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The Climate Ark is a Climate Change Portal and Internet Search Tool that provides access to reviewed climate change and renewable energy news and information -- http://www.climateark.org/
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Christian Science Monitor: The Deepwater Horizon oil well blowout that killed 11 men and resulted in the largest oil spill in US history was the result of a series of human and mechanical failures by "multiple companies and work teams," including the companies' own representatives, according to a report by BP released Wednesday. The failures contributed to an accident in the Gulf of Mexico that, BP says, was caused by "a complex and interlinked series of mechanical failures, human judgments, engineering design, ...
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IPS: A primary topic of discussion at a weeklong international water conference here can best be summed up in two words: "dirty water". Ironically, the venue for the vibrant debate - focusing mostly on pollutants, industrial waste and human sewage - is a city described as home for "world class water". And rightly so, claims Gosta Lindh, managing director of the municipally-owned Stockholm Water Company. Unlike people in most other parts of the world, "We are blessed with an almost ...
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National Geographic: This story is part of a special series that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge. No matter how bad coal might be for the planet, the conventional wisdom is that there is so much of it underground that the world's leading fuel for electricity will continue to dominate the energy scene unless global action is taken on climate change. But what if conventional wisdom is wrong? A new study seeks to shake up the assumption that use of coal, the ...
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Guardian: It is not often we are given a very public – and highly critical – insight into an industry as private as oil. This is a sector that is used to secrecy, and one before which many governments, never mind members of the public, are forced to bend the knee. Big Oil is used to waving away questions about the way it operates with the assuring mantra that "safety always comes first", but the blowout on board the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig last April blew away some of the ...
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NYT: Regulators who are supposed to police offshore oil and gas drilling are spread too thinly, poorly trained and hampered by outdated technology, according to a study by an Interior Department review board appointed after the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. The Outer Continental Shelf Safety Oversight Board noted in a report on Wednesday that oil and gas leasing off the nation's coastlines had nearly tripled since 1982, while the size of the regulatory staff had declined by a ...
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Time: Say this about Marshall Burke and Halvard Buhaug--they know how to title their papers. Late last year Burke, an economist at the University of California-Berkeley, co-authored a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) titled "Warming increases the risk of civil war in Africa," which sums up the argument pretty well. Then on Sept. 6 Buhaug, a senior researcher at the Centre for the Study of Civil War in Oslo, published a new paper titled "Climate not to blame for ...
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ClimateWire: Barack Obama was considered a climate change savior 20 months ago, rushing into the White House with promises to price carbon, accelerate renewable energy technology and participate in a worldwide effort against global warming. He was a champion to environmentalists and sometimes described the atmospheric impacts of unregulated emissions as a threat to his own family. Global warming, he said in 2007, is not "a someday problem; it is now." But the legislative remedy would have ...
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Business Green: In a move apparently taken straight from David Cameron's vision for more open government, Defra has today launched an online survey calling on the public to help shape its up-coming overhaul of the UK's water policy. The department, which is currently working on a major Water White Paper designed to address rising climate change risks and fears over water supplies and affordability, will ask for ideas from the public on how to improve the UK's water industry. "There's a growing ...
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AP: The Obama administration says it will reinforce and expand reforms being carried out by the beleaguered agency that oversees offshore drilling. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says a report issued Wednesday provides a blueprint to solve problems at the agency formerly known as the Minerals Management Service. The report recommends that the agency -- now known as the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement -- should increase the number and training of ...
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AFP: The glaciers atop Mount Ararat, the peak in eastern Turkey where Noah's Ark is believed by devotees to have settled after the biblical flood, have shrunk by 30 percent in surface area over the last 30 years, a researcher said Wednesday. "We used satellite images to analyse the response of glaciers at the summit of Mount Ararat to climate change," geologist Mehmet Akif Sarikaya told AFP. "The glacier surface area decreased from eight square kilometres (3.04 square miles) in 1976 ...
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Reuters: BP Plc's internal probe of the deadly April 20 blowout that unleashed the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill will assign blame to BP as well as other companies involved in the well's operations, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. The BP probe, which will be released on Wednesday, is one of many launched after the blowout led to an explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that killed 11 men and caused the worst offshore oil spill in history. The Journal said ...
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BBC: Todmorden, in West Yorkshire, is striving to become self sufficient by growing fruit and vegetables and keeping livestock. Some unusual spaces have been taken over to producing food, with a group of gardeners working to cultivate enough for the whole community. Jenny Hill reports.
