Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years
This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
Another week of Climate Instability News
April 11, 2010
- Chuckles, Bonn, COP 15, COP 16, MEF, Cochabamba, Krugman, Ecocide, Tremblor, Barometer, Eli's Expositions
- Bottom Line, Carbon Tariffs, Medupi, Corporate Coup, Weathermen, Science Bashing, FOI Abuse, CRU Kafuffle
- Melting Arctic, Methane, Geopolitics of Arctic Resources
- Food Crisis, Neoliberal Food Policies, Food vs. Biofuel, Land Grabs, Rentiers, Food Production
- Hurricanes, GHGs, Carbon Cycle, Temperatures, Aerosols, Paleoclimate
- ENSO, Solar, Milankovitch Cycles, Tipping Points, Satellites
- Impacts, Forests, Wacky Weather, Wildfires, Acidification, Glaciers, Sea Levels, Floods & Droughts
- Transportation, Buildings, Sequestration, Geoengineering
- Journals, Other Docs , DIY Science, Houghton, Hansen - Sophie Prize, More Hansen, Lovelock, Mclean
- UN, Carbon Trade, Carbon Tax, Bank Levy
- International Politics: Misc., Security, Activism, Polls, Water Politics & Business
- National Politics: America, Denali, Obama, USAdmin, GAO Audit, Congress, Climate Bill, Lobbyists, Al Gore
- Britain, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, India, China, Japan, Asia, Africa, South America
- Canada, Agendas, Hillary, Bill C-311, Memo, BC, Tar Sands, Alberta, Ontario, Maritimes, Canadiana
- Ecological Economics, IPAT, Apocalypso, Media, Books, Video, Courts, Betting
- Energy, Fracking, Wind, Solar, Coal, Biofuel, Nukes, Peak Oil, Grid, Efficiency, Cars, Energy Storage
- Greenwashing, Joe's List, Carbon Lobby, Miscellaneous Climate, Useful Links
- Shameless Self Promotion, .sig
 |  |
- 2010/04/05: uComics: (cartoon - Toles) Your New Energy Ideas
- 2010/04/05: ClimateP: (cartoon - Matson) Goodwill hunting offshore
The UNFCCC meeting in Bonn did not go well. The BASIC Group wants to grow. The Americans are unlikely to get anything through Congress without neutering it. The G77 has a voice, but not much else:
- 2010/04/10: Reuters: Giving up climate treaty may unblock U.N. deal
The prospect of a global climate treaty is fading as the world's top two carbon emitters, China and the United States, avoid legally binding action. Experts say a shift to a less ambitious goal might help. - 2010/04/10: Reuters: U.S., Denmark cut climate aid after summit: Bolivia
Bolivia accused the United States and Denmark on Saturday of cutting aid to the South American country as punishment for its fierce opposition to the Copenhagen Accord for fighting global warming. - 2010/04/11: Guardian(UK): Climate aid threat to countries that refuse to back Copenhagen accord
Developing nations claim they are being offered cash to sign up to climate change deal
Rich countries have threatened to cut vital aid to the developing nations if they do not back the deal agreed at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen, it has emerged. The pressure on poor countries to support the US, EU and UK-brokered Copenhagen accord came as 190 countries resumed UN climate talks in Bonn in an atmosphere of mutual suspicion. - 2010/04/09: Reuters: U.N. climate talks split over way forward in 2010
- 2010/04/09: Yahoo:AFP: UN rifts exposed after Copenhagen setback
Divisions and finger-pointing on Friday marred the first day of talks here aimed at reviving the UN process for climate change after the bitterly-fought Copenhagen Summit. - 2010/04/09: Xinhuanet: G77 Adamant climate change talks must be under U.N. framework
- 2010/04/09: Xinhuanet: Negotiators aim to reinvigorate UN climate change talks
- 2010/04/09: Reuters: China, U.S. clash over 2010 U.N. climate talks
The United States and China clashed on Friday about how to revive climate talks in 2010, complicating the first U.N. session since the acrimonious Copenhagen summit fell short of agreeing a treaty. Many delegates at the 175-nation talks in Bonn from April 9-11 urged efforts to restore trust between rich and poor countries but few held out hopes for a breakthrough deal to fight global warming at the next major talks in Cancun, Mexico, in late 2010. In a split between the world's top two emitters of greenhouse gases, Washington said it wanted talks in 2010 to build on a non-binding Copenhagen Accord for limiting global warming reached by more than 110 nations at the December summit. Beijing insisted negotiations should be guided by other draft U.N. texts and said Premier Wen Jiabao had been "vexed" at one point in Copenhagen by the way the meetings were organized in small groups. - 2010/04/09: CCP: Richard Black of the BBC: Climate change treaty 'more urgent than ever'
- 2010/04/09: Guardian(UK): Climate talks reopen at Bonn summit
- 2010/04/09: Guardian(UK): Bonn climate talks diary
- 2010/04/09: CBC: UN climate talks begin amid discord
- 2010/04/09: UN: Secretary-General calls for European action as climate talks restart in Bonn
- 2010/04/09: PlanetArk: U.N. Climate Talks Resume, Scant Chance Of 2010 Deal
- 2010/04/09: Grist: U.N. climate talks in Bonn are off to a rocky start
- 2010/04/09: EarthTimes: Attempts to forge agreement on climate change kick-start in Bonn
- 2010/04/09: BBC: Climate 'more urgent than ever'
The need for a new global climate deal is "greater than ever", according to developing country delegates speaking at the opening of UN climate talks. Blocs representing the poorest nations called for intensive talks during the year, leading to agreement on a legally binding treaty in December. The EU backed the call, re-stating that the conclusion of December's Copenhagen summit had not met its ambitions. But other industrialised countries do not appear so keen for a new treaty. The three-day meeting here in Bonn is the first since the Copenhagen summit concluded without the global treaty that many countries had aimed for, instead producing a political declaration known as the Copenhagen Accord. - 2010/04/08: BBC: Climate deal fear as talks resume
The first round of UN climate talks since December's bitter Copenhagen summit opens in Bonn on Friday with the future of the process uncertain. Developing countries are adamant that the UN climate convention is the right forum for negotiating a global deal and want it done by the year's end. But others, notably the US, appear to think this is not politically feasible. Some delegates are concerned that the whole process could collapse, given the divisions and lack of trust. - 2010/04/08: Reuters: U.N. climate talks resume, scant chance of 2010 deal
- 2010/04/08: CBC: Climate talks resume [in Bonn] following Copenhagen setback
- 2010/04/05: TerraDaily: After Copenhagen setback, UN seeks way forward on climate
More COP15 post mortems:
- 2010/04/05: MoJo: Copenhagen Three Months Later -- The Copenhagen conference produced results after all, but not very big ones
- 2010/04/09: Guardian(UK): US denies climate aid to countries opposing Copenhagen accord
- 2010/04/09: TreeHugger: No Climate Aid For You! US Won't Help Those Nations Opposed to Copenhagen Accord
- 2010/04/06: MongaBay: Chaos and the Accord: Climate Change, Tropical Forests and REDD+ after Copenhagen
Looking ahead to COP16 and future international climate negotiations:
- 2010/04/11: TNO: Mexicans plan smaller meetings for climate summit
- 2010/04/09: Guardian(UK): Climate negotiators urged to meet monthly to reach binding deal
Developing nations say countries must meet once a month to make enough progress for a binding deal to be reached at Mexico summit - 2010/04/09: EarthTimes: ASEAN calls for binding global climate change agreement [at their annual summit in Hanoi]
- 2010/04/07: TerraDaily: ASEAN to urge for legally binding climate change pact
- 2010/03/21: GreenLeft: Climate summit 2010: [10] Lessons for the climate movement
- 2010/04/06: JakartaPost: RI asks world negotiators not to ignore Copenhagen accord
- 2010/04/07: EarthTimes: New Zealand leader warns against gridlock on climate change
The Major Emmitters are getting together next weekend:
- SourceWatch: Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate
- 2010/04/09: TerraDaily: Major economies [Forum] to hold climate talks in US [April 18-19]
- 2010/04/08: Grist: Major economies to hold climate talks in U.S. this month
And the World People's Conference on Climate Change ... is coming up in Bolivia:
- World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth -- Cochabamba, Bolivia, April 19 to 22, 2010
- 2010/04/07: EnergyBulletin: Bless Bolivia for recharging the fight to rescue our climate [McKibben]
An essay by Paul Krugman this week drew a lot of comment:
- 2010/04/05: NYT: Building a Green Economy
- 2010/04/10: HotTopic: Krugman on climate economics: uncertainty makes the case for action stronger
- 2010/04/09: QuarkSoup: Krugman on Climate Economics
- 2010/04/09: MoD: Krugman on global warming policy
- 2010/04/08: WorldChanging: Does Paul Krugman Vastly Understate the Economic Argument for Climate Action?
- 2010/04/08: GG&G: Krugman on Environmental Economics
- 2010/04/08: IoD: The economics of climate change
- 2010/04/08: ClimateP: Must-read Krugman piece: Building a Green Economy
- 2010/04/08: Grist: Krugman says what political media won't: economists agree climate action is necessary, affordable
- 2010/04/08: TP:WR: The Problem With A Green Economy: Economics Hates The Environment
A modest proposal:
- 2010/04/09: Guardian(UK): British campaigner urges UN to accept 'ecocide' as international crime
Proposal to declare mass destruction of ecosystems a crime on a par with genocide launched by lawyer
A campaign to declare the mass destruction of ecosystems an international crime against peace - alongside genocide and crimes against humanity - is being launched in the UK. The proposal for the United Nations to accept "ecocide" as a fifth "crime against peace", which could be tried at the International Criminal Court (ICC), is the brainchild of British lawyer-turned-campaigner Polly Higgins. The radical idea would have a profound effect on industries blamed for widespread damage to the environment like fossil fuels, mining, agriculture, chemicals and forestry. Supporters of a new ecocide law also believe it could be used to prosecute "climate deniers" who distort science and facts to discourage voters and politicians from taking action to tackle global warming and climate change. - 2010/04/08: MGS: But is it science?
A metric to tell us how bad it is?:
- 2010/04/09: BBC: 'World needs a barometer of life'
The world needs a "barometer of life" to prevent ecosystems and species being lost forever, scientists have warned. Existing schemes, they said, did not include enough species from groups such as fungi and invertebrates to provide a detailed picture of what is at risk. Writing in the journal Science, the researchers said the barometer would increase the number of species being assessed from almost 48,000 to 160,000. - 2010/04/10: ERabett: Eli can retire Part VII - The EPA plays so's your old man
- 2010/04/09: SkeptiSci: Skeptical Science on steroids: the EPA response to 300,000 public comments
- 2010/04/08: ERabett: Eli can retire Part VI - Going where the sun don't shine
- 2010/04/05: ERabett: Ethon Can Retire Part V: Roger Pielke Jr. and the EPA
- 2010/04/04: ERabett: CRU Inquiry Report submissions
- 2010/04/04: ERabett: The CRU is not pleased with Steve McIntyre
And on the Bottom Line:
- 2010/04/06: NatureN: Charities warm to climate -- Philanthropic support for climate-change issues tripled in 2008
Carbon Tariffs still have people on edge:
- 2010/04/08: EurActiv: France takes carbon tariff campaign to Washington
France will seek an agreement with the US on a carbon border tax and is convinced that other EU states will come on board if Washington supports it, according to French Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo. EurActiv France reports. - 2010/04/11: M&G(Za): Counting the cost of Medupi
- 2010/04/09: SolveClimate: World Bank Approves $3.75B for South Africa Coal Plant, Despite Environmental Criticism
- 2010/04/08: ClimateP: U.S. abstains on vote to proliferate coal in South Africa
- 2010/04/08: Grist: World Bank bombs with decision to fund South African coal plant
- 2010/04/09: Guardian(UK): World Bank's $3.75bn coal plant loan defies environment criticism
US, Britain, the Netherlands, Italy and Norway abstain from vote in protest
The World Bank approved a controversial $3.75bn loan to build one of the world's largest coal plants in South Africa yesterday, defying international protests and sharp criticism from the Obama administration that the project would fuel climate change. The proposed Medupi station, operated by South Africa's state-owned Eskom company, was fiercely opposed by an international coalition of grassroots, church and environmental activists who said it would hurt the environment and do little to help end poverty. As planned, tIt would put out 25 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year and would prevent South Africa making good on a promise to try to curb future emissions. - 2010/04/08: NYT: U.S. to Abstain on South African Coal Plant
- 2010/04/06: NYT: South Africa Energy Needs Collide With U.S. Policy
The Obama administration, caught in an awkward bind between its own ambitions on climate change and Africa's pressing energy needs, is facing the first test of its new guidelines discouraging coal-fired power projects in developing nations. This week, the World Bank will vote on a $3.75 billion loan to South Africa, most of it to help build the world's seventh-largest coal plant. The bank's own experts concede that the giant plant will "produce large quantities of carbon dioxide that will contribute to global climate change." But the bank's largest shareholder -- the United States -- has enacted guidelines to push for "no or low carbon" ways of meeting the energy needs of developing nations that rely on international financial institutions. - 2010/04/06: BizInsider: Corporate Coup: Shell And Goldman Sachs Execs Become Ministers In Nigeria's New Cabinet
Weathermen vs Climatologists redux:
- 2010/04/11: LO: Climate warming leaves 'em cold -- Local TV, college meteorologists not not ready to make that prediction
- 2010/04/09: NPR: TV Weathercasters Skeptical Of Climate Science
- 2010/04/07: UCSUSA: Setting the Record Straight on Colbert Report Debate
- 2010/04/06: TP:WR: TV Weather Guy Dan Satterfield Is Not Afraid To Talk About Climate Change
- 2010/04/05: NewYorker: Up in the Air
More climate scientist bashing:
- 2010/04/07: RealClimate: Climate scientist bashing
- 2010/04/07: DM:CCM: Attacks on Michael Mann: Here We Go Again
- 2010/04/06: DeSmogBlog: Fox News' Ed Barnes Tries to Re-Ignite Attacks on Climate Scientist Exonerated by Penn State
More on FOI abuse:
- 2010/04/08: Guardian(UK): Hacked climate science emails: were requests for information vexatious?
