Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years
This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
Another week of Climate Instability News
Information overload is pattern recognition
October 31, 2010
- Chuckles, COP15, COP16+, Nagoya, Geoengineering, Extinctions, Fisheries, Pakistan
- GFIs, UNGCF, Kasatochi & Salmon, Cook, Multinational Deniers, Post CRU
- Melting Arctic, Narwhals, Geopolitics, Antarctica
- Food Crisis, Food vs. Biofuel, Land Grabs, GMOs, Food Production
- Hurricanes, Temperatures, Feedbacks, Paleoclimate
- ENSO, State of the Oceans, Volcanoes, Satellites
- Impacts, Forests, Climate Refugees, Wacky Weather, Extreme Weather, Tornadoes
- Wildfires, Corals, Acidification, Glaciers, Sea Levels, Floods & Droughts
- Mitigation, REDD, Transportation, Buildings, Sequestration, Geoengineering
- Journals, Other Docs , Misc. Science, Santer, Lewis, Wegman, Pielke, Curry
- Kyoto, UN, Carbon Trade, Optimal Carbon Reduction Strategy
- International Politics: Rare Earths, Energy Race, Security
- Law & Activism, Activism, Polls, Water Politics & Business, Software, Predictions
- National Politics: America, BP Disaster, November, Prop 23, Emissions Data
- Citizens United, Obama, USAdmin, Congress, Lobbyists
- Britain, Europe, Australia, Murray-Darling, China, Africa, South America
- Canada, Post G20, Silencio, Canada at Nagoya, Ducks, Cohen Commission
- CBFA, Pipelines, BC, Tar Sands, Alberta, Sask, Manitoba, Maritimes, North, Canadiana
- Ecological Economics, IPAT, Media, Books, Video, Podcasts, Courts
- Energy, Fracking, Wind, Solar, Feed-In-Tariffs, Coal, Biofuel, Nukes, Peak Oil, Grid
- Efficiency, Cars, Gee Whiz, Energy Storage, Business, Greenwashing, Corporations
- Joe's List, Carbon Lobby, Miscellaneous Climate, Useful Links
- Shameless Self Promotion, .sig
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- 2010/10/31: uComics: (cartoon - Toles) Extinctions
- 2010/10/31: uComics: (cartoon - Auth) Back to the Future
- 2010/10/30: TI:CF: (cartoon - Roberts) Golden ages
- 2010/10/30: TI:CF: (cartoon - Roberts) Raw Sharks
- 2010/10/28: TI:CF: (cartoon - Roberts) Gunboat Diplomacy
- 2010/10/27: TI:CF: (cartoon - Roberts) Thinking Tanks
- 2010/10/29: TI:CF: (cartoon - Roberts) Action Man
- 2010/10/26: TI:CF: (cartoon - Roberts) Debrief
- 2010/10/28: HuffPo: (cartoon - Danziger) The Koch Brothers would like to remind you...
- 2010/10/25: SeattlePI: (cartoon - Horsey) Deconstructing the American electorate
Looking back at Copenhagen:
- 2010/10/28: Guardian(UK): IPCC vice-chair: Attacks on climate science echo tobacco industry tactics
Jean-Pascal van Ypersele says rows over 'climategate' emails and Himalayan glaciers were organised to undermine Copenhagen summit - UNFCCC: The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Cancun, 29 November - 10 December 2010
- 2010/10/28: EUO: EU leaders to affirm nuanced stance on Kyoto extension
EU leaders meeting in Brussels on Thursday (28 October) and Friday are to rubberstamp the bloc's negotiating position for the international climate talks in Cancun, Mexico, later this year. Hopes for a global deal on greenhouse gas emissions remain slim after last December's acrimonious UN talks in Copenhagen. But EU environment ministers earlier this month already signalled Europe's willingness to commit to a second Kyoto Protocol commitment period, provided certain conditions are met. - 2010/10/27: TEC: China & Cancun
- 2010/10/27: EnergyBulletin: Worlds collide at Cancun climate talks
I haven't seen the text yet, but arising from COP10 we now have a Nagoya Protocol:
- CBD: COP 10
- 2010/10/29: UNEP: Historic New Treaty Lays Out Ground Rules for Sharing Benefits of World's Wealth of Genetic Resources
- 2010/10/30: TerraDaily: UN biodiversity accord raises hopes for climate change
- 2010/10/30: TerraDaily: UN seals historic treaty to protect threatened ecosystems
- 2010/10/30: CDreams: UN Seals Historic Treaty to Protect Ecosystems
- 2010/10/30: PhysOrg: UN nature meeting agrees on land, ocean protection
Representatives to a U.N. conference on biodiversity agreed early Saturday to expand protected areas on land and at sea in the hopes of slowing the rate of extinction of the world's animals and plants and preventing further damage to its ecosystems. - 2010/10/29: WorldChanging: Goodwill and Compromise: Good News from the Nagoya Biodiversity Summit
- 2010/10/29: ENS: Biodiversity Pacts Signed on Genetic Resources, Global Conservation
- 2010/10/28: DerSpiegel: Divisions over Biodiversity Protocol -- A Visit to the Ecological Battlefield
- 2010/10/27: EmbassyMag: Government opposes biodiversity protocols
Canada's policies on genetically-modified crops and aboriginal rights are set to come under the international spotlight this week as Environment Minister Jim Prentice and his delegation touch down at a major UN biodiversity summit in Japan. The 12-day Convention on Biological Diversity summit in Nagoya is intended to head off the rapid loss of plant and animal species that is happening around the world. - 2010/10/30: Asahi: COP10/ Nagoya Protocol set to be voted on
- 2010/10/29: Yomiuri: COP10--Biodiversity / Delegates go down to wire to seal ABS deal
- 2010/10/24: JapanTimes: Key facts and figures [Nagoya]
- 2010/10/30: JapanTimes: COP10 goes extra mile for a deal
Indigenous peoples unlikely to be satisfied but general biodiversity-protection pact draws near - 2010/10/18: Monbiot: A Planet in Square Brackets -- The draft global plan for saving biodiversity contains no firm proposals at all
- 2010/10/29: BBC: Biodiversity talks end with call for 'urgent' action
The UN biodiversity meeting in Japan has agreed a 10-year plan aimed at preserving nature. - 2010/10/27: BBC:RB: Raiders of the lost bark [Nagoya]
- 2010/10/29: BBC:RB: Nature protection - the new road starts here
- 2010/10/29: BBC:RB: Banking on innovation for green shoots
- 2010/10/29: Guardian(UK): Biodiversity talks: Ministers in Nagoya adopt new strategy
Chair of the UN biodiversity talks gavelled into effect a set of targets for 2020 to at least halve the loss of natural habitats - 2010/10/29: UN: Nations agree on historic UN pact on sharing benefits of world's genetic resources
- 2010/10/29: NatureTGB: Convention ends with new biodiversity roadmap
- 2010/10/29: NatureTGB: Biodiversity talks still wrangling over genetic resources and protected area targets
- 2010/10/29: ScienceInsider: Negotiators Agree on Biodiversity Pact in Nagoya
- 2010/10/29: EarthTimes: UN biodiversity conference adopts 'Nagoya Protocol'
- 2010/10/29: EarthTimes:UN biodiversity conference adopts 'Nagoya Protocol'
- 2010/10/28: BBC: Nature deal 'on knife-edge' as nations clash on money
Talks have run through the night at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity meeting as delegates tried to salvage talks on protecting nature. Major differences remained on targets for protected areas, equitable access to genetic resources, and funding. France followed Japan in pledging funds for conservation; but the sums were well short of what poorer nations want. Brazil is arguing that by 2020, $200bn per year should be made available for biodiversity conservation. By comparison, the new pledge by French Ecology Minister Chantal Joannou amounted to $4bn over a decade. - 2010/10/28: EarthTimes:UN conference chair attempts to break biodiversity deadlock [over sharing the benefits of genetic resources]
- 2010/10/28: EarthTimes: EU negotiator fears failure at biodiversity conference in Japan
- 2010/10/27: Reuters: U.N. talks to save nature zero in on historic deal
Ministers from around the world began on Wednesday a final push for a U.N. deal to protect nature, urged by the World Bank to value the benefits of forests, oceans and rivers on economies and human welfare. - 2010/10/27: PlanetArk: Forestry [REDD-plus] Takes Center-Stage At U.N. Talks On Nature
- 2010/10/27: NatureTGB: Japan recharges biodiversity talks with US$ 2 billion
- 2010/10/26: TerraDaily: Brazil says UN biodiversity summit needs biopiracy deal
- 2010/10/27: EarthTimes: Ministers divided at biodiversity talks in Japan
- 2010/10/27: CBC: Biodiversity effort lands $2B from Japan
- 2010/10/26: CBC: Back to the biodiversity drawing board
Environment ministers from around the world are heading back to the drawing board at a conference this week to improve protection of endangered and threatened species -- after admitting failure on a previous biodiversity target. - 2010/10/26: EurActiv: Forestry takes centre stage at UN talks on nature
- 2010/10/26: Reuters: [REDD-plus] Forestry takes center-stage at U.N. talks on nature
Delegates at a global U.N. meeting to preserve natural resources moved closer on Tuesday to agreeing ways to set aside about $4 billion to help developing nations save tropical forests, as studies highlighted the plight of nature. - 2010/10/25: PlanetArk: U.N. Talks On Nature Inch Forward But Rifts Remain
- 2010/10/25: ScienceInsider: Biodiversity Negotiations Snagged on Sharing Research Benefits
- 2010/10/25: BBC:RB: Obstacles to nature protection emerge as stakes rise
From the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) meeting in Nagoya: It's fair to say there's a deal of concern here that what emerges at the end of this fornight's meeting could amount to less than it was supposed to. Mind you, it was supposed to amount to quite a bit - a pretty comprehensive and detailed plan for securing the preservation of the natural world, while ensuring its elements could be used sustainably and equitably. - 2010/10/30: TreeHugger: UN Biodiversity Experts Want To Ban "Geoengineering" Research
- 2010/10/29: ScienceInsider: House Science Chair Enters Debate Over Biodiversity Pact's Bar on Climate Engineering
- 2010/10/27: Reuters: Futuristic climate schemes to get U.N. hearing
Futuristic schemes for slowing climate change such as dimming sunlight are fraught with risks but will get a serious hearing from the U.N. panel of climate scientists, a leader of the panel said on Wednesday. Thomas Stocker, co-chair of the panel's working group examining climate science, said some so-called geo-engineering solutions could disrupt world rainfall and might backfire by causing abrupt temperature rises if they go wrong. He told Reuters his group will hold meetings of experts in 2011 to focus on geo-engineering and ocean acidification, blamed on rising concentrations of carbon dioxide, to help prepare the next U.N. review of climate science, due for completion in 2014. - 2010/10/26: ScienceInsider: Proposed Biodiversity Pact Bars 'Climate-Related Geoengineering'
- 2010/10/25: Reuters:IPS: Geoengineering for a Desperate Planet
Delegates to the world summit on biodiversity here are calling for a moratorium on climate engineering research, like the idea of putting huge mirrors in outer space to reflect some of the sun's heating rays away from the planet. - 2010/10/26: Science: (ab$) The Impact of Conservation on the Status of the World's Vertebrates by Michael Hoffmann et multi alia
- 2010/10/26: Science: (ab$) Scenarios for Global Biodiversity in the 21st Century by Henrique M. Pereira et al.
- 2010/10/27: FuturePundit: IUCN Report On Species Extinction Trends
- 2010/10/28: DerSpiegel: Species Loss: The World's Sixth Mass Extinction [21 pix]
- 2010/10/28: ABC(Au): One-fifth of species face extinction: study
- 2010/10/27: CSM: Biodiversity study sounds an extinction alert (for things with spines)
- 2010/10/27: Reuters: Science struggling to track destruction of nature
Scientists are struggling to get a full picture of the variety of wildlife species around the globe as climate change, human exploitation and pollution threaten "mass extinctions," a series of studies published on Wednesday showed. - 2010/10/27: KSJT: Reuters (+ much more): Two sets of papers, two stories, one message: Extinctions Underway, We Did It.
- 2010/10/27: NatureN: Conservation offers hope for biodiversity decline
- 2010/10/27: ScienceInsider: Biodiversity: Without Efforts, Losses Would Have Been Worse
- 2010/10/27: DM:80B: New "Red List" Declares One-Fifth of Vertebrate Species in Danger
- 2010/10/26: BBC: More species slide to extinction
One fifth of animal and plant species are under the threat of extinction, a global conservation study has warned. Scientists who compiled the Red List of Threatened Species say the proportion of species facing wipeout is rising. - 2010/10/27: PhysOrg: Pacific fisheries face collapse by 2035: study
The monsoon floods in Pakistan are an ongoing tragedy:
- 2010/10/29: TerraDaily: Stark warning three months into Pakistan flood crisis
- 2010/10/30: CDreams: Pakistan Floods: Forgotten... But Not Gone
- 2010/10/27: FAO: FAO distributes huge quantities of wheat seeds in Pakistan -- Planting season boosted after floods destroyed seed supply of millions
- 2010/10/29: UN: More resources urgently needed for Pakistan flood relief efforts, UN stresses
- 2010/10/27: UN: UN agency [FAO] steps in to help Pakistani farmers after floods destroyed seed stocks
What are the global financial institutions up to?
- 2010/10/28: Yahoo:Reuters: World Bank launches scheme to green government accounts
The World Bank on Thursday launched a program to help nations put a value on nature just like GDP in a bid to stop the destruction of forests, wetlands and reefs that underpin businesses and economies. The five-year pilot project backed by India, Mexico and other nations aims to embed nature into national accounts to draw in the full benefits of services such as coastal protection from mangroves or watersheds for rivers that feed cities and crops. - 2010/10/28: BBC: World Bank to lead economic push on nature protection
The World Bank has launched a global partnership aimed at helping countries include the costs of destroying nature into their national accounts. Ten nations will take part in the pilot phase, including India and Colombia. The bank's president Robert Zoellick said environmental destruction happens partly because governments do not account for the value of nature. The partnership was launched at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) meeting in Nagoya, Japan. - 2010/10/29: EurActiv: OECD lists three steps for sustainable raw materials policy
Green public procurement, eco-labelling and producer responsibility were listed among possible policy options to reduce raw materials consumption in the manufacturing sector, amid growing pressure to decouple economic growth from rising natural resource use. - 2010/10/29: Reuters: Carbon, forex among U.N. climate aid suggestions
Carbon markets and taxes on foreign exchange deals or plane tickets are among suggested sources for a promised $100 billion a year from 2020 to help poor nations fight climate change, a draft report by U.N. advisers said. - 2010/10/29: NatureN: Sparks fly over theory that [Kasatochi] volcano caused salmon boom -- Could volcanic ash feed ailing fish populations?
