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To find older entries, please browse the blog archive (eg. April 2007) or use the search box in the masthead. Here are the latest:
Usually in environmental controversies, the voices of the campaigners are the most strident. Not so with the Channel 4 film ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’ – this time it is the climate scientists who are mobilising to defend their work against a campaign of disinformation and misrepresentation by the anti-environmental film-maker Martin Durkin.
Few readers of this site will have missed the brouhaha raised by the UK broadcaster Channel 4’s transmission of a climate-denial programme called ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’, made by the fanatically anti-environmentalist and former Revolutionary Communist Martin Durkin. Not surprisingly, it was fully of myths, distortions and downright lies – just what we’ve come to expect from dwindling band of so-called ‘sceptics’ over the years. Those featured on the programme were all the old favourites: Philip Stott, Richard Lindzen, Fred Singer and so on – all 10 of the best-known global warming deniers were given long and sympathetic interviews.
Four cheers to Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London, who has just announced what is almost certainly the most ambitious greenhouse gas reduction target adopted by any political leader in the world – a 60% cut by 2025. Livingstone now says that climate change is the central focus of his administration, demonstrating a degree of vision and leadership that is sorely lacking elsewhere: his determination to make change happens highlights even further the UK government’s timidity on global warming.
Carbon offsetting – paying someone to reduce carbon emissions elsewhere so that you can fly or drive a car – has always been controversial. One recent site lampoons it by offering offsets for ‘cheating’: you can cheat on your boyfriend or wife, according to Cheatneutral.com, and someone else will stay monogamous or single, thereby keeping the overall level of cheating the same. It’s quite a clever analogy – as the page on ‘Five ways that cheatneutral is like carbon offsetting’ makes clear.
Former Communists are not renowned for their sense of humour. So it was probably a bad idea for Spiked Online, the anti-environment outfit staffed by former Revolutionary Communists who have since turned to the libertarian far-right, to start a spoof eco-column, poking fun as all the silly things us tree-huggers do and say. The column is supposedly authored by an Ethan Greenhart (geddit?). One recent edition asked: “How can I stop my friend starting a family?” (ouch, my sides are splitting), whilst another effort asked: “What is the most ethical way to commit suicide?” (laugh? I nearly died.)
There’s been a fair amount of media hooplah following the announcement by the UK government that it is considering setting up a gold standard for carbon offsetting, with the aim of driving cowboys out of the business. But what’s the difference between the dodgy firms planting ‘offset’ trees on someone else’s land in Uganda and more reputable outfits like Climate Care and the Carbon Neutral Company?
I should admit first up that I’ve never been to the place. But then I never want to. Reuters report today that an 18-lane highway is now being built in the west of the city. 18 lanes! That’s nine lanes each way! And at the same time, plans for a commuter train line running parallel to I-10 have been dropped because, according to the former mayor: “You can simply get to your destination better in a car”. And why might that be?
Ever wanted an easy guide to how to calculate your carbon footprint? Well, now you have one – and in a handy pocket-sized Collins Gem format. Starting with the essential background on why climate change is the world’s biggest issue, the book then brings together all the calculations you need to make to discover your own contribution to global warming – all you need is a calculator, your gas and electricity bills, transport mileage and another couple of bits and pieces and you’re there. (Here’s my carbon footprint, using these same calculations.)
Ever since I started working on my upcoming Carbon Counter book I have wanted to take a couple of hours out to calculate my own carbon footprint for the past year. Honesty is always the best policy, right? Well, the first copies just came through the post from the publishers (it’s properly out in the shops next month), and I have requisitioned one in order to do the calculations. So what’s the total?
Climate change activists are spoiled for choice at the moment. Whereas once we used to mess about with graphs and Powerpoint, now the centre of action has moved out into the real world – to power stations, airports and road schemes, the places that are causing climate change in the real world. The UK direct action movement is currently discussing where to host the next Climate Camp – and as I say, there are plenty of locations to choose from.
The UK Environment Secretary David Miliband made waves with a speech earlier this year mulling the potential benefits and pitfalls of carbon rationing – where every individual would be issued with tradeable carbon permits on an annual basis, with the number issued reducing year-on-year to cut the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. Miliband built on this speech with a much more detailed scoping study commissioned from external consultants, and published by Defra yesterday. I urge anyone interested in the potential feasibility of carbon rationing to examine it closely – many very important questions are raised (and answered). The study (in PDF) is here.
Armageddon, that is. Or so it seems. In the first chapter of Six Degrees, due out on 5 March next year, I speculatively state that the Arctic Ocean ice cap will probably now disappear whatever we do to greenhouse gas emissions. The models generally suggest an ice-free Arctic by 2080, but my guess at the time of writing – based on the evidence of very rapid rates of change in the real world (a sixth of the whole ice cap disappeared last summer, for instance) was that this was too conservative.
Global carbon dioxide emissions rose by 200 million tonnes in 2005, according to the latest estimates. This continues a trend that has seen global carbon emissions soar by 28 percent since 1990. I should know better by now, but I still find this shocking.
In recent weeks I’ve been feeling like one of my characters from High Tide. Whereas in 2000 it was Alaskan natives who were telling stories about the changes they’ve seen in the world around them, now I catch myself doing it. For example – I’ve just had to pick several cabbage white caterpillars off my broccoli plants – in December! These pests should have shut up shop and disappeared in October at the latest, and yet here they are still busily munching away. This is clearly a scandal of international proportions.
I’ve been to a lot of demos in my time, and I’ve seen some pretty ridiculous banners and placards being wielded at them. But none of them have been quite so absurd as the placard spotted by several correspondents at the recent 4 November climate change demonstration in London…
Following in the footsteps of the UK, Australia and – partially – the United States, France has become the latest country to see climate change hit the political agenda in a big way. Whilst Australia had the biggest turnout for the 4 November demonstrations (40,000 people in both Sydney and Melbourne), and in the US climate-unfriendly legislators got wiped out in the recent mid-term elections (see below), the French electorate has so far been relatively quiescent on climate.
The severe drubbing given by US voters to the Republican party at last week’s mid-term elections removes two of the most notorious climate deniers from their Congressional positions of power. First to walk the plank will be Republican Richard Pombo, who lost his seat in the House of Representatives. Pombo had previously spent much of his time trying to gut the Endangered Species Act, and was a virulent opponent of greenhouse gas controls.
Global carbon emissions are now growing four times faster than they were in the past decade, according to a report in the scientific journal Nature. Between 1990 and 1999 the average CO2 growth rate was 0.8%. Now it is 3.2%. Worryingly, 40% of this growth is attributable to China’s current economic boom – and the Chinese leadership has ruled out any emissions targets.
This week’s featured quote comes from Canada, whose environment minister Rona Ambrose is arriving in Nairobi for the UN climate talks. A bit of background: Canada’s Kyoto target is -6% from 1990 levels, whereas its emissions are currently at +35% and are set to rise even further due to rapid development of the Albertan oil sands.
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