- 2010/04/07: SEasterbrook: Who is pulling the strings?
- 2010/04/08: AFTIC: Monbiot.com » Debate with Steve Easterbrook
- 2010/04/06: MTobis: Monbiot Starts to Get It
The CRU kafuffle continues:
- 2010/04/10: ClimateShifts: Climategate: The lion that squeaked [Clive Hamilton]
- 2010/04/09: ERabett: The sadists, the masochists and the scientists
- 2010/04/07: ERabett: Muir Russell and the Wayback Machine
- 2010/04/05: DeSmogBlog: The Smoking Guns and Blue Dress Moments of Climategate
- 2010/04/04: VoxEU: Expert fiddling by Stuart Macdonald
Recent allegations that scientists at the Climate Research Unit have hidden and manipulated data has caused a media storm. This column argues that the practices alleged in "climategate" may be more common in academia than we think. - 2010/04/11: CCP: NASA: Melt Season in the Arctic Getting Longer
- 2010/04/07: Guardian(UK): Arctic winter ice recovers slightly despite record year low, scientists say
- 2010/04/06: UCSUSA: Arctic Sea Ice is Shrinking, Despite Contrarian Claims
- 2010/04/07: HotTopic: Arctic sea ice maximum reached, melt starts
- 2010/04/07: MGS: Arctic Sea Ice Updates
- 2010/04/06: NatureTGB: Arctic ice maximum reached
- 2010/04/06: CC&G: Visualizing Arctic Sea Ice Extent Trends
- 2010/04/06: DeSmogBlog: Arctic Sea Ice: Brace Yourself for the Spin
- 2010/04/05: TreeHugger: Greenland Ice Cover Loss Shown with New Earth-Space Monitoring System (Video)
That Damoclean sword still hangs overhead:
- 2010/04/01: ERL: How methane leaks through permafrost
- 2010/04/08: CCP: Shakhova & Nicolsky: East Siberian Arctic Shelf in the Dmitry Laptev strait is emitting methane that has accumulated in seabed deposits for hundreds of thousands of years
As for the geopolitics of Arctic resources:
- 2010/04/09: CanWest: Canada maps Arctic, Russia pulls 'stunts,' says [Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence] Cannon
- 2010/04/08: Impolitical: We'll see your Russian paratrooper North Pole ploy...
- 2010/04/08: TStar: Canadian smart sub ready for Arctic sea
The cutting-edge smart sub built to help define Canada's Arctic borders is set for her first, and one of her most treacherous, missions: She has to find her way to work.
[...]
Canada has until 2013 to submit evidence in support of its Arctic territorial claim to the United Nations. Under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, countries can claim territory beyond the normal limit of 200 kilometres from shore for as far as the continental shelf extends unbroken. Called the extended continental shelf, it is estimated to be as large as 1.75 million square kilometres, or an area the size of three Prairie provinces, in Canada's Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, where Natural Resources Canada is mapping the seafloor in a hurry to meet the 2013 deadline. - 2010/04/06: TStar: Science can settle Arctic disputes
Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon says he's confident science can settle any international disputes over Canada's Arctic borders. - 2010/04/06: WFP: High Malnutrition Rates, A Silent Emergency In DRC [Congo]
- 2010/04/08: WFP: Guatemala Pushed To Hunger Tipping Point
Sustained drought, high food prices and a sharp drop in money from relatives working abroad have left many thousands of Guatemalan families struggling to feed themselves. - 2010/04/09: UN: Lack of funding for Guatemalan food crisis appeal sparks concern at UN
- 2010/04/09: UN: UNICEF issues warning about malnutrition crisis in Africa's Sahel region
- 2010/03/29: AlterNet: What's Life Like For the More Than 1 Billion in the World Who Are Hungry? One Woman Decided to Find Out for Herself
More on the problems of neoliberal food policies:
- 2010/04/08: EnergyBulletin: Haiti, U.S. ag policy reform, and Bill Clinton
- 2010/04/07: Grist: Devil's larder -- Haiti, U.S. ag policy reform, and Bill Clinton
The conflict between biofuel and food persists:
- 2010/04/06: SolveClimate: Study: Ethanol Mandate Creates 10% Chance of a Corn Price Spike -- Bad Weather + Biofuel Demand Could Rapidly Double Prices
So, are these land grabs Colonialism V2.0?
- 2010/04/10: AB: African land grab not a cure to Arab food concerns
As desertification dries up farmland across the Arab world, the region's governments cannot remedy concerns about food security solely by looking to Africa for agricultural production, a regional expert said. - 2010/04/08: BBC: Legal fight over hunger wonder-product
Should a revolutionary humanitarian food product be protected by commercial patent, when lifting restrictions might save millions of starving children? That is the moral conundrum at the heart of a bitter transatlantic legal dispute. On one side are the French inventors of Plumpy'nut, a peanut paste which in the last five years has transformed treatment of acute malnutrition in Africa. Nutriset, the Normandy-based company, says the patent is needed to safeguard production of Plumpy'nut in the developing world, and to stop the market being swamped by cheap US surpluses. And on the other hand are two American not-for-profit organisations that have filed a suit at a Washington DC federal court to have the patent overturned. They say they are being stopped by Nutriset from manufacturing similar - and cheaper - peanut-based food products, despite the proven demand from aid agencies. - 2010/04/09: Grist: A high-fructose corn syrup researcher answers his critics
- 2010/04/09: SciDaily: Reducing Yield Loss for Crops Under Stress
- 2010/04/08: BBC: Kenyan GM maize shipment blocked
A shipment of genetically modified (GM) maize has been blocked at the Kenyan port of Mombasa after protests by environmentalists. The cargo came from South Africa - whose maize exports mainly go to Kenya - and contained maize varieties developed by US multinational Monsanto. Protestors claimed that safety checks had not been carried out on the maize and that it could contaminate the soil. GM imports have been banned in several African countries. The 40,000-tonne shipment contained four varieties of maize, three of which were made by Monsanto. - 2010/04/06: EnergyBulletin: Solar greenhouses, Chinese-style
- 2010/04/06: CSM: How science could spark a second Green Revolution
To fight poverty and overpopulation, crops need coaxing. Advances in deep-root food plants may trigger a new Green Revolution. - 2010/04/06: USDA:ARS: ARS Scientists Develop Self-pollinating Almond Trees
- 2010/04/06: BBC: Zambia's farming revolution poster boy
- 2010/04/05: MongaBay: Seed dispersal in the face of climate change, an interview with Arndt Hampe
- 2010/04/05: AlterNet: What You're Eating Could Make or Break Our Planet -- 7 Principles of a Climate-Friendly Diet
Tropical Storm Robyn faded away and all we had were Atlantic forecasts:
- 2010/04/07: CBC: Active hurricane season forecast
- 2010/04/07: CNN: Atlantic may see above-average hurricane season
University forecasters predict the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season will be above average, with 15 named storms and eight of those becoming hurricanes. The Colorado State University report was released Wednesday, nearly two months before the beginning of the Atlantic hurricane season on June 1. In the report, forecasters William Gray and Phil Klotzbach said that El Niño conditions will dissipate by summer and that unusually warm tropical Atlantic sea surface temperatures will persist, leading to favorable conditions for hurricanes to develop and intensify. - 2010/04/05: Wunderground: Global warming and the frequency of intense Atlantic hurricanes: model results
- 2010/04/05: Eureka: Tropical Storm Robyn nested away from land
As for GHGs:
- 2010/04/06: CBC: Calgary among world's highest CO2 emitters
Calgary produces more carbon dioxide per person in an urban setting than smog-filled Mexico City or New York City, according to a report by the United Nations. Going by new international measuring standards, Calgary produces 17.7 tonnes of carbon dioxide per capita, ranking it fifth-highest in a comparison of 50 global cities. Toronto and Vancouver, the only other Canadian cities surveyed, had emissions of 9.5 tonnes and 4.9 tonnes, respectively. That brings them near the middle of the pack, along with Tokyo and Mexico City. - 2010/04/06: TCoE: Embedded emissions -- What We Fail to Get About Greenhouse Gases
- 2010/04/05: Eureka: Greenhouse gas emissions study under way by AgriLife Research
Texas AgriLife Research scientists in Amarillo are embarking on a new study amid recent concerns over greenhouse gas emissions from crop fertilization, tillage and feed yard operations. - 2010/04/02: Oregonian: Most Oregon greenhouse gas not what you might think
An inventory conducted by Metro concludes that driving our cars and heating our homes aren't the region's biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions. It's how we make, move and toss away all the stuff we consume. According to the inventory, manufacturing products and food, moving freight and managing waste produce an estimated 14.9 million metric tons of greenhouse gases annually, or 48 percent of the emissions produced in the tri-county Portland area. Natural gas and fossil fuels account for 27 percent, and emissions from transit, cars and light trucks accounts make up 25 percent of the total. "Consumption matters as much as energy and transportation," the report concludes. - 2010/04/04: Reuters: Arctic thaw frees overlooked greenhouse gas: study
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. The report [by Bo Elberling et al.] in the journal Nature Geoscience indicated that emissions of the gas surged under certain conditions from melting permafrost that underlies about 25 percent of land in the Northern Hemisphere. Emissions of the gas measured from thawing wetlands in Zackenberg in eastern Greenland leapt 20 times to levels found in tropical forests, which are among the main natural sources of the heat-trapping gas. - 2010/04/10: TreeHugger: Sixteen Percent of the World's Mangrove Forests Threatened with Extinction [C cycle]
- 2010/04/06: PhysOrg: In hot water: lakes speed up climate change
Lakes that warm up due to climate change give off large amounts of CO2, says Dutch PhD researcher Sarian Kosten in Global Biochemical Cycles. And those emissions speed up climate change in their turn. - 2010/04/08: NOAANews: U.S. Averaged Warmer-than-Normal, Drier-than-Normal in March
- 2010/04/09: TreeHugger: No, the Record-Setting April Heatwave April Doesn't Prove Global Warming. But . . .
- 2010/04/07: Guardian(UK): Britain blooming earlier thanks to rising temperatures, study says
Nature readings from 1753 until present day -- including information from Springwatch viewers -- show that change has been greatest in past 25 years - 2010/04/07: TerraDaily: US northeast sees record heat
- 2010/04/07: ClimateP: Weather Channel asks, "July in April?" -- Record smashing heat-wave hits nation
- 2010/04/06: Eureka: New study shows rising water temperatures in US streams and rivers
- 2010/04/05: RA: Urban Heat Island Effect - Probably Negligible
Aerosols are making their presence felt:
- 2010/04/06: NewScientist: Monsoons send Asian pollution round the world
- 2010/04/05: PhysOrg: Scientists Characterize Poorly Understood, Climate-Influencing Atmospheric Particles
While in the paleoclimate:
- 2010/04/11: HotTopic: Wake of the flood
- 2010/04/10: CBC:Q&Q: [mp3] Wat was Up With Angkor?
