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 in the Planetary Crisis
Information Overloadis Pattern Recognition
June 3, 2012
- Chuckles, Rio+20, COP18+, Kahan, Leakey
- 400 ppm, Corps, 11F, Tuna, Bottom Line, Cook
- Fukushima Note, Fukushima News, Nuclear Policy
- Melting Arctic, Geopolitics, Antarctica
- Food Crisis, Fisheries, Land Grabs, GMOs, GMO Labelling, Food Production
- Hurricanes, GHGs, Carbon Cycle, Temperatures
- State of the Oceans, Extinctions, Satellites
- Impacts, Forests, Climate Refugees, Wacky Weather, Extreme Weather, Phenology
- Tornadoes, Wildfires, Corals, Acidification, Glaciers, Sea Levels, Floods & Droughts
- Mitigation, Transportation, Buildings, Sequestration, Geoengineering
- Journals, Other Docs, Misc. Science, Models, Open Science, Morton, Castro, Roberts
- International Politics: UN, Carbon Trade, Carbon Tax, Optimal Carbon Reduction Strategy
- Hormuz, South China Sea, Misc, Security, Law & Activism, Activism, Polls, H2O Biz, Groundwater
- National Politics: America, BP Disaster, 2012, Coal Export, Satellites, Canute, Obama, USAdmin, Congress, Lobbyists
- Britain, Europe, Australia, Carbon Law, MDBP, New Zealand, India, China, South America
- Canada, Post G20, Mulcair, Streamlining, BOSO, Northern Gateway, WPC
- Salmon, BC, Tar Sands, Alberta, Sask, Ontario, Quebec, Maritimes, Canadiana
- Ecological Economics, IPAT, Apocalypso, Media, Books, Video, Courts
- Energy, Fracking, Coal, Oil & Gas, Fossil Fuel Corps, Oil-Economy, Pipelines, Peak Oil, Biofuel
- Wind, Solar, Nukes, Nuclear Waste, LENR, Grid, Efficiency, Cars, Gee Whiz, Energy Storage
- Business, FAQs, Joe's List, Carbon Lobby, Miscellaneous Climate, Useful Links
- Shameless Self Promotion, .sig
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- 2012/06/02: SMcMillan: (cartoon - McMillan) Fictional Pledges
- 2012/06/02: TP:JR: (cartoon - Hallatt) Liar, Liar...
- 2012/05/31: DeSmogBlog: (cartoons - James) What is Harper Afraid Of? by Franke James
- 2012/05/29: uComics: (cartoon - Auth) Egyptions & Americans
- 2012/05/28: uComics: (cartoon - Rall) In the SuperPAC Romney Attack Bunker
- 2012/05/27: DbP: (cartoon) Toxic Tories
A notably strange pic:
- 2012/05/29: APOD: Sentinels of the Arctic
Looking ahead to Rio+20 :
- 2012/05/31: CSM: 4 ways to save Rio+20 summit on sustainable development
- 2012/06/01: al Jazeera: 20 years after the Earth Summit: What does the future hold? by Dr Vandana Shiva
None of us are immune to climate change, or the effects it will have on the earth and our environment. - 2012/06/01: Guardian(UK): Rio+20: don't wait for disappointment from the bureaucrats
- 2012/05/29: UN: Countries begin last round of talks on outcome document ahead of Rio+20 conference
- 2012/05/28: al Jazeera: Rio+20: A green industrial revolution or climate change diplomacy?
Diplomats at climate change talks this week appear unlikely to draft a workable legal document on CO2 reduction. - 2012/05/31: EnvFin: Climate talks ‘frustrating’, but making slow progress - Figueres
The climate negotiations are proceeding at an "unacceptable" pace, said UN climate chief Christiana Figueres today, but progress is being made. Speaking in Cologne at the opening of the ninth Carbon Expo exhibition and conference, Figueres said: "I know we’re all frustrated with the slowness of the intergovernmental process", to applause from delegates. But, she added, "despite the pace, which is completely unacceptable, governments are persevering", in the face of four years of global economic turmoil. "They’re persevering because they, and we, have no other option," Figueres said. - 2012/05/29: RTCC: Figueres: Doha talks open door to Gulf-funded climate change technology
The UN climate change chief has called this winter’s negotiations in Doha, Qatar, a huge opportunity for the 20 year old process. - 2012/05/27: Nature: (ab$) The polarizing impact of science literacy and numeracy on perceived climate change risks by Dan M. Kahan et al.
- 2012/05/29: JFleck: Science literacy, numeracy and science policy challenges
- 2012/05/29: TreeHugger: Science is No Cure for Climate Denial
- 2012/06/02: CIP: Science and Morality
[...]
Even today, social conservatives continue to wage a fierce battle against evolution not because they know (or care) anything about the evidence, but because they fear, quite correctly, that evolution undermines faith. Communists had a similar beef with Darwin, for a very similar reason, his ideas undermined their official Marxist dogma. Leftists in the seventies, and perhaps still, wage a similar battle against evolutionary psychology and studies of links between IQ and other traits (especially race). In every case, the core motive is the same - scientific discoveries have the potential to undermine dogma. So it is with global warming. Environmentalists have been quick to associate the movement against global warming science with special interests like Exxon Mobile and the coal industry, and that association is perfectly valid, but that's not the fire that burns in the hearts of the true (dis)believers. Their religion is fear of the governmental and super-governmental authorities needed to implement realistic action to prevent human caused climate change. Once again science is up against fundamental moral instincts. - 2012/05/30: KSJT: Enlightenment’s dreams of science as dogma buster go poof? Or, climate skepticism isn’t same as ignorance
- 2012/05/29: SciNews: Climate skepticism not rooted in science illiteracy -- Cultural values, not knowledge, shape global warming views, a study finds
- 2012/05/29: EnvEcon: Study rules out stupidity as a cause of disbelief in climate science
- 2012/05/29: Grist: Once again, with feeling: More science will not cure climate skepticism
- 2012/05/27: Eureka: Yale study concludes public apathy over climate change unrelated to science literacy
Are members of the public divided about climate change because they don't understand the science behind it? If Americans knew more basic science and were more proficient in technical reasoning, would public consensus match scientific consensus? A study published today online in the journal Nature Climate Change suggests that the answer to both questions is no. Indeed, as members of the public become more science literate and numerate, the study found, individuals belonging to opposing cultural groups become even more divided on the risks that climate change poses. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the study was conducted by researchers associated with the Cultural Cognition Project at Yale Law School and involved a nationally representative sample of 1500 U.S. adults. "The aim of the study was to test two hypotheses," said Dan Kahan, Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor of Law and Professor of Psychology at Yale Law School and a member of the study team. "The first attributes political controversy over climate change to the public's limited ability to comprehend science, and the second, to opposing sets of cultural values. The findings supported the second hypothesis and not the first," he said. - 2012/05/29: PSinclair: Richard Leakey: Evolution is Real, despite Denial. BTW, same with Climate Change
CO2 levels hit the 400 ppm milestone in the Arctic this week. See also:
- 2012/06/02: CCurrents: CO2 Level Hits 400 PPM, Do We Have A Way Out?
- 2012/06/01: DeSmogBlog: 400 PPM Carbon Dioxide Concentrations Breach The Arctic
- 2012/06/01: ClimateShifts: NOAA: Carbon dioxide levels reach milestone at Arctic sites
- 2012/06/01: Guardian(UK): Greenhouse gas levels pass symbolic 400ppm CO2 milestone
- 2012/05/31: KSJT: AP: Arctic air hits a CO2 milestone (the rest of use will catch up soon). Al Gore gets a comment, ditto two contrarians
- 2012/05/31: TreeHugger: Arctic CO2 Hitting 400ppm - Greenland Sets New High Temperature Record for May
- 2012/05/31: CSM: Climate change: Arctic passes 400 parts per million milestone
- 2012/05/31: PSinclair: CO2 Soon to Bat 400. It’s been a Long, Long Time since we’ve seen that [vid]
- 2012/05/31: WaPo: When hitting 400 is not good: Levels of key greenhouse gas pass milestone, trouble scientists
- 2012/05/31: CBC: Greenhouse gas level nearing 'significant' level
The world's air has reached what scientists call a troubling new milestone for carbon dioxide, the main global warming pollutant. Monitoring stations across the Arctic this spring are measuring more than 400 parts per million of the heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere. The number isn't quite a surprise, because it's been rising at an accelerating pace. Years ago, it passed the 350 ppm mark that many scientists say is the highest safe level for carbon dioxide. It now stands globally at 395. So far, only the Arctic has reached that 400 level, but the rest of the world will follow soon. - 2012/05/30: UCSUSA: A Climate of Corporate Control [links to pdfs]
How Corporations Have Influenced the U.S. Dialogue on Climate Science and Policy - 2012/05/30: UCSUSA: Leading Companies Contradict Own Actions on Climate Science, Policy
Half of Reviewed Companies Misrepresented Climate Science Despite Publicly Expressing Concerns - 2012/05/31: TP:JR: Money Where Their Mouths Are Not: Leading Companies Contradict Own Actions on Climate Science, Policy
- 2012/05/31: Grist: Report: Corporations are big fat hypocrites about climate change
- 2012/05/30: Guardian(UK): Top US companies shelling out to block action on climate change
Analysis of 28 companies finds cases of support for thinktanks that misrepresent climate science, including Heartland Institute - 2012/05/31: P3: UCS Study on Corporate Influence on Climate Policy
- 2012/05/30: DeSmogBlog: The Big Waffle? New Report Exposes Corporations That Try to Split the Difference on Global Warming
A little blogostorm blew up over a Fatih Birol projection:
- 2012/05/30: TP:JR: Yes, Deniers And Confusionists, The IEA And Others Warn Of Some 11°F Warming by 2100 If We Keep Listening To You
- 2012/05/30: QuarkSoup: Reuters: Correction on 11 F by 2050
- 2012/05/30: ERabett: Axe Grinding
- 2012/05/29: QuarkSoup: von Storch on 11 F: "I consider this pure alarmism"
- 2012/05/28: QuarkSoup: 11 F Warming by 2050?? No way
The discovery of slightly radioactive tuna off the California coast tweaked a latent fear:
- 2012/05/31: IPS-DC: Nuclear Tuna and NPR's Trivialization by Robert Alvarez
NPR shouldn't trivialize the risk of radioactive tuna from the Fukushima nuclear disaster. - 2012/06/02: Oregonian: Serving tuna with a Geiger counter
- 2012/05/30: Guardian(UK): California tuna connoisseurs shy away from sushi over Japan radiation fears
- 2012/05/29: KSJT: Lots of Ink: Always a tiny bit radioactive, Bluefin tuna carry a new signature: Fukushima
- 2012/05/30: NatureN: Fukushima has positive fallout for marine science -- Radiation tracks movements of animals, water and atmosphere
- 2012/05/29: ABC(Au): Japanese tuna trace radioactive path
- 2012/05/28: TreeHugger: Radioactive Tuna Discovered in U.S. Waters
- 2012/05/28: EneNews: CNN: All 15 bluefin tuna samples off California had Fukushima radiation... back in AUGUST 2011 - "This year’s fish are going to be really interesting" says Stanford scientist
- 2012/05/28: EneNews: Scientists: "Absolutely every one" of bluefin tunas tested from S. California was contaminated with Fukushima radiation...
- 2012/05/29: CSM: Radioactive tuna travels from Japan to US faster than wind
- 2012/05/29: P3: The useful side of radiation
- 2012/05/29: BBC: Bluefin tuna record Fukushima radioactivity
Pacific Bluefin tuna caught off the coast of California have been found to have radioactive contamination from last year's Fukushima nuclear accident. The fish would have picked up the pollution while swimming in Japanese waters, before then moving to the far side of the ocean. Scientists stress that the fish are still perfectly safe to eat. - 2012/05/27 EneNews: KGTV: Radioactive Bluefin Tuna Caught Off Coast Of San Diego -- Tests Show Tuna Contained Levels Of Radioactive Substances
- 2012/05/28: EneNews: Radioactive Bluefin Tuna Caught Off Coast Of San Diego...
And on the Bottom Line:
- 2012/05/31: Reuters: Companies need to disclose climate risk: investors
Institutional investors and environmental advocates on Thursday urged companies to disclose their risks from the impact of climate change, two years after the Securities and Exchange Commission issued guidelines for firms to do just that. - 2012/06/03: SkeptiSci: Toxic mercury, accumulating in the Arctic, springs from a hidden source by John Hartz
- 2012/06/02: SkeptiSci: Modelling the Apocalypse by climatesight
- 2012/06/01: SkeptiSci: Ian Plimer Pens Aussie Geologist Gish Gallop #2 of the Week by dana1981
- 2012/05/31: SkeptiSci: In Search Of: Himalayan Ice Loss by mspelto, Daniel Bailey
- 2012/05/30: SkeptiSci: IEA CO2 Emissions Update 2011 - the Good News and the Bad by dana1981, John Cook
- 2012/05/29: SkeptiSci: New research from last week 21/2012 by Ari Jokimäki
- 2012/05/29: SkeptiSci: Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial by dana1981
A note on theFukushima disaster:
It is evident that the Fukushima disaster is going to persist for some time. TEPCO says 6 to 9 months. The previous Japanese Prime Minister, Naoto Kan, said decades. Now the Japanese government is talking about 30 years. [Whoops, that has now been updated to 40 years.] We'll see. At any rate this situation is not going to be resolved any time soon and deserves its own section.
Meanwhile...
It is very difficult to know for sure what is really going on at Fukushima. Between the company [TEPCO], the Japanese government, the Japanese regulator [NISA], the international monitor [IAEA], as well as independent analysts and commentators, there is a confusing mish-mash of information. One has to evaluate both the content and the source of propagated information.
How knowledgeable are they [about nuclear power and about Japan]?
Do they have an agenda?
Are they pro-nuclear or anti-nuclear?
Do they want to write a good news story?
Do they want to write a bad news story?
Where do they rate on a scale of sensationalism?
Where do they rate on a scale of play-it-down-ness?
One fundamental question I would like to see answered:
If the reactors are in meltdown, how can they be in cold shutdown?Not much good news coming out of Fukushima:
- 2012/05/31: EneNews: Japanese Professor: Where did all that plutonium contaminated water disappear to? Into the Pacific Ocean or the ground, of course - Who can comprehend the magnitude of radioactive contamination that threatens never to end?
