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| The Ecological Challenge: Three Revolutions are Necessary - Infoshop News We could be satisfied to say that only one revolution is necessary: the socialist revolution. This is, in itself, completely accurate. But "socialism,"even when libertarian, does not in itself resolve the question of the model of development. Beyond the question of owning the means of production and abolishing wage labor, socialism must raise the question of humanity's ecological footprint. And this prospect invites us to "think" now about what revolutions in the modes of production, trade and consumption that the planet needs. Revolution in trade: putting an end to globalization, Revolution in the modes of consumption: the question of décroissance ("de-growth"), Revolution in the modes of production: energy saving |
4th May 2008 |
| ENVIRONMENT: "Doctor" Nature in Danger - IPS CAPE TOWN, South Africa, May 3 (Tierramérica) - "When we harm nature, we are harming ourselves," says Aaron Bernstein, a doctor at Harvard Medical School and one of the authors of the upcoming book "Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity". |
4th May 2008 |
| Can Green Trade Tariffs Combat Climate Change? - Environmental News Network In recent months, China has taken center stage in the international debate over global warming. It has surpassed the United States as the world's largest source of greenhouse gases, and it became developing nations' diplomatic champion at the recent United Nations climate negotiations in Bali. Now China may become the target of a full-fledged trade war that could destroy—or perhaps rescue—the chances of bringing rich and poor nations together to fight global warming. The tariff proposal—contained in the central piece of global warming legislation now before Congress—would impose emission controls on domestic industries starting in 2012. It would also levy punitive tariffs on greenhouse-gas-intensive products imported from countries that lack "comparable action" to that of the United States, starting in 2020. Industrial lobbies and labor unions are pushing hard for these sanctions to take effect more quickly. Although China may not like it, the international trading system may provide more leverage than any other post-Kyoto mechanism over developing countries' environmental policies. Despite the threat of trade wars, trade sanctions could emerge as the most effective means of forcing international action on global warming. |
3rd May 2008 |
| No time at all - Guardian Unlimited We can no longer delay taking action to make deep cuts in emissions. Big oil's short-sighted pursuit of profit is suicidal. |
3rd May 2008 |
| Shell ditches renewable stake amid fears of a retreat to carbons - Guardian Unlimited The future of the world's largest offshore wind farm and a symbol of Britain's renewable energy future was thrown into doubt last night after it emerged that Shell was backing out of the project and indicated it would prefer to invest in more lucrative oil schemes. See also: In search of some wind in their sails - The Independent |
2nd May 2008 |
| Gas emissions 'will double by 2020' - Perth Now GLOBAL greenhouse-gas emissions will almost double by 2030, a rate much faster than previously predicted, according to a paper co-written by the Federal Government's top climate change adviser. |
2nd May 2008 |
| Nuclear's CO2 cost 'will climb' - BBC News The case for nuclear power as an alternative, low carbon source of energy is challenged in a new report. |
1st May 2008 |
| The New Security - Huffington Post The next president will face the following security threats, most new and different from the previous Cold War era: proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their availability to stateless nations (i.e. jihadists); ground forces exhausted by two protracted wars; energy dependence in the Persian Gulf; America's disproportionate role in protecting the global flow of oil; the security implications of climate change, and the list continues. Issues that were recently separated into policy "boxes" are now interrelated. Consider the linkages among the cost of food and fuel, the world price of oil, increase in demand for oil in coming decades, the cost to U.S. taxpayers to protect global oil supplies, the impact of oil consumption on climate, two wars in the Persian Gulf, and so forth. Consider also how global warming is changing weather patterns. In the American West and elsewhere aquifers and reservoirs are drying up. Crops are becoming scarce and costly, thus leading to massive instability among the world's poor. In South Asia, over a billion people may lose their source of fresh water as Himalayan glaciers recede. Two of these nations are India and Pakistan -- nuclear states with indigenous terrorist movements and a history of conflict between them. |
30th April 2008 |
| Hansen for the plebes - Gristmill By Joseph Romm The nation's top climate scientist, James Hansen, has just published a general-audience article, "Tipping Point" [PDF], in State of the Wild 2008-2009 from Island Press. It is well worth sending to folks who don't like all the math. His key points: We are at the tipping point because the climate state includes large, ready positive feedbacks provided by the Arctic sea ice, the West Antarctic ice sheet, and much of Greenland's ice. ... Prior major warmings in Earth's history, the most recent occurring 55 million years ago ... resulted in the extinction of half or more of the species then on the planet. |
30th April 2008 |
| Earth stewardship - Common Ground.ca When we stand four-square to the future and observe the simultaneous incoming storms of global warming, food shortages, peak oil, mass extinctions, and a host of other crises any one of which is enough to make us cry a global “ouch”, how can we not notice that the culprit behind all these problems is capitalism, the system of laws and entitlements created 250 years ago? |
29th April 2008 |
| Focus: Hunger. Strikes. Riots. The food crisis bites - Guardian Unlimited In less than a year, the price of wheat has risen 130 per cent, soya by 87 per cent and rice by 74 per cent. According to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, there are only eight to 12 weeks of cereal stocks in the world, while grain supplies are at their lowest since the 1980s. Not surprisingly, these swiftly rising prices have unleashed serious political unrest in many places. In Dhaka yesterday 10,000 Bangladeshi textile workers clashed with police. Dozens were injured, including 20 policemen, in a protest triggered by food costs that was eventually quelled by baton charges and teargas. In Haiti, demonstrators recently tried to storm the presidential palace after prices of staple foods leaped 50 per cent. In Egypt, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Mozambique, Senegal and Cameroon there have been demonstrations, sometimes involving fatalities, as starving, desperate people have taken to the streets. And in Vietnam the new crime of rice rustling - in which crops are stripped at night from fields by raiders - has led to the banning of all harvesting machines from roads after sunset and to farmers, armed with shotguns, camping around their fields 24 hours a day. |
13th April 2008 |
| Now survivalism isn't just for eccentrics Idea of 'extreme preparedness' heads to the mainstream - SF Chronicle The traditional face of survivalism is that of a shaggy loner in camouflage, holed up in a cabin in the wilderness and surrounded by cases of canned goods and ammunition. It is not that of Barton M. Biggs, the former chief global strategist at Morgan Stanley. Yet in Biggs' new book, "Wealth, War and Wisdom," he says people should "assume the possibility of a breakdown of the civilized infrastructure." |
13th April 2008 |
| Jim Hansen, the Big Ice Melt and the Mainstream Media - Truthout Imagine you have a choice between two scenarios on the future impact of climate change: Scenario A: Climate change is real and human-caused, a gradual increase in global temperature that we have a long time to do something about (2050 targets) before drought, sea level rise, etc. get too severe; climate change can be effectively mitigated within continuing political and economic business as usual with carbon taxes and more efficient green technology. Scenario B: Climate change is an emergency where we must make Draconian cuts to our use of fossil fuels immediately and globally in order to reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere this decade so that we don't continue over a tipping point where both polar ice caps melt completely, sea level rises by 75 meters, and conditions become fiercely inhospitable to humanity and most of the species with which we share this small blue planet. Political and economic business as usual is far too slow and path dependent for mitigation of this scale, so we must innovate a World War II-style government mobilization so that a systemic reconfiguration of the global economy is possible. Thousands of mainstream media articles and commentaries on TV, in newspapers and magazines, inform about climate change Scenario A, but there has been minimal, almost nonexistent mainstream coverage of Scenario B even though its main proponents - James Hansen and his NASA climate science team - have released several papers explaining this nonlinear vision of climate change focusing upon the unpredicted rapid melting of the polar ice caps. |
