The lightside darkside

Second Chance to Save Climate

2013-05-26T02:29:00.000-07:00

The "" within this article were first published in the New Scientist journal on 22nd May 2013 under the same heading. I was shocked at the ludicrous idea that humans had a shot in the first place, never mind a second shot. While this is a parody, the data are real, the opinions subjective.

HUMANITY has another shot at stopping dangerous climate change. A fresh look at temperature data from the last decade offers an unexpected opportunity to stay below the agreed international target of 2 °C of global warming.

Thank goodness for that. I can continue to drive my Chelsea tractor for another 10 years without feeling too guilty.

The study took data on the rise in temperatures over the most recent decades, and worked out what this means for the coming decades. It turns out Earth will warm more slowly over this century than we thought it would, buying us a little more time to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Ah, the scientists got it wrong again. Its probably not happening at all.

Climate scientists caution that this in no way means climate change is not real. Temperatures are rising faster than they have for 11,000 years. "It should not take the pressure off at all," says Brian Hoskins of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London.

Oh, isn't that a bit defeatest when the data says is not too bad? I thought we were still coming out of the last ice age. Anyone better weather round here wouldn't go amiss.

"Global emissions have to peak and start to come down." But if we act soon the worst effects of climate change could yet be avoided – something many climate scientists had all but given up hope on.

What goes up must come down....tum tee tum

Governments have pledged to limit the world to 2 °C of warming – the agreed threshold for dangerous climate change. With emissions shooting up, this target seemed hopelessly unrealistic. "If previous estimates [of how the climate will warm] were true, keeping the world below 2 °C would have been almost impossible, however big our emission cuts," says Piers Forster of the University of Leeds in the UK, who contributed to the new study. "Now it looks like we have a chance, so we should take it."

2 deg C is colder than my fridge! I'm not sure this guys got the right idea.

"Prior to this, a lot of us were feeling quite gloomy that whatever we did, we would go over 2 °C," says Forster's colleague Myles Allen of the University of Oxford. "It's not a foregone conclusion any more."

That's nice we need happy people. There's no sense have pessimists in charge. Now they've done their workings again and seem happier can I nip to the corner shop in the car?

After heating rapidly in the late 20th century, Earth warmed slowly in the last decade, partly as a result of natural cycles in the climate system.

I'm a bit confused. Does that include my bicycle? Coz I didn't think I'd been using it all that much, especially with the dreadful weather we've been having?

Alexander Otto, also of the University of Oxford, and colleagues took data on human greenhouse gas emissions since the Industrial Revolution and temperature rises in the last 40 years – including the most recent data. From this, they calculated how much greenhouse gases have warmed the Earth so far.

They then looked at what that meant for the temperature rise over the coming few decades, and found that it will be slower than expected. The team focused on how much hotter the planet will be in the year that carbon dioxide concentrations reach double their pre-industrial value. On current trends, that will happen between 2050 and 2070. Previous studies had found that temperatures would rise by 1.6 °C, but Otto found an increase of 1.3 °C (Nature Geoscience, doi.org/mj7).

"It might buy us five or 10 years," says Chris Forest of Penn State University, although he cautions that the problem hasn't gone away.

Not everyone is convinced that Otto's results change the picture. "Short-term trends are just not that useful," says Gavin Schmidt of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. Susan Solomon of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology adds that recent volcanic eruptions temporarily cooled the climate, masking some of the warming. But others say that Otto's calculations take account of these problems, so are probably about right. "The authors have done a very careful job," says Hoskins.

So it looks as if temperatures will rise slightly more slowly than expected in the short term. But does it change where the climate ends up the long run? That depends on how sensitive the climate is to CO₂ accumulating in the atmosphere.

I think this captures the idea. We are on a level or little downward trend at the moment but overall it seems to be racing upwards.

The 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimated that a doubling of CO₂ in the atmosphere would mean temperatures eventually stabilise between 2 °C and 4.5 °C above pre-industrial temperatures, with a best estimate of about 3 °C. This long-term stabilisation is known as climate sensitivity.

