Is carbon offsetting a real solution?

Can the market be the way forward in the fight against climate change, or is carbon trading simply a license to pollute? It's a question that RealClimate.Org is better qualified than I to answer. :::[Buying a stairway to heaven?]

Compliance with Kyoto, a mere 5% reduction in carbon emissions, was forecast by Nordhaus [2001] to cost a few percent of GDP globally. The cost to stop emission completely and immediately may not even be calculable. Carbonfund.org promises zero net emissions, for a fraction of 1% of the average U.S. income. Can this possibly be real, or are we talking indulgences and snake oil?

The idea behind carbon offsets is built upon the foundation of carbon emissions trading established by the Kyoto Protocol, a scheme called cap and trade. Carbon emissions for industries are capped at some level by regulatory permits to emit CO₂.
If a company is able to cut its emissions below that level, it can sell its emission permits to another company. The cuts in emissions are thereby steered, by the invisible hand of the market, to the cheapest and most efficient means. Cap-and- trade has worked well for reduction of sulfur emissions in the U.S., that are responsible for acid rain. CO₂ emission is intrinsically even better suited for cap- and-trade, because it is a truly global pollutant, so it matters not where the CO₂ is emitted.

The carbon emissions market requires a certification process to verify any reduction in carbon emissions. Carbonfund.org and the other similar operations take donations from people like me and use the money to pay for renewable energy sources like solar cells or wind farms, that would not have been built otherwise. For these efforts, they receive credits for reduction in carbon emissions that are certified as valid, and therefore eligible for trade in the emissions market. Instead of trading that emission credit, carbonfund.org "retires" it, so that it isn't used to balance higher carbon emission from another source. The certification process from the emissions market has an unintended benefit of providing an independent way to verify the carbon impact from sending money to organizations like carbonfund.org. It's a nifty idea.

Other blogs on: kyoto protocol global warming climate change carbon emissions tradingemissions credits

Most Aussies oppose nuclear power

Following up our recent posting on how the nuclear debate in Australia is simply a Howard wedge tactic designed to split Labor, is a Newspoll showing 51 percent of Australians opposed to nuclear power in Australia. :::[SMH]

Other results:

• More people opposed uranium enrichment than approved of it (46 per cent to 34 per cent)
• 44 per cent were against the opening any new uranium mines
• 22 per cent wanted no uranium mining at all
• supporters of nuclear power stations were mostly men or Coalition affiliates
• majority opposition came from women, people aged between 18 and 49, and Labor voters
• there has been a dramatic closing of the gap in the past 20 years

There has been a dramatic closing of the gap in the past 20 years of those who oppose or support the idea of enriching Australian uranium for nuclear reactors before enriching it.

• A 1988 poll showed 59 per cent of people were against uranium enrichment in Australia and only 25 per cent supported it
• In the latest poll 46 per cent opposed to uranium enrichment (13-point drop), and there has been a nine-point rise to 34 per cent for those in favour

On another point it is interesting to note that Howard's popularity is going in the same direction as Bush's, Blair's and Berlusconi's. The Iraq war disaster may not have seemed to initially affect Howard as much as his coalition cohorts, but it is a slow burn as Australians realise that a) Iraq seems to only go from worse to worse as we pass each new heralded milestone with lowered hopes and no respite, b) petrol prices keep going up while oil companies make record profits, c) we turned our largest wheat importer into an enemy and wasted much by the way of military resources, while we ignored problems in East Timor, who we have a duty to help after exposing them to Indonesia's revenge.

Other posts on nuclear in Australia:

• The nuclear debate in Australia
  Little Johnny Howard goes the wedgie on Beasley (but is too short).
  

Other blogs on: global warming climate change nuclear power australia

Spanish grape to chill out when globe warms.

To save their $US2.4 billion industry from global warming, Spanish winemakers are shading wineries, developing heat-resistant grape genes and in a mass 'treechange', uprooting and migrating up the mountains. :::[Miami Herald]

Heat and sunlight increase sugar levels in wine grapes, which can boost alcohol content beyond what is palatable. Hotter weather may also curb grape acidity, changing the flavor, and unexpectedly rainy and cold seasons can devastate a year's crop.

A rise of even one degree Celcius will harm the lowland vinyards, and several prestigious companies are staking out suitable new locations in the cooler higher Pyranees. "Temperatures may rise 7 degrees Celsius by the end of the century", said Jose Manuel Moreno, professor of climatology at the University of Castilla La Mancha.

"Wine makers must plan to protect their grapes, because vines can keep producing wine for as many as 80 years and will be exposed to several generations of warming temperatures", reports Richard Smart, an Australian wine industry consultant advising on climate change.

global warning climate change global warming effects spain wine

Twenty one hurricanes, one hundred and twenty seconds.

Watching a fast motion visualisation of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season off the Mexican Gulf from space is a humbling experience. From where God is sitting, one can't help but feel awe for the power of nature.

The reconstructed weather maps taken from the Aqua and GOES-12 satellites is combined with temperature mapping of water surface temperatures, with orange depicting 31 degrees Celsius (87 Fahrenheit), the temperature at which the water starts to foment into hurricane fuel.

From January 1, 2005, a week before Arlene to Wilma on 0ctober 19, 2005, the visualisation takes 120 seconds showing the oceans build up heat reservoirs over summer to expel it as a hurricanes, offering some temporary relief to the ocean temperatures before another tropical storm ferments. Watch the seas just to the north of and around Cuba heat up, build up and inevitably become the genesis of Katrina.

It's also fascinating to watch the water bodies dramatically cool down in the wake of a hurricane, as the excess heat energy is transferred into extreme weather. You can get a real sense of this being one of Gaia's homeostatic mechanisms to maintain equilibrium, much like sweating is one of ours.

:::[NASA mpeg]
:::[21 Named Storms From the 2005 Atlantic Hurricane Season]

Other blogs on: global warming climate change hurricane katrina hurricanes

Global warming melts igloos, forces tent living.

