NASA’s Aqua Satellite Saw Oil Slick in Sunglint on June 10.

On his return from Copenhagen, the Indian Environment Minister, Jairam Ramesh, told Parliament his mandate had been to protect India's right to fast economic growth, and listed killing off binding targets to reducing emissions as a key victory for his country.

via The Sydney Morning Herald.

It takes 43.3 square metres of land to generate 1 kilogram of chicken per year – far more for beef and lamb – and 13.4 square metres to generate a kilogram of cereals. So that gives him a footprint of 0.84 hectares. For a big dog such as a German shepherd, the figure is 1.1 hectares.

Meanwhile, an SUV – the Vales used a 4.6-litre Toyota Land Cruiser in their comparison – driven a modest 10,000 kilometres a year, uses 55.1 gigajoules, which includes the energy required both to fuel and to build it. One hectare of land can produce approximately 135 gigajoules of energy per year, so the Land Cruiser’s eco-footprint is about 0.41 hectares – less than half that of a medium-sized dog.

via How green is your pet? – environment – 23 October 2009 – New Scientist.

If the way we raise animals for food isn’t the most important problem in the world right now, it’s arguably the No. 1 cause of global warming: The United Nations reports the livestock business generates more greenhouse gas emissions than all forms of transportation combined.

It’s the No. 1 cause of animal suffering, a decisive factor in the creation of zoonotic diseases like bird and swine flu, and the list goes on. It is the problem with the most deafening silence surrounding it.

Even the most political people, the most thoughtful and engaged, tend not to “go there.” And for good reason. Going there can be extremely uncomfortable. Food is not just what we put in our mouths to fill up; it is culture and identity. Reason plays some role in our decisions about food, but it’s rarely driving the car.

We need a better way to talk about eating animals, a way that doesn’t ignore or even just shruggingly accept things like habits, cravings, family and history but rather incorporates them into the conversation. The more they are allowed in, the more able we will be to follow our best instincts. And although there are many respectable ways to think about meat, there is not a person on Earth whose best instincts would lead him or her to factory farming.

via Eating animals is making us sick – CNN.com.

Australia appears to be experiencing the effects of climate change earlier and more dramatically than most of the other inhabited parts of the globe. A Southern Hemisphere continent that was already a land of climate extremes has become more so in recent years. Even as the tropical north is deluged by flooding and warmer ocean currents are spawning more powerful cyclones, the parched south and interior have turned into baking dead zones. The results: vast brush fires, killer heat waves, increased tropical diseases, ruined crops, loss of livestock, severe water shortages and quickening species extinction.

via Climate change hits Australia first, and hard – Los Angeles Times.