A growing number of climate scientists thinks that the climate is less sensitive to CO₂ than the IPCC's best estimate, so temperatures will not rise as much as feared, even in the long run. "I've been arguing this for a few years," says James Annan of the JAMSTEC Yokohama Institute for Earth Sciences in Japan.

When Otto calculated the climate sensitivity from his data, he found that it was about 2 °C – well below the IPCC's best estimate of 3 °C.

"The observations are telling us one thing and the climate models are telling us another," says Forest. He thinks the most likely range is between 2.5 and 3 °C, slightly below the IPCC's estimate.

If the new figures are right, it's a rare piece of good news for international climate talks. For the last few years, governments have been planning to sign a deal in 2015 that will come into force in 2020. That seemed far too late. Based on previous estimates of the climate sensitivity, global emissions needed to peak by 2020 and then fall to have a 50 per cent chance of avoiding 2 °C.

"If we are lucky and the climate sensitivity is at the low end, and we have a strong agreement in 2015, I think we stand a chance to limit climate change to 2 °C," says Corinne Le Quéré of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in Norwich, UK. "But there are a lot of ifs."

I think this one looks better. A bit like the waves at the seaside, the temperature and CO2 go up and down over time periods. We are coming out of an ice age and the earth is warming up, so phrases such as "warming faster than it has in the last 15,000 years" pale into insignificance when we look at how fast it warmed 130,000 years ago. Looking at this graph we could be about to come down, or we could go up for quite a bit longer. Ah that's what the argument is about! How much can we control things round here. Well since we turned our heads to technology we seem to think we control everything round here...... That is all.... except solar flares.... and volcanoes....and earthquakes...and tsunamis....and nuclear reactor meltdown.....and meteors. No strike that last one I remember Bruce Willis is geared up to defeat meteors.

We can improve our chances by cutting emissions of short-lived warming agents like soot, says Tim Lenton of the University of Exeter, UK. Otto's research suggests that they have a bigger effect than previously thought, so getting rid of them will buy even more time.

Shoot.. Can I finish that last bag of house coal? My local woodsman couldn't get out to cut down a dead elm for firewood because the fields were too boggy. All that rain see! That reminds me...what's the carbon footprint for kiln dried firewood? Is that as fuel efficient as my 3 litre 4x4?

Regardless, emissions must still peak very soon to give us even a 50:50 chance of staying below 2 °C, says Jason Lowe of the Met Office in Reading, UK. "It was looking like the best we could attain was a 40:60 chance," says Hoskins. "If the negotiations are done seriously, 2 °C is still on."

Now I'm getting really confused, does that mean I should cycle or drive to the corner shop? Why must things peak soon? Maybe they already peaked? I don't see that much heavy industry round here anymore.All the chimneys are monuments to a bygone era. In fact everyone is out of work because the bankers ran off with the money. Where are all the emissions coming from? Maybe it's the fallout from aviation fuel as all the bankers go on holiday or scientists and politicians commute to their climate meetings.

Axis wobbles and wandering poles
Some of the consequences of climate change are just plain strange. Days should get a teensy bit shorter as the Earth spins faster, for instance. And now we have evidence that melting ice is tilting the planet.

Earth's rotational axis wobbles because the planet is not a perfect immutable sphere. Erosion, plate tectonics and the weather move mass around the surface, causing the poles to wander. From 1982 to 2005, this drift averaged about 6 centimetres per year, pulling the North Pole south towards Labrador. That motion is largely attributed to the long-term effects of plate tectonics and the fact that areas covered in ice during the last ice age are popping up like corks.

Corks that pop up very slowly indeed. A more appropriate analogy would be... "as fast as the Himalayas were thrown up". Here's another graph. I think this is what they are arguing about.

Caption above is not mine. Rather a short termist viewpoint I must say. However this shows recent years trends. So the whole of this article is debating whether the next bit of the graph is going to keep going up or keep going down.