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BBC: An investigation carried out by BP said it was responsible in part for the disaster, but it also blamed other companies working on the well. BP faces billions of dollars worth of legal claims for compensation over the spill, the worst in recent US history. An estimated 4.9m barrels of oil leaked into the Gulf after the blast. The well was capped on 15 July, and an operation to permanently seal it is due to take place in the next few weeks. In the 193-page internal ...
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LA Times: A November ballot measure that would rescind California's landmark global warming bill until unemployment drops significantly has become an albatross for the Republican candidates for governor and U.S. Senate. For months, Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina have struggled with competing imperatives: appeasing members of their party who want to suspend the global warming bill while wooing environmentally-conscious independent voters who could carry them to victory in ...
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Associated Press: In an internal report released Wednesday, BP blames itself, other companies' workers and a complex series of failures for the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill and the drilling rig explosion that preceded it. The 193-page report was posted on the company's website even though investigators have not yet begun to fully analyze a key piece of equipment, the blowout preventer, that should have cut off the flow of oil from the ruptured well but did not. That means BP's report is far ...
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AFP: A string of failures by BP and other companies led to the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, the British energy giant concluded Wednesday as it sought to head off possible multi-billion-dollar US lawsuits. As expected in the findings of its own inquiry, BP did not admit "gross negligence" for the rig explosion in late April that killed 11 people and caused the worst ever US environmental disaster. It put a share of the blame contractors Transocean and Halliburton, but it also ...
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NPR: BP is releasing a 200-page assessment Wednesday, detailing the cause of the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. The spill ultimately put more than four million barrels of oil into the Gulf. In addition, a new federal study finds that oil is gradually disappearing, as bacteria continue to gobble it up.
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ABC: Greens MP Adam Bandt and the independents who threw their lot in with Labor have made it clear they would like to see the Federal Government take action to address climate change. In its negotiations to form government, Labor agreed to convene a climate change committee made up of MPs and experts that would work towards putting a price on carbon. The Climate Institute says it is hopeful the new Government will act more promptly and decisively than the previous Labor government, ...
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Reuters: Roadside air pollution in Hong Kong hit record highs in the first six months of the year, hurting public health and economic competitiveness compared with Asian rivals, activists and lawmakers said Tuesday. The city's air quality hit "unhealthy" levels about 10 percent of the time between January and June, the highest level in five years, said environmental group Friends of the Earth. The government advises people with heart or respiratory problems to avoid lingering in ...
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Sydney Morning Herald: A new face may become the federal climate change minister, with Penny Wong tipped to stand aside after a difficult tenure. Her replacement faces the tough task of crafting a new climate policy - possibly involving a carbon price - out of a hung parliament. It will be an important decision for Prime Minister Julia Gillard; climate change became Labor's Achilles heel as the party struggled to come up with a policy. Senator Wong was one of Labor's most promising MPs when it ...
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ANI: Expanded irrigation might mitigate the effects of climate change in some areas, a new study has revealed. But some major groundwater aquifers, a source of irrigation water, are projected to dry up in coming decades from continuing overuse, and when they do, people may face the double whammy of food shortages and higher temperatures. "An important question for the future is what happens to the climate if the water goes dry and the cooling disappears? How much warming is being ...
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Business Green: China has surged ahead of the United States in the race to become the most attractive place for renewable energy investment, according to a report today from Ernst & Young. Last year, China and the US tied for first place in the consultancy giant's annual Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Indicies. However, this year's report shows the US has dropped two points in the official league table allowing China to top the list. The US fell back after it failed to incorporate ...
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Reuters: A BP Plc investigation of the Gulf of Mexico disaster played down the company's role in the world's worst offshore oil spill, seeking to share the blame with its contractors. The 193-page internal report made public on Wednesday drew fire from U.S. lawmakers and one of the contractors, Transocean, called it a "self-serving" attempt by the British energy giant to escape responsibility for the "fatally flawed" design of its deepsea Macondo well. The report threatened to reignite ...
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Business Green: The agreement between the US and China to co-operate on the development of critical clean technologies has delivered some of its first tangible results this week after US Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced a $125m joint US-Chinese research programme that will provide funding to two academic consortia. The funding, awarded as part the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Centre initiative, will focus on advances in clean vehicles, along with developments in clean coal, including carbon ...
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Business Green: Australia's new prime minister Julia Gillard has signalled for the first time that she will move away from her predecessor's climate change policy and find a new way of pricing carbon emissions across the country. Speaking late yesterday in her first interview since securing the support necessary to form a minority Labor government, Gillard revealed she was keen to scrap controversial plans for an emissions cap-and-trade scheme in favour of a new approach to curbing carbon ...
