Report of the Week (well free climate change book)

This weeks report of the week is actually a free book. Just how you respond to this will probably depend on a couple of things; do you have time to read a 400 page book about climate change at the moment, and does the book actually cover a topic which is worth learning something about.A slightly condenced ;-) attempt at summarising all this information is also available here, a short report
i produced, its 20 pages not 400 but it obviously leaves out much of
the science.

I have no idea how much spare time you have but i do know it wont be wasted if you decide to read this book. The report is derived from the research presented at the January 2005 conference Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change. This conference, held at the behest of the UK govornment was so successfull and its conclusions so stark that futher funding and resources where supplied to the organisers by the UK department of the environment (DEFRA).

The research presented in january was up-dated as a result of discussions that occured as these climate scientists met and exchanged ideas. Now all the researh presented has been analysed and integrated into this book.

The sections are:

1. Key vulnerabilities of the climate system and critical thresholds.
2. General perspectives on dangerous impacts.
3. Key vulnerabilities for Ecosystems and Biodiversity.
4. Socio-Economic Effects: Key vulnerabilities for Water Resources,Agriculture, Food and Settlements.
5. Regional perspectives: Polar Regions, Mid-Lattitueds, Sub-Tropics and Tropics.
6. Emmisions pathways.
7. Technological options.

Postscript; Climate Change, ReportA, ScienceA

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Climate Change Action Map

I thought i`d just show all you climate change action users where the other users are from.

A few interesting points:

1. There are lots of you from the USA, this is encouraging for those of us from Europe who tend to look at the USA with dispair due to the bush administrations stance.

2. Australiasia is fairly well represented but south america and africa are very poorly represented this is possibly due to language barriers but perhaps also the limited internet availability.

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Website of the Week: Arctic Impacts of Climate Change

This weeks reccomended website is by the canadian broadcaster CBC. This site isnt hugely indepth, but it is very informative about the impacts of climate change on Canada and is also very nicely and simply presented. Just click on a part of canada to find out how climate change will effect it.

I know CBC do some good work on Climate Change, and when i looked back-sure enough-i found a previous piece of audio of the week from there website here. Far more depth about climate change
impacts on the artic can be found here (report+audio)
Postscript: Climate Change, WebsiteA, ScienceA

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Business Action on Climate Change; Prudent not Green!

I try to cover as wide a range as options for climate change mitigation as possible in this blog, I also try to talk about the consequence for the many different stakeholders, undoubtedly I lean towards the environmental issues as this is where my sympathies lie. However I have just found a few good articles and reports about climate change in relation to business consequences.

This article in the journal Science talks about the subject of attribution of damages to environmental causes, particularly present and future climate change.

This article in Forbes describes the difficulties of insuring under a climate of change, insurance could become a major overhead for many businesses as there is less certainty in a more unstable climate system. As I have mentioned previously climate doesn't gently shift, rapid fluctuating transitions-painful transitions- are more likely (for more on this look for the work of Richard Alley of PennState University).

The escalating impacts encouraged Swiss Re and the U.N. Development Program to
co-sponsor the Climate Change Futures project at Harvard Medical School
aimed at raising awareness regarding the health, ecological and economic
dimensions of climate change. Leading insurers, economists, bankers,
rating agencies, asset managers and coal-based utilities were among the panelists expressing concern about rising risks at the launch of the
report in New York at the American Museum of Natural History on Nov. 1. The
prospects of increasing climate instability are daunting, and panelists
expressed their concerns as to how to insure the future.

(BusinessWeek article + More...)In a totally remarkable article BusinessWeek report on what some of the world top corporations are doing in terms of climate change mitigation, both for saving associated with energy conservation and in terms of using low carbon technologies so they are ready when the regulatory environment changes. It is widely expected that post-Bush there will be a nationwide carbon tax in the USA as there is already in Europe, and such schemes are likely to link up globally in the medium term.

In another recent report on the dangers of Climate Change to business by CERES it is warned that:

"Catastrophic weather-related insurance losses in the U.S. are rising
significantly faster than premiums, population, or economic growth, and many
smaller events are not even included in official totals"

Ther report finds that these increased insurance exposures are likely to be met not only by consumers but also by the government.

