This year will be Britain's warmest since records began, say scientists

[muriel_volestrangler]

Britain is on course for the warmest year since records began, according to figures from the Met Office and the University of East Anglia yesterday. Temperatures logged by weather stations across England reveal 2006 to have been unusually mild, with a mean temperature of 10.84C. The record beats the previous two joint hottest years of 1999 and 1990 by 0.21C.

Temperatures in central England have been recorded since 1659, the world's longest climate record, and they indicate the trend towards warming weather across Britain as a whole.
...
All of the 10 warmest years in Britain have occurred in the past 18 years, except the fourth hottest, when in 1949 the year's mean temperature reached 10.62C.

Other figures released by the Met Office yesterday reveal that global temperatures have risen too, with 2006 on track to become the sixth warmest year since records began in 1850. The latest figures mean that the 10 warmest years ever have all occurred in the past 12 years. Some scientists already predict a warmer year in 2007, in large part because of a natural phenomenon called El Niño in the eastern Pacific, which is expected to have a profound effect on climate.

http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,1971637,00.html

[eclipsenow.org]

1. No nation can address climate change alone

I just had this arrive in my email today from the head of Simpol.
Simpol is the ONLY international strategy that can form a "thin edge of the wedge" vote swing in the right direction. Last count, 19 UK MP's have signed onto Simpol. It is gaining momentum. It can work. Check it out!

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Friends,

In case anyone was still wondering if there was a need for Simpol, there was a full-page article by Fiona Harvey in the London Financial Times on 6th December (page 17), entitled:

Lose-lose: the penalties of acting alone stall collective effort on climate change

The article can be found at:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/a091a678-848e-11db-87e0-0000779e2340.html

The following is an extract:

"According to some of the world's leading scientists, climate change poses a bigger threat to future prosperity than wars or terrorism. Yet governments remain reluctant to address this threat because any country acting alone to curb its greenhouse gas emissions, without similar commitments by other governments, risks damaging the competitiveness of its industries.
The result: paralysis. "There is a collective action problem internationally", says Mr. Miliband . "You have to break this logjam".

So, how about writing to your MP, to the NGOs you support and to anyone else you can think of about Simpol and how it can break that logjam? Don't forget to include a link to the article or to send a copy of the article which you should be able to download. I will be writing to David Miliband and to Fiona Harvey. Let me know what YOU are going to do. If you need ideas for the text of your letters and emails, let me know and I'll be happy to help.

all the best
John

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John Bunzl - Trustee
International Simultaneous Policy Organisation
http://www.simpol.org
SP: Rediscovering the Sense of Our Collective Humanity