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BBC: Domestic heat pumps need to be subject to tighter regulations in order for them to deliver widespread energy savings, a report has concluded. The study called for better standards to ensure the technology consistently delivered energy savings. The devices transfer heat from the air or ground outside into a building, cutting the use of boilers or heaters. The study, described as the most comprehensive of its kind, was compiled by the Energy Saving Trust (EST). The ...
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National Public Radio: In the 193-page internal report posted Wednesday on BP's website, the British oil giant says the April disaster was caused by "a sequence of failures involving a number of different parties." "It is evident that a series of complex events, rather than a single mistake or failure, led to the tragedy. Multiple parties, including BP, Halliburton and Transocean, were involved," outgoing CEO Tony Hayward said in the report. The accident killed 11 workers aboard the Deepwater Horizon ...
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Reuters: Oil giant BP (BP.L) is open to talks about selling assets to Russian companies as part of its $30 billion fund raising programme to help pay for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the group's Russia chief said on Wednesday. "If Russian companies like Lukoil (LKOH.MM) and TNK-BP are interested, we are happy to talk ... and could give them the opportunity to expand outside Russia," Jeremy Huck told reporters. He added that the company had no plans to sell the group's stakes in ...
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Guardian: X
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AFP: BP sought to spread the blame for the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster Wednesday, setting off a battle of oil industry giants with tens of billions of dollars in potential fines and legal liabilities at stake. The British energy giant released a report concluding that a "sequence of failures" were to blame for the April 20 explosion that killed 11 people and unleashed 4.9 million barrels of oil in the worst-ever maritime spill. While admitting some mistakes, BP exonerated its well ...
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Friends of the Earth International: Commenting on a new World Bank report published today in which the Bank backs the practice of nations selling vast agricultural lands to foreign investors, Mariann Bassey, African food and agriculture coordinator for Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria said: "Rural communities and the environment in poor countries are being ignored in the rush for our land and resources. This is a problem that has been created by rich nations and is being pursued with relentless ...
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NYT: GIVEN the weather of late, extremes seem to have become the norm. New York City just had its hottest June-to-August stretch on record. Moscow, suffering from a once-in-a-millennium heat wave, tallied thousands of deaths, a toll that included hundreds of inebriated, overheated citizens who stumbled into rivers and lakes and didn't come out. Pakistan is reeling from flooding that inundated close to a fifth of the country. For decades, scientists have predicted that disastrous ...
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Canadian Press: A navy planner says the Canadian Forces must be ready to be called to the front lines in the battle against the effects of climate change. A recently published article by Lt.-Cmdr. Ray Snook of the Defence Department's directorate of maritime strategy says the military may have to step in if conflicts flare over dwindling supplies of food and water. "There will be a clear need for peace support operations too, and being called upon to intervene overseas and to help prevent or ...
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Washington Post: I'd love to stay home in my pajamas rather than fight through traffic so I can sit in a cubicle all day. I need help convincing my boss that working from home is a good idea. How much greener is telecommuting than dragging my sorry bones to work? The Lantern has been enjoying the pleasures of telecommuting for years, and its advantages are many -- that is, unless you like vehicle exhaust, tiny workspaces, dress codes and wasting your time. Working from home is a win-win situation for ...
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National Public Radio: First of two parts While much of the U.S. real estate market has been floundering, one area has not seen a dip. Green building now accounts for nearly one-third of new construction in the U.S. That's up from 2 percent in 2005, according to McGraw-Hill Construction, which tracks the industry. The numbers suggest a revolution is taking place within an industry that is historically slow to change. There are many factors -- and many players -- in this move toward green ...
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AFP: Estimates of the rate of ice loss from Greenland and West Antarctica, one of the most worrying questions in the global warming debate, should be halved, according to Dutch and US scientists. In the last two years, several teams have estimated Greenland is shedding roughly 230 gigatonnes of ice, or 230 billion tonnes, per year and West Antarctica around 132 gigatonnes annually. Together, that would account for more than half of the annual three-millimetre (0.2 inch) yearly rise ...
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Mongabay: Forest carbon payment programs like the proposed reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) mechanism could put pressure on "wildlife-friendly" farming techniques by increasing the need to intensify agricultural production, warns a paper published this June in Conservation Biology. The paper, written by Jaboury Ghazoul and Lian Pin Koh of ETH Zurich and myself in September 2009, posits that by increasing the opportunity cost of conversion of forest land for ...
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U.S. News World Report: The "Climate-1 Stop" aims to be just what its name implies: a single place where people easily can find all the reliable information, resources and tools about climate change that they need. Click here to find out more! "There's plenty of information out there, but it's really difficult to find the one specific thing you need," said Jessica Coughlin. "You can become overwhelmed." Coughlin heads the Institute for the Application of Geospacial Technology, a nonprofit ...
