Off to volunteer in London

I'M OFF TO LONDON SO POSTINGS MAY BECOME LESS FREQUENT FOR A WHILE (6 MONTHS)

Since graduating 9 months ago I have been looking for a job in the environmental sector, specifically a job relating to energy policy or directly to climate change. This has proved a near impossible task. Now this is a competitive industry and understandably so, but you would be amazed how hard it is jut to Volunteer somewhere! And naturally all the jobs require experience...I`m sure there is a situation like this in a book by Joseph Heller.

Anyway I`ve finally got a voluntary position with a group I have been heavily involved with since leaving uni, Campaign against Climate Change. So now I'm off to London to volunteer-this is not a cheap thing to do. Hopefully once I have this experience WWF/FOE/Greenpeace etc will at least give me an interview! It's amazingly difficult to get just that, they say 'we want someone with a passion for the subject' and then, presumably, chuck my application out because I don't have an environmental sciences masters! Phil Thornhill from CCC who I will be working for was concerned that I was over qualified for a role that basically entails helping to run the office, but the next step up from this, working with an NGO, assisting with their climate change policy is completely inaccessible...how can I show my knowledge and passion for a subject when I cant get through the door? Good old catch 22 again. Well that's life, I'll stick at it, hopefully at some point someone will decide to start paying me for my knowledge and enthusiam--just a thought.

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Climate Change in the News: Who covers it best? BBC,CH4,ITV

All of 2006 climate change was a frequent headline story in the UK, from the entry into force of Kyoto, to the G8 summit, to Katrina and, reaching its peak during December and the Montreal negotiations.

This trend seems set to continue. For those of you outside of the UK I`ll just give you an overview of our broadcasting system. A few years ago there where only four channels, that everyone could easily view. A few people (10% range) also had sky, a satellite system with several hundred channels. More recently digital services have become available for the majority, this combined with the rapid expansion of sky has led to most people having thoroughly multi-channel services.

However the 4 main channels still have the larger portion of market share, these channels are BBC1, BBC2, ITV and Channel4.

1. The details of the BBC's climate chaos series can be found here.
2. ITV is currently carrying out a series of special reports on climate change from around the world, the show is also attempting to offset its carbon footprint so they don't make the problem they are n reporting on worse.
3. Channel 4 are also doing a series of special reports on climate change for there main news program.

These programs all occur in the context of the BBC's climate change prediction project where you can add you computer to a pool of around 60000 other machines and help with climate modeling. Thre are also a series of programs about climate change on BBC4.

postscript; Climate Change, NewsA

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Video of the Week: Climate Change--Forget the Feds

This weeks video of the week is a product of Sourcecode TV and comes to you via itsgettinghotinhere a communal blog that has some great content about community activism. To summarise this program i take a quote form itsgettinghotinhere:

"What do you do when the top level leaders in your Country refuse to comply with international agreements about global warming? You make them irrelevant and work locally.This episode, meet the Mayors, who are making sure their cities meet or beat Kyoto greenhouse gas emmission reductions. Hear from Daphne Wysham about the hidden victims of carbon trading (which we just found out is managed by the World Bank. go figure). Find out what the international youth movement is doing about climate change. And travel to the Arctic with the Cape Farewell artists and scientists."

I think this is a very interesting development, i'm fairly submersed in US politics at the moment and I find it quite amazing just how little the the federal govornment seem to care about the impact there policies have on the environment. But, perhaps because of the extremity of the federal govornments position, the US's environmental movement is a very dynamic and energetic one.

Postscript: Climate Change, VideoA, ActivismA

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Audio of the Week: Living Planet Deutsche Welle Radio

This weeks audio of the week is from deutsche welle radio, yet again their show- living planet- leads the way in environmental news. The best English language environmental program is from a German radio station!


Issues covered include global emissions trends, swedens plans of going oil free, and solar energy's continued rapid growth.


Remember to find previous audio of the week search in the side bar for "AudioA". For regular updates subscribe via bloglines, bloglet or RSS feed. Please vote in the pole at the side of the page.



Postscript; Climate Change, RenewablesA, InternationalA, AudioA

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Dick Cheeney, forget about the shooting look at...

