It's the quick and the dead in the climate wars with this killer iPhone app

Ever reached an impasse in an argument about climate change, for want of accurate knowledge?

Science's answers to the common climate deniers' talking-points, painstakingly assembled by John Cook over many years, are now available at the tips of your fingers and right before your opponent's lying eyes, right when you need them next:

The app, published by Skeptical Science and Shine Technologies, has been praised and promoted around the climate change blogosphere.

Deltoid's readers are amused at the responses of the seemingly less tech-savvy deniers, and iTunes perceived 'lack of balance', that set off a round of complaints. Crikey's Pure Poison is the same.

Eli of Rabbett Run has promoted it above footage of rabbits. That's got to say something.

And the Guardiancovers the reportedly panicked responses from skeptics blogs.

If you come across a new deniers' talking-point, you can upload it to skepticalscience.com to keep feeding John Cook's labour of love, and help him continue to set the record straight.

"How cool would it be to track the spread of the memes in real-time? And what's the hint from Shine Technologies about 'heatmaps'?", are my only two questions.

Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Following myself

I just did it to see if I could, honest. I clicked on Google Followers to check out the widget functionality, and was promptly invited to befriend my own site. Sure - one can't have too many friends.

Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Solar cost-prohibitive? Buckyballs to that

clipped from www.engadget.com Researchers develop "paint-on" solar cells The quest to builder a better, cheaper solar cell continues on, as researchers at the New Jersey Institute of Technology have developed a new type of solar cell that can be printed or painted onto flexible plastic sheets. Unlike traditional silicon cells, the print-on cells are composed of carbon nanotubes and buckyballs, which results in substantially cheaper manufacturing costs and greater efficiency, since apparently carbon nanotubes are terrific conductors. The scientists seem pretty pumped about the potential for their tech, with lead researcher Somenath Mitra quite confidently proclaiming that we'll all soon be printing " sheets of these solar cells with inexpensive home-based inkjet printers." Yeah, we're sure there won't be any shenanigans going on in that ink cartridge market. Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Greenbox turns car emissions into bio-oil

Carbon dioxide engine emissions are diverted into a Greenbox, which is about the size of, and replaces, the car exhaust system. This Greenbox traps the exhaust carbon-dioxide and holds it inert. It is big enough to capture most of the carbon dioxide emissions from a full tank of fuel. using the carbon dioxide as fuel. When a new tank of fuel is filled, a fresh Greenbox is swapped with the spent one. This is then forwarded to huge central processing tanks where algae fixes the carbon dioxide that is extracted from the spent Greenbox, i.e. it grows, to be harvested as biofuel. Great idea, if it works. Who would have predicted that mankind's future could depend on us taking up a new symbiosis with... algae?

clipped from larvatusprodeo.net Three Welsh inventors are touting their Greenbox system that would replace car exhaust systems with an emissions capture system. It uses algae to absorb the emitted gases and hold them inertly so that the boxes can be easily transported for centralised processing of the car wastes. The three [...] have set up a company called Maes Anturio Limited, which translates from Welsh as Field Adventure. Through a chemical reaction, the captured gases from the box would be fed to algae, which would then be crushed to produce a bio-oil. This extract can be converted to produce a biodiesel almost identical to normal diesel. This biodiesel can be fed back into a diesel engine, the emptied Greenbox can be affixed to the car and the cycle can begin again. The process also yields methane gas and fertiliser, both of which can be captured separately. The algae required to capture all of Britain’s auto emissions would take up around 400 hectares. Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Lil Peppi tells it like it is

From Grist:



Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Live Earth to reach two billion world over

Al Gore has recruited Australian-based Cathy Zoi to run the Alliance for Climate Protection he set up six months ago.

"It will be the first great note in a worldwide song demanding change that will be heard on every continent in every time zone," Zoi says of the concerts.

"Post Live Earth, the Alliance for Climate Protection is undertaking a three- to five-year campaign to educate people from all walks of life that the climate crisis is both critically urgent and something we can solve."

One such action is the Live Earth's outreach program, called Friends of Live Earth. Some 6000 people have applied for kits to run their own events simultaneously with the concerts.

A key part of Live Earth will be to get people around the world to sign a seven-part pledge that commits them to lobby their governments.

This is much more than a feel-good exercise: the event organisers plan to capture a massive database of people who can be mobilised in future campaigns - and be asked to donate.

On the night there will also be six calls to action, says Zoi. One is to install four energy saving light bulbs in their home. If the event is as big as organisers hope, they will be able to quantify the impact and use it in future publicity.

clipped from www.smh.com.au WILL the biggest global media event in history be enough to convince George Bush and John Howard that climate change is an urgent problem? The former vice-president turned climate change campaigner, Al Gore, certainly hopes it will provide a good nudge along the road to requiring nations to reduce greenhouse gases by 90 per cent by 2050. The Live Earth concerts this weekend, which will be broadcast worldwide on television and the internet to reach more than 2 billion people, begin in Sydney and cascade around the world to Tokyo, Shanghai, Johannesburg, Hamburg, London, Rio de Janeiro and New York where Gore will be. For the first time, China will participate. There are two special events: from Toji temple in Kyoto and from the British scientific base in Antarctica. "The climate crisis requires a global solution," said Kevin Wall - the man behind Live Aid and Live8 - and now this event. "Live Earth is using an unprecedented media architecture to reach a global audience."

The world's top ten trees

clipped from www.neatorama.com 10 Most Magnificent Trees in the World 10. Lone Cypress in Monterey 9. Circus Trees 8. Giant Sequoias: General Sherman 7. Coast Redwood: Hyperion and Drive-Thru Trees 6. Chapel-Oak of Allouville-Bellefosse 5. Quaking Aspen: Pando (The Trembling Giant) 4. Montezuma Cypress: The Tule Tree 3. Banyan Tree: Sri Maha Bodhi Tree 2. Bristlecone Pine: Methuselah and Prometheus, the Oldest Trees in the World. 1. Baobab Bonus: Tree That Owns Itself Bonus 2: The Lonely Tree of Ténéré