12th April 2008 |
| Gore predicts worsening climate change - Times Online Climate change is taking place even faster than the worst predictions made by the UN's Nobel prize-winning panel on climate change, Al Gore said this morning. The former US vice-president and winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize said that there were forecasts that the North Pole ice cap could disappear during summer months within five years. "The climate crisis is significantly worse and unfolding more rapidly than those on the pessimistic side of the IPCC [International Panel on Climate Change] projections had warned us." |
12th April 2008 |
| Getting Cooler? What the World Meteorological Organization Actually Said - DeSmogBlog For the past week, the breathless buzz on the global warming denier blogs and radio programs has been about a certain BBC News article regarding the temporary cooling effect of El Ni??a this year. Serial denier Noel Sheppard at Newsbusters described how the denier dramathon unfolded: NewsBusters has just learned that a British "climate activist" was responsible for getting the BBC to radically alter its "Global Temperatures 'To Decrease'" article last Friday.As reported Sunday, the third paragraph of what previously had been a very balanced piece about how global temperatures have been declining since 1998 was totally reworded in order to make the report just another hysterical climate change pronouncement.On Monday, Jennifer Marohasy, the director of the Environment Unit at Australia's Institute of Public Affairs, received and published an e-mail exchange between the article's author, Roger Harrabin, and a climate activist affiliated with the British ... |
12th April 2008 |
| Logging boreal forest could detonate massive 'carbon bomb,' says report - CNews OTTAWA - Canada's boreal forest is a ticking "carbon bomb" and its continued logging could trigger a massive release of greenhouse gases, says a new report. |
11th April 2006 |
| FINANCE: World Bank "Playing Both Sides of Climate Crisis" - IPS NEW YORK, Apr 10 (IPS) - A new study released by an independent policy think tank casts further doubts on the World Bank's ability to stay neutral in the global politics of climate change. |
11th April 2006 |
| CLIMATE CHANGE: Will Societies Bend, or Snap in the Storm? - IPS JOHANNESBURG, Apr 9 (IPS) - Representatives from countries, civil society and the private sector are meeting this week in Johannesburg, South Africa, to review the findings of the three-year International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD). This global initiative has examined agriculture from all angles, to determine how farming might be done more sustainably in the future. |
10th April 2008 |
| Palm oil industry continues to destroy Indonesia's peatland forests - Monsters and Critics.com Jakarta - The destruction of Indonesia's peatland forests is continuing unstopped despite the government's pledge to halt it, according to a report by environmental group Greenpeace's issued Monday. |
8th April 2008 |
| World Bank Accused Of Climate Change "Hijack" - Planet Ark BANGKOK - Developing countries and environmental groups accused the World Bank on Friday of trying to seize control of the billions of dollars of aid that will be used to tackle climate change in the next four decades. |
8th April 2008 |
| The 2030 Blueprint - Gristmill A new report from Architecture2030 shows that solving the climate change crisis can save billions of dollars, stimulate a deteriorating U.S. economy, and create high quality jobs (full report here). Complex problems sometimes require the simplest of solutions. One of the most important questions facing those attempting to solve the climate crisis is, "How do we reduce CO2 emissions dramatically and immediately?" The simplest answer is, "Turn off the coal plants." Although coal produces about half of the energy supplied by the electric power sector, it is responsible for 81% of the sector's CO2 emissions. |
8th April 2008 |
| Global warming continues, regardless of La Nina weather pattern - TREND Information The long-term trend of global warming is continuing, despite the current La Nina weather phenomenon that is bringing relatively cooler temperatures to parts of the Equatorial Pacific region, the United Nations World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said yesterday. Worldwide temperatures this year are expected to be above the long-term average, even though La Nina is also likely to persist through to the middle of 2008, WMO said in a press statement issued in Geneva. |
6th April 2008 |
| New Focus on Coal's Part in Warming - Washington Post James E. Hansen, perhaps the best-known scientific advocate for curbing greenhouse-gas emissions, sent a letter recently to the head of one of the nation's largest power companies, calling on him to confront the role that his coal-fired plants play in global warming. Hansen proposed they meet. |
6th April 2008 |
| Climate debate shifts as many say emissions caps are not enough - International Herald Tribune More economists, scientists and students of energy policy are pushing for the development of advanced low-carbon technologies. |
6th April 2008 |
| CLIMATE CHANGE: A Game With Too Many Free Riders BROOKLIN, Canada, Apr 4 (IPS) - The evidence is piling up that climate change threatens to bring a chaotic future unlike anything ever known. Taking collective action in time to avert the worst means rewarding climate-safe behaviour, punishing climate transgressors and publicly praising those who are trying to protect the environment, a new study suggests. |
5th April 2008 |
| Green row over fuel made from coal - Guardian Unlimited Science environment: Energy companies planning to replace dwindling supplies of oil with synthetic fuels derived from coal · Method devised by Nazis sparks worldwide interest · Greenhouse gas emissions around double that of oil |
5th April 2008 |
| The green scare - Guardian Unlimited Science environment: Why is the Bush government casting 'eco-terrorists' as public enemy No 1? John Vidal reports |
3rd April 2008 |
| The World Bank's Climate Profiteering - AlterNet The bank is turning dirty carbon credits into gold -- bad news for those seeking a real solution to the climate crisis. |
3rd April 2008 |
| More from the delayer-1000 du jour By Joseph RommThe usually thoughtful journal Nature has just published a pointless and misleading -- if not outright dangerous -- commentary by delayer-1000 du jour, Roger Pielke, Jr., along with Christopher Green, who, as we've seen, is another aspiring delayer. It will be no surprise to learn the central point of their essay, ironically titled "Dangerous Assumptions" (available here [PDF] or here, with a subscription), is: "Enormous advances in energy technology will be needed to stabilize atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations at acceptable levels." This is otherwise known as the technology trap or the standard "Technology, technology, blah, blah, blah" delayer message developed by Frank Luntz and perfected by Bush/Lomborg/Gingrich. See also: Report: Uphill fight vs. CO2 - Rocky Mountain News |
3rd April 2008 |
| A tactical and moral mistake - Toronto Star A tactical and moral mistakeToronto Star, Canada. The report followed a common pattern of portraying China as a recalcitrant participant in global warming talks and a large, energy inefficient, polluting, ... |
3rd April 2008 |
| How Conservatives Have Duped Us in the Global Warming Fight We've let them decide how we talk about climate change and what's important. |
2nd April 2008 |
| CLIMATE CHANGE: The Future Is Now BROOKLIN, Canada, Apr 1 (IPS) - Our fingers are glued to the global thermostat, pushing it ever higher, and climate catastrophe has already begun to reshape human civilisation. |
2nd April 2008 |
| Climate change: Time is running out - CNN.com It appears that the scale and seriousness of climate change is at last being grasped. In 2008, we stand on the brink of a historic consensus, not only between scientists, but in the corridors of political power and in boardrooms across the globe. |
2nd April 2008 |
| Is 450 ppm - or less politically possible? Part 1 By Joseph RommThe short answer is: "Not today -- not even close." The long answer is the subject of this post. Regular readers know that the nation and the world currently lack the political will to stabilize atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide at 450 ppm or even 550 ppm. The political impossibility is also obvious from anyone familiar with Princeton's "stabilization wedges" [PDF] -- and if you aren't, you should be (technical paper here [PDF], less technical one here [PDF]). The wedges are a valuable conceptual tool for showing the immense scale needed for the solution (although they have analytical flaws). |
2nd April 2008 |
| A timeline of climate change science - CNN.com Climatology was once a small and often overlooked branch of science. But important discoveries made as the early 19th century have contributed to what is the most important field of scientific study in the world today. Listed below are some key dates in climate change history. |
2nd April 2008 |
