Archive for the ‘climate’ tag

European Product Manager, Competitive Salary Package – Zwolle, Netherlands

Our client is an international, family owned company with 3,000 employees and a net sales of 400 million euro. The organisation focuses on creating a healthy and comfortable indoor climate for customers worldwide. The challenge is to become the leading company in Europe for ventilation systems based on a sharp analysis of market developments and a clear focus on innovation. Our client offers …

Prince Charles urges people to wear old clothes

Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne, has urged people to wear more old and recycled clothes, and natural fabrics like him so as to help reduce the world’s carbon footprint and halt climate change.

Indian wins American science journalism award

India’s Pallava Bagla has won the American Geophysical Union (AGU) David Perlman Award for Excellence in Science Journalism for his articles on the impact of climate change on Himalayan glaciers.

UN to study impact of incomplete climate action

OSLO – The U.N. panel of climate scientists will look at the costs of “second best” ways of fighting global warming amid doubts that all countries will sign up to U.N.-led action, a leading expert said on Tuesday.

Tiny Antarctic creatures hint at sea level rise

OSLO – Tiny marine creatures found on the seabed on opposite sides of the vast West Antarctic ice sheet give a strong hint of the risks of sea level rise caused by climate change, scientists said on Tuesday.

Pallava Bagla wins American science journalism award

India’s Pallava Bagla has won the American Geophysical Union (AGU) David Perlman Award for Excellence in Science Journalism for his articles on the impact of climate change on Himalayan glaciers.

Climate Change Plays Unlucky for Horseshoe Crabs

American horseshoe crabs are declining across the entire East Coast, from Maine to Florida. Researchers suspect that climate change and human activities are to blame.

Are the Oceans Getting Saltier?

Measuring ocean salinity is a bout a lot more than salt; changes in salinity can help us understand how Earth’s climate is changing.

Indian scribe wins American Geophysical Union Award

India’s Pallava Bagla has won the American Geophysical Union (AGU) David Perlman Award for Excellence in Science Journalism for his articles on the impact of climate change on the Himalayan glaciers.

Pachauri not to quit IPCC before completing fifth report

The UN climate panel chief, Mr Rajendra Pachauri, facing criticism for errors in a landmark report, has refused to quit, saying that he will remain with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change till the fifth report is produced in 2014. “At the moment, my mandate is very very clear.

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Pachauri won’t quit IPCC before fifth report

UN climate panel chief Rajendra Pachauri, facing criticism for errors in a landmark report, has refused to quit, saying that he will remain with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change till the fifth report is produced in 2014.

UN climate panel urged to reform, stick to science

UNITED NATIONS – The UN climate panel should make predictions only when it has solid evidence and should avoid policy advocacy, scientists said in a report on Monday that called for thorough reform of the body.

IPCC: Profile of UN climate panel

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), whose workings were probed in a report published in New York today, is the top scientific authority on global warming.

Not climate, we must change

Four years ago, I met Al Gore and saw his presentation on climate change. I don’t want to sound alarmist, but the scenario that emerged from our discussions was earth-shattering, to say the least. I realized with pain and anguish that the world as I know will never be the same again.

French ‘Spiderman’ arrested after scaling Sydney skyscraper

SYDNEY, Aug 30, 2010 (AFP) – A French climber known as “Spiderman” was arrested on the roof of a 57-storey Sydney skyscraper on Monday after scaling the building without ropes or a harness to raise awareness of climate change.
Alain Robe…

New Colorado Ikea Taps Earth for Climate Control

Besides inexpensive Swedish furniture, the new Ikea store opening next year in Colorado will have geothermal heating and cooling.

Putin ponders climate change in Arctic Russia

SAMOILOVSKY ISLAND, Russia – Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin travelled beyond the Arctic Circle on Monday to look into evidence for climate change after a record heatwave ravaged central Russia this summer.

Reinventing the City to Combat Climate Change­

How the world’s cities develop their infrastructure over the next 30 years will determine the future path of global warming.

New Toyota Avalon launched in Oman

Saud Bahwan Group, distributor of Toyota cars in Oman, has unveiled the 2011 Avalon, Oman Daily Observer has reported. The new Avalon is powered by a 24-valve, dual-overhead cam 3.5-litre V6 engine that produces 268 horsepower at 6,200rpm that is mated to a multi-mode six-speed automatic transmission. The Avalon also features dual-zone climate control system, nine air bags, vehicle stability control (VSC), anti-lock braking system (ABS) with electronic brake force distribution (EBD).

UN to get report on climate panel Aug 30

PARIS – A UN-requested review of the world’s top panel of climate scientists, accused of flaws in a key assessment on global warming, will be unveiled on August 30, the investigating committee said on Friday.

Indonesian envoy laments grim UN climate talks

SINGAPORE – Nations face an uphill battle to reach agreement on a tougher climate pact by the end of 2011, a senior Indonesian climate change official said on Thursday, describing progress to date as bleak.

Extreme weather unlikely to help climate talks

OSLO – Extreme weather in 2010 will spur more strident calls for action to combat global warming but is unlikely to break a deadlock at U.N. climate talks about sharing the burden between rich and poor.

