Hurricane!

’m using this as an example of the kind of armchair analysis I would love to see more consumers and voters do on their own when faced with any buying or voting decision that has significant energy and/or environmental implications. Does this candidate’s claim make sense? How much money can I save by adjusting my thermostat a couple of degree or car pooling? How much CO2 can I avoid by signing up for 100% green electricity?

The big question is where do you draw the line and say that this company is carbon neutral/negative and this one is not when they all rely heavily on carbon positive support?

Of course, no one knows what’ll happen to the suburbs we have now. Will they become the slums of the future? At least one expert in the film predicts a scarier scenario where we may not even have time to build new ‘hoods with new urbanist design principles; we may just need to salvage what we have left in the face of global climate change.

Yet another hot button topic these days is climate change and the environment. On the surface, you wouldn't think that this should be a conservative vs. liberal topic. After all, climate change is either happening or it isn't. And yet this is an issue that divides conservatives from liberals as much as any other.

Use GoLoco to make carpooling a whole lot easier, and do your part to reduce CO2 emissions and lessen traffic congestion.

Installation artist Spencer Tunick and Greenpeace Switzerland present a living sculpture: hundreds of naked people symbolise the vulnerability of the glaciers under climate change.

However, China is preparing for climate change induced disasters and plans 24 hour response with food and water for any emergency. Too bad the US isn’t doing the same.

Wyse announced its EarthSmart Computing Initiative, promoting thin clients as a way of reducing environmental impact. Every 10 PCs replaced by thin clients and appropriate server infrastructure can reduce CO2 emissions by one ton per year.

Smart Car, a car that offers maximum comfort, agility, safety, ecology and driving fun. A pioneering vehicle concept that is one of the best with its low CO2 emission figures.

And so it goes with Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). Let me suggest a moderately long article by Freeman Dyson as an intro to the kind of thinking that I once thought of as typical of the scientific mind engaging in speculation but which–alas!–is little seen in such areas as a discussion of AGW.

Something to ponder tonight - driving a car might be better for the planet in regards to “Global Warming” than walking. From the Times of London.

Are Live Earth’s ambitious really so low? Where is the fire, and the anger, and the leadership? The theory is that these bite sized simple first steps encourage and empower further actions. All the evidence – and there is plenty of it- is that this will not work. No mass movement or widespread social change has ever been inspired by napkins. It is mendacious to suggest that the low carbon economy can be created by these tiny measures. And dangerous too, because it encourages people to undervalue the seriousness of the issue or to adopt minimal tokenistic behaviours.

Dingell’s proposals are a good first step, but I, and many others in the 15th district, would be happier if they more closely approximated Henry Waxman’s proposed Safe Climate Act, which has been praised by the Union of Concerned Scientists, the League of Conservation Voters, and several other groups that seem to comprehend the serious threat of global warming. The truth of the matter is that we don’t have time for a lot of steps. We need this first one to be significant…

The article points out the fact that not only is this a great way to save money, but it also helps to decrease the power demand and the possibility of blackouts. Another benefit of the ice cooling system is its ecological impact. According to the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, using the system means less pollution: it’s “equal to taking 223 cars off the streets or planting 1.9 million acres of trees to absorb carbon dioxide from electrical use for a year.”

This is mighty powerful stuff, but to me, this does not sound like a man who is considering a run for the presidency. If Gore were running, he would have avoided advocating a 90 percent reduction in the US's CO2 emissions, he would not have attempted to shoulder the burden of CO2 reduction on developed countries, and he would have avoided anything the Right could label (predictably) as "alarmist."

There’s gold in them rising sea-levels, apparently. Texas law firms — dare we call it double-dipping if they are also working for the energy industry that owns the mess? — are building out climate change practice groups.

Found a news article talking about Google giving grants 'to drive toward a plug-in revolution'. They gave a total of $1,000,000. They are also converting their fleet over to plug in hybrids and have a website that compares two Toyota Prius Hybrids Vs two that have been converted to plug in hybrids. You can compare them here. You can drill down to the vehicle and the individual trip. Quite cool and it should nicely demonstrate the savings both in money and in CO2.

