Climate Change and Allergens
Climate change may extend the pollen season and lengthen the time that people with allergies such as hay fever suffer, according to a study. Doctors from Italy that carried out the 26-year study discovered that an increased amount of pollen in the air was extending later into the year.Pollen counts were carried out during the allergy season and the length of time each of the five types of pollen lasted.

The research was focused in Italy`s Bordighera region between 1981 and 2007. Dr Walter Canonica, who helped carry out the study, told Reuters: `By studying a well-defined geographical region, we observed that the progressive increase of the average temperature has prolonged the duration of the pollen seasons of some plants and, consequently, the overall pollen load.

`The most notable of the plant species was the parietaria, which had a pollen season that began 80 days earlier at the end of the study period than it did at the beginning of the research.

Elsewhere, climate change has been seen to affect coffee crops. Higher temperatures have forced some producers to move to prized higher ground

Energy Saving devices for industrial commercial appliances
A new energy-saving device has been launched that aims to cut electricity bills and can be fitted to most electrical systems.The imop can be used on industrial and commercial appliances that consume electricity such as heaters, motors and fluorescent lighting.

When attached, the device makes it run more efficiently. It also helps lower carbon emissions and maintenance costs. Minimise, the company behind the device, claims that the imop can cut electricity bills by as much as 25 per cent. Managing director Paul West points out that governments are putting increasing pressure on companies to reduce carbon emissions.

`It is likely that financial penalties will be imposed. By installing imop products using the Carbon Trust loan scheme, businesses can safeguard themselves against such future costs, effectively for free,` he told Green Wise Business.

Energy and Climate Change secretary Ed Milliband has also been promoting environmentally friendly measures. Last month, he visited Manchester to launch new energy-saving electricity meters in the Northern Quarter, Crains Manchester Business reported
US Climate change Bill
A U.S. Senate plan to ditch the "cap-and-trade" approach to climate legislation may represent the best shot at passing a bill this year, the Sierra Club said. "The Senate is understanding this is not a simple problem -- it's multiple problems, and it requires multiple solutions," Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, told The Washington Post in a story published recently.

A plan developed by Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., John Kerry, D-Mass., and Joseph Lieberman, Ind-Conn., would apply different carbon controls to individual sectors of the economy instead of setting a national target. The plan would kill the cap-and-trade approach in which facilities would buy and sell pollution credits to meet a national limit on gas emissions.
Graham, Kerry and Lieberman propose cutting greenhouse gasses by targeting electric utilities, transportation and industry, the Post reported.

Utility plants would face an emissions' cap that would become stricter over time. Motor fuel could be subject to a carbon tax whose proceeds could help boost the U.S. transportation sector. Industrial facilities could be exempted from a cap on emissions for several years and then a cap would be phased in, the Post said.

EU Emissions Scheme a success
A detailed evalution of the EU's emissions trading scheme has opined that it is a success, cutting emissions significantly below the levels they would otherwise have reached, Charles Clover wrote in Timesonline.co.uk. This study (Pricing Carbon, published by Cambridge University Press) reveals that over its three-year trial phase the scheme cut greenhouse gas emissions by about 300m tons of carbon — equivalent to half the UK’s annual emissions, according to Timesonline report.

The world’s first cap and trade scheme — still regarded with suspicion by US senators — has not only reduced emissions but has also created a template for more ambitious cuts.

Unfortunately, the EU’s total emissions still rose during those three years, although less than they might have otherwise. But don't forget: the trading scheme did what it said it would, however much the greens grumble about the utilities switching from coal to less carbon-heavy gas rather than to wind power. It also cut carbon emissions without dire economic consequences and with far less noise than if Europe had levied a carbon tax.

In the European Union the price of emitting a ton of carbon has plummeted to €13 (£11.60) — a level that is undermining investment in renewable energy. Recently Drax, our biggest coal-fired power station which has invested in technology to burn carbon-neutral wood and fuel crops, announced that buying carbon credits and continuing to burn coal was cheaper than using the new technology. It is little wonder that the idea of buying and selling permits to pollute has come under attack from sceptics and environmentalists alike.

The fact remains that carbon trading is still giving some people a chance to make a quick buck. I can sympathise with the Republicans, who have launched a lawsuit against the threat to use regulation to reduce carbon emissions if the Senate does not pass the Obama administration’s new cap and trade bill.

How long, then, before America starts trading carbon? It could be a while yet — after all, it took 10 years to negotiate emissions trading for sulphur under the US Clean Air Act — and I believe that is why the UN climate chief resigned. But America will go with cap and trade in the end. The latest evidence shows that it would be mad to do anything else, Charles Clover wrote.

Expect flavour changes to Australian oranges, tomatoes
Grape production regions in Australia will be forced to change as the weather warms, according to a new book by Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation.

The book, Adapting Agriculture to Climate Change, involves contributions from over 30 authors examining the causes and consequences of climate change in Australia. Grape production regions will be forced to change as the weather warms, according to the book, and heat and drought tolerant varieties will come to the fore.

The book also warned consumers may have to get used to colouration and flavour changes in products like oranges and tomatoes.Leanne Webb and Penny Whetton, the CSIRO scientists who wrote the book’s chapter on horticulture, said warmer growing seasons would have a significant effect, like ‘re-greening’ citrus left on trees to sweeten, heat turning tomatoes yellow and lowering the sugar content of strawberries.

“Higher temperature can inhibit the formation of anthocyanin, the pigment causing colouration of apples and increase sunburn damage,” they told the Sydney Morning Herald.Higher temperatures would also reduce the yields or quality of leafy vegetables such as spinach and lettuce, which may prematurely go to seed.

Climate Change and Children
Children are the most vulnerable in any community to climate change and they are dying in large numbers in poor countries as a result of global warming, pointed out Dr Tony Waterston quoting research reports on the subject in BBC News.

A consultant paediatrician and chair of the Advocacy Committee, Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, Waterson pointed out that little has been said in the media about climate change and health - usually what we hear about is polar bears, loss of the ice cap, dying species and flood risks. But much hard data has come out in recent months to show that health is being hit now.

The Lancet medical journal has had two special editions on the subject during the past year, which show that children, the most vulnerable in any community, are already dying in large numbers in poor countries as a result of a warming world. There will be increases in malnutrition and malaria, with flooding and diarrhoeal disease up next.

Malnutrition is already linked with most deaths in the developing world, and is increasing as a result of the effect of climate change on food crops. WHO assessment of the burden of disease caused by climate change suggested that the modest warming that has occurred since the 1970s was already causing over 140,000 excess deaths annually by the year 2004. Just one meat-free day a week could make a difference to health as well as to the climate, Tony Waterston wrote.

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