climate politics
stoat | June 6, 2009Too late now. I got 323 votes which is about twice Labour, but only a fifth of the Tories so I'm still safely kept away from the mighty levers of political power on the county council. Whew. Unlike Simon Sedgwick-Jell in the Abbey ward of the city who is now the first Cambridge Green councillor. Though astonishingly, in another place we seem to have managed to lose to Broon - truely an outstanding accomplishment in these dark days.
Which brings me on to... no, not these dark days, not just yet. I mean our party policies. Apparently they are bad. Though I have to confess that I haven't read…
stoat | June 4, 2009Or, Pielke versus the world. To put my prejudices up front, my money would be on Pielke. Since I get to write this whilst watching a backup of my laptop (for for some odd reason) I'll have time to read the sources as I write this.
Background: global warming is happening, and will continue into the future. But how much of a problem is it now, and how much will it be in the future? These are difficult questions. Many organisations and people (the Greenpeace types) appear to automatically assume that All Will Be Ill, and there is no particular need to study this question or even think about it.…
stoat | September 16, 2008Belatedly, McCain answers the sciencedebate questions. Obama did that earlier; how does McCain fare?
Its good to see that the tide of drivel hasn't dried up:
I am uniquely qualified to lead our nation during this technological revolution. While in the Navy, I depended upon the technologies and information provided by our nation's scientists and engineers with during each mission...
is particularly stupid. I flew in an aeroplane recently, so I fully understand jet engines? Apart from that, McCain says nothing terribly interesting, though its all worthy enough. He will focus on this, and on…
stoat | September 2, 2008Stein alerts me to Obama answering the science debate questions, and provides some of his own commentary. T' Intersection reports, but wimps out of any analysis. The answers are here. So, looking only at those bits that interest me:
1. Innovation... What policies will you support to ensure that America remains the world leader in innovation?
Obama's answer to this (see below) is reasonable: increase spending on research etc. But this sits very oddly with his restatement of the problem:
...the U.S. annually imports $53 billion more in advanced technology products than we export. China is now…
stoat | July 17, 2008Or so says Gordy. The grauniad has a special supplement on Climate Change. I guess they aren't taking it too seriously, because I spent quite a time digging through their web site before I found it. I rather liked Monbiot Porrit's piece but for the moment I'm going to look at what Broon said.
First off, there is quite a bit of Under our Climate Change Bill, the first in the world... - my bolding. Ie, he just can't stop politicking. Well, he's a politican, I guess I should just learn to strip out the goo and dribble and see what he actually has to say. Which is...
Under our Climate Change Bill…
stoat | July 9, 2008The G8 have spoken: We seek to share with all Parties to the UNFCCC the vision of, and together with them to consider and adopt in the UNFCCC negotiations, the goal of achieving at least 50% reduction of global emissions by 2050, recognizing that this global challenge can only be met by a global response, in particular, by the contributions from all major economies, consistent with the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities.
Nurture comment The statement, which seems purposefully vague, also fails to clarify which nations would have to make the…
stoat | November 21, 2007A letter from the naughty coal people, and Hansens uncompromising reply, is at http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/NMAletters_20071121.pdf. I've been a bit critical of Hansen for over-egging the science sometimes, but exchanges like this are good to remind you of where you stand.
[Update: A partial apology here but suitably mixed into another attack on the coal CEO -W]
stoat | September 25, 2007He does if you read FP Passport, whatever that is (thanks Inel). He says Nobody is really arguing about the science. Everybody acknowledges the cost of doing something is a lot less than the cost of doing nothing. Everybody acknowledges that each of us has a part to play. The question is, how do you define that? Arguably (so to speak) no-one has been arguing about the science for quite a long time; though people have been using cherry-picked bits of sci as weapons (RP Jr's favourite meme). Invisibly, of course, there is still lots of science to discuss, most obviously over how much sea level…
stoat | September 18, 2007Yes, thats right, all the power plants will be in Northern Ireland, ha ha. Anyway Huhne plans zero-carbon Britain sez the grauniad. Interesting. The policy paper is here, reassuringly titled "final". Nice to see a major party advocating this stuff.
There are lots of bits in there, but the bit I was trying to source was "Setting a target for 30 per cent of the UK's electricity to come from clean, noncarbon emitting sources by 2020, rising to 100 per cent by 2050" ("clean" in this context means not-nuclear). Thats just 'lectric, but they also say they "would also set targets for increasing the…