- 2012/05/29: CCurrents: Fukushima Reactor 4 Poses Massive Global Risk
- 2012/05/28: Asahi: Rubble hinders decommissioning work at Fukushima No. 4 reactor
- 2012/05/29: EneNews: Reuters: Cesium remains dispersed throughout water column "from the surface to the ocean floor"
- 2012/05/28: Cryptome: Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station 26 May 2012 [pix]
- 2012/05/28: CDreams: Growing Fear Over Fukushima Fuel Pool 4 as Wall Bulge Detected
TEPCO admits a bulge detected in the walls of Unit 4, stoking fears over the building’s stability - 2012/05/29: PSinclair: Fukushima Remains Quietly Out of Control
- 2012/05/28: ABC(Au): Government bears most blame for Fukushima: ex-PM, Naoto Kan
- 2012/05/28: PlanetArk: Japan Says Fukushima Spent-Fuel Risk Contained
- 2012/05/28: NYT: Japan’s Former Leader Condemns Nuclear Power
- 2012/05/28: EneNews: Japan’s ex-Prime Minister Testifies: I feared radioactive releases many hundreds of times Chernobyl
- 2012/05/28: SlashDot: Japan Readies Robot For Work At Crippled Nuclear Reactor
- 2012/05/28: al Jazeera: Japan ex-PM apologises for Fukushima failure
Parliamentary commission questions Naoto Kan about his response to last year's disaster at the nuclear-power plant. - 2012/06/01: CNN: China to restart nuclear power program
Beijing has indicated that it will lift its year-long moratorium on new nuclear projects - Will breathe life into an industry plagued since the disaster at Fukushima - 2012/06/03: JapanTimes: Quickstep to restarting reactors
- 2012/05/30: EnergyBulletin: A crossroads for Japan: Revive nuclear or go green?
- 2012/05/30: PeakEnergy: Japan’s Former Leader [Naoto Kan] Condemns Nuclear Power
- 2012/05/29: NatureN: India won't pull back on nuclear ambitions
- 2012/05/28: Guardian(UK): The truth about Germany's nuclear phase-out
The Arctic melt continues to garner attention:
- 2012/06/01: CCP: Jason Box: Greenland Ice Sheet Getting Darker
- 2012/05/31: Grist: Old photographs found in basement help scientists unravel [Greenland] warming patterns
- 2012/06/01: QuarkSoup: The Future of the Arctic Coast
- 2012/05/31: ASI: Kind of blue
- 2012/05/31: Moyhu: Sea Ice anomalies
- 2012/05/31: Wunderground: Unprecedented May heat in Greenland; update on 2011 Greenland ice melt
- 2012/06/03: ASI: 2012 Polls, part 1
- 2012/06/02: ASI: ASI 2012 update 4: converging and diverging
- 2012/05/29: OSU: Discovery of historical photos sheds light on Greenland ice loss
- 2012/05/29: UCopenhagen: Old aerial photos supply new knowledge on glaciers in Greenland
- 2012/05/29: Eureka: Greenland's current loss of ice mass
Loss through melting and iceberg calving during the last 10 years is unusually high compared to the last 50 years - 2012/05/27: QuarkSoup: Daily Arctic Sea Ice Extent Back Online
- 2012/05/28: ASI: Concentration comparison
- 2012/05/28: NatureN: Rediscovered photos reveal Greenland's glacier history -- Ice retreat was as drastic in the 1930s as it is today
As for the geopolitics of Arctic resources:
- 2012/06/01: BBC: BP announces plans to sell stake in TNK-BP
- 2012/05/30: ArcticNews: Proposal to extract, store and sell Arctic methane
- 2012/06/01: CBC: Arctic surveillance by unmanned planes proposed
U.S. defence contractor pitches drones to patrol Northwest Passage - 2012/05/29: Grist: Russian rivers are clogged with frozen oil
- 2012/05/29: NatureNB: Push for Chinese membership of Arctic Council
China and India should be granted entry to the intergovernmental council for Arctic issues, a leading group of policy experts has told Canada. Canada takes over leadership of the Arctic Council in 2013, and granting observer status to China, India, and other "non-Arctic powerhouses" should be a top priority, according to recommendations stemming from a conference organised by the Munk-Gordon Arctic Security Program policy forum. Currently the council consists of the eight Arctic nations (Canada, Denmark/Greenland, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States) and additional six observer countries (France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and the UK). There are also six groups of indigenous people who hold ‘permanent participant’ status. - 2012/05/28: BBC: TNK-BP chief executive Mikhail Fridman to resign - "for personal reasons"
While in Antarctica:
- 2012/06/03: HotTopic: Another Antarctic ice shelf at risk of melt [WAIS]
The food crisis is ongoing:
- FAO: World Food Situation - Food Price Indices
- 2012/05/30: CSM: Voracious kudzu bugs spread across South. Are they boon or bane?
The nubbin-sized Japanese invader arrived on American shores somewhere near Atlanta in 2009. Today it’s eating pesky kudzu across at least three states. Unfortunately, it’s chowing on soybean crops, too. - 2012/05/28: CCurrents: A Hungry Nation Exports Food. It Can Happen Only In A Democracy
- 2012/05/29: ABC(Au): Million dollar fungus warning for WA croppers
Researchers in Western Australia are concerned the barley disease "powdery mildew" will soon mutate and start attacking resistant varieties. Last year the fungus cost WA grain growers $100 million. - 2012/05/31: ProMedMail: Infectious hematopoietic necrosis, salmon - USA: (WA)
- 2012/05/31: PlanetArk: France, Spain Call Time On Bluefin Tuna Season
- 2012/05/31: TreeHugger: Bluefin Tuna Season Ended Early by France & Spain, As Illegal Non-Mediterranean Ships Continue Fishing
- 2012/05/30: CBC: Kokanee salmon vanish from Okanagan
- 2012/05/30: NOAANews: New Bering Sea research reveals how changing ecosystem impacts America's most valuable fisheries
- 2012/05/28: BBC: EU fishing reforms face weakening
European governments are backsliding on commitments to make fishing sustainable, campaigners are warning. Talks on Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) reform are seeing important changes in moves to eliminate discards, reduce fishing fleets and rebuild fish stocks. The original aim of repopulating stocks by 2015 is facing a five-year delay. - 2012/06/01: CCurrents: The Ethiopian Land Giveaway
- 2012/05/30: Grist: Land grabbing hurts the world’s poor more than climate change, Fred Pearce argues
Regarding the genetic modification of food:
- 2012/05/30: Guardian(UK): "HULK SMASH GM" - mixing angry Greens with bad science
The Rothamsted protest was an embarrassment for the Green Party, and a sad reminder of the anti-science attitudes that still infest both the party and the broader environmental movement - 2012/05/30: HC: Where’s the beef?
- 2012/05/30: Grist: Faked Alaska: Is genetically modified salmon coming soon to a table near you?
- 2012/05/28: BBC: The institute conducting a trial of GM wheat in Hertfordshire says its website was taken down by a cyber attack on Sunday
- 2012/05/28: NatureNB: Green groups and scientists in [Rothamsted] anti-GM battle amid sun, cheese and folk music
- 2012/05/28: BBC: GM crop institute's website targeted
The institute conducting a trial of GM wheat in Hertfordshire says its website was taken down by a cyber attack on Sunday. - 2012/05/27: BBC: [Rothamsted] GM trial survives - but 'war' goes on
- 2012/05/27: BBC: Anti-GM wheat protest halted by police
Anti-GM protesters who had planned to "decontaminate" a field of modified wheat in Hertfordshire have been stopped from entering by a police line. The Take the Flour Back group said it failed because the crop in Harpenden, created to deter aphids - a wheat pest - was "hidden behind a fortress". - 2012/05/31: AlterNet: Meet the Corporate Front Groups Fighting to Make Sure You Can't Know What's in Your Food [GMO labelling]
And how are we going to feed 9 billion, 10 billion, 15 billion?
- 2012/05/31: Grist: File under bad idea: G8 asks Big Ag to take the lead in feeding the world
- 2012/05/31: UN: Neglected indigenous food can be important tool to fight hunger - UN official
- 2012/06/02: EnergyBulletin: True Blue: Bringing America's Berry to California
- 2012/05/29: TP:JR: How Urban Farming Can Transform Our Cities --- And Our Agricultural System
In the Western Pacific, System 95W spun into Tropical Storm Mawar, glanced off Luzon and headed for Japan:
- 2012/06/03: ABC(Au): Two dead, 5 missing as Typhoon Mawar hits Philippines
Two children have drowned in a swollen river in the Philippines' southwestern province of Palawan, as Typhoon Mawar lashes the region. Five people are missing and 16 others have been injured in the tropical storm. - 2012/06/01: Eureka: NASA infrared satellite imagery shows Tropical Storm Mawar strengthening
In the Atlantic & Caribbean:
- 2012/05/30: Wunderground: Beryl headed out to sea
- 2012/05/29: Eureka: NASA satellites watch Tropical Storm Beryl -- Satellites provide data to NHC forecasters
- 2012/05/29: PlanetArk: Beryl cuts soggy path across U.S. southeast
- 2012/05/29: Wunderground: Beryl dumping heavy rains; all-time May heat records set in MI, OH
- 2012/05/29: CSM: Tropical storm Beryl gives South hurricane prep test
- 2012/05/28: CBC: Storm Beryl weakens as it drenches southeastern U.S.
- 2012/05/28: Guardian(UK): Tropical Storm Beryl hits north-east Florida
- 2012/05/28: Wunderground: Beryl makes landfall, weakens to a tropical depression
- 2012/05/27: Wunderground: Beryl a little stronger, closes in on Southeast U.S. coast
- 2012/05/28: BBC: Tropical storm Beryl disrupts long weekend on US coast
- 2012/05/28: CBC: Tropical storm Beryl strikes [Florida] southeast U.S. coast
- 2012/05/28: BBerg: Tropical Storm Beryl Weakens as It Moves Over Northeast Florida
A couple of storms that died:
- 2012/05/29: Eureka: Typhoon Sanvu had a bad weekend
- 2012/05/28: PlanetArk: Bud Dumps Heavy Rain On Mexico's Pacific Coast
While elsewhere in the hurricane wars:
- 2012/06/01: TP:JR: Hurricane Season Highlights Dangers from Rising Seas
- 2012/06/01: Wunderground: The 2012 Atlantic hurricane season begins: what is in store?
- 2012/05/31: Eureka: Hurricane season is here, and FSU scientists predict an active one
- 2012/06/01: al Jazeera: The start of the Atlantic Hurricane Season -- But already storms have been churning
- 2012/05/30: USGS: Gulf Coast Vulnerable to Extreme Erosion in Category 1 Hurricanes: New Model to Help Community Planners, Emergency Managers
- 2012/06/01: Eureka: NASA mission sending unmanned aircraft over hurricanes this year
- 2012/06/02: TP:JR: Forecasts For The 2012 Atlantic Hurricane Season
- 2012/05/30: NOAANews: New model will help NOAA forecasters study the eyewall of hurricanes this season
As for GHGs:
- 2012/05/30: GreenGrok: CO2 Emissions for 2011
- 2012/05/31: PlanetArk: EU Carbon Emissions Rise, End Multi-Year Decline
- 2012/05/30: EurActiv: EU emissions rise despite climate change policies
Greenhouse gas emissions for the European Union increased in 2010, despite the economic recession and policies intended to tackle climate change. The increase of 2.4% takes Europe further away from its international commitments to cut carbon dioxide by 2020, and runs counter to advice from climate scientists, who agree that global emissions must peak by 2020 if climate change is not to become catastrophic and irreversible. - 2012/05/30: EUO: EU greenhouse gas emissions rise [2.4% in 2010]
- 2012/05/29: QuarkSoup: Visualizing Last Year's Emissions of Carbon Dioxide
- 2012/05/30: Guardian(UK): EU greenhouse gas emissions rise [2.4%] despite climate change policies
- 2012/05/29: TreeHugger: Emissions From Hydropower in Brazil Grossly Underestimated
- 2012/05/29: Eureka: Study finds emissions from widely used cookstoves vary with use
- 2012/05/29: AlterNet: Global CO2 Emissions Hit New Record in 2011, Keeping World on Track for 'Devastating' 11°F Warming
- 2012/05/27: QuarkSoup: New Emissions Data: BAU
- 2012/05/28: HotTopic: IEA: emissions up, 2ºC target looking unlikely
- 2012/05/24: IEA: Global carbon-dioxide emissions increase by 1.0 Gt in 2011 to record high
And in the carbon cycle:
- 2012/06/01: Tamino: Annual Cycle of CO2
As for the temperature record:
- 2012/06/01: TP:JR: Yet More Studies Back Hockey Stick: Recent Global Warming Is Unprecedented In Magnitude And Speed And Cause
- 2012/06/02: Wunderground:RR: Heads and Tails: Still thinking about Spring 2012
- 2012/05/31: QuarkSoup: My Guess for UAH's May LT Anomaly: +0.23 C
- 2012/05/31: QuarkSoup: Global Warming Isn't Global
- 2012/05/28: CCP: Fat Lady Preparing to Sing: U.S. Crushing Warmest Spring Record
And the State of the Oceans:
- 2012/05/30: DD: Web of marine life disintegrating under human onslaught
What's new on the extinction front?
