Faces from the Frontline

Today's Guardian magazine is devoted to looking at the impacts of climate change around the world. If you click on this link, you can see how people are being affected all around the world now.

Bhopal - 25 yeas on

Students in Years 10 and 11 have looked at the cyanide gas leak that happened in the Indian city of Bhopal in 1984. It is a good case study of all the negative aspects of multinational companies. This week saw the 25th anniversary of this dreadful industrial accident, and many of the victims have received very little compensation. People are still being affected because the area, and in particular, the water supply, has not been cleaned up. This article tells you all about it.

Join the 10:10 Campaign - and get your friends to sign up too!

This week, a grass roots campaign started to encourage people to do their bit in the face of global warming. It's called the 10:10 campaign, and asks you to try to cut your carbon emissions by 10% by the end of 2010. You can read about it here and at this website, there are ways you can help to reduce your emissions. In case you're wondering why you should bother, read this article about what's happening in the Arctic right now. On this page, you can see what lots of people are promising to do in order to reduce their carbon footprint.

Solutions to Climate Change?

Today's Guardian contained practical suggestions about how to deal with climate change - what do you think of these ideas? You can read about these solutions here. You can watch video clips on each of them here, and vote for your favourite idea here.

Earth Hour

Tonight between 8.30pm and 9.30pm, take part in WWF's Earth Hour. We're all being asked to turn our lights out for an hour, to raise awareness about climate change and global warming. There's lots you can do on this website. Watch the video here, too.

The Future of the Maldives

The Maldives are a group of low lying coral islands in the Indian Ocean that rely on tourism to keep their economy going. The islands and the people who live their are likely to be some of the first casualties of global warming - it will create many environmental refugees here. The President of the Maldives is trying to plan for the future. You can read about what he is trying to do here. You can listen to his proposals here.

AS Work on Deforestation

Here's the powerpoint I asked you to look at about tropical rainforest deforestation. Please make sure you've read it carefully by next Wednesday!

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Can you turn it off?

From 1800 on Wednesday 27th February for 24 hours, people in the UK are being asked to turn off any electric appliances that are not being used. Electricity usage is going to be monitored by the National Grid, who are hoping that demand will drop by between 1 and 3% as a result of this. E-Day, as event is being called, is being supported by many charities in the UK, but also big businesses. The event is being billed as your chance to do something about energy consumption - you can read about it here. Encourage your family and friends, and even your teachers, to turn it off on E-Day!

Images of Global Warming

This website contains lots of pictures which show evidence of global warming. There are a number of different sections, but the Glaciers section has some particularly stark images.

Rising Sea Levels and Tuvalu

AS Geographers - this is the link to the news report item from yesterday about the impacts of global warming and sea level rise on the South Pacific island of Tuvalu. There is an article here with lots of interesting links too. This is also relevant for GCSE and A2 students - a useful case study - as well as anyone else with an interest in the environment.

Oil Spill in California

In the news today - oil spill in California. read about the spill and the clean up operation here.

Queen carbon off-sets

The Queen's current visit to the USA will be the first one where she 'carbon off-sets'. Details and map below from the BBC website.

"The tour is the Queen's first carbon-offset state visit, where a donation is made to an environmental charity to offset the plane journeys made by the royal party. "

Total air miles - 13,317 km or 8,275 milesAmount of CO2 emitted based on scheduled flights - 1. 5 tonnesEstimated offset cost per person - £13.20 to £14.18 ($26.22-$28.17) depending on type of offset package
Source: The Carbon Neutral Company carbon calculator