The 2bn-euro venture will build a full picture of the state of the planet from satellite and ground-based data.
But despite the UK’s oft-stated claim to lead the world on climate policy, it has so far been lukewarm on GMES.
Three leading scientists have now sent a letter to the PM urging him to back GMES at a critical meeting next week.
Member states of the European Space Agency (Esa) will decide at a gathering in The Hague how to fund the next phase of the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) programme, also known as Kopernikus.
Britain will have to put up well in excess of 100m euros if it wants to have a major influence on the project. At previous opportunities, Britain has declined to play a major role and the researchers fear the outcome of the Dutch meeting will be the same.
“We strongly believe that a major UK contribution to Kopernikus is necessary to support the UK’s wish to be a world leader in responding to climate change and its consequences,” the scientists write.
“However, it is our current understanding that the UK may not contribute at a level concomitant with its position as one of the world’s leading economies.”
The signatories include Professor Alan O’Neill, the director of the UK’s National Centre for Earth Observation.
“I believe this is a very important programme for the UK to take leadership in,” he told BBC News.
“The programme can and will evolve into something which will be of major benefit to mankind; I don’t think it is too melodramatic to say that. We need a planetary Earth-observing system to gather all the information to take remedial action on climate and environmental change.”

Space jobs

The lead agency in the UK on GMES is the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Over the past few weeks, it has consistently held the line that the UK is committed to supporting the project.
And the PM himself reinforced this position during Prime Minister’s Questions in the House last month when he said: “We recognise the importance of understanding and monitoring climate change. No decision has yet been taken on the level of UK funding, but a final decision will be taken in advance of the ministerial meeting in late November.”

Professor O’Neill and his co-signatories, Profs Paul Monks and Shaun Quegan, are concerned that a small contribution from the UK will leave it isolated and incapable of influencing the development of GMES.
They are worried that world-leading British expertise on Earth observation instruments will be excluded as a result, diminishing the project’s effectiveness; and they fear for British space jobs because satellite construction work will almost certainly be lost to other Esa member states.
“If we are a downstream recipient of data, a third-party user, we will not be involved in influencing the agenda and the prioritisation for the instruments. Our industry will not be competing to build those instruments,” Professor O’Neill explained.
“And by not having close proximity to the actual data, we will lose first-mover advantage, not just in science but in downstream applications. So we’re either in the vanguard and mixing it, or gradually over time we will become third division.”

‘Piecemeal’ process

In their letter, the scientists also criticise the way space policy and decisions on space funding are made in the UK which, unlike its major European partners, does not have a dedicated Space Agency.
The scientists write: “The UK does not appear to have pursued a high-level approach to decision making about investment in Kopernikus.
“Instead, the process has been bottom-up and piecemeal, so that opportunities afforded by Kopernikus are considered within the individual brief of agencies under financial pressure.”
The UK science minister Lord Drayson will deliver Britain’s position on GMES to European partners when he meets his Esa counterparts in the Dutch capital on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The meeting will determine priority and funding for Esa programmes over the next three years. The agenda ranges across issues such as Europe’s participation in the space station and the technology investment needed to keep Europe competitive in launch and satellite systems.
Although the second biggest economy in the agency’s membership, the UK pays in less than Italy, and significantly less than France and Germany. And on optional projects, which include the astronaut and space station programmes, the UK contributes less than Belgium.
Lord Drayson did state recently, however, that he hoped Britain would one day fund an astronaut.
On the subject of the scientists’ GMES letter, Adam Afriyie MP, shadow minister for science & innovation, commented: “It is disconcerting that the science minister can make unfunded promises about a British astronaut programme, yet is unable to guarantee a commitment to an existing satellite project.
“Environmental monitoring must be a national priority if the Prime Minister is serious about climate change.”
Professor Monks is affiliated to Leicester University; Professor Quegan works out of Sheffield University.

BBC

TAKE ACTION! The Bush Administration is rushing out long-term plans that would convert over 2 million acres of Oregon’s national forests, with their towering trees, rushing rivers, and superb wildlife habitat, to empty clearcuts. Much of the forests under siege are in the Klamath-Siskiyou ecoregion [search] nestled between the Pacific Ocean and the Cascade Crest, which contains some of the most biodiverse ecosystems on the continent. There are some 20,000 miles of rivers, where wild Pacific salmon thrive. Ancient old-growth forests are abundant — home to huge Douglas fir, western hemlock and western red cedar trees — some well over 400 years old.

