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| ExxonMobil says we need to destroy our grandchildren's future to save them Exxon. Mobil anxiously grasps its gigantic but unsustainable gold mines, pumps cash (much of it from your wallet to places far away), pours GHGs into the atmosphere, pushes its publicity machine, and doesn' t seem to comprehend the relationships between a healthy climate and the lives of our grandchildren. They try to confuse you in the process. Their actions delay the creation of millions of jobs and our ability to author a healthier future. And that''s putting it politely. Exxon. Mobil will be holding its Annual Meeting of Shareholders this week, on May 26 in Dallas. If you get your news from the status quo media, you might not have a full picture of the company (see NYT suckered by Exxon. Mobil in puff piece titled 'Green is for Sissies'). |
27th May 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Should we prefer investing in renewable energy to cleaning up the dirty stuff? by David Roberts A couple weeks ago, Michael Levi at the Council for Foreign Relations (one of the best energy analysts out there; bookmark his blog) wrote a post called 'In Defense of CCS.' (For non- nerds: CCS is carbon capture and sequestration.) I' ve done plenty of bashing of CCS, so I read it with interest. It is structured as a fisking of a recent anti- CCS op- ed in the NYT. One of the arguments he debunks, however, deserves a closer look: 'Carbon dioxide is a worthless waste product, so taxpayers would likely end up shouldering most of the cost. |
27th May 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| JP Morgan invented credit-default swaps to give Exxon credit line for Valdez liability Credit- default swaps are widely seen as a major contributor to the recent financial meltdown. But the origin of CDS''s with the Exxon Valdez oil disaster isn' t as widely known. |
27th May 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| ANALYSIS-World warms, public cools to climate action OSLO, May 27 (Reuters) - This year is on track to be the warmest worldwide since records began in the 19th century yet voters seem to be cooling to strong action to combat climate change. Their doubts may be quietly sapping the will of governments and companies to cut greenhouse gas emissions after the Copenhagen summit in December failed to agree a treaty meant to slow more droughts, floods and rising seas, analysts say. "There has been a resurgence of scepticism" that humans are to blame for global warming, said Max Boykoff, an assistant professor and expert in environmental policy at the University of Colorado- Boulder. Yet so far in 2010 there has been record warmth especially in many tropical regions, Australia and parts of the Arctic -- despite a chill start to the year in western Europe and some eastern parts of North America. "It''s more likely than not -- greater than a 50 percent chance -- that it will be the warmest year on record," said Vicky Pope, head of climate change advice at the British Met Office Hadley Centre, referring to global temperatures. That would eclipse 1998 and 2005 as the warmest years since records began and undermine an argument used by some sceptics that warming has peaked. The decade just finished was the warmest on record, ahead of the 1990s. See also: Americans Are Becoming Global Warming Skeptics - U.S. News & World Report |
27th May 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Do Humans Need a Golden Rule 2.0? Weighing the climate challenge, a popular novelist proposes that humans need a new Golden Rule. |
27th May 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Debt crisis hits climate change battle - Financial Times The private sector will have to pay more towards efforts to tackle climate change as the European sovereign debt crisis leaves governments facing pressure to cut spending, Norway has warned. 'We all see that many European states have to focus on debt reduction and that will of course reduce their ability to increase public funding for climate actions,' he told the Financial Times. His comments came as officials from more than 50 countries prepared to gather in Oslo on Thursday for one of the biggest meetings on global warming since the UN climate summit in Copenhagen in December. Norway, which has promised to use some of its oil wealth to fight climate change, burnished its commitment by announcing $1bn ( 817m, £694m) to help Indonesia tackle deforestation " the main focus of the Oslo event. |
27th May 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| On attribution How do we know what caused climate to change " or even if anything did? This is a central question with respect to recent temperature trends, but of course it is much more general and applies to a whole range of climate changes over all time scales. Judging from comments we receive here and discussions elsewhere on the web, there is a fair amount of confusion about how this process works and what can (and cannot) be said with confidence. For instance, many people appear to (incorrectly) think that attribution is just based on a naive correlation of the global mean temperature, or that it is impossible to do unless a change is 'unprecedented' or that the answers are based on our lack of imagination about other causes. |
27th May 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 'Playing God' with the climate? Biotech supremo Craig Venter's latest foray into "synthetic life" is raising all sorts of questions within the domain of medical and scientific ethics. One of the potential uses which he's looking at for synthetic bacteria - sucking carbon dioxide from the atmosphere - potentially also breaks new ground in the ethics of human effects on the natural world. Craig_VenterDr Venter's proposed CO2-suckers, if they ever materialise, would basically constitute a new entry into the field of geo-engineering - using technology to ameliorate human-induced climate change. |
23rd May 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| U.S. National Academy of Sciences labels as 'settled facts' that 'the Earth system is warming and that much of this warming is very likely due to human activities' - New report confirms failure to act poses "significant risks" A strong, credible body of scientific evidence shows that climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for a broad range of human and natural systems . Some scientific conclusions or theories have been so thoroughly examined and tested, and supported by so many independent observations and results, that their likelihood of subsequently being found to be wrong is vanishingly small. Such conclusions and theories are then regarded as settled facts. This is the case for the conclusions that the Earth system is warming and that much of this warming is very likely due to human activities. See also: US top scientists urge coal, oil use penalties Academy of Sciences defends climate-change research, conclusions |
23rd May 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Singularity > Climate Change > Peak Oil > Financial Crisis While lying awake late at night worrying about what kind of world my children will inherit, I find it helpful to come up with schemas for the most obvious and inevitable of the large societal problems. It makes them seem slightly more manageable to place them in order of importance, or time. Further, being clear on what are the biggest and most important problems is an essential prerequisite to thinking about solutions: these problems all interact, and solutions to the smaller of them may not be radical enough to address the larger of them. read more |
23rd May 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Economic impacts of biodiversity loss: case studies From forests in Japan to sea turtles in Tanzania to Scottish school dinners, the evidence of the global biodiversity crisis is evident. See also: The price of consuming the planet UN study backs economic changes to save natural world: report Visualizing Earth's Shared Assets |
23rd May 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Last chance for a slow dance? All the world fiddles as we near global warming’s point of no return. Ha! Ha! Dance the Hambopolska! 1896 Svante Arrhenius suggests burning coal could raise the planets temperature. How bout that Lindbergh! Lindy Hop! 1930s Amateur scientist suggests warming in North America due to Arrheniuss proposed greenhouse effect. |
23rd May 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Last chance for a slow dance? All the world fiddles as we near global warming’s point of no return. Ha! Ha! Dance the Hambopolska! 1896 Svante Arrhenius suggests burning coal could raise the planets temperature. How bout that Lindbergh! Lindy Hop! 1930s Amateur scientist suggests warming in North America due to Arrheniuss proposed greenhouse effect. |
23rd May 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Polluted by profit: Johann Hari on the real Climategate Why did America's leading environmental groups jet to Copenhagen to lobby for policies that will lead to the faster death of the rainforests " and runaway global warming? Why are their staff dismissing the only real solutions to climate change as "unworkable" and "unrealistic"? Why are they clambering into corporate "partnerships" with BP, which is responsible for the worst oil spill in living memory? |
23rd May 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| New Scientist's 'Living In Denial' Special Issue Discusses Climate Deniers head_in_sand.jpg The magazine New Scientist has devoted a special issue to the 'Age of Denial,' including a lot of examples of climate deniers' efforts to distort and attack climate science.DeSmogBlog's own Richard Littlemore has an essay in the issue entitled 'Living in denial: How corporations manufacture doubt,' which discusses how polluting industries have followed the tobacco playbook in order to confuse the public about climate change.Littlemore writes:'The doubt industry has ballooned in the past two decades. There are now scores of think tanks pushing dubious and confusing policy positions, and dozens of phoney grass-roots organisations created to make those positions appear to have legitimate following.'<!--break-->Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine and columnist for Scientific American, explains the difference between a skeptic and a denier in his piece ... |
20th May 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Green advantage Dwindling metal supply threatens drive to go green See also: Mining garbage for tomorrow's metals |
20th May 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Oil companies fund initiative to repeal California's landmark climate law by Jonathan Hiskes Texas oil companies are funding an attack on Gov. Schwarzenegger's signature environmental accomplishment, the 2006 Global Warming Solutions Act.Gov. Schwarzenegger's OfficeBig Oil is nothing if not brazen, so while BP works to protect its tattered reputation in the Gulf, two Texas oil companies are on the attack in California. Their target is Assembly Bill 32, the most ambitious cap-and-trade climate plan in the nation, which was signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) in 2006 and is set to really kick into gear next year. Their weapon is a ballot initiative that would mothball the plan until state unemployment drops to below 5.5 percent for four consecutive quarters (from a current 12.6 percent), which would effectively kill the plan for the time being. |
20th May 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Man-made climate change blamed for 'significant' rise in ocean temperature The world's oceans are warming up and the rise is both significant and real, according to one of the most comprehensive studies into marine temperature data gathered over the past two decades. |
20th May 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 12 ways to cash in on the 'collapse of Eaarth' The war is over mining rights to Pandora's unobtanium, a powerful new energy source needed back on Eaarth to save our planet, where rapid population growth is exhausting limited natural resources, resulting in a dying civilization. Obviously this is a metaphor for today's global threats. The goals of Avatar 2154: Maximum security and wealth preservation for future generations of members from the elite of Wall Street, Washington, Corporate America CEOs and the Forbes 400. Avatar 2154 secretly supports climate-change-deniers in think tanks, academic research and politicians who negate the impact of scientific facts. This effort is necessary when high-profile voices like Al Gore and Bill McKibben surface and new propaganda is required to attack their efforts stirring global climate initiatives. |
18th May 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Making the Simple Complicated - New York Times - blog Making the Simple ComplicatedNew York Times (blog)In the case of global warming, we may arguably be more confident that the amount of carbon should stay relatively flat than we are about the per-ton damage ...and more |
18th May 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Q&A: "Old Rich" Countries Owe Debt for Climate Crisis NEW YORK, May 17 (IPS) - Countries closest to the equator will suffer most from climate change, according to Gwynne Dyer, a geopolitical analyst and journalist who predicts catastrophic events over the next few decades if temperatures continue to rise. |
18th May 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Fast Train to Nowhere? Before the UK commissions a high speed rail network, we should ask ourselves some big questions. |
18th May 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Michael McCarthy: This is no forecast. Climate change is here and now You can look at the warming of Lake Tanganyika as a geographical and scientific curiosity; but you're probably wiser to look at it with a considerable sense of foreboding. |
18th May 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 'Climate dice' now dangerously loaded: leading scientist Evidence for global warming has mounted but public awareness of the threat has shrunk, due to a cold northern winter and finger-pointing at the UN's climate experts, a top scientist warned Wednesday. |
17th May 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Radical new tack urged on climate The failure of the UN climate process and questioning of the science mean a new approach is needed, a report says. See also: Climate crash |
17th May 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Ocean ecosystems in the age of Cassandra - As warnings mount, how can we speed science into policymaking? Just within the past month, several news items underscored the dire situation our oceans face. Kristen L. Marhaver, a Ph.D. Candidate in Marine Biology at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography has the story in this repost. Chemists warned that we must focus more attention on ocean acidification. As the seas absorb more CO2 emissions, pH levels decrease and wreak havoc on marine life, which is why the phenomenon is also called the 'evil twin of global warming.' Meanwhile, biologists warned that not enough attention is focused on the rapid extinction of the world's species, some of which will disappear before we've discovered them. |
17th May 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| BIODIVERSITY: We Can Live Without Oil, But Not Without Flora and Fauna UXBRIDGE, Canada, May 10 (Tierramérica) - The policies and deals that contributed to the massive oil spill under way in the Gulf of Mexico are also jeopardising the Earth's vital biological infrastructure, according to the Global Biodiversity Outlook 3, published Monday. |
17th May 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Money's Hunger Industrial civilisation is trashing the environment. Should we try to reform it or just watch it go down? |
17th May 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| It's the end of the world - as we know it This article concisely summarizes most of what has been discussed in Energy Bulletin over the past few months regarding Peak Oil. Reading all this news, I realized we are now actually facing The End of The World (As We Know It). I struggled for awhile with how to write about this. Despair is not the answer. read more |
17th May 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| What we can learn from studying the last millennium - or so With all of the emphasis that is often placed on hemispheric or global mean temperature trends during the past millennium, and the context they provide for interpreting modern warming trends, one thing is often lost in the discussion: space matters as much as time. Indeed, it is likely that the regional patterns of past climate changes, rather than simple hemispheric or global mean temperature trends, will best inform our understanding of the dynamical mechanisms involved. Since much of the uncertainty in future projections relates to regional climate change impacts, it makes particular sense to focus on those changes in the past that involve regional changes and the underlying mechanisms behind them. |
17th May 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 10 Reasons to Be Alarmed About Our Catastrophic Oil Addiction War, terrorism, economic instability -- these are just a few of the reasons to be concerned about our addiction to oil. |
17th May 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Ian Welsh: Global Warming: A localized pause and then the end of our civilization The majority of the American population now thinks that global warming probably doesn't exist. Part of that is the huge amount of money which has... |
17th May 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Ice cap thaw may awaken Icelandic volcanoes OSLO (Reuters) - A thaw of Iceland's ice caps in coming decades caused by climate change may trigger more volcanic eruptions by removing a vast weight and freeing magma from deep below ground, scientists said on Friday. See also: Iceland volcano unlikely to slow global warming: scientists Volcano emitting 150-300,000 tonnes of CO2 daily: experts 'Observations suggest that the ongoing rise in global average temperatures may already be eliciting a hazardous response from the geosphere.' Grounding of Europe's Jets Cancels Out CO2 Emissions from Volcano |
20th April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Pumping tax dollars to big oil - Getting priorities right on tax subsidies for oil companies ExxonMobil paid no U.S. federal income tax in 2009. In fact, it was entitled to a $156 million tax refund. Why? CAP's Sima J. Gandhi, has the answer in this repost. The answer is more boring than you think: It overpaid its 2008 taxes. ExxonMobil was required to bolster its pension plan by $3 billion when the market went down in 2008. According to Alan Jeffers, Exxon's media relations manager, this overpayment reduced the amount of taxes owed in 2008, but the tax adjustment wasn't made until one year later, which led to an overpayment and the refund in 2009. |
20th April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Where's the apology from the right for lying about Climategate? At last! The controversy is over. It turns out the "scientific" claims promoted for decades by whiny self-righteous liberals were a lie, a fraud, a con--and we don't need to change after all. The left is humiliated; the conservatives are triumphant and exultant. The year is 1954, and the "science" that has been exposed as a "sham" by conservatives is the link between smoking and lung cancer. Welcome to Tobaccogate, as Fox News would call it. The conservatives are championing professor Clarence Cook Little, who says he has discovered insurmountable flaws in the use of statistics and clinical data by "anti-tobacco" (and quasi-commie) scientists. |
20th April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Betting on climate change Last year, Beluga Shipping discovered that there's money in global warming. Beluga is a German firm that specializes in 'super heavy lift' transport. Its vessels are equipped with massive cranes, allowing it to load and unload massive objects, like multi-ton propeller blades for wind turbines. It is an enormously expensive business, but last summer, Beluga executives hit upon an interesting way to save money: Shipping freight over a melting Arctic. Beluga had received contracts to send materials on a sprawling trip that would begin in Ulsan, South Korea, head north and west to the Russian port city of Archangelsk-located near the border with Finland-and wind up in Nigeria. |
20th April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Video: Emily Hunter Investigates the Tar Sands - Part 1 Tar Sands TV-documentary |
20th April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Cutting climate Why the EU can and must cut emissions faster |
20th April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Some Of Our Heat Is Missing As seen on a YouTube here : [link]. The Earth is heating up, as evidenced by a number of direct measurements. However, we do not know where all the heat is located. Here's what Kevin Trenberth has written, which should be clear for anybody who has a reasonably good command of the English language :- [link] |
20th April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global warming monitoring needs to find 'missing heat', say scientists Further study on oceans needed before hidden heat 'comes back to haunt us', say researchers in ColoradoExperts need to beef up ways to measure the heat content of oceans as a way to track more reliably the course of global warming, scientists say today.Kevin Trenberth and John Fasullo, climate scientists at the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, say that only about half of the heat believed to have built up in the Earth in recent years can be accounted for. New instruments are needed to locate and monitor this missing heat, they say, which could be storing up trouble for the future."The heat will come back to haunt us sooner or later," Trenberth said. |
16th April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Peak Wood The combination of accelerated deforestation and fossil fuel use has resulted in the climate change crisis we face today. |
16th April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Police quiz climate change sceptics Local police are being helped by officers from the National Domestic Extremism Team, leading the climate sceptics to question the involvement of a unit set up to counter home-grown terrorists and radicals. A unit spokesman said the two officers were assigned because of their expertise in computer forensics and because they had experience of dealing with environmental activists. There have been indications that the hackers could have been based in Russia, and some experts believe they may have been hired by sceptics based in the US. See also: 'No malpractice' by climate unit |
15th April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The peak oil crisis: China's latest drought There will be at least three major consequences of recurring drought conditions in southwestern China. First will be that millions of people and head of livestock will have to find a source of water or move. Next comes the food supply. The third problem of a lasting drought is the collapse of hydro-generated power in China. Should the hydro-power shortages continue for long we can expect that higher oil imports and world prices will not be far behind. read more |
15th April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Arctic oil drilling threatens Norway government OSLO (Reuters) - A classic battle pitting the oil industry against environmentalists and fishermen in Norway's Arctic seas is set to intensify on Thursday when the most thorough environmental study of the project to date is released. |
15th April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
 Say Noah to climate change "Looks like we've scaled back our climate goals" |
15th April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| It can't possibly be that easy Over the weekend, I read Paul Krugman's big essay on climate economics, Building a Green Economy. Now, it's important to note that the goal of the Waxman Markey bill is to reduce US carbon emissions by 83% by 2050. So essentially, the CBO is saying, and Krugman is endorsing, that this level of emissions reduction will have so small an effect on economic growth that it's going to be indistinguishable from noise. I don't dispute that environmental economists think this, but I find it to be a completely facially implausible conclusion. read more |
15th April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Beyond green growth: why we need a world without economic growth Beyond concepts of green growth or sustainable growth there is also that of 'no growth'. From OurWorld 2.0, part of the Guardian Environment NetworkLast March, Tim Jackson put forward the idea of prosperity without growth in a report published by the United Kingdom's Sustainable Development Commission and followed up with a book of the same name released last November. The book is a best seller (ranked 1,729 on Amazon) and in it he argues convincingly that we can still prosper without adhering to the encoded mantra of expansion and growth that permeates modern market economies. More recently, in January 2010, Andrew Simms and Victoria Johnson at the new economics foundation (nef) published a more emphatic message in their report entitled Growth isn't possible. |
15th April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Taxpayer dollars subsidizing destruction by Lester Brown One way to correct market failures is tax shifting-raising taxes on activities that harm the environment so that their prices begin to reflect their true cost and offsetting this with a reduction in income taxes. A complementary way to achieve this goal is subsidy shifting. Each year the world's taxpayers provide at least $700 billion in subsidies for environmentally destructive activities, such as fossil fuel burning, overpumping aquifers, clearcutting forests, and overfishing. As the Earth Council study Subsidizing Unsustainable Development observes, 'There's something unbelievable about the world spending hundreds of billions of dollars annually to subsidize its own destruction.' A fishing trawler.Photo via winkyintheuk via FlickrThe perverse nature of harmful subsidies is especially apparent in the case of oceanic fisheries. |
15th April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Economist does not disappoint The March 20th -26th cover story of The Economist, 'Spin, science and climate change,' deftly bypasses the politics surrounding 'climategate', to tackle the more important issue: whether any of this has any bearing on climate change science and policy. This is a refreshing bit of journalism that everyone should read. It is no secret that we have been unimpressed by the quality of reporting of climate science or late. From the insinuation that data were manipulated (for which there remains no evidence, primae facie or otherwise), to the suggestion that 'climate skeptics' had somehow been kept from publishing in peer reviewed literature (how, we wonder, does Lindzen keep getting published?), to the blind repetition of false claims of major errors in the IPCC (when only a couple of actual errors " and none of them in the primary ... |
15th April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Beyond the Limits of Earth Day: Turning Up the Heat on Climate This month marks the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, an event that has attracted millions to environmental causes. But winning passage of meaningful legislation on climate change requires more than slogans and green talk - it demands intense, determined political action. BY DENIS HAYES |
13th April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| EU 'must double spending on energy projects' Europe must double spending on energy infrastructure by 2025 and aggressively' step up energy-efficiency if it is to meet a target to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% by the middle of the century, according to the European Climate Foundation (ECF), a group promoting action on climate change in Europe. |
13th April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 'Reef rat run' on the coastal coal highway Once again, the words "resources," "exports," "China" and "controversy" feature in the same blog. But this time they refer, of course, to the grounding of the China-bound coal carrier Shen Neng 1, which rammed into a sand bar on Saturday afternoon. Brisbane's Courier Mail has a story today which speculates that the ship might have been taking an illegal short-cut - "a Reef rat run" which saves time and money on the voyage to China. Conservationists have also complained that the federal and state governments have encouraged the growth of the resources sector but failed to acknowledge the environmental risks involved. [..the fossil fuel industry finds a novel way to bash the enviroment...] |
13th April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The climate-change nightmares of military strategists WHEN a climate scientist forecasts that global warming will trigger mega-famines, floods of refugees and geopolitical meltdown, we may fear that they have a myopic world view. When a security specialist says the same thing, we should start to wonder. Gwynne Dyer has been a lecturer on international affairs for two decades. In Climate Wars he eloquently explores the "grim detail" of how governments will grapple with a challenge unprecedented since before there were governments. |
12th April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global climate deal impossible in 2010: U.N. BONN, Germany (Reuters) - The world will be unable to agree a full deal in 2010 to fight global warming, the U.N.'s top climate official said Sunday, as 175 nations struggled to revive talks after the antagonistic Copenhagen summit. See also: Lost Opportunities at Copenhagen, Life at 3.6 Degrees Warmer Copenhagen destroyed by Danish draft leak, says India's environment minister Bonn climate talks: picking up the pieces after Copenhagen | Saleemul Huq |
12th April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Can capitalism fix the climate? Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. It has taken capitalism about 250 years to generate enough waste and pollution to press dangerously against nature's limits. With such a damning record, there should be no grounds to expect a different outcome in the future. |
12th April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate: How we got here The notion that greenhouse-gas emissions might affect the Earth's climate was first flagged up by scientists, and became a matter of politics only in the early 1990s. Now, much of the negotiating is done by lawyers. |
12th April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate 'more urgent than ever' The need for a new global climate deal is "greater than ever", say developing country delegates at UN climate talks in Bonn. |
10th April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 'World needs a barometer of life' The world needs a "barometer of life" to ensure threatened species and vital ecosystems are not lost forever, say scientists. |
10th April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Must-read Krugman piece: Building a Green Economy Nobelist Paul Krugman has a long piece in the upcoming Sunday NY Times Magazine, basically climate economics 101. It is nearly 8000 words, so while you should read the whole thing, I'll post some of the highlights below. I'll also throw some links to the scientific and economic literature that the NYT, in its infinite wisdom/stupidity, refuses to include. The essay isn't primarily about the science, but this is what Krugman has to say on that, starting with the opening paragraph: If you listen to climate scientists - and despite the relentless campaign to discredit their work, you should - it is long past time to do something about emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. See also: Krugman weighs in |
10th April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| World Bank needs to do better on energy sector investments post South African coal project by Jake Schmidt Today the World Bank approved a loan to build the fourth largest power plant in the world. The project is to be financed with a $3 billion loan to Eskom-the South African electricity company-and is the largest coal-plant loan in the Bank history. The 4,800-megawatt Medupi power plant would emit 25 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere-an amount equivalent to about half the annual emissions of Norway. This was a challenging and complicated project and was less about South Africa than about the World Bank's role in helping (or hindering) the world's efforts to address global warming. See also: World bank vote on South African coal power station - Friends of the Earth statement South Africa : Coal Plant Won't Promote Development, Say Groups |
10th April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon cap would deny Iran precious petrodollars: Over $100 million a day by Brad Johnson Cross-posted from Wonk Room. A strong cap on carbon would significantly cut the flow of petrodollars to Iran's hostile regime, a Wonk Room analysis shows. The economic and political strength of Iran's dictatorship is a threat to the national security of the United States and the world, and its nuclear ambitions threaten to destabilize the Middle East. Yesterday, diplomats from 'six world powers have met for the first time to discuss imposing new sanctions on Iran for its failure to suspend work on its controversial nuclear program,' but negotiators have not yet figured how to achieve President Barack Obama's goal of being 'consistent and steady in applying international pressure.' Iran, 'which holds the world's second-biggest oil and gas reserves and supplies about 4.5 percent of the world's oil production,' uses its oil ... |
10th April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Who's Hosting the Tea Party? Big Oil funds tax rallies and global warming deniers. Our Country Deserves Better has organized campaigns against health care reform and in support of new Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown. The PAC spent $347,670 on ads supporting Brown’s recent candidacy. But that’s chump change compared to what Americans for Prosperity has spent on its PR campaigns. AFP is funded by the owners of the second largest privately held corporation in the country—the Wichita, Kan.-based Koch Industries Inc., an oil conglomerate with business interests throughout North America, including Wisconsin. In addition to being an astute businessman, Koch Industries’ founder, Fred Koch, also held strong political beliefs. In fact, Fred was a founding member of the radically conservative John Birch Society in the 1950s. The group, although less prominent than in its 1960s heyday, is headquartered in Appleton, Wis., and remains a strong supporter of limited government and Christian principles. Two of Fred’s four sons, Charles and David, have expanded their father’s business empire—for example, the company bought Georgia-Pacific Corp. for $13 billion in 2005, and the Lycra and Stainmaster brands from DuPont Corp. for $4.2 billion in 2004. In 2008, the company’s annual sales totaled $100 billion. Charles and David are each worth $16 billion—wealthier than the founders of Google ($15.3 billion each) and financier George Soros ($13 billion), but not as rich as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg ($17.5 billion) or Bill Gates ($50 billion), currently the richest man in America. That’s why tea party critics like Scot Ross, executive director of the progressive watchdog group One Wisconsin Now, said AFP’s real aim is to make the rich richer and the middle class and low-income workers even worse off than they are now. See also: Irony-gate 2: Modern day Tea Partiers outsource denial to Lord Monckton - a British peer! |
8th April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Energy production vs. environmental protection: The partisan divide by Josh Nelson Via Samantha Thompson, a new Gallup poll found that, for the first time in 10 years of polling, Americans prioritize energy production over the protection of the environment. Here is the key chart: While the chart is compelling, it falls short on multiple levels. 1. The options it presents are a false dichotomy. We have several energy sources at our disposal that are environmentally sustainable such as wind, solar and geothermal. It would be interesting to see how this poll would have played out had they included a third option: methods for increasing U.S. energy production in environmentally sustainable ways should be given a priority over less environmentally friendly methods. See also: Public supports energy over environment: poll |
8th April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Exxon Mobil paid no federal income tax in 2009 - Steve Martin lives! The joke goes, The economy is so bad Exxon Mobil laid off 25 Congressmen. If only. Turns out the economy is never really bad for the oil giant, and the last thing they would want to do is cut off support to members of Congress who allow them to pull off the remarkable trick of making $45 billion in profits last year but paying no federal income tax. Think Progress reports the stunning news, which, sadly, is not a Steve Martin routine: Last week, Forbes magazine published what the top U.S. corporations paid in taxes last year. Most egregious, Forbes notes, is General Electric, which generated $10.3 billion in pretax income, but ended up owing nothing to Uncle Sam. |
8th April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Arctic Sea Ice: Brace Yourself for the Spin Arctic Sea Ice 1978-2010.png The extent of Arctic sea ice peaked on March 31, 2010, the latest date for the maximum Arctic sea ice extent since the start of the satellite record in 1979, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Co. The ice also reached an extent that was 670,000 square kilometers (260,000 square miles) above the record low for the month, which occurred in March 2006. From these two factoids, you may expect a round of stories in the DenierSphere trumpeting a return to global cooling - an end to the worrying decline of Arctic ice that hit a low point in 2006. See also: Arctic winter ice recovers slightly despite record year low, scientists say |
8th April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Cap and Trade Loses Its Standing as Energy Policy of Choice WASHINGTON " Less than a year ago, cap and trade was the policy of choice for tackling climate change. Matthew Cavanaugh/European Pressphoto Agency Environmental groups and their foes in industry joined hands to embrace the approach, a market-driven system that sets a ceiling on global warming pollution while allowing companies to trade permits to meet it. President Obama praised it by name in his first budget, and the authors of the House climate and energy bill passed last June largely built their measure around it. Today, the concept is in wide disrepute, with opponents effectively branding it cap and tax, and Tea Party followers using it as a symbol of much of what they say is wrong with Washington. |
8th April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
 Al Gore's igloo Funny while it lasted! (See today's sketchpad.) Ha ha! Climate isn't completely ruined YET! It was cold for few days! Al Gore is FAT! Okay, but don't environmentalists do the exact same thing but the other way around? Don't they point to a hot day as proof of global warming? No. And we don't say that Al Gore is skinny, either. More about that in a minute (not Al Gore's weight but weather-related tactical arguments.) But first of all, the warmth of a given year isn't the real issue, anyway. Certainly the evidence for the warming trend line is compelling, not that that seems to make any impression on deniers. |
8th April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Paleo Lorraine A very intriguing study from Lorraine Lisiecki, published as a Letter in Nature Geoscience, researching the Milankovitch-sourced theories, and hinting that messing with the natural Climate cycle could have very serious consequences, shaking up five million years of progress, through feedbacks, towards relative Climate calm. |
6th April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Faith-based economics in two graphs It took a French newspaper to unearth information put out by the U. S. government more than one year ago that provides a worrisome projection for world oil supplies from an agency that for years said such supplies would be no problem for the foreseeable future. Glen Sweetnam of the U. S. Energy Information Administration acknowledged in an interview that total liquid fuel supplies could actually fall between 2011 and 2015 "if the investment [in new capacity] is not there."While this report has been circulating on peak oil sites in the last week, it is a graph which accompanied Sweetnam's 2009 presentation (PDF) which I found particularly illustrative. |
5th April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Arctic thaw frees overlooked greenhouse gas: study OSLO (Reuters) - Thawing permafrost can release nitrous oxide, also known as laughing gas, a contributor to climate change that has been largely overlooked in the Arctic, a study showed on Sunday. |
5th April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| EPA may try to use Clean Water Act to regulate carbon dioxide The Environmental Protection Agency is exploring whether to use the Clean Water Act to control greenhouse gas emissions, which are turning the oceans acidic at a rate that's alarmed some scientists. With climate change legislation stalled in Congress, the Clean Water Act would serve as a second front for the Obama administration. |
5th April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Collapse Competitively We are heading toward economic, political and social collapse, and every day that passes brings it closer. But we just don't know when to stop, do we? Which part of "the harder we try, the harder we fail" can't we understand? Why can't we understand that each additional dollar of debt will drive us into national bankruptcy faster, harder and deeper? Why can't we grasp the concept that each additional dollar of military spending further undermines our security? Is there some sort of cognitive impairment that prevents us from understanding that each additional dollar sunk into the medical industry will only make us sicker? |
5th April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| CLIMATE CHANGE: Native Peoples Reject Market Mechanisms SAN JOSé, Apr 1 (IPS) - Solutions to global warming based on the logic of the market are a threat to the rights and way of life of indigenous peoples, the Latin American Indigenous Forum on Climate Change concluded this week in Costa Rica. |
2nd April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Northern sea ice growth a fluke, not end of climatechange: researcher Arctic sea ice is nearly back to average global levels for the first time in at least a decade after years of spectacular declines. The surprise growth at a time of year when ice is normally melting has triggered a blizzard of I-told-you-sos among online climate change skeptics. |
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| U.S.: Big Energy Firms Blocking Solar Power in South Source: IPS As citizens, businesses and non-profit organisations seek to transition to cleaner power sources like solar and wind, some big energy firms whose business models rely on polluting sources are standing in the way. See also: Renewable Energy is Struggling against Polluting Firms |
2nd April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Economists Warn against Setting Price for Carbon Too Low PORTLAND, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--In its first attempts to regulate carbon emissions, the U.S. government is hindering its own efforts by using flawed economic models that grossly underestimate the impact of carbon dioxide (CO2) on the climate and on our economic future, says a new report issued today by America's largest network of independent climate economists. |
2nd April 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
 Pre-order Joseph Romm's new book, Straight Up Anyone who has specific ideas for marketing the book or knows someone who might need review copy should email me at the address here. My new book doesn t come out until the week of April 19th. But you can pre-order it on Amazon.com (click here). You know you want to after getting all these Climate Progress posts for free for so long . Seriously, though, the timing couldn t be better for Straight Up: America's Fiercest Climate Blogger Takes on the Status Quo Media, Politicians, and Clean Energy Solutions. We were always planning for it to come out the week of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day and roughly the same time as when the Senate would start taking up the bipartisan climate and clean energy jobs bill. |
31st March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Washington Considers A Decline Of World Oil Production As Of 2011 By Matthieu Auzanneau The U.S. Department of Energy admits that a chance exists that we may experience a decline of world liquid fuels production between 2011 and 2015 if the investment is not there, according to an exclusive interview with Glen Sweetnam, main official expert on oil market in the Obama administration |
31st March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change sceptics on your TV | Richard Adams A survey of America's television weather forecasters finds that one in four of them think 'global warming is a scam'Winning over hearts and minds in the fight against climate change has run into a cold front: America's television weather forecasters.An academic survey of more than 500 US television meteorologists found that one in four of them say there is no global warming, and 27% agree with the statement "global warming is a scam".Perhaps even more worrying for the climate change camp are the 63% of weather presenters who think global warming is caused mainly by natural environmental change. A mere 31% agree with the scientific consensus that human activity is the cause.That's important, because TV weather forecasters have a daily direct line into American homes and are regarded as credible sources of information. |
31st March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Coal fuels much of Internet "cloud", says Greenpeace SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The 'cloud' of data which is becoming the heart of the Internet is creating an all too real cloud of pollution as Facebook, Apple and others build data centers powered by coal, according to a new Greenpeace report. |
31st March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Koch Industries' Extensive Funding of Climate Denial Industry Unmasked koch.jpg Koch Industries has become a financial kingpin of climate science denial and clean energy opposition, spending over $48.5 million since 1997 to fund the climate denial machine, according to an extensive report today by Greenpeace. The Greenpeace report reveals how Koch Industries and the foundations under its control spent far more than even ExxonMobil in recent years to fund industry front groups opposed to clean energy and climate policies. Koch spent over half the total amount -nearly $25 million - funding climate denier groups from 2005 to 2008, a period in which Exxon only spent $8.9 million.Greenpeace's attempt to lift the veil of secrecy inherent to a private company like Koch Industries is no easy task. |
30th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Lovelock: 'We can't save the planet' Professor James Lovelock, the scientist who developed Gaia theory, has said it is too late to try and save the planet. The man who achieved global fame for his theory that the whole earth is a single organism now believes that we can only hope that the earth will take care of itself in the face of completely unpredictable climate change. Interviewed by Today presenter John Humphrys, videos of which you can see below, he said that while the earth's future was utterly uncertain, mankind was not aware it had "pulled the trigger" on global warming as it built its civilizations. See also: James Lovelock: Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change |
30th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The trillion-dollar question is: who will now lead the climate battle? Political and business leaders gather this week in an attempt to revive the world's faltering challenge to global warming. But they face a battle to lift the cloud of scepticism that has descended over climate science and chart a new way forwardSome of the planet's most powerful paymasters will gather in London on Wednesday to discuss a nagging financial problem: how to raise a trillion dollars for the developing world. Those charged with achieving this daunting goal will include Gordon Brown, directors of several central banks, the billionaire philanthropist George Soros, the economist Lord (Nicholas) Stern and Larry Summers, President Obama's chief economics adviser. See also: ENVIRONMENT: For Three Dollars More |
29th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| A Confederacy Of - Climate Dunces Earlier this week, Greenpeace did the rational world a huge favor by compiling a great overview of the denial industry. Dealing in Doubt: The Climate Denial Industry and Climate Science is a brief but critical summary of the attacks on climate science, scientists and, most notably, the IPCC |
29th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Shell Oil Behind London Science Museum Decision to Take Anti-Science Stance on Global Warming? London-Science-Museum.gif The Times of London reports that the London Science Museum has decided to change its position from promoting understanding of the science of global warming to one that they deem neutral in their climate science gallery. And by neutral they mean a stance at odds with the widely accepted science on climate change. Science accepted by NASA, the UN IPCC and climate scientists around the world. And science being visibly demonstrated right now " today - in places like Antarctica and Nepal where ice is shrinking and in Africa where bodies of water are rapidly decreasing from drought and climate changes and in our oceans where coral reefs are dying at an alarming rate. See also: Public scepticism prompts Science Museum to rename climate exhibition |
26th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Don't hound the climate scientists | Rajendra Pachauri One regrettable mistake about glaciers doesn't alter the vast evidence there is of climate changeTo dismiss the implications of climate change based on an error about the rate at which Himalayan glaciers are melting is an act of astonishing intellectual legerdemain. Yet this is what some doubters of climate change are claiming. But the reality is that our understanding of climate change is based on a vast and remarkably sound body of science " and is something we distort and trivialise at our peril.The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has published four comprehensive assessments of climate change and several important special reports since its founding in 1988. |
26th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| New Ways to Gauge the Finite Atmosphere An illustrator finds ways to bring to life largely invisible environmental conditions and trends. |
26th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Memes from the Deep End: Global Warming: Too important to be left to ad agencies There are two primary causes for this sorry state of affairs: First, Earth climate is very complex, involving a huge number of variables with highly non-linear interactions, operating over vastly different time scales; and second, there's Big Money at stake. |
25th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Real Climate Scandal Imagine another IPCC mistake. Where's the outrage when the agency lowballs the threat? The full analysis of how the IPCC has lowballed its estimate of sea-level rise, from when the IPCC report was released in 2007, is here. Now try looking for outrage over that on the blogosphere. Himalayan glacier mistake? Everywhere. Sea-level rise error? Not so much. |
25th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Parliament's last chance to tackle climate change The next parliament is the last one that can meet the 80% cut by 2050 target. Whoever wins the general election must tackle climate change immediatelyAt precisely the moment when this government has finally got its act together on addressing climate change, public confidence in the science of climate change would appear to have hit a new low. Depending on which opinion poll you read, the percentage of people who now believe both that climate change is happening and that it's primarily happening as a consequence of the emissions of greenhouse gases we put into the atmosphere, has gone down to less than 50% of us, and possibly as low as 30% of us.That makes it a lot harder for the politicians, in that such scepticism (and even hostility) provides little encouragement that leadership in this area will play well electorally. |
25th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Uncle Tom's Cabal Even if atmospheric composition were fixed today, global-mean temperature and sea level rise would continue due to oceanic thermal inertia. These constant-composition (CC) commitments and their uncertainties are quantified. Constant-emissions (CE) commitments are also considered. The CC warming commitment could exceed 1°C. The CE warming commitment is 2° to 6°C by the year 2400. |
24th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Study: The Environmental Cost of Doing Business Could Erase a Third of Corporations' Profits Environmental "externalities," says one expert, "pose a major risk to the global economy and markets are not fully aware of these risks, nor do they know how to deal with them." See also: Climate change to cost 6% of GDP each year: IMF |
24th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| France backs down on carbon tax The French government signals that it is dropping a plan for a tax on domestic carbon dioxide emissions. [surprised?] |
24th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Zero Point Of Systemic Collapse By Chris Hedges. All resistance must recognize that the body politic and global capitalism are dead. We should stop wasting energy trying to reform or appeal to it. This does not mean the end of resistance, but it does mean very different forms of resistance. It means turning our energies toward building sustainable communities to weather the coming crisis, since we will be unable to survive and resist without a cooperative effort |
20th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Peak Oil In Four Years? Mobility And Economic Vulnerabilities By Warren Karlenzig Last week, a report was put out by a Kuwaiti research institution forecasting global peak oil production by 2014. This follows a report last month by a broad-based British industry group that also predicted a global oil crunch, or shortage of supply, by the same period |
20th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Spin, science and climate change - Economist Action on climate is justified, not because the science is certain, but precisely because it is not. If records of temperature across the past 1,000 years are not reliable, it matters little to the overall story. If there are problems with the warming as measured by weather stations on land, there are also more reliable data from ships and satellites. Plenty of uncertainty remains; but that argues for, not against, action. If it were known that global warming would be limited to 2°C, the world might decide to live with that. But the range of possible outcomes is huge, with catastrophe one possibility, and the costs of averting climate change are comparatively small. Just as a householder pays a small premium to protect himself against disaster, the world should do the same. |
20th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| An Interview with David Orr, author of Down to the Wire . Part One David Orr was in the UK recently, and the two of us were part of a panel at an event organised by the Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment. After the event, we retired to the bar of a rather grand London hotel, and chatted for an hour about energy, climate change, the Precautionary Principle, Transition and whether or not we are beyond talk of solutions . Part two will follow shortly. read more |
18th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Entropy : One-Way Change On the big red sofa with a highly intelligent polyglottal friend after a smoking vegan roast supper, discussing the notion of pricing Carbon Dioxide emissions, with some mint tea. She said like, the Polluter pays ? Yes , I said, that Polluter pays principle ; except it should be the Polluter pays to clean up , but it doesn t work like that. Either the corporates mess up and the governments take the money and don t clean up; or the corporates mess up, pay the money, then try to recoup the cost from their customers, and don t clean up ... |
18th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Greenhouse Gas Regulations Might Aggravate Climate Change (PhysOrg.com) -- University of Arizona engineers find swapping one chemical for another may actually result in greater energy use, compounding the problems the new chemical was supposed to fix. |
18th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Americans Increasingly Unworried About the Environment People grasp what their drinking water has to do with them. Overwhelmingly, I think they do not fully grasp what global warming has to do with them - and that's a rhetorical failure...At the same time that highly effective movements are arranging million person demonstrations in the streets, most of the people who will actually tell their congressfolk whether to vote for change were watching Law and Order SVU. read more |
18th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Methane May Be Building Under Antarctic Ice - Wired News Microbes living in lakes beneath the ice of Antarctica and Greenland could be producing methane. The greenhouse gas could be building up and released if the ice melts. |
18th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Up is Down, Brown is Green - with apologies to Orwell In the alternate universe of Fox News, Anthony Watts, and many others, up is down. Now, it appears, brown is green. Following the total confusion over the retraction of a paper on sea level, claims of another mistake by the IPCC are making the rounds of the blogosphere. This time, the issue is the impact of rainfall changes on the Amazon rainforest. A study in 2007 showed that the forest gets greener when it rains less. A new study, by Samanta et al. in Geophysical Research Letters shows that the earlier work was flawed. Aided by an apparently rather careless press release, this is being used as evidence that the Amazon is less sensitive to rainfall changes than the IPCC claimed. See also: |
16th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Toxic troubles for climate 'fix' Spreading iron in the oceans as a climate "fix" could poison marine mammals and birds, scientists show. |
16th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Hot Start Hot Start by Jo Abbess 04 February 2010 An assessment of the technology and policy for de-Carbonising the Energy systems of developed societies 1. The Aligned and Related Risks from Climate Change and Peak Fossil Fuels 1a. Key Conclusions The Low Carbon Transition in Energy in developed countries is inevitable (Climate Change Act, 2008; EU Package, 2008; UNFCCC Kyoto Protocol, 1997); yet policy thinking and decision-making seems to still focus on the debateable how to do it rather than the more essential how long do we have ? If the window of opportunity for industrialised society to de-Carbonise proves to foreshorten rapidly, then the next few decades could be a story of economic collapse, unless there is concentrated, concerted endeavour (Sustainable Business, 2010). |
16th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| CO2 at new highs despite economic slowdown OSLO (Reuters) - Levels of the main greenhouse gas in the atmosphere have risen to new highs in 2010 despite an economic slowdown in many nations that braked industrial output, data showed Monday. |
16th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| False profits - Center for Investigative Reporting Knowing they will face climate legislation sometime in the future, a number of U.S. corporations have already begun to offset their greenhouse gas emissions. The utility giant American Electric and Power is buying forest projects in Brazil and the disposal company Waste Management is recovering methane from landfills to use in its trash trucks in California. But a preliminary report commissioned ... |
16th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| It's still real and it's still a problem - BBC News Recent controversies have failed to undermine the fundamental findings of climate science, and the need to address them. See also: Report: The Case for Global Warming Stronger Than Ever - TIME |
16th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Lomborg Deception: The Septical Environmentalist - sic says 16 feet of sea level rise wouldn t be so bad, absurdly claims it would only force the relocation of 15 million people Another op-ed by Bjorn Lomborg, another Gish Gallup of non-stop disinformation. The good news is that the task of debunking the Septical Environmentalist (sic), has been made easier by the publication of whole book dedicated to that tedious task, The Lomborg Deception. And yes, Septical Environmentalist is not a typo. Sure, it may seem like a mistake to use the word environmentalist to describe Lomborg. But it's the very fact that he calls himself an environmentalist while dedicating his life to spreading disinformation and delaying serious action on the seminal environmental issue of our time that makes him septical. | 16th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Charlie Brooker | My plan to save mankind The hands of time move slowly. And they're tightening round your neck . . . but fear notTime is the strangest substance known to man. You can't see, touch, hear, smell, taste or avoid it. Time makes you stronger-minded but weaker-bodied, gradually transforming you from blushing grape to ornery, grouching raisin. Time is the most precious thing you have, yet you're happiest when you're wasting it. Time will outlive you, your offspring, your offspring's robots and your offspring's robots' springs. It will outlive the wind and the rocks, the sun and the moon, Florence and the Machine. Time, in short, is King of Things.Because time is invisible, it's hard to work out which bit to focus on at any given moment. | 16th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| China, Not UN, Controls Supply for CO2 Offsets, Stanford Says - Bloomberg March 15 (Bloomberg) -- China's power to set prices for electricity from windfarms is dictating the supply of tradable emission credits in the UN carbon market, the world's second biggest, according to a report from Stanford University. | 16th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| We climate scientists are not ecofanatics - Times Online If the IPCC has a fault, it is that its reports have been too cautious, not alarmist. In the UK only about 26 per cent of the population believe the scientific consensus that climate change is happening and is man-made. Many feel they are being steamrollered into believing something false or flakey that will make them poorer or stop them flying. Given this dangerous mood of scepticism, it is no surprise that the IPCC - the body that represents the integrity of climate-change scientists across the world - is being attacked. | 16th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Curry and Rice The Royal Statistical Society publishes a truly readable magazine called “Significance”, and until today I hadn’t realised it’s available online.The front cover of the March 2010 Volume 7 Issue 1 edition shows an artist’s mock-up of severe drought and the headline question is “After Copenhagen : What can be done ?” The magazine contains three really helpful articles on Climate Change :- “Copenhagen 1 : Climate change : making certain what the uncertainties are” “Copenhagen 2 : The perfect storm : food security and nutrition under climate change” “Copenhagen 3 : The behavioural wedge : reducing greenhouse gas by individuals and households”. |
14th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Ocean acidification: Why the climate change deniers don't want to talk about it Most people know that the release of carbon dioxide into the air from human sources has contributed to rising global temperatures and massive increases in the rate of melting of the ice at the poles and on Greenland. One of the major consequences they may not know about is the acidification of the oceans.The chemistry is quite straightforward. It's the same process that occurs when bottled water is carbonated. Most of the carbon dioxide simply dissolves in the water. But some of it reacts with the water to form carbonic acid. And, that's what's happening in the world's oceans as humans release more and more carbon dioxide into the air.Climate change deniers love to dispute climate modeling, to talk about short-term weather phenomena, and to pick on minor citation errors in official reports. |
14th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
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12th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Sealevelgate Imagine this. In its latest report, the IPCC has predicted up to 3 meters of sea level rise by the end of this century. But climate sceptics websites were quick to reveal a few problems (or tricks , as they called it). First, although the temperature scenarios of IPCC project a maximum warming of 6.4 °C (Table SPM3), the upper limit of sea level rise has been computed assuming a warming of 7.6 °C. Second, the IPCC chose to compute sea level rise up to the year 2105 rather than 2100 " just to add that extra bit of alarmism. |
12th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Aquatic 'dead zones' contributing to climate change The increased frequency and intensity of oxygen-deprived "dead zones" along the world's coasts can negatively impact environmental conditions in far more than just local waters. In the March 12 edition of the journal Science, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science oceanographer Dr. Lou Codispoti explains that the increased amount of nitrous oxide (N2O) produced in low-oxygen (hypoxic) waters can elevate concentrations in the atmosphere, further exacerbating the impacts of global warming and contributing to ozone "holes" that cause an increase in our exposure to harmful UV radiation. |
12th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| New Gallup poll shows sharp partisan divide in understanding of climate change The partisan divide on climate science has been growing for a while, as I discussed in a 2008 review of the Gallup polling. No surprise, really, since the anti-science disinformation campaign uses experts that are more credible to conservatives, and that disinformation is repeated to death on conservative media outlets. Now Gallup has updated its polling and just now released its own analysis, Conservatives Doubts About Global Warming Grow, with this fascinating ideological breakdown that shows how the divide has grown in the past 2 years: Josh Nelson at Enviroknow explains further: Newly released Gallup polling seems to show a sharp drop in the percentage of Americans who know about, are concerned about and understand the threat of global warming. [don't get belief and truth muddled now...] |
12th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Battle over climate science spreads to US schoolrooms In three states, alternatives to the scientific consensus on global warming must be taught " and there seem to be links to efforts to teach creationism |
12th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Study Tracks 'Outsourcing' of Greenhouse Gas Emissions More than one-third of the carbon dioxide emissions associated with consumer goods used in developed nations is actually emitted in other nations where the products are made, according to a new study. In the U.S., about 2.5 tons of carbon produced per person annually " or about 11 percent of U.S. per capita emissions " are emitted elsewhere, researchers at the Carnegie Institution for Science say. In Europe, it's about four tons of carbon per person. In fact, in smaller European nations like Switzerland, the emissions associated with products manufactured outside the borders exceed the actual emissions produced at home. |
11th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The forest scheme that fails to protect trees Forest conservation project in Bolivia proves that unless a nation as a whole cuts deforestation, individual carbon offset schemes are worthlessIt is the ultimate greenwash nightmare. A tough international deal to curb emissions of greenhouse gases is passed in Mexico later this year. Companies then meet their targets not by cutting their own pollution but by buying into hundreds of forest "conservation" projects round the world. But those projects then fail to deliver real benefits for forests or staunch the flow of carbon into the atmosphere.Some big-time green groups prosper but the planet burns.Exhibit A in this doomsday scenario is a 14-year-old forest conservation project in Bolivia called the Noel Kempff Climate Action Project, one of the world's largest schemes to fix carbon in protected forests. |
11th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Political ads: new weapon in US climate change war? - Reuters Political ads: Big business is now free to blitz the airwaves to attack politicians who support action against climate change, which could smother messages from environmentalists. "At this time we don't plan on using corporate funds for this purpose..." [said the long nosed wooden source] |
11th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Protecting Taxpayers from a Financial Meltdown - Calculating the Credit Subsidy Fee on a Loan Guarantee for a New Nuclear Reactor A few weeks ago, Obama tripled the budget for the nuclear loan guarantee program, though there hasn t been a single promising application in two years. CAP Policy Analyst Richard W. Caperton explains what that risky move means for American taxpayers in this repost. President Obama has made two major announcements in recent weeks regarding loan guarantees for nuclear power. Loan guarantees commit the government to repaying a loan if the original borrower can t pay back the loan. His proposed fiscal year 2011 budget would triple nuclear loan guarantees to $54.5 billion. And on February 16, the Department of Energy issued an $8 billion guarantee for two proposed Southern Company nuclear reactors in Georgia. See aslo: How Much Will Obama's Nuclear Blind Spot Cost America? Academics demand independent inquiry into new nuclear reactors |
11th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Scalability of Biochar In order to also offset carbon emissions entirely with biochar, we'd need to char and bury an amount of carbon three times larger than current off-farm usage of biological products in the economy. Given that the existing level of take that humanity makes on the biosphere is pretty impactful, what you don't want to do is create some kind of general payment incentive for commercial operations to char and bury carbon. That would be disastrous and lead to bulldozers wiping out tropical forests on a huge scale in order to pile them up, char them and bury them. What would be potentially more reasonable is an incentive, on existing farmland only, to do biochar of agricultural residues. That might be environmentally beneficial on the whole (improve the soil in-situ, without incentivizing spillovers onto marginal soils or tropical forest ecosystems) though the interaction with current no-till agricultural practices should be thought about carefully. |
11th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Is "More Jobs" Sustainable or Necessary in the Post-Peak Oil World? What was required for a growing economy, that was supposed to uplift all of modern humanity, is at root a false notion for the manipulated public: the overwhelming majority must work for others to enrich the few so that all of society benefits through unlimited expansion. This problematic profit-scheme is failing to hold up, what with general economic uncertainty on the rise (apart from "Hope") and the advanced depletion of easily extracted, cheap oil. |
11th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| New Naomi Oreskes Talk Available University of California (San Diego) science historian Naomi Oreskes has a new lecture on line, promoting her upcoming book: Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming <!--break--> |
11th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Open Season on Science Like several commentators, I am picking out a trend in Internet communications that indicates that there is a tribe of "doubt believers" out there, proselytising for their cause : bringing down the Science of Climate Change. These evangelists often write and reply to web posts with statements of alarmingly high confidence levels, assuming authority they cannot possibly claim, sometimes using anonymity to cloak their network connections. Here are just a few examples :- |
11th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Sun won't stop global warming if dims as in 1600s OSLO (Reuters) - A dimming of the sun to match conditions in the "Little Ice Age" of the 17th century would only slightly slow global warming, a study indicated on Wednesday. |
11th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| American Petroleum tells lawmakers it supports carbon fee because it’s easier to demonize by Brad Johnson Cross-posted from the Wonk Room. The effort of Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) to craft comprehensive clean energy legislation that caps global warming pollution has brought some positive words from Big Oil and their political allies. In particular, the senators are considering a proposal by ConocoPhillips, BP America, and Exxon Mobil to exclude petroleum producers and refiners from a carbon market and instead levy a carbon fee. Once you have oil people saying, We can live with this, this was our idea, then hopefully everybody else begins to look at this thing anew, Graham told reporters. |
9th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| We're All Sunk It's almost too easy to vilify corporations. What, with all the evil stuff they do. Take the coal industry for example, who blow up our mountains, poison our air and water, contribute massively to global climate change, and spend untold millions of dollars on disinformation campaigns, lobbying Congress, buying Senators, and lying to block efforts to tackle the climate crisis. I mean, they are practically begging for our hatred, right? Right. read more |
9th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Using behavioral science to make smarter energy policy On Friday, journalist John Fleck made a great point, comparing coverage of two new pieces in Science. One is about the latest potential climate disaster: methane venting from the seafloor in the Arctic. The second is about a promising new climate solution: using behavioral science to influence energy use. Not surprisingly, the disaster got tons of coverage. The solution got none. This is entirely typical. As Fleck says, "The problem space gets more attention than the solution space." read more |
9th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| EU climate chief delivers treaty blow - Financial Times The world will almost certainly fail to draw up a new treaty on climate change this year, the minister in charge of last year's Copenhagen summit has admitted, delivering a heavy blow to the barely flickering hopes for a swift global settlement. Connie Hedegaard, the Danish minister who masterminded the summit of world leaders on global warming last year and is now the European commissioner for climate change, told the Financial Times negotiations were not progressing fast enough for a treaty to be signed soon. |
9th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| How You Were Taken In : The Manufacture of Doubt Please do watch Naomi Oreske's magristral (not magisterial , since she's female) presentation on her new publication Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming in the YouTube above. The presentation is somewhat marred by poor audiovisual capture, but it's fascinating, all the same, and good to hear her logical argumentation; and be reminded of what has been happening for the last 50 years in the public debates on Science. |
9th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| US still responsible for most CO2 emissions Europeans import nearly twice as much carbon dioxide per head as US citizens " but the US is still the world's largest emitter See also: UK import emissions are the highest in Europe, figures show | 9th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Debate the controversy! The serial misinformers and misrepresenters demand equal time for their misinformation and misrepresentations. What should climate science defenders and the media do? Here's how the strategy works: Step 1: Some misinformer or anti-science group puts out misinformation on the science or misrepresents the views of some scientist or expert. Step 2: They get debunked, by that person and/or others. Step 3: They demand equal time for their misinformation or misrepresentation, either through formal debates or balanced media coverage. Step 4: If they get the equal time, their strategy has worked, and they can go on to fabricate more misinformation and misrepresent the views of other scientists. | 9th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The trouble with trusting complex science | George Monbiot There is no simple way to battle public hostility to climate research. As the psychologists show, facts barely sway us anywayThere is one question that no one who denies manmade climate change wants to answer: what would it take to persuade you? In most cases the answer seems to be nothing. No level of evidence can shake the growing belief that climate science is a giant conspiracy codded up by boffins and governments to tax and control us. The new study by the Met Office, which paints an even grimmer picture than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, will do nothing to change this view.The attack on climate scientists is now widening to an all-out war on science. | 9th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Evidence provided in UK parliamentary Inquiry Into climate scientists Was Prepared by oil and gas industry consultant The Guardian just broke the news that a consultant to Shell and other oil and gas interests was the source of evidence provided by the Institute of Physics in the current UK parliamentary review of the controversy in England over climate scientists emails stolen from servers at the University of East Anglia.The Guardian reports: Evidence from a respected scientific body to a parliamentary inquiry examining the behaviour of climate-change scientists, was drawn from an energy industry consultant who argues that global warming is a religion hellip;The Guardian has established that the institute prepared its evidence, which was highly critical of the CRU scientists, after inviting views from Peter Gill, an IOP official who is head of a company in Surrey called Crestport Services.According to Gill, Crestport offers "consultancy and management support services hellip ... |
8th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Energy Bulletin Deep thought - Mar 5 -Empires on the Edge of Chaos -Majoring in Idiocy -Climate-Resilient Industrial Development Paths -Can we design cities for happiness? -What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism |
8th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Wanted: an eco prophet | Peter Preston People are drifting into a lethal slumber on climate change. More of the same won't wake them upIt's an exceptionally inconvenient truth. Only one American in three believes that human beings are responsible for climate change: a polling result 10% down on where opinion rested the year before. Worse, the number of Americans who believe that climate change is a hoax or a scientific conspiracy " not doubting, just damned blank certain " has doubled since 2008. Add in those who assert that the changes, if any, are of "no significant concern", and you've got 30% of the US denying, scoffing and just walking on by.Are the issues clearer, the people more committed, here in Britain? |
8th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Real Climategate Why did America's leading environmental groups jet to Copenhagen and lobby for policies that will lead to the faster death of the rainforests--and runaway global warming? Why are their lobbyists on Capitol Hill dismissing the only real solutions to climate change as "unworkable" and "unrealistic," as though they were just another sooty tentacle of Big Coal? At first glance, these questions will seem bizarre. Groups like Conservation International are among the most trusted "brands" in America, pledged to protect and defend nature. Yet as we confront the biggest ecological crisis in human history, many of the green organizations meant to be leading the fight are busy shoveling up hard cash from the world's worst polluters--and burying science-based environmentalism in return. |
8th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| US Defense dept warns of danger from climate change In January this year the US Department of Defense, that bastion of socialists, published its Quadrennial Defense Review Report. The report not only implicitly accepts climate change but also points to the dangers it poses to national security. It's worth reading how it expects climate change to impact the armed forces: Crafting a Strategic Approach to Climate and Energy (pg84) Climate change and energy are two key issues that will play a significant role in shaping the future security environment. Although they produce distinct types of challenges, climate change, energy security, and economic stability are inextricably linked. The actions that the Department takes now can prepare us to respond effectively to these challenges in the near term and in the future. |
8th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Is Population Growth a Ponzi Scheme? - The Globalist The basic pitch of those promoting population growth is straightforward in its appeal: "More is better." |
8th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| EU's 'carbon fat cats' get rich off trading scheme: study - Eu Business (PARIS ) - Europe's system for industrial carbon quotas has enriched the continent's biggest polluters, with ten firms together reaping permits for 2008 alone worth 500 million euros, a new report revealed. |
8th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Methane releases from Arctic shelf may be much larger and faster than anticipated - EurekAlert! ( National Science Foundation ) A section of the Arctic Ocean seafloor that holds vast stores of frozen methane is showing signs of instability and widespread venting of the powerful greenhouse gas, according to the findings of an international research team led by University of Alaska Fairbanks scientists Natalia Shakhova and Igor Semiletov. See also: Science stunner: Vast East Siberian Arctic Shelf methane stores destabilizing and venting - NSF issues world a wake-up call: "Release of even a fraction of the methane stored in the shelf could trigger abrupt climate warming. Arctic Methane on the Move? |
5th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Why Is this Apocalypse Different than All Other Apocalypses? A lot of what I write works from the assumption that we all agree that peak oil and climate change are happening and going to be life-changing events. And yet, some people who read this blog don't necessarily agree on this subject, or they don't see the effects has being as profound as I do, or perhaps the idea of peak oil or climate change is fairly new to them, and they don't know what to believe. |
5th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Which climate changes can be blamed on humans? Human "fingerprints" have been detected on all sorts of aspects of the climate, from rainfall to the salt content of the oceans See also: Humans must be to blame for climate change, say scientists |
5th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Life After Growth By Richard Heinberg We are in for some very hard times. The transitional period on our way toward a post-growth, equilibrium economy will prove to be the most challenging time any of us has ever lived through. Nevertheless, I am convinced that we can survive this collective journey, and that if we make sound choices as families and communities, life can actually be better for us in the decades ahead than it was during the heady days of seemingly endless economic expansion |
5th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change commitments There is an interesting letter in Nature Geoscience this month on what climate changes we have actually already committed ourselves to. The letter, by Mathews and Weaver (sub. reqd.), makes the valid point that there are both climatic and societal inertias to consider. Their figure neatly demonstrates the different issues: The upper line is often what is referred to as the climate change commitment (for instance Wigley, 2005). This is the warming you get if we keep CO2 (and other GHG and pollutant levels) constant at today's values. (Technically, the figure shows the case staying at year 2000 values). |
5th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Recession Kills Dissent The Economic Recession has been an excellent excuse to stop funding Charities, Aid and Development agencies and other Non-Governmental Organisations. Whether or not there is still money in the pot for campaigns and other kinds of communicating with the public on subjects of philanthropic interest, funders (which include Government bodies) have been finding reasons to cut off the lifeblood of groups with large memberships. NGOs that have been targeted with funding cuts recently include Stop Climate Chaos. |
5th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The rise of anti-science cyber bullying - Morano says climate scientists "deserve to be publicly flogged." Researchers must purge e-mail in-boxes daily of threatening correspondence, simply part of the job of being a climate scientist That's the subhed for a new Scientific American piece on cyber bullying. It comes fast on the heels of Bullying, lies and the rise of right-wing climate denial, the first part of the terrific series by Clive Hamilton, reprinted below (followed by an excerpt of the SciAm piece): Hamilton, Professor of Public Ethics at Australia's Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethic, is the author of the forthcoming book Requiem for a Species. Two years ago the Labor Party won a decisive election victory in part by riding a public mood demanding action on climate change after years of stonewalling. See also: Inhofe Wants to Prosecute "Criminal" Scientists |
5th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The climate change debate is Science vs. Snake Oil This is a Wonkroom repost. According to the mainstream media, there is a controversy over the validity of climate science, in particular the conclusion that the warming of the planet by greenhouse gas emissions poses a risk to the public: Iceberg Ahead: Climate scientists who play fast and loose with the facts are imperiling not just their profession but the planet " Newsweek, 2/19/10 Controversies Create Opening for Critics " Wall Street Journal, 2/17/10 Series of missteps by climate scientists threatens climate-change agenda " Washington Post, 2/14/10 Climate-Change Debate Is Heating Up in Deep Freeze " The New York Times, 2/11/10 Let's take a look at who is on either side of this so-called climate-change debate ... See aso: The Truth-Tellers Collective Intelligent Designers Enlist Climate Skeptics in the War on Reality The Climate Obstructers Gameplan |
5th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| We're Screwing the Environment the Same Way We Screwed the Economy The captains of industry and government admittedly blew the economic meltdown; too bad the environmental meltdown is following the same, lame script. |
5th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The new world order The United States and European Union will face off against China and Russia as climate change starts to alter the geopolitical gameboard. See also: War over the Arctic? Global warming skeptics distract us from security risks. - The Christian Science Monitor |
5th March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Good news: Met Office wants re-examination of 150 years of climate data - Now let's hope they'll fix the problems that have caused them to lowball recent warming. The Met Office has called for a re-examination of more than 150 years of global temperature records as part of a new comprehensive approach for analysing temperature data " to better assess the risks posed by changes in extremes of climate. Great idea, especially since an independent December 2009 analysis found The global temperature rise calculated by the Met Office's HadCRUT record is at the lower end of likely warming. Everybody but the anti-science disinformers has known for a long time that the Hadley/CRU (Climatic Research Unit) temperature data UNDERestimates " not OVERestimates " the recent global temperature rise. |
28th February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| A quiet sun won't save us from global warming Even if there's a "grand minimum" in the sun's output over the next century, it won't be enough to counter rising temperatures caused by humans |
28th February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Is the climate change movement splintering? | Bibi van der Zee Climate change activists are regrouping post-Copenhagen – and some are reasserting their radical roots |
28th February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Key senators do not see climate bill in 2010 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate is unlikely to pass a comprehensive climate change bill to reduce greenhouse gas emissions this year, according to a Reuters survey of 12 key Democrat and Republican Senators who could hold the swing votes. See also: Why Climate Change Is Dead In The Senate - Newsweek |
28th February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| U.N. says emissions vows not enough to avoid rise of 2 degrees C NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters) - Emission cuts pledges made by 60 countries will not be enough to keep the average global temperature rise at 2 degrees Celsius or less, modeling released on Tuesday by the United Nations says. |
28th February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Al Gore's must read op-ed in the NY Times - annotated: We Can t Wish Away Climate Change It would be an enormous relief if the recent attacks on the science of global warming actually indicated that we do not face an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it. That how Al Gore’s op-ed big Sunday NY Times op-ed begins. |
28th February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| How the Mountain of Climate Change Evidence Is Being Used to Undermine the Cause We've gotten to a point where fewer Americans believe humans are warming the planet than before -- here's how it happened. |
28th February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Toward the Collapse: Growth-Economy = Climate Disaster - interview with Keith Farnish Is global warming unstoppable now? Could we be saved by total economic collapse? If so, should we help civilization fall? Last night I recorded another glimpse of the climate apocalypse, with the author of Climate Wars Gwynne Dyer. He outlined the short distance from here to the cliff where long-known natural feed-backs leading to runaway global warming begin, and continue on for millennia. That limit is known as two degrees. Beyond that, great forests melt into fire, liberating their carbon. Beyond that, the Arctic permafrost melts, likely doubling atmospheric greenhouse gases. Five to seven degrees Centigrade of average global temperature rise. Utter disaster. Dyer says world governments quickly agreed to the 2 degree limit at Copenhagen, without telling the public why. No need to panic the herd. Dyer says we won't make it in time, before the big climate switch is pulled. You'll hear clips from that speech in an upcoming Ecoshock Show. I can't run the whole speech, because as usual, Gwynne is developing his new work toward another radio or TV program. I appreciate Gwynne sharing his "working notes" with our Radio Ecoshock audience. Kind of a sneak preview. Find out more at gwynnedyer.com. |
28th February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Sidetracked Sidetracked by Jo Abbess 19 February 2010 A number of prevalent ideological frameworks employed for constructing policy to address Global Warming appear to have faulty foundational analysis and are therefore ineffective in addressing Carbon Dioxide Emissions. Politically implementable options that could lead to effective action to combat Climate Change are being kicked into the long grass at every turn, in policy, in investment and in society. Reasonable proposals are being made over-complex to implement, or delayed by every means possible. The dominant memes of economics hinder good decision-making; for example, not all natural capital can be valued as a commodity, and yet Carbon markets and Carbon tax regimes are the most ubiquitous proposals. |
27th February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| WashPost editorial: If current trends persist, it's likely that in coming decades the globe's climate will change with potentially devastating effects for billions of people. - IPCC errors are "trivial mistakes" THE EARTH is warming. A chief cause is the increase in greenhouse gases accumulating in the atmosphere. Humans are at least in part responsible, because the oil, gas and coal that we burn releases these gases. If current trends persist, it's likely that in coming decades the globe's climate will change with potentially devastating effects for billions of people. Contrary to what you may have read lately, there are few reputable scientists who would disagree with anything in that first paragraph. That's the opening of a pretty good editorial on climate from the paper that has all but destroyed the credibility of its opinion pages (see and the 2009 Citizen Kane award for non-excellence in climate journalism goes to ). |
27th February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| We're Headed for the Greatest Resource-Sharing Problem of All Time For all its complexity, the core of this problem can be stated simply enough: What kind of a climate transition would be fair enough to actually work? |
27th February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The O.J. tactic - Los Angeles Times Climate change skeptics sound like Simpson's lawyers: If the winter glove won't fit, you must acquit. |
27th February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Post-Peak Economics In pragmatic terms the coming collapse can be equated with the phases of what will happen to money. The first phase will be "stagflation": high prices combined with high unemployment. During the second phase, as government starts to fade, currency will collapse: money will have no use as a medium of exchange. Of course, economic trends can always be seen in terms of either materials or money. We can say that the near future will be one of diminishing fossil fuels, and hence a depletion of plastic, asphalt, fertilizer, electricity, and so on. |
27th February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
 Tom Toles |
22nd February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Methane levels may see 'runaway' rise, scientists warn Atmospheric levels of methane, the greenhouse gas which is much more powerful than carbon dioxide, have risen significantly for the last three years running, scientists will disclose today " leading to fears that a major global-warming "feedback" is beginning to kick in. |
22nd February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Q&A: "We Have a Take-Make-Waste Economy" UNITED NATIONS, Feb 21 (IPS) - To halt the planet's declining biodiversity and loss of critical natural resources, both the economy we live in and communication about science needs to be changed profoundly, says a prominent Dutch ecologist. |
22nd February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Ecological Intelligence: Do Humans Have What it Takes to Survive? Society has lost touch with what may be the singular sensibility crucial to our survival as a species. |
22nd February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Bank Of America And Barclays See Looming Oil Crunch By Ambrose Evans-PritchardBank of America and Barclays Capital, two leading oil traders, have told clients to brace for crude above $100 a barrel by next year, before it pushes relentlessly higher over the decade. Oil has the potential to flirt with $100 this year. We forecast an average price of $137 by 2015, said Amrita Sen, an oil expert at BarCap |
22nd February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Governments 'misjudging' scale of CO2 emissions Policy makers in Europe and United States are markedly underestimating the changes needed to mitigate CO2 emission required to prevent dangerous climate change because they work in 'silos', according to pioneering research. |
22nd February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Are We Willing To Risk It ? It transpires that Carbon Dioxide levels during some of the hot house periods of Earth history may have been relatively low. Is it possible that hellish conditions could emerge from having a concentration of 1,000 ppm of Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere ? Some projections have residual airborne levels of Fossil Fuel and deforestation emissions reaching that kind of count by the year 2100. Are we willing to risk it ? [link]climate/2010/1002/full/climate.2010.03.html Published online: 14 January 2010 : Insights from earth : Alicia Newton ... |
20th February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Hostage to US hot air | Isabel Hilton The climate debate in the US " and so the world " is mired in political weakness and infightingIn Delhi last week, -Professor Jeffrey Sachs, the guru of -sustainable development from Columbia University, delivered a sobering message about US climate -politics. There was very little chance, he said, that the US would pass climate legislation this year, and almost no chance the Senate would ever adopt cap and trade, the system by which enterprises trade permits to emit within ever tighter limits. He himself, he added, was not sorry. He strongly preferred a carbon tax as a simpler and more effective mechanism.There are many who share his -preference, but the chances of the US legislating such a tax seem equally remote. |
20th February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Whatevergate It won t have escaped many of our readers notice that there has been what can only be described as a media frenzy (mostly in the UK) with regards to climate change in recent weeks. The coverage has contained more bad reporting, misrepresentation and confusion on the subject than we have seen in such a short time anywhere. While the UK newspaper scene is uniquely competitive (especially compared to the US with over half a dozen national dailies selling in the same market), and historically there have been equally frenzied bouts of mis-reporting in the past on topics as diverse as pit bulls, vaccines and child abductions, there is something new in this mess that is worth discussing. |
20th February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Environmental Advocates Are Cooling on Obama - New York Times Times OnlineEnvironmental Advocates Are Cooling on ObamaNew York Times... the administration did not designate the polar bear as endangered by global warming and that it could not push a climate change bill through Congress. ...Obama Goes Nuclear in a Tough Winter for EnvirosPolitics Daily (blog)US energy chief struggles to shift debateFinancial TimesSupreme Court decision blocks global warming efforts; Commission looks into ...Mass High TechCounterPunch -The Guardian -Reutersall 2,150 |
20th February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Obama's Support for 'Clean Coal' Opens a Pathway to Make the Most Polluting Industry Profitable With solar and wind technology both ready for commercial-scale deployment today, is it just political calculation driving the policy support for technology that is 20 years out? |
20th February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Scientists dispute climate sceptic's claim that US weather data is useless - Guardian Unlimited Ex-weatherman Anthony Watts says many US weather stations produce unreliable data because they are located next to artificial heat " but a scientific analysis suggests that, if anything, such stations underestimate warming It appeared to have shaken the credibility of one of the most important global warming data sets in the world. A blog-inspired campaign by amateur climate sceptics seemed to ... |
20th February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Two-Thirds of Peru's Amazon Threatened by Oil and Gas Development Petroleum companies have leased 41 percent of the Peruvian Amazon for oil and gas drilling and could soon hold drilling concessions on 70 percent of the highly diverse rainforest, according to a new study. Conducted by researchers from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and the conservation group Save America's Forests, the study said that a second wave of oil and gas drilling is spreading so rapidly through the Peruvian Amazon that roughly 20 percent of officially protected areas, as well as more than half of reserves set aside for indigenous people, are now leased for drilling. The oil and gas boom is so intensive that it now extends to many of the remotest corners of the Peruvian Amazon, including an area deep in the rainforest " known as Block 67 " that may sit atop 300 million barrels of oil. |
20th February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The price of environmental destruction? There is none | Andrew Simms Putting a price on nature becomes meaningless if we treat the ecosystems upon which we depend as mere commodities with a price for trading World's top firms cause $2.2tn of environmental damage, report warnsThe economy is no stranger to creating its own fantasy world with little or no relation to the real one. We witnessed the damage that can cause when the banks thought they had stumbled on financial alchemy and could transform bad debt into good " economic base metal into gold.Now it's possible that a much bigger error is coming to light. The rise and rise of global corporations lifted on a wave of apparent productivity gains may have been little more than a mask for the reckless liquidation of natural capital. |
20th February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate scientists losing ground - Guardian Unlimited The IPCC and scientific community urgently need to focus on rebuilding trust and could learn a few tactics from Barack Obama There's an incredibly powerful movement opposed to action on climate change. Without doubt it had more influence on the outcome of the climate negotiations in Copenhagen than many of the world's countries combined. Obama knew if he signed up to something that would truly ... |
20th February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate skeptics exploiting scandal: US envoy - PhysOrg The US pointman on climate change on Tuesday accused vested interests of exploiting recent scientific scandals, saying there was an overwhelming case for the world to take action. |
20th February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| How the 'climategate' scandal is bogus and based on climate sceptics' lies | Fred Pearce Claims based on email soundbites are demonstrably false " there is manifestly no evidence of clandestine data manipulationAlmost all the media and political discussion about the hacked climate emails has been based on brief soundbites publicised by professional sceptics and their blogs. In many cases, these have been taken out of context and twisted to mean something they were never intended to.Elizabeth May, veteran head of the Canadian Green party claims to have read all the emails and declared: "How dare the world's media fall into the trap set by contrarian propagandists without reading the whole set?"If those journalists had read even a few words beyond the soundbites, they would have realised that they were often being fed lies. See also: 'Climategate' scientist speaks out - Nature |
15th February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| More acid, less iron Rising carbon dioxide in the oceans may hinder, not help, marine phytoplankton blooms - because increasingly acidic waters could stifle their supply of iron, a crucial nutrient. Dalin Shi and researchers at Princeton University, New Jersey, recorded a decrease in the uptake of iron by four species of plankton as their laboratory-controlled culture medium was acidified, changing from pH 8.6 to 7.7. At the same time, the concentration of bioavailable dissolved iron - in other words, iron not chemically bound by organic matter - dropped proportionately, suggesting that the phytoplankton's enforced diet was due to pH-induced changes in iron chemistry that made the nutrient less available to them, and not because of a physiological reaction to more acidic conditions. In samples of Atlantic surface waters, the team saw the same effect: on average, iron uptake by a marine diatom in these field experiments dropped 1020% as ocean acidity increased by 0.6 pH units. |
15th February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Copenhagen number crunch The Copenhagen Accord leaves a gap between climate impacts that can be dealt with through adaptation and those that will be avoided through mitigation. But how big is the gap? See also: Nations Pledge CO2 Cuts that Will Not Meet 2 C Goal On Warming |
15th February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Society ignores the oil crunch at its peril | Jeremy Leggett Warnings of a crash in oil production are no longer limited to a prescient few individuals - major British companies and oil CEOs are now sounding the alertIn the years approaching the credit crunch, whistleblowers were limited to a few insightful economists and financial journalists. Now whistles are blowing again about another grave threat to the global economy and the security of nations. They warn of an oil crunch: an unexpected crash in global production such that supply can no longer meet demand, even if China and India throttle back.This time the warning is not limited to a prescient few individuals. |
15th February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| IPCC errors: facts and spin Currently, a few errors "and supposed errors" in the last IPCC report ( AR4 ) are making the media rounds " together with a lot of distortion and professional spin by parties interested in discrediting climate science. Time for us to sort the wheat from the chaff: which of these putative errors are real, and which not? And what does it all mean, for the IPCC in particular, and for climate science more broadly? Let's start with a few basic facts about the IPCC. The IPCC is not, as many people seem to think, a large organization. In fact, it has only 10 full-time staff in its secretariat at the World Meteorological Organization in Geneva, plus a few staff in four technical support units that help the chairs of the three IPCC working groups and the national greenhouse gas inventories group. |
15th February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| EPA's Effort to Limit CO2 To Be Fought by Chamber of Commerce The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has announced it will mount a legal challenge to the Environmental Protection Agency's decision to limit greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. Steven J. Law, the chamber's chief legal counsel, said the business group would not question the science behind global warming but rather would challenge the process by which the EPA decided it had the right to control carbon dioxide emissions as a threat to human health. The Obama administration has said it would prefer that Congress pass a law regulating carbon emissions, but with the passage of such a law looking increasingly unlikely, a battle is shaping up over the EPA's possible efforts to control CO2 emissions. |
15th February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Copenhagen response 'is pathetic' - BBC News India's negotiator at the Copenhagen climate change summit says industrialised nations have responded in a "pathetic" way to the need to cut carbon emissions. |
15th February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Pentagon to rank global warming as destabilising force US defence review says military planners should factor climate change into long-term strategyThe Pentagon will for the first time rank global warming as a destabilising force, adding fuel to conflict and putting US troops at risk around the world, in a major strategy review to be presented to Congress tomorrow. The quadrennial defence review, prepared by the Pentagon to update Congress on its security vision, will direct military planners to keep track of the latest climate science, and to factor global warming into their long term strategic planning."While climate change alone does not cause conflict, it may act as an accelerant of instability or conflict, placing a burden on civilian institutions and militaries around the world," said a draft of the review seen by the Guardian.Heatwaves and freak storms could put increasing demand on the US military to respond to humanitarian crises or natural disaster. |
2nd February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The wisdom of Solomon A quick post for commentary on the new Solomon et al paper in Science express. We ll try and get around to discussing this over the weekend, but in the meantime I ve moved some comments over. There is some commentary on this at DotEarth, and some media reports on the story " some good, some not so good. It seems like a topic that is ripe for confusion, and so here are a few quick clarifications that are worth making. First of all, this is a paper about internal variability of the climate system in the last decade, not on additional factors that drive climate. |
2nd February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The bottleneck century In his documentary What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire filmmaker Tim Bennett notes that many of the book authors now writing about peak oil, climate change, species extinction and myriad other urgent environmental and resource topics usually end their otherwise grim analyses with what he calls "the happy chapter," a chapter with solutions and responses which will supposedly help us to avert catastrophe.In a new book, Bottleneck: Humanity's Impending Impasse, William Catton, Jr. dispenses with "the happy chapter" altogether and simply gives us the grim prognosis. Human society is now on an unstoppable trajectory for a significant die-off. |
2nd February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 'Climate emails hacked by spies' A highly sophisticated hacking operation that led to the leaking of hundreds of emails from the Climatic Research Unit in East Anglia was probably carried out by a foreign intelligence agency, according to the Government's former chief scientist. Sir David King, who was Tony Blair's chief scientific adviser for seven years until 2007, said that the hacking and selective leaking of the unit's emails, going back 13 years, bore all the hallmarks of a co-ordinated intelligence operation " especially given their release just before the Copenhagen climate conference in December. See also: Global warming: Undeniable evidence 'Climategate' is bogus and based on lies |
2nd February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Lobbyists for foreign corporations begin fight to ensure foreign money can influence American elections This is Think Progress repost. Last week, the 5-4 Supreme Court ruling in the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision invalidated a sixty-three year-old ban on corporate money in federal elections. The ruling gives corporations essentially the same rights as individuals in their ability to spend freely on political advertising, even if those advertisements explicitly advocate the election or defeat of a federal candidate. One consequence of this decision is that foreign corporations with U.S.-subsidiaries are likely to be able to now spend unlimited amounts on American elections. Congressional Democrats, led by Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL), Rep. |
29th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| This corruption in Washington is smothering America's future This week, a disaster hit the United States, and the after-tremors will be shaking and breaking global politics for years. It did not grab the same press attention as the fall of liberal Kennedy-licking Massachusetts to a pick-up truck Republican, or President Obama's first State of the Union address, or the possible break-up of Brangelina and their United Nations of adopted infants. But it took the single biggest problem dragging American politics towards brutality and dysfunction " and made it much, much worse. Yet it also showed the only path that Obama can now take to salvage his Presidency. |
29th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| RIP GDP Economic growth and climate action 'is not possible' |
27th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Depletion of Key Resources: Facts at Your Fingertips Editor's note: The author presents a definitive essay. Learn why: "Those who expect to get by with 'victory gardens' are unaware of the arithmetic involved." "There are already too many people to be supported by non-mechanized agriculture." "To meet the world's present energy needs by using solar power, then, we would need... a machine the size of France. The production and maintenance of this array would require vast quantities of hydrocarbons, metals, and other materials -- a self-defeating process. Solar power will therefore do little to solve the world's energy problems." |
27th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Ministry of Justice lists eco-activists alongside terrorists Campaigners lumped in with al-Qaida and far right Government criticised for tarring peaceful protesters Government officials have labelled environmental campaigners extremists and listed them alongside dissident Irish republican groups and terrorists inspired by al-Qaida in internal documents seen by the Guardian.The guidance on extremism, produced by the Ministry of Justice, says: "The United Kingdom like many other countries faces a continuing threat from extremists who believe they can advance their aims by committing acts of terrorism."It was sent to probation staff who were writing court reports or supervising a range of activists, including environmental protesters.The advice lists "environmental extremists" alongside far-right activists, dissident Irish republicans, loyalist paramilitaries and al-Qaida-inspired extremists as among groups "currently categorised as extremist [that] may include those who have committed serious crime in pursuit of an ideology or cause".David Howarth, the Liberal Democrats' justice spokesman, ... |
27th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Constituent harassed by Telegraph readers after sending email to Tory PPC How did a private email to a would be Member of Parliament come to be published, with the name and address of the sender, on a blog post at the Daily Telegraph? Methinks, that Edwin Northover has a considerable amount of explaining to do. After all, if he, or perhaps his constituency office, cannot respect the privacy of a constituent when he’s a candidate, how can either be trusted to respect his constituents’ right to privacy and confidentiality should he become an MP. |
27th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon traders quit emissions market amid drop in demand Banks are pulling out of the carbon-offsetting market after Copenhagen failed to reach agreement on emissions targetsBanks and investors are pulling out of the carbon market after the failure to make progress at Copenhagen on reaching new emissions targets after 2012.Carbon financiers have already begun leaving banks in London because of the lack of activity and the drop-off in investment demand. The Guardian has been told that backers have this month pulled out of a large planned clean-energy project in the developing world because of the expected fall in emissions credits after 2012. See also: The death knell for comprehensive cap-and-trade |
27th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Cash for influence Can influence on environmental policy be bought? The chances of a global climate deal this year have taken the second major blow in a week in the US. In the latest development, the US Supreme Court has ruled that corporations can spend as much money as they like to influence elections. See also: When Corporations Rule The World - thanks to the Supreme Court [VIDEO] Supreme Court Sanctioned Murder Of Democracy! Keith Olbermann Special Comment ptI ptII FREE SPEECH FOR PEOPLE AMENDMENT PETITION |
23rd January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| A distraction of Himalayan proportions It was one of the most startling predictions in climate science. By 2035 the great glaciers of the Himalayas were supposed to have largely disappeared, threatening the water supplies of tens of millions of people who rely on the ice to feed the great rivers of Asia, from the Indus and the Ganges in the west to the Brahmaputra and the Yangtze in the east. See also: Glaciergate was a blunder, but it's the sceptics who dissemble | Robin McKie Climate Denial Industry Blowing Hot Air On Himalayan Glaciers |
23rd January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Send a Sceptic to Siberia Yawn. Yet another anti-Science web log page floats into my field of vision. It's so boring, trying to keep up with the Global Warming Deniers. I can barely keep awake. Here's an example of the trite, and frankly, petulant genre :- [link]news/jamesdelingpole/100023339/james-hansen-would-you-buy-a-used-temperature-data-set-from-this-man/ Actually, don t bother reading it. It's a waste of column inches. If only the Climate Change Sceptics would just go away and let us get on with the gargantuan task of revitalising the Energy industry around sustainable technologies. |
22nd January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| German solar subsidy cut to spur price dip SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Germany's decision to cut solar subsidies would result in a significant fall in both the price of and demand for photovoltaic panels in the second quarter, research firm iSuppli said on Thursday. See also: Will Germany kill its energy golden goose? |
22nd January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| One quarter of US grain crops fed to cars - not people, new figures show One-quarter of all the maize and other grain crops grown in the US now ends up as biofuel in cars rather than being used to feed people, according to new analysis which suggests that the biofuel revolution launched by former President George Bush in 2007 is impacting on world food supplies. The 2009 figures from the US Department of Agriculture shows ethanol production rising to record levels driven by farm subsidies and laws which require vehicles to use increasing amounts of biofuels. "The grain grown to produce fuel in the US [in 2009] was enough to feed 330 million people for one year at average world consumption levels," said Lester Brown, the director of the Earth Policy Institute, a Washington thinktank ithat conducted the analysis. |
22nd January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Reflections on a hugely changed climate It's hard to overstate how much the events of the last two months have altered the global picture of climate politics. Picture the scene you'd have found on any day towards the end of last year: more prime ministers and presidents talking publicly about climate change than ever before; the vast majority of the world's governments apparently committed to making some kind of agreement that would restrain the growth in greenhouse gas emissions sufficiently to avoid "dangerous" climate change; the world's two biggest emitters - China and the US - announcing targets to take into the maelstrom of Copenhagen; rafts of mayors and business leaders and activists straining every sinew to encourage everyone across the finishing line. How different things look now |
22nd January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| As the World Burns How Big Oil and Big Coal mounted one of the most aggressive lobbying campaigns in history to block progress on global warming |
20th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Memo to IPCC: Please reanalyze ALL of your conclusions about melting ice and sea level rise - Good news: The Himalayan glaciers will probably endure past 2035. Bad news: If we don't reverse our emissions trend soon, their disappearance is likely to become irreversible before then. MEMO TO IPCC: If you are going to review the apparently mistaken claim in your 2007 report that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035 " please review all of the latest scientific literature and observations on that subject AND please update your equally outdated sea level rise projections. MEMO TO MEDIA: It isn t news that the 2007 projections by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are not accurate. The real news is that the 99% of their mistakes are UNDERestimates of likely impacts. See also : The IPCC is not infallible - shock! |
20th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Spikes & Slopes by Jo Abbess 3 December 2009 One Hot Year 1998 was a very hot year. Worldwide, the land and sea surface temperatures spiked sharply upwards. Scientists said it was supposed to get hot, but not this hot. Yet by the year 2000, things had cooled back down again. In fact, they were a little cooler than 1995. [1] The detailed analysis made it seem like a murder mystery " who killed the heat ? What happened to Global Warming ? Part of the forensic evidence came from analysis of Mount Pinatubo. On 15th June 1991, it experienced massive volcanic eruption causing an enormous plume in the sky, easily visible from space. |
20th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon Plummets as Traders See Oil Booming in Failed Copenhagen - Bloomberg Jan. 19 (Bloomberg) -- The inability of government leaders to agree on stricter pollution controls at meetings in Copenhagen last month is showing up in commodity markets, where it's getting cheaper to emit greenhouse gasses. |
20th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Hanging EPA regulations around Democrats’ necks It has been taken for granted on the left that if Congress doesn t pass clean energy legislation, the EPA will step in to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The threat of that eventuality was supposed to bring intransigent industries and legislators to the table. Only it hasn t really worked as intended" prospects for legislation are looking increasingly dim, particularly with Brown's win last night in Massachusetts.Does that mean EPA regulations are inevitable? Har har. Nothing in politics is inevitable. If legislation goes down in flames, expect a huge fight.[Want to catch up on the why's and wherefore's of EPA regs? See also: Obama faces emissions U-turn with new Congress challenge - The Guardian Foe of EPA Carbon Rules Is Top Recipient of Industry Contributions |
20th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Face up to natural limits, or face a 1970s-style energy crisis None of the various technofixes on offer alter the fact that humanity has to learn to stop living on the last drops of cheap energy, and to start living within its means |
20th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 2009 temperatures by Jim Hansen This is Hansen et al's end of year summary for 2009 (with a couple of minor edits). If It's That Warm, How Come It's So Damned Cold? by James Hansen, Reto Ruedy, Makiko Sato, and Ken Lo The past year, 2009, tied as the second warmest year in the 130 years of global instrumental temperature records, in the surface temperature analysis of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). The Southern Hemisphere set a record as the warmest year for that half of the world. Global mean temperature, as shown in Figure 1a, was 0.57°C (1.0°F) warmer than climatology (the 1951-1980 base period). |
18th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Exclusive: Dr. Mojib Latif sets the record straight on what his work says about global warming and what it doesn t say about global cooling - Warming might or might not stall for "several years" but we risk "an unprecedented warming in the history of mankind if no measures are taken to cut global carbon dioxide emissions" Here is Dr. Mojib Latif, perhaps the world's most misquoted climate scientist, in a previously unpublished op-ed (boldface in original). Given all the warnings about and plans to forestall global warming, people may be surprised to find, over the next several years that, over parts of the Northern hemisphere, summers are no warmer than before, maybe even a bit cooler"and that winters are as cold, or a bit colder, than they have been in the past couple of decades. This is because the climate may go through a temporary halt in warming. It's nothing unusual, just a natural fluctuation. |
18th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Wilder weather exerts a stronger influence on biodiversity than steadily changing conditions An increase in the variability of local conditions could do more to harm biodiversity than slower shifts in climate, a new study has found. |
18th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Arctic permafrost leaking methane at record levels, figures show Experts say methane emissions from the Arctic have risen by almost one-third in just five years, and that sharply rising temperatures are to blameScientists have recorded a massive spike in the amount of a powerful greenhouse gas seeping from Arctic permafrost, in a discovery that highlights the risks of a dangerous climate tipping point.Experts say methane emissions from the Arctic have risen by almost one-third in just five years, and that sharply rising temperatures are to blame.The discovery follows a string of reports from the region in recent years that previously frozen boggy soils are melting and releasing methane in greater quantities. See also: Wetlands' Carbon, Methane Emissions Boost Global Warming - Time Magazine Warming 'speeds' up gas emissions |
15th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The truth is out there: And they re trying to keep it out Maclean's writer Andrew Coyne shows how The theft and distribution of the East Anglia University Climatic Research Unit (CRU) emails last fall provided a stunning victory to the forces of climate change denial. The emails were received and disseminated in the denial industry as evidence that climate scientists had overplayed their hands or acted inappropriately. And that was used, very effectively, as proof that the science of climate change is, after all, in doubt. But that was only the beginning. Per the case study below, in 2010, we will be treated to a barrage of stories that reference the emails without even including an attempt present or argue their content. |
15th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Was Copenhagen the Death of Multilateral Environmental Agreements? - AllAfrica.com Johannesburg " What do secret declassified documents from the Clinton era tell us about the future of climate negotiations? See also: Pershing Missile Strikes United Nations |
15th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Soros Says U.S. Needs Carbon Cap to Unlock Clean-Energy Finance - Bloomberg via Yahoo! News Jan. 15 (Bloomberg) -- A U.S. law to curb carbon emissions would spur billions of dollars of spending on green-energy projects in developing countries, billionaire George Soros said. See also: Investors urge governments to act on climate change |
15th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| How High Will Seas Rise? Get Ready for Seven Feet As governments, businesses, and homeowners plan for the future, they should assume that the world's oceans will rise by at least two meters " roughly seven feet " this century. But far too few agencies or individuals are preparing for the inevitable increase in sea level that will take place as polar ice sheets melt. BY ROB YOUNG AND ORRIN PILKEY See also: Radical sea defence rethink urged |
15th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate & environment - Jan 14 -The year climate science caught up with what climate scientists have been saying privately for years -Where on earth is it unusually warm?-Britain's cold snap does not prove climate science wrong -Coral Can Recover from Climate Change Damage, New Research Suggests -The resurgence of El Niño means that 2010 could yet be the hottest year on record -The sinking Sundarbans-Major Antarctic glacier is 'past its tipping point' read more |
15th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Errors and lies thrive in cold weather Claims that a cold snap disproves climate change are dangerous nonsense, says Michael Le Page |
15th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The End of Magical Climate Thinking One year ago, America's president said he was going to start a green-energy revolution. Here's why the Obama administration failed -- and what needs to come next. |
15th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| US cult of greed is now a global environmental threat The average American consumes more than his or her weight in products each day, fuelling a global culture of excess that is emerging as the biggest threat to the planet, according to a report published today. In its annual report, Worldwatch Institute says the cult of consumption and greed could wipe out any gains from government action on climate change or a shift to a clean energy economy.Erik Assadourian, the project director who led a team of 35 behind the report, said: "Until we recognise that our environmental problems, from climate change to deforestation to species loss, are driven by unsustainable habits, we will not be able to solve the ecological crises that threaten to wash over civilisation."The world's population is burning through the planet's resources at a reckless rate, the US thinktank said. |
13th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| U.S. farm group: Stop EPA on greenhouse gases SEATTLE (Reuters) - The largest U.S. farm group called on Congress on Tuesday to prevent the government from regulating greenhouse gases if lawmakers kill climate change legislation. |
13th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Oil Dependence Is a Dangerous Habit - Center For American Progress A recent report on the November 2009 U.S. trade deficit found that rising oil imports widened our deficit, increasing the gap between our imports and exports. This is but one example that our economic recovery and long-term growth is inexorably linked to our reliance on foreign oil. The United States is spending approximately $1 billion a day overseas on oil instead of investing the funds at home, where our economy sorely needs it. Burning oil that exacerbates global warming also poses serious threats to our national security and the world’s security. For these reasons we need to kick the oil addiction by investing in clean-energy reform to reduce oil demand, while taking steps to curb global warming. |
13th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Avoiding dangerous warming by 2100 'barely feasible' It may be impossible to get low-carbon energy sources online fast enough to prevent global temperatures rising beyond 2 °C by the century's end See also: Climate scientists convene global geo-engineering summit |
12th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Leading climate scientist challenges Mail on Sunday's use of his research Mojib Latif denies his research supports theory that current cold weather undermines scientific consensus on global warmingA leading scientist has hit out at misleading newspaper reports that linked his research to claims that the current cold weather undermines the scientific case for manmade global warming.Mojib Latif, a climate expert at the Leibniz Institute at Kiel University in Germany, said he "cannot understand" reports that used his research to question the scientific consensus on climate change.He told the Guardian: "It comes as a surprise to me that people would try to use my statements to try to dispute the nature of global warming. |
