Carbon dollars help individuals fight climate change

Carbon rationing with penalties for private citizens who exceeded quotas might be needed to tackle climate change, according to the former NSW premier, Bob Carr.

clipped from www.smh.com.au Carbon credit debate gets personal A range of regulations and carbon trading schemes were emerging in Britain and the US, but rationing an individual's carbon use was one of the most interesting ideas, Mr Carr told a business conference in Sydney yesterday. Speaking as chairman of an advisory council for think tank the Climate Institute, Mr Carr said the British Labour Government and the Conservative Party Opposition were taking the idea seriously. "Here is the most exciting concept. That is, the idea that every citizen be given a carbon credit," he told the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants. "Every time you buy fuel at the garage or pay a gas or electricity bill or get on a plane, carbon will be deducted from your account.

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Solomon needs his temple foundations examined

David Solomon needs to take great care with his statistical work, if he does not want to be tarred with the same 'Chicago school of economics' oily brush that brought us the Iran-Contra affair, the invasion of Iraq, and Paul Wolfowitz.

He doesn't take care, and so his latest work is gleefully used by Andrew Bolt to prove that activities directed towards 'global-cooling' are a waste of time. What results is an insight into the workings of noble-lie theory.

clipped from anonymouse.org Earth Hour made not even a minute difference 16 Comments | 0 Trackbacks | Permalink | Andrew Bolt Blog By Andrew Bolt, Wednesday, April 18, 2007 at 06:34am Sydney’s Earth Hour - in which global warming cultists turned off their lights to symbolise what green policies would mean to us - was claimed to have saved enough carbon emissions to offset, er, just four return flights to London. David Solomon of Chicago University’s Graduate School of Business checks the figures and works out that stunt was even more useless than that: ‘Earth Hour’ shows a decline of only 2.10%, statistically indistinguishable from zero… In terms of reducing electricity consumption, ‘Earth Hour’ was, statistically speaking, a failure.

Solomon's caveats in the conclusions of his work tell us the real story of not comparing apples to oranges:

It is nevertheless possible that ‘Earth Hour’ may have had a significant effect in a more localized area than New South Wales. The Energy Australia estimates were based on Sydney CBD only, and so may not be directly comparable.

Keep in mind that the majority of the 57% of sydneysiders who tuned-in and 'switched-off' would have necessarily been in the suburbs, because the CBD doesn't support 2.2 million people, except on NYE, and it certainly didn't that night.

Taking the point estimate of the EarthHour Dummy variable in the full specification after controlling for EarthDay fixed effects, the estimated impact of half of Sydney apparently sitting in darkness using no appliances was to reduce statewide electricity use by around 2.1%.

Here's Solomon's conclusion:

This is a useful, albeit rough, example of the potential economic cost of some currently debated policies that seek to reduce Australian greenhouse gas emissions by 60% by the year 2050.

All it tells us is that a 10.1% drop in electricity usage observed within the Sydney CBD and not the suburbs, results in a 2.1% drop in electricity being consumed in the state of New South Wales.

Is that useful? Solomon's right about it being rough, though.

Italics and bolding mine.
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Aussies up for a fight against global warming

I don' think our federal leaders and oppositions are going to get by on simple global warming tokenism any more.

clipped from www.worldpublicopinion.org Poll Finds Worldwide Agreement That Climate Change is a Threat An international poll finds widespread agreement that climate change is a pressing problem. This majority, however, divides over whether the problem of global warming is urgent enough to require immediate, costly measures or whether more modest efforts are sufficient. Twelve countries were asked whether steps should be taken to address climate change and majorities in all but one of them favored action. The largest majority in favor of measures to combat global warming is found in Australia (92%). China and Israel are the next most likely (83%) to favor such measures. Eighty percent of respondents in the United States—the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases—also support taking such measures.