- 2012/05/31: BBC: US bats on 'extinction watch' [pix]
- 2012/05/27: Eureka: 10 million years to recover from [Permian-Triassic] mass extinction
It took some 10 million years for Earth to recover from the greatest mass extinction of all time, latest research has revealed. - 2012/05/28: ESA: CryoSat goes to sea - for high-resolution mapping of the topography of the ocean floor
More GW impacts are being seen:
- 2012/06/01: OSU: Some butterfly species particularly vulnerable to climate change
- 2012/05/31: BBC: UK butterflies continue to decline
The British butterfly population is continuing a marked downward trend. This is according to a national survey which revealed that numbers of the insects fell by more than 20% between 2010 and 2011. - 2012/05/30: KSJT: E&E Greenwire: "An atonment for the Forest Service’s past sins" -- The cascading species shift in Eastern US forests
- 2012/05/30: TP:JR: Leading Climbing Outfit Cancels 2012 Everest Trip, Blaming Ice Dangers Due To Warmth
- 2012/05/30: ABC(Au): Children: hidden victims of Pacific climate change
- 2012/05/28: ABC(Au): Cold-blooded climate change surprise
Climate change may have a more unpredictable effect on the distribution of cold-blooded animals than scientists had previously thought, a new analysis shows. - 2012/06/03: SlashDot: NASA Tool Shows Where Forest Is Being Cut Down
- 2012/05/30: MongaBay: Global deforestation alert tool developed from NASA satellite imagery launches
- NASA: CASA "Quarterly Indicator of Cover Change" (QUICC)
- MongaBay: GloF-DAS - Global Forest Disturbance Alert System
- 2012/05/31: CBC: Pine beetles contributing to forest smog, study shows
Beetle-infested trees release gases that form harmful aerosols in the atmosphere - 2012/05/31: NatureN: Indonesian deforestation ban makes slow progress -- Halfway through moratorium, climate-change goal is still out of reach
- 2012/05/30: Eureka: New report examines effects of trees killed by bark beetles on wildfire
Climate refugees are becoming an issue:
- 2012/05/31: UN: UN refugee agency warns of worsening global displacement over next ten years
- 2012/05/31: TP:JR: In Northern Africa, Climate Change Could Make A Current Refugee Crisis Even Worse
Yes we have no wacky weather, except:
- 2012/05/28: CBC: Wacky weather mix across Canada -- Sweltering temperatures for Southern Ontario; ice pellets in St. John's
This week in the New Normal -- extreme weather:
- 2012/05/31: 350orBust: In The Forecast: More Extreme - and Expensive - Weather Events
- 2012/05/29: TP:JR: Extreme Weather Roundup: Earliest Second Named Tropical Storm, Record-Smashing Heat Wave, Widespread Drought
Changes in natural cycles are showing up:
- 2012/05/26: NPR: Soft-Shell Lobsters So Soon? It's A Mystery In Maine
April and May are fairly quiet times for Maine lobstermen and women, with the height of the summer season still a couple of months away. This year, strange things are happening on the ocean floor. Many of the lobsters have prematurely shed their hard shells, and lobstermen are hauling large numbers of soft-shelled lobsters much earlier than usual. "That is definitely not normal," says Steve Train, who's been hauling traps for 35 years in Casco Bay, near Portland. He usually sees hard-shell lobsters at this time of year, instead of these "shedders" -- lobsters that have abandoned their old casing to grow into a new, hard one. - 2012/05/30: Grist: What does 56 years of tornado data look like? Awesome!
As for heatwaves and wild fires:
- 2012/05/31: Eureka: Wildfire and an example of its important link to the ecosystem
A dilemma is smouldering, even as several wildfires top the headlines: new findings highlighting the practice of aggressive fire suppression - 2012/06/02: SimpleC: Warming brings more frequent and fickle European heatwaves
- 2012/05/30: WSJ: New Mexico Wildfire Is Largest in State History
- 2012/06/03: al Jazeera: New Mexico on fire -- After two weeks, the state's largest wildfire on record continues to burn
- 2012/05/30: CSM: Enormous forest fire in New Mexico sets state record for acres burned
- 2012/05/30: al Jazeera: It ain't half hot, mum! The heat continues to build ahead of the South Asian monsoon.
Across northern areas of both India and Pakistan the pre-monsoon heat is beginning to take its toll. Reports from India suggest that more than 80 people have died of heat-related illnesses. Temperatures in excess of 45 degrees Celsius have stretched from the Punjab in the north, to the Deccan Plateau in the south. The highest temperature recorded over the last few days was at Sibi in the Balochistan province of Pakistan, where the temperature reached 48.5C on Thursday afternoon. - 2012/06/01: DD: Sickness spreads in Great Barrier Reef wildlife - Pollution and freshwater outflows from record 2011 floods blamed
- 2012/06/01: ABC(Au): Reef project to map climate change impact
Mining giant Rio Tinto Alcan and the CSIRO say they are embarking on a million-dollar project to measure the effects of climate change on the Great Barrier Reef off Queensland. The Future Reef Map project will involve the installation of an ocean sensor on a Rio Tinto ship, which regularly travels to Gladstone from the company's bauxite mine on western Cape York. - 2012/06/01: ABC(Au): UN report scathing of Barrier Reef plan
The United Nations' environmental arm UNESCO has released a report revealing that rapid coastal development is threatening the value of the Great Barrier Reef. The highly anticipated report into the management of the reef, released this morning, warns the reef could be listed as a World Heritage site in danger unless substantial changes are made to Australia's management of the area. It says the Government needs to implement a strategic assessment before considering future developments around the reef. - 2012/06/01: Eureka: Expedition studies acid impacts on Arctic
Glaciers are melting:
- 2012/05/31: FaGP: Jorge Montt Glacier Retreat
- 2012/06/02: Guardian(UK): [Project Pressure] The race to map Africa's forgotten glaciers - in [15] pictures
- 2012/06/03: Guardian(UK): Race to map Africa's forgotten glaciers before they melt away
A team of scientists and photographers aims to document the Earth's threatened and fading glaciers - 2012/05/28: FaGP: Aguja and Ritacuba Blanco Peak Glacier Retreat, Colombia
Sea levels are rising:
- 2012/06/01: RealClimate: What makes sea-level rise?
As for hydrological cycle disruptions [floods & droughts]:
- 2012/06/01: Eureka: University of Nevada, Reno scientists confirm Sierra Nevada 200-year megadroughts
Nevada State Climate Office issues drought declaration, but nothing like ancient droughts identified at Lake Tahoe - 2012/06/01: al Jazeera: Flash flooding hits Canada -- Hundreds of homes are inundated at torrential rains lash Montreal
- 2012/06/01: CBC: Flooding closes Toronto subway hub Union station -- Firefighters rescue 40 trapped in streetcar
- 2012/05/30: CBC: Thunder Bay flooding prompts national appeal for help
- 2012/05/30: CBC: Montreal floods 'exceptional,' mayor says
- 2012/05/30: BBerg: Storm Beryl Wasn’t Much Help for Southeast Drought
- 2012/05/29: IndiaTimes: Global warming: Dozens of streams going dry in Kullu
- 2012/05/28: al Jazeera: Cuban flooding
Days of heavy rain have left much of central Cuba under water. Thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes. - 2012/05/30: WaPo: Studies show land rights reform key to saving forests, fighting climate change
- 2012/05/29: TP:JR: Can Market Forces Really Be Employed To Address Climate Change? [Stavins]
Consider transportation & GHG production:
- 2012/05/30: BBC: How cities can become healthy places - traffic-free streets initiative
- 2012/05/30: AlterNet: The Simple, Inexpensive Breakthrough That Is Transforming American Cities
- 2012/06/01: CalcRisk: U.S. Light Vehicle Sales at 13.8 million annual rate in May
While in the endless quest for zero energy, sustainable buildings and practical codes:
- 2012/05/30: Mercury: California poised to require 'solar ready roofs' on new homes and buildings
- 2012/06/01: OSU: New compound could become "cool blue" for energy efficiency in buildings - infrared heat reflectivity about 40%
- 2012/06/01: LA Times: California sets stronger energy efficiency rules for buildings
The California Energy Commission votes to tighten regulations that govern lighting controls, hot-water pipes, windows, insulation and other systems in new buildings and building additions. - 2012/05/29: EurActiv: Cleaning up the policy puzzle on green construction
- 2012/05/28: TreeHugger: LEED Bashing: Plastic People Join The Lumber Industry in Trying To Get The Feds To Drop LEED
As for carbon sequestration:
- 2012/06/01: GEP: More on Mongstad [CCS demonstration project]
- 2012/05/30: Rice: New materials could slash energy costs for CO2 capture
Study IDs ‘zeolite’ minerals that are one-third more efficient for carbon capture - 2012/05/29: BBerg:NEF: America leads race for world's first large-scale carbon capture and storage project
Large scale geo-engineering keeps popping up:
- 2012/06/01: SciNow: Climate Combat Could Turn Sky White
- 2012/05/31: NBF: Geoengineering: Whiter Skies?
- 2012/05/30: ERW: [SPICE] Geoengineering balloon trial cancelled
- 2012/06/01: ERabett:BSD: Goodbye blue sky
- 2012/05/31: Eureka: Geoengineering: A whiter sky
- 2012/05/30: FNI: [973k pdf] Climate Engineering Avoiding Pandora’s Box through Research and Governance
- 2012/05/30: TP:JR: How Painting Roofs White Can Help ‘Turn Off The World For A Year’
Meanwhile in the journals:
- 2012/06/01: CP: Role of CO2 and Southern Ocean winds in glacial abrupt climate change by R. Banderas et al.
- 2012/06/01: CP: Sensitivity of the North Atlantic climate to Greenland Ice Sheet melting during the Last Interglacial by P. Bakker et al.
- 2012/06/01: CPD: Modern sedimentation patterns in Lake El'gygytgyn, NE Russia, derived from surface sediment and inlet streams samples by V. Wennrich et al.
- 2012/05/31: CP: Productivity response of calcareous nannoplankton to Eocene Thermal Maximum 2 (ETM2) by M. Dedert et al.
- 2012/05/31: CP: An ensemble-based approach to climate reconstructions by J. Bhend et al.
- 2012/05/30: CP: Documentary evidence for changing climatic and anthropogenic influences on the Bermejo Wetland in Mendoza, Argentina, during the 16th-20th century by M. R. Prieto & F. Rojas
- 2012/05/30: CPD: Effects of dating errors on nonparametric trend analyses of speleothem time series by M. Mudelsee et al.
- 2012/06/01: GRL: (ab$) Geoengineering: Whiter skies? by Ben Kravitz et al.
- 2012/06/01: NERC:NORA: The Southern Ocean Observing System by Louise Newman et al.
- 2012/05/31: NERC:NORA: CO2 aquifer storage site evaluation and monitoring : understanding the challenges of CO2 storage : results of the CASSEM Project by Martin Smith et al.
- 2012/06/02: CP: Winter temperature variations over the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River since 1736 AD by Z.-X. Hao et al.
- 2012/06/01: ACP: Spatial and temporal variation of anthropogenic black carbon emissions in China for the period 1980-2009 by Y. Qin & S. D. Xie
- 2012/06/01: ACP: Persistence of ozone anomalies in the Arctic stratospheric vortex in autumn by D. Blessmann et al.
- 2012/06/01: ACPD: Contribution of garbage burning to chloride and PM2.5 in Mexico City by G. Li et al.
- 2012/06/01: ACPD: Characterization of a boreal convective boundary layer and its impact on atmospheric chemistry during HUMPPA-COPEC-2010 by H. G. Ouwersloot et al.
- 2012/06/01: ACPD: Simulating ultrafine particle formation in Europe using a regional CTM: contribution of primary emissions versus secondary formation to aerosol number concentrations by C. Fountoukis et al.
- 2012/06/01: GMDD: Modeling wet deposition of inorganics over Northeast Asia with MRI-PM/c and the effects of super large sea salt droplets at near-the-coast stations by M. Kajino et al.
- 2012/06/01: TCD: Recession, thinning, and slowdown of Greenland's Mittivakkat Gletscher by S. H. Mernild et al.
- 2012/05/31: TC: Thermal state of the active layer and permafrost along the Qinghai-Xizang (Tibet) Railway from 2006 to 2010 by Q. Wu et al.
- 2012/05/30: TC: An assessment of key model parametric uncertainties in projections of Greenland Ice Sheet behavior by P. J. Applegate et al.
- 2012/05/30: TC: Results of the Marine Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Project, MISMIP by F. Pattyn et al.
- 2012/05/31: TCD: Summer sea ice in the recent Arctic: morphological properties in the Pacific sector from the CHINARE 2010 cruise by H. Xie et al.
- 2012/05/31: TCD: Retrieval of snow Specific Surface Area (SSA) from MODIS data in mountainous regions by A. Mary et al.
- 2012/05/31: TCD: A method for sea ice thickness and concentration analysis based on SAR data and a thermodynamic model by J. Karvonen et al.
- 2012/05/31: ACP: The equilibrium response to idealized thermal forcings in a comprehensive GCM: implications for recent tropical expansion by R. J. Allen et al.
- 2012/05/31: ACP: Microphysical simulations of sulfur burdens from stratospheric sulfur geoengineering by J. M. English et al.
- 2012/05/31: ACP: Global modeling of SOA formation from dicarbonyls, epoxides, organic nitrates and peroxides by G. Lin et al.
- 2012/05/30: ACP: Enhanced solar energy absorption by internally-mixed black carbon in snow grains by M. G. Flanner et al.
- 2012/05/31: ACPD: Occurrence of lower cloud albedo in ship tracks by Y.-C. Chen et al.
- 2012/05/31: ACPD: Implementation of dust emission and chemistry into the Community Multiscale Air Quality modeling system and initial application to an Asian dust storm episode by K. Wang et al.
- 2012/05/30: ACPD: Development of an aerosol chemical transport model RAQM2 and predictions of Northeast Asian aerosol mass, size, chemistry, and mixing type by M. Kajino et al.
- 2012/05/29: PNAS: (ab$) Photoperiodic regulation of the seasonal pattern of photosynthetic capacity and the implications for carbon cycling by William L. Bauerle et al.
- 2012/05/29: PNAS: (ab$) Dispersal will limit ability of mammals to track climate change in the Western Hemisphere by Carrie A. Schloss et al.
- 2012/05/29: PNAS: (abs) Insights into plant size-density relationships from models and agricultural crops by Jianming Deng et al.
- 2012/05/29: PNAS: (abs) Assessment of ground-based atmospheric observations for verification of greenhouse gas emissions from an urban region by Kathryn McKain et al.
- 2012/05/29: PNAS: (letter$) Reply to Ridoutt and Huang: From water footprint assessment to policy by Arjen Y. Hoekstra & Mesfin M. Mekonnen
- 2012/05/29: PNAS: (letter$) Environmental relevance - the key to understanding water footprints by Bradley G. Ridoutt & Jing Huang
- 2012/05/27: Nature: (ab$) The polarizing impact of science literacy and numeracy on perceived climate change risks by Dan M. Kahan et al.
- 2012/06/01: E&PSL: (ab$) Timing and origin of recent regional ice-mass loss in Greenland by Ingo Sasgen et al.
- 2012/04/11: Nature: (ab$) Thermal and electrical conductivity of iron at Earth’s core conditions by Monica Pozzo et al.