Climate change may be an abstract concept for you. It may be difficult to perceive as yet, but the Inuit, attuned to to living on the ice over thousands of years, experience it every day not as climate change, but climate disruption. Spring has been arriving at remote Arctic village of Puvirnituq, in Northern Quebec, just south of Baffin Island earlier and earlier for the past six years. In times gone past traditional Inuit could look out the window and tell what the weather would be like the next day, "now it could be anything". Where snow once covered the mountains overlooking the villiage of Ivujivik, and ice covered the bay, there is now bare rock and open water. In April they experience June temperatures. Canadian officials visited Puvirnituq to disscuss climate change and the unexpected heat melted their igloo forcing them to decamp to a tent. Polar bears are coming dangerously close to humans in search of prey. Source: :::[SMH]

"It isn't just that it is warmer," Mr Aubin said. "It's the unpredictable nature of the weather now. We can go out hunting or fishing inland in March and find it's too warm to build an igloo, so we put up a tent and then the temperature suddenly drops again and we could freeze to death."

Other posts on global warming and the Inuit

• Global warming: Bush stands on fast thinning ice
  Shishmaref - A Casualty of Global Warming (photo essay)

Tags: global+warming, climate+change, artic, inuit

The nuclear debate in Australia

John Howard says he wants a debate on nuclear power to occur in Australia. That's fine by me, but I think the debate should be about the bigger problem of global warming and that nuclear should be just part of the conversation. But I can play on Howard's terms. Let me open the debate by asking what we do with the spent uranium?

As if on cue the government is just about to receive a report it commissioned that was conducted by Professor John Gittus, and independent consultant to the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO). Funnily enough it will say that the the latest type of nuclear power station is economically competitive with new coal fired power stations: :::[SMH].

Mrs Bishop said the study concluded that nuclear power was the safest, most secure way of generating electricity with greater price stability in comparison to gas or coal power generation.

The analysis also found the nuclear option was even more attractive when considering the cost of environmental damage and carbon dioxide emissions from new coal or gas-fired power stations.

"I welcome this report as a useful contribution to what I hope will be an evidence-based debate about nuclear power in Australia. The debate must focus on the facts and not be biased by emotion," she said in a statement.

OK, no emotion I promise (other than the emotion of surprise - this is the first time I have head of nuclear being economically competitive with coal). Now what about that spent uranium? What are we going to do with that? There I go, getting all emotional again.

I needn't. It seems Howard's attempts to talk up a nuclear debate is simply: :::[A red herring to prompt a Labor split.]

UPDATE:

Peter Hartcher's article elicited an interesting response published in letter to the editor of the SMH the following day:

Peter Hartcher gets John Howard's motives absolutely right when, out of the blue, the Prime Minister suggests a full debate on nuclear power for Australia ("A red herring to prompt a Labor split," May 26). Howard must know that because of economic factors here, the private sector wouldn't consider it in a fit. His real intention is much more cynical - to divide the ALP.

But I don't think Hartcher is altogether correct in claiming that because Iran is drenched in oil, it doesn't feel the need to develop nuclear power for electricity. When I was at the Australian embassy in Tehran in 1972 and 1973, the Shah frequently said oil was too valuable and finite a commodity simply to burn for power. With the backing of the Americans and the World Bank, he had a vigorous nuclear research program. This was the foundation for the program, which the revolutionaries who ousted him, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have been building on.

Richard Broinowski Paddington

And a clever judo throw.

There's a very simple answer to the Prime Minister's devious and divisive call for a debate on nuclear energy. At every turn we must tell him: it's not about nuclear energy, Mr Howard, it's about renewable energy.

John Newton Glebe

Tags: global+warming, climate+change, nuclear+power, australia

Grim news on global warming.

With the CEI dutifully telling us that carbon dioxide is natural because plants breath it in, CSIRO scientist Paul Fraser's findings that plants are just not inhaling anymore will be most unwelcome for them. I recently blogged about a presentation he was about to deliver on the latest results of testing at the Cape Grim meteorological station in Tasmania at a climate meeting in Sydney in the middle of the month :::[2005 record growth in atmospheric carbon dioxide].

I just wanted to catch up with the findings: Source :::[The Age]

• levels of carbon dioxide - believed to be the single biggest man-made gas contributing to climate change - hit another record high.
• carbon dioxide levels increasing at almost double the rate they were in the early 1980s.
• combined greenhouse gas rises in 2005 resulted in record levels of greenhouse gas heating, known as radiative forcing, which is driving up the earth's temperature.

The rate of growth is unprecedented:

"We would expect carbon dioxide to grow every year, but I have been surprised that it has been growing at above average rates for four years straight, because we haven't seen that before," lead author Paul Fraser said. "It's a clear signal that fossil fuels are having an impact on greenhouse gas concentrations in a way we haven't seen in the past."

Global warming skeptics please note that it's not just bad news coming out of Gap Grim these days though:

The report's silver lining was the finding that gases that damage the earth's protective ozone layer - such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) once commonly used in refrigerators - have been falling since 1997.

The turnaround is the result of the Montreal Protocol, a legally binding international treaty adopted in 1989 by most countries, including Australia, that forced manufacturers to curb their use of CFCs.

Dr Fraser said it was proof that international agreements have a positive effect.

Other blogs on: global warming climate change cape grim CFC, carbon dioxide levels cei

ExxonMobil funds global warming spoofer

Being a discredited former NASA climate scientist pays when it comes to picking hobbys, if your hobby happens to be writing a web site spoofing 'global warming alarmism'. Roy W. Spencer's EcoEnquirer.com gets 43,000 page views a month satirising the bad news about global warming, and he gets paid to write for TCS Daily, a science and public policy thinktank that receives funds from ExxonMobil.