12th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| James Hansen rails against cap-and-trade plan in open letter Nasa scientist advocates using fee-and-dividend approach to reducing carbon emissions"You are choosing the path focused on corporate greed," climate scientist James Hansen has told carbon traders in a open letter which he and climate activists attempted to deliver to a carbon trading conference in New York today.In below-freezing temperatures, climate change campaigners gathered at midday at the Irish Hunger Memorial in Vesey Park, near the Embassy Suites Hotel where the conference is being held, to hear Hansen read parts of his open letter. Tomorrow there will be another demonstration at the same spot, at which an unconfirmed number of activists have pledged to commit acts of nonviolent civil disobedience.Hansen's letter advocates using the fee-and-dividend approach to reducing carbon emissions, rather than cap-and-trade. |
12th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate confusion Scientists need to ensure their work is understood |
11th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Largest U.S. farm group rallies against climate bill SEATTLE (Reuters) - The largest U.S. farm group will oppose aggressively "misguided" climate legislation pending in Congress and fight animal rights activists, said American Farm Bureau Federation president Bob Stallman on Sunday. |
11th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The resurgence of El Niño means that 2010 could yet be the hottest year on record Despite the big freeze Britain's climate is getting distinctly warmer " and we may feel it this summerIt may be a hard notion to accept after a week that has seen the nation paralysed by snow and ice. Nevertheless, meteorologists are adamant that our world is still getting warmer. Indeed, many now believe that 2010 may turn out to be the hottest year on record.Britain may be shivering, the Met Office may have issued emergency weather warnings for the entire country and hundreds of trains and flights may have been cancelled, but our future is destined to be a hot and sticky one. |
10th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The end of consumerism: Our way of life is 'not viable' - Independent Ditch the dog; throw away (sorry, recycle) those takeaway menus; bin bottled water; get rid of that gas-guzzling car and forget flying to far-flung places. These are just some of the sacrifices we in the West will need to make if we are to survive climate change. |
10th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Chokehold Sought on EPA Over Carbon Rules - CBS News N.D. Rep's Bill Would Reverse Supreme Court Ruling, Remove Authority From EPA to Regulate Greenhouse Gases See also: US climate change legislation Q&A: what will happen in 2010? - Guardian Unlimited |
10th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Methane release 'looks stronger' Scientists have uncovered a further apparent increase in the leakage of methane gas that is seeping from the Arctic seabed. |
7th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Crime in the Post-Peak World As humanity plunges ever more deeply into the age of declining resources, what will be the future of law and order? The particular problem of which I am thinking might be called, more specifically, "future violence," since other acts that are now deemed criminal may seem trivial in later days. Unfortunately all discussion of violence becomes an emotional issue, and a rational answer may be elusive. After all, for most human beings the most terrifying actions on the planet Earth are probably those involving physical assault by other humans. It is therefore hard to get a calm or rational response from people with whom one discusses the matter. |
7th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Earth itself has become disposable Consumerism has, as Huxley feared, changed all of us " we'd rather hop to a brave new world than rein in our spendingWho said this? "All the evidence shows that beyond the sort of standard of living which Britain has now achieved, extra growth does not automatically translate into human welfare and happiness." Was it a) the boss of Greenpeace, b) the director of the New Economics Foundation, or c) an anarchist planning the next climate camp? None of the above: d) the former head of the Confederation of British Industry, who currently runs the Financial Services Authority. In an interview broadcast last Friday, Lord Turner brought the consumer society's most subversive observation into the mainstream.In our hearts most of us know it is true, but we live as if it were not. |
7th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Tipping elements in the Earth System: How stable is the contemporary environment? - Science Daily A Special Feature of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences presents the latest scientific insights on so-called tipping elements in the planetary environment. These elements have been identified as the most vulnerable large-scale components of the Earth System that may be profoundly altered by human interference. If one or more of those components is tipped -- especially in the course of global warming -- then the age of remarkably stable environmental conditions on Earth throughout the Holocene may end quickly and irreversibly. |
7th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 2020: China Rises, the U.S. Declines and the Planet Strikes Back Much will change in 10 years. China will rise, the global South will grow in importance, the U.S. will decline. These phenomena will be eclipsed by devastating planetary changes. |
7th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Scepticism will surge in 2010: IPCC chief Rajendra Pachauri predicts lobbying will intensify to impede progress to agreement on binding treaty in Mexico City. Climate change scepticism is likely to surge in 2010 and could exacerbate "hardship" for the planet's poorest people, one of the world's leading authorities on climate change has told the Guardian.Writing on environmentguardian.co.uk today, Rajendra Pachauri, the chair of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, also dismisses suggestions that he is personally profiting from policies to tackle global warming.Climate sceptics gained media attention in the run up to the Copenhagen climate summit after alleging that hacked emails between senior climate scientists showed that an important temperature record was flawed " a charge rejected by governments and scientific bodies. See also: Climate change has no time for delay or denial |
4th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate science in 2009 For climate science, the year 2009 brought significant discoveries and startling controversies. Kurt Kleiner reports. |
4th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Planning for plan B Controlling the climate with technology was once the stuff of science fiction. But with tests already underway, there's an urgent need for global governance of geoengineering. Mason Inman reports. [It's interesting to compare the problems of global governance of geo-engineering with that of reducing emissions] |
4th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Consumer Hell How do we break a system which now permeates every aspect of our lives? |
4th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Greenhouse Gases: Who's Cheating? - BusinessWeek The amounts of carbon in the atmosphere are out of whack with predictions and reported output |
4th January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate Problem Is Really A Justice Problem By Tom AthanasiouDespite its disappointments, the climate summit in Copenhagen marks a turning point- the end of denial. Whats next is recognizing that our climate problem is really a justice problem |
2nd January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Africa's apocalyptic mood | Cameron Duodu Religious fervour and the effects of climate change may combine with explosive effect over the coming months and yearsThe story is told of how two Ghanaian old ladies emerged from church one Sunday morning in June 1967. During the service, the minister had asked for prayers for the people of Israel, who were at war."Akosua", one lady turned to the other, "what are we going to do?""Do about what?" the other asked, perplexed."Didn't you hear the priest? Jerusalem is about to be destroyed!""Oh that ""Yes. You and I have been paying our church dues regularly. |
2nd January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| James Hansen : More Right Than Wrong You know, back in 1988, James Hansen had some fairly basic FORTRAN computing code and an embarrassingly uncomplex model of the World Ocean, and yet he still came up with shockingly accurate projections of Global Warming. The data is in. The models were right (more or less). |
2nd January 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Dismantling the Infrastructure: A Scientific Approach I have always been wary about technologies, despite the fact that I graduated as an electrical engineer, and defended two dissertations. The Chernobyl disaster put an end to my infatuation with science, and revived my interest in poetry, philosophy and nature. Since the late '80s, I was gradually converted into the Luddite type of a scientist and stepped onto a shaky path of techno-criticism. I remember my enthusiasm when, in the mid-'90s, I found in the America House Library a book openly criticizing the technological society. I knew then I was not alone. |
29th December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Economics and the environment: Down to earth index How much is the planet worth? Not a jot, according to most economists' calculations. Last week, politicians and City analysts got Tiggerishly excited over an official report showing that Britain's economy shrank 0.2% in the three months to the end of September rather than the 0.4% initially reported. Yet that all-important measure of GDP is a 20th-century invention which simply tots up all the goods and services produced in an economy, as valued at market prices. Among all the many things it leaves out is the cost to the environment of this activity. Indeed, it often puts a perverse value on damage to the planet. |
29th December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Lost Decade: What The World Can Learn From 10 Years Of Excesses - Free Internet Press The first decade of the 21st century was marked by crises. Militant Islamists attacked New York, the financial system crashed, the climate is threatened by catastrophe and democracy lost some of its standing. |
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| The coming climate panic? When the psychology of in-your-face warming gets combined with a shocking climate event-something like Hurricane Katrina on steroids-you end up with a witches brew that can result in what political scientist Aristide Zolberg has referred to as "moments of madness"-unique historical moments when society challenges conventional wisdom and new norms are forcibly-oftentimes disruptively-created. There are many historical precedents: the economic and political chaos in Weimar Germany that ultimately led to the rise of Hitler, the violence of the French Revolution, the sudden, peaceful collapse of the Soviet empire. |
29th December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global warming likely to be amplified by slow changes to Earth systems Researchers studying a period of high carbon dioxide levels and warm climate several million years ago have concluded that slow changes such as melting ice sheets amplified the initial warming caused by greenhouse gases. |
21st December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Computer simulation strengthens link between climate change and release of subsea methane (PhysOrg.com) -- A first-of-its-kind computer simulation that mirrors real-world observations of methane bubbling up from a seabed in the Arctic Ocean provides further evidence that warming oceans may unleash vast quantities of methane trapped in hydrate deposits buried beneath the seafloor. |
18th December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Study forecasts 9m sea-level rise if temperatures meet 2C threshold Hundreds of millions of people around the world would be affected as low low-lying coastal areas became inundated. Global sea levels could rise by up to 9m in the next few hundred years, even if the world manages to stabilise average temperatures to 2C above pre-industrial levels, according to a new study.In this scenario, hundreds of millions of people around the world would be affected as low low-lying coastal areas became inundated. See also: Sea level rise may exceed worst expectations - Nature |
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| Throwing our energy at impossible dreams... "as mankind proceeded to get bigger and bigger we silently crossed a threshold" read more |
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| World will heat more sharply from 2010, warn scientists - SciDev.net Another steep temperature rise is on the horizon, following the warmest decade since records began, scientists have warned. |
17th December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Road: A film that every one of us needs to see As the credits roll and we fall stricken and tear-stained out onto the dark streets of Soho, it seems fitting that I am accompanied by the director of the second bleakest film ever made " Franny Armstrong, creator of the The Age of Stupid. The bleakest film ever made we have just endured together, over two relentless, harrowing hours, and are now so emotionally raw that we know not where we are going, nor do we much care. It doesn't seem to matter. "Oh my God," moans Franny, repeatedly, head in hands. |
16th December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| It's World War In 2030 If Obama Fails Climate Test ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. -- Obama the game-changer saves Copenhagen? Uses his new Nobel "Just War" doctrine, takes command, unifies world in a "Just War" on climate change, the biggest economic issue facing the world in the 21st century? Maybe, maybe not. But if he doesn't, Copenhagen fails. America is the game-fixer in the do-nothing scenario. Worse: Population growth will eventually outstrip depleting resources. Without a long-term economic strategy and a leader, we may not survive into the next century. Yes, if Obama's "Just War" doctrine becomes a "Just War on Climate Change" he is the game-changer that not only honors Alfred Nobel's legacy, but also means Copenhagen would be a success going forward. However, developing nations fear they'll get a token commitment from a nation that just bailed out its failed banking system with trillions. They fear we'll simply commit to some vague emission limits that help Wall Street bankers build a new trillion-dollar short-term cap-and-trade system with toothless enforcement rules that invite all nations to game the system. And they fear America's do-nothing scenario will leave the rest of the world worse off till the next summit, exposed and at risk, as the impact of climate change pushes us closer to a game-ending Black Swan catastrophe. See also: Recipe for Failure |
15th December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Trusting Nature as the Climate Referee - International Herald Tribune An idea for a tax that is linked to the future warming of the earth. |
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| CLIMATE CHANGE-CUBA: "Energy is an Instrument of Power" COPENHAGEN, Dec 13 (IPS) - "Energy is an instrument of power. Whoever has energy, controls the world," Cuban expert Luis Bérriz said in an address to Klimaforum, the civil society meeting being held in parallel to the UN conference on climate change in the Danish capital. |
15th December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Document shows Canada removing emission restrictions As if Canada's performance on climate were not alread the second worst among all countries surveyed by GermanWatch for the Global Climate Change Performance Index (we were aced for last place by Saudi Arabia), new documents discovered by the CBC show the Conservative government actually looking to WEAKEN the pathetic greenhouse gas emission limits that barely restrain the Alberta oil and gas sector. The government, which has presented no plan to meet its humiliating target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by three per cent below 1990 levels by 2020, is now leaning toward giving the oil and gas sector even more room to pollute, leaving the responsibility for reducing emissions (should the country ever decide to do so) on individuals and businesses outside the industry that is primarily responsible. |
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Copenhagen
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| Our leaders are staging a scam in Copenhagen Every delegate to the Copenhagen summit is being greeted by the sight of a vast fake planet dominating the city's central square. This swirling globe is covered with corporate logos - the Coke brand is stamped over Africa, while Carlsberg appears to own Asia, and McDonald's announces I m loving it! in great red letters above. Welcome to Hopenhagen! it cries. It is kept in the sky by endless blasts of hot air. This plastic planet is the perfect symbol for this summit. The world is being told that this is an emergency meeting to solve the climate crisis " but here inside the Bela Centre where our leaders are gathering, you can find only a corrupt shuffling of words, designed to allow countries to wriggle out of the bare minimum necessary to prevent the unraveling of the biosphere. |
13th December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| "Copenhagen is about doing as little as possible" - Salon.com An interview with Dennis Meadows, whose 1972 book "The Limits of Growth" was an early warning of global crisis |
13th December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Rescuing A Planet Held Hostage By Frank Joseph Smecker I urge people to follow what is happening in Copenhagen right now. The past week has proven that the worlds elected officials are not going to be making any decisions that are in the best interests of the people and communities of the planet, human and nonhuman. The solutions presented thus far have included market-based mechanisms and more discourse. Clearly, our future is in the hands of powerful elite and private institutions unless we rescue it. And I believe we can, if only we awake from the nihilistic and apathetic haze of our times to act together |
13th December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Scientists: Climate talks aim too low, even without impact of 'hugely important' methane - The Canadian Press COPENHAGEN, Denmark - The cuts in greenhouse gases offered at the 192-nation climate conference are "clearly not enough" to assure the world it will head off dangerous global warming, a key U.N.-affiliated scientist said Saturday. |
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| ENVIRONMENT: Europeans Pay Companies to Pollute More BRUSSELS, Dec 12 (IPS) - Some of the world's most polluting companies are receiving financial support from the European taxpayer to promote the continued use of the fuels that cause global warming, according to a new report. |
13th December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| CEO: Business Lobby Pushing Self-Interest Over Success A watchdog group called the Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) says that corporate lobbyists, who have been working overtime to influence the UNFCCC COP15 in the run-up period, are still here in force, still pushing their position and standing dangerously in the way of success. CEO spokester Jiorgos Vassalos said that Europe appears lucky to have no mainstream corporate groups that actually denier climate science. "The dominant discourse is that something has to be done, but nothing that might harm the European Union's corporate competitiveness." That, for example, means no technology transfer to the developing world unless it comes in the form of direct foreign investment - on which corporations will have an opportunity to make ongoing profit. |
13th December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| End Monopoly Capitalism To Arrest Climate Change By Prof. Jose Maria Sison To arrest climate change, we need to put an end to this systematic plunder of the environment for the superprofits of corporations in industrialized countries. To arrest climate change, we need to organize and defend our future against this parasitic and moribund system. To arrest climate change, we need to end monopoly capitals dominance over our lives and build a socialist future |
13th December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climategate : Myles Allen is Confused Dr Myles Allen, head of the Climate Dynamics group at the University of Oxford's Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics Department is confused. It is odd that we still don t take climate change seriously , he writes in The Guardian online, discussing the fact that a good proportion of the British public don t believe in Global Warming :- [link]commentisfree/2009/dec/11/science-climate-change-phil-jones He might need to wake up to the fact that the British Press are being misled, and in turn, misleading the country. He ascribes Climate Change scepticism, denier-tribe , in print and online, to the Media's fondness for the narrative of the fallen idol . |
13th December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| CLIMATE CHANGE: Cattle, the Ignored Predator RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 11 (IPS) - Because of its effect on the environment, cattle must be given the same priority in global agendas as nuclear weapons, wars and, in particular, climate change, says Brazilian activist João Meirelles Filho, author of two books on Amazon deforestation. |
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| Back to the bunker | John McQuaid The 'Climategate' emails have given new life to America's conservative sceptics " and they will be the biggest losersUntil recently, American conservatism's once-monolithic opposition to the very idea of global warming - based mostly, it sometimes seemed, on a common disdain for Al Gore - was starting to crack.Outright denial " of the kind preached by Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe " was once the conservative movement's default position, and still is for many Republicans. The denialist camp even includes intellectuals such as George Will, who has penned a preposterous series of columns arguing, in essence, that climate change is a myth cooked up by scientists in service to a political agenda that will generate more grant money to produce more research into this mythical problem. |
13th December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Amazon projects undercut Brazil's new green path PORTO VELHO, Brazil (Reuters) - Straddling one the Amazon's main tributaries and flanked by dense jungle, a construction pit the size of a small town bustles with bulldozers and nearly 10,000 workers blasting huge slabs of rock off the river bank. |
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| Why the Idea of a Carbon Tax is Making a Comeback - Newsweek The idea of a carbon tax, proposed by Al Gore 17 years ago, is winning new converts. |
13th December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Copenhagen Won't Be Enough -- Only a 'Human Movement' Can Save Civilization from the Climate Crisis A strange cloud envelops human civilization as its leaders fail to take the measures to protect it in Copenhagen that they themselves endorsed just five months ago. |
10th December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 'Ten years remain' to cut carbon Carbon emissions must fall within a decade to keep the global temperature rise under 2C, the UK Met Office says. |
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| The Peak Oil Crisis: Copenhagen - Prelude to extinction? Although world oil production is likely to start declining in the next few years, followed by world coal production in another 20 or so years, neither of these are likely to reduce emissions enough for many decades to have much of an impact on increasing carbon emissions. The decline in world oil production and much higher prices are likely to have a major impact on economic growth however. read more |
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| Emissions 'higher than reported' Emissions of some greenhouse gases are substantially higher than companies and countries report, say scientists. |
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| Climate change puts us all in the same boat. One hole will sink us all | Kofi Annan Global warming does not respect borders. A mindset shift is required if world leaders are to save us from ourselvesThe UN climate change conference in Copenhagen offers the prospect of a robust political deal, endorsed by the world's leaders and witnessed by the world's people, that sets out clear targets and a timeline for translating it into law. To be a truly historic achievement, such a deal must do two things.First, it must lay the basis for a global regime and subsequent agreements that limit global temperature rise in accordance with the scientific evidence. Second, it must provide clarity on the mobilisation and volume of financial resources to support developing countries to adapt to climate change.The stakes are enormous. |
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| The carbon cuts promised by developing countries at Copenhagen The table below summarizes the greenhouse gas reduction pledges of 11 non-Annex1 (developing) countries, organised by type of pledge. From the World Resources Institute, part of the Guardian Environment Network |
10th December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Competition Will BeThe End Of Us By Lionel Anet For the sake of our children, the first change we need to make is to see competition as destructive; this will release our real nature of cooperative activity and compassion to thrive |
8th December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Q&A: 'Economic Growth Is Making us Poorer' VITERBO, Italy, Dec 7 (IPS) - Dinner one evening when he was a kid put William Rees on track to becoming a sustainability pioneer. It was after a day at work on the family farm when he was nine or 10. He saw he had had a hand in growing everything on his plate. That brought a fascination with a connection to earth that would never leave him. |
8th December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| How Hyper-Capitalism May Hobble the Copenhagen Summit Unless we re-think the export-oriented capitalism that's causing all of our climate problems, the Copenhagen conference will be nothing more than a Band-Aid. |
8th December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate denial industry is out to dupe the public Think environmentalists are stooges? You're the unwitting recruit of a hugely powerful oil lobby " I've got the proof Read the case notes for this article hereWhen you survey the trail of wreckage left by the climate emails crisis, three things become clear. The first is the tendency of those who claim to be the champions of climate science to minimise their importance. Those who have most to lose if the science is wrong have perversely sought to justify the secretive and chummy ethos that some of the emails reveal. If science is not transparent and accountable, it's not science.I believe that all supporting data, codes and programmes should be made available as soon as an article is published in a peer-reviewed journal. See also: Case Studies |
8th December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Why We Find it so Hard to Act Against Climate Change It should be easy to deal with climate change. There is a strong scientific consensus supported by very sound data; consensus across much of the religious and political spectrum and among businesses including the largest corporations in the world. The vast majority of people claim to be concerned. The targets are challenging, but they are achievable with existing technologies, and there would be plentiful profits and employment available for those who took up the challenge. read more See also: How voters' whims could scupper Copenhagen |
8th December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| OIL: A Market Psychology of Fear? VANCOUVER, Canada, Dec 8 (IPS/TerraViva) - With or without a binding deal at the climate talks in Copenhagen this month, it seems the world may have to cut its oil consumption, as emerging geological and economic trends limit the availability and affordability of petroleum. |
8th December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Warming or not, we must end global oil economy - Asia News Network This month, leaders from all across the globe are in the Danish capital of Copenhagen for a conference on climate change that may end in a new treaty to replace the 1997 Kyoto accord. |
8th December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Mainstream media misdirected in stolen email story Unless you live under a rock, you have undoubtedly heard by now about the emails stolen from a computer server belonging to the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University in Britain. This hack job was committed by an unknown individual or group who illegally infiltrated the university's system, stole thousands of emails from a select group of climate scientists spanning over a decade, and then published a subset for the world to see, ostensibly to prove that global warming is a hoax. While the scientific evidence demonstrating that climate change poses a very real threat to our health, economy, and planet has never been clearer, an army of climate deniers has used its extensive echo chamber to manufacture a scandal out of this rather bland collection of email banter. See also: Copenhagen conspiracies: Russian computer used An Open Letter To Congress From US Scientists On Climate Change And Recently Stolen Emails |
7th December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Editorial | The truth about climate: Copenhagen isn't enough Politicians are rarely accused of focusing too much on the long term. Tomorrow's headlines are always in view. In that context there is already something to celebrate from this week's global summit in Copenhagen.Not long ago a gathering to discuss carbon emissions would be attended by junior environment ministers with limited clout inside their own governments. No longer. This week climate change commands the attention of world leaders.That is where the good news starts to run out. With so much diplomatic pressure on the negotiations, a commitment to fairly substantial cuts in carbon emissions is inevitable. But a deal is unlikely to match the recommendations of the UN inter-governmental panel on climate change (IPCC), and it will not be a binding treaty. |
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| Nick Cohen | This anti-green backlash is a gift to brutish regimes If you think climate change is a lie, your logic will lead you into the arms of Putin and ChávezAnyone who knows the history of backlash populism, from Nixon and Agnew onwards, will find the new fury at the environmental taxes comfortingly familiar. From the Palin rallies in the American Midwest via the baking suburbs of Brisbane to the screaming blogs of the English Tory party, the chants about climate change are the same. The liberal elite, the so-called experts, the unelected, unaccountable grandees, who poison our children's minds through their control of the schools, foist their values on us through their courtier newspapers and television stations, take our taxes and use them to fund their weird minority causes, are at it again. |
7th December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Study: Earth more sensitive to carbon dioxide than previously thought In the long term, the Earth's temperature may be 30-50% more sensitive to atmospheric carbon dioxide than has previously been estimated, reports a new study published in Nature Geoscience this week. |
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| Points of view What are the arguments used by climate sceptics? |
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| Reserves are bunk Henry Ford is famous for having once said, "History is more or less bunk." He was, in fact, attacking tradition in an age of rapid technological and social change. Almost a century later we have a less ambitious observation which may not achieve the broad visceral appeal of Ford's statement, but one which may turn out have a good deal of importance, to wit: Oil and natural gas reserve numbers are more or less bunk.Let me introduce you to B. J. Doyle, vice president of operations for a small Houston-based oil and natural gas exploration company. Doyle's views on the oil and gas business have been on display for more than a year now at The Oil Drum, a site famous for its technical prowess and breadth of coverage when it comes to energy-related issues. |
7th December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Bill McKibben: Why Politics-As-Usual May Mean the End of Civilization - The Huffington Post Climate change is not like any other issue we've ever dealt with. The adversary here is not Republicans, or socialists, or deficits, or taxes, or misogyny, or racism. The adversary here is physics. See also: Greenhouse gas cuts just 'token gestures' - Independent Copenhagen emissions targets not enough to avert catastrophic warming - Times Online |
7th December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Coal throbs at the heart of India growth engine KORBA, India (Reuters) - A thin coat of coal dust covers everything from trees to houses in Korba, a coal mining town in central India which lies at the heart of the country's struggle to balance economic growth with climate change concerns. |
7th December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| IPCC Working Group 1 Responds on Stolen Emails For the Record: Working Group One of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has put out an official response to the East Anglia University email thefts: In conclusion, IPCC WGI firmly stands behind its unique procedures and behind the scientificcommunity and their collective work which has been, and continues to be, the basis of unbiased,open and transparent assessments of the current knowledge on the climate system and its changes. The complete text is below and the document is attached. <!--break-->Bern, 4. December 2009Working Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) firmly standsbehind the conclusions of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, the community of researchersand its individuals providing the scientific basis, and the procedures of IPCC Assessments.Comments on blogs and in the media about the contents of a large number of private emails stolenfrom the Climatic Research Unit ... |
6th December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The story of cap and trade: a short video on what is wrong with emissions trading The Story of Cap Trade (below) is a fast-paced, fact-filled look at the leading climate solution being discussed at the climate talks in Copenhagen. Cap and trade is also variously described as carbon trading'' and emissions trading . In Australia, the federal Labor government is trying to push a variation of this through the Senate called the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme . |
6th December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Key dates in the story of a warming planet - The Associated Press Telegraph.co.ukKey dates in the story of a warming planetThe Associated Press... global warming "is already happening now." 1988 " UN creates the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a clearinghouse for climate science. ...Copenhagen climate summit: history of climate changeTelegraph.co.ukall 101 |
6th December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Study: Slowdown in warming last year not permanent - The Associated Press Study: Slowdown in warming last year not permanentThe Associated PressWASHINGTON " Cooler temperatures in North America last year do not mean global warming is easing, government and academic scientists said Friday. ...and more |
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| To really save the planet, stop going green - Washington Post To really save the planet, stop going greenWashington PostAs President Obama heads to Copenhagen next week for global warming talks, there's one simple step Americans back home can take to help out: ...and more |
6th December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Leading article: An unwelcome distraction - Independent In calling for an investigation into claims that researchers at the University of East Anglia manipulated their findings in a way that strengthened the case for man-made climate change, the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, is doing absolutely the right thing. The accusations have to be addressed seriously. |
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| How I wish the global warming deniers were right... Every day, I pine for the global warming deniers to be proved right. I loved the old world – of flying to beaches wherever we want, growing to the skies, and burning whatever source of energy came our way. I hate the world to come that I've seen in my reporting from continent after continent - of falling Arctic ice shelves, of countries being swallowed by the sea, of vicious wars for the water and land that remains. When I read the works of global warming deniers like Nigel Lawson or Ian Plimer, I feel a sense of calm washing over me. The nightmare is gone; nothing has to change; the world can stay as it was. But then I go back to the facts. However much I want them to be different, they sit there, hard and immovable. |
4th December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The war against warming Military and intelligence experts become increasingly focused on the climate security threat. Keith Kloor reports. |
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| The oily echo machine behind "climategate" glenn beck climategate.jpg The most vocal organizations around the University of East Anglia hacked email story (aka. "climategate") have been involved in a decade-plus campaign to delay action on climate change. The goal of this campaign, which began around the time of the first Kyoto Protocol negotiations, was to assemble a group of like-minded "free-market" think tanks and pseudo-experts that would bring into question the scientific realities of climate change, create doubt with the public and politicians and effectively delay the introduction of clean energy policy in the United States. It's no coincidence that the groups pushing this story the hardest have a long history of taking money from oil and coal companies to attack the conclusions made by climate scientists. See also: Emails Trigger Criticism of Media Performance Kevin Trenberth: Standing up for the IPCC Process Elizabeth May: An Informed Look at the East Anglia Emails Nature Weighs in on Email Controversy Senior civil servant to investigate leaked emails between climate scientists Climate change: free speech for the sceptics? | Padraig Reidy |
4th December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Unsettled Science Unusually, I'm in complete agreement with a recent headline on the Wall Street Journal op-ed page: The Climate Science Isn t Settled The article below is the same mix of innuendo and misrepresentation that it's author normally writes, but the headline is correct. The WSJ seems to think that the headline is some terribly important pronouncement that in some way undercuts the scientific consensus on climate change but they are simply using an old rhetorical trick . The phrase the science is settled is associated almost 100% with contrarian comments on climate and is usually a paraphrase of what some scientists are supposed to have said. |
4th December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Mikhail Gorbachev and Alexander Likhotal | Climate change Russian roulette We need to avoid a global hangover the day after the summit in Copenhagen. A breakthrough is possible, but only with sacrificesMounting scepticism and deadlocked negotiations have culminated in an announcement that the Copenhagen climate conference will not result in a comprehensive global climate deal. Disappointing? Certainly. But the summit was always meant to be a transitional step. The most important thing to consider is where we will go from here.The phrase "the day after" is most commonly associated with the word "hangover". The absence of a binding agreement could mean a global hangover, and not just for a day. |
4th December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Unlucky strike Lightning storms at mid-latitudes and in the subtropics produce more nitrogen oxides (NOx) than previously thought, finds a new study. What's more, most of the NOx pollution a precursor to the greenhouse gas ozone ends up in the upper troposphere, where it has a strong influence on climate. |
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| Antarctica was climate refuge during great extinction Animals fled to Antarctica to escape global warming, suggests a fossil study " with implications for how animals may adapt to future global warming |
4th December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| TIMELINE-Carbon pledges, schemes pile up ahead of Copenhagen - AlertNet Source: Reuters Dec 3 (Reuters) - Singapore, a Southeast Asian city-state with high per-capita emissions, will head to global climate talks next week with a pledge to cut carbon pollution by 16 percent versus ... See also: Global emissions to double on current pledges-Ecofys |
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| Senate rejects Rudd climate plan Australia's Senate has voted down Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's flagship policy on climate change for a second time. See also: Why do climate deniers hold sway in Australia? | Fred Pearce |
2nd December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Guardian Environment Network: RBS: How public money went into environmentally damaging investments Treasury accused of writing a 'blank cheque' with taxpayers' money for bank to make environmentally damaging investments. From the Ecologist, part of the Guardian Environment NetworkThe full extent of unsustainable investments made by the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) were revealed this week in a report published by a coalition of organisations.Since being bailed out by the taxpayer in October 2008, RBS has financed a host of environmentally-damaging projects, including open cast mining in Bangladesh, tar sands exploration in Canada and a heavily criticised mining company in India.The coalition of groups, including Platform and the World Development Movement said the investments paid for by the taxpayer put the UK to 'shame'.'We're paying for some of the most damaging mining and fossil fuel projects around the world,' said Julian Oram, head of policy at the World Development Movement.Sustainable investmentsThe report, 'Royal Bank of Sustainability', ... |
2nd December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change denial is the new article of faith for the far right | Bob Ward Despite a complete lack of evidence, the leaked emails hysteria has encouraged more deniers to emerge from the shadowsIt is now 12 days since the hacked emails from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia first appeared online, and the propaganda machine for the climate change denial lobby is in overdrive.The University of East Anglia has rightly announced an independent investigation into the hacking episode. It is essential that the investigation examines, thoroughly and transparently, the substance of the email messages and establishes whether there has been any wrongdoing. From what I have seen, there is no evidence of research misconduct, but the only way to clear the air now is through an investigation.Some people have already, and predictably, taken on the role of judge, jury and executioner, and have called for Phil Jones, the director of the unit, to resign. |
2nd December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Antarctica may heat up dramatically as ozone hole repairs, warn scientists As blanket of ozone over southern pole seals up, temperatures on continent could soar by 3C, increasing sea level rise by 1.4mThe hole in the Earth's ozone layer has shielded Antarctica from the worst effects of global warming until now, according to the most comprehensive review to date of the state of the Antarctic climate. But scientists warned that as the hole closes up in the next few decades, temperatures on the continent could rise by around 3C on average, with melting ice contributing to a global sea-level increases of up to 1.4m.The western Antarctic peninsula has seen rapid ice loss as the world has warmed, but other parts of the continent have paradoxically been cooling, with a 10% increase in ice in the seas around the region in recent decades. |
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| George Monbiot v Nick Stern Two of the top thinkers on climate change explain why the most important political gathering of our time will succeed or failNicholas Stern The two defining challenges of our century are managing climate change and overcoming poverty. And if we fail on one we will fail on the other. So the world faces a stark choice at the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen.Do we collaborate and act to reach a strong political agreement that both decisively cuts the devastating risks posed by climate change, and rapidly opens up the opportunities offered by low-carbon economic growth? Do we in that way set ourselves to overcome poverty and promote prosperity? See also: Can we fix it? Perhaps, but it depends who you ask |
2nd December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate's Lost Decade Now Leads to a 'Last' Decade - US News & World Report Global CO2 emissions currently match the worst case among seven scenarios laid down in 2001 by the IPCC |
2nd December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Copenhagen climate change talks must fail, says top scientist - Guardian Unlimited The scientist who convinced the world to take notice of the looming danger of global warming says it would be better for the planet and for future generations if next week's Copenhagen climate change summit ended in collapse. |
2nd December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Time to confront the invisible enemy that threatens us all - Independent You could be forgiven for thinking it's not happening " and there, in fact, is the heart of the problem. Climate change, according to one view the greatest threat that human civilisation has ever faced, may seem a particularly nebulous danger to many people who look around them and see no evidence whatsoever of it taking place. |
2nd December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Big Drop in Those Who Believe That Global Warming Is Coming - Business Wire via Yahoo! Finance NEW YORK----As President Obama prepares to head to Copenhagen next week, a new Harris Poll finds that those who believe that the release of carbon dioxide and other gases will lead to global warming has dropped from 71% two years ago to only 51% now. |
2nd December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Latest evidence - BBC News How climate science has moved on since key summit decision |
2nd December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Why Copenhagen must be the end of the beginning - Financial Times The Copenhagen summit on climate change is going to fall short. Does this matter? Yes and no: yes, because the case for action is so strong; no, because the likely agreement would be inadequate. Tackling climate change will be hard. It is crucial that we achieve the goal effectively and efficiently. |
2nd December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate e-mail hackers aimed to maximise harm to Copenhagen summit - Times Online E-mails alleged to undermine climate change science were held back for weeks after being stolen so that their release would cause maximum damage to the Copenhagen climate conference, according to a source close to the investigation of the theft. |
2nd December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change special: Twelve days to save the world Mohammed Nasheed knows what global warming means, because he sees it every day. He survived years of imprisonment and torture to lead his country " the Maldives " to democracy. But now, as its President, he is being forced to watch as his homeland is wiped from the map. With each year that passes, the rising sea claims more land, and at the current rate it will claim everything. |
2nd December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate Email Scandal: Scientists Engaged in a Conspiracy of Science [Global Warming] - Gawker Climate change is real and man-made. Period, end of story. But recently, some emails have leaked that conclusively prove that climate scientists... are really pissed off that a well-funded industry exists that subverts and denies their work. |
30th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Glenn Beck: the renegade running the opposition to Obama - Guardian Unlimited Glenn Beck is a TV host, bestselling author and the most influential voice on the rightwing Fox channel. Now, even some Republicans worry that the extreme and maverick views of Beck and his supporters will make their party unelectable. Is the TV tail wagging the political dog? |
30th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Peak oil: fields of plenty, or are we scraping the barrel? - Guardian Unlimited Crude is still being discovered; existing fields are not being exploited to the full. So it's hard to predict the exact point at which the world's dwindling reserves will precipitate a crisis. But it's coming . |
30th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Urgent Threat to World Peace is Canada The harm this country could do in the next two weeks will outweigh all the good it has done in a century. |
30th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Peat fires drive temperatures up Peatlands, especially those in tropical regions, sequester gigantic amounts of organic carbon. Human activities are now having a considerable impact on these wetlands. For example, drainage projects, in combination with the effects of periodic droughts, can lead to large-scale fires, which release enormous amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere, and thus contribute to global warming. |
30th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| I'd rather not know: the psychology of climate denial - SpaceDaily PARIS, Dec 1 (AFP) Dec 01, 2009 If the evidence is overwhelming that man-made climate change is already upon us and set to wreak planetary havoc, why do so many people refuse to believe it? |
30th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| As the World Waits on the U.S., a Sense of Déjà Vu in Denmark? Twelve years ago in Kyoto, the world was poised to act on a climate treaty but looked for a clear signal from the United States. Now, with the Copenhagen talks set to begin, the outcome once again hinges on what the U.S. is prepared to do. BY BILL MCKIBBEN |
30th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate 'time bombs' stoke scientists' fears - SpaceDaily PARIS, Nov 29 (AFP) Nov 29, 2009 Whatever the outcome of the UN climate summit in Copenhagen, Nature may have some extremely nasty surprises up its sleeve, say scientists. |
30th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Less efficient natural 'cleaning' could tip global carbon balance - The Japan Times Land and sea sinks removed an average of 57 percent (or 5.3 billion tons per year) of all CO2 from human activities between 1958 and 2008, leaving 43 percent in the atmosphere where it will stay for at least several centuries. The research of professor Le Quere and her colleagues also indicates that the portion of CO2 remaining in the atmosphere may be rising. Dr. Shobhakar Dhakal, an executive director of the Global Carbon Project at Japan's National Institute for Environmental Studies, says that this has occurred over the past 50 years and suggests that natural sinks are becoming "less efficient 'cleaners' of human carbon pollution." U.S. oceanographer Richard Feely, who is also part of the Global Carbon Project, says: "We're concerned that if the natural sinks can't keep pace with the increased CO2 emissions, then the physical and biological impacts of global warming will accelerate over the next century." There is disagreement among scientists about whether the capacity of Earth's biosphere to keep the global carbon budget in balance has already been exceeded. |
30th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| A Petrocollapse Timeline Since the early two thousand oughts we pessimistas have been trying to discern the shape of the backside of Mr. Hubbert's curve. John Michael Greer has made a strong case for catabolic collapse, which could be described as a stair-step down from the present peak, punctuated by precipitous drops (the 147-dollar oil spike; the Lehman default; the ARMs race) and level treads ("Green Shoots," the "Morning in America" phase we are currently hallucinating). |
28th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon offsetting 'not working' The first travel firm to offer consumer carbon offset schemes says they are a "distraction" from the urgency of climate change. |
28th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| China says to cut carbon intensity 40 to 45 percent by 2020 BEIJING (Reuters) - China will reduce its carbon intensity -- the amount of carbon dioxide emitted for each unit of GDP -- 40 to 45 percent by 2020, compared with 2005 levels, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Thursday. |
28th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Peak Everything By Gunther OstermannOur planet is but a speck in the cosmos, but its unique, and perhaps the only planet in our galaxy that harbours life, as we know it. I refrain from saying intelligent life, because the wanton destruction of our beautiful world, through stupidity, greed and senseless wars, and letting over 26 000 children die of starvation every day, is a crime that must reverberate throughout the universe |
28th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Real Scandal Over Climate Change Isn't About Hacked Emails But the Media's Coverage There's been a lot of talk recently about the "hacked climate emails." But a much bigger scandal is just waiting to break. See also Where's the data? Climategate : Too Tired To Resist ? |
28th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| China's Pledge on Carbon Emissions: Is It Enough? - Time Magazine Beijing's decision to bring targets on carbon emissions reductions to Copenhagen is hopeful, but it is important to understand what exactly Beijing is promising -- and what it's not US and China to reduce emissions, but not enough - The Star |
28th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| For Balance: Let's Have Marc Morano's emails morano.jpg The Deniersphere being alive with delight over the emails stolen from the UK Hadley Centre, my colleague Kevin Grandia has wondered aloud (see next post) about what a similar sampling of emails might look like if they were sourced from one of the most aggressive and least (climate) credible think tanks - the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Why stop there? As a stunning amount of email traffic on this issue currently seems to be coming from uberDenier Marc Morano, why doesn't the former aide to Okalahoma Senator and Republican Denier-in-Chief James Inhofe volunteer to share his correspondence? |
26th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate 'diagnosis' is stark message for politicians The Copenhagen Diagnosis argues that the environment is in a worse state than predicted as recently as 2007 and calls for drastic action |
26th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change to hit water-scarce Arab world hard CAIRO (Reuters) - Climate change is likely to hit the water-starved Arab world harder than many other parts of the globe and threatens to slash agricultural output in the area, U.N. and Arab League officials said. |
26th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Society faces 'grim' post-fossil fuel energy crisis, report warns - Environmental Data Interactive Exchange Society faces a future energy crisis because renewable energy will not be enough to replace dwindling fossil fuel supplies, a new US study warns. |
24th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Mankind using Earth's resources at alarming rate - AFP via Yahoo! UK & Ireland News Humanity would need five Earths to produce the resources needed if everyone lived as profligately as Americans, according to a report issued Tuesday. |
24th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Greenhouse Gases Increase to Record in Atmosphere - Update1 - Bloomberg Nov. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, the main man-made greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, increased to record concentrations in the atmosphere last year, the United Nations said. |
24th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Disagreeable truth about the coming Copenhagen charade - The Age We are about to see an advanced case of ''agreementism'' between world leaders at the Copenhagen climate change meeting. It is a painful and embarrassing disorder with familiar results. |
24th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Study: Climate change to have irreversible consequences by 2050 - Monsters and Critics.com WWF InternationalStudy: Berlin - A lack of determined action on climate change means that by 2050 global warming of more than the targeted 2 degrees celsius will have taken place, a study released in Berlin Monday said. In its 'Tipping Points' report, environmental advocacy group WWF and global insurance firm Allianz said the consequences of emissions already made would, by 2050, likely include a global sea-level rise of 0.5 metres, disrupted monsoon rain patterns, Amazon die-back, and severe drought in the south-western United States. The report's authors said that large, sudden changes would likely affect the world's climate, rather than a gradual, manageable process. The report envisaged that the value of property and assets in port cities worldwide endangered by a 0.5m rise in sea level would amount to 28 trillion dollars by mid-century. |
24th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global warming dangers 'alarming' Leading UK scientists issue an unprecedented statement about the dangers of failing to cut greenhouse gases. |
24th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Coming Chaos It now seems to me that the systemic collapse of modern civilization will have two distinct phases. The first will be merely economic hardship, and the second will be chaos. In the first phase, the major issues will be inflation, unemployment, and the stock market. In the second phase, there will be the disappearance of government, law, and money. I am reminded of Robert D. Kaplan's Ends of the Earth. We might imagine the USA, for example, as one of the collapsed countries he describes, where official borders are meaningless, and where police, armies, and bandit hordes are indistinguishable from one another. |
24th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Are the Earth's Oceans Hitting Their Carbon Cap? - Time Magazine A new study finds that the oceans' ability to absorb man-made carbon emissions may be dwindling, at the same time the world's emissions rates show no sign of slowing |
19th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 'Kyoto forests' sow seeds for emissions surge When New Zealand's sink forests are harvested in the 2020s, as is likely, all that carbon will return to the atmosphereThe government of New Zealand responded with some irritation to my column last week, which castigated a national strategy for meeting its Kyoto climate targets by allowing greenhouse gas emissions to rise by 22% from 1990 to 2007.All was well, it said. The 600,000 hectares of forests that were planted in the 1990s would soak up all the excess CO2 " around 90m tonnes of it between 2008 and 2012. In fact, the country was likely to be ahead of its Kyoto target of stabilising emissions at 1990 levels.But back home this policy is controversial, to say the least, with many experts accusing the government of a sleight of hand. |
19th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Searching For A Miracle: Net Energy Limits And The Fate Of Industrial Society By Post Carbon Institute International Forum on Globalization The fundamental disturbing conclusion of the report is that there is little likelihood that either conventional fossil fuels or alternative energy sources can reliably be counted on to provide the amount and quality of energy that will be needed to sustain economic growth or even current levels of economic activity during the remainder of the current century |
18th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Leading article: A climate change warning we ignore at our peril Two years ago, the United Nation's International Panel on Climate Change forecast an increase in global temperatures by the end of the century of between 1.8C and 4C, depending on the success of nations in reducing their carbon emissions. But now an international team of scientists, led by Professor Corinne Le Quéré of the University of East Anglia, argues that the world is in fact on course for a 6C rise in temperature by 2100. These might sound like small numbers. But their implications could not be bigger " or more dangerous. See also: Fossil fuel CO2 emissions up by 29 percent since 2000 |
18th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Copenhagen cop-out: The 'longest suicide note in history'? - Politics.co.uk via Yahoo! UK & Ireland News Procrastinating politicians are in danger of turning next month's climate change talks in Copenhagen into little more than a talking shop, a body of leading scientists and engineers has warned. |
18th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| What They Really Believe - New York Times Clean energy opponents believe global warming doesn t exist because that is the only way their arguments make sense. |
18th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate Denial Industry Costs Us $500 Billion a Year toilet money.JPG The International Energy Agency (IEA) has announced in its latest World Energy Outlook that every year of delayed action to address climate change will add $500 Billion to the price tag of saving the planet. The climate denial industry should foot the bill, since they are responsible for causing the delay.In the run-up to the Copenhagen climate summit, a growing number of government leaders from around the world - and even high level United Nations representatives - have suggested that an ambitious, legally binding agreement is all but impossible to achieve in Denmark this December. |
17th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Obama backs two-step plan to reach climate deal SINGAPORE (Reuters) - President Barack Obama has backed a plan by the host of next month's climate change talks in Copenhagen to seek a political deal and leave legally binding decisions for later, a U.S. official said on Sunday. See also: Copenhagen climate summit hopes fade as Obama backs postponement How to make a successful failure out of Copenhagen - Financial Times |
15th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Apec leaders drop climate target Asia-Pacific leaders say it will not be possible to reach a climate change deal ahead of the UN conference in Copenhagen. |
15th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Nuclear disposal put in doubt by recovered Swedish galleon The plan to use copper for sealing nuclear waste underground has being thrown into disarray by corrosion in artefacts from the VasaPlans for nuclear waste disposal could be thrown into confusion tomorrow at a summit because of new evidence of corrosion in materials traditionally used for burial procedures.The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) says it will keep careful watch on a meeting organised by the Swedish National Council for Nuclear Waste, which will look at potential problems with copper, designated for an important role in sealing radioactive waste underground.Concerns have risen from a most unexpected quarter. Examination of copper artefacts from the Vasa, a fifteenth-century galleon raised from Stockholm harbour, has shown a level of decay that challenges the scientific wisdom that copper corrodes only when exposed to oxygen.David Lowry, a consultant on the nuclear industry, said the latest evidence had profound implications. |
15th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Ray Mears: We'll struggle to survive climate change Ray Mears is Mr Bushcraft. He wants people to be confident about surviving in the wild, but reckons most of us won't make it through a global climate crisis |
15th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Is There a Technology Resistance? The driving force behind the anthropogenic destruction of Planet Earth is locked inside our skulls. Neuroscientists are just beginning to identify the neural networks of the Technological Mind, but one thing is certain: the irresistible impulse to use tools is the product of natural selection over the last 1.5 million years, and so it is probably more deeply ingrained than even our impulse to use language. |
14th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Trading away our future in China | Kevin Gallagher The economy is suffering and the planet is warming, but Barack Obama's first visit to China is all about a trade warBarack Obama makes his first trip to China in the middle of a global financial crisis and just weeks before world leaders meet to try to strike a global climate change deal. Leadership from the US and China is imperative to solving these crises. But rather than tackle them, the two countries are mired in a good old-fashioned trade war and plan to use Obama's historic visit to negotiate an investment deal that could set the stage for more trade disputes in the decades to come.In September the US slapped heavy tariffs on Chinese tires. |
14th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| UK climate targets 'unachievable' UK government plans to make carbon emission cuts of 80% by 2050 are impossible to achieve, according to an analysis. |
14th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate Rage The only way to stop global warming is for rich nations to pay for the damage they've done - or face the consequences. See also: The Seattle activists' coming of age in Cophenhagen will be very disobedient | Naomi Klein |
14th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| From hopeful climate to climate of despair by Geoffrey Lean It was less than a year ago, but everything seemed so different then. George W. Bush was still in the White House, but officials gathered at the annual international climate talks, held last December in Poznan, felt new hope in the chilly Polish air: President-elect Obama had, against many expectations, made it clear that combatting global warming was to be a priority for his incoming administration.George W. Bush may no longer be president, but America is once again seen as the bad guy in the effort to negotiate a new climate change pact. Obove, a gagged Statue of Liberty at a 2007 climate protest in Britain.jystewart via FlickrThe hope grew, if anything, in March when Obama's new climate envoy, Todd Stern, traveled to Bonn and addressed the first of this year's long series of climate negotiations. |
14th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Widespread scepticism on climate change undermines Copenhagen summit - Times Online The finding suggests that the public is unconvinced by the Government's message that climate change is the moral issue of our times and that we must embrace urgently a low-carbon lifestyle. |
14th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Choice Ahead: Entrenched Fossil Fuel Dependence Or Climate Change Management By Emily Spence Humanity needs to proactively come together to deal with climate change mitigation rather than remain separated along nationalistic lines to contentiously vie for control over the worlds remaining fossil fuels. The rationale behind such a course of action is clear. Time is running out in terms of our surpassing climate change tipping points that would drastically alter life across the entire Earth for many centuries to come |
12th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Key oil figures were distorted by US pressure, says whistleblower Exclusive: The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying. The senior official claims the US has played an influential role in encouraging the watchdog to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of finding new reserves. The allegations raise serious questions about the accuracy of the organisation's latest World Energy Outlook on oil demand and supply to be published tomorrow – which is used by the British and many other governments to help guide their wider energy and climate change policies. See also: Are we running out of oil? The world in energy statistics IEA says OPEC could lose in climate deal - SpaceDaily |
10th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Energy demand to rise rapidly if no CO2 deal: IEA LONDON (Reuters) - World energy consumption will rise rapidly over the next 20 years, pushing up costs and increasing greenhouse gases, unless a deal is reached to curb carbon dioxide emissions, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said Tuesday. See also: Cost of extra year's climate inaction $500 billion: IEA |
10th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| We're doomed without a green religion | Andrew Brown Arguments about climate change show up the incoherence of any purely individual moralityThe justification for burning heretics was perfectly simple: dissent threatened the survival of society. Nothing was worse than anarchy. This is a viewpoint most people in the West today find pretty much incomprehensible. It is a self-evident truth to them that morality must be a matter of individual choice. And if you believe that, the arguments around the Tim Nicholson case are very difficult to resolve. If there is a moral imperative to preserve the human race, or as much of it as possible, collective consequences must follow. |
8th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Inaction on climate change comes with a huge price tag - CNews It's interesting to see the reaction to a report just released by our foundation and the Pembina Institute. The Globe and Mail called our analysis of the costs of fighting climate change unsaleable and dangerous . |
8th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Past climate of the northern Antarctic Peninsular informs global warming debate The seriousness of current global warming is underlined by a reconstruction of climate at Maxwell Bay in the South Shetland Islands of the Antarctic Peninsula over approximately the last 14,000 years, which appears to show that the current warming and widespread loss of glacial ice are unprecedented. |
8th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Civil unrest has a role in stopping climate change, says Gore Ahead of Copenhagen summit, former US vice-president says 'non-violent lawbreaking' is legitimate in persuading governments to cut emissionsAl Gore has sought to inject fresh momentum into the Copenhagen build-up, saying he is certain Barack Obama will attend and predicting a rise in civil disobedience against fossil-fuel polluters unless drastic action is taken over global warming.Amid increasing incidents of climate protesters disrupting the operations of fossil-fuel industries and airports in Britain and elsewhere, Gore suggests the scale of the emergency means non-violent lawbreaking is justified. "Civil disobedience has an honourable history, and when the urgency and moral clarity cross a certain threshold, then I think that civil disobedience is quite understandable, and it has a role to play," he says. |
8th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| We cannot fight climate with consumerism Small actions allow people to overlook the bigger ones and still claim they are being environmentally responsibleHow many times have you heard the argument that small green actions lead to bigger ones? I've heard it hundreds of times: habits that might scarcely register in their own right are still useful because they encourage people to think of themselves as green, and therefore to move on to tougher actions. A green energy expert once tried to convince me that even though rooftop micro wind turbines are useless or worse than useless in most situations, they're still worth promoting because they encourage people to think about their emissions. |
8th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Leaders 'shortsighted' over climate - Guardian Unlimited The head of the international group leading the fight against climate change has accused countries of pushing science aside in favour of self-serving "political myopia" ahead of the vital Copenhagen summit. Senior officials and negotiators are increasingly gloomy about the prospects for a global warming deal next month, with the British government admitting there is now no chance of a legally binding treaty. Speaking as officials gather in Barcelona tomorrow for a final round of negotiations, Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said: "I gave all the world's leaders a very grim view of what the science tells us and that is what should be motivating us all, but I'm afraid I don't see too much evidence of that at the current stage. "Science has been moved aside and the space has been filled up with political myopia with every country now trying to protect its own narrow short-term interests. They are afraid to have negotiations go any further because they would have to compromise on those interests." |
6th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| State of Emergency When is Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister going to appear on TV and tell it to us straight ? Climate Change is real, and it's happening now, and the sceptics, deniers, delayers and cynics are all wrong. And somebody with some kind of respect needs to be saying that, regularly, with backup, in all the media channels. It's time that scepticism, denialism, delayism and cynicism were ruled out of order. [link]environment/2009/nov/04/network-climate-change-scepticism It has almost reached the point at which Energy and Climate Secretary Ed Miliband could state that the colour red has a wavelength of about 650 nanometres and a large group would immediately rise up to contradict him. |
6th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Where countries stand on Copenhagen There are just over four weeks to go before the Copenhagen conference intended to agree a new international framework for controlling greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The final round of preparatory talks in Barcelona has revealed deep divisions between some of the key participants. Use this table to study their positions. |
6th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Copenhagen Is All Wrong Many people around the world are praying and crossing their fingers for some kind of Climate Change treaty to be signed at Copenhagen. Practically all the nations of the world will have their United Nations delegations in Denmark's capital this December, and many governments are hoping for a breakthrough of one sort or another on the form of words, the financial commitments and the political drive to get things done. Trouble is, the nations can promise and sign and agree all they like, but nothing will happen, because the wrong players are in the room. Let's look at the United Kingdom as an example. |
6th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Health impact of weather change 'could eclipse all pandemics' - Irish Times THE SEVERE health impacts of climate change would “eclipse all known pandemics in the 21st century”, it was claimed yesterday, with even a one degree Celsius rise in average temperatures causing a six-fold increase in mortality among respiratory patients. As shown by some 10,000 premature deaths in France alone during a heatwave in 2003, “all of the known or predicted impacts of climate change are going to lead to severe health impacts”, according to Josh Karliner, of the Health Care Without Harm network. “It is impossible to have healthy people on a sick planet”, he said at a joint launch with the Health and Environment Alliance (Heal) of their Prescription for a Healthy Planet, which calls for a “strong, binding treaty in Copenhagen that promotes a healthy climate”. |
6th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Don't let the reckless City trade carbon | Andy Atkins Just when our leaders are slapping each other on the back for rescuing us from one financial crisis, with carbon trading they are already sowing the seeds of the next – with potentially devastating consequences for our economy, the planet and millions of its poorest people. See also: Friends of the Earth attacks carbon trading |
6th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Carbon Capture Begging Bowl Colin Challen MP [Member of the United Kingdom Parliament], the author of Too Little, Too Late : The Politics of Climate Change has told the nascent Carbon Capture industry to stop bleating for funding, effectively a bailout for the Coal industry :- [link]do/ecco.py/view_item?listid=1&listcatid=32&listitemid=3178§ion=Carbon CCS industry should support itself, claims MP : Wednesday 04 November 2009 : Labour MP Colin Challen believes the CCS industry should fund itself : A Labour MP has called on the Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) industry to stop giving a sob story about needing government investment and instead fund new projects itself. See also: Greenwash: Gordon Brown's green spin on carbon capture | Fred Pearce |
6th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| We have months, not years, to save world International agreements take too long, we need a swift mobilisation not seen since the second world warFor those concerned about global warming, all eyes are on December's UN climate change conference in Copenhagen. The stakes could not be higher. Almost every new report shows that the climate is changing even faster than the most dire projections of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in their 2007 report.Yet from my vantage point, internationally negotiated climate agreements are fast becoming obsolete for two reasons. First, since no government wants to concede too much compared with other governments, the negotiated goals for cutting carbon emissions will almost certainly be minimalist, not remotely approaching the bold cuts that are needed.And second, since it takes years to negotiate and ratify these agreements, we may simply run out of time. |
4th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| What are we really arguing about when we argue about climate change? Members of the public are drifting into the climate change sceptic camp in recent months and years. How do we stem the flow? From Carbon Commentary, part of the Guardian Environment NetworkThe phrase 'the science is settled' is regularly used by politicians arguing for meaningful action on climate change. To the majority of the world's scientists, global warming is a clear and present danger and those who deny it, or argue that its effects will limited or benign, are dangerous lunatics. Nevertheless, an increasing numbers of voters, particularly in the US and the UK, have drifted into the sceptic camp in recent months and years. |
4th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Fix climate change or else, say military top brass An international panel of military officers warns that climate change threatens global security and stability |
4th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| A politically binding climate change agreement is great... if you're a politician The biggest news coming out of the Barcelona climate talks being held this week is the re-framing of a successful climate change treaty as being one that is "politically binding" as opposed to "legally binding." With all the long hours I've been putting into to covering these climate talks, I'm sure my wife is wishing our marriage was a politically binding agreement, as opposed to a legal one. This double-speak-aganza started earlier this week with Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen telling Reuters that, "it is a challenge for every single industrialised country in the world to deal with the climate change issue and that's why we are working very strongly to reach a politically binding agreement in Copenhagen..." President Rasmussen said he was optimistic that a politically binding deal could be reached in Copenhagen. |
4th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Copenhagen: What's happening? - Independent See also: Instant Expert: The Copenhagen climate change summit - New Scientist Binding treaty no longer a realistic goal for climate summit, UN chief concedes - Times Online Nicholas Stern sees good chance for deal in Copenhagen Climate clock looks set for zero hour |
4th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Groups Impersonated by Big Coal Testify Before Congress bonner-logo.jpg DeSmogBlog spoke this week to one of several groups impersonated by Big Coal to block the Waxman Markey Bill, and they are not happy. Lisa Maatz, director of public policy and government relations for the American Association of University Women (AAUW) had just finished testifying before a Congressional hearing in the fraudulent letter scam: It was very clear to me that this was specifically targeting certain members using the names of reputable groups because those groups could be influential with those members, and it wasn t just a fluke, it wasn t just an accident. No doubt. |
4th November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Death Denial Why the sudden surge in climate change denial? Could it be about something else altogether? |
3rd November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The climate change game Hopes are fading that a strong treaty will emerge from next month's negotiations in Copenhagen. Researchers who study cooperation, though, aren't surprised. Mason Inman reports. See also: INTERVIEW-IEA official downbeat on Copenhagen climate talks - AlertNet Money is the key to the success of Copenhagen CLIMATE CHANGE: Jockeying for Position in Copenhagen U.N. climate talks resume as time runs out for deal Copenhagen wrangling leads to downgraded carbon price - vnunet.com |
3rd November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Leaders accused of myopia over climate deal The head of the international group leading the fight against climate change has accused countries of pushing science aside in favour of self-serving "political myopia" ahead of the vital Copenhagen summit. Senior officials and negotiators are increasingly gloomy about the prospects for a global warming deal next month, with the British government admitting there is now no chance of a legally binding treaty. Speaking as officials gather in Barcelona tomorrow for a final round of negotiations, Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said: "I gave all the world's leaders a very grim view of what the science tells us and that is what should be motivating us all, but I'm afraid I don't see too much evidence of that at the current stage. "Science has been moved aside and the space has been filled up with political myopia with every country now trying to protect its own narrow short-term interests. They are afraid to have negotiations go any further because they would have to compromise on those interests." |
3rd November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Anthropoclastic Climate Change When I published the previous article ([link]2009/10/oceans-are-coming.html )about the ever-more-dire forecasts of ocean level rise, little did I know that I was blundering into the midst of a "climate change debate." But then many readers reacted to this article by making comments to the effect that "climate change is a hoax" or that I am "just like Al Gore." Since that article reviews and attempts to interpret of some of the most authoritative, conservative and consensus-based scientific reports available, it should not have given rise to any controversy at all. |
3rd November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Everyone Should Read This Kevin Grandia of DeSmogBlog in Canada, kindly sent me a copy of the new publication Climate Cover-Up for review last week, which plopped through my letterbox, postal strike notwithstanding, on Tuesday. It took me until yesterday evening to read the whole of James Hoggan's book in snatches on the train and Tube, and it contained information about Climate Change denial that made my hair curl. Everyone should read this book. It is very Canada-centric with a mostly North American focus, yet it is highly relevant Europe-side. I recognised trends and traits in many of the strands of public commentary and policy tracks as similar, almost inherited, in the United Kingdom. |
3rd November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate crunch and Copenhagen: the fierce urgency of now - Larvatus Prodeo Back in 2003 James Hansen was saying that we had about 10 years to get ourselves organised to tackle global warming and climate change. You ignore him at your peril. |
3rd November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| An open letter to Steve Levitt Dear Mr. Levitt, The problem of global warming is so big that solving it will require creative thinking from many disciplines. Economists have much to contribute to this effort, particularly with regard to the question of how various means of putting a price on carbon emissions may alter human behavior. Some of the lines of thinking in your first book, Freakonomics, could well have had a bearing on this issue, if brought to bear on the carbon emissions problem. I have very much enjoyed and benefited from the growing collaborations between Geosciences and the Economics department here at the University of Chicago, and had hoped someday to have the pleasure of making your acquaintance. |
1st November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Police in £9m scheme to log 'domestic extremists' - Guardian Unlimited Forces gather details of single-issue protesters Activists claim monitoring has echoes of the cold war As demonstrations go, it was more of a lighthearted affair than a threat to the nation. About 600 climate change campaigners had gathered outside the Drax power station in North Yorkshire. They had chosen to demonstrate there because the huge plant is the UK's biggest emitter of carbon. The ... |
1st November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Panic at 2 a.m. - the search for multiyear Arctic ice When you re looking for shrinking packs of multiyear ice in the Arctic Ocean, bizarre things tend to happen. Top Canadian scientist David Barber knows this first hand, as he explained in a presentation in Parliament on Wednesday. Barber said that to all extents and purposes the multiyear ice in the Arctic had already vanished, which could open up the region to shipping and mineral exploitation. Barber, who holds Canada's Research Chair in Arctic System Science at the University of Manitoba, boarded the icebreaker Amundsen last month and steamed north from the Arctic port of Tuktoyaktuk to look for the Beaufort Sea pack ice, the thickest, hardest, meanest, multi year sea we have left in the northern hemisphere . |
1st November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Military budget could pay for renewables Admit it: you re just a little disturbed when industrialists, fossil-fuel lobbyists and the Liberal and National parties thunder that big, quick cuts to carbon emissions would bankrupt Australian business. Well, aren t you? |
1st November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The real cost of nuclear fuel If just one of the subsidies for nuclear power were to be withdrawn, the price of electricity from new nuclear power stations would rise to about 41 US cents per kWh, a level that would make it deeply unattractive to investors. |
1st November 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Multiyear Arctic ice is effectively gone: expert OTTAWA (Reuters) - The multiyear ice covering the Arctic Ocean has effectively vanished, a startling development that will make it easier to open up polar shipping routes, an Arctic expert said on Thursday. |
29th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Aerosols make methane more potent - Nature Air pollution linked more closely to climate concerns See also (Just in case the link goes premium): Methane's role in global warming underestimated - USA Today |
29th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Mark Fiore: What if we handled Hitler like we're dealing with climate change? [VIDEO] |
29th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Leading article: Planting the seeds of environmental disaster The typical image used to represent the process of global warming is a power station, belching out black smoke. But an equally valid image would be an oil palm sitting serenely under a tropical sky. Rainforests are being cleared across south-east Asia, West Africa and South America to make way for palm oil plantations, which produce the world's cheapest vegetable oil. Yet deforestation is one of the greatest drivers of climate change. The destruction of the planet's rainforests is responsible for 20 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions, as hardwood trees that have locked up carbon for decades are felled and burned. |
28th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change will devastate Africa, top UK scientist warns - Guardian Unlimited One of the world's most influential scientists has warned that climate change could devastate Africa, predicting an increase in catastrophic food shortages. |
28th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Copenhagen Won t Be an End to Climate Talks, EU Says - Update1 - Bloomberg Oct. 28 (Bloomberg) -- The Copenhagen climate summit in December won t be an end to international negotiations to slow global warming, the European Commission's director general for the environment said today. See also: UN admits it is planning for post-Copenhagen talks - vnunet.com |
28th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Wind breakers Which farm animals are the biggest methane makers? |
28th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Forecasts for Future Oil Supplies Are Unrealistic Editor's note: the author published a version of this article elsewhere online, but revised it for Culture Change. It was originally titled "The Peak Oil Downside Will Be Steeper Than The Upside." - Jan Lundberg From many credible and highly placed sources we are today hearing about the dire energy situation that industrialized civilization faces. Industrialized countries have remained dependent on petroleum, and the destructive industrial practices that it fuels, for way too long. |
28th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The End Of Electricity By Peter GoodchildThere seems to be a consensus that the depletion of fossil fuels will follow a fairly impressive slope. What may need to be looked at more closely, however, is not the when but the what. Looking at the temporary shortages of the 1970s may give us the impression that the most serious consequence will be lineups at the pump. Fossil-fuel decline, however, will also mean the end of electricity, a far more serious matter |
27th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Deal-Breaker for Climate-Change Treaty May Be Obama's Congress - Bloomberg Deal-Breaker for Climate-Change Treaty May Be Obama's CongressBloombergYet the heart of a climate deal is to get nations to slash heat-trapping gases such as carbon dioxide that scientists blame for global warming. ...and more |
27th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Psychology is missing from climate debate Without a deeper insight into people's behaviour and motivations, a low-carbon world will remain out of reachFrom 10:10 to the government's Act On CO2 campaign, it is now widely accepted that tackling climate change will require tackling behaviour change too. But until now, a key piece has been missing from the puzzle " psychology. The study of human behaviour has been conspicuous by its absence from the climate change debate.The assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have provided the scientific evidence of human impact on the climate, and a glimpse of what the future may hold if we don't act fast. |
27th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon market will do well but may run out of time - The Malaysian Insider SINGAPORE, Oct 26 " The global carbon industry is expected to perform well this year despite the global financial crisis " but it is fast running out of time, a carbon expert said last week. What it needs is a clear signal from world leaders that there will be a firm price on carbon past the Kyoto agreement which expires in 2012, said fund manager Josh Carmody of the Asia-Pacific Carbon Fund ... |
27th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| New Nuclear Is Not A Climate Policy The rumour mill about the propsects for new Nuclear Power is quite active, a kind of underground semaphore. About a year ago, the idea that the United Kingdom would be burdened with eleven new Nuclear Power stations entered the mill and popped out all over the shop, being greeted with ridicule, dismissiveness, anger and despair. When the Energy Supply companies started going into free capital meltdown over new investments, owing to issues concerning insurance and the general Economy, there was concern that they wouldn t come along with the new Nuclear plan. The Government kept pumping out the information that we should have at least four new Nuclear Power stations. See also: Is the Climate Bill Becoming an Excuse to Promote Fossil Fuels and Nuclear Power? Nuclear energy becomes pivotal in climate debate - AP via Yahoo! News |
25th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| McKibben Versus Hedges' Clash of Worldviews: How Do We Solve the Environmental Crisis? Bill McKibben believes we must reduce our carbon emissions immediately, or else face disaster. Chris Hedges says that until we defeat corporate power, we can't address anything. |
25th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Don't call then Climate Deniers, Label them 'Pushers' of a Drug called 'Doubt' My field of speciality is a big muddy field: humankinds collective denial (by their actions) that there's any real climate problem. In this muddy field its important to remember there are two very distinct types of 'denier' animal, that you will encounter. With totally different response strategies needed. Actually "doubt pusher" may be a better name than 'denier'. Get this: Doubt is a popular feel-good drug. So what are these two types? Doubt pushers and doubt addicts. |
23rd October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon Trading Is So Wrong So, the theory of Cap-and-Trade goes like this. You set an upper Cap on Carbon Dioxide Emissions. You dole out Carbon Dioxide Emissions Permits or Allowances. Or you sell them. Or you auction them. Each year the amount of Carbon Dioxide Emissions Permits gets less and less. Then a Market in Carbon will operate. Those organisations and businesses who find it easy to cut Carbon Dioxide Emissions do that. Then they trade their unused Carbon Permits or Allowances with those who find it harder to cut their emissions. This Carbon Market, according to Economic Theory, should be the most efficient, that's cost-efficient, in implementing the Carbon Cap. See also: Carbon Taxation Is So Wrong |
23rd October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Agenda setting for assured aggregated destruction A good example of how the concept of agenda setting can drive process can be gleaned by following the health care issue in American politics. While the fundamental need is universal care for all citizens, the discussion has been limited to revising health insurance and ensuring that all citizens purchase it regardless of their circumstances... read more |
23rd October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| American belief in global warming plummets Scepticism in the US that there is solid evidence for climate change is growing |
23rd October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Public 'misled' over emissions statistics Ministers have misled the public about Britain's reduction in its greenhouse gas emissions, the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA) said today. |
22nd October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Arctic Scientists Launch Tour to Warn of East Coast Flooding Ahead - PRWeb via Yahoo! News As the International Day of Climate Action approaches this Saturday, Oct. 24, scientific researchers just returned from the poles have launched a tour of the U.S. |
22nd October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Spirit that freed South Africa must now rescue the planet - Brisbane Times The intense debate about dealing with climate change has mostly taken place between powerful players in the rich world. |
22nd October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Government launches map to highlight global warming threat A nightmare in the not-very-distant future: the map below shows the enormous temperature rises which British scientists believe the planet may be experiencing in as a little as 50 years from now if global warming remains unchecked. |
22nd October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Advanced biofuels will stoke global warming: study LONDON/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A new generation of biofuels, meant to be a low-carbon alternative, will on average emit more carbon dioxide than burning gasoline over the next few decades, a study published in Science found on Thursday. |
22nd October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 350 PPM CO2: The Upper Limit Of Human Habitats By Andrew GliksonThe rise of atmospheric CO2 above 350 PPM at the current rate of about 2 PPM/year is transcending the conditions that allowed the development of human agriculture and civlization from about 8000 years ago |
22nd October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Copenhagen Is Supposed to Fail. DIY! Much passionate concern is flying around regarding the United Nations meeting on climate this December in Copenhagen. We hear it from honest activists and from politicians who sound trustworthy on this most crucial matter. An example is Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of Great Britain, who deserves a prize for eloquence in warning us of climate change. However, there is something many people have not yet learned about politicians and technofixers seeking too much continuity. |
21st October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| CANADA: Govt Threatens Tar Sands Activists with Anti-Terror Laws VANCOUVER, Oct 20 (IPS) - The provincial government in Alberta, Canada is threatening to unleash its counterterrorism plan if activists continue using civil disobedience to protest the tar sands, Canada's fastest source of greenhouse gas emissions. |
21st October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Copenhagen Talks Will Yield Framework But No Treaty, UN Official Says The U.N.'s top climate official predicts that the Copenhagen talks in December may yield a political framework for future greenhouse gas reductions, but will not produce an international treaty to replace the Kyoto protocol. In an interview with the Financial Times, Yvo de Boer, the head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, said there does not appear to be enough time to work out the details of a binding treaty that could be signed in Copenhagen. Rather, he said the conference needs to deliver an overarching decision that sets individual targets for industrialized countries, and determines what level of emissions reductions major developing countries are willing to make by 2020. |
21st October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Why Levitt and Dubner like geo-engineering and why they are wrong Many commentators have already pointed out dozens of misquotes, misrepresentations and mistakes in the Global Cooling chapter of the new book SuperFreakonomics by Ste[ph|v]ens Levitt and Dubner (see Joe Romm (parts I, II, III, IV, Stoat, Deltoid, UCS and Paul Krugman for details. Michael Tobis has a good piece on the difference between adaptation and geo-engineering). Unfortunately, Amazon has now turned off the search inside function for this book, but you can read the relevant chapter for yourself here (via Brad DeLong). However, instead of simply listing errors already found by others, I ll focus on why this chapter was possibly written in the first place. |
20th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The ecocidal moment The climate and financial crises reveal an amnesia about the human calling. Heed Moses: choose life |
20th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Wealth is a System of Concentration Wealth is not what we are taught. Wealth is not stuff; it is a fiercely protected system of concentration. Wealth is a verb, not a noun. It is the act of the hoarding, and is a key pillar of our culture. The Agricultural Revolution: The "Dominion Revolution" This system was invented by one tribe in the fertile crescent 10,000 years ago during an event called the Agricultural Revolution. |
20th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| World needs low carbon revolution by 2014 -report - AlertNet Source: Reuters By Michael Perry SYDNEY, Oct 19 (Reuters) - The world has five years to start a "low carbon industrial revolution" before runaway climate change becomes almost inevitable, a new report ... |
20th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Big Question: Is an agreement on climate change in Copenhagen still on the cards? See also: U.N.'s de Boer sees no new treaty at Copenhagen: report Hopes Fade for Comprehensive Climate Treaty - International Herald Tribune |
20th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Maldives sends climate SOS with undersea cabinet MALE (Reuters) - The Maldivian president and ministers held the world's first underwater cabinet meeting on Saturday, in a symbolic cry for help over rising sea levels that threaten the tropical archipelago's existence. |
18th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Illusions on the edge of a precipice - The Age The climate crisis is not a negotiable issue and politicians must start paying attention to science. |
18th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Book: Fossil-fuel industry 'denied' climate change - Canada.com Public relations executive James Hoggan says there's no doubt that his new book is provoking some angry reactions from people with its revelations about what is shaping public opinion on global warming. |
18th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| It ll All End In Tears The UK Government's latest infommercial on Climate Change is appallingly bad. It has been aired on television for millions of unsuspecting soap opera addicts. It's yet another attempt to frame ordinary consumer-citizens for the Global Warming crisis " claiming that 40% of all emissions are down to us " the television viewer. There is a huge question here : why is it that the consumer-citizens still only have Carbon Energy provided for them ? The reason why the consumer-citizens create so much in terms of Greenhouse Gas emissions is because the Government and the Companies are still stuck in yesteryear, using dinosaur Energy supply technologies and selling us ancient sunlight transport fuel. |
18th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Obama envoy warns of 'no deal' summit Talks to save the world from the catastrophic effects of global warming may fail, President Obama's climate change envoy said last night. |
18th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Apocalypse Or Extinction? Is there any doubt we will try to kill every species on the planet, including our own, by the middle of this century? At this point, it is absolutely necessary, but probably not sufficient, to bring down the industrial economy. Its no longer merely the lives of your grandchildren were talking about. Depending on your age, its the lives of your children or you. If youre 60 or younger, its you |
17th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Arctic has potential to alter Earth's climate: Arctic land and seas account for up to 25% of world's carbon sink In a new study, ecologists estimate that Arctic lands and oceans are responsible for up to 25 percent of the global net sink of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Under current predictions of global warming, this Arctic sink could be diminished or reversed, potentially accelerating predicted rates of climate change. See also: Arctic to be ice-free in summer in 20 years |
17th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Naomi Klein: At least the world argued with Bush For all the global love-in, the new president has led rich nations to neglect principled action and row back from climate dealsOf all the explanations for Barack Obama's Nobel peace prize, the one that rang truest came from Nicolas Sarkozy. "It sets the seal on America's return to the heart of all the world's peoples." In other words, this was Europe's way of saying to America, "We love you again", like those weird renewal-of-vows ceremonies couples have after a rough patch.Now Europe and the US are officially reunited, it seems appropriate to consider whether this is necessarily a good thing. |
17th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Why Branson and SuperFreakonomics are wrong, in pictures by David Roberts This week, as reported by Andy Revkin, entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson said something heroically, world-historically stupid: If we could come up with a geoengineering answer to this problem, then Copenhagen wouldn t be necessary. We could carry on flying our planes and driving our cars. Sir Richard was talking about removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. He's not alone. The authors of the upcoming book SuperFreakonomics also think that geoengineering is a cheap, easy way to avoid the work of fashioning a more sustainable society. (See Joe Romm for much, much more on the errors in that book.)I ve been writing too many wordy posts lately, so instead, here are some pictures. |
17th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Update of IPCC Report Says Pace of Warming Is Rapidly Increasing A review of 400 major climate studies published since the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says that the world is warming more rapidly than the panel's mainstream projections and concludes that the rapid buildup of greenhouse gases has most likely committed the world to a warming of 1.4 to 4.3 degrees C " 2.5 to 7.7 degrees F " by 2100. The updated report, compiled by the United Nations Environmental Program, said events that the IPCC forecast would occur long-term are already occurring or on the verge of occurring. |
17th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate Change May Mean Slower Winds - Scientific American This summer scientists published the first study that comprehensively explored the effect of climate change on wind speeds in the U.S. The report was not encouraging. Three decades worth of data seemed to point to a future where global warming lowers wind speeds enough to handicap the nascent wind industry. But the real story, like so much in climate science, is far more complex. The study of ... |
17th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Terror Act used on climate activist Terror legislation was used to stop a British climate change activist from travelling to Denmark, it has emerged. |
17th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate Change: Time Is Running Out - Newsweek By R. K. Pachauri. American obstacles in Copenhagen. This December representatives from around the world will meet in Copenhagen under U.N. auspices to hammer out a new agreement for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions and taking other measures to tackle climate change. The deal is expected to include a commitment by developed countries to pay for measures in developing states to adapt to the impact of climate change and to cut emissions, as well as providing them with easy access to clean technologies. If there is a deal, that is. In recent months, the prospects that states will actually agree to anything in Copenhagen are starting to look worse and worse. Although the Obama administration initially raised hopes by reengaging in the negotiation process, the U.S. Congress has since emerged as a potential spoiler. See also: Copenhagen nears but deal seems distant Carbon emissions must peak by 2015: UN climate scientist - AFP via Yahoo! News |
17th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| SCENARIOS: What "Plan B" for Copenhagen might look like (Reuters) - Negotiators are already talking about "plan B" for the Copenhagen climate talks in December, with uncertainty growing that nations will be able to agree in time on a tougher and broader U.N. climate pact. See also: Supporters say summit won't reach climate deal |
17th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| US steel-makers temper climate deal hopes Lobbying has led to Congress considering tariffs on developing nations, which could be a deal-breaker at December's climate change talks in Copenhagen |
17th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Voluntary CO2 market not netting emissions cuts LONDON (Reuters) - The market for companies choosing to offset their carbon footprints is not achieving meaningful emissions cuts yet, market players said at a carbon industry conference in London on Tuesday. |
14th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| House Committee Hearing To Investigate Coal Lobby's Fraudulent Letters to Congress The House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming is holding an investigative hearing on Thursday to further probe fraudulent letters sent to Congress by the coal industry's public relations machine in an effort to derail clean energy and climate legislation. The committee, chaired by Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), has uncovered more than a dozen fraudulent letters sent to several members of Congress by Astroturf specialists Bonner & Associates, who were operating under contract for the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE). Markey's committee hearing will feature some of the central figures in the controversy, including victims of the fraud. |
14th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Deep thought - Oct 13 -A Timely Reminder of the Real Limits to Growth-Liberal Education, Stewardship, and the Cosmopolitan Temptation -Decline of a tribe: and then there were five -Last Call at Descartes Bar and Grill -The Vindication of a Public Scholar |
14th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| A scary new climate study will have you saying “Oh, shit!” by Mark Hertsgaard Oh, shit. They say that everyone who finally gets it about climate change has an Oh, shit moment"an instant when the full scientific implications become clear and they suddenly realize what a horrifically dangerous situation humanity has created for itself.Listening to the speeches, ground-breaking in their way, that President Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao delivered Sept. 22 at the U.N. Summit on Climate Change, I was reminded of my most recent Oh, shit moment. It came in July, courtesy of the chief climate adviser to the German government. See also: Q+A: Why should we care about a new climate agreement? |
14th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Stewart Brand’s nuclear enthusiasm falls short on facts and logic by Amory Lovins. My writings show why nuclear expansion therefore can’t deliver on its claims: it would reduce and retard climate protection, because it saves between two and 20 times less carbon per dollar, 20 to 40 times slower, than investing in efficiency and micropower.. |
14th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate doctors say 'feel the pain'... So here's the rub: if the UK has been relatively successful but is still being told it has not done enough - and told that by its own advisors, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), rather than by green campaigners - what does that say about everyone else? See also: UK 'needs step change' on climate |
13th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Copenhagen May Be Half Baked, UN's Yvo De Boer Says - Bloomberg Oct. 13 (Bloomberg) -- This year's global climate summit in Copenhagen may be half baked unless rich nations agree to do more to cut emissions, said Yvo De Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. See also: Comprehensive climate deal still out of reach - EurActiv |
13th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate negotiators don't meet leaders' pledges: U.N. UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Negotiators at global climate change talks are not delivering on promises by their leaders to clinch a deal at a key meeting in Copenhagen in December, a top U.N. environmental official said on Monday. |
13th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change rate over next century could be higher than previously anticipated - New Kerala Washington, October 10 : In a new experiment, scientists have found that the rate of climate change over the next century could be higher than previously anticipated. |
13th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| UN climate talks split on treaty The latest round of UN climate talks in Bangkok ends with divisions between nations over the shape of a new global treaty. See also: EU's Barroso: "Very worried" about climate talks Climate Talks 'Moving Backwards' in to Grave Danger - AlertNet China says rich countries undercut climate talks - AlertNet |
11th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Russian climate goal weak as "methane bomb" ticks MARRESALE, Russia (Reuters) - The snows are late in coming on the Arctic Yamal peninsula where moist, dark permafrost entombed for 10,000 years crumbles into the sea at the top of the world. |
11th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 'Scary' climate message from past Refined measurements of past climate suggest some current political targets on CO2 are "playing with fire". |
11th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The purpose of it all The human search for meaning is a timeless theme and central to our existence. That search has led to complex religious doctrines about the afterlife and how one will be rewarded or punished during it depending on one's record in this life. It has also led to entirely humanistic interpretations of life's meaning, probably most aptly exemplified by Existentialism which very broadly states that humans by acting in the world are in the process of making their own meaning.But it is John McPhee, that fabulous writer about the geology of the United States, who has given me the insight as to what the "true" purpose of humankind is. |
11th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| U.S. May Not Make CO2-Emissions Pledge, Pershing Says - Bloomberg Oct. 9 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. may not agree to cut greenhouse-gas emissions in a new treaty this year because there is no domestic law setting a framework, the country's top negotiator said at United Nations climate talks in Bangkok. |
11th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Our global pyramid scheme by Lester Brown Our mismanaged world economy today has many of the characteristics of a Ponzi scheme. A Ponzi scheme takes payments from a broad base of investors and uses these to pay off returns. It creates the illusion that it is providing a highly attractive rate of return on investment as a result of savvy investment decisions when in fact these irresistibly high earnings are in part the result of consuming the asset base itself. A Ponzi scheme investment fund can last only as long as the flow of new investments is sufficient to sustain the high rates of return paid out to previous investors. |
9th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Warning over global oil 'decline' There is a "significant risk" that global production of conventional oil could "peak" and decline by 2020, a report suggests. |
9th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization by Lester Brown Lester Brown released a new book this week called Plan B 4.0, Mobilization to Save Civilization. The book is for sale, but it can also be downloaded free as a PDF. I participated in a conference call with Lester Brown, in which he talked about the book, and several of us asked questions. In this post, I will give you at least a brief introduction to the book. read more See also: Q&A: "We Can't Afford to Let the Planet Get Much Hotter" |
8th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| World Bank can’t wean itself off fossil fuel lending by Greig Aitken This week's World Bank and International Monetary Fund annual meetings brought bedlam to the streets of Istanbul, with Turkish socialist groups and trade unions protesting the mere presence of the two institutions and Turkish police in riot gear responding with tear gas.The ongoing global economic crisis dominated the proceedings in Istanbul. But with the Copenhagen climate talks just two months away climate activists made an effort to get one issue that has been bubbling for years onto the agenda"much to the dismay of World Bank staffers.At a press conference, Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Federation in Turkey noted that the World Bank continues to invest far more in fossil fuels than in renewable energy [PDF], pointing out that from 2007 to 2009 the Bank doled out, on average, three times more public money for climate destroying fossil fuel investments than ... |
8th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon Cannot Be Costed After our Masters class on the last 600 million years of Earth Climate history, a number of the students all collected together in the student bar. One of our number pulled out a block of A4 paper on which he had written a number of probing questions. At the very top of the list : asking how one could justify the social cost of Carbon. I pulled my remember Montreal cat out of the bag. You know, the Montreal Protocol, designed to protect the Ozone layer. It was easy enough to find replacements for CFC chemicals, and easy and cheap enough to set incentives to replace CFCs, allowing the incentives to operate through a market. |
8th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Scorched earth: Wildfires will change the way we live Fires around the world remind us how impotent we are in the face of natural disaster " and go hand-in-glove with climate change, says David Bowman |
8th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| US raises stakes by refusing to include Kyoto targets in new climate agreement - Guardian Unlimited The US raised the diplomatic stakes today in talks towards a global climate change deal by spelling out in a public showdown with China its deep opposition to the existing Kyoto protocol . The US team also urged other rich countries to join it in setting up a new legal agreement which would, unlike Kyoto, force all countries to reduce emissions. |
8th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Bipartisan Report Claims Solving the Climate Crisis Depends on Tropical Forests The bipartisan Commission on Climate and Tropical Forests released an extensive report today calling on the Senate to consider tropical forest preservation as a central necessity in the climate bill in front of Congress. The group suggests that solving the climate crisis will be nearly impossible without urgent efforts to stem tropical deforestation. Ignoring this critical issue could undermine the effectiveness of any new U.S. climate policies, weaken the economy and threaten our national security in the coming decades.The report concludes that U.S. climate policies "must help address the pervasive effects of deforestation, which accounts for 17% of global greenhouse gas emissions " more than the entire global transportation sector. |
8th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Rich countries 'must slash living standards' to fight climate change Living standards in Britain and other rich countries must fall sharply over the next decade if the world is to avoid catastrophic global warming, according to a leading climate research centre. Consumption of energy-intensive goods and services should be cut and remain capped until low-carbon alternatives are available, said the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. The study says that Britain's carbon dioxide emissions need to fall twice as fast as planned by the Government. It concludes that global greenhouse gas emissions are rising much faster than previously thought. It says that Britain should commit to making all energy, including for electricity, heating and cars, zero-carbon by 2025, at least 25 years earlier than planned |
7th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Challenging Incongruity of Cheap Oil Expecting or wanting oil prices to be "low or moderate" is at best incongruous, and at worst naive in the current economic, financial and political context. read more |
7th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| David Suzuki: December climate summit in Copenhagen is a crossroads - The Georgia Straight This December, our leaders will have a tremendous opportunity in Copenhagen to take the world into a new era of innovation and prosperity. However, this opportunity is born out of crisis |
7th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Q&A: Desertification and Climate Change Go Hand in Hand BUENOS AIRES, Oct 6 (Tierramérica) - "The entire social fabric of an area is compromised when soils are depleted," says Italian expert Massimo Candelori, whose fight against desertification is increasingly linked to global efforts to combat climate change. |
7th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| DEVELOPMENT: Resource Crunch Signals Larger Ecological Crisis WASHINGTON, Oct 6 (IPS) - How would development programmes look if viewed from the position of scarcity, especially the scarcity of food, water, and energy? |
6th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Why joint initiatives on climate will likely fail - The Japan Times GUATEMALA CITY " A U.N. summit on climate change at the recent U.N. General Assembly meeting was supposed to give momentum for a post-Kyoto Protocol accord to be penned in December in Copenhagen. Indeed, an announcement was made that most leaders agreed that there is an "urgent and significant need" to cut greenhouse gas emissions. But even though most participants accept a controversial claim ... |
6th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| UN: Earth will keep heating up - The New Zealand Herald Earth's temperature is likely to jump nearly 3.24C between now and the end of the century even if every country cuts greenhouse gas emissions as proposed, according to a United Nations update. |
6th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Major developing nations must peak CO2 by 2020: IEA BANGKOK/LONDON (Reuters) - Carbon emissions from a group of richer developing nations including Russia, China, Brazil and the Middle East must stop growing by 2020 to control global warming, the International Energy Agency said on Tuesday. |
6th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| A warming pause? The blogosphere (and not only that) has been full of the “global warming is taking a break” meme lately. Although we have discussed this topic repeatedly, it is perhaps worthwhile reiterating two key points about the alleged pause here. |
6th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| A brief history of climate change - BBC News As the UN climate summit in Copenhagen approaches, BBC News environment correspondent Richard Black traces key milestones, scientific discoveries, technical innovations and political action. |
6th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Rich nations trying to kill Kyoto pact, says China - AlertNet China and a top G77 official accused rich nations on Monday of trying to kill off the Kyoto Protocol, the U.N.'s main weapon in the fight against global warming, as nations try to craft a broader climate pact. Delegates from about 180 nations are meeting in the Thai capital trying to bridge differences over a draft negotiating text that will allow all countries to deepen efforts to slow the pace of climate change. The United Nations hopes a major climate meeting in Copenhagen in December will lead to a broader framework to expand or replace Kyoto, whose first phase ends in 2012. The talks are deadlocked on rich nations toughening their commitments to cut emissions by 2020 and climate funds to help poorer nations adapt to the impacts of climate change, invest in clean energy and how to manage those funds. "It has become self-evident and actually clear that the intention of the developed countries is to kill off the Kyoto Protocol," Lumumba D'Aping, who chairs the G77 plus China negotiating group, told reporters. |
6th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| World needs "CO2 budget" to limit warming: WWF BANGKOK (Reuters) - The world is in danger of spending its "carbon budget" by about 2025 and risks temperatures rising beyond 2 degrees Celsius unless nations adopt a flexible carbon accounting system, conservation group WWF says in a report. |
4th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate Bill Not Likely Law by December, Browner Says - Bloomberg U.S. lawmakers aren't likely to enact climate-change legislation by the time countries meet in December to debate a new treaty aimed at controlling global warming, the White House's top energy adviser said. "Obviously, we'd like to be through the process, but that's not going to happen," Carol Browner said today at an event in Washington hosted by the Atlantic magazine. "I think we would all agree the likelihood that you'd have a bill signed by the president on comprehensive energy by the time we go in December is not likely." |
4th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Oilsands greenhouse gas emissions underestimated - CHCA News OTTAWA - Greenhouse gas emissions form Alberta's oilsands operations are worse than reported because oil companies and governments do not include emissions from forests destroyed in the process of developing mines, says a study released Friday. See also: Canada should put oil sands on hold: climate change expert - National Post |
4th October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Britons creating 'more emissions' - BBC News Greenhouse gas emissions created by Britons are probably twice as bad as figures suggest, says the government's new chief energy scientist. Professor David MacKay told the BBC that reductions in carbon dioxide emissions since 1990 are "an illusion". "Our energy footprint has decreased over the last few decades and that's largely because we've exported our industry," he said. |
2nd October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Population - Energy Bulletin -Population Growth Steady in Recent Years -Stop blaming the poor. It's the wally yachters who are burning the planet -The coming Population Wars: a 12-bomb equation |
2nd October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Hey Ya! - mal - RealClimate Interesting news this weekend. Apparently everything we ve done in our entire careers is a MASSIVE lie (sic) because all of radiative physics, climate history, the instrumental record, modeling and satellite observations turn out to be based on 12 trees in an obscure part of Siberia. Who knew? Indeed, according to both the National Review and the Daily Telegraph (and who would not trust these sources?), even Al Gore's use of the stair lift in An Inconvenient Truth was done to highlight cherry-picked tree rings, instead of what everyone thought was the rise in CO2 concentrations in the last 200 years. |
2nd October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global warming: the failure of capitalism - Sydney Morning Herald Because it does not address the anti-human profit system itself Copenhagen will be a "piece of fakery from beginning to end; it is a deception from beginning to end; it is a lie from beginning to end". It was Rosa Luxemburg who many years ago wrote that the choice for humanity was socialism or barbarism. Global warming is bringing barbarism closer and closer. Only a democratic and planned society based on production for human need can address the environmental threat challenging our survival as a species. As capitalism slides further and further into the abyss of global warming, the greater the need for socialism becomes. |
2nd October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| ENVIRONMENT: Could Food Shortages Bring Down Civilisation? WASHINGTON, Sep 29 (IPS) - In early 2008, Saudi Arabia announced that, after being self-sufficient in wheat for over 20 years, the non-replenishable aquifer it had been pumping for irrigation was largely depleted. See also: Climate change will hit developing world harvests hardest - Nature |
30th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Common environments, Diggers, and Climate Campers Thoughts on the relationship between food issues, rural movements, and Climate Camps. To be more specific: this post mainly compares the distinct focuses and limitations of the Diggers' movement toward agricultural autonomy, and the Climate Campers' rallies and interventions against coal plants, airport expansion projects, and other commercially-driven operations. read more |
30th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 'Catastrophic warming in our lifetimes' Study says 4C rise in temperature could happen by 2060 Increase could threaten water supply of half world populationUnchecked global warming could bring a severe temperature rise of 4C within many people's lifetimes, according to a new report for the British government that significantly raises the stakes over climate change.The study, prepared for the Department of Energy and Climate Change by scientists at the Met Office, challenges the assumption that severe warming will be a threat only for future generations, and warns that a catastrophic 4C rise in temperature could happen by 2060 without strong action on emissions.Officials from 190 countries gather today in Bangkok to continue negotiations on a new deal to tackle global warming, which they aim to secure at United Nations talks in December in Copenhagen. See also: The Four Degrees No rainforest, no monsoon: get ready for a warmer world |
30th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| "Climate illiterate" U.S. seen risking warming inaction OXFORD, England (Reuters) - U.S. wavering on climate commitment could undermine action to save the planet, the director of Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research said on the sidelines of a conference on Monday. |
30th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Cassandras of Climate - New York Times New York TimesCassandras of ClimateNew York Times... event can be attributed to global warming. The point, however, is that climate change will make events like that Australian dust storm much more common. ...and more |
30th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Life altering planetary experience - CNews Insurance companies, politicians, and businesspeople often use the expressions natural disaster or act of God to deflect responsibility for events beyond our control. Today, human activity and technology have become so powerful that we are contributing to what were once natural disasters. |
30th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Two meter sea level rise unstoppable: experts OXFORD, England (Reuters) - A rise of at least two meters in the world's sea levels is now almost unstoppable, experts told a climate conference at Oxford University on Tuesday. [The key words are "after temperatures stabilized". - and how is that going to happen?] See also: Sea level rise could lead to 'ghost states' |
30th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| On Cathedrals, Dreams and Climate What do cathedrals and climate policy have in common? |
30th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Post-human Earth: How the planet will recover from us If our civilisation collapses, what will happen to the planet itself? The best way to work that out might be like is to look back at the Earth's past See also: Let's Talk Paleoclimatology |