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AFP: Global efforts to improve access to drinking water have been hampered by rapid urbanisation, with the proportion of people in urban areas with access actually declining, according to UN figures presented at a conference in Stockholm this week. "In cities, there are today more people suffering from a poor and unsatisfactory access to safe water and sanitation than at the end of the 20th century," Gerard Payen, who heads up the International Federation of Private Water Operators ...
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SciDev.Net: A dispute about whether climate change will cause more wars in Africa heated up last week with the publication of a study that pours cold water on the link. "The primary causes of civil war are political, not environmental," said Halvard Buhaug, a political scientist from the Peace Research Institute Oslo, Norway, whose study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences yesterday, challenges theories that increasing pressure on food and water security caused by ...
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Reuters: Natural disasters are tending to kill fewer people but climate change may add to the toll by unleashing more extreme weather and causing after-effects such as disease and malnutrition, experts say. Better warnings of cyclones or heat waves and an easing of poverty in developing nations in the past few decades have made many nations better prepared for weather extremes, helping to curb death tolls. "In terms of actually saving lives we are doing well," said Diarmid ...
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New York Times: Simmered out of eucalyptus, charcoal is being hoed into the degraded soils of former forests in western Kenya. Roasted out of chicken manure, it is spurring the growth of malting barley in Australia. And in Iowa, researchers are plowing charcoal into corn rows, hoping to limit the tons of fertilizer that saturate the state's fields each year. At these farms and more, scientists are probing the limits of how high-grade charcoal, dubbed biochar, can be formed from plant and animal waste ...
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AP: A group of environmental activists set out Tuesday for Washington with a well-traveled and recycled solar panel that once stood atop President Jimmy Carter's White House, carrying hopes of persuading the current president to once again generate energy with the sun's rays. Environmental author and activist Bill McKibben is leading Unity College students and staff on the solar road trip, with stops planned in Boston and New York en route to Washington. They're toting along the ...
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Winnipeg Free Press: Scientists have been buzzing for years about the dwindling number of bees and linking that to less pollination, but a new Canadian study suggests the decline could also be blamed on climate change. James Thomson, a scientist with the University of Toronto, has spent 17 years studying the wild lily from his log cabin in a remote plot of land in Colorado's Rocky Mountains. He's discovered that the flowers have been blooming earlier. "Everyone tends to jump to the conclusion that ...
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Carbon Positive: Australia's confused climate policy and approach to carbon pricing has taken another turn with the formation of a new minority government on Tuesday. Following a general election on August 21 that delivered a hung parliament, a government has now been formed by an alliance between the incumbent Labor Party, the Green Party and independents including two conservative rural MPs, all of whom support to varying degrees action on climate change. Just what this means, however, for the ...
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Business Green: Over 4,500 pioneering early adopters of solar and other forms of micro-generation technology could be in danger of missing out on the government's new feed-in tariff incentive scheme. An analysis of the official register of feed-in tariff installations undertaken by the Renewable Energy Association has revealed that of the 6,900 installations entering the scheme since its launch in April, an estimated 1,390 were pre-existing installations that have simply transferred into the new ...
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Guardian
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AFP: The drought in Russia and floods in Pakistan are part of a global trend of unpredictable weather patterns and rainfall that threaten food security, experts gathered in Stockholm said. "We are getting to a point where we are getting more water, more rainy days, but it's more variable, so it leads to droughts and it leads to floods," Sunita Narain, the head of the Centre for Science and Environment in India, told AFP on the sidelines of the World Water Week conference. "That is ...
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Independent: Bjoern Lomborg, the bad boy of the climate debate who has rejected for years "alarmist" prophecies from environmentalists, stresses in a new book the need to invest billions to fight global warming. In "Smart Solutions to Climate Change," Lomborg lashes out at current policies to curb greenhouse gas emissions but also highlights the need to spend 100 billion dollars a year on intelligent research and green technologies. By spending billions in a smart way, the world could ...
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Corvallis Gazette Times: A one-day symposium in Eugene will bring together policy experts and marine scientists - an important step in exploring how climate change impacts on the world's oceans may necessitate new policies and management approaches. The free public symposium will be held at the University of Oregon's Knight Law Center (room 175) from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 10. More information on the event, including registration, is available at ...
 Entries:
by Steve McIntyre
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In response to a question asking Oxburgh about criticisms that the report – all five of pages of it – appeared “rushed and superficial”, Oxburgh described how the panel had patiently stayed in Norwich to see the project through. Oxburgh (my approximate transcript at about 10:51 time on program): After we had done all the [...]
