Sunday, July 31, 2005

An energy revolution is coming, but soon enough?



The government aims to slash emissions of carbon dioxide by 60% from 1990 levels by 2050. About this aim Tony Blair said, "this implies a massive change in the way we produce and use energy". Fortunately he went on to assure the British public that "we are committed to this change".

With growing emissions in the service, domestic and transport sectors the government has an enormous task on its hands. In fact the only real decreases seen in energy use in the UK have been due to the movement of heavy industry abroad, merely giving the responsibility for these emissions to someone else. The only significant decreases in carbon intensity of power generation so-far has been due to moving from coal to more efficient gas power stations, the so-called 'dash to gas' which was itself responsible for the UK meeting its Kyoto targets by the late 90`s.

The transport sector is probably a subject in its own right, however there are certain synergies between it and the energy, services and domestic sectors. I believe the key to the problem is the establishment of a distributed energy system. The problem with the current energy sector is primarily the huge amounts of heat being wasted but also the lack of community involvement and the waste of energy due to transmission losses.

"The UK's reliance on large-scale centralized fossil-fuel power generation means that it currently wastes nearly two thirds of primary energy inputs into the energy system. This wasted energy corresponds to one fifth of the total UK carbon dioxide emissions, and is equivalent to two thirds of the entire North Sea gas output, or to the combined thermal energy demand of every building in the country."
Greenpeace: Decentralising Power

For this reason, if the prime minister is serious about 'Deep' emission cuts and about the urgency of dealing with the threat of climate change, he will do all he can to encourage a system whereby the use of waste heat is encouraged. A distributed energy system uses diversity of supply and a mixture of generation unit sizes to provide for the energy needs of a given locality in the most efficient manner. Some of the key technologies to be used are thermal solar power, photovoltaics (PV), micro-combined heat and power (micro-CHP), micro-wind power. These technologies have the ability to complement each other and used together may:

"Overhaul the way in which energy is generated, distributed and consumed-an overhaul whose impact on the energy industry could match the internets impact on communications" The Economist Technology Qauterly.

The chief reason for moving to a distributed energy system is the physical brining together of power generation and use which means that, when electricity is generated, at a efficiency determined by thermodynamic principles the inevitable waste heat can readily be distributed to local communities and businesses in what is known as a District Energy system. District energy systems can move above maximum efficiency for the purely electrical generation, which takes place remote from communities, to a thermal and electrical efficiency of around 90%. There are also numerous advantages of local schemes, particularly engagement and education of the local population. In the best community energy scheme in the UK, that setup by Woking city council, the community managed to cut overall emissions by some 77%, this was through more efficient power generation but also through increased awareness and significant behavioral changes, these are often the most difficult efficiency gains to be achieved. The local community in Woking is now actively campaigning for futher renewable energy input, in the form of a small wind turbine development.

Although currently limited by regulations and funding issues in the UK, distributed energy systems are not a small business, in Finland, the Netherlands and Denmark, DE accounts for 35, 40 and 50% of national electricity demand. Even in the UK nearly half of all councils have taken steps to promote local renewables and 8% have already, or are currently, establishing Energy Service Companies (ESCO's) .The difference between ESCo's and most power or transmission companies is that ESCOs focus not on supplying power and generating profit per kilowatt hour but in supplying the desired level of warmth and living standards, this works through energy efficiency investment, development of community combined heat and power and encouraging households to implement small scale renewable technologies.

"liberated from the constraints of centralized rules and infrastructure, co-generation and renewables can assert their own competitive potential" Greenpeace: Decentralising Power

It is feasible to simply replace current current nuclear and coal power stations with renewable sources such as large scale wind, this is in fact required in the immediate future, the advantages of a truly distributed energy system in the medium-long term are however to large to ignore. Iinfrastructure constitutes 48% of the investment in energy currently being carried out in Europe, and most of this infrastructure wouldn't be required with a distributed energy system.