30th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Prepping the world for climate failure: Barack Obama plays down the need to finalise a deal on climate change - Guardian Unlimited Barack Obama has talked down the importance of sealing a global deal on climate change before the end of the year, world leaders said yesterday. Obama's comments, made in private talks at the G20 summit, downplay the need to reach a strong deal at UN talks in Copenhagen in December and contradict the United Nations and others, who have billed the meeting as a crucial moment for the world to avoid catastrophic global warming. The president did win a partial victory on his signature climate issue at this G20 summit – removing fossil fuel subsidies – but there was no headway on the much bigger issue of climate finance, which Obama had taken up as his issue at the last G20. UN climate summit: Sea change needed at Copenhagen - Telegraph.co.uk So the system is failing. Cumbersome at the best of times, UN procedures seem unable to bear the weight of an issue as important, urgent, and complicated as climate change. Negotiators insist on giving no ground until the very last minute, usually in the early hours after the talks were supposed to have ended, just before their eviction from the building to make way for the next booking (on one occasion, I remember, an underwear exhibition). But a new climate deal would be too complex to be cobbled together like that. Hence last week's climate summit, designed to break the deadlock by getting national leaders involved. It was designed intelligently, minimising formal speeches (no 94-minute rants from Colonel Gaddafi) and treating the leaders like human beings, hard though this might be in some cases. So they spent most of the time in small groups, mixing rich and poor countries, the polluters with their victims. The leaders of the highest emitting nations had dinner with those from low-lying island states due to disappear as sea levels rise. Whether this succeeded in engaging the leaders' commitment will become clear in the next few weeks, but nothing less has a chance of energising the negotiations. And once involved they will need to stay so. Nicolas Sarkozy suggests another summit in November, Gordon Brown wants leaders to go to Copenhagen (and says he is ready to go himself). Both will probably be needed if any sort of worthwhile agreement is to be reached. The issue is far too big to be left to the negotiators – or even to the environment ministers who usually have to strike the deal in the end. Only national leaders have the authority to take the decisions, which will determine the shape of economies as well as the environment and could usher in a new era of growth. If they don't, we could be looking at not so much a comma, as a full stop. Chile warns UN of potential failure of climate change talks in Copenhagen - Témoignages.re Affluent countries must agree to quantifiable cuts in greenhouse gas emissions that are far deeper than previously pledged, or the upcoming global talks on climate change in Copenhagen, Denmark, will be a failure, Chile's leader warned the General Assembly yesterday. Climate talks resume in Bangkok with deal in doubt (AP) -- Two years ago, governments from around the world came together on the island of Bali and agreed to urgently rein in the heat-trapping gases blamed for deadly heat waves, melting glaciers and rising seas. Rudd promotes climate failure at UN More and more people accept that we need emergency action to achieve a safe climate. The Copenhagen Summit in December will be a dramatic opportunity for governments to show whether or not they are prepared to be part of the solution. See also: Rudd Urges Free Trade, Carbon Caps for World Growth - Bloomberg |
27th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Read this Book, Watch these Charts Climate Cover-Up Actually the World is warming! GISS Surface Temperature Analysis |
27th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| G20 Summit Outcome: Pembina Reacts - with a wince Clare Demerse, Associate Director of the Pembina Institute's climate change program, made the following statement in response to the climate change portions of today's G20 declaration: "Unfortunately, today's G20 declaration did virtually nothing to advance the UN climate talks on the make-or-break issue of financial support to help poorer countries tackle climate change.With less than 90 days before negotiations on a new global agreement are scheduled to wrap up in Copenhagen, acknowledging the importance of climate finance isn't enough. Developed countries like Canada must now offer real plans to provide their fair share -- something that their leaders failed to do this week in Pittsburgh.<!--break-->While the EU and the US have at least started to 'do their homework' on climate financing, Canada has not yet given any indication of how much new public funding ... See also: Global summit sets new direction, but misses chance for climate fix - McClatchy Newspapers via Yahoo! News |
27th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Nearly 70 percent of Argentine forests lost in a century Argentina has lost nearly 70 percent of its forests in a century, the Environmental Secretariat said at a UN conference on desertification. |
27th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Unusual Arctic Warmth, Tropical Wetness Likely Cause for Methane Increase - NOAA Unusually high temperatures in the Arctic and heavy rains in the tropics likely drove a global increase in atmospheric methane in 2007 and 2008 after a decade of near-zero growth, according to a new study. Methane is the second most abundant greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide, albeit a distant second. |
25th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| China to rely on coal 'for long time': Beijing official - AFP via Yahoo! UK & Ireland News China will continue to rely on coal for most of its energy needs "for a long time", a senior official said on Friday, just days after President Hu Jintao pledged action on its greenhouse gas emissions. |
25th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| ENERGY: Trees: Out of the Forest and Into the Oven UXBRIDGE, Canada, Sep 24 (Tierramérica) - Millions of trees, especially from the developing countries of the South, are being shipped to Europe and burned in giant furnaces to meet "green energy" requirements that are supposed to combat climate change. See also: Is Africa's charcoal trade worsening climate change? |
25th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| CLIMATE CHANGE: Time Running Out on Vows to Act, Scientists Warn COLUMBUS, Ohio, Sep 24 (IPS) - Promises are easy to make. But promises by world leaders will not halt the heat-trapping carbon emissions that are dialing-up global temperatures and altering the climate, say critics and climate researchers meeting in this U.S. Midwestern city. |
25th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Copenhagen summit: leading polluters US and China undercut hopes of substantial pollution cuts Has the UN climate summit in New York just set the stage for disappointment in Copenhagen? |
25th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Recession barely dents 'eco-debt' The global recession has barely dented the trend to over consumption according to an independent think-tank. |
25th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| We Are Thrillingly Close - And Sickeningly Far - From a Climate Deal We are at the same time thrillingly close and sickeningly far from solving our planetary fever |
23rd September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Copenhagen Climate Talks: Why They May Fail - Newsweek The path to Copenhagen looks rockier than ever. See also: Omens are worsening for Copenhagen climate talks |
23rd September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Provocative New Study Warns of Crossing Planetary Boundaries The Earth has nine biophysical thresholds beyond which it cannot be pushed without disastrous consequences, the authors of a new paper in the journal Nature report. Ominously, these scientists say, we have already moved past three of these tipping points. See also: Nature - Planetary Boundaries |
23rd September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Era Of Xtreme Energy By Michael T. KlareWe are going to enter an age of Xtreme energy and the last-ditch efforts to keep our world on its normal course are likely to devastate the environment, accelerate climate change, inflict widespread pain, and create global conflict. Its not a pretty picture |
23rd September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Are We Living in 'The Age of Stupid'? A scorching film on climate looks back from 2055 and isn't happy. |
23rd September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Professor Kevin Anderson: Point of no return The importance of the international climate summit to be held in Copenhagen later this year cannot be over- emphasised; 2009 is literally a make-or-break year in terms of climate-change negotiations. After almost two decades of increasingly heated debate on how to tackle climate change, and notwithstanding the current recession, emissions of global greenhouse gases from energy use, agriculture, deforestation and industrial processes are rising at a faster rate now than they have done throughout our history. As we enter the second decade of this new millennium, the international community is faced with a very clear and stark choice ... |
23rd September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| UN climate summit: Key quotes - BBC News Key statements made by leaders attending the UN climate change conference in New York. See also: Chinese Greenhouse-Gas Pledge Lacks Numerical Goals - Update2 - Bloomberg Sept. 23 (Bloomberg) -- China pledged for the first time to reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions in proportion to economic growth in a new effort to fight global warming that lacked numerical goals. Climate summit yields no progress on CO2 targets - EurActiv Despite hopes that China would unveil targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions and break the deadlock in global climate talks, President Hu Jintao told a United Nations summit that Beijing will put a "notable" brake on the country's soaring carbon emissions. Current Total Greenhouse Gas Emissions Pledges Leave Climate Targets In The Red, Analysis Finds - Science Daily Total greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions currently proposed by industrialized countries fall short of the pathway to reaching a 2 degree target as referred to by the UNFCCC Kyoto Protocol negotiating group, despite the fact that the cost of meeting these pledges is much lower than anticipated, according to a study released today. Action pledges at UN climate summit met by skepticism - SpaceDaily UNITED NATIONS, Sept 22 (AFP) Sep 22, 2009 Environmental activists Tuesday cautiously welcomed pledges made at a climate change summit here, but remained skeptical that key powers can bridge differences before crunch Copenhagen talks. |
23rd September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The environment and the economy - Stephanomics Is the economic downturn going to save the planet? Most of the fall in global CO2 emissions expected this year - the largest in at least 40 years - is due to the global recession. But the more sophisticated greens I spoke to at the start of this year were excited about the crisis for a different reason. If emissions fall as a result of plunging output, then they will go right back up again, if and when the global economy recovers. No, the reason these greens thought the crisis could be the best thing that ever happened to the environment was fiscal. The argument was that cleaning up the banks and reviving the economy was going to do such damage to governments' public finances, politicians would have no choice but to start taxing carbon. I always thought this made a lot of sense. See also: Recession and policies cut carbon |
22nd September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate Week: Raise Your Hopes; Lower Your Expectations Hugh Jackman.jpg "Don't make the best the enemy of the good." - Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair Climate Week has launched in New York City with contradictory calls to be optimistic about UN climate negotiations culminating in Copenhagen in December, but to keep our expectations low about the strength of any ultimate deal. The actual "festivities" are all married to what UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon called "the largest climate change summit in history." One hundred world leaders are scheduled to gather at the United Nations tomorrow, not likely to further any negotiating positions, but to add their weight to the appearance of a global consensus that climate action - overdue - is on the way. |
22nd September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| China's climate policy shift - BBC News The BBC's Shirong Chen looks at how China's climate policy is changing, as President Hu Jintao prepares to address the UN. See also: Now China lays down challenge to Obama on climate |
22nd September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| US Reluctance on Climate Change Persists - New York Times “It is suggested that the U.S. Senate may not, after all, deal with the climate change issue until next year, when the U.N. Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen is over and the delegates have gone home,” Mr. Bruton said. “If this were to happen, it would open the United States to the charge that it does not take its international commitments seriously and that these commitments will always take second place to domestic politics.” Mr. Bruton added: “Is the U.S. Senate really expecting all the other countries to make a serious effort on climate change at the Copenhagen Conference in the absence of a clear commitment from the United States?” |
21st September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| EU's Barroso warns climate talks in dangerous state WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.N. climate change talks are "dangerously close to deadlock," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso will warn on Monday, kicking off a week that could prove critical for efforts to halt global warming. |
21st September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Fair carbon means no carbon for rich countries If safe levels of global emissions were allocated by population, many developed nations would face almost immediate carbon bankruptcy |
21st September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate myths: Any cooling disproves global warming In fact, even if the world does cool over the next few years as some predict, it in no way undermines the certainty about long-term warming due to greenhouse gas emissions |
21st September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| China scientist stays cool over 2C rise - Guardian Unlimited It is too early to determine the level of meteorological risk posed by global warming, says the director-general of the Beijing Climate Centre A 2C rise in global temperatures will not necessarily result in the calamity predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), China's most senior climatologist has told the Guardian. See also: Carbon intensity in focus as China's Hu heads to U.N. [...is this a hint that we shouldn't expect too much from the Chinese?] |
21st September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| SOUTH ASIA: Disunity Hovers over a Region Battling Climate Change KATHMANDU, Sep 20 (IPS) - As the Copenhagen Conference on climate change draws nearer, South Asia, which appears poised for severe threats from the impacts of climate change, faces a stiff challenge on two fronts. |
20th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| United States: The great success of a carbon trading failure It happened in Europe earlier this year for the second time. And now it has happened again. |
20th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| CBS’s Declan McCullagh promotes another false CEI attack on clean energy reform by Brad Johnson Cross-posted from Wonk Room. According to Declan McCullagh, a libertarian blogger who works for CBS Interactive, secret Obama administration documents reveal that the cost of clean energy cap-and-trade legislation would be $1,761 per household despite official estimates from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Congressional Budget Office, and the Energy Information Administration of about a postage stamp a day. Based on Treasury Department documents acquired by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), McCullagh claims that a cap and trade law would cost American taxpayers up to $200 billion a year, the equivalent of hiking personal income taxes by about 15 percent ... See also: U.S. climate bill could cut GDP 3.5 percent by 2050 |
19th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Giles Slade: Methane Seeps Into the UN - The Huffington Post Pure methane gas is now bubbling up from underwater vents across our polar regions and escaping into the atmosphere where it adds to global-warming. |
19th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Coal - Sept 17 - Energy Bulletin -World Bank spends billions on coal-fired power stations -EPA moves to block W.Va.'s largest mining permit -"The Coal Nightmare" read more |
18th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Developing countries and global warming A bad climate for development - Economist TreehuggerDeveloping countries and global warming A bad climate for developmentEconomistCounting the cost of global warming is hard because no one really knows how much to attribute to climate change and how much to other factors. ...Poorer Countries Hardest Hit by Climate ChangeVoice of AmericaOp-Ed Contributor The Ice Is MeltingNew York TimesClimate change threat for developing nationsBusiness StandardBNET -Air Options -Treehuggerall 49 |
18th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Contraception vital in climate change fight: expert LONDON (Reuters) - Contraception advice is crucial to poor countries' battle with climate change, and policy makers are failing their people if they continue to shy away from the issue, a leading family planning expert said on Friday. See also: POPULATION: Where's Family Planning on Climate Change Radar? Population - Energy Bulletin Sept 17 |
18th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Sceptics seize on climate cooling model Research suggesting that global temperatures may fall is being used by deniers and sceptics to dismiss the entire canon of climate scienceCould it be true that global temperatures will fall before they rise? That's the thrust of a presentation at last week's World Climate conference. Mojib Latif of Kiel University in Germany suggested that cooling caused by natural factors could suppress global temperatures for several years, after which they will start to rise again.His presentation, first reported by the eagle-eyed Fred Pearce in the New Scientist, has been seized upon by sceptics and deniers all over the blogosphere. It was picked up this morning by the BBC's Today programme, which invited my old friend Philip Stott (who spends his time championing such dubious productions as The Great Global Warming Swindle and Michael Crichton's State of Fear) to raise questions about the global warming thesis.Professor Latif suggested ... |
17th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global warming may bring tsunami and quakes: scientists LONDON (Reuters) - Quakes, volcanic eruptions, giant landslides and tsunamis may become more frequent as global warming changes the earth's crust, scientists said on Wednesday. |
17th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Q&A: "Climate Change Reinforcing Political Problems" UNITED NATIONS, Sep 16 (IPS) - The negative fallout from climate change, including drought, floods, melting glaciers, mass migration, and sea level rise, is being increasingly viewed as a potential security threat to nation states worldwide. |
17th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Chinese adviser: 2C target unrealistic China's emissions unlikely to fall low enough because 2C target 'does not provide room for developing countries'Don't expect China to keep global warming below 2C, a senior government adviser warned in Beijing today at the launch of an influential report on the nation's prospects for low-carbon growth.Even in a best-case scenario with massive investment in solar energy and carbon capture technology, Dai Yande, deputy chief of the Energy Research Institute, said China's emissions were unlikely to fall low enough to remain below the temperature goal recommended by the G8 and European Union. His prediction will alarm those governments and scientists who warn that a rise more than 2C risks disastrous consequences in terms of food security, migration, sea-level rises and extreme weather events."You should not target China to fulfill the two degree target. |
17th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Economic case flawed, figures show Critics say the new figures show the government's support for the new runway is a 'sham' and have demanded that plans to expand the airport are scrappedThe economic benefits of expanding Heathrow airport will almost entirely be wiped out by the increased costs to the environment, a new analysis shows.The government's own figures suggest that ministers have underestimated by several billion pounds the financial impact of the extra greenhouse gases produced by a third runway at the airport. |
17th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| US and Europe clash over Copenhagen deal Exclusive: Key differences between the US and Europe could undermine a new worldwide treaty on global warming to replace Kyoto, sources sayEurope has clashed with the US Obama administration over climate change in a potentially damaging split that comes ahead of crucial political negotiations on a new global deal to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.The Guardian understands that key differences have emerged between the US and Europe over the structure of a new worldwide treaty on global warming. Sources on the European side say the US approach could undermine the new treaty and weaken the world's ability to cut carbon emissions.The treaty will be negotiated in December at a UN meeting in Copenhagen and is widely billed as the last chance to save the planet from a temperature rise of 2C or higher, which the EU considers dangerous."If we end up with a weaker framework with less stringent ... |
16th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| If Obama doesn't win, our planet is doomed One year on, the world still looks to the US and holds its breath. The fate of a global climate treaty rests in American handsAnyone who cares about the survival of our planet should start praying that Barack Obama gets his way on reforming US healthcare. That probably sounds hyperbolic, if not mildly deranged: even those who are adamant that 45 million uninsured Americans deserve basic medical cover would not claim that the future of the earth depends on it. But think again.Next week, world leaders will attend the first UN summit dedicated entirely to climate change. Their aim will be to plunge a shot of adrenaline into stuttering efforts to draw up a new global agreement on carbon emissions. |
16th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| China think-tank bleak on global climate goal BEIJING (Reuters) - An international goal to limit global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius appears unreachable even if China embarks on a vast effort to tame its growing greenhouse gas emissions, a Beijing think-tank has said. |
16th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| DEVELOPMENT: NGOs Question World Bank's Clean Energy Roadmap WASHINGTON, Sep 15 (IPS) - The World Bank's 2010 World Development Report (WDR), released Tuesday, calls on the developed world to lead global efforts to cut carbon emissions, but some civil society groups remain highly sceptical of the bank's role in brokering climate finance. |
16th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| U.S. CO2 Emissions Plan Depends on Unlikely Offsets - Bloomberg Sept. 15 (Bloomberg) -- The cap-and-trade bill for greenhouse gases that passed the U.S. House June 26 depends on an unlikely supply of cheap carbon credits from developing countries, the National Commission on Energy Policy said today. |
16th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| China May Need Extra $249 Billion Low Carbon Spending in 2050 - Bloomberg Sept. 16 (Bloomberg) -- China, the world s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, may have to spend an additional 1.7 trillion yuan ($249 billion) in 2050 to shift the country to a low-carbon model of economic growth. See also: FACTBOX-China think-tank energy, CO2 scenarios - AlertNet |
16th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Doctors warn on climate failure Failure to agree a new UN climate deal in December will usher in a "global health catastrophe", according to medical leaders. |
16th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| EU researcher: World needs geo-renovating rather than geo-engineering - EurActiv People should not meddle with Earth's complex climate system by experimenting with futuristic geo-engineering options, but softer approaches have the potential to relieve the planet's climate woes, Frank Raes, head of the climate change unit at the European Commission's Joint Research Centre, told EurActiv in an interview. |
15th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Answers Come There None As the Plimer affair shows, climate change deniers are all leaf and no plums |
15th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Time To Decide What Matters Editor's note: the author has just come out with his excellent book Time's Up!, joining the Chelsea Green stable of works on sustainability. How important do you think humans are? For millennia we have been taught that human beings have a vital almost divine role in the Great Chain of Being, and to look around the cities where most of us now live you could indeed be forgiven for thinking that we are ecologically dominant, if not vital to the functioning of life on Earth: I think it's about time this was put into some kind of perspective. |
15th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Better world: Find out if we can cool the planet We need to do our homework rather than simply assume geoengineering can stave off disaster |
12th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| UK climate scepticism spreads The British public has become more sceptical about climate change over the last five years, according to a survey. |
12th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Emission impossible? - The New Statesman Would Ed Miliband swap the life of a leading cabinet minister for that of a street activist? There was a revealing moment in New Delhi at the start of this month when he said in an aside that he sometimes had the "fantasy" of doing so. |
12th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| "Dramatic" rise in renewables needed for 2 Celsius goal OSLO (Reuters) - The share of renewable energy will have to rise "dramatically" if the world is to have a chance of limiting global warming to a maximum 2 Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) temperature rise, a leading expert said Wednesday. |
10th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Gwynne Dyer: Emissions must be cut or developing world will pay - The Georgia Straight If the Copenhagen climate summit in December does not make a serious start at getting climate change under control, neo-fascist rhetoric may become mainstream rhetoric in Europe in 20 years time. |
10th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Inside India's Intransigence on Climate Change Talks - Time Magazine If you ask India's climate change negotiators, the December summit in Copenhagen will be not about how to save the planet, but how to accommodate the rights and aspirations of millions of Indians |
10th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Civil Disobedience Against False Climate Bill Press release: MASS CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE TO DEFEAT "FALSE" CLIMATE BILL. (Sept. 8, 2009) Climate SOS, a grassroots network of environmentalists, scientists, and social justice activists, is launching a nationwide car-free tour |
10th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Is the government up for the challenge? - Guardian Unlimited Comment On 15 July, the same day the government set out its ambitious plans for climate-changing emissions reductions, TV broadcasts featured the imminent closure of one of the UK's few wind-turbine manufacturing facilities. Owned by Denmark-based Vestas, the closure of the Isle of Wight turbine blade plant was a tragic blow to the firm's 625 employees. It was also symbolic of the setbacks that ... |
10th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Right Wing Attack Machine Behind the Van Jones Affair You probably won't be surprised when I tell you that Glenn Beck wasn't the mastermind behind the campaign to remove Van Jones from his position as a special advisor to the White House Council on Environmental Quality... that would be giving Beck way too much credit. Turns out that the attack was orchestrated by a fringe group of free-marketeers called the Americans for Prosperity (AFP) who describe themselves as "grassroots leaders who engage citizens in the name of limited government and free markets on the local, state and federal levels." You can read a complete backgrounder on AFP here. |
10th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Behaving badly Green concerns mean totems such as GDP have to go |
8th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Last chance to change our behaviour - BBC News Despite a growing awareness of the damage humans are doing to the planet, we still refuse to radically changes our behaviour. |
8th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 'Real danger' climate change deal attempt could fail Efforts to secure a new global deal to tackle climate change hang in the balance, with a "real danger" they could fail, Foreign Secretary David Miliband warned today. |
8th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change: no Eden, no apocalypse Rather than placing ourselves in a "fight" against climate change, or lament a lost Eden, we should take the chance to rethink how we live, says Mike Hulme |
8th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change: melting ice will trigger wave of natural disasters - Guardian Unlimited Scientists at a London conference next week will warn of earthquakes, avalanches and volcanic eruptions as the atmosphere heats up and geology is altered. Even Britain could face being struck by tsunamis |
6th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The planet-saver that's still just a pipe dream - Sydney Morning Herald THERE may be a few forced smiles when Martin Ferguson dishes out $2.4 billion in funding for a handful of "flagship" carbon capture and storage projects (CCS), intended to clean up carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power stations. See also: Clean Coal in China Said to Face Staggering Costs - Bloomberg |
6th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Has runaway Arctic warming already begun? Rapid ice-loss may spread climate havoc across the globe in the coming decades, says a new WWF report, but some claim it understates the danger |
5th September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Wearing thermals won't save the planet Why is the 10:10 campaign, with its pledges to turn off lights and grow more veg, taken more seriously than geo-engineering?It never ceases to amaze me that people who say we can "save the planet" by wearing a jumper or growing our own veg are treated with the utmost seriousness, while those who argue that tackling climate change might require some larger-scale projects such as geo-engineering the Earth are treated as sci-fi freaks who should stick to reading Philip K Dick novels and stop polluting public debate with their insane ideas.When it comes to climate change, the only acceptable debate, it seems, is how we can encourage ordinary people to do less, consume less and fly less. See also: 10:10 vision for the future of planet Earth - Guardian Unlimited |
2nd September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Earth experiment could buy precious time - BBC News Cloud whitening must be tested, if we are to find out what options we have in the fight against global warming. |
2nd September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Everybody Dance Now ! Dancing with Bicycles. Whenever you hear government ministers or public figures telling the people that technology will save us, remember this : the word technology is synonymous with the word business . Technology is Big Engineering, and this is what is done by large companies and corporations. Large organisations that make profit by selling manufactured products and Energy always have a surplus set aside for their communications budgets, and that includes persuading government people that their business is invaluable and needs promoting. Of course the Big Organisations want to save themselves from Climageddon more than they want to save the planet. |
2nd September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Sea levels could rise more than a meter by 2100: WWF GENEVA (Reuters) - The world's seas could rise by more than a meter (3 feet) by 2100 as the melting Arctic has an impact on weather across the planet, the environmental group WWW said in a report on Wednesday. See also: On thinning Arctic ice, U.N.'s Ban urges climate deal |
2nd September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| We're pumping out CO2 to the point of no return. It's time to alter course Scientists now say peak temperatures will not fall back. Join me in taking the 10:10 pledge – it's the best shot we've got left. See also: The beauty of 10:10 is that it's both achievable and meaningful |
1st September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| If you’re not worried about melting permafrost, you should be If we lost just 1 percent of the carbon in permafrost today, we d be close to a year s contributions from industrial sources. I don t think policymakers have woken up to this. It s not in their risk assessments. Permafrost expert Chris Burn of Carleton Universiy See also: Identifying Arctic Methane s Climate Risk Factors - redOrbit Our best guess about global warming may be wrong - The Christian Science Monitor |
1st September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Astroturf attack on democracy is intentional - and should be illegal adfero-logo.jpg Adfero and Bonner's actions are planned and deliberate You can't convict someone of a crime unless you can prove that the accused was acting with intent - that they did what they did on purpose. By that standard, Astroturfing specialists at the Washington, D.C., PR firms Adfero Group and Bonner & Associates have demonstrated that they are guilty, even if what they are doing is - at this point - not technically a crime. It should be. Because the Astroturfers are subverting democracy. By their own description, the firms are holding the U.S. democratic system up for sale. |
1st September 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Richard Black Hijacks Debate Environmentalism has trudged a long, winding, often silent road, with many cul-de-sacs of defeat, desperation and despair. In the last few years there has been a raising of the collective consciousness about how many problems are interrelated with an obscure corner of gas chemistry, which offers grave prospects for the whole of Life on Earth. Ecologists and treehuggers of all varieties have started to gather round the camp fire of Climate Change, finding that people will pay attention to the destruction of Nature if they pay attention to their own fate first. A new unity has been forged, centred around the most important problem ... |
29th August 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate hijack - BBC News Has climate change taken over the green agenda? |
27th August 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Methane seepage heightens pressure for climate treaty - EurActiv Evidence that methane, a dangerous greenhouse gas, is escaping from the warming Arctic seabed makes securing a new international agreement to slash global-warming gas emissions even more urgent, scientists warn. |
27th August 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate protection 'to cost more' Protecting societies against impacts of climate change will be much more expensive than the UN believes, a study concludes. |
27th August 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Perfect storm Will water, energy and food run low worldwide in 2030? |
25th August 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Plimer's homework assignment - RealClimate Some of you may be aware of George Monbiot s so-far-unsuccessful attempt to pin down Ian Plimer on his ridiculous compendium of non-science. In response to Monbiot s request for explanation and sources for some of Plimer s more bizarre claims, Plimer has responded with a homework assignment that is clearly beyond even his (claimed) prowess. This is quite transparently a device to avoid dealing with Monbiot s questions and is designed to lead to an argument along the lines of Monbiot can t answer these questions and so knows nothing about the science (and by the way, please don t notice that I can t cite any sources for my nonsense or even acknowledge that I can t answer these questions either) . |
25th August 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Tipping elements remain a 'hot' issue (PhysOrg.com) -- Research published by climate scientists at the University of East Anglia (UEA) has been named one of the most highly-cited in its field in the last two years. |
25th August 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| U.S. needs climate law before Copenhagen: officials WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States needs to have a climate change law in place before international talks on a climate pact begin in December, two top Obama administration officials said on Monday. |
25th August 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| A Dow Jones For Climate: The Case for a Warming Index If a cap-and-trade bill passes Congress this year, it may include weak emissions targets and will likely need to be strengthened in the years to come. One way to guide future policy: create a Global Climate Change Index that could be used to track global warming s impacts. BY DANIEL R. ABBASI |
25th August 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Are Climate Deniers Crazy? Because the end of the world has never happened before, it s understandable many people have a hard time wrapping their heads around the potential apocalyptic consequences of climate change. Floods, famines, mass-migrations it might be a little too Old Testament for many folks to want to think about. But what about climate deniers? Those people who don't react with honest skepticism or debate, but vitriol and spleen-venting anger? Psychologist Linda Buzzell was wondering the same thing. In an interesting post last week on Huffington, she tried to plum the depths of why some people can t seem to have a civilized conversation about climate science. |
25th August 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The fallacy of climate activism by Adam D. Sacks In the 20 years since we climate activists began our work in earnest, the state of the climate has become dramatically worse, and the change is accelerating this despite all of our best efforts. Clearly something is deeply wrong with this picture. What is it that we do not yet know? What do we have to think and do differently to arrive at urgently different outcomes?[1] The answers lie not with science, but with culture. Climate activists are obsessed with greenhouse-gas emissions and concentrations. Since global climate disruption is an effect of greenhouse gases, and a disastrous one, this is understandable. |
24th August 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Minister met BAA chief before Climate Camp to discuss tactics Activists say memos point to culture of collusion Whitehall worked with 'key parties' on 2007 eventA government minister met the chief executive of the UK's largest airport owner in private to discuss how to "limit" the impact of climate change protests directed against the firm, documents obtained by the Guardian reveal.Jim Fitzpatrick, then a transport minister, met the head of BAA a week before Climate Camp protesters held peaceful demonstrations at Heathrow airport.At the time Fitzpatrick was receiving regular "situation reports" about the protesters. In one, he was told: "It is thought that key members of the camp are getting more frustrated as things are not going as they would have liked. |
24th August 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Early farming methods caused climate change, say researchers - Guardian Unlimited Farmers thousands of years ago cleared land by burning forests and moved to a new area once the yields declined, say scientists Farmers who used "slash and burn" methods of clearing forests to grow crops thousands of years ago could have increased carbon dioxide levels enough to change the climate, researchers claimed today. The US scientists believe that small populations released carbon ... |
24th August 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Gas seeps from Arctic sea-bed The powerful greenhouse gas methane is escaping from the sea bed off Norway as the ice it is trapped in melts, scientists say. |
21st August 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| US congress inquiry reveals fake letters from 'voters' opposed to climate bill Bonner Associates, lobbyists hired to campaign against climate change bill, admit letters sent by sacked employeeDon't blame it on granny. A US congressional inquiry has found more than a dozen forged letters to members of Congress purportedly from voters opposed to a climate change bill including a number from old people's homes.The house select committee on energy independence and global warming now says it has confirmed 13 fake letters to members of Congress apparently from old people's centres and Latino and African-American groups opposing climate change legislation.The committee is still investigating 45 other letters sent by the lobbying firm Bonner Associates, which was hired to campaign against the climate change bill. |
21st August 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Is there any point in fighting to stave off industrial apocalypse? The collapse of civilisation will bring us a saner world, says Paul Kingsnorth. No, counters George Monbiot we can't let billions perishDear GeorgeOn the desk in front of me is a set of graphs. The horizontal axis of each represents the years 1750 to 2000. The graphs show, variously, population levels, CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, exploitation of fisheries, destruction of tropical forests, paper consumption, number of motor vehicles, water use, the rate of species extinction and the totality of the human economy's gross domestic product.What grips me about these graphs (and graphs don't usually grip me) is that though they all show very different things, they have an almost identical shape. |
21st August 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Bjørn Lomborg : Climate Joker In his own, special, blond, way, I feel Bjørn Lomborg is as dangerous as Martin Durkin. They both act like incarnations of The Climate Joker in my view, showing different capricious sides to the destructive force of mankind s inhumanity to man (and beast and tree). Martin Durkin directs documentaries and films apparently claiming the authority to speak about Nature and Climate, without any basis in reality. It seems he tries to usurp the public mind, and it is alleged he has a barely-hidden agenda of destroying confidence in Science (and the United Nations). He is in my opinion an arch-propagandist without wide-ranging knowledge, and without an accurate comprehension of what he attempts to speak to. See aslo: Cheap Climate-Change Fix Needed, Lomborg Center Says - Bloomberg |
15th August 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate Lobbyists Overwhelming Washington A total of 1,150 different companies and advocacy organizations have participated so far this year in lobbying Congres on climate change, an increase of more than 30 per cent this year alone. According to records compiled by the Center for Public Integrity, energy interests and heavy industry led the charge, with agri-business coming in with a huge new push to protect or promote the (highly debatable) benefits of biofuels. The Centre for Public Integrity couldn't attach a dollar figure to the over all lobbying effort, but the Associated Press had already reported that oil and gas lobbyists had spent $44.5 million in lobbying in the first quarter alone - a rate of spending that will shatter last year's record-breaking annual total of $129 million. |
15th August 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate Disobedience Is on the Rise and It's Not Just for Radical Activists Anymore An emerging movement is determined to use direct action to combat the depredations of climate change and they've got some big names on board. |
15th August 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Oil lobby to fund phoney campaign against US climate change strategy Email from American Petroleum Institute outlines plan to create appearance of public opposition to Obama's climate and energy reformThe US oil and gas lobby are planning to stage public events to give the appearance of a groundswell of public opinion against legislation that is key to Barack Obama's climate change strategy, according to campaigners.A key lobbying group will bankroll and organise 20 ''energy citizen'' rallies in 20 states. In an email obtained by Greenpeace, Jack Gerard, the president of the American Petroleum Institute (API), outlined what he called a "sensitive" plan to stage events during the August congressional recess to put a "human face" on opposition to climate and energy reform.After the clamour over healthcare, the memo raises the possibility of a new round of protests against a key Obama issue."Our goal is to energise people and show them that they are not alone," ... |
15th August 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Australia emissions plan rejected - BBC News Australia's Senate votes down a plan to introduce a carbon trading scheme to cut greenhouse gas emissions. See also: Australia government faces "day of reckoning" on carbon plans The defeat of Australia’s climate plan doesn’t bode ill for cap-and-trade |
13th August 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Axis of Climate Change Who will be the next Enemy of The States ? This week, the Pentagon have bested their Climate Change report of 2004 (The Hague flooded by 2007, yeah, right) with yet another hard-hitting doom-laden warning. And it looks like the new enemy will be any people from any country afflicted by Climate Change. The world's poor, in other words. See also: Climate Change: Get Smarter: Turbocharging Democracy Online |
13th August 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| A civilizational tipping point by Lester Brown. In recent years there has been a growing concern over thresholds, or tipping points, in nature. For example, scientists worry about when the shrinking population of an endangered species will fall to a point from which it cannot recover. Marine biologists are concerned about the point where overfishing will trigger the collapse of a fishery. We know there were social tipping points in earlier civilizations, points at which they were overwhelmed by the forces threatening them. For instance, at some point the irrigation-related salt buildup in their soil overwhelmed the capacity of the Sumerians to deal with it. |
13th August 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Gas-guzzling cars top US 'cash for clunkers' trade-ins SUVs and pick-up trucks make up 83% of the 316,189 cars that have been traded under the schemeAre Americans really over their love of big, gas-guzzling automobiles? Not entirely, but there is a chill coming on, as 83% of the top trade-ins under the Obama administration's "cash for clunkers" scheme have been SUVs or pick-up trucks.The two-week-old scheme to boost auto sales has been popular, with 316,189 cars worth $1,326m (£802m) turned in as of 7am today. Statistics provided by the Department of Transport suggest that Americans are now fleeing from SUVs, which reached their peak in popularity in the middle of this decade.Six of the top 10 trade-ins were SUVs, with two mini-vans and two pick-up trucks rounding off the list. |
13th August 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Is it time to start worrying about Copenhagen? The gap between rich nations and emerging economies over carbon emissions targets is beginning to look unbridgable. From BusinessGreen.com, part of the Guardian Environment NetworkI am starting to get very worried.This week, another round of the UN's climate change talks gets underway in Bonn, Germany and once again all the key factions look as far from reaching a meaningful agreement on carbon emissions targets as they ever were.It is far too early to give up hope on a deal being reached, particularly given that any exercise in international diplomacy is always characterised by the kind of posturing and brinkmanship we can expect to see again over the next five days. |
13th August 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| UN chief warns of dire future without climate deal - Reuters SEOUL, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Failure to act quickly on climate change could eventually lead to violence and mass unrest as global weather patterns drastically change, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Tuesday. "If we fail to act, climate change will intensify droughts, floods and other natural disasters," Ban said at a forum near Seoul that came weeks ahead of his own conference on climate change in September. "Water shortages will affect hundreds of millions of people. Malnutrition will engulf large parts of the developing world. Tensions will worsen. Social unrest -- even violence -- could follow," Ban said according to a prepared text of his remarks to a global environment forum in Incheon, west of Seoul. |
12th August 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate models confirm more moisture in atmosphere attributed to humans (PhysOrg.com) -- When it comes to using climate models to assess the causes of the increased amount of moisture in the atmosphere, it doesn't much matter if one model is better than the other. See also: Climate Acceleration and Critical Mass |
12th August 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Ozone depletion reduces CO2 uptake of Southern Ocean - New Kerala Washington, August 9 : In a new research, scientists have determined that depletion in the ozone layer is reducing the atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) uptake of the Southern Ocean. |
12th August 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The limits of today’s electric car technology We will likely ship a billion new cars worldwide in the next 15 or so years. The key question is not whether hybrid or EV cars/batteries will be successful financially (they probably will), but rather what it will take to get 80% of these billion cars to be low-carbon cars. |
12th August 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| US military engages climate change US military experts have warned that 'climate-induced crises could topple governments, feed terrorist movements or destabilise entire regions'. Lock and load, says Shanta Barley |
12th August 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Cloud Ships. Yes, But Geoengineering. Sounds great. Treat the Earth like one big motoring machine, get under the hood (bonnet) and tinker with it. But what if actually this is the equivalent of putting the Planet on a life support system ventilator, and the plug could be pulled at any time ? How sustainable are some of the Geoengineering proposals ? Are they guaranteed to work ? Won t they have knock-on side-effects ? Are they reversible if they prove unhelpful ? And how much will they cost ? Attempts to seed clouds have been going on for decades, for the express purpose of creating rain, but this is perhaps the first time this mechanism has been seriously suggested as a way to slow down Global Warming. |
12th August 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| World Forum: Cut CO2 80% by 2020, not 2050 - redOrbit Greenhouse gases must be cut 80 percent by 2020, not by 2050 |
7th August 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Arctic Ocean may be polluted soup by 2070 Without drastic cuts in emissions, the Transpolar Drift, one of the Arctic's most powerful currents and a key disperser of pollutants, is likely to disappear because of global warming |
7th August 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Psychological barriers hobble climate action WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Psychological barriers like uncertainty, mistrust and denial keep most Americans from acting to fight climate change, a task force of the American Psychological Association said on Wednesday. |
7th August 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Oil Supplies Are Running Out Fast The first detailed assessment of more than 800 oil fields in the world, covering three quarters of global reserves, has found that most of the biggest fields have already peaked and that the rate of decline in oil production is now running at nearly twice the pace as calculated just two years ago. On top of this, there is a problem of chronic under-investment by oil-producing countries, a feature that is set to result in an oil crunch within the next five years which will jeopardise any hope of a recovery from the present global economic recession |
7th August 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Govts 'know climate strategy won't work' - Sydney Morning Herald An international pledge to peg global warming to two degrees is a pipe dream, and most governments know it, says an Australian researcher. |
1st August 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| GERMANY: Nuclear Power Fails, And Nobody Notices BERLIN, Jul 31 (IPS) - Seven German nuclear plants have failed to generate any electricity this month due to technical breakdowns. They have about half the production capacity of Germany's 17 nuclear reactors, but Germany did not suffer any power shortages. |
1st August 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| We Have Forgotten How Real Political Change Happens When you are just one person sitting on a warming planet, how should you react? |
30th July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Arctic tundra hotter, boosts global warming: expert - Reuters OTTAWA (Reuters) - Regions of Arctic tundra around the world are heating up very rapidly, releasing more greenhouse gases than predicted and boosting the process of global warming, a leading expert said on Wednesday. |
30th July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| World will warm faster than predicted in next five years, study warns - Guardian New estimate based on the forthcoming upturn in solar activity and El Niño southern oscillation cycles is expected to silence global warming scepticsThe world faces a new period of record-breaking temperatures as the sun's activity increases, leading the planet to heat up significantly faster than scientists had predicted over the next five years, according to a new study.The hottest year on record was 1998, and the relatively cool years since have led to some global-warming sceptics claiming that temperatures have levelled off or started to decline. However, the new research firmly rejects that argument.The work is the first to assess the combined impact on global temperature of four factors ... |
30th July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Boiling The Frog: Nuclear Optimism Hides True Costs Till It's Too Late There is a well-known story about how to boil a frog. If you try to throw a frog into a pot already boiling, he'll jump out. However, put a frog into a pot and slowly raise the temperature - and you get frog legs for dinner. read more |
30th July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Clouds in climate 'vicious cycle' - BBC Low-level clouds dissipate as the ocean warms, causing a positive feedback in global warming, research suggests. |
27th July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The big switch A low-carbon future will only happen with real leadership See also: The Low Carbon Transition #1 : It s Gonna Cost Ya |
21st July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Serious About Green Jobs? It's Time to Throw 'Free Trade' out the Window If we want a greener world and green jobs for our citizens, we have to ditch the 'free-trade' ideal -- markets on their own won't do it. See also: China wind turbine makers blow over foreign rivals - vnunet.com |
21st July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| India Refuses to Bend to Obama Pressure on Carbon Emission Caps - Bloomberg July 20 (Bloomberg) -- India won t bend to demands from the Obama administration or threats from the U.S. Congress to adopt legally binding caps on its carbon emissions, the country s environment minister told visiting U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton yesterday. |
19th July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The big question In 1883 renown Yale professor William Graham Sumner examined the question of what the social classes owe to each other. Sumner was a classical liberal--what we might call a conservative today if only we could find a real one--and his answer to this question can be summarized in one word: Nothing.In 2009 in the grip of advancing climate change and rapidly depleting resources we are confronted with a more radical question: What do the generations owe to each other? The easy answer is to copy Sumner's. And, some people have. (Scroll down to Sam Vaknin and expand his essay.) But given that most people have offspring, we can expect that their sympathies might extend to their children and grandchildren, but not much beyond. |
19th July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon emissions trading system 'seriously flawed' - Guardian The system of trading carbon emissions at the heart of the ambitious low-carbon plan announced by the government last week is seriously flawed and close to becoming irrelevant, according to researchers behind a new analysis. So-called "hot air" carbon credits – those which do not result in any actual emissions cuts – could be so numerous that companies covered by the EU Emissions Trading Scheme would not have to make any cuts to their own emissions until 2015, says the report from climate campaign group, Sandbag. The hot air permits result from the over-allocation of emissions allowances and from those going unused as the recession cuts economic activity. The ETS covers 50% of the UK and EU's carbon emissions, mainly in the energy, cement, steel, glass and manufacturing sectors. Companies in these sectors are allocated allowances for the carbon they emit, with the total number shrinking over time, theoretically forcing companies to buy additional permits to pollute if they do not cut their emissions. |
19th July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| G8 CO2 Pledge Falls Short Of Climate Change Needs - IPCC Chief - Nasdaq PARIS (AFP)--The head of the U.N.'s panel of climate-change experts said Friday he was encouraged by climate pledges at last week's G8 summit but warned commitments still fell short of what was required by science. See also: Trapping Carbon Dioxide Or Switching To Nuclear Power Not Enough To Solve Global Warming Problem |
17th July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| U.S. should pay for carbon content of imported goods: Locke SHANGHAI (Reuters) - To address the serious threat of global warming, Americans should be required to "pay" for the carbon content of goods they consume from countries around the world, a top U.S. official said on Friday. |
17th July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Mystery methane belched out by megacities A study of the greenhouse gases from the Los Angeles metropolitan region finds a large amount of methane, which had been previously unaccounted for |
17th July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon dioxide forcing alone insufficient to explain Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum warming - Nature The PalaeoceneEocene Thermal Maximum (about 55 Myr ago) represents a possible analogue for the future and thus may provide insight into climate system sensitivity and feedbacks1, 2. The key feature of this event is the release of a large mass of 13C-depleted carbon into the carbon reservoirs at the Earth's surface, although the source remains an open issue3, 4. Concurrently, global surface temperatures rose by 59 C within a few thousand years5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Here we use published palaeorecords of deep-sea carbonate dissolution10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and stable carbon isotope composition10, 15, 16, 17 along with a carbon cycle model to constrain the initial carbon pulse to a magnitude of 3,000 Pg C or less, with an isotopic composition lighter than -50permil. As a result, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations increased during the main event by less than about 70% compared with pre-event levels. At accepted values for the climate sensitivity to a doubling of the atmospheric CO2 concentration1, this rise in CO2 can explain only between 1 and 3.5 °C of the warming inferred from proxy records. We conclude that in addition to direct CO2 forcing, other processes and/or feedbacks that are hitherto unknown must have caused a substantial portion of the warming during the PalaeoceneEocene Thermal Maximum. Once these processes have been identified, their potential effect on future climate change needs to be taken into account. See also: Mystery mechanism drove global warming 55 million years ago - AFP via Yahoo! News |
14th July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Spectator Is Hot for Global Warming Denial - Huffington Post If there is any credit due to the monstrous legacy of Britain's Margaret Thatcher it is that she -- with her background in science -- always accepted the reality of man-made global warming. The British Conservative Party never took the route of denial that Republicans in the U.S or the Liberal Party in Australia followed. The same cannot be said, alas, for Britain's predominantly right-wing press which has given a great deal of space to Global Warming time-wasting as it once did to denying the link between HIV and AIDS. This week, the Spectator (a bit like a British counterpart to the National Review) has a front page splash: "Relax: Global Warming is All a Myth" with James Delingpole interviewing Australian denier, Ian Pilmer, publicising his new book. Global warming denial is not a set of scientific ideas -- it's a collection of bogus factoids which have a zombie-like ability to keep returning to life, seeking new brains to feed on no matter how many times they are shot down. |
14th July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Pulling Yourself Off the Ground By Your Whiskers - Monbiot Here is the simple mathematical reason why large scale carbon offsets can t work |
14th July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Gwynne Dyer: At the G8 Summit, two cheers for two degrees - Georgia Straight This is how the human race does business. What the G8 Summit in Italy decided to do about climate change last week was much less than is necessary, but the very best that a realist could have hoped for. Some tens of millions of people will probably die as a result, or some hundreds of millions if we are really unlucky. But there is still time to avoid the worst. And anyway, it can't be helped: this is the way we do business. If we are lucky, some early disasters that don't kill too many people will frighten the world's countries into accepting tougher cuts in emissions while there is still time to avoid the worst, but this is the best that we are going to get for now. So two cheers for the two-degree limit. See also: 80 Percent of What ? |
14th July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Spot The Fatal Flaw #1 : Oil From Algae But, you’ve guessed it from the title of this post, there is a fatal flaw, and it flows from that little mention of “a large source of carbon dioxide”. You see, the birth and growth and death rates of algae in normal atmospheric concentrations of Carbon Dioxide are unlikely to yield more than a trickle of car juice. So more dense flows of CO2 are required. If this method of making liquid fuels takes off and dominates the vehicle fuel market in the future, it would force us to continue to burn Coal and refine Petroleum to create the kind of quantities of Carbon Dioxide-rich gas that the process needs. Put it another way : algal oil will be used as a justification for Coal-fired power plants. “Ah”, the CEOs will say, “algal oil sucks up all that CO2 to make fuel. What a wonderful way to sequester it !” And the driving public will be bowled over. But what will happen when the fuel is burned ? Why, naturally, all that Carbon Dioxide will be released into the air once more. What an omission about emissions ! Yes, algal oil would give us more Energy per tonne of Carbon Dioxide emitted. It will give us a greater Carbon “intensity”, doing more with less, but it won’t halt emissions and it won’t reduce them. |
14th July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse' - Independent An effort on the scale of the Apollo mission that sent men to the Moon is needed if humanity is to have a fighting chance of surviving the ravages of climate change. The stakes are high, as, without sustainable growth, "billions of people will be condemned to poverty and much of civilisation will collapse". |
12th July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| G8 Failure Means Climate Genocide For Developing World - Counter Currents By Dr Gideon Polya The grossly inadequate response of the G8 nations is effectively a statement of climate racism and a declaration of prospective climate genocide |
12th July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| George Monbiot's Troll Problem - and Ours - DeSmogBlog monbiot.jpg George Monbiot has a great article this week citing DeSmog Blog, regarding the vexing issue of trolls . Not the kind that live under bridges, but those faceless cyberspace monikers that pop up frequently in comment sections of blogs likes this one, to repetitively froth away against the climate science. Are these real people? Or are they operatives in the employ of Big Oil s PR campaign to confuse the public on climate science? Paul S? Phlogiston? I m talking to you. It seems that Monbiot has same problem that we do. On the Guardian website, a small minority of anonymous skeptics often dominate the discussion by regurgitating talking points from well-known climate deniers. |
11th July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The New Energy Bill May Create a 'Super Lobby' of Powerful Opposition - Alternet If we don't act now to strengthen the bill, it could create a "super lobby" that will diminish the possibility of achieving future reforms. |
11th July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| G8 action without China and India would be pointless - Guardian Developing countries will not surrender trump card for a handshake they want hard cash and firm commitmentsWith barely five months until make-or-break climate talks in Copenhagen, where the world will attempt to agree a new treaty on climate change, how significant are the G8 announcements?Headline writers have drooled over the "historic" agreement to limit the global temperature rise to 2C, to cut world emissions 50% by 2050, and for the G8 to reduce its own pollution 80% by that date.The numbers may sound reassuringly low, large and colossal, respectively, but there is significant political sleight of hand at play here. See also: Full text: Energy and climate declaration - BBC News CLIMATE CHANGE: G8 Declares a Lack of Promise G8 leaders: still around to keep 2050 climate promises? |
10th July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Big Question: Will it really be possible to meet the G8's climate change targets? - Independent Why are we asking this now? Because the leaders of the rich countries, at their meeting in Italy, have just made a great headline-grabbing pledge to cut their emissions of carbon dioxide, in the fight against climate change, by 80 per cent by 2050. See also: The last 20% - David Hone |
10th July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Overheated by clean energy - Salon.com As the debate over the Waxman-Markey climate bill rages on, Harvard's top environmental economist sheds some light See also: Obama's drive for climate change bill hits delay |
10th July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Survey Shows Gap Between Scientists and the Public - New York Times When it comes to climate change, the teaching of evolution and the state of the nation's research enterprise, there is a large gap between what scientists think and the views of ordinary Americans, a new survey has found. |
10th July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| G-8 Failure Reflects US Failure on Climate Change - Huffington Post The fact is that the climate course set by Waxman-Markey is a disaster course. Their bill is an astoundingly inefficient way to get a tiny reduction of emissions. It's less than worthless, because it will delay by at least a decade starting on a path that is fundamentally sound from the standpoints of both economics and climate preservation. Former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, who died this week, suffered for 40 years -- as did our country -- from his failure to turn back from a failed policy. As grave as the blunders of the Vietnam War were, the consequences of a failed climate policy will be more severe by orders of magnitude. With the Senate debate over climate now beginning, there is still time to turn back from cap-and-trade and toward fee-and-dividend. We need to start now. Without political leadership creating a truly viable policy like a carbon fee, not only won't we get meaningful climate legislation through the Senate, we won't be able to create the concerted approach we need globally to prevent catastrophic climate change. |
9th July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Ban criticises G8 climate efforts - BBC UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon criticises G8 nations for not going far enough to combat climate change. |
9th July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate targets around the world - BBC News The BBC looks at the targets countries and supra-national bodies have already set on climate change and greenhouse gas emissions. |
9th July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Major nations drop goal of halving C02 - Independent Major nations have failed to agree to set a goal halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, according to a draft document ahead of talks tomorrow - a setback to efforts to secure a new UN climate pact. |
8th July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Reith lectures: Of markets and morality - Guardian Unlimited If exposing public goods to market forces changes the way that people feel about them, the implications could be profound. Carbon-trading markets, for instance, are designed to encourage the outsourcing of pollution control to places where it is cheapest to do. That should help save the planet. But if the by-product of the western wheeling and dealing in such markets is to encourage the belief that the climate's health is another commodity - rather than something for which we all bear moral responsibility - then these markets could defeat themselves. Cost-benefit analysis - which governments use to mimic the judgment of markets in contexts where no markets exist - can also have nasty results. When bureaucracies price things which should not be priced - endangered species, future generations or even individual lives - they start trading them off against other objectives, instead of appreciating their absolute obligations. |
8th July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Green expert sees red over UK climate pledges - Reuters Professor Sir David King, the British government's former top scientific adviser, is no stranger to controversy. He ruffled feathers on both sides of the Atlantic in 2004 when he described climate change as a more serious threat to the world than terrorism. Earlier this year, he said the Iraq war may come to be seen as the world first s resource war , based on oil rather than weapons of mass destruction. Now the South African-born academic risks putting more politicians' noses out of joint. In a speech in Oxford this week, King accused Gordon Brown of talking tough on climate change, but failing to follow his words up with action, mainly due to a lack of public money. |
8th July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| I Am Not A Campaigner - Jo Abbess As a bright-eyed Gospel-touting young person from a God-fearing Bible-bashing breast-beating Protestant Evangelical Christian family, one-time members of a troubled sect, I was drawn to the victim narrative of the Aid and Development agencies. Those poor people in those dirt-poor countries with their cripplingly poor lifestyles. I needed to be a Campaigner, I reasoned. I needed to tell the World, make some converts to the Poverty and Development cause, draw some attention, create some devotion, raise some cash, raise some banners, wave some placards, get some pledges signed. Not realising that this kind of missionary zeal marked me out as a complete lunatic, I applied to a Famous Development Agency for a job. |
8th July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| G8 emissions pledge is 'scientifically illiterate' - New Scientist This week, world leaders are expected to pledge to halve global emissions by 2050, but Fred Pearce argues that the science is moving faster |
7th July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Emerging El Nino set to drive up carbon emissions - Reuters via Yahoo! UK & Ireland News Across the globe an emerging El Nino weather pattern threatens to cause droughts and floods and trigger a spike in planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from burning forests. |
7th July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| New climate strategy: track the world's wealthiest - Reuters WASHINGTON (Reuters) - To fairly divide the climate change fight between rich and poor, a new study suggests basing targets for emission cuts on the number of wealthy people, who are also the biggest greenhouse gas emitters, in a country. |
7th July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Subsidising the Climate Crash - Monbiot Why have government agencies been paying to increase the number of flights? Demand for new routes and airports comes not from passengers but unelected, unaccountable development agenciesHere's an odd thing. Air travel to and from the United Kingdom has plummeted. Several small airlines have gone bust; British Airways has deployed its landing gear. In some respects, according to the industry, this descent could be permanent. Yet the government is still planning to double the capacity of our airports by 2030.Between the first quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009, the number of people using airports in the UK fell by 6.4 million, or 13%. Convinced that its estimates for the growth of demand were wrong, the airport operator BAA has delayed its plans for a second runway at Stansted. |
7th July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Climate Imperative - Counter Currents By Rajendra Kumar Pachauri Today, international action on climate change is urgent and essential. Indeed, there can no longer be any debate about the need to act, because the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), of which I am chairman, has established climate change as an unequivocal reality beyond scientific doubt |
7th July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Gore says climate deal needs more public pressure - Reuters OXFORD (Reuters) - Public awareness about the "catastrophe" of climate change is not high enough to pressure politicians into taking action, former Vice President Al Gore said on Tuesday. See also: Al Gore: climate change battle like that against Nazis - Times Online |
7th July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Raising the Climatic Stakes - Risk & Insurance This summer's climate change bill increases the chances that insureds will face environmentally based enforcement and civil actions sooner rather than later. See also: Are pension funds ignoring climate risk? |
6th July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Gavin Schmidt: a climatologist trying to give out the right signals amid the noise - Guardian Leading Nasa climate scientist says increasing the level of noise is a useful political tactic in interview in The Edge magazineAnyone who follows the climate change debate closely will no doubt have come across Gavin Schmidt and the website he co-founded called RealClimate.org during their online meanderings. Schmidt is a British climatologist and climate modeller based at the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and he says that he helped to establish RealClimate.org to try to "provide context and background on climate science issues that are often missing in popular media coverage". As you can imagine, he's a busy man.Schmidt features in this week's edition of The Edge as the latest interviewee in the online magazine's Third Culture series. |
6th July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| US plans for a carbon tax on imports from countries without their own emission caps - India Daily America wants a carbon tax on imports from countries without their own emission caps. India disagree. China has trhreatened a global trade war. The greenhouse gases are major components of global warming. The western world is reeling under economic depression. |
5th July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Great American Bubble Machine - Rolling Stone Matt Taibbi on how Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression. |
3rd July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| CLIMATE CHANGE: Opportunity For Biopirates? - IPS NEW DELHI, Jul 2 (IPS) - Genetically modified (GM) crops that can withstand environmental stress may be one answer to climate change but a powerful lobby is building up against the patenting of technologies involved, especially when they are derivatives of traditional farmers innovations. |
3rd July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Drax protesters found guilty of obstructing coal train - Guardian Climate change protesters who ambushed and hijacked a power station coal train failed to convince a jury today that their actions were justified by the "imminent threat" of devastation from global warming. The 22 men and women, including a senior university lecturer, teachers and film-makers, were convicted - after less than two hours of deliberation - of obstructing the service carrying 42,000 tonnes of coal to Drax in North Yorkshire last June. Their hopes of repeating the "Kingsnorth Six" judgment last September, when activists who defaced a power station chimney were acquitted by a Kent jury, were dashed by a judge, who refused to admit arguments that the hijack was "necessary and proportionate to prevent the greater crime of carbon pollution". |
3rd July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Sea level rise: It's worse than we thought - New Scientist As more and more ice slides into the ocean, sea levels are rising faster and faster but just how high will they get? |
2nd July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| ExxonMobil 'continuing to fund climate sceptic groups' - Guardian The world's largest oil company is continuing to fund lobby groups that question the reality of global warming, despite a public pledge to cut support for such climate change denial, a new analysis shows. Company records show that ExxonMobil handed over hundreds of thousands of pounds to such lobby groups in 2008. These include the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) in Dallas, Texas, which received $75,000 (£45,500), and the Heritage Foundation in Washington DC, which received $50,000. |
2nd July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Permafrost melting a growing climate threat - Reuters SINGAPORE (Reuters) - The amount of carbon locked away in frozen soils in the far Northern Hemisphere is double previous estimates and rapid melting could accelerate global warming, a study released on Wednesday says. |
1st July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Drax protest trial judge blocks climate change talk - Guardian Defendant tries to address court on dangers of global warming but is told jury not concerned with motivesClimate change campaigners on trial for hijacking a coal train on its way to the Drax power station in North Yorkshire were stymied three times this morning in their attempts to address a jury on the dangers of global warming.Judge Spencer repeatedly warned Paul Chatterton, a Leeds University lecturer who is leading the defence of 22 activists, that the jury was concerned only with whether they had stopped and boarded the train and not with their reasons for doing so.The defendants, aged between 21 and 43, have pleaded not guilty to obstructing a railway engine contrary to the Malicious Damage Act of 1861. |
1st July 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Betraying the Planet - New York Times Climate change poses a clear and present danger to our way of life. How can anyone justify failing to act? |
30th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Is the United States drifting toward "war socialism"? - Resource Insights Jay Hansen is a well-known voice on issues of peak oil and sustainability. A systems analyst by trade, he established one of the first web sites (dieoff.org) to discuss these issues in depth in the mid-1990s. His latest web venture is a site called War Socialism on which he proposes a form of governance which he believes will be the only viable one in the coming age of scarcity.By discussing Hansen's views I am not endorsing them. But Hansen is no lightweight. He has thought very deeply about our ecological predicament. He has tried to square what he knows about human behavior with what he believes needs to be done in the world we now face. |
30th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate war could kill nearly all of us, leaving survivors in the Stone Age - Guardian We need a climate change 'Churchill' to lead us away from planet-wide devastation, writes James Lovelock in the latest edition of Conservation magazine, part of the Guardian Environment NetworkIn a small way, the plight of the British in 1940 resembles the state of the civilized world now. At that time we had had nearly a decade of the well-intentioned but quite wrong belief that peace was all that mattered. The followers of the peace lobbies of the 1930s resembled the environmentalist movements now; their intentions were more than good but wholly inappropriate for the war that was about to start. |
30th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Lens effect of pollution sways climate change - UC Newsroom Particulates, atmospheric soot combine chemically to absorb solar energy, increase global warming. |
30th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Brazil's Lula signs Amazon bill - BBC Brazil's president approves a controversial bill allowing Amazon farmers to acquire an area of public land larger than France. |
28th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Bubkes - Realclimate Some parts of the blogosphere, headed up by CEI ("CO2: They call it pollution, we call it life!"), are all a-twitter over an apparently "suppressed" document that supposedly undermines the EPA Endangerment finding about human emissions of carbon dioxide and a basket of other greenhouse gases. Well a draft of this "suppressed" document has been released and we can now all read this allegedly devastating critique of the EPA science. Let's take a look First off the authors of the submission; Alan Carlin is an economist and John Davidson is an ex-member of the Carter administration Council of Environmental Quality. |
28th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Miliband: 2020 is year of no return for emissions - Independent The world's emissions of the greenhouse gases causing global warming should peak in 2020 and then start to decline, the British Government is proposing in the run-up to the global climate conference taking place at Copenhagen in December. |
26th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Another day, another self-defeating energy bill compromise - Salon.com Stopping climate change won't be easy if everybody who squawks gets a free pass |
25th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Methane controls before risky geoengineering, please - New Scientist Reducing carbon dioxide emissions will be vital in the long run, but we should start by tackling methane, says Kirk Smith |
25th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Todd Stern rejects calls for 40% cut in US emissions - Guardian President Barack Obama's climate envoy has rejected calls for the US and other rich nations to make radical greenhouse gas cuts over the next decade.Speaking at the end of a ministerial level meeting of the world's most polluting countries in Mexico yesterday, Todd Stern dismissed the idea that the US might comply with calls for industrialised nations to cut carbon emissions by 40% below 1990 levels by 2020."In our judgment [this kind of cut is] not necessary and not feasible given where we are starting from," he said. |
24th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| China arable land fears end reforestation drive - Reuters BEIJING (Reuters) - China has halted a program of letting marginal farmland return to woodland, because of fears the country's arable land area could fall below a "red line" needed to feed its people, a vice minister said on Tuesday. |
24th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Stop Building Tanks Let s divert the money spent on arms to addressing the real strategic threat. |
24th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Uprising In The Amazon Is More Urgent Than Iran's - It Will Determine The Future Of The Planet In the depths of the Amazon rainforest, the poorest people in the world have taken on the richest people in the world |
24th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Hansen and Hannah arrested in West Virginia mining protest Protesters arrested for blocking a road near Massey Energy coal processing plant in Raleigh County, southern West VirginiaActor Daryl Hannah and Nasa climate scientist James Hansen were among 31 people arrested yesterday as they protested against mountaintop removal mining in southern West Virginia.State police sergeant Michael Baylous said all were released after being cited for impeding traffic and obstructing an officer after they blocked a road near a Massey Energy subsidiary's coal processing plant.Another woman, who was among a crowd of mining industry supporters, was charged with misdemeanour battery, Baylous said.The arrests followed a rally involving several hundred protesters outside an elementary school about 90m away from the plant's coal storage silo. |
24th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Supermarket suppliers 'helping destroy Amazon rainforest' - Guardian Meat companies sued over Amazon deforestation Accused firms supplying Tesco, Asda and MSBrazilian authorities investigating illegal deforestation have accused the suppliers of several UK supermarkets of selling meat linked to massive destruction of the Amazon rainforest. Brazilian firms that supply Tesco, Asda and Marks Spencer are among dozens of companies named by prosecutors, who are seeking hundreds of millions of pounds in compensation.The move follows a three-year investigation by Greenpeace into the trade in cattle products such as meat and leather traced to illegal farms across the Amazon region. The Greenpeace report, revealed in the Guardian earlier this month, showed that a handful of major Brazilian processors exported products linked to Amazon destruction to dozens of blue-chip companies across the world. |
23rd June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Refrigerants set to spur climate change: study - Reuters OSLO (Reuters) - Greenhouse gases from chemicals used in refrigerants and air conditioning are set to be a bigger than expected spur of climate change by 2050, scientists said. |
23rd June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| A warning from Copenhagen - RealClimate In March the biggest climate conference of the year took place in Copenhagen: 2500 participants from 80 countries, 1400 scientific presentations. Last week, the Synthesis Report of the Copenhagen Congress was handed over to the Danish Prime Minister Rasmussen in Brussels. Denmark will host the decisive round of negotiations on the new climate protection agreement this coming December. The climate congress was organised by a "star alliance" of research universities: Copenhagen, Yale, Berkeley, Oxford, Cambridge, Tokyo, Beijing - to name a few. The Synthesis Report is the most important update of climate science since the 2007 IPCC report. So what does it say? |
20th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Video shows protesters bundled to ground by police Two female protesters who challenged police officers for not displaying their badge numbers were bundled to the ground, arrested and held in prison for four days, according to an official complaint lodged today. The incident was caught on camera, and footage shows officers standing on the women's feet and applying pressure to their necks immediately after the women attempted to photograph a fellow officer who had refused to give his badge number. The images are likely to fuel concern over the policing of protests, which is already subject to a review by the national police inspectorate and two parliamentary inquiries after the G20 demonstrations and the death of Ian Tomlinson. Val Swain, 43, and Emily Apple, 33, both mothers with young children, believe they were deliberately targeted for arrest at last year's climate camp demonstration in Kent because they campaign for Fit Watch, a protest group that opposes police surveillance at demonstrations. |
20th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Floods, heatwaves and withering vines: how scientists see the US in 75 years - Guardian Unlimited Hard-hitting report describes how America will be affected region by region if no action is taken on climate change. See also: Explore how climate change might affect the US |
20th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Michael mccarthy: What's so depressing is the inevitability of all this - Independent Michael mccarthy: You might think you've heard it all before, and in a sense you have. There are not huge disparities between the core predictions of how climate change will affect the UK, released by the Government yesterday, and the earlier set of forecasts produced seven years ago. The central estimates of temperature rise by the 2080s, for example, are in the same ballpark. But there are three important differences. Firstly, the new figures make a much stronger attempt at qualifying one of the key aspects of any predictions, which is uncertainty. For all the forecasts, there are now not only central figures, representing the best guess at what will actually happen, but also upper and lower estimates, which represent extremes with a 10 per cent chance of occurring. This enables risk to be mathematically quantified and is an essential component of future planning to cope with what global warming may bring. Secondly, for the first time there are regional predictions in quite enormous detail, which will now enable the councillors and officials of Loamshire County Council, and even of Loamchester City Council, to get a feel for exactly what is coming their way in terms of hot, wet and dry – in other words, heatwaves, flooding, water shortages and all the other impacts which climate change is going to bring, and which they have to take into account. But perhaps the most striking (not to say depressing) aspect of these figures is their new emphasis on inevitability. The temperature rises which are forecast for the 2080s might be avoided if the world makes a titanic effort at cutting carbon emissions, beginning in Copenhagen in December, but, even if we do, the Government now admits that by the 2040s a rise of more than two degrees in average summer temperatures is going to happen anyway. For years the whole of British and European Union climate policy has been based on halting any temperature rise at the two degrees line. Does this not mean that the official objective is now unattainable? Asked about this yesterday the Environment Secretary, Hilary Benn, said: "Let's be frank. It's going to be tough." Well, what else can he say? See also:The outlook for the rest of the century: 40C summer days |
19th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The cultural problem that stops us from reaching 'the most ambitious agreement ever negotiated' in Copenhagen? It is not a lack of climate science that holds back action. It is how we respond to the challenge that the science poses, and that is deeply cultural. It is the values that we bring to bear, what we think is good for us, our religious underpinnings, our view of power and opportunity, of what is possible in the world and Australia's place in it. (Speech to National Press Club) |
19th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| UK 'must plan' for warmer future - BBC News A hotter, drier south-east and a wetter north-west are among climate changes the UK must prepare for, government says. See also: UK maps climate impacts in detail Why the Mediterranean climate message is all wrong |
18th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Obama targets US public with call for climate action - Guardian Climate impacts report warns of flooding, heat waves, drought and loss of wildlife that will occur if Americans fail to act on global warming. The Obama administration unveiled the most authoritative report to date on the effects of global warming in America today in an effort to persuade the public of the need to act now to prevent the sweeping and life-altering consequences of global warming.Americans have been living with the heavy downpours, rising sea levels, and blistering summer heat waves produced by man-made climate change for 30 years said the report, which was produced by more than 30 scientists working across 13 government agencies. |
18th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Holes seen in U.S. climate bill's consumer shields - Reuters NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. climate bill would not do enough to protect consumers from future energy costs and gives away too many permits to power and natural gas distribution companies to pollute with carbon dioxide, environmental groups said. See also: The Waxman-Markey Bill: A Good Start Or A Non-Starter? Climate Bill That Isn't Perfect Is Worth Passing, Chu Says - Bloomberg Big Coal Using Climate Change Bill To Roll Back Clean Air Act - Huffington Post |
18th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Multinationals eye up lithium reserves beneath Bolivia's salt flats - Guardian Metal deposits may be key to green car revolution but government in La Paz yet to agree deal. Stand in the middle of Salar de Uyuni, the world's greatest salt desert, and the first word that springs to mind is nothing. As far as the eye can see, nothing. Not a shrub or tree, not a hill or valley, just an endless expanse of white. This salt flat in Bolivia, the landlocked heart of South America, is a harsh and eerie landscape, perhaps the closest thing nature has to a void. From the Incas to the present day, humanity has made little impression here. But that may be about to change. |
18th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate catastrophe getting closer, warn scientists - SpaceDaily PARIS, June 18 (AFP) Jun 18, 2009 The world faces a growing risk of "abrupt and irreversible climatic shifts" as fallout from global warming hits faster than expected, according to research by international scientists released Thursday. |
18th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Sustainable Energy - without the hot air "For anyone with influence on energy policy, whether in government, business or a campaign group, this book should be compulsory reading." See also: Talk of 'kinetic energy plates' is a total waste of energy Switch to renewable energy? If only it were that simple - Financial Times |
17th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| U.S. climate report details energy, agriculture harm - Reuters WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Climate change has already caused "visible impacts" in the United States and poses particular risks to the U.S. agriculture and energy industries, a new government report said on Tuesday. See also: Statement from The Nature Conservancy on the Obama Administration's Climate Study Obama’s voice absent from release of big climate report - Grist |
17th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change will have "severe" impact on Asia: U.N. - Reuters MANILA (Reuters) - Climate change impacts such as lower crop production will have severe effects on Asia and a broader climate pact being negotiated this year is crucial to minimizing the effects, a U.N. official said on Wednesday. |
17th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| World "sleepwalking" into disasters: U.N. aid chief - Reuters GENEVA (Reuters) - The world is 'sleepwalking' toward preventable natural disasters whose effects could be cut significantly with a modest increase in spending on risk reduction, the United Nations aid chief said on Tuesday. |
16th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Slamming the Climate Skeptic Scam - DeSmogBlog ClimateCoverUp.jpg Updated: June 15, 2009 There is a line between public relations and propaganda - or there should be. And there is a difference between using your skills, in good faith, to help rescue a battered reputation and using them to twist the truth - to sow confusion and doubt on an issue that is critical to human survival. And it is infuriating - as a public relations professional - to watch my colleagues use their skills, their training and their considerable intellect to poison the international debate on climate change. That's what is happening today, and I think it's a disgrace. |
16th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| What if the techno-optimists and cornucopians are half right? Some days I wake up and wish for the world's techno-optimists and cornucopians (TOCs) to be right. The future would be so much easier for all of us. But perhaps more immediately, the present would become a less worrisome time zone. Those who anguish about peak oil, climate change, water depletion, and the panoply of resource and ecosystem disasters that are already arriving or are in the making would get a pleasant reprieve. And, the vast majority of citizens on the planet who almost never give such things a thought would simply go on as they have been.That this majority should, in my view, give more thought to such matters goes without saying. See also: Stern Remarks #2 : The Unbearable Fragility of Complexity |
15th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Rich countries 'risk wrecking climate deal' - Ekklesia Following the close of the latest UN negotiations in Bonn, Christian Aid has warned that rich countries risk wrecking vitally important international talks on a climate agreement. The aid agency says they have failed to commit to dramatic curbs in their greenhouse emissions or to recgnise the scale of funding poor countries urgently need to cope with the impacts of global warming. There are now just six months to go until the critical UN summit in Copenhagen at which a new climate deal must be agreed to come into force when the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol ends. Christian Aid says it was clear during the Bonn talks that rich countries plan to continue polluting at levels that will make dangerous climate change inevitable. See also: Big Carbon Players Jockey for Advantage - IPS |
15th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| CLIMATE CHANGE: 'We Have Run Out of Time' - IPS CLIMATE CHANGE: 'We Have Run Out of Time'IPS, ItalyScientists agree that the combustion of fossil fuels, which produces high amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, is the main cause of global warming and climate change. |
14th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| US will exempt China from binding greenhouse gas targets - Guardian Developing nations will instead be asked to improve take-up of renewable energy and boost energy efficiency standards, says Obama administration. The US will not demand that developing countries such as China take on binding targets to cut pollution under a new treaty to fight global warming, a senior official in the Obama administration confirmed today. Jonathan Pershing, head of the US delegation at UN climate talks in Bonn, said developing nations would instead be asked to take certain actions, such as to improve take-up of renewable energy and to boost energy efficiency standards. Only developed nations, including the US, would be expected to meet binding targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, he said. |
13th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| "Oil and Indians Don't Mix" and Other Observations - Culture Change There's an easy way to find oil. Go to some remote and gorgeous natural sanctuary, say Alaska or the Amazon, find some Indians, then drill down under them. If the indigenous folk complain, well, just shoo-them away. Shoo-ing methods include: bulldozers, bullets, crooked politicians and fake land sales. But be aware. Lately the Natives are shoo-ing back. Last week, indigenous Peruvians seized an oil pumping station, grabbed the nine policemen guarding it and, say reports, executed them. This followed the government's murder of more than a dozen rainforest residents who had protested the seizure of their property for oil drilling. See also: 'We are fighting for our lives' - Guardian |
13th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Greenhouse pledges way too low: UN - The Age Wealthy countries' targets to cut greenhouse emissions fall well short of what's needed to avoid climate change, according to confidential UN analysis. |
13th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| China says no to greenhouse gas cuts after talks with US - SpaceDaily BEIJING, June 11 (AFP) Jun 11, 2009 China will not accept binding cuts in its greenhouse gas emissions, an official said Thursday, after the United States said it made progress with Beijing in talks here on a global climate pact. See also: CLIMATE CHANGE: Agreement Prospects Slipping Away - IPS |
12th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Rock vs. hard place vs. immovable object - Energy Bulletin Rock, meet hard place. Hard place, meet rock. Rock, over here is known as the economy. Hard place, on the other side, can be described as our energy situation. Because while green shoots might look awfully good to a lot of people who are desperate to have the economy go back to what it was, we should remind ourselves that what it was involved awfully high energy prices. read more |
12th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 'Boom and bust' of deforestation Using the Amazon forest for ranches and plantations creates a short economic "boom" and a long "bust", researchers find. |
12th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate action must be a first resort - Guardian Will we need a climate equivalent of a world war to shake leaders out of their complacency? Next month's G8 will tellAs the first signs of "green shoots" start to appear in headlines and the housing market, a rather depressing question keeps nagging at me: "Is the current economic 'shock' big enough?" It might seem an odd question to ask when a crisis is destroying jobs, decimating trade and driving many countries to the brink of insolvency. No one, least of all Oxfam, is hoping for anything but a quick recovery.But crises do not only destroy; they can also create once-in-a-generation opportunities when the world re-examines the way we do things. |
12th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Global Significance Of The Amazon Protest - Counter Currents By Sam Urquhart The protests in Peru therefore have a global significance - both in terms of resistance against neo-colonial investment laws and in terms of environmental sustainability. The massacre at Bagua speaks to all of us |
12th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate talks on their own terms - Guardian Powerful global leaders including Obama are still refusing to take proper action to prevent a 2C+ rise in temperatures. To observe the UN climate talks play out here in Bonn is to watch the governments of the world write the biography of my generation in advance. As the assembled delegates trawl over each line in the negotiating text that may eventually become the Copenhagen treaty this December, it's as if every single cultural and economic dispute in the earth's history, each grievance legitimate or otherwise, must be resolved before progress can be made. Stepping into the conference hall, that energetic sense of purpose and urgency which the climate movement outside instils in you, saps away. |
10th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Full climate deal 'unlikely' in Copenhagen - Sydney Morning Herald The UN's top climate official on Wednesday voiced doubt about the prospects for completing a new pact on global warming in Copenhagen by its much-touted December deadline. "I don't think it is possible between now and the end of Copenhagen to finalise every last detail of a post-2012 [accord], of a long-term response to climate change," said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). "There is going to be work after Copenhagen," he told a press conference at the latest round of UN climate talks here. |
10th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Bold Strokes Needed Now to Save Climate - Scientific American The climate challenge just became a lot more challenging. We know that man-made carbon dioxide emissions are accelerating global warming. But intrepid research has revealed an additional sinister threat: methane. As Sarah Simpson reports, the warming of the Arctic is releasing vast quantities of methane that has been locked away for centuries in formerly frozen soil. Once released, methane traps 25 times more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide does. So it is more imperative than ever to slash greenhouse gases quickly, to slow the venting of methane. |
10th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon price must rise, IEA director says - National Post The price of carbon emissions must rise to US$180 a metric ton by 2030 to meet greenhouse gas reduction targets, the executive director of the International Energy Agency said. |
10th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Coal-To-Liquids, Climate Change, and Energy Security - World Resources Institute On May 2nd, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee marked up the first major energy bill of the new 110th Congress. As of May 13th the bill includes incentives for biofuels, energy efficiency, and carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). At one point the Committee considered but ultimately rejected a mandate for coal-to-liquids (CTL) fuels. |
10th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| France Finds Carousel Tax Fraud in Carbon Emissions Market - Bloomberg June 9 (Bloomberg) -- The French government found evidence of carousel fraud relating to value-added tax on trades of European Union carbon dioxide allowances, according to an official in the nation s budget ministry. |
9th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| All Washed Up for Jatropha? - Technology Review The draught-resistant "dream" biofuel is also a water hog. |
9th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Train 'can' be worse for climate than plane - Reuters Comparing the "full life-cycle" emissions of different forms of transport reveals that assumptions about which is worst are often right - but that the differences are not as great as you would think. |
8th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| A war of water - Guardian Environmental problems in Israel and the Palestinian territories can't wait for the resumption of peace talksThe water spouts from a broken pipe, forming a perfect circle before it is dispersed by the wind and falls on the breaking waves of the Mediterranean sea.It looks like a fountain, but the pipe that runs from the town of Rafah to the sea by Gaza's border with Egypt contains raw sewage. It enters the sea by the Swedish Village, so-called because it was built by Swedish UN soldiers in the 1960s. In the overcrowded village it is impossible to escape the smell of sewage.The discharge is one of at least a dozen which pollutes the sea off Gaza. |
8th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Menaces to oceans: CO2, plastic bags, overfishing - Reuters WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The world's seas are filled with too much garbage and too few fish with flimsy plastic bags and government subsidies bearing much of the blame, activists and trade officials said Monday on the first U.N. World Oceans Day. |
8th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Canada's Environment Minister: Carbon Capture Won't Solve the Tar Sands - DeSmogBlog it's official. Canadian Environment Minster Jim Prentice fessed up to what experts have been saying all along: that carbon capture and storage (CSS) is close to useless for mitigating the massive emissions from the Alberta tar sands. Canadian Prime Minister Harper is no doubt pissed that his potential leadership rival has gone off message on such an important issue of spin. In an editorial board meeting with Globe and Mail Prentice admitted: "CCS is not the silver bullet in the oil sands." Strange. That not what his boss said when he committed at least $650 million in taxpayer s dollars towards this bitumen boondoggle. |
8th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Peru clashes raise green issues - Reuters Clashes in the Amazon between indigenous protestors and Peru s army that killed some 60 people last week throw some old issues into sharp new relief: development versus the environment and local versus foreign control of natural resources. Indigenous tribes, worried they will lose control over natural resources, have protested since April seeking to force Peru s Congress to repeal new laws that encourage foreign mining and energy companies to invest billions of dollars in huge tracts of pristine rain forest. In the developing world, extractive industries have a bad record of bringing benefits to local people. Prime examples include the oil-rich Niger Delta in Nigeria and mineral-rich South Africa under apartheid. |
8th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Why Does the Much-Touted Climate Bill Look Like It Was Stolen From the Republican Playbook? The new climate bill exemplifies a Republican approach: Don't tell polluters what to do, bribe them and hope they do what you want. See also: What a bleeping joke - Energy Bulletin Clean Energy Bill Can Be Better - Huffington Post |
6th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Q&A: "I Hope We Are Civilised When Climate Disaster Hits" - IPS TORONTO, Jun 5 (Tierramérica) - "When the first great climate disaster strikes, I hope we will all pull together just as if our nation were being invaded," says British scientist James Lovelock in this exclusive Tierramérica interview. "Let's not forget that the Earth was once nearly entirely forested and those forests were a major part of a living planet's regulatory system. Based on Gaia theory at some point in the future there will be a sudden shift to a new global climate that may be 5 or 6 degrees Celsius warmer on average than today. I have no idea when that shift might happen but my guess is that we may have 20 years to prepare. " |
6th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| No neutrality: how the carbon lobby blackens media coverage - Sydney Morning Herald The resource industry's spin on global warming is pervasive. Through lobby groups - the Minerals Council, the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA) and the cleverly titled Australian Industry Greenhouse Network, which hopes to accelerate the greenhouse effect - the likes of Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton stop real action on climate change. See also: Newspapers must stop taking advertising from environmental villains |
6th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 80 Pct Of Dam Waters Evaporate Due To Global Warming - Bernama ALGIERS, June 4 (Bernama) -- The General Director of the National Agency of Climate Change (ANCC) Kamel Mostefa-Kara said that up to 80 percent of dam waters evaporates due to global warming, will inevitable cause dryness and may pose danger to food security. |
5th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate adaptation is not enough - Yale Environment 360 A leading environmentalist explains why drastically reducing carbon dioxide emissions now will be easier, cheaper, and more ethical than dealing with runaway climate destabilization later. |
4th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Coal Industry Inserts Carbon Capture Provision in Climate Bill - Yale 360 A powerful coal-state Democrat has inserted a 24-page provision into the U.S. Congress s proposed cap-and-trade bill that would create a $10 billion Carbon Storage Research Corporation, including up to $500 million in administrative expenses over the next 10 years. The Web site Solve Climate said the institute would be operated by the coal industry and would research methods of storing carbon dioxide underground; it would be funded with a 50-cent-per-month surcharge on the utility bills of all U.S. households. Critics contend that the Carbon Storage Research Corporation is a massive pork barrel project, and say it was included in the so-called Waxman-Markey bill to win the vote of U.S. |
4th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Earth 2100--the reality. Scientists and FEMA prepare for the effects of global warming - Examiner.com Scientists are staying up nights worrying about global warming. FEMA is preparing for the worst. |
4th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Forest carbon market already shows cracks - Reuters LONDON/NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters) - It could save the rainforests of Borneo, slow climate change and the international community backs it. But a plan to pay tropical countries not to chop down trees risks being discredited by opportunists even before it starts. |
4th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Everything you always wanted to know about the Waxman-Markey energy/climate bill—in bullet points - Grist You keep hearing about the Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill aka the American Clean Energy and Security Act but what s actually in it? We combed through the 946-page beast so you don t have to. |
4th June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon Offsets : Dangerous Distraction - JoAbbess If I continue to burn, and I pay you a sum of money to avoid burning the equivalent amount that I burn, that does not make an overall Cut in burning. We have to power down Energy demand whilst also improving Energy efficiency and Energy intensity. We need to power up Renewable Energies. Developed and Developing nations, all. There is no other option. |
3rd June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Deep thought - June 3 Apathy threatens humanity, ex-Clinton aide says. Ten reasons why population control can t stop climate change 'Generation Green' Environmentally Oblivious |
3rd June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Nicholas Stern’s heresy: conceding the West’s climate burden Breaking ranks with the West s climate talking points, Lord Nicholas Stern says the world s rich nations should shoulder some of the costs of cutting emissions in the rapidly developing world (i.e. China and India). |
3rd June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Best practice for biochar The concept is simple: if terra preta or charcoal-enriched soil was re-created globally, as much as 6 billion tonnes of CO2 could be prevented from entering the atmosphere annually, a substantial fraction of the 810 billion tonnes emitted each year by humans. Proponents, who include no small number of world-class climate scientists, say that burying biochar not only would slow the rate of warming, it would enhance soil fertility and the charcoal-making process could produce sustainable biofuels to boot. But despite its astounding potential, caution is warranted in implementing biochar on any sizeable scale. Though re-creating terra preta sounds simple, recent research suggests that modern-day soils may respond less well to the treatment and that the carbon may escape sooner than anticipated. On these questions alone, all of the evidence is not in. Yet we clearly don't have the luxury of time to answer them definitively. The recent exuberance over biochar is reminiscent of the earlier fervour over biofuels, as critics have been eager to highlight (Guardian 24 March 2009). But both face some of the same problems most controversially, the need for land should carbon credits command a high enough price suggesting there is scope here to learn from previous errors. What's now needed is an international code of best practice for biochar that evolves as knowledge comes in. For a start, this would clearly define acceptable land-use policy for plantations, as well as a lower limit on carbon sequestered from those claiming certification. Inclusion in a global climate deal will certainly speed the adoption of biochar, but it can also help ensure that this solution is applied responsibly. |
3rd June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 90 months and counting With the clock running in the climate change countdown, post-Enlightenment faith in technological fixes may not be enoughTen months have passed since pointing out that we have, at best, 100 left before a new, far more dangerous phase of global warming begins. The "chatter" of concern is getting louder. But at the same time, the political system in Britain has been wracked and absorbed more by its own inadequacies than by this fundamental threat to civilisation. The fall of the Roman Empire was due to a large extent, writes the historian Adrian Goldsworthy, to a system of government that became inward-looking and weakened by internal dissent. |
2nd June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Science Academies Warn Of Threat From Ocean Acidification Rising carbon dioxide emissions are causing the world s oceans to become dangerously acidic, threatening the health of coral reefs and shellfish, according to a statement from the national science academies of 69 nations. Saying that the rate at which the ocean is turning acidic is faster than at any time since the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, the academies called for cuts in greenhouse gas emissions of 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, followed by steeper cuts thereafter. The academies warned that if atmospheric concentrations of CO2 now at 387 parts-per-million and rising rapidly should hit 450 to 500 parts-per-million by mid-century, many of the world s coral reefs and shellfish may have trouble building the shells necessary to their survival. |
1st June 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Amazon rainforests pay the price as demand for beef soars - Guardian Inquiry highlights concerns over ranching in heartland of Brazil.The cattle business is expanding rapidly in the Amazon, and now poses the biggest threat to the 80% of the original forest that still stands. Where loggers have made inroads to the edge of the forest in the states of Para and Mato Grosso, farmers have followed. A report today from Greenpeace details a three-year investigation into these cattle farms and the global trade in their products, many of which end up on sale in Britain and Europe. Meat from the cattle is canned, packaged and processed into convenience foods. Hides become leather for shoes and trainers. Fat stripped from the carcasses is rendered and used to make toothpaste, face creams and soap. Gelatin squeezed from bones, intestines and ligaments thickens yoghurt and makes chewy sweets. Greenpeace says it has lifted the lid on this trade to expose the "laundering" of cattle raised on illegally deforested land. |
31st May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Hypocritical modelers - Resource Insights Oil companies like to use models to estimate their reserves and the potential of unexplored fields. Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's largest oil company and a longtime supporter of the global warming denial lobby, tells us the following on page 8 of its 2007 annual report: "Using proprietary technologies and tools, including advanced reservoir prediction models and geological data visualization, we have significantly improved our ability to identify, model, and understand oil and gas reservoirs."Exxon and its fossil fuel partners in the denial lobby seem to like models well enough when they use them for their own purposes; but through their hired mouthpieces they decry the use of models for climate change forecasting. |
31st May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 'Obama could have been a hero' - Guardian The new executive director of Greenpeace USA talks to Bibi van der Zee about his new role and why he sees little sign of change coming from the White House. "What we haven't seen from Obama is a real leadership role in telling the US congress that he wants real action on global warming. He's essentially sat on the sidelines and hidden behind Congress while coal companies and the politicians that they fund have worked to weaken clean energy and global warming standards in the US." On the issue of climate change, Radford feels that Obama has "not shown integrity. He's always had a moderate stance, but I think he has disappointed people who thought that he was a man of integrity who would do what's right even if it's hard. It's as if we're standing in New Orleans and the president is about to build a 50ft levee to hold off 100ft of floodwater." He says, in fairness: "There are good things happening. The energy information administration have begun to rapidly accelerate green energy delivery. But will President Obama take on oil, coal, and the special interests in congress and say 'No, we need it all to be clean, we're putting an end to dirty energy?'" |
30th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 'We know what to do: why don't we do it?' - U.TV In London this week for Prince Charles' climate change meeting with 20 Nobel laureates, Maathai, now nearly 70, cut a lone, if flamboyant, figure: she was the only woman, and with Wole Soyinka, one of only two Africans. Yet, she pointed out, it is women and Africans who must bear the brunt of climate change and pay for the west's profligacy. (About which, she had some interesting points to make. "You must understand that what is happening in the west with the credit crunch has been happening for decades in Africa," she told her audience. "The banks are not regulated. We cannot access money, and only a few people can buy houses. Europe is catching up with Africa. When we were campaigning against African debt we were told that it could not possibly be paid off. Many countries collapsed." As for western democracy, and Britain's parliamentary crisis, "the elites have become predators, self-serving and only turning to people when they need them. We can never all be equal, but we can ensure we do not allow excessive poverty or wealth. Inequality breeds insecurity.") And while the scientists, academics and politicians talked of technological shifts and the need to bring the best brains in the world to bear on the problem, the former professor of biology at University of Nairobi said bluntly that the answers were known. "We all know what to do. Why don't we do it? The question is, how are we to ensure something is done?" The reality, Maathai says, is that of the nine billion people expected to be on the planet in 2050, eight billion will be in what are now developing countries. "Climate change is life or death. We could be accused of being alarmist, but if we have faith in science then something very serious is happening. Climate change and global warming is the new global battlefield. It is being presented is as if it is the problem of the developed world. But it's the developed world that has precipitated global warming. There will be a much greater negative impact on Africa because of its geography. But instead of adapting we are scraping the land, removing the vegetation and losing the soil. We are doing things to make it worse. "Besides, it's in the interests of the rich to help Africa adapt to climate change and preserve its forests. By allowing them to be destroyed a lot of the efforts made in the rich world will be negated and undermined." See also: Climate change huge challenge for Africa: minister |
30th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change could kill 500,000 a year by 2030 Kofi Annan has thrown his weight behind a report which reveals that 90 per cent of climate-related deaths are in the developing world and the numbers are set to climb |
30th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| INTERVIEW-Forest-CO2 scheme will draw organised crime: Interpol - AlertNet NUSA DUA, Indonesia, May 29 (Reuters) - Organised crime syndicates are eyeing the nascent forest carbon credit industry as a potentially lucrative new opportunity for fraud, an Interpol environmental crime official said on Friday. Peter Younger, an environmental crimes specialist at the world's largest international police agency, was referring to a U.N.-backed scheme called reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation. REDD aims to unlock potentially billions of dollars for developing countries that conserve and restore their forests. In return, they would earn carbon credits that can be sold for profit to developed nations that need to meet greenhouse gas emission reduction targets. "If you are going to trade any commodity on the open market, you are creating a profit and loss situation. There will be fraudulent trading of carbon credits," he told Reuters in an interview at a forestry conference in Nusa Dua on the Indonesian island of Bali. "In future, if you are running a factory and you desperately need credits to offset your emissions, there will be someone who can make that happen for you. Absolutely, organised crime will be involved." |
30th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| CLIMATE CHANGE: More Subsidies for Fossil Fuels in Recovery Plans UXBRIDGE, Canada, May 29 (IPS) - Despite the economic slow down, growing numbers of world leaders are calling for urgent action on climate change while many governments used their economic stimulus packages to increase subsidies to the fossil fuel industry. |
30th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon trading and cash values on forests cannot curb carbon emissions - Guardian Climate change solutions cannot be created by unfettered markets, despite what business leaders thinkWhen Sir Crispin Tickell had the temerity to suggest that "the business community needs to re-examine the fundamentals of economics" at the recent World Business Summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen, his discordant tone was drowned out by a chorus of more than 800 delegates singing the praises of unfettered markets as a means to tackle climate change.The commitment to carry on with business as usual took an almost surreal form at times. Indra Nooyi, the chief executive officer of PepsiCo, proudly proclaimed: "The fact that I flew here for 1 1/2 hours to sit on a panel them I'm flying straight back to the US is an example of our commitment to environmental sustainability."More worryingly, plans for low-carbon technology give the expansion of high-carbon coal power pride of place. See also: Forests and the Planet - New York Times All the carbon counts - PhysOrg |
29th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon emissions must start falling in 2015 to keep warming to 2C ... - The Australian WORLD carbon emissions must start to decline in only six years if humanity is to stand a chance of preventing dangerous global warming, a group of 20 Nobel prize-winning scientists, economists and writers has declared. The United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen in December must agree to halve greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050 to stop temperatures from increasing by more than 2C, the St James's Palace Nobel Laureate Symposium concluded. While even a 2C temperature rise will have adverse consequences, a bigger increase would create "unmanageable climate risks", according to the St James's Palace memorandum, signed by 20 Nobel laureates in physics, chemistry, economics, peace and literature. |
29th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 300.org Urges Reduction Of Atmospheric CO2 To 300 ppm - Countercurrents By Dr Gideon Polya Australia-based 300.org was launched in May 2009 and will hopefully expand throughout the World. 300.org exists to inform people about the Climate Emergency and the need to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2 ) concentration to a safe and sustainable level of about 300 ppm |
29th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Counting the real progress on climate action - Grist Progress on climate policy domestically will increase U.S. leverage in these talks, but President Barack Obama should look for additional ways to improve the American negotiating position than what we currently have on the table. |
29th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Cato Institute and Patrick Michaels - It's a Small World After All article-31904-3235.jpg It's not often the public gets to follow the money trail, so it was a treat this week when PR Watch revealed the Cato Institute has been bankrolling a consulting company owned by notorious climate denier Patrick Michaels to the tune of $242,900 since April 2006. Michaels is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and according to tax documents uncovered by PR Watch for 2006 and 2007, Cato ponyed up almost a quarter million to Michaels' firm New Hope Environmental Services for "environmental policy" services. Small world eh? <!--break--> Both Cato and Michaels have a long and reprehensible history of questioning the link between carbon emissions and climate change. |
28th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global boiling - San Diego CityBEAT “It’s the terms we’re using that are holding us back with the American people,” says Robert Perkowitz of EcoAmerica. If true, that means Americans are not delving into the problem any further than the name of the problem. It means they hear “global warming” and think, OK, that’s fine. I’m tired of these miserable New York winters anyway. Indeed, the phrase “global warming” doesn’t sound all that bad. It sounds like the globe was attending a patio party and started getting a little chilly, so somebody turned on the propane heaters to warm her up a bit. That’s why EcoAmerica says we should change the term to something more alarming, more doom-inducing. I’m typically opposed to such word manipulation, but now, I wonder. |
28th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Permafrost melt poses long-term threat, says study - France24 Melting permafrost could eventually disgorge a billion tonnes a year of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, ccelerating the threat from climate change, scientists said Wednesday. "At first, with the plants offsetting the carbon dioxide, it will appear that everything is fine, but this actually conceals the initial destabilisation of permafrost carbon," Schuur said in a press release. "But it doesn't last, because there is so much carbon in the permafrost that eventually the plants can't keep up." Most of the 13 million square kilometres (five million square miles) of permafrost remain frozen, but thawing is already under way around the region's southern fringes and is thought likely to expand this century. In that scenario, the permafrost could release around a billion tonnes a year of carbon, roughly equivalent to the contribution to greenhouse emissions each year by deforestation in the tropics, the paper said. Even as the Arctic greens, the rising loss of older carbon "could make permafrost a large biospheric carbon source in a warmer world," it said. |
28th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| U.N.'s Ban says climate change pace "alarming" HELSINKI (Reuters) - The impact of climate change is accelerating at an "alarming" pace and urgent action must be taken, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Wednesday. |