- 2010/04/08: BCLSB: Oh Joy! More On The Younger Dryas
- 2010/04/05: SciNews: Alaskan peatlands expanded rapidly as ice age waned -- Growth fueled by warm summers, cold winters
- 2010/04/06: AFTIC: Great resource on various MWP proxy reconstructions
- 2010/04/06: Eureka: Early Earth absorbed more sunlight -- no extreme greenhouse needed to keep water wet [paleo]
While on the ENSO front:
- 2010/04/08: NOAA:NCEP: El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Diagnostic Discussion
Synopsis: El Niño is expected to continue through the Northern Hemisphere spring 2010 and transition to ENSO-neutral conditions by Northern Hemisphere summer 2010 - 2010/04/05: QuarkSoup: Another Grand Solar Minimum Would Hardly Matter
- 2010/04/07: GreenGrok: Update: Reading Solar Tea Leaves
Milankovitch Cycles:
- 2010/04/06: TerraDaily: Earth's orbit tied with climate changes
- 2010/04/06: Eureka: UCSB geologist discovers pattern in Earth's long-term climate record [Milank]
The cliff, aka tipping points, aka planetary boundaries, put in an appearance:
- 2010/04/05: MTobis: Boundaries
Meanwhile in near earth orbit:
- 2010/04/09: EurActiv: European [Cryosat2] satellite on mission to study melting ice caps
- 2010/04/09: PhysOrg: Eurockot to launch 2 ESA Earth observation missions
- 2010/04/08: Guardian(UK): CryoSat-2 satellite launches on mission to monitor climate change in Arctic
- 2010/04/08: DWWSJ: GOES 15 is Working! First Image in High Resolution!
- 2010/04/08: CCP: NASA's robotic plane, the Global Hawk, completes first science flight -- will collect atmospheric data
- 2010/04/08: CCP: Atlantic cloud-field coverage reaches 97%
- 2010/04/08: PhysOrg: GOES-15 Opens Its 'Eyes' and Sees First Image of Earth
- 2010/04/08: NatureTGB: Second time lucky for CryoSat launch
- 2010/04/08: ESA: Successful launch for ESA's CryoSat-2 ice satellite
- 2010/04/08: BBC: Launch success for 'ice explorer'
Europe's Cryosat-2 spacecraft has launched from Baikonur in Kazakhstan on a mission to map the Earth's ice cover. - 2010/04/07: NOAANews: GOES-15 Weather Satellite Captures Its First Image of Earth
- 2010/04/07: ESA: CryoSat-2 ready for launch
- 2010/04/07: CBC: [CryoSat2] Satellite to track climate change impact on ice
More GW impacts are being seen:
- 2010/04/07: NatureTGB: Scientists shear shrinking Soay sheep story
- 2010/04/07: TreeHugger: Warmer Temps Mean UK Flowers Emerging Earlier Than At Any Time in Past 250 Years
- 2010/04/05: Guardian(UK): The great spring gamble: nature's winners and losers
Spring is very late this year and the daffs are only just in bloom. But the long, cold winter hasn't necessarily been bad news for all our flora and fauna - 2010/04/05: BizStd: Climate change already killing 150,000 a year in low-income economies: WHO
Climate change has begun to affect human health, leading to a rise in cases related to stomach ailments and vector-borne diseases like malaria and dengue. This has been indicated in a report in the recent bulletin of the World Health Organisation (WHO). The apex global health body reckons that about 150,000 deaths occur annually in low-income countries due to the adverse effects of climate change, chiefly malnutrition due to climate change-driven crop failures, stomach diseases and malaria. The report says that the rise in atmospheric temperature and sea levels, coupled with extreme weather events, notably higher frequency of floods, cause water logging and water contamination, leading to higher incidence of diarrhoeal ailments. The geographical spread of vector-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue is also projected to increase. Besides, the dynamics of communicable diseases may undergo a change, WHO has cautioned. The poorer countries will be affected relatively more because of their deficient health systems and paucity of resources. - 2010/04/05: Guardian(UK): Severe winter delays bluebell season -- National Trust predicts three-week wait for nature's blue carpets
And then there are the world's forests:
- 2010/04/08: PlanetArk: Peru Tribes File IFC Complaint Over Maple Pollution
- 2010/04/07: Reuters: Forestry to have big role in U.S. carbon plan
Domestic deals to convert bare lands into forests and keep tree stands healthy could supply 60 percent of available offsets in any U.S. cap-and-trade plan on greenhouse gas emissions, a Barclays Capital analyst said. - 2010/04/07: TerraDaily: Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono adds illegal loggers to 'mafia' list
- 2010/04/06: EnergyBulletin: Horseradish trees and hummingbirds
- 2010/04/06: TerraDaily: Ecologists denounce Stockholm's environmental track record [altered forestry policies]
- 2010/04/07: Eureka: Eastern US forests resume decline -- New research finds 4.1 percent loss over 3 decades
- 2010/04/07: CSM: Giant lizard discovery underscores threats to Philippine forests
- 2010/04/06: PhysOrg: 4,000-year study supports use of prescribed burns in Southern Appalachians
A new study reconstructing thousands of years of fire history in the southern Appalachians supports the use of prescribed fire, or controlled burns, as a tool to reduce the risk of wildfires, restore and maintain forest health and protect rare ecological communities in the region's forests. - 2010/04/06: TerraDaily: Model Predicts Shifts In Carbon Absorption By Forest Canopies
- 2010/04/05: CBC: 6 miners shot dead in Peru protests
Clashes between police and protesting miners have left six miners dead as Peru's government tries to put restrictions on unregulated gold mining that it says is ravaging the Amazon rain forest. - 2010/04/05: EarthTimes: Six-million-dollar fine for destroying Amazon rainforest
Rio de Janeiro - A farmer in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso was fined 6.15 million dollars for destroying 2,234 hectares of the Amazon rainforest, Brazilian authorities said Monday. Sources at the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Human Resources (IBAMA) told the news website G1 that the deforestation happened near the town of Nova Ubirata, some 500 kilometres from Mato Grosso capital Cuiaba, and in an area close to the indigenous and nature reserve of the Xingu National Park. - 2010/04/05: OSU: Forest epidemic is unprecedented phenomenon, still getting worse
The Swiss needle cast epidemic in Douglas-fir forests of the coastal Pacific Northwest is continuing to intensify, appears to be unprecedented over at least the past 100 years, and is probably linked to the extensive planting of Douglas-fir along the coast and a warmer climate, new research concludes. - 2010/04/05: CSM: One man's volunteer effort to plant trees in San Francisco
Yes we have no wacky weather, except:
- 2010/04/10: CBC: Wind storm blamed in Sask. woman's death
- 2010/04/09: CBC: Wind blows down elderly man in Regina
As for heatwaves and wild fires:
- 2010/04/08: CCP: Officials in southern New England have issued fire danger warnings for some of the areas put underwater by record flooding just days ago
Acidification is changing the oceans:
- 2010/04/07: SkeptiSci: Ocean acidification: Global warming's evil twin
- 2010/04/04: EconView: "EPA May use Clean Water Act to Regulate Carbon Dioxide"
Glaciers are melting:
- 2010/04/09: PhysOrg: Almost all Austrian glaciers shrank in 2009: report
- 2010/04/09: TreeHugger: Bye Bye Glaciers: 2 More Gone From Glacier National Park
- 2010/04/08: DeSmogBlog: Glaciers Disappear in Namesake Park
- 2010/04/08: KSJT: AP etc: In Glacier Nat'l Park, ice going away; In space, new CryoSat will watch the poles and what's left
- 2010/04/07: USAToday: Two more glaciers gone from Glacier National Park
- 2010/04/07: PhysOrg: 2 more glaciers gone from Glacier National Park
- 2010/03/28: IndiaTimes: Himalayan glaciers shrank 16% in 50 yrs: ISRO
Himalayan glaciers retreated by 16% in the last nearly five decades due to climate change, investigations by India's scientists in selected basins in four states has revealed. The retreat of Himalayan glaciers and loss in a real extent were monitored in selected basins in J&K, Himachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal and Sikkim, under a programme on space-based global climate change observation by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). - 2010/04/06: NatureCC: A sea of uncertainty [Jason A. Lowe & Jonathan M. Gregory] -- How well can we predict future sea level rise?
- 2010/04/06: NatureCC: A new view on sea level rise [Rahmstorf] -- Has the IPCC underestimated the risk of sea level rise?
- 2010/04/10: CCP: Stefan Rahmstorf: A new view on sea level rise
- 2010/04/09: ABC(Au): Councils act on rising sea levels
- 2010/04/09: NatureCF: Sea level rise: What's in store?
- 2010/04/06: RealClimate: Science Story: the Making of a Sea Level Study
As for hydrological cycle disruptions [floods & droughts]:
- 2010/04/08: MSNBC: Worst drought on record saps life in the Caribbean
- 2010/04/09: PRChovanec: Devastating Drought in Shangri-La
- 2010/04/10: BBC: Brazil landslide death toll rises
- 2010/04/09: CBC: Rio landslides death toll tops 190
- 2010/04/09: USAToday: On Plains, concern about another Dust Bowl
- 2010/04/09: Wunderground: World's deadliest weather disaster of 2010: Rio de Janeiro floods kill at least 183
- 2010/04/07: Guardian(UK): Drought turns southern China into arid plain
- 2010/04/08: SolveClimate: Drought Turns Southern China into Arid Plain -- Hydropower Production Down, Farmers and Wildlife in Crisis
- 2010/04/08: EarthTimes: Up to 200 people buried by new mudslide in Brazil
- 2010/04/08: BBC: Fresh Rio mudslide 'buries 200'
Some 200 people are feared to have been buried by a landslide in Rio de Janeiro, following the heaviest rains in decades, Brazilian officials say. - 2010/04/08: CBC: Latest Rio landslide buries 200
- 2010/04/07: PhysOrg: Hydrologist calls much-needed attention to California's dwindling groundwater supply
- 2010/04/07: CSM: Rio floods: Why did more than 100 people die?
- 2010/04/07: TP:WR: Global Boiling Is Washing Away The Northeast With Wild Wet Weather
- 2010/04/07: BBC: Rio begins recovery after floods
Officials are trying to restore order in the Rio de Janiero area of Brazil after more than 100 people were killed in landslides and floods. - 2010/04/07: CBC: Rio mudslides kill at least 95
- 2010/04/07: Guardian(UK): Floods and landslides kill 95 in Rio slums after city's worst rainstorms -- 9 inches of rain in 24 hours
- 2010/04/06: TreeHugger: You're Not Imagining It: Northeast US Extreme Precipitation Has Been Increasing
- 2010/04/06: EarthTimes: Rain leaves at least 31 dead in Brazil; 'absolute chaos' in Rio
- 2010/04/05: Google:AP: Study: Northeast seeing more, fiercer rainstorms
The Northeast is seeing more frequent "extreme precipitation events" in line with global warming predictions, a study shows, including storms like the recent fierce rains whose floodwaters swallowed neighborhoods and businesses across New England. The study does not link last week's devastating floods to its research but examined 60 years' worth of National Weather Service rainfall records in nine Northeastern states and found that storms that produce an inch or more of rain in a day -- a threshold the recent storm far surpassed -- are coming more frequently. - 2010/04/06: BBC: At least 50 people have been killed after torrential rain caused landslides and flooding in the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro, officials have said
- 2010/04/04: UN: Shrinking Aral Sea underscores need for urgent action on environment - Ban
- 2010/04/04: PhysOrg: Australian floods help ease the 'Big Dry'
- 2010/04/05: EarthTimes: Low Mekong levels provide wake-up call for region
Consider transportation & GHG production:
- 2010/04/05: ClimateP: The war against carbon starts now -- Part 1: The Carbon War Room starts to bust barriers in shipping
While in the endless quest for zero energy, sustainable buildings and practical codes:
- 2010/04/09: CSM: The spacemen cometh: How spray-in insulation creates a leak-free building
- 2010/04/08: TreeHugger: Quote of the Day: Frank Gehry on Green Building
- 2010/04/07: CSM: Green building costs not always included in home appraisal
- 2010/04/06: TreeHugger: Passivhaus: Too Rigid and Inflexible for America?
And on the carbon sequestration front:
- 2010/04/09: BBerg: Carbon Capture Projects to Benefit From New U.K. Electric Tax
- 2010/04/07: NYT:GW: Frightened, Furious Neighbors Undermine German [Vattenfall] CO2-Trapping Power Project
- 2010/04/08: SciDaily: Ridge in Norway Could Become CO2 Storage Laboratory Site
The Svelvik Ridge in southern Norway could quite literally become a green laboratory later this year: a unique tool for scientists who are developing the technology needed for secure underground storage of captured CO2. - 2010/04/05: MatterNet: Canadian Cement Plant Becomes First to Capture CO2 in Algae
Large scale geo-engineering keeps popping up:
- 2010/03/31: Economist: Geoengineering -- We all want to change the world [Asilomar]
Dealing with climate change might mean tinkering with the oceans and the atmosphere. Those who could do so would like the regulations to be clear - 2010/04/08: Grist: What does coal mining have to do with geoengineering?
- 2010/04/05: PRI: Cooling the Planet with Geoengineering
- 2010/04/07: DM:CCM: On Geoengineering, the Public is Clueless...and Susceptible to Misinformation and Demagoguery
- 2010/04/06: CCurrents: Shhh!!! What If It Was Reported That They Are Spraying Aluminum?
- 2010/04/06: TCoE: Birth control vs. geohacking
- 2010/04/06: Grist: Can a book on geoengineering change the climate conversation?