In 2005, the drift abruptly shifted in an easterly direction and accelerated. This happened about the same time as melting sped up in Greenland and Antarctica, so Jianli Chen of the University of Texas in Austin, began looking for a link. He used data from the pair of Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites to measure how much mass glaciers were losing. He then calculated how the poles would be affected by redistribution of that mass – around 600 gigatonnes a year from Greenland, Antarctica and mountain glaciers.

He and his team found that shifting that amount of water from glaciers to the sea can account for 90 per cent of the average polar drift since 2005, and that climate change was largely responsible for the sudden change in our planet's tilt (Geophysical Research Letters, doi.org/mj8). Jeff Hecht

A view to a cut
Even if the world is warming more slowly, urgent action is more pressing than ever
"The worst case scenarios are looking less likely. We still have to reduce emissions drastically. If we don't, we are talking about crossing 2 °C for sure"
Myles Allen, University of Oxford
"I think this is overdue. I've been arguing it for a few years, and some powerful people have been very resistant ... The most noteworthy thing about this is not what is being said, but who is saying it"
James Annan, JAMSTEC Yokohama Institute for Earth Sciences, Japan
"If anything it's given me greater resolve. If [previous estimates] were true, keeping the world below 2 °C would have been almost impossible, however big our emission cuts. Now it looks like we have a chance"
Piers Forster, University of Leeds, UK
"It's still collectively possible to stay within the 2 °C boundary, and we should try to do so. It's giving some hope that we can lower the risk of long-term threats to big ice sheets"
Tim Lenton, University of Exeter, UK
"If it does mean a little breathing space, great. It should not take the pressure off at all. The major thing is that global emissions have to peak and start to come down"
Brian Hoskins, Grantham Institute for Climate Change, London

So this sense of urgency. I don't get how it relates to me. I've been through several smart phones in 5 years coz I keep getting upgraded. I need to stay at the forefront of technology otherwise I can't keep up with what's going on. Now I can browse photos without even touching my phone, whilst driving (to the corner shop) to get an upgrade on my ipad for playing games on, coz that's much better than my laptop, which is conveniently portable but doesn't have a touchscreen. That said I really need to upgrade my desktop coz the fan is getting noisy. But at least I can keep up with climate change documentaries now I've got a hard drive recorder. Its a bit inconvenient I have to leave it on all the time otherwise I find all my programs are only half recorded. How will I ever get the conclusion on what is happening with climate change

Lastly. I quite like this graph, since it shows not only is global CO2 coming down but temperatures seem to be at rock bottom.

Don't be fulled however. It really does matter what scale you look at things. By the way I'm heading out to the corner shop. Its raining so I'll take the 4x4 to make sure I can get back again through the mudslides....Can I pick up anything for anyone...some more consumer electronics for example.

2012-06-04T10:13:00.000-07:00

"QUEEN OF THE SUN: What Are the Bees Telling Us? is a profound, alternative look at the global bee crisis from the award-winning director of THE REAL DIRT ON FARMER JOHN.

Taking us on a journey through the catastrophic disappearance of bees and the mysterious world of the beehive, this alarming and ultimately uplifting film weaves together a dramatic story of the heart-felt struggles of beekeepers, scientists and philosophers around the world. This spellbinding film explores the long-term causes that have led to one of our most urgent global food crises, illuminating the deep link between humans and bees.

The story unveils 10,000 years of beekeeping, highlighting how that historic and sacred relationship has been lost. Inspiring and entertaining, QUEEN OF THE SUN uncovers the problems and solutions in renewing a culture in balance with nature." -

Go to the documentary's website, to learn more!

2012-03-29T16:02:00.000-07:00

Milton Erickson Inducting

- Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

The Man Who Controls Chi

2012-03-29T14:55:00.000-07:00

This guy actually controls Chi in his body. He can differentiate between Yin and Yang ENergy and use each at will to pull objects toewards him of repulse them. He can discharge pulses of energy from his fingertips sufficient to light a bulb. He heals people. All of his powers he says originate from a special meditation practise he follows daily.