| Hansen to Australian PM: stop coal plants now - Energy Bulletin James Hansen, Australian Science Media Centre. Text of letter from climate scientist James Hansen to Australian PM Kevin Rudd calling on Rudd to provide global leadership to to climate change by ordering a halt to the "construction of coal-fired power plants that do not capture and sequester the C02" they produce. |
31st March 2008 |
| The Clean Energy Scam - Time Magazine Ethanol increases global warming, destroys forests and inflates food prices. So why are we subsidizing it? |
30th March 2008 |
| Control oil and control the world - Guardian Unlimited Comment is free: John Gray: New superpowers are competing for diminishing resources as Britain becomes a bit-player. The outcome could be deadly |
30th March 2008 |
| A response to Romm on peak oil Dave Cohen, Energy Bulletin. It's high-time for climate activists to wake up and smell the coffee on peak oil. Peak oil problems are immediate and inimical to our ability to solve all the other problems we have - including climate. |
30th March 2008 |
| Antarctic shelf 'hangs by thread' - BBC News A huge chunk of ice is starting to break away from Antarctica in what scientists believe is further evidence of global warming. |
26th March 2008 |
| US experts will stage climate war game - United Press International U.S. foreign affairs and military experts will stage a war game this summer to study and highlight the national security threats posed by global warming. |
26th March 2008 |
| Millions at risk from warmer world - Sydney Morning Herald Rising seas and water shortages will displace about 125 million people living along the coasts of India and Bangladesh by the turn of the century, Greenpeace said. |
26th March 2008 |
| On Carbon, Tax and Don't Spend - New York Times Carbon tax discussions always seem to devolve into gleeful suggestions for ways to spend the revenue, but policymakers must be prevented from turning the tax into a cash cow. |
26th March 2008 |
| Black carbon pollution emerges as major player in global warming - PhysOrg Black carbon, a form of particulate air pollution most often produced from biomass burning, cooking with solid fuels and diesel exhaust, has a warming effect in the atmosphere three to four times greater than prevailing estimates, according to scientists in an upcoming review article in the journal Nature Geoscience. [Phew! - just when we thought that global warming was the fault of rich nations...] |
24th March 2008 |
| Climate change 'is accelerating' - Guardian Unlimited The growth of developing economies in Africa, Asia and South America has accelerated global warming, study says |
23rd March 2008 |
| A global threat multiplier - Energy Bulletin Paul Rogers, openDemocracy. A European Union study on the problems of global climate change contained the sobering assessment that a failure to take radical action now to address global warming would create the likelihood of severe conflict over resources in the decades ahead. |
23rd March 2008 |
| Inside the political attack on Dr. James Hansen and the truth of global warming - Democracy Now Transcript of interview between Dr. James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space, NASA’s premiere climate research center, and adjunct professor of earth and environmental sciences at Columbia University and Mark Bowen, author of Censoring Science: Inside the Political Attack on Dr. James Hansen and the Truth of Global Warming. |
23rd March 2008 |
| We've been here before, and it wasn't pretty the first time - Globe and Mail Book review: THE GREAT WARMING: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations By Brian Fagan Medieval warm period: But during the great warming, Europeans chopped down their ancient forests to grow more meat, honey and flour. When the Little Ice Age came, along with the Black Death, Rinderpest and other climate-driven surprises, Europe lost a third of its population. There simply was no mantle for misfortune. The Maya: The elites, who considered themselves divinely infallible, had no real sense of tragedy, and that's just when the climate served up a super drought. In the face of hunger and thirst, ordinary people abandoned their rulers, who squatted alone on blood-stained pyramids. |
23rd March 2008 |
| Livingstone fury at green plans veto - Guardian Unlimited London's Mayor claims civil servants blocked his energy proposals for the capital because they put the interests of big business first |
23rd March 2008 |
| U.S. Environmental Groups Divided on “Clean Coal” - Environmental News Network At a Senate press conference held last week to urge national action on climate change policy, 16 major U.S. environmental organizations shared the stage in solidarity. But while it appears the nation's green groups are united in the fight against global warming, they remain divided on which technologies would best create a carbon-free economy. This division may cause major roadblocks as Congress prepares to debate several climate change policies that could lead to sweeping changes. |
23rd March 2008 |
| The Hansen - et al. ultimatum - GristMill Here is the draft [PDF] of the long-awaited defense of why we need an ultimate target of 350 ppm for atmospheric carbon dioxide, by NASA's James Hansen et al., titled "Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?" (Yes, they know we're already at 385 ppm and rising 2 ppm a year.) The paper does suffer from one analytical weakness that makes it a tad less dire than it appears -- and some people believe the core element of this analysis is wrong (see very end of post), although I don't. |
21st March 2008 |
| More Dirt on the DSCOVR Climate Satellite - DeSmogBlog Fresh documents have trickled out of the US government about the fate of the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR). DeSmog Blog has been researching an investigative series on this mothballed climate change spacecraft designed to monitor the energy budget of the planet from the unique vantage of 1 million miles away. NASA strangely cancelled the project after spending over $100 million building it. Prominent members of the scientific community were outraged at the decision. You can view their laundry list of letters here. Another US government agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), requested that NASA transfer the mission to them. |
21st March 2008 |
| Back to 1988 on CO2, Says NASA's Hansen - New York Times James E. Hansen, the NASA climate scientist and eight co-authors have drafted a fresh paper arguing that the world has already shot past a safe eventual atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, which they say would be around 350 parts per million, a level passed 20 years ago. |
20th March 2008 |
| What we can afford - Grsitmill US: The money we've spent on the five-year Iraq War could have shifted the entire world to renewables |
20th March 2008 |
| Water: A long dry summer - Nature In parts of the world already facing unreliable food supplies, an uncertain climate adds to the future stress for soils, plants and people. Quirin Schiermeier reports on water strategies for a drier world. See also: Climate Change Deepening World Water Crisis - IPS A thirsty planet looks for solutions to water shortage - Physorg |
20th March 2008 |
| Shell wants to produce five times more oil from tar sands - Guardian Unlimited Shell gears up for huge expansion of its carbon-intensive tar sands operation as it struggles to replace conventional reserves |
19th March 2008 |
| If We Want to Survive the Climate Crisis We Must Change Either we build real community -- with mass transit and local food -- or we will go down clinging to the wreckage of our privatized society. |
16th March 2008 |
| Countdown to climate chaos - Guardian Unlimited Climate experts warn of damaging effects of disappearing glaciers See also: Glaciers melt 'at fastest rate in past 5,000 years' |
16th March 2008 |
| Carbon Prices, Not Quotas - Forbes Worried about climate change but don't like carbon taxes? Consider the messy or even impossible alternatives. |
14th March 2008 |
| Analysis: Reality check for EU - BBC News EU leaders are upbeat on the bloc's response to the climate change and financial turmoil challenges, says the BBC's Paul Kirby. See also:Concessions to Merkel threaten climate plan - Guardian Unlimited Europe's chances of spearheading a global post-Kyoto climate change accord were jeopardised yesterday when Germany secured pledges that several of its heavy industries could be protected from international competition and exempted from the EU's plan to combat global warming. |
14th March 2008 |
| Killing the electric car, again: Part I The following post is by Earl Killian, guest blogger at Climate Progress. ----- If you've seen the movie Who Killed the Electric Car? (which is ranked No. 8 on Netflix in documentary rentals), then you know the EV story up to 2003. What you might not know is that it looks like one of the players in the movie, the California Air Resources Board, is up to no good again. In killing Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs) the first time, they put off progress on this front for a decade. Now they are preparing, at their March 27 meeting, to kill BEVs a second time and probably waste another decade. See also: Killing the electric car again: Part II |
14th March 2008 |
