Monday, 8 December 2014

how insane is this title every one is at risk im pretty sure we all breath air

every one is at risk im pretty sure we all breath air




School pupils and hospital patients at risk of killer pollution, say MPs

Committee says it is unacceptable a whole generation could have health seriously impaired by air pollution above EU limits
Record levels of air pollution have been recorded in Britain this year, a combination of dust from t
 Record levels of air pollution have been recorded in Britain this year, a combination of dust from the Sahara, domestic pollution and other factors. Photograph: PA

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Schools, hospitals and care homes should not be built near main roads to reduce the tens of thousands of deaths being caused by the “invisible killer” of air pollution, a committee of MPs has warned.
The Commons environmental audit committee recommends diesel engines be scrapped over time and existing schools close to busy roads be fitted with air-filtration systems to avoid the minute particles and toxic gases emitted from vehicles.
“Air pollution is an invisible killer and a public health imperative. It is unacceptable that a whole generation of people … could have their health seriously impaired by air pollution above EU limits before government brings this public health problem under control,” the MPs say.
The official UK death toll for air pollution is about 29,000 people a year but this does not take into account levels of NO2 gas mainly emitted by diesel engines. An official government scientific advisory body will state shortly that this could add a further 30,000 deaths a year, said Joan Walley, chair of the committee. “New figures suggest air pollution could be killing almost the same number of people as smoking in the UK, yet government seems unwilling to put saving lives before economic growth”, she said.
“Children growing up near busy roads with high NO2 (nitrogen dioxide) and particle emissions have stunted and impaired lung development. Over 1,000 schools are only 150 metres away from major roads. Protecting children and vulnerable people in the worst affected areas must be made a priority.”
She urged ministers to pluck up the political courage to take “potentially unpopular” decisions necessary to get the most polluting vehicles off the roads and encourage more people to walk, cycle or take public transport.
The report urges the government to change the tax system, which has favoured diesel vehicles over petrol as a way to hold down CO2 climate-change emissions. According to evidence given to the committee, diesel vehicles produce 22 times as much particulate matter and four times as much NOx – the generic term for nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide – as petrol vehicles.
“Government incentives over many years have encouraged the purchase of diesel rather than petrol vehicles because they were considered to be more environmentally friendly. Their greater fuel efficiency produced less greenhouse gas per mile,” said the MPs, some of whom were fitted with monitors to help them understand the effects of air pollution.
“The original favourable tax treatment for diesel was the result of an understandable effort to limit greenhouse gases. It is important that policies are flexible enough to accommodate changing understanding,” says the report. The MPs, who took evidence from the scientists, doctors, government departments and the mayor of London, want all cities to set up low-emission zones to reduce inner-city pollution as in Germany.
They recommended planners and roadbuilders take more account of air pollution and that a loophole that allows mechanics to remove air filters from trucks be closed.
Friends of the Earth called for a moratorium on roadbuilding and airport expansion that would increase air pollution emissions. “This damning report reinforces the public health imperative to tackle our filthy air as soon as possible. Children and elderly and those with some medical conditions are hit hardest by our illegal levels of air pollution,” said a spokeswoman. “This is a call to action. A healthy population is an important economic imperative. Government must take air pollution seriously now,” said Dr Ian Mudway, researcher at the Centre for Environment and Health at King’s College, London, who gave medical evidence of air pollution dangers to the committee.
Barry Gardiner, the shadow environment minister, said: “Air pollution is a public health crisis that kills tens of thousands of people each year and yet this Tory-led Government has done nothing to tackle the problem.
“The committee’s report is a thorough and comprehensive assessment of government inaction on air pollution and it fully backs Labour’s commitment to deliver a national framework for low-emissions zones,” he said. The committee report follows rulings this year by the supreme court and the European court of justice that the UK government had acted illegally in not addressing air pollution and should act urgently to improve air quality in British cities.
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Friday, 5 December 2014

#capitalist don't profit from a stable world




capitalist don't profit from a stable world

your poverty is there profit

your death is there birth

your despair is there joy

and when you give up they will rule every inch of you


they put billions into making your world a nightmare why because they hate the world it is that simple and they know only you can stop it

Conservative lobby group Alec plans anti-environmental onslaught

  • Corporate lobbying network plans to draft bills attacking protections
  • Bills will reportedly aim to expand offshore oil drilling and cut EPA budget




EPA administrator Gina McCarthy.
 EPA administrator Gina McCarthy. Photograph: Gary Cameron/Reuters