The final thing I would mention is your point about increasing carbon footprint. I’m very sorry, Dad, but you are not the right person to criticize me about this. Sure I increase my carbon footprint by skydiving, but if you want to criticize me for that, then you should also criticize me for flying to Australia and Malaysia (one round trip from Boston to Sydney releases as much CO2 as driving a car for a couple of years.) You should also consider that

At last some thorough analysis on how Peak Oil links in with global warming - go here for the entry-site (HT Energy Bulletin).

John Doerr shares his fears about our current direction with respect to climate change.

The best and most natural solution to global warming has always been the idea of "sequestration" — storing carbon where it can’t do harm, vs. in the atmosphere. And that’s been going on naturally for a billion years before we lit our first camp fire. Plants take water and CO2 from the environment and use sunlight to create the sugars we depend on. They later burn those sugars (just as we do) for energy, putting some of that same carbon back into the air.

Our original thoughts proved to be correct: If we were to have a sustained growth of trees in the future for lumber and firewood and animal habitat then we had to take personal responsibility for the growth of the forest. It was up to us. Our lives are built in and sustained in much the same way. Stopping global warming and climate change has to be handled in much the same way. If we wait for governments to make changes we are not long for this planet... better to take the responsibility for your own actions.

New analysis of the latest ExxonMobil funding reports reveals that in spite of recent public statements to the contrary, the company continues to bankroll organizations that misrepresent the science and urgency of global warming.

Climate projections show that the Maldives could disappear by the end of the century as a result of rising sea levels because of global warming.

Zerofootprint.net is a go green site dedicated to lowering the carbon footprint of individuals all over the world. They offer a wide range of ways to help visitors to implement their goals for going green. But what we found the most interesting was the “Zerofootprint Carbon Calculator“, which is a cool tool in determining how many tonnes of carbon you produce each year.

We were talking about global warming and the impacts of global warming 25 years ago but nobody was listening. 15 years ago they said we were full of it, 10 years ago we were all a bunch of commies who were trying to stop world corporations from making money. Nobody really listened and all of a sudden everybody’s like, ‘my god! What’s happening here!? Why didn’t somebody tell us about this!?

I saw Stephen Lewis speak and David Suzuki speak, and they both highly recommended the same book: Heat, by George Monbiot. So I read it, and it's changed how I look at the solution to climate change.

I posted earlier about an Australian website hosting company going carbon neutral. I just read that Yahoo intends to do so as well this year.

The Supreme Court, the finest judicial minds in the nation, supposedly, have demanded the EPA supply them with a negative proof. Negative proof, of course, is a logical fallacy. In this case, the EPA is being asked to prove that it is impossible that ’greenhouse gasses’ contribute to climate change. Since proving something is impossible is, well, impossible, that makes it fairly difficult.

But here’s the thing. Your house consumes a whole lot more energy and produces a whole lot more CO2 each year than even driving a hummer to work every day. More energy is consumed each day by homes than by shops, offices or other buildings such as schools or hospitals.

That to me is the most damaging myth. The reason I believe that is that while we are ignoring global warming other countries are recognizing the problems, coming up with solutions and making the money.

MIT also reports that neither China nor India, two countries which are agressively pushing new coal-fired powered plants, are likely to take any actions without the United States moving to curtain carbon emissions first. Eventually, carbon capture from coal burning will be crucial for both China and India if climate change is to be addressed.

Misconception 3 Global warming is linked to ozone depletion: This is only tangentally true. While they are both caused by pollution, they are caused by different types of pollution. Ozone depletion is mainly caused by CFC production and other reactive chemicals, whereas global warming is caused by heat trapping gasses such as CO2 and CH4 (carbon dioxide and methane for the chemically challenged).

Listening to some program about how global warming doesn’t exist. I’m not sure whether I care really - surely it can’t be wise to continue the way we are going using everything up, whether we are making the world warmer or not? So glad that I have Tim to talk to - I just bumbled my way through a sentence that was meant to mean “just because the climate is always changing doesn’t mean we aren’t having an effect”. Hm, not sure that makes much more sense written down. I don’t seem to be overly coherent tonight.