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Notice of the Oxburgh hearing is here at 10.30 am UK time ( 5.30 am Eastern). The Science and Technology Committee will hold an oral evidence session following-up to the previous committee?s report on the disclosure of climate data from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. The session will be on [...]
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Although the formatting of the SST datasets needs to be completely freshened up, once again, before commenting, I commend the SST collaters for honoring their data by ensuring the preservation of comprehensive metadata – as opposed to their cousins at CRU and GISS. Unfortunately, there don’t seem to be any statistical analyses of SST measurements [...]
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For quite a while, I’ve urged people interested in gridded temperatures to really look at the SST data – realdata not adjusted data. SST makes up 2/3 of the record, but temperature critics spend 99.99% of their time on land data. In part, it’s because the data sets are much larger, but increased power of [...]
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Over the weekend (before I picked up my “regular” files), I started looking at Steve Mosher’s use of raster and zoo – both of which intrigue me a great deal, but got intrigued by something else and ended up finally figuring out how to extract .Z files within an R script without having to handle [...]
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Got back from the annual WFS conference at Erice, Sicily a couple of days ago. It is an interdisciplinary conference on world issues, in which climate is only a part, but an important part. As in previous visits, it was a very enjoyable visit – the conference attracts a lot of spouses, resulting in more [...]
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Geoff Sherrington and others on the First Difference Method post have requested a post for discussing Kriging. I am new to Kriging myself, so please correct me if I make any errors here. Steve McIntyre (who may be on the beach at the moment!) is far more knowledgeable, and has posted about the topic frequently [...]
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R coder mind of a Markov chain has replicated portions of the M&W work. They write: There are a bunch of ?hockey sticks? that calculate past global temps. through the use of proxies when instrumental data is absent. There is a new one out there by McShane and Wyner (2010) that?s creating quite a stir [...]
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Over on WUWT (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/13/calculating-global-temperature/), Zeke Hausfarther and Steven Mosher have been discussing the calculation of global temperature from station data. They list several methods of combining records, noting that most of the major indices use the Common Anomalies Method (CAM). They mention, but do not discuss, the First Differences Method (FDM). In fact, FDM is [...]
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Guest post by Jeff Id from The Air Vent (used by invitation) Occasionally when working on one thing long enough, you discover something unexpected that allows you to take a step forward in understanding. At the ICCC conference, I met Steve McIntyre and took time to ask him how come Mann07 ?Robustness of proxy-based climate [...]
Comments:
by Steve McIntyre
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You not playing fair Steve. You had their schedule before the questions were asked.
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Steve, I'm really glad you're not my Dad!
My excuses for arriving home late at night would soon be torn to shreds!
Keep up the good work.
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Only you Steve..
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And for those not afforded the educational advantages of the Beano and Viz, 'nosh and piss-up' = a sumptuous meal with a large number of drinks, at the tax payers' expense.
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"People had done an immense amount of work before, one of the most important things. They had a really tough work schedule before they arrived."
It sounds to me like they had each written their sections before they did the actual investigation. Very efficient!
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Hmm, the word LUNCH is written in capital letters, so it must have been important. I suppose the LUNCH was free, but you know, investors know there's no such thing. There usually is a hidden er.. trick somewhere.
And so on... Thanks Steve for your thoroughness. I just love it when it blows all the fog away.
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You're right Hu; I picked up on that. You noticed the sleight-of-hand too.
So 6 people spent 2 1/2 hours cobbling together 5 pages of whitewash? They msut have previously decided upon what to write.
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To translate for North Americans:
"Working dinner" = nosh and piss-up
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It is amusing seeing Oxburgh trying to have everything his own way. e.g. driving his team so very hard, but doing the report in an afternoon over tea and scones; doing lots of background research, but sticking to an externally cherry picked collection of papers; keeping an open mind, but scoffing at the standard practices of scientists and engineers. What happened to consistency and honesty?
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Oxburgh's presentation was very damaging to the UEA. Any reasonable observer would conclude that the investigation was superficial, that Oxburgh was the wrong person to lead it (conflicts of interest along with strong personal biases), and that the UEA had interfered with the investigation by limiting the terms of reference and rigging the evidence. It further came to light that Acton issued a misleading (at best) press release.
Russell proved to be a much more skilled whitewasher than Oxburgh. But now, Russell surely must be concerned that he's going to get a lot of scrutiny because Oxburgh...
