and provide more information so the world can better adapt to climate change.

Read the full article at Telegraph Earth

By Jeremy Paxman

Our grandchildren will know us by our discarded cans of Coca-Cola and packets of Walkers crisps

It’s the real thing, all right. That plastic jewel glinting in the verge among the emerging daffodils is a plastic bottle. Probably an empty Coke one.

An organisation called Litter Heroes (surely the most unglamorous club in Britain?) has done something rather useful. They have traced where the crud that morons in cars chuck out of their windows originally comes from. No surprise to discover that the worst-offending brand is Coca-Cola (4.9% of all litter), followed by Walkers Crisps (4.1%) and McDonald’s (3.6%).

And what does Coca-Cola say by way of apology? A company spokesman “acknowledges” the report. How very gracious of him. He goes on to blather that its bottles “carry the Tidy Man and Recycle Now logos”. Well, that should do it.

There is more fatuous wittering from McDonald’s, which even has the nerve to attempt a tone of wronged outrage, saying that “in 2009 we spent over ¬£2m on staff labour alone” picking up litter. That’s ¬£2m out of a turn over of more than ¬£2bn in Britain.

Anyone who walks anywhere in this filthy country knows that what the 39 volunteers from Litter Heroes discovered is true. No one in their right mind talks any longer about a “green and pleasant land”. A beautiful country is being submerged under a rising tide of rubbish.

Worst of all is the fact that whereas paper bags biodegrade, plastic bottles and confectionery wrappers last for generations. Our great-grandchildren will still be living among the gaudy wrapping of the chocolate bar we excreted last month.

The poor saps who have to act as apologists for the fizzy-drink and junk-food manufacturers never use the obvious argument because it would ¬≠insult their customers. Why don’t they try the tactic of US gun ¬≠manufacturers, who say: “It’s not guns that kill, it’s people”? Of course, it’s not the boss of Coke or Cadbury chucking the company products out of the car window; it’s some oaf who doesn’t understand that in tidying up his private space he’s making the shared space filthy.

The turning of verges into rubbish tips is a symptom of the “everyone for himself” attitude that has come to dominate in the last 50 years. What can we do? Local councils are supposed to have a statutory duty to clear up litter, but are largely useless. Ditto the national government. The fault, dear Brutus, is in ourselves. At least future generations won’t lack evidence of the kind of people we were.

Read the full article at the guardian website

By Juliette Jowit

Report for the UN into the activities of the world’s 3,000 biggest companies estimates one-third of profits would be lost if firms were forced to pay for use, loss and damage of environment

Black clouds over the central business district, Jakarta. The report into the activities of the world’s 3,000 biggest public companies has estimated the cost of use, loss and damage of the environment. Photograph: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images

The cost of pollution and other damage to the natural environment caused by the world’s biggest companies would wipe out more than one-third of their profits if they were held financially accountable, a major unpublished study for the United Nations has found.

The report comes amid growing concern that no one is made to pay for most of the use, loss and damage of the environment, which is reaching crisis proportions in the form of pollution and the rapid loss of freshwater, fisheries and fertile soils.

Ahead of changes which would have a profound effect – not just on companies’ profits but also their customers and pension funds and other investors – the UN-backed Principles for Responsible Investment initiative and the United Nations Environment Programme jointly ordered a report into the activities of the 3,000 biggest public companies in the world, which includes household names from the UK’s FTSE 100 and other major stockmarkets

The biggest single impact on the $2.2tn estimate, accounting for more than half of the total, was emissions of greenhouse gases blamed for climate change. Other major “costs” were local air pollution such as particulates, and the damage caused by the over-use and pollution of freshwater.

The true figure is likely to be even higher because the $2.2tn does not include damage caused by household and government consumption of goods and services, such as energy used to power appliances or waste; the “social impacts” such as the migration of people driven out of affected areas, or the long-term effects of any damage other than that from climate change. The final report will also include a higher total estimate which includes those long-term effects of problems such as toxic waste.

Trucost did not want to comment before the final report on which sectors incurred the highest “costs” of environmental damage, but they are likely to include power companies and heavy energy users like aluminium producers because of the greenhouse gases that result from burning fossil fuels. Heavy water users like food, drink and clothing companies are also likely to feature high up on the list.