He is the scientist who has been responsible for amost two decades of confusion and controversy over the disparity between satellite temperatures and surface temperatures. His research showing the Earth was warming more slowly than surface temperature readings would indicate. He won NASA's Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal in 1991 for that work, but this month a government study concluded there was no statistical difference between the two climate records, finally clearing the air (or allowing us to move in that direction).

His other hobby? He's a god-rock-god:

He's lead guitarist in a contemporary Christian rock band at St. Mark's Lutheran Church in Huntsville. (His environmentalist-mocking alternative lyrics to Supertramp's "Give a Little Bit": "I'll take a little bit, I'll take a little bit of your wealth from you/So give a little bit, oh, give a little more than a dime to me.")

Oh, one of them "the Lord wants us to be rich" Christians? Just wait till the money tables have turned on you. :::[Washington Post]

Other blogs on: global warming, climate change, global warming skeptic, ExxonMobil, climate change denial

If Iran is like Hitler's germany then war must be soon.

Off topic ... but the bleat that Howard and that new conservative Canadian Prime Minister are making over the since withdrawn story of Iran making Jews and Christians wear armbands suggests to me that we (they) are very close to going to war against Iran. :::[SMH] The same pattern of demonisation of Saddam Hussain happended before the US invaded. His sons were rapists, he was a baby killer, and oh yea, people were were sexually humiliated and tortured in henious ways at Abu Ghraib. What I don't understand is why they/we want to go again when they are so bogged down in Iraq? For unfathomable reasons, the world's last sole superpower is rendering itself a laughing stock for foes and friends alike, much like the scorn that the Romans are treated with in the Asterix comics.

Update: ::[Claims not true]

Mind you, well may we laugh; without Getafix, the Druid who could cook up superstrength potion in his cauldron, Asterix would have had no option but to pay tithe to Caesar. We don't have a druid in Australia, just a gnome, and he is in Canada paying tithe to Rome. He is using his position to help demonise Iran to pave the way for Bush to sell a war:

Mr Howard, speaking in Ottawa after a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, said the suggestion was further indication Iran was heading down the wrong path.

Mr Howard, speaking in Ottawa after a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, said the suggestion was further indication Iran was heading down the wrong path.

"If that (the report) is true, I would find it totally repugnant," Mr Howard told reporters before the report was debunked.

"It obviously echoes the most horrible period of genocide in the world's history and the marking of Jewish people with a mark on their clothing by the Nazis, and anything of that kind, would be totally repugnant to civilised countries.

"If it is the case, it's something that would just further indicate to me the nature of this regime.

"It's a calculated insult, if it's true, not only to Christians but most particularly to Jews."

Mr Howard was joined in the attack on Iran by the US and Canada, who said they had no details on the issue beyond the newspaper report.

Well it's not true. If Iran is expecting an apology from Howard there's a long queue, and we don't like queue jumpers. In my analogy I would have to say New Zealand was more like that Gaulish village holding out to Rome. After they told the US navy to not even think of docking a nuclear warship off their fair shores in the 1980's they had a quiet taste of what it must be like to be Cuba. You don't see the NZ Prime Minister, Helen Clark, having to sidle up to Caesar and sully her country's good name with constructing another raft of lies on which to float another expeditionary war. Their economy has recovered now and is far less dependent on America and her dollar. They are ranked #1 in world environmental performance and, whatever they have been drinking it has not hurt their performance with two NZ teams in the finals of the Super 14 Rugby. Not to take anything away from the Hurricanes but there was that bad call in the 69th minute by referee Jonathan Kaplan whose name will forever be typed in small font on this blog. I blame his clear vendetta against the Waratahs - in the 10 games he has refereed the 'tahs we have never won. I blame that and that fact that we have a gnome and no druids in this country.

Oil War Iraq Iran Australia Canada US New Zealand

Carbon dioxide spot: They call it an ad, we call it a lie.

An ExxonMobil funded lobby group, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, is going on the attack to stake out the high ground in the public conversation on global warming that is likely to erupt around the opening of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth". Two 60 second tv ads produced by the institute will be played in 14 U.S. cities from May 18 to May 28, 2006. :::[Thinkprogress]

The CEI commercial
Carbon Dioxide: they call it pollution, we call it life

I see that ExxonMobil are conserving their record profits wisely and not spending much on production values. Global Warming Watch felt it needed a rejoinder and dug deep into our treasury to fund the writing of the counter-ad (no production budget, sorry):

Video	Audio
Long shot opening on a shot of man standing in a large glass tank up to his ankles in water. Water is filling it fast, with the level rising as he speaks.
	Presenter: "Some oil and coal companies tell us that carbon dioxide is natural and shouldn't be classified as a pollutant by politicians wanting to legislate against rising emissions.
The level is at his waist and rising fast.
	Presenter: "They imply C02 can't be a pollutant because we expel it, and it is absorbed by plants for food."
The level is now at chest height and rising.
	Presenter: "That it provides us with transport and is it is harnessed to make energy and free us a life of back-breaking labour."
Level is starting to cover shoulders. Presenter stretches to full height. Tilting chin al
	Presenter: "That it supports all life."
Water level is at chin height.
	Presenter: "But you can also say the same thing about water." SFX: last few words spoken under water yet audible.
Camera pulls back to longer shot as the water continues to rise rapidly . Presenter starts to float off. Super: Carbon Dioxide: Too much is dangerous for all life.
	VO: Don't let big oil flood you with lies. The scientific consensus holds that the current rate of emissions increase, unchecked, IS going to change the climate. It's time to act.

It must be getting hard to maintain that global warming is not occurring.

The television commercials: :::[CEI]

Other bloggers commenting on CEI's advertisements:

• :::[But...But...Carbon Dioxide is So Natural!]
  Eloquent post by LitBrit of The Last Duchess blog
• Thank You For Exhaling
  
• Know thine enemy
• Who needs oxygen when we've got carbon dioxide?
  
• "they call it a spot. we call it a stain."

