The Graun and Shell

Once again the fearless Graun is out to name-n-shame Shell. Or something. I only noticed because of Dave Hone's post. The Graun whinges:

But the most damaging email is dated 8 May 2014... <stuff I don't much care about> And it ends: “Regarding the gallery update, can I check whether you have touched base with David Hone to see if he would like to participate in the content refresh?

Oddly, though, the Graun doesn't have any spare space to discuss what updates DH was suggesting. Fortunately, DH has some spare electrons:

As background, three papers that have come from Oxford University:

Warming caused by cumulative carbon emissions towards the trillionth tonne
Myles R. Allen, David J. Frame, Chris Huntingford, Chris D. Jones, Jason A. Lowe, Malte Meinshausen & Nicolai Meinshausen

Greenhouse-gas emission targets for limiting global warming to 2°C
Malte Meinshausen, Nicolai Meinshausen, William Hare, Sarah C. B. Raper, Katja Frieler, Reto Knutti, David J. Frame & Myles R. Allen

The case for mandatory sequestration
Myles R. Allen, David J. Frame and Charles F. Mason

Wow, that's bad! Look at that evil corporate stuff he's pushing... oh, wait... Now I can see why the Graun didn't want to publish what he'd asked for. But wait, there's more:

2. Consider using (or adapting) a trillion tonne video made by Shell where Myles Allen talks about CCS in the context of the cumulative emissions issue:

3. Consider putting the Oxford University fossil carbon emissions counter in the Atmosphere Gallery as this would help people understand the vast scale of the current energy system and the rate at which we are collectively approaching the 2°C threshold;

4. Reference the Trillion Tonne Communique from Cambridge:

5. Offer the use of the Shell “CCS Lift” (an audio-visual CCS experience) to help explain this technology to the gallery visitors.

The CCS stuff (which is what his post is really about) is iffy, but the rest seems fairly sane.

Elsewhere: more fakery

Denialist fake-of-this-week (last week's) is Faking Before and After Pictures of Wind Turbines at TricksZone, as noticed by David Appell.

More like this

Denialist fake-of-this-week (last week’s) is Faking Before and After Pictures of Wind Turbines at TricksZone, as noticed by David Appell.

I just saw that at DA's. Impressive.

First, any time you're going to doctor photographs to make a point, the doctoring needs to be explained up-front. It's especially ironic that they were posted on a website named "No Tricks Zone".

Having gotten that out of the way, photoshopping to remove the existing wind turbines seems like a reasonable way to do the before/after comparison; better than adding in proposed wind turbines where they don't actually exist, and maybe getting the size or positions wrong.

However ... the real problem is that the photos without the wind turbines "ought" to be paired with images of coal mines, or valleys flooded by dams, or uranium mines, or whatever. Nobody is suggesting building useless wind turbines just to decorate the landscape. The point is that they're reducing the need to obtain electricity from other sources elsewhere.

It would be better not to spoil the views of quaint German villages with wind turbines. It would also be better not to allow those villages to remain unspoiled at the expense of other villages elsewhere that must be destroyed by mines or dams or power plants or whatever.

Yes of course they should have temporarily removed the wind turbines to get the "before" images.

The trillion-tonne and sequestration stuff is pretty bad, about what I'd expect Shell to push at some point. (if they haven't already).

[Pretty bad? Why -W]

By Steve Bloom (not verified) on 13 Jun 2015 #permalink