Global Power Shift - Could this be the new frontier to the climate change battle?

This year, actually starting from today June 24th to June 30th, 2013, 350.org are changing to higher gears in an attempt to wield the power of human movement. Global Power Shift is 350.org newest campaign towards international climate action.. A six-day conference in Istanbul, Turkey is being held to organize, make new strategies among leaders and organizations who can mobilize and create an unparalleled movement in the fight for climate change.

There are about 500 youth climate activists from 130 countries participating. This just shows the massive scale and the actions that are being planned by 350.org. Currently attending the conference is Phase 1 of their mission. Phase 2 begins after June 30th and is aimed for 2013-2014.

To know more head over to their site at Global Power Shift or 350.org

Want to throw food, think again - World Environment Day 2013-

An annual program organized by UNEP (United Nations Environment Protection,) the World Environment Day falling on June 05, is back this year with the theme Think.Eat.Save. The theme focuses on not wasting food, as it seen that it takes a lot of effort to produce the food which in turns reflects to the amount carbon emissions produced. The UN Food and Agriculture estimates that about 1.3 billion tonnes of food is disposed off. Considering that amount of food wasted, it is possible to feed an entire continent of people for several years.

With a global population of 7 billion and growing, needing to feed such a population has been a burden on natural resources. The UN’s Food and Agriculture estimates that one third of the world’s food is wasted or lost. There are places in the world where people starve of hunger and are not able to have a proper three square meal. So imagining that 1.3 billion tonnes of food are wasted, this year’s theme seems very appropriate Think.Eat.Save.

It is not only about saving food but considering the fact of preserving other resources when consuming food. One of major requirements of producing food is water. I found an article from the Guardian published this year January indicating how much water is required to produce common food stuff. As I went through the article, it seems we waste a lot more water and I mean a lot. For example to produce 1 kg of chocolate, 17,196 litres of water is used. So now do the math, 1.3 billion tonnes of food wasted and multiple the amount of water wasted.

On the top of that, the production, manufacturing, shipping and transportation of food lead to a massive trail of carbon footprint. I again say, this year’s theme is about thinking before you eat, then eat and finally save/protect the environment.

They have created some interesting posters with facts for those of you who want to see, check it out.

UK kicks off one of the world's largest wind farm

As UK leads one of the largest coordinated global event 10:10:10, the Global day of Doing, this news sounds great. UK embraces renewable energy to a whole new level.

Details, basically this wind farm is one of the world's largest offshore wind farm situated off the Thanet in Kent. The project was at a cost of £780m ,and is expected to generate enough electricity to power 240,000 homes.

Read more about it.

Earth Day- April 22 2010

This year, Earth Day turns 40 and the only thing you can do is TAKE ACTION!. This year, the climate movement is about getting to work and doing something. Last year we saw people taking action.So what can you do? Actually a lot of things,and small things can make a difference. There are some organizing tools for you to check you if you want to organize an event for Earth Day. Other than that the Earth Day Network has a list of events taking place, so if you live nearby drop by.

Food security at high alert: Climate change

Now with Copenhagen over and emission targets set high, melting glaciers in the Himalayas have given people all over that region to worry. Now with every one degree rise in temperature farmers can expect a 10% decrease in wheat, rice and corn yields. An interview of Lester R. Brown, an environmentalist and President of Earth Policy Institure and DNA states why we have to worry.

The result of the workshop on 350 and Climate Change

Photo Courtesy: Niloy Ahmed Ashraful Haque
Banner Courtesy: Shakib Ahmed


In an effort to get the word out, I organized a workshop on 350 and Climate Change: What it has to do with you? as you can see the previous post. On November 19th 2009, as a local organizer for 350.org, I awed the minds of the audience who attended it. The audience was poor, I was told to expect it but there was another complication. On November 19th, the day of the workshop there were law and order issues and probably why the turn-out was less.

Overall, I managed to open if not everyone's mind about the magnitude of the problems that are expected to happen if there is no deal this December in Copenhagen. By doing this I managed people to step up and show interest in opening a club at the university about the environment.

I introduced a concept in the workshop hoping it would motivate people. We all know the 3Rs- Reduce, recycle. reduce but I came up with another the 4th R - REALIZATION. It is only when people REALIZE the situation, they can take action. A concept I have been working on.