Doing your global warming homework

clipped from www.desmogblog.com Truthiness vs. Science

Global Warming Watch picked up by Reuters

Upon randomly checking my BlogBurst workbench I discovered that one of my posts in early April was picked up by Reuters UK. It's a buzz for this blogger, and explains the recent spike in traffic . As I am experimenting with Clipmarks' clip-to-blog function, I clipped the first few paras.

clipped from uk.reuters.com Bush forced to regulate carbon dioxide from cars POSTED: Monday, April 02, 2007 FROM BLOG: Global Warming Watch - This blog is currently heating up at an average of 0.2°C per decade. Come back often. The following blog post is from an independent writer and is not connected with Reuters News. The opinions and views expressed herein are those of the author and are not endorsed by Reuters.com. In enormous news for the mitigation of global warming, the US Supreme Court has forced their federal government to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from cars. The directive forces the Bush Administration into a major policy u-turn: :::[CNN] In a 5-4 decision, the court said the Clean Air Act gives the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to regulate the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from cars.

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The 3rd man in history to ever walk on water

clipped from www.funny-potato.com The 1st one was Jesus Christ... The 2nd one was Peter (the apostle)... ..... Then there was this guy .......Jose

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At last! Al Gore planning to run...

..his house on solar power. I think it is great that the Get Gore campaign got Gore going. When it comes to walking-the-talk, he is running - emissions-free, from his manor. So thinks Green Options:

clipped from www.greenoptions.com Sign seen in front of Al Gore's mansion in the posh Belle Meade section of Nashville Thursday, indicating Gore is moving forward with plans for solar panels to help power his mansion. Here's a link to the the Belle Meade Board of Zoning Appeals meeting agenda - there are no details on the size of the solar panels, how much power they'll generate, or whether or not they'll be tied into the grid via a "net metering" arrangement so Gore can sell excess power to the grid through a "net metering" arrangement. by Ecotality blogger Bill Hobbs

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One Bolt doeth not a thunder-storm maketh

Climate change denial advocate, Andrew Bolt, doesn't know that the increase in average temperatures from around the globe, measured over time is what we commonly call "global warming". That's a lot of individual measurements, in the googles, yet he persistently claims to debunk the theory based on his observations of the temperature on any one day somewhere in the world. :::[Andrew Bolt Blog: Snowing on the warming parade]

Love the headline:

Snow won’t dampen global-warming rallies

And the story isn’t bad either:

The weather forecast for Saturday’s global warming rallies in Grand Rapids and Holland calls for snow and cold rain and temperatures in the 40s—about 10 degrees below normal.

For some, this might make global warming a tough sell.

It's a neat trick of the skeptics; I am sure it will get his regulars howling, "If they can't get a seven day weather forecast right, how can they get one of them one hundred years climate-model forecasts right, huh?".

Hmmm. Here's what global warming looks like as a snapshot of a real-time compilation of a gigantic network of ocean-borne sensors on bouys. The blue represents unexpected cooling, the yellow through to red represents unexpected temperature increase, and the white tells us that this area is as we would expect. As it should be. :::[The Age]
The absurdity of picking on a single temperature point somewhere in the world, "Grand Rapids and Holland", to support the "no-global warming" hypothesis; Yet Bolt soldiers on with his cunning brand of mendacity.

This is what one of his regular commenters, Nobull Warning, posted to the "Boltmoderators bouncing his blog", and then emailed me saying, "just in case it doesn't get posted, would I...?".

Dear Andrew,

The snowmaster speaks. This bit caught my attention...

"... but if we're really reasonable about it, we're not talking about individual weather on individual days," Locke said. "We're talking about something much larger, on a global scale, which science has been tracking for decades."

Funny that, a cultist calling for reason.

I thought the journo was ok, but a bit fuzzy with this line.

Opponents in the debate say natural events such as solar activity are causing the warm-up.

Everyone knows there are no opponents in the scientific debate, and as for the media debate, well that's just a pr smog job.

Nobull Warning from Leichhardt

Would I?