28th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global carbon market doubled in 2008, cut less CO2 BARCELONA (Reuters) - The global market for carbon emissions trading doubled in value last year, but actual realised emissions cuts fell as the global economic slowdown dented clean energy financing, the World Bank said on Wednesday. |
28th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Architect of Contraction & Convergence advises - Jo Abbess Many Climate Change campaigners are framing Climate Change in the language of those poor people in the Global South, how terrible for them. The facts are that Climate Change is hitting the poorest first, and hardest. And we need to take an ethical position on that. But this patronising language of International Development is so clearly an emotional tactic. Some Economists even adopt this language, even that trusted adviser to the UK Government, Nicholas Stern. Some of these apparently caring, benevolent Economists are however hiding an agenda - opening up new markets in Africa to industries in the OECD. Let's be clear. I'm not insinuating that Nicholas Stern is a fake philanthropist. What I'm trying to point out is that emotional arguments about ethics and values are not going to get an international agreement on Climate Safety. Aubrey Meyer makes the point that, if we do the numbers properly, that the only rational approach to Climate Change and Peak Oil is to create a framework of equitable use of the remaining Carbon Energy. |
27th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Leading article: Big business and moral responsibility - Independent Today's court hearing in New York against Shell for complicity in the execution of the Nigerian writer Ken Saro-Wiwa and his fellow Ogoni activists in 1995 is about much more than a single company and one terrible act of violent suppression. Ultimately, it is about the moral responsibilities of multinational companies operating in the developing world. See also: The Video Shell Oil Desperately Doesn't Want You to See Climate change summit hijacked by biggest polluters, critics say |
27th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
 Playing Roulette with Global Warming - MIT The most comprehensive modeling yet carried out on the likelihood of how much hotter the Earth's climate will get in this century shows that without rapid and massive action, the problem will be about twice as severe as previously estimated six years ago - and could be even worse than that. The study uses the MIT Integrated Global Systems Model, a detailed computer simulation of global economic activity and climate processes that has been developed and refined by the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change since the early 1990s. The new research involved 400 runs of the model with each run using slight variations in input parameters, selected so that each run has about an equal probability of being correct based on present observations and knowledge. Other research groups have estimated the probabilities of various outcomes, based on variations in the physical response of the climate system itself. But the MIT model is the only one that interactively includes detailed treatment of possible changes in human activities as well - such as the degree of economic growth, with its associated energy use, in different countries. |
27th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Why the Right to Emit Carbon Dioxide Is Given Away in U.S. Climate Change Bill - Scientific American In order to win the support of legislators from heavy emitting states, allowances under the new American Clean Energy and Security Act had to be given away free |
27th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Mainstream environmentalists enthusiasm for Waxman-Markey ensures it will get worse - Grist Mainstream environmentalists who take the position that the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill “could be worse” help ensure that it will be. |
25th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| US Climate Negotiator: US Won't Speed Up Emissions Cuts - Nasdaq PARIS (AFP)--Domestic politics will not allow the United States to deepen it commitment for cutting carbon pollution over the next decade, despite growing international pressure, Washington's top climate negotiator said Sunday. |
25th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Ban says US climate bill plan "not enough" - Reuters India COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - A draft U.S. climate bill did not go far enough to cut greenhouse gases, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told Reuters on Sunday, three days after the plan won a key Congressional panel vote. Ban applauded President Barack Obama's engagement on global warming but said that other countries were doing more, and added that a new global climate pact meant to be agreed in December could not wait for the United States to pass its domestic rules. "That's what I have been doing and will continue to do," Ban said when asked if he was urging the United States to do more. |
25th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| It's climate models or seaweed - Guardian Unlimited MIT scientists forecast a global temperature rise of 5.2C by 2100 - but climate change deniers reject models devised by the world's finest minds. So what do they suggest instead… seaweed? |
25th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Testing the Resolve of Obama on Energy - New York Times COPENHAGEN — The pursuit of independence from imported oil has thwarted every president since Richard M. Nixon. But making that push while also seeking steep reductions in emissions of the heat-trapping gases that cause global warming significantly compounds the degree of difficulty. In the six months before world leaders gather in this city to seek a deal on climate change, President Obama will face a true test of presidential grit as he tries to deliver on his call for transformational policies on energy and the environment. |
25th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| We must fight CO2 fast - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review All around the world, national governments are trying to finalize their global warming policies, preparing for the United Nations' climate-change conclave in Copenhagen, Denmark, at the end of 2009. And in too many places, the effort seems to be going nowhere. Here, for instance, the government decided to postpone any real action for another year, citing the recession. It weakened major elements of its "emissions trading scheme," bowing to pressure from the coal industry, the country's biggest exporter. In Washington, the Obama administration is valiantly helping to push a bill through Congress that would finally set a cap on U.S. carbon emissions. But it could be watered down with lots of loopholes and compromises. The trouble is, physics and chemistry aren't adjusting their schedule to fit our political and economic convenience. Each week brings new accounts of crashing ice sheets and spreading droughts. But as politics gets slower, global warming speeds up. The problem isn't feckless officials. And the problem isn't that environmental groups aren't working hard enough. The problem is pretty simple: The environmental movement isn't big enough. It's nowhere near big enough to take on the fossil fuel industry, the biggest player in our global economy. It's like sending the Food and Drug Administration to fight the war in Afghanistan. |
24th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| US Climate Legislation Climate change legislation, beyond party and faction - Grist A green Republican reflects on the state of his party when it comes to passing climate and energy legislation this year. U.S. Climate Plan Threatens EU Goal for Global Accord - Bloomberg May 22 (Bloomberg) -- The European Union may have to scale back its goals to reduce global-warming emissions after a less- ambitious plan won initial approval in U.S. Congress. Gore vs. Hansen: - Enviros take sides in debate over House climate bill |
23rd May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| New Labour architect attacks government for failing to convince public on climate change urgency - Guardian One of the most important thinkers behind New Labour has attacked the government for failing to convince people that radical action on climate change is needed. Lord Anthony Giddens, the former director of the London School of Economics and a key architect of the New Labour project, said that global warming was such vital issue that a political "revolution" is needed to get to grips with it. He acknowledged that New Labour had been slow to develop serious climate change policies and he criticised the government's current policies on the expansion of Heathrow airport and new coal-fired power stations. |
23rd May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Arctic methane rise spurs worry on permafrost thaw - AlertNet OSLO, May 22 (Reuters) - A rise in concentrations of a powerful greenhouse gas over the Arctic after a decade of stability is stirring worries about a possible thaw of vast stores trapped in permafrost, experts said. Levels of methane in the atmosphere rose 0.6 percent in 2008, according to preliminary data from the Zeppelin station on a remote island in the Norwegian Arctic, after a similar 0.6 percent gain in 2007, Norwegian officials said. The 2007 rise outpaced a global rise in methane of 0.34 percent to a new record high after levels had been stable for about a decade. World data for 2008 are not yet available. "The biggest worry is that there are emissions from the permafrost, and also from wetlands in the northern region," said Catherine Lund Myhre, senior scientist at the Norwegian Institute for Air Research. |
23rd May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| US CO2 goals 'to be compromised' - BBC Energy Secretary Steven Chu says the US will not be able to cut emissions as much as needed due to domestic opposition. |
21st May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Ignore the spin: Coal gasification is a stupid idea - New Scientist Lured by the prospect of "clean coal"? Take note of a US National Academy of Sciences report, says Phil McKenna |
21st May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Will mail to Congress influence the outcome of Waxman-Markey? - New York Times While polls continue to show that most people's interest in the climate change issue is fairly tepid, Rep. Charlie Melancon (D-La.) is getting some really hot mail from his constituents. Melancon is one of several moderates who have yet to announce their positions on major climate legislation headed to a vote in the House Energy and Commerce Committee. A review of mail sent to several committee members highlights the pressures they face |
21st May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Amazon land giveaway outrages conservationists - Reuters BRASILIA (Reuters) - A law expected to be approved by Brazil's Congress granting 1.2 million people and numerous companies titles to a huge chunk of the Amazon rain forest could provoke a new wave of land-grabbing and deforestation, conservationists warn. |
21st May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Price of doing nothing costs the earth MIT scientists forecast a global temperature rise of 5.2C by 2100 - but climate change deniers reject models devised by the world's finest minds. So what do they suggest instead… seaweed?What happens if we do nothing? If, in other words, we do as Vaclav Klaus and many other suggest, and let climate change take its course? Six years ago the climate modellers at MIT suggested that the median probability was a global temperature rise of 2.4C by 2100. Since then they've refined the model. Now the median estimate is 5.2C by 2100. This is another way of saying the end of life as we know it. See also: Global warming could be twice as bad as forecast - Reuters |
20th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| POLITICS-US: Lobbyist Ranks Swell with Advent of Climate Bill WASHINGTON, May 20 (IPS) - Nearly 140 new businesses and interest groups have joined in the intense lobbying in Washington on climate change, according to the Centre for Public Integrity (CPI). See also: Climate change lobbying dominated by ten firms - Grist Magazine |
20th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| CLIMATE CHANGE: 200 Days to Copenhagen UNITED NATIONS, May 20 (IPS) - With exactly 200 days to go before December's crucial climate talks in Copenhagen, progress is steadily, though slowly, being made. Some issues, however - namely financing and the relative roles of industrial and developing countries - are likely to remain on the table until the end of the year. See also: Crucial climate negotiation texts go public UN hopeful about climate change KYOTO2 proposals sent to key people |
20th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Science alone will not save us - Guardian Unlimited Changing behaviour will be as vital as new technologies in tackling climate change. So where is the funding for linguists, anthropologists and sociologists? Tariq Tahir reports |
20th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Politics-as-usual strains sustainable future 22 years after the Brundtland Commission analysed the reasons why society ought to develop in such a way as "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs", we are a very long way from that ideal (see the UN's Geo-4 report for details), and many of the important players appear blissfully ignorant of the reasoning |
19th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| CO2 absorption of Europe's forests in jeopardy - Radio Netherlands The economic crisis is disturbing the delicate balance between forestry, felling and planting. If the wood-industry sector disappears, the capacity of the forests to absorb CO2 will be dramatically diminished. |
19th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Armed Forces Community Takes Up Global Warming Cause: It's an Ugrent Matter of National Security Delaying the transition to a sustainable energy economy or to launching an aggressive response to global climate change is a national security threat. |
19th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Chu Calls U.S. House Climate Legislation a 'Good Compromise' - Bloomberg May 18 (Bloomberg) -- Energy Secretary Steven Chu said that legislation being debated in the House Energy and Commerce Committee to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases is a “good compromise.” See also: Good News, There's a Climate Bill -- Bad News, It Stinks |
19th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The freedom lobby - Energy Bulletin If you want the freedom to be thirsty or to be hungry or to be hopelessly flooded out of your home near the ocean, you can join the freedom lobby and enjoy a few more years or perhaps even a decade or two of huffing and puffing at the imaginary enemies of freedom before the real basis of your freedom, an intact and functioning nation and community, starts to degrade inexorably. |
18th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Age of Entitlement lies rotting. Its polluted patrons can lead us no more - Guardian Bankers and MPs are just the most egregious cases of widespread avarice. A new, green life requires a radical break with the pastIn the MPs' expenses controversy there is plenty to entertain and horrify, but the question that nags away unanswered is a very simple one: how did they feel entitled to make all these claims on the public purse? For a group of politicians who have been meticulously exacting in their calculations of benefit levels or pensions, how on earth did they feel they could extend such largesse to themselves?Entitlement is the word that persists through the parallel story of the role in the financial crisis of the bonuses bankers awarded themselves. |
18th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Betting billions on a carbon show pony - The Age Government funding for CCS technology may lead to disastrous consequences. See also: The Weyburn Warning : Carbon Capture and Enhanced Oil Recovery |
18th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Empire of Carbon - New York Times China cannot continue producing greenhouse emissions at an escalating rate because the planet can?t handle the strain. |
17th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Last lull before the storm? - The National Last lull before the storm?The National, United Arab EmiratesNew research suggests that there may not be much more time for mankind to take effective action against global warming. Christopher Furlong / Getty Images Climate change is the most controversial scientific issue of our time – and small wonder, ... |
17th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The End of Socialism - Jo Abbess The rollout of Coal, Petroleum Oil and Natural Gas into the 27 Member States' economies has supported social development unparalleled in history. Whatever social programme you have in mind, the engineers have provided the power for it, with manufactured goods, industrialised machining and electricity on tap. But all that is about to change. And it won't just mean extensive Fuel Poverty, with aid programmes to match. Action to combat Climate Change threatens to undermine Social Democracy in its entirety if the wrong decisions are made. |
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| ENVIRONMENT: Deep CO2 Cuts May Be Last Hope for Acid Oceans UXBRIDGE, Canada, May 15 (IPS) - Ocean acidification offers the clearest evidence of dangers of climate change. And yet the indisputable fact that burning fossil fuels is slowly turning the oceans into an acid bath has been largely ignored by industrialised countries and their climate treaty negotiators, concluded delegates from 76 countries at the World Oceans Conference in Manado, Indonesia. |
17th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Draft U.N. climate texts mark step towards treaty - Reuters.co.uk OSLO (Reuters) - The United Nations took a step toward a new climate treaty on Friday by publishing the first draft negotiating texts outlining widely varying options for rich nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions. |
17th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Environmentalists Attack House Global Warming Compromise - Time Magazine Hopes that a Democratic-controlled legislature would produce strong curbs on greenhouse gases encounter are dashed by industrial and regional interests See also: From a Theory to a Consensus on Emissions - New York Times |
17th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| West Antarctic ice threat revised; still dire - Reuters OSLO (Reuters) - A meltdown of West Antarctica's ice sheet would raise sea levels by half as much as previously expected, but the impact would still be catastrophic, especially for U.S. coastal cities, a study showed. |
15th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Cold water ocean circulation doesn't work as expected - EurekAlert! ( Duke University ) The familiar model of Atlantic ocean currents that shows a discrete "conveyor belt" of deep, cold water flowing southward from the Labrador Sea is probably all wet. |
14th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Fallout from climate change 'in our own lifetimes' - Scotsman CLIMATE change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century, experts have warned. A major report lists direct and indirect effects of global warming that could have a major impact on human health. They include changing patterns of infection and insect-borne disease, heat waves, water shortages, malnutrition, extreme weather events such as hurricanes, and inadequate living conditions. The health effects will be felt most severely in poorer countries that have contributed least to carbon emissions, say the University College London authors. |
14th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Bill Clinton in call on climate bill - Financial Times The US Congress must pass a "strong" climate change bill before the global warming summit in Copenhagen this December if it is to have a chance of persuading China and India to sign up to a new treaty, says Bill Clinton. "First of all if we don't adopt a workable but a strong [cap and trade] bill then we can't get them to sign up because we won't have any credibility," Mr Clinton told the Financial Times in an interview yesterday. |
14th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Dirty energy interests have spent $79 million this year lobbying Congress - Grist The oil, gas, and electricity sectors spent tens of millions more to lobby Congress in the first quarter of 2009 than their renewable-energy counterparts. Big whoop, right? Well, yes. |
13th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| UK car emissions exceed forecasts - Financial Times New roads built in the UK since 2002 have led to double the increase in carbon emissions originally forecast by the government. The data, which have not been publicised, could raise questions about official assumptions on road traffic emissions resulting from Heathrow's expansion. |
13th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Palm oil buyers face green scorecard: WWF - Reuters SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Major palm oil buyers face being graded for their green credentials after figures showing they have bought only a fraction of the sustainable palm oil available, environmental group WWF said on Tuesday. See also: Oil’s plans for leadership in palm diesel will drive rainforest destruction and climate change - Teatro Naturale |
13th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Letter from Sweden: The State of the End of the World - WorldChanging The topic was climate, ecosystems, and development, and the many ways in which their fates are inseparable. And, potentially, quite bleak. “There is no good news from science right now,” said Johan Rockström. A recent meeting of 2,400 scientists in Copenhagen had concluded that the worst scenarios of the IPCC Fourth Assessment report were being realized. The “Quadruple Squeeze” of human growth, climate change, ecosystem degradation and ever-more-likely “surprises” was making the photo of planet Earth on his presentation slide look wobbly indeed. He named four dilemmas, each with a numerical signature:
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12th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| This epochal crisis requires us to resolve the paradox of capitalism - Guardian Unlimited What do we want to see emerge from the greatest crisis of capitalism for 70 years? If I had to answer in a single phrase, I would say: new models for a sustainable social market economy. This requires us to change as well as our states. |
9th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Police force paid informants £750,000 - Guardian A police force whose undercover officers were secretly recorded attempting to recruit a spy from an environmental protest group today admitted spending more than £750,000 of public money on informants over four years. Strathclyde police officers were last month recorded offering cash payments in return for information from Tilly Gifford, a 24-year-old activist with Plane Stupid, a group opposed to airport expansion. During almost three hours of audio tapes handed to the Guardian, the officers disclosed they were running a network of hundreds of informants inside protest organisations who secretly fed them intelligence in return for cash. They told Gifford she could receive tens of thousands of pounds to pay off her student loans in return for information about individuals within Plane Stupid, but that the money could not be paid into her bank account because it would leave an audit trail. One officer told her: "UK plc can afford more than 20 quid." |
9th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The media's decision to play the stenographer helped opponents of climate action stifle progress - Huffington Post One of the country's leading journalists has written a searing critique of the media's coverage of global warming, especially climate economics. |
9th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Ahead of the McKinsey Curve - Jo Abbess why are we even contemplating new Nuclear and CCS before we've worked out how to offer universal domestic insulation and electric public transportation ? |
9th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Corporate welfare for car companies must stop now - Guardian No 'green new deal', Peter Mandelson's bailout plan for the auto industry is just a retread of old-fashioned nationalisationThe government refuses to renationalise the railways, but it appears to be nationalising the motor industry. It has already laid out £2.3bn in loans and guarantees, a further £300m for its cash-for-clunkers scheme, and £27m to help Land Rover build a new model. The £2.3bn, Peter Mandelson says, is "effectively the same as underwriting the entire vehicle sector's research and development and capital expenditure for a year". Now Mandelson intends, more or less, to run Jaguar Land Rover. |
9th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Interior will keep Bush's polar bear rule - New York Times Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced today that he will retain the Bush administration's controversial rule on polar bear protections, rejecting special authority given to him by Congress and the pleas of Democratic lawmakers, environmentalists and scientists to overturn the regulation. |
9th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| U.S. climate bill unlikely to pass this year: experts - Reuters NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. climate change legislation is unlikely to pass this year due to concerns about the recession and contention over the implementation of the program, according to energy and carbon market experts. |
9th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Copenhagen 'the world's last chance' - Dimas - Environmental Data Interactive Exchange European Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas has warned of the urgency of tackling climate change, saying that global leaders have one more chance to keep us out of the danger zone when they meet to thrash out a new international climate agreement in Copenhagen later this year. |
9th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| An outsider's view of Earth - Sacramento News & Review Humanity is clearly at the most important turning point in its history. If this generation is able to create a renewable-energy economy, future humans will properly revere it and those now alive will live on in the grateful memories of their descendants. If it cannot do so, its millions of years of evolution and the struggle of countless human generations for a better life will have ended in disaster. This generation will be cursed by its successors and, eventually, not be remembered at all. Our mission, therefore, could not be more urgent. We may fail to save the human species. But at least we will not have failed to try. This is for us the noblest and highest duty we can undertake—as it is for human beings themselves. |
8th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The tragedy of climate commons Imagine a group of 100 fisherman faced with declining stocks and worried about the sustainability of their resource and their livelihoods. One of them works out that the total sustainable catch is about 20% of what everyone is catching now (with some uncertainty of course) but that if current trends of increasing catches (about 2% a year) continue the resource would be depleted in short order. Faced with that prospect, the fishermen gather to decide what to do. The problem is made more complicated because some groups of fishermen are much more efficient than the others. The top 5 catchers, catch 20% of the fish, and the top 20 catch almost 75% of the fish. |
8th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| UN 'stunned' by scale of bail-out If extra money is not found to tackle climate change, bail-outs could be a "waste of money", UN head of environment warns. The UN's head of environment has been left "stunned" by the billions of dollars pumped into ailing companies following the global financial crisis. Achim Steiner told the BBC One Planet programme that he had fought for years to secure much smaller sums to tackle poverty and climate change. "We waited perhaps a decade to get $5bn ($3.3bn) to accelerate development of renewable energy," he said. We now see $20bn (£13.3bn) paid [to] a car company simply to keep it alive." He said he was surprised that such huge amounts had "suddenly been found" to tackle the crisis. |
7th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| How much fossil fuel can we burn? Governments need to cap the amount of coal, gas and oil we extract if they are serious about fighting global warmingTwo papers on carbon emissions published in the scientific journal Nature last week were ground-breaking: they show us how much carbon dioxide we can produce if we're to have a reasonable chance of preventing two degrees of global warming. It's a completely different approach from the UN's and national governments'. They set targets for reductions by a certain date but have nothing to say about the total amount of carbon we can release. One of the papers, by Myles Allen and others, suggests that we can burn, at most, another 400-500 billion tonnes of carbon at any time between now and the extinction of humanity if we want to avoid 2C of warming. |
7th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Cosmic Log: Is nature one mean mother? - MSNBC Science editor Alan Boyle's Weblog: The "Gaia hypothesis" says bad things happen to us because we mistreat Mother Nature, but the "Medea hypothesis" blames Mom instead. |
7th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The looming ecological credit crunch - Economy News A new report, launched by Lloyd’s and the International Institute of Strategic Studies last week, advised businesses to assess their vulnerability to the increasing scarcity of resources such as fresh water, food and energy triggered by global warming. “Businesses that focus solely on the economic climate rather than the global climate in which we all live and work are in for a big shock,” says Julia Graham, chair of the UK risk management association AIRMIC. “Businesses should be planning for the future and what’s really worrying me is that people are so preoccupied by the current economic environment that many of these other longer term risks are being overlooked,” adds Graham. |
7th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Putting a Price on Carbon: An Emissions Cap or A Tax? The days of freely dumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere are coming to an end, but how best to price carbon emissions remains in dispute. As the U.S. Congress debates the issue, Yale Environment 360 asked eight experts to discuss the merits of a cap-and-trade system versus a carbon tax. |
7th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Joseph Romm: Nobelist Krugman attacks "junk economics" - HuffingtonPost N It's important to understand that just as denials that climate change is happening are junk science, predictions of economic disaster if we try to do anything about climate change are junk economics. |
6th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Time to grasp the reality of climate threat - Guardian The scientific case has been made but politicians and the public are arguing over the facts of global warmingThe good news about the recession is that reduced fossil fuel demand should reduce greenhouse gas emissions, although by how much is not yet observed; the bad news is that the price of carbon allowances in the carbon markets has also been reduced as a result of falling demand. This makes investing in low-carbon technologies harder since they usually start off with higher marginal costs. That then rebounds on the ambitious talk of a "green industrial strategy" to get us out of the recession. |
6th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Sufficient certainty - Nature Certainty is not a prerequisite for action. Dangerous climate change is going to be hard to avoid, and strong action taken in Copenhagen can only bring us closer to achieving that common goal. |
6th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Money Can't Buy You Climate Here's a simple thought experiment. If you can see a flaw in it, you're welcome to contradict me. Money is a system of debt, in other words, obligations. Someone is owed money on the basis of their obligation to work. Another person is given money on the basis of their bringing to market raw commodities. Yet another is required to make interest payments on a loan taken out to support an enterprise. Everything has come to have its price : from the use of land owned by someone else, to the trading of fuel to transport and process raw commodities, to the cost of a manufactured product. |
4th May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Wealthy nations must lead on climate change: Economist - Toronto Star The citizens and leaders of rich countries who aren't willing to ditch their SUVs and embrace other facets of a low-carbon lifestyle will sabotage attempts at reaching a global deal for tackling climate change, prominent British economist Lord Nicholas Stern is warning. "This has to be the biggest international collaboration in history if we are to tackle this challenge," Stern told an audience of Toronto's business elite during a speech today at the Economic Club of Canada. |
2nd May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Investigating inactivism - "informedness begets apathy" - not - TPMCafé In which we stumble into spookworld, and re-encounter the American Petroleum Institute spokesman-author of the infamous 1998 "Global Science Communications Action Plan" memo. Remember this from last spring? Global Warming Paradox?or perhaps you saw the finding reported in USA Today, on Instapundit, or at CJR Observatory. It was a near-flawless piece of climate disinformation, but behind the scenes turn out to lie the product defense industry, the author of the infamous 1998 American Petroleum Institute climate-disinformation memo, and some mighty odd connections and players - including, it appears, some from the CIA. |
1st May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| NASA study says climate adds fuel to Asian wildfire emissions - EurekAlert! ( NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center ) In the last decade, Asian farmers have cleared tens of thousands of square miles of forests to accommodate the world's growing demand for palm oil, an increasingly popular food ingredient. Ancient peatlands have been drained and lush tropical forests have been cut down. As a result, the landscape of equatorial Asia now lies vulnerable to fires, which are growing more frequent and having a serious impact on the air as well as the land. A team of NASA-sponsored researchers have used satellites to make the first series of estimates of carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted from these fires -- both wildfires and fires started by people -- in Malaysia, Indonesia, Borneo, and Papua New Guinea. They are now working to understand how climate influences the spread and intensity of the fires. Using data from a carbon-detecting NASA satellite and computer models, the researchers found that seasonal fires from 2000 to 2006 doubled the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) released from the Earth to the atmosphere above the region. The scientists also observed through satellite remote sensing that fires in regional peatlands and forests burned longer and emitted ten times more carbon when rainfall declined by one third the normal amount. The results were presented in December 2008 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. |
1st May 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate crunch: A burden beyond bearing - Nature The climate situation may be even worse than you think. In the first of three features, Richard Monastersky looks at evidence that keeping carbon dioxide beneath dangerous levels is tougher than previously thought. See also: Hit the brakes hard Catastrophic Climate Future: Are We That Stupid? |
30th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon Credits Miss the Point - Fast Company Magazine It may not be a popular thing to say, but all the feel-good talk about carbon emission policies may be obscuring a bigger and more important problem: Our society's long-entrenched habit of rampant over- consumption. When we focus on carbon-emissions, are we postponing a change in consumer behavior that could be more beneficial over a long time? In a world were consumption becomes more calculated, the value of design is critical. Not only must the function of any new object should be validated, its cultural, economic and social impact must be accounted for, whether it has a heavy or shallow carbon footprint. This is the age of consequences and it's about time we broaden the scope of our thought about consumption way beyond carbon. |
30th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Anger at plans for nuclear power station to replace wind farm - Guardian • Threatened site is one of the most efficient • Proposed atomic plant backed by governmentOne of the oldest and most efficient wind farms in Britain is to be dismantled and replaced by a nuclear power station under plans drawn up by the German-owned power group RWE.The site at Kirksanton in Cumbria - home to the Haverigg turbines - has just been approved by the government for potential atomic newbuild in a move that has infuriated the wind power industry.Colin Palmer, founder of the Windcluster company, which owns part of the Haverigg wind farm, said he was horrified that such a plan could be considered at a time when Britain risks missing its green energy targets and after reassurance from ministers that nuclear and renewables were not incompatible. |
29th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Creating a Carbon Price Differential Creating a genuine and effective Carbon price differential will be awkward, perhaps impossible. Carbon Taxes will stop working after a few years, and Carbon Caps are already strongly resisted. As for Carbon Trading, the incentive to cheat, the “leakage”, will mean that most exchanges will be measured in “hot air” - virtual Carbon emissions. As the world toys with the idea of giving Carbon a price, and has international gatherings of top leaders, the atmosphere carries on burning. These days, it's quite hard to distinguish between the so-call “developed” nations, and some of the so-called “developing” nations, in terms of the race to emit Greenhouse Gases. |
29th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Final Heresy - OneWorld.net Saying that we need an economy that fits the shoe size of the planet would seem to be stating the obvious. It’s something so obvious that it shouldn’t really need pointing out. It’s not as if, should the economy outgrow the planet, we can buy a new one, like buying a new pair of shoes. Yet to question the viability of infinite economic growth in the mainstream of debate remains the final heresy. Struggling to emerge from recession, the Business Secretary, Peter Mandelson talks optimistically of the global economy doubling in size. Policy experts lobbying staff at the Department for International Development are told in advance of a consultation process to not even consider questioning growth, because if they do, their comments will be automatically disregarded and ignored. So much, then, for a culture of openness, curiosity and intellectual enquiry. Stranger still, is that criticisms of growth have a long and honourable tradition, and an unanswered fundamental critique. |
29th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Earth Is a Ponzi Scheme on the Verge of Collapse - Alternet Our model of exponential growth in consumption of energy, natural resources and raw materials cannot last forever. |
29th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Forest dreams - BBC News The world's tropical forests face the double challenge of climate change and deforestation, says Andrew Mitchell. In this week's Green Room, he explains why he is not giving up on the "impossible dream" of convincing governments that these trees are worth more alive than dead. "Paying a premium to prevent the loss of the Amazon could be one of the best insurance policies planet Earth has on offer" |
29th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Testing times - BBC News BBC visits far north scientists watching atmospheric moves See also: Arctic CO2 levels growing at an 'unprecedented rate' |
28th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| G20 protesters 'offered cash' by police to spy on environmental groups Fresh evidence has emerged of police efforts to recruit paid spies within environmental groups after the Guardian revealed that police in Scotland are running a network of hundreds of informants inside pressure groups.Anti-nuclear protesters in Scotland said yesterday that military police had offered them cash in exchange for information. One protester said he was offered money on top of his jobseeker's allowance - a move sanctioning benefit fraud - if he gave military police the names of people planning environmental action. One activist from Plane Stupid revealed that members had been given £20 by police.James Woods, 22, an anti-nuclear protester arrested at Faslane, said ... See also: Why spy on peaceful protesters? |
28th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate cost models 'unhelpful' - BBC News The government is being misled on the impact of climate change by relying on "unhelpful" economic models, the former UK chief scientific advisor warns. |
28th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| New California fuel rule may violate NAFTA: lawyer - Reuters CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - California's new low-carbon fuel rules may be a violation of NAFTA and World Trade Organization provisions because they would unfairly limit exports of crude from Canada's oil sands to the state, a prominent Canadian trade lawyer said on Friday. |
26th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Saving the planet by numbers - BBC News A physicist uses maths to work out what does and does not make a difference to fighting climate change |
24th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Forest Fires Largely Overlooked by Climate-Change Modelers - Bloomberg April 24 (Bloomberg) -- Forest fires worsen global warming and make it harder for societies to adapt to drought and higher temperatures, scientists said. |
24th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Time to come clean on coal - Independent It is little wonder that ministers are so attracted by the promise of "clean coal". Carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology fitted to a new generation of coal-fired power stations in this country would answer three of their prayers at once. See also: Clean power? - BBC News Carbon Capture and Storage |
24th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Rich nation greenhouse gas emissions rise in 2007 - Reuters LONDON/OSLO (Reuters) - Greenhouse gas emissions from industrialized nations rose by nearly one percent in 2007, led by strong gains in the United States, official data showed. |
24th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Gone: Mass Extinction and the Hazards of Earth's Vanishing Biodiversity - Mother Jones Gone: By the end of the century, half of all species on Earth may be extinct due to global warming and other causes. Who will survive the world's dwindling biodiversity, and why? |
24th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| When Deniers Deny Their Own - DeSmogBlog Who can you trust, if not your own advisers? That is the inconvenient question raised by NYT reporter Andrew C. Revkin in a newly published article that reveals the extent to which the coal and oil industries ignored the advice of their own scientists on the question of climate change. The Global Climate Coalition (how's that for an Orwellian name?), an industry-funded group that spent years vehemently contesting any evidence linking anthropogenic activity to climate change, found itself in the uncomfortable position of rejecting its own experts' recommendations when they reached the inevitable conclusion that the contribution of manmade greenhouse gas emissions to climate change “could not be refuted.” |
24th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Professor says climate change poses 'existential crisis' - The Daily News Transcript For Boston College sociology professor Charles Derber, Earth Day carries a stark, urgent meaning this year: The future of the world is at stake, and time is running out to act. Video: Dedham kids celebrate Earth Day at the Greenlodge School. |
23rd April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Green Darling? - BBC UK Budget turns out 'more beige than green' See also: Darling has thrown away £300m UK carbon budget 'a wasted opporunity to lead the world on climate' - Reuters AlertNet First ever carbon budget 'a disappointment', says Christian Aid - Ekklesia |
22nd April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Don't believe the fossil-fuel lies - Salon.com Joining oil companies and conservatives, the Breakthrough Institute says we can reduce emissions without raising the cost of carbon pollution. It's a fantasy. |
22nd April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Allies against democracy - Guardian Both the police and the government appear to be taking their instructions from a multinational energy companyThis isn't the first time that the Department for Business and the energy company E.ON have been caught conspiring against the public interest. In 2008, Greenpeace obtained an exchange of emails between the power company and Gary Mohammed, a civil servant at the Department for Business, concerning the department's policy on carbon capture and storage (CCS).The government had told the public that any new coal-burning power station at E.ON's Kingsnorth plant in Kent should be CCS-ready: in other words that it could be retro-fitted with CCS equipment. |
21st April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Greenhouse Gases Continue to Climb Despite Economic Slump - NOAA Two of the most important climate change gases increased last year, according to a preliminary analysis for NOAA's annual greenhouse gas index, which tracks data from 60 sites around the world. |
21st April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Electric cars 'not enough to meet transport emissions targets' - Guardian Government must encourage motorists to get out of their cars and walk or cycle, say scientistsBritons must reduce their dependency on cars if the UK is to meet its climate targets, scientists warn today. In a new study they said that simply switching wholesale to cleaner or all-electric cars, as announced by the government in its low-carbon car strategy last week, would not be enough for the transport sector to cut its carbon emissions.The report by the UK Energy Research Council (UKERC) said the government had to tackle driver behaviour as well as car technology to reduce transport emissions. |
21st April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Nearly $200 million spent on energy ads since Obama’s inauguration - Grist Interest groups and corporations have spent $199.5 million on television ads on energy, the environment, and climate this year. |
21st April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Why Isn't the Brain Green? - New York Times Decision scientists are trying to figure out why it?s so hard for us to get into a green mind-set. Their answers may be more crucial than any technological advance in combating environmental challenges. |
20th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Did lead cause global cooling? - New Scientist Atmospheric particles containing lead might have offset the Earth's warming in the 20th century |
20th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 'World has 6 years to act' on climate change - Australian Broadcasting Corporation The Government's chief scientist wants the country to set the toughest possible targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, warning that action must begin now against climate change. |
20th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Deforestation 'lynchpin' in global climate talks - EUActiv With international climate negotiations tending to focus mainly on tackling industrial emissions blamed for global warming, NGOs have warned that the issue of deforestation, which is just as serious, could be overlooked. |
20th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Elizabeth Kolbert: Earth Day isn't what it used to be. - The New Yorker The first celebration of Earth Day, on April 22, 1970, was a raucously exuberant affair. In New York, Fifth Avenue was closed to traffic. People picnicked on the sidewalk; dead fish were dragged through midtown; and Governor Nelson Rockefeller rode a bicycle across Prospect Park. Students in Richmond, Virginia, handed . . . |
20th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Cyclones spurt water into the stratosphere, feeding global warming - Physorg Scientists at Harvard University have found that tropical cyclones readily inject ice far into the stratosphere, possibly feeding global warming. |
20th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Oxfam predicts millions more victims of climate - AFP Hundreds of millions of people will become victims of climate change-related disasters over the next six years, Oxfam said Tuesday, urging governments to change the way they respond to such events. The British-based aid and development charity estimated the number of people affected by climatic disasters would rise by 54 percent to 375 million people a year on average by 2015, based on data on similar disasters since 1980. In a new report, it warned that humanitarian aid spending and the way it was allocated was far from prepared to meet the challenge. |
20th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Police confiscate property of a 'political nature' from a suspected environmental activist - Guardian On Friday 13 June last year, protesters hijacked a coal train on its way to Drax power station in Yorkshire. The next day, the suspected activists' houses were raided by police. This is a video shot and edited by the father of one of those activists |
20th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| David Suzuki speaks up personally for the carbon tax - DeSmogBlog "If [BC Liberal Leader Gordon Campbell] goes down because of axe the tax, the repercussions are the carbon tax will be toxic for future politicians. No politician will raise it. That's why environmentalists are so upset." David Suzuki explained why enviromental groups (and the DeSmogBlog) are criticizing the BC New Democratic Party, which is continuing to campaign against the tax. Suzuki also said: "If environmental voters decide they can't stomach voting for the NDP or the Liberals, they have got the Greens. If you vote for the Greens, you are making a statement about the carbon tax and the other things you don't like about the Liberals and the NDP." |
19th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| A Lexicon of Disappointment - The Nation All is not well in Obamafanland. It's not clear exactly what accounts for the change of mood. Maybe it was the rancid smell emanating from Treasury's latest bank bailout. Or the news that the president's chief economic adviser, Larry Summers, earned millions from the very Wall Street banks and hedge funds he is protecting from reregulation now. Or perhaps it began earlier, with Obama's silence during Israel's Gaza attack. Whatever the last straw, a growing number of Obama enthusiasts are starting to entertain the possibility that their man is not, in fact, going to save the world if we all just hope really hard. |
19th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon Capture and Storage : Today's Trojan, Tomorrow's Turkey Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) has been just the wisp or filament of an idea for so long; and never really taken on a bodily form. It’s still ectoplasmic, in the worst of ways. Despite the various attempts around the world to drag it kicking and screaming into a corporeal existence. Yes, you’ll hear about your Sleipner, your Snohvit and your Weyburn and your Salah; your Schwarze Pumpe and even smell the promise of FutureGen waved under your nose several times a year. But none of these projects has the kind of scale required to sequester the Carbon Dioxide emissions from a significant percentage of Coal-burning. Plus, they’re not going to be with us for a while yet. Yet apparently we only have 100 months (or less) to come up with a solution for Climate Change. |
19th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Key role of forests 'may be lost' - BBC News The ability of forests to act as massive carbon sinks is under threat as a result of climate change stress, scientists warn. |
18th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global Warming Study: Nations Need to Cut Emissions by 70 Percent - Environmental News Network The threat of global warming can be significantly lessened if nations cut emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases by 70 percent this century, according to a new study. |
18th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon trading won't stop climate change - New Scientist Selling permits to emit carbon dioxide is fine in theory, but there's a fatal flaw that means it can never avert climate catastrophe, says Andrew Simms |
16th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 'Catastrophic' Sea-Level Rise Possible, Coral Reef Fossils Show - Bloomberg By Jim Efstathiou Jr. April 15 (Bloomberg) -- Fossilized coral reefs formed the last time the Earth was warmer than today show sea levels could rise rapidly by the end of the century if global warming triggers a collapse of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. |
16th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| When we rebuild after this disaster, we need to be guided by equality - Johann Hari It's equal societies that thrive - and survive |
16th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate Risks: Lessons From The Financial Crisis -Counter Currents By Robin Hahnel Since both the probability of a climatic black swan and the magnitude of the damages are far greater, the rational choice is to pay our precautionary premiums to insure ourselves against climate change. Arguments that the expected value of our insurance policy may be negative are beside the point. There are times to maximize expected value and there are times to buy insurance. Now, as we are deciding how to respond to climate change, is surely a time to buy a life insurance policy for our planet. Haven't we learned our lesson yet? |
16th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Police arrest 114 alleged environmental protesters - Guardian Activists held in Nottingham over alleged power station action• Campaigners suspect tipoff from informerPolice have carried out what is thought to be the biggest pre-emptive raid on environmental campaigners in UK history, arresting 114 people believed to be planning direct action at a coal-fired power station.The arrests - for conspiracy to commit criminal damage and aggravated trespass - come amid growing concern among campaigners about increased police surveillance and groups being infiltrated by informers. |
14th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| World will not meet 2C warming target, climate change experts agree - Guardian Almost nine out of 10 climate scientists do not believe political efforts to restrict global warming to 2C will succeed, a Guardian poll reveals today. An average rise of 4-5C by the end of this century is more likely, they say, given soaring carbon emissions and political constraints. Such a change would disrupt food and water supplies, exterminate thousands of species of plants and animals and trigger massive sea level rises that would swamp the homes of hundreds of millions of people. See also: Even Deep Cuts in Greenhouse Gas Emissions Will Not Stop Global Warming - Scientific American Experts say cap and trade not enough - PhysOrg |
14th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Don't Expect Much From The Next Kyoto - Forbes The Copenhagen Climate Convention is months away, but likely DOA already. Here's why. |
13th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Until all the evidence is in - Energy Bulletin We need to recognize the phrase "until all the evidence is in" for what it really is: 1) a stalling technique, 2) a reflection of the ignorance of the speaker about the limits of our knowledge or 3) a colloquialism signaling the desire to wait for more information. read more |
13th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Don't Expect Much From The Next Kyoto - Forbes The Copenhagen Climate Convention is months away, but likely DOA already. Here's why. |
13th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Until all the evidence is in - Energy Bulletin We need to recognize the phrase "until all the evidence is in" for what it really is: 1) a stalling technique, 2) a reflection of the ignorance of the speaker about the limits of our knowledge or 3) a colloquialism signaling the desire to wait for more information. read more |
13th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Poor prognosis for our planet - Sydney Morning Herald The world has about a decade left to sort out the climate-change mess. John Collee sees lessons from his medicine days as parallels for the future of our planet. Advertisement Every patient with an incurable illness will ask how long they have to live. The answer goes something like this: "No one can say how long you may live, because every individual is different, but focus on the changes you observe and be guided by those. When things start changing for the worse, expect these changes to accelerate. So the changes that have occurred over a year may advance by the same degree in a few months, then in weeks. And that is how you can judge when the end is coming." |
12th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Fire In Ice Exploitng methane hydrate as the fuel of the future will stifle development of clean renewable alternatives and do little to reduce emissions. It will also keep the energy supply in the hands of big oil. See also: Producers testing ways to draw hydrates from Slope - Alaska Journal of Commerce |
11th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| How to Profit from Energy Illiteracy - The Business Insider Politics is a painfully slow and inadequate way to go about forming an energy strategy, but it seems to be the only way we have. My study suggests that we will have to live with 25% less energy by around 2025, and 50% less energy by 2050. Starting with peak oil (a flattened peak from 2005-2012), then peak natural gas (around 2010-2020), then peak coal (2020-2030) we are facing the imminent decline of 85% of US primary energy sources. If it takes 25 years for a given primary energy source to reach 1%, and another 100 years to reach 50%, we should be forming our energy policy on at least 50-year time horizons. |
11th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Sin aqua non - Truth about Trade & Technology THE overthrow of Madagascar’s president in mid-March was partly caused by water problems—in South Korea. Worried by the difficulties of increasing food supplies in its water-stressed homeland, Daewoo, a South Korean conglomerate, signed a deal to lease no less than half Madagascar’s arable land to grow grain for South Koreans. Widespread anger at the terms of the deal (the island’s people would have received practically nothing) contributed to the president’s unpopularity. One of the new leader’s first acts was to scrap the agreement. Three weeks before that, on the other side of the world, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California declared a state of emergency. Not for the first time, he threatened water rationing in the state. “It is clear,” says a recent report by the United Nations World Water Assessment Programme, “that urgent action is needed if we are to avoid a global water crisis.” Local water shortages are multiplying. Australia has suffered a decade-long drought. Brazil and South Africa, which depend on hydroelectric power, have suffered repeated brownouts because there is not enough water to drive the turbines properly. So much has been pumped out of the rivers that feed the Aral Sea in Central Asia that it collapsed in the 1980s and has barely begun to recover. Yet local shortages, caused by individual acts of mismanagement or regional problems, are one thing. A global water crisis, which impinges on supplies of food and other goods, or affects rivers and lakes everywhere, is quite another. Does the world really face a global problem? See also: Water and Energy: How Congress Can Solve Two Problems at Once |
11th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Driller thriller: Antarctica's tumultuous past revealed - New Scientist The future of Antarctica's ice is written in stone from 19 million years ago. Douglas Fox meets the geologists drilling into history |
10th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Bill Chameides: Climate Change: What Is Equivalent to 'CO2 Equivalents'? - HuffingtonPost You've probably noticed by now that discussions of greenhouse gases refer to carbon dioxide (CO2) -- and sometimes "CO2 equivalents" and "equivalent CO2." What's that all about? |
10th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Muscle-bound America - OpEdNews To have a meaningful effect on slowing the acceleration of climate change--a huge ice shelf is collapsing far ahead of schedule in the Antarctic as I write this--a lot of very powerful and wealthy oxen will have to be gored: companies like Exxon and Walmart will put up real money to stop policies that would put them at a disadvantage. Exxon's reason is obvious, but Walmart is totally dependent on heavily energy-intensive trade; the contribution of maritime shipping to global warming is considerable, as are those ubiquitous trucks, with their pledge of lower prices slashed down the sides. And of course, both corporations represent many more, whose interests will be disadvantaged by policies responding to climate change, like mandatory cap and trade carbon credits. So, they organize against them. Where are the interests organizing for them? |
10th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change is too big a problem to be left to the environmentalists - Guardian The environmental movement does not have sufficient public support to secure action on the scale needed – charities, churches, schools, the health sector, unions can all play their partIndividual actions matter. But only governments can save us from catastrophic climate change. There is far more that our political leaders could and should do, right now, to accelerate investment in low-carbon energy, housing and transport infrastructure and help individuals to do more to tackle climate change. Our leaders have considerably more power than they choose to acknowledge. But it's abundantly clear that they will not act at the necessary scale and speed without far greater public pressure. |
9th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Father Paul Mayer: The Carbon Tax: A Moral Issue - HuffingtonPost The dramatic moment has come when the human species because it is responsible for most of this damage, must radically reconsider its activity in the name of its own survival. |
9th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Green Power Illusion - Energy Bulletin America is finally showing leadership on climate change. But unfortunately the Obama Administration and the majority of US climate change activists haven't learned very important lessons from the peak oil debate and look to be leading the world down an illusory path. read more |
9th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Warming set to exceed EU's "dangerous" threshold - Reuters AlertNet Global warming is likely to overshoot a 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) rise seen by the European Union and many developing nations as a trigger for "dangerous" change, a Reuters poll of scientists showed on Tuesday. Ten of 11 experts said it was at best "unlikely" -- or less than a one-third chance -- that the world would manage to limit warming to a 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) rise above pre-industrial levels. For poll details, click on [ID:nL7934606] "Scientifically it can be done. But it's unlikely given the level of political will," said Salemeel Huq at the International Institute for Environment and Development in London. |
8th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Bankrupt planet - BBC News Banks are bailed out, but ecological debt rises |
8th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Take green path, US business warned - Financial Times Businesses must not sink money into high-carbon infrastructure unless they are willing to lose their investments within a few years, the US lead negotiator on climate change has warned. In the Obama administration’s starkest rebuke yet to industry over global warming, Todd Stern, special envoy for climate change at the state department, said “high-carbon goods and services will become untenable” as the world negotiates a new agreement to cut carbon emissions. EDITOR’S CHOICE In depth: Climate change - Mar-31 Editorial Comment: Green capitalism - Apr-06 UK ministers urged to act on green investment - Apr-06 Lex: Carbon prices - Mar-24 Cash shortage hinders climate battle - Mar-23 UN fears Brussels rewriting emissions deal - Mar-17 Investors should take note, he warned, that high emissions must be curbed, which would hurt businesses that failed to embark now on a low-carbon path. |
8th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change G20 loser, say greens - Guardian Unlimited The $1.1 trillion stimulus package agreed by G20 leaders yesterday risks locking the world into a high-carbon economy in which greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, environmental groups have warned.Campaigners agreed that the summit's biggest loser was the fight against climate change, despite a positive response from global financial markets to the announcement of financial aid. At the summit, prime minister Gordon Brown reiterated support for low-carbon economic growth and tackling climate change. |
8th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The breakthrough technology illusion - Grist Magazine This post will explain why some sort of massive government Apollo program or Manhattan project to develop new breakthrough technologies is not a priority component of the effort to stabilize at 350 to 450 ppm. Put more quantitatively, the question is — What are the chances that multiple (4 to 8+) carbon-free technologies that do not exist today can each deliver the equivalent of 350 Gigawatts baseload power (~2.8 billion Megawatt-hours a year) and/or 160 billion gallons of gasoline cost-effectively by 2050? [Note—that is about half of a stabilization wedge.] For the record, the U.S. consumed about 3.7 billion MW-hrs in 2005 and about 140 billion gallons of motor gasoline. Put that way, the answer to the question is painfully obvious: “two chances — slim and none.” Indeed, I have repeatedly challenged readers and listeners over the years to name even a single technology breakthrough with such an impact in the past three decades, after the huge surge in energy funding that followed the energy shocks of the 1970s. Nobody has ever named a single one that has even come close. |
7th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Poor Government in a Peer-Sensitive World - Jo Abbess Why is the Government in the United Kingdom so poor on Climate Change and Energy ? Why have they signed the Climate Change Act without a clue as to how to implement it, and are delaying any obvious low-cost actions, kicking it all into the long grass ? It's not a mean scheme, it's just the effect of deference between men, who form the large bulk of the governing authorities. Other people find dealing information and advice to the Government akin to knocking their heads against a diamond-studded brick wall, or trying to climb a Teflon-coated pole, and conclude that there is some kind of invisible web of control, perhaps with secret players. |
7th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Heat-Trapping CO2 Cuts May Be 'Catastrophic' - Bloomberg April 6 (Bloomberg) -- Cuts in heat-trapping CO2 emissions proposed by the United States, Canada and the European Union will reduce output of the greenhouse gas less than needed to halt a “climate catastrophe,” Greenpeace said. |
7th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon cap deal "very difficult": U.N. climate chief - Reuters BONN, Germany (Reuters) - It will be hard work getting rich nations to agree cuts in greenhouse gases that are deep enough to satisfy the demands of developing countries at climate talks, U.N.'s climate chief told Reuters on Monday. |
7th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Book Review: A Blueprint for a Safer Planet - Financial Times Climate change is, Lord Nicholas Stern argues, the biggest example of market failure we will ever see. If you thought government bail-outs were giving financiers an easy way out, look at the free ride we have been given over our climate-killing consumption patterns. “When we emit greenhouse gases we damage the prospects for others and, unless appropriate policy is in place, we do not bear the costs of the damage,” Stern writes in his new book, A Blueprint for a Safer Planet. “Markets then fail in the sense that their main co-ordinating mechanism – prices – give the wrong signals.” In a free market, no one gets charged for producing carbon. The resulting costs – catastrophic changes to the earth’s climate – are felt too late for the market to correct the error. Carbon dioxide has a deadly but cumulative effect, changing the climate over many years, irreversibly; already, stocks of emissions entering the atmosphere may mean sea levels will rise in a few decades. |
7th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| An Antarctic ice shelf has disappeared: scientists - Reuters WASHINGTON (Reuters) - One Antarctic ice shelf has quickly vanished, another is disappearing and glaciers are melting faster than anyone thought due to climate change, U.S. and British government researchers reported on Friday. |
5th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Hopes for climate treaty set back by G20's weasel words - Independent It was meant, in Gordon Brown's words, to strike "a global green new deal" to tackle climate change and pull the world out of recession at the same time. In fact, the G20 meeting has sharply put back the chance of an international pact to stop global warming running out of control. |
5th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Did the handling of the G20 protests reveal the future of policing? - Guardian Unlimited This week police used 'kettling' - penning marchers in an area and refusing to let them out - to deal with the G20 demonstrations. Is this really the most sensible way to tackle protests? |
4th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Obama climate plans face long road - Reuters WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Senate vote this week rejected an effort to put climate-change legislation on a fast track, making it harder for Congress to put limits on greenhouse gas emissions this year. Democratic leaders and the Obama administration had floated the idea of using the federal budget to move cap-and-trade legislation through Congress. Making the plan part of the budget would enable it to pass with a simple majority. But the Senate on Wednesday voted 67-to-31 in favor of a measure blocking lawmakers from attaching a cap-and-trade bill to the federal budget. |
4th April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| US to be 'pragmatic on climate' - BBC America's lead climate negotiator tells the BBC that the US will only do what is politically and technologically achievable. [The elastic goalposts of politics vs unmovable real ones] |
3rd April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| G20 forgets the environment - Guardian Climate breakdown, peak oil and resource depletion all dwarf the financial crisis in financial and humanitarian termsHere is the text of the G20 communique, in compressed form. "We, the Leaders of the Group of Twenty, will use every cent we don't possess to rescue corporate capitalism from its contradictions and set the world economy back onto the path of unsustainable growth. We have already spent trillions of dollars of your money on bailing out the banks, so that they can be returned to their proper functions of fleecing the poor and wrecking the Earth's living systems. Now we're going to spend another $1.1 trillion. See also: Environmental groups see snub at G20 summit - Reuters |
3rd April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Listen To The Protesters - Johann Hari Two global crises have collided, and we have a chance here, now, to solve them both with one mighty heave – but our leaders are letting this opportunity for greatness leach away |
3rd April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Natural mechanism for medieval warming discovered - New Scientist Natural mechanism for medieval warming discoveredNew Scientist, UKThe finding scuppers one of the favourite arguments of climate-change deniers. If Europe had temperature increases before we started emitting large amounts of greenhouse gases, the theory goes, then maybe the current global warming isn't caused by ... |
3rd April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Impressions from National Academies Climate Summit - Huffington Post Impressions from National Academies Climate SummitHuffington Post, NY(paraphrased) The real danger of climate change is not that mean temperatures will increase by a few degrees or that average rainfall may increase or decrease a bit. Global warming is really about climate disruption, which will mean an increase in the ... |
3rd April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| New clock ticks at sluggish U.N. climate talks - Reuters A curious thing is happening at a U.N. meeting in Bonn this week on a new climate pact – countries least interested in a deal such as OPEC members are doing more and more of the talking. Organisers of the talks have set up a new ”Countdown to Copenhagen” clock in the main hall (above left) to try to spur the sluggish negotiations. It shows 248 days left until the talks in the Danish capital in December. But in many ways it's misleading because, as U.N. climate change chief Yvo de Boer pointed out at the start of the 11-day meeting on March 29, there are only 6 weeks of formal negotiations left to work out a new global response to climate change. |
2nd April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Rising permafrost temperatures raise emission of the climate relevant trace gas methane - uniprotokolle Investigations of the Alfred Wegener Institute show that methane producing microorganisms react to climate changes Bremerhaven, March 30th 2009. Higher temperatures in Arctic permafrost soils alter the community of methane producing microorganisms and lead to an increased emission of methane. |
2nd April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Our leaders still aren't facing up to the scale of the crisis - Guardian When mass protests exploded on the streets of Seattle in 1999 against the kind of globalisation embodied in the World Trade Organisation, their anti-capitalist message was widely portrayed as utopian. A decade on, as anti-capitalist demonstrators vented their fury yesterday on the social and ecological vandals of the City and prepared to do battle today outside the G20 meeting in the heart of what was once London's docks, it looks more like common sense. See also: Seattle All Over Again? Media Ignores Peaceful Protests at G-20 - AlterNet |
2nd April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Oil Companies Sabotaging America's 'Green' Revolution - DeSmogBlog capitol coal.JPG If we act now to implement President Barack Obama's energy plan ' which proposes investment in clean energy (and some badly needed jobs to boot) ' we can avert a future in which the nation's energy costs rise by $420 billion a year over the next five years. That translates to $3,500 for every American family. Obama's plan, which aims to hold energy companies' feet to the fire over global warming gases like carbon dioxide, is now being challenged by these same companies, who charge that the plan's associated “energy taxes” (estimated to exceed $400 billion), will reduce investment in domestic oil and gas at a time when America is just beginning to develop these resources to free itself from dependence on foreign oil. |
2nd April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Report calls for shift in climate research - Nature Federal agencies must make climate research more applicable to end-users, says the US National Research Council. The US government's climate research needs a radical refocus to make its results more relevant to policymakers and other stakeholders. That will require more interdisciplinary research and better understanding of the effects of climate change on local scales, says a new report1 released 26 February by the National Research Council (NRC), the policy-advice arm of the US National Academy of Sciences. "Robust and effective responses to climate change demand a vastly improved body of scientific knowledge," says the NRC committee in its report Restructuring Federal Climate Research to Meet the Challenges of Climate Change. The 16-member committee was charged with evaluating the US Climate Change Science Program (CCSP), an umbrella entity that coordinates nearly $2 billion in annual climate change work within US government agencies. See also: No time to retreat - Nature |
2nd April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Take a spin on MIT's greenhouse gas Roulette wheel - Guardian Up and up the temperature goes, where it stops nobody knows. We are all climate gamblers now, and experts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have produced a stunning illustration of the risk posed by global warming. Their "greenhouse gamble" wheel of misfortune shows the chances of various temperature rises by the end of the century if carbon pollution continues at current rates.Current favourites are 4-5C and 5-6C, at odds of 3-1, with 6-7C a decent outside bet at 7-1. And what are the chances of a rise of less than 3C, and with it a chance of something near a habitable planet? A shirt-losing 100-1. Meanwhile, the odds of a ruinous 7C or more by 2100 are just 11-1. Gulp. |
1st April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Rainforests may pump winds worldwide - New Scientist Without forests to pump moisture around the planet, would the continents turn to desert? A new theory suggests they might |
1st April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Earth population 'exceeds limits' - BBC News Science advisor in the US State Department Nina Fedoroff says humans have exceeded the Earth's "limits of sustainability". |
1st April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Energy urgency pits tree-huggers against smokestack pluggers - CNews If we want to put the brakes on global warming and reduce our reliance on nonrenewable fossil fuels, we must look to renewable energy such as solar, wind, hydro, and sustainable bioenergy. See also: U.S. groups say vast areas off limits to clean energy |
1st April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Exxon vs. Obama - Energy Tribune By refusing to seriously invest in a world beyond oil, Exxon Mobil marks itself not merely as politically incorrect but as a company that seems oddly indifferent to the business risks of its intransigence. It seems increasingly likely that Obama and Congress will slap a price on carbon in coming years that could put oil at a competitive disadvantage to such carbon-free energy sources as wind, solar, and biomass. That could reduce demand for crude, sharply cutting its price. |
1st April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Ad features 100 scientists willing to stoke the climate crisis - DeSmogBlog Susan Crockford.jpg Who on earth might have, say, half a million dollars to drop on an advertising campaign aimed at getting Americans to doubt the well-established science of climate change? Well, if you answered "the oil industry," you might be on a good track. The Cato Institute, which sponsored a series of full-page ads in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, is famously a paid apologist for organizations like the American Petroleum Institute (API). We know, for example, that the API has been conspiring since the late 1990s, to sow doubt and confusion about climate science. |
1st April 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Stern: 'Kingsnorth should be shelved' - Independent There is no technology yet to make coal-fired station clean, says climate adviser. Britain's latest coal-fired power station should not be built, according to Lord Stern of Brentford, the economist who led the Government's review into the financial cost of climate change. See also: 'We're the first generation that has had the power to destroy the planet. Ignoring that risk can only be described as reckless' - Guardian |
31st March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Brown accused over green spending - BBC News Prime Minister Gordon Brown is accused of failing to harness his economic stimulus for the benefit of the environment. |
31st March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Tropical Tree-Saving Credits Will Crash Carbon-Emission Prices - Bloomberg March 30 (Bloomberg) -- Rewarding rain forest nations with tradable credits for not cutting down trees will cause carbon prices to crash and may exacerbate global warming by drawing funds away from renewable energy, an economic study found. |
31st March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| French government interested in solar because it uses less water than nukes - Gristmill A year or so ago, I spoke at a solar conference in France-a country that produces 78 percent of its electricity with nukes. A couple of folks told me that the government's interest in solar stemmed from the fact that during the previous summer's heat wave, river levels dropped to the point that they didn't have enough water to cool the reactors. |
29th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Mother Nature's Dow - New York Times If Mother Nature had a Dow, you could say that it, too, has been breaking into new (scientific) lows. |
29th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Population Debate Is Screwed Up - Alternet Debaters on population usually take two sides: either they see it as a huge problem facing humanity, or that it's a non-issue. They're both wrong. |
29th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Human-Made CO2 on Exponential Rise - Discovery Channel Human-produced CO2 has been growing 2.3 percent since recording began in 1958. |
28th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon: How much is enough? - BBC The issue is this: how much carbon dioxide should each person on Earth be "allowed" to emit? Put another way: if emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases are to be limited, at some target date, to a figure that science suggests can stave off "dangerous" climate change, then how does that figure break down at the personal level, when shared out among the world's citizens? |
28th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Keep the blades of wind power turning - Guardian Carbon capture and storage may seem attractive, but wind and solar are still key to generating clean, green energy. Wind power in the UK is in a spin. News that the Spanish renewable energy giant Iberdrola Renovables is putting the brakes on its current capital spending programme – starting with a 40% cut to its investment in British wind – certainly does nothing to help Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband's dream of a country drawing 35% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020. Nor, for that matter, did Shell's announcement last week that it was shifting its clean energy focus toward biofuels and carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects and away from wind and solar. |
28th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| God 'will not give happy ending' - BBC God will not intervene to prevent humanity from wreaking disastrous damage to the environment, the Archbishop of Canterbury has warned. In a lecture, Dr Rowan Williams urged a "radical change of heart" to prevent runaway climate change. |
27th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The New Yorker's Mindless Nonsense on Economy vs. Environment - DeSmogBlog The lead article in this week's New Yorker by David Owen is a loony display of dishonest economics and a flagrant mangling of science and reason. Entitled "Economy vs. Environment," (oy, here we go again) the piece presents the false notion that solving the climate crisis will inevitably come at the expense of economic collapse. Owen claims that - should the U.S. follow Obama and the international community toward a global solution to global warming - the economy might never recover, and even if it did, we'd be fools to retain climate "policies that will seem to be nudging us back toward the abyss." Yes, ghastly poverty and economic ruin are the only outcomes of trying to solve climate change, if we listen to David Owen. See also: Paging Elizabeth Kolbert - Grist Magazine |
27th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Recession dampens Obama negotiators' climate debut - Reuters OSLO (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's negotiators make their debut at U.N. climate talks on Sunday but U.S. promises of tougher action are unlikely to brighten prospects for strong treaty now overshadowed by recession. |
27th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Arctic meltdown is a threat to humanity New Scientist The Arctic is warming up much more quickly than expected – that's not just a problem for polar bears, it could be catastrophic for us all, says Fred Pearce |
26th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 'Crunch year' for world's forests - BBC Failure to agree a deal on deforestation in 2009 could critically hamper efforts to halt dangerous climate change, researchers will warn. |
26th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Barack Obama's pledges in peril as Blue Dogs take a bite at budget - Times Online Barack Obama's pledges in peril as Blue Dogs take a bite at budgetTimes Online, UKPresident Obama was huddled in talks yesterday with congressional Democrats over proposals that would pare his $3.6 trillion budget, raising question marks over how he would fund promises on healthcare, climate change and tax cuts. ... See also: Obama may delay signing up to Copenhagen climate deal |
26th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Woodchips With Everything - Monbiot Here comes the latest utopian catastrophe: the plan to solve climate change with biochar |
25th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Tipping Points - DeSmogblog As the world dithers, climate scientists are peering into their crystal balls to predict when the next shoe will drop. In a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of international researchers led by Elmar Kriegler of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research surveyed 43 leading scientists to estimate the likelihood of a tipping point occurring in the near future. The four tipping points the researchers studied include the restructuring of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (also known as the ocean conveyor belt or thermohaline circulation), the complete melting of the Greenland ice sheet, the disintegration of the West Antarctic ice sheet, and the increased frequency of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon. |
25th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Scientist warns that palm oil development may threaten Amazon - PhysOrg Oil palm cultivation is a significant driver of tropical forest destruction across Southeast Asia. It could easily become a threat to the Amazon rainforest because of a proposed change in Brazil's legislation, new infrastructure and the influence of foreign agro-industrial firms in the region, according to William F. Laurance, senior scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. |
25th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Adam Smith Would Smell a Rat - Huffington Post Members of the Edison Electric Institute -- i.e. the nation's big, private utilities -- have agreed among themselves that they will lobby hard to ensure that 40 percent of any carbon permits issues by the federal government should be given -- for free -- to them as a group. They have also agreed to divide this windfall (assuming they can lay their hands on it) among themselves using a formula in which half of the giveaway emission permits would go to high-carbon utilities relying on coal, like AEP, Southern and Duke, and half to the low-carbon utilities, such as PG&E and Florida Power & Light, that utilize more natural gas, renewables, and efficiency. This proposed cartel is breathtaking in its audacity -- you could call it a conspiracy if it weren't so public and blatant. And, if successful, it will badly damage either the American economy or the global effort to curb climate change -- or both. |
24th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate competitiveness, part 2 - Gristmill When the global Ponzi scheme collapses (circa 2030), the only jobs left will be green |
24th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Calculating the costs of an ongoing mass extinction - San Diego Union Tribune “Our analysis indicates how much more varied biodiversity is than we thought and how much bigger our conservation problems are if we're going to maintain the life-support services that we need from biodiversity,” Ehrlich said. He compares nature's biodiversity to the engineered redundancy in an airplane. The “rivet hypothesis” holds that you can lose some rivets in a plane's wing and it will continue to fly, said Ehrlich. At some point, however, the loss of just one more rivet becomes catastrophic. “Even though you don't know the value of each rivet,” said Ehrlich, “you know it's nuttier than hell to keep removing them. There is some redundancy (in nature), but we don't know how much. And facing serious climate disruption, humanity is going to need more redundancy in the little rivets, the species and populations that run the world.” |
24th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Warming to force retreat from coast - The Age The top government scientist leading Australia's efforts to adapt to climate change has warned that some coastal communities will have to be abandoned in a "planned retreat" because of global warming. Dr Andrew Ash, who directs the CSIRO's Climate Adaptation Flagship program, said while some vulnerable coastal communities could be protected by sea walls and levees, "there are going to be areas where that is not physically possible, or it's not cost effective to introduce any engineering solution and planned retreat becomes the only option". |
23rd March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| It's time to give up our blind faith in economic growth - guardian.co.uk The harsh realities of global warming and financial meltdown have given us an ideal opportunity to look beyond GDP when it comes to assessing how well we're doing |
23rd March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon Sinks Losing The Battle With Rising Emissions - Science Daily The stabilizing influence that land and ocean carbon sinks have on rising carbon emissions is gradually weakening, scientists who attended the international Copenhagen Climate Change Conference. |
22nd March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Problems this big need more than the state v market stuff - Guardian If climate change is to be tackled, or the financial system rebuilt, we need to move beyond the old, dumb, polarising politicsMarkets have failed and the state is back. How many times do we have to read these words before we acknowledge that they are, if not complete nonsense, then deeply misleading and unhelpful about the kind of real choices that will eventually face the post-recessionary world? Of course there has been massive market failure. And of course the role of the state has become newly important. But markets and the state are not mutually exclusive, as the more simplistic ideologues of left and right each like to pretend. |
21st March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Cap and Trade's Economic Impact - Foreign Relations President Obama has pledged to combat climate change and has asked Congress to pass legislation to lower U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Concerns over economic costs have stymied attempts at federal policy in the past, and during the economic crisis it may prove even harder. |
21st March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Why Do Conservatives Hate Your Children? - AlterNet A look at conservatives' willful effort to destroy the health and well-being of your children and grandchildren and the next 50 generations. |
21st March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 'Hearts and minds' approach needed in green tech drive - New Scientist Technical advances to reduce our impact on the planet can only work if people's mindsets are also taken into account, experts say |
21st March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate Battle Spawns More than 2,300 DC Lobbyists - DeSmogBlog If the stage is now set for the climate battle to begin, there is no shortage of combatants. A Center for Public Integrity analysis shows that, by the end of last year, more than 770 companies and interest groups had hired an estimated 2,340 lobbyists to influence federal policy on climate change. That's an increase of more than 300 percent in just five years, and means that Washington can now boast more than four climate lobbyists for every member of Congress. |
20th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Deep thought - Energy Bulletin Time to end the multigenerational Ponzi scheme Rushkoff on the economy: Let it die Bruce Sterling - Prophet and loss In a World of Infinite Energy |
20th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Leading NASA climate scientist says 'democracy isn't working' - Guardian Protest and direct action could be the only way to tackle soaring carbon emissions, a leading climate scientist has said.James Hansen, a climate modeller with Nasa, told the Guardian today that corporate lobbying has undermined democratic attempts to curb carbon pollution. "The democratic process doesn't quite seem to be working," he said.Speaking on the eve of joining a protest against the headquarters of power firm E.ON in Coventry, Hansen said: "The first action that people should take is to use the democratic process. What is frustrating people, me included, is that democratic action affects elections but what we get then from political leaders is greenwash."The democratic process is supposed to be one person one vote, but it turns out that money is talking louder than the votes. See also: Nasa man's 'extinction' warning - BBC News |
19th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global crisis 'to strike by 2030' - BBC News Rising population will create a "perfect storm" of food, energy and water shortages, the UK's chief science adviser says. |
19th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Warming to speed icesheet collapse by 100,000 years: study - SpaceDaily PARIS, March 19 (AFP) Mar 19, 2009 Manmade climate change is set to hasten the disintegration of a massive ice sheet in Antarctica by 100,000 years, boosting sea levels some five metres (16 feet), according to a pair of studies published Thursday. |
19th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Age of Stupid: New Film Gives Us a Painfully Realistic Look at Life in 2055 The central premise: We would be the first life form to knowingly wipe itself out. What does that say about us? See also: The Age of Stupid - Times Online |
19th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Conspiracy of silence - Grist Magazine U.S. media largely ignores latest warning from climate scientists. |
18th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Is the EU moving the goalposts on climate change? - Guardian De Boer is clearly worried that the EU is about to break promises made at the Bali climate negotiations in 2007 with regard to providing public money to support developing countries mitigate and adapt to climate change. The two men also appear to hold different views about the best mechanism to get developing countries involved in global efforts to bend the curve in global emissions. |
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| If we behave as if it's too late, then our prophecy is bound to come true - Guardian However unlikely success might be, we can't afford to abandon efforts to cut emissions - we just don't have any better optionQuietly in public, loudly in private, climate scientists everywhere are saying the same thing: it's over. The years in which more than 2C of global warming could have been prevented have passed, the opportunities squandered by denial and delay. On current trajectories we'll be lucky to get away with 4C. Mitigation (limiting greenhouse gas pollution) has failed; now we must adapt to what nature sends our way. If we can. This, at any rate, was the repeated whisper at the climate change conference in Copenhagen last week. |
17th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change blues: how scientists cope by Marlowe Hood - France24 Climate change blues: how scientists cope by Marlowe HoodFrance24, FranceFrench glaciologist Claude Lorius, one of the first scientists to publish, in 1987, evidence that global warming was real, has despaired of getting the message across. "At first, I thought that we could convince people. But there is a terrible inertia ... |
17th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| China wants importers to cover some emission costs - Reuters WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Countries that buy Chinese goods should be held responsible for the carbon dioxide emitted by the factories that make them in any global plan to reduce greenhouse gases, a Chinese official said on Monday. |
17th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Michael McCarthy: Have we seen our final big freeze? - Independent A curious thought keeps nagging at me and will not go away: have we just seen the last cold winter? |
17th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Pulling the cap on tight at Copenhagen - Guardian Carbon trading permits prices have plummeted, so the EU needs to strip out all the spare permits, or hot air, created by the recessionYesterday was day one of a conference on carbon trading - a phenomenon that will either save the world from rising carbon emissions, or is a "scam" that is part of the problem.One of the selling points of the Carbon Market Insights Conference is that it is taking place in the same venue as the hugely important conference of parties to the UN framework convention on climate change in December. Arriving there by metro in the drizzle this evening, I was confronted by a building site around which you have to walk to the west entrance of the euphemistically named Bella Centre. |
17th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| UK carbon targets 'too weak' to prevent dangerous climate change: scientists - Guardian Official advice being used to set Britain's first carbon budget is "naïvely optimistic" and will not stop dangerous climate change, experts from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research sayProposed government carbon targets are too weak to prevent dangerous levels of global warming, according to a new analysis by leading scientists. Ministers are poised to introduce strict limits on UK carbon pollution when they announce Britain's first carbon budget next month. But experts from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research warn today that official advice used to set the budget is "naïvely optimistic" and will not stop dangerous climate change.It comes after scientists at a global warming conference in Copenhagen last week warned that emissions are rising faster than expected, and that climate change could strike harder and faster than predicted. |
17th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Scientist: Warming Could Cut Population to 1 Billion - New York Times Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, said that if the buildup of greenhouse gases and its consequences pushed global temperatures 9 degrees Fahrenheit higher than today — well below the upper temperature range that scientists project could occur from global warming — Earth’s population would be devastated. [UPDATED, 6:10 p.m: The preceding line was adjusted to reflect that Dr. Schellnhuber was not describing a worst-case warming projection. h/t to Joe Romm.] “In a very cynical way, it’s a triumph for science because at last we have stabilized something –- namely the estimates for the carrying capacity of the planet, namely below 1 billion people,” said Dr. Schellnhuber, who has advised German Chancellor Angela Merkel on climate policy and is a visiting professor at Oxford. |
14th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Stern attacks politicians over climate 'devastation' - Guardian Politicians have failed to take on board the severe consequences of failing to cut world carbon emissions, according to Nicholas Stern, the economist commissioned by Gordon Brown to analyse the impact of climate change. His stark warning about the potentially "devastating" consequences of global warming came as scientists issued a desperate plea last night for world leaders to curb greenhouse gas emissions or face an ecological and social disaster. More from Copenhagen Act fast or face decades of upheaval and war, climate scientists tell governments - Mail on Sunday Leading article: The outlook for our climate is dark – but hope remains - Independent Alarm at 'weak' greenhouse targets - Sydney Morning Herald |
14th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Paris Hilton and the End of the World - DeSmogBlog Britney Spears is a great artist. Paris Hilton is very talented. It seems the yawning gulf between perception and reality has never been greater. That is truer still for how the public perceives climate science. A new poll shows that 41% of Americans now believe concerns around global warming are exaggerated -the highest level of skepticism in over a decade. This is a shocking figure given the latest scientific findings being reveled, even as we speak, at a gathering of 2,500 of the world's leading researchers on climate change. This chasm of opinion between the scientific community and the public shows how criminally irresponsible many in the mainstream media have been about portraying climate science, and how effective the misinformation campaign by the fossil fuel lobby has been in deceiving the average American. |
14th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Obama Needs to Spark a Global Green Deal to Create a Sustainable Economy - Alternet It would be a crash program to jump-start the transition to a global economy that is climate-friendly and climate-resilient. |
14th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Replace Kyoto protocol with global carbon tax, says Yale economist - Guardian The world should dump the "inefficient and ineffective" Kyoto protocol and replace it with a global carbon tax, leading economist William Nordhaus said yesterday. "To bet the world's climate system on the Kyoto approach is a reckless gamble", he told the climate change congress in Copenhagen. "Taxation is a proven instrument. Taxes may be unpopular, but they work. The Kyoto model is largely untested and the experience we have tells us it will not meet our objective — to stablise the world climate system." See also: Carbon tax only way to keep planet cool: Hansen - Interview - Petroleumworld.com |
13th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Earth warming faster than thought - BBC News International scientists say the worst-case scenarios on climate change envisaged just two years ago are already being realised. |
13th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Europe 'will be hit by severe drought' without urgent action on emissions - Guardian Southern England would be badly affected – while Spain, Portugal, southern Italy, Greece would turn into semi-desertEurope will be struck by a series of severe droughts that will make life "hell" for hundreds of millions of people unless urgent action is taken to reduce carbon emissions, a new study shows.Large swaths of land, from Portugal to Ukraine, will suffer serious droughts at least every other year by the end of the century if average temperatures rise by 4C. Southern England would also be severely affected, with summers as dry as the droughts of 1976 and 1995 expected every other year. |
13th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Severe global warming 'will render half of world's inhabited areas unliveable' - Guardian Parts of China, India and the eastern US could all become too warm in summer for people to lose heat by sweating, expert warnsSevere global warming could make half the world's inhabited areas literally too hot to live in, a US scientist warned today.Parts of China, India and the eastern US could all become too warm in summer for people to lose heat by sweating - rendering such areas effectively uninhabitable. |
13th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Leading article: When the ice melts, it is too late - Independent On the day-to-day timescale that humans normally deal with, climate change appears to be a slow process that takes place over decades and centuries. This generates a common misconception: if things get really bad, we can quickly change our behaviour and set it all right again. This is a fallacy, rather like the idea that we can alter the course of a supertanker minutes before it collides with an iceberg. The climate responds slowly because it has an in-built resistance to change – which is why 200 years of vast fossil-fuel emissions have taken so long to produce an effect, and why any delay now in curbing carbon dioxide emissions will only store up bigger problems for the future. |
13th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate matters - Grist If you take climate change seriously -- really take is seriously -- your hair is on fire. You don't think we have time left to do this in a way that avoids disruption. You think it's time to mobilize, with speed and at a scale commensurate with the preparation for WWII. Probably bigger. According to Saul Griffith and the folks at WattzOn (see here), to get to 450ppm in time we need to build:
It's industrially possible, but it's going to require huge, urgent, coordinated action, immediately. Some of it can be "market-based," but friendliness to existing market actors is secondary, not primary. |
13th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| America unprepared for climate change, say policy advisers - Guardian America is woefully unprepared for climate change, and the government agencies charged with delivering the latest science to decision makers are not up to the task, a new report said today. The National Research Council, a policy advice centre that is part of the US National Academy of Sciences, said that government agencies and political leaders, concerned more than ever about climate change, were not getting the information or the guidance they needed. "Many decision makers are experiencing or anticipating a new climate regime and are asking questions about climate change and potential responses to it that federal agencies are unprepared to answer," the council said in its report, Restructuring Federal Climate Research to Meet the Challenges of Climate Change. See also: Two-Fifths of Americans Think Climate Change Exaggerated - Fox News |
13th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| US carbon cuts could spark 'revolution' - Guardian The head of the UN body charged with leading the fight against climate change has conceded that Barack Obama will face a "revolution" if he commits the US to the deep carbon cuts that scientists and campaigners say are needed.Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said domestic political constraints made it impossible for the US president to announce ambitious short-term climate targets similar to those set by Europe. And he questioned the value of a new global climate deal without such a US pledge.His words come as scientists at the Copenhagen conference said that modest IPCC estimates of likely sea level rise this century need to be increased. |
12th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Rising seas could cost California more than $100B - Forbes Report: A rising sea level caused by a warming climate could cost California an estimated $100 billion in property loss by the end of the century, two-thirds of which will occur in the San Francisco Bay area, a new state-commissioned study has found. |
12th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Fate of the rainforest is 'irreversible' - Independent The impact of climate change on the Amazon rainforest could be much worse than previously predicted, new research suggests. See also: Climate change transforming rainforests into 'major carbon emitters' - Guardian |
12th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| International Trade Rules and Climate Change Policy: Part I - The Globalist The Obama Administration has provided new leadership for tackling climate change. Yet with the limits of international trade rules, how can an effective cap and trade policy be crafted? |
12th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Is the global economy a Ponzi scheme? Part 1 - Grist By Joseph RommYes, homo "sapiens" sapiens have constructed the grandest of Ponzi schemes, whereby current generations have figured out how to live off the wealth of future generations. Yes, we are all in essence Madoffs (many wittingly, most not) or at least his most credulous clients. What comes next will be the subject of a multipart series. I had been planning to write something on this for a while when NYT columnist Tom Friedman interviewed me for "The Inflection Is Near?" which appears in Saturday's New York Times: "We created a way of raising standards of living that we can't possibly pass on to our children," said Joe Romm, a physicist and climate expert who writes the indispensable blog climateprogress.org. See also: Is the global economy a Ponzi scheme? Part 2 |
12th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon tax only way to keep planet cool: Hansen - SpaceDaily COPENHAGEN, March 11 (AFP) Mar 11, 2009 Greenhouse gas emissions must be cut more quickly and deeply than thought only two years ago to avoid dire consequences, and a straight-up carbon tax is the only realistic way to do it, top climate scientist James Hansen said in an interview. |
12th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Rising methane levels in Norway's Arctic - MSNBC Levels of methane in the Norwegian Arctic increased in 2007 possibly because the thawing northern tundra released more of the greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, officials said Monday. See also: Global warming may trigger carbon 'time bomb', scientist warns |
11th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Earth may be entering climate change danger zone - New Scientist Climate experts updating the 2001 "burning embers" diagram, which looked at how risk levels change with a warming planet, find that the planet is being affected faster than expected See also: What Is Science Telling Us About Temperature Rises? |
11th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The challenge facing the world's biggest polluters - Independent The clock is ticking in the race to agree a new treaty to cut the emissions that cause global warming. Michael McCarthy names and shames the offenders who must mend their ways. |
11th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| U.S. needs to do more on climate: EU official - Reuters LONDON (Reuters) - The United States must make deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions than proposed by President Barack Obama if the world is to stand a chance of avoiding devastating climate change, an EU official said. See also: Obama's shaky trust in science - The Christian Science Monitor On stem cells, he's for the science. But not on climate change ... |
10th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 'More bad news' on climate change - BBC News More bad news on climate change is expected as more than 2,000 climate scientists gather in Copenhagen. They will be trying to pull together the latest research on global warming ahead of political negotiations later in the year. |
10th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| This scam is nothing but a handout for motor companies, resprayed green - Guardian Paying drivers to scrap their old cars and buy new ones will do nothing to catalyse a low-carbon transport revolutionThe magic numbers spin before our eyes. No one can grasp the scale of the handouts, or understand how public money that didn't exist - could never exist - for hospitals or schools or public toilets begins to flow as soon as bankers fall to their knees. We are punch drunk, reeling, uniquely vulnerable - because none of it makes sense any more - to demands from every species of scrounger. So prepare yourselves, ladies and gentlemen, for the worst scam of all. |
10th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon cuts 'only give 50/50 chance of saving planet' - Independent The world's best efforts at combating climate change are likely to offer no more than a 50-50 chance of keeping temperature rises below the threshold of disaster, according to research from the UK Met Office. |
9th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Chances of climate change accord 'are sinking' - Times Online Two leading climate scientists have broken ranks with their peers to declare that hopes of getting a meaningful deal on halting global warming this year are already lost. |
9th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Deep thought - Energy Bulletin Thomas L. Friedman questions growthThis is not youthful rebellion. We see the catastrophe aheadTom Hayden: Rage is good read more |
9th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon trade wrong, says Lord Browne - Guardian Lord Browne, the former chief executive of BP and one of the earliest proponents of carbon trading to tackle climate change, has conceded his enthusiasm was misplaced.Speaking to the Observer at the government's low carbon industrial strategy summit last week, he said: "My view has shifted over time. Pinning all your hopes on the European Union ETS [emissions trading scheme] and carbon trading is wrong."Until recently, energy companies and governments all around the world - particularly Britain's - argued that carbon trading was the best way of reducing global emissions. Under the EU scheme - the first of its kind in the world - companies are awarded carbon credits. |
9th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon cuts 'only give 50/50 chance of saving planet' - Independent The world's best efforts at combating climate change are likely to offer no more than a 50-50 chance of keeping temperature rises below the threshold of disaster, according to research from the UK Met Office. The key aim of holding the expected increase to 2C, beyond which damage to the natural world and to human society is likely to be catastrophic, is far from assured, the research suggests, even if all countries engage forthwith in a radical and enormous crash programme to slash greenhouse gas emissions – something which itself is by no means guaranteed. The chilling forecast from the supercomputer climate model of the Met Office's Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research will provide a sobering wake-up call for governments around the world, who will begin formally negotiating three weeks today the new international treaty on tackling global warming, which is due to be signed in Copenhagen in December. See also: Hopes of climate change accord 'are sinking' |
8th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Stark warning over dramatic new sea level figures - Guardian Rising sea levels pose a far bigger eco threat than previously thought. This week's climate change conference in Copenhagen will sound an alarm over new floodings - enough to swamp Bangladesh, Florida, the Norfolk Broads and the Thames estuaryScientists will warn this week that rising sea levels, triggered by global warming, pose a far greater danger to the planet than previously estimated. There is now a major risk that many coastal areas around the world will be inundated by the end of the century because Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are melting faster than previously estimated. Low-lying areas including Bangladesh, Florida, the Maldives and the Netherlands face catastrophic flooding, while, in Britain, large areas of the Norfolk Broads and the Thames estuary are likely to disappear by 2100. |
8th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Conservationists deciding which species to survive - New Scientist With too little time and money, and many species to save, conservationists are starting to apply economic formulas to decide which to save from climate change |
8th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Amazon's 2005 drought created huge CO2 emissions - Reuters A 2005 drought in the Amazon rainforest killed trees and released more greenhouse gas than the annual emissions of Europe and Japan, an international study showed on Thursday. The experts estimated that the forest had been absorbing 2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide a year on average since the 1980s but lost 3 billion in the 2005 drought, which killed trees and slowed growth. See also: Warmer Atlantic Waters Triggered Katrina and Amazonian Drought - Bloomberg |
6th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The world crisis of capitalist globalisation and its impact on China - Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal In addressing capitalism as a failed system I have focused first on the deepening economic crisis. But this is not the worst of the world's problems. The greatest peril is the growing threat of planetary ecological collapse. Here the danger is much greater than in the case of the world economy but the sense of alarm and the call for immediate and massive action is less widespread. As the Swedish Tallberg Foundation stated in its 2008 report, Grasping the Climate Crisis: A Provocation, The world [at present] faces a breakdown of the global financial system. The consequences are staggering, with ripple effects the world over that deliver the severest blows to the poor. Fear is rising. One would have expected somewhat of the same level of anxiety with regard to the looming breakdown of major parts of the Earth system-rapid deforestation, overfishing, freshwater scarcity and the disappearing Arctic sea ice. Reports of such events and processes are abundant, but the level of concern is still conspicuously low. |
6th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Fred Pearce on why how coal industry is trying to hide dirty facts behind clean claims - Guardian The misleading and downright duplicitous ads against clean coal chronicled here are now being contested by – you guessed it – an ad.Last week the Academy-award winning movie producers Joel and Ethan Coen began airing their commercial on cable TV in the US. It is a spoof air freshener advert with a suburban housewife spraying her home with a coal-black aerosol from a can called Clean Coal. Explaining the magic ingredient, the presenter says that "Clean Coal harnesses the awesome power of the word clean".It ends with the caption for anyone with a comedy bypass: "In reality, there is no such thing as clean coal." |
6th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| A sleeping giant? - Nature As the planet warms, vast stores of methane - a potent greenhouse gas - could be released from frozen deposits on land and under the ocean. Amanda Leigh Mascarelli reports on the race to understand a ticking time bomb. |
6th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Innovation: A clean start for green power - New Scientist A reliance on toxic or rare and expensive materials means that much of today's renewable energy technology may be a dead end – but at last change is in the air |
6th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Industry denying climate change, says science minister - Guardian Unlimited Senior figures in the manufacturing industry do not accept that human activities are driving global warming or that action needs to be taken to prepare for its effects, the UK government's science minister said today. Lord Drayson said recent discussions with leaders in the car industry and other businesses had left him "shocked" at the number of climate change deniers among senior industrialists. Of those who acknowledged that global temperatures were rising, many blamed it on variations in the sun's activity. |
6th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Experts warn of 'clean energy crunch' - Metro A "clean energy crunch" may come hard on the heels of the credit crunch as the impact of recession hits attempts to hold back global warming, say experts. World economic growth is no longer on track to avert the worst impact of climate change, according to new research. Reduced carbon emissions due to lower economic activity will be outweighed by the negative effect of clean energy funding drying up, said a report from leading clean energy and carbon market analysts New Energy Finance (NEF). |
5th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Research warns two degree rise will halve rainforest carbon sink - Business Green Research warns two degree rise will halve rainforest "carbon sink"Business Green, UK... conference in Copenhagen where the world's leading climate scientists are to provide political and business leaders with an update on the latest global warming research, and recommendations on how to mitigate the risks presented by climate change. |
4th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Lead US Climate Negotiator: '09 Climate Law 'Tall Order' - Nasdaq WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- The U.S.'s lead international negotiator for climate change policy, Todd Stern, said Tuesday that although he would like to have a law that cuts greenhouse gases signed in time for international climate change negotiations in Denmark this December, he didn't think it likely or necessary. |
4th March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Our Worst Enemies Aren't Terrorists: Rethinking National Security on a Sinking Planet - Alternet The chances of being affected by a terrorist attack are slim, but disruptions to our far-flung supply lines for food, water and energy are a reality. |
3rd March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Right Wing think tank sets target on Washington State cap and trade -DeSmogBlog You're forgiven if you haven't heard of the Washington Policy Center (WPC), a right-wing "freemarket" think tank based in Seattle, Washington. Most likely you haven't heard of them because you don't follow State-level politics or because the WPC has changed its name a few times over the last few years. In any event, you should get to know them because they are running some pretty heavy lobbying activities at the Washington State Legislature in an attempt to block plans for a new cap and trade greenhouse gas reduction strategy. |
3rd March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Crisp: Other problems beyond the economy - Scripps News The International Panel on Climate Change told lawmakers in Washington that Earth can tolerate about 6 more years of our current rates of carbon dioxide pollution. After that, we're locked into a downward-spiraling future of severe global warming. |
3rd March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Emission impossible: unholy alliance set to sink carbon reduction plan - Business Day Australia: MEMO REST OF PLANET: We wanted to do our bit to help reduce climate change, but couldn't agree on what. Sorry. Most of the environmental movement is opposing the scheme because 5 per cent is too pathetically low; most of business is opposing it because 15 per cent is frighteningly high. The environmentalists - and probably the Greens in the Senate - are telling themselves that if they get the present scheme rejected, the Government will be obliged by the pressure of public opinion to come back with a tougher offer. Big business is telling itself that if it can get the scheme rejected, all this change and cost will go away. By the time the globe passes the point of no return on catastrophic climate change, the present executives will be retired with their fat bonuses and living well away from the coast. |
1st March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 93 months and counting - Guardian The debate on tackling climate change often becomes transfixed by magic bullet technologies |
1st March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Water 'more important than oil' - Guardian Dwindling water supplies are a greater risk to businesses than oil running out, a report for investors has warned.Among the industries most at risk are high-tech companies, especially those using huge quantities of water to manufacture silicon chips; electricity suppliers who use vast amounts of water for cooling; and agriculture, which uses 70% of global freshwater, , says the study, commissioned by the powerful CERES group, whose members have $7tn under management. Other high-risk sectors are beverages, clothing, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, forest products, and metals and mining, it says."Water is one of our most critical resources – even more important than oil," says the report, published today . |
1st March 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| World faces last chance to avoid fatal warming: EU BUDAPEST (Reuters) - The world faces a final opportunity to agree an adequate global response to climate change at a U.N.-led meeting in Copenhagen in December, the European Union's environment chief said on Friday. |
28th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Europe's carbon market plummets, exposing frailties - Space Daily Europe's Emissions Trading System is touted by supporters as a model for US President Barack Obama's own cap-and-trade scheme and other countries seeking to cut greenhouse gases and boost green technologies. But the price of a tonne of carbon dioxide (CO2) or its equivalent has nosedived as big European polluters, responding to plummeting demand for their products, emit less. After peaking at nearly 30 euros (38 dollars) in mid-2008, CO2 traded at 9.95 euros (12.60 dollars) a tonne on Friday, according to BlueNext, one of several European carbon exchanges. |
28th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global warming could delay, weaken monsoons: study - Times of India Global warming could delay the start of the summer monsoon by five to 15 days within the next century and significantly reduce rainfall in much of South Asia including India, a recent study has found. Rising global temperatures will likely lead to an eastward shift in monsoon circulation which could result in more rainfall over the Indian Ocean, Myanmar and Bangladesh but less over Pakistan, India and Nepal, says the study. It could also result in longer delays between rainy seasons and intensify the risk of deadly floods by leading to a significant increase in average rainfalls in some coastal areas of western India, Sri Lanka and Myanmar. |
28th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Why 2007 IPCC Report Lacked ‘Embers' - New York Times Several authors of the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on the projected effects of global warming now say they regret not pushing harder to include an updated diagram of climate risks in the report. The diagram, known as “burning embers,” is an updated version of one that was a central feature of the panel’s preceding climate report in 2001. The main opposition to including the diagram in 2007, they say, came from officials representing the United States, China, Russia and Saudi Arabia. |
27th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Regaining perspective on things that matter - Energy Bulletin What matters now more than ever, and what is getting lost in all the immediate economic turmoil, is the unprecedented scope of the problems we face in the 21st century. Great change is inevitable. Trying to hang on to the way things have been-seemingly endless exponential GDP growth- is a mistake. Focusing exclusively on fixing the economy to get back on the business-as-usual growth track obscures much bigger problems coming down the road. read more |
27th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Droughts 'may lay waste' to parts of US - Guardian The world's pre-eminent climate scientists produced a blunt assessment of the impact of global warming on the US yesterday, warning of droughts that could reduce the American south-west to a wasteland and heatwaves that could make life impossible even in northern cities.In an update on the latest science on climate change, the US Congress was told that melting snow pack could lead to severe drought from California to Oklahoma. In the midwest, diminishing rains and shrinking rivers were lowering water levels in the Great Lakes, even to the extent where it could affect shipping."With severe drought from California to Oklahoma, a broad swath of the south-west is basically robbed of having a sustainable lifestyle," said Christopher Field, of the Carnegie Institution for Science. |
27th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| I don't buy economists' case for fighting climate change The orthodox rationale fails to chime with most people's ethical motivation for action to save the environmentThe 2006 Stern report brought the legitimising power of orthodox economics to the emotive battleground of global warming. In his Review on the Economics of Climate Change - widely regarded as the most important and comprehensive analysis of global warming to date - Lord Stern argued that in cold cost-benefit terms, it made sense for the present generation to make sacrifices because the benefits to future generations would be so substantial. "The benefits of strong, early action considerably outweigh the costs," was the report's conclusion. See also: Mythbusting - Grist The myth of the universal market ... debunked! |
27th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Australia fires release huge amount of CO2 - Reuters SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Bushfires that have scorched Australia's Victoria state released millions of tons of carbon dioxide and forest fires could become a growing source of carbon pollution as the planet warms, a top scientist said on Thursday. |
27th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Study Finds Unprecedented Growth in Climate Change Lobbying - Democracy Now Although the explosive growth of the climate change lobby has also seen an increase in those lobbying for alternative energy and environmental and health issues, they are far outnumbered by other interests by eight-to-one. Some of these other interests include the US Chamber of Commerce; the National Association of Manufacturers; large coal, oil and gas companies; Wall Street banks; and the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. Their lobbyists include powerful former Congress members, White House staffers, and officials from previous administrations. |
27th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| ENVIRONMENT: Amazon Teetering on the Edge - IPS RIO DE JANEIRO, Feb 26 (Tierramérica) - The Amazon Basin captures 12,000 to 16,000 square kilometres of water per year, and just 40 percent of that flows through the rivers. The rest returns to the atmosphere through evapotranspiration of the forests and is distributed throughout South America. |
27th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate Wars - CBC (podcast) Global warming is moving much more quickly than scientists thought it would. Even if the biggest current and prospective emitters - the United States, China and India - were to slam on the brakes today, the earth would continue to heat up for decades. At best, we may be able to slow things down and deal with the consequences, without social and political breakdown. Gwynne Dyer examines several radical short- and medium-term measures now being considered - all of them controversial. Part One [mp3 file: runs 55:14] Part Two [mp3 file: runs 54:17] Part Three [mp3 file: runs 55:04] |