| Blind date with disaster - Guardian Unlimited We are constantly warned by scientists that our planet is in big trouble, so why can't we change direction? David Suzuki, one of the world's leading ecologists, on how humans have lost the vital skill of foresight |
13th March 2008 |
| Media enable denier spin, part three - GristMill They Aren't Skeptical: Their Minds Are Made Up What name can we possibly use for the people who are working feverishly to convince the public to ignore the broad scientific understanding of global warming and delay taking serious action, action needed to avert a very grim fate for our children, their children, and so on? I suspect future generations will call them "climate destroyers" or worse, since if we actually (continue to) listen to them, that pretty much ensures carbon-dioxide concentrations will hit catastrophic levels -- 700 to 1000 -- this century, as explained in part two. But what should we call these people in the meantime, while we still have time to ignore them and save the climate? |
12th March 2008 |
| Deep thought - Energy Bulletin Cassandra's curse: how "The Limits to Growth" was demonized |
12th March 2008 |
| This foolish rush into the arms of the dirtiest fuel - The Independent UK: Coal is easily the most carbon-intensive and polluting form of energy generation available. As a society, we ought to be moving in the very opposite direction for ourenergy needs, towards conservation and renewables. It is inconceivable that a government serious about cutting carbon emissions would give the go-ahead for a new generation of coal-fired power stations to be built. Yet this is precisely what the Business Secretary, John Hutton, will come perilously close to doing in a speech today. Mr Hutton isexpected to hint strongly that government approval is to be granted for a new coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth, Kent. |
11th March 2008 |
| A Galactic glitch - RealClimate Knud Jahnke and Rasmus Benestad After having watched a new documentary called the 'Cloud Mystery' - and especially the bit about the galaxy (approximately 2 - 4 minutes into the linked video clip) - we realised that a very interesting point has been missed in earlier discussions about 'climate, galactic cosmic rays and the evolution of the Milky Way galaxy. It is claimed in 'The Cloud Mystery', the book 'The Chilling Stars', and related articles that our solar system takes about 250 million years to circle the Milky Way galaxy and that our solar system crosses one of the spiral arms about every ~150 million years (Shaviv 2003). |
11th March 2008 |
| Alarming growth in expected CO2 emissions in China, finds UC analysis - EurekAlert! Berkeley - The growth in China's carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is far outpacing previous estimates, making the goal of stabilizing atmospheric greenhouse gases even more difficult, according to a new analysis by economists at the University of California, Berkeley, and UC San Diego. |
11th March 2008 |
| Bringing a knife to a gunfight - Gristmill What drives climate change denial? |
10th March 2008 |
| Carbon Output Must Near Zero To Avert Danger, New Studies Say - Washington Post The task of cutting greenhouse gas emissions enough to avert a dangerous rise in global temperatures may be far more difficult than previous research suggested, say scientists who have just published studies indicating that it would require the world to cease emitting carbon altogether within a matter of decades. |
10th March 2008 |
| EU told to prepare for flood of climate change migrants - Guardian Unlimited Global warming threatens to severely destabilise the planet, rendering a fifth of its population homeless, top officials say |
10th March 2008 |
| Deep thought - Energy Bulletin | 10th March 2008 |
| James Hansen: No more conventional coal and carbon stabilisation below 350ppm - IndyMedia Beyond Zero Radio show spoke to James Hansen the world's leading climate scientist about his call for CO2 emissions stabilisation at 300-350ppm, well below todays 385ppm. |
8th March 2008 |
| Life after the oil crash - Globe and Mail The apocalypse is coming - it's time to recycle your manure and get a socially responsible vasectomy. Peak-oil buffs are preparing for a future where oil is so scarce that people will go hungry |
8th March 2008 |
| The global cooling mole - RealClimate By John Fleck and William Connolley To veterans of the Climate Wars, the old 1970s global cooling canard - "How can we believe climate scientists about global warming today when back in the 1970s they told us an ice age was imminent?" - must seem like a never-ending game of Whack-a-mole. One of us (WMC) has devoted years to whacking down the mole (see here, here and here, for example), while the other of us (JF) sees the mole pop up anew in his in box every time he quotes contemporary scientific views regarding climate change in his newspaper stories. |
8th March 2008 |
| A passing trend -Gristmill NASA's James Hansen has weighed in (PDF) to ... ... expose the recent nonsense that has appeared in the blogosphere, to the effect that recent cooling has wiped out global warming of the past century, and the Earth may be headed into an ice age. On the contrary, these misleaders have foolishly (or devilishly) fixated on a natural fluctuation that will soon disappear. As Hansen explains: Weather fluctuations or 'noise' have a noticeable effect even on monthly-mean global-mean temperature, especially in Northern Hemisphere winter. Weather has little effect on global-mean temperature averaged over several months or more. |
6th March 2008 |
| Bush's sleight of hand - Gristmill By Joseph RommThe following is a guest essay by Daniel J. Weiss and Nick Kong. It was originally published on the Center for American Progress website. ----- "Watch what we do, not we say," Attorney General John N. Mitchell accurately warned at the dawn of the Nixon administration. This could also be a fitting epitaph for President Bush's energy policies. Despite frequent claims of support for renewable energy over the years, the record shows consistent opposition to efforts to spur investments in clean wind, solar, geothermal, and other renewable energy sources. The subterfuge began when President Bush announced his administration's National Energy Policy on May 17, 2001. |
6th March 2008 |
| Warming climate may cause arctic tundra to burn - EurekAlert! Research from ancient sediment cores indicates that a warming climate could make the world's arctic tundra far more susceptible to fires than previously thought. The findings, published this week in the online journal, PLoS ONE, are important given the potential for tundra fires to release organic carbon which could add significantly to the amount of greenhouse gases already blamed for global warming. |
5th March 2008 |
| Why oil rulers won't go green - Times Online Oil producers must reasonably suppose that, as global warming continues and provokes ever-greater concern, restrictions on demand will grow tighter. Further alternative energy sources are also likely to be developed. So they are likely to perceive high probability of downward pressure on prices in future. The result is a strongly enhanced incentive to extract and sell resources now, to whichever country will buy them, and then to invest the proceeds. Producers may even step up production. |
3rd March 2008 |
| Stop Global Climate Change By Building An "Ark" - OpEdNews If neither governments, nor most businesses are taking effective measures to avoid global climate catastrophe, what can people do at a grass-roots level to help sustain life on earth? |
2nd March 2008 |
| Arctic polar cap may disappear this summer - China Daily The polar cap in the Arctic may well disappear this summer due to the global warming, Dr. Olav Orheim, head of the Norwegian International Polar Year Secretariat, said on Friday. "If Norway's average temperature this year equals that in 2007, the ice cap in the Arctic will all melt away, which is highly possible judging from current conditions," Orheim said. |
2nd March 2008 |
| 'Enjoy life while you can' - Guardian Unlimited Climate science maverick James Lovelock believes catastrophe is inevitable, carbon offsetting is a joke and ethical living a scam. So what would he do, asks Decca Aitkenhead |
1st March 2008 |
| Only zero emissions can prevent a warmer planet - New Scientist Greenhouse gas emissions will have to be eliminated completely to stabilise the Earth's climate and prevent temperatures from rising. That’s the conclusion of climatologists in the US who say that our current efforts to merely stabilise emissions will not be enough. Damon Matthews, from Concordia University in Canada, and Ken Caldeira, from the Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford, USA, used a global climate model to study how greenhouse emissions would need to change in order to stabilise global temperatures over the next few hundred years. “Even if we eliminated carbon dioxide today we are still committed to a global temperature rise of around 0.8 ºC lasting at least 500 years,” says Caldeira.One of the reasons for the persistence is the slow response of oceans. “It takes a lot of energy to heat them up and then a long time for them to cool back down” . |
29th February 2008 |