Host Mexico aims to save global climate talks

MEXICO CITY – Mexico hopes to “rescue” global climate change talks by hosting a successful summit later this year that ends in concrete actions to control greenhouse gases, its chief negotiator said on Monday.

Giant Greenland iceberg a climate ‘warning sign’

PARIS – A giant iceberg that snapped away from Greenland last week is a signal that global warming is causing the island’s continent-sized ice cap to melt faster than expected, scientists say.

MoFT releases UAE trade policy review

DUBAI – The Ministry of Foreign Trade, or MoFT, released the UAE Trade Policy Review that showed a detailed analysis of the country’s foreign trade-related economic climate development since the date of the first review in 2006 to June of this year.

Benaulim seat is NCP’s: Trajano

The political climate for Benaulim constituency is hotting up with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) insisting that the seat belongs to them and that PWD minister Churchill Alemao, realizing this, is making veiled threats to quit the Congress.

General Trade Rep- Dubai

Ingersoll Rand is a $13 billion company whose people and businesses around the world create progress for our customers in the global climate control air conditioning and heating industrial and security markets These markets continue to expand as they address growing needs in developed and developing economies alike Our products systems and

Sales Leader

Ingersoll Rand is a $13 billion company whose people and businesses around the world create progress for our customers in the global climate control air conditioning and heating industrial and security markets These markets continue to expand as they address growing needs in developed and developing economies alike Our products systems and

Electronic Technical Support

Ingersoll Rand is a $13 billion company whose people and businesses around the world create progress for our customers in the global climate control air conditioning and heating industrial and security markets These markets continue to expand as they address growing needs in developed and developing economies alike Our products systems and

Project Sales Representative

Ingersoll Rand is a $13 billion company whose people and businesses around the world create progress for our customers in the global climate control air conditioning and heating industrial and security markets These markets continue to expand as they address growing needs in developed and developing economies alike Our products systems and

Account Manager- Health & Education

Ingersoll Rand is a $13 billion company whose people and businesses around the world create progress for our customers in the global climate control air conditioning and heating industrial and security markets These markets continue to expand as they address growing needs in developed and developing economies alike Our products systems and

Daily Telegraph apologises to Pachauri for accusing him of corruption

Leading British newspaper Daily Telegraph today apologised for publishing an article about UN climate body chairman RK Pachauri accusing him of making a fortune from his links with “carbon trading” firms.

Daily Telegraph apologises to Pachauri

Leading British newspaper Daily Telegraph today apologised for publishing an article about UN climate body chairman RK Pachauri accusing him of making a fortune from his links with “carbon trading” firms.

Daily Telegraph apologises to Pachauri over an article alleging corruption

Leading British newspaper Daily Telegraph today apologised for publishing an article about UN climate body chairman RK Pachauri accusing him of making a fortune from his links with “carbon trading” firms.

Rs 25,000 crore kitty for tackling climate change: Ramesh

India is going to be affected “the most” by climate change but the government has made a provision for Rs 25,000 crore to mitigate its impact, environment minister Jairam Ramesh said.

Australian officials tip hung parliament in knife-edge polls

Australia was on Saturday facing the prospect of its first hung parliament in 70 years, party offcials said, as Prime Minister Julia Gillard edged ahead in vote counting for knife-edge polls. With 76 seats needed for victory, Gillard’s Labor party had secured 71 against 66 for Tony Abbott’s conservative Liberal/National coalition, after 58 percent of votes had been counted, according to public broadcaster ABC.

But officials on both sides said a hung parliament — Australia’s first since 1940 — was looking “likely” with neither side appearing set for an outright majority in the 150-seat lower house. “I think a hung parliament is looking more and more likely,” Liberal Senator Nick Minchin told ABC, as results poured in from across the nation. “I can’t yet find the 17 (seat swing) needed by the Coalition. I’ve got a net gain of 15 for the Liberal Party at the moment.” The sentiment was endorsed by both Foreign Minister Stephen Smith and Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey, who called a hung parliament the “most likely result”.

The Australian Electoral Commission’s tally, which lagged behind the state broadcaster, put the government ahead 59 seats to 49 with 55 percent of the vote counted. Two separate television exit polls conducted before polling closed predicted Gillard’s party would win by 51 or 52 percent of the vote to the coalition’s 48 or 49, but indicated dangerous swings against Labor in key marginal seats. Early results indeed showed swings against Labor in the battleground states of Queensland and New South Wales, but stronger support for the Greens, which favours the ruling party under Australia’s complex preferences system.

Gillard, Australia’s first woman prime minister, ran a campaign riddled with problems and overshadowed by anger over her shock ousting of elected leader Kevin Rudd in June, with the backing of factional chiefs. “This is a tough, tight, close contest, but I’m exercising my own vote,” Gillard said earlier as she cast her ballot in Melbourne.

Around 14 million electors took part in a mandatory vote for the lower house and half the 76-seat Senate, with experts and opinion polls saying the outcome was too close to call.

Gillard, 48, a red-headed former lawyer who was born in Wales, has pledged better education and healthcare and played up Labor’s role in helping Australia shrug off the financial crisis, as well as a planned national broadband scheme.