27th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| CO2 rise in atmosphere accelerates in 2008 - Reuters Increases in the amount of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in the atmosphere accelerated last year, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) told Reuters on Wednesday. The new data may dampen hopes that a slowdown in industrial output and carbon emissions, which started at the end of last year, will temporarily deflect climate change. See also: TABLE-Rising global carbon emissions, temperatures - AlertNet |
26th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| How to survive the coming century - New Scientist If the planet warms by 4 °C – as it might by 2099 – it will change beyond all recognition. A radical new world order may be our only hope, says Gaia Vince |
26th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Hacking the planet: The only climate solution left? - New Scientist We may soon have no choice but to fiddle more directly with the climate – but are we ready, asks Catherine Brahic |
26th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Battle lines drawn in Capitol Hill climate debate -Reuters WASHINGTON (Reuters) - One day after President Barack Obama asked Congress to craft a law to cap carbon emissions, battle lines were drawn in Congress on Wednesday over how to deal with human-spurred climate change. |
26th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Are we digging ourselves into a hole? - CNews The Alberta and federal governments are pumping billions of dollars into carbon capture and storage as part of their climate change plans. |
26th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate Change Is Not Taken Seriously Because Media Is Not Highlighting Its Significance - Science Daily Climate change will not be taken seriously until the media highlights its significance, say researchers. Researchers found that the total number of articles on climate change printed over three years was fewer than one month’s worth of articles featuring health issues. The articles offered mixed messages about the seriousness and imminence of problems facing the environment. Dr Gavin explains: “Our research suggests that the media is not treating these issues with the seriousness that scientists would say they deserve. |
25th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Heartbreak for NASA scientists as satellite launch fails - Radio Netherlands There were shocked faces and bitter disappointment all round at NASA on Tuesday as the launch of an innovative carbon dioxide monitoring satellite ended in failure. |
25th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| China Exports Made It World's Largest Greenhouse-Gas Factory - Bloomberg Feb. 25 (Bloomberg) -- China became the world's biggest generator of greenhouse gases largely by making electronics, metals and chemicals for wealthier countries. |
25th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| External Damnation - ZNet So it comes out that corporations don't pollute because they're evil villains, but because the very real costs of pollution can be made to fall on others, or "externalized." Likewise banks load up on unregulated, risky assets because they don't consider the risks to the whole financial system, beyond themselves. In general, companies have compelling reason to externalize any costs they can—lowered costs improve profitability. So global climate change, air pollution, contaminated food, an unstable financial system—all are external impacts that firms are obliged to ignore. |
25th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change timetable slips as Obama backtracks on 2008 deadline - Guardian Barack Obama has been forced to slow down a key green objective of his presidency: early legislation to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming.Officials now concede that Congress is unlikely to pass such legislation by the end of 2009, a delay that could hurt efforts to reach a global treaty at the climate change conference in Copenhagen this December. It also frustrates hopes that last week's huge infusion of green investment in the $787 bn economic rescue plan would give momentum to efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions.Presidential staff say America remains determined to play a leadership role at the climate talks in Copenhagen, but downplay prospects of taking steps to curb its own carbon emissions first."What is necessary is for us to demonstrate some leadership," Nancy Sutley, the chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality said. |
24th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| China's growth is no figleaf for the real source of CO2 emissions: the UK Whenever a government or a corporation doesn't want to do something, it blames China. You want fair terms of trade? Sorry, not when China's dumping its goods on the world market. You want a 40-hour week? Forget it, the Chinese are working a 40-hour day.You want to cut carbon emissions? Pointless when the Chinese are building a new power station every three seconds. Just as it has been for 150 years, the "Yellow Peril" is invoked to frighten us into acquiescing to any number of domestic agendas.But now, of course, we find that the story is not quite as we have been told. |
24th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Humans turning Indonesian rainforest into a tinderbox - New Scientist Clearing patches of trees for farms and plantations is destabilising the forest ecosystem, making it drier and more vulnerable to future drought, says a study |
24th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Great clean-up - can economic rescue plans also save planet? - Guardian With governments around the world continuing to pump colossal sums of money into their plunging economies, a grand global experiment is under way: can the unprecedented spending provide not only a quick fix for the economic catastrophe but also the measures vital for dealing with global warming?Many hope so, and Barack Obama is foremost among them. He sees his presidency as a rare moment in history when crisis can be converted into opportunity, and his $787bn economic recovery plan is putting that theory to the ultimate test. His goal is to seize the opportunity to put in place the architecture of a low-carbon and sustainable economy.Calls for "green new deals" are coming from every part of the world and the US plan presents a case study on an epic scale, one that is being carefully monitored by other governments. |
24th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Conservation Imperative: Energy Limits to Growth and the Path to Sustainability - Part II - Energy Bulletin ...As the world's current primary energy source, oil fuels nearly all global transportation-cars, planes, trains, and ships (the exceptions, such as electric cars and subways, electric trains, and sailing ships, are statistically insignificant). Petroleum provides about 40 percent of total world energy, or about 40 EJ per year. read more |
24th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| UK is branded a 'climate criminal' over coal plans - Guardian A global protest against UK plans to build new coal power plants is being launched today by campaigners from more than 40 developing countries accusing the government of being a "climate criminal".They have written an open letter to energy and climate change secretary Ed Miliband that follows repeated warnings from UK groups that the decisions to approve new coal power plants and the expansion of Heathrow airport would damage the nation's position in international negotiations when it tries to persuade other countries to cut global-warming emissions. The 27 groups, including campaigners from India, Brazil, Indonesia, the Philippines and Uganda, say they are "alarmed" that the UK government is considering allowing new coal plants to be built, including one at Kingsnorth in Kent. |
23rd February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 'I'll get arrested to stop coal burning' - Guardian Bill McKibben will join demonstrators who plan to march on a coal-fired power plant in Washington D.C. In this article from Yale Environment 360, part of the Guardian Environment Network, he explains why he's ready to go to jail to protest against the continued burning of coal. |
23rd February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate Fears Drive Migration - Washington Post Millions of "ecomigrants" -- most desperate and poor -- move to find more habitable living space. Adam Fier recently sold his home, got rid of his car and pulled his twin 6-year-old girls out of elementary school in Montgomery County. He and his wife packed the family's belongings and moved to New Zealand -- a place they had never visited or seen before, and where they have no family or professional connections. Among the top reasons: global warming. |
23rd February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Water vapour helps heat Earth - ScienceAlert "Everything shows that the climate models are probably getting the water vapour feedback right, which means that unless we reduce emissions, it is going to get much, much warmer on our planet by the end of the century." |
23rd February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| A collapsing carbon market makes mega-pollution cheap - Environmental News Network 'Roll up for the great pollution fire sale, the ultimate chance to wreck the climate on the cheap. You sir, over there, from the power company - look at this lovely tonne of freshly made, sulphur-rich carbon dioxide. Last summer it cost an eyewatering €31 to throw up your smokestack, but in our give-away global recession sale, that's been slashed to a crazy €8.20. Dump plans for the wind turbine! Compare our offer with costly solar energy! At this low, low price you can't afford not to burn coal!" See also: Global CO2 Market Seen Shrinking In 09 On Econ Woes-Point Carbon - Nasdaq |
23rd February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Nuclear power? Yes please... - Independent Nuclear power? Yes please...Independent, UKRenewable sources of energy, such as wind, wave and solar power, are still necessary in the fight against global warming, but achieving low-carbon electricity generation is far more difficult without nuclear power, Lord Smith said. ... See also: Greens clash over nuclear power - BBC News |
23rd February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Squabbling derails greenhouse gas efforts, says ex-minister - Guardian Squabbling derails greenhouse gas efforts, says ex-ministerguardian.co.uk, UKBritain's efforts to cut carbon emissions and address global warming have been hampered by government infighting and a reluctance to stand up to industry, according to the UK's former climate change minister. Elliot Morley, head of the new energy and ... |
23rd February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Mass migrations and war: Dire climate scenario - API If we don't deal with climate change decisively, "what we're talking about then is extended world war," the eminent economist said. His audience Saturday, small and elite, had been stranded here by bad weather and were talking climate. They couldn't do much about the one, but the other was squarely in their hands. And so, Lord Nicholas Stern was telling them, was the potential for mass migrations setting off mass conflict. |
21st February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Melt-pools 'accelerating Arctic ice loss' - Guardian Pools of melted ice and snow that form on the surface of the Arctic sea ice explain why it is melting faster than predicted, scientists say |
21st February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The day the D.C. journalism died - Grist Washington Post is staffed with people who found no mistakes in George Will's denial. |
21st February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| "Clean Energy Dialogue" or Carbon Capture Shellgame? - DeSmogBlog Obama-mania hit Canada's capital hard this week but there was much more at play than photo ops during the President's five-hour visit. Harper and Obama announced a “clean energy dialogue” focusing on “carbon capture and storage” technology (CCS) – a stash-the-emissions pipe-dream that remains unproven on an commercial scale anywhere in the world. In particular, the myth that CCS will somehow eliminate emissions from the Alberta tar sands is a dangerous delusion. Just three months ago, a secret government memo came to light showing that significant carbon capture at the tar sands is virtually impossible. See also: The dirty truth - Canada.com |
21st February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| What Does Economic "Recovery" Mean on an Extreme Weather Planet? - Tom's Dispatch As the global economy melts down, so is the planet, with droughts threatening food production and industry across the world. |
21st February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Arctic's personal greenhouse turns up the heat - New Scientist Now we know why the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the globe – three factors combine to create a stronger than usual greenhouse effect in the region. By combining computer models and meteorological observations the team found that over the last five years air temperatures have been warming near the Earth's surface more than they have been at higher altitudes. The phenomenon is strongest in autumn and over areas of open water that would have in the past been iced over. A darker pole absorbs more solar energy, water stores that energy and later releases it to the atmosphere. All this means the shrinking ice cap is playing a triple role in warming the Arctic. The ice is reflecting less energy, the open water is storing more energy, and is also supplying greenhouse gas to the atmosphere in the form of water vapour. Those three factors combine to produce a strong regional greenhouse over the Arctic. |
20th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| UK warned of massive landmass loss - Guardian Unlimited Ministers should prepare the British people to "adapt" in the longer term to a landscape devastated by climate change, including the possible abandonment of parts of London and East Anglia, a leading industry body warns today . Action to curb carbon emissions is failing, so the UK should immediately change the way it designs buildings, transport and energy infrastructure in preparation for aworld potentially characterised by extreme heat and high sea levels, argues the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) in a new report. |
20th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Burp of Arctic laughing gas is no joke Permafrost regions of the Arctic are emitting more of the powerful greenhouse gas nitrous oxide than we thought, according to a new study |
18th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate Could Cross Critical Threshold by 2100, Expert Warns - Environment News Service , February 16, 2009 (ENS) - Without decisive action by governments, corporations and individuals, global warming in the 21st century is likely to accelerate at a much faster pace and cause more environmental damage than predicted, warns a leading member of the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. |
18th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Ocean Less Effective At Absorbing Carbon Dioxide Emitted By Human Activity - Science Daily In the Southern Indian Ocean, climate change is leading to stronger winds, which mix waters, bringing CO2 up from the ocean depths to the surface. This is the conclusion of researchers who have studied the latest field measurements carried out by CNRS's INSU, IPEV and IPSL. As a result, the Southern Ocean can no longer absorb as much atmospheric CO2 as before. Its role as a 'carbon sink' has been weakened, and it may now be ten times less efficient than previously estimated. The same trend can be observed at high latitudes in the North Atlantic. See also: North Atlantic is world's 'climate superpower' - New Scientist |
18th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Bloomberg: NYC must pre-empt flooding catastrophe - Newsday Water levels around New York City could rise by 2 feet or more in the coming decades and average temperatures will likely go up 4 to 7.5 degrees, according to a report released Tuesday by a panel of scientists convened by Mayor Michael Bloomberg. |
18th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Bushfires and extreme heat in south-east Australia - RealClimate Guest commentary by David Karoly, Professor of Meteorology at the University of Melbourne in Australia On Saturday 7 February 2009, Australia experienced its worst natural disaster in more than 100 years, when catastrophic bushfires killed more than 180 people and destroyed more than 2000 homes in Victoria, Australia. These fires occurred on a day of unprecedented high temperatures in south-east Australia, part of a heat wave that started 10 days earlier, and a record dry spell. This has been written from Melbourne, Australia, exactly one week after the fires, just enough time to pause and reflect on this tragedy and the extraordinary weather that led to it. |
18th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global warming 'underestimated' - BBC News TThe severity of global warming over the next century will be much worse than previously believed, a leading climate scientist has warned. Professor Chris Field, an author of a 2007 landmark report on climate change, said future temperatures "will be beyond anything" predicted. Prof Field said the impact on temperatures is as yet unknown, but warming is likely to accelerate at a much faster pace and cause more environmental damage than had been predicted. He says that a warming planet will dry out forests in tropical areas making them much more likely to suffer from wildfires. The rising temperatures could also speed up the melting of the permafrost, vastly increasing the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, Prof Field warns. "Without effective action, climate change is going to be larger and more difficult to deal with than we thought," he said. |
15th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Australian bushfires pump out millions of tonnes of carbon - Guardian The deadly bush fires in Australia have released millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, equivalent to more than a third of the country's CO2 emissions for a whole year, according to scientists.The blazes in Victoria have so far claimed more than 180 lives and destroyed more than 750 homes. To make matters worse, the climate costs will also be dire because of the type of forest that burned, according to Mark Adams of the University of Sydney. "Once you burn millions of hectares of eucalypt forest, then you are putting into the atmosphere very large amounts of carbon," he told The Australian newspaper.Australia's total emissions per year are around 330m tonnes of CO2. See also: Climate models predicted Australian bushfires - New Scientist |
15th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Biofuels may speed up, not slow global warming: study - PhysOrg The use of crop-based biofuels could speed up rather than slow down global warming by fueling the destruction of rainforests, scientists warned Saturday. See also: Biofuels boom could fuel rainforest destruction, Stanford researcher warns - EurekAlert! |
15th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Coal at centre of fierce new climate battle - Guardian The debate over the impact of fossil fuels has been reignited by the imminent approval of a power plant at Kingsnorth, Kent. Could advances in technology provide ways of capturing dangerous emissions and make coal safer? Science Editor Robin McKie reports on a conflict of ideas. See also: Is America ready to quit coal? - International Herald Tribune Don't Get Duped Like Obama: Here're the Top 5 Myths About Coal Breaking up With Coal - Common Dreams |
15th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Kyoto carbon offset profit margins evaporate - Reuters via Yahoo! Singapore News LONDON, Feb 13 (Reuters) - Profit margins for sellers of carbon offsets under the Kyoto Protocol have collapsed to zero as emissions prices tumble, analysts IDEAcarbon said, adding that new pricing trends may worsen things. |
15th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 'CO2 reduction treaties useless' - BBC News A new report says that treaties, such as the Kyoto Protocol, which aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, are useless. |
15th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Killer blow - BBC Did a shift in the climate kill off the Neanderthals? |
15th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| It's too late for Planet Earth, says James Lovelock - Times Online You may feel, as job losses soar and parts of the world descend into turmoil, that you're apocalypsed-out for February. If so, you may not immediately leap at James Lovelock's forthcoming book, The Vanishing Face of Gaia. His warning that climate change is spinning us into a hot world, where billions will starve and whole ecosystems will collapse, is a horror few want to contemplate, leavened only by the faint consolation that those of us lucky enough to live in the British Isles, Siberia, Chile, Canada or New Zealand may survive. But his prophecies are plausible and they will also make you think, which are two good reasons to grit your teeth and read him. |
15th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| What a slump in carbon prices means for the future - New Scientst As dumping greenhouse gases gets less costly, is a green future further away than ever? See also: Australia's emissions plan wavers as carbon price falls |
13th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| David King: Iraq was the first 'resource war' of the century - Guardian Unlimited The Iraq war was just the first of this century's "resource wars", in which powerful countries use force to secure valuable commodities for themselves, according to the UK government's former chief scientific adviser. |
13th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Wind Turbines in Europe Do Nothing for Emissions-Reduction Goals - Spiegel Online Despite Europe's boom in solar and wind energy, CO2 emissions haven't been reduced by even a single gram. Now, even the Green Party is taking a new look at the issue -- as shown in e-mails obtained by SPIEGEL ONLINE. |
13th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Coral reefs: Vital to the oceans, vital to humans - Scientific American Coral reefs are dying off at record rates, thanks to pollution, disease and global warming. Scientists worldwide are trying to come up with new ideas to conserve and protect not just the coral reefs, but also the biodiversity and human economies that depend upon them for their survival. Last month, a group of 155 scientists from 26 countries issued a document dubbed "The Monaco ... |
13th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Obama 'must act now' on climate - BBC The planet will be in "huge trouble" unless Barack Obama tackles climate change rapidly, says a top US scientist. |
13th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| How Did $50B Worth of High-Risk, Job-Killing Nuclear Loans Get into the Stimulus? - Alternet The same budget gimmicks that got us into the credit mess are creeping into the stimulus. |
13th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| $400bn demand for green spending - Guardian Unlimited Governments across the world must commit to hundreds of billions of pounds in green investments within months in a combined attack on the global economic crisis and global warming, say leading economists including Nicholas Stern. The alliance of experts said in a report yesterday that about $400bn (£277bn) should be channelled to support low-carbon technologies such as home insulation and ... |
13th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| To slow climate change, tax carbon - Christian Science Monitor To slow climate change, tax carbonChristian Science Monitor, MA. ... to fight global warming. But it's based on the trade of highly volatile financial instruments: risky at best. The better approach to climate change? ... |
13th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Are we approaching peak coal? Part 2 By Joseph RommPart 1 noted that the U.S. Geological Survey's stunning December report found The coal reserves estimate for the Gillette coalfield is 10.1 billion short tons of coal (6 percent of the original resource total). Although the report didn't get much media attention, it was a shocker because the Gillette field, within Wyoming's Powder River Basin "is the most prolific coalfield in the United States" and in 2006 provided "over 37 percent of the Nation's total yearly production." Now Clean Energy Action has issued a new report, Coal: Cheap and Abundant ... Or is it? |
13th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| CO2 hits new peaks, no sign global crisis causing dip - Reuters OSLO (Reuters) - Atmospheric levels of the main greenhouse gas are hitting new highs, with no sign yet that the world economic downturn is curbing industrial emissions, a leading scientist said on Thursday. On the other hand: Downturn a window for climate - The Age THE global financial crisis could give the world two or three years of much-needed time to step up the fight to slow climate change. |
13th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Humans could provide spark that ignites Amazon - New Scientist In a drier Amazon forest, clearing land with fire could create disastrous bushfires, according to models See Also: U.S. urged to save forests to curb climate change - Reuters |
11th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Political trickery keeping Kansas coal plans alive - DeSmogBlog If you thought the application to expand a coal-fired electricity plant in Kansas was dead, think again. Big Coal and their political allies in the Kansas State legislature have introduced a slick new Bill that if passed will make it very difficult for the massive Sunflower Electric coal plant expansion to not go ahead. Regular readers might recall our extensive coverage of the Kansas coal fight that started in late 2007 after the Kansas Department of Health and Environment became the first government agency in the United States to cite carbon dioxide emissions as the reason for rejecting an air permit for a proposed coal-fired electricity generating plant. |
11th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| UK's CO2 plan 'certain to fail' - BBC News The UK's plans to cut emissions by 80% by 2050 are almost certain to fail, according to a US scientist. |
11th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Prospects for climate/energy action, II - Grist Obama's green team Joe Romm says, "I honestly don't know if it is politically possible to preserve a livable climate -- but if it is, these are the people to make it happen." I don't know if I'd go that far, but Obama has certainly put together a team capable of great things. Coordinating is climate/energy ringleader Carol Browner, whose ambition and bureaucratic savvy (she ran Clinton's EPA for eight years) are evidenced by the right wing's hysterical attacks on her -- expect them to ramp up over coming months. They'll do everything they can to cast Browner as an rigid ideologue who doesn't care about the economy, in contrast to the sober grown-ups on the economic team. See aslo: Obama says renewable energy key to economic future Congress seen backing renewable energy standard - Reuters |
11th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Scientists plan emergency summit on climate change - Guardian Scientists are to hold an emergency summit to warn the world's politicians they are being too timid in their response to global warming. Climate experts from across the world will gather in Copenhagen next month to agree a stark message to policy makers, which they hope will break the political deadlock on efforts to curb rising temperatures. The meeting follows "disturbing" studies that suggest global warming could strike harder and faster than expected. |
9th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Funds to fuel green energy run dry - International Herald Tribune Investors in clean energy are like motorists stuck at broken traffic lights. The public policy light is green, but the price and credit lights are red. |
9th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon price falls to new low - Guardian The price of carbon has hit new lows as power generators and industrial companies continue to cash in credits under the emissions trading scheme (ETS) to bolster their balance sheets.The price of European Union allowances under the second phase of the ETS has plunged to €10.15 (£8.8) per tonne compared with highs of more than €30 in July last year.Analysts at Barclays Capital warned the price could fall further to €9 while Utilyx, the carbon information provider, said: "There seems to be no bottom to carbon prices at the moment."Market experts blame the decline on profit taking and a collapse in manufacturing, which has reached its lowest levels since 1981 in Britain. |
8th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Why sustainable power is unsustainable - New Scientist Renewable energy technologies are needed to safeguard our planet's future from climate change – but many rely on resources that have a limited future |
8th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Why Obama's Plan to Help Renewable Energy May Backfire and Aid Big Coal - Alertnet Obama's plan for a "national smart" grid needs closer examination. An expanded national grid would be anything but smart. |
8th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The fight to get aboard Lifeboat UK - Times Online The first truly great environmental disasters will usurp the political agenda and displace many false ideas hampering change. As in war, there could be the rapid application of new technology to climate and survival problems. I hope it will work, but I do not think humans as a species are yet clever enough to handle the coming environmental crisis and I fear they will spend their efforts trying to combat global heating instead of trying to adapt and survive in the new hot world. |
8th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Antarctic bulge could flood Washington DC - New Scientist As the Antarctic ice sheet melts, the gravitational pull it exerts on surrounding water will lessen – it could spell bad news for US coastal regions, according to a new report |
6th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Canada's bid to cut greenhouse gases flawed: probe - Reuters OTTAWA (Reuters) - Two of Canada's major strategies for cutting emissions of greenhouse gases have major flaws and cannot achieve the promised results, the country's environmental watchdog said on Thursday. |
6th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change to hit Africa fisheries hard: study - Reuters OSLO (Reuters) - African nations will be the most vulnerable to the impact of climate change on fisheries, ranging from damage to coral reefs to more severe river floods, according to a study of 132 nations on Thursday. |
6th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Sweden 'to lift new-nuclear ban' - BBC News The Swedish government plans to lift a three-decade-old ban on the construction of new nuclear reactors, according to reports. |
5th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Green taboo - BBC News Why the silence on population needs to be broken |
5th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global Warming May Delay Recovery of Stratospheric Ozone - Newswise Increasing greenhouse gases could delay, or even postpone indefinitely, the recovery of stratospheric ozone in some regions of the Earth. |
5th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| U.N. chief says domestic politics undermine climate fight - Reuters NEW DELHI (Reuters) - A climate deal at Copenhagen may not be possible unless politicians take tough decisions without worrying about winning elections and compulsions of their domestic politics, the U.N. Secretary-General said on Thursday. |
5th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Hazy Forecast for the Copenhagen Climate Summit - Time Magazine The U.N. climate change summit in Copenhagen in December will shape the world's environmental and economic future -- but much has to change before it begins |
5th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Leaf-level warming - Nature By losing less water, plants could worsen warming in a high-CO2 world, finds a new study. Stomata — the tiny pores on leaf surfaces that permit the exchange of water and gases with the atmosphere — close under elevated CO2 concentrations, returning less water to the atmosphere through the process known as transpiration. |
5th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Film: Time capsule - Nature Will future generations condemn our sluggish response to climate change? Hindsight is 20/20, and looking back from a global catastrophe ought to make it sharper still. Small comfort for survivors, like The Age of Stupid's narrator. On a ruined Earth in 2055, holed up in the fortress-like Global Archive, the film's fictional guide — played with gravitas by Pete Postlethwaite - trolls back through actual news clips and documentary footage captured 50 years earlier, trying to find out what went wrong. The Age of Stupid opens in the UK on 20 March 2009 and internationally in May 2009 (http://www.ageofstupid.net). |
5th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Flaming marvellous? - BBC News Britain's sitting on a waste time bomb - we must recycle more and bury less... and quickly. But there is a third option, which those models of eco-awareness, the Danes, don't even blink at: burning it. |
5th February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Germany drops environment plan as election looms - Reuters BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany has dropped a proposal to unify environmental rules for industrial and infrastructure projects, highlighting the difficulties of getting agreement between its ruling parties in an election year. |
3rd February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Irreversible Does Not Mean Unstoppable - RealClimate Susan Solomon, ozone hole luminary and Nobel Prize winning chair of IPCC, and her colleagues, have just published a paper entitled “Irreversible climate change because of carbon dioxide emissions” in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. We at realclimate have been getting a lot of calls from journalists about this paper, and some of them seem to have gone all doomsday on us. Dennis Avery and Fred Singer used the word Unstoppable as a battle flag a few years ago, over the argument that the observed warming is natural and therefore there is nothing that humanity can do to alter its course. |
3rd February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate expert Jim Hansen snubs Heathrow runway protesters - Guardian Heathrow protestors' hopes of attracting the support of leading climate scientists in their bid to block the airport's proposed third runway have suffered a major setback. Jim Hansen, director of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, has told anti-aviation campaigners that their protests will not help the battle against global warming and do not deserve support.The news is a serious blow for those opposed to airport expansion. Hansen is one of the world's mostly highly regarded climate scientists and has played a key role in other environmental protests. Last year, he helped defend six campaigners charged with criminal damage after occupying the Kingsnorth coal-fired power station in Kent. See also: Prioritize reducing coal emissions as climate change solution, not niche issues - The Georgia Straight |
3rd February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon trading should be scrapped - Guardian Every time the carbon market fails to reduce emissions, the politicians and businesses who promote the market as the solution to the climate crisis reach for their Samuel Beckett: "Try again, fail again, fail better." With the price of carbon collapsing, and even the head of EDF Energy in the UK, Vincent de Rivaz, warning of a speculative "carbon bubble", the EU continues to promote the expansion of carbon markets globally – with its proposal to create an OECD-wide carbon market by 2015, which it hopes to expand to major industrialising economies by 2020.We've been here before. In the first phase of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, prices collapsed because the "permits to pollute" that are the basis of such a system were over-allocated in response to corporate lobbying. |
3rd February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Europe to feel the heat of climate change - New Scientist A CENTURY from now, Spain and Italy will be enduring baking, parched summers while residents of central and north-west Europe will be experiencing what we now think of as Mediterranean warmth. Reindert Haarsma and his team from the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute in De Bilt used existing computer models to study changes in weather patterns resulting from the expected global warming. These indicated that summer temperatures in southern Europe would rise by 2 to 3 °C compared with today's, and that lack of rain would dry up the soils. The hot, dry air above these arid soils would then rise and expand, creating a low-pressure zone over the region. Winds circulating anticlockwise around this zone would feed continental air to more northerly areas, raising temperatures there too |
3rd February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Unilever blocking deforestation for palm oil - San Francisco Chronicle Although many conservationists have applauded Unilever's pledge to purchase 100 percent sustainable palm oil by 2015, some question the company's motives in an industry rife with competition. |
1st February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon trading may be the new sub-prime, says energy boss - Guardian The row over the working of the European Union's emissions trading scheme intensified last night when EDF Energy warned that speculators risked turning carbon into a new category of sub-prime investment. Vincent de Rivaz, the chief executive of the UK arm of the French-owned gas and electricity group, said politicians and regulators needed to revisit the way the ETS was working and whether it was bringing the results they wanted. "We like certainty about a carbon price," he said. "[But] the carbon price has to become simple and not become a new type of sub-prime tool which will be diverted from what is its initial purpose: to encourage real investment in real low-carbon technology." See also: Recession threatens carbon trading - BBC News |
31st January 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Acid oceans 'need urgent action' - BBC News Marine ecosystems are at risk from ocean acidification unless there are dramatic cuts in CO2 emissions, warn scientists. |
31st January 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Windy state - BBC News If Iowa can't go green, what chance does the US have? |
31st January 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Bushfires 'to burn up' climate efforts - The West Australian Australia is sitting on a time bomb when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions: bushfires. Researchers say bushfires can release as much carbon pollution as the whole of industry combined. See also CLIMATE CHANGE: Tropical Forests Fight for Survival - IPS |
29th January 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Study: CO2 Levels Getting To Point Of No Return - CBS4 Denver Scientists in Boulder say how we consume energy now will have a permanent effect on our future. A study led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says more carbon dioxide will cause irreversible changes. "...current choices regarding carbon dioxide emissions will have legacies that will irreversibly change the planet." See also: Global warming is 'irreversible' - BBC News |
27th January 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The stimulus engine that can't - The Christian Science Monitor Remember, it's just a down payment on transport. The US needs a long-term strategy. |
27th January 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| How the press bungles its coverage of climate economics - Grist Magazine One of the country's leading journalists has written a searing critique of the media's coverage of global warming, especially climate economics. How Much Would You Pay to Save the Planet? The American Press and the Economics of Climate Change [PDF] is by Eric Pooley for Harvard's prestigious Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy. Pooley has been managing editor of Fortune, national editor of Time, Time's chief political correspondent, and Time's White House correspondent, where he won the Gerald Ford Prize for Excellence in Reporting. Before that, he was a senior editor of New York magazine.. |
27th January 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Fast action needed to avoid climate chaos: study - Reuters BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Global temperature rises due to climate change could be kept below the critical 2 degree mark by fast international action to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 70 percent by 2030, a report said on Monday. |
27th January 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global Warming Can Be Contained for $263 Billion, McKinsey Says - Bloomberg Jan. 26 (Bloomberg) -- The world can keep global warming in check if nations ramp up spending on energy efficiency, clean power and forestry projects to at least 200 billion euros ($263 billion) a year by 2030, McKinsey and Co. |
27th January 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global warming could suffocate the sea - New Scientist As climate change sucks oxygen from the world's oceans it could create huge dead zones that will last tens of thousands of years |
26th January 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| China dams reveal flaws in climate-change weapon - AP via Yahoo! News The hydroelectric dam, a low wall of concrete slicing across an old farming valley, is supposed to help a power company in distant Germany contribute to saving the climate - while putting lucrative "carbon credits" into the pockets of Chinese developers. |
26th January 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Arctic will have first ice-free summer in 2015: Researcher - Canada.com The ice that has covered the Arctic basin for a million years will be gone in little more than six years because of global warming, a University of Manitoba geoscientist said. |
6th December 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| News Coverage of Climate Entering ‘Trance'? - New York Times Maxwell Boykoff, who studies the media and climate change at Oxford University, has come up with an initial snapshot looking at climate stories over the last four years in 50 newspapers in 20 countries and (along with a colleague, Maria Mansfield) finds that the media may be entering a climate trance. |
6th December 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| A gamble that may yet cost us the Earth - Irish Times IN THE middle of this economic whirlwind people are reaching out for ways to explain the events and put them in historical perspective. It is widely regarded as the deepest crisis capitalism has faced since the Great Depression of the 1930s; but if that is so we are only in 1930, not yet in 1933. Much worse may yet be to come. In that case we need to consider how realistic is a return to the previous model of consumption-led and debt-fuelled growth which produced this convulsion. Can its waste of natural and human resources be afforded any longer? Have the limits of that system been reached? What alternatives are available? |
6th December 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Cave's climate clues show ancient empires declined during dry spell (PhysOrg.com) -- The decline of the Roman and Byzantine empires in the Eastern Mediterranean more than 1,400 years ago may have been driven by unfavorable climate changes. |
5th December 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Four Harsh Truths about Climate Change - Portugal News About two years ago, I realised that the military in various countries were starting to do climate change scenarios in-house – scenarios that started with the scientific predictions about rising temperatures, falling crop yields, and other physical effects, and examined what that would do to politics and strategy. The scenarios predicted failed states proliferating because governments couldn’t feed their people; waves of climate refugees washing up against the borders of more fortunate countries; even wars between countries that shared the same rivers. So I started interviewing everybody I could get access to: not only senior military people but scientists, diplomats and politicians. About seventy interviews, a dozen countries and eighteen months later, I have reached four conclusions that I didn’t even suspect when I began the process. The first is simply this: the scientists are really scared. Their observations over the past two or three years suggest that everything is happening a lot faster than their climate models predicted. |
5th December 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Western Climate Initiative Under Attack - DeSmogBlog A powerful industry lobby group called the the “Western Business Roundtable” is scheming to derail the Western Climate Initiative You have to start somewhere. That was the attitude of a number of progressive US states and Canadian provinces when they formed the Western Climate Initiative (WCI), an effort to begin tackling carbon emissions in the face of endless inaction from their national governments. The WCI aims to lay the foundation for a continental cap and trade system to limit greenhouse gases 15 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. The coalition currently has 11 member states and provinces representing 20% of the US, and 70% of the Canadian economies. |
5th December 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Whistling in the Wind The new climate change report falls miles short of what we need. Here are some of the emergency measures it should have contained. |
3rd December 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Top scientist dismayed at spending imbalance on climate, poverty - Space Daily The head of the world's top climate scientists says he is stunned at the trillion-dollar cheques that have been signed to ease the banking crisis when funding for poverty and global warming is scrutinised or denied. In an interview on the sidelines of the UN climate talks here, Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said he was both astonished and dismayed at the imbalance. |
3rd December 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Why don't op-ed's get fact checked? - RealClimate Debra Saunders is a conservative columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle who has a history of writing misleading contrarian pieces on climate change. She contacted NASA Public Affairs recently for a comment on the initial glitch on the October GHCN numbers (see this earlier post for discussions of that). They forwarded the query to me and since her questions were straightforward, I answered them as best I could. Indeed in her subsequent column, she quotes me accurately and in context. However, the rest of her column shows none of the same appreciation for basic journalistic standards. She starts by asking why newspapers are no longer trusted - a good question, and one that may indeed be answerable. |
2nd December 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| UK emissions 'must be cut by a third' - Independent The UK must cut its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 34 per cent by 2020, the committee set up to advise the Government on climate change recommended today. |
2nd December 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The fool's gold of carbon trading - Times Online It was a deal to make Alistair Darling hug himself with glee. Just as the world's existing financial markets were hitting a five-year low two weeks ago, the Treasury raked in a cool £54m from a brand new one. The occasion was Britain's first auction of CO2 permits. |
30th November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Greenhouse gases will heat up planet 'for ever' - Independent Global warming is for ever, some of the world's top climate scientists have concluded. Their research shows that carbon dioxide emitted from today's homes, cars and factories will continue to heat up the planet for hundreds of thousands of years. |
30th November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global Warming Is Changing Organic Matter In Soil: Atmosphere Could Change As A Result - Science Daily New research shows that we should be looking to the ground, not the sky, to see where climate change could have its most perilous impact on life on Earth. Scientists have shown that global warming actually changes the molecular structure of organic matter in soil. |
29th November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Not the IPCC - “NIPCC” Report - RealClimate Michael Mann and Gavin Schmidt Much in the spirit of the Fraser Institute's damp squib we reported on last year, S. Fred Singer and his merry band of contrarian luminaries (financed by the notorious "Heartland Institute" we've commented on previously) served up a similarly dishonest 'assessment' of the science of climate change earlier this year in the form of what they call the NIPCC" report (the "N" presumably standing for 'not the' or 'nonsense'). This seems to be making the rounds again as Singer and Heartland are gearing up for a reprise of last year's critically…er…appraised "Conference on Climate Change" this March. See also: RealClimate Wiki |
29th November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Eurogypsum: Carbon leakage 'already happening' | EU - European Information on Sustainable Dev. - EUActiv EU plans to cut industrial CO2 emissions through an emissions trading system are pushing manufacturers of gypsum-based products like plaster and drywall to take their operations outside EU borders, says Jean-Pierre Clavel, president of industry association Eurogypsum. |
29th November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Brazil Amazon destruction rises after 3-year fall - Reuters BRASILIA (Reuters) - Destruction of the Amazon forest in Brazil accelerated for the first time in four years, the government said on Friday, as high commodity prices tempted farmers and ranchers to slash more trees. |
29th November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate fight costs may be three times more - Reuters LONDON (Reuters) - The cost of efforts to avoid dangerous global warming may be 170 percent higher than 2007 estimates, a report for the U.N.'s climate agency said on Thursday. |
28th November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| World's forests face climate-change crisis - New Scientist The world's forests, and the people who depend on them, are facing devastation from climate change unless we learn to adapt, says a report. , see a gallery of photographs |
28th November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Water vapour warming - Nature Dessler and colleagues combined the satellite data with global - average surface temperature readings for the same period to determine how water vapour both affects, and responds to, temperature. They found that if the Earth warms by 1°C, rising humidity will trap an additional 2 Watts of energy per square metre, similar to the estimates simulated by climate models. The results suggest that the feedback effect of water vapour on climate warming is both large and positive. |
28th November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| White House Prods Allies to Oppose Limits on Greenhouse Gases - Washington Post As the Bush administration prepares to issue its ruling on whether to limit greenhouse gases, it's sending out a message to some of its allies: Tell us how much you don't want us to regulate emissions linked to global warming. |
27th November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| One Shot Left - Monbiot The latest science suggests that preventing runaway climate change means total decarbonisation. Is it too late? To say so is to make it true. To suggest that there is nothing that can now be done is to ensure that nothing is done. But even a resolute optimist like me finds hope ever harder to summon. A new summary of the science published since last year’s Intergovernmental Panel report suggests that - almost a century ahead of schedule - the critical climate processes might have begun(2). Just a year ago the Intergovernmental Panel warned that the Arctic’s “late-summer sea ice is projected to disappear almost completely towards the end of the 21st century … in some models.”(3) But, as the new report by the Public Interest Research Centre (PIRC) shows, climate scientists are now predicting the end of late-summer sea ice within three to seven years. The trajectory of current melting plummets through the graphs like a meteorite falling to earth. Forget the sodding polar bears: this is about all of us. |
26th November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Zombie Economics: Don't Bail out the System that Gave Us SUVs and Strip Malls - Alternet We shouldn't squander our remaining resources on a lifestyle that doesn't have a future. |
26th November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| David Suzuki: Leadership crucial to forestall looming crises - The Georgia Straight New leadership may bring hope, but the U.S. and the world still have a lot of catching up to do to forestall the catastrophic consequences of our outmoded economic thinking. |
26th November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Joseph Romm: The Politico Pimps Global Cooling for Congressional Deniers - HuffingtonPost In a piece that wins the 2008 prize for a press release masquerading as journalism, Politico treats those who understand the actual state of climate science as if they are the ones in the dwindling minority. |
26th November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Economic slump may limit moves on clean energy - International Herald Tribune From Italy to China, a poor global economy and plunging prices of coal and oil are upending plans to wean businesses and consumers from fossil fuel. |
26th November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon dioxide levels already a danger - CNN A team of international scientists led by Dr James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, say that carbon dioxide (CO2) levels are already in the danger zone. "It's like the economy, it's a non-linear problem," he said. "You knew, given the continued input of big deficit spending that things would go to pot, but nobody could predict the time of collapse with any confidence. We had better start reducing emissions soon and get back below 350 ppm within several decades -- otherwise I doubt that the ice sheets can stand such a long strong pressure." See also: A Last Chance to Avert Disaster - Multinational Monitor |
23rd November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Is Obama's Energy Plan Enough? - TIME With the possible exception of Barack Obama's puppy-anticipating daughters, no one is more eagerly awaiting the incoming Administration than the leaders of the renewable-energy industries. President-elect Obama campaigned on the promise to spend $150 billion over the next 10 years to support alternative energy, like wind and solar, as well as the green jobs that the sector has the potential to create. At California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's climate summit on Nov. 18, Obama, in taped remarks, reaffirmed that he would hold fast to those campaign promises, starting with mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions. "This is a crucial step forward," says Linda Church Ciocci, the executive director of the National Hydropower Association. As ambitious as Obama's campaign promises were — at least compared to his predecessor's — the future state of global energy will demand government policies with a much longer reach, according to alternative-energy leaders. |
23rd November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global Trends 2025: A transformed world - excerpts - Energy Bulletin The U.S. intelligence agencies dust off their crystal ball and give us their long-term view of the future. In a striking reversal of the triumphalism of the Bush years, the report sees the future as multi-polar and roiled by shocks. Resource scarcity and climate change are highlighted. Despite the bracing dose of reality in the report, peak oilers will find much to criticize. (Excerpts, links, commentary) read more |
23rd November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Got a spare Earth anywhere? - CNews If the world continues to pillage and plunder Earth's natural resources at the rate we are now, by 2030 we will need two planets to support us. |
23rd November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Abdicating The "A" Word, Frantically Fighting For The Familiar - CounterCurrents.org Suddenly, somewhere in 2006 it became apparent to me that the convergence of calamity would occur sooner, rather than later, and I realized that the fabric of empire was unraveling much faster than I had anticipated. I do not wish to re-state the obvious nor attempt to trace the unfolding of events in the past two years and beyond. What I argue, rather, is that the collapse of Western civilization is well underway-and that my work is not to impede but to assist that monumental, mythical, and momentous phenomenon. What it is difficult for humans to wrap their minds around is the unprecedented nature of the current moment. We grasp for whatever straws of evidence we can produce that might prove that there's nothing really idiosyncratic about it. Species have come and gone before; the earth itself has been decimated and then restored more than once, we protest. Yet such statements, while accurate, miss the staggering reality that never in human history has our species devoured in a mere two or three centuries nearly all of the hydrocarbon energy painstakingly produced by the planet over the span of millennia; never have so many humans inhabited the earth at one time, nor fouled the earth's surface and atmosphere to the extent of the current blight. And what is even more astounding is the fact that never before in human history have all of these factors occurred simultaneously with the others. So argue as we may for continuity, the current moment is dramatically unique. Moreover, if apocalypse is an unveiling, what is it that might be revealing itself in the current predicament? Is it the looting of billions, perhaps trillions by the federal government and corporate capitalism? Is it the impotence of presidents and politicians to reverse the unraveling? Is it the reality that they actually orchestrated financial collapse and will profit handsomely from it? Will the "revelation" be the public validation of whistleblowing economic investigators like Chris Martenson, Catherine Austin Fitts, Pam Martens, and Nomi Prins? |
18th November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| World faces a climate war says expert - Pembroke Daily Observer Nobody lets their children starve unless there are no other options available. This from international affairs expert Gwynne Dyer, who spoke to a full house of Algonquin College students and community members at Festival Hall Monday night. Mr. Dyer's lecture, entitled "Climate Wars," outlined the impact climate change is having not only on the world's climate, but on the world's food supply and military operations. |
18th November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Water vapor confirmed as major player in climate change - PhysOrg.com Water vapor is known to be Earth's most abundant greenhouse gas, but the extent of its contribution to global warming has been debated. Using recent NASA satellite data, researchers have estimated more precisely than ever the heat-trapping effect of water in the air, validating the role of the gas as a critical component of climate change. |
18th November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Floods under Antarctic ice speed glaciers into sea: study - AFP Scientists unveiled Sunday the first direct evidence that massive floods deep below Antarctica's ice cover are accelerating the flow of glaciers into the sea. |
17th November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Adoption of Climate Treaty by 2009 in Doubt - Environmental News Network Despite new leadership in the United States promising to cap the country's greenhouse gas emissions, some environmental leaders say it is unlikely that an international climate treaty will pass in the next year. |
17th November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change: Emissions from industrialised world still high - SpaceDaily PARIS, Nov 17 (AFP) Nov 17, 2008 Carbon emissions from the industrialised world in 2006 were higher than at the start of the century, mainly as a result of revived activity by former Soviet-bloc states, according to UN figures released on Monday. |
17th November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Pakistan and the melting glaciers If Pakistan is to dig itself out of its current crisis it needs two things to happen. It needs strong economic growth to tackle poverty and undercut the appeal of hardline Islamists; and it needs peace with India if it is to permanently cut its ties with militants it has traditionally seen as a reserve force to be used against its much bigger neighbour. Or so goes the prevailing view. This week's United Nations report on pollution in Asia -- and the melting of glaciers which feed the rivers of India and Pakistan -- suggest there are serious risks to that scenario of an ultimately prosperous Pakistan at peace with its neighbours. |
17th November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Revised Theory Suggests Carbon Dioxide Levels Already In Danger Zone - Medical News Today If climate disasters are to be averted, atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) must be reduced below the levels that already exist today, according to a study published in Open Atmospheric Science Journal by a group of 10 scientists from the United States, the United Kingdom and France. |
8th November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| World needs climate emergency backup plan, says expert - PhysOrg In submitted testimony to the British Parliament, climate scientist Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution said that while steep cuts in carbon emissions are essential to stabilizing global climate, there also needs to be a backup plan. Geoengineering solutions such as injecting dust into the atmosphere are risky, but may become necessary if emissions cuts are insufficient to stave off catastrophic warming. He urged that research into the pros and cons of geoengineering be made a high priority. |
8th November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The coming IEA report - Energy Bulletin IEA's World Energy Report 2008 (PDF) - executive summary now online The world’s energy system is at a crossroads. Current global trends in energy supply and consumption are patently unsustainable — environmentally, economically, socially. But that can — and must — be altered; there’s still time to change the road we’re on. It is not an exaggeration to claim that the future of human prosperity depends on how successfully we tackle the two central energy challenges facing us today: securing the supply of reliable and affordable energy; and effecting a rapid transformation to a low-carbon, efficient and environmentally benign system of energy supply. What is needed is nothing short of an energy revolution. This World Energy Outlook demonstrates how that might be achieved through decisive policy action and at what cost. It also describes the consequences of failure. |
8th November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Michael Pollan: Eating Is a Political Act - Alternet Michael Pollan discusses food production, consumer choices, the future of organics and climate change. |
8th November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Energy Agency warns of 6°C rise in temperatures - New Scientist The International Energy Agency says that our rate of oil consumption could result in temperature rises that are more than the environment can cope with |
7th November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| EU global warming limit may not be possible: IEA - Reuters LONDON (Reuters) - A European Union target to limit warming of the planet to no more than 2 degrees Celsius may not be technically achievable, the International Energy Agency said in a report to be published next week. |
7th November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The slippery business of palm oil - Guardian Palm oil is used in a third of all foods. But can it ever be produced without causing environmental devastation as some big companies are promising? |
7th November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global warming may hasten carbon release from world's peat bogs - Fresh News A new analysis has determined that billions of tons of carbon sequestered in the world’s peat bogs could be released into the atmosphere in the coming decades as a result of global warming. |
7th November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Obama May Put Renewable-Energy Plan Ahead of Climate Package - Bloomberg Nov. 5 (Bloomberg) -- President-elect Barack Obama may pursue legislation early next year to speed a transition to an economy fueled by renewable energy sources and delay a fight on climate change until the economy improves. See also: Under Obama, Dark Days Seen Ahead For Fossil Fuels - CNNMoney.com |
6th November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| President Obama's Big Climate Challenge - AlterNet The bills are coming due. And not just from a failed Bush presidency, but the bills from 200 years of burning fossil fuel. See also: Will Obama Be the Leader We Need on Climate Change? |
6th November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Infrastructure 'hit by climate change' - Sydney Morning Herald All forms of infrastructure in Australia including electricity, dams, roads and even footpaths will be severely affected by climate change, a new report has found. |
6th November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| David Suzuki: renewable energy requires strength of will - Georgia Straight Energy underpins everything we do. Human societies have become increasingly complex, requiring ever larger-scale sources of continuous energy. Now, energy fuels not only our activities but our economies as well. If we don’t choose our energy sources wisely, we can do more harm than good. Non-renewable energy sources such as fossil and nuclear fuels are not sustainable and have also taught us that technological advances often come at great cost. These fuels can never be a long-term solution because they will run out. They also create emissions that pollute our air, water, and soil, and contribute to global warming or long-term radioactive-waste problems. Renewable energy sources will not run out, and they don’t cause the same kinds of environmental problems as non-renewable sources. But that doesn’t mean we should adopt renewable energy without any forethought. Biofuels can create problems if fuel production comes at the expense of food production. And wind power, if not properly planned and sited, can harm birds and bats (although Danish studies of 10,000 bird kills revealed that almost all died in collisions with buildings, cars, and wires; only 10 were killed by windmills). |
5th November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The need for speed - Gristmill Hansen et al: We must phase-out coal emissions by 2030 and stabilize at or below 350 ppm. In a few days, James Hansen and several other leading climate scientists will release a major new study, "Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?" in the Open Atmospheric Sciences Journal. You can read a first draft of the study and my commentary on it here: Hansen (et al) ultimatum: Get back to 350 ppm or risk an ice-free planet. |
4th November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global warming pollution up 3 percent; surpassing dire predictions - The Chesapeake Bay Journal The world pumped up its pollution of the chief man-made global warming gas last year, setting a course that could push beyond leading scientists' projected worst-case scenario, international researchers said in September. |
4th November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Psychology of Denial in the Age of Consumerism - MWC News In our society we use material goods and social roles to cover up the black hole of grief. By surrounding ourselves with pretty and expensive things we tell everyone else that we are really OK. This is, so I learn from my clients, the major cause of going shopping, going on buying sprees and being consumers. We have come to believe that bright new things will fill the empty spaces inside. This seems to be why we cannot really confront the devil of global warming that is being fed by every dollar we spend. For our own safety as a species we should all be consuming less and sharing more and striving to make life simple, whereas we are literally hell-bent on getting the most while we still can. The hound sitting in the kennel of our emptiness makes it too hard for us to look at the truth and change our ways. We cannot alter the terminal path we are on, because to do so would expose our deepest fears that underneath all the tinsel and stuff we really are not worth much at all. Not even the protection we should be giving to our beautiful children is enough to move us to confront this terrifying personal fear. A four-year analysis of the world's ecosystems sponsored by the Worldwatch Institute found that over-consumption has pushed 15 out of 24 ecosystems essential to human life "beyond their sustainable limits". Our insatiable desire for more is moving the planet toward a state of collapse that may be "abrupt and potentially irreversible". Since we all know that, can we not go beyond the fear to follow David Attenborough, who said in a recent interview, "How could I look my grandchildren in the eye and say I knew and did nothing?" |
2nd November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 97 months left - Guardian Unlimited But October marked an unprecedented opportunity for the US and UK to tackle climate change. |
2nd November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Judge halts New York plan to turn yellow cabs green - Reuters NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City's plan to turn its entire fleet of yellow cabs green by 2012 was halted on Friday by a federal judge who ruled that regulation of fuel emissions standards falls under federal, not city, authority. |
2nd November 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Nasty Truth: Free Trade Agreements May Scuttle Green Jobs Plans Many of the promises the candidates make on the stump would have trouble passing muster with the WTO -- that's the whole point of "free trade" deals. |
31st October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Another record profit for Exxon Shell gains from high oil prices |
31st October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Humans to blame for polar warming - New Scientist Models which factor in human activity best match polar temperature data, as new measurements suggest Arctic ice is at its thinnest since records began |
31st October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Time to bury the 'clean coal' myth - Guardian Unlimited In the second of his Greenwash columns, Fred Pearce exposes how energy companies and governments are trying to rebrand coal as a clean fuel of the future despite the evidence See also: What Is this "Clean Coal" Obama and McCain Support? |
31st October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| World Needs Biological Ways of Cutting Carbon, Scientist Says - Bloomberg Technologies such as the creation of charcoal that permanently stores carbon are needed if the world has any hope of halting global warming, which is happening faster than forecast seven years ago by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Flannery, who was the 2007 Australian of the Year, said today at a conference on the country's Gold Coast. |
31st October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Amazon may lose 50 pct of tree species: Expert - Frontline Global warming could kill off half of the tree species in Brazil's vast Amazon jungle by 2050, a leading international climate change expert said on Wednesday. A worst-case rise of 4 degrees Celsius would wipe out half of the region's tree species by making the Amazon much drier and causing increased humidity in Brazil's non-Amazon southern region, said Martin Parry of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change . A lower rise of 2 degrees Celsius by 2050 would eliminate a quarter of the tree species in the Amazon, the world's largest remaining tropical rain forest, he told reporters. |
31st October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Energy agency denies oil output falling at faster rate than previously thought - Guardian Unlimited The International Energy Agency sought to play down a report that it believes global oil production is falling at a faster rate than previously thought. The Financial Times said a draft of the IEA's annual World Energy Outlook calculated world production would fall at a natural annual rate of 9.1% without extra investment. See also: Peak oil is just five years away, and we must start to plan now to avert a truly ruinous crisis - Guardian Unlimited |
30th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| China warns on emissions control - BBC News China admits its greenhouse gas emissions are equal to America's and that there is little prospect of an early improvement. |
30th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| What the Public Doesn't Get About Climate Change - TIME On the one hand are the scientists, who with few exceptions think climate change is very serious and needs to be dealt with immediately and ambitiously. On the other side is the public, which increasingly believes that climate change is real and worries about it, but which rarely ranks it as a high priority. |
29th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Long term strategy needed for reducing greenhouse gases - PhysOrg A group of scientists led by the University of Bristol have, for the first time, combined the outcomes of proposals by the G8 countries and the UK Government’s Stern Review with the latest knowledge of climate change feedbacks relating to the carbon cycle (the way carbon moves between the oceans, atmosphere and land). Their findings, published in Environmental Research Letters, show that short-term cuts alone will not solve the problem and that policy makers need to plan for hundreds of years into the future. |
29th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Beijing sets price for cooperation on climate change - The Standard Beijing sets price for cooperation on climate changeThe Standard, Hong Kong. China wants rich countries to commit 1 percent of their economic worth to help poor nations fight global warming, and will press for a new international ... |
29th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Big Brother Spies on Climate Activists - DeSmogBlog How crazy is the so-called “climate debate”? Consider the bizarre case of three young climate activists who were just informed by local police that they were under surveillance for over a year on suspicion of “involvement in terrorism”. Between March 2005 and May 2006, three representatives of Chesapeake Climate Action Network were apparently being spied on due to their non-violent efforts to raise awareness about climate change. All three received letters from the Maryland State Police this October blandly stating that there was “no evidence whatsoever of any involvement in violent crime” and they had the option to view the files once, without a camera or lawyer present, before the surveillance records were destroyed. |
28th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Risks of global warming greater than financial crisis: Stern - Reuters HONG KONG (Reuters) - The risks of inaction over climate change far outweigh the turmoil of the global financial crisis, a leading climate change expert said on Monday, while calling for new fiscal spending tailored to low carbon growth. "The risk consequences of ignoring climate change will be very much bigger than the consequences of ignoring risks in the financial system," said Nicholas Stern, a former British Treasury economist, who released a seminal report in 2006 that said inaction on emissions blamed for global warming could cause economic pain equal to the Great Depression. "That's a very important lesson, tackle risk early," Stern told a climate and carbon conference in Hong Kong. |
27th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Study blasts one-size-fits-all approach to climate change - CNews OTTAWA - A new study on the economy and the environment recommends the federal government combat climate change with a "silver buckshot" of policies rather than a single silver bullet. |
25th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Top coal CEO isn't buying the techno-hope of carbon capture and storage - DeSmogBlog The $40 million clean coal lobby has been very effective in creating a false sense of security that someday all coal fired electrical plants will be able to capture greenhouse gases and store them underground. David Ratcliffe, the CEO of Southern Company - the second largest emitter of greenhouse gas from coal in the United States - is extremely pessimistic about the future prospects of CCS. |
25th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The great green swindle - Guardian Unlimited As consumers become more eco-conscious, companies will go to ever greater lengths to present themselves as environmentally friendly. Some make exaggerated or absurd claims, others resort to downright lies. Fred Pearce, whose new weekly Greenwash column launches on the Guardian website today, reports on a sinister trend - and appeals to readers to help stamp it out |
25th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 'Drastic' reforms on energy urged - BBC News UK:"Urgent and drastic" changes are needed if the UK is to meet challenging EU targets on renewable energy, peers say. |
24th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Q&A: 'Media Must Find a Way for the Message' - IPS ROME, Oct 23 (IPS) - While there is clear evidence of growing global warming, "the political will to address it is still lacking," says Mohan Munasinghe, co-winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize as vice-chairman of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). |
24th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| China report warns of greenhouse gas leap - Reuters BEIJING (Reuters) - China's greenhouse gas pollution could double or more in two decades says a new Chinese state think-tank study that casts stark light on the industrial giant's role in stoking global warming. |
23rd October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Big Oil's Last Stand - Foreign Policy In Focus And Big Oil thrives on secrecy, a lack of transparency, and control over information. We can only address its power by pulling back its veil. This is what The Tyranny of Oil: the World’s Most Powerful Industry—And What We Must Do To Stop It, seeks to achieve. |
23rd October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| CLIMATE CHANGE: Window of Opportunity Closing Rapidly - IPS UXBRIDGE, Canada, Oct 22 (IPS) - The global financial crisis has pushed climate change off the front pages despite new evidence that it is happening faster and with stronger impacts than previous projections, a new report warns. See also: IPCC Chair: Severity Under-reported - Worldwatch Institute |
23rd October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Time to invest in nature's capital - BBC News Amid the global financial crisis, it is time to recognise the wealth we enjoy from nature's capital, says Andrew Mitchell, director of the Global Canopy Programme. In this week's Green Room, he argues that there will be no government bailout if we fail to protect the vital services provided by the world's forests. See also: Tony Juniper: John Eliasch is right: we need a global fund to pay for rainforests - Guardian Unlimited Rich countries must pay for rainforests: UK report - Reuters Forest plan may 'fuel corruption' - BBC News |
14th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The 'win-win' solution failing the rainforests - Guardian Unlimited Market-based answers to deforestation in Latin America are backfiring, say conservation groups. By Oliver Balch |
22nd October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Q&A: "Profit Is Enemy Number One of the Environment" - IPS SANTIAGO, Oct 20 (Tierramérica) - The global financial debacle is evidence that capitalism "is more alive than ever" and can only be stopped by policies that extinguish all forms of profit or by the end of life on Earth, says Chilean professor and activist Marcel Claude. |
22nd October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Low-carbon economy is not a luxury - BBC News The low-carbon economy is an integral part of the world's economic recovery, not a luxurious extra. |
22nd October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| If an hour is a long time in politics, we must start thinking in centuries - Guardian Unlimited George Monbiot: From banking to the climate, the wreckage of short-termism is stark, and the need for a 100-year committee is plain |
22nd October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 34 Million-Yr GHG Model: Earth Is CO2 Sensitive - innovations report The new model, accounting for atmospheric CO2 and changes in Earth's orbit around the sun among other variables, shows that the threshold of atmospheric CO2 at which large ice sheet development in the Northern Hemisphere is possible, is much lower than for Antarctica. The work, supported by the National Science Foundation, also suggests that climate, ice sheets and sea level may be far more sensitive to CO2 levels than generally accepted. |
22nd October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| This recession is the ideal time to deal with global warming - Johann Hari This is, perversely, a dazzling time to be alive: every human being who ever lives will deal with the decisions we make here |
20th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Risk of Disease Rises With Water Temperatures - Washington Post Now, scientists say, it is a near-certainty that global warming will drive significant increases in waterborne diseases around the world. Rainfalls will be heavier, triggering sewage overflows, contaminating drinking water and endangering beachgoers. Higher lake and ocean temperatures will cause bacteria, parasites and algal blooms to flourish. Warmer weather and heavier rains also will mean more mosquitoes, which can carry West Nile virus, malaria and dengue fever. Fresh produce and shellfish are more likely to become contaminated. |
20th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Nothing to fear from curbing growth - New Scientist
BACK in the 1970s, few people listened to scientists' warnings about global warming. Even fewer heeded calls to curb economic growth so we could protect the environment. Today, these ideas are starting to be appreciated. We are hearing ever more about the contradiction between hanging on to a habitable planet and the expansionary demands of the global market. Yet as Tim Jackson outlines (see "What politicians are afraid to say"), people and their governments - which continue to urge the growth agenda in Canute-like defiance of the rising waters and raging heats they have been told will ensue - are still largely in denial about this conflict. A key factor in this is the widespread presumption that becoming more sustainable will inevitably make our lives worse, which leads to green campaigners being dismissed as regressive killjoys bent on returning us to a primitive existence. Perhaps to counter this idea, those who take global warming seriously tend to focus on technical fixes that might allow us to continue with our current ways. It doesn't help that virtually all representations of pleasure and the life we should aspire to come from advertising, with its incessant message that our happiness is dependent on consuming ever more "stuff". We hear little about the joys of escaping the stress, congestion, ill-health, noise and waste that come with our "high" standard of living. In fact, there is plenty of evidence that the work-dominated and materially encumbered affluence of today is not giving us enjoyable lives, and that switching to a more sustainable society in which we work and produce less would actually make us happier. For example, rates of occupational ill-health and depression have been shown to be linked to the number of hours we work, and once a certain level of income is reached further wealth does not correlate with increased happiness. |
19th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Green energy is not a middle-class conceit, more the only way forward - Independent So that's it, then, choruses the commentariat. Collapsing confidence, crashing stock markets and credit-starved banks spell doom not just for the economy, but for environmental concerns. Saving the planet may be all very well in the good times, but is an unaffordable luxury when things turn bad. The argument is pervasive, persuasive and gaining ground. Even some environmentalists half-accept it, believing they should mute their message. But it is plain wrong. Never have green concerns and measures been more important. How so? The second best reason is that this financial crisis is mild compared with the environmentally driven ones ahead. The climate crunch, the Stern report concluded, will cost a staggering 20 per cent of global growth if not averted. Peak oil – when the cheap and abundant fuel that has powered our growth becomes scarce and expensive – is likely to be even worse in its impact, reducing supplies of humanity's main source of energy, for the first time in history, before another can take its place. And neither can wait. There's a growing consensus that emissions of carbon dioxide must head sharply downwards within a decade if global warming is not to run out of control. And peak oil, a growing number of experts believe, may well arrive even sooner. But the most important reason is wholly positive. Developing a new green economy is our most promising path out of the present crisis. It is the best available new engine of growth, with the best chance of creating the tens of millions of jobs that will soon be desperately needed. |
19th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Earth, but not as we know it - CNN Dr Jan Zalasiewicz is the author of "The Earth After Us -- What legacy will humans leave in the rocks?" His book examines what might remain of our civilization in the strata 100 million years from now, and how aliens might piece together the story of the planet and our brief but dramatic impact on it. |
17th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Analysis: What would the bank-bail out money buy for the environment? - Guardian Unlimited UK: Up $4 trillion has been committed to rescue the global economy. How could that money be spent on the environment? |
17th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Leading article: No time for retreat - The Independent The European Union's credibility as a serious economic force has been restored this week by its co-ordinated manoeuvres to rescue the continent's banking sector. The task at hand now for the EU is to maintain its credibility as a serious player in the global struggle to mitigate dangerous climate change. |
17th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Foreboding forecast - Nature Even the most stringent of proposed climate mitigation measures may not avert dangerous climate change, shows a new analysis. An increase in global average surface temperature of 2 °C above pre-industrial values is generally considered to be the level of warming that could have serious impacts and, as such, is to be avoided. |
16th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Financial meltdown just a curtain-raiser to what we face with global warming - The Age There is a disconcerting similarity between the responses to global warming and those to the dud assets created through subprime lending and financial innovation. Both are examples of market failure. In both cases, banks, industries and regulators have ignored underlying risks that could devastate the global economy. The focus has been on short-term gains, where you pay the bare minimum now and pretend the day isn't coming when payment is due — or when fossil fuels run out. Where you pitch interest rate swaps, derivatives and layers of barely understood securities and then ask for a bail-out — or have urban planning that encourages more car use and freeways while paying lip service to sustainability. |
15th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Why deniers out-debate 'smart talkers' - Gristmill Why scientists aren't more persuasive, part 2 NPR broadcast a now-infamous climate debate on the proposition "Global warming is not a crisis." In theory, this sounds like an easy win for the "nay" side -- "crisis" is obviously the mildest of words to describe the greatest preventable existential threat to the health and well-being of future generations. But in practice such debates are almost unwinnable, even by those who are good at debating in public, a group that does not include very many scientists. As noted in Part 1, scientists are lousy at rhetoric, the art of persuasion. Significantly, rhetoric, was discovered and developed by the Greeks and Romans in part to help them win debates, so it follows that modern debates are also won by those who are better at using the strategies and tactics of rhetoric. |
15th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| This Is What Denial Does - George Monbiot The economic crisis is petty by comparison to the nature crunch. But they have the same cause. |
14th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Time to invest in nature's capital - BBC News Amid the global financial crisis, it is time to recognise the wealth we enjoy from nature's capital, says Andrew Mitchell, director of the Global Canopy Programme. In this week's Green Room, he argues that there will be no government bailout if we fail to protect the vital services provided by the world's forests. See also: Tony Juniper: John Eliasch is right: we need a global fund to pay for rainforests - Guardian Unlimited Rich countries must pay for rainforests: UK report - Reuters Forest plan may 'fuel corruption' - BBC News |
14th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Cooking The Carbon Books - Forbes Is Europe really reducing emissions, or just outsourcing them to the developing world? |
14th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Met Office issues strongest warning yet on climate change - The Edinburgh Journal A three per cent cut on global emissions from 2010 is the only way to avoid rising sea levels and drought, Met Office researchers say. See also: Ecologists raise alarm ahead of UN climate summit - SpaceDaily |
14th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| MEDIA: Time for a Global Glasnost, Says Gorbachev - IPS Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev has warned against the danger of letting the global financial crisis and other emergencies overshadow media attention on climate change. "This financial turmoil, which will heavily affect the real economy, was absolutely predictable, and it is only one aspect of the wider crisis of all the current development systems," Gorbachev, former president of the former Soviet Union and the 1990 Nobel Peace laureate told IPS in an interview. "In fact, there are connected simultaneous crises that are rapidly emerging. These relate to energy, water, food, demography, climate change and the ecosystem devastation." |
14th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Brit's Eye View: Is this the end of capitalism as we know it? - Gristmill By Ben TuxworthBen Tuxworth, communications director at Forum for the Future, writes a monthly column for Gristmill on sustainability in the U.K. and Europe. ----- It's official: we haven't had a financial crisis like this since at least 1603, and commentators here in the U.K. seem to agree that things can never be the same again. Capitalism, if not in question, will be a very different beast from now on. Think donkey on short leash. It's all a bit frightening, and though we're still in the midst of the storm, a growing band of voices here in the U.K. |
14th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global Warming – Impact Of Climate Change On Global Agriculture - CattleNetwork.com Our efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change, urgent as they are, will have little effect over the next 50 years. Changes during this period have already been set in motion by past greenhouse gas emissions. |
14th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Warmer climate to dry up peatlands - Reuters HONG KONG (Reuters) - Warmer temperatures in the years ahead will dry up peatlands, release more carbon dioxide into the world's atmosphere and aggravate global warming, a study in Japan has found. |
13th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| From energy efficiency to war: thinktank sees 2030 climate future - AFP via Yahoo! News The challenge posed by climate change could be resolved by a peaceful switch to a low-carbon economy, or alternatively inflict stresses that could include war and desertification of swathes of the US and Australia, a thinktank said on Monday. |
13th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| World 'to fail' on nature target - BBC News The world's governments will fail to meet their agreed target of curbing biodiversity loss by 2010, according to experts questioned by BBC News. |
13th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| David Suzuki hosts the Current - CBC (audio) For almost two years, the environment -- and especially climate change -- has been near the top of the list of Canadians' concerns. But now, the American economy is on the verge of collapse and it's threatening to take the rest of the world's markets down with it. There's even discussion about how to bail out Canadian banks, should it come to that. In the midst of this, politicians are sensing panic and now the economy is THE issue in the federal election campaign. So clearly, a lot has changed since the concept of "economy" was first hatched. Now, with all this talk about the economy, it's worth reminding ourselves where the term comes from and what it meant when the ancient Greeks first conceived of it. So here's Ephraim Lytle with a brief history lesson. He's teaches Hellenistic History and specializes in Ancient Greek Economy at the University of Toronto. For some people elections, government and huge bureaucracies aren't where the real political action is it's in community gardens, do-it-yourself bike repair shops and communities of computers programmers collaborating on new software to give away to whoever wants it. Chris Carlsson joined David Suzuki from San Francisco. |
12th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| US wildfires pushed ozone past legal limits - New Scientist Californian fires in 2007 pushed levels of the pollutant way past what is considered safe - the effects may have been felt as far as Nevada |
11th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| New estimates on global warming - The Christian Science Monitor The global climate could warm by 2.5 degrees F. by the end of the century, even if countries undertake stringent efforts to curb greenhouse-gas emissions, according to a new study from a team of climate scientists in the United States, China, Japan, and five European nations. This figure is more than twice as high as the level cited in the most recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), when it estimated how much global warming could occur even if nations froze emission at year-2000 levels. |
11th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Economic competitiveness: easy when taxpayers pay to clean up your mess - Gristmill Canadian oil sands will pollute the Great Lakes Speaking of studies on oil sands, there's another one out of the University of Toronto showing that oil sands will pollute the Great Lakes, reversing decades of cleanup efforts in the region. |
11th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Nature loss 'dwarfs bank crisis' - BBC News The global economy loses more money from deforestation than the current banking crisis, says an EU-commissioned report. |
10th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Power of the nonrational - Energy Bulletin The different reception accorded to warnings about global climate change, on the one hand, and peak oil, on the other, demand explanation. Why has one been turned into a cause célèbre while the other remains marginalized? The answer lies in the underlying beliefs, nonrational but emotionally powerful, that define the two visions of the future. |
9th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Indian Politics Makes Climate a Tough Sell - Planet Ark NEW DELHI - India's raucous democracy, endemic poverty and soaring economic ambition make targetting greenhouse gas emissions cuts a hard sell, even as global pressure mounts on the government to do more on climate change. |
9th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change could force millions from homes - Reuters BARCELONA, Spain (Reuters) - Environmental damage such as desertification or flooding caused by climate change could force millions of peoples from their homes in the next few decades, experts said on Wednesday. |
9th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| One-metre sea-level rise this century, scientists say - EARTHtimes.org Global warming calculations have been too optimistic, and the sea level round the globe is likely to rise a full metre this century, two senior German scientists warned Wednesday. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, who heads the Potsdam Institute for Research on Global Warming Effects and Jochem Marotzke, a leading meteorologist, said UN-backed data on climate change, predicting a rise of 18 to 59 centimetres, was out of date. "We now have to expect that the sea level will rise by a metre this century," said Schellnhuber in Berlin. |
9th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Rising Acidity in the Ocean: The Other CO2 Problem - Scientific American Climate change caused by rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) is now widely recognized. But the other side of the equation—the massive absorption of CO2 by the ocean—has received far less attention. The planet’s seas quickly absorb 25 to 30 percent of humankind’s CO2 emissions and about 85 percent in the long run, as water and air mix at the ocean’s surface. We have “disposed” of 530 billion tons of the gas in this way, and the rate worldwide is now one million tons per hour, faster than experienced on earth for tens of millions of years. We are acidifying the ocean and fundamentally changing its remarkably delicate geochemical balance. Scientists are only beginning to investigate the consequences, but comparable natural changes in our geologic history have caused several mass extinctions throughout the earth’s waters. |
8th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| NASA study finds rising Arctic storm activity sways sea ice, climate - PhysOrg A new NASA study shows that the rising frequency and intensity of arctic storms over the last half century, attributed to progressively warmer waters, directly provoked acceleration of the rate of arctic sea ice drift, long considered by scientists as a bellwether of climate change. |
7th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global Warming: Beyond the Tipping Point - Scientific American The world's most outspoken climatologist argues that today's carbon dioxide levels are already dangerously too high. What can we do if he is right? |
6th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Seas turn to acid as they soak up CO2 - Guardian Unlimited Waters near Naples have seen plant and fish biodiversity drop by 30% due to 'ocean acidification' |
5th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Britain's rivers could run dry - Guardian Unlimited Flows in Severn and Mersey in summer could drop by up to 80 per cent by 2050, experts warn |
5th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Gas From the Past Gives Scientists New Insights into Climate and the Oceans - PhysOrg (PhysOrg.com) -- In recent years, public discussion of climate change has included concerns that increased levels of carbon dioxide will contribute to global warming, which in turn may change the circulation in the earth's oceans, with potentially disastrous consequences. The researchers discovered that elevations in carbon dioxide levels were related to subsequent increases in the Earth's temperature as well as reduced circulation of ocean currents in the North Atlantic. The data also suggests that carbon dioxide levels increased along with the weakening of mixing of waters in the Southern Ocean. This, the researchers say, may point to potential future scenario where global warming causes changes in ocean currents which in turn causes more carbon dioxide to enter the atmosphere, adding more greenhouse gas to an already warming climate. |
4th October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Dreaming of a climate bailout - CNN Governments around the world continue to pump billions of dollars into financial markets, but there is still no telling whether the "injections of liquidity" will be enough to prevent "this sucker" -- to quote the President of the United States -- from going down. |
3rd October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 98 months, and counting - guardian.co.uk Governments moved quickly to rescue our banks. Why does it take any longer to act to save the planet from runaway warming? See also: Will the financial storm blow climate action off course? - Reuters What global warming has to do with subprime mortgages - University Daily Kansan Why Don't We Bailout The Planet? - Green Muze |
2nd October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| It's now or later - Nature Is a slow, measured approach to reducing emissions more cost-effective than taking immediate action? |
2nd October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Delay and Fail - Energy Bulletin Last week, speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York, Al Gore suggested that young people should engage in civil disobedience to stop the building of new coal power plants “that do not have carbon capture and sequestration.” I sympathize with Gore's intent. Coal is the most polluting of the fossil fuels, and if we burn more of it there is little hope of averting catastrophic climate change. But is carbon capture and storage (CCS) a solution? |
2nd October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Failure will 'haunt humanity' - News24 Failure will 'haunt humanity'News24, South Africa. Sydney - Failure to curb global warming would "haunt humanity" forever, Australia's top climate adviser said on Tuesday as he urged the country to cut ... See also: Australia economy can afford emissions trading: expert - Reuters |
1st October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Met Office warns of need for drastic cuts in greenhouse gases from 2010 - Guardian Unlimited Cutting global emissions by 3% a year is only hope of avoiding dangerous temperature rise |
1st October 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Will plug-in hybrid vehicles like the Chevy Volt succeed? - Guardian Unlimited Joseph Romm: Next-generation plug-in hybrid vehicles can live up to their eco-friendly promises only with government support |
30th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Why We Can't Afford Cheap Gas - Alternet We can't let the talk about alternative energy rise and fall with the cost of gas, or the environment and our economy will pay a mighty price. |
29th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Get tougher on climate: scientists - The Age AUSTRALIA's leading climate scientists have written an open letter to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd urging him to make deep cuts to Australia's greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, and to back a tough global agreement to avoid dangerous climate change. The 16 scientists — who worked with the UN's peak scientific body on global warming, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — warn Mr Rudd "there is no time to lose", and call on him to slash Australia's emissions by at least 25% below 1990 levels by 2020. |
29th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| How will the EU pay for demonstrating CO2 capture and storage? - Bellona Foundation A new report shows that CO2 capture and storage are on the verge of becoming commercially viable, but until that happens, solutions to pay for the first projects are needed. On October 7th, a proposal for such a solution is to be voted on in Brussels. See also: The burning question, is how to bring coal into the low-carbon age - Times Online Jonathan Leake looks at the scientists’ latest developments. 'Clean coal' is fiction, for now - Colorado Springs Gazette The coal industry is trying to restore a reputation tarnished by concerns over global warming and the environmental impacts of burning coal for power, the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, with a campaign touting the benefits of "clean coal." |
28th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Today's Capitalism Has Run Its Course - Washington Post As the free market economy makes a free fall, all kinds of prescriptions will come to mind, including socialism. A Somali proverb says: "Nin buka boql u talisay" (a sick man gets 100 advisers). Socialist-minded gurus and those who feel left behind by capitalism's unprecedented generation of wealth may need to shout "gotcha," but one thing that could be unanimously agreed by at least uninitiated armchair observers like me is that capitalism in its current free reign and globalized fit for all structure has run its course. Just like we need and preach biodiversity in the field of ecology we need eco-diversity in the economic world. |
27th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Fears surface over methane leaks - Nature Experts work to confirm source of gas bubbling from Arctic seabed. |
27th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| A new climate tax for the US? - Bellona Foundation EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson and Bellona President Frederic Hauge met in a debate in Oslo Thursday to discuss the central question as to whether the the United States and other countries should be punished with a carbon border tax if they don't sign on to a new climate deal at next year's climate conference in Copenhagen. |
22nd September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Acid ocean warning - Adelaide Now THE acidification of the world's oceans is the "gorilla in the cupboard" which could lead to "a marine Armageddon", two science writers claimed yesterday. |
22nd September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Andrew Simms: Tackling the 'triple crunch' with a green new deal - Guardian Unlimited Andrew Simms: The financial crisis, climate change and soaring energy prices can only be tackled by shift to policies based on green principles |
20th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Van Jones: We Can't Drill Our Way Out of Our Energy Problems - Alternet In an electrifying speech, Van Jones explains that we have to invent and invest our way out of the economic and environmental crises. |
20th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The World Cannot Afford A New Cold War - MorungExpress Military spending by the United States, Russia and China are at their peak, and, except for Russia, higher than at the end of the Cold War. Total world military spending has increased rapidly in recent years. Strategic contentions over arms and missiles are resurfacing. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is in jeopardy. There is an evident build-up of mistrust, which makes the risk of geopolitical confrontation more likely. The international community cannot afford to lose time and focus on defusing the real ticking time bombs: energy, food and climate change. These are the ultimate security threats of our time, and from where we stand now, we are barely scratching the surface. These are all momentous challenges. They transcend East-West and North-South relations. These hard issues will not be resolved by hard power. They can only be resolved by a collective long-term response, coupled with adequate political will and enormous resources. The foundations of our security and survival in the 21st century rest upon our success in meeting these challenges. And certainly none of these challenges can be achieved unless the major powers work together, and demonstrate the leadership that the world expects of them. The all-powerful forces of globalization do not make geopolitics irrelevant. But the world cannot afford to slip back into the geopolitics of domination, conquest and confrontation of the past. |
19th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Can the collapse of Lehman Brothers ram a rare taste of reality into the Presidential campaign? - Johann Hari Obama offers a rare chance to begin to dismantle the petrol pump and the Wall Street cash-dispenser in the Oval Office |
19th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Why Glaciers and Polar Ice are Melting Faster - Best Syndication Why Glaciers and Polar Ice are Melting FasterBest Syndication, CA. He holds more than 60 US Patents. He is working on a new book: "THE SOLUTION FOR ENDING GLOBAL WARMING AND CLIMATE CHANGE". Go to http://www.thermalexpert.com. |
19th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Heat Hinders Ground's Ability to Absorb CO2 - Discovery Channel A very hot year damages the ability of soils and plants to absorb carbon dioxide. |
18th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Leaked papers show Britain trying to weaken plan for EU carbon cuts - Guardian Unlimited Leaked documents show Britain wants to offset rather than cut emissions |
18th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 'Calm before storm' may foreshadow climatic tipping point - PhysOrg Abrupt climate change has occurred on earth many times over the past millions of years. Climate scientists hypothesize that these sharp transitions may be caused when the earth system reaches a tipping point, or a critical value, resulting in a change of several degrees. These abrupt transitions have caused, for example, the formation and melting of glaciers throughout the earth, North Africa`s change from savannah to desert 5,000 years ago, and various other changes. A recent study has shown that there might be an early warning signal that heralds climatic tipping points. By analyzing the geological records of eight ancient abrupt climate shifts, scientists have found that each shift is each preceded by a period in which the system becomes increasingly slower in responding to natural perturbations, which is reflected as a decrease in the rate of change. |
18th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Where there's a drill, there's a way - Gristmill House passes an energy bill that combines increased drilling with expansion of renewables. See also: House passes bill allowing offshore drilling - Reuters |
17th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Credit Crisis Hurting Clean Energy Sector - Bankers - Planet Ark LONDON - The renewable energy sector will see a 21 billion euro (US$29.43 billion) shortfall in debt finance by 2020, following the credit crisis and a brake on lending, a senior banker said on Monday. |
16th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon targets too low to ensure a stable, long-term climate, expert warns - Guardian Unlimited Cleaning the atmosphere of all man-made carbon dioxide is the only way to prevent the worst impacts of global warming, one of Europe's most senior climate scientists has warned |
15th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon capture stations must not be delayed - Financial Times It is time for Europe’s leading economies to initiate the demonstration process as part of their commitment to serious action on climate change. For the UK the opportunity and the challenge are immediate. The decision to proceed with a new coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth should be accompanied by a decision to begin work immediately on a CCS demonstration plant in Britain. Kingsnorth’s licence to operate should be limited to 10 years and extended only if CCS technology is deployed. |
15th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Andrew Simms: Tackling the 'triple crunch' with a green new deal - Guardian Unlimited Andrew Simms: The financial crisis, climate change and soaring energy prices can only be tackled by shift to policies based on green principles |
20th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Van Jones: We Can't Drill Our Way Out of Our Energy Problems - Alternet In an electrifying speech, Van Jones explains that we have to invent and invest our way out of the economic and environmental crises. |
20th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The World Cannot Afford A New Cold War - MorungExpress Military spending by the United States, Russia and China are at their peak, and, except for Russia, higher than at the end of the Cold War. Total world military spending has increased rapidly in recent years. Strategic contentions over arms and missiles are resurfacing. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is in jeopardy. There is an evident build-up of mistrust, which makes the risk of geopolitical confrontation more likely. The international community cannot afford to lose time and focus on defusing the real ticking time bombs: energy, food and climate change. These are the ultimate security threats of our time, and from where we stand now, we are barely scratching the surface. These are all momentous challenges. They transcend East-West and North-South relations. These hard issues will not be resolved by hard power. They can only be resolved by a collective long-term response, coupled with adequate political will and enormous resources. The foundations of our security and survival in the 21st century rest upon our success in meeting these challenges. And certainly none of these challenges can be achieved unless the major powers work together, and demonstrate the leadership that the world expects of them. The all-powerful forces of globalization do not make geopolitics irrelevant. But the world cannot afford to slip back into the geopolitics of domination, conquest and confrontation of the past. |
19th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Can the collapse of Lehman Brothers ram a rare taste of reality into the Presidential campaign? - Johann Hari Obama offers a rare chance to begin to dismantle the petrol pump and the Wall Street cash-dispenser in the Oval Office |
19th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Why Glaciers and Polar Ice are Melting Faster - Best Syndication Why Glaciers and Polar Ice are Melting FasterBest Syndication, CA. He holds more than 60 US Patents. He is working on a new book: "THE SOLUTION FOR ENDING GLOBAL WARMING AND CLIMATE CHANGE". Go to http://www.thermalexpert.com. |
19th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Heat Hinders Ground's Ability to Absorb CO2 - Discovery Channel A very hot year damages the ability of soils and plants to absorb carbon dioxide. |
18th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Leaked papers show Britain trying to weaken plan for EU carbon cuts - Guardian Unlimited Leaked documents show Britain wants to offset rather than cut emissions |
18th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 'Calm before storm' may foreshadow climatic tipping point - PhysOrg Abrupt climate change has occurred on earth many times over the past millions of years. Climate scientists hypothesize that these sharp transitions may be caused when the earth system reaches a tipping point, or a critical value, resulting in a change of several degrees. These abrupt transitions have caused, for example, the formation and melting of glaciers throughout the earth, North Africa`s change from savannah to desert 5,000 years ago, and various other changes. A recent study has shown that there might be an early warning signal that heralds climatic tipping points. By analyzing the geological records of eight ancient abrupt climate shifts, scientists have found that each shift is each preceded by a period in which the system becomes increasingly slower in responding to natural perturbations, which is reflected as a decrease in the rate of change. |
18th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Where there's a drill, there's a way - Gristmill House passes an energy bill that combines increased drilling with expansion of renewables. See also: House passes bill allowing offshore drilling - Reuters |
17th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Credit Crisis Hurting Clean Energy Sector - Bankers - Planet Ark LONDON - The renewable energy sector will see a 21 billion euro (US$29.43 billion) shortfall in debt finance by 2020, following the credit crisis and a brake on lending, a senior banker said on Monday. |
16th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon targets too low to ensure a stable, long-term climate, expert warns - Guardian Unlimited Cleaning the atmosphere of all man-made carbon dioxide is the only way to prevent the worst impacts of global warming, one of Europe's most senior climate scientists has warned |
15th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon capture stations must not be delayed - Financial Times It is time for Europe’s leading economies to initiate the demonstration process as part of their commitment to serious action on climate change. For the UK the opportunity and the challenge are immediate. The decision to proceed with a new coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth should be accompanied by a decision to begin work immediately on a CCS demonstration plant in Britain. Kingsnorth’s licence to operate should be limited to 10 years and extended only if CCS technology is deployed. |
15th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Phase out coal and burn trees instead, urges leading scientist - The Independent Humanity must urgently embark on a massive programme to power civilisation from wood to stave off catastrophic climate change, one of the world's top scientists has told The Independent on Sunday. |
14th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The WMD that really should be worrying us - Johann Hari If al-Qa'ida was unleashing this weather of mass destruction, we would do anything to stop them |
14th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon trading has become a licence for polluters to print money - Guardian Unlimited Oliver Tickell: Far from incentivising emissions cuts, the EU's carbon trading scheme provides a grotesque subsidy for the biggest polluters See also: Flagship emissions trading scheme set to benefit UK's worst polluters - Guardian Unlimited |
13th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Russia says it must stake claim to Arctic resources - Reuters MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia must stake its claim to a slice of the Arctic's vast resources, the secretary of Russia's Security Council said on Friday at an unprecedented session of the council held on a desolate Arctic island. |
13th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Permafrost carbon content double the old estimates - PhysOrg New research indicates that the amount of frozen organic carbon locked away in the world`s permafrost regions - a major potential source of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) - is double what has been previously estimated. |
13th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Don't let facts spoil a good story - how academics' work can be misrepresented by the press - Guardian Unlimited Ben Goldacre: Academics' work can be 'grossly and crassly misrepresented' by the newspapers |
13th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Will America lead the global energy technology revolution? - Salt Lake Tribune How much should we invest? In 2006 the government spent between $2.4 billion and $3.4 billion (less than half of the annual R&D budget of our largest pharmaceutical company). Many experts, including the Council on Competitiveness, recommend that federal energy research spending climb to twice or even 10 times current levels. In my view, the nation should move promptly to triple current rates, then increase funding further as the Energy Department builds its capacity to convert basic research into marketable technologies. |
13th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Ice core studies confirm accuracy of climate models - PhysOrg An analysis has been completed of the global carbon cycle and climate for a 70,000 year period in the most recent Ice Age, showing a remarkable correlation between carbon dioxide levels and surprisingly abrupt changes in climate. |
12th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Oliver Tickell: Gordon Brown has let the energy firms off the hook - Guardian Unlimited Oliver Tickell: The PM trumpets his energy deal, yet power firms have escaped a windfall tax for a piffling investment in low-carbon homes |
12th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| We friends of liberal international order face a new global disorder - Guardian Unlimited Timothy Garton Ash: On the anniversary of the September 11 attacks, China, Russia and climate change all vie with al-Qaida for our attention |
11th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Caution at what cost? - The Age Australia can be a leader in emissions reduction instead of waiting for a global agreement. How can we value the common interest? We can value the tourism industry on the Great Barrier Reef, our low-lying coastal infrastructure, our investments in desalination. But how do we value food self-sufficiency in an unstable world, our unique Alpine flora and fauna, or the loss of our history in severe bushfires? While we can attempt to place a price on taking action, putting a price on our failure to act is an enormously challenging task. In this context, we cannot possibly set a target for some point in the future and know we got it right. |
10th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Reduced Dominance Is Predicted for U.S. - Washington Post An intelligence forecast being prepared for the next president on future global risks envisions a steady decline in U.S. dominance in the coming decades, as the world is reshaped by globalization, battered by climate change, and destabilized by regional upheavals over shortages of food, water and energy. |
10th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Cap-and-trade vs. carbon tax: formulating an effective carbon accounting system - Energy Bulletin The most critical thing is not which system we ultimately choose to go with, but that we make the system as transparent, robust, and equitable as possible. And, of course, that we put it into place as soon as possible-we simply do not have much time left to start initiating these reductions in emissions. |
10th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Temps Are Down, So What's Up with Global Warming? - The Tyee Why one chilly summer does not a global cooling make. See also: Temperatures plummeted in 2008 - Gristmill |
10th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Jonah Gelbach: John McCain's misguided carbon emissions policy - Guardian Unlimited Jonah Gelbach: John McCain's plan to cut carbon emissions will simply increase profits for America's biggest polluters |
9th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Ancient trees recorded in mines - BBC A US-UK team of scientists find more spectacular fossil forests deep in the coal mines of Illinois. See also: Midges provide huge window on past - Irish Times |
9th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Garnaut too soft on emissions target: expert - ABC via Yahoo!7 News A leading Australian climate scientist has criticised the greenhouse gas reduction targets proposed by the Government's climate change adviser Professor Ross Garnaut. |
9th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 'Climate crisis' needs brain gain - BBC The former UK chief scientist says the climate challenge is so great, it demands the most brilliant minds tackle it. |
8th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate wars and the secret ‘Jasons' - Greenbang More interesting was the uncovering of a secret cabal of US scientists - called ‘Jason’ - who reported into the US government. One of their reports all the way back in 1979 predicted CO2 levels in the atmosphere would double from pre-industrial levels in the following 50 years, that this would cause global warming of around 2-3C and that the poles would warm even faster. 30 years on and those early predictions aren’t far off the more sophisticated estimates produced by scientists today. The report, and it’s frightening predictions, was never publicly released, of course but was seen at the highest levels of the US government and, largely, ignored. Especially by Ronald Reagan, who commissioned his own scientist to produce that said actually things aren’t that bad and everything will probably be OK - the start of the sceptic movement. |
8th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Deep Thought - Energy Bulletin CSIRO paper: A comparison of the Limits to Growth with Thirty Years of Reality In 1972, the Club of Rome’s infamous report “The Limits to Growth” (Meadows et al., 1972) presented some challenging scenarios for global sustainability, based on a system dynamics computer model to simulate the interactions of five global economic subsystems, namely: population, food production, industrial production, pollution, and consumption of non-renewable natural resources. Contrary to popular belief, The Limits to Growth scenarios by the team of analysts from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology did not predict world collapse by the end of the 20th Century. This paper focuses on a comparison of recently collated historical data for 1970–2000 with scenarios presented in the Limits to Growth. The analysis shows that 30 years of historical data compares favorably with key features of a business-as-usual scenario called the “standard run” scenario, which results in collapse of the global system midway through the 21st Century. The data does not compare well with other scenarios involving comprehensive use of technology or stabilizing behaviour and policies. The results indicate the particular importance of understanding and controlling global pollution. [if you don't have the time to read it in its entirety, skip to the end and look at the graphs]  |
8th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Lifestyle choices won't win the battle against global warming - Independent The governments should be solving the climate problem. They aren't. So an avalanche of propaganda is coming at us - saying it's all your fault. Almost everything about climate is put in terms of individual lifestyle choices such as green tourism. But no one really thinks that will insulate the houses of the poor, build wind farms around the world, or cut emissions in China. What we need is a mass movement to change government policies, or replace the current politicians with people who will take action. |
7th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| CLIMATE CHANGE: Arctic Meltdown Signals Long-Term Trend - IPS UXBRIDGE, Canada , Sep 5 (IPS) - Soaring temperatures have led to the collapse of several huge ice shelves in the Canadian Arctic over the past few weeks. See also: Bad Sign For Global Warming: Thawing Permafrost Holds Vast Carbon Pool - Science Daily |
7th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Ecological Economics: An Interview with Joshua Farley - WorldChanging Joshua Farley is a professor at the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics - home of the original $33 trillion estimate for ecosystem service value. Joshua co-authored the recent textbook Ecological Economics: Principles and Applications,which reconceptualizes economics with a few key new axioms: ecosystem and resource limits, distribution issues, and broader definitions of human well-being. He's in the vanguard of a growing movement to get economics right - with sustainability and human well-being as core principles. |
7th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| How much will sea level rise? - RealClimate … is the question people have been putting a lot of thought into since the IPCC AR4 report came out. We analysed what was in the report quite carefully at the time and pointed out that the allowance for dynamic ice sheet processes was very uncertain, and actually precluded setting a upper limit on what might be expected. The numbers that appeared in some headlines (up to 59 cm by 2100) did not take that uncertainty into account. In a more recent paper, our own Stefan Rahmstorf used a simple regression model to suggest that sea level rise (SLR) could reach 0.5 to 1.4 meters above 1990 levels by 2100, but this did not consider individual processes like dynamic ice sheet changes, being only based on how global sea level has been linked to global warming over the past 120 years. |
5th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Doubling dead zones - Nature Anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions could strip tropical oceans of oxygen and drastically expand the region's 'dead zones' by the end of this century. Large portions of the tropical oceans are oxygen-depleted and hostile to marine life. Although these poorly ventilated zones are known to be highly sensitive to climate change, it's not clear how they will fare over the next century. |
5th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Arctic melting shows global warming serious: expert - Reuters OTTAWA (Reuters) - The incredibly rapid rate at which Canada's Arctic ice shelves are disappearing is an early indicator of the "very substantial changes" that global warming will impose on all mankind, a top scientist said on Wednesday. |
4th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Hurricanes in the Atlantic - NOAA Watch an animated satellite image of current hurricane activity in the Atlantic |
4th September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Energy's Most Dangerous Game - Forbes Undersea methane hydrates could power civilization for centuries--or cause a global climate disaster. |
3rd September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Republican VP Who Scoffs At Greenhouse Gas Effect - Sound Familiar? Stuart Gaffin is a climate researcher at Columbia University and a regular contributor with his blog “Exhausted Earth”. ThomsonReuters is not responsible for the content - the views are the author's alone. I am not a Republican. However, early in John McCain's campaign for the presidency, I would often say to friends and family-who know I am not a Republican-that if I did vote solely on the one issue I research most, climate change, I would probably vote for McCain. He came across to me as the candidate who most respected the science and gravity of the issue (perhaps even as much as Al Gore I thought … why else take such a big political risk with his party?) and was prepared to lead America in a new direction. See also: And Then There Was One - New York Times With his choice of Sarah Palin — the Alaska governor who has advocated drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and does not believe mankind is playing any role in climate change — for vice president, John McCain has completed his makeover from the greenest Republican to run for president to just another representative of big oil. See also: Oil Contributions to the 2008 US presidential election campaigns |
3rd September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Can carbon offsetting ever be green? - Guardian Unlimited Environment, science technology: Leo Hickman: A new scheme to help the people most at risk from climate change to adapt is admirable but ultimately unconvincing |
3rd September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate 'hockey stick' is revived - BBC News A new study by scientists behind the controversial "hockey stick" climate graph suggests their earlier work was broadly correct. |
2nd September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Melting permafrost will be major driver of global warming - Mongabay.com The thawing of permafrost in northern latitudes will become a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new study that more than doubles previous estimates of the amount of carbon stored in the frozen soils of Alaska and Siberia. |
