Sustainability

Nice summary here. Thanks to @_DavidDrake on Twitter for this one.

The story of stuff -Bottled water

Lots of nice stuff here to watch and read on this topic as well as others like the plastic bag issue too.

Climate Change

Nice wee talk here and a bit of a rant. I like it! Reminds me of someone - can't think who!!!

Iceland Volcanic Eruption

I know you can’t understand what they are saying – me neither but great pics.

I thought I’d better write a few lines on this eruption of Eyjafjallajökull. Here are some excellent links with some cracking photos identified by various people on the SLN forum.
Photos here are excellent
More photos here
Interesting satellite photos here too
The UK's air traffic control service (Nats) said no flights would be allowed in UK airspace because of fears of engine damage.
Some good up to date comments here including a nice one on the problems people are having pronouncing the name of the volcano!
If you really want the live action then how about a look at the webcams? Try this one here -or here
There is a nice BBC explanation here on why the planes cannot fly though this ash.
Nice maps here too
Finally for the moment how about a comparison with this old one?

Earth Hour

Good to see S ayrshire encouraging us to be involved this year. If you haven't seen anything about this it is encoursging us all to "switch off" for an hour at 8.30pm on 27th March. There are some good videos here and you can vote for your favourite. I've put them all below for you to see.

World Water Day

Today is world water day. Just a little here to make you think. Look at the other links on this too elsewhere on the blog.

Recycling can be fun

Reduce Reuse Recycle

Thanks to @mclaughlin_aj on twitter for this tip off.

Happy ending?

Thanks to Tony Cassidy on twitter for this one.

Is there a happy ending?........All depend on you.

Palm Oil Campaign

Global Warming

Nice video here from the Osocio blog. Makes you think – I hope.

Australian town bans bottled water

People of an Australian town have voted to ban the sale of bottled water. They are possibly the first in the world to do this. Bottled water today is often criticised as an environmental menace, with bottles filling up landfills and requiring lots of energy to produce and transport. To prevent a loss of profit in the town's shops that sell bottled water, they suggested they instead sell reusable bottles for about the same price. Residents will be able to fill the bottles for free at public fountains, or pay a small amount to fill them with filtered water. Last year, students at Leeds University voted for a ban on bottled water at the university's shops, but no UK village, town or city has yet followed in its footsteps. Read the rest of this Guardian article here.

Plastic Bags

Love this video. From Osocio

Go-ahead for carbon-capture power stations

Confession before we start this one. I really don't know much about this at all but I think it is something we are going to be hearing a lot in the future. Better get learning! Four new coal plants could be built before 2020 and their emissions reduced. Apparently each new power station must be fitted with technology to trap / store their carbon dioxide underground. Does this make them safe /better? I'm not sure and very suspicious. It has the potential to cut the CO2 output from a power station by up to 90 per cent. In 2008 coal power stations provided 31 per cent of the UK's electricity, with around a third of the coal coming from the UK. A lot of the coal though comes from other countries like Russia and Britain doesn't want to rely on other countries too much for this. (Can you work out why? ) Britain though has lots of coal left under the ground and perhaps we need to use it to stop relying on foreign nations. Ayrshire could play an important role in this in the future. Think of the huge opencast mines we have already in Ayrshire. Will this mean more jobs here? But what about the pollution? This 90% redection is only theoretical and what happens if it doesn't work properly? Will we end up in the position when we get jobs at the price of pollution? Read the complete articles on this from the Independent here and here.

World’s rivers are drying up.

Water levels in some of the world's important rivers have dropped by a huge amount over the past 50 years. This is partly due to climate change and will become even more important as the population increases in the future. Read more here and /or try the water quiz here.

Desertification

Desertification summed up
video here to help with this section. Thanks to sln contributor - Cindy for the linkWatch out for the “magic stones” and no I won’t be pronouncing the French bit in class!!

Palm Oil destroys huge land areas and their wildlife

Protecting glacier from global warming

Find more videos like this on Key Stage 3 Geography Ning

Recycle video

Find more videos like this on Key Stage 3 Geography Ning

Global warming – yes or no?

Global dimming
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming
Fossil fuel use, as well as producing greenhouse gases, creates other by-products. These by-products are also pollutants, such as sulphur dioxide, soot, and ash. These pollutants however, also change the properties of clouds.
Clouds are formed when water droplets are seeded by air-borne particles, such as pollen. Polluted air results in clouds with larger number of droplets than unpolluted clouds. This then makes those clouds more reflective. More of the sun’s heat and energy is therefore reflected back into space.
This reduction of heat reaching the earth is known as Global Dimming.
Impacts of global dimming: millions already killed by it?
Global warming results from the greenhouse effect caused by, amongst other things, excessive amounts of greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere from fossil fuel burning. It would seem then, that the other by-products which cause global dimming may be an ironic savior.
A deeper look at this, however, shows that unfortunately this is not the case.
Health and environmental effects
The pollutants that lead to global dimming also lead to various human and environmental problems, such as smog, respiratory problems, and acid rain.
The impacts of global dimming itself, however, can be devastating.
Global dimming can be dealt with by cleaning up emissions.
However, if global dimming problems are only addressed, then the effects of global warming will increase even more.
Horizon Video on this topic here. –beware folks it is 48 minutes long!
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2058273530743771382
If this is too long then here’s a shorter one

Climate change from the BBC
Good for the new additional section to Higher Geography on the impact of global warming this year.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/629/629/6528979.stm