Richard Gray
TelegraphSun, 22 Apr 2007 08:40 UTC
For most of us facing gridlocked roads and packed trains, the Monday morning commute is a more pressing concern than climate change.
But there may be a single solution to both, according to business leaders.
The Institute of Directors is calling for flexible hours and more home working to help tackle global warming.
Miles Templeman, the institute's director-general, said offering employees greater flexibility would ease pressure on transport networks and cut rush-hour power demand - thereby reducing emissions. Mr Templeman urged ministers not to rush into policies that risked harming the economy, such as caps on emissions and carbon taxes.
Speaking ahead of the institute's annual convention later this week, he criticised the Government over its "ideological" approach to climate change.
Laura Clout
TelegraphSun, 22 Apr 2007 08:36 UTC
Drought, floods and rising sea levels linked to climate change could start wars around the world, Margaret Beckett will predict today.
In the first UN Security Council debate on global warming, the Foreign Secretary will highlight tensions which are likely to emerge as countries compete for scarce food, water and energy resources.
But some member countries question whether the issue belongs in the Security Council, which deals with threats to international peace and security.
Russia and China have already said the council is the wrong place for the debate, and many developing nations see global warming as a problem of global justice, rather than just a security threat.
Ministers from some countries likely to be affected which are not on the 15-member council, are expected to attend the debate.
Polar bears could start attacking humans more frequently due to global warming, a Russian scientist said Friday.
Polar bears are carnivores that mainly live on seals, but can also feed on birds, shellfish, rodents and walruses - anything they can catch and kill. They are more likely to hunt humans than other bears and attacks could, for instance, happen at hunting camps or weather stations.
"Sea ice [the area covered by ice in the Arctic] is decreasing, and this is the polar bear's main habitat... In a search for food, the bears could end up at coastal areas and approach villages on the sea shore," Oleg Anisimov, a professor at the State Hydrology Institute under Russia's hydrometeorology service, told a news conference.
Researchers are forecasting a one-in-three chance that the extent of sea ice covering the Arctic will reach an all-time record low this year.
Australia has warned that it will have to switch off the water supply to the continent's food bowl unless heavy rains break an epic drought - heralding what could be the first climate change-driven disaster to strike a developed nation.
The Murray-Darling basin in south-eastern Australia yields 40 per cent of the country's agricultural produce. But the two rivers that feed the region are so pitifully low that there will soon be only enough water for drinking supplies. Australia is in the grip of its worst drought on record, the victim of changing weather patterns attributed to global warming and a government that is only just starting to wake up to the severity of the position.
IT'S guilty of looking crook and causing an almighty stench, but innocent of leaving swimmers with itchy skin.
The stunning white sand beaches of Jervis Bay have been swamped with a bloom of red algae washed ashore by sea breezes.
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| ©The Daily Telegraph
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| Crimson coast ... the usually white sands of the beach at Huskisson at Jervis Bay is turned red by an algae bloom.
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At least four earthquakes with a magnitude of about 6.0 on the Richter scale shook the East China Sea early Friday.
High temperatures can reverse the sex of dragon lizards before they hatch, turning males into females.
The finding, detailed in the April 20 issue of the journal Science, could have implications for the development of life as the planet's climate warms.
The research reveals that extreme temperatures could inactivate a gene on the male sex chromosomes of dragon lizards and thus turn male embryos into females. The sex-reversed lizards look female and have female organs but genetically they are male, said lead author Alexander Quinn of the University of Canberra in Australia.
When conservation officer Steve Peterson got a call that a timber wolf was chasing vehicles on a country road near Brimson, he thought it was prank or a misidentified German shepherd. But then he saw it firsthand.
"I couldn't believe it. It was like a dog chasing cars,'' Peterson said. "It looked like a big, healthy male wolf. No mange.''
Responding to the call last Friday, Peterson saw the animal hide in the ditch as a pickup approached and then come bounding out to chase it.
The wolf did the same when Peterson drove to that spot, where he stopped his vehicle.
AFPFri, 20 Apr 2007 02:13 UTC
Japan has sounded an alert for small tsunami waves after a strong earthquake in the southern island chain of Okinawa.
Comment: For more info read Climate Change Swindlers and the Political Agenda