Choosing our Future
27th April 2008
Climate science is such a complicaed subject that there is no guarantee about exactly what will happen with each degree that the Earth warms. However in his book "Six Degrees - our future on a hotter planet" Mark Lynas has digested hundreds of scientific reports, and has a brave attempt at predicting what will happen for each degree that we warm our planet. When choosing which future sounds best, it is worth remembering that because of the carbon dioxide already emitted into the atmosphere, we are already committed to one degree of warming. Here is a brief summary of some of the impacts of each degree of warming:
One degree
More droughts and floods, possible diversion of the Gulf Stream, glaciers suppying drinking water to millions of people in rapid retreat, Arctic sea ice vanishing, stronger storms, low-lying islands and Bangladesh abandoned, significant loss of biodiversity
Two degrees
Oceans turn acid, heatwaves and fires lead to loss of life, coral reefs lost, Greenland ice-sheet melts leading to 7 metre sea rise, North polar ice-cap lost, millions displaced by loss of glacial drinking water, food shortages.
Three degrees
Amazon forest turns to desert, major climate change, huge loss of biodiversity, drought throughout Australia and most of Africa, food shortages threaten billions, rivers run dry, major loss of land from rising sea levels
Four degrees
Antarctic ice sheet (South Pole) destabilised, major rise in sea level, millions displaced, spreading deserts, heatwaves, risk of thawing permafrost triggering runaway global warming as massive quantities of extra CO2 and methane released
Five degrees
All polar ice lost, massive sea level rises, extinction of most of life on earth, ocean methane hydrates released, billions displaced, widespread famine
Six degrees
Threat to all life on Earth, extensive deserts, severe storms, ocean methane hydrates trigger runaway global warming.
Britons are hoard stupid when it comes to loft lagging
22nd February 2008
Relying on ‘junk-sulation’ adds up to £549m in lost heat
New research has revealed around a quarter of UK households could be wasting more than £549m annually by giving energy efficient loft insulation the cold shoulder. This wastage also adds over 4m tonnes of CO2 emissions a year – the equivalent of taking over 28,500 cars off the road.
The study reveals that up to 600,000 homeowners are unsuccessfully trying to cut corners by lining their lofts with a layer of old clutter, adding up to an estimated £54m worth of wasted energy. Of those householders who do have insulation, 4.2m admit that it’s not as efficient as it could be.
The findings also highlight worrying levels of ‘Loft-Lag Lethargy’. Nearly two-thirds (60%) of those with insufficient loft-lagging admit they have avoided insulating their attic properly because they cannot face clearing out years of accumulated junk in order to do the job well.
And, despite evidence showing that investing in the recommended loft insulation material can lead to a 14% reduction in heating bills, over half (52%) of those without efficient loft insulation say the expense has put them off making the effort, whilst a further 52% blame lack of time.
A quarter of heat is lost through the roof of an uninsulated home and in stalling the recommended 270mm of loft insulation material in a roof space can save up to £90 a year in energy bills. However, only half of respondents say they have implemented this advice.
Phil Biddle, Energy Efficiency Manger at E.ON UK, told Eco: “With so many households desperately in need of better insulation we’d advise homeowners to have a proper clear out of their loft. By selling on unused stuff they could use the proceeds to pay for loft insulation.”
“It really is a false economy to rely on other methods, whether it’s years-worth of hoarded clutter or patchy levels of old or thinning insulation. Effective loft insulation can cost as little as £180 and leads to genuine savings both on energy bills and the cost to the environment in terms of CO2 emissions.”
Warming to the idea of saving energy?
For further advice on how to make your home more energy efficient and make savings of up to £160 on your energy bills, visit www.eonchallenge.co.uk or call 0500 20 10 00.
Anyone aged over 70 who currently has no insulation or insulation less than 60mm thick may be able to get free loft insulation from E.ON, call 0800 015 9854 to find out more
New human species discovered!
Amid the debate about evolution vs intelligent design, and excitement about the possible new human species discovered provisionally named homo floresiensis, and the recent new species of cat discovered in Indonesia, it seems to have escaped everyone’s attention that human evolution is continuing at a rapid pace, and other new species of human are evolving and co-existing with us. We have tended to view evolution as something that has happened up to the present time and become fixed due to the enormous timescales involved in the genetic variation for new species to evolve. In reality, if one takes a broader definition of evolution, new species are evolving all the time if one takes in the meme-pool of ideas, and our use of technology.
