Click on the headline (link) for the full text.
Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage
The target wreckers
George Monbiot, Guardian
Two ministries appear to be set on scuppering the government’s plans to combat global warming
—-
First, the good news: the “green arms race” David Cameron promised last year has begun. Who would have imagined we’d get two green speeches from Gordon Brown in two days? Or that we would hear him say that “chancellors of the exchequer will now count the carbon as they currently count the pounds”?
The draft climate-change bill is also better than expected. Its ultimate target – a 60% cut in carbon emissions by 2050 – is too little, too late; but its means of getting there have improved.
…Now for the really bad news. Two government departments are actively undermining everything this bill seeks to achieve. One of them is the Department for Transport. It’s not just that it is building 4,000 kilometres of new trunk roads and telling the airports to produce “master plans” for a doubling of capacity. It has also sought to frustrate any effort to quantify the impact of its policies.
(15 March 2007)
Survey: Climate change seen as threat
Tara Bughart, AP
A survey on climate change conducted in more than a dozen countries found that a majority of people in nations including South Korea, Australia, Iran and Mexico — but not the United States — view global warming as a critical threat.
In the U.S., about 46 percent of those questioned said global warming is critical, while four in 10 labeled it “an important but not critical threat,” in the survey conducted by The Chicago Council on Global Affairs and WorldPublicOpinion.org, in cooperation with other polling organizations.
…The polling was conducted last year, with field periods varying from June to December. More than 20,000 people were polled. The margin of error ranged between 3 and 4 percent.
(14 March 2007)
Swiss issue key climate report
Swiss Info
A government panel has issued a set of findings and recommendations on how to minimise the impact of climate change.
The report released on Wednesday by the Advisory Body on Climate Change (OcCC) details the effects rising temperatures will have on ecology, agriculture, health, tourism, water supply and infrastructure in Switzerland by 2050.
OcCC president, Kathy Riklin, told journalists that the consequences were manageable, but a series of adaptations had to be made.
“What’s new is that we are now able to quantify changes to the climate,” Christophe Frei, a researcher at MeteoSwiss, told swissinfo.
The long-awaited report predicts that output of mountain hydroelectricity plants (60 per cent of total domestic power generation) could decrease by around seven per cent, since they will have to rely more on rainwater and less on melted snow.
The findings and recommendations contained in the “Switzerland in 2050” report are based on an expected temperature rise of two degrees Celsius in autumn, winter and spring, and three degrees in summer, compared with 1990.
…Over the long term, animal species in Switzerland will change to adapt to the global warming. Flora and fauna will increasingly resemble those from more southerly regions. Species more sensitive to the changes in temperature will move into higher areas and others, which are less mobile, will reduce in numbers or die out.
(14 March 2007)
The Swiss will probably do better than most countries, with their planning and social cohesion. However, their projections strike me as too optomistic, unwilling to think about the grimmer possibilities. For example, severe climate change may prompt massive emigration to Europe. It will be hard for the Swiss to isolate themselves entirely from what goes on in the outside world. -BA
McKibben: Renewing a Call to Act Against Climate Change
Felicity Barringer, NY Times
Some are born earnest, some achieve earnestness, and some have earnestness thrust upon them. Bill McKibben qualifies for inclusion in at least two of these wedges of humanity.
In 1989, at the age of 28, he achieved earnestness of a dour, frowning sort as one of the first laymen to warn of global warming in his book “The End of Nature.” In the ensuing 18 years, he said recently while cross-country skiing in the woods near his home, he felt caught in a bad dream, forever warning heedless people of a monster in their midst.
Now, when Mr. McKibben is 46, his role as the philosopher-impresario of the program of climate-change rallies called Step It Up, has thrust new earnestness upon him. This time with a smile.
Mr. McKibben’s title — scholar in residence at Middlebury College — seems far too passive to encompass his current frenetic pace. His online call for locally inspired, locally run demonstrations on April 14 has generated plans for a wave of small protests under the Step It Up banner — 870 and counting, in 49 states (not South Dakota) — to walk, jog, march, ski, swim, talk, sing, pray and party around the idea of cutting national emissions of heat-trapping gases 80 percent by 2050.
(14 March 2007)
Also posted at Common Dreams.
Kudos to Fox News
David Roberts, Gristmill
Yes, you heard me right. Kudos to Fox News:
(14 March 2007)
Incredible. Responsible reporting on global warming from Fox News. What a sign of the shift that’s taken place! -BA