Wind power is often unfairly criticized for its intermitency as a particular turbine only produces energy for 60% of the time, however this criticism is naive. The largest backup power supply in the UK is reserved for the largest power generating unit (Nuclear power station sizewell B), this power station works for 95% of the time but because it could in theory need to be shut down at any time there always has to be backup available. In fact the smaller the project contributing to the grid, the easier it is to deal with the variation. With regards wind in the current power system a comparison of nuclear and wind in terms of intermitency can be explained as follows.

'When a big generating unit dies, its like having an elephant die in you're living room. You need a second elephant equally big, to haul the carcass away. Those standby elephants are expensive and eat a lot. But if you had, say, mules instead of an elephant in the first place, then it would be extremely unlikely that a whole elephant's worth of mules would fail at the same time" Amory Lovins CEO, Rocky Mountain Institute, USA

On the larger question of a completely distributed energy system, there would be a higherarchy of power supply units and a lot more buffering of demand at the every level to soften peaks in demand. A small renewable generating unit such as a solar cell or micro-wind turbine could produce energy which could then convert water to Hydrogen and oxygen, the oxygen then being burned to produce power when the household demand when above its "base load".

"Intermitency is not a flaw, or a shortcomming as traditional reliability concepts imply. On the Contrary, requiring a system to always deliver generation the matches a fleeting peak load, gives rise to a set of generation and network assets that are invariably drastically over specified and underimployed, a situation long overdue for a frontal attack by innovative policy" Dr Shimon Awerbuch, an economist from the Tyndall Centre

The importance of renewables in the UK energy market is not only due to there role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but also key to the UK industries role of developing technologies that can be transferred to developing markets such as china and India, a key but often forgotten part of the Kyoto agreement. A third good reason for developing renewables is the societal impact these tehnologies have, in brining people into active climate change mitigation, and they certainly provide a talking point.

"microgeneration meets the barbecues test: if you've got the neighbours over, you're not going to show them your old boiler or you're loft lagging are you? But you might if you're boiler's also a power generator saving 1.5 tones of carbon dioxide a year or if you have a small turbine on you're roof. Microgeneration is a real talking point."
Dave Snowden, Director, Micropower Council

A report by the Tyndall centre found that emissions due to household energy use could be cut by over two thirds by application of DE, this is besides the numerous environmental and social spin-offs.

The key measure the government need to take to promote distributed power are:
1. The use of tax incentives to reward household that take on there social responsibility for tackling climate change by using renwables. Amazingly there is still vat on many renewable energy products although they are in no way luxury goods.

2. New building should be required to integrate some micro-generation capacity. This would rapidly bring down the price of many of these emerging technologies at at current prices of around 3000 pounds for several different types of generating system the cost would be very low once incorporated into a mortgae of the average 200`000 pound UK home. The rate of payback would be smaller than the rate of energy savings income.

3. Local sustainable energy schemes should be allowed to scale, amazingly there is currently a limit to the size of a "private wire" i.e special permission is required for a scheme over 1Mw, this is a significant obstruction to large community schemes the house of lords science and technology committee could see no reason for this limit in size pointing out that householders are already amply protected against the financial risk of such schemes. I actually heard the reply given to the science and technology committees question on this topic to the government, it stated more or less that these schemes would be popping up all over the place unless there was regulation and that these schemes are not competitive, despite the fact the energy they provide is significantly cheaper! As lord Whitty pointed out, the government set 4 targets in its white paper, all of which create tension with each other, Lord Whitty also pointed out that despite the fact he had introduced several measures on fuel poverty, and this was an important issue he saw climate change as the factor which should have clear overriding priority, it was nice to see the former energy minister talking as an individual, and a passionate believer in the importance of climate change mitigation! Shame he is the former minister for energy policy at DEFRA!

4. Local government should become a key player in climate change mitigation through its role as promoter of distributed energy systems.

It`s time govornment realised the inequities in the current power transmission system, and re-aligned the goals of the energy watchdog OFGEM to work in-line with the govornments stated goals in its white-paper as opposed to on a narrowly defined short term, lowest price goal.