, US environment correspondent

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98
The corporate lobbying network American Legislative Exchange Council, commonly known as Alec, is planning a new onslaught on a number of environmental protections next year when Republicans take control of Congress and a number of state legislatures.
The battle lines of Alec’s newest attack on environmental and climate measures will be formally unveiled on Wednesday, when the group begins three days of meetings in Washington DC.
Alec, described by its opponents as a corporate bill mill, has suffered an exodus of tech companies from its ranks recently because of its extreme positions – especially its promotion of climate denial.
Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo and Yelp have all left Alec. Google flatly accused Alec of lying about climate change, when it severed its connections with the group last September.
Despite the setbacks, Alec remains focused on pushing back government regulation and blocking efforts to fight climate change in 2015, according to documents posted on its website in preparation for Wednesday’s gathering. 
On the agenda for its environment and energy task force are draft model bills that will seek to disband the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), expand offshore oil drilling, and weaken environmental protections for smog and other air pollutants, as well as roll back protections for endangered species.
The top priority appears to be rolling back the main pillar of Obama’s climate action plan: new rules to limit carbon pollution from power plants now being rolled out by the EPA.
Under the most extreme proposal, Alec would urge Congress to gut the EPA entirely, cutting its environmental protection budget by 75%, and delegating its powers to 300 state agency employees.
Alec has also proposed two measures that would deter states from adopting EPA’s power plant rules.
Meanwhile, those at the meetings are scheduled to get a briefing from Richard Berman, an operative who specialises in using dirty tricks to overcome opposition to oil and gas projects. 
“The goal is to clearly block any action whatsoever on climate change. It’s not to shape action on climate change,” David Goldston, head of government affairs for the Natural Resources Defense Council told a conference call on Tuesday.
However, Alec is proposing bills that would roll back new ozone protections just announced last week, and vastly expand oil drilling off the Alaskan and Atlantic coasts and in the Gulf of Mexico.
Alec does not generally welcome media coverage of its activities. The group rejected the Guardian’s request to attend this week’s meeting.
The group is also facing growing public scrutiny of its position on climate change. More than 100 liberal and environmental groups on Tuesday called on state legislators to reject Alec’s climate denial. 
But behind the scenes, the organisation has had a huge influence on conservative politics in the states – and in some instances has seen its proposed model bills adopted almost wholesale by Republican legislators.
Those model policies adopted at the conference in Washington will eventually be introduced as prospective pieces of legislation by state legislators and Alec members around the country.
Over the last year, the organisation pursued bills to overturn environmental protections and weaken state regulations promoting the use of renewable energy sources in more than a dozen states. The majority of those efforts were beaten back.
The coming year could be a banner year for Alec, with Republicans taking control of both houses of Congress in January. Republicans also gained ground in the states in the midterm elections.
For 2015, the NRDC said it expected the lobbying group to focus its anti-EPA efforts on coal-heavy states.
“Ohio, Missouri, Illinois – states where the coal industry is especially prevalent are places where I expect these things to come up,” said Aliya Haq, the NRDC’s climate change special projects director.
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World on course for warmest year...this is how you change the globe


This is all man made, but only one philosophy is in charge of how to use the worlds resources and that

is the #capitalist he/she own all the energy oil and banks etc.

Its they who chose how you live, so if you want to change how you live you have to own the

energy oil and banks etc…….it really is that simple



World on course for warmest year

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David Shukman said 2014 had been ''a year of extremes''

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This year is in the running to be the hottest globally and for the UK since records began, early estimates show.
In the first 10 months of 2014, global average air temperature was about 0.57 Celsius above the long-term average.
And the first eleven months in the UK have produced an average temperature 1.6C above the long-term.
A separate study by the UK Met Office says the observed temperatures would be highly unlikely without the influence of greenhouse gases produced by humans.
The global figures come in estimates from the UN's World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).
If this year's current global trend continues for the next two months, the previous record years of 1998, 2005 and 2010 will be overtaken by a narrow margin.
The Secretary-General of the WMO, Michel Jarraud, said the preliminary data for 2014 was "consistent with what we expect from a changing climate."
INTERACTIVE
Hot weather chart
Strong El Nino
Weaker El Nino
Philippines volcano
El Nino effect
Cooler years
  • ×

  • 1878: Strong El Nino

    ×

    In 1878, there was a strong El Nino (where warmer water rises to the surface of the Eastern Pacific Ocean) and this is seen very clearly as a large spike in global temperature. This event was remarkable for an extreme drought in India where it is an estimated more than five million people died. There were droughts in nothern China also associated with this El Nino. The famine caused by the drought in India spurred scientists to begin work on climate patterns, leading eventually to discovery of the El Nino-related “Southern Oscillation” - the idea that the ocean and atmosphere are connected.

  • 1940s: Weaker El Nino

    ×

    The warm early 1940s were affected by a weaker, but protracted, El Nino.

  • 1991: Mt Pinatubo eruption

    ×

    In June 1991 Mt Pinatubo in the Philippines erupted, releasing millions of tons of sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere. This resulted in a decrease in the temperature worldwide.

  • 1998: Record-breaking year

    ×

    For a long time. the strong El Nino around 1997/98 meant that 1998 topped the rankings for the world’s warmest year. This has since been overtaken.