More: :::[Global Warming Watch]

Other blogs on: global warming, climate change, carbon dioxide, CEI, skeptics

And now, a message from the President of the United States

President Al Gore: "Good evening, my fellow Americans. In 2000 when you overwhelmingly made the decision to elect me as your 43rd president, I knew the road ahead would be difficult. We have accomplished so much yet challenges lie ahead.

In the last 6 years we have been able to stop global warming. No one could have predicted the negative results of this ... :::[Crooks and Liars]

See the video :::[Windows Media Player]:::[Quick Time]

Other posts on: Al Gore and global warming:

• Al Gore, Global Warming Crusader-in-Chief.

Other blogs on: global warming, al gore, satire

Emissions cuts Bonn mots: After you. No, after you!

One hundred and ninety of the world's nations will be meeting in Bonn on May 15-16 to attempt to create a dialogue between the developing world, the 40 rich nations subscribing to the U.N.'s emissions capping Kyoto Protocol, and the United States which generates 25 percent of the heat trapping greenhouse gasses responsible for the unnatural rate of warming. We are currently warming at 0.2°C per decade and at this rate 35 years to 50 years is all we have before the climate is irreversibly damaged according to experts Gorbechov talks to: :::[SMH].

Many poor countries want industrialised nations to make deeper cuts before they consider putting a brake on emissions from factories, power plants and cars.

They say rich nations have been the source of most greenhouse gases since the Industrial Revolution.

The poor countries have a point, and it is the same one the US warned was the reason why Kyoto was weak. But it plays into the hands of big oil and big coal and it would be hard for the poor coutries to argue this way had the US not pulled out of Kyoto in 2001.

And while they have a point in terms of the rhetorical framework contructed around global warming, entrenching fossil fuel dependence is not a sensible position for their long-term when it is at the opportunity cost of adjusting their economies to run on green energy. There has been an unchallenged assumption that converting to greener economies will come at the cost of growth framing this whole global warming debate. Today, this has been challenged in Australia by the Australia Institute: :::[SMH]

THE Federal Government's argument for not signing the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions has been rocked by new analysis showing the economic impact on Australia would be much smaller than expected.

Signing would have relatively minor consequences for Australia's competitiveness and could be easily managed, the report on the effects of carbon pricing has found. And it warns Australia's failure to sign is likely to be far more costly in the long run
than if it were to participate.

Knew that would startle you. Here is a bigger eye opener.

The Government has justified its failure to ratify the protocol by arguing compliance would have a disproportionate impact on the economy because of Australia's heavy dependence on industries with intense carbon emissions.

But the report said the industries that would be most affected by the imposition of a price on greenhouse gas emissions - aluminium, alumina, steel, nickel, gold and liquefied natural gas producers - account for just 1.5 per cent of gross domestic product.

"The international competitiveness problem is much smaller than has often been claimed," says the report, prepared for the Australia Institute by Hugh Saddler and Clara Cuevas, from the energy consultancy Energy Strategies, and Frank Muller of the University of NSW.

One-point-five piddly percent of the GDP? How come these guys get to have so much influence on government policy? On our environment? Our kids' futures? And their's? You can't even get away with calling it disproportionate. It's obscene, and it exposes the anticipated Bonne mexican standoff between the poor countries and the US, our partners in eco-crime, as pure artifice.

Other posts on: emissions reductions not coming at the cost of economic growth:

• Petrol hits $A1.25, and leather hits pavement.

Other blogs on: global warming, climate talks, Bonn, Australia, energy, emissions, Kyoto Protocol, Australia Institute

2005 record growth in atmospheric carbon dioxide

Global warming is great for those who like broken records. A CSIRO scientist, Paul Fraser, will present the latest results of testing at the Cape Grim meteorological station in Tasmania at a climate meeting in Sydney tomorrow: :::[SMH]

Dr Fraser said carbon dioxide grew by two parts per million (0.54 per cent) in 2005, the fourth year in a row of above-average growth.

"To have four years in a row of above-average carbon dioxide growth is unprecedented," Dr Fraser said in a statement.

"In addition, the trend over recent years suggests the growth rate is accelerating."

He said the 30-year record of air collected at the Cape Grim observation station showed growth rates of just over one part per million in the early 1980s but, in recent years, carbon dioxide had increased at almost twice this rate.

"This is a clear signal that fossil fuels are having an impact on greenhouse gas concentrations in a way we haven't seen in the past," Dr Fraser said.

The good news is that methane has seen a slight decrease over the past two years, and that ozone depleting gases have been decreasing since 1997. Actually, that last bit is fantastic news; it comprehensively demonstrates that we can do something effective about climate threat without suffering a fall in economic growth.

other blogs on: global warming, climate change, carbon dioxide

Al Gore, Global Warming Crusader-in-Chief.

The perception that the United States is the source of all global warming evil for squandering their unique leadership status is not helped when you look at their leader. "Do I have to?" I hear you groan. I only bring it up by way of making the point that the Emitter-in-Chief is not the only leader the US has; there is Al Gore, and he is showing leadership on global warming.

If he were to hitch his presidential campaign to that wagon I would say he can't go wrong. He's a younger man with time on his side, at some point he will be thrust on the center stage of the biggest global events we will ever witness, climate change. But these days he introduces himself as the man who "used to be the next president of the United States" when he presents his documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" that he is crisscrossing the country with. Whether he is dinkum about his ambitions or not, he seems the real McCoy about his subject: :::[ABC News]

You learn in "An Inconvenient Truth" that Gore has focused on global warming longer than he's been a politician; he studied at Harvard under Roger Revel, one of the first scientists to realize that the industrial age has created a new and unnatural injection into the atmosphere of CO2 and other greenhouse gases that would change the climate of the entire planet.

In Al Gore's 'slideshow' prelude to the film he comes across as a convincing harbinger to the ABC journalist:

Whatever your politics, it is an authoritative and compelling demonstration of the unassailable reality and dangers for humanity of the continuing addition to the atmosphere of greenhouse gases emitted from the burning of fossil fuels — coal, oil and gas.