I want to thank IEEE AIUB Student Branch for helping me to get this workshop on its foundation. It was important and they supported me when I needed them. It was a great day and those who could not come, my apologies for setting the date like that.

Geo-engineering, back-up plan for scientists

As policies fails to meet standards set by scientists, the researchers and scientists are looking into climate engineering or geo-engineering as a back-up plan. Although geo-engineering is quite heard of, its utilization will be put into test if projects are to be implemented. Currently the problem with climate engineering, it is difficult to predict how the earth will react to the changes.

One thought has been researched in cooling the planet and that is using sulfate particles. This is quite common during volcanic eruptions, where sulphates are released into the atmosphere. Although there are side effects to this.

There wont be a deal in Copenhagen- US climate envoy

"Its certainly possible that there wont be a deal in Copenhagen", US climate change envoy Todd Stern told Britain's Channel Four. So what does that mean? Is the US not participating in the summit? I was expecting that with the new US administration's motto of "Change" that tackling climate change was one of its top issues. However from this statement it signifies that US are expecting this Climate talks to collapse as well.

On the other hand Britain's climate secretary,Ed Milliband said he will be going "all out" in this Copenhagen summit. He also said that a new global climate treaty is "do-able".

It is still uncertain if any outcome will come about, but it is important that a treaty be made before the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.

Blog Action Day 2009: Climate Change

As bloggers all over the globe join in the global movement to make the stance in climate change, Blog Action Day has targeted this year to select Climate Change as this year's topic. Currently there are some 8,872 blogs registered for this movement and 148 countries involved. Also as October 24th nears , the International Day of Climate Action, this is just adds to it.

In Bangladesh, recently they initiated a project to offset climate conference emissions where all outdated brick kilns are to be replaced which will reduce 50,000 tonnes of CO2 hoping to make the COP 15 carbon neutral.

Some southern regions of Bangladesh are losing ground due to the rising sea-levels. Now according to current CO2 emissions of 400-450ppm of C02, it is expected that sea-levels would rise by 25-40m. So that would mean most of Bangladesh would be under-water. For a developing nation which highly depends on its agricultural output, rising sea-levels will reduce agricultural land to a minimum. This resulting in food crisis. As poverty is still a problem, inflation in this sector will create, one of the largest hunger nation.

Aside from the food problem, habitable land will reduce making living for over 162,221,000 people quite impossible. It is quite noticeably that weather patterns in Bangladesh have changed. Our monsoon season has shifted forward by a certain time. In fact this year 2009, our popular Kal Bohshaikh was shifted by more than 15 days. Kal Boishaikh is basically the time when the monsoon season begins which is sometime in April.

Also we hardly have any winters. The winter of 2008-2009 only lasted over a month which started late-December and ended sometime in early February. Surprisingly also before it would not rain in the winters, it would remain dry. However as I noticed it over 12 years starting from 1997 to 2009, there is a tendency of rain in the winters for the last 2 or 3 years.

For us Climate Change is already in motion, we are facing it and in the near future it will become worse. Even though our CO2 emissions are in the thousands, we still need to be prepared. As a low-lying country, floods are really not a big deal. It is kind of a norm and people are used to it. But in the near future, floods will become devastating, even for us it will be difficult. As we lack infastructure it will be very difficult to sustain regular flooding. It is estimated that it would cost $100bn to tackle climate change and most of the money will go into water protection systems but we would require more than that. As it is impossible for our country to generate that much money, we would then become highly dependent on foreign aid, thinking about it we are already dependent on foreign aid.

In order for Bangladesh to avoid from becoming like Maldives, I request all UN officials, diplomats,delegates to make the right decision. This is such a decision, that the fate of the entire world is in your hands.

Algaeus makes country tour

Algaeus (Algae+ Prius) has completed a 3750 mile cross-country tour which started in San Francisco and ended in New York. A 2008 Toyota Prius, a modified plug-in hybrid had been altered to run on algae-power gasoline fuel without any modification done on the engine.



This model had an average of 147mpg PHEV( plug-in electric hybrid) mode and 52mpg highway in hybrid mode. The use of algae in fuel has been much talked as it comes from the environment being abundant , but its addition to crude oil making it Green Crude.

The Global Wake-up Call

Today is the big day, the Global Wake-Up Call. Owing to the festive season of Eid-ul-Fitr I am sure most of you are busy. But those of you who are connected in Twitter follow them at Tcktcktck. I was catch-up on the action when I am back.

