Group items tagged

"Earth 'overshoot day' - the day each year when our demands on the planet outstrip its ability to regenerate - comes six days earlier than 2014, with world's population currently consuming the equivalent of 1.6 planets a year"

"Police in Paris set up checkpoints around the city on Monday to enforce a vehicle ban in an effort to cut dangerous pollution levels. All vehicles bearing even-numbered license plates are banned from driving in French capital for the day. The restrictions were introduced after pollutions levels reached dangerous levels for five days in a row"

The number of older people using day care centres in England has fallen by nearly a quarter in three years, charity Age UK has said. Age UK found the number using services such as lunch clubs had fallen from 88,498 in 2009-10 to 68,160 in 2011-12, and blamed councils' funding pressures.

"August 20 is Earth Overshoot Day 2013, marking the date when humanity exhausted nature's budget for the year. We are now operating in overdraft. For the rest of the year, we will maintain our ecological deficit by drawing down local resource stocks and accumulating carbon dioxide in the atmosphere."

"SOMETIME in 2013 Lagos will overtake Cairo to become Africa's largest city. This is confirmation of a decisive shift away from the ends of the continent and towards its tropical middle. Within a decade Lagos will have 16m people; Kinshasa, in Congo, will have 15m. The standard view of cities as generators of wealth, diversity and ideas will be challenged in Africa. To become liveable, cities will have to improve public transport, address rising violent crime and generate opportunities for young Africans. In 2013, over half of all city-dwellers will be under 18 and every African election will be decided, statistically at least, by first-time voters. What is certain is that African cities will be the most informal economies in the world in 2013. Some 70% of workers will live on their wits, relying on day labour to make enough to eat, pay rent and send their children to school. That will make cities dynamic and mobile, but also combustible. See full article."

"Millions of Brits drink a cup of Assam tea each day, but it comes at a terrible price. Plantation workers on 12p an hour are easy prey for traffickers who lure away their daughters to India's cities. Now pressure is growing on big tea brands to safeguard better pay"

"0.85 - the amount in degrees Celsius that the world's land and oceans warmed between 1880 and 2012. 3.7 - the amount in Celsius of extra global surface warming we will likely get between 2081 and 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions stay roughly on their current path. 14 - the number of chapters in the full Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis report. Australian scientists feature as authors in 11. 19 - the amount in centimetres the world's oceans have risen between 1901 and 2010. 36 - the number of pages in the summary document. 39 - the number of countries represented in the list of authors and review editors for the full report. 40 - the percentage rise in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere between the years 1750 and 2011. 55 - the number of countries represented in the list of expert reviewers. 63 - the amount in centimetres of extra sea level rise we will likely get between 2081 and 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions stay roughly on their current path. 90 - the percentage of the extra energy in the climate system between 1971 and 2010 that has been taken up by warming oceans. 209 - the number of lead authors who worked on the full report. 600+ - the number of contributing authors to the full report. 1089 - the number of self-appointed expert reviewers of the full report. 1250 - the number of figures (that's charts, graphs and other eye candy) contained in the full report. 2000+ - the number of pages in the full draft of Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. 9,200 - the number of scientific publications cited in the full report. 54,677 - the number of comments made on the full report by the group of self-appointed expert reviewers. 1,400,000 - the number of words in the full report. 2,000,000+ - the amount in gigabytes of numerical data gathered from computers running models of the world's climate systems. 30,000,000,000 - the tonnes of ice that "likely" melted from the Antarctic Ice Sheet on average each ye

"When you are in the middle of a torrent of change, innovation eclipsing innovation, it can be hard to know what is passing and what will last. But the BBC's Peter Day believes that, here, in 2013, we are in the middle of a revolution so great it could turn our old familiar world upside down."

"Many workers earn just 30p a day and risk permanent injury, say NGOs, as they call for EU crackdown on unfair trading practices"

"The population of an area changes as people move in and out of an area to work. For the workday population the usually resident population is re-distributed to their places of work, while those not in work are recorded at their usual residence. This map shows the percentage change, for 16-74 year olds, experienced in each area, as recorded by the 2011 Census. Hover over the map to explore the change in your area. "

"Flying over East Asia, astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) took this night image of the Korean Peninsula. Unlike daylight images, city lights at night illustrate dramatically the relative economic importance of cities, as gauged by relative size. In this north-looking view, it is immediately obvious that greater Seoul is a major city and that the port of Gunsan is minor by comparison. There are 25.6 million people in the Seoul metropolitan area-more than half of South Korea's citizens-while Gunsan's population is 280,000."