Countdown to Copenhagen

Lily Allen and Duran Duran launch celebrity climate campaign track

The first global music petition, a re-recording of Midnight Oil's Beds are Burning, is aimed at pressuring world leaders at Copenhagen.

Over 60 musicians, including Duran Duran, Lily Allen and Bob Geldof, today launched the world's first digital musical petition: a re-recording of the Midnight Oil song, Beds are Burning, aimed at pressuring world leaders to make a hard-hitting deal over climate change at December's Copenhagen summit.

Described by Kofi Annan as "the Band Aid for the internet generation", the song is the first time such a long list of world celebrities has recorded a campaign track in protest of global warming and climate change. It is also the first ever global music petition: the track is available free online and downloading it automatically adds the listener to the campaign petition: "Tck Tck Tck, Time for Climate Justice". More >>>

Joe Biden to Solar Power the USA With Berkeley First Municipal Tax Assessment Financing

Vice President Joe Biden just revealed a plan to make Berkeley First available nationwide. Yesterday at his Middle Class Task Force meeting Biden proposed the way to make solar roofs easy for everyone to afford with virtually free solar panels. If you now pay your current electricity bill and own a home, that’s literally all it takes to go solar under municipal tax assessment financing.

How FIRST Works
Residential and commercial property owners in Berkeley can finance new solar photovoltaic systems using the FIRST program in conjunction with the CSI rebate program. BerkeleyFIRST allows property owners to repay the cost of the solar system through a voluntary tax increment on their property tax bill. The City of Berkeley application process is currently closed.
Program Process
If you are approved, the City pays the installation cost of your new solar system. In turn, the City adds a line item to your property tax bill sufficient to repay the cost of the energy project plus interest over 20 years. If you sell your house, both the solar system and the remaining debt stay with the property. More >>>

As it appears that the Cayman Islands will have to expand their revenue base, the Cayman Islands Government should consider implementing this type of program in conjunction wth the banking industry. Editor

Implications Of Climate Change For Insurance Ciwem07

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Implications Of Climate Change For Insurance Ciwem07

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Gordon Brown warns of climate catastrophe.

Brown: '50 days to save world' Watch Video

The UK faces a "catastrophe" of floods, droughts and killer heatwaves if world leaders fail to agree a deal on climate change, the prime minister has warned.

Gordon Brown said negotiators had 50 days to save the world from global warming and break the "impasse".

He told the Major Economies Forum in London, which brings together 17 of the world's biggest greenhouse gas-emitting countries, there was "no plan B".

World delegations meet in Copenhagen in December for talks on a new treaty.
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UNESCO General Conference - Ocean and Climate Change

UNESCO General Conference - Ocean and Climate Change

Theme 3: Ocean and Climate Change – the impacts on and from the Ocean: Adapting coastal communities to sea-level rise

Keynote Speech – Dr Rolph Payet, Special Advisor to the President of Seychelles.

UNESCO General Conference 13 September 2009

Distinguished Delegates

Millions of people on the planet now live on the edge of the abyss. The polar people and polar bears are seeing the ice melt before their very own eyes, and island people are seeing their land swallowed up by the sea, sometimes in a blink of an eye.

The ocean is the window to present and future climate change. To predict the onset of the cyclonic seasons, El Nino and other natural phenomenon, scientists turn to the oceans. The oceans are the earth’s barometer and heartbeat. We need to take heed of its signals. Recent studies strongly indicates that sea levels are rising much faster than estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. We are now looking at a rise of more than 1.4 meters by 2100, assuming that the melting glaciers of Antarctica and Greenland do not accelerate. The World Bank estimates that a 10% increase in storm surge intensity would place 52 million people at risk of inundation. More >>>