It wasnt easy for me to find a reason to work this into my blog on climate change, i guess my best excuse would be the line about lobbyists writing energy policy...i`m sure you wont mind that i`ve strayed slightly off topic, its hillarious stuff.

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Campaign against Climate Change-Aberdeen makes Front Page News

The group i`m most heavily involved with in terms of action on climate change is the Campaign against Climate Change. We are currently foccusing on the expansion of Aberdeen airport. Our upcomming meeting, on the 28th Feb in Dyce Primary School from 7:30 to 9:30pm has made the fron page of the Press and Journal, our local paper.

We need all the publicity we can get so that article was definetly appreciated, its quicker than handing out flyers or even putting up posters!

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A new information outlet on climate change.

Jeff at sustainablog recently mentioned that he had created a squidoo 'lens' so i went to have a look, realised that it low maintainence and has some advantages over a blog so i started one myself. Here it is, the main advantage is that its easy to present reccomended books without it looking messy, with more flexibility than the usuall amazon banners. I also placed an rss feed from this site and from climate ark on it, so that content auto refreshes. I`m only intending to use it as a portal for people looking for climate change resources, possibly with an article of the day as jeff does.

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A short diatribe on climate change. Diatribe "a bitter and abusive speech or writing"

Society will at some point reduce its carbon output.

The point at which this will happen is not currently clear. Proactive or anticipatory policies, working on the basis of the precautionary principle would if adopted, have lead drastic cuts in the emissions of greenhouse gases already.

The next stage of possible action is the transitional period between anticipation and reaction. This is not where the battle aught to be fought, and indeed may prove enormously damaging for society and the natural world. We are seeing ample evidence of climate change from around the world, this will lead to real conviction of the need to act. However the climate system has enormous inertia, of the level 50-70 years, now we can see evidence it is to late to stop a huge amount of damage, but we still have options in mitigation, catastrophic climate change-as characterized by largescale climatic anomalies, circulation changes and accelerated positive feedbacks-may still be avoided.

The final stage which we may reach is the fully reactionary, or adaptive phase, where we have no option but to adapt the best we can. Climate change is very unlikely to give us this choice as a manageable option. If the degree of mitigation carried out in the transitional phase is insufficient then adaption will not be possible for developed society, let alone developing societies. Unfortunately its the same old story those who are poorest are most vulnerable, and those who are most vulnerable will lose most of what little they have. With climate change, this general pattern is likely to be amplified by chances of geography. Large parts of the developing world are more susceptible to the physical effects of climate change, semi-desert regions around the world are desertifying, the people of such lands in china and Africa are amongst the worlds poorest. Water supplies will be adversely effected in many countries, including the USA, however there may be few areas hit harder than rural India, China and parts of south America; these areas are ofcourse home to some of the worlds most intensively farmed subsitance agriculture lands.

The independent nespaper recently reported that we are "sleepwalking into disaster", we may or may not get there but we are certainly on course.

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News Highlights (6 of 6): Community Activism (save hockey, save energy, carbon offset)

My final of these brief surveys of the blogosphere is a look at community action on climate change. I looked through the 26 RSS feeds i`m suscribed to, picked out the best articles and then grouped them, it turns out that my three favourite articles on community scale action where all from ItsGettingHotInHere a blog iniitially set up for the montreal negotiations but still thriving.

Firstly an interesting story from the University of Colorado who are aiming for carbon neutrality by 2025! Lets hope they do it, but more importantly than they inspire some of tomorrows business leaders and politicians about the feasibility of such measures.(continued...)"Not only has UC Boulder already adopted a goal of complete climate neutrality by the year 2025 (how great is that?!) but they continue to press on to make that goal a reality. Students at Boulder are working hard to get faculty, students, and administrators signed on in endorsement of this goal to ensure that it actually does happen. Building up a network of supporters will ensure that the people responsible for fulfilling that promise are held accountable. "

Next, a story from Ottawa, where the Slogon “Save hockey, stop climate change,” is becoming a more and more common sound! This is a great story for the media, firstly because climate change does look likely to sound the death knell for ice hockey and secondly because its a very tangible problem for a popular sport.