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Distributed energy systems

My next article will be on the potential of decentralised power. This subject is of great interest to enviornmentalists and the govornment here in the UK because of its ability to build innovative technology markets and cut carbon emmisions at at very low prices, possibly even resulting in savings.

The economist seemed to think this would be big for investment and it is certainly making progress despite numerous commercial barriers in the uk. In Finland the netherlands anf Denmark, District heating is responsible for 35,40 and 50% of energy production respectively.

The advantages of distributed/district power:

http://climatechangeaction.bravehost.com/PrinterFriendly.cfm.htm

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Friday, July 29, 2005

eCARBON (international climate change newsletter)

Concise newsletter about the world of climate change policy, check it out!

http://www.greenhouse.crc.org.au/crc/ecarbon/enews_current.cfm

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Tuesday, July 26, 2005

UK climate policy and Aviation


The UK has an impressive stance on carbon emissions, it is aiming for a 60% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050. This isn't due to altruism or noblesse, but out of self interest, Britain is an island, much of it low lying, we don't want to loose our capital under the waves due to thermal expansion of the seas, or a volume increase from the melting Greenland ice sheet! As The UK`s Chief Scientific advisor, Sir David King, pointed stated " Climate Change is the most severe problem that we face today, more serious even than the threat of terrorism". Tony Blair apparently agrees in a speech last year he referred to climate change as "What I believe to be the worlds greatest environmental challenge".

referring to a report by the Royal commission on Environmental Protection Tony Blair again had all the words, "The RCEP`s report on energy concluded that to make it`s contribution to tackling climate change the UK needed to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions 60% by 2050. This implies a massive change in the way we produce and use energy. We are committed to this change". A conference of the worlds to climatologists met in Exeter at the world renowned Hadley climate centre during 2004, to debate the science that the RCEP report was based on. The 60% reduction target is the global reduction required by 2050 to stabilize carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere at 450ppm, which was at the time expected to result in the global mean temperature increase being limited to 2 degrees Celcisus which is widely taken as a maximum tolerable level of climate change (clearly this level is debatable). In the event it was found that the earth is loosing its ability to act as a carbon sink, i.e isn't removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as quickly as it has hitherto done. The carbon cuts required of developed countries, to allow India and china some scope for development i.e catching up with western consumption patterns in emissions per capita is thierfore aroud 70-80%.

The aviation white paper by the government could therefore be predicted to clamp down on the ever increasing use of aviation, the most carbon intensive activity most people ever do. For example a return trip to Australia uses around 3 tones of carbon per person! Whereas an average car may emit about 6 tones of carbon a year. The scientific board set up to provide reliable climate change information (the IPCC) however state that due to altitude and contrail formation each tone of carbon dioxide emitted by a plain "acts like" 2.7 tones emitted at ground level! Also aviation is by in large a leisure pursuit (3/4 flights) whereas most people need cars to some extent for commuting to work. According to the government white paper, "aviation has increased fivefold over the last 30 years and is projected to be between 2 and 3 times its current level by 2030". So that prediction cant be allowed surely? Well "Britain's continuing success as a place in which to invest and do business depends crucially on the strength of our international transport links" so it starts to look like they are going to go ahead with the building of new airports. However they do state that, "we have recognized that simply building more and more capacity to meet demand would have a major, and unacceptable, environmental impact and would not be a sustainable approach". The governments environmental "watchdog" (the Environmental Audit committee) however disagree with the department for transport (DfT) saying "The aviation white paper actively promotes a huge growth in air travel over the next 30 years", and goes on "The DfT has implicitly adopted a predict and provide approach". So how do the government reconcile their target for 60% reduction in carbon dioxide with the growth in aviation being allowed? They don't! The environmental audit committee find that if emissions increase on the scale predicted by the DfT the UK`s 60% target will be "meaningless and unachievable" suggesting that a 35% decrease would be as good as could be obtained. This is painting a rosy (sic) picture indeed. The reality was recently pointed out in a house of lords paper on energy efficiency that temporarily but justifiably, strayed off-target mentioning the aviation issue "As the house of commons EAC has repeatedly argued, the projected growth in air travel in the coming decades means that emissions from this source...could entirely negate the saving made in other areas"!

