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‘Safe’ climate means ‘no to coal’
Richard Black, BBC News
About three-quarters of the world’s fossil fuel reserves must be left unused if society is to avoid dangerous climate change, scientists warn.
More than 100 nations support the goal of keeping temperature rise below 2C.
But the scientists say that without major curbs on fossil fuel use, 2C will probably be reached by 2050.
Writing in Nature, they say politicians should focus on limiting humanity’s total output of CO2 rather than setting a “safe” level for annual emissions.
(29 April 2009)
Reuters: Study: World can ‘safely’ burn only 25% of oil
Monbiot: The media laps up fake controversy over climate change
George Monbiot, Guardian
Proof of paid-for climate denial at the Global Climate Coalition comes as no surprise, but it is no less depressing for that
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There are three kinds of climate change denier. There are those who simply don’t want to accept the evidence, because it is too much to bear, or because it threatens aspects of their lives that they don’t want to change. These are by far the most numerous, and account for most of those whose comments will follow this post.
I have some sympathy for their position. Denial is most people’s first response to something they don’t want to hear, whether it is a diagnosis of terminal illness or the threat presented by the rise of the Axis Powers. The moral, intellectual and practical challenge of climate change is unprecedented. The urge to duck it almost irresistible.
Then there is a smaller group of people – almost all men, generally in their sixties or above – who are not paid for their stance, but who have achieved a little post-retirement celebrity through well-timed controversialism.
… The third category consists of those who are paid to deny that climate change is happening. Patrick Michaels and Steve Milloy, whose work for fossil fuel companies has been repeatedly exposed, are good examples. There are probably a few paid stooges contributing to the Guardian’s discussion threads as well.
Even when the risk of exposure is high, journalists working for newspapers, television or radio have secretly taken money from undisclosed interests to champion their views. Fossil fuel companies have inserted their message into every medium by means of hired hands who don’t reveal their sources of funding.
… now we have a smoking gun. Last week the New York Times revealed that the Global Climate Coalition, the industry-funded body that led the campaign to persuade people that manmade climate wasn’t happening, knew all along that it was.
(29 April 2009)
Climate chaos predicted by CO2 study
Steve Connor, The Independent
The world will overshoot its long-term target on greenhouse gas emissions within two decades. A study has found that the average global temperature will rise above the threshold that could cause dangerous climate change during that time.
Scientists have calculated that the world has already produced about a third of the total amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) that could be emitted between 2000 and 2050 and still keep within a C rise in global average temperatures.
At the current rate at which CO2 is emitted globally – which is increasing by 3 per cent a year – countries will have exceeded their total limit of 1,000 billion tons within 20 years, which would be about 20 years earlier than planned under international obligations. “If we continue burning fossil fuels as we do, we will have exhausted the carbon budget in merely 20 years, and global warming will go well beyond C,” said Malte Meinshausen of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, who led the study, published in Nature.
(30 April 2009)