It wasn't the Bolt Moderators who roughly bounced me out his blog, it was the big man himself. Totally unreasonably too, I thought. Figures.

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Let them eat my gasses

A few weeks ago the ruling Australian Liberal Party dealt themselves into the upcoming green elections by outsourcing our environmental policy to Indonesia: :::[The Road to Surfdom]

So, Malcolm Turnbull and his boss, The Rodent*, have suddenly come out with this policy to pay $A200m to encourage developing nations in the southern hemisphere with significant rainforest, such as Brazil, Australia and Indonesia, to stop logging them.

An audible gasp went around the country. After ten years of aggressive denial, these people are now really serious about combating climate change, even if they won't protect our own significant rainforests.

Today, at the annual Council of Australian Governments meeting we found out just how serious: :::[SMH]

The rift over how to tackle climate change widened today with Prime Minister John Howard refusing to back a plan by state premiers to set up a national carbon emission trading scheme.

At the end of their annual Council of Australian Governments meeting, Mr Howard told a news conference he would "put jobs and economic opportunity ahead of targets" on greenhouse gas reductions.

The states and territories want emissions trading operational in 2010 and backed up by legislation in 2008. They want Australia's emissions cut by 60 per cent by 2050.

Victorian Premier Steve Bracks, who has been leading the state's reform campaign, voiced his disappointment.

The premiers of every single state and territory of the Commonwealth of Australia at last want to work together with the Federal Government to do something about the challenge of the aeon, and Howard says 'no', offering his typical platitudinous, vapid crap as the reason. Poor guy just does not get that the economy is but a sub-system of the environment. Poor guy just does not want a job after November.

UPDATE

John Howard has not lost all the wiles. He dealt himself back into the game at the last moment: :::[SMH]

John Howard softens his trenchant opposition to a greenhouse gas emissions trading and target reduction scheme.

He did the right thing, if the Internet poll by the SMH is anything to go by:

Reader Poll

Climate Change
Who is right about Climate Change?
The states who want a carbon trading scheme and targets - 73% The Prime Minister who won't put targets ahead of jobs and the economy - 16% Neither side - 11% Total Votes: 3451

* Note for non-Aussie readers. One of John Howard's own Liberal Party senators once referred to him as "the Lying Rodent", and, bizarrely enough, it stuck.

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IPCC Report specifics for Australia

IPCC Report implications for Australia:

* more drought, fires and inundation caused by sea-level rises
* withdrawal on private insurance on coastal properties
* increased water security problems
* areas of the coast, especially Cairns and south-east Queensland, face increased risks from sea-level rises and "increases in the severity and frequency of storms and coastal flooding"


"Hot spot" regions:

* the Murray-Darling Basin
* south-east Queensland
* Kakadu
* the Queensland wet tropics
* the Snowy Mountains
* the drought-prone south-west of Western Australia


Are Aussies seriously going to stand back and let this happen to our World Heritage sites? Or the rest of the planet? :::[SMH]

The draft summary noted that many of these hot spots include World Heritage sites, but the Federal Government had this reference cut during the process where every line of the report's summary for policy makers is debated.

It's time to vote in a government that serious about dealing with climate change and vote out the one that would betray our trust... and then get on with the job of saving those sites as best we can. It's going to be a long haul, inter-generational. And we have to start now.

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IPCC's clarion call

Coming to an IPCC Report near you. :::[SMH: Window closing on planet's chances]

"Unmitigated climate change would, in the long term, be likely to exceed the capacity of natural, managed and human systems to adapt."

The report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is due out tomorrow, and that is some of the wording just agreed upon between scientists and governments after last-minute objections from the US, China and Saudi Arabia over wording and graphics sparked an all night dispute.

I've been listening to the BBC coverage of the release. AGW's happening. And it's alarming. There is no other word. There is good observational data, now, to prove that the climate-models are accurately forecasting. Game over for sceptics, and game over non-renewable energy sources. Or it's game over for life as we know it. That's what they are telling us.