- 2010/10/25: CBC: Volcanic eruption led to B.C. salmon boom: scientist
A volcanic eruption might have helped produce B.C.'s largest sockeye salmon run since 1913. The 34 million salmon that returned to B.C.'s Fraser River this year were "adolescents" in the Gulf of Alaska when the Kasatochi volcano erupted there in 2008, said Tim Parsons, a research scientist at the Institute of Ocean Sciences in Sidney, B.C. The ash from that eruption fertilized the ocean, leading to a massive bloom of special phytoplankton called diatoms -- an unusually rich source of food for the growing salmon. - 2010/10/29: SkeptiSci: The Grumble in the Jungle [BV]
- 2010/10/27: SkeptiSci: Daily Climate Links: receive the latest climate blog posts, news and peer-reviewed science by email
- 2010/10/27: SkeptiSci: Isn't global warming just 2 °C and isn't that really small?
- 2010/10/25: SkeptiSci: Measuring CO2 levels from the volcano at Mauna Loa [BV]
To nobody's surprise, multinational corps are funding US climate deniers in the midterm election:
- 2010/10/26: CO2Art: BP and Major Euro Polluters Funding U.S. Senate Climate Deniers and Tea Partiers
- 2010/10/25: CANE: Caught! EU business lobby funding climate legislation blockers in US Senate
- 2010/10/25: JKB: The hypocrisy of some major EU companies
- 2010/10/26: DeSmogBlog: Money Talks: Big Oil & Special Interests Bankroll Anti-Clean Energy Efforts on the Campaign Trail
- 2010/10/25: EUO: EU business guilty of environmental doublespeak, say NGOs
A number of Europe's largest businesses are slowing the pace of environmental reform in the US, while simultaneously warning the EU not to push ahead with greater greenhouse gas emission cuts until other developed regions do likewise, a new report has claimed. The study published on Monday (25 October) by the Climate Action Network Europe, a collection of 130 European environmental and development NGOs, said eight major European firms had contributed $240,200 to US senators who deny climate change or have blocked recent efforts to pass a landmark cap-and-trade bill. - 2010/10/25: MongaBay: BP funneling money to climate change denying candidates in US
- 2010/10/25: ClimateP: BP and other large European green-washing polluters funnel cash to U.S. Senators blocking climate action
- 2010/10/24: Guardian(UK): Tea Party climate change deniers funded by BP and other major polluters
Midterm election campaigns of Tea Party favourites DeMint and Inhofe have received over $240,000 - 2010/10/25: DeSmogBlog: Guess Who Pays for All That Tea!
- 2010/10/25: OilChange: BP and Others Accused of "Climate Sabotage"
We know that the Koch brothers fund climate change deniers. But now a great new report by Climate Action Network Europe (CANE) has analysed new data to track where dirty money is going in American politics. They have found nearly 80% of campaign donations -- some $240,000 -- from some of Europe's biggest polluters is directed towards senators who blocked action on climate change. The companies involed are: Lafarge, GDF-SUEZ, EON, BP, BASF, BAYER, Solvay and Arcelor-Mittal. - 2010/10/25: TP: European Polluters Funding Senate Candidates Who Oppose Action On Global Warming
Post CRU theft, controversy & inquiry:
- 2010/10/30: IJISH: Need Help: possible context for osborn-tree6/ in FOI2009.zip
- 2010/10/27: Guardian(UK): Hacked climate emails: MPs rake over the coals but find no spark
MPs discover Phil Jones told his UEA boss he did not delete embarrassing emails - but precious little else - 2010/10/25: IJISH: FOI2009.zip: files in briffa-treering-external/ecat/yam9610/ have exact duplicates in yamal/
The Arctic melt continues to garner a lot of attention:
- 2010/10/27: UNEP: Global action needed to conserve Arctic biodiversity
- 2010/10/25: GreenGrok: The Arctic Report Card
- 2010/10/27: CCP: Arctic report card: region continues to warm at unprecedented rate
Record temperatures in Greenland, thinning sea ice, record snow cover decreases and links to some Northern Hemisphere weather are among dramatic changes - 2010/10/27: Tamino: Can We Talk?
- 2010/10/27: HotTopic: What a waste(land)
- 2010/10/25: HotTopic: Arctic report card 2010: a one-way trip to warming
- 2010/10/24: ClimateP: Climate researcher: "It is my assessment that we have had the strongest melting since they started measuring the temperature in Greenland in 1873."
Glaciologist: "Sea level projections will need to be revised upward." - 2010/10/29: NewScientist: Arctic narwhals reveal climate-model errors
- 2010/10/28: NatureN: Narwhals transmit climate data from Arctic seas -- Marine mammals armed with thermometers return temperature readings from icy Baffin Bay
- 2010/10/27: NOAANews: NOAA-Funded Tagging of Narwhals Finds Continued Warming of Southern Baffin Bay
As for the geopolitics of Arctic resources:
- 2010/10/29: PostMedia: F-35 buy could trigger Arctic arms race: expert
A government purchase of F-35 fighter jets could cause "angst in Russia" and trigger an Arctic arms race, Arctic sovereignty expert Michael Byers said Thursday. "I don't want my country to be the country that starts an Arctic arms race," Byers said as debate over the government's plan to spend $16 billion on 65 of the F-35s raged on several fronts on Parliament Hill. Byers is chair in global politics and international law at the University of British Columbia. He said there is no need for stealth "shock and awe" military aircraft in the North and senior U.S. military officials have contradicted Canadian government claims of threats from aging Russian bombers near Canadian airspace. What is needed up North, he emphasized, is search-and-rescue planes. - 2010/10/29: ENN: Antarctica Melting News
- 2010/10/29: Eureka: Is the ice at the South Pole melting?
Gravity field satellites observe for the first time the fluctuations of ice mass of the Antarctic ice sheet due to El Nino - 2010/10/27: ClimateP: The science behind increasing Antarctic sea ice
The food crisis is ongoing:
- FAO: Food Price Indices
- 2010/10/27: FAO: FAO distributes huge quantities of wheat seeds in Pakistan -- Planting season boosted after floods destroyed seed supply of millions
- 2010/10/29: Independent(UK): Bat disease threatens ecological catastrophe
A virulent and deadly pathogen in America is exterminating a predator that is vital to farmers for controlling insect pests - 2010/10/28: UN: Benin: UN emergency flight arrives with aid for flood victims
- 2010/10/28: UN: Agriculture must become 'climate-smart,' says UN agency [FAO]
- 2010/10/28: NewScientist: Are we having another food crisis?
- 2010/10/27: NatureTGB: Where are promised EU funds for food security?
- 2010/10/27: ScienceInsider: Even the Best Farmed Fish Can Cause Problems
- 2010/10/26: SeedDaily: Lack of crop diversity threatens food security: UN
- 2010/10/25: Guardian(UK): Global food crisis forecast as prices reach record highs
Cost of meat, sugar, rice, wheat and maize soars as World Bank predicts five years of price volatility - 2010/10/25: PlanetArk: Freshwater Losses Pose Risks For Food, Health: U.N.
- 2010/10/25: JakartaPost: Farmers union bows down over disastrous climate
On the back of the prolonged rainy season and its impact on crops, the Indonesian Farmers Association (HKTI) has given its consent on the government's plan to import food commodities, given a transparent process is in place. - 2010/10/25: CBC: Wheat crop poor after dismal Prairie summer
A rainy spring followed by a cool, cloudy summer and early frost has taken a toll on wheat harvests across the Prairies as farmers bring in the last of the crops. Officials with Statistics Canada estimated that wheat production would be down 25 per cent. - 2010/10/25: UN: New UN report warns of risks of biological production of renewable energy
So, are these land grabs Colonialism V2.0?
- 2010/10/28: DemNow: The Right to Food: Corporate, Foreign Gov't Land Grab Causing Hunger in Poor Countries
Regarding the genetic modification of food:
- 2010/10/27: PlanetArk: EU Exec Adopts Draft GM Feed Contamination Rules
The European Commission has finalized draft legislation that would allow up to 0.1 percent of unapproved genetically modified (GM) material in imports of animal feed to the European Union, the bloc's executive said on Tuesday. The draft rules, which must now be approved by EU member states and lawmakers... - 2010/10/25: CBC: Making sense of 'Frankenfish' -- AquaBounty says its salmon means more efficient aquaculture
And how are we going to feed 9 billion?
- 2010/10/30: SlashDot: How the Global Seed Vault Aims To Fight Future Famine
- 2010/10/29: LO: WFP Supports Food Security in Liberia
- 2010/10/26: FAO: Crop biodiversity: use it or lose it -- FAO launches 2nd State of the World's Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture report
- 2010/10/28: FAO: Agriculture needs to become 'climate-smart' -- But current options for financing and development assistance fall far short
- 2010/10/28: PhysOrg: 'Vertical Farm' envisions tall future for farming
- 2010/10/26: EnergyBulletin: Generation organic spreads its inspiring message: "Own your food, drive your future"
- 2010/10/26: UN: Conserving plant genetic diversity crucial for future food security - UN
- 2010/10/26: UN: Donor support helps avert food crisis in Niger but more required - UN official
- 2010/10/25: Eureka: Growing crops in the city -- Urban agriculture aims at helping Seattle's at-risk youth
- 2010/10/25: Guardian(UK): Industrial farming puts ecosystems at risk of collapse, warns Prince Charles
- 2010/10/25: UN: UN agency [FAO] helps Nicaragua fight hunger
- 2010/10/23: OneWorld: Food security as if women mattered: A Story from Kerala (Part I)
Kerala, hailed as God's own country, attributes its high development indices to the local women. Through their group Kudumbashree, these women have not only rejuvenated the local agrarian economy but also brought about a social transformation in the way women are perceived. Ananya Mukherjee-Reed explores the myriad achievements of Kusumbashree as she travels across the state. - 2010/10/31: EarthTimes: Hurricane Tomas spinning over eastern Caribbean
- 2010/10/30: CBC: Tomas becomes hurricane -- Storm threatens eastern Caribbean islands
- 2010/10/30: BBC: Hurricane Tomas lashes Caribbean islands of St Lucia and St Vincent
- 2010/10/30: Wunderground: Strengthening Tomas headed for the Lesser Antilles
- 2010/10/30: Wunderground: Unprecedented Hurricane Tomas pounding the Lesser Antilles
- 2010/10/29: Wunderground: Shary forms; potentially dangerous 91L approaching Lesser Antilles
- 2010/10/29: CBC: Tropical storm [Shary] warning issued for Bermuda
- 2010/10/28: Wunderground: An evening shift at NHC: A Shary situation
- 2010/10/25: Wunderground: Richard hits Belize, weakens to a tropical storm
- 2010/10/25: EarthTimes: Hurricane Richard makes landfall in Belize
- 2010/10/25: CBC: Richard weakens to tropical depression
- 2010/10/24: BBC: Hurricane Richard makes landfall in Belize
- 2010/10/24: CBC: Hurricane Richard hits Belize
And in the Western Pacific:
- 2010/10/29: TerraDaily: Hundreds evacuate as typhoon [Chaba] churns toward Japanese islands
- 2010/10/28: TerraDaily: Strong typhoon [Chaba] churns toward Japan
- 2010/10/27: PhysOrg: Typhoon Megi unleashes its wrath
- 2010/10/25: CBC: Taiwan searchers seek typhoon [Megi] victims
And the Bay of Bengal:
- 2010/10/26: EarthTimes: At least 27 dead in Myanmar cyclone [Giri], 15 missing
- 2010/10/25: EarthTimes: At least 27 dead in Myanmar cyclone [Giri]
- 2010/10/24: Reuters: Myanmar storm [Cyclone Giri] victims seek aid; Thai flood deaths rise
As for the temperature record:
- 2010/10/31: SkeptiSci: Hockey stick or hockey league?
- 2010/10/29: CCP: NOAA: Record high (94 °F) in Houston, TX, October 28, 2010; hottest temperature this late in the year
- 2010/10/27: BHerald: Texas climate study predicts permanently higher temps
As the debate over climate change rages, average temperatures in Texas are slowly but steadily rising, according to a report from state climatologist John Nielson-Gammon. - 2010/10/26: CC&G: September Anomaly Trends Show Global Warming Continues
Here is a curious feedback:
- 2010/10/25: UDelaware: As Arctic warms, increased shipping likely to accelerate climate change
While in the paleoclimate:
- 2010/10/29: SpaceDaily: Energy Revolution Key To Complex Life
- 2010/10/22: UCincinnati: Cincinnati's Algeo Tracks Evidence of 'The Great Dying'
University of Cincinnati geologist Thomas Algeo sorts 251-million-year-old evidence to understand the "Great Dying." His research will be presented at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America. - 2010/10/27: NewScientist: Thank ancient fertiliser for complex life
- 2010/10/27: SciNow: Did 'Snowball Earths' Trigger Animal Evolution?
- 2010/10/27: Eureka: New evidence supports 'Snowball Earth' as trigger for early animal evolution
A spike in ancient marine phosphorus concentrations from 750 to 635 million years ago is linked to emergence of complex life, UC Riverside researchers say - 2010/10/25: PhysOrg: Study gives clues about carbon dioxide patterns at end of Ice Age [14 kya]
While on the ENSO front:
- 2010/10/28: WtD: Pre-emptively debunking the coming "La Niña equals 'global cooling'" meme
And the State of the Oceans:
- 2010/10/31: Eureka: Speed installation of system to monitor vital signs of global ocean, scientists urge -- 'It is past time to get serious about measuring what's happening to the seas around us'
- 2010/10/29: BBC: Jellyfish 'may benefit from ecosystem instability'
A team of researchers have been trying to identify how jellyfish may benefit from marine ecosystems destabilised by climate change and overfishing. - 2010/10/28: CBC: Volcano eruptions in east Siberia spread ash
Two volcanoes erupted Thursday on Russia's far-eastern Kamchatka Peninsula, tossing massive ash clouds kilometres into the air, forcing flights to divert and blanketing one town with thick ash. The Klyuchevskaya Sopka, Eurasia's highest active volcano, exploded along with the Shiveluch volcano, 70 kilometres to the northeast, the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry's branch in Kamchatka said... - 2010/10/27: PhysOrg: Introducing the A-Train
More GW impacts are being seen:
- 2010/10/28: Reuters: Need to move Indonesia's capital growing urgent in face of climate change, experts say
- 2010/10/25: USGS: Mountain Vegetation Impacted by Climate Change
- 2010/10/27: UCDavis: Low elevations hold climate surprises
Contrary to expectations, climate change has had a significant effect on mountain plants at low elevations, - 2010/10/27: KSJT: SF Chronicle: Is global warming going to cook the [California] state parks?
