I would like to wish my loyal readers, colleagues and dear friends a blessed, prosperous and very happy new year. 2012 is a leap year so we have been blessed with an additional day to make a difference in the world. This year is the Year of the Dragon which is very auspicious to our [...]

Do not build your house in areas that may be at risk from the impacts of severe weather events like floods and storm surges (big waves) – climate change increases the frequency and severity of extreme weather-related events (flooding, fire, storms and drought). Use your own muscle power whenever and wherever possible, e.g. walk or [...]

Why should I be worried about climate change?  If nothing is done about climate change and we continue, among other things, to burn fossil fuels and chop down our forests at current rates, the following is predicted for South Africa: South Africa’s coastal regions will warm by around 1-2°C by about 2050 and around 3-4°C [...]

As heads of state and government ministers start arriving in Durban for the UN climate talks, negotiators are hoping that, come end of the week, some kind of political compromise will have been reached to break the stalemate on a range of issues. The 17th Conference of the Parties (COP 17) to the UN Framework [...]

The government and civil society have partnered to launch a unique Climate Train” to criss-cross South Africa raising awareness on changing weather patterns ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference starting in Durban on 28 November. The 17th Conference of the Parties (COP 17) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) takes place [...]

Protecting the interests of developing nations in relation to climate change took centre stage as environment ministers from the BASIC group of countries – Brazil, South Africa, India and China – met in Durban on the weekend. The meeting formed part of South Africa’s preparations for hosting the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP 17) [...]

Water security is the biggest threat facing our country and the South African public should be taking water issues more seriously, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has said. “We’re naturally a country with water limits – it’s the life blood of our existence,” Dr Morné Du Plessis CEO of WWF South Africa. He made [...]

Did the earth get hotter? Yes. Is it common? Yes. Since 1900, the average temperature has increased by 0.7 degrees Celsius. Over the past 300 years, the temperature has risen by about 0.6 °C. Of course, we didn’t have cars and electricity for most of this time. So the great climate debate is not if the [...]

 Feathers collected from rare Pacific sea birds over the past 120 years have shown an increase in a type of toxic mercury that likely comes from human pollution, US researchers said on Monday. Scientists at Harvard University took samples from feathers belonging to the endangered black-footed albatross from two US museum collections, said the study [...]

Rapidly warming ocean temperatures are pushing some fish species to the limit by stunting their growth, increasing stress and raising the risk of death. An Australian study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, focused on the long-lived fish species called the banded morwong in the Tasman Sea, between Australia and New Zealand. Scientists, using [...]