The Northwest Passage is open!

The Northwest Passage is the sea route through the Arctic Ocean along the northern coast of North America, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. It is now open for increasing periods of time, making it attractive as a major shipping route.

Sea ice plays a key role in the global climate system of our planet. It reflects the sun’s energy very effectively so, as it melts, more energy is absorbed at the earth’s surface. Global warming is happening and quicker than scientists previously thought. Moreover, the decline of seasonal sea ice is putting the survival of Arctic species such as ringed seals and polar bears at high risk of extinction.

More info:

1. Satellites witness lowest Arctic ice coverage in history (ESA)
2. Northwest Passage Nearly Open (NASA - August 22)
3. Northwest Passage Nearly Open (NASA - August 29)
4. North-West Passage (Wikipedia)

The IUCN Red List

99% of threatened species are at risk from human activities said a new report from the World Conservation Union (IUCN). Life on Earth is disappearing fast and will continue to do so unless urgent action is taken, according to the 2007 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

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There are now 41,415 species on the IUCN Red List and 16,306 of them are threatened with extinction, up from 16,118 last year. The total number of extinct species has reached 785 and a further 65 are only found in captivity or in cultivation.One in four mammals, one in eight birds, one third of all amphibians and 70% of the world’s assessed plants on the 2007 IUCN Red List are in jeopardy.

Julia Marton-Lefèvre, Director General of the World Conservation Union (IUCN), said: “This year’s IUCN Red List shows that the invaluable efforts made so far to protect species are not enough. The rate of biodiversity loss is increasing and we need to act now to significantly reduce it and stave off this global extinction crisis. This can be done, but only with a concerted effort by all levels of society.”

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species is widely recognized as the most reliable evaluation of the world’s species. It classifies them according to their extinction risk and brings into sharp focus the ongoing decline of the world’s biodiversity and the impact that mankind is having upon life on Earth.

Jane Smart, Head of IUCN’s Species Programme, said: “We need to know the precise status of species in order to take the appropriate action. The IUCN Red List does this by measuring the overall status of biodiversity, the rate at which it is being lost and the causes of decline.

“Our lives are inextricably linked with biodiversity and ultimately its protection is essential for our very survival. As the world begins to respond to the current crisis of biodiversity loss, the information from the IUCN Red List is needed to design and implement effective conservation strategies – for the benefit of people and nature.”

More info :

1. Full press release “Extinction crisis escalates: Red List shows apes, corals, vultures, dolphins all in danger“, IUCN, September 12, 2007.
2. Biodiversity benefits (Wikipedia)

Wave of green marketing

Every day, signs of change towards low carbon economies and lifestyles pop up. Among the service industry, advertising companies bring their contribution in helping companies, governements and NGO to create green messages. They conduct research on consumer behaviors,

they boost awareness and publicize earth-friendly products. They organize conferences, seminars and courses on this hot topic in the EU and the US. We believe that it is just a beginning.

In February, the Financial Time reported that AMV BBDO, JWT, Ogilvy, RKCR/Y&R and Saatchi & Saatchi, UK’s leading advertising agencies, believed green advertising will grow in the next 12 months.

Agencies say communicating green values is fast becoming an act of “corporate hygiene” needed to retain competitiveness and standing with customers.

Farah Ramzan Golant, chief executive of AMV, said: “We’re at a tipping point. I really believe we are going to see more of this.”

Lee Daley, chairman and chief executive of Saatchi & Saatchi UK, said: “Brands will not be able to opt out of this. Companies which do not live by a green protocol will be financially damaged because consumers will punish them. In the longer term, I do not think they will survive.”

Now, ride the green wave. The quality and quantity of eco-related messages has shifted strikingly in the past 6 months. Whether you believe it is trendy or not, this is no longer a peripheral activity. It could even become mainstream in the coming years.

We are all catching those messages. In fact, a recent EU survey (Eurobarometer) shows that European citizens put environmental issues on top of their concern. So, it is clear and obvious that marketing companies are following our “brand” new behavior.

In the research field, Ipsos-Mori, for example, explores the public’s perspectives on climate change in new report entitled “Tipping point or turning point? Social marketing & climate change”. Published in July, 01, it explores how they think and behave in relation to the issue and what their values and aspirations are. It examines the complex issues that behaviour change policy has to engage with and the role that social marketing could play.

