ANOTHER PLANET?

They were massive! The Climate Change marches on Sunday 21st September in New York City, London, Berlin, Bogota, Paris, Delhi, and Melbourne were a timely reminder to those in power around the globe that we simply do not have another planet - and time is fast running out - if it hasn't run out already  - to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and take action against global warming and climate change. World leaders are  gathering for the UN climate summit today. President Barack Obama will address a group of world leaders at the U.N. Climate Summit today, a one-day meeting hosted by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and open to leaders of all 193 U.N. member states. The leaders of China and India will not attend. More from Avaaz here  and CNN here . GLOBAL WARMING IS THE DEFINING ISSUE OF OUR AGE. The descendants of John D Rockefeller, the USA's first oil baron who set up Standard Oil, have decided to divest all investments in fossil fuel and companies tied to global warming. The $900 million Rockefeller Brothers Fund join a growing movement moving out of polluting and damaging fuel sources and will instead look at investments in wind, total and solar energy with Valerie Rockefeller Wayne, a great-great-granddaughter ad trustee saying 'there is a moral imperative ro preserve a healthy planet'.Japan will defy the latest IWC ruling on ‘scientific whaling after Tokyo announced a new round of culls in the Southern Ocean despite a majority ‘no’ vote at International Whaling Commission. The 65th meeting of the world’s whale conservation body voted by 35 to 20 with five abstentions in favour of a resolution by New Zealand, requiring members to put future scientific whaling programmes to the IWC’s scientific committee and the biennial commission itself for guidance. More on the Guardian here.Barack Obama has welcomed a new report saying fighting climate change can be low cost and that the World can cut greenhouse gas emissions, grow economy and improve lives. The report is for the UN climate summit in New York from a group including of the globe's biggest institutions, including the UN, the OECD group of rich countries, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and co-authored by Lord Stern, one of the world's most influential voices on climate economics.A collection of 160 of the world's top environmentalists have taken a full page advert in the New York Times to call on philanthropists and charities to use their funds to tackle global warming ahead of next week's UN Climate Summit in New York.  Known as the Environmental Laureates, the group warns of a 4C-6C rise in global temperatures, and says it is 'terrified that we will lose our ability to feed ourselves, run out of potable water, increase the scope for war, and cause the very fabric of civilization to crash'. However, the group believes the collective wealth and influence of the world's philanthropic foundations can 'trigger a survival reflex in society, thus greatly helping those negotiating the climate treaty'.More and more British farmers are combining their sheep, chickens and other poultry with rows of solar panels and producing a double output of food and home-grown energy, according to a new report. The BRE National Solar Centre, in partnership with the National Farmers Union (NFU) and the Solar Trade Association (STA), has today (12 September) produced new guidance which explains how conventional agriculture and ground-mounted solar electricity generation can be coupled for the mutual benefit of both. It explains that solar farms are often used for the grazing of sheep and can be particularly suited to the fattening of young, hill-bred lambs.[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent="yes" overflow="visible"][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type="1_1" background_position="left top" background_color="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" spacing="yes" background_image="" background_repeat="no-repeat" padding="" margin_top="0px" margin_bottom="0px" class="" id="" animation_type="" animation_speed="0.3" animation_direction="left" hide_on_mobile="no" center_content="no" min_height="none"]The extent of sea ice in Antarctica is set to reach a record high, scientists said on Tuesday, as they announced that Arctic sea ice appeared to have shrunk to its sixth lowest level ever. The NSIDC said that satellite data was expected to shortly confirm whether the maximum extent of sea ice at the opposite pole, in Antarctica, had set a new record. Jan Lieser, of the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Co-operative Research Centre (CRC), told Australia’s ABC News that: “This is an area covered by sea ice which we’ve never seen from space before.”Texas has proposed re-writing school text books to incorporate passages denying the existence of climate change and promoting the discredited views of an ultra-conservative think tank. The proposed text books – which come up for public hearing at the Texas state board of education on Tuesday – were already attracting criticism when it emerged that the science section had been altered to reflect the doctrine of the Heartland Institute, which has been funded by the Koch oil billionaires.Are beef cattle and dairy cows the leading cause of greenhouse gas emissions, water depletion, deforestation and environmental degradation? I think this films says they are and no one is talking about it. But even the  film is vague. Weird but watchable. Could be a spoof.  http://cowspiracy.com/The Berlin duo OF Sara Wolf and Milena Glimbovskiof have launched a supermarket with no packaging. Shrink-wrapped shallots and polystyrene-packed peppers are a thing of the past at Original Unverpackt, a German concept store selling groceries without the packaging. It works like this. You bring your own containers and have those weighed. Berlin-based supermarket Original Unverpackt labels your containers. You shop. When you get to the till, the weight of your containers is subtracted and you pay for the net weight of your groceries. The label is designed to survive a few washings so you can come back and skip the weighing process for a while. More here.Ecologists have launched an app to help people identify common house spiders. The app from the Society of Biology lists descriptions and photographs of 12 of the most common spiders found in homes from the approximately 660 species in the UK, including the European garden spider (Arraneus didaematus), the large hairy spiders Tegenaria genus and the Pholcidae family which are often mistaken for Daddy longlegs (which are actually a species of fly).New York City 21.09.14[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]