The Scarlet, Britain’s greenest hotel

The Scarlet, located at Mawgan Porth Cornwall is called a luxury eco hotel  based on completely being green.  You’re wondering, a green hotel, it could be boring possibly not luxurious but it looks quite luxurious.

Why is it green? Well the heating comes from a biomass boiler, using timber chips as biomass taken from a local timber firm. The pool is heated by solar panels. The power comes from Ecotricity, generating 100% wind power. So far so good. Read the full review here.

Australia top carbon emitter, pasts USA

Australia has become the largest carbon emitter per person  of carbon dioxide passing USA. It was evident that China was to take this position however, Australia beat them to it.  It is obvious with Australia depending on coal, and coal is known for causing more carbon dioxide emissions.

Google’s solar initiative to reduce Solar costs

Google has come with the idea of custom solar technology that will hopefully reduce costs of the solar technology by 60%. As there was a lack of innovation in this field,  Google decided to take this on.

They are focused on the solar thermal concept. This concept is being under development by China. It is still not sure if they will eventually go through with this but they are looking into alternatives such as gas turbine run by solar energy rather than gas.

Maldives broke – Stance against climate change weakens

Maldives is the first country to face the affects of climate change quite literally with the country sinking under water every year.  When ever there is a global summit about climate change, you would always notice a Maldives representative to be there. However this time, its different.

With the Copenhagen summit nearby, Maldives president will be unable to attend the summit as the country is broke. The country’s population is already termed as climate refugees, as most of them are forced to evacuate the island.

Latest update- Denmark will finance the trip of Maldives representatives.

Age of Stupid- Coming Soon

Age of Stupid ,a new cinema documentary starring Oscar nominated Pete Postlethwaite as an old man living in 2055, a world devastated and watching an archive footage of 2008 and wondering why we did not stop climate change while we had the chance?

The movie focuses on climate change, oil, war politics, consumerism and human stupidity. The budget of this movie has been raised by crowd-funding and the fund-raising started on November 2004. This movie will have its Global Premiere on September 21, the Global Wake-Up Call, so start getting your tickets now.

Ipods to get juiced by the Sun

In the latest inventions of renewable energy, NovoThink has come up with a solution of charging your Ipods and Iphone via a skin which contains solar cells, so you basically use the Sun's energy to charge your Ipods and Iphone devices.

This brings Apple closer to protecting the environment. They have started giving estimates to customers,telling them how much carbon is used in producing each of their products and how efficiently they produce. They have also removed elements from their products that were present in their previous models.

Electrifying Highways: Alternate to batteries

A question arises, it is feasible and if so is it sustainable? True that by electrifying highways, you wont  need  electric batteries for your car, so you save space in the car and could utilize it to increase your leg room. However just imagine the amount of electricity that has to be generated to sustain the vast number of cars on the roads especially at this present day.

Also if for some reason the electric grid fails in one sector, cars would completely stall in the middle of the road. So your going at 100mph and the electric grid fails, your engine loses power and you cant brake properly because the car’s electrics depend on electricity and in modern cars everything is electric.  But I am sure there is a backup energy source in case if something was to happen.

Its sound like a good idea, but by increasing the electric consumption, there is a risk of polluting more in the process.

Himalayan Glaciers: Running away

The Himalayan Glaciers, the largest water source compared to the polar ice caps, and the seven great Asian rivers, is melting fast. What makes it different from the polar ice caps, its a major source of drinking water within the regions surrounding the Himalayan. As a result, lack of fresh drinking water will pose a major health risk in the near future, and not only that, with the glaciers melting fast, raising sea levels will be some of the issues that will be faced in the near future.

As the water level declines (of course after decades), chances of drought happening is for sure, which will have a large affect to the agricultural sectors. Countries surrounding the Himalayan, China, India, Nepal as well as the people far away from this region depend on agricultural, so you get the picture as too why this is serious.

The Great Coral triangle is on its last breath

The Great Coral Triangle shared between Indonesia and five other South-East Asian countries is said to dying out. Already 40% of the coral reefs present within this Coral triangle has been lost and the rest is feared to be lost very quickly if something is not done about it. Its presence can be compared with the Amazon rain-forest biodiversity. It plays a major role in providing biodiversity in the oceans. Read the article published by the BBC.