"Climate stresses will also place more political and financial burden on
reluctant federal and local governments as they assume broader exposures and
are pressured to serve as insurers of last resort. The most recent example
is renewed calls in the wake of Hurricane Katrina for the federal government
to establish a national catastrophic insurance fund, which is essentially
a reinsurance backstop to safeguard private insurers and their customers."

All these articles/reports and more are linked to from the earth institute of Columbia university.

Postscript: Climate Change, BusinessA

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Status report for the blog.

Hello All, just an update on where the site is at.

1. If you have i.e you will have noticed the formatting problems, i`ve been trying to sort this but no success so far (if you can figure out the problem all advice welcome Calvin dot Jones at gmail dot com). Alternatively to get away from this problem, get yourself a decent browser like Firefox or Opera!

2. I`m looking for a job at the moment (un-surprisingly I want to work in energy policy/climate change campaigning) so my next feature article on chunks of progress towards mitigation will be in the pipes for quite a while.

3. Hello to all of my bloglines and bloglet (email) subscribers, I`ve noticed that the numbers of you are slowly but steadily growing.

4. Any suggestions for content on the site (website of the week, audio, video, reports, news etc... always welcome)

Calvin

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World Buisness Council on Sustaibable Development: Update

Over the months since i have been doing this blog i have subscribed to quite a few mailing lists about climate change and related issues. Of these there are perhaps 3-4 that i regularly read. One of these consistantly interesting newsletters is by the WBCSD. Here is the latest issue , there is also the option of subscribing if you wish to recieve these updates.

Postscript: Climate Change, InternationalA, NewslettersA

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Formatting OK?

Just a question: How is the formatting of this page at the moment?

It looks fine to me through Opera but with I.E the sidebar is bellow the main blog postings. Is this just my copy of I.E or do other people see the same? Also how is firefox.

If you could leave a comment about this that would be great. Cheers, Calvin.

(also does anyone else here love the blogger spell-check? It brilliant, it doesn't contain the word Blog! or Firefox, lol )

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e-Action of the Week

This weeks action online is more of a personal commitment than an action. I regularly listen to eco-talk radio which is one of the few good national radio shows about the environment, this often involves climate change.

Eco-talk radio is currently on the endangered list due to changes in its funding agreement, so please check out the radio station, subscribe to the podcast a give a few pounds/dollars/euros to save this valuable service. This can be done by clicking on the Amazon oneclick button. Please give whatever you can, a few pounds if you are a poor student or more if you are a wealthy proffessor ( ;-) ).

Postscript: Climate Change, ActionA

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6 former heads of the EPA call for action on carbon emmisions. Why are the govornment following not leading?

The Bush Administration has come under renewed pressure at a recent conference 6 previous heads of the EPA called for federal action to fight climate change and not just token funding for technology, but for actuall mandatory caps within a trading system.


"The message to the Bush administration on global warming couldn't be clearer: Do something.

Since 2001, climatologists, environmentalists, economists, world leaders, governors, senators and business executives have been begging President Bush for something more than another study or voluntary cutbacks by industry on greenhouse-gas emissions, which trap atmospheric heat and warm the Earth. (more below...)

Rising surface temperatures are melting ice caps, raising sea levels, and hurting plants and animals in ways scientists predict will increasingly endanger human health. A study published in last week's journal Nature documents the first species believed to have been wiped out by global warming.

The heat is definitely on.

Joining the chorus for action this week were six former administrators of the Environmental Protection Agency dating to William D. Ruckelshaus, the agency's first leader, who served President Richard Nixon.

During a discussion Wednesday celebrating the 35th anniversary of the EPA, five Republicans and one Democrat agreed: Global warming is real and getting worse. The United States should stop ignoring it.

William K. Reilly, who served President George H.W. Bush, called remaining skeptics "outliers." He demanded remedies - such as energy-efficiency incentives or mandatory emissions reductions - instead of more hot air about the validity of climate science.

