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Another Week of GW News, March 18, 2007
(skip to bottom)
- Top Stories, UK legislation, Antarctic glaciers, Melting Arctic, Aerosols, Global undimming, WGII draft leak
- Hurricanes, GHG Stats, The Temperature Record, Glaciers, Sea Levels, el Niño, Satellites
- Impacts, Tropical Rainforests, Floods & Droughts, Biofuel & Food
- Mitigation, Sequestration, Geoengineering, Adaptation
- Journals, Misc. Science
- Kyoto, Kyoto-2, Carbon Tax, Carbon Trade,
- Politics, American, British, European, Australian, Asian, Canadian
- Apocalypso, Media, Broad, Books,
- Energy, Coal, Nukes, Efficiency, Cars, Business
- Carbon Lobby, E,A&M, TGGWS, Debate
- The Usual & Useful Links
- Shameless Self Promotion
- .sig
Click here to read more It's always nice to start with a laugh, even if it is black humour: The big story of the week has to be Britain's proposed climate legislation: The warming ocean is affecting Antarctic glaciers: Oh yes, and the Arctic: Aerosols were big this week: Remember global dimming? Some late comment on the EU energy plan: Some late comment on the leaked WGII report: Here's one of those Oh-Oh moments: Meanwhile temperatures are still going up: About that solar hypothesis: Glaciers are melting: Sea levels are rising: Meanwhile in near earth orbit: And then there are the world's forests: Yes we have no wacky weather, except: And speaking of floods & droughts: The conflict between biofuel and food persists: And the troubling matter of falling food production is not going away: How long do you suppose this will last? While on the carbon sequestration front: Next thing you know they'll be recycling CO2: Large scale geo-engineering keeps popping up: Before we get into politics, there was some science done: Tim guest-posted a writeup of an Oxford Climate Conference: And Chris did a profile of James Hansen: While from a conference in Canberra: And the Kyoto-2 front: The G8 + 5 held a conference in Germany: The Potsdam conference brought together ministers from the Group of Eight leading industrialised nations - the United States, Canada, France, UK, Germany, Japan, Italy and Russia - and Brazil, India, China Mexico and South Africa from the developing world. And on the emissions trading front: The controversy over the optimal strategy [carbon trading, carbon offsets and/or a carbon tax] to use in dealing with GHGs is getting louder: Polls, we have opinion polls: While in religious circles: The Gore-apalooza is still bopping along: Bill McKibben's Step It Up campaign is getting press as well: While in UK politics: And in Europe: While in China: And in Canada: Also in Canada, minority neocon PM Harper is madly greenwashing: Funny how the press releases stand out: Also in Canada, the Liberals have released their climate plan: Apocalypso anyone? As for how the media handles the science of climatology: An article by William Broad of the NYT came in for a lot of flak: A kafuffle over how scientists comment on GW is being played up: Here is something for your library: Developing a new energy infrastructure is the fundamental challenge of the current generation: The arithmetic of coal carbon is striking home: Nuclear energy continues to split (and fuse?) the crowd: And then there is the matter of efficiency & conservation: If you really want to see the fur fly, threaten subsidies and tax breaks: There is more than one path to energy efficient lighting: Automakers & lawyers, engineers & activists argue over the future of the car: The reaction of business to climate change will be critical: Does any one else smell an incipient E,A&M fanclub? The TGGWS spun along: A deniers/scientists debate has been held: And here are a couple of sites you may find interesting and/or useful: Announcing the book launch of my forthcoming novel _Water_. Time: 20:00 Date: Thursday, May 17th Place: McNally Robinson, Grant Park, Winnipeg, Manitoba PS. You can access the previous postings of this series here "Who ever heard a theologian preface his creed, or a politician conclude his speech with an estimate of the probable error of his opinion?" -Bertrand Russell
It plans to cut greenhouse emissions by up to 32 percent by 2020, but scientists say it may not be enough
Britain could become the first country to set legally binding carbon reduction targets under plans unveiled by Environment Secretary David Miliband. The draft Climate Change Bill calls for an independent panel to set ministers a "carbon budget" every five years, in a bid to cut emissions by 60% by 2050. If they miss the figure, future governments could be taken to court.
Scientists have identified four Antarctic glaciers that pose a threat to future sea levels using satellite observations
Scientists have identified four Antarctic glaciers that pose a threat to future sea levels using satellite observations, according to a study published in the journal Science.
Winter in the northern hemisphere this year has been the warmest since records began more than 125 years ago, a US government agency says. The combined land and ocean surface temperature from December to February was 0.72C (1.3F) above average.
The Planning Commission expects glacial reservoirs feeding Pakistan’s irrigation system will be empty after about 50 years, resulting in up to 40 per cent permanent reduction in river flows owing to fast depletion of Himalayan glaciers.
Spatial Heterodyne Imager for Mesospheric Radicals (SHIMMER) & Scintillation and Tomography Receiver in Space (CITRIS)
Oscar-winning Al Gore chose to call his film about global warming An Inconvenient Truth. But for Peru it is more like an alarming reality.