Of course the argument regarding “global warming” is settled. So what is the National Geographic doing printing information which could lead some of the eco-religious faithful away from the flock? Perhaps they have not yet gotten Al Gore’s memo to cease further discussion of reasons other than human industrial activity to account for global warming.

It has been reported that Gore is putting in solar panels at his mansion and other such greening has been going on, but let’s be honest–Gore has been making this argument for more than 20 years (Barnett says he’s been making it for 6 years. If you count Earth in the Balance as well as previous presentations he’s made, you’ll find it is much more than 6). If he’s known about global warming and the harm to the environment from CO2 and from greenhouse gases, one has to wonder why he didn’t put more effort into greening his own life sooner.

AP is boasting about how global warming and El Niño made for the warmest January ever last month.

I don’t believe the world is spiraling towards a cataclysmic end in the next hundred years as Al Gore would believe. I think the Doomsday Vault (a vault that contains every seed to every plant known to man), while a good idea, is just another element adding to the hysteria that is “global warming”. I am not a meteorologist or a climate expert, but after reviewing many of the editorials and television specials produced by the opposing sides of the debate, I am under the firm belief that the Earth is an ever changing ecosystem and that many scientists are basing their “findings” on the short-term rather than the long-term.

The Wall Street Journal reports that new research into melting glaciers and the Antarctic ice cap came to late to make it into the IPCC report. According to the Journal (subscrition required):

2. It takes 10 trees to process the CO2 that a human being produces, if you haven’t planted a tree you’re using some other person’s trees. So go plant a tree.

From the nation that called its anti-ballistic weapon system, “Star Wars”, comes a predictable response to global warming: reflective dust & giant space mirrors.

The additional coal plants would add 30,000 tons of nitrogen oxides, over 115 million tons of carbon dioxide, and nearly 4,000 pounds of toxic mercury each year, according to the Texas Cities for Clean Air Coalition.

Anyway, his email got me thinking. Planes are great for travel but horrible for the environment. Our love affair with intercontinental flights is having a massive impact on the environment and global warming. We no longer go 4 hours up the road for the weekend. Instead, we go to another country and occasionally another continent. The UK long weekend is not spent in Bath or Edinburgh anymore. It's spent in France or Spain. A quick plane trip to Mexico from just about any US city is almost as easy as drive down the coast - our carbon footprints (the measure we have on the environment by carbon dioxide) are getting bigger and bigger.

In a Human Events Online article, Walter Williams exposes the agenda of the global warming liars:

We also talked last night about how focusing on the enormity of the problem is often not helpful. I think I am generally pessimistic about the chances of our society curbing our carbon dioxide emissions in time. I think we can save the planet, but I think that it’s unlikely that we will do so before natural disasters kill millions of people. However, I hope to keep the mood of my blog entries more optimistic because I don’t think it’s quite time to throw in the towel.

You can still have your CD’s, and be carbon-neutral if you buy used copies. Although not as effective as buying digital music, it effectively halves the resource use by allowing at least 2 people to enjoy, or discard the physical manifestation of the record instead of the usual one. It also helps fuel a cottage industry for retired sound guys and radio dj’s.

To demonstrate that climate change is happening, some Vermonters went inner tubing in a river in January. As one who has spent considerable time in Vermont during the winter, I can say this is beyond unusual.

The business world is gearing up to ‘go green’. Although still being beaten into shape, California’s September ruling to engage in a mandatory carbon cap, amongst other U.S. movements, is causing many businesses to rethink their environmental position and get ready to join the expected new carbon economy.

Climate change, he says repeatedly and in a number of different ways, is the greatest moral issue of our day. For Gore and producers Laurie David and company, Sin & Evil = Global Warming & Bad Policies. Anyone who denies this is morally depraved.

And so when I first read Elizabeth Kolbert’s series of articles on climate change in the “New Yorker” in 2005 I was captivated. Field Notes on a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change is a compilation and expansion of those articles. It is the only climate book I have ever been inspired to buy — all the others seemed to rehash things I knew already, but there was something about the way Kolbert writes on climate — at once scientifically compelling and personal. And frightening. Of the many hundreds of articles I have read about climate change, Kolbert’s are the best.

Climate change is real, it’s accepted as a fact by a the majority of climate scientists.