It kind of gives you hope.

Man Who Controls Chi

- Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

Five Windows Light the Caverned Man

2012-03-13T03:23:00.002-07:00

Introduction to a Prophesy by William Blake

Five windows light the cavern'd Man; thro' one he breathes the air;

Thro' one, hears music of the spheres; thro' one, the eternal vine

Flourishes, that he may receive the grapes'; thro’ one can look . .

And see Small portions of the eternal world that ever groweth;

Thro’ one, himself pats out what time he please, but he will not;

For stolen joys are sweet, & bread eaten in secret pleasant.

So sang a fairy mocking as he sat on a streak’d Tulip,

Thinking none saw him: when he ceas’d I started from the trees’:

And caught him in my hat as boys knock down a butterfly.

How know you this said I small Sir? Where did you learn this song

Seeing himself in my possession thus he answer’d me:

My master I am yours. Command me for I must obey.

Then tell me what is the material world and is it dead?

He laughing answered: I will write a book on leaves of flowers,

If you will feed me on love-thoughts. & give me now and then.

A cup of sparkling poetic fancies: so when I am tipsie,

I’ll sing to you to this soft lute: and shew you all alive

The world, when every particle of dust breathes forth its joy.

I took him home in my warm bosom: as we went along

Wild flowers I gather’d: & he shew’d me each eternal flower

He laughed aloud to see them whimper because they were plucked.

They hovered round me like a cloud of incense: when I came

Into my parlour and sat down and took my pen to write:

My Fairy sat upon the table and dictated EUROPE.

Source: weheartit.com via Sironimo on Pinterest

Quotes

2012-02-24T01:30:00.001-08:00

Anger should never an overnight guest.

Epidemic Kills 24,000 in Central America

2012-02-21T12:31:00.000-08:00

Jesus Ignacio Flores started working when he was 16, laboring long hours on construction sites and in the fields of his country’s biggest sugar plantation. Three years ago his kidneys started to fail and flooded his body with toxins. He became too weak to work, wracked by cramps, headaches and vomiting. On Jan. 19 he died on the porch of his house. He was 51. His withered body was dressed by his weeping wife, embraced a final time, then carried in the bed of a pickup truck to a grave on the edge of Chichigalpa, a town in Nicaragua’s sugar-growing heartland, where studies have found more than one in four men showing symptoms of chronic kidney disease. A mysterious epidemic is devastating the Pacific coast of Central America, killing more than 24,000 people in El Salvador and Nicaragua since 2000 and striking thousands of others with chronic kidney disease at rates unseen virtually anywhere else. Scientists say they have received reports of the phenomenon as far north as southern Mexico and as far south as Panama.

Last year it reached the point where El Salvador’s health minister, Dr. Maria Isabel Rodriguez, appealed for international help, saying the epidemic was undermining health systems. Wilfredo Ordonez, who has harvested corn, sesame and rice for more than 30 years in the Bajo Lempa region of El Salvador, was hit by the chronic disease when he was 38. Ten years later, he depends on dialysis treatments he administers to himself four times a day. “This is a disease that comes with no warning, and when they find it, it’s too late,” Ordonez said as he lay on a hammock on his porch. Many of the victims were manual laborers or worked in sugar cane fields that cover much of the coastal lowlands. Patients, local doctors and activists say they believe the culprit lurks among the agricultural chemicals workers have used for years with virtually none of the protections required in more developed countries. But a growing body of evidence supports a more complicated and counterintuitive hypothesis. The roots of the epidemic, scientists say, appear to lie in the grueling nature of the work performed by its victims, including construction workers, miners and others who labor hour after hour without enough water in blazing temperatures, pushing their bodies through repeated bouts of extreme dehydration and heat stress for years on end. Many start as young as 10. The punishing routine appears to be a key part of some previously unknown trigger of chronic kidney disease, which is normally caused by diabetes and high-blood pressure, maladies absent in most of the patients in Central America.

