FOOTNOTED

At the UN climate conference in Bali, delegations of scientists not only called for deep cut in greenhouse gas emissions, but also showed new ideas to tackle climatic change.

Also, hear all about a mechanical tree being proposed by a Columbia professor.

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According to the Gotham Gazette, New York City produces more than 7 billion pounds of garbage every year.

Play the Garbage Game and try to come up with a solution to the city’s garbage disposal problem.

I played The Gotham Gazette Garbage Game and sent 5,406,744 tons of refuse across 3,243,350 miles.

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A scene of the new Batman movie starring Christian Bale that called for the actor to jump into the waters off Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour was canceled after testing found “all sort of things, salmonella and tuberculosis” in the water, the Guardian reports.

The waters are so dirty that since colonial times, when residents of Hong Kong used to bathe in the harbour, the only people who take dips in it are a few political activists.

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Last month Forbes released a list of the most environmentally friendly states.

Vermont came in on top and West Virginia at the bottom.

New York came in at a respectable, but definiteley improvable, No. 9.

Forbes determined the ranking by comparing carbon dioxide emissions per capita, policies to promote energy efficiency and high air quality, buildings (on a per capita basis) that have received the U.S. Green Building Council’s benchmark certification and others.

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The New York Times has a new multimedia project which explores the many faces of China. The first part of the series, Shocking on Growth, shows us how the rapid economic growth of the country has resulted in an environmental crisis.

Facts mentioned in the piece:

• In China, the number of deaths from pollution related diseases, such as cancer, comes second only to smoking.
• Sixteen of the 25 most polluted cities in the world are in China. (Click here for a list of the 10 most polluted places in the world)
• When you take into consideration the cost of environmental pollution, China’s economic growth is not was great as it appears.

The article is divided into four different parts: print, photo slide show, video, and an interactive map.

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An Inconvenient Truth’s creator and former Vice-President Al Gore has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Norway this morning, the AP reports.

He shares the prize with the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climatic Change for their efforts in bringing man-made climate change to the fore-front of national and international politics.

“I am deeply honored to receive the Nobel Peace Prize,” Gore said. “We face a true planetary emergency. The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity.”

Below is a Reuters report about the Nobel Peace Prize nominations.

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Alan Weisman’s new book helps us envision a post-human world.

The World Without Us, the latest literary addition on the effects of climatic change, paints a gloomy picture for humans under global warming, but an almost poetic future for earth after our vanishing.

Click the picture to take a 15,000 year tour of Manhattan.

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A UK company is developing a new non-stick chewing gum that should launch sometime next year. If spat on a sidewalk, the new gum will wash away come the next rainy day.

The guys at Core 77 blogged about this long-awaited product, but a few questions remain unanswered:

1) Will this be a sugar-free gum?

2) Will I lose any molars chewing it?

3) And, what exactly will be washing away into our oceans?

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The Guardian reports that Britain will phase out the use of traditional light bulbs by 2011.

Britain joins other countries such as Cuba, Venezuela and Australia in adopting similar measures to help reduce carbon emissions. However, critics point out that Britain’s new initiative is completely voluntary.

Meanwhile, American lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are working on a legislature of their own that, if passed, will phase out the old light bulbs in the U.S. by 2014.

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On the latest Gallup poll, Joe Biden comes in at a far 4th place with only 3% of support among democrats and democrat-leaning independent voters. If Al Gore were thrown into the mix his support would fall to 2%, placing him 5th in line for the democratic nomination.

With such dismal numbers, should we still care about what he has to say?

After all, this is the guy who said: “You cannot go to a 7-11 or Dunkin Donuts without having a slight Indian accent“; and, referred to Barack Obama as “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy…“

Still, he refuses to go away (and he has, at the very least, a fan at The Observer’s The Politicker who thinks “it’s a shame Joe Biden’s campaign hasn’t gone anywhere“).

He is the latest democratic candidate to be interviewed by Grist and Outside for their series ‘How green is your candidate?‘

On this interview Biden talks about his platform on energy and the environment, which includes “capping emissions, increasing renewable fuels, establishing a national renewable portfolio standard, requiring better fuel economy for automobiles” among other projects.

Biden thinks that unless rectified, climatic change could give way to “new wars, which are going to be about territory and arable land.” He mentions the Darfur conflict as an example.

Perhaps this is the reason why we should still care.

(Read interviews with all the democratic presidential candidates on Grist’s website. Interviews with republican candidates will follow.)

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