I am pleased to note that the journalist, Bill Blakemore, is himself convinced. It seems like a bold move that the American ABC News program forcefully assert the scientific consensus that there is manmade global warming, even though it shouldn't seem that way:

And yes, as our research here at ABC News has confirmed, virtually all the credible climate scientists say that if humanity continues with business as usual in pouring carbon dioxide into the atmosphere unabated, then global temperature will continue to soar into temperatures far higher than the human species has ever experienced, making Earth incapable of supporting civilization "as we know it" (that used to be a joke line in a Monty Python skit), perhaps with, as eminent Earth systems scientist James Lovelock speculates, "only a few breeding pairs of humans left near the poles," where, he supposes, life may still be tolerable.

The other thing on Al Gore side is that he doesn't chew gum while he walks the talk. He has established the Alliance for Climate Action, a "collection of local, regional and state-level professionals committed to working to reverse the growth of greenhouse gas emissions in Burlinglton, Vermont", as the Burlington Electric Department website describes it.

"Professional", now there's a refreshingly pleasing word to be associated with leadership. I have never thought it professional when the Emitter-in-Chief chews gum while he talks the walk. And just what is that chewing motion when he pauses during his speeches all about? Bush is not ruminating, that's clear from this side of the Pacific.

global warming climate change al gore an inconvenient truth

Boxing The Glacier - The Blovel

Introduction.

If you thought witnessing global warming equals watching paint dry then bookmark our Boxing the Glacier blovel, wherein a heady brew of murky industrial and political agendas compete with the latest mainstream climate science for public mindshare in a race against time as we hurtle through space towards a catastrophe that not even Michael Crichton could dream of in his wildest fictions.

All in this novel blovel form - blovel being a novel in live-blog format that takes its plot lines and characters from the real world to entertain and inform. It's a total experiment and I take as inspiration Crichton's blends of fiction and pseudo-science in State of Fear. Not just the book, the phenomenon; the guy has been received by the President of the United States as some sort of climate change expert, for god's sake. His scientific credentials extend to writing Jurassic Park, The Great Train Robbery, Westworld, Prey and Rising Sun.

Yet his global warming views have helped shape policy: :::[TNR]

As reported in Rebel-in-Chief, a new book on George W. Bush by Weekly Standard Editor Fred Barnes, soon after State of Fear's December 2004 publication, Crichton was contacted by Karl Rove with word that Bush had read his novel and wanted to meet him. In January 2005, Crichton spent an hour with Bush. The session, Barnes writes, found the men "in near-total agreement."

What is this upside down world we live in? No longer is fiction embargoed from science when developing public policy. And that is acceptable? This new reality slipped in via the same trojan embedded in the public psyche that facilitated the notion of Intelligent Design coming to challenge Darwin in the science class-room. That virus didn't survive the sanitory court rooms, but while the trojan lives anything can and does go wrong. We have a serious problem on our hands with global warming, and the one thing that is going to help is a scientific understanding of climate change. The right information will help us make the right decisions and survive. Yet in an ironic inversion of the classic Crichton plotline of a dystopian scientocracy we have a case where NASA's top climate scientist, James E. Hansen, claims he is censored by the White House. He charges that NASA's scientists are intimidated into withholding scientific findings that run counter to Administration policy.

Throw into that crazy crucible the withering speech of satirist comic Stephen Colbert at the Annual Washington Press Corps Dinner, add the reaction of the President to the blowtorch of truthiness, flavour with the media's pretense that it did not happen, stir, forment, and presto ... Boxing the Glacier.

We have good guys, we have bad guys, we have the fate of humanity hanging in the balance. What more do you want? A plot? It doesn't work that way, this is a blovel where I get my inspiration from the real world. You will just have to wait until I spot one I think I could work with. I think I may have one but I am going to give it the overnight test so, please, watch this space.

global warming climate change blovel blogging

Aussie wind power in doldrums.

I didn't hear anything about financing wind power generation in NSW and South Australia in Costello's budget of a few days ago. $500 million was allocated for the rehabilitation of the Murray River, to be spent immediately but as Danny Kennedy of Greenpeace Australia points out, inaction on the major threat to of Murray's ailing health, climate change, means the allocation will ultimately be wasted.

Now we read of two wind farms worth $550 million and another worth $250 million being shelved because of lack of Federal support, putting at risk another $12 billion worth of proposed wind farms that could power all the homes in NSW and South Australia. It is not even money the developers, Roaring 40's, are looking for. They want the government to increase its mandatory renewable energy target:

The target boosted investment in environmentally friendly forms of power by requiring 2 per cent of electricity be generated from renewable sources. However, it was so successful the 2 per cent figure has been reached.

Without an increase in the target, electricity retailers were reluctant to commit to power contracts with wind farmers, said the managing director of Roaring 40s, Mark Kelleher.

In the meantime we are losing jobs and opportunities in our wind farm manufacturing industry to China and the US. It doesn't seem too smart to me. Source: :::[SMH]

Other blogs on: global+warming, climate+change, wind+power, energy, australia

Climate Change Action: Undercover Scotsman cracks US global warming democracy project

Just spotted: :::[Climate Change Action: Working Group I Contribution to 4th Assessment Report of the IPCC]

You can't make this stuff up. If you, Joe/Jo Public, want to participate in a US Government review of what Calvin Jones of Climate Change Action believes is supposed to be the publicly embargoed 4AR of the IPCC he can show you how he contributed from craggy Scotland. Calvin unbuttons his umbrage and raises his ire:

In what i can only described as a display of utter contempt for the IPCC the US govornment has released the second draft of the IPCC Fourth Assesment Report (4AR) to the public!

Love that accent! So go and have your say if you are a US citizen, you can bet your children's future eating petro freaks are. I'm with Calvin, why on earth does the public get a say in the drafting of scientific conclusions? What kind of sad joke is that?