“Hockey’s our national sport and I think most people you talk to have their story about when they played in the backyard rink or on the pond,” said Hudema. He suggested that future generations will be denied the enjoyment of playing outdoors. “That’s a part of Canadian history and legacy that’s not being passed on.”

Finally, back to UC Boulder again. This time, students are being encouraged to support the purchase of renewable energy certificates, encouraging the development of more wind power.

"The University Environmental Center has started a new program that challenges individual students to address the global warming impact of their electricity consumption by signing up to purchase individual wind energy credits. The credits would cost $9 per semester to offset half of their electricity use with wind generated electricity and $18 per semester to displace 100% of their electricity consumption...In this way students are being educated about the current solutions to our nation’s energy and global warming problems while at the same time taking action to encourage the construction of new wind turbines in Colorado"

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News Highlight (5 of 6): Progress in Alternatives to Oil (EU biofuels, H2 from oil byproducts, H2 cars)

Whether or not presidant Bush means what he says when talking about curing America's addiction on oil, the issue has benefited from the publicity. The global addiction to fossil fuels is being increasingly questioned.


The EU has recently launched its biofuels strategy, which has been welcomed by many for its climate benefits but has also created considerable concern. If EU biofuels are sourced from abroad then the cheapest option may well be palm oil. Palm oil plantations are likely to expand to the detriment of ancient rainforest, rainforest with far more locked up carbon than a palm oil plantation...this would be a spectacular own goal.

In California BP are investing 1 Billion Dollars in Hydrogen power! (via groovy green) There are several great things about this project:

• It uses waste products from an oil refinery, waste products from nearby mean less transport and less energy wastage.
• The carbon dioxide produced is going to be sequestered and kept out of the atmosphere.
• The waste fuel would usually have been exported to China for use in coal power stations, I`d guess it isn't used in the US as its smoke is toxic; so this project may be helping out the Chinese people to.

Besides these stories, a lot more information can be found about alternatives to Oil on both TheWatt and Green Car Congress

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News Review (4 of 6): Progress in Sustainability (Renewables Access, Energy metering, Sweden going Oil Free)

Using renewable energy is fast becoming a sensible business idea for many groups of people. One of the mad ideas I heard recently involved using the wind to power a boat! I know what you are thinking, it`ll never catch on. The original idea here is using a giant kite instead of a sail, in doing this large freight vessels can avoid the inconvenience a mast produces when loading up and unloading, by simply folding away the kite. It is estimated that upto 380 million tones of fuel a year could be save if this technology was widely taken up. That is globally significant, a great not loose option for tackling climate change and saving money on diesel.

NRDC have just launched a new website, building green from principle to practice, the emphasis being on the sound financial benefits that can be achieved through lower resource wastage and higher staff moral. Thanks to sustainablog for this.

"The Building Green website includes case studies of companies that have lowered water and energy costs with the use of green building technologies and achieved higher occupancy rates and rents by marketing their green features"

Another interesting piece of news is that the Italian energy market, long dominated by oil power has been opened up to all micro-renewables, on a favorable fixed tariff. This is sure to produce rapid growth of micro-renewables in yet another sign of the changing global energy markets. Over in the UK a community energy scheme, 100% funded by the community, has taken advantage of the availability of affordable wind power to bring economic benefits to the community and environmental benefits to everyone.

In general it seems people are starting to act locally in the fight against climate change, with small scale renewables, community projects, and energy efficiency. One interesting new product known as the Watson lets people monitor there household energy usage in real time, and commit to personally meet the Kyoto targets, government not fulfilling its duty, DIY climate mitigation.

Finally, a country which is keen to live up to its international obligations-and produce a healthy economic environment-Sweden has committed to wean itself off oil by 2020, a very ambitious target. If they are successful just think how they will benefit next time oil prices are high!

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News Review (3 of 6): Climate Contrarians (Funny Animation, Chevron Interview, Crichton)

In the increasingly absurd world of the climate contrarian amusing things are happening. Michael Crichton, a writer( creator of Jurassic park) and general ignoramus, has just won himself an award, from the association of petroleum geologists, for his valuable work of fiction, that 'debunks' this whole climate change thing that a few lefties seem to be so determined to fool us all with!