Meanwhile in the journals:
- 2010/04/06: NERC:NORA: COACH project purity requirements of the carbon dioxide stream for geological storage by C.J. Vincent
- 2010/04/09: AGWObserver: Climate science journals
- 2010/04/08: AGWObserver: Papers on atmospheric methane concentration
- 2010/04/09: ACP: Cloud condensation nuclei in polluted air and biomass burning smoke near the mega-city Guangzhou, China -- Part 1: Size-resolved measurements and implications for the modeling of aerosol particle hygroscopicity and CCN activity by D. Rose et al.
- 2010/04/09: ACP: Effect of hygroscopic seeding on warm rain clouds -- numerical study using a hybrid cloud microphysical model by N. Kuba & M. Murakami
- 2010/04/09: ACPD: Forecasts and assimilation experiments of the Antarctic Ozone Hole 2008 by J. Flemming et al.
- 2010/04/09: ACPD: Response of tropical stratospheric O3, NO2 and NO3 to the equatorial Quasi-Biennial Oscillation and to temperature as seen from GOMOS/ENVISAT by A. Hauchecorne et al.
- 2010/04/08: ACPD: What can be learned about carbon cycle climate feedbacks from CO2 airborne fraction? by M. Gloor et al.
- 2010/04/08: ACPD: Aerosol measurements at the Gual Pahari EUCAARI station: preliminary results from first year in-situ measurements by A.-P. Hyvärinen et al.
- 2010/04/07: TC: An efficient regional energy-moisture balance model for simulation of the Greenland Ice Sheet response to climate change by A. Robinson et al.
- 2010/04/08: TCD: Manufactured analytical solutions for isothermal full-Stokes ice sheet models by A. Sargent & J. L. Fastook
- 2010/04/06: PLoS Biology: The MAHB, the Culture Gap, and Some Really Inconvenient Truths by Paul R. Ehrlich
- 2010/04/08: CP: A 70-yr record of oxygen-18 variability in an ice core from the Tanggula Mountains, central Tibetan Plateau by D. R. Joswiak et al.
- 2010/04/07: CP: Contribution of oceanic and vegetation feedbacks to Holocene climate change in monsoonal Asia by A. Dallmeyer et al.
- 2010/04/07: CPD: Statistical issues about solar-climate relations by P. Yiou et al.
- 2010/04/07: CPD: Influence of solar variability, CO2 and orbital forcing during the last millennium in the IPSLCM4 model by J. Servonnat et al.
- 2010/04/07: CPD: Last-glacial to postglacial climate formation in the continental interior inferred from multi-proxy records of Lake Hovsgol, Mongolia by K. Minoura et al.
- 2010/04/06: ACP: The net climate impact of coal-fired power plant emissions by D. Shindell & G. Faluvegi
- 2010/04/06: ACP: Total aerosol effect: radiative forcing or radiative flux perturbation? by U. Lohmann et al.
- 2010/04/07: ACPD: The role of tropical deep convective clouds on temperature, water vapor, and dehydration in the tropical tropopause layer (TTL) by J. H. Chae et al.
- 2010/04/07: ACPD: A comprehensive characterisation of Asian dust storm particles: chemical composition, reactivity to SO2, and hygroscopic property by Q. Ma et al.
- 2010/04/07: ACPD: Radiative forcing associated with a springtime case of Bodélé and Sudan dust transport over West Africa by C. Lemaître et al.
- 2010/04/06: ACPD: Sulfur dioxide emissions in China and sulfur trends in East Asia since 2000 by Z. Lu et al.
- 2010/03/30: TrendsEE: (ab$) Paleo-perspectives on ocean acidification by Carles Pelejero et al.
- 2009/10/16: ACS: (ab$) CoS Supersedes Pt as Efficient Electrocatalyst for Triiodide Reduction in Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells by Mingkui Wang et al.
- 2010/04/04: Nature:Chem: (ab$) An organic redox electrolyte to rival triiodide/iodide in dye-sensitized solar cells by Mingkui Wang et al.
And other significant documents:
- 2010/03/30: FAS:CRS: [544k pdf] Deforestation and Climate Change
- 2010/03/30: FAS:CRS: [633k pdf] Changes in the Arctic: Background and Issues for Congress
- 2010/04/05: CalifState: [links to many sections] 2009 California Water Plan
More DIY science:
- 2010/04/08: ERabett: Greenhouse in a Java jar
- 2010/04/06: RA: Urban Heat Island Effect - A Model
Regarding John Houghton:
- 2010/04/11: Scotsman: Climate expert [John Houghton] vows to fight the 'naysayers'
One of Britain's most distinguished climate scientists is taking legal action to silence an internet campaign against him. Sir John Houghton has accused sceptics of waging a dirty tricks campaign to spread uncertainty about the state of global warming research. He hopes to use a talk at the Edinburgh International Science Festival this week to fight back against climate change "naysayers". - The Sophie prize 2010 is awarded to Dr. James E. Hansen, American climate scientist
- 2010/04/07: Reuters: Climate scientist Hansen wins $100,000 prize
U.S. climate scientist James Hansen won a $100,000 environmental prize Wednesday for decades of work trying to alert politicians to what he called an unsolved emergency of global warming. - 2010/04/07: EarthTimes: US climate researcher James Hansen wins Norwegian prize
Oslo - US climate researcher James E Hansen was Wednesday named winner of the annual Sophie Prize for helping improve "understanding of human-induced climate change" and its potential threat to the planet. Hansen, 69, was lauded by the jury for combining "research with political activism based on personal conviction" despite criticism and even censorship of his findings during the administration of former US president George W Bush. He has also called for phasing out coal mining and letting fossil fuel reserves remain untapped. - 2010/04/07: WpgSun: U.S. climate scientist Hansen wins $100G [Sophie] prize
More Hansen:
- 2010/04/06: QuarkSoup: Hansen on Pricing Carbon
- 2010/04/07: ClimateP: Hansen calls climate change "predominant moral issue of the 21st century," slams Congress, Cantwell-Collins -- NASA Scientist wins major environmental prize
- 2010/04/08: CCP: James Hansen: Obama's Second Chance on the Predominant Moral Issue of This Century
- 2010/04/08: TreeHugger: Dr Hansen, Please Keep Speaking Out On Climate Policy - Just Talking Science Isn't Enough
- 2010/04/05: CSW: Hansen: Obama must defend climate scientists and "facing the difficult truth of climate science"
- 2010/04/05: HuffPo: Obama's Second Chance on the Predominant Moral Issue of This Century by Dr. James Hansen
- 2010/04/05: EnergyBulletin: Obama's second chance on the predominant moral issue of this century by Dr. James Hansen
Late Lovelock coverage:
- 1998/05/08: Science: A Book For All Seasons by James Lovelock
- 2010/04/06: SkeptiSci: Are we too stupid?
Regarding Mclean:
- 2010/04/06: ERabett: McLean, de Freitas and Carter throw Soon and Baliunas under the bus
- 2010/04/05: SkeptiSci: McLean, de Freitas and Carter rebutted... by McLean, de Freitas and Carter
While at the UN:
- 2010/04/05: IndiaToday: India goes all out for UN climate change post
- 2010/04/02: TerraDaily: Plan calls for permanent U.N. climate host
And on the carbon trading front:
- 2010/04/08: Guardian(UK): Tokyo kicks off carbon trading scheme
- 2010/04/08: JapanTimes: Tokyo's CO2 cap-and-trade may set national standard
The idea of a carbon tax is still bouncing around:
- 2010/04/08: TEC: How not to implement a carbon tax
This isn't quite a Tobin tax, but could serve similar purposes:
- 2010/04/07: Euractiv: EU: Bank levy could raise up to 50 billion a year
- 2010/04/07: EUO: EU suggests 50 billion euro bank tax idea
The European Commission has published a study which suggests a new tax on banks could generate as much as 50 billion euros a year for EU governments, whose public finances have been left in tatters following the recent financial crisis. The EU tax on bank leverage and risk-taking is just one of several "innovative financing options" in the commission document, published on Tuesday (6 April), with the region's finance ministers set to mull over the list at an informal meeting in Madrid this month. As well as helping governments improve their balance sheets, the fresh revenue could be used to fund future bank bail-outs, climate change and development goals, say the report's authors, with Germany and France broadly in support of the plans. - 2010/04/05: CanWest: Global bank tax could be awkward at G20 -- Flaherty opts for lighter touch
Momentum is building among some of the world's richest countries for a global tax on banks, a trend that could give the Conservatives headaches as Canada prepares to host the G20 summit this June. Last week, Germany added its name to the list of countries backing an international levy on financial institutions. The Germans are proposing that banks be required to pay $1.6 billion every year into an insurance fund that could be used to bail out the financial system in the event of another crisis. - 2010/04/10: Reuters: U.S., Denmark cut climate aid after summit: Bolivia
Bolivia accused the United States and Denmark on Saturday of cutting aid to the South American country as punishment for its fierce opposition to the Copenhagen Accord for fighting global warming. - 2010/04/07: AutoBG: Japanese government offers hundreds of millions in aid to Bolivia to secure lithium supply
As for GW, Energy & Security:
- 2010/04/10: TEC: Linking Energy Security and Climate Change
- 2010/04/04: Guardian(UK): Time for Falklands co-operation -- Both the UK and Argentina could benefit from diplomatic negotiations over the exploitation of natural Falklands resources
What are the activists up to?
- 2010/04/06: Guardian(UK): Greenpeace could learn a simple lesson on manners from George Washington
- 2010/04/05: BCLSB: GreenPeace Emulates Marc Morano
Polls! We have polls!
- 2010/04/09: Grist: Offshore drilling most popular among Republicans, elderly, white, and wealthy
- 2010/04/07: TEC: New Poll of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans Finds Overwhelming Support For Clean Energy Climate Legislation
- 2010/04/07: SacBee: California greenhouse gas law still has majority support, Field Poll finds
- 2010/04/07: PlanetArk: Public Supports Energy Over Environment: Poll
For the first time in 10 years Americans are more likely to say the United States should give more priority to developing oil, natural gas and coal than to protecting the environment, according to a poll on Tuesday. The poll was conducted a few weeks before President Barack Obama announced he would open offshore oil drilling in some parts the U.S. East Coast, Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico. - 2010/04/06: Grist: Energy trumps the environment, poll finds
- 2010/04/07: NRDC:SwitchBoard: Poll finds overwhelming US support for improved public transportation - slideshow summary
- 2010/04/06: TreeHugger: More Americans Now Support Expanding Fossil Fuel Production Than Protecting Environment: Gallup Poll
- 2010/04/06: TreeHugger: National Survey Shows Americans Broadly Support Investments in Public Transit, Walking, and Biking
- 2010/04/05: AutoBG: Survey: Most Americans want better public transportation options
Regarding Water Politics and Business:
- 2010/04/09: SolveClimate: Water Quality, Scarcity Increasingly Becoming Business Risks -- Carbon Disclosure Project Moves to Include Water in Business Reporting Standards
- 2010/04/07: TerraDaily: Mekong River Commission addresses drought
Officials from Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos -- member countries of the Mekong River Commission -- called for greater cooperation from China in managing the Mekong River. The four countries signed a declaration Monday pledging to intensify cooperation to better manage the Mekong and reduce risks from floods and drought. But they expressed concern over eight dams China has planned along the river in southwestern Yunnan province, the Hindu newspaper reports. - 2010/04/07: SolveClimate: IBM Launches Solar-Powered Desalination in Saudi Arabia -- Project Aims to Cut Environmental Impact of Notoriously Energy-Intensive Process
- 2010/04/05: UCLA: Hold the salt: UCLA engineers develop revolutionary new desalination membrane -- Process uses atmospheric pressure plasma to create filtering 'brush layer'
- 2010/04/05: TCoE: Doc alert: California water plan
- 2010/04/05: SolveClimate: China: Not the Rogue Dam Builder We Feared It would Be?
- 2010/04/05: Reuters: U.N.'s Ban urges Central Asia talks on shrinking Aral Sea
- 2010/04/05: TEC: Water roundup
- 2010/04/05: BBC: China rejects Mekong dam claims
China has rejected claims that its dams on the Mekong River are to blame for record low water levels in downstream nations. Speaking at a summit in Thailand, China's vice foreign minister said drought and not hydropower was to blame for the reduced river flow. More than 60m people from Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam depend on the Mekong River for their livelihoods. Parts of the river are at their lowest levels in 50 years. Further downstream drought, salt deposits and reduced soil nutrients are threatening food production in the rice bowls of Cambodia and Vietnam. - 2010/04/09: Grist: Offshore drilling most popular among Republicans, elderly, white, and wealthy
- 2010/04/09: Grist: What the John Paul Stevens retirement means for energy progress
- 2010/04/09: Grist: Bizarre ag policy, ethanol cage match, and more
- 2010/04/09: DeSmogBlog: Bachmann and Palin Hold Climate Denier Summit In Minnesota
- 2010/04/07: Grist: Two Can Play At This Game -- A lesson from California's bad ballot measure
- 2010/04/07: NRDC:SwitchBoard: Corn ethanol tax credit: most expensive way to create jobs ever?