Where are these new species to be found? All around us: for example homo sapiens automobilus, homo sapiens aeronautus, and homo sapiens computivus to name but a few of new species of human that are evolving (with apologies for the clumsy the nomenculture which Latin scholars can no doubt improve on). What is fascinating about these new species is the way that they co-exist with traditional homo sapiens and that homo sapiens can morph into one of the new species and back in a way that was never possible prior to the advent of technology.
Sceptics will argue that these are not new species. Perhaps not in the traditional biological sense, in that their DNA does not differ from the rest of the human race, or their DNA differs sufficiently to prevent them inter-breeding, but in the new science of memetics put forward by Richard Dawkins and his supporters, in which ideas compete among their biological and computerised hosts for survival, there are clear parallels to genetic mutation to extent that it can be argued that a person/car, person/plane, person/computer synthesis represents a new life form, along with subspecies depending on the type of car driven, plane flown, and computer operated. The new species represent a fusion of the biological human with technology. Many other fusions exist, such as a human with a phone, a weapon, an ipod, or a combination of several of these.
It has been widely observed how peoples’ characters alter when they drive a car. The most mild-mannered person, whom off the road never exchanges a cross word with those around them, can become a confident, if not pushy driver, and become involved in road rage. When a pedestrian is knocked down by a vehicle, is it the car, the driver, or a combination of the two that is responsible? Clearly a combination of the two, and an example of the new species. The person/car species is still evolving with increasingly sophisticated mutations such as “intelligent” engine control systems, satellite navigation and increasing speed and fuel efficiency.
As often the case when two species interact, one is dominant over the other. Homo sapiens automobilus is dominant over homo sapiens, being vastly stronger and faster, although with a shorter life-expectancy as a vehicle specific combination. What is fascinating and also adds complexity to this theory, is that we can rapidly morph from being one variant to another. We morph from the automobilus variant to the original species when we step out of the car. Equally fascinating is how, like a snake shedding its skin, the new species can cast of the shell of the vehicle, often to be taken up by a less dominant member of the species, and enter a new “shell” usually with enhanced capabilities. Similarly we can morph from the original species into the aeronautus or computivus variant and back again in a space of seconds.
There has been much debate among historians, over how Cro Magnon man and Neanderthal man interacted, as they co-existed on pre-historic Earth. The Neanderthal species appears to have been physically stronger, but Cro Magnon man appears to have been more intelligent and co-operated better. Did our ancestors wipe out Neanderthal man during competition for resources? We may never know. In the present day, we can observe the new species of human inter-acting with each other and the “original” human species, in new and unpredictable ways.
In the new melting pot of evolution, the environmental damage being wreaked by the new variants automobilus and aeronautus run the risk not only of inflicting damage to their immediate environment in their competition for spaced and resources, but also to the life supporting systems of the Earth as a whole.
Homo sapiens computivus is an intriguing variant of our species. By harnessing the power of the computer, and particularly the internet, our intellectual capacity can be vastly enhanced. A person/computer/internet variant can carry out incredibly complex calculations almost instantly, recall huge amount of information from the wealth of human knowledge, rapidly translate from one language to another, communicate and transfer information from one side of the world to the other in milliseconds, to name but a few of the myriad of capabilities.
So human evolution is not something to be viewed as a fixed state of play, as something done and dusted, (assuming the reader accepts the Darwinian theory of evolution in the first place). Evolution is an ongoing and dynamic process, and will continue as long as organisms reproduce and variation takes place in successive generations, and in the wider definition of evolution taking in the meme-pool and technology, as long as new ideas and technologies develop and replicate themselves and copying errors occur.
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What is a meme, and how can it save the world?!
The term meme was invented in 1976 by the scientist Richard Dawkins, in his ground-breaking book “The Selfish Gene”.
He defined it as an idea that is passed on from one person to another, a concept that can outlive its biological host, the cultural equivalent of a gene. Unlike genes, which require a successive generation to be passed on, memes can replicate and mutate at a phenomenal rate in our increasingly connected world.
To give an example of memes, there is a meme for supporting Crystal Palace football club, not walking under ladders, believing in God, playing the tuba, or owning a red ford fiesta. Memes can be trivial, or they can lead to peaceful revolutions, as when the Berlin Wall came down, and brought the Cold War era to an end.
At Eco, we believe there needs to be an urgent peaceful green revolution, in which environmental awareness, and a desire for change, leads us to care for our world's environment better.