2nd September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Transport Canada study puts price on transportation - CNews A groundbreaking federal study has calculated the "social costs" of operating cars, trucks, planes, trains and boats across Canada at up to $40 billion a year. |
2nd September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Sea level rises could far exceed IPCC estimates - New Scientist The rapid melting of an ancient ice sheet indicates that today's sea levels could rise at a rate of over a metre per century as the climate warms If the 1-metre-per-century predictions are right, then homes of at least 145 million people, most of them in Asia, could be beneath the waves by 2108. In the course of preparing the 2006 Stern Report, economists at the Tyndall Centre in the UK multiplied the at-risk population by their respective economic value, in terms of 1995 GDP per capita. The crude estimate put a gross monetary value of $944 billion to the risk. |
2nd September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| James Lovelock: Medicine for a feverish planet: kill or cure? - Guardian Unlimited Planetary scale engineering might be able to combat global warming, but, as with nineteenth century medicine, the best option may simply be kind words and letting Nature take its course, says James Lovelock See also: Scientists issue warning that technology to beat global warming may backfire - Times Online |
1st September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Temperature rises 'will be double the safe limit' for global warming - Scotsman IT IS "improbable" global warming will be kept below 4C – double the rise considered safe to avoid climate catastrophe – according to an influential new report. Internationally, it has long been agreed governments should be aiming to keep a global temperature rise below 2C, to avoid climate change spiralling out of control. The authors write: "Given the reluctance, at virtually all levels, to openly engage with the unprecedented scale of both current emissions and their associated growth rates, even an optimistic interpretation of the current framing of climate change implies that stabilisation much below 650ppm is improbable." |
1st September 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Methane gas oozing up from Siberian seabed: Swedish researcher - PhysOrg Methane, a potent greenhouse gas, is leaking from the permafrost under the Siberian seabed, a researcher on an international expedition in the region told Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter on Saturday. |
31st August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Military Analyst Warns of Coming 'Climate Wars' Unless Global Warming is Reversed - ENN The prospect of global wars driven by climate change is not something often discussed publicly by our political leaders. But according to one of America's top military analysts, governments in the US and UK are already being briefed by their own military strategists about how to prepare for a world of mass famine, floods of refugees and even nuclear conflicts over resources. In Climate Wars, even the most hopeful scenarios about the impact of climate change have hundreds of millions of people dying of starvation, mass displacement of people and conflict between countries competing for basic resources like water. "India and Pakistan are both nuclear-armed countries. All of the agriculture in Pakistan and all of the agriculture in northern India depend on glacier-fed rivers that come off the Himalayas from the Tibetan plateau. Those glaciers are melting," Dr Dyer said. The real insight into the US study is that the more severe climate change scenario is the one that analysts think is the more likely one. "And it's not just the analysts. I spent the past year doing a very high-speed self-education job on climate change but I think I probably talked to most of the senior people in the field in a dozen countries," Dr Dyer said. "They're scared, they're really frightened. Things are moving far faster than their models predicted." |
31st August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Myth of the Tragedy of the Commons - Monthly Review Will shared resources always be misused and overused? Is community ownership of land, forests, and fisheries a guaranteed road to ecological disaster? Is privatization the only way to protect the environment and end Third World poverty? Most economists and development planners will answer "yes" -- and for proof they will point to the most influential article ever written on those important questions. Since its publication in Science in December 1968, "The Tragedy of the Commons" has been anthologized in at least 111 books, making it one of the most-reprinted articles ever to appear in any scientific journal. It is also one of the most-quoted: a recent Google search found "about 302,000" results for the phrase "tragedy of the commons." Like most sacred texts, "The Tragedy of the Commons" is more often cited than read. As we will see, although its title sounds authoritative and scientific, it fell far short of science. |
31st August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Scientists close in on mass killer of life on Earth - Miami Herald It was the greatest mass murder of all time - poison everywhere, billions slain - but the killer or killers have never been positively identified. "The end-Permian catastrophe is an extreme version of the consequences of global warming, said Lee Kump, a geoscientist at The Pennsylvania State University. "It reminds us that there are unexpected consequences of CO2 buildup, and these can be quite dire, indeed." While the evidence points to natural processes on Earth as the culprits in the P-T mass extinction, scientists warn that humans may now be contributing to a repeat. "In the late Permian, Earth itself was the villain, but today we've stepped in as the villain." |
31st August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Amazon deforestation on the rise - PhysOrg (AP) -- Amazon deforestation jumped 69 percent in the past 12 months - the first such increase in three years - as rising demand for soy and cattle pushes farmers and ranchers to raze trees, officials said Saturday. |
31st August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Our perceptual filters shape the world - CNews ...we learn to see the world through perceptual lenses formed by heredity, upbringing, personal experiences, religion, socio-economic differences, and so on. Even though we detect our surroundings in the same way through eyes, ears, nose, skin, and tongue, our brains actively filter that incoming information so that it “makes sense” according to our individual values and beliefs. This creates huge dissonance between fossil-fuel executives, environmentalists, and politicians when we discuss an issue like climate change. |
29th August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| A Shift in the Debate Over Global Warming - New York Times Emissions caps are not enough, say advocates of radically new technologies. |
29th August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 'Seven years to climate midnight' - Gristmill The uber-centrist Brookings Institution joins the climate |
29th August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Dispatch from Denver: Making Climate Change the Issue - AlterNet Why we need to make "global warming" the most important issue of the convention. |
27th August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Ben Caldecott: Save the forests to stop climate change - Guardian Unlimited Ben Caldecott: If forest and peatland destruction continues unabated, we will never be able to prevent a rise in global temperatures |
26th August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| World Bank Increases Fossil-Fuel Funding Despite Pledge - RedOrbit Once the new Tata Ultra Mega power plant in western India is fired up in 2012 and fully operational, it will become one of the world's 50 largest greenhouse-gas emitters. And the World Bank is helping make it possible. |
26th August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global warming time bomb trapped in Arctic soil - PhysOrg Climate change could release unexpectedly huge stores of carbon dioxide from Arctic soils, which would in turn fuel a vicious circle of global warming, a new study warned Sunday. |
24th August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Alpine archive - BBC Melting glaciers reveal the lives of ancient humans |
24th August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| UK plans for 'dirty coal power' could scupper global deal to cut emissions - Guardian Unlimited Heavy criticism for new coal plants which lack technology to capture and bury large volumes of carbon dioxide |
23rd August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon Lobby Spend Nearly One Half Billion Lobbying and PR Dollars in the First Half of 2008 - DeSmogBlog The Public Campaign Action Fund released a new analysis finding that the oil and coal industries spent $427.2 million so far this year of the year to shift public opinion and to capture the eyes, ears, and support of Congress on critical energy issues. [...now if they'd only spent that on renewables...] |
23rd August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Ewa Jasiewicz: We need a revolution to tackle climate change - Guardian Unlimited Ewa Jasiewicz: There can be no state solutions to climate change: governments won't give up the powers that leads to environmental ruin |
22nd August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Oliver Tickell: We need insurance against climate change for our planet - Guardian Unlimited Oliver Tickell: Spending money now to slow global warming can ensure that ruinous catastrophe never happens |
22nd August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Maybe now's the time to panic - Las Vegas CityLife IT'S amazing how politicians and their corporate bosses make all the right noises when a panic arrives in earnest. And national freak-outs don't come any bigger than the frenzy about looming climate catastrophe. |
22nd August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Summer scorchers outpace global warming - New Scientist Peak temperatures may rise twice as fast as average temperatures as climate change hots up |
21st August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Can't see the forest with the trees - Gristmill The following post is by Ken Levenson, guest blogger at Climate Progress. ----- As deforestation accelerates and grows ever more concentrated the climate change consequences appear even greater than previously thought. As reported in New Scientist: Pristine temperate forest stores three times more carbon than currently estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and 60% more than plantation forests, according to research in Australia. The study:Mackey and colleagues used remote sensing and direct sampling to study eucalyptus trees at 240 sites across a 14.5-million hectare swathe of natural forest in south-east Australia. |
21st August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Water everywhere, and not a drop to grow - BBC News Water scarcity is a leading cause of food shortages and environmental decline - so why is it ignored? |
21st August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The doomed fate of climate change legislation - Gristmill Just months ago there was a palpable sense of optimism that no matter who is elected president this November that the U.S. would soon embark on serious climate change legislation. I think recent events have shown that the chances of that happening are slim to none. Let's start with if McCain is elected. Today the senator from Arizona is going to do a photo-op on an oil rig because he has become the biggest champion of increased drilling this side of the Middle East. He wants to extend major tax breaks for oil companies and open up virtually all of America to more drilling. |
20th August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Australian expert says sea levels to rise four metres - Radio Australia An Australian climate change expert says the world's sea levels could rise by up to four meters this century. Professor Steffen says a record number of polar ice sheets across the northern shelf have disappeared in just 12 months. "The evidence over the past 12 to 18 months suggests that we have underestimated how fast this aspect of the earth's system can change," he said. |
19th August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Harperites' fear-mongering ignores the real threat - TheChronicleHerald.ca THE IRONY does not get much richer. On the front page of the Aug. 14 paper, two articles appeared side by side. The first featured a local hero, independent MP Bill Casey, inspecting the tidal surge damage to critical dike works at the most vulnerable part of our land link to New Brunswick – damage caused by the rising sea level brought on by global warming. In stark juxtaposition appears the fear-mongering of federal Environment Minister John Baird warning that real action to confront the climate crisis would "screw" the people of Nova Scotia. The current debate about green tax-shifting, a policy initially advanced by the Green party and now partially adopted by the federal Liberal party, tends to be conducted along the lines advanced by Mr. Baird. Harperites do not want to discuss the threat of global warming and the warnings of scientists. Nor do they want to discuss the advice of most economists who advance tax-shifting as the most efficient and effective way to send a consistent market signal to end using the global atmosphere as a "free" dumping area for our pollution. Rather, they hope that economic fear-mongering at high decibels can substitute for an honest exchange of views. The impact of accelerating climate change is the real threat – not solutions like the Green Shift which could avert catastrophe. If one looks at the most recent warnings of the International Energy Agency, the need for aggressive action is clear. Unless greenhouse gas levels globally begin to come down by 2015, the planet faces an irreversible course to run-away global warming. It is critical, most scientists say, to avoid allowing global average temperatures to increase to two degrees Celsius above the pre-Industrial Revolution level. Two degrees doesn’t sound like much, but when one considers the average global temperature difference between 2008 and the last ice age was only five degrees Celsius, it is clear that two degrees is a lot. |
19th August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Jeremy Jacquot: Our Oceans' Long Goodbye - HuffingtonPost Let's face it: Our pristine oceans, as we've come to know them, aren't coming back. Besieged on all sides by overfishing, climate change, pollution and habitat destruction, the world's oceans are slowly but inevitably undergoing a long and painful transition -- one that could turn their once lush coral reefs and kelp forests into barren deserts. This chilling assessment, once considered a fringe view, has been brought into the mainstream of scientific discussion by the likes of Jeremy Jackson and Daniel Pauly, leading oceanographers whose groundbreaking research helped elucidate the links between human exploitation of the ocean's resources and its gradual decline. In a disturbing new article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Jackson predicts our actions, combined with the synergistic effects of climate change, are laying the groundwork for a mass extinction with unknown consequences for the human race and the planet. |
19th August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Weird scenes inside the gold mine - Gristmill There is a phenomenon known in financial markets as an "inverted yield curve." Like a stray elephant in Central Park, it is a reliable indicator that something odd is going on. It seldom lasts long, as markets quickly note and adjust to the weirdness. Prices in current electric markets are similarly inverted, especially in the coal belt. Like Manhattan elephants and inverted yield curves, they signal strange goings-on. However, this one shows no signs of correcting itself soon.Shapely yield curves The yield curve is a financial term that describes nothing more than the interest rate paid (typically on federal bonds) as a function of bond length. |
17th August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| A Future of Less - Miller-McCune.com Here's how government can help curb America's seemingly endless appetite for "more." |
16th August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate myths: Global warming stopped in 1998 Even if the atmospheric temperature near the earth's surface has become cooler recently, that doesn't mean the planet as a whole isn't heating up |
16th August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| I do not think that word means what you think it means - Gristmill This should be obvious, but of course you never hear it mentioned in stories about carbon capture and sequestration (CCS): capturing and sequestering carbon requires lots of energy; thus, plants that do it have to burn more coal to create that extra energy; thus, the other pollutants created by mixing, transporting, and burning coal will increase if CCS is widespread. It follows just based on logic, but if you prefer peer-reviewed scientific studies, here's one for you: Even with this extra burden [of having to generate more power], a CO2-burying plant emits between 71 and 78 percent less CO2 than a normal coal-fired plant for each unit of usable electricity produced, Koornneef and his colleagues report. |
15th August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Is science still relevant? - It's Getting Hot In Here By continuing to propagate the “science vs. junk science” battle, Hansen and others are ignoring real questions of power, morality, citizen engagement, and the social changes that are needed to build a clean energy future. |
14th August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Free the Planet - History Today (subscription) Jean-François Mouhot traces a link between climate change and slavery, and suggests that reliance on fossil fuels has made slave owners of us all. |
14th August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The funny side of global warming - CNN International Comedian Abie Philbin Bowman tackles global warming in his new show. Bowman told CNN it's the over reaction to terrorism and comparative under reaction to global warming that has his central character -- a Bangladeshi environmentalist -- on a mission to join Al Qaeda in an effort to reduce global carbon emissions. "The longer we do nothing, the more radical the action we will ultimately have to take. The most extreme strategy would be to start killing the world's worst polluters -- Westerners -- preferably in a way which discourages others from flying," he said. And so begins the eco-friendly jihad. |
13th August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| An environment of repression at climate camp - Guardian Unlimited Richard George: Of course, police taking a hard line with protesters is nothing new; we faced state repression since before the invention of the state. But climate change is not a wishy-washy liberal construct; it's backed up by hard science. We have 100 months to stop runaway global warming, and scientists are now predicting temperature rises of 4 degrees or more in our lifetime. The police are paid to protect capital and corporations; once they see that their children's lives are at risk, will they start to change sides? If not, this week shows that we won't just stand by and let them protect those who would damn us to a future dominated by climate change, rising tides and resource exploitation. Whatever they throw at us, we can, will and must resist. The impact of our failure will be far more severe than anything the state can throw at us. |
13th August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 80% of British biofuels are unsustainable - New Scientist Most biofuel in UK pumps fails to meet basic standards for sustainable production, while some offer scant environmental benefits |
13th August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Damage Done - University of Melbourne University News A new study reveals that shrinking glaciers, plants blooming earlier across Europe and lakes declining in productivity in Africa can all be linked to human-caused climate change since 1970. |
13th August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Bush to relax protected species rules - PhysOrg (AP) -- Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne is defending proposed changes to the endangered species law, saying they will ensure the statute is not used as a "back door" to regulate the gases blamed for global warming. See also: US accused of 'sneak attack' on wildlife protection - Guardian Unlimited |
12th August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| On a planet 4C hotter, all we can prepare for is extinction - Guardian Unlimited Oliver Tickell: There's no 'adaptation' to such steep warming. We must stop pandering to special interests, and try a new, post-Kyoto strategy |
11th August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global warming has its own language - Guardian Unlimited This is an opinion piece. And my trip with Denmark's minister of climate and energy, Connie Hedegaard, to see the effects of climate change on Greenland's ice sheet leaves me with a very strong opinion: our kids are going to be so angry with us one day. We've charged their future on our Visa cards. We've added so many greenhouse gases to the atmosphere for our generation's growth that our kids are likely going to spend a good part of their adulthood, maybe all of it, just dealing with the climate implications of our profligacy. And now our leaders are telling them the way out is 'offshore drilling' for more climate-changing fossil fuels. Madness. Sheer madness. |
10th August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| How coal came back into fashion - Guardian Unlimited The protest at Kingsnorth may appear to be a battle over a coal-fired power station in an obscure corner of Kent, but it represents part of the frontline in a global rush for coal. There are now over 100 similar schemes in various stages of design, planning or construction around the world and foreign governments are watching closely to see what decision is taken in the UK. In particular, they want to know whether a government that has talked tough at climate summit debates will allow power generator E.ON to build the Kingsnorth station with or without carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology that could hold a key to "clean coal" and the fight against global warming. |
9th August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Capitalism as a threat to the environment - Irish Times "Contemporary capitalism and a habitable planet cannot coexist." So runs the editorial summary of a book by James Gustave Speth, dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. "Today's system of political economy, referred to here as modern capitalism, is destructive of the environment, and not in a minor way but in a way that threatens the planet," he writes in The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability (Yale 2008). It is an important message from such an influential and mainstream figure in the environmental movement, who served with the Carter and Clinton administrations and was head of the United Nations Development Programme from 1993 to 1999. He believes we must change the very nature of corporations so that they become legally accountable to society at large and not just to themselves and their shareholders - striking a blow against the embedded "externalities" sacred to orthodox economics which allows firms to pass on environmental costs. |
9th August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Americans can't afford to buy the myths that Big Oil is selling - Statesman Journal reating and selling urban myths has become a highly successful cottage industry in the United States. Take the latest Big Myth created and spread by Big Oil that says we will get a price break at the gas pump if we just let the industry drill anywhere and everywhere. Selling the Big Myth has been so successful that now a majority of Americans believe Big Oil actually wants us to pay less for its product. |
9th August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Study: Newspaper science coverage declining - Christian Science Monitor An analysis of 250 American newspapers by the Project for Excellence in Journalism sees a decline in science and foreign affairs coverage. It also notes that stories covering gradual developments are disappearing. These are changes that could spell trouble for coverage of global climate change. |
9th August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Prepare for global temperature rise of 4C, warns top scientist - Guardian Unlimited Lunatic report from Defra's chief adviser implies that adaption to a 4C global temperature rise is possible, overlooking the probablility that by that time all the world's major carbon sinks will have been destroyed... See also: Why we must heed Bob Watson's climate change warning - Guardian Unlimited |
8th August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| MPs raise climate camp 'liberty' fears - BBC News An MEP says an extension of police powers to stop and search anyone near the Kent climate camp is undermining civil liberties. |
8th August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| George Monbiot: The stakes could not be higher. Everything hinges on stopping coal - Guardian Unlimited George Monbiot: The climate camp must succeed. In the absence of political backbone, our only hope is an avalanche of public revulsion |
6th August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change and species distributions - PhysOrg Scientists have long pointed to physical changes in the Earth and its atmosphere, such as melting polar ice caps, sea level rise and violent storms, as indicators of global climate change. But changes in climate can wreak havoc in more subtle ways, such as the loss of habitat for plant and animal species. In a series of talks at the Ecological Society of America (ESA) 93rd Annual Meeting, climate change scientists will discuss how temperature-induced habitat loss can spell disaster for many living things. |
5th August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The crises of our time and the need for a paradigm shift - mehrnews.com TEHRAN, Aug. 4 (MNA) -- For the first time in history, the human family as a single entity is faced with multiple global crises, each of which has far-reaching implications for the future of our species. |
5th August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Dirty tactics to defend a dirty industry - Guardian Unlimited Caroline Lucas: Aggressive policing at this year's climate camp in Kingsnorth has exposed the UK authorities' contempt for peaceful protest |
5th August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| If Socialism Fails: The Spectre of 21st Century Barbarism - Monthly Review As capitalism continues with business as usual, climate change is fast expanding the gap between rich and poor between and within nations, and imposing unparalleled suffering on those least able to protect themselves. That is the reality of 21st Century Barbarism. No society that permits that to happen can be called civilized. No social order that causes it to happen deserves to survive.. |
3rd August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| UK in 'delusion' over emissions - BBC News The UK has been living under a delusion over its claim to be cutting greenhouse gases, according to two reports. |
2nd August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Hot, hot heat - Gristmill Sure glacier melt, sea level rise, extreme drought, and species loss get all the media attention -- they are the Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, and Barack Obama of climate impacts. But what about good old-fashioned sweltering heat? How bad will that be? Two little-noticed studies -- one new, one old -- spell out the grim news. Bottom line: By century's end, extreme temperatures of up to 122°F would threaten most of the central, southern, and western U.S. Even worse, Houston and Washington, D.C. could experience temperatures exceeding 98°F for some 60 days a year. |
2nd August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 100 months to save the world? - Guardian Unlimited Environment, science technology: Time is running out to stop irreversible climate change. Andrew Simms: explains why we must act now |
2nd August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Massive Profits, High Gas Prices and $33 billion in Taxpayer Giveaways to Big Oil - DeSmogBlog Over the next 5 years oil companies will receive $33 billion in taxpayer funded giveaways.According to the report set to be released tomorrow morning by the Friends of the Earth, (pdf) the $33 billion in taxpayer dollars will come to Big Oil through tax loopholes, royalty rollbacks and research and development subsidies."This is a tremendous sum for taxpayers to be doling out to the oil and gas industry," said Friends of the Earth's Erich Pica, who authored the analysis. "The corporate fat cats at these big oil companies are already earning record profits-they don't need our tax dollars too. |
1st August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Humanity At crossroads: Attitudes And Climate Change - CounterCurrents.org The huge commotion, wide ranging research and intellectual discussions about the collapse of the civilization due to climate change has created apprehension and confusion about the directions humanity should take to overcome the challenges to its existence. The variety of solutions recommended range from technological fantasies to pessimistic resignation about the complete destruction of humanity. The solutions also include invading new planets, as well as constructing polar cities and Noah's model of ark, to sustain life on earth. Most of the solutions are based on the assumption of total collapse, along with the end of civilization and human existence. Despite these thought-provoking discussions about the influence of climate change on human existence and the solutions to tackle it, we are nearing, as time passes, the verge of a major disaster and the options for solutions are declining. The increasing natural calamities, the concern about the tipping points due to further carbon emissions and its effects on the habitability on earth have created great concerns. |
31st July 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| US environmental agency silences employees on climate change - Guardian Unlimited Democratic senators to hold press conference about leaked email that reveals EPA gagged staff from speaking on issue |
30th July 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
 Wilkins Ice Shelf hanging by its last thread - ESA News The Wilkins Ice Shelf is experiencing further disintegration that is threatening the collapse of the ice bridge connecting the shelf to Charcot Island. Since the connection to the island in the image centre helps to stabilise the ice shelf, it is likely the break-up of the bridge will put the remainder of the ice shelf at risk. This break-up is puzzling to scientists because it has occurred in the Southern Hemispheric winter. |
13th July 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| EPA Waffles on Emissions Rules - Washington Post Agency seeks comment on plan to regulate greenhouse gases, then dismisses it as unworkable. See also: Climate change 'too complex' for action - The Mercury |
13th July 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Time to Face the Hard Realities of a Global Energy Crisis America needs a comprehensive plan to deal with post-peak oil -- and that is going to involve some serious long-term thinking. |
13th July 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Snared in a homemade 'NitroNet' - BBC News Farming and industry are producing too much of a substance we ought to be concerned about, says Mark Sutton; not carbon, but nitrogen. And he would like to hear your ideas on what society should do about it. |
13th July 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Time for Plan B: Cutting Carbon Emissions 80 Percent by 2020 - Earth Police Institute When political leaders look at the need to cut carbon dioxide emissions to curb global warming, they ask the question: How much of a cut is politically feasible? At the Earth Policy Institute we ask a different question: How much of a cut is necessary to avoid the most dangerous effects of climate change? By burning fossil fuels and destroying forests, we are releasing greenhouse gases, importantly carbon dioxide (CO2), into the atmosphere. These heat-trapping gases are warming the planet, setting in motion changes that are taking us outside the climate bounds within which civilization developed. |
10th July 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| A Different Climate Change Apocalypse Than the One You Were Envisioning - NYT Let’s say you are convinced that climate change is a huge threat and will have catastrophic consequences for humankind in the foreseeable future. How exactly do you envision that catastrophe playing out? |
10th July 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Tony Juniper: The developed world must shoulder the burden - Guardian Unlimited Tony Juniper: The G8 pact isn't enough - rich countries have emitted the most CO2, and must take responsibility for the massive cuts needed |
10th July 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Cheney's third term - Gristmill John McCain takes the "conserve" out of "conservative." His entire energy efficiency strategy would fit on one side of a very small file card and can be summarized as follows: Ban Porsches, green federal buildings, and applaud homeowners who do stuff on their own! His repackaged new economic plan, "Jobs for America" has precisely three paragraphs that deal with efficiency: CAFE Standards: John McCain has long supported CAFE standards -- the mileage requirements that automobile manufacturers' cars must meet. Some carmakers ignore these standards, pay a small financial penalty, and add it to the price of their cars. |
9th July 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| G-8 A worthless gust of hot air - The Independent G-8 Failure to Set Course on Emissions Threatens Climate Fight - Bloomberg.com G8 Climate Deal: Checking the small print - Guardian Unlimited G8 Set for Showdown With Poorer States Over Climate - Planet Ark A Green Let-Down at the G8 Summit - Time Magazine G8 sidestep the issue on climate change - Times Online 100 months to save the Earth - Guardian Unlimited Why G8 climate pledge doesn't go far enough - New Scientist |
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| G8 fails to set climate world alight - BBC News At first sight, the G8 agreement on climate change promises much... "If after a year's work all you have is a "shared vision" instead of "seriously considering", it's pretty pathetic. " See also: G8 statement: Reaction in quotes The agreement G8 officials reached on climate change represents a small step forward - Guardian Unlimited |
8th July 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Doubt Is Their Product: An Excerpt - OUPblog Industry has learned that debating the science is much easier and more effective than debating the policy. Take global warming, for example. The vast majority of climate scientists believe there is adequate evidence of global warming to justify immediate intervention to reduce the human contribution. They understand that waiting for absolute certainty is far riskier—and potentially far more expensive—than acting responsibly now to control the causes of climate change. Opponents of action, led by the fossil fuels industry, delayed this policy debate by challenging the science with a classic uncertainty campaign. I need cite only a cynical memo that Republican political consultant Frank Luntz delivered to his clients in early 2003. In ‘‘Winning the Global Warming Debate,’’ Luntz wrote the following: ‘‘Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community. Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate. . . . The scientific debate is closing [against us] but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science’’ (emphasis in original). |
8th July 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| In the end, climate is not an economic question - On Line opinion There’s one iron law of global warming one can’t avoid: if we keep burning fossils fuels and pouring carbon emissions into the sky for long enough, eventually the climate will run away from the human capacity to control its trajectory. Then life will become unliveable for most people and most species. And that moment is closer than the political elite appear to understand. |
8th July 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| An Air Conditioner Or Tons Of Fans? Ask Umbra - Gristmill "...my apartment is up to 93 degrees and I have no less than three fans oscillating, am I using more energy than I would if I purchased and used one energy-efficient air conditioner? What's the best choice here?" |
8th July 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Bill McGuire: Do believe the hype on climate change - Guardian Unlimited Bill McGuire: When it comes to the science of climate change - if it reads like a disaster novel, then it really is that bad "The bottom line has to be, if it reads like a disaster novel, then it must be a disaster novel. And without immediate and concerted action by the international community to seriously tackle emissions, it will be one in which our children will be leading characters." |
8th July 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Superstitious Right Fights Good Science on Global Warming - AlterNet In a society devoted like no other to the politics of fear, we have somehow managed to forget the one thing we should probably fear most. |
7th July 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 'I don't think we're going to make it' - Gristmill By David Roberts - I don't know how it is that I've never seen this John Doerr talk from TED, but I'm glad I finally did: |
7th July 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Only seven years left for global warming target: UN panel chief - PhysOrg The head of the UN's Nobel-winning panel of climate scientists on Friday said only seven years remained for stabilising emissions of global-warming gases at a level widely considered safe. Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), delivered the bleak warning at a gathering of European Union ministers where he pleaded with the EU to take the lead in global talks on tackling climate change. |
5th July 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Strategies to fight climate change - Montreal Gazette The passing into law last month of the federal Climate Change Accountability Act has put pressure on Ottawa to design a national strategy to decrease drastically our greenhouse gas emissions. |
5th July 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 2100, a climatic odyssey - Sydney Morning Herald THOUSANDS of deaths each year from heat stress. Hundreds of plant and animal species extinguished. An inland migration to escape rising sea levels and severe storms. And the end of agriculture in most of the Murray-Darling Basin. This is the climatic apocalypse facing Australia by 2100, Ross Garnaut warns. |
5th July 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global trends and ENSO - RealClimate It's long been known that El Niño variability affects the global mean temperature anomalies. 1998 was so warm in part because of the big El Niño event over the winter of 1997-1998 which directly warmed a large part of the Pacific, and indirectly warmed (via the large increase in water vapour) an even larger region. The opposite effect was seen with the La Niña event this last winter. Since the variability associated with these events is large compared to expected global warming trends over a short number of years, the underlying trends might be more clearly seen if the El Niño events (more generally, the El Niño - Southern Oscillation (ENSO)) were taken out of the way. |
5th July 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Time for deeds not words to reach emissions target, PwC study warns - Guardian Unlimited If politicians don't act now global carbon emissions from energy use will double by 2050, report warns |
3rd July 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| White House Covers Up $2 Trillion Global Warming Benefit - DeSmogBlog Given the massive public outcry over gas prices, the public will no doubt be furious to find out that a plan to save energy and money has been kept under wraps by their own government. The White House has been sitting on a document for more than 6 months now that estimates a long term savings in excess of $2 trillion through 2040 if the federal government was to enact tougher greenhouse gas regulations for new automobiles. In the report (you can download Part 1 here and Part 2 here) the Environmental Protection Agency found that: - technology is readily available to achieve significant reductions in light-duty vehicle GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions between now and 2020 (and beyond) ... |
3rd July 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| World should focus on short-term goals to reduce carbon emissions, says study - New Kerala Washington, July 2 : A new study has called for stronger short-term goals to reduce carbon emissions, as long-term climate change policy is likely to reverse the tide of climate change very slowly. |
3rd July 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Hot future shock: Heat wave temperatures to soar - PhysOrg (AP) -- During the European heat wave of 2003 that killed tens of thousands, the temperature in parts of France hit 104 degrees. Nearly 15,000 people died in that country alone. During the Chicago heat wave of 1995, the mercury spiked at 106 and about 600 people died. In a few decades, people will look back at those heat waves "and we will laugh," said Andreas Sterl, author of a new study. "We will find (those temperatures) lovely and cool." Sterl's computer model shows that by the end of the century, high temperatures for once-in-a-generation heat waves will rise twice as fast as everyday average temperatures. Chicago, for example, would reach 115 degrees in such an event by 2100. Paris heat waves could near 109 with Lyon coming closer to 114. |
3rd July 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Flatscreen televisions fuel increase in global warming - Telegraph.co.uk The boom in flatscreen television could be fuelling global warming more than official estimates, scientists have warned. Experts in California estimate that production of a powerful greenhouse gas used in their production has hit 4,000 tonnes a year - enough to match the annual carbon dioxide emissions of Austria. Research published in New Scientist estimates that the industrial component - known as "NF3" - is 17,000 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. But it is not covered by the Kyoto protocol because it was only made in tiny amounts when the agreement was signed in 1997. |
3rd July 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| CO2 emissions up by nearly a fifth in 12 years - Independent Carbon dioxide emissions caused by UK consumers increased by almost a fifth between 1992 and 2004, research revealed today. |
3rd July 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Is 450 ppm politically possible? Part 6 - Gristmill No, 450 is not politically possible today. Okay, that was clear before. But the debate over the Climate Security Act made it clear that it won't be politically possible anytime soon, for two reasons: The vast majority of conservatives have not budged an inch on climate science even in the face of now overwhelming direct scientific observation and a much deeper and broader scientific understanding of the dangerous impact of unrestricted human greenhouse gas emissions on the climate. Equally important, conservatives now have a very potent political issue to beat back advocates of an economy-wide cap-and-trade system -- high gasoline prices. |
1st July 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Power Needed to Bury CO2 a Coal Issue - Experts - Planet Ark NEW YORK - A big challenge facing electric utilities seeking to burn coal cleanly is providing enough power to capture and bury the carbon dioxide produced, experts said Friday. The process called carbon capture and sequestration requires as much as 20 percent of the electricity a power plant generates. See also: Carbon sequestration: bury the idea, not the CO2 - Low-Tech Magazine |
30th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The world's will to tackle climate change is irresistible - Guardian Unlimited Environment, science technology: Rajendra Pachauri: Far from stymying the environmental cause, the downturn in the world's economies highlights just how pressing it is |
30th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Free speech and the fate of humanity - Energy Bulletin We all know that even in the United States the guarantee of free speech has limits. The Supreme Court long ago said that no one has the right to endanger his or her fellow citizens by, for instance, falsely yelling "fire" in a crowded theater. Such acts of speech are said to pose "a clear and present danger." James Hansen, perhaps the most respected climate scientist on the planet, thinks that the fossil fuel lobby and its disinformation campaign about global warming may pose a similar threat. read more |
30th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Anti-science conservatives must be stopped - Salon Anti-science conservatives must be stoppedSalon. Americans must not allow global warming deniers to block the policies needed to avert catastrophic climate change. Our future is at stake.. |
30th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The era of oil wars - Guardian Unlimited Growing competition for oil may escalate to something as hot and dangerous as nuclear proliferation. |
29th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Warming world prompts change - IdahoStatesman.com But not how you'd think. Long-held views aimed at 'saving all the parts' now are being reconsidered. Because if we're trying to sustain the world as it is today, 'it's too late.' |
29th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Bush: Solar Plants Threaten Precious Desert Lands - DeSmogBlog Faced with a surge in the number of proposed solar power plants, the federal government has placed a moratorium on new solar projects on public land until it studies their environmental impact, which is expected to take about two years. |
28th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Living on the Ice Shelf: Humanity's Melt Down - Middle East Online The current ruthless competition between energy and food markets, amplified by international speculation in commodities and agricultural land, is only a modest portent of the chaos that could soon grow exponentially from the convergence of resource depletion, intractable inequality, and climate change, says Mike Davis . |
27th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Simon Retallack: Nicholas Stern may be underestimating the cost of climate change - Guardian Unlimited Simon Retallack: Nicholas Stern says the cost of climate change is likely to be double his original estimate. The reality could be even worse |
27th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| North Pole May Be Ice-Free This Summer - findingDulcinea "The North Pole may be free of ice for the first time in history," said Canadian climate scientist David Barber to Canwest News Service. "This is a very dramatic change in the High Arctic Climate System." |
27th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Cost of tackling global climate change has doubled, warns Stern - Guardian Unlimited Inaction will mean far greater economic damage costing much more of global GDP - at least 5% |
25th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Floods, droughts make mild diseases deadly: study - Reuters CHICAGO (Reuters) - Extreme floods and droughts brought on by climate change can turn normally harmless infections into significant threats, international researchers said on Tuesday. |
25th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon-credit schemes fall 30% short of projections, report claims - Guardian Unlimited Scale of problem will fuel criticism that the world cannot rely on carbon markets to tackle climate change |
25th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Scientist: 'We're toast' without action on global warming - CNN.com WASHINGTON (AP) -- Exactly 20 years after warning America about global warming, a top NASA scientist said the situation has gotten so bad that the world's only hope is drastic action. |
25th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| James Hansen on what he will tell Congress about climate change - Guardian Unlimited NASA's head of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Al Gore's science adviser tells Ed Pilkington what he will tell Congress 20 years after he first warned about the dangers of climate change (mp3) |
24th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| George Monbiot: Prosecuting energy chiefs won't solve global warming - Guardian Unlimited George Monbiot: If we fail to stop runaway climate change, it will be largely because of campaigning by oil, coal and electricity companies, and the network of lobbyists, fake experts and thinktanks they have sponsored. |
24th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Put oil firm chiefs on trial, says leading climate change scientist - Guardian Unlimited James Hansen, one of the world's leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer. |
23rd June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Turning Your Lawn into a Victory Garden Won't Save You -- Fighting the Corporations Will - AlterNet The corporate agriculture industry would like nothing better than to see us spend all of our free time in our gardens and not in political dissent. |
23rd June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| UW scientist: Sea level changes a driving force in mass extinctions - The Capital Times Changes in ocean environments related to sea level exert a driving influence on rates of extinction, which animals and plants survive or vanish, and the composition of life in the ocean, he found. "This breakthrough speaks loudly to the future impending modern (oceanic) shelf destruction due to climate change on earth," said National Science Foundation program manager Rich Lane. No matter what the cause of the ebb and flow of the oceans in various eras, the repeated and resultant extinctions must be considered, Lane said. |
23rd June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Don't rely on the boys with the black stuff, Mr Brown - Guardian Unlimited As the UK Prime Minister visits Saudi Arabia, the lesson of rising oil prices is that green politics matter more than ever |
22nd June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| We must leave the fossil century behind, Mr Brown - Guardian Unlimited George Monbiot: We have begun to glimpse the green holy grail: reliable renewable electricity |
21st June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 350 or bust - Gristmilll The 350ppm challenge to U.S. environmental organizations and the importance of McKibben's 350.org |
20th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Cleaning up on carbon - Nature Both national and global climate policy must redirect its focus from setting a price on carbon to promoting the rapid deployment of clean technologies. |
20th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Kyoto in Court - DeSmogBlog For the first time in history, a national government is being sued by its citizens for failing to live up to its carbon-cutting commitments under the Kyoto Accord. Friends of the Earth, represented by Eco Justice Canada, took to a Toronto courtroom on Wednesday to argue that the Canadian government is in breach of the ? Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act ? ? a Private Members bill (which Opposition parties passed in Parliament last year) demanding that the Canada fulfill its Kyoto commitments. Illustrating just how determined this government is to ignore its obligations, government lawyers are arguing with a straight face that the court should ignore the "will of Parliament" because this is an ? unusual ? law that the government did not expect the court to enforce. |
20th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Bangladesh is set to disappear under the waves by the end of the century - Independent Bangladesh, the most crowded nation on earth, is set to disappear under the waves by the end of this century ? and we will be to blame. Johann Hari took a journey to see for himself how western profligacy and indifference have sealed the fate of 150 million peoplewent to see for himself the spreading misery and destruction as the ocean reclaims the land on which so many millions depend "This spring, I took a month-long road trip across a country that we ? you, me and everyone we know ? are killing. One day, not long into my journey, I travelled over tiny ridges and groaning bridges on the back of a motorbike to reach the remote village of Munshigonj. The surviving villagers ? gaunt, creased people ? were sitting by a stagnant pond. They told me, slowly, what we have done to them." |
20th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Complex connections - Nature Changes in sea surface temperature could play a major role in loss of the Amazon rainforest in the latter half of this century, a new study has found. The research, led by Phil Harris of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, United Kingdom, used the atmospheric component of a well-established climate model developed by the UK's Hadley Centre to determine whether changes in sea surface temperature could trigger the disappearance of the Amazon rainforest by 2100. If sea surface temperatures of both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans changed simultaneously up until 2059, annual rainfall in the Amazon basin would be reduced by of more than 20 per cent on average, the authors found. Rainfall could decrease by as much as 48 per cent in the period outside of the South American monsoon season, between May and October. The authors say that the projected reductions in rainfall are influenced by a suite of factors, but that sea surface temperature across the Pacific and Atlantic oceans is the main driver under certain warming scenarios. Such shortages of rain would cut the Amazon's carbon uptake by nearly a third, rendering this socially, economically and biologically critical ecosystem unsustainable. |
20th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Lessons from an angry planet - Grist Magazine From the standpoint of global climate change, nature's incredible assault on the American heartland this year can be interpreted in one of two ways. Both offer lessons about the challenges of adapting to the climate we have created. |
18th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Wired Magazine's Incoherent Truths - RealClimate Many of our tech-savvy friends - the kind of folks who nurse along the beowulf clusters our climate models run on - are scratching their heads over some cheeky shrieking that recently appeared in a WIRED magazine article on Rethinking What it Means to be Green. Crank up the A/C! Kill the Spotted Owl! Keep the SUV! What's all that supposed to be about? Let's take air conditioning for starters. Basically WIRED took a look at the carbon footprint of New England heating vs. Arizona cooling and jumped to the conclusion that air conditioning was intrinsically more efficient than heating. |
17th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The oil era reaches its desperate endgame - The Independent Saudi Arabia appears ready to cave in to demands from Western governments for the kingdom to make special efforts to increase its production of oil. Analysts forecast that the world's largest producer will shortly raise its output by half a million barrels a day. The United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, confirmed this impression at the weekend after emerging from talks with the Saudi monarch, King Abdullah. |
17th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| How crops like soya came to dominate our diet - Guardian Unlimited In an extract from her new book, Felicity Lawrence investigates the faceless trading giants who really decide what goes on our plates |
17th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Save money, save the planet - The Independent It is easy to disparage the recurrent vogue for the frugal life as an indulgence of the middle classes. It is tempting, when people extol their virtue in making their own clothes or growing their own polenta, to think that it is all very well for those who have the time, which is, after all, money. It is a temptation that should be resisted. |
16th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| UN Climate Deal Said "Daunting" as Bonn Talks End - Planet Ark BONN - The world faces a daunting task to agree a new deal by the end of 2009 to slow climate change, the United Nations said on Friday as 170-country talks ended with recriminations about scant progress. |
16th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Save money, save the planet - The Independent It is easy to disparage the recurrent vogue for the frugal life as an indulgence of the middle classes. It is tempting, when people extol their virtue in making their own clothes or growing their own polenta, to think that it is all very well for those who have the time, which is, after all, money. It is a temptation that should be resisted. |
16th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Polar Cities - the ultimate in long-term real estate speculation - DeSmogBlog On Polar Cities, Andy Revkin at the New York Times says its time for urban planners, to get out their mukluks.Revkin is referring to an interesting "thought project" being conducted by Dan Bloom called Polar Cities. As Bloom describes it: Polar cities are envisioned as safe refuge communities where survivors of global warming can live when worst comes to worst."Bloom, a 60 year old graduate of Tufts University in Boston, has lived in Asia since 1991 and began working on his polar cities project in 2006, and his way-forward thinking is starting to catch on. His thought that by 2500 the only really inhabitable place on Earth will be the polar regions is both novel and actually quite visionary when you consider what contemporary science is telling us. |
16th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Ocean changes may trigger US megadrought - New Scientist Global warming could lead to a specific temperature pattern in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans that has triggered extreme droughts in the past.Californians will hope the drought in their state won't last as long as the parched period that afflicted North America from AD 800 to 1250. Even if it passes, global warming may yet hasten another 500-year "megadrought". |
14th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate talks progress 'feeble' - BBC News Progress towards developing a global strategy to cut emissions is too slow, say environmental campaigners. |
14th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Garrisoning the global gas station - Gristmill Challenging the militarization of U.S. energy policy. This is a guest essay from energy analyst Michael T. Klare. It was originally run on TomDispatch; it is reprinted here with Tom's kind permission. ----- American policymakers have long viewed the protection of overseas oil supplies as an essential matter of "national security," requiring the threat of -- and sometimes the use of -- military force. This is now an unquestioned part of American foreign policy. On this basis, the first Bush administration fought a war against Iraq in 1990-1991 and the second Bush administration invaded Iraq in 2003. |
14th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Task Force Report - Foreign Relations Against the backdrop of increasing attention to energy and climate change in the presidential campaigns, recent failure of the Senate to advance the Lieberman-Warner climate bill, and preparations for this summer's G8 summit, a CFR-sponsored Independent Task Force recommends an overhaul of U.S. domestic and foreign policy to confront the challenge. |
14th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Joint statement: On global warming from scientists, politicians and commentators - ASMC Australia: This joint statement is a 'call to arms' from some of the country's leading scientists, plus several commentators and politicians. The statement describes the urgent need for an effective response to global warming. It was written following the 2008 Manning Clark House Conference on Climate Change which concluded on Thursday June 12 in Canberra. |
14th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| China's carbon emissions soaring - Guardian Unlimited Science environment: Country was responsible for two-thirds of total increase in global CO2 emissions in 2007 |
14th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Computer models show major climate shift as a result of closing ozone hole - PhysOrg A new study led by Columbia University researchers has found that the closing of the ozone hole, which is projected to occur sometime in the second half of the 21st century, may significantly affect climate change in the Southern Hemisphere, and therefore, the global climate. The study appears in the June 13th issue of Science. |
13th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| More Evidence Points To Greenland Tipping Point - Daily Green Another study adds weight to the conclusion that Greenland's ice sheet is melting faster than predicted by the United Nations, and that sea level could rise faster than predicted around the world. The International Polar Year study, by Sebastian H. Mernild of the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, was published in Hydrological Processes. Mernild's team's model showed a doubling of freshwater runoff, in the form of melting and iceberg calving, from Greenland by the end of this century. That level of melting would result in an annual rise of sea levels 45% greater than previously predicted ? 1.6 millimeters a year, rather than 1.1. Another recent study predicted that sea levels would rise two times as fast as previously thought because of the rapid melting of Greenland. Other recent research suggests a total melting of Greenland's ice sheet ? which could take hundreds, or even 1,000 years ? would make sea levels rise 23 feet. |
13th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Burning down the house - CNN International Burning down the houseCNN International. Author of "Carbon Scenarios" compares global warming to a house fire that the world is currently failing to contain. If climate change were a small house fire, current policy in the European Union and the United Kingdom would ensure that it would destroy not just the house but the entire suburb. See also: Mark Lynas: Climate chaos is inevitable. We can only avert oblivion |
12th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Money changes everything - Gristmill The debate over the Climate Security Act bill has made that clear trillions are at stake in global warming legislation. No surprise, then, that the Senate power brokers don't want Barbara Boxer's (D-Calif.) Environment and Public Works committee to have the only say on who gets what. E&E Daily ($ub. req'd) has the story of how the climate bill is likely to have a much longer and far more tangled journey next year:Next year's Senate climate debate is shaping up to be much different than the one that played out over the last 18 months as powerful committee chairmen express interest in vetting critical pieces of the controversial legislation. |
12th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Permafrost threatened by rapid retreat of Arctic sea ice, study finds - PhysOrg The rate of climate warming over northern Alaska, Canada, and Russia could more than triple during periods of rapid sea ice loss, according to a new study led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The findings raise concerns about the thawing of permafrost, or permanently frozen soil, and the potential consequences for sensitive ecosystems, human infrastructure, and the release of additional greenhouse gases. |
11th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Lieberman-Warner Climate Bill Voted Down by Big Oil - DeSmogBlog A little data-crunching by the folks at Oil Change International finds that Senators who voted against the Lieberman- Warner Climate Security Act have received on average 3 times more oil money than those who voted for the Bill. Avg Oil/Gas Money Per Vote Yea (48) $54,948 Nay (36) $159,288Check out Oil Change International's Follow the Money tool - a great resource for tracking the oil lobby's influence over elected representatives.With such a close vote, do you think Lieberman-Warner would have passed if there was no such thing as an oil lobby in Washington? See also: Why the Climate Bill Failed - Time Magazine |
11th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Science academies urge 50 pct CO2 cuts by 2050 - AlertNet Major economies should aim to halve world emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050 and work out ways to bury gases in a wider assault on climate change, the science academies of 13 nations said on Tuesday. |
11th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Canada Passes Major Climate Bill - Government Ignores It - DeSmogBlog You know how Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000, but lost the election?Well, in a way, that's kind of what happened in Canada recently. Last week, a Bill called The Climate Change Accountability Act (Bill C-377) received a majority vote in the House of Commons and if enacted would be the toughest climate legislation passed by any national government in the world. It would also be the first piece of legislation completely in line with the levels of greenhouse gas reductions recommended by the world's scientific institutions in the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). |
11th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| IEA report, Part 1 - Gristmill Act now with clean energy or face 6 degrees C warming; cost is not high; media blows story. When the normally conservative International Energy Agency (IEA) agrees with both the middle of the road IPCC and more ... progressive voices like mine, it should be time for the world to get very serious, very fast on the clean energy transition. But when the media blows the story, the public and policymakers may miss the key messages of the stunning new IEA report, "Energy Technology Perspectives, 2008" (executive summary here). You may not have paid much attention to this new report once you saw the media's favorite headline for it: "$45 trillion needed to combat warming." That would be too bad, because the real news from the global energy agency is Failing to act very quickly to transform the planet's energy system puts us on a path to catastrophic outcomes. |
10th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change: Carbon capture from power stations must start soon, say scientists - Guardian Unlimited Burying gas could achieve 1/3 of UK emissions targets but without it, experts say disaster is unavoidable |
10th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Erratic rainfall set to slow down afforestation efforts - Business Daily Africa Erratic rainfall is set to slow down Kenya? s drive to increase forest coverage, forestry officials said. Mr Antony Maina, the deputy director in charge of forest plantation at Kenya Forest Service, said less than 35 per cent of the trees planted this year are expected to survive the looming drought. |
8th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Geologist sees methane `doomsday' - Inland Valley Daily Bulletin He calls it the Doomsday Scenario. Imagine alligators swimming at the North Pole. It happened once and it could happen again if Martin Kennedy's hypothesis comes true. Related Story: UC Riverside offers program on climate change |
8th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| CO2 Emissions to Double by 2050 Unless Govts Act - IEA - Planet Ark TOKYO - Planet-warming carbon emissions will rise 130 percent and oil demand will rise 70 percent by 2050 under current government policies, the International Energy Agency warned in a report on Friday. |
8th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 2050 greenhouse goals will be too late: EPI head - The Japan Times Pitches to cut worldwide greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050 are too leisurely and must be brought forward by decades, Lester Brown, president and founder of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, said Friday at a symposium in Tokyo. "We are going to have to move much, much faster. I think the game will be over long before 2050..." . |
7th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The People vs. The Powerful - Northwest Progressive Institute Official Blog The People vs. The PowerfulNorthwest Progressive Institute Official Blog, WA. ExxonMobil's position on global warming has not solely been one of denial, however. ExxonMobil has been funding many of the efforts designed to cast doubt ... |
7th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Britain's climate target 'impossible' - Guardian Unlimited Britain will find it 'impossible' to meet its target as part of the world's battle to ensure temperatures do not rise more than 2C - a key threshold for dangerous climate change, according to a study by a panel of leading experts. The report 'Carbon Scenarios' by the Stockholm Network thinktank says that if existing policies and hopes of international agreement on reducing emissions were implemented, there would still be a 90 per cent chance the temperature rise would reach about 3C, a level that experts fear would provoke 'feedback' of more carbon by melting permafrost, threatening the world's forests. |
7th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The World's Greatest Deliberative Body? - Huffington Post Last night Majority Leader Harry Reid read a much shorter (and more interesting) document out loud to the Senate -- it was a leaked copy of a Republican leadership-strategy memo explaining that they had no intention of seriously legislating about climate change, but intended to use the floor time to score political points at the expense of the Democrats. The memo gleefully looked forward to a whole series of votes in which advocates of cleaning up global warming would be portrayed as plotting $8/gallon gasoline prices. See also: Democracy InAction - No Typo - New York Times |
6th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Environment day calls for end to carbon addiction - International Herald Tribune The United Nations urged the world on Thursday to kick an all-consuming addiction to carbon dioxide and said everyone must take steps to fight climate change. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said global warming was becoming the defining issue of the era and will hurt rich and poor alike. "Addiction is a terrible thing. It consumes and controls us, makes us deny important truths and blinds us to the consequences of our actions," he said in the speech to reinforce this year's World Environment Day theme of "CO2 Kick the Habit". |
6th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Activist not really an optimist - London Free Press For 20 years, Bill Mc-Kibben has been warning people -- including Al Gore, who actually listened -- about the dangers of climate change.. But when it comes to climate change, he adds, it's already too late. "We're not going to stop global warming," "We do still have a window of opportunity to slow it down, but that window is small and it's closing relatively fast. "You've probably read the stories about the way the permafrost in the Canadian and Russian north is beginning to leak methane at a very quick rate. These are not good signs. And they remind us that, really, right now is when we have to do this." "I don't think you change people by preaching at them. I think they change as circumstances change. I think that if we can build the kind of local economic institutions that bring people back together -- things like farmers' markets -- we can change the dynamics of our interactions. And then people begin to change." "We've spent 50 years firmly believing that more is better, especially in the United States. It'll take a while for us to completely shake that notion, but I think it's starting to happen." See also: 350.org |
6th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change could impact vital functions of microbes - EurekAlert! BOSTON, MA -- June 3, 2008 -- Global climate change will not only impact plants and animals but will also affect bacteria, fungi and other microbial populations that perform a myriad of functions important to life on earth. |
4th June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Images reveal 'rapid forest loss' - BBC News Satellite images reveal the "rapid deforestation" of Papua New Guinea's rainforests over the past 30 years. See also: Half of Papua New Guinea's forests gone by 2021 |
3rd June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Brown should be greener - The Independent UK: This is one of those moments when fine words are tested. In recent months and years, we have heard plenty of calls to action on climate change, phrased in increasingly urgent terms. Yet there is still a common perception, as Peter Ainsworth, the Conservative spokesman, put it yesterday, that "at the first whiff of economic difficulty the green agenda dies". That is the old thinking, and Mr Ainsworth rightly chastised the Prime Minister for falling into it. A steep rise in oil prices is precisely the time when it is most important to argue for and defend green policies. That is why we present the choice in our coverage today as that between a Brown future and a green future. See also: David King: Now is not the time to abandon our ambition to be green - Guardian Unlimited Leader: The environment must stay at the heart of policy - Guardian Unlimited |
1st June 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| British Cabinet had warning of cancer-smoking link - PhysOrg (AP) -- The British Cabinet discussed the early warnings about a link between smoking and lung cancer more than 50 years ago, but viewed the threat as minor and did little for fear of losing tax revenue, according to documents released Friday. [...sound familiar?] |
31st May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Chances dim for climate change legislation - CNNMoney.com US: Business coalition splinters, and without widespread corporate support, the bill headed to the Senate is almost certainly doomed. |
31st May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Should all Arctic species be red-listed? - New Scientist Habitats are changing so rapidly in the face of global warming that some conservationists argue many thousands more species should be listed as "endangered" See also: Call for seals to join endangered list - Guardian Unlimited |
31st May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Squaring up to reality - Nature Authors: Martin Parry, Jean Palutikof, Clair Hanson & Jason Lowe Both emissions reduction and adaptation will need to be much stronger than currently planned if dangerous global impacts of climate change are to be avoided. June's UN talks in Bonn and July's G8 summit present opportunities for world leaders to face this challenge. |
30th May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Nature loss 'to hurt global poor' - BBC News Loss of forests and other natural systems could halve living standards for the world's poor, a major report will conclude. See also: UN Experts Warn Of Economic Cost Of Species Loss - Planet Ark |
30th May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Hidden Nuclear Handout Seen in Climate Bill - OneWorld NEW YORK, May 26 (OneWorld) - Major environmental groups are up in arms against attempts in the U.S. Senate to pass a bill that they believe includes a thinly-veiled attempt to promote the interests of the nuclear industry under the guise of climate protection. See also: Nuclear clean-up costs 'to soar' - BBC The cost of decommissioning the UK's ageing nuclear facilities is set to rise above £73bn, the BBC learns. |
28th May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Geoengineering could slow down the global water cycle - PhysOrg Geoengineering may cool the planet but would do nothing to stop ocean acidification and may have unexpected detrimental effects on the Earth's water cycle. |
28th May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| BIODIVERSITY: Nature Cannot Absorb This Growth - IPS One day, Lucio Flores, a Brazilian Terena Indian, was travelling by truck through the Amazons region alongside a local landowner. Looking at the dense tropical forest around, the landowner said, "Look at this, there is nothing here." A little further as they left the forest to cross a soybean plantation, the landowner exclaimed: "But here there is soy!" To him, forest was nothing, soy everything. Flores narrated the story to a group of environmentalists, government representatives and journalists at a side session of the UN conference on biological diversity under way in Bonn. For him, the story was a symbol of the opposed views dividing the business community and indigenous peoples. "For agro business, nature is nothing," Flores said. "For us, it is all." |
27th May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| G8 frustrates green groups - The Independent Under pressure to boost talks on a new global warming pact, Group of Eight environment ministers yesterday endorsed slashing greenhouse gas emissions in half by mid-century, but failed to agree on much more contentious near-term targets. |
27th May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Billions wasted on UN climate programme - Guardian Unlimited Billions of pounds are being wasted in paying industries in developing countries to reduce climate change emissions, according to two analyses of the UN's carbon offsetting programme. |
26th May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| World losing traction in climate fight: UN official - CTV.ca The world is losing momentum in the battle against global warming, the United Nations climate chief warned Saturday, urging environmental ministers from wealthy countries to revive the effort by setting clear targets for reducing greenhouse gases. The ministers gathered in the western Japanese city of Kobe for a three-day meeting as evidence mounted that rising world temperatures have been taking a toll on the earth at a faster rate than previously forecast. |
25th May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Methane rise points to wetlands - BBC News Rising levels of the greenhouse gas methane could be caused by changes in wetlands, say scientists. See also: Slip of the tundra - Gristmill and: MELTING METHANE A Storehouse of Greenhouse Gases Is Opening in Siberia - Speigel Online Researchers have found alarming evidence that the frozen Arctic floor has started to thaw and release long-stored methane gas. The results could be a catastrophic warming of the earth, since methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. But can the methane also be used as fuel? |
24th May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Vast cracks appear in Arctic ice - BBC A Canadian research expedition finds dramatic evidence of the break-up of the Arctic ice-cap. |
24th May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Amosphere needs 'silver bullet' - Guardian Unlimited Scientists should focus their efforts on technology that scrubs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, according to an environmentalist speaking at the Hay festival |
24th May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Costs of ignoring global warming far steeper than taking action - DeSmogBlog In sharp contrast to denier's claims that action against global warming will trigger economic catastrophe, a new study has concluded it would actually be cheaper to cut greenhouse-gas emissions than to suffer the consequences of a changing world.In fact, the report by economists at Tufts University warns, ? The longer we wait, the more painful and expensive the consequences will be."Entitled "What We'll Pay if Global Warming Continues Unchecked," the study found that by 2100, annual costs in today's dollars would be $422 billion in hurricane damage, $360 billion in real estate losses (with the biggest risk on the Atlantic and gulf coasts, particularly Florida), $141 billion in increased energy costs and $950 billion in water costs, especially in the West.Average temperature will increase by 13 degrees in most of the U.S. [if you have read, ''Slip of the tundra - Gristmill, you will understand that the cost of ignoring climate change might not require much calculation - it may cost us everything...] |
24th May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Knowledgeable Republicans 'less concerned' over climate - New Scientist When it comes to global warming in the US, how knowledge translates into concern depends upon people's political views, say political psychologists |
24th May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Spain's drought: a glimpse of our future? - The Independent Barcelona is a dry city. It is dry in a way that two days of showers can do nothing to alleviate. The Catalan capital's weather can change from one day to the next, but its climate, like that of the whole Mediterranean region, is inexorably warming up and drying out. And in the process this most modern of cities is living through a crisis that offers a disturbing glimpse of metropolitan futures everywhere. |
24th May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 'I'd lost the strength to carry on' - Guardian Unlimited Science environment: What's the future for the beloved Amazon rainforest of Marina Silva, Brazil's ex-environment minister? |
23rd May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Congress Orders NASA to Deal With DSCOVR - DeSmogBlog If this Act becomes law, NASA is finally going to have to start coughing up some answers. and break their years of silence about the DSCOVR climate satellite. In a stunning break from years of inaction, the US Congress drafted legislation last week ordering NASA to finally deal with the critically important Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR ). The National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act of 2008 was submitted to the House of Representatives. Section 207 of this Act is plainly entitled: ? PLAN FOR DISPOSITION OF DEEP SPACE CLIMATE OBSERVATORY.? You can bet that NASA is not happy about this remarkable development. |
23rd May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Earth may hide a lethal carbon cache - New Scientist The escape of carbon dioxide and methane from deep within the Earth could have profound implications for climate warming (full text available to subscribers) "Global warming could destabilise some deep carbon reserves, which may hold trillions of tonnes of methane" "We are extremely concerned that clathrates are the largest single source of greenhouse gases that could be added to the atmosphere," says Hazen. "If you raise temperatures even slightly, they could be released." According to Ronald Cohen, a geophysicist at the Carnegie Institution, natural warming caused large releases of methane around 55 million years ago. Though the deep carbon cycle could theoretically absorb human-made emissions, Hazen points out that this would take millions of years. Catastrophic methane emissions could happen over just a few decades. |
22nd May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| How to cook a graph in three easy lessons - RealClimate These days, when global warming inactivists need to trot out somebody with some semblance of scientific credentials (from the dwindling supply who have made themselves available for such purposes), it seems that they increasingly turn to Roy Spencer, a Principal Research Scientist at the University of Alabama. Roy does have a handful of peer-reviewed publications, some of which have quite decent and interesting results in them. However, the thing you have to understand is that what he gets through peer-review is far less threatening to the mainstream picture of anthropogenic global warming than you'd think from the spin he puts on it in press releases, presentations and the blogosphere. |
22nd May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Time to leave the comfort zone - BBC News Civic leaders must be willing to make tough choices if we are going to live in green cities. |
21st May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Aviation impacts 'hotly disputed' - BBC News Green advisers tell the government airport expansion should be suspended pending an inquiry. |
21st May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| UN-run carbon trading mechanism questioned amidst allegations of corruption - Guardian Unlimited UN-run carbon trading mechanism questioned amidst allegations of corruption. Patrick McCully reports |
21st May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Now, a way to tell how much ancient carbon from soil is being lost to the atmosphere as CO2 - New Kerala Washington, May 19 : A group of international scientists have found a way to distinguish just how much of ancient carbon, which is stored in huge amounts in soil, is being lost to the atmosphere as CO2 (carbon dioxide). |
20th May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Change sky's colour, proposes Flannery - Ninemsn Professor Flannery says climate change is happening so quickly that mankind may need to pump sulphur into the atmosphere to survive. Australia's best-known expert on global warming has updated his climate forecast for the world - and it's much worse than he thought just three years ago. |
20th May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate Change and Tropical Cyclones - Yet Again - RealClimate B Just as Typhoon Nargis has reminded us of the destructive power of tropical cyclones (with its horrible death toll in Burma? around 100,000 according to the UN), a new paper by Knutson et al in the latest issue of the journal Nature Geosciences purports to project a reduction in Atlantic hurricane activity (principally the 'frequency' but also integrated measures of powerfulness). The close timing of the Knutson et al and Typhoon Nargis is of course coincidental. But the study has been accorded the unprecedented privilege (that is, for a climate change article published during the past 7 years) of a NOAA press conference. |
19th May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Legendary oilman says it's time to go green - Calgary Herald Legendary oilman says it's time to go greenCalgary Herald, Canada. "It may turn out that the best thing that ever happened to the human race is global warming." If it prompts us to change our ways. ... |
18th May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Twenty Nine Reasons People Need To Pull Their Heads Out Of The Sand - CounterCurrents.org Twenty Nine Reasons People Need To Pull Their Heads Out Of The SandCounterCurrents.org, India. This triad is the genesis of global warming. Undergirding this triangle is a duality of avarice and ignorance. Capitalists fall into the camp of unbridled ... |
18th May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Whose Rain Forest Is This, Anyway? - New York Times Whose Rain Forest Is This, Anyway?New York Times, United States. Now, with the world focusing on the promises of biodiversity and the perils of global warming, a chorus of international leaders have ever more openly ... |
18th May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Biodiversity loss costs six percent of world income: report - PhysOrg The destruction of flora and fauna is costing the world two trillion euros (3.1 trillion dollars) a year, or six percent of its overall gross national product, according to a report trailed by German news weekly Der Spiegel. |
18th May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Wildlife populations 'plummeting' - BBC News Between a quarter and a third of the world's wildlife has been lost since 1970, says the Living Planet Index. |
16th May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Leading article: Save the lungs of our planet - The Independent The resignation of Marina Silva as the Environment minister of Brazil is a blow to the very future of the planet. Five years ago, she was appointed guardian of the Amazon but, in that time, she has fought an uphill battle against the loggers and ranchers of Brazilian agribusiness. Indeed, she often seem a lone voice in the Brazilian government ? outvoted on the introduction of genetically-modified grains, on the construction of a new nuclear power plant and on massive infrastructure projects, including two big hydro-electric dams and a major new road in the rainforest. She has finally quit, worn down by ill-health and the appointment of a rival minister to speed the approval of energy projects. |
16th May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change will lead to society's 'barbarisation', says leading expert - Guardian Unlimited Climate change will lead to a 'fortress world' in which the rich lock themselves away in gated communities and the poor must fend for themselves in shattered environments, according to a leading expert on climate change |
16th May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Antarctic Ice Bubbles Show CO2, Methane, at 800,000-Year Highs - Bloomberg.com May 14 (Bloomberg) -- Ancient air bubbles trapped in Antarctica's ice have revealed that levels of carbon dioxide and methane in the Earth's atmosphere are at their highest in 800,000 years, two studies in the journal Nature said. |
15th May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Although green is fashionable, the crux of a low-carbon life means consuming less - International Herald Tribune A low-carbon, no-impact lifestyle involves sacrifices and hassles even though magazines and manufacturers tend to glamorize green. |
14th May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| World CO2 levels at new high - UN - Guardian Unlimited Science environment: Scientists say carbon dioxide levels now at 387 parts per million, up almost 40% since industrial revolution |
13th May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| It Isn't Morning in America Anymore -- It's Dusk on Planet Earth - AlterNet If we want to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed, we've got to cut CO2 emissions. |
13th May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate prediction: No model for success - BBC News Why computer models, the main tools for forecasting climate change, cannot give us all the answers we need. |
7th May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Airline emissions 'far higher than previous estimates' - The Independent The aviation industry's failure to curb its soaring carbon emissions could lead to the "worst case scenario" for climate change, as envisaged by the United Nations. |
6th May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Nature article on 'cooling' confuses media, deniers - Gristmill The Nature article ($ub. req'd) that has caused so much angst about the possibility that we are entering a decade of cooling -- "Advancing decadal-scale climate prediction in the North Atlantic sector" -- has been widely misreported. I base this in part on direct communication with the lead author. In fact, with the caveat from the authors that the study should be viewed as preliminary, and should not be used for year-by-year predictions, it is more accurate to say the Nature study is consistent with the following statements: The "coming decade" (2010 to 2020) is poised to be the warmest on record, globally. |
6th May 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 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. |
16th January 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Pressures build on Amazon jungle - BBC News The Amazon is not just a precious resource for Brazil but for the entire world, and the year ahead seems likely to produce important indications of what the future holds for this vast rainforest. See also: BRAZIL: Land Shortage Provokes Murders of Indigenous People - IPS At least 76 indigenous people were murdered in Brazil in 2007, 58 percent more than in 2006. The killings increased the most in the west-central state of Mato Grosso do Sul, where the Guaraní people are confined to territories too small for them to maintain their traditional way of life. |
15th January 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The end of the world as we know it - The Age Australia: Understandably, like characters in Shute's novel [OnThe Beach], we cling to our richly comforting present. We would like to believe that, with the Rudd Government elected and committed to tackling climate change, we can hand this problem over to "them" and go back and doze on our towels. We can't. Because our fate is not yet sealed, we also need to imagine a nation-building effort — comparable with Australia's postwar program of development — that will help government refashion Australia as the "solar nation", and an international contribution that will ensure the Bali road map does not become a path to hell paved with good intentions, too little and too late. It is these vivid imaginings — not economists' arid musings about the marginal impacts on GDP of significant early action against climate change — that will be critical to the survival of an acceptable future.. |
15th January 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Enemies from within: big enviro groups holding back anti-warming movement - CounterCurrents.org The heat is on environmental groups and politicians to churn out proposals for stabilizing the planet’s rising temperatures, but some environmentalists say existing plans to cool climate change are timid. Their criticism reveals a rift between two approaches: preserving the American way of life at the expense of quicker solutions, or changing the structure of U.S. society to counter an unprecedented threat. Many of the proposals reflect the need to court the Bush administration and politicians, who have refused to call for tough measures on climate change. Bill McKibben, an environmentalist organizing national demonstrations against climate change with the new “Step It Up” campaign, likened the United States’s stance on global warming to an “ocean liner heading in the other direction entirely.” He said, “[Eighty percent reductions by 2050] seems to be at the moment the outer limit of what’s politically possible.” For author and radical environmentalist Derrick Jensen, the obstacles to faster changes presented by the U.S. political system illustrate the need for more holistic measures. “None of [the solutions presented by mainstream groups] address the power structures,” Jensen told TNS. “None of them address corporations. None of them address a lack of democracy… The environmental groups are not questioning this larger mentality that’s killing the planet.” |
15th January 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| THE SIXTH EXTINCTION - Washington Post More than a decade ago, many scientists claimed that humans were demonstrating a capacity to force a major global catastrophe that would lead to a traumatic shift in climate, an intolerable level of destruction of natural habitats, and an extinction event that could eliminate 30 to 50 percent of all living species by the middle of the 21st century. Now those predictions are coming true. The evidence shows that species loss today is accelerating. We find ourselves uncomfortably privileged to be witnessing a mass extinction event as it's taking place, in real time. |
13th January 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Sellafield clean-up will cost £34bn - The Independent British taxpayers will have to fork out more than £30bn to clean up Sellafield, unpublicised official documents reveal. It is so contaminated that the process will take well over a century and, even then, the site will have to stay under "indefinite institutional control". |
13th January 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Focus the Nation, save the planet -- now! - Gristmill "If there's no action before 2012, that's too late. What we will do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment." -- Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change If these words don't get you off your butt, you better check and make sure you have a pulse. Yet what can we (everyday Americans, readers of Grist) do now, today, that will be strong enough to change the course of our future? |
12th January 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Uncertainty, noise and the art of model-data comparison - RealClimate Gavin Schmidt and Stefan Rahmstorf John Tierney and Roger Pielke Jr. have recently discussed attempts to validate (or falsify) IPCC projections of global temperature change over the period 2000-2007. Others have attempted to show that last year's numbers imply that 'Global Warming has stopped' or that it is 'taking a break' (Uli Kulke, Die Welt)). However, as most of our readers will realise, these comparisons are flawed since they basically compare long term climate change to short term weather variability. This becomes immediately clear when looking at the following graph: The red line is the annual global-mean GISTEMP temperature record (though any other data set would do just as well), while the blue lines are 8-year trend lines - one for each 8-year period of data in the graph. See also:World warming despite cool Pacific, Baghdad snow - Reuters |
12th January 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Greenhouse ocean may downsize fish - PhysOrg The last fish you ate probably came from the Bering Sea. But during this century, the sea`s rich food web stretching from Alaska to Russia—could fray as algae adapt to greenhouse conditions. At present, the Bering Sea provides roughly half the fish caught in U.S. waters each year and nearly a third caught worldwide. “The experiments we did up there definitely suggest that the changing ecosystem may support less of what we’re harvesting—things like pollock and hake,” Hutchins said. While the study must be interpreted cautiously, its implications are harrowing, Hutchins said, especially since the Bering Sea is already warming. “It's kind of a canary in a coal mine because it appears to be showing climate change effects before the rest of the ocean,” he noted. “It’s warmer, marine mammals and birds are having massive die-offs, there are invasive species—in general, it’s changing to a more temperate ecosystem that’s not going to be as productive.” |
12th January 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Faith Column - The New Statesman You would have some explaining to do if you walked past a drowning baby and did nothing to save it. You would have a lot more explaining to do if you were a fit lifeguard. The greater your ability to do what’s right, the greater the onus on you to do what’s right. It is a very short step from this thought to the conclusion that the developed world is making an enormous moral mistake when it comes to action on climate change. |
11th January 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| New UK Nukes? Too little, too late and unnecessary - Greenpeace International The UK government have made much of their green credentials boasting that they lead the world in tackling climate change. So what do they do? Give the green light to a new generation of nuclear power stations that will cost billions, eventually deliver only tiny cuts in carbon emissions and leave future generations with a legacy of nuclear waste to clean up.. |
11th January 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The high costs of doing nothing, part I - Gristmill This post is by ClimateProgress guest blogger Bill Becker, executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project. ----- A dirty little secret of climate change is that somebody wants us to pay much higher taxes and higher energy bills. But it's not the advocates of climate action. It's the other guys. Make no mistake: The costs of switching to clean energy and an energy-efficient economy are far less than the costs of doing nothing. A study released by the University of Maryland last October helps bring the cost issue into clearer focus. It concludes that the economic costs of unabated climate change in the United States will be major and nationwide. See also: The high costs of doing nothing, part II |
10th January 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Fighting false solutions interview: Kevin Smith & Jutta Kill - Transnational Institute With much focus in the US on a carbon cap and trade system to reduce greenhouse gases, I spoke with Kevin Smith of Carbon Trade Watch, a project of the Transnational Institute, and author of “The Carbon Neutral Myth - Offset Indulgences for your Climate Sins” and Jutta Kill of Sinkswatch to find out why they are going around the world speaking to audiences about the failures of carbon trading and offsets. See also: F.T.C. Asks if Carbon-Offset Money Is Well Spent - NYTimes.com via Yahoo! Finance Corporations and shoppers in the United States spent more than $54 million in 2007 on carbon offset credits, but where exactly is that money going?. |
10th January 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Antarctic and Greenland ice may melt at same time: scientist - Brisbane Times The next report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change should deal with the "frightening" possibility that the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets start melting at the same time, the chief UN climate scientist said today. |
9th January 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Get real, deniers! - Gristmill Honestly, if anyone tells you "For nearly a decade now, there has been no global warming" -- as this Boston Globe columnist has -- they simply are not interested in seriously trying to understand and deal with the gravest problem facing humanity. Through the first 11 months, 2007 is the second warmest year in the period of instrumental data, behind the record warmth of 2005, in the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) analysis. Through the first 11 months, 2007 is the second warmest year in the period of instrumental data, behind the record warmth of 2005, in the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) analysis. The unusual warmth in 2007 is noteworthy because it occurs at a time when solar irradiance is at a minimum and the equatorial Pacific Ocean has entered the cool phase of its natural El Niño -- La Niña cycle. |
8th January 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| $100 A Barrel? What is the True Cost of Gasoline? - Ask Pablo - Triple Pundit We've done it. We've finally reached the psychologically important $100/barrel oil. But even as the price goes higher, there are additional costs that are not paid at the pump. What are they, and who's paying them? |
8th January 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The hidden holocaust -- our civilizational crisis, part 3: The end ... - Online Journal The global system is hugely destructive of human life. Devoid of the capability to recognize and enact ethical values, it is driven purely by the imperatives of profit, efficiency, growth, and monopoly. Consequently, it is not only destructive of human life; it is destructive of all life, nature, and even itself. It is now generating multiple crises across the world that over the next 20 years threaten to converge in an unprecedented and unimaginable way, unless we take drastic action now. These crises can be categorized broadly into four key themes: 1. Climate catastrophe 2. Peak oil 3. Food scarcity 4. Economic instability |
8th January 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Dead End UK : Killing Time instead of Cracking Carbon - The College of Global Change The British Government is killing time over Climate Change, by chasing dead-end technologies. Instead of concentrating on delivering significant Carbon cuts, the United Kingdom is following up low-value, low-performance options because they can be made attractive to private investment. In order to fulfill the national commitment of a 60% cut in Carbon Dioxide emissions by 2050 under the Climate Change Bill, thinking clearly in the cold light of dawn brought me to the realisation that there needs to be serious investment in sustainable energy. |
6th January 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| US miscalculates threat of global warming - Grist Magazine There is also a common notion in circulation, advanced by the media and many studies on the impacts of climate change, that wealthier countries in the West will be able to adapt, while underdeveloped countries will bear the brunt of the impacts. It is no wonder then that global warming scarcely registers as an issue in the presidential election. Until the American public understands that the U.S. is directly threatened by impacts resulting from global warming, little meaningful action to curb our greenhouse-gas emissions will take place. With just one meter of sea-level rise, the U.S. will be physically under siege, with calamitous and destabilizing consequences. |
4th January 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The perfect storm could really blow - Globe and Mail As we enter the New Year, serious minds are debating whether the mighty U.S. economy is slipping into a shallow cyclical recession or poised for new growth. Consider a third possibility: that a perfect economic storm is forming with the capacity to knock the global economy into a full-blown depression, closing the Age of Excess in which we now wallow. The fourth and potentially worst storm is global warming. It appears that climate change is coming far faster than expected. That doesn't mean a major change this year, but it does mean increasing awareness and alarm as the consequences impinge on private lives. The only effective way to reduce greenhouse gases in the short term would be by deliberately reducing industrial activity, and unless a recession or depression does it for us, that must become a policy option for discussion, adding to the general economic instability. So, have a happy and excessive New Year while you can, and remember there's always an alternative lifestyle: ”Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.” |
3rd January 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| This time it's personal - Guardian Unlimited There is a disconnect between awareness of climate change and the lifestyle changes necessary to combat it |
3rd January 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Power firms to pocket £6bn from carbon 'handouts' in new emissions regime - Independent The UK's biggest polluters will reap a windfall of at least £6bn from rising power prices and the soaring value of carbon under the new European carbon trading scheme that critics say fails to correct the flaws of the system it replaced. |
2nd January 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The One Environmental Issue - New York Times It is not yet clear to what extent Americans are willing to grapple with the implications of any serious strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. |
1st January 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Parting company with McKibben and, maybe, Hansen - GristMill The nation's top climate scientist, NASA's James Hansen, apparently now believes "the safe upper limit for atmospheric CO2 is no more than 350 ppm," according to an op-ed by the great environmental writer Bill McKibben. Yet while preindustrial levels were 280, we're now already at more than 380 and rising 2 ppm a year! Like many people, in the 1990s I believed 550 was the target needed to avoid climate catastrophe -- but now it's clear that: 550 ppm would lead to the greatest disaster ever experienced by human civilization -- returning us to temperatures last seen when sea levels were some 80 feet higher. |
1st January 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Graphic Novel Review: As The World Burns - 50 Things You Can Do To Stay In Denial - Blogcritics.org This is definitely not a graphic novel for those looking to escape the troubles of the world... As The World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do To Stay In Denial is unabashedly radical in its call for change, and provides convincing arguments that we aren't doing enough to prevent the destruction of the natural world. The decision is ours: trust the politicians and the leaders of industry who tell us that everything will be fine, or trust our senses: sight, smell, sound, touch, and taste, that tell us the world has changed irrevocably for the worse and that we need to do something about it. |
31st December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Free Market: A False Idol After All? - NYTimes.com via Yahoo! Finance FOR more than a quarter-century, the dominant idea guiding economic policy in the United States and much of the globe has been that the market is unfailingly wise. So wise that the proper role for government is to steer clear and not mess with the gusher of wealth that will flow, trickling down to the every level of society, if only the market is left to do its magic. That notion has carried the day as industries have been unshackled from regulation, and as taxes have been rolled back, along with the oversight powers of government. Faith in markets has held sway as insurance companies have fended off calls for more government-financed health care, and as banks have engineered webs of finance that have turned houses from mere abodes into assets traded like dot-com stocks. But lately, a striking unease with market forces has entered the conversation. The world confronts problems of staggering complexity and consequence, from a shortage of credit following the mortgage meltdown, to the threat of global warming. Regulation — nasty talk in some quarters, synonymous with pointy-headed bureaucrats choking the market — is suddenly being demanded from unexpected places. |
31st December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Forecast in the Streets - RealClimate A new report called The Age of Consequences, just released by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Center for a New American Security, tries to bring the social sciences, in particular history, geography, and political science, into the forecast of climate change in the coming century. It makes for fascinating if frightening reading. |
29th December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Globalization Is Fueling Global Warming - AlterNet Unfettered global trade will make efforts to reverse global warming and deliver safe products to our country all the more difficult. |
29th December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Year in Review: The planet - The Independent The sheer scale of what happened hasn't sunk in, it probably hasn't sunk in at all, with most people. They're not looking back on 2007 and talking about it, in the office, in pubs or over dinner. Listen to them: they're talking about Brown taking over from Blair, or David Cameron's prospects, or England failing to qualify for the European football championships. Or they're talking about getting and spending, or love and hate, as they always have. But what happened in September dwarfs all that. |
28th December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Population, consumption drive global climate change and environmental degradation - Energy Bulletin The impact of population and consumption is so profound that they may outpace any potential environmental benefits from industrial modernization and improving technologies. |
24th December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Cheney accused of blocking bid to cut car fumes - Guardian Unlimited Dick Cheney behind decision to block California's attempt to impose tough emission limits on car manufacturers |
24th December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Arrogance and Warming - New York Times The Bush administration’s decision to deny California permission to regulate and reduce global warming emissions from cars and trucks is an indefensible act of executive arrogance that can only be explained as the product of ideological blindness and as a political payoff to the automobile industry. |
22nd December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| For New Orleans, for the survivors of Katrina, for climate justice - It's Getting Hot In Here While I’ve been following this situation go from grave to worse for two years, I reached a breaking point of despair these last 2 days when it got personal. At least 2 people I know in New Orleans, including one close friend, were TASERed by police while loudly, but peacefully, demanding entry into their city council meeting where the approval of the demolitions of these homes. Despite (police initiated) physical strife both inside and outside the chambers, the council approved the demolitions. Dozens more people, public housing residents and supporters alike, were pepper sprayed and beaten by police. 4 people, including my friend, were hospitalized. |
22nd December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Focus On The Corporation - Eat the State "The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard" is an engaging new short film that explains the "materials economy" in 20 fun-filled minutes. Yes, fun-filled. Produced by Free Range Studios, which developed "The Meatrix"--an animated short about factory farming that ranks among the cleverest uses of Internet technologies to deliver a politically progressive message--The Story of Stuff features the wonderful Annie Leonard, amusing graphics, lots of humor, and a complicated analysis presented in an easy-to-understand conversational tone. You can watch the whole thing at www.storyofstuff.com. You'll have to watch the film to enjoy the humor--there's no easy way to convey the playful cartooning with serious purpose. But I guarantee chuckles even for the most austere. |
21st December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| EPA denies California waiver on auto emissions - Los Angeles Times U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson today denied California's long-standing request for a waiver from federal law to be able to implement its own landmark regulations to slash greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles. See also: Governor Schwarzenegger Scolds Environmental Protection Agency - Imperial Valley News "While the federal energy bill is a good step toward reducing dependence on foreign oil, the President's approval of it does not constitute grounds for denying our waiver. The energy bill does not reflect a vision, beyond 2020, to address climate change, while California's vehicle greenhouse gas standards are part of a carefully designed, comprehensive program to fight climate change through 2050," said Governor Schwarzenegger. "It is disappointing that the federal government is standing in our way and ignoring the will of tens of millions of people across the nation. We will continue to fight this battle. California sued to compel the agency to act on our waiver, and now we will sue to overturn today's decision and allow Californians to protect our environment." Pelosi Statement on EPA Decision Denying California Waiver Request - PR Newswire via Yahoo! News "What is clear is that the Administration's announcement undermines the ability of the states to protect their citizens from the dangers of global warming. "The Bush Administration has repeatedly blocked federal and international action on global warming. When the states took action, the Administration chose to stifle true progress on preventing global warming and protecting our children's heritage. "The threat of climate change to California's communities, coastline, ecosystems, water supply and health of its citizens is clear and compelling. Two federal courts have ruled that California has the legal right to set its own greenhouse gas standards for vehicles, and other states have the right to follow. |
20th December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| US Congress approves energy bill - BBC News The US Congress passes a "historic" energy bill to improve fuel economy and reduce demand for oil. See also: Have we lost more ground than we gained? - Grist Magazine |
19th December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Ministers 'to reject airline cap' - BBC News EU ministers are poised to agree a deal on aviation that would see aircraft emissions continue to rise. |
19th December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Rising seas 'to beat predictions' - BBC News Global sea levels could rise twice as high this century as UN climate scientists had predicted, a study suggests. |
18th December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Environment: Bali: World Suckered by the U.S. Once Again - Altertnet America will keep on wrecking climate talks as long as those with vested interests in oil and gas fund its political system. |
18th December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Britain's carbon strategy 'up in smoke' - The Independent Britain's plans to build new coal-fired power stations as part of the country's efforts to address its looming energy crisis will completely undermine the Bali agreement on climate change and discredit Gordon Brown's commitments to reduce greenhouse gases, according to one of the world's leading climate scientists. |
17th December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| At a glance: Bali climate deal - BBC News What are the key points emerging from the UN climate meeting in Bali? See also: Winners and Losers at Bali - Time Magazine |
16th December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| A Carbon Tide: Past, Present and Future - New York Times Global emissions of carbon dioxide, measured by the weight of carbon it contains. |
16th December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate deal sealed by US U-turn - BBC News Delegates at the UN summit in Bali agree a deal on curbing climate change after days of bitter wrangling. |
15th December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Environment: The Top Ten Best Environment Stories of 2007 From the top 100 ways global warming with change your life to anti-environmental homeowners associations to the biofuel hoax, read this year's best. |
15th December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Acidic seas may kill 98% of world's reefs by 2050 - Guardian Unlimited The majority of the world's coral reefs are in danger of being killed off by rising levels of greenhouse gases, scientists warned yesterday |
15th December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Live - almost from AGU–Dispatch #6 Today was the all-Union session on Tipping Points, and several people have asked for comments on what went on there. I suppose this session might have been useful for people who had to miss the more detailed discussion in specialized sections, but I don't have much to say about most of the talks, since they for the most part went over issues like ice sheet dynamics and rapid arctic sea ice loss, which I've discussed in earlier dispatches. Myself, I never found the notion of "tipping points" to be a very useful contribution to public discourse. The concept is ill-defined and very prone to be misunderstood - as in ... |
15th December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Q&A: "Where Has All the Water Gone?" - IPS HALIFAX, Canada, Dec 14 (IPS) - Imagine a planet where nuclear-powered desalination plants ring the world's oceans; corporate nanotechnology cleans up sewage water so private utilities can sell it back to consumers in plastic bottles at huge profit; and the poor who lack access to clean water die in increased numbers. |
15th December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Research: The New Economics of Global Warming - DeSmogBlog Economists no longer debate the realities of anthropomorphic climate change--that's so 1993! Instead, they squabble over how much we should be spending today to lessen the sting of the much bigger invoices that will inevitably come due tomorrow, should we insist on carrying on with all this fossil-fuel nonsense. To do their apocalyptic calculus, they attach hard--and rather large--numbers to phenomena such as rainforest loss, and plug them into cost-benefit analysis models. In the end, the bean counters determine a so-called social cost of carbon, and recommend a percentage of GDP for present-day investments in clean-energy research and the like.Until now, the economic models have not included "unlikely but extreme events," such as a global temperature rise of--gulp!--six degrees, mostly because Sir Nicholas Stern and friends have dismissed them as simply too ... |
15th December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Banks Finance Climate Change, Need New Policies - NGO - Planet Ark SINGAPORE - Banks are contributing to global warming by funding coal and oil exploration, and should adopt policies that cut their negative impact on the environment, according to a report by a network of NGOs. |
14th December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Notes from The Gathering #5: Arctic sea ice: is it tipped yet? - RealClimate The summer of 2007 was apocalyptic for Arctic sea ice. The coverage and thickness of sea ice in the Arctic has been declining steadily over the past few decades, but this year the ice lost an area about the size of Texas, reaching its minimum on about the 16th of September. Arctic sea ice seems to me the best and more imminent example of a tipping point in the climate system. A series of talks aimed to explain the reason for the meltdown. Sea surface temperatures were warmer this past summer also; I forget how many standard deviations the temperature was off the trend, but it was definitely anomalous. |
14th December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 2007 data confirms warming trend - BBC News This year has been one of the warmest since 1850, despite the cooling influence of La Nina conditions, according to scientists.. |
14th December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Al Gore: The world can't wait for George Bush - The Independent We, the human species, face a planetary emergency. That phrase still sounds shrill to some ears but it is deadly accurate as a description of the situation that we now confront. |
14th December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Arctic summers ice-free 'by 2013' - BBC News Scientists present one of the most dramatic forecasts for the disappearance of Arctic summer sea-ice. |
13th December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Do we see a trend here? By Joseph RommAccording to NASA scientists (PDF): Through the first 11 months, 2007 is the second warmest year in the period of instrumental data, behind the record warmth of 2005, in the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) analysis. The unusual warmth in 2007 is noteworthy because it occurs at a time when solar irradiance is at a minimum and the equatorial Pacific Ocean has entered the cool phase of its natural El Niño -- La Niña cycle. ... barring the unlikely event of a large volcanic eruption, a record global temperature exceeding that of 2005 can be expected within the next 2-3 years. |
13th December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Beyond the point of no return - Grist Magazine As the pace of global warming kicks into overdrive, the hollow optimism of climate activists, along with the desperate responses of some of the world's most prominent climate scientists, is preventing us from focusing on the survival requirements of the human enterprise. The environmental establishment continues to peddle the notion that we can solve the climate problem. We can't. We have failed to meet nature's deadline. In the next few years, this world will experience progressively more ominous and destabilizing changes. These will happen either incrementally -- or in sudden, abrupt jumps. |
12th December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Live - almost from AGU–Dispatch #1 And there was ample evidence presented of startling change going on in Greenland — changes in the ice that could raise sea level far beyond the projections given in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. J.E. Box and collaborators presented new work on Greenland outlet glacier sensitivity to surface melting. Outlet glaciers are the very dynamic "drains" through which Greenland loses much of its ice. Earlier work by Zwally et al documented the rapid sensitivity of surges in such glaciers to melt water forming on the surface and penetrating to the base. Box and company documented how ubiquitous the melt ponds are, and how every one, basically, is pouring water through a moulin down to the base. Valliant graduate students have waded chest-deep in the melt ponds to measure the rate of drainage. The work documented much more broadly than ever before how outlet glacier speed responds to warming of the environment. Leigh Stearns and collaborators point out that the Greenland Ice Sheet's contribution to sea level has doubled in the past five years, due largely to factors connected with ice dynamics (and not incorporated in the IPCC estimates). They showed satellite data which indicates that just two glaciers — Helheim and Kangerdlugssuaq — might account for 10% of this increase. Ominously, more glaciers are primed to pop as climate continues to warm. About the increased flow speeds in this region, they suggest the system has entered a new state: "We speculate that these faster flow speeds represent a new long-term state of behavior which, while not as dramatic as the short-lived periods of peak speeds, have important implications for the rate of sea level rise." See also:Greenland Ice Sheet Melting at Record Rate - Planet Ark WASHINGTON - The Greenland ice sheet melted at a record rate this year, the largest ever since satellite measurements began in 1979, a top climate scientist reported on Monday. |
12th December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change goal 'unreachable' - BBC News The climate change goal of stabilising greenhouse gas emissions is unreachable, say two leading scientists. |
11th December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon-taxing the rich - Guardian Unlmited Jooseph Stiglitz: Countries generating emissions must pay the cost, and the fairest and simplest way of forcing them to do so is through tax. Principles do matter. The Bali meeting's participants should bear this in mind: global warming is too important to be held hostage to another attempt at squeezing the poor. |
9th December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Thoughts from the Bali COP before the Day of Global Action - Campaign against Climate Change One week at the Bali Climate Conference has cured me of any illusion that UNFCCC will solve the climate crisis, or that the annual gatherings of governments, industry and some NGOs will even remotely move us in the right direction. This is not about saving the planet. It's quite simply a trade show, and all the different proposals are about making carbon trading more efficient or getting this or that industry or government to profit a bit more whilst we move ever faster towards mass extinction. I wonder if, in years to come, we'll look back on UNFCCC meetings as climate change profiteering conferences. |
9th December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Academic seeks 100% greenhouse target - The West Australian Nations need to cut greenhouse pollution by 50 per cent by 2025 and 100 per cent by 2050 to avoid climatic disaster, an academic says. Climate change researcher Ian McGregor said the kind of emissions cuts being discussed at the UN conference on Bali would fail to avert catastrophic climate change. |
8th December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global carbon emissions, per person - BBC News The figures are from the United States Energy Department's Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, dated 2004. |
8th December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Most of Amazon 'lost by 2030' - Guardian Unlimited Climate change could speed up the large-scale destruction of the Amazon rainforest and bring the "point of no return" much closer than previously thought, conservationists warned today. Almost 60% of the region's forests could be wiped out or severely damaged by 2030, as a result of climate change and deforestation, according to a report published today by WWF. The damage could release somewhere between 55.5bn-96.9bn tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from the Amazon's forests and speed up global warming, according to the report, Amazon's Vicious Cycles: Drought and Fire. |
7th December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Syllogism of Doom [dum dum duuum] Andy Revkin has a great op-ed over on NYT, laying out our collective coal dilemma and the difficulty in communicating effectively about it. I've been pondering why clean coal -- a climate solution that does not yet so much as, um, exist -- has taken on such talismanic quality in energy discussions, like a crucifix that gets waved around to ward off ghouls. The root of the problem is what I shall take to calling the Syllogism of Doom (try to imagine ominous music, heavy on timpani). It goes: 1. If we (that is, humanity) increase our use of coal, the atmosphere will likely tip over into irreversible, catastrophic warming. |
7th December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Scientists beg for climate action - ABCmoney.co.uk A petition from at least 215 climate scientists calls for the world to cut in half greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. It is directed at a conference of diplomats meeting in Bali, Indonesia, to negotiate the next global warming treaty. The petition, obtained by The Associated Press, is to be announced at a press conference there Wednesday night. The appeal from scientists follows a petition last week from more than 150 global business leaders also demanding the 50 percent cut in greenhouse gases. That is the estimate that scientists calculate would hold future global warming to a little more than a 3-degree Fahrenheit increase and is in line with what the European Union has adopted. |
6th December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| This crisis demands a reappraisal of who we are and what progress means - Guardian Unlimited Outdated figures have been hiding the full extent of climate change. But I am still advocating action, and not despair |
5th December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Toll of climate change on world food supply could be worse than thought - Physorg Global agriculture, already predicted to be stressed by climate change in coming decades, could go into steep, unanticipated declines in some regions due to complications that scientists have so far inadequately considered, say three new scientific reports. Progressive changes predicted to stem from 1- to 5-degree C temperature rises in coming decades fail to account for seasonal extremes of heat, drought or rain, multiplier effects of spreading diseases or weeds, and other ecological upsets. All are believed more likely in the future. See also: Riots and hunger feared as demand for grain sends food costs soaring - Guardian Unlimited The risks of food riots and malnutrition will surge in the next two years as the global supply of grain comes under more pressure than at any time in 50 years, according to one of the world's leading agricultural researchers. What will we eat as the oil runs out? - Energy Bulletin Our global food system faces a crisis of unprecedented scope. This crisis, which threatens to imperil the lives of hundreds of millions and possibly billions of human beings, consists of four simultaneously colliding dilemmas, all arising from our relatively recent pattern of dependence on depleting fossil fuels. The first dilemma consists of the direct impacts on agriculture of higher oil prices: increased costs for tractor fuel, agricultural chemicals, and the transport of farm inputs and outputs. The second is an indirect consequence of high oil prices - the increased demand for biofuels, which is resulting in farmland being turned from food production to fuel production, thus making food more costly. The third dilemma consists of the impacts of climate change and extreme weather events caused by fuel-based greenhouse gas emissions. Climate change is the greatest environmental crisis of our time; however, fossil fuel depletion complicates the situation enormously, and if we fail to address either problem properly the consequences will be dire. Finally comes the degradation or loss of basic natural resources (principally, topsoil and fresh water supplies) as a result of high rates, and unsustainable methods, of production stimulated by decades of cheap energy. |