“The thing that evidence most strongly points to is this idea of manual labor and not enough hydration,” said Daniel Brooks, a professor of epidemiology at Boston University’s School of Public Health, who has worked on a series of studies of the kidney disease epidemic. Because hard work and intense heat alone are hardly a phenomenon unique to Central America, some researchers will not rule out manmade factors. But no strong evidence has turned up. “I think that everything points away from pesticides,” said Dr. Catharina Wesseling, an occupational and environmental epidemiologist who also is regional director of the Program on Work, Health and Environment in Central America. “It is too multinational; it is too spread out. “I would place my bet on repeated dehydration, acute attacks everyday. That is my bet, my guess, but nothing is proved.” Dr. Richard J. Johnson, a kidney specialist at the University of Colorado, Denver, is working with other researchers investigating the cause of the disease. They too suspect chronic dehydration.
“This is a new concept, but there’s some evidence supporting it,” Johnson said. “There are other ways to damage the kidney. Heavy metals, chemicals, toxins have all been considered, but to date there have been no leading candidates to explain what’s going on in Nicaragua … “As these possibilities get exhausted, recurrent dehydration is moving up on the list.” In Nicaragua, the number of annual deaths from chronic kidney disease more than doubled in a decade, from 466 in 2000 to 1,047 in 2010, according to the Pan American Health Organization, a regional arm of the World Health Organization. In El Salvador, the agency reported a similar jump, from 1,282 in 2000 to 2,181 in 2010. Farther down the coast, in the cane-growing lowlands of northern Costa Rica, there also have been sharp increases in kidney disease, Wesseling said, and the Pan American body’s statistics show deaths are on the rise in Panama, although at less dramatic rates.
While some of the rising numbers may be due to better record-keeping, scientists have no doubt they are facing something deadly and previously unknown to medicine. In nations with more developed health systems, the disease that impairs the kidney’s ability to cleanse the blood is diagnosed relatively early and treated with dialysis in medical clinics. In Central America, many of the victims treat themselves at home with a cheaper but less efficient form of dialysis, or go without any dialysis at all. At a hospital in the Nicaraguan town of Chinandega, Segundo Zapata Palacios sat motionless in his room, bent over with his head on the bed. “He no longer wants to talk,” said his wife, Enma Vanegas. His levels of creatinine, a chemical marker of kidney failure, were 25 times the normal amount.

In the Sugar Cane

His family told him he was being hospitalized to receive dialysis. In reality, the hope was to ease his pain before his inevitable death, said Carmen Rios, a leader of Nicaragua’s Association of Chronic Kidney Disease Patients, a support and advocacy group. “There’s already nothing to do,” she said. “He was hospitalized on Jan. 23 just waiting to die.” Zapata Palacios passed away on Jan. 26. He was 49. Working with scientists from Costa Rica, El Salvador and Nicaragua, Wesseling tested groups on the coast and compared them with groups who had similar work habits and exposure to pesticide but lived and worked more than 500 meters (1,500 feet) above sea level. Some 30 percent of coastal dwellers had elevated levels of creatinine, strongly suggesting environment rather than agrochemicals was to blame, Brooks, the epidemiologist, said. The study is expected to be published in a peer-reviewed journal in coming weeks. Brooks and Johnson, the kidney specialist, said they have seen echoes of the Central American phenomenon in reports from hot farming areas in Sri Lanka, Egypt and the Indian east coast.

“We don’t really know how widespread this is,” Brooks said. “This may be an under-recognized epidemic.” Jason Glaser, co-founder of a group working to help victims of the epidemic in Nicaragua, said he and colleagues also have begun receiving reports of mysterious kidney disease among sugar cane workers in Australia. Despite the growing consensus among international experts, Elsy Brizuela, a doctor who works with an El Salvadoran project to treat workers and research the epidemic, discounts the dehydration theory and insists “the common factor is exposure to herbicides and poisons.” Nicaragua’s highest rates of chronic kidney disease show up around the Ingenio San Antonio, a plant owned by the Pellas Group conglomerate, whose sugar mill processes nearly half the nation’s sugar. Flores and Zapata Palacios both worked at the plantation. According to one of Brooks’ studies, about eight years ago the factory started providing electrolyte solution and protein cookies to workers who previously brought their own water to work. But the study also found that some workers were cutting sugar cane for as long as 9 1/2 hours a day with virtually no break and little shade in average temperatures of 30 C (87 F).