Even if you are not a US citizen, give it a go. I reckon you are entitled. The US contributes 25% of the man-made greenhouse gas with only a fraction of the population. They are exporting the the poisoned fruits of the "democratisation" of science around the world.

global warning climate change activism science fossil fuel lobby kyoto Energy

Global warming? What me worry?

The Environmental Defense ad you ought to see if you haven't, and ought to see again if you have:

Source: :::[Fight Global Warming]
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Murray money wasted when climate changes

The $2 billion spent by the Australian Federal Government to restore the ailing health of Australia's longest river, the Murray, will be money wasted, say Greenpeace Australia, because we are not addressing the major threat to the river's future health, that of climate change.

Danny Kennedy, a spokesman for Greenpeace took the occasion of Treasurer Peter Costello's 11th budget speech to point out the government's denial about global warming is the greatest identifiable risk to Australia's future.

"The treasurer certainly seems to be aware that climate change
is hurting Australians and our economy, yet still no mention of
climate change followed.

"In fact, in 11 years, Mr Costello still hasn't managed to say
the words in a budget speech."

He pointed out that Mr Costello had "unwittingly" acknowledged the cost of climate change by giving $260 million in relief to businesses and farmers sufferning from Tropical Cyclone Larry. For too long this government has externalised the costs of cheap energy, Larry won't be the last extreme weather event to hit population areas or farmland. Source: :::[The Age]

Other blogs on global+warming, climate+change, Murray+river, Australia, budget

$500 million to restore health of Murray River

Today's federal budget will see $500 million paid to the Murray-Darling Basin Commission to save the ailing Murray River. It is the largest cash injection in 10 years and brings the federal government's total commitment to the great river to $2 billion when it is paid by the end of this financial year. It will be spent on projects aimed at fully restoring the Murray's health, from its Queensland and NSW sources to its mouth in South Australia: Source: :::[SMH]

• Salt interception along the river to help reduce salinity levels;
• The sea-to-Hume Dam fishway, which aims to replenish native fish stocks by giving them free access from the ocean to the Hume Dam on the NSW-Victorian border;
• Building new water pumping stations, as well as upgrading existing ones; and
• Sending an extra 500 billion litres of water annually down the river by 2009.

The money comes with no strings attached but the states will be encouraged to contribute funds of their own. If you as an individual want to do something and at the same time offset your carbon emissions, Greenfleet Australia will invest your offsets into their extensive native revegetation program aimed at rehabilitating the banks of the Murray.

Further reading: :::[ # 3 link added: Greenfleet]

Other blogs on: global+warming, carbon+offsets, Murray+River, Greenfleet

Plants won't save us from extreme global warming.

Plants don't absorb more heat-trapping carbon dioxide at higher atmospheric CO2 levels because much of the world's soils don't contain enough nitrogen levels. A recently concluded six year study by Peter B. Reich, a forest resources professor at the University of Minnesota highlights a flaw in worldwide computer modeling based on the assumption that plants would take up a good portion of the extra carbon dioxide mankind is emitting into the atmosphere. The study concluded that for plants to absorb extra carbon dioxide, they would need artificially higher nitrogen soil levels, impractical on a worldwide scale: Source: :::[Pioneer Press]

"This suggests a less optimistic scenario for how much of the elevated CO2 the plant systems can soak up,'' said Reich, a professor in the department of forest resources.

...

The researchers did their study by tending 296 field plots containing different numbers and combinations of perennial grassland species. They subjected each to one of four conditions: some got added soil nitrogen, others got added atmospheric carbon dioxide, and still others got added levels of each. The rest got standard levels of nitrogen and carbon dioxide.

Researchers measured the amount of plant material produced in each setting. After four to six years, plots receiving more nitrogen absorbed at least three times as much extra carbon under higher carbon-dioxide conditions than did plots without any extra nitrogen.

Climate modelers will have to revise the assumption, and policy makers need to take note that climate change will be more extreme than earlier predicted. Finally this puts the kibosh on the tactic of the global warming denial crowd who say the carbon dioxide rich atmosphere will be good for plant growth when eventully forced to admit to warming.

Personally I think the future is big for legumes.

Other blogs on: global+warming, climate+change, co2, greenhouse+gas, carbon+sink

50,000 thank yous paint a picture for Bush.

Update on the Stephen Colbert blogswarm of "thank yous" for showing up Bush and his lapdog mainstream media: Thankyoustephencolbert.org has passed the 50K milestone and recorded 50,087+ missives on day five since Colbert stunned the Whitehouse, Bush and the Washington press corp in his now famous address.

Let it not be forgotten that it was Colbert's gag on global warming ignorance that got the greatest laugh from the otherwised gobsmacked audience.

Previous post: :::[Colbert makes sushi meal of Bush]
Other blogs on: global+warming, climate+change, stephen+colbert

Bad hurricane season predicted for Caribbean

The water temperatures in the Atlantic-Caribbean basin, the 2005 creche of Katrina, remain warm with no sign of a counteracting El Nino developing in the Pacific, so forecasters at Cuba's National Weather Institute are predicting an above average 15 tropical storms with at least nine expected to become hurricanes.

While it is nothing near the record setting 2005 Atlantic hurricane season of 28 tropical storms with 15 developing into full-blown hurricanes Cuban forecaster Maritza Ballester says batten down the hatch:

The first storm will form in late June or early July, she predicted, with three arising in the Gulf of Mexico.

"Everything points to an active season," said Ballester, developer of a mathematical model for predicting hurricanes.

Global warming is leaving a lot of cat 5 rocket-fuel for hurricanes lying around the Atlantic-Caribbean. Let's just hope that we get better at dealing with them, they are not going away for a while like they used to. Source: :::[SMH]

Tags: global+warming, climate+change, hurricanes, katrina

Big bang just a beat in infinite time.