Global warming is rising on Congress' agenda, thanks to influential advocacy from senators including John McCain (R., Ariz.) and Joseph Lieberman (D., Conn.). But key committee chairmen such as James Inhofe (R., Okla.), who once termed global warming a "hoax," still block most good ideas. Last year, Inhofe called novelist Michael Crichton, father of the "techno-thriller," as an "expert" witness. A medical degree and well-footnoted fiction don't qualify Crichton to advise Congress on protecting the atmosphere.

Other countries are acting aggressively to reduce man-made contributions to warming. They're wisely heeding scientists' warnings that the ill effects of climate change will only accelerate the longer humans tarry.

It's time Congress and Bush likewise listened to the chorus."

Postscript; Climate Change, InternationalA, NewsA

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Audio of the week: Impacts of Global Warming on Species

Dr. Terry Root was interviewed by Ira Flatow on Science Friday about the Impacts of Global Warming on Species. Her part of the show starts in at 14:45. A very interesting interview highlighting some of the key environmental issues for the future. The consequences of climate change on disease distribution are also looked at.


Terry was very supprised and shocked by the enormous impact that 0.6 degrees of of gloably averaged warming has had and frightended for the future where upto 6-8 degrees celcius may occur!

I`m going to see this and in the future and i`m not looking forward to it, i want to know i hellped things somewhat.

Look out for the two final phonecalls from well 'programmed' citisens, that right its just natural variation and its to broad a problem to deal with! Ive heard these views all to often. Also look for how concervative Terry is, she wont talks passionately about her personal views, she is very carefull in qaulifying her viewpoints, whereas the media and most people are very poor at this, it makes for an unfair argument.

Postscript; Climate Change, AudioA, ScienceA

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Video of the week; Stephen Schneider

The video of the week is a great introduction to climate science. The issue of climate science and the media is also looked at. I must also point out that although a great introduction that doesn't mean there is nothing original in the presentation, i have been interested in climate change for several years i i found it refreshing and interesting.

Stephen Schneider is a professor of biological and climate science at Stanford but actually graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering and Plasma Physics from Columbia university. He was heavily involved in the Third Assesment Report (TAR) of the International Pannel on Climate Change (IPCC). Schneider is also working on the "Key Vulnerabilitites" cross cutting theme for the Fourth Assesment Report (4AR) now being undertaken by the IPCC to be published in 2007.

Slightly moving off track, I think the 4AR is going to have a huge impact when it is published. The date of publication is not long before the third meeting of the parties (MOP) to Kyoto and bearing in mind the huge advances in science and the increased evidence of climate impacts occurring currently I think it is going to be a far stronger statement than the current standard for climate science the TAR which is a rather conservative document.

postscript: Climate Change, VideoA, ScienceA

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Report of the week: Renewable Energy Network Global Status Report

This weeks report is a review of global renewable energy capacity and potential. This is a facinating report which is perticularly wellcome as it provides one clear example of real progress in the fight against climate change. A previous report by the tyndall centre looked at climate change mitigation as a three part problem: 1. Reduction in energy usage 2. Increase in energy efficiency and 3. Decarbonisation of energy supply. It looks like the world is making rapid progress on this third point...wether this progress will be sufficiently rapid will depend on future policy decisions as a result of political will, encouraged by multinational negotiations.

http://www.worldwatch.org/brain/media/pdf/pubs/ren21/ren21-2.pdf

postscript: Climate Change, ReportA, RenewablesA

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Website of the week: NorthSouthEastWest

The website of the week is a project of the climate group called "North South East West" which aims to highlight the current and future impacts of climate change around the world. This website describes the various aspects of climate change impacts and illustrates each with high qaulity photos.


"Climate change already touches every corner of the planet and every aspect of people’s lives. As our global temperature increases, its impacts will become even more extreme. To illustrate this we commissioned 10 of the world’s top photographers to bring together, in a single volume, what is happening in diverse countries and conditions around the world. This is their record."