Climate Change Action
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I hope you don't mind the intrusion after so long. Maybe we could all do with a laughThese cartoons originally appeared in either Ethical Consumer magazine or the New Internationalist magazine.For more cartoony goodness please visit the NEW WEBSITE
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British oil company Tullow & UK Embassy push disputed deal that could cut Congo's revenues by $10 billionConfidential oil contracts held by UK companies Tullow and Heritage in the Democratic Republic of Congo were leaked today, revealing the danger of economic rip-off and rights abuses in one of Africa's most unstable countries.The Production Sharing Agreements (PSAs) are accompanied by a legal
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Climate Justice ActionPlanning meeting: Bonn, Germany, 29-31 May 2010Climate Justice Action : Call for a day of action October 2010Human-induced and capitalist-driven climate change caused by CO2 and other green house gases is an imminent threat to the planet as we know it. It is happening now and it is happening fast. Centuries of exploitation and destruction have passed. It is the world's poor,
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Chris Huhne (1,2) is the new Department for Energy and Climate Change head.8th of May 2007 (url)Chris Huhne proposes several climate change policies:That this House calls on the Government to set targets for carbon emissions informed by science and not political convenience which will help to hold global warming to within two degrees of pre-industrial levels; recognises that the best current
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There are limits to what you can say in 140 charachters so here is a quick note on my thougts about CCS. I`m not an expert but it is a topic that i have been looking at for some time.I started out enthusiastic about CCS and annoyed with environmentalists who where against the technology. My positions was due to my concern about the development of China and India and the potential for shifting
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MORE ROADSRT @cpre £285m for motorways "Mr Toad rubbing his hands with glee" but "not the right priority" for carbon-cutting or rural communitiesMINI-INVESTMENT BANKRT @james_randerson : Richard Gledhill at PwC says green bank "very small beer compared to the scale of new investment required" #budgetUSING THE BANKS WE ALREADY OWNRT @globaljusticeuk : WDM says RBS should go green otherwise
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This years budget is not likely to surprise to many people but there are a few interesting proposals and a couple of delayed measures that we are reminded are about to come into force.The new measures:Up to £60 million "for the development of port sites to support offshore wind manufacturers looking to build new facilities in the UK"This is superficially similar to a Lib Dem proposal for
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A press release sent ouy by activists occupying Blair House Open Cast Coal Site says that the latest occupation started last night:"Last night twenty five activists occupied the site of the Blair House OpenCastCoal Site in solidarity with near-by communities and in directintervention ofthe environmental destruction that it will cause."The other recent site of occupation is the Defend Huntington
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An update on coal power in the UK:Coal power without ccs would have been ruled out if Labour rebels, Lib Dems and Torries had sucesfully passed an emissions performance standard. The EPS fell six votes short.Hunterston energy plant is planed to have some CCS Ayrshire Power, owned by Peel Energy Ltd. Planning permission is likely to be submitted to the scottish govornment shortly. This 1600MW
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Ed Milliband has just announced the govornment's latest energy efficiency plan for homes, and it is reported to include long term energy efficiency loans that are fixed to the building rather than the person taking them out. This approach allows a 'pay as you save' approach wherby the income generated from the feed-in tarrif and from energy savings allows householders to see a net reduction in
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I`ve just noticed that the Tories and Lib Dem's are supporting an Emissions Performance Standard in the current energy bill. An emissions performance standard is basically a limit on how pollouting a given application can be; in this case we are talking about power plants but similar regulations can be placed on cars or other vehicles.In the case of Cars there does seem to be a certain sense to
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Today's news has been dominated by the Scottish Government's approval of a major piece of electricity transmission infrastructure. The Beauly-Denny line is a 135 mile long high voltage (400Kv) electricity line that passes through some of the most scenic areas of Scotland including part of the Cairngorm National Park (CNP) . I live some miles away from the power lines track, but still within the
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A quick update on aviation and climate change. Two relavent reports came out at the end of 2009. Most importantly the Committee on Climate Change report on aviation, but also, the Transport select committee report.1. Committee on Climate Change Report "Meeting the UK Aviation Target"2. House of Commons Transport Select Committee "The Future of Aviation"More globally we have a policy measures
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Three of my favourite website finds of recent months.Have an investment cost from 1980 and wondering how much that is in todays money? Ask this website.Wondering how much power is being generated by the national grid, how much reserve is present and what the costs are? Check out national grid.What interesting sessions (video) took part while the politicians bickered in Copenhagen?
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The new Department of Energy and Climate Change oversight committee sitting in the House of Commons has been looking at the future of the UK's electricity grid "The Future of Britain?s Electricity Networks".1st April: Dr Michael Pollitt Electricity Policy Research Group (EPRG); Professor Goran Strbac, Imperial College London; Dr Jim Watson, Sussex Energy Group 22nd April: National Grid,
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Climate campers in Copenhagen just sent over a few interesting links.Here is their photopool. Here is a video from the spait of mass arrests. Here is a video by visiononTV from a demo called 'system change not climate change'.There is also this blog post about the emotions involved in just getting there.