- 2010/10/26: Guardian(UK): Russian bears treat graveyards as 'giant refrigerators'
- 2010/10/27: SciDaily: Imperiled Tropical Frog Shouting the Impact of Climate Change from the Mountaintops
- 2010/10/27: SF Gate: Global warming seen as threat to [California] state's parks
- 2010/10/26: CCurrents: The Fishing Communities And The Politics Of Climate Change
- 2010/10/26: CBC: Caribou concerns arise at Winnipeg workshop
Concerns about dwindling caribou herds in Canada and elsewhere have brought more than 400 delegates to the 13th North American Caribou Workshop in Winnipeg this week. - 2010/10/25: EastAfrican: Ecologist surprised at abrupt end to Serengeti-Mara wildebeest migration [last year's drought]
- 2010/10/24: SMandia: Climate Change Impacts on Mediterranean Ecosystems
And then there are the world's forests:
- 2010/10/29: ABC(Au): Scientists divided over rainforest CO2 impact
Researchers in Queensland's far north are still unclear about the effects of carbon dioxide on tropical rainforests. James Cook University's Professor William Laurance will hold a lecture in Cairns this afternoon to discuss climate change in the far north. Professor Laurance says scientists are divided over whether the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is harming or helping rainforest trees. "Some people think the increasing levels of CO2 are going to force forests to grow more slowly," he said. "Others think they're going to cause the growth to increase. - 2010/10/29: NatureN: Drought strikes the Amazon rainforest again -- Climate change may explain why history is repeating itself in Brazil
- 2010/10/28: MongaBay: Undergrads in the Amazon: American students witness beauty and crisis in Yasuni National Park, Ecuador
- 2010/10/27: ENS: Amazon Conservation Cost Pegged at $150 Million a Year
- 2010/10/28: Eureka: Root of the matter: A new map shows life-saving forests' scarcity defies past estimates
- 2010/10/27: GuelphMercury: Don't count on forests to offset carbon emissions, study suggests
- 2010/10/26: Guardian(UK): Leading scientists accuse thinktanks of being logging lobbyists
Open letter accuses two 'independent' groups of distorting facts and having close associations with multinational logging corporations Twelve leading scientists, including the former head of Kew Gardens and the biodiversity adviser to the president of the World Bank, have written an open letter accusing two international thinktanks of "distortions, misrepresentations, or misinterpretations of fact" in their analysis and writings about rainforests and logging. The unprecedented attack on the tactics and objectivity of the two groups who claim to be independent is contained in an open letter sent to the Guardian. It accuses the Washington-based World Growth International (WGI) and Melbourne-based International Trade Strategies Global (ITS) of having close associations with politically conservative US thinktanks and advancing "biased or distorted arguments" on palm oil plantations and logging. - 2010/10/27: CCurrents: The Forests Are Worth Nothing!
- 2010/10/26: ABC(Au): Trees' ability to soak up CO2 has limits
The ability of forests to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere has been overrated, according to a new study by US and Australian scientists. - 2010/10/26: PlanetArk: Norway Says More Aid Needed To Save Indonesian Forest
- 2010/10/26: BBC: Million-dollar beds fuel Madagascar timber crisis
Soaring demand in China and political unrest in Madagascar are fuelling illegal logging for hardwoods in the African nation, a report concludes. Global Witness and the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) talked to loggers, government agencies and traders to compile their report. In China, they discovered beds on sale for $1m, made from Madagascan wood. The report was launched at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) meeting in Nagoya, Japan. - 2010/10/25: NatureTGB: Scientists accuse think tanks of representing industry in deforestation debate
A dozen scientists are raising concerns about a pair of environmental and trade policy think tanks that they claim are twisting facts about tropical deforestation in order to promote an agenda of oil palm development in places like Indonesia and Malaysia. Scientists and environmentalists have long decried the role of palm oil plantations in widespread destruction of native rainforests in Southeast Asia, a trend that has made Indonesia a primary battleground in campaigns against tropical deforestation. The letter argues that the World Growth Institute, based in Arlington, Virginia, and ITS Global, based in Melbourne, receive funding from - and effectively represent - various multinational companies that do business in logging, wood pulp and palm oil. - 2010/10/25: BCLSB: A Pretty Picture
- 2010/10/24: RealClimate: Seeing Red [extensive tree mortality now being caused by bark beetles]
Climate refugees are becoming an issue:
- 2010/10/25: EurActiv: EU team sent to Greece to curb 'alarming' refugee flow
A team of EU border officials is being sent to help Greece deal with an increase in the number of immigrants crossing its frontier from Turkey, the European Commission said on Sunday (24 October). - 2010/10/27: CBC: Strong winds blast Prairies to Quebec
Remnants of a massive storm that had a barometric pressure comparable to a hurricane continue to blow through parts of Canada and the U.S. The low-pressure system will continue to spin over northern Ontario, bringing strong winds for another day from the Prairies to Quebec, CBC meteorologist Johanna Wagstaffe said. Wind warnings are also in place for southern Ontario, with gusts up to 90 km/hr expected. - 2010/10/28: BBC: US Midwest battered by 56 tornadoes in two days
Residents of US states from North Dakota to North Carolina are cleaning up after a fierce storm unleashed driving rain, blustery winds, heavy snow and 56 tornadoes in just two days. - 2010/10/27: TerraDaily: Huge storm unleashes tornadoes, grounds US flights
- 2010/10/28: TreeHugger: 'Superstorm' is Strongest Ever Recorded in Midwest - More on the Way?
- 2010/10/27: TP:WR: Global Boiling: Continental 'Weather Bomb' Hits Midwest With Power Of Cat Three Hurricane
- 2010/10/27: DWWSJ: The Gales of November Came Early...
- 2010/10/27: ClimateP: Masters: "Strongest storm ever recorded in the Midwest smashes all-time pressure records" -- 'Weather bomb' hits Midwest with power of major hurricane
- 2010/10/27: EarthTimes: Severe, record storm system rolling across US
- 2010/10/27: Wunderground: Strongest storm ever recorded in the Midwest smashes all-time pressure records
- 2010/10/27: ABC(US): Windstorm Wreaks Havoc: Midwest Monster Storm Heads East -- Fall Storm's Fury Rips Homes Apart, Causes Travel Headaches for Commuters
- 2010/10/27: MST:B: "Land Hurricane": Record-Breaking Storm For Minnesota (and the USA)
"Land Hurricane" Yes, our weather seems to be getting more extreme over time: 145 tornado reports this summer in Minnesota, the most in the nation. More frequent flash flooding events, annual flooding on the Red & Minnesota Rivers, more severe thunderstorms and hailstorms around the USA. Yesterday's "land hurricane" was an atmospheric explanation point coming at the end of what turned out to be a wild summer season. Coincidence? Maybe. But the coincidences seem to be piling up... - 2010/10/27: BBC: Fierce storm muscles through Midwestern US
- 2010/10/26: BBC: The Midwestern US is being battered by heavy rain and strong winds by a storm some forecasters are comparing to a category three hurricane
- 2010/10/26: CNN: Tornadoes, high winds rip through Midwest, South
A low-pressure record may have been broken - At least 160,000 customers lose power, mainly in Indiana, northern Illinois, Ohio - Only one runway operating at Minneapolis/St. Paul airport - Winds "were even rocking my husband's semi-truck side to side," witness says - 2010/10/26: Wunderground: Tornadoes, violent thunderstorms rip the U.S.; Richard dies in the Gulf of Mexico
- 2010/10/26: CBC: 'Weather bomb' heads for southern Ontario
That storm generated strings of tornadoes:
- 2010/10/26: DWWSJ: Autumn Twisters On The Prowl
As for heatwaves and wild fires:
- 2010/10/28: CCP: Historical perspective on the Russian Heat Wave of 2010
- 2010/10/27: KSJT: ScienceNews: Holy Smokes -- big fires not only trigger thunderstorms but sometimes use them as stratospheric chimneys
- 2010/10/25: Reuters: Heat, smoke sent Russia deaths soaring in 2010: govt
A heat wave that fanned wildfires and blanketed Moscow with acrid smoke pushed up the number of deaths in Russia by nearly a fifth in July and August this year, according to a government report issued on Monday. Nearly 56,000 more people died nationwide this summer than in the same period last year, said a monthly Economic Development Ministry report on Russia's economy. - 2010/10/26: WMO: New report published on "Climate, Carbon and Coral Reefs"
- 2010/10/26: UN: With world's coral reefs under threat, UN report urges coordinated protection measures
- 2010/10/25: Maribo: Climate change and the Caribbean coral bleaching, again
- 2010/10/25: KSJT: AP: Even through Greenpeace's window, gulf's deep corals look healthy, oil spill or not
Acidification is changing the oceans:
- 2010/10/29: SolveClimate: Concern Over Ocean Acidification Ramps Up Research Dollars
- 2010/10/25: BBC: Sea urchins tolerate acid water
Glaciers are melting:
- 2010/10/27: CCP: Graham Cogley: Dirt (debris) on glaciers
- 2010/10/25: CCP: Greenland's Jakobshavn could be poised to speed up. So could even bigger glaciers farther north -- with significant implications for global sea level
Sea levels are rising:
- 2010/10/28: SEasterbrook: What will sea level rise mean for Venice?
- 2010/10/28: TEC: The real issue
- 2010/10/27: TEC: Doc alert: World Bank - Asian coastal megacities and climate change
- 2010/10/25: CCP: Konrad Steffen: Greenland's contribution to sea level rise is increasing
As for hydrological cycle disruptions [floods & droughts]:
- 2010/10/29: TerraDaily: Togo floods leave 21 dead, more than 82,000 affected
- 2010/10/30: EarthTimes: Thailand floods claim 100 lives, 5 million people affected
- 2010/10/27: WaPo: 2 weeks of flooding in Thailand kills 57 people
- 2010/10/29: EarthTimes: Rains spark flooding in Portuguese capital
- 2010/10/28: UN: Benin: UN emergency flight arrives with aid for flood victims
- 2010/10/28: ClimateP: Study: Global warming is driving increased frequency of extreme wet or dry summer weather in southeast, so droughts and deluges are likely to get worse
- 2010/10/27: PhysOrg: Variable southeast summer rainfall linked to climate change
A doubling of abnormally wet or dry summer weather in the southeastern United States in recent decades has come from an intensification of the summertime North Atlantic Subtropical High (NASH), or "Bermuda High." - 2010/10/27: PlanetArk: Brazil's Amazon Region Suffers Severe Drought
- 2010/10/27: EarthTimes: Bangkok survives flood threat, countryside suffers
- 2010/10/26: UN: More than 1.8 million people in West and Central Africa affected by floods -- UN
- 2010/10/26: Guardian(UK): Drought brings Amazon tributary to lowest level in a century
- 2010/10/26: EarthTimes: Thailand floods kill 56, start to spread disease
- 2010/10/26: PeakEnergy: Rivers Disappearing in Drought-Stricken Amazon
- 2010/10/25: EarthTimes: Thailand flooding threatens Bangkok; death toll at 38
Elsewhere on the mitigation front:
- 2010/10/29: GreenGrok: Working on the Wetlands: One Blade of Grass at a Time
- 2010/10/26: SciDaily: Reducing Carbon Emissions by Improving Global Equality
Reducing the inequalities between rich and poor nations could be the main driver for avoiding the worst effects of climate change and even reducing atmospheric levels of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, according to UK researchers writing in the International Journal of Global Warming. - 2010/10/27: CCP: 12 leading U.K. scientists accuse World Growth International and International Trade Strategies Global of having close associations with politically conservative US thinktanks and advancing "biased or distorted arguments" on palm oil plantations and logging
- 2010/10/27: Guardian(UK): Massive corruption undermines forest protection plan
The UN's forest protection plan hasn't even started yet but already we are seeing massive fraud, bribery and backdoor deals across the world - 2010/10/27: PlanetArk: Forestry [REDD-plus] Takes Center-Stage At U.N. Talks On Nature
- 2010/10/26: Reuters: [REDD-plus] Forestry takes center-stage at U.N. talks on nature
Delegates at a global U.N. meeting to preserve natural resources moved closer on Tuesday to agreeing ways to set aside about $4 billion to help developing nations save tropical forests, as studies highlighted the plight of nature. - 2010/10/29: NBF: High speed rail from Hong Kong to Beijing by 2012 and other amazing facts about China's high speed rail buildout
- 2010/10/29: OilDrum: Electrifying the Railroads - Alan Drake's manual
- 2010/10/29: NBF: High Speed Rail in the USA, South Korea, China and the world
- 2010/10/26: CalcRisk: ATA: Truck Tonnage Index increases [1.7%] in September...
- 2010/10/25: EnergyBulletin: Electrification and expansion of railroads as a response to peak oil
While in the endless quest for zero energy, sustainable buildings and practical codes:
- 2010/10/26: TreeHugger: How Chinese Stink Bugs Helped Inspire One Man To Save 35% On His Home Heating Bill
- 2010/10/25: TreeHugger: LEED-Bashing Pile-On Continues On New Fronts
And on the carbon sequestration front:
- 2010/10/27: SciDaily: Avoiding CO2 Capture Health Risks Is Possible, Norwegian Experts Say
Experts at Norway's SINTEF believe it is possible to develop efficient CO2 capture technologies without generating harmful emissions. - 2010/10/28: CBC: Greener carbon capture comes closer
- 2010/10/28: Eureka: Getting a grip on CO2 capture -- Canadian researchers 'see' how to capture CO2
- 2010/10/26: PhysOrg: The next carbon capture tool could be new, improved grass
Large scale geo-engineering keeps popping up:
- 2010/10/29: WaPo: Geoengineering sparks international ban, first-ever congressional report
- 2010/10/29: NatureTGB: House committee weighs in on 'climate engineering'
The US House Science and Technology Committee released a report on Friday looking into the nascent science of geoengineering and how federal programs could be aligned to study technologies - from the ordinary to the controversial - that could be used to alter the earth's climate in order to counteract global warming. - 2010/10/23: GAO: [link to 1.2 meg pdf] Climate Change: A Coordinated Strategy Could Focus Federal Geoengineering Research and Inform Governance Efforts
- 2010/10/25: AlterNet: The Doomsday Machine and the Race to Save the World: Geoengineering Emerges as Plan B at the 11th Hour
Meanwhile in the journals:
- 2010/10/25: NERC:NORA: Surface-ocean CO2 variability and vulnerability by Scott C. Doney et al.
- 2010/10/28: NERC:NORA: Evaluation of a grid-based river flow model using Regional Climate Model output over Europe by Simon Dadson et al.
- 2010/10/26: CP: Climate and carbon-cycle variability over the last millennium by J. H. Jungclaus et al.
- 2010/10/25: CP: Mountain uplift and the glaciation of North America -- a sensitivity study by G. L. Foster et al.
- 2010/10/29: CPD: A regional ocean circulation model for the mid-Cretaceous North Atlantic Basin: implications for black shale formation by R. P. M. Topper et al.
- 2010/10/29: CPD: The effect of a dynamic background albedo scheme on Sahel/Sahara precipitation during the mid-Holocene by F. S. E. Vamborg et al.
- 2010/10/26: CPD: A comparison of the present and last interglacial periods in six Antarctic ice cores by V. Masson-Delmotte et al.
- 2010/10/29: ACPD: Dependence of aerosol-precipitation interactions on humidity in a multiple-cloud system by S. S. Lee
- 2010/10/28: OS: A numerical scheme to calculate temperature and salinity dependent air-water transfer velocities for any gas by M. T. Johnson
- 2010/10/29: AGWObserver: Papers on Greenland temperature
- 2010/10/29: WOL:GCB: Have jellyfish in the Irish Sea benefited from climate change and overfishing? by C. P. Lynam et al.