- 2010/04/08: TreeHugger: St. Louis Votes In New Tax to Pay for Better Transit, Ignores Tea Party
- 2010/04/07: TEC: New Poll of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans Finds Overwhelming Support For Clean Energy Climate Legislation
- 2010/04/08: OilChange: Offshore drilling: A pointless political gesture
- 2010/04/07: NYT: Texas Oil Firms Oppose California Climate Law
Several Texas oil companies are bankrolling a petition drive to suspend California's path-breaking climate change law in a move that may prove a bellwether for national efforts to address global warming. The Valero Energy Corporation, a San Antonio-based company that is one of the nation's largest independent oil refiners and retailers, has contributed $500,000 to a ballot initiative that would halt the carrying out of the California climate law known as Assembly Bill 32, which Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, signed in 2006. At least one other Texas oil company, Tesoro, with operations in California and a prominent antitax group are helping to finance the petition drive to place the initiative on the November general election ballot. The California law, the first of its kind in the nation, is intended to reduce emissions of climate-altering gases by 15 percent below current levels by 2020 through a variety of means, including a regional cap-and-trade system. The bill also calls for greater efficiencies in buildings and transportation, more use of renewable sources of energy and greater reliance on clean-burning fuels. These are all major elements of climate change proposals now being discussed in Washington. The fine points of the California plan, including the critical questions of how emissions permits would be allocated and how any revenues would be distributed, are still being worked out. The ballot initiative would prevent the law's taking effect until unemployment in California falls to 5.5 percent or lower for four consecutive quarters. The state's current unemployment rate is 12.5 percent. The average statewide unemployment rate in 2006 was 4.9 percent. - 2010/04/07: SacBee: California greenhouse gas law still has majority support, Field Poll finds
- 2010/04/07: PlanetArk: Public Supports Energy Over Environment: Poll
- 2010/04/09: TP: Analysis: Strong Carbon Cap Would Cut Iran's Petrodollars By Over $100 Million A Day
- 2010/04/02: 1Sky: "The Storm" visits climate champ in Michigan
- 2010/04/06: BaltimoreSun: Measure hastens adoption of solar -- O'Malley priority that would target Md. utilities draws Republican criticism over costs
- 2010/04/06: NYT:CW: W.Va. Ponders Its Mining Future Amid Hills and Valleys of Climate Debate
- 2010/04/06: TP: ExxonMobil paid no federal income tax in 2009
- 2010/04/05: TP: Governor Mitch Daniels (R-In): Climate Science Is 'Dubious,' 'Extreme Measures' Advocated By 'Zealots' Won't Address Global Warming
- 2010/04/06: TP:WR: Exxon Paid Zero U.S. Income Tax In 2009, While Big Oil Defends Billions In Senseless Tax Subsidies
- 2010/04/05: TP:WR: Cuccinelli's Climate Denier Lawsuits Could Junk Auto Industry's Recovery
- 2010/04/05: DeSmogBlog: Conservative group's ads ask Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh audience: What would Reagan do about climate change?
- 2010/04/05: EnergyBulletin: Drill baby drill - a second reality check
- 2010/04/05: ClimateP: What would Reagan do about climate change?
- 2010/04/05: TEC: Cleantech thriving in California under AB 32, data shows
- 2010/04/04: SacBee: Calif. climate law under assault in poor economy
Another pipeline has been proposed in Alaska:
- 2010/04/07: CBC: Denali pipeline backers outline proposal -- Alaska project would rival Calgary-based TransCanada's
Backers of a pipeline proposed for Alaska -- and which would rival one being advanced by Calgary-based TransCanada -- outlined details of the massive project Wednesday. ConocoPhillips and BP PLC said in a filing with the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission their Denali pipeline would cost $35 billion US. - 2010/04/05: Grist: Obama's Tootsie Roll Energy Policy -- Filling our short-term fossil-fuel needs
- 2010/04/05: HuffPo: Obama's Second Chance on the Predominant Moral Issue of This Century by Dr. James Hansen
- 2010/04/05: EnergyBulletin: Obama's second chance on the predominant moral issue of this century by Dr. James Hansen
- 2010/04/05: Grist: Time for Obama to embrace another GOP energy plan
[...]
a GOP plan to put the hundreds of billions in potential federal revenues from new oil and gas royalties into a fund to accelerate clean technology innovation - 2010/04/05: BCLSB: Explaining The Inexplicable
The actions of the Obama administration are being watched closely:
- 2010/04/10: OilDrum: Energy Secretary Chu provides an optimistic view of our energy future at EIA conference
- 2010/04/09: PlanetArk: Big Coal Angry Over EPA Water Standard Rule Change
- 2010/04/08: PlanetArk: EPA To Issue Rules On Smokestack Greenhouse Gases Soon
- 2010/04/08: Grist: Meet America's most extreme energy geeks [ARPA-E]
- 2010/04/06: HillHeat: Larry Summers: Nuclear War And Climate Change Are The 'Only Two Ways Mankind Can Affect The Basic Terms Of Life On Earth'
- 2010/04/06: GreenGrok: Check-up on Obama's Energy Plan: Inflating the Tires, Not the Numbers
- 2010/04/06: NRDC:SwitchBoard: Larry Summers Serves Up Compelling Economic Case for Comprehensive Energy and Climate Legislation
- 2010/04/06: ClimateP: Larry Summers and Carol Browner say Obama won't budge on placing a price on global warming pollution
- 2010/04/06: NRDC:SwitchBoard: Ray LaHood, Secretary of Transportation, Makes the Case for Better Transportation Options Again
- 2010/04/06: AutoBG: Giving electric cars a level playing field under new CAFE regulations
- 2010/04/05: ProgressiveFix: Why the New CAFE Standards Are Good -- But Hardly the Best Climate Policy
- 2010/04/04: CSW: U.S. National Climate Change Assessment strategic planning kicks off in Chicago meeting
- 2010/04/05: PeakEnergy: U.S. Issues Limits on Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Cars
- 2010/04/05: AutoBG: EPA responds to CAFE concerns by limiting zero-emission status to first 200,000 vehicles
- 2010/04/05: AutoBG: What cars today meet new CAFE regs? More than you might think
- 2010/04/05: AutoBG: What's the real cost of new CAFE regulations? Millions, billions, nothing?
- 2010/04/04: CanWest: Zero-emissions 'a myth' -- Rule to factor in how power generated
- 2010/04/04: S&R: CAFE sucks
This week saw a fine example of political gamesmanship from the Obama administration. He let down his base yet again by opening up certain portions of the U.S. coast to offshore petroleum drilling in an attempt to undercut his (supposed) foes across the aisle, and upped CAFE standards. The former has gotten a lot more press than the latter. Neither are quite what they seem. - 2010/04/04: EconView: "EPA May use Clean Water Act to Regulate Carbon Dioxide"
Do you think they'll lay charges?:
- 2010/04/07: NYT:GW: GAO Audit: MMS Withheld Offshore Drilling Data, Hindered Risk Analyses in Alaska
The Minerals Management Service has withheld information from regional staff in Alaska and has not had sufficient guidelines in place to analyze offshore drilling risks in the region, a government audit shows. The Government Accountability Office found that MMS's Alaska OCS Region shares information selectively, against agency policy, which directs that information -- including proprietary data from industry -- be shared with all staff involved in environmental reviews. - 2010/04/09: SolveClimate: Sen. Byrd Rebukes Massey Energy Over Coal Mine Disaster, Questions Safety Practices -- 'The More I Learn About the Extent of These Violations, the Angrier I Get'
- 2010/04/09: Grist: Coal barons to (finally) testify before Congress
- 2010/04/08: Grist: Senate Energy spox responds; more on fossil-fuel safety and our energy future
Kerry-Boxer, Waxman-Markey, KGL, Cantwell-Collins or whatever -- the future climate bill -- defines a battleline:
- 2010/04/06: WBEZ: Exelon Chief Is Bullish on Climate Bill
The head of Illinois' largest utility says he's optimistic a law limiting greenhouse gas emissions will pass before long. - 2010/04/07: NRDC:SwitchBoard: Will Our Leaders Follow the Support for Climate Legislation?
- 2010/04/06: Reuters: Climate bill sets oil "rack" transport tax
Details of an oil industry tax are being filled in Congress as part of an upcoming U.S. climate control bill, sparking a spirited lobbying campaign this week over how the revenues from that tax would be used. A Senate source familiar with the draft legislation told Reuters that the new fee "will be assessed at the terminal rack," -- where refined oil products await shipment to retail gasoline stations and other end points. But the source added that no final decisions had yet been made on whether revenues from the tax would be deposited into the Highway Trust Fund and whether they would be earmarked for specific "green" projects or road and bridge repairs that the highway fund normally handles. - 2010/04/08: ClimateP: Energy industry fights chemical disclosure -- Natural gas companies want to prevent oversight of fracking
- 2010/04/08: ClimateP: Over 3,000 U.S. businesses push new ads for action on climate and clean energy jobs
- 2010/04/08: PlanetArk: Firms Urge Obama To Offer Consumer Energy Info
Almost 50 U.S. firms and organizations, including Google, General Electric and AT&T, urged President Barack Obama on Tuesday to let consumers know how much energy they use so they can decide where to cut back. This could "unleash the forces of innovation in homes and businesses ... reduce greenhouse gas emissions and save consumers billions of dollars," the group of 47 companies and organizations said in a letter to Obama. - 2010/04/07: DesMoinesRegister: Wind energy needs uniform laws, [AWEA] group says
- 2010/04/07: TreeHugger: Google & The Climate Group Tell Obama Every US Building Needs a Smart Meter
- 2010/04/07: RawStory: Chamber of Commerce attacks effort to ban secretly funded ads
The nation's largest and most formidable lobbying group is apparently unsatisfied with being able to spend unlimited amounts of cash to influence elections -- they insist they should be able to do so in secret. - 2010/04/06: NYT:GW: Green Groups Fight to Keep EPA's Power Over Greenhouse Gas Emissions
- 2010/04/06: EnergyBulletin: The API Opposes New Fuel Standards, EPA Deluded
- 2010/04/06: NRDC:SwitchBoard: Big ethanol is using bad jobs numbers to push bad tax credit
- 2010/04/04: Guardian(UK): BP fights to limit controls on shale gas drilling -- Oil company wants to see off potential opposition from US Environmental Protection Agency
- 2010/04/08: SolveClimate: 7 AGs Urge Congress to Preserve States' Greenhouse Gas Authority
Seven more state attorneys general jumped into the climate debate this week, this time arguing that any climate legislation must preserve the progress that states have made so far and not restrict their ability to keep pushing the envelope. Individual states have led the way on auto standards, emissions targets, renewable energy portfolio standards, land use measures, reporting requirements, and building and appliance efficiency standards, among other energy and environmental rules. They launched the first carbon trading program in the country with the Northeast's Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). These programs are working, the chief lawyers for California, Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine, Maryland, Rhode Island and Delaware write in a letter to members of Congress. - 2010/04/09: GreenGrok: Al Gore Came to Town
While in the UK:
- 2010/04/09: BBerg: Carbon Capture Projects to Benefit From New U.K. Electric Tax
- 2010/04/08: TEC: The UKs New Low Carbon Rewards
- 2010/04/08: BBC: Price of petrol hits record high
The average price of unleaded petrol has hit a new high of 119.9p a litre, analysts Experian Catalist have said. Prices have been increasing steadily since the end of last year as the pound has weakened, which makes imported fuel more expensive. The previous record was 119.7p, reached in July 2008 when the price of oil peaked at $147 a barrel. - 2010/04/06: Scotsman: 'Cheated' for going green too early
[...]
...the Clean Energy Cashback system will pay 27p for every unit of electricity generated by a small wind turbine. But the new payments -- also called Feed-in Tariffs -- will only be paid to householders who installed green technology after 15 July 2009. - 2010/04/07: Economist: Britain 2010: An election briefing -- Keeping the lights on
- 2010/04/11: Guardian(UK): Heavy industry claims carbon emission targets are 'death by a thousand cuts'
EU aims to cut emissions by a fifth in 2020 against 2005 levels - Manufacturers warn higher carbon taxes will drive firms abroad - 2010/04/09: Guardian(UK): Has David Cameron gone soft on the Tories' 'tough' green measures?