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The latest round of UN climate talks are under way in Copenhagen. Pressure for an agreement is growing as those living with climate impacts become ever more vocal and the risks of 'business as usual' greenhouse gas emissions become better understood. Seventeen years of negotiations with rising global emissions is enough to convince some that 'business as usual' is now an accurate way of
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During the first couple of thousand days of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change there may have been a few dreamers. But now, in 2009, 6000 days after the Rio Earth Summit where this whole process began, the UNFCCC has become positively hostile to hope. You see, dreamers like to imagine a better world and a world of possibilities. The UNFCCC was setup to achieve a dreamt of
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For those too busy/jaded/depressed/ etc to trawl through acres of small print, and for those who would like it kept pithy and to the point, our digested day three round up available here as pdf and below as jpg.
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So we're off and running. Marc Hudson has valiantly put this update together despite the collapse of his internet access. You can either click to enlarge the jpeg or, better still, click here for the pdf
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It's a bit cheeky of me to post so grandiosely after such an absence, but I couldn't resist. Those of you bound for Copenhagen might enjoy...
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The Camp for Climate Action Scotland has been tipped off that anonymous activists have successfully sabotaged the Glentaggart opencast coal mine in South Lanarkshire. The unknown individuals have disabled the conveyor belt that moves coal from the mine to Ravenstruther rail terminal where the coal is then sent to Drax power station in Yorkshire.The sabotage has the potential to greatly disrupt
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Yes, the Camp for Climate Action in Scotland is up and running, and needs you to come as soon as you can!We said that the camp would be somewhere in the Firth of Forth, but the recent occupation of a soon-to-be open cast coal site by the Mainshill Solidarity Camp has provided us with a beautiful site that is in need of support and solidarity from movements such as this one.There is no shortage of
The latest climate change news from around the globe, brought to you by UNEP/GRID-Arendal.
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By integrating satellite mapping, airborne-laser technology, and ground-based plot surveys, scientists have revealed the first high-resolution maps of carbon locked up in tropical forest vegetation and emitted by land-use practices.
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Penguin biologists from around the world warn that ten of the planet's eighteen penguin species have experienced further serious population declines. The effects of climate change, overfishing, chronic oil pollution and predation by introduced mammals are among the major factors cited repeatedly by penguin scientists as contributing to these population drops.
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Comparatively speaking, forests initially have a weaker cooling effect during heatwaves than open grassland. This is revealed in a study that could help refine models for weather and climate forecasts. Moreover, it also provides fresh arguments for the debate on reforestation in the context of climate change.
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The Greenland and West Antarctic ice caps are melting at half the speed previously predicted, according to analysis of recent satellite data.
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LONDON (Reuters) - Increasingly erratic rainfall patterns related to climate change pose a major threat to food security and economic growth, water experts said on Monday, arguing for greater investment in water storage.
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HOUSTON (Reuters) - BP Plc's internal probe of the deadly April 20 blowout that unleashed the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill will assign blame to BP as well as other companies involved in the well's operations, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.
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LONDON (Reuters) - Smart meters to boost energy efficiency in homes do not automatically achieve a significant reduction in energy demand, research showed on Wednesday.
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This October 10, the international climate campaign 350.org is organizing the 10/10/10 Global Work Party to profile innovative climate solutions across the planet. From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, people are finding ways to get to work on local solutions and a clear message to their political leaders: We're rolling up our sleeves and working on solving this problem, what are you doing?
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A new report from the Carbon Disclosure Project examines the business case for putting carbon management near the top of the agendas for 10 large companies. For these firms, carbon management has helped reduce a range of long-term business risks that may one day threaten their bottom lines.
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Tarnished Earth is a dramatic street gallery of photographs telling the story of the destruction of Canada's boreal forest in the rush to extract oil from the tar sands just below its surface
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Australia's new minority government must balance the economic benefits of a booming coal industry with an electorate calling for climate action. West of Australia's Great Dividing Range, a cluster of giant black gashes marks one of the country's biggest coal mines. Latrobe valley's pits and power plants provide 85% of the electricity used by the 5 million residents of the state of Victoria.
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Public consultation on reports showing how offshore wind farm manufacturing sites in Scotland could create 5,000 jobs and generate £300 million has opened.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A new, highly detailed map of part of Peru's Amazon shows how much climate-warming carbon is stored there, and where cutting down vegetation has sent this greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, scientists said on Monday.