Worker taking supplied electrolyte drink

In 2006, the plantation, owned by one of the country’s richest families, received $36.5 million in loans from the International Finance Corp., the private-sector arm of the World Bank Group, to buy more land, expand its processing plant and produce more sugar for consumers and ethanol production. In a statement, the IFC said it had examined the social and environmental impacts of its loans as part of a due diligence process and did not identify kidney disease as something related to the sugar plantation’s operations. Nonetheless, the statement said, “we are concerned about this disease that affects not only Nicaragua but other countries in the region, and will follow closely any new findings.” Ariel Granera, a spokesman for the Pellas’ business conglomerate, said that starting as early as 1993 the company had begun taking a wide variety of precautions to avoid heat stress in its workers, from starting their shifts very early in the morning to providing them with many gallons of drinking water per day. Associated Press reporters saw workers bringing water bottles from their homes, which they refilled during the day from large cylinders of water in the buses that bring them to the fields.

Glaser, the co-founder of the activist group in Nicaragua, La Isla Foundation, said that nonetheless many worker protections in the region are badly enforced by the companies and government regulators, particularly measures to stop workers with failing kidneys from working in the cane fields owned by the Pellas Group and other companies. Many workers disqualified by tests showing high levels of creatinine go back to work in the fields for subcontractors with less stringent standards, he said. Some use false IDs, or give their IDs to their healthy sons, who then pass the tests and go work in the cane fields, damaging their kidneys. “This is the only job in town,” Glaser said. “It’s all they’re trained to do. It’s all they know.” The Ingenio San Antonio mill processes cane from more than 24,000 hectares (60,000 acres) of fields, about half directly owned by the mill and most of the rest by independent farmers. The trade group for Nicaragua’s sugar companies said the Boston University study had confirmed that “the agricultural sugar industry in Nicaragua has no responsibility whatsoever for chronic renal insufficiency in Nicaragua” because the research found that “in the current body of scientific knowledge there is no way to establish a direct link between sugar cane cultivation and renal insufficiency.”

Hard at work keeping the developed world supplied with its sugar fix

Brooks, the epidemiologist at Boston University, told the AP that the study simply said there was no definitive scientific proof of the cause, but that all possible connections remained open to future research. In comparison with Nicaragua, where thousands of kidney disease sufferers work for large sugar estates, in El Salvador many of them are independent small farmers. They blame agricultural chemicals and few appear to have significantly changed their work habits in response to the latest research, which has not received significant publicity in El Salvador. In Nicaragua, the dangers are better known, but still, workers need jobs. Zapata Palacios left eight children. Three of them work in the cane fields. Two already show signs of disease.

The Best Video of the Aurora Borealis

2012-02-21T12:21:00.000-08:00

These shots from outer space really show what a magnificent planet the Earth really is. Look at all those city lights and then see the etheric glow of the aurora. The electricity we have shackled to illuminate our homes and places of work is nothing compared to the electromagnetic energies that encircle us.

Time Lapse View from Space
- Watch more Tech Videos at Vodpod.

Jessie J - (Acoustic) Price Tag

2012-01-11T05:49:00.000-08:00

I first saw Jessie J in her Youtube diaries. Then she was voted British next big thing and now she has gone global. This performance is absolutely stunning. She has a vocal talent like no other. Okay she wears outrageoues costumes and has the latest video producers behind her but boy can she sing. Enjoy.

Earth Verse...