Good news. The latest theory to come out of the science of cosmology is that our universe may be just the last in a beginning-less line of endlessly repeating big bangs. :::[SMH]

Instead of being formed from a single big bang about 14 billion years ago and destined to expand and eventually peter out to the cold, dead remains of stars, the universe may be an endless loop of explosions and contractions stretching forever.

Einstein's cosmological constant was proposed to explain a stationary universe as part of his theory of general relativity, but he discarded this when Edwin Hubble established that the universe was not in stasis, rather it was expanding. Einstein described it as the "biggest blunder of his life". But he would be vindicated by the renewed interest in the search for a cosmological constant, a mathematical representation of the energy of empty space, dark energy, which is a kind of anti-gravity pushing the universe apart at an accelerating speed. Now physicists say they have measured the number and it turns out to be a googol (1 followed by 100 zeros) times smaller than if the universe was created in a single big bang.

The new figure would explain a universe that was billions of years older and created in cyclical big bangs according to Professor Neil Turok, a theoretical physicist at Cambridge University:

"What we are proposing is very radical. It's saying there was time before the big bang."

"There doesn't have to be a beginning of time," Professor Turok said. "According to our theory, the universe may be infinitely old and infinitely large."

If the theory is right, how long have we got until the next big bang? Professor Turok said: "We can't predict when it will happen with any precision - all we can say is it won't be within the next 10 billion years."

And there I was worried because our sun is dying. The long term prognosis is that we get another one after the next big bang assuming we survive it all.

Tags: universe, expanding+universe, cosmological+constant, big+bang, time

Ford gas guzzlers to live here on Aussie welfare

Fifty million Australian taxpayer dollars are going to be used to bail out an ailing American car company, Ford, to design petrol-hungry vehicles: :::[SMH].

With the trend to lower emissions, more petrol-efficient cars this taxpayer wonders why the Howard government is lurching from one ad-hoc motor vehicle industry corporate aid package to another. Ford's own PR is a bit worrying:

Ford's public affairs manager, Sinead McAlary, said Ford's future was "absolutely not" in doubt. "It's not actually a bail-out at all - it's an investment and we very much appreciate the support of the Government," she said.

Now if we were to produce flex-fuel vehicle at least there will be growth prospects for the 'investment', and longer term security for the 273 new Australian jobs Howard claims will be created. Why is he behaving like petrol is going to be cheaper in the future?


Other blogs on: global+warming, climate+change, flex-fuel, ford, SUV, corporate+welfare

Pell's bells a pealing for hell on earth.

It's really sad to see a supposedly responsible Catholic leader, Cardinal George Pell, come out with a polemical litany against the Koran, western democracy's slow breeders, childless Europe's, "pagan emptiness" and those making "hysteric and extreme claims" about global warming among others.

The Koran is riddled with "invocations to violence", western democracy is suffering a crisis of confidence because fertility rates are dropping and pagans are panicing because we can't control the weather anymore:

"In the past, pagans sacrificed animals and even humans in vain attempts to placate capricious and cruel gods. Today they demand a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions."

Cardinal Pell must be overlooking the fact that Christians once sacrificed themselves. The early Christian church was built upon the blood of martyres until it was adopted as the official Roman state religion. But what I don't like is this implicit notion that anyone who demands a reduction in carbon dioxide is necessarily a pagan. I may not be church going but I had my child baptised, not in George Pell's diocese thank god, but the one next door. He can make his own choice about religion when old enough but George Pell is hardly an advertisement. From his address at the Legatus Summit, Naples, Florida U.S.A.:

"Although I had possessed a copy of the Koran for 30 years, I decided then [after Sept. 11] to read this book for myself as a first step to adjudicating conflicting claims. And I recommend that you too read this sacred text of the Muslims, because the challenge of Islam will be with us for the remainder of our lives - at least."

Well, yes, if Australia's most influential Catholic keeps propagating Islam as a "challenge" to US Catholic business leaders. But I am not buying into this mundane 'controversy'. I just make the point that the consequences of foisting further ignorance on devout Catholics about the global warming going on around us now, and of that still in the pipeline, will be with our children, and our grandchildren, and their's, for the remainders of all of our lives.

The Times of London reports UN climate scientists, not pagans, as saying that Earth's danger point, 3C hotter, is going to happen:

The world will warm by 3C (5.4F) even under emissions projections for 2050 that leading scientists consider optimistic, the United Nations group that studies global warming has said.

The increase, which would cause drought and famine for 400 million people and devastate wildlife, is predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its most confident assessment yet of how greenhouse gases are affecting global temperatures.

It would be far more responsible for George Pell to be using his influence to further the Christian concept of stewardship, as strictured in Genesis 2:15. And if he wants to promote common cause with the Muslim world, he should exhort the key Muslim obligation of khalifa, or stewardship in Islam.

Source :::[George Pell address: Islam and Western Democracies]

Tags: global+warming, climate+change, christianity, islam, sydney

US government confirms realiness of global warming.

When the Bush Administration was asked to acknowledge the scientific mainstream consensus that anthropogenic global warming was a real and present danger that needed attention, they chose to commission their own study to establish the truthiness or untruthiness of this pesky issue before taking an obvious course of avoidance.

Well results are in:

A scientific study commissioned by the Bush administration concluded yesterday that the lower atmosphere was indeed growing warmer and that there was "clear evidence of human influences on the climate system."

The White House did not blink in the face of this further confirmation of a decade of scientific consensus:

The finding eliminates a significant area of uncertainty in the debate over global warming, one that the administration has long cited as a rationale for proceeding cautiously on what it says would be costly limits on emissions of heat-trapping gases.

But White House officials noted that this was just the first of 21 assessments planned by the federal Climate Change Science Program, which was created by the administration in 2002 to address what it called unresolved questions.