The plan increases logging by 400% and would target 100,000 acres of old-growth forests for destruction. Oregon Governor Kulongoski is the only elected official standing between the Bush Administration and western Oregon’s forests, rivers and salmon. He is allowed a 60-day “consistency review” period to propose recommendations for changes to land use plans. Please encourage the governor to propose significant amendments, pushing this decision to the Obama administration. TAKE ACTION!

The biggest increases were in the former Soviet bloc - and Canada.
A UN spokesman said countries had to work much faster to avoid the possibility of dangerous climate change.
Next month the nations of the world meet in Poland for the annual negotiations on climate change.
The new figures do not offer a great deal of optimism.
They show that in 2006 emissions did actually fall by 0.1%, but the UN’s climate change secretariat said that this tiny dip was statistically insignificant.
The overall underlying trend since 2000 is up, even though the countries in question had promised to cut their emissions.
The worst culprit has been Canada. Its emissions since 1990 have shot up 21.3% - they should have fallen 6%.
Recently the biggest rise was recorded by the Eastern European bloc, with emissions up 7.4% since the turn of the century.
The UK is one of the few countries on track with emissions targets.
But a recent report to the British government suggested that even UK emissions were heading in the wrong direction if pollution from shipping and aviation, and the carbon embedded in the imported goods coming into the country, were counted.`

BBC

These days it can feel as though the environment is holding us to ransom.
Floods, storms and droughts across the world are attributed to the global rise in temperatures, and as we run short of fossil fuels, price rises are affecting our transport, heating and even food bills.
Small wonder, then, that the environment has moved from a minority passion to a hot topic in today’s world, with politicians and businesses competing to be seen to be green.
So what role can non-governmental organisations (NGOs) like Friends of the Earth play in driving forward today’s environmental debate?
Over the last 30 years, environmental NGOs have played a lead role in speaking up for the environment when few others were doing so.
A key role has been to raise the alarm about damaging activities - including deforestation, GM crops, futile road schemes and spiralling waste - that most threaten our planet’s life support systems and the resources we all depend upon.
Back in 1971, Friends of the Earth marked its UK launch by dumping 1,500 non-returnable bottles on the doorstep of Schweppes HQ to raise awareness of the extra waste destined for landfill because of the switch from reusable to throwaway products.
Today, the UK has a major landfill problem - but we had the foresight to predict this, and in 2003 Friends of the Earth led the campaign to bring doorstep recycling to most homes in Britain.

Leading the way

So NGOs have also been in the vanguard of advocating practical solutions to specific environmental problems, and implementing them through political action.
Many environmental NGOs have funded practical projects to conserve the environment in this country and abroad.
Without this, there’s no doubt that more species would already have entered the history books.
During the decades when most people and politicians did not rank environmental concerns high on their priority list, green NGOs fought a long and hard battle protesting, protecting and proposing ways forward.
In 2008, the emerging reality of climate change has forced environmental issues to unprecedented prominence in public awareness. Now, environmental NGOs have to share the airwaves with businesses and political parties.
So what roles can NGOs best play now? The need for protest and protection remain, but vital roles for the future are:
Communicating solutions: while the public and politicians are much more aware of environmental problems, there remains an urgent need for clarity on the best practical solutions, and innovation on the policies which will drive these.
This is a challenge for those whose view of the political landscape has been shaped by years of protest, but we can do it.
The UK’s Climate Change Bill, which is set to become law in the coming days, is one example.
It will make the UK the first country to introduce legislation to commit the government to legally binding reductions in carbon dioxide emissions.
This was a policy solution initially conceived and proposed by Friends of the Earth.
Encouraging public support: understandably, busy politicians with competing demands tend not to adopt far-reaching policy solutions on complex subjects just because they’re a good idea.
Public backing, indeed a groundswell of public pressure, is vital.
And as climate change and other stresses on the environment intensify, we will increasingly need ambitious, far-reaching proposals to prevent catastrophe.
Individual NGOs can mobilise significant numbers of grassroots campaigners.
They can further multiply public support for a proposal by forming alliances, or backing each other’s campaigns, in a way that is simply not possible for business.
We’ve already seen potent examples. Friends of the Earth’s own local groups and activists were at the vanguard of The Big Ask campaign for a strong climate change law.
Crucially, the idea was taken up by the Stop Climate Chaos coalition which counts other major environmental organisations and development NGOs amongst its active membership. More than 200,000 people took action to persuade the government to deliver the world’s first national climate change law.
Building international agreement: as a species, we are bringing upon ourselves two tightly linked global catastrophes - climate change and the rapid loss of biodiversity.
Solutions are out there, but it will require international, as well as national, action to apply them fast enough.
Critically, agreement is needed between rich and poor countries where issues of fairness will be central.
NGOs can help here too; environmental and development organisations have easy access to the experiences and perspectives of people in developing countries, as a result of projects they fund and the international networks they belong to.
They also have a critical role to play in forging international civil society agreements and putting co-ordinated public pressure on governments.
This will be vital if we are to achieve workable global political agreements, especially when it comes to hammering out the future shape of the international agreement to tackle climate change in Copenhagen in 2009.