| If climate sceptics are right, it is time to worry - Financial Times Al Gore says the science on global warming is clear and there is a major problem. Vaclav Klaus, Czech president, contends that climate change forecasts are speculative and unreliable. Whose claims are scarier? |
29th February 2008 |
| Capitalism, Consumerism and Materialism: The Value Crisis - OpEd News The global economic, ecological and energy crises we face – as well as associated crises (terrorism, conflict, and so on) -- are not separate but fundamentally interlinked: at the source of our ills is an excessive exploitation of hydrocarbon resources that is tied to the escalation of CO2 emissions with no recognition of limits or boundaries, fuelling global warming and the acceleration of climate change, devastating eco-systems, facilitating the deaths of millions of people and the extinction of thousands of species. |
29th February 2008 |
| The cold truth about climate change - Salon.com Deniers continue to insist there's no consensus on global warming. Well, there's not. There's well-tested science and real-world observations. |
28th February 2008 |
| The rhetoric of slavery and climate change - Salon.com Then: Abolition would wreak havoc on the economy of the South. Now: Ratifying the Kyoto Protocol would punish all Americans |
28th February 2008 |
| 'Laws needed' to protect scientific debate - ABC Science Online Australian researchers are calling for laws to protect scientists' freedom to participate in public debate as well as encouragement and rewards from their institutions to do so. "We're doing a wonderful experiment in global warming at the moment but by the time it gets through peer review there may not be many humans left on the planet," says Professor Peter Cullen of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists. |
27th February 2008 |
| Sumatran deforestation driving climate change and species extinction, report warns - Guardian Unlimited The destruction of Sumatra's natural forests is accelerating global climate change and pushing endangered species closer to extinction, report warns |
27th February 2008 |
| Environment Canada's Muzzle Mandate Available for Viewing - DeSmogBlog Further to an earlier post, we now have a copy (attached) of the new Media Relations Protocol with which Environment Canada is muzzling its scientists.The protocol says Environment Canada's staff members are no longer allowed to speak to the media without first calling consulting with their direct supervisor and phoning Media Relations at Environment Canada's national headquarters. This, the protocol says, will ensure that EC experts "respond with approved lines," thereby saving Minister John Baird from surprise or embarrassment.I think that's a lot to hope. A minister who refuses to read anything about climate science is destined to continue embarrassing himself. |
27th February 2008 |
| Staying hooked on oil is expensive, too - Gristmill By Eric de Place Apropos of British Columbia's big announcement, I have some ranting to get off my chest. One of the most frustrating things about U.S. climate policy is the reflexive fear that if we ever raise the price of gas -- or of driving generally -- people will riot in the streets or something. This makes it exceedingly difficult to rearrange the economy away from oil and its carbon contents. But, of course, the price of gas keeps rising anyway. In fact, crude oil prices have more than tripled over the last half-dozen years, with futures closing above $100 recently. |
23rd February 2008 |
| Warmer World May Mean Less Fish - Environmental News Network Climate change is emerging as the latest threat to the world's dwindling fish stocks a new report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) suggests. At least three quarters of the globe's key fishing grounds may become seriously impacted by changes in circulation as a result of the ocean's natural pumping systems fading and falling they suggest. |
23rd February 2008 |
| Johann Hari: We'll save the planet only if we're forced to - Independent Do you check every item you buy to make sure it is green and planet-friendly? Do you buy carbon offsets every time you fly? Stop. It is time to be honest: green consumerism is at best a draining distraction, and at worst a con. While the planet's fever gets worse by the week, we are guzzling down green-coloured placebos and calling it action. There is another way. Our reaction to global warming ... |
21st February 2008 |
| Risk of permafrost thaw a "wild card" in warming-UN - Reuters AlertNet A thaw of Arctic permafrost is a "wild card" that could stoke global warming by releasing vast frozen stores of greenhouse gases, the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) said on Wednesday. More research was urgently needed into the possibility of a runaway release of methane, a powerful heat-trapping gas trapped in frozen soils in Siberia, Canada, Alaska and Nordic nations, it said in a 2008 yearbook issued at 154-nation talks in Monaco. |
21st February 2008 |
| Dire new climate warning - The Age It's a lot worse than we thought, says Government's top adviser on global warming. On the eve of the release today of his interim report on climate change, Professor Garnaut told a conference in Adelaide yesterday that without intervention before 2020, it would be impossible to avoid a high risk of dangerous climate change. "The show will be over," he said. The Government's existing target is to cut greenhouse emissions by 60% by 2050. Professor Garnaut said Australia would need to go "considerably further" as part of a global agreement, with full participation by developing countries, to keep climate change at acceptable levels. |
21st February 2008 |
| The scary oil sands - Toronto Star Canadians' concerns over Alberta oil-sands development centre largely around its impact on climate change. And for good reason. In a list of 207 nations ranked by greenhouse gas emissions, Alberta's oil sands come out higher than 145 of them. And that comparison is based on 2007 emissions. Under its proposed "intensity" caps to fight global warming, the Harper government predicts a near doubling in oil-sand emissions by 2020. But as a study released last week by the advocacy group Environmental Defence shows, the dangers posed by the tar sands go far beyond climate change. The most frightening is the leaching of toxins into the region's water supplies, which the study terms "a giant slow-motion oil spill." |
20th February 2008 |
| NOAA Stonewalls on DCSOVR Documents - DeSmogBlog The stonewalling on DSCOVR documents continues, this time with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). To recap, NASA was given over $100 million in taxpayers money to build the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR), a spacecraft designed to measure the energy budget of our warming planet from the unique vantage of a million miles away. Even though it is fully completed over five years ago, DSCOVR is still sitting in a box at the Goddard Space Centre – likely for political reasons. The mission was originally promoted by Al Gore – a liability when George Bush and Dick Cheney remain in the Whitehouse. |
20th February 2008 |
| 'Greenwash' is losing its shine - BBC News Time is running out for advertisers who are a lighter shade of green, as eco-cliches fall out of fashion. Simply being seen to be green will soon not be enough, says Getty Images' Rebecca Swift. In this week's Green Room, she argues that time is running out for advertisers who "greenwash" audiences with empty eco-cliches. |
19th February 2008 |
| Juggle a few of these numbers, and it makes economic sense to kill people - Guardian Unlimited Britain's official approach to climate change puts a price on human lives. And the richer you are, the more yours is worth |
19th February 2008 |
| The Recession's Human and Environmental Impacts - Center for Research on Globalization Too often news coverage focuses on discreet current events at the expense of a more synthetic approach to notable happenings. While it is important that the public learns of major incidents in the world as they take place, sometimes this can lead to some observers "not seeing the forest for the trees." On account, it might be easy to miss the connection between the global recession (and possible future depression) with the ongoing decline of environmental well-being and increase in human population. All the same, these three areas are deeply intertwined. Here are a few details concerning the relationship. |
19th February 2008 |
| Climate focus 'ignores wildlife' - BBC News Many efforts to curb climate change pay little attention to conservation or the world's poor, a think-tank warns. "Policymakers have focused on mitigating greenhouse gas emissions but biodiversity is also key," observed Ms Swiderska. "For centuries, traditional farmers have used the diversity within both domesticated and wild species to adapt to changing conditions." She said that greater recognition of local knowledge could help deliver results on a global scale. "Many communities are already using agricultural -biodiversity and traditional practices, such as seed exchange and field experimentation, to adapt to climate change. "Farmer/researcher collaboration can bring added value that each alone could never realise." |
19th February 2008 |