Another study, “What assures consumers on climate change?” carried out by AccountAbility and Consumers International has been released in June. It looks at consumer attitudes to climate change and to their role in tackling it through changes in behaviour.

Regarding awareness raising, institutions, governments, artist and NGO are on the front line. One of the best example is certainly the campaign initiated by the European Commission. The purpose of “You control Climate Change” is to educate individuals on the factors affecting climate change as well as to influence them to make a contribution to stop its progression. Greenpeace has his channel on You Tube. Friends of the Earth campaigns for solutions to environmental problems by proposing a video contest. Check here and here. Artists such as the Blue Man Group are also giving their piece. See here

Companies try to “clean” their brands as much as they can. In the automobile industry, SMART is leading the way ahead of Toyota Prius, VW Blue Motion and Saab Biopower. From Philips with “Saving the polar bear“to Tesco to HSBC, businesses blitz the airwaves with concern for a healthy planet. BP, for example, advertises its investments in renewables as it rebrands itself with the label “Beyond Petroleum”.

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AlisonBurns, chief executive of JWT London, said “Once a company makes an environmental statement, its direct competitor is now conspicuous by its absence if it hasn’t too. Consumers are suspicious of that silence. This isn’t restricted to a particular industry. It is in-creasingly pervasive. There is an underlying expectation that we are asking more questions about companies’ intentions. That is partly a phenomenon of the digital age where consumers are used to interviewing brands like they might be interviewing people for a job.“

As it becomes more and more crucial for businesses to communicate with clarity, thoroughness and responsibility on their sustainability performance, events on the subject are organized around the world. London will be the venue for a Green Marketing Forum on November 28-30. That event will feature “14 incisive case studies,” offering insight “from early adopters [about] what works and what doesn’t.” Participating companies include Barclaycard, BMW, Intel, Marks & Spencer, Philips Lighting, and Virgin Trains. Sustainable Brands ‘07, will take place in New Orleans on September 26-28. On October 3, PRWeek is hosting Target Green: Collaborating for Change, in Washington, D.C.

Earth’s surface temperature

Released by NASA and GISS, this animation shows the Earth’s surface temperature since 1884. Fast your seatbelt…

The Al Gore Effect

After his defeat in the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore began featuring a slideshow in multimedia presentations on global warming across the U.S. and around the world. He showed the presentation more than one thousand times, pledging for a low carbon society.

Humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb. If the vast majority of the world’s scientists are right, we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced.

Our climate crisis may at times appear to be happening slowly, but in fact it is happening very quickly-and has become a true planetary emergency. The Chinese expression for crisis consists of two characters. The first is a symbol for danger; the second is a symbol for opportunity. In order to face down the danger that is stalking us and move through it, we first have to recognize that we are facing a crisis. So why is it that our leaders seem not to hear such clarion warnings? Are they resisting the truth because they know that the moment they acknowledge it, they will face a moral imperative to act? Is it simply more convenient to ignore the warnings? Perhaps, but inconvenient truths do not go away just because they are not seen. Indeed, when they are responded to, their significance doesnt diminish; it grows.

In 2005, director Davis Guggenheim, who was skeptical at first, saw Gore’s slide show in New York City and found it so good, so compelling that he proposed to make a movie about. One year later, An Inconvenient Truth was released in 35 countries raising awarness of governements, companies, communities and individuals.

Today, it’s a real block buster ! The film has grossed over $24 million in the U.S. and over $42 million worldwide as of January 31, 2007, making it the third-highest-grossing documentary in the U.S. to date (after Fahrenheit 9/11 and March of the Penguins). The movie is up for two Oscars this month and Gore is nominee for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize for mobilizing a worldwide crusade.

If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s not too late ! The documentary is available on DVD and even on book. Here is the trailer :

Convinced ? It’s now time to act ! Have a look to this interview :
Al Gore explains how you can fight global warming

Hulot’s Pact

Nicolas Hulot is very well-known in France but not abroad. Like a modern time explorer, always keen to read a Jules Vernes’s book before embarking on one of his trips, he travels around the world bringing back some pictures of amazing sceneries and landscapes. Hulot has coordinated several expeditions to the North Pole and tried to cross the Atlantic in a Balloon.