The BBC managed to make chevron look pretty foolish in a recent interview, the BBC are really getting more educated about this and aren't taking bullshit like they used to.

There is a nice little flash animation here if you want something to laugh at, there is no point arguing with so called climate skeptics, you cant persuade someone about something the wrongs of what they are being paid to say, laughing is less frustrating.

Getting back to reality briefly, January 2006 was the hottest year on record for the USA. You may have noticed this...I`ve seen it mentioned on quite a few blogs.

postscript; Climate Change, NewsA

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News Review (2 of 6):Carbon Policy Arena (Al Gore, US Energy Companies, Shareholder Activism)

The fossil fuel lobby are scared.

Never before has the planet looked finite, never before has the 'real world' impinged so injustly on the elegance of our economic system!



The Science is increasingly clear, unless we cut emissions
dramatically, we will be damaging our health, our planet, the geo-political balance, and-god forbid-our global economy!

A recent article from the oil drum, explores the scale of our carbon based economy, the whole edifice is under threat.

Pressure for action is coming from all angles; former heads of the EPA, evangelists, state leaders, community groups, mayors, unions...Businesses. (continued...)Indeed even businesses are waking up to the threats climate change will have on the bottom line, and the risk that inaction by the federal government now will cost them more in the medium term.

A group of power companies have signaled they are expecting to operate in a carbon constrained environment, within a few years, timing is there only doubt. An example of where this may matter is in the construction of new coal fired power plants, which during construction can be made compatible for carbon capture and storage for only a small additional investment whereas if this capability is not designed in then retro-fitting is extremely costly.

Very few businesses would be badly effected by the move to a low carbon economy if good legistaltion is in place, costs can be passed on to the consumer (environmental protection has a price) but this isn't a problem, companies compete, an equitable solution is what is required. A coalition of companies have teamed up with the Pew Centre for Global Climate Change and endorsed a framework for future US action.

"The report calls for a combination of technology and policy and urges
action in six key areas: (1) science and technology, (2) market-based
programs, (3) sectoral emissions, (4) energy production and use, (5) adaptation,
and (6) international engagement."

Increasingly shareholders are worried about the carbon liabilities companies have, if a company is carbon intensive and hasn't looked into energy efficiency and renewables then surely it will be poorly placed should a market be created in the US with a price on emissions?

These worries have only been exacerbated by the likes of Al Gore and who have started politicising the issue. Al gore has made a series of speeches about climate change, and written a book about the subject. His speeches are going to film soon.


postscript; Climate Change, BusinessA, NewsA

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News Review (1 of 6): Advances in Renewables (Cheaper PV, Wave Power Hub)

This past couple of weeks there have been a number of advances in renewable energy technologies, and the progress towards commercialisation of these products.

Photovoltaics seem to be getting cheaper and hitting new performance bests every time I look! In the past few days alone there have been two reports of new and cheaper methods of manufacture. A 5 micrometer thick PV active alloy has been produced at the University of Johannesburg. This approach requires Zero silicon, and is not only more cost effective than current PV systems but is also expected to last up to 20 years, with an energy payback time of less than two, due to its simple construction. The people behind this have commercial backing and given the claimed cost advantages this bodes well for a nascent PV market, with huge potential at the right price.

"One of the world leaders in solar energy, German company IFE Solar Systems,
has invested more than R500-million in the South African invention and is set to
manufacture 500 000 of the panels before the end of the year at a new plant in
Germany."

In a radically different approach PaloAlto Research Centre (continued...)has produced a hybrid of concentrated solar power and photovoltaic-usually concentrated solar is associated with thermal, but not this time. I think the interesting part of this is the greater efficiency you get at high levels of light intensity (up to 40%) and also the reduced amount of silicon required which is a huge cost benefit at current prices!

"The current installed cost of the flat-plate photovoltaic systems is about $7
per watt, but our approach should produce electricity for about half that amount
or less.