Sukhdev said the heads of the major companies at this year’s annual economic summit in Davos, Switzerland, were increasingly concerned about the impact on their business if they were stopped or forced to pay for the damage.

“It can make the difference between profit and loss,” Sukhdev told the annual Earthwatch Oxford lecture last week. “That sense of foreboding is there with many, many [chief executives], and that potential is a good thing because it leads to solutions.”

The aim of the study is to encourage and help investors lobby companies to reduce their environmental impact before concerned governments act to restrict them through taxes or regulations, said Mattison.

Read the full article at guardian.co.uk

By Victoria Gill
Science reporter, BBC News, Portland

The SSV Corwith Cramer is involved in the plastics research.

Scientists have discovered an area of the North Atlantic Ocean where plastic debris accumulates.
The region is said to compare with the well-documented “great Pacific garbage patch”.
Kara Lavender Law of the Sea Education Association told the BBC that the issue of plastics had been “largely ignored” in the Atlantic.

She announced the findings of a two-decade-long study at the Ocean Sciences Meeting in Portland, US.
The work is the conclusion of the longest and most extensive record of plastic marine debris in any ocean basin.
Scientists and students from the SEA collected plastic and marine debris in fine mesh nets that were towed behind a research vessel.

We know that many marine organisms are consuming these plastics and we know this has a bad effect on seabirds in particular
Dr Kara Lavender Law, Sea Education Association
The nets dragged along were half-in and half-out of the water, picking up debris and small marine organisms from the sea surface.

The researchers carried out 6,100 tows in areas of the Caribbean and the North Atlantic – off the coast of the US. More than half of these expeditions revealed floating pieces of plastic on the water surface.
These were pieces of low-density plastic that are used to make many consumer products, including plastic bags.
Dr Lavender Law said that the pieces of plastic she and her team picked up in the nets were generally very small – up to 1cm across.

“We found a region fairly far north in the Atlantic Ocean where this debris appears to be concentrated and remains over long periods of time,” she explained.
“More than 80% of the plastic pieces we collected in the tows were found between 22 and 38 degrees north. So we have a latitude for [where this] rubbish seems to accumulate,” she said.

The maximum “plastic density” was 200,000 pieces of debris per square kilometre.
“That’s a maximum that is comparable with the Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” said Dr Lavender Law.
But she pointed out that there was not yet a clear estimate of the size of the patches in either the Pacific or the Atlantic.
“You can think of it in a similar way [to the Pacific Garbage Patch], but I think the word ‘patch’ can be misleading. This is widely dispersed and it’s small pieces of plastic,” she said.
The impacts on the marine environment of the plastics were still unknown, added the researcher.
“But we know that many marine organisms are consuming these plastics and we know this has a bad effect on seabirds in particular,” she told BBC News.

Nets are dragged half-in and half-out of the water

Nikolai Maximenko from University of Hawaii, who was not involved in the study, said that it was very important to continue the research to find out the impacts of plastic on the marine ecosystem.
He told BBC News: “We don’t know how much is consumed by living organisms; we don’t have enough data.
“I think this is a big target for the next decade – a global network to observe plastics in the ocean.”

Read the full article at bbc news

When We Talk Zero, We Sound Crazy. When Bill Gates Does It, Bankers Pick Up the Phone.

On Friday, the world’s most successful businessperson and most powerful philanthropist did something outstandingly bold, that went almost unremarked: Bill Gates announced that his top priority is getting the world to zero climate emissions.

Gates predicted extraordinary climate action: zero. Not small steps, not incremental progress, not doing less bad: zero. In fact, he stood in front of a slide with nothing but the planet Earth and the number zero. That moment was the most important thing that has happened at TED.

Gates spoke about his commitment to using his massive philanthropic resources (the Gates Foundation is the world’s largest) to make life better for people through public health and poverty alleviation (”vaccines and seeds” as he put it). Then he said something he’s never said before: that is it because he’s committed to improving life for the world’s vulnerable people that he now believes that climate change is the most important challenge on the planet.

Even more importantly, he acknowledged the only sensible goal, when it comes to climate emissions, is to eliminate them: we should be aiming for a civilization that produces no net emissions, and we should be aiming to live in that civilization here in the developed world by 2050.

