Blog: Climate

Yes, it's bad. But there's a whole lot us Habbos can do about it!

According to conventional wisdom (oh all right the tabloid press to be more precise) all teenagers ever think about are themselves. So it may come as a surprise that a global survey of almost 50,000 teens released today reveals that they have many other concerns - and that they worry more about dangerous greenhouse gases than drugs, violence or war.

Last night, ITV News featured an excellent report from Indonesia about palm oil and how plantations are replacing forests at a horrific rate. Shown as part of a series of reports about climate change to tie in with the Bali climate change conference, it showcases some aerial footage which clearly shows the devastation. Also featured is Hapsoro, one of Greenpeace South East Asia's forest campaigners, who was working at the Forests Defenders Camp when he was interviewed.

If you missed it, the report is available to view online - confusingly, it's on the CNN website but only because the ITV News site is so darned tricky to use.

If a week is a long time in politics, then is two weeks long enough for world leaders to finally get to grips with the single biggest challenge we all face - limiting the effects of global climate change?

The answer has to be yes, if only because the consequences of any other outcome would be unthinkable. The start of the 2007 UN Climate Change Conference (otherwise known as COP 13) in Bali today coincides with alarming reports that the tropical belt that girdles the Earth's equator is expanding - pushing its boundaries out towards the poles at a rate not predicted by current computer models, which anticipated such developments only towards the end of this century.

Taking up the western half of New Guinea island, the Indonesian province of Papua is a bit of a mystery. It's off-limits to outsiders and journalists, so the activities of the palm oil industry there haven't been widely reported. Until now, that is. With the help of the Environmental Investigation Agency, local communities have been making their own films about what's happening to the forests they rely on.

Two of these films have appeared on the web. In the first, Tears of Mother Mooi, members of the eponymous Mooi tribe explain why the forest is so important to them and what they are already losing as a result of the advancing wave of oil palm plantations. The second, Defenders of the Tribal Boundaries, goes into detail about the activities of the palm oil companies - it's frankly depressing to see the devastation being wrought to provide us with a cheap, convenient commodity.