Over a span of two decades, warming temperatures have caused annual losses of roughly $5 billion for major food crops, according to a new study by researchers at the Carnegie Institution and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. From 1981-2002, warming reduced the combined production of wheat, corn, and barley -- cereal grains that form the foundation of much of the world’s diet -- by 40 million metric tons per year.
A labelling scheme designed to help shoppers identify firms committed to environmentally-friendly policies is set to be launched.
AEP, the largest US producer of coal-fired power, signed a memorandum of understanding to use French engineering company Alstom's chilled ammonia process at two of its plants. The company will then store the carbon dioxide underground. "We need to go forward and prove out -- not only for ourselves, but also for the industry -- that this technology will, in fact, work," AEP Chief Executive Michael Morris told reporters.
China is using Australia's refusal to ratify the Kyoto agreement as diplomatic leverage as it faces increasing pressure to step up efforts to tackle climate change...
The U.S. disagreed at a meeting of the Group of Eight nations and five key developing countries over the need for a global carbon market and economic incentives to help emerging economies protect the environment, said the German chairman of the talks. The 13 countries agreed on a range of points, including that global warming is happening and more needs to be done to tackle it such as by the development of clean technologies, German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel told reporters after a day of talks with his counterparts.
Germany's environment minister, Sigmar Gabriel, says the United States has blocked progress on two key issues to protect the global environment. He was speaking after a two-day meeting of environment ministers in the German city of Potsdam. The issues were carbon emissions trading and rewarding developing nations for protecting their natural assets, he said. Mr Gabriel said the US opposition was "not a surprise".
Environment ministers from the Group of Eight (G8) industrialised nations are in Germany to discuss a global response to the problem of climate change. The ministers will meet counterparts from key developing nations at the two-day meeting in Potsdam. They will discuss how to cut greenhouse gas emissions and how to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which runs out in 2012. Ministers from Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa will be attending the talks.
A survey on climate change conducted in more than a dozen countries found that a majority of people in nations including South Korea, Australia, Iran and Mexico -- but not the United States -- view global warming as a critical threat.
A new report by the Northern Territory's Environment Centre is calling on the Martin Government to adopt a mandatory renewable energy target to increase the uptake of solar energy in Darwin.
The fossil-fuel industry has been the overwhelming beneficiary of the Federal Government's $500 million low-emission technology development fund, receiving $335 million of the $410 million already allocated.
The Conservative government has eliminated a section of Environment Canada that played a key role in shaping climate-change policies now being announced by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, The Canadian Press has learned. Frustrated bureaucrats said the move is an example of the government's zeal to wrest control from public servants over an increasingly politicized issue. A memo sent to Environment Canada officials this month announced a new organizational structure for the department -- and it no longer includes the Climate Change Policy Directorate. The memo came just as the prime minister embarked on a national tour to announce a series of green initiatives that were largely prepared by the division now being dismantled.
Renowned scientist James Lovelock thinks mainland Europe will soon be desert - and millions of people will start moving north to Britain.
Global warming is a "weapon of mass destruction", one of Britain and the world's top climatologists said yesterday. Sir John Houghton, former director-general of the Meteorological Office and chairman of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, entered the debate over the seriousness of climate change after two meteorologists were reported as saying that "some scientists have been guilty of overplaying the available evidence". He said he agreed with the Government's chief scientist, Professor Sir David King, that it posed a greater threat than terrorism.
The comments of the two meteorologists, Professor Paul Hardaker and Professor Chris Collier, both of the Royal Meteorological Society - billed on Radio 4 as "leading experts on climate change" - threatened to revive the row over the scientific view of global warming after the broadcasting of Channel 4's polemic The Great Global Warming Swindle 10 days ago, which took issue with the view set out in Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth.
Two leading UK climate researchers have criticised those among their peers who they say are "overplaying" the global warming message. Professors Paul Hardaker and Chris Collier, both Royal Meteorological Society figures, are voicing their concern at a conference in Oxford. They say some researchers make claims about possible future impacts that cannot be justified by the science.
The Revenge of Gaia by James Lovelock
Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis Summary for Policymakers [IPCC]
Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning by George Monbiot
The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies by Richard Heinberg
The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review by Nicholas Stern
A new MIT report says that much more effort is needed to develop and test technology that will make clean-coal power plants economical and practical.
A sharp increase in auto fuel efficiency standards will not result in a meaningful drop in US oil consumption and would add billions in costs, chief executives of the world's top car companies said Wednesday. The officials from Chrysler Group , General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Japan's Toyota Motor Corp. agreed that significant efficiency improvements and reduced carbon emissions will come mainly from alternative fuels, hybrids and other technology -- not tougher fuel mandates.
You can find a short introduction to _Water_ here.
Labels: news
posted by coby @ 3/22/2007 08:33:00 AM
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