Archive for the ‘Environment’ Category
Climate change + urban development = massive flooding worldwide
September 3rd, 2017 by Roger Darlington
“Houston may have broken the US rainfall records, but lost in the dramatic worldwide coverage of Texas has been the plight of tens of millions of people across Asia and Africa who are also counting the human cost of equally intense storms in which months of rain has fallen in just a few hours. One […]
Posted in Environment, World current affairs | Comments (5)
A review of the documentary “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth To Power”
August 23rd, 2017 by Roger Darlington
When the documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” was issued in 2006, it took me three years before I caught up with it at home but, this summer, I made a point of viewing the sequel straightaway at the cinema. The issue of climate change has become so much more urgent and the stakes so much higher […]
Posted in Cultural issues, Environment | Comments (0)
Remembering one of the most magical days of my life
April 10th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
I was saddened to read a report in today’s “Guardian” that explains that, following massive bleaching events in both 2016 and 2017, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is severely damaged along two-thirds of its length and has entered a “terminal stage”. Four years ago, I was fortunate enough to spend a day at the Great Barrier […]
Posted in Environment, My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
Bring back bottle deposits to stop plastic pollution in our oceans
February 15th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
In the UK, we use a staggering 38.5 million single-use plastic bottles and a further 58 million cans every day. Only half of these are recycled, so it’s no surprise that many of these end up on our beaches and in our oceans. Plastic bottles take 450 years to break down, killing marine life, harming […]
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Ever heard of the Internet of Wings?
February 13th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
You may have heard of the Internet of Things – the connection of millions and millions of devices through the Net. Now let me introduce you to a project sometimes dubbed the Internet of Wings but properly called ICARUS. ICARUS is short for ‘International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space’ and it is a global […]
Posted in Environment, Internet | Comments (0)
What is the greatest threat to the world from a Trump Presidency? It might just be his denial of climate change
January 19th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
“Trump is the president that corporate luddites have dreamed of: the man who will let them squeeze every last cent from their oil and coal reserves before they become worthless. They need him because science, technology and people’s demands for a safe and stable world have left them stranded. There is no fair fight that […]
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The wonders of BBC’s “Planet Earth II”
December 17th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
I know that I’m late to the party, but I’ve just started to watch the widely-praised BBC natural history series “Planet Earth II” narrated by the venerable David Attenborough. The photography is simply stunning. Episode 1 is about “Islands” and this is a clip:
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What proportion of England’s waste is actually recycled?
December 16th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
One answer is: not enough, less than half, and the proportion is falling. A more statistical answer is: the recycling rate in England has dropped from 44.8% in 2014 to 43.9% in 2015. The rate has fallen for the first time ever, prompting calls for a tax on packaging and meaning EU targets are now […]
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Some good news: the Paris climate agreement is now official
November 4th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
As the “Guardian” newspaper puts it: “The significance of the Paris agreement coming into force today is easy to miss: it may seem like an anti-climax, given the travails that led up to its signing last December. But the moment is of huge importance. This is the first time that a legally-binding agreement, signed by […]
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The amazing rice fields of Japan
September 19th, 2016 by Roger Darlington
A friend drew my attention to something rather special. Check this out and be amazed …
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