The Six Flags amusement park has gone waterlogged as the flood situation in Atlanta, Georgia worsens, even parts of the roller coaster at the park have gone beneath the murky flood water.

The Atlanta flooding is presenting a grim picture as the death toll has risen to 7, amongst these was a two year old boy who was swept away from his father’s arms in the flood, and was later found dead downstream. More to it, it looks like the situation is worsening as the flood waters are cold and are causing hypothermia for many victims.

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Team Earth is a worldwide sustainability movement for businesses, non-profit organizations, and individuals looking to address five critical environmental issues like climate change, water, health, waste and food. The latest to adhere to the sustainable world vision, hotel chain Marriott has just announced that they are trying to prove their greenness by joining the Team Earth bandwagon.

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The Green Olympiad 2009, Teri quiz an international environment quiz programme will begin in India from Sept 12 ,2009.

The Energy and Resources Institute , TERI in association with the Indian Ministry of Environment and Forests  organizes Green Olympiad every year.

Students  from class 8th to class 10th from any country in the world are eligible to participate in Green Olympiad Tera Quiz competition.

The unique Teri Green Olympiad will test students knowledge by asking questions arising from issues such as forests, wildlife, oceans, socio-economic aspects of natural resources,global climate change air and water pollution, environment-friendly initiatives and practices, land and water resources, to improve the  environment.

High school students from across the world can use this opportunity to test their knowledge on environmental issues by taking part in this unique environmental Olympiad which will begin on 12 September 2009 for Indian Schools and 26 September 2009 for International Schools.

Check out the  Green Olympiad sample questions

To avail your Roll Number check these links : Indian | International

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The impact of the amended legislation on climate change on farms and ranches in the United States will be “bearable” – partly owing to the opportunity to earn money for controlling greenhouse-gases.  Collin Peterson, chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, said in a speech at a meeting of the American Soybean Association that it has been estimated the climate bill would push up the costs of crop production by 1.8%-4.6% in the short term.

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Though alternative energy can provide jobs across many sectors in the United States economy, formulation of a policy in this regard may take many years to develop.

State laws on “green” power and regional cap-and-trade schemes on greenhouse-gas have been instrumental in impelling local economies to start converting from plants based on fossil fuel to green jobs, US governors told Senate’s Committee on Environment and Public Works.

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Major business groups in the United States have warned US Congress that it will trigger what may be called a “green trade war” if Congress passes a climate change bill which “threatens” other countries with taxes on energy-intensive goods.

In a letter to US Senate leaders, the National Foreign Trade Council, the United States Chamber of Commerce and two other groups urged the Senate to desist from including provisions that could “negatively impact US relations with key trading partners and disrupt the global trading systems.”  Climate change, the letter adds, is a global problem which requires international cooperation and not “unilateral ultimatums.”

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Al Gore, former Vice-President of the United States, has resorted to the example of Winston Churchill in his latest word of warning about global warming.  Al Gore, environmental campaigner and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, also won an Oscar for his film titled An Inconvenient Truth – a film that helped bring the grave question of global climate change to a worldwide audience.

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The agreement reached at the recent summit of the Group of Eight industrial nations (the G8) held in Italy to limit global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) could help a post-Kyoto Protocol treaty materialize in December 2009.

According to Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission (EC), an agreement on the global temperature target, especially by the developing economies like the United States, could form the global benchmark and catalyst for the crucial negotiations on climate change to be held in Copenhagen in Denmark in December 2009.

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So far, it was the climatologists and environmentalist who were mainly warning the world about the hazards of climate change. Now, medical doctors have joined them.

A study by the University College London, published in the medical journal Lancet, has warned that the problems caused by climate change such as food shortages, heat waves and increased threat of tropical diseases like malaria, will kill billions of people worldwide.

This is the first authentic medical assessment of the dangers of global warming.

And, what it would mean is that climate change is now the biggest threat to humanity.

The authors of the study – which included doctors, climatologists and economists – concluded that climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century.

The effects of climate change will affect most populations in the next decades and put the lives of and well-being of billions of people at increased risk.”

The study, which took a year to complete, predicted that temperatures are likely to rise in the next century by over 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius), resulting in “catastrophic consequences”. It also stresses that the health of people in poorer countries would be hit the hardest since they do not have the money to respond to floods, crop failures or to an increase in insect-borne diseases.

But developed countries will be hit, too. Extreme weather conditions will become more frequent across the world and rises in temperature will particularly affect the elderly and vulnerable.

The result of all these could be mass migration, health problems like starvation and the threat of disease, and even war caused by shortages of food and water. Doctors also warn that even “the fear of climate change” will have a psychosocial effect on health, with patients requiring counseling.

Meanwhile, doctors around the world themselves are being asked to become “advocates for encouraging a low-carbon lifestyle” – for example, by cycling rather than using a car.

Source – Image by pagedooley

Whenever there is a group of environmentalists and top notch scientists (?) who claim that human activity and carbon emissions are destroying the planet, there is a group of skeptics to challenge it. But when it comes to ocean acidification, the conclusive evidence is before our eyes— we are causing irreversible damage to the planet.

Image by shoebappa

A team of scientists in Australia have found that the shells of amoeba-like organisms, called Foraminifera, have become substantially thin over the past decades. That is largely caused by ocean acidification, due to the excessive carbon emissions from human activity.

Since the carbon is absorbed by the Foraminifera, the ocean becomes a huge sink for CO2.

Studies have shown that their shells have gone thinner by 30 to 35-percent when compared to shells of organisms that lived a few hundred years ago. And the reduction in number and even extinction of these species will alter drastically the marine food chain all the way to the large whales or the great white sharks.

Scientists claim that the ocean acidity has gone up by 32% since 1800 and will go up by more than 130% by 2100. If the trend continues, not only will we be wrecking all marine ecosystems, but will turn the ocean into an acidic bed. But is there hope?