- 2012/05/28: AGWObserver: New research from last week 21/2012
And other significant documents:
- 2012/05/30: PI: [link to 4.2 meg pdf] In the Shadow of the Boom -- How oilsands development is reshaping Canada’s economy
- 2012/05/30: Brookings: [link to 310k pdf] Americans Cool on Geoengineering Approaches to Addressing Climate Change
Given the political and economic challenge of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, there is growing interest in finding alternative methods of dealing with climate change. In a new paper, Christopher Borick and Barry Rabe look at the American public's attitude towards using geoengineering solutions as a means to combat global warming. - 2012/05/30: FNI: [973k pdf] Climate Engineering Avoiding Pandora’s Box through Research and Governance
- 2012/05/30: UCSUSA: A Climate of Corporate Control [links to pdfs]
How Corporations Have Influenced the U.S. Dialogue on Climate Science and Policy - 2012/05/31: JEB: PMIP at Crewe
- 2012/05/31: Tamino: Through a Picket Fence [aliasing]
- 2012/05/30: NatureN: Scientists: your number is up
ORCID scheme will give researchers unique identifiers to improve tracking of publications. - 2012/05/28: WaPo: [Yellowstone] Supercomputer will help researchers map climate change down to the local level
What's new in models?
- 2012/05/28: ERW: Turning over a new leaf for photosynthesis prediction
Photosynthesis in tree leaves responds to day-length more than temperature, researchers in the US, Sweden and Canada have found. This means that many coupled vegetation-climate models are estimating too high a value for global carbon uptake by vegetation. - 2012/05/31: JCBaez: Free Access to Taxpayer-Funded Research -- Act Now!
- 2012/05/30: OpenAlex: Green Cities, Open Data
Regarding Morton:
- 2012/05/26: STimes: Meet salmon farming's worst enemy: a determined biologist [Alexandra Morton]
A B.C.-based biologist stunned U.S. scientists last year with trace findings of a virus usually linked to farmed fish in wild salmon. - 2012/05/26: TheCanadian: Seattle Times on Alexandra Morton: Meet Salmon Farming's Worst Enemy
Regarding Castro:
- 2012/06/02: KlimaZwiebel: Interview with Christopher Castro
Regarding Roberts:
- 2012/06/03: Guardian(UK): Callum Roberts: if seas are to survive, we need a New Deal for the Oceans
Callum Roberts charts the damage we inflict on our oceans and marine life, and has radical plans to curb further depredations - 2012/05/31: WMO: Greater Horn of Africa Climate Outlook Forum
- 2012/05/29: UN: More than $427 million provided for humanitarian relief in 2011, says UN report
- 2012/05/29: UN: Asia-Pacific region must adopt low carbon policies to sustain growth - UN
And on the carbon trading front:
- 2012/06/01: BBerg: Fourteen Programs Show CO2 Trade Taking Off: World Bank
- 2012/05/30: PlanetArk: EU CO2 Prices To Treble On Supply Cut: Survey
European carbon prices could treble from current levels to average above 19 euros ($23.80) over the next eight years provided European governments cut supply of permits, according to a survey by consultants PwC. In its annual GHG Market Sentiment Survey, PwC found that 80 percent of respondents were in favor of cutting supply in a bit to boost carbon prices from under 7 euros to a level that encourages firms to invest in clean technology that cut emissions. - 2012/05/29: ClimateSpectator: Inspecting China's carbon trading plans
The idea of a carbon tax is still bouncing around:
- 2012/05/31: PSinclair: Arthur Laffer: Reagan’s Economist Proposes a Carbon Tax
- 2012/05/30: ERabett: A Very Modest Proposal
The debate over the optimal strategy [carbon trading, carbon offsets, auction vs. allocation, cap and trade, cap and dividend, tradable energy quotas and/or a carbon tax] to use in dealing with GHGs continues:
- 2012/05/31: ERabett:BSD: Allocate emissions to those who emit them (except electricity)
On the international political front, tensions continue as the USA and Israel lean on Iran:
- 2012/06/01: Reuters: Analysis: Iran commander's trip to disputed islands frays UAE nerves
A visit by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander to three tiny islands near the Strait of Hormuz oil shipping lane revives a bitter territorial dispute between Gulf antagonists - and trade partners - Iran and the United Arab Emirates. - 2012/05/30: National(AE): Abu Dhabi set to avoid Hormuz with pipeline
Abu Dhabi oil will be able to bypass the Strait of Hormuz in a matter of weeks thanks to the completion of a pipeline leading to the port of Fujairah. The 270-kilometre connection from Abu Dhabi's oilfields to the to Fujairah on the Indian Ocean is set to transport half of Abu Dhabi's oil, providing security for its core export amid fears of a western confrontation with Iran. - 2012/05/31: MWatch: China showing it’s serious about drilling in deep -- New world-class drilling platform shows China’s seriousness
On May 9, China National Offshore Oil Corp.’s (CNOOC) first deepwater drilling platform began operating in the South China Sea. The world-class vessel will operate at the Liwan 6-1-1 field, about 320 kilometers southeast of Hong Kong, in waters about 1,500 meters deep. - 2012/05/29: CCurrents: An Asean-China Forum For The South China Sea
And in other miscellaneous items of international political import:
- 2012/05/30: BBerg: U.S. Sets Duties as High as 26% on Wind-Energy Towers From China
- 2012/05/29: DerSpiegel: Chasing the Sun -- German and Chinese Solar Firms Battle for Survival
Germany was proud of its supposedly future-proof solar industry and subsidized it to the hilt. But then the Chinese got in on the act and started making much cheaper solar cells. Now, following a glut in production, companies in both countries are fighting for survival. - 2012/05/31: NOAANews: NOAA: U.S., Europe sign agreement to strengthen scientific cooperation on climate, weather, oceans and coasts
- 2012/05/26: E&UE: Climate Change and Global Politics
- 2012/05/24: SST: China Warns Australia to Choose "Godfather" - China or U.S. - Oilprice
Climate Change is a threat multiplier exacerbating existing conflicts in food, energy, water, race, ideology ... etc.:
- 2012/05/30: BBC: Iraq's PM warns Arab states may face 'water war'
Arab states could be headed towards a future war over water if they do not act quickly to tackle shortages, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has warned. At a conference in Baghdad, he urged countries to work together in order to prevent conflict in the arid region. - 2012/06/01: ABC(Au): Anti-mill group to pay Gunns' legal costs
A Launceston Magistrate has ordered a pulp mill protest group to pay the legal costs of Tasmanian timber company Gunns. Pulp the Mill had challenged Gunns' right to build the $2 billion pulp mill, arguing it had not done enough work at the Tamar Valley site to meet the permit conditions. - 2012/06/01: Grist: Radiohead and 350.org: Mood music for a climate movement?
- 2012/06/02: Guardian(UK): Jarvis Cocker: the iceman cometh
Polls! We have polls!
- 2012/05/31: GEP: New US Public Opinion Data
- 2012/05/30: Brookings: [link to 310k pdf] Americans Cool on Geoengineering Approaches to Addressing Climate Change
Given the political and economic challenge of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, there is growing interest in finding alternative methods of dealing with climate change. In a new paper, Christopher Borick and Barry Rabe look at the American public's attitude towards using geoengineering solutions as a means to combat global warming. - 2012/05/29: TP:JR: Three Quarters Of Americans Say They Would Consider An ‘Alternative’ Vehicle
Regarding Water Politics and Business:
- 2012/05/29: JFleck: On the Colorado, chance of surplus early, shortage down the road
- 2012/05/28: JFleck: Making a map
- 2012/05/28: JFleck: El Paso cranking up the desal
And on the groundwater front:
- 2012/06/01: TP:JR: Self-DustBowlification II: Farmers In The High Plains And California Are Depleting Groundwater, Study Says
- 2012/05/30: CSM: Southern Great Plains could run out of groundwater in 30 years, study finds
- 2012/05/28: SciDaily: Groundwater Depletion in Semiarid Regions of Texas and California Threatens US Food Security
- 2012/05/28: P3: Groundwater Depletion from Irrigation
And on the American political front:
- 2012/05/31: QuarkSoup: USA: We Can't Even Keep Our Plants Straight
- 2012/05/29: AlterNet: Conservatives Attack Scientific Findings About Why They Hate Science (Helping to Confirm the Science)
- 2012/06/02: CDreams: In Extreme Wildfire Season, Budget Cuts Put Communities in Danger
Funding for preventing and putting out wildfires has fallen by $512m since 2010 - 2012/05/30: SacBee: Assembly passes bill on California cap-and-trade funds
- 2012/06/01: SacBee: California passes tougher energy code for new construction
- 2012/05/30: AutoBG: California revokes 'hydrogen highway' grants
- 2012/05/29: TP:JR: Top Florida Environmental Official Suspended After Denying Permit For Controversial Business Development
- 2012/05/29: PlanetArk: Ohio Legislature OKs Bill On Energy Fracking Rules
- 2012/05/28: WaPo: Gas prices expected to fall further heading into summer
The BP disaster continues to twist US politics:
- 2012/05/31: PlanetArk: Justice Department Probes Whether BP Execs Lied To Congress: WSJ
So what do you want -- a corporate dweeb, or a sociopathic corporate dweeb? Your choice:
- 2012/05/31: TP:JR: Solar Company Used In Crossroads Anti-Obama Attack Ad Received Taxpayer Dollars From Governor Romney
- 2012/05/30: TP:JR: Romney’s Colorado Speech Backfires: Town Residents Contradict Campaign Talking Points
- 2012/05/30: PSinclair: Show this to a Denier and Stand Back. Romney/Obama - same Advisor on Climate
- 2012/05/30: Politico: GOP groups plan record $1 billion blitz
- 2012/05/30: TP:JR: Misleading And Misinformed, Romney’s Energy Attack Ads Reveal Disconnect With Investing In Our Future
- 2012/05/29: AlterNet: 5 Reasons the 'Geezer Empire' of Billionaire Republicans Are Showering Romney With Cash
- 2012/05/27: AlterNet: Creating Change Is the People's Job
- 2012/05/29: BBC: Mitt Romney has won the Republican presidential primary in Texas and the remaining delegates needed to secure the party's nomination
- 2012/05/29: TP:JR: Romney Implies That Colorado Doesn’t Have Clean Energy Jobs, Despite The State Having More Than 70,000 Of Them
- 2012/05/29: MoJo: Meet Romney's -- and Obama's -- Climate Change Adviser -- Gina McCarthy runs Obama's air policy. But before that, she ran Romney's.
- 2012/05/29: TP:JR: Romney Campaigns Against Green Jobs While Solar Industry Is ‘Flourishing’ In His Home State
- 2012/05/29: TheHill:e2W: Romney ad hits Obama for ‘wasting’ taxpayer money on Solyndra
- 2012/05/27: TP:JR: Obama Silent On Climate Change In Big Iowa Energy Speech
- 2012/05/26: SST: Why a dead heat?
- 2012/05/27: AlterNet: Roseanne Barr on Presidential Run: Two Major Parties Are a 'Bunch of Prostitutes Who Work for Big Money'
The Northwest ports' coal export question is still around:
- 2012/05/29: SeattlePI:B: No new coal port: Seattle City Council
The Seattle City Council has declared its opposition to a coal export terminal on northern Puget Sound... - 2012/06/01: CCP: Heidi Cullen, NYT: Clouded Forecast
This bit of nonsense from North Carolina seemed to catch people's fancy.
Canute is dead; long live Canute! - 2012/06/01: Guardian(UK): North Carolina tries to wish away sea-level rise
- 2012/05/31: TP:JR: North Carolina Bill Would Require Coastal Communities To Ignore Global Warming Science
- 2012/05/31: TMoS: Legislating Against Sea Level Rise - What Crazy People Do in Government
- 2012/05/31: KSJT: Raleigh Observer heats up blog squall - reports N. Carolina may ban gov’t plans for faster sea level rise
- 2012/05/30: Grist: North Carolina tries to outlaw sea-level rise
- 2012/05/30: SciAm:PI: NC Considers Making Sea Level Rise Illegal
- 2012/05/27: ERabett: Canute Sets PI = 3
The Obama chatter is nonstop:
- 2012/05/30: MiamiHerald: Fact Check: Oil stats belie tough enforcement talk
In the three years since President Barack Obama took office, Republicans have made the Environmental Protection Agency a lightning rod for complaints that his administration has been too tough on oil and gas producers. But an Associated Press analysis of enforcement data over the past decade finds that's not the case. In fact, the EPA went after producers more often in the years of Republican President George W. Bush, a former Texas oilman, than under Obama. Also, the agency's enforcement actions have declined overall since 2002 and reached their lowest point last year, the review found. - 2012/06/01: NOAANews: NOAA Administrator Dr. Lubchenco names new Deputy Under Secretary for Operations - Rear Admiral David Titley
- 2012/06/01: NatureNB: Star science-education researcher leaves the White House
- 2012/06/02: TreeHugger: FDA Denies Corn Refiners Petition to Change High Fructose Corn Syrup Name to Corn Sugar
- 2012/05/30: BobPark: What's New?
1. Natural Law: Catholic institutions sue the Obama administration. - 2012/05/31: Grist: FDA: High-fructose corn syrup will not be called ‘corn sugar’
- 2012/05/29: UCSUSA: A Huge Show of Public Support for the Power Plant Carbon Standard
- 2012/05/28: TreeHugger: Leafully Wins DOE's Apps for Energy Contest
- 2012/05/30: BBerg: New Nuclear Chief Can Act Fast on Yucca, Fukushima Fixes
Gregory Jaczko’s resignation as chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission gives the agency a fresh chance to tackle two crucial issues: nuclear- plant safety and waste disposal. The U.S. nuclear-power industry is in turmoil, competing as it does with rock-bottom natural-gas prices. - 2012/05/31: OilChange: Fracking "FRESH" Act Stinks of Dirty Money
- 2012/05/30: Wonkette: House Armed Services Committee Will Teach Stupid Hippie Generals The Error Of Their Ways
- 2012/05/28: OilPrice: Short-Term Politics Stifles Pentagon's Green Energy Ambitions
- 2012/05/28: PlanetArk: Sen. Murkowski's Fresh Energy Plan To Look Beyond 2012
What are the lobbyists pushing?
- 2012/05/31: TP:JR: Wal-Mart, Sponsor Of ‘Acres for America’ Program, Drops Anti-Public Lands ALEC
- 2012/05/30: UCSUSA: Secret Donors Muddy Climate Policy Debate
- 2012/05/28: TreeHugger: LEED Bashing: Plastic People Join The Lumber Industry in Trying To Get The Feds To Drop LEED
- 2012/05/28: OilChange: Shell’s $4 Billion Arctic Lobby Campaign
While in the UK:
- 2012/05/30: Guardian(UK): Geothermal energy could meet a fifth of UK's power needs - report
- 2012/05/29: Guardian(UK): Who's got their hands on all our fish?