4th December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Environment: Ditch Green Industries, Invest in Guns -- a Deadly Market Gospel In the world of venture capitalism, there has been a race going on between greens on the one hand and guns and garrisons on the other -- and the guns are winning. |
4th December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| It's the Tar Sands, Stupid - in Views - The Tyee Canada home to global warming's new ground zero. The average production and downstream emissions of Alberta synthetic crude add up to around 638 kg of carbon per barrel. Multiply that by the total extractable oil reserves and you get a rather large number. When all the Alberta oil sands have been extracted, upgraded and burned, they will result in the release into the Earth's atmosphere of around 112 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide. That is equivalent to all fossil fuel and industrial emissions worldwide combined over a period of more than four years. |
4th December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Bali Can We Save the World by 2015? - Time Magazine With time dwindling, delegates from 185 countries will convene the most critical talks on climate change in a decade -- and start hashing out a new, post-Kyoto protocol. The whole process can seem frustratingly slow, considering how dire the threat of climate change is — as if we were convening a town hall meeting to decide to put out a fire that is already raging. "Getting 185 countries around a negotiating table is a difficult way to run the world," says Andrew Deutz, who heads the Nature Conservancy's International Institutions and Agreements team. "But the advantage of the UN process is that it's about the process. It can continue to evolve." That's already begun to happen in recent years, as consensus on global warming has grown in every corner of the world, as businesses have turned to alternative power and governments have begun to set their own caps on carbon. But we're in a race and we're already behind. If we can't get off to a good start at Bali, we may never catch up. Bali's road map for planet's survival - Guardian Unlimited World leaders will meet in Bali this week for the start of negotiations which experts say could be the last chance to save the Earth from climate change Hopes of a successful conference are high, partly because countries are not expected to sign up to any specific commitments. The Bali meeting follows a spate of high-profile reports in the past year warning of the impacts of climate change . 'Bali could be the last chance for humankind to avoid the worst effect of global warming,' said Tony Juniper, executive director of Friends of the Earth. 'The politics of this are changing very quickly. One should be cautiously optimistic about the prospects for getting the outline of the deal because we're stuffed if we don't.' Rich countries blamed as greenhouse gas emissions hit record - The Independent Bali conference is the world's last chance to avoid 'catastrophic' global warming, experts warn. Rich countries are rapidly increasing the pollution that causes global warming to record levels – despite having solemnly undertaken to reduce it, three devastating new official reports reveal. Emissions of greenhouse gases and their accumulation in the atmosphere are higher than they have ever been, and unless policies are urgently reversed "catastrophic" climate change is inevitable, they warn. Nations gather for climate talks - BBC News World governments meet for a key UN summit to thrash out a deal on the future shape of a global climate agreement. "Nobody wants to understate the very real long-term ecological challenges that climate change will bring to rich countries," said lead author Kevin Watkins. "But the near-term vulnerabilities are not concentrated in lower Manhattan and London, but in flood-prone areas of Bangladesh and drought-prone parts of sub-Saharan Africa. "Allowing the window of opportunity to close would represent a moral and political failure without precedent in human history." UN says USA must be part of climate change agreement - USA Today Any agreement hammered out by a massive United Nations climate change conference starting in Indonesia this week would not make sense without the participation of the United States, the world's top emitter of greenhouse gases, the U.N.'s climate chief said Sunday. Wen's Challenge on Climate Change Raises Stakes for Bali Talks - Bloomberg.com Dec. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's complaint that developed nations must do more to combat climate change highlights a central conflict confronting delegates at Bali talks on global warming that begin today. "It's a game of hide and seek now,'' said Lo Sze Ping, campaign director of Greenpeace China. "The U.S. is trying to hide behind China and China is trying to hide behind the U.S. This kind of attitude is not going to help us avoid disastrous climate change.'' |
3rd December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Why America is Becoming a Second-World Nation and California is in the Crosshairs - California Progress Report The United States’ inevitable slide from first-world status is because of an anti-innovation trend playing out within the state and the nation. This is so despite California being an industry leader and at the leading edge of many kinds of innovation. This anti-innovation trend subtracts from the “big science, great policy” innovation it will take to combat global warming’s direct and indirect effects, worsening natural disasters, and the decline side of oil. These are the big guns pitted against human survival. |
3rd December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Expected Drop In Nitrogen Deposition May Hamper Kyoto Targets - Science Daily Researchers in the Netherlands, have shown that a drop in atmospheric nitrogen deposition will slow down forest growth. At the same time they expect that a lower tree growth implies less carbon sequestration and thus a decrease in the sequestration of the main greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. This may have a significant impact on the targets set in the Kyoto protocol. |
3rd December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
 50 years on: The Keeling Curve legacy - BBC News How one of the most famous graphs in science - showing how carbon dioxide has risen in the atmosphere - has become a scientific icon. [The graph seems to be curving up - can emissions be reduced before the line points straight up?] |
1st December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| CCS: Always almost ready, but never quite By David RobertsOver at Earth2Tech, reflecting on Washington's recent rejection of a coal plant application, Alexix Madrigal stumbles across the essence of the carbon capture and sequestration issue: It highlights an interesting aspect of the CCS debate. Fossil-fuel energy companies are well-served by having the technology remain on the drawing board, devoid of any "industrial-scale" field deployments. It lets them point to technology that will eventually make them clean -- forestalling complaints that coal should be done away with completely -- while allowing the companies to claim they can't build something that hasn't already been built. |
1st December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Deforestation and Greenhouse-Gas Emissions - Foreign Relations Loss of forests contributes as much as 30 percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions each year-rivaling emissions from the global transportation sector. |
1st December 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Lifeboat time - Energy Bulletin John Michael Greer, The Archdruid Report. Recent news stories point to the real possibility that a wave of crises of the kind predicted by the theory of catabolic collapse may be imminent. Can we afford to wait until the window of opportunity for constructive action closes? |
30th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate chief calls for 80% cuts in greenhouse gas - Guardian Unlimited An adviser on the economics of climate change has urged nations to agree on reductions in greenhouse gas emissions Also: Stern raps 'market failure' on climate - Guardian Unlimited |
30th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Forget the green technology - the hot money is in guns - Guardian Unlimited Comment is free: Naomi Klein: Far from saving us from catastrophe, the market is developing fortresses to shield the haves from the victims of the future |
30th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| What comes next for the IPCC? - Nature Now their fourth assessment is complete, should this climate-science advisory panel change? The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has produced four massive assessments of climate-change science since 1990. Its efforts culminated this year in a summary report that many argue delivers solid answers to the biggest questions — whether and to what extent humans are contributing to global warming — while laying a strong foundation for dealing with the possible dangers and finding potential solutions. Now, some are beginning to argue, it's time for the IPCC to change gear and alter the way it works. |
30th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Bali Climate Talks: Campaigns & Lobbying; Leed Up; Blogs and Live Coverage - Climate Change Action All the information about the upcoming UN climate talks |
29th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Leading article: A potentially dangerous legacy - The Independent We have said that, when it comes to policies on climate change, Gordon Brown is all bag and no shopping. Now the UN has said the same thing. Its Human Development Report yesterday warned that, if other nations follow the policies the UK has set for itself, the world will soon enter the climate change danger zone. What Britain, and the world, need is action, not words. And the report suggested what some of those actions should be. Binding emissions-cutting targets. A tax on carbon. An EU cap-and-trade scheme that auctions allowances instead of granting them. The rapid retirement of old-style, highly polluting, coal-fired power stations. |
29th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Venus offers Earth climate clues - BBC Observations of Venus might assist efforts to tackle the threat of climate change here on Earth. |
29th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Ice, ice, maybe - not - Grist Do you want the latest data -- some not yet published -- and the best post-IPCC scientific predictions on the stunning collapse of Arctic ice and unexpected shrinking of the Greenland (and Antarctic) ice sheets? Then you should definitely watch this C-SPAN video of yesterday's American Meteorological Society seminar (see note on link below). The seminar is by three of the world's top cryosphere experts: Dr. Mark Serreze (NOAA), Scott Luthcke (NASA), and Dr. Konrad Steffen (CIRES) -- full bios and program summary available here. I will post their presentations when AMS puts them online (which will be here). |
29th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Drought worsened greenhouse gases - Colorado Daily A new NOAA study, appearing in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows how a prolonged drought in North America in 2002 cut the continent's natural uptake of carbon dioxide (CO2) in half, leaving more than 360 million tons (330 million metric tons) more of the heat-trapping greenhouse gas in Earth's atmosphere. |
28th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| CLIMATE CHANGE: Today, the Poor - Tomorrow, the Next Generation - IPS GENEVA, Nov 27 (IPS) - Although climate change threatens the international community as a whole, the heaviest human costs are borne by the poor, who have contributed least to the problem, according to the United Nations. |
28th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The cash nexus - Gristmill In the Nov. 12 New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert published an article (unavailable online; abstract here) typical of her style: spare, restrained, vivid, cogent, devastating. The topic was Canada's tar sands, now being profitably exploited by the major oil companies: Shell, Conoco-Phillips, Chevron, and ExxonMobil. And they've only just begun. According to Kolbert, the oil majors intend to invest more than $75 billion over the next five years in building infrastructure to transform a little bit of Canada into fuel for our cars. "Thanks in large part to what's happening in the tar sands," Kolbert reports, "Canada has become America's No. 1 source of imported oil; the country supplies the United States with more petroleum than all of the nations of the Persian Gulf combined." |
27th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Environment: We Face Worldwide Drought With No Contingency Plan - Alternet As droughts reach record levels from Atlanta to Australia, no one is asking the tough question: What happens when there is not enough water to go around? |
26th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Six Degrees - RealClimate "Alarmism" is a term that gets bandied about a lot. It is often said that one should not call out "fire" in a crowded building. But it really depends, one might say, on whether the "calling out" is done in such a way as to simultaneously prevent a stampede and prevent anyone getting burned. This riddle was very much on my mind as I sat down to write my thoughts on Mark Lynas's book, Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet (London: Fourth Estate, 2007). I don't read much popular science literature, and I doubt I would have read this book if I hadn't made the mistake of referring to it (in a negative manner) in the comments section of a RealClimate post. |
26th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Weather disasters 'getting worse' - BBC News Aid agency Oxfam says the number of weather-related disasters has quadrupled since the 1980s. |
25th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Canada gets its way: Commonwealth climate deal drops binding targets - CNews MUNYONYO, Uganda - Canada appears to have got its way at Commonwealth talks on climate change. The 53-member organization has produced an agreement stripped of any reference to binding targets for greenhouse gas emissions. See also: Dion condemns PM's climate change position at Commonwealth - Canada.com |
25th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Q&A: Bali Conference "Very Much A Make Or A Break" - IPS BONN, Nov 24 (IPS) - International negotiations beginning Dec. 3 in Bali are crucial for saving our planet from the devastating effects of global warming, says Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). |
25th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| UN: Carbon dioxide levels reach new high - EARTHtimes.org Geneva - Global concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere reached their highest levels ever recorded in 2006, according to the latest Greenhouse Gas Bulletin published Friday by the UN weather agency, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Concentrations of nitrous oxide also reached a new high while methane remained almost unchanged. |
24th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Is the oil-palm industry using global warming to mislead the public? - Mongabay.com Members of the Indonesian Palm Oil Commission are distributing materials that misrepresent the carbon balance of oil-palm plantations, according to accounts from people who have seen presentations by commission members. These officials are apparently arguing that oil-palm plantations store and sequester many times the amount of CO2 as natural forests, and therefore that converting forests for plantations is the best way to fight climate change. In making such claims, these Indonesian representatives evidently are ignoring data that show the opposite, putting the credibility of the oil-palm industry at risk, and undermining efforts to slow deforestation and rein in greenhouse gas emissions. . |
24th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Leading article: An immense challenge, but a tepid response - The Independent Gordon Brown made his first major speech on climate change as Prime Minister yesterday. It has been a long time coming. That fact is all the more strange considering what he had to say. Global warming, he said, constituted "an immense challenge to the world". The cost of doing nothing would be an economic crisis as bad as the Great Depression plus a world war rolled into one. Nothing less was needed than a fourth industrial revolution, on a par with those provoked by the steam engine, the internal combustion engine and the microprocessor in turn. The rhetoric is strong but the actions are puny. If green speeches by political leaders were enough, said Friends of the Earth, climate change would have been solved many years ago. The sad truth is that on the really big issues, Britain is taking a lead only in the production of hot air rather than in its reduction. |
21st November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| NASA stonewalls another US agency that wants to launch DSCOVR - DeSmogBlog It has now been several months since the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) formally requested that NASA transfer to them all DSVOVR assets - including of course the spacecraft itself. The response from NASA? Nothing. Nada. Zippo. Incredibly, NASA has so far completely ignored colleagues from another US government agency that want to make use of a $100 million spacecraft that NASA themselves stated last year they have no intention of launching. For those new to this Desmog Blog investigative series, the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR )is a fully completed spacecraft, that if launched, would almost immediately lay to rest any remaining legitimate debate regarding the origins of global climate change. |
21st November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Groundwater lost to rising sea levels greater than thought: study - Raw Story Rising sea levels could swallow up to 40 percent more potable groundwater than previously thought because of tricks of topography, a new study has found. Many current predictions about the impact of global warming look at how much land would be lost to rising sea levels. But researchers at Ohio State University have found that in many coastal regions sea water will leach into the water table and contaminate groundwater well beyond the shoreline. |
19th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate 'will undo Asian success' - BBC News A warmer world will reverse decades of social and economic progress across Asia, a report claims. |
19th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| IPCC Synthesis Report Download the Summary for Policymakers of the AR4 Synthesis Report UN calls for joint climate effort - BBC United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says a new report on climate change has set the stage for a real breakthrough in tackling the issue. IPCC to warn of 'abrupt' warming - BBC News Climate change may bring "abrupt and irreversible" impacts, the UN's climate advisory panel is set to announce. World on the verge of climate 'catastrophe': UN chief - The Times of India PARIS: UN chief Ban Ki-moon called on Saturday for urgent action on global warming, warning the world is on the verge of a catastrophe, as top scientists were due to issue a new report on climate change for policymakers. UN says new report must spur climate change action - Guardian Unlimited Governments must do more to fight global warming, spurred by a new U.N. scientific report and damage to nature that is already as frightening as science fiction, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Saturday. |
17th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 'Help save us from global warming disaster' Science fiction now science prediction? - Tenerife News London lies devastated. Many thousands are dead and millions are homeless after a freak storm floods the city. The Millenium Wheel no longer turns as it is half submerged under water. Big Ben can only peep its head above the deluge. Trafalgar Square, Whitehall, the Docklands. All have fallen victim to the biggest natural catastrophe the earth has ever seen. Fortunately for us, this is not reality but a dramatic scene from the latest disaster movie Flood. Yet two Tenerife-based entrepreneurs have absolutely no doubt that one day, this will really happen - and they fear that day will come much sooner than many people think. |
17th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Environment: We Can't Shop Our Way to Safety - Alternet Concerned with toxic chemicals, more people are buying products with labels like "organic," "green," and "natural." But a consumerist response to environmental threats is not only inadequate, it is dangerous. |
17th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Big Tobacco then, Global Warming Now - DeSmogBlog Here's an October 1995 internal memo I came across written by someone at tobacco giant Philip Morris outlining all the "public policy grants" and the totals received by US think tanks and associations. More than a few of the familiar names involved in the industry-funded war on climate science appear on this list, including:Competitive Enterprise Institute - $200,000Frontiers of Freedom - $10,000Heartland Institute - $65,000Heritage Foundation - $50,000Hudson Institute - $25,000National Center for Policy Analysis - $60,000National Center for Public Policy Research - $50,000 National Association of Manufacturers - $130,000 Reason Foundation - $25,000 Who wants to bet this money wasn't for anti-smoking campaigns? |
16th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Forests damaged by Hurricane Katrina become major carbon source - PhysOrg Researchers led by biologist Jeffrey Chambers of Tulane University have determined that the losses inflicted by Hurricane Katrina on Gulf Coast forest trees are enough to cancel out a year`s worth of new tree biomass (trunks, branches and foliage) growth in other parts of the country. |
16th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Why Aren't We Panicking? - Across the Aisle After reading the new report on global climate change just released by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Center for a New American Security one might be inclined to ask, am I afraid? But afraid is such an insufficient word. A better question is, am I panicked? And if your answer is no, then you need to ask why not? |
15th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| First-ever 'State of the Carbon Cycle Report' finds troubling imbalance The first State of the Carbon Cycle Report” for North America, released online this week by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, finds the continent`s carbon budget increasingly overwhelmed by human-caused emissions. North American sources release nearly 2 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year, mostly as carbon dioxide. |
15th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Power plants' CO2 levels revealed - BBC News A website offering the first global inventory of CO2 emissions from 50,000 power stations goes online. |
15th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate Change Ups War Risk in Many States - Report - Planet Ark LONDON - Climate change will put half the world's countries at risk of conflict or serious political instability, a report said on Tuesday, making the world more unstable unless nations and communities consider problems now. |
14th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Unravelling the sceptics - BBC News What exactly do "climate sceptics" believe? See also: Climate scepticism: The top 10 - BBC News |
13th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Unravelling the sceptics - BBC News What exactly do "climate sceptics" believe? See also: Climate scepticism: The top 10 - BBC News |
13th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| How China is eating the world - The Independent China's remarkable economic growth is powering the global economy, but can the world afford to keep on supplying its ever-growing demands for food and raw materials? So the outlook is for agricultural, commodity and oil prices to carry on rising. The $100 barrel of oil could be just the start. Bad news for Britain and the West – but worse for poorer peoples. Countries such as Bangladesh with large and growing populations but who are net importers of food will feel the effects badly (on top of dealing with rising sea levels in the Ganges delta). The less developed the economy, the greater the share of food prices in the shopping basket, and thus the bigger the impact on standards of living. In the West, food accounted for about 18 per cent of headline inflation in 2007; in eastern Europe it was 33 per cent, and in the Middle East 52 per cent. Everywhere, and especially in the least-developed regions, there will be a regressive redistribution of income, from the very poorest to the relatively well off, as food accounts for such an overwhelming proportion of the living costs of those at the bottom of the heap. In China that means the rural poor, already a source of anxiety of Beijing as it seeks "balanced" growth. Everywhere, pressure on water supplies and migration will inevitably follow. |
10th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| UN climate report: already out of date? - Inquirer.net Fresh from winning the Nobel Peace Prize, the UN's top scientific panel on climate change will meet in the Spanish port city of Valencia Monday to finalize a landmark report on global warming and how to avoid its worst ravages. But beneath its newly-won fame, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is under intensifying scrutiny about some of its key processes. Some voices, including from within the IPCC itself, fear the panel's grand report will be badly out of date before it is even printed. Others quietly criticize the organization as being too conservative in its appreciation of the climate threat. See also: IPCC: Brace yourselves for a hotter planet - Montreal Gazette |
10th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Hoax Bacteria Study Tricks Climate Sceptics - Planet Ark OSLO(Reuters Life!) - A hoax scientific study pointing to ocean bacteria as the overwhelming cause of global warming fooled some sceptics on Thursday who doubt growing evidence that human activities are to blame. See also: INTERVIEW: author of spoof paper speaks - Nature |
9th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon Intervention - Change College The UK Government's draft Climate Change Bill proposes a 60% cut in national net Carbon Dioxide emissions by the year 2050. The big question is: how are we going to do that ? |
9th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Energy outlook puts China in pole position - Guardian Unlimited China will overtake the US as the world's top energy consumer after 2010 as global energy demand is set to jump by 55% over the next 23 years, the International Energy Agency said today. By Angela Balakrishnan . See also: China 'to be largest energy user' - BBC News Energy needs 'to grow inexorably' - BBC News Switch to coal threatens to worsen global warming - New Scientist |
8th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Health toll of climate change seen as ethical crisis - PhysOrg The public health costs of global climate change are likely to be the greatest in those parts of the world that have contributed least to the problem, posing a significant ethical dilemma for the developed world, according to a new study. |
8th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The western appetite for biofuels is causing starvation in the poor world - Guardian Developing nations are being pushed to grow crops for ethanol, rather than food - all thanks to political expediency |
8th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Humanity is the greatest challenge - BBC News It is time to take radical action to curb rising population and consumption levels, or face "unspeakable consequences". |
7th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Amazon Fire Wars Exacerbate Global Warming - NPR In Brazil, people use fire as a weapon in range wars to push other ranchers off their land. Scientists say these fires, along with the seasonal fires to clear land, is not just destroying parts of the Amazon's southern forests, but altering the climate as well. |
6th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate wars threaten billions - Guardian Unlimited More than 100 countries face political chaos and mass migration in global warming catastrophe. |
4th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| New 'disaster' movie warns world of oil apocalypse - Guardian Unlimited The latest gloves-off documentary to hit screens predicts a global meltdown as vital fuel runs out. See also: 'MidEast Oil Forever?': Part II After the introduction, the next part of "MidEast Oil Forever?" (subs. req'd) predicted in 1996 that we would have an oil crisis in ten years, and that we would be in a weak position to respond if Congress succeeded in gutting our clean energy programs. That may seem obvious now, but oil prices were low in the mid-1990s -- in the previous three years, oil prices had averaged about $16 a barrel -- and only a few oil/security analysts (whom we cite) were raising alarms. This prediction proved to be right in the main, and I am especially proud of the final paragraph in this section, where we made what was, at the time, a fairly original geostrategic argument that has been proven all-too-true. |
4th November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate-induced food crisis looms - Guardian Unlimited Soaring crop prices and demand for biofuels raise fears of political instability. |
3rd November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change is one of history's the greatest security challenges - International Herald Tribune Over the last two decades, climate scientists have underestimated how quickly the Earth is changing perhaps to avoid being branded as "alarmists," the study said. But policy planners should count on climate-induced instability in critical parts of the world within 30 years, it said. |
3rd November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Warming temperatures will lower water levels: experts - CNews If the Great Lakes basin were a country, it would be the third richest in the world. The region generates 50% of Canada's gross domestic product and is home to 40 million people - 30% of Canada's population and 10% of the U.S. population. See also:Drought anxiety rises as water levels fall - USA Today |
3rd November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Washington diary: Oil shock - BBC News Matt Frei, presenter of BBC World News America, considers what the rising price of oil means for the US, as it approaches $100 a barrel. Last year Tom Friedman, the New York Times columnist, said he welcomed the doomsday scenario of $100 a barrel, because only this would provide the necessary shock treatment. It would finally concentrate minds on the strategic price of oil, on the way oil distorts America's political interests, especially in the Middle East. It would force us to develop alternative sources of fuel, which in turn would force the unelected Princes of Arabia to change their ways. It would encourage us to change our lavish life styles, say goodbye to the Hummer once and for all and diminish our carbon footprint. I hate to say it, Tom, but we're only a fistful of dollars short and the world continues to slide, even glide towards the abyss. California burns, Georgia is dying of thirst, the Dominican Republic is drowning and I'm driving around in my beaten-up convertible with the roof down at the end of October in Washington DC. Mother Nature is acting weird and virtually every scientist you speak to says it's not just a cyclical phase or a freakish fit but a fact of science, which should give us sleepless nights. The Weather Channel is no longer just for climate geeks and it costs more and more to fill my car with petrol - and yet, the real shock about today's oil shock is that it isn't a shock. Yet. |
1st November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Billions for Coal and Cars, Silence on Solar and Wind - All American Patriots A global warming bill that a Senate panel is scheduled to take up on Thursday carves out $324 billion for the coal industry and $232 billion for car makers. There’s not a nickel carved out for solar power, wind energy, geothermal or other alternative energy sources. “This is a rather extraordinary omission,” said Senator Bernie Sanders, a member of the subcommittee that will consider compromise legislation drafted by Senators Joseph Lieberman and John Warner. |
1st November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Bali burning - Gristmill In the lead-up to the international Bali Climate summit, Greenpeace has launched a major direct action in Sumatra, Indonesia, to stop the nefarious PT Duta Palma corporation from destroying a pristine tropical forest (and the habitat for highly endangered Sumatran rhinos, tigers, and oh-so-cute orangutans) and replacing it with a palm oil plantation. Click on the picture to the right to watch the extraordinary video of their action, including amazing helicopter footage of both the glorious and denuded Indonesian landscape. Torching tropical forests is bad enough, but this one lies atop a peat bog and the Duta Palma's henchmen are trying to drain it and burn it to grow the palms -- releasing thousands of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in the process. |
1st November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| George Monbiot: Civilisation ends with a shutdown of human concern. Are we there already? - Guardian Unlimited George Monbiot: A novel's vision of a dystopian future shines a cold light on the consequences of our apathy. |
31st October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Mud, sweat and tears - Guardian Unlimited Mud, sweat and tearsGuardian Unlimited, UK. ... that Fort McMurray and the Athabasca oil sands will soon be Canada's biggest contributor to global warming; nearly as much as the whole of Denmark. ... |
31st October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Industry's plan for us - GristMill The following is a guest essay from Peter Montague, executive director of the Environmental Research Foundation. ----- It now seems clear that the coal and oil industries are not going to allow the United States to curb global warming by making major investments in renewable sources of energy. These fossil fuel corporations simply have too much at stake to allow it. Simple physics tells us that the way to minimize the human contribution to global warming is to leave the remaining fossil fuels in the ground -- stop mining them as soon as humanly possible. |
31st October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Don't bargain with climate change - Guardian Unlimited There has been nothing over the past 12 months since the Stern report was published to suggest that the need for action is less pressing. Far from it. The floods in the UK in the summer and the forest fires in Greece and now California have added to the weight of evidence about the dangers of climate change. The government has a choice, a very stark choice. It should be aware, though, that when it comes to climate change appeasement makes no more long-term sense than it did at Munich in 1938. |
29th October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The certainty of uncertainty - RealClimate A paper on climate sensitivity today in Science will no doubt see a great deal of press in the next few weeks. In "Why is climate sensitivity so unpredictable?", Gerard Roe and Marcia Baker explore the origin of the range of climate sensitivities typically cited in the literature. In particular they seek to explain the characteristic shape of the distribution of estimated climate sensitivities. This distribution includes a long tail towards values much higher than the standard 2-4.5 degrees C change in temperature (for a doubling of CO2) commonly referred to. In essence, what Roe and Baker show is that this characteristic shape arises from the non-linear relationship between the strength of climate feedbacks (f) and the resulting temperature response (deltaT), which is proportional to 1/(1-f). |
27th October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Much of U.S. Could See a Water Shortage - PhysOrg (AP) -- An epic drought in Georgia threatens the water supply for millions. Florida doesn't have nearly enough water for its expected population boom. The Great Lakes are shrinking. Upstate New York's reservoirs have dropped to record lows. And in the West, the Sierra Nevada snowpack is melting faster each year. |
27th October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Prophets of doom are ten a penny but this time it's serious - Times Online Though the report’s language might sound extreme, with talk of “humanity’s very survival” at risk, the structure of the WEO actually lends itself to conservatism. Its findings deserve to be taken very seriously as a result – this is not scaremongering to make a point. See also: Humans failing the sustainability audit - BBC Humanity's very survival' is at risk, says - Times Online |
26th October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Big Question: Is the Kyoto treaty an outdated failure based on the wrong premises? Who suggests that? From the outset, Kyoto was an interim measure. It was a radical departure from the previous model of inevitable exponential growth. It was always recognised that two further phases were needed, the second bringing drastic cuts in emissions and the third including far more countries. The insistence of the US and Australia on not ratifying Kyoto – and the failure of other nations to honour their commitments – is the problem. "Just because many countries will not meet their targets doesn't mean Kyoto is a failure," says Ben McNeil of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales. "Establishing a carbon emissions market, increasing public R&D into clean technologies, focussing on large emitters and adaptation funds are all consistent within the over-arching Kyoto framework." |
26th October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| China's Green Energy Gap - New York Times In China, where coal is king, the government's push to increase the use of alternative energy faces obstacles, from bureaucracy to bottlenecks in manufacturing. |
25th October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Report warns of climate change's hidden costs - Personal Computer World US research predicts droughts and increased storm damage will lead to soaring prices, job losses and major impacts to agriculture and other industries |
25th October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Could Warmer Oceans Make Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Rise Faster ... - Science Daily Could the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere rise more drastically than previously assumed? The air contains greenhouse gases such as CO2, which are now known to be responsible for global warming because their concentration has risen continuously for a number of years. In contrast to the atmosphere, the concentration of CO2 in the oceans is sixty times higher. |
25th October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Prophet of Climate Change: James Lovelock - Rolling Stone One of the most eminent scientists of our time says that global warming is irreversible - and that more than 6 billion people will perish by the end of the century. |
24th October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Globalization of Hunger - Infoshop News The good news is that our global food systems may be on the verge of a great transition. Although agribusiness has unprecedented control over the world's farmers and food supply, the realities of climate change, resource depletion, and the human suffering caused by industrialized farming have led more people to start thinking about the links between food, the environment, and social justice. Around the world, demands for food sovereignty—peoples' right to control their own food systems—is at an all-time high. Even in the US, where much of the population thinks of farming as a quaint and remote activity, more and more people are realizing that if you eat, you're involved in agriculture. |
24th October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 'Unexpected growth' in CO2 found - BBC News Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have grown more quickly than expected, say scientists. |
24th October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change threat to peace, says German foreign minister - Globe and Mail Climate change is a growing threat to world peace and has led to rival territorial claims in the Arctic that could turn into a Cold War, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Tuesday. |
24th October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Minister confirms retreat from 20% renewable energy target - Guardian Unlimited The government signalled last night that it is pulling back from its aspiration to source 20% of Britain's energy supply from renewables by 2020. |
24th October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Warming could wipe out half species - Guardian Unlimited Rising global temperatures caused by climate change could trigger a huge extinction of plants and animals, according to a study. Though humans would probably survive such an event, half of the world's species could be wiped out. Scientists at the University of York and the University of Leeds examined the relationship between climate and biodiversity over the past 520m years - almost the entire fossil record - and uncovered an association between the two for the first time. When the Earth's temperatures are in a "greenhouse" climate phase, they found that extinctions rates were relatively high. Conversely, during cooler "icehouse" conditions, biodiversity increased. |
24th October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| UK will not use emission funds to go green - Independent Online Britain will not use money the government gets from auctioning carbon emissions permits to help it in the fight against climate change, it said on Monday. |
23rd October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| China's drive for wealth means end of our low-carbon dreams - Times Online Sunday Hu Jintao wants to make every Chinese twice as rich by 2020. He has done it once – in just five years, income per capita doubled to $2,000 (£983) - and the only obstacle in the Chinese President's path is the fuel needed to stoke the boiler in China's locomotive. |
23rd October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| At the Poles, Melting Occurring at Alarming Rate - Washington Post Fourth in a monthly series For scientists, global warming is a disaster movie, its opening scenes set at the poles of Earth. The epic already has started. And it's not fiction. |
22nd October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Steep decline in oil production brings risk of war and unrest, says new study - Guardian Unlimited Output peaked in 2006 and will fall 7% a year while a decline in gas, coal and uranium is also predicted. |
22nd October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Is economic development in danger of drying up? - International Herald Tribune Is economic development in danger of drying up?International Herald Tribune, France. By Jon Gertner Scientists sometimes refer to the effect a hotter world will have on fresh water as the other water problem, because global warming more ... |
22nd October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Tar Sands and Canada's Food System - The Dominion North American agriculture is deeply dependent on natural gas. Nitrogen fertilizer is chemically produced using a process that -- currently -- cannot be conducted efficiently without large amounts of natural gas. This fertilizer, in turn, is an essential nutrient in North America's food production system. "In a fairly direct way," says Darrin Qualman, Director of Research at the National Farmers Union, "natural gas is a primary feedstock for our food supply." While "peak oil," the point at which global production of oil begins to decline, is subject to speculation, natural gas peaked in North America in 2003. Since then, more wells have been added, but production has declined slowly, while prices have increased sharply. |
22nd October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Oceans 'soaking up less CO2' - BBC News Scientists say there has been a worrying drop in the amount of CO2 soaked up by the world's oceans. |
20th October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Big Melt - Energy Bulletin David Spratt, Carbon Equity: Ration the future. The Arctic sea ice is disintegrating "100 years ahead of schedule", having dropped 22% this year below the previous minimum low, and it may completely disappear as early as the northern summer of 2013. This is far beyond the predictions of the International Panel on Climate Change and is an example of global warming impacts happening at lower temperature increases and more quickly than projected. (Recommended by several peak oil writers). |
19th October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Hidden costs of climate change - Energy Bulletin Staff, University of Maryland. The total economic cost of climate change in the United States will be major and nationwide in scope, but remains uncounted, unplanned for and largely hidden in public debate, says a new study from the University of Maryland. |
19th October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global Warming Delusions at the Wall Street Journal - RealClimate Daniel Botkin, emeritus professor of ecology at UC Santa Barbara, argues in the Wall Street Journal (Oct 17, page A19) that global warming will not have much impact on life on Earth. We'll summarize some of his points and then take our turn: 1. The warm climates in the past 2.5 million years did not lead to extinctions. For the past 2.5 million years the climate has oscillated between interglacials which were (at most) a little warmer than today and glacials which were considerably colder than today. There is no precedent in the past 2.5 million years for so much warming so fast. |
19th October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Higher sea level may come sooner than expected - innovations report By studying 120,000-year-old layers in the ice of Greenland, researchers have determined that the ice cover seems to be able to survive a warmer climate better than was previously believed. But at the same time they have found signs that the changes that are nevertheless happening will occur at an unexpectedly rapid rate. The level of the global seas may therefore rise faster than was previously thought. |
19th October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Drought-Stricken South Facing Tough Choices - New York Times A drought in the Southeastern United States has become so severe that some cities are just months away from running out of water. |
17th October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Convenient Untruths - RealClimate Convenient UntruthsRealClimate. In the movie, the retreat of Kilimanjaro is not claimed to be purely due to global warming , but it is a legitimate example of the sort of thing one expects ... |
17th October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| What Should We Really Be Doing About Global Warming? A Freakonomics Quorum - New York Times we thought it would be a good idea to host a Freakonomics Quorum in which we asked a few smart people a very straightforward two-part question: What should the U.S. government be doing about global warming, and what should individuals be doing? Here are their answers; many thanks for their time and thoughtfulness. |
17th October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| We're Carboholics. Make Us Stop. - Washington Post I am a carboholic. As Americans, we are all carboholics, but I am more so than most. The company I run, NRG Energy, emits more than 64 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere each year -- more than the total man-made greenhouse gas emissions of Norway. And we are only the 10th-largest American power generation company. Imagine the CO2emissions of Nos. 1 through 9. Why do we do it? Why does America's power industry emit such a stunning amount of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere in this age of climate change? We do so because CO2 emissions are free. And in a world where CO2 has no price, removing CO2before or after the combustion process is vastly more expensive and problematic than just venting it into the atmosphere. Congress needs to act now to change our ways. Lawmakers should regulate CO2and other greenhouse gas emissions by introducing a federal cap-and-trade system, which would put a cap and a market price on CO2emissions. |
13th October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Environment: Our Drinkable Water Supply Is Vanishing Thanks to global warming, pollution, population growth, and privatization, we are teetering on the edge of a global crisis. |
12th October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Pain of Caring Too Much about the Earth's Death - Earth Meanders "I am unwilling and unable to sit by stoically and impassively as the Earth, her creatures and humanity suffer and die; no matter how much it hurts emotionally, and you should not either" |
12th October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| CO2 equivalents There was a minor kerfuffle in recent days over claims by Tim Flannery (author of "The Weather Makers") that new information from the upcoming IPCC synthesis report will show that we have reached 455 ppmv CO2_equivalent 10 years ahead of schedule, with predictable implications. This is confused and incorrect, but the definitions of CO2_e, why one would use it and what the relevant level is, are all highly uncertain in many peoples' minds. So here is a quick rundown. Definition: The CO2_equivalent level is the amount of CO2 that would be required to give the same global mean radiative forcing as the sum of a basket of other forcings. |
12th October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Questionable funding uncovered in the Al Gore UK High Court Case Busted? Looks like something fishy is going on with the funding behind the UK high court challenge against The Inconvenient Truth being viewed in schools. The court case was brought forward by a "concerned parent" and "New Party" member Stewart Dimmock.In a BBC Radio interview last night, Dimmock refused to divulge who fronted the 60,000 quid in court costs. Here's a partial transcript: Host: Some people might wonder why you felt so strongly about this, that yu were prepared to take it all the way to the high courts, whether you have an agenda or sorts. Do you? |
12th October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Nature Reports: Climate Change - Nature Loads of good articles |
11th October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Greenhouse gas levels 'far worse than predicted' - Australian Broadcasting Corporation Conservation scientist and Australian of the Year Tim Flannery has warned that huge industrial and economic changes need to be implemented quickly to slow the growth of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. "What the report establishes is that the amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is already above the threshold that could potentially cause dangerous climate change," he said. "So if I was trying to summarise it, what it says is that we already stand an unacceptable risk of dangerous climate change and that the need for action is ever more urgent." |
9th October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| In this age of diamond saucepans, only a recession makes sense - Guardian Unlimited If you are of a sensitive disposition, I advise you to turn the page now. I am about to break the last of the universal taboos. I hope that the recession now being forecast by some economists materialises. I recognise that recession causes hardship. |
9th October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Environment: Big Banks Are Selling Us Out on Climate Change Whether we avert catastrophe with climate change may actually be decided by Citibank and Bank of America. |
8th October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Environment: Do Progressives Have the Wrong Idea About Change? The authors of the new book Break Through argue that scaring people with bad news about the environment is no way to get them to change -- what's needed is a dream we all want to be a part of. |
8th October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Manipulating the climate message - BBC News Why China only agreed to attend President Bush's climate gathering if the title was changed. |
8th October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| World moves into the ecological red - Reuters LONDON (Reuters) - The world moved into 'ecological overdraft' on Saturday, the point at which human consumption exceeds the ability of the earth to sustain it in any year and goes into the red, the New Economics Foundation think-tank said. |
6th October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The comic who went out in the cold - Daily Telegraph Marcus Brigstocke wanted to do his bit to save the Arctic from global warming. But first he headed off to Greenland with a boatload of scientists to see if it was worth saving. |
6th October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Water woes loom as thirsty generators face climate change - WBCSD Greenwire, 4 October 2007 - U.S. power generators girding for possible mandatory curbs on greenhouse gas emissions may also find themselves facing another climate-related crisis: water shortages. This past summer -- unusually hot and dry in many regions -- offered a preview. As electricity demand surged to keep air conditioners whirring, power plants confronted shortages of cooling water that forced shutdowns and led to inefficient operations. And that problem is expected to worsen as climate change intensifies summer heat waves and droughts in already-arid areas. |
6th October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Even Tougher Warming Curbs May be Needed - Planet Ark Governments may need to step up the fight against global warming to a level beyond even the toughest existing goals to help safeguard the planet, the head of the UN climate panel said on Wednesday. Risks ranging from extinctions of animals and plants to rising sea levels meant that even a strict European Union target of limiting global warming to 2 Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial levels might be too lax. "People are actually questioning if the 2 degrees Centigrade benchmark that has been set is safe enough," Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told a Reuters Environment Summit. |
4th October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Race Against Warming - Washington Post It's the oldest and most cliched of metaphors, but when it comes to global warming, it's the only one that really works: We're in a desperate race. Politics is chasing reality, and the gap between them isn't closing nearly fast enough. |
1st October 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Leading Article: Bush's hollow words on climate change Anyone unacquainted with the White House's tactics over the years of sabotaging international efforts to combat climate change might be excused from taking some encouragement from this week's US-hosted conference in Washington. See also: Europeans angry after Bush climate speech 'charade' - Guardian Unlimited President claims he can lead world on emissions, but China and India refuse to back policy. |
29th September 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Earth is out of time - The Age Enough talk, scientists say. Countries need to reach a consensus and act now or face an increasingly volatile planet. "...the climate system does not care about aspirations - it only responds to actions." |
29th September 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Arctic Thaw May be at "Tipping Point" - Environmental News Network OSLO- A record melt of Arctic summer sea ice this month may be a sign that global warming is reaching a critical trigger point that could accelerate the northern thaw, some scientists say. "The reason so much (of the Arctic ice) went suddenly is that it is hitting a tipping point that we have been warning about for the past few years," James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for ... |
29th September 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| In Flood-Prone Bangladesh, a Future That Floats - Washington Post SINGRA, Bangladesh -- With most of his school under floodwaters, 6-year-old Mohamed Achan pulled his oversize tomato-red shorts up around his tiny waist, placed a tarp over his head to guard against the rain, and sprinted barefoot to the edge of his muddy village. There, he waited for his classroom to arrive -- in a boat. The boats plying the rivers and canals here in northeastern Bangladesh are school bus and schoolhouse in one, part of a 45-vessel fleet that includes library boats. There are plans for floating villages, floating gardens and floating hospitals as well, in case more of this region finds itself under water. Like a scene out of the 1995 post-apocalyptic movie "Waterworld," in which the continents are submerged after the polar ice caps melt and the survivors live out at sea, the boat schools and libraries are a creative response to flooding that scientists largely agree has been worsened by global warming. |
28th September 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Climate Change Peril That Insurers See - Washington Post Ten years ago, Peter Levene, chairman of Lloyds of London, was skeptical about global warming theories, but no longer. He believes carbon emissions caused by human activity are warming the Earth and causing severe weather-related events. "At Lloyds, we feel the effects of extreme weather more than most," he said in a March speech. "We don't just live with risk -- we have to pick up the pieces afterwards." Lloyds predicts that the United States will be hit by a hurricane causing $100 billion worth of damage, more than double that of Katrina. Industry analysts estimate that such an event would bankrupt as many as 40 insurers. |
28th September 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Pessimism grows over Vt. emissions waiver - The Lewiston Sun Journal BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) - Vermont leaders are expressing dismay at an effort by the Bush administration to drum up opposition to new state rules designed to reduce vehicle carbon emissions, amid growing concern that the rules will be rejected by the Environmental Protection Agency. |
28th September 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Aussie 'disaster' from 3C rise - The Australian A CLIMATE change report has painted an alarming picture of the effect on Australia if global temperatures increase by more than an average three degrees Celsius. Under that scenario, heat-related deaths would triple, people would be displaced en masse from the coast and national icons like the Great Barrier Reef would almost certainly be lost, according to the analysis by the former head of the CSIRO's Climate Impacts Group. The frequency of bushfires would double and there would be major extinctions of animal and plant life, Dr Barrie Pittock says in the report commissioned by WWF Australia. |
28th September 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Rapid rise in global warming is forecast - Times Online Sunday The oceans are losing the capacity to soak up rising man-made carbon emissions, which is increasing the rate of global warming by up to 30 per cent, scientists said yesterday. |
27th September 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Impact Of Arctic Heat Wave Stuns Climate Change Researchers - Science Daily Unprecedented warm temperatures in the High Arctic this past summer were so extreme that researchers with a climate change project have begun revising their forecasts. From their camp on Melville Island last July, where they recorded air temperatures over 20ºC (in an area with July temperatures that average 5ºC), the team watched in amazement as water from melting permafrost a meter below ground ... |
27th September 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Lovelock urges ocean climate fix - BBC News A quick global warming fix using pipes in the oceans is proposed by climate thinkers James Lovelock and Chris Rapley. |
27th September 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Fiddling with figures while the Earth burns - Times Online Sunday If you want to get some idea of what much of the Earth might look like in 50 years' time then, says James Lovelock, get hold of a powerful telescope or log onto Nasa's Mars website. |
27th September 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Great Leap Backward? - Foreign Affairs magazine China's environmental woes are mounting, and the country is fast becoming one of the leading polluters in the world. The situation continues to deteriorate because even when Beijing sets ambitious targets to protect the environment, local officials generally ignore them, preferring to concentrate on further advancing economic growth. Really improving the environment in China will require revolutionary bottom-up political and economic reforms. [Thanks Jo for passing on this article] |
24th September 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Powerful position - Nature.com At its root, climate change is not a scientific or technical problem, but an issue of the use of power. |
22nd September 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Scientists advance in detection and attribution of climate change - LLNL "The climate system is telling us an internally consistent story," said Ben Santer, an atmospheric scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. "We've observed warming of the Earth's land surface and oceans, cooling of the stratosphere, an increase in height of the tropopause, retreat of Arctic sea ice, and widespread melting of glaciers. These changes are difficult to reconcile with purely natural causes." |
20th September 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Met Office expert talks climate change - Guardian Unlimited Professor Martin Parry, of the Met Office, says that even if governments take action against global warming now, it will take decades to take effect. See also:'Too late to avoid global warming,' say scientists - The Independent |
20th September 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Water - fresh and salt, liquid and solid - Montreal Gazette A key piece in the climate-change puzzle, water is the focus for many of the 40 researchers on the ArcticNet 2007 Expedition aboard the icebreaker Amundsen. Part 5 of our seven-day series, On Thin Ice. |
20th September 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Environment: It's Time to Build a New Economic Model - AlterNet If there is to be a human future, we must bring ourselves into balanced relationship with one another and the Earth. This requires building economies with heart. |
20th September 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Making EU climate goal 'unlikely' - BBC News It is unlikely that global temperature rise can be kept below the EU's target of 2C, a leading climate scientist says. |
19th September 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Right to Dry: - Wall Street Journal The regulations of the subdivision in which Ms. Taylor lives effectively prohibit outdoor clotheslines. In a move that has torn apart this otherwise tranquil community, the development's managers have threatened legal action. To the developer and many residents, clotheslines evoke the urban blight they sought to avoid by settling in the Oregon mountains. "This bombards the senses," interior designer Joan Grundeman says of her neighbor's clothesline. "It can't possibly increase property values and make people think this is a nice neighborhood." Ms. Taylor and her supporters argue that clotheslines are one way to fight climate change, using the sun and wind instead of electricity. "Days like this, I can do multiple loads, and within two hours, it's done," said Ms. Taylor. "It smells good, and it feels different than when it comes out of the dryer." |
19th September 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate experts reveal country by country impact of warming - Daily Mail A crippling tropical disease spread by mosquitoes has taken a foothold in Europe and could be heading for Britain, climate change scientists have warned. [look at the pictures] |
19th September 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Mammoth dung, prehistoric goo may speed warming - AlertNet For millennia, layers of animal waste and other organic matter left behind by the creatures that used to roam the Arctic tundra have been sealed inside the frozen permafrost. Now climate change is thawing the permafrost and lifting this prehistoric ooze from suspended animation. But Zimov, a scientist who for almost 30 years has studied climate change in Russia's Arctic, believes that as this organic matter becomes exposed to the air it will accelerate global warming faster than even some of the most pessimistic forecasts. "This will lead to a type of global warming which will be impossible to stop," he said. When the organic matter left behind by mammoths and other wildlife is exposed to the air by the thawing permafrost, his theory runs, microbes that have been dormant for thousands of years spring back into action. "The deposits of organic matter in these soils are so gigantic that they dwarf global oil reserves," Zimov said. U.S. government statistics show mankind emits about 7 billion tonnes of carbon a year. "Permafrost areas hold 500 billion tonnes of carbon, which can fast turn into greenhouse gases," Zimov said. "If you don't stop emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere ... the Kyoto Protocol (an international pact aimed at reducing greenhouse emissions) will seem like childish prattle." |
17th September 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| One Answer to Global Warming: A New Tax - New York Times The case for using a carbon tax to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. |
16th September 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
 Global warming art and articulation - GristMill These are the winners of the 16th International Children's' Painting Competition on the Environment. This year's theme was climate change. The works speak for themselves, but the children who created them also wrote eloquent statements. The winner (top) is by 12 year-old Charlie Sullivan of the United Kingdom, who writes: I would like to express by my painting the need for everyone to act as climate change is happening now. My inspiration came partly from another art competition I entered, the Global Canvas, where I learnt how the power of art can affect our views with just an image. |
14th September 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Have you ever wondered why the big empires are so reluctant to tackle global warming? Is there something about their attitudes that makes it look like they don't care and might even welcome it? Perhaps this contains the answer: Naomi Klein on 'disaster capitalism' - Guardian Unlimited 'The original disaster - the coup, the terrorist attack, the market meltdown - puts the entire population into a state of collective shock. The falling bombs, the bursts of terror, the pounding winds serve to soften up whole societies. Like the terrorised prisoner who gives up the names of comrades and renounces his faith, shocked societies often give up things they would otherwise fiercely protect.' Audio clip of Naomi Klein at Concordia University (via CKUT). |
12th September 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| World likely to pass dangerous warming limits-study - Reuters AlertNet The world will probably exceed a global warming limit which the European Union calls dangerous, scientists at Britain's MetOffice Hadley Centre said on Tuesday, presenting a new, 5-year research programme. |
11th September 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| A Lie, Repeated Often Enough, Becomes "Truth" - DeSmogBlog This is an excellent article from the Washington Post on a University of Michigan professor's research into the resilience of myths.Dr. Norbert Schwarz has found that the harder you try to dispel a myth (eg. that the international consensus about climate change is somehow in doubt), the more you contribute to its impact, merely by the repetition.Schwarz chose to work with the kind of "myth-buster" material favoured by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Specifically, he found that within 30 minutes of reading a flyer on the myths surrounding flu vaccines, older people misremembered 28 per cent of the false statements as true. |
10th September 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change debate needs revolution - FT A revolution of society on a scale never witnessed in peacetime is needed if climate change is to be tackled successfully, the head of a major business grouping has warned. Bjorn Stigson, the head of the Geneva-based World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), predicted governments would be unable to reach agreement on a framework for reducing carbon emissions at either a US-sponsored meeting in Washington later this month or at a United Nations climate summit in Indonesia in December. |
10th September 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| State inaction on climate is a grave dereliction of duty - Guardian Unlimited Somewhere near Croydon, on a rubbish heap carefully assembled for the occasion, a group of people have just done their bit for the environment. |
8th September 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| APEC smokescreen - Toronto Star On the eve of the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation meeting in Sydney, Australia, Prime Minister Stephen Harper was right on the mark when he told business leaders that climate change was one of the most important international challenges of our time. He was correct, as well, in criticizing most countries for not doing nearly enough over the past decade to cut their emissions of the greenhouse gases. But he could not have been more wrong when he suggested that APEC countries, which include four of the world's biggest emitters of greenhouse gases � the United States, China, Russia and Japan � should follow the lead of his government in fighting climate change. Because Harper's climate change plan targets reductions in the intensity of fossil fuel use, rather than the amount of fossil fuel actually used, it is more likely to slow the growth of emissions than it is to produce real emissions reductions. See also: Apec 'muddies the climate waters' - BBC News |
8th September 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| A must-read 1972 climate prediction - Gristmill Nature just published this remarkable letter by Neville Nicholls of Australia's Monash University: Climate: Sawyer predicted rate of warming in 1972 Thirty-five years ago this week, Nature published a paper titled "Man-made carbon dioxide and the 'greenhouse' effect" by the eminent atmospheric scientist J.S. Sawyer (Nature 239, 23-26; 1972, $ubs. req'd). In four pages, Sawyer summarized what was known about the role of carbon dioxide in enhancing the natural greenhouse effect, and made a remarkable prediction of the warming expected at the end of the twentieth century. He concluded that the 25% increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide predicted to occur by 2000 corresponded to an increase of 0.6 °C in world temperature. |
6th September 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Loss of Arctic ice leaves experts stunned - Guardian Unlimited The Arctic ice cap has collapsed at an unprecedented rate this summer, with an area almost twice as big as the UK disappearing in the last week alone, say scientists. |
5th September 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| CS BS - GristMill By David RobertsDoes the coal industry really believe that carbon sequestration can make coal-fired power plants climate friendly? It's got legislators and even some green campaigners believing so. Given the coal industry's troubled relationship with the truth, perhaps some skepticism is warranted. The inimitable Sir Oolius points me to this post from M.J. Murphy. Murphy, obviously a masochist, overheard some intriguing things recently in the Climate Change Skeptics news group. Recently, CEI emeritus Myron Ebel was complaining to the group about sequestration -- he noted that it's expensive and unworkable at scale. Along comes Richard S. Courtney, long-time climate change skeptic, former Senior Material Scientist for British Coal, now Technical Editor for CoalTrans International -- coal shill for life. |
4th September 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 158 countries set targets for greenhouse gases in UN-brokered accord - International Herald Tribune The new plan stipulates that industrialized countries should strive to cut emissions by 25 percent to 40 percent of their 1990 levels by 2020. Another view: Climate change: row mars Vienna talks on future emissions cuts - AFP via Yahoo! News |
1st September 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| How the neoliberals stitched up the wealth of nations for themselves - Guardian Unlimited Comment is free: George Monbiot: A cabal of intellectuals and elitists hijacked the economic debate, and now we are dealing with the catastrophic effects. |
28th August 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| To cancel out the CO2 of a return flight to India, it will take one poor villager three years of pumping water by foot. - Times Online When David Cameron flew to India to open a JCB factory for a party donor, green-thinking supporters could rest assured that his visit would be carbon neutral. "We are offsetting all our emissions through Climate Care," the Tory leader wrote on his blog. "As well as planting trees, they also invest in renewable energy projects in the developing world." Somewhere in the Indian countryside, a farmer is about to repay Mr Cameron's debt to the planet. Climate Care's latest enterprise is to provide "treadle pumps" to poor rural families so they can get water on to their land without using diesel power. The pumps are worked by stepping on pedals. If a peasant treads for two hours a day, it will take at least three years to offset the CO2 from Mr Cameron's return flight to India. |
28th August 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Fossil-fuel hangover may block ice ages - New Scientist Burning fossil fuels will disrupt the atmosphere for hundreds of thousands of years, and may prevent the onset of the next ice age |
23rd August 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Islands emerge as Arctic ice shrinks to record low - AlertNet NY ALESUND, Norway, Aug 20 (Reuters) - Previously unknown islands are appearing as Arctic summer sea ice shrinks to record lows, raising questions about whether global warming is outpacing U.N. projections, experts said. Polar bears and seals have also suffered this year on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard because the sea ice they rely on for hunts melted far earlier than normal. "Reductions of snow and ice are happening at an alarming rate," Norwegian Environment Minister Helen Bjoernoy said at a seminar of 40 scientists and politicians that began late on Monday in Ny Alesund, 1,200 km (750 miles) from the North Pole. "This acceleration may be faster than predicted" by the U.N. climate panel this year, she told reporters at the Aug. 20-22 seminar. Ny Alesund calls itself the world's most northerly permanent settlement, and is a base for Arctic research. |
21st August 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global Warning: Brutal lessons from an Antarctic summer - The Independent What can dying penguins tell us about the future of the planet? Meredith Hooper spent a 'ferocious' summer in Antarctica and discovered a living experiment going horribly wrong |
20th August 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Arctic sea ice at record low level and still melting: U.S. Ice Data Center - CNews WASHINGTON (AP) - There was less sea ice in the Arctic on Friday than ever before on record, and the melting is continuing, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center reported. |
18th August 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Scientists warn on climate tipping points - Guardian Unlimited Scientists are predicting that the loss of the massive Greenland ice sheet may now be unstoppable and lead to catastrophic sea-level rises around the world. |
16th August 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Nitrogen Overdose - Oakland Tribune Despite the countless initiatives under way to reduce CO2 levels to slow global warming, scientists warn that those efforts will prove moot unless nitrogen releases also are lowered. One nitrogen compound is especially worrisome, as it lingers in the atmosphere for a century and is 300 times as potent a heat-trapping gas as carbon dioxide. |
13th August 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Rising temperatures "will stunt rainforest growth" - Nature Global warming could cut the rate at which trees in tropical rainforests grow by as much as half, according to more than two decades' worth of data from forests in Panama and Malaysia. The effect � so far largely overlooked by climate modellers � could severely erode or even remove the ability of tropical rainforests to remove carbon dioxide from the air as they grow. |
11th August 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Ten-year climate model unveiled - BBC News Scientists unveil a climate model offering 10-year forecasts of global warming, compared to existing long-term ones. See also: Record temperatures predicted - Guardian Unlimited Model approach to climate prediction - Nature |
10th August 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Running Out Fossil Fuels: A Cause For Glee? - CounterCurrents.org John James, one of the writers for Crisis Coalition, suggests, "It may be that declining oil may save us from climate change. As you know from my Proof article, 1.5 degrees is inevitable, and in another four years -- two degrees. Were oil to decline in that time span, we may yet survive. Just as emissions are rising three times faster than a decade ago, so oil consumption is increasing." |
31st July 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Sex, rock 'n' roll and global warming - Energy Bulletin Kelpie Wilson, Truthout. If the Live Earth concerts are to continue, they ought to evolve to serve the transformation not just away from consumer society but toward a culture where we dance and sing and find our bling in things that are healthy for us and the planet. |
2nd August 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Upside down economics - Energy Bulletin In his collection of essays entitled Earth In Mind David Orr introduces us to one William Nordhaus, a Yale economist who has been puzzling over the economics of climate change. The question Orr asks is whether Nordhaus is puzzling over the right things and in the right way. Orr is clearly interested in Nordhaus's views because those views very much represent the way most (but certainly not all) economists think about the natural world. Back in 1990 in a one-line preface to an article by Nordhaus in The Economist entitled Greenhouse Economics: Count Before You Leap, the magazine's editors summarized Nordhaus's overall point as follows: "Careful cost-benefit analysis, not panicky eco-action, is the right answer to the risk of global warming." It's a statement that few would disagree with. Where the disagreement comes is how to tote up the costs and the benefits. |
30h July 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Worry about bread, not oil - Telegraph.co.uk Some people worry about peak oil. I worry more about peak grain. The real question is whether we could now be approaching a new era of misery. Even at an arithmetic rate, the United Nations expects the world's population to pass the 9 billion mark by 2050. But can world food production keep pace? Plant physiologist Lloyd T Evans has estimated that "we must reach an average yield of four tons per hectare... to support a population of 8 billion". But yields right now are, as we have seen, just three tons per hectare. And a world of eight billion people may be less than 20 years away. Meanwhile, man-made forces are conspiring to put a ceiling on food production. Global warming and the resulting climate change may well be increasing the incidence of extreme weather events as well as inflicting permanent damage on some farming regions. It is not just British crops that are suffering this year. At the same time, our effort to slow global warming by switching from fossil fuels to bio-fuels is taking large tracts of land out of food production. |
29th July 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Leading Article: The flight from democracy - The Independent The attempt by BAA to disrupt and undermine opposition to the expansion of Heathrow airport is a clear affront to the democratic right to peaceful protest. As we reported yesterday, the airport operator is seeking an injunction against next month's Camp for Climate Action protest at Heathrow airport. It proposes to throw out an outrageously large protective bubble around the airport that would cover not just the terminal buildings and runways, but also London Underground's Piccadilly line, which runs to Heathrow, parts of the mainline rail network and sections of the M25 and M4. See also:Battle of Heathrow: From across the political spectrum, opposition to BAA's injunction grows - Independent |
28th July 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Catastrophic sea level rise: fact or fiction? - New Scientist NASA physicist James Hansen explains why he thinks a sea level rise of several metres will be a near certainty if greenhouse gas emissions keep increasing unchecked |
26th July 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Oil and gas may run short by 2015, say industry experts - The Independent Humanity is approaching an unprecedented crisis when not enough oil and gas will be produced to keep industrial civilisation running, the world's top oilmen warned last week. The warning - which is being hailed as a "tipping point" on both sides of the Atlantic - marks the first time that the industry has accepted that it may soon no longer be able to meet demand for its products. In Facing the Hard Truths about Energy, it gives authoritative support to concern about impending shortages, following a similar alert by the International Energy Agency less than two weeks ago. The 420-page report, the most comprehensive study ever carried out into the industry, has been produced by the National Petroleum Council, a body of 175 authorities that reports to the US government. It includes the heads of the world's big oil companies including ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Occidental Petroleum, Shell and BP. |
23rd July 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| First Person: Identifying the problem is not the solution - Seattle Post Intelligencer Most understand the concept of global warming and accept it as a problem. Yet most people also act as if the solution lies in simply identifying the problem. Recognizing that global warming is real is a step in the right direction -- it is not a solution. The real solution to climate change lies in quick, decisive action. |
23rd July 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Gap Between Climate Awareness and Action - WorldChanging It seems like the world is getting downright giddy about stopping global warming. Congress has held more than 75 hearings on the topic this year, climate-friendly technologies are making it into venture capitalists' dreams and millions tuned into Live Earth, a seven-continent global warming anthem. But it turns out there's a big gap between awareness and action. Last month, three top power company execs gave investors the inside scoop on what they expect on climate change. I couldn't help but be curious if their projections and time frames for reducing greenhouse gases lined up with NASA scientist James Hansen's oft-repeated warning that we have less than 10 years to take strong action on global warming to avoid its worst consequences. But in listening to the first two execs speak, it was clear for many companies, the distance between what power companies expect and what Hansen says is needed is as wide as the Grand Canyon. |
23rd July 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Two Degrees From Devastation - In These Times Interview with George Monbiot. [The Faust analogy is spot on] |
23rd June 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Earth today stands in imminent peril - The Independent Six scientists from some of the leading scientific institutions in the United States have issued what amounts to an unambiguous warning to the world: civilisation itself is threatened by global warming. |
19th June 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Lobbies Stymie Action On Energy - Guardian Unlimited Three powerful lobbying forces - automakers, electric utilities and the coal industry - are confounding Democrats' efforts to forge a less-polluting energy policy. |
19th June 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| What's the worst that could happen? - GristMill A homecooked argument for aggressive response to global heating. [Go directly to link] |
14th June 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| G8 leaders 'agree climate deal' - BBC Leaders of the G8 nations have agreed to a compromise deal on tackling climate change, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said. "We agreed... that CO2 emissions must first be stopped and then followed by substantial reductions," she said. Reports said the leaders agreed to hold talks on a replacement to the Kyoto Protocol within a UN framework. Mrs Merkel had been pushing for a 50% cut in emissions by 2050. The US had resisted calls for targets to be fixed. She said G8 leaders had agreed to consider her target, but there was no suggestion that a final agreement would include any mandatory commitment to major emissions cuts. See also: Merkel accepts defeat in bid to win US emissions pledge - Financial Times |
7th June 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Resource Wars - Can We Survive Them? - The People's Voice Is global warming a threat to the planet? Sum it up everywhere, underscored by these most recent findings, and it spells apocalypse made worse with many governments having to rule by decree to control chaos and disorder. It means democracy, civil liberties, human rights and most essential amenities are out the window in tomorrow's world sounding more like Dante's hell on earth because today we didn't care enough to prevent it. Moreover, it's wishful thinking imagining new technologies will emerge solving everything. Nor will market-based economies where profits trump common sense. How could they ever improve in the future what they've only worsened up to now. |
7th June 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Catastrophic warming: Is it too late? - GristMill This Daily Kos summary of a new study by Hansen et al is too well done to pass over. And do note that Hansen is trying to accentuate the positive. The original paper, by the way, is called "Dangerous human-made interference with climate: a GISS modelE study" (PDF). And it's not locked down. |
5th June 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Bush's Trade Barriers to Climate Success - TruthOut Yesterday President Bush declared that he has a proposal for dealing with the climate crisis. Rockridge Institute fellow Joe Brewer responds to his speech by analyzing the narrative underlying Bush's international development agenda. What does he find? The answer, of course, is more of the same... |
4th June 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| CO2 'rising three times faster than expected' - Daily Telegraph Global emissions of carbon dioxide are increasing three times faster than scientists previously thought, with the bulk of the rise coming from developing countries, an authoritative study has found. "IPCC reports this year predicting reduced harvests, dwindling water supplies, melting glaciers and the loss of species may actually be understated." |
4th June 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| UN warning over global ice loss - BBC News Hundreds of millions of livelihoods will be affected by the world's declining ice and snow cover, the UN warns. |
4th June 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Food price inflation is hard to stomach - Scotland on Sunday Food price inflation is hard to stomachScotland on Sunday, UK. Because global inflation is being exacerbated by efforts to combat climate change and global warming. Central banks are now fighting to hold back inflation ... |
3rd June 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Bush kills off hopes for G8 climate change plan - Guardian Unlimited George Bush yesterday threw international efforts to control climate change into confusion with a proposal to create a "new global framework" to curb greenhouse gas emissions as an alternative to a planned UN process. "It's not even too little too late, but a dangerous diversionary tactic. He doesn't need to start a new process. There already is one. This is meant to slow down the UN process." Also: US climate plans meet mixed response - BBC News Bush's ecology plan savaged - BBC News Q&A: President Bush's climate goals - BBC News Will US greenhouse gas targets work? - BBC News US climate plan 'a delaying tactic' - Guardian Unlimited Bush: climate crusader or saboteur? - Greenpeace UK Opinion: A New Spin on an Old Strategy - Deutsche Welle EU's Barroso criticises Bush's climate change pledge - EUbusiness - press release As the World Warms, the White House Aspires - Washington Post Yesterday, as the temperature pushed into the 90s in the capital, global warming caused a meltdown in the Bush administration's message machine. "Will the new framework consist of binding commitments or voluntary commitments?" asked CBS News's Jim Axelrod. "In this instance, you have a long-term, aspirational goal," Connaughton answered. Aspirational goal? Like having the body you want without diet or exercise? Or getting rich without working? |
1st June 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Earth's Climate Approaching 'Tipping Point', According To NASA - Science Daily NASA and Columbia University Earth Institute research finds that human-made greenhouse gases have brought the Earth's climate close to critical tipping points, with potentially dangerous consequences for the planet. Tipping points can occur during climate change when the climate reaches a state such that strong amplifying feedbacks are activated by only moderate additional warming. |
31st May 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| By the End of the Century Half of All Species Will Be Gone. Who Will Survive? - RedNova Seven in ten biologists believe that mass extinction poses a colossal threat to human existence, a more serious problem than even its contributor, global warming. |
31st May 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Our blind faith in oil growth could bring the economy crashing down - Guardian Unlimited Britain's future prosperity has been hardwired to rising use of transport fuels, without a thought for the supply drying up. Motorised transport is a form of time travel. We mine the compressed time of other eras - the infinitesimal rain of plankton on the ocean floor, the settlement of trees in anoxic swamps - and use it to accelerate through our own. Every tank of fuel contains thousands of years of accretions. {there are some good comments too, e.g.:"The crises of diminishing energy resources and climate change can only be dealt with rationally by reversing the international division of labour. Or to put it more clearly creating a system to replace capitalism and its variants. The current shuttling of food, manufactures and raw materials (not to mention 'labour') from one end of the planet to another is utterly irrational. And everybody knows that it is. Future generations will shake their heads not at the eccentricities of fundamentalists and religious fanatics but at the widespread faith in what is called the "free market" which,like God has never been seen and in whose name the most dreadful crimes are committed."] |
29th May 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Kunstler nails it - Gristmill James Howard Kunstler, dyspeptic critic and peak oil Paul Revere, nails the people whose approach to the twin calamities of global heating and peak oil is to spend all their time trying to cobble together the McGyver solution that saves the day, rather than trying to adapt to the new, low-energy imperative. |
29th May 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| US rejects all proposals on climate change - Guardian Unlimited The US has rejected any prospect of a deal on climate change at the G8 summit in Germany next month, according to a leaked document. |
26th May 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Yet another must-read by James Hansen Sea level rise of 5 meters in one century? Even if most scientists will not say so publicly, that catastrophe is a real possibility, according to the director of NASA's Goddard Institute Of Space Studies. |
26th May 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate Changing Pollution Rising—Again - Scientific American Despite worldwide concern, carbon dioxide emissions have tripled in the past few years, according to a new study. |
22nd May 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Vanity Fair: The unbearable whiteness of green - Grist By Van Jones. The Eco-Elite Cannot Win By Itself. |
21st May 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Ocean CO2 effect 'starts to fail' - BBC News One of the Earth's most important absorbers of CO2 is failing to soak up as much as of the greenhouse gas as it was expected to. See also: Rapid rise in global warming is forecast - Times Online The oceans are losing the capacity to soak up man-made carbon emissions, which is increasing the rate of global warming by up to 30 per cent, scientists said yesterday. |
18th May 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate myths special - New Scientist Today New Scientist publishes a special looking at the most common climate change myths and misconceptions. I'll explain why in due course. But first, let's start at the beginning.The idea that some gases in the atmosphere trap heat was first... See also: Climate change: A guide for the perplexed |
17th May 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Clarion Caller - Grist An interview with renowned climate scientist James Hansen |
17th May 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 8am: Shower. Take jug in. Save the water. Save the planet - BBC News Would you switch everything off and rely on natural light to save the planet? It's the answer for the families resorting to extreme measures to cut emissions. |
14th May 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| More on peak coal A few weeks ago I mentioned a study showing that coal reserves are not nearly as extensive as the ;quot;200-year supply;quot; invoked by coal boosters. Now Richard Heinberg brings word of another study that reaches substantially similar conclusions. The main thrust is that the quality of easily accessible coal is declining and that prices are almost certain to go up, and soon. An interesting correlate -- which hadn't really occurred to me, but makes sense -- is that rising coal prices are going to make it less likely for carbon sequestration to catch on. |
14th May 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Part I: Planning for a Climate-Changed World - MIT Technology Review As the global picture grows grimmer, states and cities are searching for the fine-scale predictions they need to prepare for emergencies--and to keep the faucets running. |
14th May 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The hidden cause of global warming - Independent In the next 24 hours, deforestation will release as much CO2 into the atmosphere as 8 million people flying from London to New York. Stopping the loggers is the fastest and cheapest solution to climate change. So why are global leaders turning a blind eye to this crisis? |
14th May 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| US seeks G8 climate text changes The US tries to block sections of a draft agreement on climate change prepared for next month's G8 summit. |
14th May 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Tobacco Institute's Legacy of Spin - DeSmogBlog Big Tobacco, in the form of the Tobacco Institute and The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition, wrote the book on manipulative PR tactics. Go no further than this 1982 news interview with a Tobacco Institute VP. Sound familiar? Same talking points, bigger issue. We have acquired more than 20 hours of old Tobacco Institute video, so watch for more clips over the next few weeks. tobacco institute war on science global warming climate change thank you for smoking |
12th May 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Surge in carbon levels shows vegetation struggling - Guardian Unlimited Increased greenhouse gas from trees, plants and soil mean world may warm up more quickly than predicted. |
11th May 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Unchecked global warming would spawn unparalleled depression, Suzuki warns - CNews OTTAWA (CP) - One of the country's best-known scientists and environmentalists is warning that the world economy will be devastated if governments don't act quickly and decisively to curb global warming emissions. |
11th May 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Fiddling with figures while the Earth burns - Times Online If you want to get some idea of what much of the Earth might look like in 50 years’ time then, says James Lovelock, get hold of a powerful telescope or log onto Nasa’s Mars website. That arid, empty, lifeless landscape is, he believes, how most of Earth’s equatorial lands will be looking by 2050. A few decades later and that same uninhabitable desert will have extended into Spain, Italy, Australia and much of the southern United States. Lovelock believes that the transformation is happening far too fast for humanity to tackle, especially in a world that remains committed to economic growth and whose 6.5 billion population is predicted to reach more than 9 billion by mid-century. At first sight Lovelock’s predictions seem wildly at odds with the IPCC’s reports, but in many ways the only difference is in the vividness of the language. “The progressive acidification of oceans due to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide is expected to have negative impacts on marine shell-forming organisms (ie corals) and their dependent species,” said the IPCC report detailing the impacts of climate change – its careful language draining the drama from a warning that vast tracts of the ocean may turn so acidic that little life will be left in them. |
6th May 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 'Deal struck' at UN climate talks - BBC Experts at a major UN climate change conference in Bangkok have reached a deal on the best ways to combat global warming, delegates say. The current atmospheric concentration is about 425ppm, and many climate scientists now argue that only agreeing to keep below about 450ppm can prevent major climatic consequences. The IPCC draft says keeping concentrations at this level could cost up to 3% of GDP. "I can tell you that the probability for achieving 450ppm in anything approaching the world as it now is almost impossible," commented Professor Stephen Schneider from Stanford University in California, who helped draft the IPCC's first report this year on the science of climate change. "But a temperature rise over 2-3C leads to potential mass extinctions, serious problems with coasts, mountain glaciers disappearing, melting ice sheets... and one has to talk about stabilisation at 450-550ppm range to have a better than 20-30% chance of preventing that." |
4th May 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Our leaders are steering us into the abyss - The New Statesman That anyone can still deny planetary warming when faced with such conditions is a tribute to human ingenuity. |
3rd May 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Wineke: Why the military is going green - Wisconsin State Journal While the rest of us are debating whether the world is really warming and arguing about whether hybrids are the cars of the future, the nation's military leaders are beginning to lay plans for what to do in case that future is more dire than we now anticipate. The reason the Pentagon is looking at global warming and the availability of alternative fuels is that, unlike politicians who rarely look past the next election, military planners have to be prepared for wars that may not be fought for decades. Generals who explain "we didn't think that would happen" don't often win high rank in the annals of military history. |
3rd May 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Nature's carbon 'sink' smaller than expected - The Christian Science Monitor Earth in 2100 could be up to 2.7 degrees F. hotter than previously predicted, studies say. |
3rd May 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The rich world's policy on greenhouse gas now seems clear: millions will die - Guardian Rich nations seeking to cut climate change have this in common: they lie. You won't find this statement in the draft of the new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was leaked to the Guardian last week. But as soon as you understand the numbers, the words form before your eyes. The governments making genuine efforts to tackle global warming are using figures they know to be false.. A concentration of 510ppm gives us a 33% chance of preventing more than two degrees of warming. A concentration of 590ppm gives us a 10% chance. You begin to understand the scale of the challenge when you discover that the current level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (using the IPCC's formula) is 459ppm. We have already exceeded the safe level. To give ourselves a high chance of preventing dangerous climate change, we will need a programme so drastic that greenhouse gases in the atmosphere end up below the current concentrations. |
1st May 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| My little world - and yours, too - GristMill Imagine, as a thought experiment, that everyone on the planet had the same share of the world's resources. It turns out your share is about six acres (2.5 hectares) of dry land. Now imagine if that were your whole world. How would you treat it? Thinking in small numbers It's difficult to think in extremely large numbers. Suppose, for instance, the U.S. government spends around $100 million on climate models per year. (I believe this is about right.) That sounds like a big number! Much too big, perhaps? Well, if you are an average American, it's 33 cents out of your pocket every year. |
1st May 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Animal Extinction - the greatest threat to mankind - Independent In the final stages of dehydration the body shrinks, robbing youth from the young as the skin puckers, eyes recede into orbits, and the tongue swells and cracks. Brain cells shrivel and muscles seize. The kidneys shut down. Blood volume drops, triggering hypovolemic shock, with its attendant respiratory and cardiac failures. These combined assaults disrupt the chemical and electrical pathways of the body until all systems cascade toward death. |
1st May 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| UN facing a backlash on emissions action plan - Guardian Unlimited The world's leading climate change experts will this week outline highly controversial plans to save the world from global warming. Their proposals - which include a major expansion in nuclear power, the use of GM crops to boost biofuel production, and reliance on unproven technologies, including the underground storage of carbon dioxide - will put the UN's climate group on a collision course with a host of environmental groups. |
29th April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Leader: Climate change - Guardian Unlimited "I'm not a plastic bag" reads this week's must-have, a designer tote sold by the not-especially-designer Sainsbury's. All 20,000 were gone within hours, sold at a fiver each to shoppers keen to prove that they could consume as fervently as ever and yet be green too. The limits of such an approach was illustrated by reports that some of the bags were handed over in the conventional sunbed-orange carriers. Buying yet another product to demonstrate one's concern for the environment smacks of self-contradiction. The approach that many companies and consumers take, however, fits the same pattern by participating in various schemes to offset their carbon emissions. See also: UN: we have the money and know-how to stop global warming - Guardian Unlimited |
28th April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Avoiding Self-Organized Extinction: Toward a Co-Evolutionary Economics of Sustainability - RedNova By Gowdy, John Key words: Biodiversity, climate change, co-evolution, collapse, generalized Darwinism, Walrasian economics, well-being, world systems analysis SUMMARY The critical problems that scientists warned about decades ago are now upon us. |
26th April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| CO2 needs a price but taxes are the best way to set it - Financial Times The Kyoto protocol to fight climate change expires in 2012. The shape of a successor treaty is still in doubt, but one aspect seems certain: carbon trading will play a major role. A Financial Times investigation today reveals that carbon markets leave much room for unverifiable manipulation. Taxes are better, partly because they are less vulnerable to such improprieties. |
26th April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Leading article, Science: The seeds of a great idea All life depends on plants. This is a truism, but it is one that most of us have forgotten. In modern society we have all become so insulated from the natural world that we now make no connection whatsoever, as we tear open the plastic packaging of a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich for a rushed lunch, between the edible contents and the plant universe that is pollination and germination, photosynthesis and flowering. |
26th April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| INTERVIEW-Means exist to cut emissions, but is there the will? - AlertNet The tools exist to cut greenhouse gas emissions enough to meet aggressive global warming caps, but it may take more catastrophes like Hurricane Katrina to forge the political will, a top U.N. expert said. "We have a fair degree of confidence that the technologies exist. The question is: How much cost are we willing to bear?" Mohan Munasinghe, vice-chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said in an interview on Thursday. "The push for greater mitigation will come through catastrophes and other extreme events," he said. |
26th April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Our world is finite: Is this a problem? - Energy Bulletin We all know the world is finite. The number of atoms is finite, and these atoms combine to form a finite number of molecules. The mix of molecules may change over time, but in total, the number of molecules is also finite. We also know that growth is central to our way of life. Businesses are expected to grow. Every day new businesses are formed and new products are developed. The world population is also growing, so all this adds up to a huge utilization of resources. At some point, growth in resource utilization must collide with the fact that the world is finite. We have grown up thinking that the world is so large that limits will never be an issue. But now, we are starting to bump up against limits. |
25th April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| China flags hard line on climate - The Age THE push for a global consensus on reducing greenhouse gases has been dealt a potentially serious blow, with a major report by the Chinese Government declaring that economic growth must take priority over cuts in emissions. Despite dire warnings about the effects on China of a warming planet, Beijing's first official report on climate change flatly rejects international pressure to impose emission limits on its factories and coal-generated power plants as unfair and economically perilous. See also: China's first climate change steps too small - AlertNet [pretty grim unless we can stand up to the WTO and impose extra duties on imports from such countries] |
23rd April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The wrong question - GristMill Is climate change the most important global problem we face? |
23rd April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Mark Lynas: Six steps to hell - Guardian Unlimited Will human beings survive if the world is six degrees hotter at the end of the century? Mark Lynas finds out. |
23rd April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Astronauts recall view before Earth Day "It was the only color we could see in the universe. ... "We're living on a tiny little dust mote in left field on a rather insignificant galaxy. And basically this is it for humans. It strikes me that it's a shame that we're squabbling over oil and borders." |
22nd April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| There's only one movement now - Energy Bulletin In honor of International Women's Day, the IUCN has released an extensive report detailing exactly how awful climate change is going to be for women. How bad will it be? Really, really bad. That is, women are going to disproportionately endure the consequences of climate change - the hunger, the drought, the diseases, the economic burden, the poverty, because women make up a majority of the world's poor. And, of course, women are disproportionately under-represented among those people who make climate policy decisions, and poor women even more than rich ones. |
22nd April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Happiness Is a Smaller Eco-Footprint - IPS Today's children will live in a new world of climate change and greatly diminished natural resources, which may give way to a nightmarish reality, or it could give birth to a happier and lighter way of living on the Earth, say environmentalists. |
22nd April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| EnviroHealth: Climate Change: Why We Can't Wait Jim Hansen gives us the five necessary steps we need to take to prevent catastrophic climate change. |
21st April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| An end-game scenario, supply-side policy, and defining our goal: The solution statement - GristMill A supply-side response -- imposing a cap on extractions in 2015 with 10 percent reductions at 5 year intervals until emissions are stabilized at pre-industrial levels, as shown in the accompanying chart, for example -- is the ideal climate policy. |
21st April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Leading Article: A global warning from the dust bowl of Australia - Independent Australia is in the midst of a crippling drought, the country's worst on record. Many towns and cities have been forced to enact drastic water restrictions as reservoirs have run dry. Rivers have been reduced to a trickle. The drought has severely damaged the agricultural sector. Farmers are raising emaciated cattle and sheep. Cotton-lint production has plummeted. Wine grape and rice output has collapsed. Agricultural production has fallen by almost one-quarter in a year. And it is estimated that the drought has knocked three-quarters to 1 per cent off the country's growth as a whole. See also: Australian drought threatens crop catastrophe - Guardian Unlimited [most read item] |
20th April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate threat has plants quivering - BBC News A 2C (3.6F) increase in temperature may be too much for many plants species to survive, scientists warn. |
20th April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Expect another warm Arctic summer - Nunatsiaq News March was cold in the Arctic, but temperatures from elsewhere in the world show 2007 is on its way to becoming the hottest year in recorded history. See also: Warmer weather destroying Arctic treasures |
20th April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global warming swells federal insurance risk to more than $900 billion - Canton Repository The insurer of last resort, the government faces a potential payout of at least $919 billion under a worst-case scenario of flood and crop losses due to global warming, congressional investigators say. |
20th April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The chasm between our agenda and climate science: The problem statement A review of recent climate science findings finds that Jim Hansen's bright-line standard and timeframe for global action [1.0 C limit on further increase in global temperature / 475 ppm cap on atmospheric carbon with <10 years for global action] is, if anything, not conservative enough. A rash of recent reports identify major climate forcings wholly unaccounted for in IPCC models -- such as a five-fold increase in methane releases from Siberian peat bogs -- that support the view of rapid, discontinuous climate change predicted by Hansen. Energy market projections show that current climate policies will barely dent the ramp-up of fossil fuel use and emissions. |
19th April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change: Why we don't believe it - The New Statesman What does Britain really think about global warming? We reveal an unreported gulf between the pronouncements of campaigners and politicians and British public opinion |
19th April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Jonathan Freedland: Global warming is a security threat to us all - Guardian Unlimited The debate on climate change at the UN top table is a sign that the big powers are at last beginning to see sense. |
18th April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Lindzen in Newsweek - RealClimate Lindzen's piece is not a serious discussion. Instead, it is a series of strawman arguments, red-herrings and out and out errors. |
18th April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Exports: World's plants facing mass extinction - Xinhua The world's plants face mass extinction if climate change remains unchecked and more efforts are not taken to encourage plant conservation, warned experts on the second day of the Third Global Botanical Gardens Congress in Wuhan, central China on Tuesday. "About half of the earth's 400,000 plant species and 100,000 unclassified plant species will be threatened with extinction if the temperature rises by 2 to 3 degrees Celsius in the next 100 years," said Dr David Bramwell, director of Jardin Botanical Gardens in Las Palmas, Spain. |
17th April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| EXCLUSIVE-China rejects caps, aims to cut "carbon intensity" - AlertNet Source: China aims to nearly halve by 2020 the amount of greenhouse gases it emits for each dollar of its economy, but will reject strict caps for decades, a copy of a national global warming assesment seen by Reuters shows. Beijing has been reticent about what the world's number-two carbon emitter is prepared to do to tackle global warming. While the report shows officials believe it is a serious threat, it suggests they do not want to take preventive steps that could hobble economic growth. |
16th April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The defiant one Exxon - CNNMoney.com Unlike its rivals, Exxon Mobil doesn't much care about alternative fuels and doesn't try to please the greens. Is CEO Rex Tillerson nuts - or shrewd? Exxon is certain that oil, gas and coal will remain the world's dominant energy sources for decades to come. Exxon avoids investment in alternative energy sources for yet another reason, one that reaches deep into the company's experience: Much depends on the future price of oil, and no one knows what it will be. Consider two scenarios. If oil dropped to $25 a barrel - about what it was (in today's dollars) just before 9/11 - alternative energy would look even less attractive economically. Exxon's decision not to invest would look all the wiser, but its oil-related profits would shrink. Conversely, iif oil rose to $100, its profits would rise but many alternative energy sources would become economically viable - and Exxon wouldn't be able to capitalize on them. The company considers low-price oil the greater risk. [ surprise surprise! - 'cos when a commodity gets scarce, profit shoots up ] |
16th April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| US generals urge climate action - BBC Former US military leaders have called on the Bush administration to make major cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. |
16th April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| EnviroHealth: How a PR Firm Helped Establish America's Cigarette Century How the tobacco industry-hired Hill & Knowlton to develop many of the propaganda techniques against science used today to attack climate change and evolution. |
16th April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate wars - Sydney Morning Herald Experts fear the possibility of a total breakdown in society as climate change takes hold. Tom Allard reports. "Humans fight when they outstrip the carrying capacity of their natural environment," they wrote. "Every time there is a choice between starving and raiding, humans raid." |
14th April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| A Terrifying Truth - Atlantic Free Press It wasn't too long ago that the death of socialism, the triumph of capitalism and the end of history were being widely hailed. What a difference a few years and a few fractions of a degree in world temperature change makes! We may still be contemplating the end of history, but of a different sort. It is suddenly becoming painfully obvious that the pursuit of profit and the philosophy of growth for growth's sake and of dog eat dog is about to kill us all off. |
13th April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Heated reply to Stern's fire and brimstone alarm - Sydney Morning Herald OIL companies were reportedly offering $US10,000 ($12,120) to anyone who could show where experts got it wrong in his prediction that the world is about to cook. Here's ten thousand dollars' worth. Nicholas Stern got it wrong in The Economics of Climate Change because he didn't think hard enough about how fast the world economy would grow. The omission is surprising, given Stern was chief economist at the World Bank. If a more realistic world growth number is inserted into the climate-change equation, and his other assumptions prove correct, then the world is in for more of a roasting than even he imagined - if sensible policy makers do not intervene. See also: The instant legacy of the Stern Review - Salon.com |
13th April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Street crime 'to rise with temperatures' experts warn - The Scotsman as Britain warms over the next century, law enforcement experts are beginning to worry that they will soon lose the help of two of their key winter allies - Frost and Snow. There are also concerns that warmer summers will encourage increased alcohol consumption, which is strongly linked to criminal activity. Ken Pease, visiting professor of crime science at University College London and one of Britain's leading criminologists, said: "We know that more people on the streets, larger crowds, and alcohol consumption are all linked to increases in crime. And it stands to reason that warmer weather will encourage all three. "The question really is not whether global warming will lead to an increase in street crime, but by how much?" |
12th April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| George Monbiot: There is climate change censorship - and it's the deniers who dish it out - Guardian Unlimited George Monbiot: Global warming scientists are under intense pressure from deniers to water down findings. |
10th April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| It's Not Just Climate Change - Climate Ark Climate change is the collapse of the global atmospheric system's processes and patterns and represents a massive environmental challenge to maintaining a habitable Earth. Yet climate is but one of several planetary scale ecological crises that threaten existence and are occurring now concurrently. |
9th April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Stop shopping ... or the planet will go pop - Guardian Unlimited UK Government's green guru says consumerism is a lethal disease. |
8th April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Did politics trump science - USA Today "Patricia Romero Lankao, a sociologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., confirmed that delegates from the United States, China and Saudi Arabia forced the writers of the report summary to "downplay" the level of certainly about the damage to the environment and species by human-caused warming. �That was a really hard discussion,� Romero Lankao told O'Driscoll in a telephone conference call from Brussels. Stanford University biologist Terry Root, whose own chapter in the report was the one in dispute, told O'Driscoll: �It is really of concern if governments are allowed to rewrite some of the science, changing some of what we know at a very high confidence level. I�m concerned. We�re jeopardizing the power that the IPCC report carries.� Some scientists were so upset by that action that they have vowed not to participate in the conference any more, the AP reported. The conference is scheduled to release two more reports this year. |
6th April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global warming report weakens warning about extinctions - International Herald Tribune A major report on how global warming will dramatically change life on Earth will likely have weaker wording about massive extinctions than what scientists originally wrote. Participants in marathon negotiations over an authoritative climate change report, due out Friday, said government delegates have weakened the original language in the report. A final draft of the report - written by scientists before government officials edit it - says "roughly 20-30 percent of species are likely to be at high risk of irreversible extinction" if global average temperature rises by 2.7 to 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit. That part has been "diluted," said retired scientist Ian Burton attending the session on behalf of the Stockholm Environment Institute. Another delegate said the amended version hedged on the sweep of the original text, inserting a reference to species "assessed so far." |
6th April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Time to tax the carbon dodgers - BBC News How taxes and incentives on trade could be used to make Kyoto naysayers pay for their emissions. "BTAs (Border tax Adjustments)... are a justifiable threat to irresponsible governments like those of the US and Australia, the only rich countries which refuse to implement Kyoto" |
5th April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| UN Security Council to Debate Climate Change - Planet Ark UNITED NATIONS - The UN Security Council will debate climate change for the first time on April 17, the result of a British campaign to force it onto the agenda of a body that deals with matters of war and peace. |
5th April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| EnviroHealth: We Must Imagine a Future Without Cars - AlterNet Kunstler argues that the coming age of energy scarcity will change everything about how we live in this country -- most of all our dependency on automobiles. Some won't agree - see also:Next X Prize: Build a practical, hyperefficient car - The CS Monitor |
4th April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| What if coal is running out too? - Grist Magazine what if our core beliefs about coal are wrong? What if coal isn't as abundant as we thought? What if we're rapidly approaching peak coal? That, apparently, is the conclusion of a forthcoming report from the Energy Watch Group in Germany. Putting aside the technical details, the report's blockbuster finding is that the world will hit peak coal energy around 2025. Check your calendar. Yup -- that's 18 years from now. Not very long. After we cross the peak, coal energy will get inexorably more and more expensive, until it costs more to get the coal than it pays to burn it. If this turns out to be true, it completely changes the game. It will mean that all three primary fossil fuels (oil, natural gas, and coal) are heading for decline. No alternative source of energy, under any realistic scenario, can hope to compensate for this loss of energy. |
4th April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Humans fiddle while the planet heats up - CNET Author of upcoming report on global warming, Stanford scientist Terry Root pulls no punches about what she says is happening before our eyes. |
3rd April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Reports From Four Fronts in the War on Warming - New York Times A growing array of officials in developing countries and experts on climate, law and diplomacy insist that the first world owes the third world a climate debt. |
3rd April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| EU shows carbon trading is not cutting emissions - Guardian Unlimited Some US states want their own 'cap and trade' scheme but the evidence is proving that permits fail to curb industry. |
3rd April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Wars of the world: how global warming puts 60 nations at risk Scores of countries face war for scarce land, food and water as global warming increases. This is the conclusion of the most devastating report yet on the effects of climate change that scientists and governments prepare to issue this week. [the day's most read item] |
1st April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Gwynne Dyer: The Climate Wars - Vive Le Canada Dyer argues that the effect of uncontrolled global warming will be: - mass starvation - mass population movement - war |
31st March 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| When it's right to be reticent - Nature Ever since the 1980s james Hansen has been much more outspoken about the existence and perils of human-induced climate change than most of his scientific colleagues. Now he thinks it's time for them to speak up. [I'm on Hansen's side...] |
30th March 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Hot and bothered - Sydney Morning Herald Uncertainty has been used by climate change sceptics to argue against reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, but the opposite should be the case, says Professor Nicholls. It is the remaining unknowns that are particularly worrying. We are like the driver of a car with poor brakes, "heading into a fog of uncertainty with the accelerator flat to the floor", he says. Some obstacles, such as more deadly heatwaves, can no longer be avoided. But there could also be unknown cliffs - tipping points to a much hotter world - lying ahead. A sensible driver would slow down, Nicholls says. "They would take their foot off the accelerator, fix the brakes and buy some fog lights." |
30th March 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Green Room - BBC News When the oil supply begins to run down, carbon emissions may actually rise, argues David Strahan in the Green Room. See also: US Auditor: Energy Dept Should Develop Plan For Peak Oil Era |
30th March 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| GAP Report Details Climate Science Politicization - Whistleblower Today, the Government Accountability Project (GAP) is releasing a comprehensive report detailing the findings of a year-long investigation into political interference at federal climate science agencies. The report demonstrates how policies and practices have increasingly restricted the flow of scientific information emerging from publicly-funded climate change research. This has negatively affected the media's ability to report objectively on scientific issues, public officials' capacity to respond with appropriate policies, and full public understanding of environmental concerns. |
29th March 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate Change: Strategic national security threat? - Climate Change Action "Usually I`m pleased to hear of a new sector of society taking climate change seriously, but in this case no comfort is brought to me by the fact that the military are starting to see an emerging global threat. This is perticularly the case since that threat is drawn from the expectation of hundereds of millions of newly dispossesed and poverty stricken environmental refugees." |
28th March 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Mercury in energy-saving bulbs worries scientists NEW YORK (Reuters) - There's an old joke about the number of people it takes to change a light bulb. But because the newer energy-efficient kinds contain tiny amounts of mercury, the hard part is getting rid of them when they burn out. |
28th March 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Cities at Risk of Rising Sea Levels - The Daily Comet More than two-thirds of the world's large cities are in areas vulnerable to global warming and rising sea levels, and millions of people are at risk of being swamped by flooding and intense storms, according to a new study released Wednesday. |
28th March 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global warming study warns of vanishing climates - Guardian Unlimited Scientists warn of disaster in biodiversity hotspots · Species 'must evolve or migrate' to survive |
27th March 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| George Monbiot: If we want to save the planet, we need a five-year freeze on biofuels - Guardian Unlimited George Monbiot: Oil from plants sets up competition for food between cars and people. People will lose. |
27th March 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Study warns of vanishing climates - Guardian Unlimited Scientists warn of disaster in biodiversity hotspots. |
27th March 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| SUVs as Cliche - Huffington Post If we're going to act decisively, we're going to need to do the smartest, cheapest things first, the things that deliver the deepest greenhouse gas cuts for the buck. And hybrids don't fit the bill. - if we're going to do the most efficient things first, then let's start where the green option is cheaper than not only the other green option, but the conventional option as well. Then the savings can fund the next step. |
27th March 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Antarctic melting may be speeding up - Reuters Rising sea levels and melting polar ice-sheets are at upper limits of projections, leaving some human population centers already unable to cope, top world scientists say as they analyze latest satellite data. A United Nations report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in February projected sea level gains of 18-59 centimeters (7-23 inches) this century from temperature rises of 1.8-4.0 Celsius (3.2-7.8 Farenheit). "Observations are in the very upper edge of the projections," leading Australian marine scientist John Church told Reuters. "I feel that we're getting uncomfortably close to threshold," said Church, of Australia's CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research said. Past this level, parts of the Antarctic and Greenland would approach a virtually irreversible melting that would produce sea level rises of meters, he said. |
23 March 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| A New Twist on Tree Rings - Scienceline By analyzing rings found in cross sections of trees, a team of researchers has found new evidence that the climate is hotter today than it was in the so-called medieval warming period, a discovery that some scientists say rebuts a key argument of global warming skeptics. |
21st March 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Is solar UV frying fish? - innovations report Marine and freshwater organisms could be facing damage due to increasing levels of ultraviolet radiation, according to a United Nations commissioned review. There could also be wider implications for climate change, since if UV damage cuts marine ecosystem productivity, the oceans’ capacity to mop up the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide would fall. This extra atmospheric CO2 could then add to global warming. Additionally, the annual phytoplankton boom, which supports the entire Antarctic aquatic food chain, is currently protected from UV damage by a layer of sea-ice. Warmer climates would mean sea-ice melts earlier, increasing UV exposure. These plankton are particularly vulnerable to UV damage as the low temperatures slow their repair mechanisms. |