Why is this important? The news stories focused largely on the clean energy aspect of the speech, and certainly the world’s most successful businessman announcing that clean energy is the next frontier is a big headline. However, I think though that the real breakthrough was not Gates’ answer to the problem, but his definition of success: zero.
Bright green advocates understand that we need prosperity without planetary impact. In many of the circles I run in, this is an uncontroversial idea, and, indeed, the conversation has moved on, to discussing how we decouple better lives from ecological footprints (or even go beyond, and build a society that restores the ecosystems on which it depends).

When we talk zero, we sound crazy.

But when Bill Gates talks zero, he sounds visionary. Gates, whatever else he did Friday, just made the most important idea on the planet mainstream credible. That’s a big, big deal.

Please read the full article at WorldChanging.com

30,000 tonnes of portable batteries enter the UK market each year.

New EU rules have come into force that require some stores selling batteries to provide in-store recycling bins.
Anyone selling more than 32kg a year – equivalent to one pack of four AA batteries a day – must comply as part of targets on cutting landfill.

The UK currently recycles only 3% of portable batteries, but the aim is to raise that figure to 45% by 2016.
Battery maker Varta warned that a lack of awareness among consumers could hamper the scheme’s success.
An estimated 30,000 tonnes of batteries – from those in electrical goods like torches, to rechargeable ones in mobile phones – enter the UK market each year.

At present, 97% eventually end up in landfill sites, where they can leak toxic chemicals into the soil.
The EU Batteries Directive aims to tackle that problem and cut carbon emissions by reducing the need for new batteries to be made from scratch.

All the evidence shows home collections of recyclables produce the best results

Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said: “This new legislation will make it easier for consumers to do the right thing whilst ensuring retailers fulfil their part of the bargain.”

But Vince Armitage, divisional vice-president of Varta, said he was concerned.
“The directive places the responsibility of meeting its stringent collection and recycling targets on the manufacturer, but it relies on the co-operation of consumers and retailers to make it work,” he said.
“However, a lack of promotion means that awareness of the directive among these key groups is low.
“This gives us great concern that, as a nation, we are setting ourselves up to fail before we even begin.”
Varta estimates that just meeting the 10% target will cost manufacturers £3m.

Bob Gordon, from the British Retail Consortium, said retailers were ready for the new requirements, but called for a “comprehensive and continuing” government information campaign to raise awareness among consumers.
He also said shops should not be the only route for collection, adding: “We need an infrastructure to develop which includes workplaces, schools, community centres and kerbside collection.

Read the full article at: bbc.co.uk/news

One Life Live now takes place at The Vitality Show, giving you access to 2 shows for the price of 1!

The Vitality Show, sponsored by Simplyhealth, is the UK’s largest event for health, beauty and wellbeing. With dozens of interactive features, expert filled theatres and hundreds of exhibitors offering expert advice, The Vitality Show is the ultimate girls’ day out.

Visit the hair salon, get pampered in the day spa, join in a free fitness class or listen to seminars from top health and beauty insiders – a day at The Vitality Show with One Life Live will leave you feeling relaxed, refreshed and enlightened.

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Are you looking for inspiration to make a change in your life? One Life Live at The Vitality Show is the perfect place to start! Packed with life coaching experts, career gurus and volunteering specialists, One Life Live has everything you need to start making a real difference to your future.

Whether you feel unfulfilled in your job, want a new personal challenge or simply achieve a happier work/life balance, One Life Live can help! To start you in the right direction, they have an exclusive ticket offer for you.

Book two tickets in advance for just £20, saving £15+, and be in with a chance of winning one of 20 introductory coaching days with The Smart School of Coaching worth £100 each. 
ook your tickets now or call 0871 230 5569 and quote SSL.

Roz McLeod is the founder and owner of Tall Poppy Training and Coaching (www.tallpoppytrainingandcoaching.com) and will be speaking on the One Life Live Theatre – come along and hear how you can make positive steps to change your life for the better.

Book 2 tickets for £20 now and be in with a chance of winning a coaching day worth £100 with The Smart School of Coaching. Book now or call 0871 230 5569 and quote SSL.

If you’re interested in a more personal and in depth experience, book your ticket for a One Life Live Workshop. Get expert advice in a friendly and informal environment on everything from careers to health and diet and life change to making the most of your CV. Limited availability. Tickets will be on a first come, first served basis.

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