These companies are both claiming to offer very significant reductions in cost, bearing in mind the tremendous growth of PV in recent yearsparticularlyly in Japan and Germany it looks very likely that things are really going to take off in the next five years. This is a very promising sign for a micro-renewable, affordable PV offering a very important piece of the distributed energy networks requirements.

"The photovoltaic (PV) cells and modules market in Japan, estimated to be 640
Megawatts (MW) in capacity or 209 billion yen in value of shipment, will rapidly
grow to 2,350 MW or 665 billion yen in value in fiscal 2008 by recording an
average growth of 30 to 40% every year"

I think the key with Renewables is that the term is inadequate. It has to be the case that when people say "surely we can't get al our energy needs from renewable energy", that this is a absurd statement. Renewables must be so diverse and cost effective at so many different levels that there will always be a sufficiently diverse mix to meet a regions energy requirements.

Wind farms, concentrating thermal, solar panelsconcentratingng PV, PV, micro-wind, biomass CHP, geothermal, tidal...wave. Many of these technologies are only at thbeginningng of there commercial development. Wave power is still experimental, this is why it is so significant that the Ugovernmentnt are developing a "wave-hub".

This offshore grid connection will be developed in co-operation with several medium sized businesses who are developing wave power but need somewhere to test it. A recent Ugovernmentnt study found that up to 20% of the UK energy needs could be produced from tidal and wave power combined, and that having such a developed offshore manufacturing base the UK is ideally placed to produce marketable products, for a business that could develop to a similamagnitudede as wind power. The hub is planned to be placed 10 miles of the cost of Cornwall in England.

Postscript; Climate Change, NewsA, RenewablesA

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UK should persue Carbon Capture and Storage

UK 'should pursue' carbon capture.

The Commons Science and Technology Committee has conducted a report showing that Carbon Capture would cost roughly the same as using renewable energy.

The technology has huge potential, and it is vital that implementation occurs for all new coal power stations, perticularly those in the US and the new ones being built in China. A previous article of mine on the topic is found here. The report describes the role the UK can have in encouragint the uptake of CCS.

Thanks to carbonara for this tip.

postscript; Climate Change, ReportA, RenewablesA

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Website of the week: Great Climate Change Forum

This weeks website of the week differs from previous choices in being a discussion forum and activist organasing site; it is not a site for learning more about climate change, but for discussing the issues and how these affect our approach to campaigning.

The forum is part of the campaign against climate change main website, which is currently undergoing some major changes to improve functionality and accessability. The homepage is here.

One of the most successful part of the site so far is the photo gallery for the dec 3rd demos, people have added there photos from all over the world.

The photo below is of the protest in Bangladesh's capital Dakah ( 1 of 23 countries represented in the dec 3rd gallery)


postscript; Cimate Change, WebsiteA, InternationalA

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Report of the Week: Distributed energy systems.

This weeks report of the week is "Decentralising Power; an energy revoloution". If you have ever wondered how environmentalists can claim we dont need nuclear and can still cut back on coal then look no futher this is the report for you.


Basically the current grid system is enormously wastefull, it only transfers electricity after all. And electricity is usually only around 35-45% of the energy put in to the system. If the remaining output, heat, was captured you could reasonably get efficeincies approaching 95% with the only losses being those of transmission. But this isnt pie in the sky, it is popular in several european countries.

If we make our homes and buisnesses more efficeint, then use more local heating systems along with micro-renewables we can cut the amount we spend on energy, this is not an expensive option, just a diffrent one!

A previous article on the subject can be found here.

postscript; Climate Change, ReportA, RenewablesA

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Audio of The Week: Evangelical Call to Action on Climate Change

This weeks audio of the week is an interview about the evangelical interest in climate change. This is an interesting development and boads well for US action on climate change in the near future. The program is a short mp3 and can be download or streamed from here. Thanks to ecoshock radio for highlighting this show.


postscript; Climate Change, AudioA

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Video of The Week: Global Solutions to Climate Change (Ross Gelbspan)

This weeks video of the week is by Ross Gelbspan. A superb talk which describes the challenges we face in order to cut emmisions at the rate required over the comming century. There is also a powerpoint presentation and associated reading materials.