2011-12-20T02:25:00.000-08:00

Wide enough to keep you looking,
Open enough to keep you moving,
Dry enough to keep you honest,
Prickly enough to make you tough,
Green enough to go on living,
Old enough to give you dreams

From Gary Snyder, "Earth Verse" courtesy of Stephen Hatch at Nature Photo Quotes

Dedicated to DDR

2011-11-28T04:07:00.000-08:00

Dynamite Rave Freestyle
- Watch more Music Videos at Vodpod.

Occupy London Get to Stay at St Pauls

2011-11-02T02:30:00.000-07:00

Speaking yesterday on the halt of legal action against the camp the bishop of London said "the decision had been unanimous.......today's decision means that the doors are most emphatically open to engage with matters concerning not only those encamped around the Cathedral but millions of others in this country and around the globe."

Ken Costa, investment banker has been asked by the bishop to "spearhead an initiative reconnecting the financial with the ethical," with the support of figures within London's financial world, the Church of England and the public sphere.

The Occupy London protesters said their cause had never been directed at the cathedral staff, but was about "social justice, real democracy and challenging the unsustainable financial system that punishes the many and privileges the few."

2011-11-02T02:12:00.000-07:00

The eyes have it. This short video from researchers in Finland show quite compellingly a perceptible difference observable in the look of a persons eyes when they are in hypnotic trance.

20th Century Marketing Guide to Children

2011-10-24T04:04:00.000-07:00

Commercialisation of Children

U.S. Companies Green Business Ranking

2011-10-20T04:44:00.000-07:00

Newsweek’s Green Rankings published this week, cut through the glossy brochure front end of big business propoganda. Partnering with two leading research organizations Newsweek have created a comprehensive ranking based on environmental management, environmental impact and disclosure. Click here for the full methodology.

By comparing the actual environmental footprints, management (policies, programs, initiatives, controversies), and reporting practices of big companies Newsweek allow you to see for yourself which companies have the best or worst environmental credentials.

The 25 companies hitting the bottom of the list contain a mix of industry sectors. Here they are plotted against the other companies listed in the same sector but with better performance. Clearly all sectors could improve their performance relative to their peers, though especially those in financials ,energy and materials sectors.

Here are the 25 worst performing companies:

Lightside Quotes

2011-10-18T13:46:00.000-07:00

"Alpenglow is the most impressive of all the terrestrial manifestations of God and suggests the spiritual Love-light in which the flesh-walls of earthy tabernacles are dissolved and everything puts on immortality."

John Muir

Terminator, Robocop.....Alphadog

2011-10-05T15:21:00.000-07:00

Soon, instead of soldiers in the war are going to fight robots. AlphaDog robot created by Boston Dynamics will go into service in the U.S. in 2012.
- Watch more Tech Videos at Vodpod.

An Old Italian Gentleman.....

2011-10-05T15:03:00.000-07:00

Latest Tablets

2011-09-26T13:55:00.000-07:00

Close Eyes to Exit

2011-09-26T13:47:00.000-07:00

Orangutans Hooked on Cigarettes

2011-09-19T02:02:00.000-07:00

Shocking: Because of the Public Visiting the Zoo, Indonesian Orangutans are now Hooked on Cigarettes! What Kind of World Are we Living in???
- Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

Fast Food vs Reality

2011-09-18T08:26:00.000-07:00

I love that someone has actually gone to the effort to show the reality of this grandest of world illusions.

This would be hilarious if it weren't so depressing. How does it make you feel when you see the picture of the real food instead of the airbrushed fake?

Fast Food: Ads vs. Reality
- Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

Robert Anton Wilson Explains Just About Everything

2011-09-18T05:18:00.000-07:00

Everything you always wanted to know but were too afraid to ask. And in less than 10 minutes. Really! What is the world coming to....

Robert Anton Wilson On The Acceleration To 2012
- Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

Music of Life - Alan Watts

2011-09-18T04:48:00.000-07:00

Where does music come from? What is it. Alan Watts has his own unique take on it. Beautifully animated by the guys who do South Park - Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

Music of Life Alan Watts (Trey Parker & Matt Stone Animation
- Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

Feeling Insignificant ? You should be

2011-09-18T04:24:00.000-07:00