Abbott, a 52-year-old religious conservative who has doubts about mankind’s role in climate change, has targeted fears over illegal immigration and questioned Labor’s spending record, as well as Gillard’s knifing of Rudd. “This is a big day for our country,” Liberal/National coalition leader Abbott said as he cast his vote in Sydney.

“It’s a day when we can vote out a bad government.” The right-leaning coalition needs a uniform swing of 2.3 percent to return to power less than three years after Rudd ousted 11.5-year prime minister John Howard, pledging action on climate change and impoverished Aborigines.

Victory for Abbott would make Labor the first one-term government since 1932, when the party’s James Scullin lost power during turmoil caused by the Great Depression.

Such a defeat would be an ironic end to a government that won international praise for its handling of the global financial crisis, from which Australia emerged stronger than any other Western economy. Both sides are targeting marginal seats in resource-rich Queensland — Rudd’s home state — and western Sydney, where rapid population growth has put pressure on services and raised concerns about immigration. But Labor’s tenure could be saved by Australia’s complex proportional representation electoral system that allows voters to pick their party and also list their second and subsequent choices in order of preference.

If voters disillusioned with Labor trump for the Greens, as many analysts expect, but preference Labor, those votes may be redistributed to the ruling party under a deal between the parties, possibly nudging it over the line.

Sun rises on solar products

Outside of the conventional electric wires and batteries that run up power bills or add to climate change, a brave new world of gadgets and gear is coming up, showing a new potential in solar energy. Himani Chandna reports.

Heat Up Efforts To Live Cool!

The world as it grows warm has been witnessing an intensification of extreme weather events.

Extreme events like Leh’s cloud bursts, Pakistan floods, Moscow smog post highest recorded temperature, China’s heavy-duty rainfall, UK warm conveyor phenomenon, US hurricanes, Belarus high temperatures, Bangladesh rising tides, Talpatti Island disappearance, unusually cold Texan winters, etc sound pretty compelling.

Extreme events have been a part of climatic phenomena and no direct link to a particular reason has been established so far.

Yet these abnormal and destructive occurrences have some degree of human influence.

As the whole affair has been a series of extreme signature events, all with an enhanced magnitude, therefore the hypothesis could only be rapid increase in “global warming.”

Skeptics may have their own arguments but statistical significance of high average temperatures over the entire globe only mean huge amount of added heat due to green house gas emissions.

Indian Meteorological Department also observed more than fifty per cent increase in heavy rainfall in the last fifty years.

If there had been no warming then there would have been the same amount of extreme events in a specific time period.

The difficult part in assessing weather patterns is evaluation of consequences. 

Most climate models and research bodies like Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predict an increase in catastrophic weather phenomena.

Hence mitigation becomes crucial.

The recent climatic “anomaly” in Leh is a signal to a lack of knowledge and preparedness to evolving climatic changes.

The total amount of Leh rainfall could not get recorded due to its concentration over a small area.

It revealed the significance of careful monitoring of daily environmental and weather patterns and installation of observational stations for precise forecasting processes.

Reasons for this climate anomaly have also been attributed to increase in evaporation.

The moisture due to growing water-bodies and green cover was trapped by encircling ranges and came down to cause havoc.

In the long term evolving weather events and natural variability will have to be included in weather researches to aid greater degree of localized forecasting accuracy.

Old measurements cannot be relied as necessary representatives of future weather patterns so new models may have to be developed.

However important it may be to improve understanding and scale up levels of dialogue a government and civil society synergy is necessary to take on challenges in a dynamic global context.

Though the government of India is making efforts to encourage renewable energy it will be a long time till the switch from fossil fuels to renewable sources would be possible.

Keys to climate risk reduction would be reducing existing patterns of vulnerability, retaining and enhancing natural ecosystems, managing brackish and agricultural water and water-demand, etc.

This area would require a whole hearted effort as it remains disastrously managed.

Taking just a few examples massive urbanization has led to “deliberate” losses of several big ponds in Gurgaon spaces and green-cover on several hills that litter the Navi Mumbai region.

There have been reports of loss of forest cover in the North Eastern states over the previous biennial assessment.

What we witness is the Ministry of Environment and a handful of others crusading alone to preserve ecology.

The responsibilities will have to be shared by one and all.

When it comes to international negotiations in the realm of climate change India as a developing economy and also growing polluter will need to lead in evolving a consensus at Cancun Summit scheduled for 2010 end.

As Mexico seeks Indian support for “ambitious outcomes” in the present and future scenario, India will have to push for a balanced and equitable outcome through common but differentiated responsibilities for developing and developed world.
Answers to mitigation and adaptation are pursuance of sustainable growth trajectories and procurement of funds and technology.

 

 

Damaged Ecosystems Amplify Killer Floods

Climate change isn’t the only reason the record rains in Pakistan have been so devastating.

Reduced to rubble

Call it nature’s fury, the wrath of gods or the effect of climate change, the cloudburst in Leh will have a long-term impact on the relationship between man and nature. P. Stobdan writes.

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