In a gradual process bordering on privatisation by stealth, the resource of the many has fallen into the hands of a few - 2012/05/30: BBC: Distrust could hamper Green Deal
Public mistrust of the "big six" energy firms may undermine the UK government's planned Green Deal, according to the International Energy Agency. The energy firms are supposed to deliver a mass programme of home insulation under the Deal. The IEA warns that customers could be deterred by high prices and instances of poor service and mis-selling. It says the government needs to tell people more about the benefits of insulating their homes. - 2012/05/30: BBC: Bigger wind farm buffer zones 'needed to protect some homes'
Tougher noise guidelines to protect people living near wind farms have been recommended by a group of Assembly Members. - 2012/05/29: BBC: 'Bird sanctuary' warning over opposition to Lewis wind farm
The Isle of Lewis will become a bird sanctuary with no human occupants if wind farms are opposed, a landowner has warned. Estate owner Nick Oppenheim told BBC Scotland that a planned extension to a wind farm would secure 150 jobs. RSPB Scotland has voiced "serious alarm" at moves to expand a proposed 39-turbine development on the island's Eisgein Estate by 30 turbines. - 2012/05/28: Guardian(UK): Britain's climate change policy is going up in smoke by George Monbiot
Coal and gas emissions targets have been abandoned, by sleight of hand, to the inferno of the energy bill - 2012/06/01: EUO: Parliament: do not let Poland hijack green agenda
Warsaw's latest battle against efforts to 'green' Europe's economy is being played out in the European Parliament's regional affairs committee. Polish-designed technical texts could kill the environment-friendly criteria attached to the next E1 trillion EU budget. - 2012/06/01: NatureN: Europe science ministers approve 2014-20 funding framework
- 2012/06/01: BBC: MPs criticise 'green' EU farm-subsidy conditions
EU plans for "green" farm-subsidy rules will reduce European food production and are likely to harm the environment, a Commons committee has warned. Environment, food and rural affairs committee chair Anne McIntosh said the plans would "hurt UK farmers, consumers and our countryside". The forthcoming changes to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) must be more flexible, the Conservative MP argued. The European Commission said MPs were overstating the impact of its plans. The Commission wants 30% of farm subsidies to be conditional on whether recipient farms have met certain environmental standards, a policy it has branded "greening" the CAP. Under the proposals, farmers will need to grow at least three different crops, leave 7% of their land fallow and ensure that permanent pasture is maintained on their land. - 2012/05/30: EurActiv: Report: Europe could kick the F-gas [HFC] habit by 2020
Most fluorinated greenhouse gases (also known as F-Gases), used in today’s mobile air conditioning and refrigeration units, could realistically be banned across the EU by 2020, a new report says. - 2012/05/30: BBerg: Spain Ejects Clean-Power Industry With Europe Precedent: Energy
Spanish renewable-energy companies that once got Europe’s biggest subsidies are deserting the nation after the government shut off aid, pushing project developers and equipment-makers to work abroad or perish. From wind-turbine maker Gamesa Corp. Tecnologica SA (GAM) to solar park developer T-Solar Global SA, companies are locked out of their home market for new business. These are the same suppliers that spearheaded more than $69 billion of wind and solar projects since 2004 that today supply more than 50 percent of Spain’s power demand on the most breezy and sunny days. - 2012/05/29: EurActiv: Cleaning up the policy puzzle on green construction
A patchwork of European regulations, directives and strategies aims at making homes and buildings more efficient, but the jury is still out on how well they work. Adrian Joyce, an architect and advocate for energy efficiency in buildings, says Europe "urgently" needs to improve how it uses energy and called for accelerated improvements in old and new construction. - 2012/05/28: Guardian(UK): The truth about Germany's nuclear phase-out
Ditching nuclear power has ripples in terms of carbon emissions, politics and culture that we can't ignore - 2012/05/27: SwissInfo: Swiss Alps proposed as powerhouse of Europe
Many European countries are turning away from atomic power to focus on renewable energies. Switzerland’s water reservoirs could make up for future gaps in supply. - 2012/06/01: ABC(Au): Walsh talks up stormwater harvesting
The Victorian Government says a rollout of stormwater harvesting would have prevented water shortages during the recent drought. Water Minister Peter Walsh says stormwater harvesting and recycling is being seriously considered for Ballarat. - 2012/06/01: ABC(Au): Wind farm debate 'dividing' community
Residents of Penshurst, in western Victoria, are warning debate over a proposed wind farm near the town threatens to divide the community. - 2012/06/01: ABC(Au): [Victoria] Government talks up brown coal jobs
The State Government says talks to export brown coal from the Latrobe Valley have progressed quickly. - 2012/06/01: ABC(Au): Kakadu victory as uranium mining battle ends
Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory is set to be expanded, with the inclusion of land previously earmarked for uranium mining. The Northern Land Council (NLC) has agreed for a 1,200 hectare parcel of land containing rich reserves of uranium to be incorporated in to the park. It is considered the final step in a long battle that Aboriginal traditional owner Jeffrey Lee has waged to protect his land from mining. - 2012/06/02: ABC(Au): UN urges overhaul of Great Barrier Reef plan
- 2012/06/02: ABC(Au): Minister dismisses farmers fracking concerns
The [WA] Mines Minister, Norman Moore believes farmers' fears about the environmental effects of fracking are unfounded. - 2012/05/31: ABC(Au): More power to agriculture over mining exploration
The Queensland Government is planning to strengthen the community's rights to block coal seam gas exploration, but hasn't yet outlined how it would do it. The state already has four per cent of land set aside as protected Strategic Cropping Land. - 2012/06/01: ABC(Au):TDU: Politics has become an unrivalled blood sport
It's hard to think of a time when national politics has been more divisive, venomous and downright nasty. The latest focal point is the scandal engulfing former Labor and now crossbench MP Craig Thomson. This has dominated news coverage for weeks and threatens to derail the Government. The media interest in the Thomson matter is understandable at one level - after all, in this finely balanced Parliament, the Government is just one seat away from oblivion -- but the intensity of this interest and the saturation of coverage is symptomatic of a broader culture that is corroding our politics. - 2012/06/01: ABC(Au): UN report scathing of Barrier Reef plan
The United Nations' environmental arm UNESCO has released a report revealing that rapid coastal development is threatening the value of the Great Barrier Reef. The highly anticipated report into the management of the reef, released this morning, warns the reef could be listed as a World Heritage site in danger unless substantial changes are made to Australia's management of the area. It says the Government needs to implement a strategic assessment before considering future developments around the reef. - 2012/05/31: ABC(Au): CSG expert challenges company's gas claim
An environmental engineer has questioned Origin Energy's assertion that gas bubbling in a Queensland river is a naturally occurring phenomenon. - 2012/05/31: ABC(Au): Power sale bill passes NSW Upper House
Legislation to sell New South Wales electricity generators has passed the Upper House of State Parliament, after a deal allowing hunting in some national parks. The bill to privatise the state's power generators and sell or lease to Cobbora coal mine got through last night, 20 votes to 17, after the deal to garner the support of the Shooters and Fishers Party. It will now return to the Lower House for final assent, because of amendments agreed to by the Coalition as part of the Shooters deal - 2012/05/31: ABC(Au): Gillard faces down mining bosses
Julia Gillard has thrown down the gauntlet to mining bosses, telling them face-to-face that they don't own the nation's resources and Australians deserve their share. Ms Gillard delivered a feisty speech to the Minerals Council last night, one month out from the introduction of the carbon tax, telling them she is determined to stick to Labor's plan to share the benefits of the boom. - 2012/05/30: ABC(Au): Parliament approves independent panel to assess CSG projects
- 2012/05/30: ABC(Au): Gillard delivers tax challenge to mining industry
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has told the mining industry they do not own Australia's mineral wealth and they have to be prepared to share more of their profits. - 2012/05/30: ABC(Au): Abbott bolt highlights perceptions of ugly politics
Concerns about parliament's behaviour and the Federal Opposition's attacks on Craig Thomson were brought in to focus today when Tony Abbott ran for the door at the hint of receiving the Member for Dobell's vote. - 2012/05/30: ABC(Au): Suspended Thomson votes with Coalition
Tony Abbott and Christopher Pyne scrambled for the exits in the House of Representatives this morning as suspended Labor MP Craig Thomson lent his "tainted" vote to the Opposition. Mr Thomson has been sin-binned by the Labor Party over allegations he used union funds to buy prostitutes and fund his election campaign. However, the Member for Dobell has previously said he would continue to vote with the Government. That changed this morning when the Coalition wanted to bring on a discussion over the proposed increase to the Government's debt ceiling, and Labor tried to gag debate. - 2012/05/29: ABC(Au): Rinehart gets approval for Galilee Basin mine
The Queensland Government has approved a new open-cut coal mine proposed by Gina Rinehart for the Galilee Basin, but says Australian workers must be given first opportunity to work there. - 2012/05/29: PlanetArk: India's GVK Wins State Nod For $6.3 Billion Australia Coal Mine
India's GVK Power & Infrastructure has won environmental approval from the state of Queensland for its A$6.4 billion ($6.30 billion) Alpha coal project, clearing a key hurdle towards winning a lease for the Australian mine. - 2012/05/28: ABC(Au): Government approves $6.4b coal mine in Galilee Basin
The Queensland Government has granted conditional approval to build one of Australia's largest coal mines in the Galilee Basin in the state's central-west. Queensland's coordinator-general has granted conditional approval for Hancock Coal's $6.4 billion Alpha coal project, west of Rockhampton. It also includes a 495-kilometre railway line to Abbot Point near Bowen, north of Mackay. The project still needs Federal Government environmental approval to proceed. - 2012/05/29: ABC(Au): Dinosaur report could threaten gas hub
A report on the prehistoric times of Western Australia's Kimberley region is the latest potential threat to the State Government's proposed $30 billion gas hub. Palaeontologist Tony Thulborn has spent decades researching dinosaur footprints around the area north of Broome, and recently published a report in a peer-reviewed online journal. The oil and gas company Woodside wants to use the area to process liquid natural gas from the Browse Basin. Dr Thulborn says his report finds the James Price Point area is the only site in the world created by dinosaurs and should be protected. - 2012/05/28: ABC(Au): Abbott seizes on Labor leadership speculation
- 2012/05/28: GRC: The impacts of liquefied natural gas (LNG) on the ecosystem: Gas Battle Heats Up In Australia
- 2012/05/28: ABC(Au): Discontent simmers amid more pressure on Gillard
Senior Labor figures have rallied around Julia Gillard amid fresh talk of a leadership challenge and anger in party ranks over the decision to let big miners import foreign workers. Weekend reports that chief government whip Joel Fitzgibbon was canvassing numbers for a possible Kevin Rudd leadership challenge have thrown the spotlight back on Ms Gillard's leadership. The other big issue facing the Government, the fate of suspended Labor MP Craig Thomson, will also feature today, with officials from Fair Work Australia set to get a grilling in Senate estimates hearings. But the Coalition will not be able to question the author of the report into Mr Thomson and the Health Services Union (HSU) - because he is on leave. Labor Caucus will meet tomorrow and one Labor MP has told AM there have been a lot of unhappy people in the Caucus - and they are getting unhappier. - 2012/06/01: ABC(Au): Council urged to ease carbon tax impost
The Federal Government has expressed concern about how the Bendigo council has calculated a rise in waste charges. The council has estimated the carbon price will add $1.6 million to its waste management costs next financial year. However, Labor's Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Change, Mark Dreyfus, says he is worried the figure is too high. He says he would prefer the council work on cutting its landfill emissions. - 2012/06/01: ABC(Au): Carbon price slug adds to city rates hike pain
Darwin City Council ratepayers are likely to see their rates rise by about 4.5 per cent next financial year. It is the same increase that applied to rates this financial year. But ratepayers will also be hit with higher waste charges due to the Federal Government's carbon price structure. - 2012/05/31: ABC(Au): Council looks at how to cut carbon tax bill
To New South Wales now, where one of the state's regional councils has been hit with a multimillion dollar carbon tax bill. Shellharbour Council is on the list of Australia's worst polluters because it operates a massive garbage tip. Now it's trying to slash its liability by transforming the dump's methane gas into a more environmentally friendly form of emission. - 2012/05/30: ABC(Au): Dairy farmers preparing for impact of carbon tax
- 2012/05/30: ABC(Au): Carbon tax a factor as regional flights cut
Regional operator Brindabella Airlines says the Federal Government's carbon tax was a major factor in its decision to cut two "marginal" daily routes. The Canberra to Albury and Brisbane to Armidale services will be scrapped from June 8. - 2012/06/01: ABC(Au): Irrigation plan to transform south-east [Tasmania]
High-profile investors are again looking to bank on Tasmania's ability to provide food security in the future. They are considering investing in a proposed irrigation scheme which aims to transform parts of the south-east from dry paddocks to highly productive horticultural areas. The $40 million scheme will pump water from the River Derwent to the Craigbourne Dam and then to farmers in the region. - 2012/06/01: ABC(Au): Water authority reveals price rises
North-west Victoria's water authority has unveiled its plan for upgrading works and tariffs for the next five years. Lower Murray Water's draft five-year water plan proposes an annual price rise for its urban water customers in Mildura, Swan Hill, Robinvale and Kerang of 3.95 per cent. - 2012/06/02: JQuiggin: High-cost basin plan water is bad for all
- 2012/05/31: JQuiggin: Murray-Darling plan: a disastrous process, a sliver of hope
- 2012/05/30: ABC(Au): Water ministers to thrash out MDB draft plan
- 2012/05/30: ABC(Au): Legal expert thinks Murray challenge 'strong'
A legal expert thinks there is a strong case to be made by the South Australian Government if it challenges the Murray-Darling Basin draft plan in the High Court. - 2012/05/30: ABC(Au): New plan needed to fix the Lakes
The Murray Darling Association says securing Broken Hill's water supply and fixing the Menindee Lakes should be a government priority. The group's general manager, Ray Najar, says the $450 million aquifer that was originally proposed was uneconomical. However, he says now that it has been scrapped, a new plan needs to be developed. - 2012/05/30: ABC(Au): Old Murray campaigner laments water 'greed'
Now 83, Les Hill has spent more years than he cares to remember campaigning for improvement to the Murray. The former chairman of the Murray-Darling Association said the release of the revised Murray-Darling Basin draft plan this month had failed to deliver any new hope for a system he believed had suffered from greed and overuse. - 2012/05/29: ABC(Au): SA questions Basin Authority's water quality monitoring
- 2012/05/28: ABC(Au): Basin Authority flags possible new solution
- 2012/05/28: ABC(Au): The Murray-Darling Basin Authority has released its latest draft plan and is sticking to the same cuts to water allocations
- 2012/05/28: ABC(Au): New draft report on Murray-Darling water use
- 2012/05/28: ABC(Au): Victoria rejects MDBA water cuts
The Victorian Government says the plan is a "death warrant" for agricultural communities in northern Victoria. The Water Minister, Peter Walsh, says despite 20 weeks of consultation, the final outcome has barely changed from what the Murray-Darling Basin Authority released in November. The revised draft has maintained its proposed 2,750-gigalitre cut to water entitlements. He says Victoria cannot support the plan. - 2012/05/28: ABC(Au): Fed Govt flags more expensive Murray-Darling plan
- 2012/05/28: ABC(Au): Revised Murray-Darling plan sticks to cuts target
The revised draft of the Murray-Darling Basin plan has maintained its proposed 2,750-gigalitre cut to water entitlements. The Murray-Darling Basin Authority has today sent the revised Basin Plan to state water ministers. After 20 weeks of consultations since the draft plan was released in November, the authority has not changed its recommended cut to water entitlements. The cuts target was decried as too much by Victoria and New South Wales, and not enough by South Australia. - 2012/05/30: HotTopic: 20 years on, NZ’s Rio response inadequate: WWF
- 2012/05/28: ABC(Au): WWF gives New Zealand governments bad report
An environmental report card on New Zealand claims successive governments have failed to live up to the promises made at the Earth summit in Brazil 20 years ago. - 2012/05/28: ABC(Au): NZ says woeful green report card misleading
The New Zealand government says a report that condemns the country's environmental record is misleading. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) says successive New Zealand governments have not kept any of the promises that were made at the Rio Earth Summit 20 years ago. WWF has compiled its report as world leaders prepare to head back to Rio de Janeiro to discuss what has been achieved since the first summit in 1992. WWF says the number of threatened species in New Zealand has quadrupled to 4,000 and greenhouse gas emissions have climbed 20 per cent. The fund also says New Zealand has failed to meet commitments it made to protect water quality, bio-diversity and fisheries, and that more than 40 per cent of lakes are listed as polluted. - 2012/05/31: CBC: India's opposition parties call general strike -- Protest over fuel prices clears streets of major cities
- 2012/05/31: al Jazeera: Mass strikes across India over fuel prices
Cities disrupted as opposition parties and trade unions call nationwide protest after 11 per cent rise in fuel costs. - 2012/05/29: CCurrents: Right To Nuclear Information or A Practical Joke?
