UN chief sees sustainable development as top priority in his second term

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today that sustainable development will remain his top priority during his second term as the head of the United Nations, saying that key challenges include achieving the global poverty reduction goals and strengthening disaster risk reduction to avert crises caused by climate change.

Polar Scientist Charts Melting Caused by Climate Change | Environment | English

Michael Gooseff follows water to the end of the earth. The Pennsylvania State University hydrologist works in remote regions of the Arctic and Antarctic, where ice and frozen ground are thawing. He expects polar warming and melting to continue at an accelerating pace if no significant reductions are made in climate-changing greenhouse-gas emissions.

Placing A Grade On Al Gore's "B.S." Speech - Forbes

Finally, the corker, that “the very existence of our civilization is threatened” by climate change. If this were a graduate student paper, I would write, “citation, please?” “Civilization” is a big word, as in “Greek” or “Roman”, and I think “our” means “Western”, which is remarkably insensitive to environmental disaster and change. The worst weather imaginable boggles GDP by a couple of tenths of a percent. On a planet that was about a degree (C) cooler, life expectancy in our civilization was half of what it is today. The overwhelming evidence is that people in vibrant economies adapt to, or, like Gore himself, profit from change. How much did he make on his carbon-trading business? What’s his speaking fee? Wrong on the merits.

2009: Rick Perry: Al Gore has 'gone to hell' - Andy Barr - POLITICO.com

Prior to his comment about Gore, Perry had been warning the group that he believes the climate change legislation Congress is considering will prove too costly to future generations.

Perry said he thinks the bill is “based on some very flawed science” and that if it passed, “the costs to our children, to our grandchildren, are going to be staggering.”

“That is one of the most powerful reasons, I think, that we have to stand up as people [and] as a community and tell this administration and this Congress that the direction that they’re heading in is not acceptable,” he said.