Postscript: Climate Change, WebsiteA, ScienceA

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Report of the Week: WWF no place left to hide

Climate change brings a whole new demention to concervation, you are afterall attempting to protect a unique ecosystem/landscape combination. Climate change will force species to adapt or perish, for many species adaption will mean moving. What then is going to happen to national park boundaries? How severe are these effects going to be? These are a couple of the issues delt with in this short report by the WWF which attempts to highlight some of these important questions.

"Protected area agencies have rightly resisted attempts to move protected area boundaries or de-designate protected areas for periods of time. But under climate change, species for which a particular protected area was established may no longer survive there. Some protected areas—for instance in coastal, arctic and montane regions—may disappear altogether in their current form"

For the rest of the reports i`m currently reading look over to Climate Change Resources.

postscript: Climate Change, ReportA, ScienceA

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Climate Change mitigation broken down into manageable chunks.

I haven't written any feature articles in a while as 1. My computer died and 2. Since its been fixed I've been making a few changes to the site, catching up with CCC-Aberdeen and my online contacts.




My next article is going to be a look at the major pieces that make up climate change mitigation strategies for the future. These pieces include The likes of: Distributed energy systems, increased car efficiencies, cuts in aviation growth etc. In short I will be looking at discrete 'chunks' of progress.

When I first decided to do this one name came to mind, Robert Socolow, of Princeton university who discuses such matters as "wedges" of progress. I will therefore be looking informally at large chunks of progress as well as at the "wedges" approach propounded by Robert.

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Climate Group Dec Update

The climate group has just released it newsletter for Dec2005 and its review of 2005.

The climate group was set up in 2004 :



"The organization was founded in 2004 by a diverse group of companies, governments and supporters who saw the opportunity to create new momentum in the international effort to stop global warming"

The "year in review" is facinating, it shows just how much has been happening in relation to climate change during 2005.
POSTSCRIPT: Climate Change, InternationalA, NewslettersA

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Audio of the Week: Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum--Wally Broecker, Ray Pierrehumbert, Paul Knappenberger

This weeks audio of the week is a podcast from Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum.
 The title of this facinating talk is "How much, How soon, How do we know?", highly  reccomended.



Left to Right: Dr. Gavin Schmidt (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center), Dr. Paul Knappenberger (President of the Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum), Dr. Wally Broecker (Columbia University), and Dr. Ray Pierrehumbert (University of Chicago) pose for a photo after the first of the Global Climate Change forum. Forum I was held at the Adler Planetarium.

Postscript: Climate Change, AudioA, ScienceA

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Pacific Northwest National Lab look at Demand Side Management of the Grid

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has announced research into an advanced demand side management system know as GridWised (TM). This system will utilize the internet to dynamically control power consumption at enabled households by shutting down base-load such as water heaters and refrigerators, for brief peak periods. Usually power grids are hugely overspecified for normal usage just so they can cope with peaks, such as when a popular tv event breaks for adverts and everyone puts on the kettle. Removing some of this redundancy could save money and the environment....(continued+video)

"Approximately 200 homes will receive real-time price information through a broadband Internet connection and automated equipment that will adjust energy use based on price. In addition, some customers will have computer chips embedded in their dryers and water heaters that can sense when the power transmission system is under stress and automatically turn off certain functions briefly until the grid can be stabilized by power operators."

There are two distinct parts to this project, optional power reduction by consumers to save money and automated power off for heating/cooling devices over short periods of time.

"In the pricing study, automated controls will adjust appliances and thermostats based on predetermined instructions from homeowners. The volunteers can choose to curtail or reduce energy use when prices are higher. At any point, homeowners have the ability to override even their preprogrammed preferences to achieve maximum comfort and convenience."

The economic and environmental benefits of this approach could be sizeable but future innovations including integrated micro-renewable generation, batteries as an added buffer are also likely to dramatically increase the affordable level of intermittent renewables in the system.

An earlier PNNL study shows that creating a smarter grid through information technology could save $80 billion over 20 years nationally by offsetting costs of building new electric infrastructure – the generators, transmission lines and substations that will be required to meet estimated load growth.