| The scary oil sands - Toronto Star Canadians' concerns over Alberta oil-sands development centre largely around its impact on climate change. And for good reason. In a list of 207 nations ranked by greenhouse gas emissions, Alberta's oil sands come out higher than 145 of them. And that comparison is based on 2007 emissions. Under its proposed "intensity" caps to fight global warming, the Harper government predicts a near doubling in oil-sand emissions by 2020. But as a study released last week by the advocacy group Environmental Defence shows, the dangers posed by the tar sands go far beyond climate change. The most frightening is the leaching of toxins into the region's water supplies, which the study terms "a giant slow-motion oil spill." |
20th February 2008 |
| NOAA Stonewalls on DCSOVR Documents - DeSmogBlog The stonewalling on DSCOVR documents continues, this time with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). To recap, NASA was given over $100 million in taxpayers money to build the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR), a spacecraft designed to measure the energy budget of our warming planet from the unique vantage of a million miles away. Even though it is fully completed over five years ago, DSCOVR is still sitting in a box at the Goddard Space Centre – likely for political reasons. The mission was originally promoted by Al Gore – a liability when George Bush and Dick Cheney remain in the Whitehouse. |
20th February 2008 |
| 'Greenwash' is losing its shine - BBC News Time is running out for advertisers who are a lighter shade of green, as eco-cliches fall out of fashion. Simply being seen to be green will soon not be enough, says Getty Images' Rebecca Swift. In this week's Green Room, she argues that time is running out for advertisers who "greenwash" audiences with empty eco-cliches. |
19th February 2008 |
| Juggle a few of these numbers, and it makes economic sense to kill people - Guardian Unlimited Britain's official approach to climate change puts a price on human lives. And the richer you are, the more yours is worth |
19th February 2008 |
| The Recession's Human and Environmental Impacts - Center for Research on Globalization Too often news coverage focuses on discreet current events at the expense of a more synthetic approach to notable happenings. While it is important that the public learns of major incidents in the world as they take place, sometimes this can lead to some observers "not seeing the forest for the trees." On account, it might be easy to miss the connection between the global recession (and possible future depression) with the ongoing decline of environmental well-being and increase in human population. All the same, these three areas are deeply intertwined. Here are a few details concerning the relationship. |
19th February 2008 |
| Climate focus 'ignores wildlife' - BBC News Many efforts to curb climate change pay little attention to conservation or the world's poor, a think-tank warns. "Policymakers have focused on mitigating greenhouse gas emissions but biodiversity is also key," observed Ms Swiderska. "For centuries, traditional farmers have used the diversity within both domesticated and wild species to adapt to changing conditions." She said that greater recognition of local knowledge could help deliver results on a global scale. "Many communities are already using agricultural -biodiversity and traditional practices, such as seed exchange and field experimentation, to adapt to climate change. "Farmer/researcher collaboration can bring added value that each alone could never realise." |
19th February 2008 |
| Will North Atlantic threshold response to ocean changes be enough? - PhysOrg Predictions that the 21st century is safe from major circulation changes in the North Atlantic Ocean may not be as comforting as they seem, according to a Penn State researcher. "The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that it is very unlikely that the North Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (MOC) will collapse in the 21st century. They predict a probability of less then 10 percent," says Klaus Keller, assistant professor of geosciences. "However, this should not be interpreted as an all clear signal. There can be a considerable delay between the triggering of an MOC collapse and the actual collapse. In a similar way, a person that has just jumped from a cliff may take comfort that pain in the next few seconds is very unlikely, but the outlook over the long term is less rosy." |
18th February 2008 |
| Reasons to see red over green energy - Guardian Unlimited UK: Government apathy sabotages Britain's shift to a low-carbon economy See also: INTERVIEW - UK Risks Being Left Behind In Wind Surge – GE - Planet Ark |
18th February 2008 |
| Elections Canada to investigate anti-Kyoto group - Canada.com Canada's chief electoral officer has been asked to investigate a series of radio ads, funded by an Alberta-based global warming skeptics group, which targeted key markets in vote-rich Ontario during the 2006 federal election. |
18th February 2008 |
| LATIN AMERICA: Deforestation Still Winning - IPS MEXICO CITY, Feb 16 (Tierramérica) - Never before have Latin America and the Caribbean fought so hard against deforestation, say experts and government officials, but logging in the region has increased to the point that it has the highest rate in the world. |
17th February 2008 |
| Stabilizing climate requires near-zero carbon emissions - EurekAlert! Now that scientists have reached a consensus that carbon dioxide emissions from human activities are the major cause of global warming, the next question is: How can we stop it? Can we just cut back on carbon, or do we need to go cold turkey? According to a new study by scientists at the Carnegie Institution, halfway measures won�t do the job. To stabilize our planet�s climate, we need to find ways to kick the carbon habit altogether. |
16th February 2008 |
| Warming risks Antarctic sea life - BBC Unique marine life in Antarctica will be at risk from an invasion of sharks, crabs and other predators if global warming continues, scientists warn. |
16th February 2008 |
| Firms will act on CO2 only if its cost triples, says Shell - Guardian Unlimited A carbon price close to $100 per tonne of CO2 - more than three times higher than it is today - is needed before industry will invest in the thousands of carbon-capture-and-storage (CCS) schemes needed for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, Shell warned yesterday. Jeremy Bentham, the vice president of business environment at the company, also called on the EU to quicken the pace of regulatory change and take vital decisions "within five years" that would largely shape the pattern of energy supply and global warming in coming decades. |
15th February 2008 |
| Chaos wrecks the balance of nature - Telegraph.co.uk The effects of global warming on the life on planet Earth are impossible to predict over the long term, according to a study that has found chaos at work among tiny marine creatures from the Baltic. |
14th February 2008 |
| INTERVIEW - Mankind Can't Afford More Oil Drilling - Ex-BP Exec - Planet Ark LONDON - Known oil, gas and coal reserves may already contain a quarter more carbon than mankind can emit and still avoid dangerous climate change, putting the value of new oil exploration in doubt, said a former oil major executive. |
14th February 2008 |
| Biofuels and the fertilizer problem - Gristmill Can a 'renewable fuel' rely on mining a finite resource? |
14th February 2008 |
| Pentagon faces a battle on climate change - Financial Times There are five key areas in which effective military planning can be undermined by uncertainty over when and how the major carbon-emitting countries combat climate change. |
14th February 2008 |
| Path of least resistance - Guardian Unlimited UK: The government's fallacious use of carbon pricing means that it can disguise its aviation expansion plans as alleviating climate change |
13th February 2008 |
| Activist links struggles of public space, climate - Deseret Morning News When it comes to combating global warming, it all comes down to "the common," says Larry Lohmann, English author and environmental activist. |
12th February 2008 |
| Apart from used chip fat, there is no such thing as a sustainable biofuel - Guardian Unlimited George Monbiot: Even capitalists now admit the oil crisis is real. But their solutions border on lunacy as they avoid the obvious answer See also: Biofuel demand leading to human rights abuses, report claims - Guardian Unlimited |
12th February 2008 |
| Climate scientist they could not silence - Times Online Jim Hansen has long been a thorn in the side of the White House. Now he has a stark warning for Britain. |
11th February 2008 |
| Q&A: "You Can See the Whole Hemisphere Breathing" VANCOUVER, Feb 8 (IPS) - Dr. Ralph Keeling is a climate change expert who explores how rises in carbon dioxide influence global oxygen levels. |
9th February 2008 |
| Dependent on a Dirty Fuel - Washington Post German Coal Mines Thrive Despite Push for Cleaner Energy |
9th February 2008 |
| Climate Code Red - Carbon Equity Climate policy is characterised by the habituation of low expectations and a culture of failure. There is an urgent need to understand global warming and the tipping points for dangerous impacts that we have already crossed as a sustainability emergency, that takes us beyond the politics of failure-inducing compromise. We are now in a race between climate tipping points and political tipping points. Read full report (.pdf) |
