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Science paves way for climate lawsuits
David Adam and Afua Hirsch, Guardian
People affected by worsening storms, heatwaves and floods could soon be able to sue the oil and power companies they blame for global warming, a leading climate expert has said.
Myles Allen, a physicist at Oxford University, said a breakthrough that allows scientists to judge the role man-made climate change played in extreme weather events could see a rush to the courts over the next decade.
He said: “We are starting to get to the point that when an adverse weather event occurs we can quantify how much more likely it was made by human activity. And people adversely affected by climate change today are in a position to document and quantify their losses. This is going to be hugely important.”
(9 December 2008)
News Coverage of Climate Entering ‘Trance’?
Andrew C. Revkin, Dot Earth (block), New York Times
I recently asked whether the world is poised to enter an Obama-style “trance” on climate policy given the focus on economic turmoil and plunge in oil prices, which have in the past seemed synchronized with concerns about transforming energy policy. (Keep in mind that the chief executive officer of Gulf Oil said Wednesday that oil could drop to $20 a barrel and gasoline $1 a gallon).
Coverage of global warming, 2004 to 2008. Click on the image for a full-size graphic. (Credit: Maxwell Boykoff, Oxford University)
Now Maxwell Boykoff, who studies the media and climate change at Oxford University, has come up with an initial snapshot looking at climate stories over the last four years in 50 newspapers in 20 countries and (along with a colleague, Maria Mansfield) finds that the media may be entering a climate trance (or ending a bubble, depending on your view).
(5 December 2008)
Kyoto is worthless (and you don’t have to be a sceptic to believe that now)
Dominic Lawson, The Indenpendent
Seldom has a politician’s call to action been so rapidly answered. Mr Ed Miliband gives a newspaper interview in which he demands “popular mobilisation” to force the world’s governments to push through an agreement to limit carbon emissions. Within hours, members of the Plane Stupid campaign occupy the runway at Stansted Airport, causing arriving planes to circle for hours before being diverted…
(9 December 2008)
I don’t agree with the implication that it isn’t worth trying to do something about climate change, obviously, but I think the author brings out some cogent points about the current political jockeying in Poznan and the actual tangible effects of the Kyoto Protocol. Do we need to seriously change tack around the whole issue of “permits” for “carbon trading”, especially considering the predictions from the article below? KS
Too late? Why scientists say we should expect the worst
David Adam, The Guardian
At a high-level academic conference on global warming at Exeter University this summer, climate scientist Kevin Anderson stood before his expert audience and contemplated a strange feeling. He wanted to be wrong. Many of those in the room who knew what he was about to say felt the same. His conclusions had already caused a stir in scientific and political circles. Even committed green campaigners said the implications left them terrified…
(9 December 2008)
