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"Bill Gates sees meat alternatives a a big part of the future of food. On his blog, The Gates Notes, there is a feature called The Future of Food, where he explains how food scientists are starting to reinvent meat, and how this could help the whole world. Gate explains that worldwide meat consumption has doubled over the past two decades and is expected to double again by 2050 when, as we know, world population is expected to reach at least 9 billion. It is just over 7 billion now."

"Each of the 125 leaders attending the New York climate summit this week has been given four minutes to speak to the world. They (or their aides) may well have dipped into the climate literature to add scientific ballast to their speeches. But they may not be as familiar with the vast array of academic studies on effective communication about climate change. They should be. If world leaders and climate advocates really want to improve the chances of mobilising political will and citizen action behind a new deal, they will need to think carefully about what sort of key messages actually work. Clearly there is a balance to strike between doom-ridden messages and "bright-side" opportunities, and uncertainties around the science and the expected effects of climate change must be factored in too. Can risk language help?"

"The Lucky Country has experienced a major spike in extreme weather in the past few years, with a string of devastating incidents just since January. That has people wondering if the island continent is somehow a perfect bellwether for the Earth's changing climate. So scientists are bearing down on the problem with intensity, investigating Australia's increasingly violent weather patterns and trying to figure out what they might portend for the rest of the world as our climate changes."

"The largest coal company in the world, Coal India, is aiming to cut its own utility bills by installing solar photovoltaic panels at its facilities across the country. The coal giant is seeking proposals from solar energy companies to build a modular 2 megawatt solar plant on 9 acres of its own land. This plant could be scaled to export power to the grid."

As much as half of all the food produced in the world - equivalent to 2bn tonnes - ends up as waste every year, engineers warned in a report published on Thursday.

Australian politicians are displaying a discernible lack of courage in dealing with the threats of climate change, University of Melbourne researchers are warning. 

"Watch the world change over the course of nearly three decades of satellite photography. These Timelapse pictures tell the pretty and not-so-pretty story of a finite planet and how its residents are treating it - razing even as we build, destroying even as we preserve. It takes a certain amount of courage to look at the videos, but once you start, it's impossible to look away."

"The World Meteorological Organization just released its Global Climate Report (pdf), which wastes no time in announcing a stark truth. The report's first sentence: "The first decade of the 21st century was the warmest decade recorded since modern measurements began around 1850." Nine out of ten years between 2001 and 2010 were among the ten warmest in recorded history, according to the report, and the warmest year to date was 2010. For those worried about glacier melting, the heat spike wasn't isolated to land. The decade was warmest for both land and ocean surface temperatures. In case anyone still doubts the existence of global warming, take a gander at this chart:"

"A CSIRO test plant in Australia has broken a world record and proved solar power could efficiently replace fossil fuels."

"The 'Pathways to Deep Decarbonisation in 2050: How Australia can prosper in a low carbon world' report, released 23 September 2014, presents an illustrative deep decarbonisation pathway for Australia - just one of many possible pathways - developed using a combination of well-established modelling tools to identify feasible and least-cost options.  This work finds that Australia can achieve net zero emissions by 2050 and live within its recommended carbon budget, using technologies that exist today, while maintaining economic prosperity. Major technological transitions are needed in some industries and many activities, but no fundamental change to Australia's economy is required. The technologies required for decarbonisation are currently available or under development. The analysis shows that deep decarbonisation requires neither substantial lifestyle changes nor large changes in Australia's economic structure."

"Climate change isn't an issue for any one government or any one region. Carbon pollution has taken a devastating toll across the planet, from floods in Manila to droughts in Australia. To learn about the global reach of the environmental changes caused by human behavior, take a world tour with the six videos that premiered during Climate Reality Project's 24 Hours of Reality: The Cost of Carbon."

"Climate change isn't an issue for any one government or any one region. Carbon pollution has taken a devastating toll across the planet, from floods in Manila to droughts in Australia. To learn about the global reach of the environmental changes caused by human behavior, take a world tour with the six videos that premiered during Climate Reality Project's 24 Hours of Reality: The Cost of Carbon."

Outcomes of the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development

UN Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development

"U.S. & World Population Clocks"

"For the first time since World War II, bike purchases in Italy have surpassed automotive sales. The bike's growing popularity may be due to several factors, particularly the current economic turmoil in Europe."

"Like the civil rights movement, environmentalism has changed the way we think. It has engendered a new respect for the natural world, an understanding of the delicate balance of life in our biosphere and mass engagement on the most important issue of all, climate change. Yet it has failed in a profound way. Advertisement As a movement ushering in solutions to halt or slow climate change, it has been catastrophically ineffective."

"Global warming has propelled Earth's climate from one of its coldest decades since the last ice age to one of its hottest -- in just one century. A heat spike like this has never happened before, at least not in the last 11,300 years, said climatologist Shaun Marcott, who worked on a new study on global temperatures going back that far."

"How do we achieve food security in the face of climate change? Answering this question means weaving together many strands of evidence about our complex food and climate systems to produce a clear image. In response to this challenge, the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), with support from the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development, convened the Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change, thirteen senior scientists working on agriculture, climate, nutrition, economics and natural resources in governmental, academic and civil society institutions around the world."

"The average body mass index (BMI) values for adults around the globe compared."

"On 9 May 2013 The National Sustainability Council presented Sustainable Australia Report 2013 to Minister Burke. The report provides a picture of Australia - what we look like and who we are. It tells the story of how we have changed as a nation over the last 30 years. We have made great progress in many areas. Australians are living longer, our health and levels of educational attainment have improved. We have benefited from a strong economy, with low unemployment and increasing incomes. However, inequality has increased and the health of our natural environment has continued to decline in some key areas. The report provides an evidence base for decision-making and planning about the future. It highlights a number of trends in Australia and the world that are set to have a significant impact on the next generation of Australians. We need to plan for an ageing population, rising health costs, growing cities and changes in traditional work and family roles. The National Sustainability Council intends to use the report, the first of its kind in Australia, as a starting point for a national conversation about our future."