- 2010/10/26: ACP: The Eyjafjallajökull eruption in April 2010 - detection of volcanic plume using in-situ measurements, ozone sondes and lidar-ceilometer profiles by H. Flentje et al.
- 2010/10/25: ACP: Extreme events in total ozone over Arosa - Part 2: Fingerprints of atmospheric dynamics and chemistry and effects on mean values and long-term changes by H. E. Rieder et al.
- 2010/10/25: ACP: Extreme events in total ozone over Arosa - Part 1: Application of extreme value theory by H. E. Rieder et al.
- 2010/10/25: ACPD: Impacts of water vapor/aerosol loading trends and land cover on aerosol microphysical and radiative effects on clouds during the Amazon biomass burning season by J. E. Ten Hoeve et al.
- 2010/10/25: ACPD: Middle atmosphere response to the solar cycle in irradiance and ionizing particle precipitation by K. Semeniuk et al.
- 2010/10/26: PNAS: (ab$) Forecasting potential global environmental costs of livestock production 2000-2050 by Nathan Pelletier & Peter Tyedmers
- 2010/10/26: PNAS: (ab$) Fluid dynamical niches of phytoplankton types by Francesco d'Ovidio et al.
- 2010/10/26: PNAS: (ab$) Ecosystem-specific selection pressures revealed through comparative population genomics by Maureen L. Coleman et al.
- 2010/10/26: PNAS: (abs) Regional US carbon sinks from three-dimensional atmospheric CO2 sampling by Cyril Crevoisier et al.
- 2010/10/26: PNAS: [Letter$] Does horizontal mixing explain phytoplankton dynamics? by Raphael M. Kudela
- 2010/10/27: Nature: [Letter$] The evolution of the marine phosphate reservoir by Noah J. Planavsky et al.
- 2010/10/26: Science: (ab$) The Impact of Conservation on the Status of the World's Vertebrates by Michael Hoffmann et multi alia
- 2010/10/26: Science: (ab$) Scenarios for Global Biodiversity in the 21st Century by Henrique M. Pereira et al.
- 2010/10/26: TC: Freshwater flux to Sermilik Fjord, SE Greenland by S. H. Mernild et al.
- 2010/10/26: TCD: Evidence of accelerated englacial warming in the Monte Rosa area, Switzerland/Italy by M. Hoelzle et al.
- 2010/10/25: TCD: Present and LGM permafrost from climate simulations: contribution of statistical downscaling by G. Levavasseur et al.
- 2010/10/26: AGWObserver: Papers on pre-industrial anthropogenic climate forcing
- 2010/10/26: TA: Large-scale atmospheric circulation changes are associated with the recent loss of Arctic sea ice by James E. Overland & Muyin Wang
- 2010/10/26: PNAS: (abs) Persistence of climate changes due to a range of greenhouse gases by Susan Solomon et al.
- 2010/10/25: IJGW: Egalite, fraternite, sustainabilite: evaluating the significance of regional affluence and population growth on carbon emissions by G.R. Cranston & G.P. Hammond
- 2010/10/25: AGWObserver: New research from last week 42/2010
- 2010/10/18: arXiv: Order-of-magnitude enhancement of wind farm power density via counter-rotating vertical-axis wind turbine arrays by John O. Dabiri
And other significant documents:
- 2010/10/25: PI: [link to 433k pdf] Fighting Climate Change in Mexico -- Facing the Climate Challenge: Mexico opportunities fact sheet
- 2010/10/27: PI: [link to 644k pdf] Capital Power seeks to renege on commitment -- Company has legal obligation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
- 2010/10/29: US House: [link to 460k pdf] Engineering the Climate: Research and Strategies for International Coordination
- 2010/10/23: GAO: [link to 1.2 meg pdf] Climate Change: A Coordinated Strategy Could Focus Federal Geoengineering Research and Inform Governance Efforts
As for miscellaneous science:
- 2010/10/28: MTobis: A Mashey Gem
- 2010/10/28: NASA:JPL: NASA Work Helps Better Predict World's Smoggiest Days
The scientists studied the chemical reaction between two compounds that play important roles in the formation of ozone, a harmful air pollutant at ground level. - 2010/10/27: Eureka: Texas A&M University becomes key player in global study to save Earth's endangered species
- 2010/10/26: CCP: James E. Overland & Muyin Wang, Tellus, Large-scale atmospheric circulation changes are associated with the recent loss of Arctic sea ice
- 2010/10/26: TerraDaily: Yale Scientist Helps Pinpoint Threats To Life In World's Rivers
- 2010/10/25: Eureka: Warming of planet will affect storms differently in Northern and Southern hemispheres -- MIT study finds that more intense storms will occur in the Southern Hemisphere
Regarding Santer:
- 2010/10/24: ClimateSight: What Ben Santer Has to Say
Regarding Lewis:
- 2010/10/25: QuarkSoup: Hal Lewis Knocks Out Hal Lewis in the First Round
Regarding Wegman:
- 2010/10/25: DeepClimate: The Wegman report sees red (noise)
- 2010/10/24: DC: David Ritson speaks out
A tempest in a Pielkish teapot:
- 2010/10/29: QuarkSoup: Greenberg again
- 2010/10/29: QuarkSoup: Greenberg Update
- 2010/10/29: QuarkSoup: Greenberg, Pielke Jr, Mann, Ehrlich and Rahmstorf
Regarding Curry:
- 2010/10/31: JEB: (S)He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense
- 2010/10/30: Stoat: Can't think of any more amusing Curry jokes
- 2010/10/28: KSJT: Scientific American: On climate change, a scientist who is civil with skeptics, and politics
- 2010/10/26: MTobis: Judith Curry: Born Beyond the Shark?
- 2010/10/26: DeSmogBlog: UnScientific American: In Lionizing Curry, a Lion Loses its Way
- 2010/10/25: HotTopic: Back in Judy's jungle
- 2010/10/25: SciAm: Climate Heretic: Judith Curry Turns on Her Colleagues
Meanwhile on the Kyoto front:
- 2010/10/26: PlanetArk: U.N. Panel Seeks To Streamline JI [Joint Implementation] CO2 Cutting Scheme [Kyoto]
While at the UN:
- 2010/10/27: UN: UN report urges action to save Arctic biodiversity
And on the carbon trading front:
- 2010/10/26: Guardian(UK): EU plans to clamp down on carbon trading scam
Chinese chemical companies' use of offsets has a 'total lack of environmental integrity', says Connie Hedegaard - 2010/10/25: JQuiggin: The implicit price of carbon
The debate over the optimal strategy [carbon trading, carbon offsets, auction vs. allocation, and/or a carbon tax] to use in dealing with GHGs continues:
- 2010/10/29: Maribo: Investing in technology vs. pricing carbon
- 2010/10/27: PS: A New Path to a Low-Carbon Economy by Jeffrey D. Sachs
The solution to manmade climate change depends on the transition to electricity production that, unlike burning oil, natural gas, and coal, emits little or no carbon dioxide -- the main greenhouse gas responsible for global warming.
[...]
The obvious way is to tax coal, or to require power plants to have permits to use coal, and to set the tax or permit price high enough to induce a shift towards the low-carbon alternatives.
[...]
Here is another way. Suppose that we levy a small tax on existing coal power plants in order to pay for the solar subsidy, and then gradually raise consumers' electricity bills as more and more solar plants are phased in. - 2010/10/27: OpenDem: How we can cope with the climate crisis -- an optimistic view
The development of a global low carbon economy to tackle climate change calls for accelerated innovation processes and a new quality of international cooperation; a challenge that is not as hopeless as we think, argues Dirk Messner - 2010/10/30: BBC: China reassures US on key 'rare earth' minerals
China has reassured the US it has no intention of withholding "rare earth" minerals from the market, the US Secretary of State has said. China suspended export of the metals, key to the global high-tech industry, to Japan after a diplomatic spat. The US has pressed China, which has pledged not to use the minerals as a diplomatic weapon, to defuse the row. - 2010/10/29: NYT: After China's Rare Earth Embargo, a New Calculus
- 2010/10/30: TechRev: Can the U.S. Rare-Earth Industry Rebound?
The U.S. has plenty of the metals that are critical to many green-energy technologies, but engineering and R&D expertise have moved overseas. - 2010/10/30: NakedCapitalism: US Faces Substantial Obstacles to Increasing Rare Earths Production
- 2010/10/29: NakedCapitalism: China Drops Rare Earths Ban
- 2010/10/21: Telegraph(UK):PF: Rare earths row: some home truths
- 2010/10/28: NYT: [Secretary of State Hillary] Clinton to Question China on [rare earth] Minerals
- 2010/10/28: PhysOrg: US, Japan to diversify sources of rare earths: Japan FM
- 2010/10/28: BBC: China pledges not to use rare earth minerals as weapon
- 2010/10/27: PlanetArk: EU, U.S. Grapple With Crunch In Rare Earth Supplies
- 2010/10/27: PlanetArk: No China Rare Earth Embargo To U.S. And EU: Molycorp CEO [Mark Smith]
China will reduce its exports of rare earth metals to the United States and Europe, but will not cut them off entirely, the head of the largest Western producer of the minerals said on Tuesday. - 2010/10/27: DerSpiegel: Western Electronics, Chinese Mines -- German Industry Feels Rare-Earth Metals Squeeze
[Over 95 percent of commercial rare-earth metals are mined in China.] Worries over a bottleneck in rare-earth metals from China, which are needed in the production of high-tech equipment, have dominated a conference on raw materials in Berlin this week. Beijing says export quotas are almost filled for the year. German Economics Minister Rainer Brüderle has called for more recycling and greater cooperation between the EU and the US to fill the gap. - 2010/10/26: NYT: U.S. and Europe Urged to Join Forces on Rare Earth Metals
- 2010/10/26: BBerg: Race to Replace China's Rare Earths May Take Decade
- 2010/10/26: Reuters: U.S. energy firms still getting China rare metals
- 2010/10/25: Guardian(UK): Chinese moves to limit mineral supplies sparks struggle over rare earths
China produces 97% of the world's supply of rare earths - China says exports quota is cut by 72% to ensure sustainability - 2010/10/26: CBC: China bucks global drop in R&D spending
The economic crisis cut corporate research and development spending 1.9 per cent worldwide in 2009, but China defied the trend, increasing its research investments by a whopping 40 per cent. - 2010/10/25: AGupta: America's Can't Do Attitude
As for GW, energy & water security:
- 2010/10/27: Yale360: When The Water Ends: Africa's Climate Conflicts
As temperatures rise and water supplies dry up, semi-nomadic tribes along the Kenyan-Ethiopian border increasingly are coming into conflict with each other. A Yale Environment 360 video report from East Africa focuses on a phenomenon that climate scientists say will be more and more common in the 21st century: how worsening drought will pit groups -- and nations -- against one another - 2010/10/27: TreeHugger: 'Coal Country' Documentary, Aired on Planet Green, Called Potential Threat by PA Dept of Homeland Security
What are the activists up to?
- 2010/10/27: ClimateP: Climate Action, Part 3: Taking it to the Streets
Polls! We have polls!
- 2010/10/28: TCoE: Americans lead charge into the abyss
Regarding Water Politics and Business:
- 2010/10/30: JFleck: Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: NM Water Rights Ruling
- 2010/10/28: JFleck: Who Needs to Understand Drought?
- 2010/10/25: CCP: Water -- The New Oil: Should private companies control our most precious natural resource? (Newsweek)
- 2010/10/25: HoustonChronicle: New weapon in coal plant fight: water -- Farms, cities, green forces say facilities use too much of resource
There is a new front in the fight over whether Texas should build more coal-fired power plants -- water. The various water factions - farmers, environmentalists and growing, thirsty cities - have come together as allies against proposed coal plants across the state, with battles now raging from Abilene to Corpus Christi. Their shared concern: The plants will use too much of an already stressed resource. So the unlikely allies are asking water suppliers to not sell the rights to billions of gallons to the plants, seizing on the notion that, perhaps more than ever, water still shapes destiny. - 2010/10/27: SkeptiSci: Skeptical Science Firefox Add-on: Send and receive climate info while you browse
Who's making predictions this week?
- 2010/10/29: SciAm: A Cut-and Dry Forecast: U.S. Southwest's Dry Spell May Become Long-Lasting and Intensify as Climate Change Takes Hold
A new analysis using a standard drought index augurs that by the end of the century devastating drought conditions will take hold over much of the populated areas of the world - 2010/10/28: ABC(Au): Hotter, drier weather predicted for much of Qld
A Queensland Government report on climate change predicts temperature rises of up to 2.2 degrees Celsius over the next 40 years. - 2010/10/26: PlanetArk: Cold Winter Ahead For West Europe: WSI [Weather Services International]
And on the American political front:
- 2010/10/29: Mercury: State releases landmark global warming rules
Roughly 600 of California's major polluters -- from oil refineries to power plants and factories -- will face mandatory limits on the amount of greenhouse gases they emit, starting on Jan. 1, 2012, under new rules released today by state air regulators. - 2010/10/28: NYT: Report: All States but Texas on Track to Issue Greenhouse Gas Permits
With state regulators required to start issuing Clean Air Act permits next year for large stationary sources of greenhouse gas emissions, the Lone Star State will be the lone holdout, according to a report released today by an association of state and local air agencies. The states are scrambling to align their own rules with U.S. EPA's new regulations, which are set to take effect on Jan. 2, 2011. Thirty-six states have already gotten federal approval to begin issuing greenhouse gas permits. Of the remaining states, which have been required to explain their plans to EPA, Texas is the only one that won't revise its rules or accept a federal implementation plan, according to the analysis (pdf) by the National Association of Clean Air Agencies (NACAA). - 2010/10/29: SacBee: California Air Resources Board to unveil cap-and-trade program for CO2
- 2010/10/29: MTobis: Not Tories
- 2010/10/28: Guardian(UK): Arnold Schwarzenegger flexes muscles to defend climate change law
California governor fights hard to protect his green legacy, taking on oil executives who aim to annul law via Proposition 23 - 2010/10/28: Guardian(UK): [Letters] California's battle over Kyoto pledge
- 2010/10/28: TCoE: Americans lead charge into the abyss
- 2010/10/28: SolveClimate: Study: Weak Coal Ash Regs in Tenn. Highlight Need for Federal Law
- 2010/10/27: CNN: Alaska's untapped oil reserves estimate lowered by about 90 percent
- 2010/10/28: TreeHugger: Keeping Science Out of Politics is a Ridiculous Idea
- 2010/10/27: TreeHugger: Alaska's NPRA Oil Reserves Estimate Lowered About 90% by USGS
- 2010/10/27: TEC: What's beyond cap-and-trade?
- 2010/10/27: TWM: Who's right on biofuels?...
