Copenhagen

What can I say about an event that counts both Carlsberg (as in the brewery) and Nature (the scientific journal) amongst its sponsors? That event will be the EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF) 2014. In just a week, I’ll be stepping out of my little bubble in the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, on my way to ESOF 2014, held this year in the big city of Copenhagen. There, I’ll be joining several thousand others, from Nobel laureates to mere journalists in a week-long marathon of science-related events. I’ll be blogging daily from the week-long science fest. Not to name-drop, but…
This is not my opinion!  But forget about damning with faint praise, given the source this is damning with high praise. Obama’s negotiator, Todd Stern, will be here today. They have kept the exact same principles and negotiating stance as President George Bush did for eight years. Obama has carried on Bush’s legacy. So, as skeptics, we tip our hat to President Obama in helping crush and continue to defeat the United Nations process. Obama has been a great friend of global warming skeptics at these conferences. Obama has problems, you know, for us, because he’s going through the EPA regulatory…
I never said much about Copenhagen finding it all rather predictably depressing. But in case you did not follow it closely the youtube audio below sums it all up admirably in the style of Dr Suess! (h/t to Climate Extremist)
An unsurprising but still deeply depressing article from the Guardian observes that not only was Copenhagen, billed as "the last, best hope for change" a dismal failure (duh) but that Mexico City is already a dismal failure. Dozens of politicians, diplomats, economists, scientists and campaigners contacted by the Guardian agreed that while a global, legally binding treaty remains by far the best way to prevent global warming wreaking havoc on our civilisation, the chances of that treaty being achieved in 2010 are almost nil. The energy has gone out of the negotiations, said some, with the…
Says the Grauniad. Not the "Hurrah", I added that. The Grauniad doesn't come out for it being good or bad news. But I think it is. Emissions trading is a waste of time and an enormous waste of money, promoted mostly by those who hope to get rich on it. Carbon Tax Now. My previous post refers.
Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck YearsThis weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup skip to bottom Another week of Climate Disruption News December 13, 2009 Chuckles, COP15, COP15 Dailies, COP15 Tools, COP15 Alternate Forums, COP15 The Editorial, COP15 Demonstrators GermanWatch, Mediterranean Flood, CRU, Bottom Line, Carbon Tariffs, In the Balance Melting Arctic, Arctic Mode Switch, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica Food Crisis, Food Production Hurricanes, GHGs, Pledges, Baseline…
There's an old Far Side cartoon, with a split panel, one side showing St. Peter greeting people passing the pearly gates, saying "Welcome to Heaven, here's your harp." On the other panel, the Devil greets folks at the gates of Hell, saying "Welcome to Hell, here's your accordion." My guess is that getting off the plane in Copenhagen to attend the climate talks, is, for most of the truly sincere people who care so much about the climate, a lot like entering into the warmer territories - oh, goody, you get polkas too! No torment will be denied! Here's what we know about Copenhagen so far -…
The Guardian has run a front page editorial on the Copenhagen summit along with 56 papers in 20 languages. I read it at Real Climate who "takes no formal position" on its statements. I suppose it is to avoid the acusation of being political... Well, I have rarely read an editorial I agree with more. And I say that with the utmost formality! It was released under Creative Commons license, so I will reproduce it here in its entirety: Copenhagen climate change conference: Fourteen days to seal history's judgment on this generation Today 56 newspapers in 45 countries take the unprecedented step…
James Hrynyshyn at Island of Doubt yesterday put up a really interesting examination of the Copenhagen Conference's efforts to deal with just what is the "safety limit" for global warming. I won't add much accept to lament the fact that "as much as possible as soon as possible" is too vague for public policy goals. Because really, that is the only correct answer to the question politicians want scientists to answer: how much do we need to reduce CO2 emissions? Have a read.
That is, as the Dane said, the question. The short answer is "nobody knows," of course. The ice core records suggest that we're adding CO2 to the atmosphere faster than the planet has ever seen before. That doesn't necessarily mean that the consequences of doing so ;;;; planetary warming and extreme drought in dry areas, for example ;;;; will be felt soon, or at all. But in the past, such consequences sooner or later come about. And it would be foolish to operate on the assumption that the Earth has some of kind of hitherto undiscovered compensatory mechanism that spares us from them. Which…