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Big Investors Urge U.S. To Slash CO2 Emissions
Timothy Gardner, Reuters via ENN
NEW YORK — Big investors Monday called for the U.S. government to pass rules slashing emissions of global warming gases by up to 90 percent, joining a corporate chorus seeking to put money into clean energy.
Dozens of investors, who together manage nearly $4 trillion in assets, called on Congress and the Bush administration to pass rules aimed at cutting emissions of heat-trapping gases 60 to 90 percent under 1990 levels by 2050.
Wall Street investment house Merrill Lynch and Calpers, the largest U.S. public pension fund, were among those saying such rules could ensure development of technology to cut emissions from tailpipes, smokestacks, coal mines, and farms.
“We think this is a business in which we can do both well and good,” Mark Goldfus, special counsel for Merrill told reporters on a call from Washington about the push. ..
(20 Mar 2007)
Ex-CIA chief says U.S. must act on climate
Paul Taylor, Reuters via Yahoo
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The United States must act to cap its emissions of greenhouse gases and join the fight against climate change or risk losing global leadership, a former CIA director said in a report released on Monday.
“The United States must adopt a carbon emission control policy,” John Deutch, head of the Central Intelligence Agency in 1995-96, said in a report to the Trilateral Commission, a grouping of business and opinion leaders from Europe, the United States and Asia. ..
Deutch, an energy specialist who is now a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, also proposed an expanded use of nuclear power, international cooperation to develop clean coal technology and a sharing of the costs of emissions control between rich countries and large emerging nations. ..
While Deutch placed great expectations on carbon capture and sequestration technology to reduce emissions from coal-fired power stations, notably in China, a parallel report to the Trilateral Commission by French energy executive Anne Lauvergeon cast doubt on that solution.
Lauvergeon, chief executive of Areva, which builds nuclear power stations, said the capture and storage of carbon emitted through the burning of fossil fuels was too often presented as a miracle solution. “This technology will … not play a significant role in the limitation of carbon emissions for half a century,” she wrote.
(19 Mar 2007)
Ai Group urges cautious but firm moves on emissions
Philip Hopkins, The Age
MANUFACTURERS have warned against Australia joining a global emissions trading scheme too early, stressing the need to maintain industry competitiveness as energy costs rise.
Australian Industry Group (Ai) acknowledges that greenhouse gases have to be cut to fight global warming but says the competitiveness of Australian business should be at the centre of government greenhouse policy.
To reduce GHGs, Mrs Ridout said Ai Group supported a market-based approach, such as emissions trading, rather than direct regulation. Other policy principles included:
■Any trading scheme should recognise early action taken to reduce emissions.
■It should be phased in to allow time for adjustment.
■Existing taxes, especially those on business, should be cut to compensate for the extra revenue generated by a trading scheme.
■The Government should provide incentives for research, development and adoption of technologies to reduce GHGs.
(19 Mar 2007)
Nice to see Ai out of the global warming denial sandpit, and the four policy principles above are not unreasonable. But the anti-regulation stance is not explained and seems either dogmatic or mischievous, hoping for failure of emissions trading system.-LJ
A Host of Plastic Daffodils… An Odd Manifestation of Climate Change Denial
Rob Hopkins, Transition Culture
..The Lake District is famous at this time of year for its amazing displays of daffodils, especially thanks to Wordsworth’s poem, but the exceptionally warm winter and mild spring have meant that the daffodils have all flowered and wilted much earlier than usual, and, most importantly, before the tourists arrive.
The South Lakeland Parks holiday park at Fallbarrow, on the shores of Lake Windermere, has responded by planting thousands of plastic and silk ones instead.
This really strikes me as an extraordinary sign of the times. I wonder if the owners of the park have made the connection here, and, as well as the plastic daffs, have insulated their caravans, begun sourcing local food, started planting walnut trees and put solar panels up? If not, it is a demonstration of an amazing kind of denial, somewhat akin to men of a certain age covering their bald spot by sweeping their remaining hair over the top.
What next? Perhaps we should cover Mount Fuji with thousands of tons of fake snow just to keep the tourists happy. We could make some enormous plastic icebergs and tow them to the North Pole so we can pretend the real ones aren’t melting. We could give some students summer jobs dressing up as Orangutans and swinging about in the trees in places where they are nearly extinct. Or we could just stop pretending. Really. ..
(20 Mar 2007)
Tornado ‘prophet’ case postponed in court
Mail & Guardian, South Africa
..Dikeledi Njusa’s house was burnt down last Friday after irate community members disputed her prophesy that a massive tornado would hit Rustenburg and its surrounding areas unless everyone paid a R2 coin to “the water snake”.
She claimed the water snake had come to her in a vision.
On Thursday night, the local radio station held a talk show about her prophesy. Church ministers and traditional healers were invited to the talk show and all dismissed her prophesy as false. Police said about 800 people gathered at her home, demanding their R2 back, and her house was torched. ..
(20 Mar 2007)
If Ms. Njusa had have owned or advertised heavily through the local radio station the unpleasantness might have been avoided.-LJ