Critical times

The seachange in public, political and business awareness of environmental issues is a dream come true for many environmentalists.
But it has not reversed the dire environmental trends that have led to the extreme weather and economic problems we are now seeing.
It simply provides a critical opportunity for NGOs now to drive much more urgent and substantive change.
Communicating real solutions, mobilising public support and forging international agreements will be critical to achieving this.
From Andy Atkins BBC

BBC

This comes as the International Energy Agency confirms that coal will continue being the leading source of energy globally until at least 2030 []. A week earlier in their annual report that had warned that the world’s energy use was “patently unsustainable” [ark] and warned of 6°C rise in average global temperatures []. As long as coal is burned to produce electricity, dumping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, there is zero chance of maintaining historically reliable climatic patterns or a habitable Earth.

Elections are finished and the BBC posts this little topic, almost lost in the jungle of news

US authorities have issued a nationwide “import alert” for Chinese-made food products in the wake of the melamine contamination scandal.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had already issued an alert warning Americans not to consume Chinese products containing milk.
Thousands of Chinese have been poisoned this year.
The latest alert goes beyond dairy products to such items as drinks, sweets, and baby and pet food.
It also allows US inspectors to seize any Chinese products suspected of being contaminated.
Safety issues
The earlier restrictions were put in place on dairy products after four Chinese children died from kidney failure and thousands more people fell ill after consuming dairy products laced with melamine - which is normally used in making plastics and fertiliser.
The FDA has now added more than a dozen other goods imported from China, including biscuits, instant coffee and tea products.
In addition, US officials will be travelling to China next week for consultations with the Chinese about safety issues.
The FDA is also planning to open three new offices in China to check products intended for the US market.

By Jonathan Beale
BBC News, Washington

Ecological Internet’s latest offering focuses upon truthfully knowing global ecological crises in order to effectively develop and implement ecologically sufficient solutions

By Earth’s Newsdesk, a project of Ecological Internet
CONTACT: Dr. Glen Barry, glenbarry@ecologicalinternet.org

(Seattle, WA) — Ecological Internet, the world’s leading provider of on-line environmental portals and action opportunities, is pleased to announce New Earth Rising, a new fiercely biocentric online magazine (e-zine), committed to thought and action to achieve global ecological sustainability. It launches today at http://www.newearthrising.org/ .

The inaugural issue, entitled Ecological Truth and Transformative Action, features original and diverse green essays that seek to more fully know Earth’s crises — including climate change, water scarcity and forest diminishment — in order to achieve ecologically sufficient solutions. New Earth Rising links what is known regarding global ecological crises with specific personal and social transformations necessary for shared survival and to sustain being.

Cursory review of FSC’s controversial certifications completely fails to question false premise that primary and old-growth forest logging is ever “well-managed”, instead calling for better training manuals for ancient forest destruction

By Earth’s Newsdesk, a project of Ecological Internet
CONTACT: Dr. Glen Barry, glenbarry@ecologicalinternet.org

(Seattle, WA) — Today Greenpeace International released a report entitled “Holding the Line with FSC“[1] which reaffirms Greenpeace’s unflinching support for the Forest Stewardship Council’s (FSC) [search] past and on-ongoing industrial first-time logging of hundreds of millions of hectares of primary and old-growth forests. Greenpeace and other “forest protection” groups like the Rainforest Action Network and WWF continue to provide crucial greenwash for the false premise that ancient forest logging [search] is desirable and can ever be considered “well-managed”.

Greenpeace was the target of a series of protests in 2007 led by Ecological Internet, as Greenpeace held FSC’s international chairmanship, regarding their continued support for ancient forest logging given widespread irregularities. At that time they agreed to review problematic FSC certifications, and to respond to criticism regarding FSC’s dependence upon ancient forest logging. Their new report fails miserably on both counts.