- 2010/04/07: Guardian(UK): Civic society's environment demands for the 2010 election
- 2010/04/07: Guardian(UK): Environment policies the parties should adopt in election 2010
And in Europe:
- 2010/04/09: Guardian(UK): ArcelorMittal's emissions make a monumental joke of Olympic park tower
Is a tower sponsored by a steel empire with emissions matching that of the Czech Republic appropriate as a lasting monument to the 'world's first sustainable Olympics'? - 2010/04/07: PlanetArk: Denmark Needs Wind Turbine Test Centre: Prime Minister [Lars Lokke Rasmussen]
- 2010/04/07: EarthTimes: EU to coordinate forest protection policies
Segovia, Spain - European Union forest experts on Wednesday urged the 27-nation bloc to coordinate forest protection policies, an area which the Spanish EU presidency described as lagging behind other sectors. There was "little common policy" in forest protection, Spanish environment official Josep Puxeu said at an EU-sponsored meeting of some 200 experts in Granja de San Ildefonso near the Spanish city of Segovia. The meeting approved a document which will be submitted to EU environment ministers in June, recommending the creation of a coordination mechanism to step up the exchange of information and to adopt measures against the degradation of forest areas. - 2010/04/06: EurActiv: Commission to outline new energy action plan
The European Commission will present the priorities of its 2010-2014 energy action plan during a meeting of energy ministers at the end of May. - 2010/04/06: EurActiv: Delors backs 'enhanced cooperation' on energy
Not all EU countries are ready to embark on a common EU energy policy just yet. But a smaller vanguard of countries could decide to go ahead without delay, according to former European Commission President Jacques Delors. - 2010/04/06: EarthTimes: EU to launch debate on forest protection
Meanwhile in Australia:
- 2010/04/09: ABC(Au): Councils act on rising sea levels
The South Gippsland Council has adopted planning measures that will require some landowners to acknowledge their properties are at risk of coastal inundation - 2010/04/07: ABC(Au): Panax [Geothermal] drilling produces steam
An exploration company has produced the first steam from drilling at its pioneering Salamander 1 well in the Otway Basin near Penola. - 2010/04/07: ABC(Au): The New South Wales Government has been criticised for approving a new power station in the face of an independent study showing that emissions were substantially underestimated
- 2010/04/07: ABC(Au): The politics and economics of climate change
- 2010/04/06: ABC(Au): Townsville in 'smart grid' bid
Townsville Enterprise Limited (TEL) says north Queensland would be in the international spotlight when it comes to energy efficiency if the Federal Government chooses the city to host a smart grid initiative. TEL spokeswoman Lisa McDonald says the Federal Government has short-listed Townsville as one of three cities to trial the program which will trial ways to best reduce power consumption in homes and businesses. She says the successful host city will be announced at the end of the month. - 2010/04/05: ABC(Au): Floodwaters won't change irrigator allocations
Despite extra water from floods in New South Wales and Queensland entering the South Australian system within weeks, irrigator allocations will remain at 62 per cent. But it is likely irrigators will start the next water season with a higher allocation than the last. - 2010/04/05: ABC(Au): Work begins on wind farm towers
Keppel Prince says it will start building towers for AGL's Macarthur wind farm in western Victoria, even though changes to the renewable energy target (RET) are yet to be legislated. - 2010/04/05: ABC(Au): Hundreds rally to stop nuclear dump
Indigenous groups and environmentalists are continuing a push to stop a radioactive waste dump being built on Muckaty Station in the Northern Territory. - 2010/04/08: JQuiggin: Turnbull: An assessment
- 2010/04/07: MTurnbull: Opinion piece - my decision not to recontest Wentworth
- 2010/04/06: MTurnbull: Malcolm Turnbull Announces He Will Not Recontest Wentworth
- 2010/04/06: M&C: Malcolm Turnbull to leave Australian politics
- 2010/04/07: NZHerald: Turnbull pulls plug on fast and furious political career
- 2010/04/06: ABC(Au): Turnbull walks away with swipe at Abbott
Former Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull has announced he is quitting federal politics at the next election. Mr Turnbull, who lost the Liberal leadership in December, ended the speculation about his future by announcing his decision in a statement on his website today. - 2010/04/07: JQuiggin: Turnbull out
And in New Zealand:
- 2010/04/09: HotTopic: Putting the F back in ACT
While in the Indian subcontinent:
- 2010/04/05: TreeHugger: India's New Coal Tax to Raise $660 Million For Clean Energy in 2010
And in China:
- 2010/04/09: TreeHugger: Good News: China's Renewable Energy Growth Now Outpacing Coal
While in Japan:
- 2010/04/08: JapanTimes: Tokyo's CO2 cap-and-trade may set national standard
- 2010/04/07: AutoBG: Japanese government offers hundreds of millions in aid to Bolivia to secure lithium supply
- 2010/04/05: Guardian(UK): Tokyo to trial electric 'filling stations' to boost green transport
And elsewhere in Asia:
- 2010/04/08: EarthTimes: 'Asian voice' needed on climate change, experts urge
Beijing - Asian nations must unite and create an "Asian voice" on global efforts to combat climate change, regional experts said on Thursday. "The Asian region is a very important part of the solution and we have a large stake," Suwit Khunkitti, the Thai Minister of Natural Resources and Environment, said at a forum on climate change in Beijing. Suwit said he hoped the two-day forum would "help to create an Asian platform, an Asian voice" on climate change. - 2010/04/05: DailyStar(Bg): Brick kilns will no more pollute air -- Bangladesh set to adopt smokeless brick making technology
While in Africa:
- 2010/04/06: BizInsider: Corporate Coup: Shell And Goldman Sachs Execs Become Ministers In Nigeria's New Cabinet
And South America:
- 2010/04/05: Reuters: Peru seen with $1 billion in green energy investments
Peru should get about $1 billion in investments after signing 26 green energy contracts, companies involved said on Monday. - 2010/04/08: CanWest: Feds investigate oil resources in Arctic region 'teeming with wildlife'
It was hailed just four months ago by Environment Minister Jim Prentice as one of Canada's "richest ecological areas" when he announced a landmark $5-million study aimed at declaring it a National Marine Conservation Area. But while one branch of the federal government has moved to protect Nunavut's Lancaster Sound as a one-of-a-kind natural treasure - "an area of incredible beauty that is teeming with wildlife," according the region's Conservative MP Leona Aglukkaq - the Geological Survey of Canada has confounded environmentalists and local communities by planning a seismic seabed survey this summer to probe for potential oil and gas deposits in the beluga and narwhal-rich waters north of Baffin Island, at the eastern entrance to the Northwest Passage. - 2010/04/05: CBC: Coast guard sends oil spill kits to Arctic -- Likelihood of future spills prompts call for cleanup research
Increased traffic through Arctic waters is prompting the coast guard to help northern communities prepare for oil spills. And as interest grows in energy development off northern coastlines, Canadian scientists are planning their first field tests of new techniques they hope will give them a powerful tool against future accidents. - 2010/04/05: CBC: [Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence] Cannon makes sovereignty tour of Far North
Here's a thought about Harper's agenda:
- 2010/04/09: CanWest: Harper's anti-green agenda
What if the Harper government's approach to the environment -- rolling back previous safeguards, endlessly delaying regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, failing even to make serious efforts at conservation -- doesn't simply reflect indifference, neglect, or a single-minded attempt to shelter the lucrative and polluting tarsands? What if the real, unstated, goal is to withdraw the federal government from environmental regulation altogether and hand full responsibility to the provinces? Green Party leader Elizabeth May, who has followed federal environmental policy for decades and over the course of several governments, is convinced that is the prime minister's end game. - 2010/04/05: TMoS: Burying Our Heads in the Sands of Climate Change
Stephen Harper claims to stand for Canada. Maybe yesterday's Canada but he sure doesn't stand for tomorrow's. Climate change has already begun to arrive in Canada. If you don't see it, that's because you're not looking, not thinking. It might also be that your awareness of global warming and how it will shape Canada is stunted by the absolute dearth of information on the subject coming from the Harper regime. - 2010/04/07: WpgFP: Hurricane Hillary stirs up Ottawa
- 2010/04/05: TimesTranscript: When Hillary came to town
[...]
Once a leader in climate-change battle, we've become a laggard, heartily refusing to embrace the science behind global warming. We've muzzled our environmental experts, cut their funding, and threatened to ruin their careers. We've pursued tar sands development with giddy abandon and paid mere lip service to the potential locked in clean, renewable energy development.
[...]
Clinton's rebukes were reminders that the Obama administration is, essentially, progressive (even if, in some critics' eyes, only in name), and that it plays well with others only if those others embrace the Great Society principles of the last century's middle decades. But Harper comes from a different, less forgiving, less inclusive time in Canadian history. - 2010/04/04: SWRWN: You are not entitled to your own facts
Calling the can of whup-ass Hillary Clinton opened on their TheoCon butts 'a tempest in a teapot', Lawrence Loose Cannon went into the spin-and-lie cycle. - 2010/04/10: ClimateSight: Something Unexpected [bill C-311]
More news for the Tories to ignore:
- 2010/04/05: CanWest: Climate-change skeptics wrong, scientists say in memo to minister -- Ottawa urged to follow findings of peer-reviewed research
In BC, wrangling over energy is manifest:
- 2010/04/09: Tyee: Must the 'Big Smoke' Always Get Its Way?
Site C as bully politics. Rural citizens are sick of seeing what they love ruined to satisfy ungrateful urbanites. Last of five. - 2010/04/05: Tyee: Disturbing the Peace: The Case Against the Site C Dam [series]
- 2010/04/05: Tyee: The Case against the Site C Dam -- A reporter's Peace River journey against a powerful current of dubious assumptions and official spin
- 2010/04/06: Tyee: Site C Would Drown a Vital BC Breadbasket -- The mega-project would wipe out one of the province's most fertile food producing valleys.
- 2010/04/07: Tyee: Peace Could Create Plenty of Green Energy Without Site C -- Why kill a valley when its region is rich in wind and geothermal energy?
- 2010/04/08: Tyee: The Myth of a Power-Starved BC
'Run of river' energy plus Site C? Does BC really need so much electricity or have our politicians gone dam crazy? - 2010/04/09: NRDC:SwitchBoard: Pipeline to the Past: Tar Sands Oil Holds Back Our Clean Energy Future
- 2010/04/10: BCLSB: America's Fiercist Climate Blogger Reams Canadian Oil Company
- 2010/04/10: Rabble: Alberta First Nations take legal stand on tar sands
- 2010/04/09: ClimateP: Greenwasher of the month: Canada's Husky Energy sells 10% ethanol blend as "Mother Nature's Fuel" -- And they refine oil from the tar sands!
- 2010/04/06: CanWest: Tories failing on own oilsands report card
A year after promising to make oilsands development more socially and environmentally responsible, the Alberta government has given itself a report card showing no progress on many key goals such as reducing provincial greenhouse gas emissions. Just two of 21 short-term goals -- to be accomplished by 2012 -- have been completed, according to a report on the progress of a comprehensive oilsands management plan released with great fanfare in February 2009. Longer-term goals, to be met over the next 20 years, have seen little or no progress, while other short-term goals have seen intermediate progress, says the report, posted online earlier this year. - 2010/04/06: CanWest: Alberta lowers expectations for climate-change fund
The provincial government has slashed its expectations for making Alberta's biggest carbon producers pay into a climate-change fund. While the industrial sector bought $85.3 million worth of emissions fund credits in 2008-09, the province expects to collect just $78 million this year The estimate, outlined in Alberta Environment's 2010-11 budget, is nearly $20 million lower than expectations set out for 2009-10, although last year's final figures have not been tallied. "It's not an exact science because it really depends on what choices industry makes," Alberta Environment spokesman Chris Bourdeau said Tuesday. Essentially, Alberta companies that produce more than 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide and fail to reduce their emissions by 12 per cent, are expected to pay $15 per tonne. Alternatively, they could purchase power offsets by buying wind power or other renewable energy. Or they could improve their facilities to decrease emissions. About 100 companies meet the criteria to pay into the carbon fund, which in turn is supposed to finance new environmental technology. - 2010/04/06: CBC: Calgary among world's highest CO2 emitters
Ontario has it's Green Energy Act, now comes the implementation:
- 2010/04/09: G&M: Ontario green power plan sparks cost concerns
Premier says renewable energy initiative will create jobs, but industrial critics are focusing on the rising price of electricity - 2010/04/10: CBC: Hydro One raises home electricity rates
Residential electricity in Ontario is going to cost about 11.6 per cent more next year. Hydro One was given approval Friday to raise its distribution rates on May 1, and again on Jan. 1, 2011. - 2010/04/09: CCP: Ontario takes green lead with record $8-billion energy investment
- 2010/04/09: PlanetArk: Ontario Announces New Phase Of Green-Energy Push
- 2010/04/09: G&M: Electricity bills in Ontario set to rise $300 a year by the end of 2011
- 2010/04/08: TEC: Ontario approves a motherload of green energy projects: 2,500 MW of capacity
- 2010/04/08: CBC: Ont. announces $8B in renewable energy projects -- Project aimed at creating 20,000 new jobs
- 2010/04/07: CBC: Appliance power drain not well-known to Ontarians
The majority of Ontarians are in the dark about just how much electricity consumption their home electronic appliances are responsible for, a new survey suggests. According to the Ontario Power Authority, devices such as computers, printers and VCRs can account for 15 per cent of a home's annual electricity usage. But a poll conducted for the agency by Harris-Decima suggests that three in four Ontario residents aren't aware of the drain household electronic appliances can have, even when they're shut off. - 2010/04/05: CBC: Summerside wind farm paying dividends
- 2010/04/05: CBC: N.S. biomass energy project planned
Nova Scotia Power and NewPage Port Hawkesbury are planning a 60-megawatt biomass project that could produce three per cent of the province's electricity. The two companies say only sustainable methods will be used, and tree stumps, tops and branches will be left on the forest floor. They hope to have the co-generation facility running by late 2012. - 2010/04/06: CleanBreak: A big Canadian bank finally gets serious about cleantech and green energy
- 2010/04/05: AD: On cumulative effects
- 2010/04/11: BCLSB: The Green Party/Tory Connection
The movement toward a long term ecologically viable economics is glacial:
- 2010/04/08: AlterNet: Seven Food and Resources Crises on the Horizon, and What You Can Do About It
- 2010/04/08: EnergyBulletin: The MAHB, the culture gap, and some really inconvenient truths
- 2010/04/08: CCP: Tim Jackson: Building a new economic model fit for a low carbon world is 'the most urgent task of our times' -- Prosperity without growth
- 2010/04/08: TreeHugger: Japan's Ancient Tradition of Sustainability
- 2010/04/07: OilDrum: What is the Minimum EROI that a Sustainable Society Must Have? Part 3: Calculating the minimum EROI to support the U.S. transportation system
IPAT [Impact = Population * Affluence * Technology] raised its head once again:
- 2010/04/08: BuckDog: Sex Ed Wars In Wisconsin - "Show Condoms To A Kid And You Go To Jail" Says District Attorney
- 2010/04/07: SlashDot: Wisconsin DA Threatens Arrests Over Sex Ed
- 2010/04/06: Guardian(UK): We need birth control, not geoengineering
- 2010/04/06: TCoE: Birth control vs. geohacking
- 2010/04/06: Grist: The GINK Chronicles -- We need birth control, not geoengineering
- 2010/04/04 Grist: Vive la différence -- Children, the childless, and diverse human ecosystems
Apocalypso anyone?