7th February 2008 |
| Climate set for 'sudden shifts' - BBC News Many climate systems will undergo a series of sudden shifts this century as a result of human-induced climate change. |
5th February 2008 |
| The great coal rush - and why it will fail - Energy Bulletin Richard Heinberg, Museletter / Global Public Media. The world appears poised for a headlong sprint toward greater dependence on coal. This book's purpose is to examine one crucial question that will shape this next great coal rush: How much is left? |
5th February 2008 |
| The great fuel folly - Guardian Unlimited Oil firms' output is down, yet profits skyrocket. It all points to the crisis predicted by the peakists. If the "peakists" are correct, and the oil establishment suddenly awakens to its dysfunctional culture of overoptimism, here is what is likely to happen. The oil and gas producers are going to start keeping what remains for themselves, in an effort to feed their own economies. Many countries would then face the threat of not having enough oil and gas to run the production processes needed to manufacture the low-carbon technologies that could replace oil and gas. Or, indeed, to feed themselves. |
5th February 2008 |
| Show me the - oil money - Gristmill Check out Follow the Oil Money, a tool from the Center for Responsive Politics. You can find out exactly how much oil money any politician is getting Here, for instance, is a chart of the presidential candidates -- it shows that Giuliani was clearly the biggest oil man. Website: Follow The Oil Money |
4th February 2008 |
| Climate change: Panic in the trenches - Tehran Times While the high-level climate talks pursue their stately progress towards some ill-defined destination, down in the trenches there is an undercurrent of suppressed panic in the conversations. The tipping points seem to be racing towards us a lot faster than people thought . |
4th February 2008 |
| National Geographic launches Six Degrees: book and film - Mark Lynas "National Geographic has made a superb film adaptation of my book Six Degrees, which is premiering on NG Channel in the US on February 10 at 8pm ET/9pm PT, and around the world on later dates. Check out the special website, which allows you to explore the warming world interactively, and also to watch video trailers for the world at each degree. The film is called ‘Six Degrees Could Change the World'. High profile interviewees include NASA's Jim Hansen and IPCC Chair Rajendra Pachauri. In parallel National Geographic is also launching an updated US edition of Six Degrees the book." |
4th February 2008 |
| Concentrations v. emissions - Gristmill Avoiding catastrophic global warming requires stabilizing carbon dioxide concentrations, not emissions. Studies find that many, if not most, people are confused about this, including highly educated graduate students. I have personally found even well informed people are confused on this point and its crucial implications. We need to cut emissions 50 to 80 percent below current levels just to stop concentrations from rising. And global temperatures will not be stabilized for decades after concentrations are stabilized. And of course, the ice sheets may not stop disintegrating for decades -- and if we dawdle too long, centuries -- after temperatures stabilize. |
2nd February 2008 |
| Time to buckle up on aviation emissions - Nature If the EU is going to claim leadership in tackling climate change, it needs to buckle up on reducing emissions from aviation. This would ultimately require setting a price for emissions credits that reflects the aviation industry's real contribution to global warming - whether through a tax on kerosene or a multiplier on emissions to account for other warming sources. The snag would be a hike in ticket prices, putting the EU in the awkward position of having to reassess its claim to making air travel increasingly affordable while leading on emissions reductions. The alternative is to watch Europe's emissions soar along with its new transatlantic air fleet. |
2nd February 2008 |
| You are paying for the trashing of the rainforests - Johann Hari When you eat a burger, chances are you are effectively eating part of the Amazon . We have a choice. To our left, there is a global Cash-for-Conservation Plan that leaves us with a lush green Amazon and some chance of preserving a liveable climate. And to our right, there is a dispensable Amazon to take away – hacked down and dying out in a rapidly warming world. |
2nd February 2008 |
| Communism for Capitalists: Trade Deals Limit Enviro Policies - AlterNet Many of the "green economy" plans are illegal according to the WTO. ...as this stunningly candid report (PDF) from the pro-corporate National Foreign Trade Council attests in explicit detail, virtually every component of a response to global warming is WTO-illegal. NFTC recounts the history of environmental policy at the WTO (and GATT), including the past successful challenges to our Clean Air Act and corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards. They go on to explore how every global warming bill in Congress -- elements of which are reflected in the candidates' plans as well -- violates WTO rules. |
1st February 2008 |
| CLIMATE CHANGE: Wars Dwarf Warming in U.S. Budget WASHINGTON, Jan 31 (IPS) - Despite growing recognition in the Pentagon and the intelligence community that global warming poses serious national security threats to the United States, Washington is spending 88 dollars on the military for every dollar it spends this year on climate-related programmes, according to a new study released here Thursday by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). |
1st February 2008 |
| The Sierra Club solution - Energy Bulletin While many environmentalists1 view H.R. 6 as a welcome development, there are fatal flaws which make the act moot before it comes into effect. The new law will do next to nothing to cure America's oil addiction, a dependency on imported oil which is bound to get much worse long before the provisions of the new law will kick in—if they ever do. Many environmentalists and so-called "progressives" cling to dangerously naive beliefs about how to solve America's liquid fuels problem. |
31st January 2008 |
| Leading article: A noxious cloud of confusion - The Independent It would be sheer folly to imagine that the 15 environment ministers meeting in Hawaii tomorrow are going to achieve anything substantial. The gathering has been summoned by George Bush, a man who remains essentially in denial that human activity is warming our planet. As a summit it will be Emission Impossible. For all his talk of curbing climate change without stalling global economic growth, the US President has called the Hawaii summit as a spoiling policy. Mr Bush's insistence that cleaner technology, voluntary measures and "aspirational goals" will be enough is a delusion. |
30th January 2008 |
| Capitalism as the Engine of Global Crisis - OpEdNews It's increasingly evident to thoughtful persons that humanity has entered a period of unusual danger on multiple fronts. The months and years ahead may bring catastrophe through military conflagration, environmental disaster, economic collapse, or any combination of these. This essay will argue that these problems are all ultimately linked; that they are fundamentally rooted in corporate capitalism, and moreover that none of them can be solved within the framework of capitalism. |
30th January 2008 |
| Battlefield Earth - Foreign Policy Passport It may sound like science fiction, but it’s only a matter of time before the world’s militaries learn to wield the planet itself as a weapon. It wouldn’t be the first time states looked at the environment as a weapon. In the early 1970s, the Pentagon’s Project Popeye attempted to use cloud seeding to increase the strength of monsoons and bog down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. In 1996, a group of Air Force and Army officers working with the Air Force 2025 program produced a document titled “Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025” (it never went anywhere). The Soviet Union reputedly had similar projects underway. But although the idea of a geoengineering arms race may superficially parallel this line of thinking, it’s actually a very different concept. Unlike “weather warfare,” geoengineering would be subtle and long term, more a strategic project than a tactical weapon; moreover, unlike weather control, we know it can work, since we’ve been unintentionally changing the climate for decades. |
29th January 2008 |
| The Preservation Predicament - New York Times Ecologists fear that global warming will make protected landscapes inhospitable to prized species. |
29th January 2008 |
| Transport - Jan 28 - Energy Bulletin China to build 97 new airports by 2020 |
29th January 2008 |