Ross is a long term environmental journalist and his biography is
here.

postscript; Climate Change, VideoA, InternationalA

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Campaign against Climate Change-Strategy Meeting

So I`m just back from a Campaign against Climate Change strategy meeting in London. As always it was good to get together with so many similarly minded people and to talk about addressing a problem and how we go about doing that.

The main points to come out of the meeting where:
1. Future events in the UK are going to be bigger and better, due to the growing strength of CCC and to the involvement of Stop Climate Chaos is Annual marches to mark the meeting of the parties to Kyoto.
2. Our group will be the more realistic of the coallitio of groups in terms of highlighting the scale of the challenge ahead, this may have us labeled 'radical' but only because we have an enormous challenge which needs radical action!
3.We will stay strongly focused on encouraging a global cap on emissions through an international treaty, we will not explicitly support one such framework over another but will provide a platform for such issues to be highlighted in the public arena.
4. Local groups will have an important role in co-ordiatning action on climate change, focusing on diverse issues, and acting as 'nodes' to facilitate and encourage stronger climate change commitments from various steakholders.

Audio of the event is available here and a good summary of the meeting is provided below...Report Back from National Planning Meeting at Canterbury Hall, Cartwright Gardens, 11 February 2006, 12 noon to 5pm.
Present: about 40 activists, including Phil Thornhill, Jonathan Neale, Nick and Rosie on the platform.

First to speak was Phil Thornhill, the National Co-ordinator, who pointed out that this Thursday (16 February) was the anniversary of the Kyoto Treaty coming into force. He also pointed out that the main problem with Kyoto lay with the fact that the largest polluter, the United States, remained outside it. We all know that the Kyoto accord is inadequate etc., but it is the only game in town at the moment, and must be used as the basis for a widening and deepening agreement to cut emissions (I’m paraphrasing and writing partly from memory here, incidentally). The world’s most important obstacle to making progress on mitigating climate change is the American President, George W. Bush, who is backed by Exxon Mobil (Esso), who are the most aggressive corporate opponent of Kyoto.

Phil also pointed out that we made an impact on December 3rd with the Climate March, which was the largest environmental protest ever seen in this country. It was widely reported on television and in sections of the media, particularly the Independent newspaper, whether or not the climate has reached a ‘tipping point’, media and public opinion has. Since December the floodgates have opened for coverage of climate change. We have to build on that, and have a much bigger march next time, and there are indications we could have one an order of magnitude bigger, which will be explained better when I report what Jonathan said about his attendance at a Stop Climate Chaos meeting. The next Climate Summit is in Nairobi (we think) and will span Saturday 4 November, when we will have our demonstration.

This time CCC will be working alongside the umbrella group of NGOs Stop Climate Chaos, which includes many different organisations: FOE, Greenpeace, CAFOD, the RSPB and the WI among others (we’re part of it, too). Phil pointed out that there are two elements of complementarity between SCC as a whole, and the CCC separately. Firstly, SCC is more ‘conservative’ and ‘respectable’, while the CCC can be more ‘radical’ or ‘sharply critical’ of governments and individuals. We can say and do things that would risk alienating the more conservative supporters of the component organisation. Secondly, SCC is more ‘domestic’ in focus, concentrating on changing this government’s policy and behaviour, while CCC is capable, as we have demonstrated, of co-ordinating international protest.

The weakness of December was the lack of demonstrations in European capital cities. This can be addressed by making linkages at upcoming ESFs and we have laready made connections at WSFs at Caracas and in Africa.

Jonathan Neale spoke about his attendance at a SCC meeting, and of what the intentions of the umbrella organisation were. They are going to be mobilising in a big way for the November demo, and thus we have all their campaigning muscle and publicity machines behind it. They were exceedingly impressed with our ability to get 10,000 together on a shoestring budget, and they want us to do even better. Their vision of the campaign against climate change (small letters, not the organisation) is for it to become something like Make Poverty History, and intend the November march to be something like the Edinburgh demo in July, but not (as yet) quite so big. They envisage a 5-7 year battle, which will end in victory, which would comprise the writing into law of a 3% annual cut in emissions, which will result in a cut in emissions of 70% by 2050. This is like FOE’s Big Ask, which calls for such a law. The SCC have regular talks to Blair and Brown, and I suspect the other party leaders, although Jonathan didn’t actually say the latter.