- 2010/04/07: WorldChanging: Manuals for Civilization: Time Capsules and Doomsday Books
- 2010/04/08: OilDrum: Easter Island : A Case Study in the Response to Resource Depletion
- 2010/04/06: LNB: Manual for Civilization
As for how the media handles the science of climatology:
- 2010/04/05: UNDispatch: Two Take on Climate Deniers [Kolbert & Maddow]
- 2010/04/06: CJR: Calling Katrina -- New Orleans Times-Picayune's 2005 hurricane coverage included in NYU's "Top 10 Works of the Decade"
- 2010/04/09: DeSmogBlog: Media Outlets Falsely Reporting Scientific Fraud Should Make Corrections
- 2010/04/09: MoD: Why the deniers appeal to the media and the public
- 2010/04/08: Grist: Revkin wants to talk 'energy quest' not 'climate crisis'
- 2010/04/07: QD: Science and the Media: ignore scientists at your peril
- 2010/04/06: KSJT: Washington Post: Predicti-guessing climate, sports scores, tomorrow's high temp. Computers do it. One kind is in dutch with public.
- 2010/04/06: ClimateP: Scientific models predict continued decline in Washington Post circulation if they keep publishing dreadful climate articles
More on terminology:
- 2010/04/08: ClimateSight: A Better Term
Meanwhile on the "never use the terminology of the enemy" front:
- 2010/04/04: ClimateP: Contest: Rename The Scandal Formerly Known As Climategate
- 2010/04/05: TreeHugger: And "Climate Gate" Will Henceforth Be Known As . . .
Here is something for your library:
- 2010/04/06: Ecologist: [Book Review] _Eaarth_ by Bill McKibben
- 2010/04/08: NewScientist:CL: [Book Review] The climate-change nightmares of military strategists
_Climate Wars: The fight for survival as the world overheats_ by Gwynne Dyer - 2010/04/02: NYT: [Book Review] 'Green Gone Wrong': Can Capitalism Save the Planet?
_Green Gone Wrong: How Our Economy Is Undermining the Environmental Revolution_ by Heather Rogers - 2010/04/11: Deltoid: Climate Denial Crock on Monckton [video]
Meanwhile among the 'Sue the Bastards!' contingent:
- 2010/04/10: Rabble: Alberta First Nations take legal stand on tar sands
Two more Alberta First Nations are seeking the assistance of the Supreme Court of Canada in defending their Aboriginal and Treaty rights in the face of mounting oil sands development in Alberta. The Supreme Court of Canada has granted intervenor status to Duncan's First Nation (DFN) and Horse Lake First Nation (HLFN), in a case that may have major legal implications for the development of oil sands, pipelines, oil sands infrastructure projects and other major projects.
[...]
This summer, the Supreme Court will hear conflicting arguments and views of First Nations, governments and industry in the Rio Tinto Alcan Inc. v. the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council case. The case will address the question of whether regulatory boards and tribunals, such as the National Energy Board (NEB) and Alberta's Energy Conservation and Resources Board (ECRB), have a duty to decide whether the Crown adequately consulted and accommodated First Nations' concerns before granting approvals for resource development, including concerns about past infringements of Aboriginal and Treaty rights. - 2010/04/08: BBC: Legal fight over hunger wonder-product
- 2010/04/08: PlanetArk: Peru Tribes File IFC Complaint Over Maple Pollution
- 2010/04/07: Reuters: Peru tribes file IFC complaint over Maple pollution
A Peruvian tribe filed a complaint on Tuesday with the ombudsman of the World Bank's International Finance Corp (IFC) against Maple Energy Plc, accusing the oil company of polluting its ancestral land and rivers in the Amazon. - 2010/04/07: WarmingLaw: Automakers Move to Dismiss California Preemption Lawsuit. Finally.
- 2010/04/07: OilChange: Secret Recordings Reveal Chevron "Cooked" Trial Evidence
As the 17 year old lawsuit between oil giant Chevron and the Ecuadorian Indians draws to a close, the plaintiffs are arguing that they have uncovered damning new evidence that could seriously undermine the oil company's legal case. - 2010/04/05: NYT: U.S. Sued Over Nuclear Waste Fees
Sixteen utilities and a trade association sued the Energy Department on Monday to halt the government's collection of nuclear waste disposal fees, arguing that the country no longer had a disposal plan after ruling out Yucca Mountain, Nev., as a repository. The utilities, which filed the lawsuit in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, jointly pay about $750 million a year -- amounting to a tenth of a cent per kilowatt hour -- into the fund. - 2010/04/06: NYT:GW: Industry Groups Challenge EPA's Reconsideration of 'Johnson Memo'
A coalition of industry groups has asked a federal appeals court to review U.S. EPA's policy for when it plans to begin regulating greenhouse gases from stationary sources. Groups including coal, mining and agricultural interests Friday petitioned (pdf) the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to review EPA's policy detailing when the agency must regulate the heat-trapping emissions from industrial facilities like power plants, oil refineries and other sources. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson laid out that timeline last Monday... - 2010/04/05: TP:WR: Cuccinelli's Climate Denier Lawsuits Could Junk Auto Industry's Recovery
Among the non-members of Gamblers Anonymous:
- 2010/04/08: BSD: I wonder if I could work out a bet with James Hansen over cap and trade
- 2010/04/04: BSD: Scott Armstrong losing the skewed bet his side set up at Intrade
Developing a new energy infrastructure is a fundamental challenge of the current generation:
- 2010/04/11: BNC: TCASE 9: Ocean power II - CETO
- 2010/04/10: EconBrowser: Do rising oil prices threaten the economic recovery?
- 2010/04/10: CalcRisk: Hamilton: "Do rising oil prices threaten the economic recovery?"
- 2010/04/08: USGS: Natural Gas Potential Assessed in Eastern Mediterranean
- 2010/04/10: PeakEnergy: Hawaiian Solar Thermal Project Incorporates Geothermal Technology
- 2010/04/09: PhysOrg: Natural gas potential assessed in Eastern Mediterranean
An estimated 122 trillion cubic feet (tcf) (mean estimate) of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas are in the Levant Basin Province, located in the Eastern Mediterranean region. Technically recoverable resources are those producible using currently available technology and industry practices. This is the first U.S. Geological Survey assessment of this basin to identify potentially extractable resources. - 2010/04/08: Grist: Meet America's most extreme energy geeks [ARPA-E]
- 2010/04/08: BBC: Price of petrol hits record high
- 2010/04/07: ABC(Au): Panax [Geothermal] drilling produces steam
- 2010/04/06: EnergyBulletin: The Meaning of Wood Heating: In their own words
- 2010/04/06: BBC: Oil prices hit new 18-month high
- 2010/04/05: PhysOrg: 3 Questions: David MacKay on renewable energy
David MacKay (pronounced mac-EYE), a professor of physics at the University of Cambridge, UK, was recently appointed to a three-year term as chief scientific advisor to the UK's Department of Energy and Climate Change. In an April 1 talk at MIT, he described what specifically would be required to shift the world's energy use entirely to non-carbon emitting sources. - 2010/04/05: Reuters: Oil surges toward US$87 as U.S. economy recovers
Hey! Let's contaminate the aquifer for thousands of years! It'll be a fracking gas!
- 2010/04/09: OilChange: Gasland Ain't So Green After All
- 2010/04/09: BBC: Should Gazprom fear shale gas revolution?
European countries heavily dependent on Russian gas supplies are cheered by signs of a balance shift in the continent's energy market. - 2010/04/07: SolveClimate: Cities Push Back as EPA Begins Study of Fracking's Impact on Water -- Philadelphia Moved to Ban Fracking in Its Watershed, Pittsburgh Sees Problems
- 2010/04/06: NRDC:SwitchBoard: With EPA launching first-of-its-kind study, no excuse for NY to rush forward with drilling in the Marcellus
- 2010/04/06: PlanetArk: Natural Gas Output Overestimated, Shale Blamed
The U.S. Energy Information Administration is revamping the way it calculates domestic natural gas production after it overestimated output from key producer states Texas and Louisiana, an agency official said on Monday. Rapid changes to U.S. natural gas output involving a wave of new small producers of shale gas made it difficult to get an accurate picture of the market, said Gary Long, acting director of the reserves and production division of the agency's oil and gas office. U.S. natural gas data is being watched perhaps closer than ever as a drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," has led to excitement about the potential of vast new supplies of the relatively clean burning fuel from New York to Louisiana. Fracking, which gets to natural gas deposits associated with shale, has helped boost U.S. reserves of the fuel by a third since 2006, according to the EIA. The EIA, the statistics arm of the Department of Energy, found that some of its output numbers were inflated in the monthly release, known as the 914 report, Long said. - 2010/04/06: PlanetArk: Natural Gas Boom Brings Riches To A Rural Town [Wellsboro, Pennsylvania]
- 2010/04/06: TEC: Shale Gas: Not Clean, Either?
- 2010/04/04: Guardian(UK): BP fights to limit controls on shale gas drilling -- Oil company wants to see off potential opposition from US Environmental Protection Agency
The answer my friend...:
- 2010/04/08: NYT:GW: Wind Industry Reports Record Year, Pleads for Renewable-Power Standard
- 2010/04/08: AWEA: AWEA Releases U.S. Wind Industry Annual Market Report -- More electricity, more jobs, a cleaner environment, and energy security
- 2010/04/07: StarTrib: Pickens wind turbines coming to Goodhue [Minn.]
- 2010/04/08: SolveClimate: U.S. Wind Industry Bullish on Offshore Potential, but Breakthrough Needed -- 12 Projects In Development, But First Offshore Turbine Has Yet to Spin
- 2010/04/09: KSJT: Hearst and more: A report on US Wind Energy (and how much is that in nukes, really?)
- 2010/04/09: TreeHugger: How's the US Wind Industry Doing? Manufacturing Growing More Slowly, But Record Installations in 2009
- 2010/04/08: TEC: US Maintains Top Wind Energy Position
- 2010/04/09: BBC: Barnacle geese have been tagged with satellite trackers amid concern planned offshore wind farms could affect their migration from Britain to the Arctic
- 2010/04/07: SciDaily: From Oil Sector to Wind Power
Eying the vast potential for establishing wind farms at sea, companies along Norway's west coast are making the leap from offshore oil to offshore wind power. - 2010/04/05: SciNow: East Coast Winds Would Support a Stable Power Grid
- 2010/04/06: DM:80B: Huge Offshore Wind Network Could Solve the Calm-Day Problem
- 2010/04/05: TechRev: Chinese Wind Power Heads Offshore -- Breezy tidal flats offer green power on the doorstep of China's bustling seaboard
- 2010/04/05: PhysOrg: Proposed wind power grid to make wind power more reliable
- 2010/04/05: Eureka: Proposed grid could make offshore wind power more reliable
Meanwhile among the solar aficionados:
- 2010/04/09: PlanetArk: First Solar Exploring New Panels In Silicon Valley
- 2010/04/08: Grist: Solar PV in Los Angeles: The emperor has no clothes, says UCLA
- 2010/04/09: LA Times: Arizona to world: Do we have solar!