For more on distributed energy systems have a look at my previous article here. A summary of the project is available here and a short video from here.

postscript: Climate Change, NewsA, RenewablesA

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Climate Change Event: One Earth Concert

A concert to raise awareness about climate change, now there is a smart idea!

http://www.oneearthconcert.com/


Natalia Ulla left a comment alerting me to the fact that this concert has been postponed apparently due to increased interest from major bands, they are hoping to up the scale of the event. Comments always wellcome, perticularly corrections.

postscript: Climate Change, EventsA

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e-Action of The Week (support the WWF's powerswitch campaign)

This is the first "action of the week", the idea is to pick a new online petition, letter or scheme to support each week and it will always be only a couple of minutes work, so do your good deed for the day, fight climate change from the safety of your own livingroom.


This week i have chosen to support the WWF's powerswitch campaign, on which i remember watching a presentation from montreal, a really well put together and effective campaign.

postscript: Climate Change , ActionA , RenewablesA

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Video of the Week-Wally Broeker (Columbia University)

Wally Broeker will be a familiar name to anyone with an interest in climate science. In this presentation he talks about the need for concerted action on climate change and describes the changes that very well may occur if we continue to "rock the boat".



The inocuous term global warming has never been acceptable to climate scientists, it betrays none of the complexity; indeed the globe may be warming on average but on local scales there may be cooling and there are certainly likely to be changes to the climate that have a far greater impact than the locallised warming. Changes in precipitation, evaporation, extreme weather events, the time of the year the rain falls, the intensity of the rain etc. These changes are innevitable to some degree, but if carbon emmisions are not brought down rapidly and dramatically we risk even greater re-adjustments to the climate system, changes such as the shutdown of the ocean conveyor (gulf stream in the north atlantic), changes to the monsoons and re-location of the ITCZ over Africa.

http://www.columbia.edu/dlc/dkv/earth_institute/grocc/grocc_broecker_56k.mov

" Dr. Wallace S. Broecker is perhaps the world's leading interpreter of the Earth's operation as a biological, chemical and physical system. His research interests include paleoclimatology, ocean chemistry, isotope dating and environmental science, yet he is probably best known for his identification of a "great conveyor belt" of ocean currents that plays a critical role in earth's climate. His research has shown that the earth's climate has shifted abruptly many times in the past, and he has been a leading voice warning of the potential danger of increased greenhouse gases in earth's atmosphere."

Postscript: Climate Change, VideoA, ScienceA

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Audio of the Week-CBC Climate Change Special

This weeks selection of audio is courtasy of CBC radio(Canada) from a science show called Quirks and Quarks. The show can be downloaded, or streamed from here. The show covers a range of topics:
Climate Change and Fresh Water, Current Issues, Oceans and CO2, Climate Change and Ice Cores, Carbon Capture and Storage, Question of the Week: CO2 and Trees

Postscript: Climate Change, AudioA, ScienceA

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Website of the Week-Global Roundtable on Climate Change (Columbia University)

I use the Earth Institute homepage a fair bit but this site is what i`m really interested in it contains the presentatons given at the "Global Roundtable on Climate Change" (GROCC) by a range of academics and buisnesses.

"The Global Roundtable on Climate Change brings together more than 150 high-level, critical stakeholders from all regions of the world — including senior executives from the private sector and leaders of international governmental and non-governmental organizations — to discuss and explore areas of potential consensus regarding core scientific, technological, and economic issues critical to shaping sound public policies on climate change. Such a consensus, if reached, could have a major impact on the international community due to the high-profile stakeholder status and top-tier professional positions of Roundtable participants."


http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/grocc/conferences/2005/fall/presentations.html

Postscript: Climate Change, WebsiteA, InternationalA

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Report of the Week- Decarbonising the UK (Tyndall Centre)

The Tyndall Centre recently produced a major report entitled "Decarbonising the UK: Energy for a Climate Conscious future". This report was the result of research undertaken in one of the Tyndal centres four major themes of research and represents the combined knoledge of world renowned experts from the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, UEA, Manchester and others.