21st March 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Conservative Climate - Scientific Amercian Is the fourth assessment report from the IPCC a conservative document? David Biello makes the case. "The signs of global climate change are clear: melting glaciers, earlier blooms and rising temperatures. In fact, 11 of the past 12 years rank among the hottest ever recorded. After some debate, the scientists and diplomats of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued their long-anticipated summary report in February. The summary describes the existence of global warming as "unequivocal" but leaves out a reference to an accelerated trend in this warming. By excluding statements that provoked disagreement and adhering strictly to data published in peer-reviewed journals, the IPCC has generated a conservative document that may underestimate the changes that will result from a warming world, much as its 2001 report did." |
20th March 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Ex-CIA chief says U.S. must act on climate - Reuters BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The United States must act to cap its emissions of greenhouse gases and join the fight against climate change or risk losing global leadership, a former CIA director said in a report released on Monday. |
19th March 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Arctic ocean may lose all its ice by 2040, disrupting global weather - Guardian Rapidly thinning Arctic sea ice may have reached a tipping point that threatens to disrupt global weather patterns, bringing intense winter storms and heavier rainfall to western Europe, scientists warn today. |
17th March 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| A long rant about facts, persuasion, and global warming I want to tear my %$#@! hair out. On Wed. night in New York City, there was a formal debate. At issue was the statement, "global warming is not a crisis." David Biello sets the scene: Arguing for the motion were the folksy (and tall) Michael Crichton, the soft-spoken Richard Lindzen and the passionate Philip Stott. Arrayed against were the moderate Brenda Ekwurzel, the skeptical Gavin Schmidt and the perplexed Richard Somerville. (Note: all the adjectives are mine.) The hosts took a poll of attendees before and after the debate. |
17th March 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Just a lot of hot air - Guardian Tony Blair talks the talk on climate change. But a new investigation reveals that the government's strategies for cutting carbon dioxide emissions are little more than a sham. By George Monbiot Also: UK plans to cut CO2 doomed to fail |
5th March 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Carbon Folly - Newsweek Policymakers have settled on 'emissions trading' as their favorite global-warming fix. But it isn't working. Current emissions-trading schemes have proved to be little more than a shell game, allowing polluters in the developed world to shift the burden of making cuts onto factories in the developing world. Too often factory owners use the additional profits banked from carbon credits to expand their dirty factories. Even more worrying, emissions trading may have set back the battle against climate change by diverting investment from renewable-energy technology, which arguably is essential to any long-term solution. |
4th March 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Climate-Change Precipice - Washington Post Eco systems could quickly pass the tipping point and drag their inhabitants over the line that separates civilized society and anarchy. See Report in pdf format: Impacts of Climate Change - GBN |
2nd March 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| How global warming goes against the grain - Globe and Mail The place where most of the world's people could first begin to feel the consequences of global warming may come as a surprise: in the stomach, via the supper plate. Researchers using computer models to simulate the weather patterns likely to exist around 2050 found that the best wheat-growing land in the wide arc of fertile farmland stretching from Pakistan through Northern India and Nepal to Bangladesh would be decimated. Much of the area would become too hot and dry for the crop, placing the food supply of 200 million people at risk. |
25th February 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Inconvenient Truth, Circa 1958 - Sierra Compass Frank Capra presents, in conjunction with Bell Labs. Starring Mr. Scientist. |
24th February 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Drought to slash summer crop production - West Australian The drought will slash Australia's summer crop production to its lowest level in more than 20 years. After running a scythe through the winter grain harvest, the big dry is set to take a huge toll on water-intensive summer crops like cotton and rice. The federal government's rural economic forecaster, the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE), says summer crop production will fall 59 per cent in 2006-07 to 1.9 million tonnes - the smallest haul since 1982-83. Rice production will plummet 90 per cent to just 106,000 tonnes, and cotton production will be down 42 per cent at 250,000 tonnes. ABARE is tipping grain sorghum production to fall 51 per cent to 996,000 tonnes. |
20th February 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global Warming: It's About Energy - AlterNet Global warming is an energy problem, and we cannot have both an increase in conventional fossil fuel use and a habitable planet. Yet the United States is projected to consume 35 percent more oil, coal, and gas combined in 2030 than in 2004. |
17th February 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The New Climate Almanac 2007 - Globe and Mail The implications of climate change can be overwhelming. They touch every field, from science to economics to culture. The Globe and Mail's New Climate Almanac 2007 breaks down the complexity with a concise miscellany of the latest ideas, facts and predictions. |
17th February 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| January hottest on record - CNN Spurred on by unusually warm Siberia, Canada, northern Asia and Europe, the world's land areas were 3.4 degrees Fahrenheit (4 degrees Celsius) warmer than a normal January, according to the U.S. National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina. That didn't just nudge past the old record set in 2002, but broke that mark by 0.81 degrees Fahrenheit (0.56C), which meteorologists said is a lot, since such records often are broken by hundredths of a degree at a time. |
17th February 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Greenhouse gases hit new high - Reuters Greenhouse gases widely blamed for causing global warming have jumped to record highs in the atmosphere, apparently stoked by rising emissions from Asian industry, a researcher said on Friday. "Levels are at a new high," said Kim Holmen, research director of the Norwegian Polar Institute which oversees the Zeppelin measuring station on the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard about 1,200 km (750 miles) from the North Pole. He told Reuters that concentrations of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas emitted largely by burning fossil fuels in power plants, factories and cars, had risen to 390 parts per million (ppm) from 388 a year ago. |
16th February 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global leaders reach climate deal - BBC A meeting in Washington of global political leaders has reached a new agreement on tackling climate change. |
16th February 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| All together now - Guardian Blaming 'humanity' for climate change permits the real culprits to escape the consequences of their actions. "To efface the "footprint" of "mankind" upon the earth would require a contraction, or at least a different kind of economic activity, one which ensures a more modest use of, and more equitable distribution of, resources. This is the most frightening prospect the leaders of the rich world can imagine; even though it might guarantee a secure sufficiency to the hungry and wanting of earth and serve as cure for the excesses, addictions and violence of those who have more than enough. This is indeed a pivotal moment. Decisions made now may well determine the fate of the earth and all its peoples. But to provide for the sustenance of the poor remains the most urgent priority. It is disingenuous to give way to lachrymose exaltations about the fate of humankind and our menaced habitat, while not addressing the cruelty of a world economy worth $60 trillion annually, which leaves hundreds of millions to expire in sight of global plenty, even while the rich look in vain for ever more expensive and marginal pleasures to augment their value-added discontents." |
15th February 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Smoking out the world's lungs - BBC News Indonesia: "From the drainage of its peatlands alone, Indonesia is producing 632 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. But from its annual forest fires, it produces another 1,400 million tonnes. That's a total of 2,000 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. The Netherlands emits 80 million." |
13th February 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The new gold rush: how farmers are set to fuel America's future - Guardian Unlimited USA: Rush to grow corn for ethanol - but is it the best solution for environment? |
26th January 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Resilience and Civilization: Part II - Huffington Post Below is a conversation between Thomas Homer-Dixon and Ron Dembo. Dr. Dembo is a risk expert and founder and CEO of Zerofootprint, a not-for-profit dedicated to reducing our ecological footprint. Dr. Homer-Dixon is Director of the Trudeau Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies and Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto. He is also the author of The Ingenuity Gap, winner of the Governor-General's Award. His most recent book, The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization assesses the concatenated risks facing the planet's civilizations, and urges not a solution to this or that problem, but a whole new way of understanding the systems we've built. The challenges are not political or economic (or not fundamentally so); they are structural. And the only way to address them before it's too late, he urges, is to understand that the repertoire of solutions we usually turn to is not going to work. |
26th January 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Surge in carbon levels raises fears of runaway warming - Guardian Unlimited Carbon dioxide is accumulating in the atmosphere much faster than scientists expected, raising fears that humankind may have less time to tackle climate change than previously thought. [...looks like it might be too late for emissions reduction - now the question is, can the peoples of the Earth get their act together for equitable mitigation?] |
19th January 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Global Blueprint for A Biomass Economy - Climate Change Action "Governments, institutions, NGOs and scientists are writing studies, many of them with dodgy claims, which show that biofuels could be grown without destroying any more rainforests, wetlands, peatlands, or biodiversity hotspots. As a result, new markets are created which dramatically up the world market prices of palm oil, soy and sugar cane. On the ground, plantation owners respond by growing more of those crops in the Amazon, in Uganda’s rainforests or in Colombia’s ancient forests and grasslands – unimpeded by regulations and unimpressed by those who tell them that they could be growing them somewhere else." [... PLUS the biofuels themselves do not produce a net reduction in emissions] |
18th January 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Warming Could Cut China Grain Crops by over a Third - Planet Ark Rising temperatures in China could slash grain production in the world's most populous country by over a third in the second half of this century, imperilling food security, the official Xinhua agency reported on Wednesday. |
18th January 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Jellyfish surge endangers fish stocks - Guardian Unlimited British fish stocks are threatened by an unusual consequence of global warming: a dramatic rise in jellyfish numbers, scientists warned yesterday. Warmer ocean temperatures have seen jellyfish populations surge in the North Sea and scientists fear they may soon dominate at the expense of other marine life. Many of the jellyfish species feed directly on fish larvae or the plankton and tiny crustaceans that make up the larvae's staple diet, before they are big enough to hunt more substantial prey. |
18th January 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Noted environmentalist warns climate change demands immediate action - Canada.com In an interview, Suzuki said he has yet to meet a politician who understands the urgency of global warming, which he compared to the challenges of the Second World War. "When Japan attacked Pearl Harbour, no American politician said, 'Oh shit, we can't afford to do anything about this. They've destroyed the Pacific fleet. We'll have to give Japan the Orient,'" said Suzuki. "We have to commit everything we can to win this, and we've got the equivalent of 100 ecological Pearl Harbours going off at once, and I don't see any sense (from politicians) of how serious and urgent this is. It's all a political posturing." |
12th January 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Prosperity amid environmental crisis - Toronto Star What would a prosperous New Year look like from an environmental vantage? What might prosperity mean in terms of our ecological relationships? These past few weeks have witnessed some arresting reminders that our relationship with Mother Earth is anything but fortunate. |
7th January 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Why wheat is luring the breadwinners - Guardian Unlimited Wheat, according to the commodity dealers, is the new gold. After making millions from pumping up the price of copper, zinc and other metals to record levels last year, speculators are piling into "soft" commodities such as wheat and corn amid drought warnings and global shortages. |
6th January 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 'Irreversible' global warming claims its first victims of the New Year - The Independent UK: A birdseed factory in Shropshire, a holy lake in China, Baltic Sea fish and new-born hedgehogs have emerged as the first tangible victims of climate change in the year which forecasters predicted this week would be the warmest on record. |
6th January 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Exxonmobil Cultivates Global Warming Doubt - Planet Ark USA: Energy giant ExxonMobil borrowed tactics from the tobacco industry to raise doubt about climate change, spending US$16 million on groups that question global warming, a science watchdog group said on Wednesday. |
4th January 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
Four from the IndependentDavid King: At last, I'm hopeful about climate change - The Independent |
1st January 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Review of the year: Global warming - The Independent 2006 will be remembered by climatologists as the year in which the potential scale of global warming came into focus. And the problem can be summarised in one word: feedback. |
29th December 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The end of the West as we know it? - IHT "The question now facing us is whether global capitalism and Western democracy can follow the Stern report's recommendations, and make the limited economic adjustments necessary to keep global warming within bounds that will allow us to preserve our system in a recognizable form; or whether our system is so dependent on unlimited consumption that it is by its nature incapable of demanding even small sacrifices from its present elites and populations." |
29th December 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The world as one - Guardian Unlimited "When it comes to the environment, the consequences of an unconstrained market could be even more disastrous... In a speech this week, on the urgency of tackling climate change, EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson argued liberalisation could provide solutions, advancing freer trade in environmental services to make his case. But alongside other obvious effects of a successful trade round - more goods being shipped round the world and more demand for the produce of cleared rainforests - his hopes look like window dressing. More serious was Mr Mandelson's claim that the prosperity generated by trade could help tackle climate change, but that is not guaranteed, especially in a context where, as the commissioner conceded, world trade rules make it "highly problematic" to use trade policy to pressure states to cut emissions. Mr Mandelson sees this as a reason to avoid such action. Instead, it exposes just how inadequate the World Trade Organisation remains." |
22nd December 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Are you ready to sacrifice for future generations? - Seattle Times Americans can adapt, one supposes, to an Alaska without polar bears, a New Hampshire without fall colors and a Florida without its bottom third. But most would probably like to save these things for their descendants. A recent Time/ABC poll found that 88 percent of Americans think global warming threatens future generations. "There's no way to replace the dead Bush years of inaction. But we may have a last chance to deal with global warming. Will today's Americans sacrifice for a posterity they will never see?" |
21st December 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Making noise on global warming - Boston Globe THE REV. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. warned that "our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." There are few matters of international importance that could have more dire consequences than being silent about the dangers of global warming. |
21st December 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change making Christmas fare a real turkey - The Age Australia: Food price rises due to extreme weather events, however, are transforming the climate-change battleground and may leave Prime Minister John Howard vulnerable to those Aussie battlers who have been crucial to his electoral success. In the past year food prices have soared 10 per cent. Lamb and beef prices could leap by up to 25 per cent in the next few months, while bread becomes 10 per cent more expensive due to a 40 per cent surge in flour prices. Australian citrus growers declared recently that orange prices had risen from $80 a tonne to $200, with inevitable price hikes on orange juice. |
21st December 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Overconfidence leads to bias in climate change estimations - PhysOrg.Com Just as overconfidence in a teenager may lead to unwise acts, overconfidence in projections of climate change may lead to inappropriate actions on the parts of governments, industries and individuals, according to an international team of climate researchers |
16th December 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Sea level rise 'under-estimated' - BBC News Current sea level rise projections could be under-estimating the impact of human-induced climate change on the world's oceans, scientists suggest. |
14th December 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 2006 was Earth's sixth warmest year on record - New Scientist 2006 was the Earth's sixth warmest year on record, averaging 0.4°C above the 1961 to 1990 average, according to the World Meteorological Organization. The records extend back to 1861. And the UK charted its warmest year ever – its records go back to 1659. |
14th December 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Attenborough urges 'moral change' - BBC News Television naturalist Sir David Attenborough has called for a "moral change" among energy consumers to cut waste and reduce pollution. |
14th December 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The answer, my Hebridean friend, is blowing in the wind - The Times We cannot tilt against the best renewable source. "Pessimistic the predictions may be, but right now wind energy is the only renewable show in town. Personally, I prefer a 24 per cent achievement to the alternative, which is zero." |
13th December 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Shallow fuels bring bad news - Nature Geologists have discovered underwater deposits of hydrates — icy deposits of frozen methane gas — at far shallower depths under the ocean floor than expected. The finding suggests that, in a globally warmed world, the hydrates could melt suddenly and release their gas into the atmosphere, thus warming the planet even more. |
13th December 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Burning issues - Guardian Unlimited Are the American media exercising caution in their coverage of the global warming story or are they guilty of dodging the issue? "If the public relations specialists of the oil and coal industries are criminals against humanity, the US press has played the role of unwitting accomplice by consistently minimising the story, if not burying it from public view altogether". |
13th December 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Experts warn North Pole will be 'ice free' by 2040 - The Times Ice is melting so fast in the Arctic that the North Pole will be in the open sea in 30 years, according to a team of leading climatologists. |
12th December 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Biofuel Skeptic Extraordinaire - Grist Any worthy idea can withstand and even be improved by naysayers; scolds and skeptics play the useful role of pointing out obvious flaws. The biofuels industry has no more persistent, articulate, and scathing critic than David Pimentel, professor emeritus of entomology at Cornell University. |
10th December 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Six Ways That Changing Your Life Can Prevent Global Warming - AlterNet American society isn't doing much about global warming -- are we waiting for Al Gore? Here are six things we can do to prevent it. |
10th December 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Beyond words - Guardian Unlimited UK: As words echo, they can start to ring hollow. It is only weeks since the Stern report on climate change was lauded by the prime minister as "a wake-up call to every country in the world". Gordon Brown, too, agreed with the call for "prompt and strong action". With David Cameron also scrambling to lead the unison choir singing out for something to be done, it appeared, for a moment, as if the political climate might be changing so that the real climate would not have to... |
9th December 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The times, and the climate, are a-changin' - Toronto Star Thomas Berry - "As we look up at the starry sky at night, and as, in the morning, we see the landscape revealed as the sun dawns over the Earth — these experiences reveal ... a profound world that cannot be bought with money, cannot be manufactured ... cannot be listed on the stock market ... cannot be sent by email." Such experiences, for Berry, speak to our souls, and as we replace these experiences with computer games and virtual realities, as well as polluted landscapes, it diminishes our spirit. |
9th December 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Risk perception and global warming - Huffington Post "We pride ourselves on being the only species that understands the concept of risk, yet we have a confounding habit of worrying about mere possibilities while ignoring probabilities, building barricades against perceived dangers while leaving ourselves exposed to real ones." |
9th December 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon emissions up one-quarter since 1990 - AlertNet Global carbon emissions rose nearly 3 percent in 2005, up more than a quarter from 1990 levels despite many governments' pledges of cuts to fight global warming, a scientist who provides data for the U.S. Department of Energy said. |
8th December 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Exxon spends millions to cast doubt on warming - The Independent The world's largest energy company is still spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund European organisations that seek to cast doubt on the scientific consensus on global warming and undermine support for legislation to curb emission of greenhouse gases. |
7th December 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Warming oceans produce less phytoplankton - New Scientist As the Earth’s oceans warm, the masses of tiny plants growing at their surface is declining, say US researchers. Their results show that the productivity of global oceans is tightly linked to climate change and has been steadily decreased between 1999 and 2004. The Independent has a better headline: Climate change is killing the oceans' microscopic 'lungs' |
7th December 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The politics of food - Davis Enterprise Ten calories of fossil fuel are now required to produce every one calorie of food. By eating over-processed food and lots of meat, each person adds 4 tons of carbon to the atmosphere every year. |
4th December 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The End of Ingenuity - New York Times How much energy does it take to get some energy? "...we really need to start thinking hard about how our societies — especially those that are already very rich — can maintain their social and political stability, and satisfy the aspirations of their citizens, when we can no longer count on endless economic growth." |
30th November 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate 'altering UK marine life' - BBC News The biodiversity and productivity of seas around the UK could already be suffering the consequences of climate change, a report has concluded. |
29th November 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Grain drain - Guardian Unlimited The world is increasingly turning to ethanol made from corn to power its cars. A good thing you might think, except when it means making a choice between providing green fuel and food. Lester R Brown investigates |
29th November 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Science a la Joe Camel - Washington Post USA: An offer of 50,000 free DVDs to the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) for educators to use in their classrooms is turned down. Could it be because one of their supporters is Exxon? |
28th November 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon emissions show sharp rise - BBC News The rise in humanity's emissions of carbon dioxide has accelerated sharply, according to a new analysis. The Global Carbon Project says that emissions were rising by less than 1% annually up to the year 2000, but are now rising at 2.5% per year. |
28th November 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Thirteenth Tipping Point - Mother Jones "In 2004, JOHN SCHELLNHUBER, distinguished science adviser at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in the United Kingdom, identified 12 global-warming tipping points, any one of which, if triggered, will likely initiate sudden, catastrophic changes across the planet. Odds are you've never heard of most of these tipping points, even though your entire genetic legacy—your children, your grandchildren, and beyond—may survive or not depending on their status. Why is this? Is it likely that 12 asteroids on known collision courses with earth would garner such meager attention? |
22nd November 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Nairobi climate talks end in deal - BBC News The UN climate talks in Nairobi have ended with agreement reached on all outstanding matters. |
18th November 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| THE DENIAL MACHINE - CBC Fifth Estate The Denial Machine investigates the roots of the campaign to negate the science and the threat of global warming. It tracks the activities of a group of scientists, some of whom previously consulted for for Big Tobacco, and who are now receiving donations from major coal and oil companies. Click here to see the whole programme. |
16th November 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Trading spaces in the sky - Guardian Unlimited In the light of the recent Stern report, can carbon offsetting really work? Terry Slavin on the controversial business fix to 'save the planet' - and whether western companies are exploiting the developing world See also: Kyoto Deal on HFC Funding Delayed to 2007 - Planet Ark |
15th November 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Annan chides inaction on climate - BBC News UN chief Kofi Annan has criticised a "frightening lack of leadership" in tackling global warming, at a major UN climate summit in Nairobi. See also:Annan: Cheaper to Cut Emissions Now - CBS News |
15th November 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| It's time to turn up the heat - George Monbiot 'My fear is not that people will stop talking about climate change. My fear is that they will talk us to Kingdom Come.' Go to this new website about George Monbiot's new book 'Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning'. Read an extract here. In fact I beg you to please read this extract. |
14th November 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon emissions rising faster than ever - New Scientist Far from slowing down, global carbon dioxide emissions are rising faster than before, said a gathering of scientists in Beijing on Friday. Between 2000 and 2005, emissions grew four times faster than in the preceding 10 years, according to researchers at the Global Carbon Project, a consortium of international researchers. |
10th November 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Nicholas Stern LSE lecture in full - BBC News Video Straight from the horse's mouth: The Stern report in the form of a lecture at the London School of Economics. Much easier than wading through a 600 page pdf |
10th November 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Snowballing costs - Guardian Unlimited Stern's study may underestimate the costs of climate change: there could be more weather variability, a major shift of the Gulf Stream and a flourishing of disease - Nobel Prize winning scientist Joseph Stiglitz. |
10th November 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Oceans turning acidic, posing threat to sea life, Earth's fragile food chain - Canada.com The world's oceans are becoming more acidic, which poses a threat to sea life and Earth's fragile food chain, a climate expert said Thursday. |
10th November 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 'Obscenity' of carbon trading - BBC Green Room If we want to curb climate change, carbon trading won't do, argues Kevin Smith in the Green Room this week. From the Stern Review to Europe's Emissions Trading Scheme, he argues, the aim of reducing emissions has been perverted by neo-liberal dogma and corporate self-interest. "Market-based mechanisms such as carbon trading are an elaborate shell-game of global creative accountancy that distracts us from the fact that there is no viable "business as usual" scenario." |
10th November 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Only a decade left to avoid climate change, says thinktank - Guardian Unlimited The world has less than a decade to reverse the growth in greenhouse gas emissions if dangerous climate change is to be avoided, according to a report from a thinktank that goes further than the landmark Stern review last week. Yesterday's report from the Institute of Public Policy Research suggests Lord Stern's analysis was too conservative and governments need to move further and faster. To minimise the risk of a 2C rise - seen as the threshold for dangerous climate change - the authors say global carbon dioxide emissions would need to peak between 2010 and 2013. |
9th November 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Cuckoo Science - RealClimate Sleight of hand or slight of mind - Some of the mathematical tricks and fake science used to produce the wonky results so beloved of the anthropogenic warming sceptics. [Hard sums, for sure, but could come in handy when talking to the 'natural fluctuations insolar radiation' brigade] |
9th November 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Report demands ethical dimension to climate talks - New Scientist A report launched at the Nairobi conference today complains that discussion on climate change has been dominated by science and economics, with vital ethical dimensions being left out by governments and scientists alike. There should be a new human right: everyone should be entitled to equal access to the atmosphere. |
8th November 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Possible futures and uncovered pasts - Grist Mill Certainty - and the quest thereof - now there's a can of worms. The excellent Coby Beck opens the lid to show us that the contents are probably not what the GW sceptics have written on the label- "Say you are at an airport on a very important business trip and they announce there may be some trouble with the plane. The mechanic comes back and tells everybody, "I'm not totally sure what the problem is, but in my expert opinion there is only a 50/50 chance the plane won't make it." Are you telling me you would hop on, thinking "well, this is an important trip, and not only does the expert say everything may well turn out all right, but you know, experts can be wrong and he's not even sure"? I don't think so. Most of us would hightail it out of that terminal if there was even a 1% chance of going down in flames. Would you even roll those dice if your odds were one in a thousand?" |
6th November 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| It's hard to explain, Tom, why we did so little to stop global warming - Guardian Unlimited Looking back, 40 years on, we were intoxicated with an idea of individual freedom that was little more than greedy egotism. 2046: Possible letter to future a grandson explaing how we failed to prevent the world warming. |
6th November 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| IoS 2060: Tsunami horror hits Britain - The Independent This is the sort of headline we will all be reading in reality if nothing is done to prevent climate change. Yesterday 20,000 people marched in London to express their concern. Tomorrow world leaders meet in Nairobi to set new targets for cutting pollution. Here, environment editor Geoffrey Lean examines why they must go further than ever before. And we print the stories you'll hope never to read again... |
5th November 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Could scrapping Trident save the planet? - Guardian Unlimited For the same price, Britain could either renew its nuclear arsenal or tackle climate change |
4th November 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Cold War of global warming - Salon "...there is another school of thought that holds that environmental degradation, climate change, species extinction, etc., are a consequence of market-based capitalism, rather than just strong hints that the engine powering the global economy needs a tuneup. In this perspective, global warming is the Day of Judgment for humanity's current system of self-organization and the threat of global devastation is rated as the most compelling possible rebuttal to a philosophy of unending economic growth. Seen this way, it is little wonder that conservatives fight so hard against even acknowledging that there is a problem." [Definitely worth sitting through the advert to get to this article if you're not already a subscriber - however if you're too lazy - you can click here] |
3rd November 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change special: State of denial - New Scientist A bitter battle is brewing between mainstream American climate scientists and the minority who deny that human activity is causing global climate change. |
2nd November 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Stern warning from climate change economics report - Mark Lynas "The headlines have all been optimistic - we can tackle global warming with only a 1% cost to global GDP. A rare good news story on the global warming issue, right? Wrong. The stabilisation pathway this figure refers to is 550 CO2 equivalent (about 500ppm in CO2 only), which will yield anything between three and four degrees warming. Yet, as I've argued in several recent articles, if we pass the two degrees threshold, the chances of runaway global warming impacts kicking in are dangerously high. Stern suggests that stabilising at 400 ppm CO2 only is well nigh impossible given that we will be there within less than 10 years. But what is impractical for humans may be the only thing which is practical in terms of the planetary biosphere. The report admits that 3-4 degrees would lead to the mass extinction of 50% of species alive today, yet seemingly advocates a stabilisation target that would lead to exactly this outcome. The impact on humanity - especially the poor - would also be catastrophic, a point made very clearly by Christian Aid. I highly recommend people read the report (the whole thing, not just the Executive Summary) however - it is an excellent review of the latest science, and says very clearly what impacts are likely to arrive with what degree changes. The tables on what stabilisation targets will yield what temperature increases are particularly useful. I do think that the headline figures on both economic damages and climate refugees are major under-estimates, but credit should be given for trying to quantify them at all. So unlike almost everyone else, the sheer awfulness of our current position made me feel more and more pessimistic the deeper into I got into the Stern review. Evidently the only practically possible course will extinguish half of life on Earth - and even that requires emissions cuts unlikely to be acceptable to the likes of the US and China. The business as usual scenarios, Stern tells us, take the planet into five or more degrees of warming by the end of the century - something my upcoming Six Degrees book suggests will trigger the greatest mass extinction in geological history, one that humanity will be hard-pressed itself to survive." - Mark Lynas |
31st October 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Drastic action on climate change is needed now - and here's the plan - Guardian Unlimited UK: The government must go further, and much faster, in its response to the moral question of the 21st century. George Monbiot outlines the steps needed to prevent climate chaos. |
31st October 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Uneasy being green - Guardian Unlimited UK: Biting, sarcastic account of the discussion of the Stern report in the UK House of Commons. See also: Hot-air production and emissions of gobbledygook reach a new high |
31st October 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| A global catastrophe of our own making - The Independent Average global temperatures have increased by less than 1C since the Industrial Revolution, but they are projected to increase by up to 5C over the coming century if carbon dioxide levels continue to rise without restraint. With each 1C rise in average global temperatures, the Stern Review portrays progressively more serious scenarios. |
31st October 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Stern Report - HM Treasury UK: Sir Nicholas Stern, Head of the Government Economics Service and Adviser to the Government on the economics of climate change and development, is 'delighted' to present his report to the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the Economics of Climate Change. |
30th October 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change fight 'can't wait' - BBC News The world cannot afford to wait before tackling climate change, the UK prime minister has warned. |
30th October 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Expert reaction to Stern review - BBC News Scientists, politicians and economists have been giving their reactions to the report by Sir Nicholas Stern. "The scariest thing about the Stern report is that it may not be scary enough. If we lose the Greenland ice sheet in the next few centuries, leading to a 7 metre rise in sea level - as well we might - then Stern's £3.68 trillion will be a drop in the ocean compared to the ultimate cost of climate change." |
30th October 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Tackle climate change or face deep recession, world's leaders warned - Guardian Unlimited Climate change could tilt the world's economy into the worst global recession in recent history, a report will warn next week. |
26th October 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| War Climates - TomPaine.com Our political systems and global politics are largely unequipped for the real challenges of today’s world. Global economic growth and rising populations are putting unprecedented stresses on the physical environment, and these stresses in turn are causing unprecedented challenges for our societies. Yet politicians are largely ignorant of these trends. Governments are not organized to meet them. And crises that are fundamentally ecological in nature are managed by outdated strategies of war and diplomacy. |
26th October 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Human footprint too big for nature - WWF The world’s natural ecosystems are being degraded at a rate unprecedented in human history, according to a report released today by WWF, the global conservation organization. [If you can't be bothered to download the report in pdf format, you can see the gist in pictures.] |
24th October 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Bill McKibben on Our Planetary Fate - TomDispatch.com [Difficult to summarize wide ranging must-read from Bill McKibben] |
23rd October 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Amazon conservation efforts must come soon to save world's largest rainforest - Mongabay.com Climate change could well cause most of the Amazon rainforest to disappear by the end of the century. |
23rd October 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Where have all the leaders gone? - BBC Greenroom Consumer choice is not going to deliver the goods to combat climate change, argues Dr Matt Prescott. In this week's Green Room, he says the world needs strong political leadership, not just market forces, because there is no sale-or-return guarantee for the planet. |
20th October 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Licence to pollute - Guardian Unlimited "It is assumed in India that carbon offset projects are so environmental they do not need impact assessment. Information on projects is rarely available. Each time we have looked at claims made about these projects' benefits, we found differences between the claims and reality." |
18th October 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Paying for our sins - Guardian Unlimited Offsetting makes us feel better, allows us to consume more to the benefit of the polluters, deflects attention away from the real and present danger that is climate change and, George Monbiot finds, does little good. "At the offices of Travelcare and the forecourts owned by BP, you can now buy complacency, political apathy and self-satisfaction. But you cannot buy the survival of the planet." |
18th October 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change is expensive. Does that help? - Guardian Unlimited Weaning the world off fossil fuels sounds like an expensive fantasy, but a major government-backed report will reveal later this month that slashing greenhouse gas emissions will be far cheaper than dealing with the devastation if global warming continues unchecked. |
15th October 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| New growth climate change theory - Salon "..any economist who wants to talk about the costs of mitigating climate change should be ethically, not to mention professionally, obligated to at least nod in the general direction of the elephant in the room: What are the economic costs of not doing anything?" [A new way of putting a value on economic growth: accumulating knowledge rather than accumulating wealth.] |
15th October 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon Blindness - TomPaine.com "The climate crisis we face will not be bested through the kind of thinking that got us into the problem in the first place: because, seen with any degree of rationality, the climate crisis cannot be distinguished from the overall planetary crisis of environmental degradation, massive poverty, conflict and inequity of which it is a part." |
13th October 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Saving the Creation - GristMill The vast majority of green voters are Christian. Apparently, there just are not enough of them. One must also keep in mind that environmental issues have not historically split along party lines. Before their assimilation by the religious right, the Republican Party used to be the environmental party |
8th October 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Cost of saving the planet: a year's growth - Guardian Unlimited The world would have to give up only one year's economic growth over the next four decades to reduce carbon emissions sufficiently to stave off the threat of global warming, a report says today. |
29th September 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| NASA Study Finds World Warmth Edging Ancient Levels - NASA A new study by NASA scientists finds that the world's temperature is reaching a level that has not been seen in thousands of years. |
26th September 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The threat is from those who accept climate change, not those who deny it - Guardian Unlimited If the biosphere is ruined it will be done by people who know that emissions must be cut - but refuse to alter the way they live |
21st September 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Hunger kills guillemots - Guardian Unlimited Hundreds of guillemots - diving birds that feed on shoals of small fish - have been found starved to death along the shorelines of Northern Ireland and the west of Scotland. "Our best guess is that their food sources have moved further north due to global climate change." |
16th September 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Nitrous oxide - no laughing matter for forests - New Scientist Climate change could cause forests in Europe to spew out more and more nitrous oxide, aka laughing gas, a potent contributor to global warming. |
16th September 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| When it comes to climate change, I'll take a small bet that Pascal was right - The Times Unless the sceptics are really, really certain that we’re all going to be OK, we must act now. |
15th September 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Urgent call on carbon emissions - BBC News UK: A report by the Tyndall Centre said a UK government target of a 60% cut in emissions by 2050 is insufficient and needs to be 70% by 2030. |
15th September 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Protectionist backlash 'will derail world economy' - Guardian Unlimited Global carbon taxes, wealth redistribution ... radical social solutions are globalisation's last chance, Nobel winner Joseph Stiglitz tells Heather Stewart. "...Europe, he suggests, should charge the States with subsidising its firms by failing to control their emissions, and demand the right to impose punitive tariffs on American goods." |
10th September 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| World Needs Far Tougher Action on Warming - Planet Ark Industrial countries will have to make swingeing cuts in greenhouse gas emissions to slow global warming, perhaps of up to 80 percent by 2050 as suggested by some nations, the UN's top climate official said on Thursday. |
8th September 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| World's most wanted: climate change - BBC News Human-induced climate change must be treated as an immediate threat to national security and prosperity, says John Ashton, the UK's climate change envoy. He argues that we must secure a stable climate whatever the cost, as failure to do so will cost far more. See also: Solve climate 'whatever it costs' |
8th September 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Eco-fatalism is for wimps - The Times Ignore the pessimists: we can do a heck of a lot to curb the catastrophic effects of climate change. |
7th September 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Methane bubbles climate trouble - BBC News Thawing Siberian bogs are releasing more of the greenhouse gas methane than previously believed, according to new scientific research. |
7th September 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Deep ice tells long climate story - BBC News Carbon dioxide levels are substantially higher now than at anytime in the last 800,000 years, the latest study of ice drilled out of Antarctica confirms. |
5th September 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change will reach point of no return in 20 years - Guardian Unlimited The world only has 10 years to develop and implement new technologies to generate clean electricity before climate change reaches the point of no return - something the UK government failed to appreciate in its recent energy review, according to an expert. |
5th September 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Poland Moment - The Huffington Post "The climate deniers are much like the general public in Britain in the 1930s. War was unthinkable, and therefore could not happen, and therefore each step on the road to war had to be seen as an end point, not as a process. Similarly, for climate deniers, the specter of a world laid waste by global warming is unthinkable, doesn't accord with their belief in either religion or capitalism, and therefore can't be happening." |
5th September 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Focus on climate adaptation urged - BBC News Climate change is inevitable, and policies to help societies adapt to a warmer future are badly needed. [...it's inevitable only if humans refuse to reduce their greenhuse gas emissions] |
4th September 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| We're witnessing the birth of a new protest movement to force action on global warming - Johann Hari "It is not the struggle between capitalism and communism or between any other set of 'isms'. It is the conflict between those who possess the means and will to exploit the living world to destruction, and those who are banding together in a desperate and last-ditch attempt to prevent the New Juggernaut from trashing our small planet." |
4th September 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The hungry planet - The Independent As stocks run out and harvests fail, the world faces its worst crisis for 30 years. |
3rd September 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Top scientist's fears for climate - BBC News One of America's top scientists has said that the world has already entered a state of dangerous climate change. |
1st September 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Soil reaction may require bigger cuts in emissions - Guardian Unlimited Peter Cox, a climate modeller at Exeter University, said changes in the soil and oceans over the coming decades could make it much more difficult for the atmosphere to cope with carbon dioxide spewed from cars, power stations and aircraft. |
1st September 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global meltdown - Guardian Unlimited Scientists fear that global warming will bring climatic turbulence, with changes coming in big jumps rather than gradually - "We used to think that it would take 10,000 years for melting at the surface of an ice sheet to penetrate down to the bottom. Now we know it doesn't take 10,000 years; it takes 10 seconds." |
30th August 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Good intent can prevent climate change catastrophe - Guardian Unlimited "... what is unquestionable is that on climate change there is always more we can do - whoever we are and wherever we live. And the longer we wait, the more our options - along with the species on which our life-support systems depend - will disappear." |
23rd August 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| How democracy fails the environment - Toronto Star "We need creative solutions not just for the technical fixes needed, as in green energy, but the political, social and economic retooling we need to make it happen." |
23rd August 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| "Red Devil" squid, jellyfish point to ocean upsets - Reuters South American "Red Devil" squid found off Alaska and jellyfish plaguing the Mediterranean may point to vast disruptions in the seas linked to global warming, pollution or over-fishing, experts say. |
21st August 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| A burning issue, 50 years on - Guardian Unlimited Climate change: "When an event is potentially catastrophic, take out insurance." |
20th August 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Public doesn't understand global warming - David Suzuki "People don't get it. This is a big problem, because if people don't get it, then they don't really care, so politicians and CEOs don't really care, and status quo rules the day. And blindly we march into the sunset." |
19th August 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Peter Schweitzer, Al Gore, and hypocrisy - GristMill About a week ago, USA Today published a piece by Peter Schweitzer, who's a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. It accused Al Gore of hypocrisy. Here David Roberts digs up the truth and serves it with a marvellous rant on hypocrisy. |
18th August 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Limiting Climate Change: The Neglected Obstacle - Washington Post China and America expected to 'suffer less' from climate change, so lack the incentive to do anything about it. [...er, are the 18 million chinese affected by the worst drought in 50 years suffering less? The idea that some regions will 'get away it' is pernicious because it appeals to the baser elements of human nature, it is also most likely erroneous, especially if we pass the 'tipping point'.] |
18th August 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Someone is Trying to Distract You - The Progress Report DRIVING TO DISTRACTION: Tripping On Reality In The Land Of Make Believe. [Not your usual piece about global warming - more to do with the interests behind keeping us ignorant - definitely worth a look] |
17th August 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Water shortage 'a global problem' - BBC News Rich countries face increasing water shortages, a report by conservation organisation WWF warns. |
16th August 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Forecast puts Earth's future under a cloud - Guardian Unlimited More than half of the world's major forests will be lost if global temperatures rise by an average of 3C or more by the end of the century, it was claimed yesterday. The prediction comes from the most comprehensive analysis yet of the potential effects of human-made global warming. Extreme floods, forest fires and droughts will also become more common over the next 200 years as global temperatures rise owing to climate change, according to Marko Scholze of Bristol University. |
15th August 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Facing Reality in Derrick Jensen's 'End Game' - Press Action "We’re running out of the oil, the drug that’s killing us, but we’ve made no real plans for a survivable “detox.” As with everything else, we try not to think about our dwindling supply, or we tell ourselves that “they” (you know, “them,” the ones who addicted us in the first place) will come up with a cleaner, safter drug, a “renewable” fix that will keep us high forever." |
13th August 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| High Temperatures Could Leave Seed Crop Sterile - GrainNet Some crop plant like rice, kidney beans, soybeans and peanuts stop producing seeds when exposed to high temperatures. |
11th August 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Greenland melt 'speeding up' - BBC News The meltdown of Greenland's ice sheet is speeding up, satellite measurements show. |
11th August 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| No sign of increased snowfall in Antarctica - Nature Southern Hemisphere warming has surprisingly not led to increased snowfall over Antarctica during the past 50 years, researchers report today. If the findings are confirmed, this suggests that global sea-level rise might proceed faster than previously thought. |
11th August 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Distill wisdom from grapes of wrath - Globe & Mail Canadians who survived the sweltering droughts of the Dust Bowl '30s can help us learn how to adapt to climate change, says geographer ROBERT McLEMAN |
8th August 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global Warming Slips on Its Ski Mask - Los Angeles Times Climate change is going to creep up on us. The assault might have started already. |
30th July 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Warming triggers 'dead zone' - Seattle Post-Intelligencer Bottom fish and crabs washing up dead on Oregon beaches are being killed by a recurring "dead zone" of low-oxygen water that appears to be triggered by global warming, scientists say. |
27th July 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| We need rationing and regulation to cut carbon - Guardian Unlimited UK politics: David Miliband is right to consider personal carbon trading but he should not rule other forms of action against climate change. |
26th July 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Amazon rainforest 'could become a desert' - The Independent The vast Amazon rainforest is on the brink of being turned into desert, with catastrophic consequences for the world's climate, alarming research suggests. And the process, which would be irreversible, could begin as early as next year. |
23rd July 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 100º - get used to it - Guardian Unlimited Global warming experts claim that by 2050 temperatures will regularly top 40C and warn that our health and infrastructure will be unable to cope. |
23rd July 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Warming to the Inconvenient Facts - Washington Post "If our get-serious rhetoric on climate change were to be more than a new form of low-carbon emissions, we would have to change not only the way we live and the way we drive, but the way we think about political issues." |
22nd July 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Points of Light - Red Orbit The World Wakes Up to Climate Change. |
21st July 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| If only gay sex caused global warming - Los Angeles Times Why we're more scared of gay marriage and terrorism than a much deadlier threat. |
2nd July 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Nasa's climate science 'in moth-balls' - BBC News The Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR), designed to measure the Earth's solar energy balance and which has already been built, is grounded at Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, after the agency cancelled it, citing competing priorities. |
1st July 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Rising CO2 levels not as good for crops as thought - Scidev.Net Scientists' predictions that rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide will boost crop yields have been too optimistic, according to a study published today (30 June) in Science. |
30th June 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Greenland's Ice Sheet Is Slip-Sliding Away - Los Angeles Times The massive glaciers are deteriorating twice as fast as they were five years ago. If the ice thaws entirely, sea level would rise 21 feet. [...and if the east antarctic ice sheet melts completely too...] |
25th June 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Sea life counts dive for 2nd year - San Francisco Chronicle Decrease in essential plankton and krill disrupt food chain. There's "a great deal of disruption going on in food webs and it's climate related." |
23rd June 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Thawing Permafrost Could Unleash Tons of Carbon - Planet Ark Ancient roots and bones locked in long-frozen soil in Siberia are starting to thaw, and have the potential to unleash billions of tonnes of carbon and accelerate global warming, scientists said on Thursday. |
16th June 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Behind the spin, the oil giants are more dangerous than ever - Guardian Unlimited The green rebranding of Shell and BP is a fraud. Far from switching to biofuels, it's drilling and devastation as usual. See also: Make Me Sustainable, but not yet. |
13th June 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The next green battlefield - Hamilton Spectator Pollution wars may take to the skies to curb, or tax, airplane emissions. |
10th June 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change could crush wheat yields - The Age Soaring temperatures and declining rainfalls caused by climate change could wipe a billion dollars a year off Australia's wheat industry within 30 years, a study suggests. |
7th June 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate chaos: Bush's climate of fear - BBC Panorama Video [RealPlayer] Has the Bush administration covered up the findings of global warming scientists? Panorama visits the first climate change refugees |
5th June 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Why deserts will inherit the Earth - The Independent Few places on Earth are less hospitable, less suited to human life than the Sahara desert. Yet as global warming accelerates and the prospect of profound climate change looms large, we must face the fact that vast areas of our planet will be rendered equally barren. See also:Desert life threatened by climate change and human exploitation, Deserts 'need better management' |
5th June 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Swords into Plowshares - American Politics Journal As the climate, environmental and energy emergencies that are now upon us are global, so too must be our response. And the gravity of these global emergencies are such that they require an international commitment and response sufficient to render obsolete and irrelevant all remaining violent disputes among nations. For there is in fact no national interest which transcends in importance the common international interest in halting the onset of global climate change, in repairing and restoring ecological balance, and making the transition to a post-fossil-fuel world economy, thus securing common survival on a functioning planet. |
4th June 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global Warming vs. Election Integrity - OpEdNews.com If we are going to effect change, we need to focus our energies, so how can we know what our top priority really should be? |
4th June 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Junketing Judges: A Case of Bad Science - Washington Post According to documents released by a watchdog law firm last week, Exxon Mobil Corp. and other large businesses contribute to conservative think tanks to help "educate" federal judges through seminars. |
4th June 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Warming signs - The Age No matter what happens, the global warming that past human activity has already unleashed will make this a different planet in the years ahead. But it could still be a liveable, even hospitable, planet, if enough of us get smart in time. If we don't, a metre of water could be just the beginning |
3rd June 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Achenbach's "Tempest" and the Global-Warming Skeptics - Scientific American Does writing about the skeptics, no matter how disparagingly, further their cause? |
3rd June 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Technofix bubbles of hydrogen and biofuels at Pentagon’s energy conversation - Energy Bulletin Bursting the technofix bubbles of fantasy and deception. |
2nd June 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
USA Today Climate Change Special
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1st June 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Eat the Press - Grist "...20 percent of our fossil-fuel consumption is going to feeding ourselves. " |
1st June 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Economy tells only part of the story - Sydney Morning Herald "... we're desperately trying not to think about global warming and the despoiling of our land and rivers while we sacrifice family relationships on the altar of a higher material standard of living." |
31st May 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The iceberg cometh - Guardian Unlimited UK: Ministers may have wet feet before they confront the imminent dangers of climate change. |
29th May 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Welcome to the Climate Crisis - Washington Post How to Tell Whether a Candidate Is Serious About Combating Global Warming. |
27th May 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| A fool's paradise - Guardian Unlimited We in the west must abandon our tainted notion of success - before it destroys the whole world. |
24th May 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Feedback Loops in Global Climate Change Point to a Very Hot 21st Century - Berkeley Lab Studies have shown that global climate change can set-off positive feedback loops in nature which amplify warming and cooling trends. Results point to global temperatures at the end of this century that may be significantly higher than current climate models are predicting. |
22nd May 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Greenhouse gas/temperature feedback mechanism may raise warming beyond previous estimates - YubaNet Climate change estimates for the next century may have substantially underestimated the potential magnitude of global warming. They say that actual warming due to human fossil fuel emissions may be 15-to-78 percent higher. |
22nd May 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Flipping Point - Scientific American How the evidence for anthropogenic global warming has converged to cause this environmental skeptic to make a cognitive flip |
22nd May 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The fair choice for climate change - BBC News Contraction and Convergence is the only long-term framework for regulating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions which does not make carbon dioxide production a luxury that only rich nations can afford. |
19th May 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global Food Supply Near the Breaking Point - IPS Rising population, water shortages, climate change, and the growing costs of fossil fuel-based fertilisers point to a calamitous shortfall in the world's grain supplies in the near future, according to Canada's National Farmers Union. |
18th May 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Big Oil Launches Attack On Al Gore - Think Progress Today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) will unveil two 60-second TV ads focusing on what it calls “global warming alarmism and the call by some environmental groups and politicians to reduce fossil fuel and carbon dioxide emissions.” |
18th May 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Meltdown fear as Arctic ice cover falls to record winter low - Guardian Unlimited Record amounts of the Arctic ocean failed to freeze during the recent winter, new figures show, spelling disaster for wildlife and strengthening concerns that the region is locked into a destructive cycle of irreversible climate change. |
15th May 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change a 'deadly threat' - BBC News The Christian Aid charity has warned that 184 million people in Africa alone could die as a result of climate change before the end of the century. |
15th May 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate Change And Peak Oil - Tom Paine.com "Even renewable energy sources can be used unsustainably ... It’s not an oil addiction—it’s an addiction to high per-capita energy consumption ... We have to get the goals right. Is it a high GDP or high human wellbeing?" |
14th May 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global warming is about to hit high gear - Citizen-Times "This country, which has led the world in environmental understanding for a long time, is now not the caboose on the train but the anchor thrown off the back of the caboose." |
14th May 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Vital bay grass can't take heat - Batimore Sun Experts say the Chesapeake's plant life couldn't stand another summer of temperatures near record highs |
13th May 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| NOTES FROM A DYING PLANET - Media lens The Media's Aversion To Addressing The Juggernaut of Economic 'Growth' - "...the pursuit of economic growth makes controlling CO2 an impossibility, and that a different path must be sought." |
11th May 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Obviation not generation - New Statesman We don’t need more energy – just more imagination, intelligence . . . and political courage. |
11th May 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Fear, greed, and finance - New Statesman UK: The gulf between rising investor awareness about climate change and actual patterns of investment urgently needs to be closed if the world is to achieve energy security and environmental sustainability. See also: Heat & Liight: UK energy & climate policy in context |
11th May 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| It's Only $300 Billion - Washington Post If We Can Fund the War in Iraq, Why Can't We Fund the Kyoto Protocol? |
10th May 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| What Price Nature? Bogs US$6,000, Reefs US$10,000 - Planet Ark A 1997 study, published in the journal Nature, concluded the world's ecosystems were worth US$33 trillion - almost double world gross national product at the time. "The estimates we used were conservative." |
10th May 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Secrecy breach by US officials steals thunder of climate change report - Guardian Unlimited A confidential draft of a high-level international report on the state of climate change has been posted on the internet by US officials months before it was due to be made public. The move to effectively publish the findings of the influential Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has surprised experts, who say it could undermine the final report when it is released in February. |
4th May 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 3C hotter. Earth's danger point. Now scientists say it is going to happen - The Times The world will warm by 3C (5.4F) even under emissions projections for 2050 that leading scientists consider optimistic, the United Nations group that studies global warming has said. |
4th May 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Trade winds weaken with global warming - Guardian Unlimited Trade winds that sweep around half the globe are weakening as global warming disrupts normal atmospheric circulation, scientists report today. |
4th May 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Global Warming Denial Lobby - The Tyee The people out to 'poison the debate on climate change.' |
2nd May 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| A battle for oil could set the world aflame - Guardian Unlimited International powers will do everything to protect their access to dwindling resources. We are mad not to have an alternative strategy |
30th April 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| While Washington Slept - Vanity Fair The Queen of England is afraid. International C.E.O.'s are nervous. And the scientific establishment is loud and clear. If global warming isn't halted, rising sea levels could submerge coastal cities by 2100. So how did this virtual certainty get labeled a "liberal hoax"? |
29th April 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 10 states sue EPA over global warming - CNN Ten states fired a new legal salvo Thursday at the federal government in a long-running court battle over global warming and pollution from power plants. |
27th April 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Let's preserve nature's services while free - hometownlife.com The best things in life are free. That is, they used to be. Already, many ecological services we've taken for granted have a price tag: |
27th April 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| What is the value of a tree? - CS Monitor Antoinette Campbell loses an oak: Her a/c bill goes up $120 a month - the toll on her city is even bigger. [The sooner we start pricing the value of 'free' natural environmental goods & services, the sooner we will realise how cheap reducing emissions will be compared to replacing what nature does now for free.] |
26th April 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Only the WTO can stop global warming - Guardian Unlimited If we're serious about climate change, then international agreements have to be enforced. |
25th April 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Critical Importance of Sustainability Risk Management "The "prudent fiduciary" equation is being turned on its head. Since there is now evidence that superior environmental and social performance improves the risk profile, profitability and stock performance of publicly traded companies, fiduciaries can be seen to be derelict in their duties if they do not consider sustainability." |
25th April 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change fight 'moral duty' - BBC News Chancellor Gordon Brown has spoken for the first time of the "moral need" to tackle climate change. |
22nd April 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Laurie David Raises Awareness of Global Warming - New York Times "I am terrified," Laurie David said between bites of her Cobb salad, avocados on the side. "I'm terrified. I'm terrified. And fear is a great motivator." |
22nd April 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Earth Day 2006: Saving the Future By Looking to the Past - Huffington Post Tomorrow is the 36th anniversary of Earth Day. While some celebrate this day planting trees or collecting trash, our world leaders must rapidly confront a dangerous reality: our early twenty-first century civilization is on an economic path that is destroying and disrupting the natural systems on which it depends, consuming renewable resources faster than they can regenerate. |
21st April 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Scientists fear new attempts to undermine climate action - Guardian Unlimited Britain's scientists are drawing up a plan to fight renewed attempts by sceptics and industry-funded lobby groups to derail international action on climate change. According to a confidential internal memo, the Royal Society expects "groups and individuals" to question the science of global warming and the need to cut greenhouse gas emissions. |
21st April 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The insurance industry prepares for climate change - American Chemical Society Interview with Evan Mills, an expert on the economic risks posed by climate change. |
20th April 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Why nuclear power is out of the question - Guardian Unlimited Nuclear power doesn't reduce emissions |
19th April 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global warming hits Canada's remotest Arctic lands - Reuters "All months are warmer by between 3 and 6 degrees (Celsius). This is beyond the usual variations," said local weather man Wayne Davidson. "We're in a total transition ... it's a one-way street right now." "When I hear people say there is no such thing as global warming, I find them totally appalling." |
19th April 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Could Global Warming Be Worse Than You Think? - Scientific American "The main lesson of worst-case scenarios is that uncertainty cuts both ways. Skeptics often invoke uncertainty as a reason to defer action because global warming may not be as bad as the headline predictions. But uncertainty equally well means that the outcome could be even worse. Our response should be neither complacency nor panic, but risk-management - exactly what we do when we buy insurance or strap on seat belts." |
16th April 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| UK seeks agreement on carbon cap - BBC News UK Prime Minister Tony Blair is asking international leaders to agree a top limit for greenhouse gas emissions. The UK government believes we are probably heading for a massively disrupted climate, the BBC has learned. |
13th April 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate Change: A Design Problem - OhmyNews Climate Change Is like Diabetes: In the case of diabetes, the problem accumulates over a period of time. It requires changes in people's behavior to bring about a benefit in the future. And the benefit is not what happens to you, but what does not happen to you in terms of "having a functioning kidney" or "not being blind." But, by the time you see the impact of diabetes, it is too late to change. This is tough for many people to understand and respond to. |
12th April 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Who will be next target of right-wing fund? - The Herald FEAF styles itself as "the first mutual fund to seek long-term capital appreciation through investment and advocacy that promote the American system of free enterprise." That means it doesn't like senior business figures, like Lord Browne, who acknowledge any link between climate change and our unsustainable use of carbon-based fuel. In FEAF's view, that is tantamount to the destruction of shareholder value. So Milloy is coming to get the man who once suggested BP stands not only for British Petroleum, but also for Beyond Petroleum. |
11th April 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change will test resiliency of our ecosystems - Toronto Star Eight years after Eastern Ontario's greatest disaster, the ice storm of 1998, injured trees are still dying. |
8th April 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Will and Novak misled on climate change - Media Matters In separate columns, George Will and Robert Novak misrepresented the facts and omitted key evidence -- embraced by the vast majority of climate scientists -- demonstrating that global warming is occurring and that human activity is contributing to the problem. |
8th April 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Arctic water flow speeding up - Nature One of Siberia's largest rivers is dumping about 10% more fresh water into the Arctic today than it was some 60 years ago, thanks to the complex effects of increased snowfall, melting permafrost and changing weather. |
6th April 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Do nothing? You cannot be serious - The Times Climate change sceptics want more evidence. But this is a completely irrational view. |
6th April 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate of hope - Salon Global warming is the worst news of our time. But pessimism saps our will. It's time to embrace the challenge, and call boldly on Americans to win the fight of a lifetime. |
4th April 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Soon we'll pay the true price of air travel - Guardian Unlimited Uncontrolled air travel is a luxury that the planet cannot afford. It is not priced as such because subsidies skew the market. The government must end the airlines' tax perks. If it cannot do so unilaterally it must lobby for international agreement for cleaner skies. If necessary, tradable carbon allowances such as those allotted to businesses may eventually have to be assigned to individual passengers. The courage to promote radical policies such as these will be the test of our politicians' new-found commitment to fight global warming. |
2nd April 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Feeling the Heat: The World Wakes Up - E Magazine Two thousand and six is emerging as the year Americans finally wake up to the reality of global warming. Of course, E has been hammering away at the issue for six years or more, but now it has momentum, with the release of several new books and a Time magazine cover story ("Be Worried, Be Very Worried") April 3. |
1st April 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Ottawa stops funding One Tonne Challenge - Globe & Mail The new Conservative government in Ottawa has abruptly stopped funding groups across the country that have been promoting the One Tonne Challenge, the quirky program to persuade Canadians to do their bit to help the environment by cutting their greenhouse gas emissions. |
1st April 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Research in Pacific shows ocean trouble - Seattle Post-Intelligencer "Acidification is more frightening than a lot of the climate change issues," said oceanographer Joanie Kleypas. That's in part because the process is hard to alter. "It's a slow-moving ship, and we're all trying to row with toothpicks," she said. |
31st March 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Brown: Rescuing planet under stress - Lexington Minuteman "If we fail to build a new economy before decline sets in, it will not be because of a lack of fiscal resources, but rather because of obsolete priorities. The world is now spending $975 billion annually for military purposes. The U.S. 2006 military budget of $492 billion, accounting for half of the world total, goes largely to the development and production of new weapon systems. Unfortunately, these weapons are of little help in curbing terrorism, nor can they reverse the deforestation of the earth or stabilize climate". |
30th March 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| For People and Planet - EV World 'As some have said, "We are operating the Earth like it's a business in liquidation." More mechanisms to incorporate environmental and social externalities will be needed to enable capital markets to achieve their intended purpose -- to consistently allocate capital to its highest and best use for the good of the people and the planet.' |
30th March 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global Warming: Be Very Afraid - Wired News Interview with Elizabeth Kolbert, author of "Field Notes From a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change". 'If people say, "Why should I be worried about global warming?" I think the answer is, "Do you like to eat?" ' |
29th March 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Hot air but no action - Guardian Unlimited Britain has at least acted more responsibly than most, not least at last year's Montreal talks. Tony Blair and Ms Beckett are certainly sincere on the issue. But they must be judged on their results, which are so far not impressive. |
29th March 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Most Americans Aware of Global Warming - Angus Reid Many adults in the United States acknowledge climate change, according to a poll by TNS released by Stanford University, Time and ABC News. 85 per cent of respondents think global warming is probably happening. |
29th March 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| When the ice melts, will your feet get wet? - Sierra Compass Check out potential sea level rises with this google Maps mashup. |
29th March 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| We must think the unthinkable, and take voters with us - The Independent Climate change means that business as usual is dead. It means that economic growth as usual is dead. But the politics of economic growth and business as usual live on. What needs to change to bring about a political tipping point? What is stopping us from taking the radical path we need to follow today if we are to avoid dangerous climate change tomorrow? |
28th March 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Earth forum hears dire warnings of environmental collapse - Yahoo / AFP In a keynote speech opening the fourth biennial State of the Planet conference at New York's Columbia University, Jeffrey Sachs, director of the UN Millennium Project, said ignorance, misplaced priorities and indifference were keeping the world firmly on a path to disaster. "Everything we think is at the core of our geopolitics -- the war on terror, Islamic fundamentalism -- have almost nothing to do with the real challenges we face on this planet," Sachs said. "They are a distraction and a misunderstanding." |
28th March 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Electricity Calculator - BBC News The electricity calculator gives you the opportunity to choose how you would like the UK’s electricity to be generated in 2020. Once you have made your choice, the calculator will work out the possible impact in terms of carbon emissions, whether you managed to keep the lights on and how it will affect people’s annual bills. Click 'submit' to add your choice to the trends database. |
28th March 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global warming: Have your say - The Independent 'Independent' readers are invited to send submissions to the all-party inquiry on climate change, which will then seek a response from ministers. Send your contribution to: Climate change debate, Independent House, 191 Marsh Wall, London E14 9RS or by e-mail from this morning to: climatechange@ independent.co.uk |
28th March 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Impact of Asia's Giants - Time Every step forward that these countries take today risks being swamped by growth tomorrow. What China and India really need to ensure green development is what the world needs: a broadly accepted post-Kyoto pact that is strict enough to make it economically worthwhile to eliminate carbon emissions. Though actual cuts are off the table for now, Beijing and New Delhi seem willing to discuss softer targets, such as lowering carbon intensity. But they feel that Washington must take the lead. "It is possible for these countries to achieve the growth they deserve without wrecking the climate," says Diringer. "They just can't do it on their own. It has to go through the U.S." Maybe we can begin by living a bit more like the average Chinese or Indian--before they start living like us. |
26th March 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Be worried, be very worried - CNN / Time The problem -- as scientists suspected but few others appreciated -- is that global climate systems are booby-trapped with tipping points and feedback loops, thresholds past which the slow creep of environmental decay gives way to sudden and self-perpetuating collapse. That's just what's happening now. |
26th March 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Ad Council Takes On Global Warming - Broadcasting & Cable he Advertising Council and Environmental Defense today unveiled a new public service campaign to fight global warming. The work includes one 15-second and two 30-second television commercials and two 60-second radio spots that are being distributed to media outlets this week. Watch one of the advertisements. Go to Ad Council website |
24th March 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| A New Ethics Needed to Save Life on Earth - Inter Press Service News Agency Affect, care, cooperation and responsibility are the four central principles of a new ethics that humanity urgently needs to adopt, in order to avoid becoming extinct as "a victim of itself." |
24th March 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Brazilian farming will doom 40 percent of Amazon - Yahoo / AFP Cattle ranchers and soybean farmers will destroy four-tenths of Brazil's Amazonian forest by 2050 on present trends, threatening biodiversity and adding hugely to the global warming problem, a study says. |
22nd March 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Saving the Planet With Plan B 2.0 - Wired News Interview with Lester R. Brown author of Plan B2.0 a strategy to "rescue a planet under stress and a civilization in trouble." |
22nd March 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Exxon Exxposed - The Huffington Post The Wall St. Journal reports that ExxonMobil is the key funder of a front group called Public Interest Watch which has been pushing the IRS to audit Greenpeace. |
22nd March 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Birds and flowers signal 'season creep' as spring comes earlier - Canoe.ca The early arrival of robins and the early flowering of lilacs might gladden many hearts, but scientists aren't cheering what they call "season creep." "One of the things we are definitely finding is that the changes we were predicting 30, 40, 50 years out are showing up now. "It is frightening to think about it, but it's here already. The whole world is beginning to see the impact." |
21st March 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Argentina's Floating Icebergs Worry Farmers Who Fear Flooding - Bloomberg.com The Argentina coast guard was astonished to find icebergs floating along the Atlantic coast. ``It's the first time icebergs of such size reached Buenos Aires,'' said the coastguard. |
21st March 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Chilling proof that glacier meltdown is getting faster - The Independent Many of the world's mountain glaciers are melting at a faster rate than at any time in the past 150 years, according to the latest assessment by glaciologists. |
20th March 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The world as a war zone - Workers World As we move into an era of more and more natural disasters caused by the unnatural phenomenon of global warming, the areas affected are coming to look more and more like war zones.The question is no longer if or when global warming will seriously affect life on the planet. It is an established fact, and each new study shows more rapid change. It is not just future generations but today’s generation that will see rising sea levels that can inundate low-lying countries. Some predictions are apocalyptic. This is a vast problem caused by the effect of human activity on the environment, and it can only be meaningfully addressed through profound social change. |
18th March 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate science 2005: Major new discoveries - World Resources Institute "2005 was a year in which the scientific discoveries and new research on climate change confirmed the fears and concerns of the science community. The findings reported in the peer-reviewed journals last year point to an unavoidable conclusion: The physical consequences of climate change are no longer theoretical; they are real, they are here, and they can be quantified". This is a brilliantly comprehensive document which summarises all the relevant global warming topics from the past year. |
17th March 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Drought threatens spring planting in Canadian west - Reuters Parts of Canada's grain belt will need timely spring rains to stave off drought conditions as the planting season approaches, crop and weather specialists warn. Soil moisture is below average in much of Alberta and pockets of Saskatchewan, where fall rains and winter snowfall were minimal. |
17th March 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global warming blamed for increasing force of hurricanes - Guardian Unlimited Global warming is increasing the frequency of the most intense hurricanes, insist scientists who have analysed data from six oceans. |
17th March 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change: Only 10 years to act - The Scotsman New figures show urgent action must be taken to avoid climate change becoming unstoppable within ten years, a leading environmentalist warned yesterday. |
15th March 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Sharp rise in CO2 levels recorded - BBC News US climate scientists have recorded a significant rise in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, pushing it to a new record level. |
14th March 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change 'irreversible' as Arctic sea ice fails to re-form - The Independent Sea ice in the Arctic has failed to re-form for the second consecutive winter, raising fears that global warming may have tipped the polar regions in to irreversible climate change far sooner than predicted. |
14th March 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| A climate change of heart - Los Angeles Times Here's a case where virtually everybody is acknowledging a weapon of mass destruction — the threat of climate chaos — but still President Bush refuses to take action. When the evangelical community, Bush's stalwart base, called for climate action last month, the news grabbed headlines. But the more important Bush defectors on this issue are some of the world's largest corporations, including British Petroleum, General Electric, DuPont and Cinergy. So, the question arises: Why does Bush persist in his increasingly lonely stance? |
14th March 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Pollution soaring to crisis levels in Arctic - Guardian Unlimited Researchers have uncovered compelling evidence that indicates Earth's most vulnerable regions - the North and South Poles - are poised on the brink of a climatic disaster. |
12th March 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Bering Sea Climate Is Shifting - Los Angeles Times Scientists say sea life is fighting to survive as the water warms up and ice melts sooner. The changes are profound and may be irreversible. |
10th March 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Q&A: Threats to global security, part three - Monsters&Critics "There is a growing realization that the long-term problem that affects everybody in the world is climate change. In our heart of hearts we know theoretically we can do something about it but the likelihood is that it will be too little, too late. And it will cause conflicts as well as a reduction in quality of life, and is therefore a long term security problem in a military sense as well as an environmental sense." |
10th March 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Polar ice sheets show net loss - BBC News "This seems to suggest that East Antarctica might not save our bacon after all," - Liz Morris, Scott Polar Research Institute |
9th March 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Frogs, beetles sound an alarm - IndyStar.com The warnings are coming from frogs and beetles, from melting ice and changing ocean currents, and from scientists and responsible politicians around the world. And yet what is the U.S. government doing about global warming? The answer, essentially, is nothing. That should shock the conscience of American citizens. Actually, the Bush administration's policy is worse than doing nothing. |
8th March 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| So how are we getting on at saving the planet? Could do better - Guardian Unlimited Not long ago, ethical choices were regarded as the idiosyncrasy of people who opted out of consumer society. Helped by celebrity endorsement, dramatic climate change, publicity for poverty, and recognition that saving the planet can save money, they are now mainstream fashion. |
5th March 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Antarctic ice sheet decline startles scientists - Guardian Unlimited The Antarctic ice sheet, which contains 90% of the world's ice, has lost significant mass in the past few years. The discovery comes as a surprise to scientists, who thought that the continent would gain ice this century because of increased snowfall in a warming climate. |
3rd March 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate scientists issue dire warning - Guardian Unlimited The Earth's temperature could rise under the impact of global warming to levels far higher than previously predicted, according to the United Nations' team of climate experts. |
28th February 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Hotter, Faster, Worser - Common Dreams Over the past several months, the normally restrained voice of science has taken on a distinct note of panic when it comes to global warming. How did we go from debating the "uncertainty" behind climate science to near hysterical warnings from normally sober scientists about irrevocable and catastrophic consequences? |
24th February 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Growth Does Not Work Very Well - The Progress Report "Orthodox economics tells us that a rising tide lifts all boats, or that, rather than sharing the cake more evenly, it is better to bake a larger one. Ironically now, however, sea levels really are rising, as a result of global warming and driven by the pollution from economic growth. And millions of the poor have no boats at all to rise in. Where the cake is concerned, the massed ranks of orthodox economists are yet to find the ingredients, or even a recipe, to bake a spare planet to share among the world's population." |
23rd February 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Could Global Warming Become a Runaway Train? - abc news 'Feedback Loops' Are the Single Biggest Threat to Civilization from Global Warming |
18th February 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global warming '30 times quicker than it used to be' - The Independent Greenhouse gases are being released into the atmosphere 30 times faster than the time when the Earth experienced a previous episode of global warming. |
17th February 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change: On the edge - The Independent Greenland ice cap breaking up at twice the rate it was five years ago, says scientist Bush tried to gag |
17th February 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Apocalypse Now - Red Orbit How mankind is sleepwalking to the end of the earth. Humans have transformed the earth in a dramatic way, especially over the last 50 years. Not only have we drastically changed the carbon cycle by burning fossil fuel and coal and by increasing forest fires, we have also changed the nitrogen cycle worldwide by the amount of nitrogen being fixed by industrial agriculture and fertilizer use. |
14th February 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global warming: passing the 'tipping point' - The Independent Research commissioned by The Independent reveals that the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has now crossed a threshold, set down by scientists from around the world at a conference in Britain last year, beyond which really dangerous climate change is likely to be unstoppable. |
11th February 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate 'makes oil profit vanish' - BBC News The huge profits reported by oil and gas companies would turn into losses if they had to pay for the social costs of their greenhouse gas emissions. |
9th February 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Carbon addicts and climate debt - BBC News The fossil fuel industry is a major source of tax revenue for western nations, which is a disincentive to cutting greenhouse gas emissions. |
9th February 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Recent warmth 'most widespread' - BBC News In the late 20th Century, the northern hemisphere experienced its most widespread warmth for 1,200 years, according to the journal Science. |
9th February 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| World Has Seven Years for Key Climate Decisions - Reuters / Planet Ark The world has seven years to take vital decisions and implement measures to curb greenhouse gas emissions or it could be too late, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Tuesday. |
8th February 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Winds of climate change are about to make their impact felt in many a boardroom - Guardian Unlimited Top science adviser sounds death knell for theory that insists growth is good. |
6th February 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Political Science - Daily Camera Obfuscating data on science is as deleterious as obscuring the facts on Medicare or Iraq. Such misrepresentation constricts public debate and debases democracy. This should be self-evident. It's not rocket science. |
5th February 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| It's capitalism or a habitable planet - you can't have both - Guardian Unlimited Our economic system is unsustainable by its very nature. The only response to climate chaos and peak oil is major social change |
2nd February 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| MEDIA ALERT: CLIMATE CHANGE - "WELCOME TO MARS (OR NORTH KOREA)!" - medialens "...the media report oncoming climate catastrophe, when they report it at all, without discussing the radical changes needed to combat the threat. It is coverage of the symptoms of the problem - in the absence of serious coverage of the causes or solutions - that is depressing." |
1st February 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Scientists hold grave fears for Great Barrier Reef - ABC Australia's hot summer has had a devastating effect on the Great Barrier Reef. Coral reef specialists, just back from diving around the Keppel Islands, are comparing the severity of the damage to the worst case ever recorded in 2002. The University of Queensland scientists say they were shocked by the underwater scene that greeted them and are concerned the entire reef may be at risk of destruction from global warming. |
31st January 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global Warming Demands Urgent Solutions - Reuters / Planet Ark The world must halt greenhouse gas emissions and reverse them within two decades or watch the planet spiralling towards destruction, scientists said on Monday. |
31st January 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Sea Warming Hits Japan's Fisheries - Inter Press Service News Agency Japan, a voracious consumer of marine resources, is now discovering that the drastic depletion of its own fish stocks is linked to the loss of underwater seaweed colonies -- caused, in turn, by rising sea temperatures. |
31st January 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Stark warning over climate change - BBC News Rising concentrations of greenhouse gases may have more serious impacts than previously believed, a major new scientific report has said. Warming: The Evidence. Ice Caps Video footage. |
30th January 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate Expert Says NASA Tried to Silence Him - New York Times The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming. |
29th January 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Debate on Climate Shifts to Issue of Irreparable Change - Washington Post Now that most scientists agree human activity is causing Earth to warm, the central debate has shifted to whether climate change is progressing so rapidly that, within decades, humans may be helpless to slow or reverse the trend. |
29th January 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Whalemania (catch them while you can) - The Independent The London whale sparked huge interest in the creatures. But thanks to global warming, their days could be numbered |
29th January 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Oceans in Peril - Washington Post All serious looks at the issue have reached similar conclusions: that current human use of oceans is unsustainable and that without dramatic changes in the ways the waters are exploited and enjoyed, the seas will die out. |
23rd January 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Science Friday: Real Climate - Daily Kos "All life on our precious planet has been forged by Fire and Ice. From ancient boiling seas to Snowball Earth, weather has shaped every species; or condemned them to extinction. We are not exempt. More than any other factor in our evolution, climate has crafted Humankind. It was global change which coaxed our ancestors down out of Miocene treetops onto forested Pliocene floors and out into arid Pleistocene plains. Our mind, body, and culture have danced in resonance to advancing and retreating glaciers, continental drift, fluctuating sea levels, and orbital idiosyncrasies, for millions of years. Today our human family, now six billion strong, is more dependent than ever on regular rainfall, ocean currents, seasonal patterns, and forecasting, to cultivate the plants and nurture the animals which provide every calorie we consume. We are at the mercy of climate, good and bad: Thus it behooves us to understand it well." |
20th January 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Warmer seas will wipe out plankton, source of ocean life - The Independent The study is also potentially devastating because it has thrown up a new "positive feedback" mechanism that could result in more carbon dioxide ending up in the atmosphere to cause a runaway greenhouse effect. |
19th January 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Whale Birth Decline Tied to Global Warming - National Geographic The problem, experts believe, is not that whales suffer directly from warm conditions, but that their food supply—mainly krill—does. |
19th January 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Is It Warm in Here? - CNN "It may seem impossible to imagine that a technologically advanced society could choose, in essence, to destroy itself, but that is what we are now in the process of doing." |
18th January 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Warming: it's time to come clean - The Age If the scientists are right, global warming will become the most important issue facing us this century. So far, the trends suggest they are right. The world's weather is getting hotter, more volatile. What is the world doing about it? |
18th January 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Cloudy With a Chance of Chaos - CNN Money Climate change may bring more violent weather swings -- and sooner -- than experts had thought. |
17th January 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Buying Complacency - Monbiot.com The most destructive effect of the carbon offset trade is that it allows us to believe we can carry on polluting |
17th January 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Earth is about to catch a morbid fever that may last as long as 100,000 years - The Independent James Lovelock, the Gaia guy, explains that the Earth is about to pass into a morbid fever that may last 100,000 years. Each nation must find the best use of its resources to sustain civilisation for as long as they can' |
16th January 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 'We Are Past the Point of No Return' - Common Dreams Thirty years ago, the scientist James Lovelock worked out that the Earth possessed a planetary-scale control system which kept the environment fit for life. He called it Gaia, and the theory has become widely accepted. Now, he believes mankind's abuse of the environment is making that mechanism work against us. His astonishing conclusion - that climate change is already insoluble, and life on Earth will never be the same again. |
16th January 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global warming to speed up as carbon levels show sharp rise - The Independent Global warming is set to accelerate alarmingly because of a sharp jump in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. |
15th January 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate in the balance - SunHerald.com |
23rd December 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The world can breathe again - Guardian Unlimited Robin McKie, science editor, explains the global significance of yesterday's deal in Montreal |
11th December 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| In Shift, US Agrees to Future Climate Talks - Inter Press Service News Agency More than 150 nations agreed early Saturday to launch formal talks on mandatory post-2012 reductions in greenhouse gases at the U.N. conference on climate change in Montreal. |
10th December 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Greenland glacier races to ocean - BBC News "We've seen a 5km retreat of the terminus, we've see an almost 300% acceleration in the flow speed and we've seen about a 100m thinning of the glacier - all occurring in the last one or so years... the predictions for both the rate and the timing for sea level rise in the next few decades will be largely underestimated." |
8th December 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| UN climate talks enter key phase - BBC News Dr James Hansen told a meeting of American Geophysical Union in San Francisco that just 1C more of warming would take the Earth into climate patterns it has not experienced for more than 500,000 years. |
7th December 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 2005 Costliest Year for Extreme Weather - Inter Press Service News Agency The world has suffered more than 200 billion dollars in economic losses as a result of weather-related natural disasters over the past year, making 2005 the costliest year on record, according to preliminary estimates released Tuesday by Munich Re. |
7th December 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Arctic Soil Carbon Vastly Underestimated - Science a Go Go Seriously big trouble brewing in the arctic tundra. |
6th December 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate at record extremes - Toronto Star This is shaping up as the year the battered earth hit back, wreaking havoc with record weather extremes that almost certainly spring from global climate change. |
6th December 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Struggle Against Ourselves - monbiot.com Speech to the Climate March, 3rd December 2005. By George Monbiot. "...I don't have to remind you of the two forces which are converging on our lives. We are faced with an impending shortage of the source of energy which is hardest to replace – liquid fossil fuels. And we are faced with the environmental consequences of the fossil fuel burning which has permitted us to be standing here now. The structure, the complexity, the diversity of our lives, everything we know, everything that we have taken for granted, that looked solid and non-negotiable, suddenly looks contingent. All this is a great tottering pile balanced on a ball, a ball that is about to start rolling downhill..." |
5th December 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| What planet are you on, Mr Bush? (and do you care, Mr Blair?) - The Independent Tens of thousands of people marched in 33 countries yesterday to express concern for the environment. But will their leaders respond? |
5th December 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 'Climate threat badly understood' - BBC News Public understanding of climate change and what people can do to help tackle the problem is very weak, the environment secretary has said. |
1st December 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Eyes wide shut on global warming - MENA Financial Network News "...perhaps we are hoping that the "we" whose interests are taken into account when important decisions are made will not be the "we" who are among the big losers. Perhaps we will continue to close our eyes." |
1st December 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| No one is immune from the effects of global warming - The Independent None of us in this global village of the 21st century is going to be immune from the effects of climate change. This is the basic message of the European Environment Agency, whose latest report says that changes to the continent's climate that have been experienced to date have not been matched in the past several thousand years. |
30 November 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| A DIY guide to saving Planet Earth - The Telegraph Human survival depends on problem fixing not avoidance - in particular learning how to cool down our planet, says David Deutsch |
29 November 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 2° Celsius: A World Of Difference To Life On Earth - Scoop.co.nz The consensus of international conservation organisations is that if temperatures rise above 2° Celsius from pre-industrial levels, massive species extinctions and dramatic changes in ecosystems will have severe consequences for human wellbeing. |
29 November 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change: It's now or never - The Independent "As the politicians dither, whole nations and ecosystems are shifting from the "still time" file to the "too late" file as vital climatic tipping points are crossed." |
28 November 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Stabilizing climate change more daunting than thought - PhysOrg.com If the world is serious about halting global warming then it will have to reduce carbon emissions over the next century by as much as 230 billion tonnes more than previously thought, according to new research from the University of Calgary. |
24 November 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| CO2 'highest for 650,000 years' - BBC News Scientists say their research shows present day warming to be exceptional. |
24 November 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The politics of climate change. It will happen, and they will come - SF Gate "Every ecosystem on the planet is under threat of catastrophic collapse, and if we don't begin to acknowledge and solve them, then we will go down." |
15 November 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Fish numbers plummet in warming Pacific - The New Zealand Herald A catastrophic collapse in sea and bird life numbers along America's Northwest Pacific seaboard is raising fears that global warming is beginning to irreparably damage the health of the oceans. |
13 November 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Harvard, UNDP and Swiss Re unveil results of groundbreaking climate change study - swissre.com A Swiss Re-sponsored report focused on the interrelated business and scientific implications of climate change was released November 1 with a press conference and day-long event at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. View.pdf. |
12 November 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| OSU professor knows global warming a real threat - The Lantern "We as human beings don't do much until it's a crisis situation, you look at that and say, 'at what time do we as human beings start waking up?' We have a sensitive system and we depend on it." |
10 November 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Water Vapor May Be Biggest Contributor to Higher Global Temperatures, Researcher Says - ENN Water vapour identified as yet another positive feedback factor increasing Global Warming. |
10 November 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Abnormal fruits due to global warming reported everywhere - Kyodo News In what appears to be influences from global warming, abnormal fruits, such as grapes not turning red and peaches with their flesh turning brown, are being reported throughout the country. |
9 November 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Greenhouse gas 'to rise by 52%' - BBC News Global greenhouse gas emissions will rise by 52% by 2030, unless the world takes action to reduce energy consumption, a study has warned. |
7 November 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Over your limit - Guardian Unlimited In order to stabilise CO2 levels, we need to spend less at the planet's carbon bank. Lucy Siegle unveils a novel credit card which will make real savings |
30 October 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Record heat raises climate fears - The Independent Just four days before Hallowe'en, Britain was enjoying the warmest 27 October since records began in 1880. |
28 October 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Prince's plea over climate change - BBC News Prince Charles says climate change should be seen as the "greatest challenge to face man" and treated as a much bigger priority in the UK. In full: Prince Charles interview |
27 October 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| World Temperatures Keep Rising With a Hot 2005 - Washington Post New international climate data show that 2005 is on track to be the hottest year on record, continuing a 25-year trend of rising global temperatures. |
13 October 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The Heat Death of American Dreams - AlertNet Overshadowed by last month's hurricanes was the news that global warming is likely to accelerate much faster than feared, and it's already begun. |
11 October 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The truth about global warming - The Seattle Times "The fact that so many scientists think it's likely a truck is heading for us means that the last thing we want to do is close our eyes and lie down in the road." |
9 October 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Arctic ice 'disappearing fast' - BBC News The area covered by sea ice in the Arctic has shrunk for a fourth consecutive year, according to new data released by US scientists. |
28 September 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Global Warming: Time for the Media to Stop Falling Into the "Balance" Trap - Yahoo News Journalism isn't supposed to find balance, it's supposed to find the truth and then convey it to the American public. But when it comes to global warming, the media keep falling into the same old trap, set by polluting industries, of giving equal weight to the opinions of a handful of industry shills masquerading as "skeptics." |
27 September 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Underestimating the threat of global warming - Independent Online A record loss of sea ice in the Arctic this summer has convinced scientists that the northern hemisphere may have crossed a critical threshold beyond which the climate may never recover. |
23 September 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Heatwave makes plants warm planet - BBC News A new study shows that during the 2003 heatwave, European plants produced more carbon dioxide than they absorbed from the atmosphere. |
22 September 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The fossil fuel party is nearly over - JohannHari.com The twin realities of peak oil and runaway global warming |
20 September 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| August Was the Third Warmest in 126 Years! - Roger Coppock - sci.environment / Google Groups "These globally averaged temperature data come from NASA. They represent the results of tens of millions of readings taken at thousands of land stations and ships around the globe over the last 126 years." |
10 September 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Sucker's Bets for the New Century - TomDispatch Hurricane Katrina brings a foretaste of environmental disasters to come |
6 September 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Loss of soil carbon 'will speed global warming' - Guardian Unlimited England's soils have been losing carbon at the rate of four million tonnes a year for the past 25 years - losses which will accelerate global warming and which have already offset all the cuts in Britain's industrial carbon emissions between 1990 and 2002, scientists warn today. |
8 September 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Katrina gobbles up crops - Montgomery Advertiser Hurricane Katrina damaged pecans, cotton, peanuts and nurseries throughout southwest Alabama, with the pecan crop largely lost in Mobile and Baldwin counties, where much of it usually is produced. |
6 September 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Katrina leaves damaged crops, fuel frustrations - Northeast Missippi Daily Journal "The statewide corn yields may be reduced as much as 20 percent," said Erick Larson, grain crops specialist with Mississippi State University's Extension Service. |
6 September 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate food crisis 'to deepen' - BBC News Climate change threatens to put far more people at risk of hunger over the next 50 years than previously thought, according to new research. |
6 September 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Rising ocean temperatures trigger gas fears - The Scotsman Rising ocean temperatures caused by global warming could initiate a catastrophic runaway greenhouse effect by releasing gases trapped beneath the ocean floor, experts have warned. |
5 September 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Iraq in America - TomDispatch The Perfect Storm and the Feral City |
4 September 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| New Orleans is a frightening glimpse of the future - Johann Hari It is the poor and the weak who are invariably swept away first by climate change |
3 September 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change blamed as birds fail to breed - The Scotsman SEABIRDS have suffered an appalling breeding season around much of Scotland's coast, research from three of the country's leading conservation organisations has shown. |
1 September 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Republicans accused of witch-hunt against climate change scientists - Guardian Unlimited Some of America's leading scientists have accused Republican politicians of intimidating climate-change experts by placing them under unprecedented scrutiny. |
30 August 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Planet a decade from global warming point of no return - The New Zealand Herald The global warming danger threshold for the world has been clearly marked out for the first time in a report to be published tomorrow - and the bad news is, the world has nearly reached it already. |
15 August 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| The universal ostrich mindset - Guardian Unlimited Everyone knows that there are very big, very bad things which are going to happen. And when they do, it's goodbye human race or (if we're lucky) civilisation as we know it. Goodbye to the gas-guzzling, goodbye to the easyJetting, goodbye to the colour supplement lifestyle. Hello Darfur. |
15 August 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Climate warning as Siberia melts - New Scientist "ecological landslide that is probably irreversible and is undoubtedly connected to climatic warming" |
11 August 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Marine crisis looms over acidifying oceans - New Scientist The oceans are gradually turning into a vast “fizzy drink”, a transformation that could be catastrophic for ocean life. Levels of carbonic acid - the reaction product of water and carbon dioxide that is found in soda water - are increasing at a rate one hundred times faster than the world has seen for millions of years. |
30 June 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Future Climate Could be Hotter than Thought - Reuters / Planet Ark Global temperatures in the future could be much hotter than scientists have predicted if new computer models on climate change are correct, researchers said on Wednesday. |
30 June 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Oil, CO2, Environment, Climate, War - Common Dreams This year there are real, physical issues for the humans on Planet Earth. We hear hints of them when our mainstream media can tear itself away from runaway brides and the gong-show in Rome, where old men in red dresses and lacy rochets fiddle around with edicts about sex and sin while AIDS smolders, populations explode, and fossil fuels burn steadily worldwide. |
17 June 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Past century sees biodiversity dive - Nature Biodiversity is disappearing faster than ever, according to a report backed by the United Nations. |
20 May 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| BBC NEWS VIDEO:Melting away: Nasa alarmed over Greenland's glaciers (requires RealPlayer) |
19 May 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Drowning by numbers - Guardian Unlimited Blair must convince Bush that carbon trading provides the best chance of dealing with climate change |
16 May 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Fish get hooked on cooler waters - Nature North Sea species are moving towards the Arctic to dodge climate change. |
12 May 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Britain faces big chill as ocean current slows - The Times Online | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Earth absorbing more heat than it radiates - New Scientist | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change warning over food production - New Scientist | ||||||||||||||||||||
| The beauty of wind farms - New Scientist | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Why Our Food is So Dependent on Oil - Guerilla News Network | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Global warming may be making rivers too hot - Seattle Post Intelligencer | ||||||||||||||||||||
| The biggest challenge of our time - The Independent | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Ocean heat store makes climate change inevitable - New Scientist | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Britannia ruins the waves: how pollution and over-fishing are destroying sea life - The Independent | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Climate threshold may alter economic picture of climate change - Innovations report | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Kyoto, Global Warming, and the Economy - The Progress Report | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Oceans of evidence for global warming - Guardian Unlimited | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Mocking Our Dreams - Monbiot.com | ||||||||||||||||||||
| It's much too late to sweat global warming. Time to prepare for inevitable effects of our ill-fated future - SF Chronicle | ||||||||||||||||||||
| 2005 Could Be Warmest Year Recorded -- NASA - Planet Ark / Reuters | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Arid Arizona Points to Global Warming as Culprit - Washington Post | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Earth Gets a Warm Feeling All Over - Red Nova | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Apocalypse now: how mankind is sleepwalking to the end of the Earth - The Independent | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Stabilizing Climate to Secure Food Supplies: Sneak Peek at New Book - OneWorld.net | ||||||||||||||||||||
| How we put the heat on nature - Guardian Unlimited | ||||||||||||||||||||
| CO2: The Slow Fuse of Abrupt Climate Change - EV World | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Alarm at new climate warning - BBC News | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Global warming approaching point of no return, warns leading climate expert - The Independent | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Americans are trying to discredit me, claims Chief Scientist - The Independent | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Disasters waiting to happen - Guardian Unlimited | ||||||||||||||||||||
| New coal plants bury 'Kyoto' - Christian Science Monitor | ||||||||||||||||||||
| America's war on itself - Guardian Unlimited |
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| Journalistic Balance as Global Warming Bias - Fairness and Accuracy In reporting | ||||||||||||||||||||
| The real importance of the Kyoto treaty - International Herald Tribune | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Sea Levels to Rise Faster - NASA - IPS Inter Press Service | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Europe heatwaves 'soon routine' - BBC News | ||||||||||||||||||||
| How to reduce future climate risk - BBC News | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Only collective action can overcome the climate crisis - Guardian Unlimited | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Hunting climate change evidence - BBC News Click here to watch Realplayer streaming video | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Global warming seen as ending long winter night in Canadian North - The Globe and Mail | ||||||||||||||||||||
| We don't have much time' - Guardian Unlimited | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Global warming: a perspective from earth history - Guardian Unlimited | ||||||||||||||||||||
| OBSERVED IMPACTS OF GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE - Pew Center Click here for the full report. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Antarctic food web under pressure - BBC News | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Want better returns? Drive a car with better mileage - MSN.com | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Arctic warming at twice global rate - New Scientist | ||||||||||||||||||||
| The coming war - Guardian Unlimited | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Living Planet Report 2004 - World Wildlife Fund | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Global warming seen as security threat - Reuters | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Global warming: Does doom loom? - The Vancouver Sun | ||||||||||||||||||||
| How 'feedback' can suppress the earth's ability to remove greenhouse gases - The Independent | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Climate fear as carbon levels soar - Guardian Unlimited | ||||||||||||||||||||
| In 50 years, we could cure our oil addiction - New Scientist | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Models may underestimate climate swings - New Scientist | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Mussels Found Near N.Pole in Global Warming Sign - Reuters | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Ivan May Just Be a Messenger - Wired News | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Blair 'shocked' by climate change - BBC News | ||||||||||||||||||||
| The planet goes haywire - Guardian Unlimited | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Earth warned on 'tipping points' - BBC News | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Newspapers' focus on balance skewed coverage of global warming - Science Blog | ||||||||||||||||||||
| The lost harvest: rain spells ruin for farmers - The Independent | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Feedback Loops The Potential to Amplify Global Warming Beyond Current Predictions - NRDC | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Global Warming and the Scourge of Unregulated Capital - Mike Whitney | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Summer rain ruins harvests - Daily Record | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Hurricane Frances part of record-setting period for storms - Bradenton.com | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Mysterious lobster threat is migrating north; blame global warming? - The Daily Item | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Low monsoon rain may spoil next wheat crop - Daily Times | ||||||||||||||||||||
| 'We have all heard the prediction that wars may soon be fought over water. In India, it has already begun' | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Global warming expert shares 50 years of research - Missoulian.com | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Probe into rising ocean acidity - BBC NEWS | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Hungry world 'must eat less meat' - BBC NEWS | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Ancient Rome's fish pens confirm sea-level fears - New Scientist | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Forest burning is a net contributor to global warming, scientist says - Stanford University | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Climate change study: Jasmine rice yields at risk - The Nation | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Low rice yields due to 2004's unusual weather - Delta Farm Press | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Sea engulfing Alaskan village - BBC News | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Experts Warn over Seabird Numbers - BBC News | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Rice yields plunging due to balmy nights - New Scientist | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Freaks of nature - The Guardian | ||||||||||||||||||||
| The imperatives for action from the science of climate change: Sir David King | ||||||||||||||||||||
| The yawning heights - looking out from the great oil peak - Julian Darley | ||||||||||||||||||||
| The Need for Progress Beyond Kyoto: Sir David King, Chief Scientific Adviser to HM Government | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Alarm over acidifying oceans - New Scientist | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Global warming is now a weapon of mass destruction - Guardian Unlimited | ||||||||||||||||||||