In conclusion, I believe that the government is "greenwashing". Undoubtedly it is aware of climate change but does not see it as a central issue. Tony Blair said during a talk only last year "If there is one message I would like to leave with you, and with the British people today it is one of urgency". Apart from the fact we can see a divergence of the governments policy from the track indicative of urgency and commitment, we have another reason not to believe the spin. Lord Whitty, former defra minister of only 2 years gone, is now in the house of lords, and he is not a happy man! In a recent debate on energy efficeincy he expressed his frustration at the ambivalence and general lack of urgency in the governments climate change policy. "My frustration was not because I disagreed with the broad aims of the government policies. My frustration was with the [lack of] priority accorded to the issue [Climate Change] and the [poor] level of co-ordination" I think we know what he means by co-ordination! Not much point carrying out a climate change program at the department for the environment if the department for transport comes along and encourages the airlines to destroy you're achieved emission cuts!
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All the reports used in the preperation of this blog are linked to futher down the page where i mention my intention of writing this article. Please write to youre MP on this one it`s such and important issue! Or if you are in the US why not write to youre elected representative about this.

An interesting radio program about aviation and climate change is here

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Monday, July 25, 2005

Climate Campaign

Got a spare 60 seconds?
Check out this site.
http://www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/climate/big_ask/take_action.html
Friends of the earth climate action.

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Today's find

Today I have found a very active and interesting environmental forum. I hope that by taking part in discussions in the forum that I will get some useful suggestions for this blog. And hopefully a few regular visitors :-) hello fellow members of :

http://www.theenvironmentsite.org/Forum

If anyone from that forum is visiting then feel free to comment on this post, and as you are most likely also environmental bloggers, leave me you're website as a link and I will take a look. If its interesting I`ll add it to my "some interesting blogs" section

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Saturday, July 23, 2005

Gas flaring in Nigeria

It isn't possible to highlight every instance of human activity which needlessly contributes to climate change. Once in a while an issue grabs my attention due to current importance or it's potential. Gas flaring in Nigeria is the most recent issue to attract my attention. The scale of the problem is horrifying and as an illustration of corporate contempt for environmental issues it is exemplary.

On the first point, that of scale, Nigeria flares more gas than any other country. The relevant figure is roughly
2.5 billion cubic feet per day! Now this sounds like a lot but how significant is it? It is globally significant! To tackle the problem of flaring gas in Nigeria would make a significant contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions (incredible for a single issue)! Flaring contributes more to global warming than the emissions of Sub-Saharan Africa combined! It is equivalent to 40% of all natural gas used in the continent of Africa.

The need to use fossil fuels as a source of energy in the short term during a transitional period to renewables or nuclear (contentious) is acceptable to me; particularly in developing countries as long as the utilization of these fuels is done efficiently. However it can never be justified to waste the limited and valuable reserves of fossil fuels, emitting carbon emissions without harvesting energy is in my opinion grossly irresponsible and reprehensible. In the case of gas flaring in Nigeria the issue is with AG (Associated Gas, i.e found along with oil). It seems to me that the companies exploiting oil reserves have a responsibility for any pollution they cause, local or global. The emissions of flared gas are therefore adding to the ecological debt owed by Shell, ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, Agip and TotalFinaElf (in order of decreasing emissions).

Although the remit of this site is purely climate change issues I think it is worth noting that the problem of gas flaring in Nigeria is symptomatic of a wider problem, that of corporate governance and accountability. It is the common conception amongst those living in the developed world that flaring occurs on highly elevated stacks or out at sea. In Nigeria however flaring occurs not only on stacks but also, regularly, at ground level with no fence as protection. More importantly the emissions are not just carbon dioxide but also dioxins, benzene and numerous carcinogens. Much of the Nigerian economy is based on subsistence agriculture these flares damage the economy by preventing growth around them for hundreds of yards and retarding growth in crops up to a kilometer away. The health implications on the local communities are also dramatic, the multinationals are abusing the human rights of hundreds of thousands of Nigerians in the densely populated Nigerian delta region.

