I came across an interesting blog post by Lisa Speer, director of the International Oceans Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council. It’s an environment group dedicated to protecting natural resources and public health and has offices in the US and China.

She sets out four points to protect the Arctic: protecting key ecosystems to increase their resilience, strict “Arctic-specific” standards to regulate industrial activity, integrated ecosystem-based management and protection for the high seas of the Central Arctic Ocean, which lie outside the jurisdiction of any country. A lot of essentials in a readable nutshell (?)

See: Four Steps to Protect the Arctic, Our Final Ocean Frontier.

Young climate change activists calling for composting, home insulation and smart energy management

Listening to the radio earlier today I heard a report about Arnold Schwarzenegger supporting a campaign to encourage people, companies, towns, regions etc. to move ahead and take action to work against climate change in their own everyday lives or spheres of action. The tenor seems to be: if we wait for the international negotiations to reduce emissions and halt climate change – we could wait a very long time. But action at a personal/local/regional level might have an impact, if enough of us get involved. Nothing new about that, you might think– but it often depends who’s saying it.This reminds me of a debate I was involved in about how to get people interested in halting climate change. One of the things we established was that celebrities can help. Film and pop stars have a huge influence on masses of people. If they indicate it’s cool – and maybe even economically sensible – to do things that reduce emissions and pollution, a lot of people might think about it who would otherwise show no interest. The combination of movie-star and ex-governor of California seems to attract plenty of public interest. Anything for publicity? The reporter on the station I was listening to finished up by saying the Schwarzenegger campaign wouldn’t do any harm, whatever the chief motivation.

Shipping in icy waters is becoming more common

The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has postponed until 2013 the development of environment protection guidelines to regulate shipping in polar waters. Environment groups have repeatedly expressed concern about the grave risks posed by increased shipping to the fragile ecosystems in the Arctic.