There are strategic issues about the links between SCC and the CCC. They are concentrating on domestic law, while we focus on international agreements, but they bring a vast array of activists into our movement, and we should make sure they are mobilised. As we see Bush as the main villain (while keeping our eyes on Blair), we can make linkages with other movements. Two things wound Bush most: Iraq and Katrina.

In the discussion that followed many good points were made, and some suggestions put forward, only two or three I’ll mention. Firstly, that even 70 % cuts by 2050 weren’t good enough, George Monbiot had calculated that we needed 90% by 2030 to prevent the worst damage, so that SCC was being too conservative. Jonathan responded by saying that no other country had passed such a law, and if we got Britain to do it that would be a major breakthrough, even though we knew we had to go further later. There was a discussion about not just being against something, perhaps we should present a policy that was positive and Contraction and Convergence came up. It was pointed out that the CCC was comprised of people of many organisations and none, and that not all of them supported contraction and convergence, given some of its implications for standards of living, while recognising that global equity of emissions had to come about. Jonathan said he was against Contraction and Convergence, but for the contraction of emissions and global equity. Someone else, Suzanne Jeffreys, I think, said that if we nailed ourselves down to one policy we risked losing the support of some activists. We pretty much decided needed to concentrate on what we agreed on: binding international agreements, rather than argue in public about what divides us. Guy from Globalise Resistance agreed with that. He argued that we shouldn’t have a CCC position on nuclear power, for instance, even though most of us were against it. It would be good to campaign alongside people who thought it was the solution so we could argue with them about it. We can debate such matters in such meetings as this, however. Someone else pointed out that emissions aren’t the only issue, changes in land use can also upset the carbon cycle. If we cut down rainforest to grow biofuel, we destroy a major carbon sink and make global warming worse.

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My Favourite Climate Change Cartoons

Before i get back to serious climate change blogging i`m just going to share a few cartoons i found a while back...there are 6 in all.


4 more bellow...

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Campagin against Climate Change Meeting: London

It will be good to get together and talk about the Dec 3rd demo's and how we are going to go even bigger for this years "Meeting of the Parties" and also to find our what the various local groups are up to in there communities. Hopefully i`ll have some interesting updates when i get back. Our local group website is here.

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EU ETS: Year One In Review

I was just sent this newsletter through the Climate-L mailing list (which generally sends me far to much information). I thought it might be of interest to a few of you. Basically a review of how the EU emmisions trading scheme is getting on. It's an important questions as emmisions trading schems could well be our best chance for catalysing future action on climate change.

Postscript: Climate Change, InternationalA, NewslettersA

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Report of the Week: Counting the Cost of Climate Change-Munich Re(insurance)

This weeks report of the week is by MunichRe who have long been at the forefront of action on climate change. The company is carbon neutral and they are doing some powerful lobbying amongst the business community to promote action on climate change mitigation. This attitude is clear from the fact that several climate scientists and paleo-climatologists number amongst there employees.

This report is there review of 2004's weather related disasters, I can think of a few major events since that time but the report is quite clear:

"Apart from 1996, nine of the last ten years are to be found in the list of the ten warmest years since 1861. Global climate change is a reality – on that there is a broad consensus among scientists. We all remember
2003 as an exceptionally hot summer in Europe, but it will not remain an
exception. On the contrary, extreme weather events may become the
norm."

Munich re also took part in the Global Roundtable on Climate Change, held at the Columbiauniversityy. There presentation on this event can be found here.

Postscript; Climate Change, ReportA, BusinessA

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New and Large Solar Thermal Plant...A Flavour of The Future?