To illustrate that oil companies work despite the populous not for them I have the following figures to present.
The oil revenue produced by exploiting Nigerian oil wells was 27bn dollars in 2004. Just as an indication of what this would achieve if run by a co-operative or was national with the income being distributed equally among the population, 27,000,000,000 between 120,000,000 Nigerians is 225 Dollars each per year (a significant contribution above what is earned by subsistence farming and limited industry). Obviously the companies are running things in reality so this is over optimistic, what contribution are these oil companies actually making? In 1985 43% of Nigerians lived on less than one dollar a day in 2002 the figure is 66%! This is despite the increasing exploitation of Nigerias' oil reserves, and obviously most the gdp of Nigerians is from agriculture.

Back the issue of flaring: there is widespread agreement between government and industry that flaring has to stop. However as a recent report states, the history of commitments on this issue is the history of "Broken promises, shifting ground, shady deals and ignored legislation"

A project for liquefying gas (by cooling) and transporting it by pipeline to Benin,Ghana and Togo was seen as the corner stone of corporate efforts to end flaring.However the newly constructed pipelines and collection systems ostensibly for associated gas are instead being used for regular gas fields and the gas from oil wells continues to be flared! The aforementioned pipeline was funded in part by the world bank ($125 million dollars) and a request was made to the world bank to require associated gas to be utilized rather than 'normal' gas as this would prevent flaring. The world bank declined this request despite the comments of the US government who stated that: "the major environmental benefit of the WAGP (west African gas pipeline) will be the reduction in associated gas flared in Nigeria". Without rules by the world bank or from the corrupt govornment action will not be taken.

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Please become active on this issue, read a report on the subject by the Climate Justice program and Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria.
Http://www.climatelaw.org/gas.flaring/report/gas.flaring.in.nigeria.html
Also have a look at the links to more information on the CLIMATE CHANGE RESOURCES website. An audio file of a 10 minute talk given by Nimo Basso, a Nigerian architect who brought this issue to my attention is available on the following website:
http://www3.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/07/317152.html

After that please feel free to write to youre MP and ask what the UK government is doing about the problem, or write to any of the Big 5 involved in the exploitation, I wrote to shell as they are the worst offenders.

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Friday, July 22, 2005

Today's Contribution

As I mentioned this blog is going to be updated daily. What happened to today's contribution? I spent most of today updating the other half of the site http://climatechangeresources.blogspot.com and the rest of the time e-mailing companies and people about this blog. This is so I`m not spending all my time writing about a subject I care passionately about without anyone learning about climate change. As you can see I have already added a counter so I can tell if people are passing through and if I`m being successful at drumming up traffic. Tomorrow I will be adding to the actual content of the site by posting an article about gas flaring in Nigeria (links already present on climate change resources).

Calvin

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Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Climate Change Resources Concieved

I have decided to run a blog in parallel with this page specifically for holding links to reports, i have just started designing it as of the 19jul 2005 but i hope it will soon be a really usefull resource for people wanting to campaign on climate change..i.e hastling youre local MP. Its nice to be informed when writing to anyone. The CLIMATE CHANGE RESOURCES page will attempt to be relavent to the blog here i.e i do the comment and short summary here and futher information there.

http://climatechangeresources.blogspot.com/

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Monday, July 18, 2005

Join the Exxon Mobil campaign

Check out this link to a campaing against one of the most enviornmentally damaging companies in the world. This site has a letter to the Exxon Mobil CEO , this will contribute to the growing pressure on exxon to stop denying climate change and funding climate skeptics.

http://www.climateark.org/action/alert.asp?id=Exxon

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Republicans act on climate change, lol !!

