Green Options

President Obama was just awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, for reasons including his stand on climate change. Has his environmental record justified this award?

Failure to read the field on Chicago’s Olympic bid begs the question: who is counting votes for President Obama? The White House will need a much better ground game if the US is going to lead the world on climate change.

US has once again made unreasonable demands that developing countries adopt similar emission reduction targets as the rich countries. Such demands are against the Bali (Climate Conference) Action Plan and threaten to derail the climate negotiations.

After playing leader in global climate change negotiations, United States is now under pressure to respond to India and China’s announcements of mitigation measures.

In Peru, the government has acted on the financially troubled and environmentally challenged Doe Run Peru smelter. Their response to the closure of the site has been to give the operators a 30-month extension on their previous environmental clean-up deadline.

Very young children haven’t learned good hand hygiene and so are not good at washing their hands, and also that they are more prone to complications from E.coli than adults. But there is a counter-argument being made by some health professionals that a child’s immune system is only built if it is given enough exposure to the wider world and depriving children of this kind of contact actually harms their ability to battle a range of viruses and infections.

As the world arrives at the UN ahead of Copenhagen, the US has more to lose than China in an escalating war of words over climate change leadership.

El Nino is blamed for changing rainfall patterns, and that, combined with inadequate harvests and increasing conflict has led to a drop in cereal production already affecting Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia. This could increase the number of people relying on food aid.

In the UK, journalist and television presenter Jeremy Clarkson found his own bit of global warming, on his doorstep! Seven members of group Climate Rush visited his home and left steaming piles of horse manure on his drive, along with a message reading ‘This is what you’re landing us in’.

After months of resistance against emission reduction goals the Indian government now seems willing to take proactive measures to reduce carbon emissions.

The leader of one of Australia’s most influential unions has said that green jobs is a ‘dopey term’. Tony Maher went on to suggest that many of the environmental campaigns run in his country are ‘judgemental nonsense’ and that industries like coal and steel will have more impact on both prosperity and the creation of a low carbon future than people realised.