In a few weeks time we Christians will be once again remembering words attributed to our faith’s founder as he hung on a criminals’ cross outside Jerusalem about 2,000 years ago: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
This phrase, unusually recorded in Aramaic (and, therefore, biblical scholars argue more likely to be authentic), is a cry from a young human being feeling close to rejection, failure and death. It is a timely reminder of a significant experience recalled at Easter – that of abandonment.
Today there are many signs of being left behind: a recent national...
Researchers from the University of Exeter are investigating the effect of climate change on deltas in South Asia and Africa to understand how people will respond and adapt.
Deltas are economic and environmental hotspots, with many large deltas in South, South-East and East Asia and Africa. The new $13 million project examines four deltas that are home to almost 200 million people, many of whom are farmers who provide food for a large proportion of the population.
The project will work with scientists, demographers and social scientists in the Nile delta in Egypt, the Ganges...
Network Rail has revealed its choice for an alternative railway line to the heavily damaged Dawlish line today.
The plans come as the rail authority had consider an alternative to the current coastal line after the recent storms destroyed an 80m section of track near Dawlish.
The potential route from Okehampton to Plymouth via Tavistock through areas of Dartmoor National Park has already come under criticism from some transport campaigners as it bypasses large areas of South Devon.
Calling for further rail investment in the Exeter Daily today , Transport Campaigner...
The risk of extreme versions of the El Niño weather phenomenon will double over the coming decades due to global warming, new research has shown.
The frequency of ‘extreme El Niños’ could see a twofold increase as the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean warms faster than the surrounding regions.
The last major events in 1982-3 and 1997-98, when sea surface temperatures exceeding 28°C developed in the normally cold and dry eastern equatorial Pacific, caused a massive reorganisation of global rainfall.
The impact of these events, including extreme floods and droughts,...
New models predict 3.5-10 mm sea-level rise over the next 20 years. An international team of scientists has shown that Pine Island Glacier, the largest single contributor to sea-level rise in Antarctica, has entered a period of irreversible, self-sustained retreat and is likely to increase its discharge into the ocean in comparison to the last decade.
The current imbalance of the West Antarctic ice sheet and its related contribution to ongoing sea-level rise is well established. In particular, Pine Island Glacier has receded by about 10km during the last decade and alone...
A ‘think-tank’ report that the Exeter-based Met Office is ‘over-exaggerating’ climate change has been criticised for making unsubstatiated claims.
The Global Warming Policy Foundation, managed by prominent climate change sceptic Lord Lawson, released a report which claims that a computer programme used by the Met Office to measure climate change is biased in favour of showing climate change.
The Foundation has argued that this has skewed evidence of the UKCP09, the UK’s official climate projections.
However the Met Office has responded that the all information from...
A new approach that can calculate the cost of damage caused by flooding is to be presented at the International Conference of Flood Resilience: Experiences in Asia and Europe at the University of Exeter this week. The method combines information on land use with data on the vulnerability of the area to calculate the cost of both past and future flooding events.
Climate change, along with increased building on flood plains, has led to both a greater likelihood and a higher impact of flooding across the globe.
The method has already been employed to estimate the damage caused...
The Guardian newspaper reports today (Tuesday 19 March) that the new draft guidelines for the Geography national curriculum for children under 14 years old does not mention ‘debate about climate change’. If this happens, it will be left to teachers to choose whether to teach it, apart from a single mention of the human part in CO2 emissions in the chemistry section. With the pressure of time, or personal opinion, many may not do so.
People and Planet , a student network that campaigns on the environment as well as global poverty and human rights, has launched a campaign to lobby...
Climate Week - Britain’s biggest climate change championing event taking place from 4 to 10 March - has announced that the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust’s (GWCT's) ground-breaking farm building conversion, with a minimal carbon footprint, is a finalist in the 2013 Climate Week Awards. In so doing, Climate Week has recognised that farming has a huge role to play in helping to combat climate change.
This revolutionary building, which was originally a redundant brick built cattle shed, is owned by the GWCT's Allerton Project farm at Loddington in Leicestershire. This leading...
The impact of climate change on many aspects of cultural life for people all over the world is not being sufficiently accounted for by scientists and policy-makers. Experts at the University of Exeter led an international team in a study which shows that cultural factors are key to making climate change real to people and to motivating their responses.
From enjoying beaches or winter sports and visiting iconic natural spaces to using traditional methods of agriculture and construction in our daily lives, the research highlights the cultural experiences that bind our...