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Bush forced to regulate carbon dioxide from cars

In enormous news for the mitigation of global warming, the US Supreme Court has forced their federal government to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from cars. The directive forces the Bush Administration into a major policy u-turn: :::[CNN]

In a 5-4 decision, the court said the Clean Air Act gives the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to regulate the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from cars.

Greenhouse gases are air pollutants under the landmark environmental law, Justice John Paul Stevens said in his majority opinion.

The EPA had previously argued that the tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases were out of its jurisdiction. A coalition of 12 states and 13 environmental organisations, frustrated with Bush Administration inaction and obstruction on global warming, took the EPA to court:

The court had three questions before it.

--Do states have the right to sue the EPA to challenge its decision?

--Does the Clean Air Act give EPA the authority to regulate tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases?

--Does EPA have the discretion not to regulate those emissions?

The court said yes to the first two questions. On the third, it ordered EPA to re-evaluate its contention it has the discretion not to regulate tailpipe emissions. The court said the agency has so far provided a "laundry list" of reasons that include foreign policy considerations.

The majority said the agency must tie its rationale more closely to the Clean Air Act.

Justice Stevens' says his position "involves no judgement on whether global warming exists, what causes it, or the extent of the problem". The decision clears the way for the state of California to gain EPA approval for its own programme to limit tailpipe emissions. Federal law considers the state a laboratory on environmental issues and gives California the right to seek approval of standards that are stricter than national norms.

This is world-changing. California was the first state to introduce laws requiring catalytic converters to eliminate toxicity from fuel emissions, in 1975. This had implications for the rest of the world as it embraced the change. An additional benefit was the phasing out of high-octane leaded petrol that masks the effect of catalytic conversion.

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Was Earth Hour a candle in the wind?

Sydney's Earth Hour was an unconditional success in raising awareness about what we can do to fight global warming, with well over fifty percent of the population participating : :::[SMH]

MORE than half of Sydneysiders - as many as 2.2 million - switched off their lights to celebrate Earth Hour on Saturday night, a poll has found.

No one saw this avalanche of support coming - only 65,000 households had pledged to support the event.

However, a few have raised valid questions about the merits of the exercise in reducing carbon dioxide emissions, despite that this was always an ancillary objective. The most obvious one is that the emissions that were generated by the vehicle traffic that came to see Sydney dowsed, and to picnic along the foreshore bathed in flickering shadows, would have detracted from the total emissions reductions.

Another interesting point was raised by Sylvie Else, a contributor to Jennifer Marohasy's politics and environment blog, who suggests that those that turned to candles (I am guilty as charged) were generating more CO₂ than they would have otherwise. She bases her assumptions on the guess that Energy Australia uses gas to supplement coal during peak hour usage: :::[Jennifer Marohasy: Earth Hour and candles: A note from Sylvie]

Leaving aside whether CO₂ emissions are really a problem, if these people thought they were reducing CO₂ emissions by their actions, then I rather think they were deluding themselves. Earth Hour was held during a time of peak electrical load, so any electricity generation displaced would be peak load, probably running on natural gas. Such generation produces about 500 grams of CO₂ for every kilowatt-hour.

So turning a 100 watt light bulb off for an hour saves 50 grams of CO₂, or 13 grams of carbon. A candle is mostly carbon by weight, and candle wax is only moderately less dense than water at room temperature. This means that burning just 5 cm of a typical 2 cm diameter candle will produce more CO₂ than running the 100 watt light bulb for an hour. If the light that was turned off is fluorescent, then even less candle can be burned if there's to be a net reduction in CO₂.

She is theoretically right - wax is a hydrocarbon chain - when you burn it, carbon dioxide is formed. So I undertook further research and posted back to her:

Sylvia,

It's not as clear cut as you would imagine; The greenhouse friendliness of your candles depends on what wax they are made of.

Paraffin wax is derived from crude oil, and as we know that is carbon that has long ago been taken out the atmosphere and sequestered deep underground by nature. It also does not burn very cleanly, pumping soot particles into the air and causing discomfort for asthmatics.