Republicans are taking thiere first action of on climate change, trying to intimidate climate scientists who highlight the problem! Senator Ian Transigent stated "we cant just sit back and allow scientific research to go on unpunnished, we have oil revenues to protect!"

Texas Republican Rep. Joe Barton has been harassing climate scientists whose research he dosent like, well he has recieved around $500,000 from oil companies in recent years
. For full story:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-07-17-hot-congress_x.htm

Sign the petition

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/760674840?ltl=1122044175

I love the American ruling elite :-)

N.B when i write love i mean: hate, disrespect, loathe, have violent impulses towards etc...

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Glacial retreat in the Andes


These photos where taken in 1980 and 2000 respectively! Not much of a glacier left, read "High Tide" by Mark Lynas for many more examples of the changing world around us.

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The true cost of air travel.

Air travel is the most environmentally destructive activity most people will ever take part in. I`m currently researching the topic thoroughly but in the mean time the following reportsby the Environmental Audit committee(EAC) may be of interest. The EAC is the group of MPs chosen by all the political parties on a proportional basis (i.e roughly half the members are labour as labour has roughly half the seats). The EAC has the job of holding the government to account on environmental issues.

Climate Change is increasingly gaining the position on the political agenda it deserves, however there is a lot of rhetoric and apparently little political will to tackle sensitive issues such as limiting the growth of aviation.

These reports over the period of around a year show how the government is managing to talk green and indeed act green in some areas but is going to miss all its longterm targets due to lack of action on aviation emissions.

Budget 2003 and Aviation
Pre-Budget Report 2003: Aviation Follow-up
Aviation: Sustainability and the Government Response
Aviation: Sustainability and the Government's second response

A letter i wrote a while back based on thesese reports and others:
http://climatechangeaction.bravehost.com/Aviation%20Leter.htm

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Climate Change Denial...Not Rare Enough Yet!

A letter to someone I didn't...entirely agree with!


I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you aren't actually stupid enough to believe that the currently occurring climate change is anything but anthropogenic in origin. I assume you are being paid well for you're opinion! I wonder if the following website rings any bells?


http://www.exxonsecrets.org/

I`am so fed up with arguing about the "Science" of climate change. It is no longer an issue of science it is a political issues, i`m afraid there is scientific consensus that climate change is cause be anthropogenic emissions, largely carbon dioxide but also methane. I was recently at a conference titled "Global Warming 8" at which numerous small farmers and activists from around the world testified to their first hand experiences of climate change and the impacts it is having on their livelihoods. The book High Tide by Mark Lynas is also a superb introduction to the subject. If anyone is reading this wants an introduction to climate change, and evidence for the effects then I highly recommend this book, it include photos of glaciers today and 60 years ago for example, retreat of continental glaciers particularly in the Andes is a very good indicator of climate change. Finally I should point out that in terms of "scientific consensus" we are really talking about what is written in peer review journals the preeminent of which are "Science" (USA) and "Nature" (UK) a literature review of Science found that not a single article in the last 5 years denied the basic fact that climate change at its current rate is unprecedented and a result of human induced carbon emissions! A quote from this report is

"That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords "climate change". The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position."

This can be found on a superb blog by Mark Lynas
http://www.livejournal.com/users/climate change/

Amazingly it turns out that anyone without a vested interested in denying climate change such as oil companies are united in their acceptance of the science although often divided as to the approach we should take, this is natural and where the debate must move to.

I might finally add on a personal note, shame on you! I am far from a moralist but what you are doing in suggesting that there is a uncertainty here is a disgrace! You're actions are similar to those of the tobacco industry morons after the health risks where established, but before this was publicly accepted! I recently asked former president of Ireland, Mary Robinson, weather litigation against companies such as those you presumably work for is an avenue, which was worth pursuing, her answer was, emphatically yes! Its one thing to be an oil company but quite another to misinform people and tell politicians this is just a lefty/green alliance of hype.

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