The state is trying to use perhaps its most abundant natural resource -- sunshine -- to become a center for clean energy manufacturing and generation. - 2010/04/09: SciDaily: Closing in on a Carbon-Based Solar Cell
- 2010/04/08: BizGreen: Conductive plastics promise to revolutionise solar cells
- 2010/04/07: PhysOrg: Wake Forest earns patent for efficient, inexpensive fiber-based solar cells
- 2010/04/06: TEC: Finally! One Big Solar Project Environment and Business Can Agree On
- 2010/04/06: UQAM: Solar Cells: UQAM researcher solves two 20-year-old problems
On the coal front:
- 2010/04/10: TreeHugger: Satellite Photos Reveal How Mountaintop Removal Is Scarring Appalachia
- 2010/04/08: TP:WR: Newsweek Gets Coal Terribly Wrong
- 2010/04/07: Grist: Enemy of the human race, Bill-Wicker-is-an-ass edition -- Does coal mining matter to our energy future?
- 2010/04/06: Grist: Do coal companies put profit over human life? All coal mining safety laws have been written in miners' blood
After the UBB tragedy, there was a pile up on Don Blankenship who probably didn't give a good goddamn:
- 2010/04/09: Grist: Grist: hating on Don Blankenship before hating on Don Blankenship was cool
- 2010/04/09: TP:WR: Blankenship's Union-Busting Goal: 'Sell Coal Cheaper And Drive Union Coal Operations Out Of Business'
- 2010/04/09: TreeHugger: Massey CEO Don Blankenship's Long History of Ignoring Mining Safety for Profit
- 2010/04/07: TP: Don Blankenship's Record Of Profits Over Safety: 'Coal Pays The Bills'
- 2010/04/07: Grist: Snidely Q. Blankenship -- This week in comically evil corporate behavior
Biofuel bickering abounds:
- 2010/04/09: NBF: US Ethanol production at 818 Thousand Barrels per Day For January 2010
- 2010/04/07: MongaBay: Unilever backtracks: may purchase palm oil from Sinar Mas
The nuclear energy controversy continues:
- 2010/04/09: DerSpiegel: Small Is Beautiful -- Nuclear Industry Pins Hopes on Mini-Reactors
- 2010/04/06: PlanetArk: Entergy Scraps Nuke Spinoff After New York Opposition
- 2010/04/06: PlanetArk: NY's Indian Point Nuclear Plant Denied Key Permit
- 2010/04/06: CBC: Lasers could spark clean nuclear power
An international team of scientists is looking at a new way of creating energy from nuclear fusion, a process that could result in no radioactivity, produce little pollution and provide a cheap, abundant source of electricity.
[...]
"The key is a very carefully controlled extremely short laser pulse essential for ignition. The pulse would ignite a fuel made of ordinary hydrogen and boron-11," said Hora. "The idea of a hydrogen and boron fusion reaction is interesting because it wouldn't cause neutron production. Neutrons are a problem because they generate radioactivity," he said. - 2010/04/04: TEC: Uranium could rise to $60/lb, but not for a while
Yes we have peak everything:
- 2010/04/05: Examiner: Industries brace for peak water as peak oil hits
- 2010/04/07: EnergyBulletin: The peak oil crisis: countdown at the Guri
- 2010/04/07: PlanetArk: Peak Oil Man [Colin Campbell] Shifts Focus To Peak Price, Demand
- 2010/04/06: EnergyBulletin: Officials Wake Up To Peak Oil, Part 1
- 2010/04/06: OilDrum: Increasing Global Nonrenewable Natural Resource Scarcity - An Analysis
- 2010/04/05: OilDrum: Peak asphalt: the return of gravel roads
- 2010/04/04: EnergyBulletin: Faith-based economics in two graphs
More people are talking about the electrical grid:
- 2010/04/08: TEC: Grid Watch: smartgrids meet smartcomms
- 2010/04/07: TEC: DOE Selects Netezza For Northwest Smart Grid Project
- 2010/04/06: PhysOrg: More transmission lines needed to realize wind-power visions
- 2010/04/06: PhysOrg: Intelligent networking of wind farms [EU]
- 2010/04/05: SolveClimate: Postal Service as Giant Battery? A Plan for Cashing In
- 2010/04/05: TEC: The Strategic Value of Smart Grid Investments
And then there is the matter of efficiency & conservation:
- 2010/04/06: PhysOrg: Energy Star program is under fire
- 2010/04/05: TEC: Stop Picking on Energy Star, People: In Defense of Energy Star.
- 2010/04/04: SolveClimate: Tax Incentives Promote Energy Efficiency, Renewable Power -- A Look at Ways Savvy Homeowners Can Save Money Now and in the Future
Automakers & lawyers, engineers & activists argue over the future of the car:
- 2010/04/09: CBC: China car sales jump 63% in March
- 2010/04/09: PlanetArk: Electric Cars Not Boom Yet For Battery Makers
- 2010/04/08: TCoE: Pop quiz on driving costs
- 2010/04/09: AutoBG: Society of Automotive Engineers issues gaseous hydrogen fueling standard
- 2010/04/07: TreeHugger: Keeping Things in Perspective: An Electric Car is About as Power-Hungry as an Air Conditioner
- 2010/04/07: BBC: US car giant General Motors has reported a $4.3bn (£2.8bn) net loss for July to December of last year
- 2010/04/07: CBC: GM posts $4.3B US loss [in the last half of 2009]
- 2010/04/06: PhysOrg: A smart way to charge up
Electromobility makes sense only if car batteries are charged using electricity from renewable energy sources. But the supply of green electricity is not always adequate. An intelligent charging station can help, by adapting the recharging times to suit energy supply and network capacity. - 2010/04/06: PlanetArk: Electric Cars Win Hype, Staying Power Questioned
- 2010/04/04: AutoBG: Electric motorcycles and scooters, a perfect answer for urban mobility in Europe
- 2010/04/05: CBC: Auto industry rebound limited: experts -- GM and Honda adding shifts at Ontario plants
There are clear signs that Ontario's auto industry is recovering after a hitting low point early last year, but experts say it will probably never employ as many people as it once did. - 2010/04/05: WhiteHouse: Did 'Cash-for-Clunkers' work as intended? by Christina Romer & Christopher Carroll
As for Energy Storage:
- 2010/04/09: NewScientist: Molten metal batteries to be clean energy reservoirs
- 2010/04/09: PhysOrg: New Hitachi Li-ion batteries to last ten years
- 2010/04/06: Inhabitat: BOB [Big-Old Battery], America's Biggest Sodium Sulfur Battery, Powers a Texas Town
- 2010/04/06: AutoBG: Gold, platinum and oxygen lead to lighter, more powerful lithium-air batteries
- 2010/04/05: BNC: Pumped-hydro energy storage -- cost estimates for a feasible system
- 2010/04/05: TEC: Pumped-hydro energy storage -- cost estimates for a feasible system
Meanwhile in the greenwashing chronicles:
- 2010/04/09: ClimateP: Greenwasher of the month: Canada's Husky Energy sells 10% ethanol blend as "Mother Nature's Fuel" -- And they refine oil from the tar sands!
Joe Romm posts a daily list of top energy and climate stories:
- 2010/04/09: ClimateP: Energy and Global Warming News for April 9...
- 2010/04/08: ClimateP: Energy and Global Warming News for April 8...
- 2010/04/07: ClimateP: Energy and Global Warming News for April 7...
- 2010/04/05: ClimateP: Energy and Global Warming News for April 5...
Other (weekly) lists:
- 2010/04/09: NatureCF: Climate weekly round-up
- 2010/04/05: WorldChanging: Link Round-Up: Acting on Climate Change
The carbon lobby are up to the usual:
- 2010/04/05: QuarkSoup: Evidence of Climate Fraud!!!
- 2010/04/09: DeSmogBlog: CEI fails to manufacture its own 'stolen emails' controversy
- 2010/04/09: DeSmogBlog: Bachmann and Palin Hold Climate Denier Summit In Minnesota
- 2010/04/09: TP: Palin blames 'Gore-gate' for 'this snake oil science stuff.'
- 2010/04/09: ClimateShifts: Tobacco and climate change: no difference
- 2010/04/08: HotTopic: A walk on the supply side
- 2010/04/07: HotTopic: Well, I'll be... blowed
- 2010/04/06: ClimateP: Irony-gate 2: Modern day Tea Partiers outsource denial to Lord Monckton -- a British peer!
- 2010/04/06: AFTIC: When to doubt a doubt
- 2010/04/05: DeepClimate: McKitrick gets it wrong on IPCC
- 2010/04/03: ABC(Au):SS: [mp3] Climate change scepticism - its sources and strategies
- 2010/04/06: Deltoid: McKitrick at it again
- 2010/04/06: TreeHugger: Report: Exxon Paid NO Federal Income Tax in 2009
- 2010/04/06: WaPo: Scientists' use of computer models to predict climate change is under attack
As for climate miscellanea:
- 2010/04/07: QuarkSoup: Interesting Recent Numbers
- 2010/04/09: IoD: Quote of the day
- 2010/04/09: TCoE: All climate change is local
- 2010/04/09: TEC: In This Street Fight, Climate Scientists Stand Their Ground
- 2010/04/08: Maribo: Tongue-tied on global warming
- 2010/04/08: MoD: Replication vs repetition, or why audits are not science
- 2010/04/08: Stoat: Foaming at the mouth with me
- 2010/04/08: SkeptiSci: Skeptical Science Housekeeping: Preview, translations & icons
- 2010/04/06: SciAct: It's Getting Kind of Hot Out There....
- 2010/04/07: RA: Intensity or Frequency?
- 2010/04/06: MTobis: An Alarming Shortfall in Foolishness
- 2010/04/07: DawgsBlawg: What to do when you have science
- 2010/04/06: Rabble: Pinpricks derail action on climate change
- 2010/04/04: TCoE: Earth's third pole, from space
And here are a couple of sites you may find interesting and/or useful:
- SourceWatch: Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate
- Geoengineer.org -- Center for Integrating Information on Geoengineering
- The Independent Climate Change Email Review
- World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth -- Cochabamba, Bolivia, April 19 to 22, 2010
- StephenSchneider: Climate Change
- StephenSchneider: An Overview of the Climate Change Problem
- European Environment Agency on Climate Change
- NOAA: Real-time, global, sea surface temperature (RTG_SST) analysis
- NOAA: Gulf Stream Finder Project
- New Scientist
- Nature Science Update
- Science Daily
- Eureka Alert
- CDIAC CO2 Info Analysis Centre
- Real Climate
- Wikipedia: Global warming
- WGMS: World Glacier Monitoring Service
- BAS: The British Antarctic Survey
The things that pass for humour nowadays:
Rob Grumbine points out another tremblor for your Crap Detector:
Eli continued his exposition of EPA endangerment & CRU Inquiry comments:
The World Bank approved the Medupi coal power plant in South Africa this week:
In a rare burst of honesty, corporations made their intentions clear in Nigeria:
The Arctic melt continues to garner a lot of attention:
The food crisis is ongoing:
If it isn't real estate, the rentiers want intellectual property:
And how are we going to feed 9 billion?
And in the carbon cycle:
As for the temperature record:
Regarding the solar hypothesis:
Sea levels are rising:
James Hansen won the 2010 Sophie prize this week:
How do you think Bolivia will react?
And on the American political front:
The Obama chatter is nonstop:
As for what is going on in Congress:
What are the lobbyists pushing?
The Gore-apalooza is still bopping along:
An election has been called in Britain:
Malcolm Turnbull announced he won't run in the next election:
In Canada, minority neocon PM Harper, continues his do-nothing policy:
Late coverage of Hillary's visit:
The NDP has a bill in the House, which may pass, but which the government will not enforce:
Meanwhile in that Mechanical Mordor known as the tar sands:
Also in Alberta:
In the Maritimes:
As for miscellaneous Canadiana:
And for your film & video enjoyment:
Cash-for-Clunkers, aka Scrappage, Plans are being legislated and argued around the world:
Low Key Plug
My first novel Water was published in Canada May, 2007. The American release was in October. An Introductionto the novel is available, along with the Unpublished Forewordand the Launch Talk. An overview of my writing is available here.
<regards>
P.S. Recent postings can be found in the week archive and the ancient postings can be accessed here, which should open to this.
"The casual reader might have the impression that there are real doubts about whether emissions can be reduced without inflicting severe damage on the economy. In fact, once you filter out the noise generated by special-interest groups, you discover that there is widespread agreement among environmental economists that a market-based program to deal with the threat of climate change -- one that limits carbon emissions by putting a price on them -- can achieve large results at modest, though not trivial, cost." -Paul Krugman
Categories
- Log in to post comments