They have 20 more chances to prove their global warming realiness was right all along. This lot is clever eh? The first one took four years - they will have the report concluded in the year 2086. Can't say they are not earning their fossil-fuel industry donations with that taxpayer funded research masterpiece.

Source :::[NYT: Federal Study Finds Accord on Warming]
Report :::[climatescience.gov]

Global Warning Climate Change Science CO2 Energy

Pump up the jam, pump it up...

With prices at the gas pump shooting to all time highs, Ross Gittens, SMH's resident economist explains that this is a good thing from both an economic point of view, and an environmental one.

:::[Smile, pain at the pump has pay-offs]

Technorati Tags: global+warming, gas+price, petrol+price, economics

Colbert makes sushi meal of Bush.

Stephen Colbert is a sharp and very, very funny US satirist.

I am told by an American friend that he parodies the pro-war US right-winger so well that many have trouble distinguishing the parody. They won't have any trouble now.

At the White House Correspondents' Dinner last night his cutting, slashing, stabbing satire was on display as he disembowled the press corps for their obsequiousness to the White House agenda. But he saved his most withering wit for Boy King George; I most enjoyed Colbert's reference to Bush's response to global warming:

"[Talking to Jesse Jackson] is like boxing a glacier...Enjoy that metaphor, by the way, because your grandchildren will have no idea what a glacier is."

That got a laugh. But I was struck by how most of the audience, the American press, seemed too shit scared to have a laugh at their president's expense. It is quite a sad indictment on the democracy and freedom that is so readily touted. I really am not kidding, you have to see the video for yourself. Link :::[WMP] via Crooks and Liars. George and Laura bolted as soon as they could.

Update: The bovine press corps may still be chewing Colby's speech over, but the American street certainly is reacting. As of this posting 6,344 heartfelt "thank you's" were posted to a site set up by Stephen Colbert fans for exactly this purpose. At a rate of about 30 posts a minute at time of posting you get the idea that a lot of Americans are frustrated with the fact that no one has so obviously stood up to Bush before. Link :::[ThankyouStephenColbert.org]. I just hope the glacier gag doesn't get lost on all in this orgy of gratitude.

Update: Just over 24 hours later and the outpouring of gratitude is still flowing strongly at a rate of one thank you every seven to eight seconds:

22402 Thank Yous. Add another »

They are all saying the same thing, "thank you for expressing what I feel about this picture", and there seems to be general consensus that Stephen Colbert has huge ones:

1. 
   

1. 22571
   Helen Says:
   May 2nd, 2006 at 10:30 am
   
2. 
   
3. Thank you,

   Mr. Colbert, for talking the talk and walking the walk! You say you have balls, and you actually do. Thank you for making a difference.

4. 22570
   Elliott Says:
   May 2nd, 2006 at 10:30 am
   
5. 
   
6. Thank you Mr. Colbert for expressing the thoughts of the average intelligent American.
7. 
   
8. 22569
   lmjohn Says:
   May 2nd, 2006 at 10:30 am
   
9. 
   
10. Thank you, Stephen Colbert!
11. 
    
12. 22568
    Sandra Says:
    May 2nd, 2006 at 10:30 am

    Stephen, you were smart, funny and dead-on target?thank you! Hopefully, you have inspired the rest of us to stand up as well?I will.

13. 22567
    Mot Draw Says:
    May 2nd, 2006 at 10:30 am

    Thank you. Don?t ever stop speaking truth to power ? or truth to truthiness.

14. 22566
    FRED Says:
    May 2nd, 2006 at 10:30 am

    Count Me In. It?s about time this FREAK, LIAR, War Criminal (Bu$h) heard a dose of Truthiness. THANK YOU, STEPHEN!!!!!

15. 22565
    Robert Dillman Says:
    May 2nd, 2006 at 10:30 am

    ??as big as church bells.?
    Thank you, thank you, thank you! Too bad most everybody on the room was either too dim, too self-important or too ..well ..evil to appreciate most of your comments. It was very satisfyling to see W have to sit through a little of the truth ? I doubt he recognized it as such, but made me feel better.
    Would that the SCLM had the courage shown by Mr Colbert. I hope he doesn?t get disappeared.

16. 22564
    Professor Peewee Says:
    May 2nd, 2006 at 10:30 am

    If only the ?real? reporters had as much courage?

    Thank you Mr. Colbert.

17. 22563
    JShafland Says:
    May 2nd, 2006 at 10:30 am

    Great job! You and Jon are keeping us sane.

18. 22562
    Richard Says:
    May 2nd, 2006 at 10:30 am

    The NSA cut me off, so let me try again.

    You?re the comedy Solzhenitsyn. You used a perfect opportunity brilliantly, even if the reality authorities agree it never happened. If you get sent to a gulag there are at least 22442 of us who will be looking for you.

19. 22561
    Todd Says:
    May 2nd, 2006 at 10:29 am

    Thank you for doing what so few Americans have the courage to do - to stand up to their mythological symbols and their mis-use. Americans have lost control of their democracy, and are therefore a shame and a cancer unto the world, but people like you, Stephen, give me hope that your herd will shake off its stupor and cast off its dictator. Oh, and America should start writing apology notes to the world - for the next 50 years.

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It's quite bizare. The scene is like the entire playground coming to thank the guy who stood up convincingly to the playground bully. I wonder whether this ongoing tribute is made stronger by the stupified reaction of the press audience at the dinner, and the media's subseqent total passing over of a modern day David vs. Goliath story in favour of a new Bush twins spin. I wonder where this all ends? From a planetary perspective there is a poetic justice if this stream of gratitude becomes a flood that washes Bush and the vandals and vulcans and plunderers away. I don't want to talk up a damp squib though, 22402 thank you Mr Colbert's in 24 hours is quite enough of a statement in itself. As Poetry Hut points out:

Tuesday, May 2nd, 2006

Hmmm

Yeah, the media has become a bunch of cowering shills:

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thank you

Other blogs on: global warming, climate change, bush, stephen colbert, colbert