| Big business says addressing climate change 'rates very low on agenda' - The Independent Global warming ranks far down the concerns of the world's biggest companies, despite world leaders' hopes that they will pioneer solutions to the impending climate crisis, a startling survey will reveal this week. Nearly nine in 10 of them do not rate it as a priority, says the study, which canvassed more than 500 big businesses in Britain, the US, Germany, Japan, India and China. Nearly twice as many see climate change as imposing costs on their business as those who believe it presents an opportunity to make money. And the report's publishers believe that big business will concentrate even less on climate change as the world economy deteriorates. See also: Leading article: Invest in the planet and clean up - The Independent |
28th January 2008 |
| The staggering cost of rising world meat production - International Herald Tribune Assembly-line meat factories consume enormous amounts of energy, pollute water supplies, generate significant greenhouse gases and lead to destruction of vast swaths of rain forest. |
28th January 2008 |
| Leading article: How much is enough? Almost one in 10 households is now defined as wealthy, with an income nearly three times the average. Alas, most families do not feel well-off. In fact, they say they would need twice as much as they currently bring in (just short of £90,000 a year) to feel as rich as the raw figures suggest they should. |
28th January 2008 |
| Environment: Will Coffee Be a Casualty of Climate Change? - Alternet Coffee farmers in South America don't need to read the latest IPCC reports; they already know. |
26th January 2008 |
| Brazil Amazon deforestation soars - BBC The rate of deforestation of the Amazon surged in the last five months of 2007, the Brazilian government says. See also: Brazil vows to stem Amazon loss - BBC |
25th January 2008 |
| Climate change to cost 5% global GDP - Times of India World renowned Indian environmentalist R K Pachauri has warned the international business and political leaders that climate change could cost up to 5 per cent of global GDP by 2030 if effective steps were not taken in time. "The business and political leaders should realise that measures to bring down emission levels would not cost more than 0.2 per cent of the global GDP, but it could cost up to 3 per cent of world GDP by 2020, and 5 per cent by 2030, if the temperature goes by 2-4 degree Celsius," the head of the UN's Nobel Prize-winning scientific panel on climate change said. |
25th January 2008 |
| Scientific group calls for 50 percent reduction in CO2 emissions - CNET The earth is getting warmed by carbon dioxide, warns the American Geophysical Union. We've got to crank down on the emissions. |
25th January 2008 |
| From carbon to consensus: the green challenge - Globe and Mail From carbon to consensus: We need to mobilize the world, and the Internet is the linchpin. For the first time we have one affordable, global, multi-media, many-to-many communications system, and one issue on which there is growing consensus. Climate change is quickly becoming a nonpartisan issue and citizens, businesses and governments each have a stake in the outcome. Indeed, the global consensus emerging on climate change is that solving the crisis will require leadership from every country and every sector in society. The "killer application" for mass collaboration may be saving planet earth-literally. |
24th January 2008 |
| EPA staff favored California waiver for tailpipe emissions - The Fresno Bee EPA officials told agency Administrator Stephen Johnson that California had "compelling and extraordinary conditions" to justify a federal waiver to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles, according to excerpts of agency documents made available Wednesday. |
24th January 2008 |
| Armed Forces Face Strain of Climate Change - Report - Planet Ark LONDON - Security forces round the world will face tough new challenges as climate change unleashes violent storms, raises sea levels and causes floods and famines, a new report said on Thursday. |
24th January 2008 |
| Slowforestation - Gristmill I meant to blog on this earlier, but lost track of it after failing to find the original study (for reasons that will become clear). The bottom line is: Global warming could cut the rate at which trees in tropical rainforests grow by as much as half, a new study based on more two decades of data from forests in Panama and Malaysia shows. The effects, so far largely overlooked by climate modelers, Nature magazine said, could severely erode or even remove the ability of tropical rainforests to remove carbon dioxide from the air as they grow. |
23rd January 2008 |
| The evil twins - Energy Bulletin Discussion of global warming seldom makes any connection between the ecology of temperature change and pending fuel shortages. This is a really bad error. |
22nd January 2008 |
| Rich Nations Running Up "Ecological Debt" - Daily Green The impact of ecological resources damaged every year in poor nations is a greater financial burden than national debt, a new analysis has found. What's worse, it is rich nations that are causing the damage in poor nations, either directly or indirectly. |
22nd January 2008 |
| Americans For Balanced Energy Choices "Clean Coal" PR Spin Campaign Revealed - DeSmogBlog So what does a multi-million dollar PR campaign trying to put a green shiny face on the dirtiest energy sector look like?The Washington Post ran a story last week about a $35 million PR spin/advertising effort being launched by a coal industry-funded organization called "Americans for Balanced Energy Choices" (ABEC). And DeSmogBlog has obtained a copy of the ABEC request for proposals for PR assistance in Nevada. The RFP gives you a good idea of how ABEC will go about selling America on the virtues of supposedly "clean coal."Attached is the entire RFP, here are some of the highlights:Campaign Goals <!--[if !supportLists]-->Increase general public awareness of the importance of coal to America's energy mix.<!--[if !supportLists]--> Educate key audiences on industry ... |
22nd January 2008 |
| Cap and Trade Not Enough to Cut Carbon - Goldman - Planet Ark NEW YORK - Capping and trading carbon emissions will not be enough to fight output of the gases blamed for warming the planet, the managing director of Goldman Sachs' US carbon emissions desk said on Thursday. |
21st January 2008 |
| Ecosystems are nonlinear - Gristmill Researchers claim to have found a mangrove where you can remove 20% of it with little reduction in flood control capacity -- meaning you can use that 20% for factory farmed shrimp and such. If we adopt such ideas, then as each decision is made, the before/after cost benefits are weighed and the project proponent (the coal mine operator, the nat gas driller, the shrimp factory farmer, etc.) shows that, properly discounting the value of the future benefits from the eco-system (as they are trained to do), the project pans out nicely, and everybody wins! The developer gets to develop and talk about "partnering" a lot, the government gets to trumpet its ecological sensitivity, and the "reasonable" environmentalists get to get consulting gigs with other developers explaining how to overcome and marginalize the "radicals" who insist that nonlinearity -- the realization that we really don't know how many output change units results from a given unit input change -- might be better interpreted as a sign that the area is too complex to be carved up. |
20th January 2008 |
| Boxer: EPA 'Whited Out' Documents On Greenhouse Gases - NBC 11 Bay Area U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer says the Environmental Protection Agency is refusing to explain why it rejected California's greenhouse gas regulations. |
19th January 2008 |
| Green-eyed jealousy on the high seas - Guardian Unlimited It's an epic battle being fought out across thousands of miles of empty ocean, with just two boats struggling to stop Japan's whaling expedition in the Antarctic. Trouble is, one belongs to Greenpeace and the other to Sea Shepherd, rival organisations that are as likely to fight each other as the whalers they are hunting down. [Worth reading just fot the inspirational portrait of Captain John Watson] |
18th January 2008 |
| Elites vs. Greens in the Global South - Foreign Policy In Focus Last month’s conference on climate change in Bali, Indonesia, brought the North-South fault line in climate politics into sharp relief. While U.S. intransigence on the question of mandatory cuts in greenhouse gas emissions took center stage, not far behind was the issue of what commitments fast-growing developing countries like China and India should make in a new, post-Kyoto climate change regime. |
18th January 2008 |
| China drought underlines hydropower reliance risks - The Star BEIJING (Reuters) - A major drought has squeezed electricity output at big dams across southwest China, highlighting the risks of Beijing's massive hydropower expansion plans on coal and oil markets in a warmer, drier world. |
18th January 2008 |
| The high costs of doing nothing, part III - Grist Climate change disrupts ecosystems that provide valuable services |
17th January 2008 |
| Environment: Is the Greening of Business for Real? - AlterNet Can a friendship between the business and enviro world really be legit? |
17th January 2008 |
| Bypassing the blockage of nations - BBC News Solving the world's environmental ills may mean re-thinking the role of nations and national governments. |
16th January 2008 |
| Will the World's Oceans Be Our Next Drinking Tap? - AlterNet Desalination plants are popping up all over the world, but they may very well make the environmental crisis worse.< |