World Business Council for Sustainable Development

Energy is the fuel for growth, an essential requirement for economic and social development. By 2050, energy demand could double as population rises and developing countries expand their economies. With the prospect of such increases in energy demand giving rise to further increases in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, action on climate change is now stated as a high priority for many governments.

The Guardian

Solving climate change will be the most expensive public policy decision ever. Half-baked thinking won’t fix it now.

One commonly repeated argument for doing something about climate change sounds compelling, but turns out to be almost fraudulent. It is based on comparing the cost of action with the cost of inaction, and almost every major politician in the world uses it.

Dot Earth – The New York Times

I flew to Sicily on Monday for a week-long meeting on global risks ranging from Internet disruption to global warming and nuclear proliferation. The annual meetings on “planetary emergencies” are organized by the Ettore Marjorana Center for Scientific Culture, which occupies several converted ancient monasteries and other buildings in the pre-Medieval hilltop town of Erice, and the World Federation of Scientists, in Geneva.

GreenBiz

The U.S. could feasibly halve its gasoline consumption if the country switched to hybrid and plug-in electric vehicles by 2035, according to a new MIT report.

For too long, automakers have focused on improving performance at the expense of efficiency, said the report from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A large part of the challenge will involve convincing consumers that they don’t need fast, gas-guzzling cars.

Market Watch

Going clean and green means more to Rocio Garcia, a 19-year-old girl from the Dominican Republic supported by Children International, a U.S.-based humanitarian organization. River clean-up and tree-planting campaigns have propelled the teen from a slum outside Santo Domingo to the United States to attend International Youth Day on August 12 at the United Nations.

New York Times – Dot Earth

Most of the humans in harm’s way from climate-related hazards don’t have federal weather agencies with billion-dollar budgets. They don’t have crop insurance. They don’t have reservoirs to hold rain when it’s abundant or storehouses ready to hold grain when famine looms.

The Guardian

The UK should take active steps to prepare for dangerous climate change of perhaps 4C according to one of the government’s chief scientific advisers.

CBC News

It will be interesting to see whether the news that — putting aside issues of inaccessibility, geopolitical disputes and environmental risk — the Arctic probably has 90 billion barrels worth of oil will cool the rhetoric of those yearning for a modern-day version of the Apollo project .

The Guardian

The UK is in denial about its real carbon emissions, suggests a report from the Stockholm Environment Institute. The academics conclude that if “outsourced” emissions produced in countries like China on goods which are imported into the UK are included in our total carbon footprint, this country’s total greenhouse gas emissions are 49% higher than currently reported. So we should think twice when blaming the Chinese for emitting the CO2 that is required in the manufacture of our fridges and televisions.

The Huffington Post

I hate to break it to you, but simple steps, like changing your light bulbs and driving a hybrid car, though they are good steps in the right direction, will not be enough to save our world from collapse. If we consider “Plan A” to be business as usual, which is currently consuming, depleting, and poisoning the natural systems that maintain life on Earth, then we might call a sustainable alternative “Plan B”