- 2012/05/29: CCurrents: Trust Deficit: People's Strugggle At Koodankulam
- 2012/05/29: NatureN: India won't pull back on nuclear ambitions
Atomic-energy boss Ratan Kumar Sinha says country is on track to meet nuclear goals. - 2012/06/01: NatureNB: China’s carbon intensity struggles
- 2012/05/31: NBF: China approves new nuclear safety plan
- 2012/05/29: PSinclair: China: Energy and Development on a Mind Boggling Scale
And South America:
- 2012/06/01: al Jazeera: Peru police arrest mayor over mine protests
Official accused of promoting protests against mine owned by Xstrata that led to two deaths and a state of emergency. - 2012/06/01: NewInt: How do you sleep at night, Mr Davis?
At least two people dead and more than 100 injured -- this is the way Xstrata does ‘community relations’ in Peru. Meanwhile the mining company’s boss Mick Davis is tipped for a $78 million pre-merger bonus - 2012/05/31: UFlorida: Highway through Amazon worsens effects of climate change, provides mixed economic gains
- 2012/05/29: BBC: Peru anti-mining protest leader arrested near Cusco
Peruvian police has arrested the leader of anti-mining protests a day after declaring a state of emergency in a southern Andean province. Herbert Huaman was among several activists detained, following more than a week of demonstrations against a mining project by Swiss company Xstrata. The copper mine dispute in Espinar province, near Cusco, is over environmental issues and pay. Two protesters were killed on Monday. - 2012/05/28: BBC: Peru emergency in Cusco region over anti-mine protests
The Peruvian government has declared a state of emergency in a southern Andean province following seven days of anti-mining protests and the death of two demonstrators. - 2012/05/30: WBR: Dave Thomas: "Harper is probably the worst thing that’s ever happened to Canada."
- 2012/06/02: SixthEstate: When Did Rationally Planning for an Uncertain Future Become "Socialist"?
- 2012/06/01: TheCanadian: The Religion Factor in Canada's Environmental Politics
- 2012/05/31: DeSmogBlog: (cartoons - James) What is Harper Afraid Of? by Franke James
- 2012/06/02: PostMedia: Harper, Tory MPs challenge Kent on climate science, letters reveal
While scientists and environmentalists criticize him for doing little to fight climate change, Environment Minister Peter Kent also has been questioned by his Conservative party colleagues, including the prime minister, about whether the scientific evidence is real and requires a government response. A series of letters signed by Kent have revealed he has faced many questions from colleagues in recent months about whether Canada needs to take action to reduce consumption of fossil fuels such as coal and gasoline that produce heat-trapping pollution and other toxic emissions in the atmosphere. But in each of the letters, released through access to information legislation, Kent defended scientific evidence, while dismissing myths... - 2012/06/02: PaiD: Why Is Harper Inc. Targeting Only Environmental Charities?
- 2012/05/30: Macleans: The Commons: Stephen Harper, environmentalist
[...]
His next two sentences could be safely said here, far away from the House of Commons where those mean New Democrats would have laughed.
"It is a duty we gladly accept, that of protecting Canada’s environment and its natural endowments, for the benefit of future generations," he said. "That’s why we give environmental protection and conservation the priority that we do." - 2012/05/28: TheCanadian: Silent Summer: Leading Fisheries Researcher on Harper Govt. Killing Ocean Pollution Monitoring
- 2012/05/28: WCEL: On importing U.S. "Job-Killing" rhetoric
- 2012/05/27: DbP: (cartoon) Toxic Tories
The G20 controversy lingers:
- 2012/05/31: MediaCoop: G20 Report: Police More Violent Than Protesters -- Statistics on Police and Protester Violence Compared
- 2012/05/28: CBC: G20 protester [Kelly Pflug-Back] had 'limited' leadership role, judge says
Mulcair, Dutch Disease etc.:
- 2012/05/31: Tyee: Oil sands sparked 'uniquely Canadian strain' of Dutch Disease: report
- 2012/06/01: PEF: Dutch Disease, the Canada -- US Exchange Rate and Trade With Asia
- 2012/06/01: Far-n-Wide: Mulcair The "Statesman"
- 2012/05/31: G&M: Awed by oil sands, Mulcair calls for more environmental oversight
Precisely one thing surprised Thomas Mulcair on his visit to Alberta: the scale of the oil sands. - 2012/06/01: BuckDog: Alberta Provincial Budget Supports NDP Leader Mulcair's Argument On Dutch Disease ... Ooops!
- 2012/05/31: CBC: Oilsands 'impressive' but has challenges, Mulcair says after tour
Fort McMurray mayor disagrees with NDP leader on oilsands role in 'Dutch disease' - 2012/06/02: CBC: Sask. premier has 'concerns' with Mulcair's Dutch Disease
Ontario's premier says the high dollar creates 'more challenges' for the manufacturing sector - 2012/05/31: PaiD: When The Left Is Right
- 2012/05/31: CBC: NDP Leader Tom Mulcair to visit Alberta oilsands
- 2012/05/30: TStar: Mulcair’s politically deft oilsands critique is right (sort of)
- 2012/06/02: CBC: Mulcair blames Harper for East-West divisions
- 2012/05/30: CBC: 'Oilsands fever' seen as Canada's Dutch Disease
On the eve of NDP Leader Tom Mulcair's visit to Alberta's oilsands, a new report backs his claim that Canada's economy suffers from a form of Dutch Disease. A study released Wednesday by the Pembina Institute says Canada has come down with a unique strain of the phenomenon, dubbed "oilsands fever," that is producing near-term economic benefits that are often overstated. The report says these benefits are spread unevenly across the country and could be hiding economic turmoil down the road. But another report by a different group says Canada's oil and gas industry is spreading the wealth by using the money earned from booming exports to buy goods and services from the rest of the country. - 2012/05/29: TStar: NDP leader Tom Mulcair invades enemy territory
- 2012/05/29: PostMedia: Mulcair to get an earful during oilsands tour
Alberta's energy sector is poised to roll out the black carpet for Thomas Mulcair later this week in the hopes of convincing the NDP leader of the economic importance of the oilsands to all of Canada. Under fire from western Canadian premiers for suggesting the oilsands are to blame for driving up the Canadian dollar and killing manufacturing jobs in Ontario and Quebec - the so-called "Dutch disease" - Mulcair is headed for Alberta Thursday to tour Suncor Energy's Fort McMurray operations and meet with municipal and provincial politicians. - 2012/05/28: BCLSB: A "Gaffe", Eh? Part WOW!
Under the smokescreen of fiscal responsibility, the Harper gang is streamlining environmental reviews out of existence:
- 2012/05/30: PostMedia: No red tape in green oversight, environment minister told
Changes to environmental reviews of industrial projects in recent years are already "preventing process duplication," says an internal government presentation obtained by Postmedia News. The Harper government has publicly argued reforms are necessary to Canada's environmental protection laws because of too much duplication in reviews at the federal and provincial levels that cause delays, but the internal document, prepared by the Canadian Environmental Assessment (CEA) Agency last fall, for a joint presentation that was to be delivered by Environment Minister Peter Kent and Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver to Conservative MPs, suggested duplication was no longer a significant problem. - 2012/06/01: G&M: Scientists decry Ottawa’s plan to close environmental research centre
For six years, Cynthia Gilmour, senior scientist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, led a research team that annually poured a teaspoon of mercury isotope, diluted in water, into a small, remote lake in Northwestern Ontario. The international project was being conducted in the federally funded Experimental Lakes Area (ELA), a unique outdoor laboratory for ecosystem research consisting of 58 lakes and their drainage areas. - 2012/06/02: EarthGauge: An unprecedented letter to PM Harper from former Fisheries Ministers
- 2012/05/30: TheCanadian: Former Ministers Fraser, Anderson Should be Listened to on Gutting Fisheries Act...Siddon, Not So Much
- 2012/05/30: TheCanadian: Four Former Federal Fisheries Ministers Line Up Against Harper's Plan to Gut Fisheries Act
- 2012/05/29: G&M: Ottawa’s environmental-review overhaul hits tough hurdles
The federal government’s insistence that cabinet should have final say over resource projects such as Enbridge Inc.’s ENB-T Northern Gateway pipeline is stirring opposition that could undermine its effort to streamline environmental approvals. - 2012/05/29: CBC: Fisheries Act changes questioned by former ministers -- Bi-partisan letter expresses concerns about omnibus budget bill
Four former federal fisheries ministers are questioning the government's motives behind the inclusion of environmental protection changes to the Fisheries Act in the Budget Implementation Act. Mulroney-era Conservatives Tom Siddon and John Fraser, and Liberals Herb Dhaliwal and David Anderson, who both served under Jean Chretien, say in an open letter they don't believe federal ministers have given plausible explanations for why so much environmental legislation has been included in a money bill. - 2012/05/28: PostMedia: Canadian scientists slam weakening of federal Fisheries Act
The majority of freshwater fish at risk of extinction would lose protection The federal government is sabotaging its own legislated requirement to protect endangered freshwater fish by weakening the Fisheries Act, Canadian scientists say in a letter to be sent to the Harper government Tuesday. The revisions mean that the majority of freshwater fish and up to 80 per cent of the 71 freshwater species at risk of extinction would lose protection, according to the letter from the 1,000-strong Canadian Society For Ecology and Evolution (CSEE) provided exclusively to The Vancouver Sun. - 2012/05/28: HillTimes: Feds trying to gut Fisheries Act under the radar, say two former federal Conservative fisheries ministers
John Fraser and Tom Siddon slam Conservatives on Bill C-38. - 2012/05/27: DbP: Marine pollution program cut by feds
- 2012/06/03: PostMedia: Calgarians protest federal budget bill outside Harper’s office
- 2012/06/01: Rabble:JK: Shining a light on the federal government's false claims on Environmental Assessment and the Budget
BlackOutSpeakOut day is coming:
- BlackOutSpeakOut
- 2012/06/01: 350orBust: Why I’m Speaking Out In Defence Of Two Core Canadian Values, Nature & Democracy
The battle over the Northern Gateway pipeline rages on:
- 2012/05/30: TheCanadian: Enbridge Unveils Multi-Million Dollar Ad Campaign to Sway Public Opinion in BC
- 2012/05/29: G&M: Enbridge ad campaign intensifies pipeline battle
The battle for the hearts and minds of British Columbians over a proposed oil pipeline has ramped up after Enbridge Inc. launched a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign -- and Greenpeace Canada responded by unfurling a giant, eye-catching banner on Lions Gate Bridge. The tactics revealed on Tuesday by the opposing sides in the debate are dramatically different. Enbridge is going with a finely crafted print and television campaign created by Kbs+p Canada, with media relations directed by Hill and Knowlton, a leading communications company that claims to have "invented the concept of public relations." On the other hand, Greenpeace and others opposed to the Northern Gateway Pipeline proposal to link Alberta’s oil sands to a West Coast tanker port are going with low-budget drama, petitions and social networking. - 2012/05/29: 350orBust: The Enbridge Pipeline: What’s At Stake?
The Western Premiers' Conference went down this week with no surprises:
- 2012/05/31: TheCanadian: Clark Skips Western Premiers' Conference to Avoid Pipeline, Tanker Talk
- 2012/05/29: CBC: Redford's energy plan supported by western premiers
- 2012/05/29: WpgFP: Western premiers meeting in Edmonton to talk energy, labour at annual summit
- 2012/05/27: PostMedia: Redford to push for united energy strategy amid oilsands criticism at Western premiers meeting
The leaders are regional but the stakes are national as Western Canada's premiers meet in Alberta this week. The provincial and territorial premiers will come together in Edmonton tonight and Tuesday ... - 2012/05/27: CBC: Western premiers to talk environment, energy and Tom Mulcair
The environment, energy and federal NDP Leader Tom Mulcair are on the agenda Tuesday when leaders of the western provinces and territories get together. "There is going to be an emphasis on environmental regulation," said Alberta Premier Alison Redford, who will host the meeting in Edmonton. "British Columbia wants to talk about families and community development and (Saskatchewan) Premier (Brad) Wall and I want to continue to advance the Canadian energy strategy agenda." - 2012/05/27: AlexandraMorton: Dear CFIA why are you ignoring ISA virus?