An interesting development in solar thermal power is the 'Nevada Solar One' power plant. This powerplant is going to have a capacity of 64MW. Another interesting development is the inclusion of extremely hot liquid salt resevoirs that can maintain the output of the plant during brief cloudy periods. These reserves along with the inherent thermal capacity of the heat transfer liquid give the system a fair degree of inertia. The slower the fluctuations the better the qaulity of the power. This plant is 64MW , but the scale of such structures is not limited by many factors other than suitable locations and the ambitions of the power company. The developers of 'Nevada Solar One' claim that the ideal size is arround 200MW, being limited prusumably by the distance the heat transfer liquid has to move in order to get back to the steam turbine it has to drive.It is interesting that this sort of plant is again recieving attention, in the US and in Europe.Renewables as a whole are moving rapidly towards the mainstream. Wind is arguably already compeative purely on economic grounds. Wave and Tidal have been reported to have great potential, perhaps on a similar level to wind power. We are going to need a diversity of these alternative sources of power if we are going to really adress climate change on the requsite scale. The map below shows where in the world solar thermal can be effectively applied. This is quite a different map to the equivalent for wind power or for tidal/wave power.

For more information about the state of various renewable technologies take a look at a previous article here.

Postscript; Climate Change, RenewablesA, NewsA

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Chunks of Progress on Climate Change Mitigation.

I`ve decided upon the issues I`m going to focus on for my next article-'chunks of progress'. These individual chunks are all essential if we are going to mitigate climate change sufficiently to prevent catastrophic events, and just as importantly, if we are going to limit the rate of change so eco-systems can adapt. This target is generally taken as 450ppm co2, tailing off to 400ppm by the end of the century.

Although these chunks can indeed be thought of as discrete entities several of them are infact indicative of the many broader changes that will be required.

These are the chunks I have chosen to focus on, if anyone has ideas for other technoogies/policies that they think I should address then leave a comment.

1. Carbon Capture and Storage developed and rapidly rolled out.
2. Continued and accelerated Wind Power growth over the next 50 years.
3. Increased efficiency of the worlds car fleet.
4. Halting the growth of aviation in the next 10 years.
5. Expanding of distributed energy systems across both developed and developing nations.
6. De-globalisation of manufacturing.

Many of these chunks of progress have synergies with other technologies/policies which must be addressed. All of these are key issues but the hundreds of small changes associated with lowering energy and carbon intensity of society must also be addressed.

This article is being delayed due to my job hunting and involvement with the Campaign against Climate Change in Aberdeen, hopefully it will be worth reading once its done.

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Audio of the Week: Tackling Climate Change (Series of Interviews)

This weeks audio of the week is courtesy of Detche Welle Radio. A series of interviews that took place in the runup to montreal. These are just a few of the many great interviews and programs on environmental issues that can be found on Detche Welle Radios living planet series.

Technology as a means to reduce greenhouse gasses

Putting clean energy into practice

Before during and after the kyoto protocol

The whole world will be affected

Beyond Kyoto: What lies in the future?

Postscript; Climate Change, AudioA, InternationalA

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Video of the Week: Extreme Weather Events and Human Health-Focus on Heatwaves

This week's recommended video is "Extreme Weather events and Human Health". This is a really good video about the effects of climate change on humanity. You may have heard the world health organization figure for the number of deaths climate change caused during 2004-150,000- and this is predicted to double in the next ten years. But this is just deaths from communicable diseases, not from heat stroke or other means of death due to extreme weather events such as extended droughts, typhoons, hurricanes etc. In 2003 a record drought occurred in Europe, a drought so extreme that after statistical analysis of data across Europe the event was concluded to be impossibly severe without taking into account climate change, it was such an outlier its chances of occurring without climate change where roughly 1 in 10'000. There is also a powerpoint presentation for this talk, which I opened and read as the presentation was given.

Postscript; Climate Change, VideoA, ScienceA

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Website of the Week: Stanford University Centre for Environmental Sciences and Policy

This weeks website of the week is the Homepage of Stanford universities Centre for Environmental Sciences and Policy. Home to the research of Stephen Schneider amongst others this is a site well worth a look if you at if you are interested in the more technical issues of climate change, particularly the science or the way that policy makers should deal with the uncertainty present in the science.

Postscript; Climate Change, WebsiteA, ScienceA

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