  • 1960/70s: Cooler years

    ×

    The cool 1960s and 1970s are likely to have resulted at least partly from man-made air pollution from sulphate particles. Steps taken towards cleaner air resulted in warming.
In comments released with the new figures, he said:
"The provisional information for 2014 means that fourteen of the fifteen warmest years on record have all occurred in the 21st century."
In unusually strong language, Mr Jarraud highlighted the impacts of the weather extremes.
"Record-breaking heat combined with torrential rainfall and floods destroyed livelihoods and ruined lives. What is particularly unusual and alarming this year are the high temperatures of vast areas of the ocean surface, including in the northern hemisphere."
And he asserted that the new figures confirm the key trend in climate change: "There is no standstill in global warming."
This is a reference to the hotly-debated "pause" in global warming which has seen no major increases in temperature since 1998.
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A year of extremes
Flood waters in southern Morocco
The WMO report highlights a number of record-breaking weather events around the world:
  • The UK's last winter in which 12 major Atlantic storms battered the country bringing nearly double the usual rainfall.
  • In September, parts of the Balkans received more than double the monthly rainfall and parts of Turkey were hit by four times the average.
  • The town of Guelmin in Morocco was swamped by more than a year's rain in just four days.
  • Western Japan saw the heaviest August rain since records began.
  • Parts of the western United States endured persistent drought (as we reported from Oklahoma last June, as did parts of China and Central and South America.
  • Tropical storms, on the other hand, totalled 72 which is less than the average of 89 judged by 1981-2010 figures. The North Atlantic, western North Pacific and northern Indian Ocean were among regions seeing slightly below-average cyclone activity.
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The provisional record for 2014 is only slightly higher than for the previous record year of 2010 - one-hundredth of a degree - which was 0.56C above the long-term average.
However climate scientists point out that all but one of the warmest 15 years have come in this century.
This suggests that although there have been no big jumps in temperature in the past 16 years, the period as a whole is proving to be exceptionally warm.
The waters of the eastern Pacific are among those to have warmed significantly - a situation which might normally be expected to trigger so-called El Nino conditions that often boost global warmth. However, puzzlingly for scientists, these have yet to materialize.
So if 2014 does prove to set a new record for global average temperatures, it will have been without the warming contribution of an El Nino.
For the UK, temperatures so far this year suggest the country is on course for a new record - judged by data stretching back to 1910.
And there may also be a new high in the longer-running Central England Temperature record - which started in 1659.
Infographic
Although no single month in 2014 has set a new record, every month except August has seen above-average temperatures so the whole year so far has been consistently warm.
Meanwhile, the Met Office has studied the extent to which manmade greenhouse gases are behind the warming.
A paper issued to coincide with the WMO figures says that although "one warm year does not necessarily say anything about long-term climate change" new research shows how human influence made record temperatures more likely.
Met Office scientists ran computer models of two versions of the climate - one with data drawn from real conditions and the other with simulations of the atmosphere in which the greenhouse gases had been removed.
Inforgraphic
The results were used to calculate a measure known as a "Frequency of Attributable Risk" (FAR) to describe the likelihood of a human influence in warming.
For the UK, the models show that this year's potential record temperature was made ten times more likely because of the presence of carbon emissions in the atmosphere.
Adam Scaife, a Met Office scientist involved in the research, told the BBC about the results on a global scale:
"It turns out to be very unlikely to have the temperatures we've seen this year in the world where we've artificially removed the anthropogenic carbon dioxide.
"In the world that would have been, it's very unlikely that we'd see the temps we're seeing now."
The WMO's report on the state of the global climate is published every year to coincide with the UN's annual negotiations on climate change, this time under way in Lima in Peru.
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David ShukmanArticle written by David ShukmanDavid ShukmanScience editor

World on course for warmest year

3 December 2014
This year is in the running to be the hottest globally and for the UK since records began, early estimates show.

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  •  
    -2

    Comment number600.

     
    597. Gordon 
    JUST NOW
    To all deniers, 18 yrs of no global warming was a myth started by the Daily Mail. Why do you keep repeating it? 
    ***
    Did you bother to listen to BBC Andrew Neals interview to the new environmental minister quoting the facts
    Or have you just got your fingers in your ears cos you dont want to here them ?
  •  
    +1

    Comment number599.

     
    I got a plan, Lets reduce the tax on airfares and freeze fuel tax. Surely people will not use more....
  •  
    0

    Comment number598.

     
    so, it'll be wet and cold rather than dry and cold, and not the long hot summer we all yearn for. warmest, possibly. wettest, probably.
  •  
    +3

    Comment number597.

     
    To all deniers, 18 yrs of no global warming was a myth started by the Daily Mail. Why do you keep repeating it? 

    Scientists are not in it for a funding con. If you want to look at con, look at all these right wing think tanks that keeping spoonfeeding you with disinformation.

    And yes, the sun does play an important part our climate, so does CO2 and there has been a measurable increase.
  •  
    -1

    Comment number596.

     
    The world will end consumed in flames. Maybe it will be sooner than we thought.

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