How can America achieve energy independence? The Obama Administration believes increased production of biofuels is key, as most recently signaled by its decision to increase the amount of ethanol that can be blended with gasoline. Yet critics warn that biofuels produced from corn and other crops damage the environment and drive up the cost of food. Who's right? - 2010/10/26: DM:CCM: The Tea Party and Astroturfing
- 2010/10/25: TP:WR: Americans For Prosperity Lies: 'We're Not Arguing The Science Of Climate Change'
- 2010/10/25: Grist: States have clean-energy momentum, but it's under threat
The BP disaster continues to twist US politics:
- 2010/10/29: DJ: Opinion: New book confirms greed, power and cover-up are BP trademarks
- 2010/10/30: PSinclair: Still Waiting for Answers in the Gulf
- 2010/10/29: ENS: Halliburton May Have Pumped Unstable Cement Down BP Oil Well
- 2010/10/29: OilChange: Despite The Bad Cement Job, Still Blame BP
- 2010/10/29: Guardian(UK): BP and Halliburton knew of Gulf oil well cement flaws -- US investigator says cement mixture failed three out of four tests carried out before explosion
- 2010/10/29: Grist: Is Halliburton the real heavy in the Gulf oil explosion?
- 2010/10/29: NOAANews: NOAA and FDA Announce Chemical Test for Dispersant in Gulf Seafood; All Samples Test Within Safety Threshold
- 2010/10/29: GeoSociety: Troubled Islands -- Hurricanes, Oil Spill & Sea Level Rise
- 2010/10/28: BBC: BP oil disaster: Pre-spill tests 'showed cement flaw'
The firms drilling a BP Gulf of Mexico oil well had tests showing cement used to seal it before it blew out was unstable, US investigators have found. - 2010/10/28: CBC: BP oil well cement was problematic
Tests on BP's oil well in the Gulf of Mexico before its deadly blowout should have raised doubts about the cement used to seal the well, U.S. investigators say. The company and its cementing contractor used it anyway, the president's oil spill commission said Thursday. It is the first finding from the commission looking into the causes of the April 20 explosion that killed 11 workers and led to the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history. And it appears to conflict with statements made by Halliburton Co., which has said tests showed the cement mix was stable. The cement mix's failure to prevent oil and gas from entering the well has been identified by BP and others as one of the causes of the accident. - 2010/10/28: CNN: Letter: BP, Halliburton knew of flaws in cement in Gulf oil spill well
Halliburton stock falls on the news - A federal investigator says tests before the rig exploded showed flaws - Halliburton and BP did not act on data showing flaws, says investigator - The oil rig explosion killed 11 workers and caused the biggest spill in U.S. history - 2010/10/28: TreeHugger: Another BP Oil Rig is a "Ticking Time Bomb": Whistleblower
- 2010/10/28: NakedCapitalism: WashingtonsBlog: Reappearance of Huge Plumes of Oil is Making It Hard to Pretend that the Problem Has Disappeared
- 2010/10/27: CSW: NOAA on the BP oil blowout: Is this any way to communicate science?
- 2010/10/27: TreeHugger: "People are Dropping Dead" from BP Dispersants: Toxicologist
- 2010/10/27: OilChange: BP: Stilling Passing Blame
- 2010/10/27: CCurrents: BP Dispersants 'Causing Sickness'
- 2010/10/27: DVoice: America's Gulf: Ongoing Cover-up and Denial
- 2010/10/26: AFTIC: Massive stretches of weathered oil spotted in Gulf of Mexico
- 2010/10/26: TreeHugger: "We Didn't Know the Impacts" of Dispersants on Sea Life: Obama Admin
- 2010/10/25: ProPublica: Gulf Spill Victims' 'Escalated' Claims Still Languishing
- 2010/10/26: ProPublica: The Documentary BP Wants You to Disregard
- 2010/10/26: ProPublica: Furious Growth and Cost Cuts Led To BP Accidents Past and Present
- 2010/10/24: TP:WR: Vast Stretches Of Oil Still Contaminate The Gulf
- 2010/10/25: USAToday: Research teams find oil on bottom of Gulf
Scientists who were aboard two research vessels studying the Gulf of Mexico oil spill's impact on sea life have found substantial amounts of oil on the seafloor, contradicting statements by federal officials that the oil had largely disappeared. - 2010/10/24: CCP: Louisiana boat captains report: orange, sticky, oily smelling substance which required solvent to get off their boats, in miles-wide slick in West Bay of Mississippi River delta -- Coast Guard does nothing
So how do you figure the 2010 elections will crack up?
- 2010/10/29: Kentucky: Former Rand Paul volunteer scheduled to appear in court Nov. 18
- 2010/10/29: CDreams: Climate Change Denial Pervades US Elections
- 2010/10/29: NYT:CW: Ohio Conservatives See Climate Change as 'Another Scam'
- 2010/10/29: TP:WR: Climate Hawk Baron Hill: 'This Is God's Green Earth And We Ought To Respect It'
- 2010/10/28: TP:WR: RI-01: 'No Climate Tax' Candidate John Loughlin Is Radical Global Warming Denier
- 2010/10/29: CCP: Rated FALSE by the Truth-O-Meter (and James Hansen debunks Loughlin): House candidate Loughlin claims 94% of climate-warming carbon emissions are natural
- 2010/10/29: ClimateP: Politifact slams climate science denier John Loughlin -- Hansen and Ruddiman debunk RI GOPer's false claims
- 2010/10/29: Grist: Evangelical climate hawk learns hard knocks in House race
- 2010/10/28: EnergyBulletin: The peak oil crisis: the midterms
- 2010/10/27: TheHill:e2W: Poll: Tea Party more skeptical on climate than Republicans overall
- 2010/10/28: SolveClimate: Greens Rally for Oil Magnate with Clean Energy Platform in N.M. House Race
- 2010/10/28: Grist: Captain Obvious attacks -- Key votes in California this November
- 2010/10/27: UCSUSA: Science Group Warns CA Voters about Misleading Slate Mailer and Trojan Horse Attack Against State's Clean Energy Law; Urges Voters to Vote No on Prop 26
- 2010/10/27: CCP: George Monbiot: Toxic Brew (Koch brothers finance fake grassroots organizations and the Tea Party) -- The Tea Parties didn't arise spontaneously: they were boiled up by big business
- 2010/10/26: TP: House GOP Candidate Tim Burns: 'I Don't Believe In Manmade Global Warming'
- 2010/10/25: NYT:GW: Campaign Ads Slam Stimulus Bill Program for Renewable Energy
Republican and Democratic campaign leaders clashed today over the accuracy of GOP political ads attacking a stimulus bill program that gives money to renewable power companies. The wind industry's biggest trade group in a letter had asked national campaign committees to cease running ads that the industry argues make false statements about the program. - 2010/10/26: ClimateP: GOP Climate Hawks cling to life in Vermont and Hawaii
- 2010/10/25: ClimateP: Ken Buck would let climate change ruin Colorado and unilaterally disarm its clean energy leadership
- 2010/10/24: SolveClimate: New Hampshire Candidates Quiet on Climate and Clean Energy -- Invited to a carbon forum in Manchester, candidates decline to attend
- 2010/10/25: ClimateP: The Tea Parties are shooting at the wrong target
- 2010/10/25: ClimateP: Inhofe guarantees GOP takeover of Senate
- 2010/10/24: TP:WR: Colorado Climate Scientists Tell Ken Buck: Global Warming Is Not A 'Hoax'
- 2010/10/24: Guardian(UK): Tea Party climate change deniers funded by BP and other major polluters
Midterm election campaigns of Tea Party favourites DeMint and Inhofe have received over $240,000 - 2010/10/25: DeSmogBlog: Guess Who Pays for All That Tea!
- 2010/10/25: TP: European Polluters Funding Senate Candidates Who Oppose Action On Global Warming
- 2010/10/24: Guardian(UK): Tea Party climate change deniers funded by BP and other major polluters
The Prop 23 battle rages:
- 2010/10/29: NRDC:SwitchBoard: National Latino Organizations and Leaders Stand Against Props 23 and 26
- 2010/10/28: Grist: A beautiful coalition against dirty energy
- 2010/10/28: TP:WR: Schwarzenegger Says Prop 23 Fight Should Be National Example: 'Stand Up Against The Oil Companies'
- 2010/10/27: SolveClimate: CA Student Delivers Prop. 23 Debate Challenge to Koch HQ in Wichita
Student and Marine vet asks CEO Charles Koch to publicly explain why he's trying to "wreck" California's green sector - 2010/10/27: ClimateP: Why Proposition 23 should go up in smoke
- 2010/10/26: AlterNet: Even Republicans Are Fighting Back Against Dirty Oil in California
- 2010/10/26: DeSmogBlog: Elusive Charles Koch Deploys Security To Block Joel Francis' Visit to Koch Industries HQ to Invite Debate on Prop 23
- 2010/10/25: Tyee: California's Anti-Green Politics: The Alberta Connection
Texas refiner banks big on oil sands and pours millions into Prop 23, a bid to halt Golden State climate policies, and maybe BC's too. - 2010/10/25: DM:CCM: Old Industry v. New Industry in California's Prop 23 Battle
- 2010/10/24: SF Gate: Prop. 23 may threaten budding clean-tech firms
- 2010/10/25: LA Times: California voters likely to keep global warming law, toss two-thirds budget passage
Prop. 23, which would suspend new emissions standards until unemployment drops, trails 48% to 32% among likely voters. Prop. 25, allowing a legislative majority to pass a budget, has 58% support. - 2010/10/24: AlterNet: Invasion of the Democracy Crushers: Oil Industry Monsters Work to Destroy the Planet
One revealing little vignette in the corporate battle to avoid responsibility:
- 2010/10/29: TreeHugger: Corporations Fight EPA to Keep Emissions Data Secret
- 2010/10/28: KSJT: Corporations, some green ones too, say their greenhouse emissions are trade secrets. Plus AP calls it pollution
- 2010/10/28: Yahoo:AP: Companies fight to keep global warming data secret
Some of the country's largest emitters of heat-trapping gases, including businesses that publicly support efforts to curb global warming, don't want the public knowing exactly how much they pollute. - 2010/10/28: DeSmogBlog: Big Emitters to EPA: "Don't Ask, Won't Tell"
- 2010/10/28: STimes:AP: Companies fight to keep global warming data secret
Some of the country's largest emitters of heat-trapping gases, including businesses that publicly support efforts to curb global warming, don't want the public knowing exactly how much they pollute. Oil producers and refiners, along with manufacturers of steel, aluminum and even home appliances, are fighting a proposal by the Environmental Protection Agency that would make the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that companies release - and the underlying data businesses use to calculate the amounts - available online. While gross estimates exist for such emissions from transportation and electricity production and manufacturing as a whole, the EPA is requiring companies for the first time to submit information for each individual facility. - 2010/10/27: LA Times: Corporate campaign ads haven't followed Supreme Court's prediction
Companies and unions have been able to avoid the transparency called for in the court's landmark ruling. Spending on next week's midterm election has been exorbitant. - 2010/10/27: MillerMcCune: Washington's Abortive Scientific Renaissance
The new administration was expected to usher in a new era of scientific learning infusing government policy. It hasn't exactly worked out that way. - 2010/10/26: Grist: Obama's riding the (cellulosic) ethanol pony -- here's why he should buck the trend
- 2010/10/26: Grist: On attacking climate and energy in 'chunks'
The actions of the Obama administration are being watched closely:
- 2010/10/29: WSJ:WW: EPA Again Delays Decision on Tightening Smog Rules
- 2010/10/29: CSW: U.S. federal task force calls for domestic and international climate change adaptation strategy
- 2010/10/27: Reuters: EPA defends planned rules over power concerns
The Obama administration is defending its plans to crack down on industrial pollution after a report from a utility group found proposed regulations may result in tighter U.S. power supplies. - 2010/10/28: NRDC:SwitchBoard: Industry Reports Attacking Clean Air Rules Earn Poor Grades from Professors
- 2010/10/27: NatureN: Mountaintop mining plans close to defeat -- Environmental review details 'unacceptable' impacts
- 2010/10/27: REA: DOE, Other Agencies Offer Funding for Ocean Energy Research Projects
- 2010/10/26: Grist: U.S. sets new standards for truck, bus emissions
- 2010/10/25: NRDC:SwitchBoard: Putting America's "Energy Hogs" on a Diet: More on Today's GHG Proposal for Trucks
- 2010/10/26: NOAANews: BOEMRE, DOE, and NOAA Announce Nearly $5 Million for Joint Environmental Research Projects to Advance Ocean Renewable Energy
- 2010/10/26: NOAANews: Ocean Climate Center Unveiled at NOAA's Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary in California
- 2010/10/25: ENS: Greenhouse Gas, Fuel Efficiency Standards Set for U.S. Heavy Trucks, Buses
- 2010/10/25: DOT: DOT, EPA Propose the Nation's First Greenhouse Gas and Fuel Efficiency Standards for Trucks and Buses
- 2010/10/25: UCSUSA: Proposed Truck Standards Would Dramatically Lower Oil Consumption and Save Truck Operatores Money
- 2010/10/25: Reuters: U.S. set first fuel standards for big trucks
New standards will cover commercial vehicles - Rules will likely set truck standards 2014-2018 - Regulation would not be final until July 2011 - 2010/10/25: REA: Federal Regulator Blasts Open Door to Differentiated Feed-in Tariffs in USA
In a ruling 21 October 2010, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) effectively cleared the way for multi-tiered feed-in tariffs for various renewable energy technologies, like the programs found in Ontario, Canada and across Europe. FERC's ruling "clarified" an earlier decision that had roiled proposed feed-in tariff policies at the state level in the US. - 2010/10/30: LA Times: GOP plans attacks on the EPA and climate scientists
If Republicans win control of the House, they plan to go after the Obama administration's environmental policies and the researchers who have offered evidence on global warming, whom they accuse of manipulating data. - 2010/10/29: SolveClimate: Senators Assail Clinton Over Tar Sands Pipeline Comments
- 2010/10/29: NRDC:SwitchBoard: Influential group of Senators asks Secretary Clinton to take it slow on approval of massive new tar sands pipeline
- 2010/10/29: NatureTGB: House committee weighs in on 'climate engineering'
- 2010/10/28: TheHill:e2W: Barton vows probe of White House policies in move for Energy gavel
Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) is vowing to quickly probe White House environmental policies he calls economically harmful if he becomes chairman of the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee next year. - 2010/10/27: Grist: Senate ag committee chair is opening up. Who's in line?
- 2010/10/26: SolveClimate: Congress Awakening to Renewables on Native Lands, Advocates Say -- Two pending bills show policy progress but tricky obstacles remain
What are the lobbyists pushing?