It is now being thought that forest fires are not all bad. Some new research indicates that forest fires may actually reduce global warming. Previously, it was thought that forest fires would increase global warming because they released carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

By 2015 almost all countries have stablised their emissions, but it is the introduction of the parallel carbon economy that year that begins rapid change. Everyone is allocated carbon currency giving them the right to a certain level of emissions and purchases of carbon-causing products and services require both money and carbon credits. The market in carbon credits explodes and vast fortunes are made as economists grapple to understand the dynamics involved.

Micro CHP’s are also good in an environmentally friendly manner. They reduce the amount of electricity which needs to be generated by power stations, which are quite wasteful still. They also reduce the transportation cost required, although the National Grid will still need to be in place, so this is negligible. But the big saving would come if enough people had Micro CHP boilers in their homes - it’s estimated that 13 million Micro CHP’s would produce the same amount of electricity as Britain’s nuclear power stations - so these could then be closed down. Micro CHP’s also help to reduce Carbon Dioxide emissions by an average of 20% per household. Although gas would be required to power these beauties, their efficiency would reduce gas usage, and there is a hydrogen fuel cell version currently available which could finally make it possible for you to have a self sufficient house which might not even have to have any external power supplies - although this is a little way off in the future.

Speaking on An Inconvenient Truth we finally got around to seeing it on Sunday afternoon. If you have not seen it do so. Personally I found it a great movie and I think Al Gore put together a great presentation that should appeal to a vast majority of people. The movie gets you thinking, “what am I personally doing to help the environment?” There also a blog, and a great ad on You Tube:-

Stern’s report is seen as the original major stab to quantify the fiscal cost of climate change — and the primary chief gift to the global warming debate by an economist, rather than a scientist.

The Stern Review published today in the UK is a must read for anyone with a future. For mere mortals and all those climate change deniers who have been sooo quiet since Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth came out, the Summary of Conclusions might be more than enough reading on the subject. It is a primer and call to arms for all of humanity to get serious or pay a deadly price - in our lifetimes. It still pays homage to the god of perpetual growth, but recognises that the god of growth is dead unless we do something about it. Now.

The world’s leading science journals report that glaciers are melting ten times faster than previously thought, that atmospheric greenhouse gases have reached levels not seen for millions of years, and that species are vanishing as a result of climate change. They also report of extreme weather events, long-term droughts, and rising sea levels.

For the past five years I have been concerned about the impact of global warming on the planet in general and Australia in particular. 1 have made numerous speeches in the Parliament and in the broader community on the need for urgent action to address this issue. Throughout this period I have been increasingly frustrated by the misinformation spread by “climate change sceptics”, who have sought to undermine the case for action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by peddling pretty much any line they could think of - that global warming was unproven, that it might not be man-made, that it might be good for us etc. None of these things is

Yup. That Carbon Dioxide. That’s the gas that traps the Earth’s heat and causes this Global Warming mess.

More than any other energy, fossil fuels (which account for around 75% of the world's electricity and 90% of the world's total energy including cars) are the single greatest contributor to global warming. 85% of the 23 billion tons of CO2 poured into the environment are from fossil fuels.

Before I settled in on the old movie channel, I caught a bit of the coverage of todays NDP convention on CPAC. Tim Flannery, author of The Weather Makers, delivered a speach to the convention delegates about climate change in general and Canada’s failure to commit to the Kyoto Protocol emission targets in specific. I can’t fathom the audacity of the Conservative Party to try and pull that shit on the Canadian public and expect to get away with it. There is no doubt a very strong western base of support for dismantling these international agreements but I just can’t see Upper Canada and Maritime support forthcoming.

On July 2, MIT professor of atmospheric science, Richard Lindzen, published an opinion in The Wall Street Journal stating, among other things, that there is no consensus in the scientific community about global climate change. His opinion, “Don’t Believe the Hype: Al Gore is wrong. There’s no ‘consensus’ on global warming,” can be read here.

Crutzen emphasises that the best way of averting global climate disaster is for countries to cut back significantly on their emissions of greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide produced by burning oil, gas and coal. But in the absence of such measures, and with the average global temperature expected to rise more than 3C this century, there may soon come a time when more extreme measures have to be considered.