- 2012/05/26: STimes: Meet salmon farming's worst enemy: a determined biologist [Alexandra Morton]
A B.C.-based biologist stunned U.S. scientists last year with trace findings of a virus usually linked to farmed fish in wild salmon. - 2012/05/26: TheCanadian: Seattle Times on Alexandra Morton: Meet Salmon Farming's Worst Enemy
In BC, the stage is set. Now what will Clark and Dix do?
- 2012/05/29: Tyee: You're Going to Get Zapped
Why you shouldn't believe Premier Clark's claims her government just spared you from big Hydro rate hikes. - 2012/05/29: TheCanadian: Anton 'the Inkfish' Clouds Hydro Losses from Bad IPP Deals
- 2012/05/30: CBC: [Cline Mining Corp] Coal company sues B.C. over Flathead mining ban
A coal mining company is suing the B.C. government for half a billion dollars following its decision to ban mining in the Flathead Valley in the southeastern corner of the province. - 2012/05/29: NI: The voters' choice: People's Order of BC winner
- 2012/05/29: CBC: Coast guard cuts prompt formal B.C. complaint
Province asks Ottawa to reconsider closing stations at Kitsilano, Comox and Tofino. The B.C. government has expressed its disappointment to the federal government over a plan to chop coast guard services as part of a plan to balance the federal budget. Premier Christy Clark said Monday her justice minister has formally written to the federal government asking it to reconsider the cuts. - 2012/05/28: TheCanadian: Power for Proposed BC LNG Plants Called into Question
About Bill 37:
- 2012/05/31: TheCanadian: Alexandra Morton: Farm Disease Secrecy Act Quietly Withdrawn by Minister
- 2012/05/31: AlexandraMorton: Bill to make Disease Secret Withdrawn Amid Public Outcry
- 2012/05/30: AlexandraMorton: Minister McRae who do you serve?
- 2012/05/29: AlexandraMorton: Minister McRae Considers rewording his silence the messenger act
- 2012/05/28: AlexandraMorton: Look Them in the EYE
There are moments in history and in the lives of people where threat creep towards them without cause for alarm, like the long sweep of a tsunami far out to sea and then suddenly makes landfall. History is full of them, human lives are ended by them. British Columbia, a nasty groundswell fundamental to your right to food security is approaching faster than a galloping horse to make landfall and history in the BC Parliament in the coming days. Please wake up.
In the coming few days, the Liberal government of BC intends to pass Bill 37, which makes sickness in farm animals a secret. - 2012/06/02: DeSmogBlog: Mordor found in Northern Alberta
- 2012/06/01: PI: Shine a light on the oil sands boom
- 2012/05/30: PI: New report presents solutions to manage economic downsides of oilsands development
Pembina Institute analysis identifies significant challenges for the Canadian economy if impacts of the oilsands boom are left unaddressed - 2012/05/30: PI: [link to 4.2 meg pdf] In the Shadow of the Boom -- How oilsands development is reshaping Canada’s economy
- 2012/06/01: SaskBoy: Tar-sands
- 2012/06/01: SCC: It’s the tar sands, stupid!
- 2012/06/01: CBC: Lower oil price won't delay big projects, yet
- 2012/05/29: OilChange: Tar sands "could produce $3 trillion"
Also in Alberta:
- 2012/06/02: NI: Welcome to Alberta
- 2012/05/30: G&M: Pipeline spill sends 22,000 barrels of oil mix into Alberta muskeg
A huge pipeline spill has released 22,000 barrels of oil and water into muskeg in the far northwest of Alberta. The spill ranks among the largest in North America in recent years, a period that has seen a series of high-profile accidents that have undermined the energy industry’s safety record. - 2012/05/30: PEF: Debating Boyd on Resource Royalties
- 2012/05/29: CBC: Shareholders of Canadian grain company Viterra have approved a takeover bid by Swiss commodities giant Glencore Ltd.
[...] The takeover will still need to be approved by the federal government. - 2012/05/30: CBC: Thunder Bay flooding prompts national appeal for help
- 2012/05/30: 350orBust: Floods Hit Close To Home
- 2012/05/30: BCLSB: Do Wind Turbines Effect Property Values?
While in la Belle Province:
- 2012/05/28: MediaCoop: Six Nations confronts Samsung's energy project
Confederacy call on supporters to help enforce cease and desist order Members of Six Nations have called upon supporters to join them on May 29th in blocking a multi- billion dollar renewable energy windmill project being planned by Samsung. The multi-national Corporation did not receive permission from the traditional Haudenosaunee government in Six Nations to proceed with the project. - 2012/05/29: MediaCoop: (1min40sec) Haudenosaunne people speak to Enbridge pipeline hearing May 23 London
In the Maritimes:
- 2012/06/01: SRBP: NAFTA and Hebron
- 2012/06/01: CBC: Oil companies win NAFTA fight over local investment
ExxonMobil and Murphy Oil win NAFTA dispute over N.L. research investment demands - 2012/06/02: TMG-DD: supplement re anti-fracking rally
- 2012/06/02: CBC: Anti-fracking groups take message through Moncton
Nearly 300 people filled the streets of Moncton Saturday to speak out against fracking. The group started in Highfield Square, then marched down Main Street towards City Hall. When they arrived, a variety of speakers addressed the crowd, including doctors, aboriginal communities and environmentalists. The protestors are demanding the province ban shale gas exploration. - 2012/05/28: G&M: An excellent debate about resource revenues
- 2012/05/30: EmbassyMag: Canada to change course, recognize right to water: Kent -- Observers fear future efforts may water down UN language
The movement toward a long term ecologically viable economics is glacial:
- 2012/05/31: EnergyBulletin: The Rumbling of Distant Thunder
- 2012/05/27: CCurrents: Limits We are Reaching -- Oil, Debt, And Others
- 2012/05/30: MN: Impending Resource Depletion Ahead: But We Are Intelligent
- 2012/05/28: EnergyBulletin: Global scarcity: Scramble for dwindling natural resources by Michael Klare
- 2012/05/27: EnergyBulletin: Degrowth American Dream
IPAT [Impact = Population * Affluence * Technology] raised its head once again:
- 2012/06/02: Rabble: Anti-choice researchers in Chile try to hide illegal abortion -- and women who die from it
- 2012/05/31: AlterNet: Right-Wing Terrorism: Arson, Bombs, and Break-Ins at Women's Clinics Seek to Instill Fear
- 2012/05/29: AlterNet: How Frightened Patriarchal Men Have Tried to Repress Women's Sexuality Through History
- 2012/05/27: CCurrents: Overpopulation And Systemic Collapse
- 2012/05/28: Guardian(UK): Women raped while in the US military are denied abortions. End this now
Apocalypso anyone?
- 2012/05/30: CSM: How climate change destroyed [Indus River/Harrapan culture] one of the world's largest civilizations
- 2012/05/29: SciNews: Harappans may have lived, died by monsoon -- Ancient Indus civilization shaped by seasonal rains
- 2012/05/28: Eureka: Climate change led to collapse of ancient Indus civilization, study finds
- 2012/05/23: SciAm: Apocalypse Soon: Has Civilization Passed the Environmental Point of No Return?
How do the media measure up?
- 2012/05/31: ABC(Au): Cooking up 'errors' in Media Watch's reporting
- 2012/05/29: Slate: Dodgy Boffins -- What's wrong with science journalism in the U.K.?
- 2012/05/31: KSJT: So what IS wrong with British science journalism?
- 2012/05/31: Eureka: 4 telltale signs of propaganda on Twitter -- Georgia Tech study profiles behavior of social media 'hyperadvocacy'
- Sending high volumes of tweets over short periods of time;
- Retweeting while publishing little original content;
- Quickly retweeting others' content; and
- Coordinating with other, seemingly unrelated users to send duplicate or near-duplicate messages on the same topic simultaneously.
- 2012/05/25: SciMag: The Unwritten Rules of Journalism
Here is something for your library:
- 2012/05/28: EnergyBulletin: [More a Talk Review than a Book Review]: Jeff Rubin on The End of Growth
And for your film & video enjoyment:
- 2012/06/02: ERabett: The Dangers of Genetic Manipulation
- 2012/05/31: PSinclair: Arthur Laffer: Reagan’s Economist Proposes a Carbon Tax
- 2012/05/29: 350orBust: The Enbridge Pipeline: What’s At Stake?
- 2012/05/28: ERabett: Empathy First
Meanwhile among the 'Sue the Bastards!' contingent:
- 2012/06/01: BBerg: Chevron Fires Ogilvy as Lobbyist Over Ecuadorean Dispute
Chevron Corp. fired Ogilvy Government Relations as its U.S. lobbyist after a person affiliated with the firm spoke to a group advocating for residents of the Ecuadorean rainforest in a multibillion legal fight with the oil company, a person familiar with the matter said - 2012/05/30: BobPark: What's New?
1. Natural Law: Catholic institutions sue the Obama administration. - 2012/05/31: CBC: Chevron's $18B Ecuador pollution lawsuit comes to Canada
- 2012/05/30: PlanetArk: Illinois Sues [Phillips 66's] Wood River [refinery], Alleging Water Pollution
- 2012/05/28: AutoBG: Ecotality sues over NRG's $120m electric vehicle charging station settlement
Developing a new energy infrastructure is a fundamental challenge of the current generation:
- 2012/06/01: TCoE: The challenge of natural gas
- 2012/05/31: Eureka: New small solid oxide fuel cell reaches record efficiency [57%] -- System designed for household and neighborhood power generation
- 2012/05/31: BBC: Chilean power firm Colbun puts project on ice
One of the two firms planning to build the giant HidroAysen dam in Chilean Patagonia has frozen the project, citing lack of government backing. Colbun said there was no point continuing with the planning stage for the project's transmission line unless Chile's government came up with an energy strategy that had wide support. Protestors argue that the scheme will destroy a valuable natural environment. The dams are intended to provide a third of Chile's electricity. - 2012/05/30: ArcticNews: Proposal to extract, store and sell Arctic methane
- 2012/06/02: ERW: 'Golden age of gas' threatens renewable energy, IEA warns
- 2012/06/02: CleanBreak: Hydrogenics sells electrolysers and services for 2MW European "power-to-gas" project
- 2012/05/30: Guardian(UK): Geothermal energy could meet a fifth of UK's power needs - report
The study found that subsidising geothermal technology initially would help to bring down costs rapidly as UK sites were developed - 2012/05/29: Grist: The truth about renewable energy: Inexpensive, reliable, and inexhaustible
- 2012/05/28: TP:JR: The World’s Energy Disparity Is Reaching A Critical Stage To Spawn Innovation
- 2012/05/28: TreeHugger: 3,000' Tower Will Generate Clean Power from Hot Air and Cool Water
- 2012/05/28: DeutscheWelle: Energy switchover leaves unanswered questions
A year ago, the German government announced its plans for an energy switchover. The country's biggest post-war infrastructure project is taking shape, but there is still plenty of resistance to it. - 2012/05/28: al Jazeera: The biggest climate victory you never heard of
The fight against coal in the US has achieved great success due to activists' passion and commitment. - 2012/06/01: OhioFracktion: Riverdale Residents Blockade Aqua America Construction Road
- 2012/06/01: CCP: Riverdale residents block eviction and construction of road by Aqua America to remove 3 million gallons of water daily from the Susquehanna River (that is in severe drought) to be used for fracking
- 2012/06/01: DeSmogBlog: Chesapeake Energy And Other Fracking Companies Squatting On New York Citizens' Land
- 2012/06/01: DeSmogBlog: Massey WV Coal Battle Take Two: Erie, CO Citizens Fight Fracking
- 2012/05/31: Reuters: Fracking at top of Chevron, Exxon meetings
Investor concerns about hydraulic fracturing at Chevron have eased, in contrast to a slight rise at rival Exxon, as the two largest U.S. oil companies faced growing pressure at shareholder meetings to name independent chairmen to improve governance. - 2012/05/31: DeSmogBlog: ALEC Slips Exxon Fracking Loopholes into New Ohio Law
- 2012/05/31: EurActiv: Shale gas strategy 'not the optimum path': Fatih Birol
An energy strategy without fossil fuels would be preferable to the regulated gas pathway outlined in the International Energy Agency (IEA)’s new report, the paper’s own author told EurActiv in an exclusive interview yesterday (30 May). - 2012/05/30: TreeHugger: IEA's Golden Age of Natural Gas Will Usher in a Dark Age for Civilization & Nature
- 2012/06/03: PeakEnergy: Shale Gas: The View from Russia
- 2012/06/02: TMG-DD: supplement re anti-fracking rally
- 2012/06/02: CBC: Anti-fracking groups take message through Moncton
- 2012/05/31: OilChange: Fracking "FRESH" Act Stinks of Dirty Money
- 2012/05/31: ABC(Au): CSG expert challenges company's gas claim
- 2012/05/30: EurActiv: IEA’s golden rule: Shale gas companies need license to drill
- 2012/05/30: KSJT: All Fracked Up [Buffalo]
- 2012/05/30: TP:JR: International Energy Agency Finds ‘Safe’ Gas Fracking Would Destroy A Livable Climate
- 2012/05/30: OilChange: Subsidised "Green Gas" No Better than Coal
- 2012/05/29: DeSmogBlog: Fracking Industry Trying To Keep Doctors Silent About Chemical Dangers
- 2012/05/29: Guardian(UK): Using shale gas over coal does not help climate, says big gas investor
- 2012/05/29: EurActiv: IEA’s golden rule: Shale gas companies need license to drill
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has unveiled a ‘golden’ rulebook for the extraction of unconventional gases such as shale, which it says is needed to give them a 'social license to operate'. The checklist includes more regulation, transparency, investment, environmental protection, and a switch to best practices. - 2012/05/29: PlanetArk: Ohio Legislature OKs Bill On Energy Fracking Rules
- 2012/05/29: FuelFix: Drilling boom spurring clean up push
- 2012/05/29: NatureN: Fracking boom spurs environmental audit
As hydraulic fracturing unlocks new gas reserves, researchers struggle to understand its health implications. - 2012/05/28: NBF: Improved Fracking Technology
- 2012/05/29: BBC: Campaigners' anger over agency's shale gas report
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has infuriated environmentalists with a report on what it calls the "golden age" of gas. The summary says gas use could grow more than 50% by 2035 if local problems with shale extraction can be overcome. Only in the last paragraph does it say this would be inconsistent with a global temperature rise of 2C. And it does not warn the boom could lead to a potentially devastating 3.5C rise until page 91 of the full report. Critics complain that most policy makers won't get that far and say the IEA should not be celebrating any fossil fuel golden age. - 2012/05/25: SciAm: How Can We Cope with the Dirty Water from Fracking?