- 2010/10/29: NYT: Coal Industry Spending to Sway Next Congress
The coal industry, facing a host of new health and safety regulations, is spending millions of dollars in lobbying and campaign donations this year to influence the makeup of the next Congress in hopes of derailing what one industry official called an Obama administration "regulatory jihad." Political spending by the coal industry is on track to exceed that of the 2008 cycle, when the presidency was at stake and Congress appeared determined to move forward with a national energy policy designed to address climate change by cutting back on the use of coal and petroleum. Over the last two years, the coal industry, along with its allies in oil and gas, electric utilities, manufacturing and agriculture, effectively killed any prospects for climate change legislation in the near future. - 2010/10/29: TP: 275 Investors Demand U.S. Chamber Disclose Funds And Stop 'Punitive Campaign' Against Health Care Law
- 2010/10/29: TP: How The 'US' Chamber Uses Its Money To Pay Pundits, Manipulate Google, And Create Fake News Outlets
- 2010/10/28: AlterNet: Local Chapters Revolt as U.S. Chamber of Commerce Tries to Buy the Election for Republicans
- 2010/10/27: Grist: Energy lobbyists throwing money at new best buddies in Congress
- 2010/10/27: DeSmogBlog: Coal Lobbyists Wooed White House Staff To Influence Coal Ash Regulations Long Before Public Hearings
- 2010/10/26: DeSmogBlog: Money Talks: Big Oil & Special Interests Bankroll Anti-Clean Energy Efforts on the Campaign Trail
While in the UK:
- 2010/10/28: Independent(UK): Power failure: UK's wind farm plans in disarray -- Objectors put green energy plans in doubt
- 2010/10/28: BBC: Cumbria 'still suitable' for nuclear waste storage
- 2010/10/27: Guardian(UK): Oxfam climate change ad cleared by regulator
Poster stating that people are dying because of climate change 'was not misleading', rules Advertising Standards Authority - 2010/10/25: Guardian(UK): Huhne hints at future for Energy Saving Trust and Carbon Trust
- 2010/10/24: TEC: UK Government U-Turns on Emissions Trading Scheme
- 2010/10/24: BBC: UK needs green economics minister, advisers urge
The UK government should create a new ministerial post for green economics, an international policy group that includes MPs past and present has said. The minister would play a role similar to the Treasury chief secretary, but looking after "natural capital". The recommendation comes from Globe International, whose members include ex-Environment Secretary John Gummer - now Lord Deben - and Zac Goldsmith MP. Its report was launched at a major UN environment meeting in Japan. - 2010/10/29: DerSpiegel: The World from Berlin -- Extension of Nuclear Lifespans Is 'Pure Conservatism'
The German parliament has approved legislation extending the lifespan of the country's nuclear power plants. The opposition has cried foul, but many of newspapers argue that the government is on the right path. The government's climate protection program is only possible because of the reprieve for nuclear power, claims one paper. - 2010/10/28: DerSpiegel: A Green Light for Atomic Power -- German Parliament Extends Nuclear Plant Lifespans
Opponents of nuclear powered suffered a setback in Berlin on Thursday as the federal parliament approved legislation that would effectively repeal Germany's planned withdrawal from atomic power. Now nuclear plants can stay open an average of 12 years longer than originally planned. - 2010/10/28: AutoBG: 30 European companies call on EU to cut CO2 emissions 30% by 2020
- 2010/10/29: PhysOrg: EU sticks to 20-percent carbon cuts
The European Union on Friday gave notice it was not prepared to go beyond a planned 20-percent cut in greenhouse-gas emissions ahead of next month's UN climate talks in Cancun, Mexico. - 2010/10/28: EurActiv: New EU energy savings plan due in spring [not before February at the earliest]
The European Commission's new energy efficiency action plan will not be ready until next year, but a leaked preliminary document shows that it will be a stripped down version of its predecessor. - 2010/10/28: EurActiv: R&D chief sounds innovation emergency bell
- 2010/10/28: EarthTimes: Germany passes nuclear energy vote despite protest
Berlin - The German parliament on Thursday voted to extend the lifespans of nuclear power plants in Germany, after a heated debate and numerous opposition attempts to derail the bill. A total of 308 voted in favour of the measures, while 289 were opposed and two abstained from the vote. Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition of Christian Union (CDU/CSU) and Free Democrats has a total of 332 members, meaning not all supported the bill. The law extends the run times of Germany's 17 nuclear power stations by an average of 12 years beyond 2022, the year by which a previous government committed to winding down nuclear power. - 2010/10/27: EurActiv: EU to propose burying nuclear waste as safest option
The European Commission will promote underground storage as the safest option for storing nuclear waste, according to a leaked proposal which has already irked environmentalists. - 2010/10/27: EUO: EU concerned by Chinese industrial policy
EU trade commissioner Karel De Gucht has warned that recent Chinese restrictions on sales of valued rare earths could be a bellwether of things to come. "[It] hints that China is developing an industrial policy aiming at transferring as much as possible production to China," Mr De Gucht told an EU-China conference on Tuesday evening (26 October) in Brussels. - 2010/10/27: PlanetArk: EU Exec Adopts Draft GM Feed Contamination Rules
- 2010/10/27: NatureTGB: Where are promised EU funds for food security?
- 2010/10/26: NatureTGB: Despite decent showing in R&D spend, Europe warns of 'innovation emergency'
- 2010/10/25: EurActiv: EU tweaks CO2 emissions cap for 2013
The European Commission has revised the EU's greenhouse gas emissions cap under its emissions trading scheme for 2013 in order to accommodate new sectors such as aluminium and petrochemicals. The new cap announced on Friday (22 October) was set at 2.039 billion tonnes. It exceeds the 1.927 billion allowances set last July as it takes into account the extension of the scheme's scope post-2012. The emissions trading scheme (EU ETS), the EU's flagship climate protection instrument, was extended to include new sectors like aluminium, ammonia and petrochemicals as well as new greenhouse gases, nitrous oxide (N2O) and perfluorocarbons from 2013. Factories carrying out activities in these areas will therefore join around 11,000 industrial installations and power plants that are already required to purchase emission permits for each tonne of carbon they emit. - 2010/10/31: Deltoid: Naomi Oreskes to speak at UNSW
- 2010/10/30: GWWatch: AGW deniers' astroturfing campaign underway
- 2010/10/27: Deltoid: An Inconvenient Truth to be shown in Australian schools
- 2010/10/30: PeakEnergy: What really killed NSW solar?
- 2010/10/29: ABC(Au): Mayor gives local govt voice to climate change debate
Bundaberg Mayor Lorraine Pyefinch has become the only local government representative in Queensland on the Federal Government's Coasts and Climate Change Council (CCCC). - 2010/10/29: ABC(Au): Solar rebate cuts set to hurt mid north coast businesses
Solar installers across the mid north coast are expected to be hit hard by changes to the State Government bonus scheme - 2010/10/29: ABC(Au): North coast residents warned to prepare for bushfire season
- 2010/10/28: ABC(Au): Hotter, drier weather predicted for much of Qld
A Queensland Government report on climate change predicts temperature rises of up to 2.2 degrees Celsius over the next 40 years. - 2010/10/28: ABC(Au): Rebate slash could bring solar industry to standstill
Installers are warning that the New South Wales Government's reduction in its solar rebate will bring the industry to a standstill. - 2010/10/27: CCP: Scathing review by the Planning Assessment Commission found that society would be better off if the coal remained in the ground, rejecting mine proposed by BHP Billiton near Sydney
- 2010/10/27: CCP: Australian NSW farmers have called for all new mining and coal seam gas developments in NSW to be suspended until there is a strategic plan which protects food security and agricultural land
- 2010/10/28: ABC(Au): North Coast company critical of changes to solar rebate scheme
A north coast solar power and water company says the State Government has gone too far with its changes to the solar bonus scheme. - 2010/10/27: ABC(Au): Popularity sees solar rebate scheme slashed
The New South Wales Government is slashing the tariff it pays under its solar bonus scheme. The scheme was introduced in January and pays 60 cents per kilowatt hour for all energy produced. It is meant to run for seven years.
[...]
To make the scheme more sustainable, the tariff for new applicants will be just 20 cents per kilowatt hour from midnight tonight. - 2010/10/27: ABC(Au): The ACT has set an ambitious target to cut carbon emissions by 40 per cent by 2020
- 2010/10/26: ABC(Au): Climate elephant trumpets reduced emissions
The "climate elephant" which followed the Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader during the election campaign, is holding talks with politicians at Parliament House. The Australian Youth Climate Coalition, which is behind the elephant campaign, is meeting 50 MPs and senators over two days. - 2010/10/26: ABC(Au): Carbon offset scheme aims to use Indigenous land
A not-for-profit group in Central Australia is establishing a scheme to encourage Australians to offset their carbon emissions on Indigenous land. Centrefarm Aboriginal Horticulture has discussed its Aboriginal carbon fund at a climate change forum in Alice Springs. - 2010/10/25: ABC(Au): North coast pensioners fear cuts to payments from a solar scheme -- Some older people on the mid north coast are worried about aspects of the New South Wales Solar Bonus Scheme
- 2010/10/25: ABC(Au): Economist wants more ambitious carbon targets
A senior economist [Dr Frank Jotzo] says he is optimistic the Federal Government will show courage in setting a more ambitious carbon emission reduction target - 2010/10/25: ClimateShifts: Queensland - Smart State?
The Murray-Darling Basin Plan is winding down:
- 2010/10/29: ABC(Au): Murray flow now best in a decade
The flow down the Murray has reached 27,000 megalitres per day in the South Australian Riverland, the greatest flow in several years. - 2010/10/26: ABC(Au): SA irrigators back Murray-Darling cuts
The Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) has held its third and final meeting in South Australia over the future of the Basin. - 2010/10/25: ABC(Au): Riverland MP Tim Whetstone says a protest by hundreds of locals at Lake Bonney has highlighted unity in the Barmera community
While in China:
- 2010/10/28: ABC(Au): Pollution black list forces big business to act
- 2010/10/28: NRDC:SwitchBoard: China renews efforts on climate change and clean energy in its Twelfth Five Year Plan
And in Africa:
- 2010/10/27: EurActiv: African agriculture 'coming of age'
And South America:
- 2010/10/30: BBC: Brazil set to elect new president [on October 31]
- 2010/10/27: ENS: Brazil Set to Meet Low-Carbon Targets Four Years Early
- 2010/10/27: Guardian(UK): Brazil elections: Campaigners criticise weak environment pledges of presidential candidates
- 2010/10/26: MongaBay: Brazil to impose levy on oil profits to fund climate change adaption, mitigation
- 2010/10/19: VenezuelAnalysis: From Agribusiness to Agroecology? An Analysis of Venezuela's Nationalization of AgroIsleña
In Canada, minority neocon PM Harper, continues his do-nothing policy:
- 2010/10/27: EmbassyMag: Government opposes biodiversity protocols
- 2010/10/29: PostMedia: F-35 buy could trigger Arctic arms race: expert
- 2010/10/28: CBC: Energy policy needs Ottawa's lead: wind body
Canada is poised to be a leader in the growing wind energy sector if the federal government takes the reins in crafting a national strategy, a trade group that represents the industry says. "We need a strategy," Robert Hornung, the president of the Canadian Wind Energy Association, recently told the CBC. "We need a vision of where we want to be in 10 years, and how we want to get there." - 2010/10/25: TStar: G20, G8 price tag comes next spring: Toews
- 2010/10/25: CBC: Final G8/G20 bills due by December: Toews
- 2010/10/25: LFR: I'm too enraged about the treatment of Alex Hundert to post about it
- 2010/10/25: POGGE: The newest charge against Alex Hundert
- 2010/10/25: PoliticsRespun: An Alex Hundert Primer, While the G20 Inquiry Begins Today
- 2010/10/25: CfC: Ontario justice system vs Alex Hundert
- 2010/10/25: DawgsBlawg: Alex Hundert arrested--again
- 2010/10/24: OrwellsBastard: And when I say "everyone," I mean "everyone except Alex Hundert ... "
- 2010/10/24: CfC: Revolving door for Alex Hundert
Those pesky scientists are still trying to express themselves:
- 2010/10/27: CBC: Audio: Silenced scientists
Canada under the Tories at Nagoya:
- 2010/10/21: IPSNews: Canada Seeks to Drop Native Peoples from New Biodiversity Pact
Nagoya, Japan -- Blame Canada if countries fail to agree to a new binding treaty to curb the rapid loss of plant, animal and species that form the intricate web of life that sustains humanity. That is the view of indigenous representatives from Canada in response to a late night move by the Canadian delegation to strike a reference to indigenous peoples' rights at the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) members' conference here. - 2010/10/25: CBD Alliance: 'Dodo Awards' presented to Canada and the EU
- 2010/10/27: POGGE: Canada wins!
A week after Syncrude forked over C$3 million for oil drowned ducks, we have another incident:
- 2010/10/29: SOE: Questions Emerge After Alberta Environment Minister Outlines Tailings Pond Safety
- 2010/10/27: PI:B: The real deal on the dead ducks
- 2010/10/29: CBC: Dead ducks found at Kearl oilsands site
- 2010/10/28: TreeHugger: 350 More Ducks Killed In Canada's Toxic Tar Sands Tailing Ponds
- 2010/10/27: CBC: Tailings ponds duck death toll rises -- Tarsands companies promise thorough investigation
- 2010/10/27: Yahoo:Reuters: At least 230 ducks die in latest Syncrude incident
- 2010/10/26: CBC: Ducks land on Syncrude, Suncor, Shell tailings ponds
230 dead birds counted so far at Syncrude's Mildred Lake facility - 2010/10/26: BCLSB: Syncrude Nails A Few More Ducks
The Cohen Commission inquiry into the 2009 Fraser River sockeye salmon run held hearings this week:
- Cohen Commission -- Commission of Inquiry into the Decline of Sockeye Salmon in the Fraser River
- 2010/10/26: PostMedia: Public relations moves mark start of sockeye salmon inquiry
The Cohen Commission inquiry into the cause of the disastrous decline of the 2009 Fraser River sockeye salmon run began in Vancouver Monday amid a background of public relations manoeuvring by those for and against fish farming. - 2010/10/25: CBC: Cohen salmon inquiry opens in Vancouver
A federal inquiry into the state of B.C.'s wild salmon stocks is scheduled to open in Vancouver on Monday. Justice Bruce Cohen will hear from 21 stakeholders, including officials from the federal Department of Fisheries, commercial fishermen, First Nations leaders and conservationists. So far the Cohen Commission has held 10 public forums in communities along the Fraser River, and visited fish farms, a cannery, First Nations fishing grounds and sockeye spawning beds. - The Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement
- 2010/10/27: Dominion: Leak reveals push to win over First Nations on controversial boreal forest pact
Environmental organizations and forestry companies seeking buy-in on CBFA as First Nations opposition grows - 2010/10/29: SolveClimate: Senators Assail Clinton Over Tar Sands Pipeline Comments
- 2010/10/29: NRDC:SwitchBoard: Influential group of Senators asks Secretary Clinton to take it slow on approval of massive new tar sands pipeline
- 2010/10/29: NRDC:SwitchBoard: A Decision about Massive Tar Sands Oil Pipeline Should Not Be Made Hastily
Premier Campbell is beginning to look deperate:
- 2010/10/26: PostMedia: Energy minister blasts Gordon Campbell over cabinet shuffle -- B.C. premier didn't consult with caucus - again, Bill Bennett fumes
Meanwhile in that Mechanical Mordor known as the tar sands:
- 2010/10/27: Tyee: Canada's Environment Minister Responds to Tyee Article -- Government meets its eco-responsibilities when it comes to oil sands development: Prentice
- 2010/10/29: PI:B: U.S. scrutiny of oilsands impacts increases despite PR efforts
- 2010/10/29: PI: Pembina reacts to U.S. senators' environmental concerns with Canadian oilsands
- 2010/10/29: CBC: Foreign buyers in 45% of oilpatch deals -- Strong interest especially from Asia-based firms
- 2010/10/26: SolveClimate: Canadian Agency Urges Stricter Rules for Oil Sands Water Removal
Study reflects concern that industry's massive appetite for water threatens the health of Alberta's Lower Athabasca River - 2010/10/25: Tyee: California's Anti-Green Politics: The Alberta Connection
Texas refiner banks big on oil sands and pours millions into Prop 23, a bid to halt Golden State climate policies, and maybe BC's too. - 2010/10/27: CleanBreak: Capital Power goes for the old "bait and switch" with new coal-fired power plant in Alberta
- 2010/10/27: PI: Capital Power seeks to renege on commitment to cut coal plant greenhouse gas pollution in half at Thursday hearing
A major player in the dirtiest electrical energy system in Canada attempts to back out of its legal obligation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Alberta - 2010/10/29: PI: Weakened policy risks destroying thousands of hectares of Alberta wetlands -- Policy ignores input of advisory group and Albertans
In Saskatchewan the big question is Potash?