So if you support the principle of what our publication”Eco” wants to achieve, in promoting care for our world and all its people and natural environment, copy the following message into an email, and send to everyone in your address book, and see what happens when a meme’s growth becomes exponential:
Please forward to everyone in your address book:
http://www.ecozine.co.uk
New human species discovered!
Amid the debate about evolution vs intelligent design, and excitement about the possible new human species discovered provisionally named homo floresiensis, and the recent new species of cat discovered in Indonesia, it seems to have escaped everyone’s attention that human evolution is continuing at a rapid pace, and other new species of human are evolving and co-existing with us.
We have tended to view evolution as something that has happened up to the present time and become fixed due to the enormous timescales involved in the genetic variation for new species to evolve. In reality, if one takes a broader definition of evolution, new species are evolving all the time if one takes in the meme-pool of ideas, and our use of technology.
Where are these new species to be found? All around us: for example homo sapiens automobilus, homo sapiens aeronautus, and homo sapiens computivus to name but a few of new species of human that are evolving (with apologies for the clumsy the nomenculture which Latin scholars can no doubt improve on). What is fascinating about these new species is the way that they co-exist with traditional homo sapiens and that homo sapiens can morph into one of the new species and back in a way that was never possible prior to the advent of technology.
Sceptics will argue that these are not new species. Perhaps not in the traditional biological sense, in that their DNA does not differ from the rest of the human race, or their DNA differs sufficiently to prevent them inter-breeding, but in the new science of memetics put forward by Richard Dawkins and his supporters, in which ideas compete among their biological and computerised hosts for survival, there are clear parallels to genetic mutation to extent that it can be argued that a person/car, person/plane, person/computer synthesis represents a new life form, along with subspecies depending on the type of car driven, plane flown, and computer operated. The new species represent a fusion of the biological human with technology. Many other fusions exist, such as a human with a phone, a weapon, an ipod, or a combination of several of these.
It has been widely observed how peoples’ characters alter when they drive a car. The most mild-mannered person, whom off the road never exchanges a cross word with those around them, can become a confident, if not pushy driver, and become involved in road rage. When a pedestrian is knocked down by a vehicle, is it the car, the driver, or a combination of the two that is responsible? Clearly a combination of the two, and an example of the new species. The person/car species is still evolving with increasingly sophisticated mutations such as “intelligent” engine control systems, satellite navigation and increasing speed and fuel efficiency.
As often the case when two species interact, one is dominant over the other. Homo sapiens automobilus is dominant over homo sapiens, being vastly stronger and faster, although with a shorter life-expectancy as a vehicle specific combination. What is fascinating and also adds complexity to this theory, is that we can rapidly morph from being one variant to another. We morph from the automobilus variant to the original species when we step out of the car. Equally fascinating is how, like a snake shedding its skin, the new species can cast of the shell of the vehicle, often to be taken up by a less dominant member of the species, and enter a new “shell” usually with enhanced capabilities. Similarly we can morph from the original species into the aeronautus or computivus variant and back again in a space of seconds.
There has been much debate among historians, over how Cro Magnon man and Neanderthal man interacted, as they co-existed on pre-historic Earth. The Neanderthal species appears to have been physically stronger, but Cro Magnon man appears to have been more intelligent and co-operated better. Did our ancestors wipe out Neanderthal man during competition for resources? We may never know. In the present day, we can observe the new species of human inter-acting with each other and the “original” human species, in new and unpredictable ways.
In the new melting pot of evolution, the environmental damage being wreaked by the new variants automobilus and aeronautus run the risk not only of inflicting damage to their immediate environment in their competition for spaced and resources, but also to the life supporting systems of the Earth as a whole.
Homo sapiens computivus is an intriguing variant of our species. By harnessing the power of the computer, and particularly the internet, our intellectual capacity can be vastly enhanced. A person/computer/internet variant can carry out incredibly complex calculations almost instantly, recall huge amount of information from the wealth of human knowledge, rapidly translate from one language to another, communicate and transfer information from one side of the world to the other in milliseconds, to name but a few of the myriad of capabilities.
So human evolution is not something to be viewed as a fixed state of play, as something done and dusted, (assuming the reader accepts the Darwinian theory of evolution in the first place). Evolution is an ongoing and dynamic process, and will continue as long as organisms reproduce and variation takes place in successive generations, and in the wider definition of evolution taking in the meme-pool and technology, as long as new ideas and technologies develop and replicate themselves and copying errors occur.
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