Advanced membranes, unusual solvents and new drilling processes could clean and recycle a growing flood of contaminated water - 2012/05/28: DeSmogBlog: Toothpaste More Dangerous Than Fracking, "Expert" Says
On the coal front:
- 2012/05/30: TreeHugger: Remember, the Death of Coal Will Ruin Lives
On the gas and oil front:
- 2012/06/01: BBerg: Closing oil prices Friday
OIL (US$/bbl)
Nymex Crude Future...83.23
Dated Brent Spot.....98.81
WTI Cushing Spot.....83.23 - 2012/06/01: BBerg: Brent Oil Falls Below $100 for First Time Since October
- 2012/06/01: OilChange: Saudi oil import rise exposes the lie of North American oil independence
- 2012/05/29: BBC: Spanish company Repsol has said it is pulling out of Cuba after failing in a recent attempt to find oil off the island
- 2012/05/29: LA Times: Companies are removing oil from their products to cut costs
Rising crude prices are fueling a boom in bioplastics as manufacturers took for alternatives to petrochemicals in car seats, beverage containers, solar panels and other goods. - 2012/05/28: NBF: Drilling Mud Technology
- 2012/05/28: BBC: Coryton oil refinery set to close within three months
Hundreds of jobs have been put at risk after administrators announced the closure of an oil refinery in Essex. The Coryton plant was placed into administration by its Swiss owner Petroplus in January. - 2012/05/30: ABC(US): Int'l coalition protests Chevron shareholders' meeting
- 2012/05/30: DeSmogBlog: What Chesapeake Energy's Financial Scandals Mean For The Rest of Us
Regarding oil and the economy:
- 2012/06/02: PeakEnergy: Feeling peaky: The economic impact of high oil prices
And in pipeline news:
- 2012/05/30: G&M: Pipeline spill sends 22,000 barrels of oil mix into Alberta muskeg
- 2012/05/29: EurActiv: BP punches Nabucco below the belt
UK oil major BP said it was no longer considering shipping gas from its Shah Deniz field in Azerbaijan through the Nabucco pipeline, dealing a blow to the troubled European project. But the European Commission said the "full-scale version" of Nabucco was still the main option under consideration. Iain Conn, BP's head of fuel refining and marketing, said in a speech last week that BP and Azeri state oil group Socar were now considering only two options for the pipeline's route to Austria -- a smaller, pipeline from the Nabucco consortium, known as "Nabucco West", and the South East Europe Pipeline (SEEP). - 2012/05/30: FCNP: The Peak Oil Crisis: The Edisonian Approach
Biofuel bickering abounds:
- 2012/05/31: TreeHugger: Sustainable Farming for Clean Cooking Fuel: The Quest to Kill Charcoal in Africa
- 2012/05/31: TreeHugger: Bringing the Biofuel Cooking Stove to Africa
- 2012/05/31: Eureka: Standing trees better than burning ones for carbon neutrality
- 2012/05/29: CER:RRapier: The First Commercial Cellulosic Plant is NOT About to Open
The answer my friend...:
- 2012/06/01: TreeHugger: When an Anti-Clean Energy Conspiracy Isn't
- 2012/06/02: PeakEnergy: Are the lights still on in South Australia?
- 2012/05/25: MediaMatters: Myths & Facts About Wind Power
- 2012/05/30: BCLSB: Do Wind Turbines Effect Property Values?
Meanwhile among the solar aficionados:
- 2012/05/31: NBF: Sharp Develops Concentrator Solar Cell with World’s Highest Conversion Efficiency of 43.5%
- 2012/06/01: TreeHugger: Solar Cogeneration Installation Demonstrates Solar Cooling at SoCalGas
- 2012/05/31: ABC(Au): Boost in low-cost solar cell efficiency [dye-sensitised solar - 8%]
- 2012/05/31: UCSUSA:B: More Solar Roofs in California
- 2012/05/31: TreeHugger: Sharp Hits Solar Cell Efficiency Record of 43.5%
- 2012/05/30: PSinclair: Solar Grid Parity Inevitable. Who’ll be the Leader in this Disruptive Technology?
- 2012/05/29: ABC(Au): Germany sets new solar power record
Solar record German solar power plants produced a record 22 gigawatts of electricity - equal to 20 nuclear power stations at full capacity, says the head of a renewable energy think tank. - 2012/05/28: TreeHugger: Last Weekend, Half of Germany was Running on Solar Power
- 2012/05/25: Oregonian: SolarWorld says, bring 'em on, as China's JA Solar and others scout Oregon for solar manufacturing
- 2012/05/28: NBF: Under the right circumstances, solar cells from Semprius could produce power more cheaply than fossil fuels
The nuclear energy controversy continues:
- 2012/06/01: NBF: India's Nuclear Energy plans through 2017
- 2012/06/02: BBC: Post-Chernobyl disaster sheep controls lifted on last UK farms
Restrictions covering sheep movements after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster have finally been lifted from all farms in England and Wales after 26 years. - 2012/05/31: BNC: Roads Not Taken (yet)
Nuclear waste storage requires _very_ long term thinking:
- 2012/05/28: BBerg: Bankrupt Nuclear Waste Firm Impact Services Gets Deadline
Impact Services Inc., the bankrupt nuclear waste processor storing 1 million pounds of scrap radioactive material at its Oak Ridge, Tennessee, facility, was told to produce missing financial documents by next week. Impact filed for Chapter 7 liquidation May 24 in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Delaware, listing assets of less than $10 million and debt of as much as $50 million. Specific creditor claims and company financial details haven’t been filed. "There is about one million pounds of waste" at the company’s compound... - 2012/06/01: NBF: Brillouin funded for $2 million and Acoustic Cavitation Fusion
More people are talking about the electrical grid:
- 2012/05/30: DerSpiegel: Nuclear Phase-Out -- German Power Grid Expansion to Cost Billions
Germany needs thousands of kilometers in new power lines in order to prepare for the country's planned nuclear phase-out, the country's main grid operators announced this week. Amid criticism that her energy revolution has stalled, Chancellor Angela Merkel has called for faster grid expansion. - 2012/05/31: DD: German power grids increasingly strained by solar and wind generation
- 2012/05/30: WNN: Germany moves to bolster grid
Germany has announced plans to upgrade and expand its electricity grid over the next decade in order to help renewable energy sources fill the gap left by its phase-out of nuclear power. An investment of some E20 billion ($25 billion) will be needed. - 2012/05/28: OilDrum: German Power Grids Increasingly Strained
- 2012/05/27: NBF: Village-scale DC solar grids provide power for lighting and cell phones
And then there is the matter of efficiency & conservation:
- 2012/05/29: GreenGrok: Energy Efficiency: Gaining Traction or Spinning Its Wheels?
- 2012/06/02: NDMag: Efficiency and Conservation Not Enough to Achieve Energy Security
- 2012/05/30: EnergyBulletin: Burning Desire for Efficiency by Tom Murphy
Automakers & lawyers, engineers & activists argue over the future of the car:
- 2012/05/31: TreeHugger: FIAT Bets Big On Natural Gas As The Future of Fuel For Cars
- 2012/05/30: STimes: Electric car chargers turned on for I-5 and Highway 2
Ten sites opened in the state this week where drivers can recharge electric cars on Interstate 5 and Highway 2. - 2012/05/29: BBerg: Toyota Prius Escapes Niche to Surge Into Global Top Three
- 2012/05/28: AutoBG: Ecotality sues over NRG's $120m electric vehicle charging station settlement
- 2012/05/27 AutoBG: Ex-Sierra Club chair: U.S. EV makers should adopt cell-phone sales model
This week in the Gee Whiz File:
- 2012/05/31: AutoBG: Prieto Battery working on 1,000x more powerful lithium-ion battery
As for Energy Storage:
- 2012/05/31: NBF: Boulder Ionics liquid electrolytes could double storage of ultracapacitors and improve batteries by up to ten times
- 2012/05/29: EnergyBulletin: Leverage points in energy storage by Ugo Bardi
The reaction of business to climate change will be critical:
- 2012/05/30: Grist: IKEA subsidiary accused of cutting down centuries-old trees
Who's fielding theFAQs?
- 2012/05/29: Guardian(UK): Are solar, wind and marine power too intermittent to be useful?
Joe Romm posts a daily list of top energy and climate stories:
- 2012/06/01: TP:JR: June 1 News...
- 2012/05/31: TP:JR: May 31 News...
- 2012/05/30: TP:JR: May 30 News...
- 2012/05/29: TP:JR: May 29 News...
Other (weekly) lists:
- 2012/05/31: TreeHugger: Energy News...
- 2012/06/02: BPA: The Ag Hot Five No. 9
- 2012/06/01: EnergyBulletin: ODAC Newsletter
- 2012/05/29: BPA: Agriculture News
The carbon lobby are up to the usual:
- 2012/06/01: WottsUWT: Paging David Appell and Nick Stokes again: time to fess up and apologize
- 2012/05/31: TWTB: Christopher Monckton, birther - Part III
- 2012/05/31: WtD: Monckton the "Birther": wacky climate change denier questions Obama’s birth certificate [vid]
- 2012/06/02: Puckerclust: Facts are not negotiable
- 2012/05/29: DeSmogBlog: 'Peer of the Realm' Monckton now a Birther
- 2012/05/29: BBickmore: The Monckton Files: Cracked
- 2012/05/28: Stoat: To the reader
- 2012/05/28: DeSmogBlog: Toothpaste More Dangerous Than Fracking, "Expert" Says
The Heartland saga drags on:
- 2012/06/01: Grist: It wasn’t just the billboards: How activists brought down the Heartland Institute
- 2012/06/01: BCLSB: Heartland Expert List Roundup
- 2012/05/31: HuffPo: The People-Power-Inflicted Downfall of Heartland
- 2012/06/02: BCLSB: Jan Veizer Didn't Even Know He Was On Heartland List--Also, He Deplores My Actions
- 2012/06/01: WtD: Operation Heartland: The Economist politely sinks the boot into the dying think tank
- 2012/05/29: WtD: Operation Heartland: lost of funds not exceeds $1m, climate denial now has a social stigma
- 2012/05/29: TP:JR: With Latest Corporate Defection, Heartland Institute Losses Now Exceed $1 Million
- 2012/05/29: BCLSB: Lomborg Makes It Official - no longer an HI expert
This week in intimidation:
- 2012/05/30: Tamino: Peace
As for climate miscellanea:
- 2012/06/01: DeSmogBlog: How To Divide And Conquer The Free Market Climate Change Denial Movement
- 2012/06/01: Grist: Winning the climate culture war
- 2012/06/01: SciAm:EC: 3rd Annual Antelope Die-Off in Kazakhstan - Was a Spacecraft to Blame?
- 2012/05/30: Berkeley:B: Is environmentalism bad for fighting climate change?
- 2012/05/31: ILO: Transition to green economy could yield up to 60 million jobs, ILO says
- 2012/05/30: NakedCapitalism: Greening the desert
- 2012/05/30: ClimateSight: Modelling the Apocalypse
- 2012/05/28: ProMedMail: Undiagnosed die-off, dolphin - Russia, Ukraine: Black Sea
And here are a couple of sites you may find interesting and/or useful:
- OhioFracktion: to save the land and people
- BristolU: Palaeoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project
- NASA: CASA "Quarterly Indicator of Cover Change" (QUICC)
- MongaBay: GloF-DAS - Global Forest Disturbance Alert System
- EarthGauge
- Project Pressure - Glacier Archive - A visual time capsule
- Climate and Stuff
- NOAA: Coral Reef Watch Satellite Monitoring
- NIDIS: National Integrated Drought Information System
- The Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement
- Wiki: Chart of nuclides
- Wiki: List of nuclides
- Wiki: Radionuclide
- JMA: Japan Meteorological Agency -- Tropical Cyclone Information
- Severe Weather Information Centre
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(which includes some quotations), An overview of my writing is available here.
<regards>
-hetP.S. Recent postings can be found in the week archive and the ancient postings can be accessed here, which should open to this.
I notice moyhu has set up a monster index to old AWoGWN on AFTIC.
"Weed resistance is a game changer for agriculture in the same way that drug resistance has been a game changer for the health-care industry." -Harold Coble
Live and direct from the laugh, it's funny, damnit department:
Looking ahead to Doha, COP18 and future international climate negotiations:
The Kahan et al. paper struck a resonant chord with many:
And a prime example of someone who doesn't get the Kahan thesis...:
Corporations being duplicitous? No, say it isn't so!
John Cook and friends continue their point-counterpoint articles:
Post Fukushima, nuclear policies are in flux around the world:
The state of the world's fisheries is a concern:
So, are these land grabs Colonialism V2.0?
Regarding labelling GM food:
Meanwhile in near earth orbit:
And then there are the world's forests:
On the tornado front:
Corals are a bellwether of the ocean's health:
Acidification is changing the oceans:
First, stop subsidizing fossil fuels
Second, put a price on carbon
And elsewhere on the mitigation front:
As for miscellaneous science:
And in the ongoing struggle for Open Science?
While at the UN:
South China Sea tension persists:
The issue of the law and activism is playing out around the world:
What are the activists up to?
About those unfunded satellites:
The actions of the Obama administration are being watched closely:
As for what is going on in Congress:
And in Europe:
Meanwhile in Australia:
The carbon bill is law. Now comes the fun part -- implementation:
The Murray-Darling Basin Plan controversy continues:
And in New Zealand:
While in the Indian subcontinent:
And in China:
In Canada, neocon PM Harper pushes petroleum while ignoring climate change:
The ISA/PRV/IHN virus in BC waters is potentially disastrous:
Meanwhile in that Mechanical Mordor known as the tar sands:
While in Saskatchewan:
Ontario is wrestling with its energy policy:
As for miscellaneous Canadiana:
Hey! Let's contaminate the aquifer for thousands of years! It'll be a fracking gas!
In the fossil fuel corps:
Yes we have a peak oil sighting:
Low energy nuclear keeps coming up:
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