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FRANKFURT/MUNICH (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she was confident a law extending the lives of nuclear power reactors could be passed without backing from the upper house of parliament, setting up a clash with opposition parties.
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MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Tropical Storm Hermine strengthened in the Gulf of Mexico on Monday as it approached landfall near the U.S.-Mexico border, but oil and gas operations in the Gulf were unaffected.
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JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia could cut its projected greenhouse gas emissions by 70 percent by 2030 at a relatively low cost, but would still need help from developed countries, a government report said on Monday.
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TOKYO (Reuters) - Two Greenpeace activists were given suspended jail sentences in Japan Monday for stealing whale meat they said was going to be consumed illegally.
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PARIS (Reuters) - The warmth generated by human bodies in the Parisian metro will help heat a public housing project in the city center, the capital's largest owner of social housing said on Friday.
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Carbon management is moving up the corporate agenda and many companies now understand the need to handle their emissions. But should carbon management be considered a strategic priority?
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MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Tropical Storm Hermine slammed into northeastern Mexico near the Texas border on Monday, dumping heavy rain on a region still recovering from Hurricane Alex's visit in June.
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WRI is working with Google to make our data related to climate change more approachable and interactive than ever.
Google's Public Data Explorer is a new tool that makes large data sets easier to understand and explore. Users can reimagine data sets from a growing list of providers (like the U.S. Census, Eurostat, the World Bank, and, now, WRI's Climate Analysis Indicators Tool - CAIT) as interactive charts and maps that illustrate data relationships and trends over...
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SeeSouthernForests.org provides a new way to learn about, and protect, the forests of the southern United States.
Changes over a large area are often hard to see. This can be especially true when it comes to forests where incremental forest loss often goes unnoticed until it is too late. A new website and report by the World Resources Institute seek to change this and allow people to visualize the trends and drivers of change affecting southern forests.
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 One of our key priorities at EarthTrends is ensuring that the public have access to the type of information that can be used to understand trends, shape ideas and inform change.
Information is crucial to both development and good governance. Successful decision making can only occur if both leaders and the wider public have a complete picture of the key trends and issues impacting their nation and communities. This is particularly important when it comes to sustainably managing a country's natural resources.
However for many, particularly in low income countries, easy...
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The air is full of carbon dioxide and other pollutants;
The ocean is emptying;
We have observed record setting harvests over the last few years, and yet chronic hunger persists and has recently been increasing;
The planet is experiencing the 6th great extinction;
All of these are the result of human activity.
This evidence illustrates that we have not responsibly managed, neither through governance nor technology, our environmental resources. In the absence of finding a sustainable relationship with our ecosystem, we might conclude that we...
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 Human waste may be a topic that people generally do not or prefer not to think about. However, its capture and disposal (often referred to in terms of sanitation) play a vital role in human health and development. The importance of sanitation as a basic human need has made it an international development priority and a key target in the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. Even though since 1990 the percent of the global population with access to improved sanitation has increased (see Figure 1.), lack of improved sanitation still threatens human...
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 The number of piracy attacks reported this year have already far exceeded those of last year. According to the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), as of September 23, 2009, 294 piratical incidents have been reported, with 97 occurring in the Gulf of Aden and 47 off of the remaining coasts of Somalia. Figure 1 shows the placements of pirate attacks within the Gulf of Aden from July to September, 2009.
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 Today is Blog Action Day, an annual event where bloggers worldwide combine their energies to highlight a specific issue. Over 10,000 sites from more than 150 countries, are participating in this years discussion on climate change.
As part of EarthTrends contribution we will be highlighting a few key climate change trends and statistics.
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The 6th Extinction
A mass extinction is under way. Human activity, not natural phenomenon, is the difference between this extinction and the five previous big extinctions that have occurred in Earth's history. The current extinction is driven by habitat loss, overexploitation of species, invasive species and pollution. All of these, the result of humans.
The current extinction rate is between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than the natural rate. (International Union for Conservation of Nature, IUCN) Current estimates put the extinction rate at roughly 30,000 species per year which is about...
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 The global economy and energy system are interdependent strands where changes in one will often cause fluctuations in the other. This relationship was highlighted by the recent economic crisis which saw cumulative effects in other spheres including world energy demand.
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 The World Water Council notes that the right to water "entitles everyone to sufficient, safe and acceptable, physically accessible and affordable water for personal and domestic" functions. Yet, the consumption and production of water for personal and domestic purposes depend mainly on the water and water transformation processes available for industry and agriculture. Indeed, water use in industry and agriculture has become so critical within and between countries that the term virtual water has been coined to distinguish it as a unique topic of discussion.
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