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Archive for the ‘climate change’ Category

The most interesting part of Gores speech for me was the strong point he made (oh he’s not the first or last) about dependence  on foreign oil and renewables for the U.S. The economic, social and political, for this is surely big politics I argue not, points of his speech are the most interesting part of that speech. The American culture shines for me very strongly through as well as he as a person and a speaker but this also a very American thing, hmm perhaps…we do have these “strong leaders”, patriarchs, in other parts of the world as well.

Sustainability as is, that is the survival of the human race as a dominant species and in a society in which we can uphold this state for generations to come, is only partly about the ecological dimension of this planet. This is the part that is mostly talked about, details about how and what affects what in an ecological sense, which is all good and well as for we humans do need some sort of fairly stable environment to survive. But the other 2-3 aspects, (depending on who you talk to in the sustainability science  field) social/cultural, economical and (institutional), are at least as important in the system of sustainability. It all links together.

Relating to climate change which is what I hope we are talking about here (whoever presents it and whatever “truths” are told or not).

“With the July 2007 release of the revised statement by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, no remaining scientific body of national or international standing is known to reject the basic findings of human influence on recent climate”

Now thats a cut from wikipedia Scientific opinion on climate change so I suppose I should dig something up from a nice journal like Nature or the like, but this was taken from Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical Union so I suppose it’ll have to do (for now).

Connected to the economic sphere; “The Stern Review on the economics of climate change” executive summaries can be found here, and the full review here. Now the yay and the nay has been loud on this one almost as loud as the yes and nos regarding climate change itself and understandably so we were built (Oh no I do NOT mean intelligent design…) to go for minimum energy…just something about this universe that wants it that way.

Now we live on a planet that has been around for about 4,5billion years. And a certainty is that our impact on this planet has during the last 200 years increased enormously (from about 1 billion to 6,5 billion! in population) somewhat related to fossil fuels and cheap energy? perhaps?

If not the population increase then at least the unbalancing effect we have on this balanced system called earth?

Thank you Thomas for inspiring me to clarify

Tags: politics, speech, al gore, climate change, earth, sustainability, aspects of sd

Vice President Al Gore as well as citizen and presidential candidate Barak Obama.

Regarding the “eco vacations” some travel agencies sell these days;

One of the best eco vacations would be local travel by bicycle or by foot. I’m sure there are many a location fairly near to where one lives that you have not visited or don’t know much about.

For a more distant location rail is by far the best (most efficient regarding energy) trips under a 1000km should if at all possible be done by rail. If you have to fly try to book your flights so that you fly non-stop as takeoff takes up to 25% of the total fuel consumption during a flight.

For accommodation, camping (in a responsible way), certified hostels hotels and the like by any “green” standard, The Green key, ISO etc. or otherwise proof of the fact that the place you stay really does something for the environment. These places might do a minimum for getting the piece of paper that says they are “green” but they are promoting environmentally friendly lodgings and you know that they will have had to at least think about these issues.

I think part of the ideal eco vacation is the process of planning an eco vacation it’s a very informative process that more of us should go through.

When considering activities try to consume services and experiences that has a minimum impact on the local environment but brings a maximum revenue (that you can afford) to the local population. Try not to consume goods, one of the reasons being it’s very hard to know what impact that little hand-painted-made on the other side of the world souvenir has on the environment.

You can of course buy a “eco-vacation” from a travel agency but an important part of the eco is to understand and know what exactly is your impact on the environment when you do go on vacation.

For more information have a look at this site as an example http://www.ecotourism.org/index.html

During the past month I’ve taken part in an Environmental Festival in Copenhagen, Denmark. A conference about Energy efficiency and a Partner Search Forum for the next EU, Baltic Sea Region (BSR) programme for 2007-2013. More to come about these two as well as other things I’ve picked up during this past month.