However candles made from wax derived from beeswax or bayberry wax and other renewable sources are environmentally friendlier. As are candle wax made from other plant oils, such as soya oil, by a process called hydrogenation. Because the carbon in these oils was originally in the atmosphere before being taken up by the plant from which the oil is made, the effect on the environment is small.

But 'candle-miles' also need to be taken into account.

If everyone used soya oil candles as a light source instead of electricity, this would cut the need to burn fossil fuels to generate the electricity, therefore reducing carbon emissions into the atmosphere from fossil-fuelled power stations. But if the environmental impact of producing and transporting the candles is taken into account, then electricity (especially if it is generated from renewable sources) is a more environmentally friendly option.

If you want to act more effectively and not just be symbolic, source locally produced candles derived from renewable wax such as beeswax.


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Earth Hour got a bit... well... earthy.

It was very romantic to spend the first night in a long time having a candlelight dinner and drinks with my wife.

Not so for my three year old - when he realised that no birthday cake was to follow the dowsed lights, and that he was not going to be allowed to blow out the candles... he took himself off to bed with his favourite car. Early.

Yesss!

So did we. But not before checking out the darkened city from the distance. Quite strange. Many of our neighbours were doing the same, coming out of darkened houses illuminated by flickering candles to commune and chat. And back in to, um, canoodle. I now understand how baby-booms are born.

The event was a success from an awareness-raising point of view; 67,000 readers of the Sydney Morning Herald's 212,000 strong readership registered to participate. That's about 30 percent. But more than that, twice the amount of emissions that were predicted to be saved, were saved. My sister-in-law told me that the energy companies recorded a total 10.1 percent drop in energy use for that hour - the equivalent of taking 50,000 cars off the road for the hour.

Bravo. Encore.

Well done Sydney. Well done SMH. Well done WWF. Good luck to the rest of the world - hope you get lucky.

clipped from news.bbc.co.uk Last Updated: Saturday, 31 March 2007, 10:41 GMT 11:41 UK Sydney in climate change blackout Sydney's famous skyline (top image) was shrouded in darkness Lights have been turned off across Australia's largest city, Sydney, in a hour-long event aimed at raising awareness of global warming. At 1930 (0930 GMT) the city's skyline dimmed and normally bright landmarks like the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge went dark. The so-called Earth Hour is supported by the New South Wales government, environmental groups and businesses. The city of four million people is aiming to become the first anywhere to achieve a blackout on this scale. Every day millions of lights and computers are left on in deserted office blocks as well as in apartments and houses. Campaigners have said that simply switching them off could reduce Sydney's greenhouse gas emissions by 5% over the next year.

Spanish wind power blows nuclear away

It is often pointed out by the nuclear power fetishists and the coal-power aficionados, that renewable energy is variable because it relies on the winds or sunny weather depending on your source.

So variable, in fact, that last week in Spain the winds generated more energy than did Spain's nuclear power plants, and more energy than that glorious country's coal-powered electricity plants. :::[The Age]

Taking advantage of a particularly gusty period, Spain's wind energy generators this week reached an all-time high in electricity production, exceeding power generated by all other means, the nation's electricity network authority said in a statement.

At 5.40pm (0340 AEDT on Tuesday) on Monday, wind power generation rose to contribute 27 per cent of the country's total power requirement, Red Electrica said.

At that moment wind power contributed 8,375 mega watts to the nation's power consumption of 31,033.

Nuclear power, the second largest contributor, added 6,797 mega watts, while coal-fired electric generation came third with 5,081, the statement said.

Wow. Something in the paella that day?

Taking a longer outlook, last year wind power only contributed 9% of the country's annual total, but this last week does show the potential. It strikes me that global warming is only going to create more wind, because that is what happens when you heat-up large bodies of air. Is it possible that wind power may come into its own as the globe heats up?

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