The work developed 5 scenarios for reaching the govornments 60% reduction target by 2050, and then analysed these diverse pathways for clear messages. One clear message they derived from there work was that:

"growth in aviation must be dramatically curtailed from both current levels and [the] historical trend"

The report looks at the whole of the UK economy including the aviation industry which the govornment somehow managed to ommit from its calculations when designing the energy white paper. The various scenarios:

"Do not lend themselves to simple charachterisation whether in terms of energy supply, innovation,energy efficiency or economic growth."

What they do however is explore the various ways govornments can act i.e modulating market forces or straiht intervention, and then show some of the options down a given path. Some interesting findings include: the placement of Carbon Capture and Storage and nuclear as clear rivals for a low carbon energy baseload Nuclear; the increasingly distributed nature of generation in all scenarios that can reach the 60% cut; the vital importance of behavioural change; the prefrability of low energy scenarios over equally carbon adequate high energy scenarios for reasons of sustainability.

When looking at the demand side, four key variables where identified: households, transport, international shipping and structural changes in the economy. Decarbonisation of the supply side was seen to depend on eight key factors:

1. Availability of fossil fuels
2. Sucess of CCS
3. Role of nuclear
4. Penetration of Renewables
5. Availability of Hydrogen
6. Availability of Biofules
7. Decentralised/Centralised energy systems.

( I have actually looked at 4 of these, nuclear and peak oil i will leave to other people. Availability of hydrogen from various methods may be a future article)

The five scenarios are shown in the diagram below along with the various technologies involved with each, all scenarios include a diversity of approaches, there is no magic bullet but several key choices to be made with each approach.

Postscript: Climate Change, ReportA, UKA

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Keyword Index

I have decided to make a few improvements to the organisation of this site. The main changes are going to be the calculated use of Keywords in articles and the use of standard logos to easily identify the topic of each article.

There will be two small logos at the beginning of each article, one for the content type and one for the topic. e.g "website of the week" logo + "aviation" logo for an aviation website or "Report of the week" logo + "Low carbon technology logo" for report of the week to alternative technologies.

The keywords are suffixed with an "A" so that these, and only these articles can be brought up by searching for the relevant keyword in the searchbox at the side of the page.

The content types will be:

1. Event notices --------------Keyword: EventA
   
2. Audio of the Week ---------Keyword: AudioA
   
3. Report of the Week --------Keyword: ReportA
   
4. Video of the Week ---------Keyword: VideoA
   
5. Website of the Week-------Keyword: WebsiteA
6. e-Action's------------------Keyword: ActionA
   
7. Feature Articles -----------Keyword: ArticleA
   

Themes will include (to be extended):

1. Aviation -------------------Keyword: AviationA
   
2. UK Climate Policy ----------Keyword: UKA
   
3. Renewables ----------------Keyword: RenewablesA
   
4. International Climate Policy Keyword: InternationalA
5. Climate Science + Impacts--Keyword: ScienceA
6. Business Actiion------------ Keyword: BusinessA
   

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Local Action on Climate Change

Aviation is perhaps the least sustainable industry in existence.

Cutting the growth of aviation is the minimum required in order to mitigate the effects of future climate change. The government has consistently failed its citizens in this; its duty of environmental protection. Instead it has followed what the environmental audit committee describe as a predict a provide approach. This strategy will lead to aviation emissions rising sufficiently to"entirely negate" emissions reductions made elsewhere in the UK economy.

As the Tyndall Centre state in a major recent report:

"An unachievable and dominating theme in relation to carbon emissions is that growth in aviation must be dramatically curtailed from both its current level and historical trend"

Bearing this in mind, there are few local projects which can be more worthy of attention than the campaign against expansion of aberdeen airport..

The fact sheet and draft objection letter are here to be downloaded.

My views on aviation may also be of interest.

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I`m Back

Just to make some sort of explanation for my prolongued absence. My computer-which had been having problems for some time-finally died about 2 weeks ago. I have therefore had internet acess only sparingly over the past couple of weeks. So if you e-mailed me during that time be expecting a reply soon. For the regular readers of my blog, i`ll be back to regular posting in the comming few days. Calvin.

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