UNITED NATIONS GIVES THE STATE OF THE PLANET

As this BBC report neatly puts it: 'In the language of James Lovelock's Gaia theory, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports that have punctuated 2007 allowed us to take the planet's temperature; Geo-4 shows us what is going on in the blood supply, the lymph system, the intestines and the immune defences.'

In one word, it's sick.

The full report, which weighs in at 21.8MB, can be downloaded from the BBC site.

CO2 HAS RISEN FASTER THAN EXPECTED

An international study has found that carbon-dioxide levels in the atmosphere have risen 35% faster than expected since 2000, reports the BBC.

About half came from inefficiency in the use of fossil fuels, the rest from a decline in the natural ability of land and oceans to soak up CO2 from the atmosphere.

FUELLING CATASTROPHIC CLIMATE-CHANGE

The latest Worldwatch Institute report says our consumption of energy and other critical resources is constantly breaking records, disrupting the climate and undermining life on earth.

In 2006 the world used 3.9 billion tons of oil, our use of fossil fuels produced 7.6 billion tons of carbon emissions, and atmospheric carbon-dioxide reached 380 parts per million. In 2005 more wood was removed from forests than ever before.

A full summary of the Institute's chilling report is on Science Daily.

AWARD-WINNING SOLAR HOUSE POWERS CAR TOO

Science Daily details an award-winning house built by University of Maryland students, which generates enough power to run both the house and the car, and employs a simple dessicant system to remove excess moisture from the air, thus eliminating the expense and complexity of an air-conditioning system.

OCEAN ACIDIFICATION EVEN WORSE THAN GOH?

Serious acidification of the oceans caused by dissolved CO2 seems to be taking place over decades rather than the centuries originally predicted, with potentially devastating effects for corals and the marine organisms that build reefs and provide much of the Earth's breathable oxygen.

Corals and plankton with chalky skeletons are at the base of the marine food-chain. They rely on seawater saturated with calcium carbonate to form their skeletons (the process is called calcification). But as acidity rises, saturation falls, making that harder and harder.

'When CO2 levels in the atmosphere reach 500ppm, you put calcification out of business in the oceans,' says Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg of CoECRS and the University of Queensland (present levels are 385ppm, increasing at 2-3ppm per year).

'Global warming is incredibly serious, but ocean acidification could be even more serious.'

See Science Daily for the full report.

ARCTIC WIND OF CHANGE NOW BLOWING

A new wind-circulation pattern is blowing more warm air towards the North Pole than in the twentieth century, says a new US government study--click for the BBC report.

The report stresss that the fate of the Arctic affects the whole planet.

GREENHOUSE GASES WORSE THAN PREDICTED

The IPCC report due in November, has been heralded by Australia's top conservation scientist, Tim Flannery, as saying that the level of greenhouse gases is worse than the the worst-case scenario foreseen in 2001, and that by mid 2005 they had already reached dangerous levels. Click here for the NewsDaily story.

As this blog has said many times, global-overheating has passed the point of no return. The sooner we pull our stupid heads out of the Arabian sands and the world's coal-mines and put planet-friendly technologies on a war-footing the better. We cannot roll this thing back but we can at least try to knock the top off the worst of it.