- 2010/10/29: CBC: Potash cites new documents as proof of BHP 'smokescreen'
- 2010/10/30: CBC: Sask. has 'leverage' over PotashCorp sale: Wall
- 2010/10/29: CBC: Wall says Manitoba opposes Potash sale
- 2010/10/28: BuckDog: Brad Wall Playing Political Games With Potash Motion
- 2010/10/28: CBC: Sask. First Nations explore PotashCorp bid: report
- 2010/10/28: G&M: Ottawa wary of Potash takeover
The federal government is growing increasingly skeptical of BHP Billiton Ltd.'s hostile takeover of Saskatchewan's largest potash producer, as provincial leaders hammer away on the argument that the company is a key strategic player that should not be controlled by a foreign multinational. - 2010/10/28: PostMedia: Sask. First Nations to bid for Potash Corp
A group of Saskatchewan First Nations is stepping into the international fray over the Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan - with a bid of their own. The First Nations are collaborating with merchant banks, pension funds and Chinese investors to prepare a multibillion-dollar competing bid for the Potash Corp. - which is currently the target of a $38.6-billion U.S. hostile takeover attempt by BHP Billiton. - 2010/10/26: CBC: Sask. Tory MPs on fence over PotashCorp
- 2010/10/27: PostMedia: [Saskatchewan Premier, Brad] Wall lines up federal allies [against BP Billiton bid for SPC]
As the Saskatchewan government continues its full-court press against BHP Billiton's bid for Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan, Premier Brad Wall said he thinks the province's MPs at least are coming onside against the acquisition. Wall has been speaking publicly against the deal each day this week after calling on Ottawa to turn down the $38.6-billion hostile takeover attempt, which the province says poses a risk to jobs, provincial revenue and Canadian strategic interests. - 2010/10/25: TLRT: Potash Corporation Sale Needs to Be Rejected by Industry Canada
- 2010/10/25: PostMedia:FC: Brad Wall: Saskatchewan's premier takes on Terence Corcoran [potash]
- 2010/10/25: CBC: Sask. ministers make potash pitch in Ottawa
- 2010/10/25: TStar: Potash Corp.: PM's dirty little secret
Prime Minister Stephen Harper last week shrugged off concerns about the looming foreign takeover of Potash Corp., a major Saskatchewan mining company. "This is a proposal for an American-controlled company (Potash Corp.) to be taken over by an Australian-controlled company (BHP Billiton Ltd.)," he said. The Prime Minister is wrong. Potash Corp. is a widely held company, and 49 per cent of its shareholders are Canadian compared to 38 per cent American. While the Potash Corp. CEO is American and lives in Chicago, the company is headquartered in Saskatoon and a majority of its employees and directors are Canadian. Once these facts were out, the government abandoned that line of argument in favour of another: that the Potash Corp. takeover will be screened by Investment Canada, a federal agency, to ensure there is a "net benefit" to Canada. In theory that sounds good. In practice, not so much. - 2010/10/25: PI: Manitoba Premier and First Nations recognized for efforts to protect boreal heritage site [Pimachiowin Aki]
- 2010/10/25: CBC: Wheat crop poor after dismal Prairie summer
A rainy spring followed by a cool, cloudy summer and early frost has taken a toll on wheat harvests across the Prairies as farmers bring in the last of the crops. Officials with Statistics Canada estimated that wheat production would be down 25 per cent. - 2010/10/25: CBC: Lower Churchill energy plan coming: Williams
Premier Danny Williams says Newfoundland and Labrador is close to finalizing a deal to develop a Lower Churchill hydroelectric project that won't send energy through Quebec. Williams told the annual general meeting of the provincial Progressive Conservative Party on Saturday that a partnership is being negotiated with Emera Energy and Nova Scotia to develop the project in two phases, "without having to beg Quebec for a piece of the pie." - 2010/10/25: CBC: Climate change extends Arctic fishing
Officials in Nunavut's Baffin Island fishery say climate change has benefited their business somewhat, thanks to longer fishing seasons in recent years. The Baffin Fisheries Coalition says its turbot and shrimp fishing seasons have lengthened dramatically in the past decade because of a warming Arctic climate. - 2010/10/27: Rabble: Tar sands are good, but bike lanes? Not so much
The movement toward a long term ecologically viable economics is glacial:
- 2010/10/26: Rabble: Time to kick over the prevailing orthodoxy in economic thought
- 2010/10/20: PostMedia: A climate, oil and economic crisis looms: Will we avoid or adjust?
- 2010/10/29: EnergyBulletin: Time for a new theory of money
- 2010/10/26: DVoice: Embrace the Cooperative Movement
- 2010/10/26: NewDeal2.0: What Does it Mean to Live Beyond Our Means?
- 2010/10/26: EnergyBulletin: Rebuilding local economies: a shift in priorities
- 2010/10/26: EnergyBulletin: A Buddhist vision of life beyond consumerism
IPAT [Impact = Population * Affluence * Technology] raised its head once again:
- 2010/10/30: Grist: The GINK videos -- Michelle Goldberg on the globalized culture war over reproductive rights
- 2010/10/26: PressEurop: Ireland -- Abortion drugs on the net
- 2010/10/26: AlterNet: What Happened When I Yelled Back at the "Christians" Calling My Wife a Murderer
As for how the media handles the science of climatology:
- 2010/10/29: Deltoid: Shorter Tim Blair
- 2010/10/28: KSJT: Dot Earth Blog: The really real problem (yawn, twiddle, vacant gaze) with climate change news
- 2010/10/27: GPalast: The Petroleum Broadcast System Owes Us an Apology
- 2010/10/26: TWTB: Stop the Presses! Climate journos think the emissions-reduction issue looks an awful lot like a narrative problem. No word yet on just how "nail-shaped" people wielding hammers see it
- 2010/10/26: ClimateP: Scientific American jumps the shark -- Memo to the Editors: Stop the unscientific online polls!
- 2010/10/26: Stoat: Who ya gonna read?
- 2010/10/26: CSW: National Public Radio leads with story on Republicans' anti-science position on climate change
- 2010/10/26: DeSmogBlog: UnScientific American: In Lionizing Curry, a Lion Loses its Way
While activists search for effective communication techniques:
- 2010/10/29: RortyBomb: Joining the Climate Hawks
- 2010/10/26: TreeHugger: Beyond (or Beside) Environmentalism: Rise of the 'Climate Hawks'?
- 2010/10/25: Grist: Climate hawkery requires no particular position on climate science
- 2010/10/25: Grist: My first and last 'climate hawk' follow-up
Regarding the quality of blogosphere discussion:
- 2010/10/28: CCD: Photoshop climate images 'feed xenophobia' and denial
The desire to stir a debate around climate change is not an excuse for sensationalist images and language that demean immigrants - 2010/10/27: Guardian(UK): Images of London after climate change 'are lazy', say refugee groups
- 2010/10/27: Guardian(UK): Fantasy images of climate migration will fuel existing prejudices [George Marshall]
Climate change is not a reason to use sensationalist images and language that would be unacceptable in any other public exhibition - 2010/10/26: NewSociety: [Book Page] _The Biochar Solution -- Carbon Farming and Climate Change_ by Albert K. Bates
- 2010/09/01: MR: Our Last Chance to Save Humanity?
[Book Review] _Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity_ by James Hansen - 2010/10/28: PSinclair: James Cameron and the Governator
- 2010/10/26: TCoE: Video alert: When the Water Ends
- 2010/10/25: PSinclair: Katrina was just a thunderstorm
As for podcasts:
- 2010/10/26: SkeptiSci: What should we do about climate change?
- 2010/10/25: SkeptiSci: Irregular Climate podcast 13
Meanwhile among the 'Sue the Bastards!' contingent:
- 2010/10/29: Kentucky: Former Rand Paul volunteer scheduled to appear in court Nov. 18
The Paris man accused of stepping on a liberal activist at a U.S. Senate candidate debate in Lexington on Monday will go before a district court judge next month. Timothy Mark Profitt, 53, is charged with fourth-degree assault, a misdemeanor, for stepping on the shoulder and neck of Lauren Valle, a MoveOn.org activist who was trying to get close to Republican candidate Rand Paul to present him with a mock award. Profitt will be arraigned Nov. 18, according to court records. Fourth-degree assault carries a maximum penalty of 12 months in jail, a $500 fine or a combination of both. - 2010/10/31: NBF: Brazil Libra Field could have 15 billion barrels of oil and Enhanced oil recovery for the North Sea
- 2010/10/30: BBC: Brazil finds massive oil field of up to 15 billion barrels of oil
- 2010/10/26: USGS: USGS Oil and Gas Resource Estimates Updated for the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPRA)
- 2010/10/29: EarthTimes: Brazil: Massive oil discovery off Atlantic coast
Rio de Janeiro - Brazil's state oil agency ANP Friday announced the discovery of a new giant oil reserve off the Atlantic coast. The deepwater field, called Libra, could contain reserves of between 3.7 billion and 15 billion barrels, the agency said. - 2010/10/30: PeakEnergy: Pentland Firth tidal project set for development [Scotland]
- 2010/10/28: TEC: The Geothermal Report: Global Geothermal Capacity Will Grow 78% by 2015
- 2010/10/27: CNN: Alaska's untapped oil reserves estimate lowered by about 90 percent
USGS director: New findings underscore the challenge of predicting oil supply - The USGS says 896 million barrels of oil are in the reserve - That is about 90 percent lower than a 2002 estimate - 2010/10/28: BBC: Exxon Mobil profits from higher oil prices
Exxon Mobil has seen its latest quarterly profits jump 55% after it benefited from higher oil prices and increased production. The world's largest oil company made a net profit of $7.35bn (£4.6bn) in the three months to 30 September, up from $4.73bn for the same period in 2009. Its revenues totalled $95.3bn, up 16% from a year before. - 2010/10/27: EnergyBulletin: Highlights from seventh Advances in Energy Studies Conference in Barcelona
- 2010/10/26: NRDC:SwitchBoard: Rural Utah now has some of the worst air quality in the nation thanks to oil and gas operations
- 2010/10/27: EarthTimes: Minister: Iraq will boost oil and gas supplies to Japan
- 2010/10/26: CBC: U.S. oil drilling gushes in Q3
The number of oil and gas wells drilled on U.S soil shot up by 45 per cent in the third quarter of 2010, according to a report released Tuesday. The American Petroleum Institute said companies punched out almost 11,300 new wells in the United States during the July-to-September period. - 2010/10/26: CBC: Yellowknife geothermal proposal heats up
- 2010/10/26: JFleck: Energy and Water in the California Desert
- 2010/10/26: SciDaily: Harnessing Tidal Energy More Efficiently Than Ever Before
- 2010/10/25: EnergyBulletin: OPEC will never run out of oil
- 2010/10/25: PhysOrg: Changes in energy R&D needed to combat climate change
A new assessment of future scenarios that limit the extent of global warming cautions that unless current imbalances in R&D portfolios for the development of new, efficient, and clean energy technologies are redressed, greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction targets are unlikely to be met, or met only at considerable costs. - 2010/10/25: REA: The Rodney Dangerfield of Cleantech [geothermal]
- 2010/10/25: NBF: Hydrogen-generating technology might power boats, store energy from wind, solar sources
- 2010/10/24: BBerg: Supertankers Face Two-Year Losing Streak as Frontline Shuns Oil
Hey! Let's contaminate the aquifer for thousands of years! It'll be a fracking gas!
- 2010/10/26: RigZone: Musings: Curtain Being Pulled Back from The Oz of Gas Shales
- 2010/10/28: NRDC:SwitchBoard: Toxic fracking chemicals intentionally spewed onto private property in Ohio
- 2010/10/29: TreeHugger: Take a Look at the Grassroots & Gasroots of the Fracking Fight
- 2010/10/28: EnergyBulletin: Special report: The great shale gas rush (excerpts)
- 2010/10/27: NRDC:SwitchBoard: Pennsylvania: new information on threats to watersheds from natural gas drilling
- 2010/10/28: TreeHugger: Pennsylvania Township Bans Fracking Wastewater Disposal - Defies State Government
- 2010/10/28: OilDrum: Shale Gas -- Abundance or Mirage? Why The Marcellus Shale Will Disappoint Expectations
- 2010/10/27: EnergyBulletin: Review of Ben Parfitt's Fracture Lines (report)
- 2010/10/25: NRDC:SwitchBoard: Students with nosebleeds, dizziness, disorientation and nausea from natural gas drilling near a Barnett Shale high school
- 2010/10/26: ProPublica: Leaked Memo Depicts Bare-Bones Regulatory Environment for NY Gas Drilling
Another troubling aspect of fracking has popped up. It will be interesting to see how this plays out:
- 2010/10/26: NRDC:SwitchBoard: Yet another serious potential impact that must be evaluated before new fracking goes forward in NY
- 2010/10/27: TreeHugger: Uranium Released by Fracking May Pollute Groundwater
- 2010/10/25: ENS: Fracking Shown to Mobilize Uranium in Marcellus Shale
- 2010/10/25: PhysOrg: 'Hydraulic fracturing' mobilizes uranium in marcellus shale
Scientific and political disputes over drilling Marcellus shale for natural gas have focused primarily on the environmental effects of pumping millions of gallons of water and chemicals deep underground to blast through rocks to release the natural gas. But University at Buffalo researchers have now found that that process -- called hydraulic fracturing or "fracking"-- also causes uranium that is naturally trapped inside Marcellus shale to be released, raising additional environmental concerns. - 2010/10/27: CleanBreak: WindTronics to start selling "breakthrough" small wind turbines in Canada... but will it break through?