Since 1987, he is the unique star of his own tv-show “Ushuaia”. Nearly 7 million loyal viewers regularly keep this monthly appointment with the Earth brought to them by the presenter. Always busy when he is back in town, Hulot’s fans make him the natural spokesperson for environmental issues. His foundation is there to draw public awareness and his communication strategy proves to be effective. The public likes him and naturally, politicians listen what he has to say. It is he who was behind the famous sentence pronounced by Jacques Chirac in 2002 at the Johannesburg summit: “Our house is burning down and we are blind to it.”

In November 2006, Hulot threatened to run for president in the 2007 election if leading candidates did not sign up to an ecological pact to make the environment a top priority. Opinion polls predicted he would take around 10 percent of votes, winning support from all sides.

The 10-point pact (pdf, 24 p.), which has been signed by more than a half a million people, calls among other things for a carbon tax on fuel emissions, a new government post of deputy prime minister in charge of “sustainable development”, and a radical change in agricultural policy.

We must not wait any longer to prioritize ecological and climate issues. Experts confirm that an unprecedented ecological crisis is looming and this threat is amplifying and accelerating tensions among humans around the globe.

During his term of office, the next French president will have the difficult task of dealing with the changes we face. Employment, economy, solidarity, democracy and the well-being of every one of us depend greatly on his political choices.

Without being vain enough to believe that France can change the global situation, it can play a major role on the international scene and encourage Europe to follow in its footsteps if it places ecological issues at the forefront of its policies.

This is a unique opportunity to create a major economic, social and cultural transformation in our society, by way of mass mobilization. Nicolas Hulot and the experts of the Foundation’s Committee for Ecological Vigilance propose that this mobilization be based on an ecological pact.

After a huge media covering of his presumed candidature, raising awareness of individuals as well as politicians on ecological and climate issues, Nicolas Hulot took his decision yesterday not to stand in April’s presidential elections because most of the other candidates have backed the Pact. Instead, he will set up a “permanent observatory” to monitor the election campaign and will ask the other candidates to “formalize their ecological commitments” to his pact.

The Stern Review

Three month ago, Sir Nicholas Stern, head of the UK Government Economic Service and former Chief Economist of the World Bank, presented the most comprehensive review ever carried out on the economics of climate change. What makes the Stern Report a daring and original concept is that it was put in the hands not of a scientist or meteorologist, but of an economist, and one who,

by his own confession, had very few preconceptions about climate change. The review has aroused strong attention in economic planning circles across the world including China for its key conclusion.

This 700-page report used the results from formal economic models. Here is an excerpt of the executive summary:

If climate change continues unabated, average temperatures could rise by more than five degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels.

The physical and human geography of the planet will be profoundly affected: 300 million people could become refugees as their homes succumb to drought or flood. Poorer countries will be among the worst affected.

If we don’t act, the overall costs and risks of climate change will be equivalent to losing at least 5% of global GDP each year, now and forever. If a wider range of risks and impacts is taken into account, the estimates of damage could rise to 20% of GDP or more. Each ton of carbon dioxide that we emit now is causing damage valued at $85 or more.

In contrast, the costs of action – reducing greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the worst impacts of climate change – can be limited to around 1% of global GDP each year.

The conclusion appears to be clear: the benefits of strong and early action far outweigh the economic costs of not acting. Being said, Stern underlined options for change and government responses

A carbon pricing policy is needed so that, through taxation, emissions trading or regulation, people are faced with the full social costs of their actions. The aim should be to build a common global carbon price across countries and sectors.

Barriers to energy efficiency must be removed. People must be educated about what they can do to respond to climate change.

Fostering a shared global understanding of the nature of climate change and its consequences is critical in shaping behaviour, as well as in underpinning both national and international action.

The transition to a low-carbon economy will bring challenges for competitiveness but also opportunities for growth.

Welcome

Welcome to the Going Green Blog !

Designed to keep you up-to-date, this Blog contains 4 categories :

• Why going green?
• Who’s going green?
• How going green?
• Events to go green

We hope that it will meet your expectations !