- 2010/10/29: CBC: Ontario wind storm generated benefits -- the 90 km/h gusts were a boon to the province's wind farms
- 2010/10/27: CBC: Turbine can power home or business
A Canadian-made turbine designed to fit on roofs and help power homes and small businesses will go on sale in December. The Honeywell Wind Turbine measures 1.8 meters across and weighs 84 kg. It can begin producing power at wind speeds of three km/h. It is being manufactured at a new factory in Windsor, Ont. - 2010/10/27: Grist: Google exec explains Atlantic offshore wind investment [audio]
- 2010/10/26: BBC: Wind turbine giant Vestas cuts 3,000 jobs
Vestas, the world's largest wind turbine maker, has announced plans to cut 3,000 jobs because of weak demand, around 15% of its global workforce. The Danish company also reported net profits of 126m euros ($177m; £111m) for the three months to the end of September, 24% down on the same period last year. Most of the job cuts will be made in Denmark and Sweden. - 2010/10/18: arXiv: Order-of-magnitude enhancement of wind farm power density via counter-rotating vertical-axis wind turbine arrays by John O. Dabiri
- 2010/10/24: NBF: Order-of-magnitude enhancement of wind farm power density via counterrotating vertical-axis wind turbine arrays
Meanwhile among the solar aficionados:
- 2010/10/31: PeakEnergy: South African [5 GW] solar thermal power plan generates interest
- 2010/10/29: ABC(Au): South Africa woos investors for world's biggest solar plant [5 GW]
- 2010/10/27: EarthTimes: Schwarzenegger breaks ground on world's largest solar-energy plant [370-megawatt Ivanpa]
- 2010/10/28: SciDaily: Current Loss Tracked Down by Magnetic Fingerprint; Researchers Solve the Case of Lost Current in Organic Solar Cells
- 2010/10/26: PVTech: Bloomberg report puts US solar sector on brink of immense growth
- 2010/10/26: KSJT: AP, lots more: Huge federal solar project gets OK in CA. In the meantime, 74,000 other permits (good touch, that)
- 2010/10/26: Grist: U.S. approves world's biggest solar energy project
- 2010/10/26: EarthTimes: US approves world's largest solar project
- 2010/10/26: REA: Two Solar Energy Plants, Including 1 GW Plant, Approved for Federal Lands
- 2010/10/26: REA: How to be a Solar David and aim a Slingshot at a Dirty Energy Goliath
- 2010/10/25: ClimateShifts: California to build world's largest solar plant
Feed-In-Tariffs are being variously implemented around the world:
- 2010/10/28: ABC(Au): North Coast company critical of changes to solar rebate scheme
A north coast solar power and water company says the State Government has gone too far with its changes to the solar bonus scheme. - 2010/10/27: ABC(Au): Popularity sees solar rebate scheme slashed
The New South Wales Government is slashing the tariff it pays under its solar bonus scheme. The scheme was introduced in January and pays 60 cents per kilowatt hour for all energy produced. It is meant to run for seven years.
[...]
To make the scheme more sustainable, the tariff for new applicants will be just 20 cents per kilowatt hour from midnight tonight. - 2010/10/27: TEC: Impact of Solar PV Feed In Tariffs in Germany
On the coal front:
- 2010/10/31: WaPo: Coal's comeback
Biofuel bickering abounds:
- 2010/10/28: Economist: The post-alcohol world -- Biofuels are back. This time they might even work
- 2010/10/27: TWM: Who's right on biofuels?...
How can America achieve energy independence? The Obama Administration believes increased production of biofuels is key, as most recently signaled by its decision to increase the amount of ethanol that can be blended with gasoline. Yet critics warn that biofuels produced from corn and other crops damage the environment and drive up the cost of food. Who's right? - 2010/10/26: NRDC:SwitchBoard: ORNL report tells us nothing about ILUC [land-use change]
- 2010/10/26: NRDC:SwitchBoard: ORNL uses one-sided analysis to make flawed claims about land-use impacts of corn ethanol
- 2010/10/25: TreeHugger: Algenol's Algae-to-Ethanol Delivers 67% to 87% Reduction in CO2
The nuclear energy controversy continues:
- 2010/10/28: Ph&Ph: Fusion - From Here To Reality [video]
- 2010/10/29: NBF: India's nuclear energy expansion gets funding and Germany's nuclear reactors are officially extended
- 2010/10/28: TEC: Small reactors roll at Savannah River
- 2010/10/26: BBC: Iran loads fuel into the Bushehr nuclear reactor
- 2010/10/25: BNC: SNE 2060 -- can we build nuclear power plants fast enough to meet the 2060 target?
Yes we have a peak oil sighting:
- 2010/10/30: EnergyBulletin: The peak oil debate is over
- 2010/10/27: EnergyBulletin: Peak oil -- Where do we stand?
- 2010/10/26: OilDrum: The Generalized Hubbert Curve
More people are talking about the electrical grid:
- 2010/10/31: PeakEnergy: Russia prepares to spend billions on smart grid upgrades
- 2010/10/28: TreeHugger: Smart Grids are a Dumb Idea
- 2010/10/28: Eureka: New system for monitoring electricity use heralds greener homes and cheaper bills
- 2010/10/27: NewScientist: Solar power could crash Germany's grid
- 2010/10/26: PeakEnergy: Smart power meters 'to hit poor' [FUD]
- 2010/10/26: PeakEnergy: Japan Pioneers Smart Energy
- 2010/10/26: CBC: Clever use of smart meters saves energy -- New power meters mean electricity is more expensive during peak hours
And then there is the matter of efficiency & conservation:
- 2010/10/29: BBC: Europe targets wasteful gadgets
Wasteful gadgets could soon be a thing of the past thanks to European research into less power hungry devices. - 2010/10/27: PhysOrg: Smart traffic lights reduce fuel usage and lower emissions
- 2010/10/26: York: Emissions from consumption outstrip efficiency savings
Emissions from consumption growth have exceeded carbon savings from efficiency improvements in the global supply chain of products consumed in the UK, according to new research by Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) at the University of York and the University of Durham. - 2010/10/26: CBC: Ford earnings rise 68%
[...]
On Oct. 1, Ford's Canadian subsidiary reported car and light truck sales grew by 64 per cent, to 26,453, from the same month a year earlier. - 2010/10/26: ABC(Au): Electric car fleet [of 100,000] to hit the road in Israel
Everyone who writes an article like this should be required to state what they think the price of petroleum will be in a decade:
- 2010/10/28: Grist: Electric cars expected to struggle for next decade
This week in the Gee Whiz File:
- 2010/10/25: Eureka: Researchers find a stable way to store the sun's heat -- Storing thermal energy in chemical could lead to advances in storage and portability
As for Energy Storage:
- 2010/10/29: AutoBG: Study: Lithium-ion batteries age much like we do; irreversibly
The reaction of business to climate change will be critical:
- 2010/10/26: Grist: Getting down to business on climate change [biz]
Meanwhile in the greenwashing chronicles:
- 2010/10/28: OilChange: Chevron Must Think We Are Stupid
- 2010/10/26: PostMedia: Study finds most 'green product' claims misleading -- 'Greenwashing' used to woo consumers; situation worst for toys and baby products
Can you say surreptitious control?
- 2010/10/26: Guardian(UK): Leading scientists accuse thinktanks of being logging lobbyists
Open letter accuses two 'independent' groups of distorting facts and having close associations with multinational logging corporations Twelve leading scientists, including the former head of Kew Gardens and the biodiversity adviser to the president of the World Bank, have written an open letter accusing two international thinktanks of "distortions, misrepresentations, or misinterpretations of fact" in their analysis and writings about rainforests and logging. The unprecedented attack on the tactics and objectivity of the two groups who claim to be independent is contained in an open letter sent to the Guardian. It accuses the Washington-based World Growth International (WGI) and Melbourne-based International Trade Strategies Global (ITS) of having close associations with politically conservative US thinktanks and advancing "biased or distorted arguments" on palm oil plantations and logging. - 2010/10/29: ClimateP: Energy and Global Warming News for October 29...
- 2010/10/28: ClimateP: Energy and Global Warming News for October 28...
- 2010/10/27: ClimateP: Energy and Global Warming News for October 27...
- 2010/10/26: ClimateP: Energy and Global Warming News for October 26...
- 2010/10/25: ClimateP: Energy and Global Warming News for October 25...
Other (weekly) lists:
- 2010/10/29: IJISH: Mindless Link Propagation
- 2010/10/28: Grist: A walk through the week's climate news -- The Climate Post: Pre-election maneuvering marked by fits of climate skepticism
- 2010/10/26: NRDC:SwitchBoard: India Climate Change and Energy News - Week of October 19 to October 25, 2010
- 2010/10/25: NRDC:SwitchBoard: India Climate Change and Energy News - Week of October 12 to October 18, 2010
The carbon lobby are up to the usual:
- 2010/10/30: GWWatch: AGW deniers' astroturfing campaign underway
- 2010/10/29: HotTopic: Buffoons in arms: Goddard joins Monckton at SPPI
- 2010/10/29: DeSmogBlog: The Clergy of Climate Change Denial: Art Pope and the North Carolina Denial Machine
- 2010/10/29: BCLSB: A Denier Switches Sides! [Allegre]
- 2010/10/28: NatureTGB: French climate farce [Allègre]
- 2010/10/27: Salon:HTWW: The new barbarism: Keeping science out of politics -- Climate skeptics reach a new low. Their goal: Don't let scientists influence policy, period.
- 2010/10/27: DeSmogBlog: Financial Post Op-Ed Spins Familiar Tale of Climate Change Denial
- 2010/10/26: Guardian(UK): Cabal of climate sceptics to descend on UK parliament
- 2010/10/26: QuarkSoup: Science Bullies
- 2010/10/26: SMandia: Monckton KO'd in Recent Debate
- 2010/10/26: Grist: Art Pope's millions fund climate change denial
- 2010/10/26: DeSmogBlog: Money Talks: Big Oil & Special Interests Bankroll Anti-Clean Energy Efforts on the Campaign Trail
- 2010/10/26: CO2Art: BP and Major Euro Polluters Funding U.S. Senate Climate Deniers and Tea Partiers
- 2010/10/25: CANE: Caught! EU business lobby funding climate legislation blockers in US Senate
- 2010/10/25: JKB: The hypocrisy of some major EU companies
- 2010/10/25: DeSmogBlog: A Debate: And Dick Lindzen takes a Beating
- 2010/10/25: OilChange: BP and Others Accused of "Climate Sabotage"
We know that the Koch brothers fund climate change deniers. But now a great new report by Climate Action Network Europe (CANE) has analysed new data to track where dirty money is going in American politics. They have found nearly 80% of campaign donations -- some $240,000 -- from some of Europe's biggest polluters is directed towards senators who blocked action on climate change. The companies involed are: Lafarge, GDF-SUEZ, EON, BP, BASF, BAYER, Solvay and Arcelor-Mittal. - 2010/10/28: SolveClimate: Study: Weak Coal Ash Regs in Tenn. Highlight Need for Federal Law
As for climate miscellanea:
- 2010/10/31: BNC: Of brains, biceps and baloney by Geoff Russell
- 2010/10/26: GreenGrok: Climate Change: The Crazy, Mixed-Up Cold Part of Warming
- 2010/10/29: TWTB: "Public" opinion on global warming and solutions is not declining- conservative opinion is
- 2010/10/29: TreeHugger: Climate Change, Like Slavery, Needs a True Cultural Shift to Stop It
- 2010/10/28: TDC: Climate change requires shift similar to smoking, slavery - professor
New study links current attitudes on climate change to the slow transformation of societal views on smoking bans and the abolition of slavery. - 2010/10/29: SciDaily: Dramatic Climate Change Is Unpredictable
- 2010/10/29: HotTopic: Outtasite (Outta Mind)
- 2010/10/28: SpaceDaily: Modeling The Fiery Past And Future Of Planet Earth
- 2010/10/27: ClimateP: Climate scientists are as mad as hell (and high water) -- but are they going to take it any more?
- 2010/10/27: Grist: Global weirding and the scrambling of terroir
- 2010/10/26: WtD: Things fall apart: troubled politics for a warming world
- 2010/10/26: SlashDot: Global Warming's Silver Lining For the Arctic Rim
- 2010/10/26: CCP: Jeffrey D. Sachs: The Deepening Crisis -- When will we face the planet's environmental problems? Failure to act on threats to global sustainability brings the world closer to disaster
- 2010/10/26: NatureN: Educators take aim at climate change -- US scientists chart their success in targeting hunters as part of a global-warming education drive
- 2010/10/26: RealClimate: Climate code archiving: an open and shut case?
- 2010/10/26: DM:BA: Climate change: the evidence
- 2010/10/26: HotTopic: The Climate Show: Beta 1
And here are a couple of sites you may find interesting and/or useful:
- SINTEF
- Peak Oil Blues
- AGU Blogosphere
- FAO: Food Price Indices
- Pacific Salmon Commission
- Cohen Commission -- Commission of Inquiry into the Decline of Sockeye Salmon in the Fraser River
- The Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement
- CBD Alliance
- Science Express
- UN-REDD Programme
- CANE: Climate Action Network Europe
- NACW: 13th North American Caribou Workshop 2010
- World Radiation Centre
- NGDC.NOAA: Solar Irradiance Data
- Exxpose Exxon
- IPCC: National Greenhouse Gas Inventories Programme
- UNFCCC: Greenhouse Gas Inventory Database
More black humour...some in a climatic vein:
Looking ahead to COP16 and future international climate negotiations:
One troubling aspect of the Nagoya Protocol would seem to be a geoengineering research ban:
The IUCN released a report at Nagoya that got a lot of attention:
Here's another one of those "Oh Oh" studies:
Suggestions for the Global Climate Fund:
A theory about that massive salmon run on the Fraser triggered some controversy:
John Cook and friends continue their counterpoints:
They've put transponders on narwhals to gather climate data:
While in Antarctica:
The conflict between biofuel and food persists:
The oceans have been active with storms in the Atlantic, Indian and Western Pacific.
First the Atlantic & Caribbean:
What's up with volcanoes this week?
Meanwhile in near earth orbit:
Yes we have no wacky weather, except:
The US Midwest and Ontario got got whalloped by a major storm:
Corals are dying:
Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation has somehow seemed chimeric:
Consider transportation & GHG production:
Meanwhile on the international political front, the rare earth mineral story is playing out:
The energy race between China and the USA is on, or is it?
The issue of the law and activism is playing out around the world:
As for SW tools:
About that Citizens United decision:
The Obama chatter is nonstop:
As for what is going on in Congress:
And in Europe:
Meanwhile in Australia:
The G20 aftermath lingers:
That Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement may not be as solid as it initially appeared:
Pipelines are still problematic:
Also in Alberta:
In Manitoba:
In the Maritimes:
In the North:
As for miscellaneous Canadiana:
Here is something for your library:
And for your film & video enjoyment:
Wrestling over a new energy infrastructure continues unabated:
The answer my friend...:
Automakers & lawyers, engineers & activists argue over the future of the car:
Joe Romm posts a daily list of top energy and climate stories:
Meanwhile in the 'clean coal' saga:
Low Key Plug
My first novel Water was published in Canada May, 2007. The American release was in October. An Introductionto the novel is available, along with the Unpublished Forewordand the Launch Talk. An overview of my writing is available here.
<regards>
P.S. Recent postings can be found in the week archive and the ancient postings can be accessed here, which should open to this.
"If we cannot stabilize population and if we cannot stabilize climate, there is not an ecosystem on earth we can save." -Lester Brown
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