Free Climate Change DVD...just tell me where to send it.

Quite simply, I have created a dvd of numerous internet videos about climate change. These videos are all from various universities around the US and are about climate/ecology/energy and even what you can do about the problem.

They vary from 50-600Mb each and from 10min to nearly 2hrs. Most are suitable for a general audiance, some require a little technical/scientific background and some are just perfect for school kids.

This is me just doing my bit to spread some understanding about climate change...if you would like to pay postage and packging great, if not then what the hell, aslong as I don't get hundereds of requests I will send them out for free.

climatechangemitigation at gmail.com

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Video of the Week: Berkely Energy Forum with Joseph Romm

A really superb video this week...do yourself a favour and watch it, then ask yourself what you can do about the greatest challenge of our time.



The "Rosenfeld Effect" Energy Symposium discussed the role of increased energy efficiency in California, in China, and on a global scale; the intersection of energy and safe drinking water in the developing world; the twin challenges of mitigating climate change and sustaining orderly markets in fluid fuels; how to turn good science into good politics; and defining, predicting, and coping with global warming. This session features Joseph Romm - Executive Director, Center for Energy and Climate Solutions.

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Report of the Week: Trpical Deforestation and Climate Change

Hat tip to my old friend Almuth Ernsting of Aberdeen Campaign against Climate Change for this one. I noticed she recomended the report to Mark Lynas, talking about the importance of dealing with landuse change to deal with climate change.

And 43 pages in it's interesting, although worrying stuff.

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Back from the Climate Youth Network in Bruxelles off to Climate Camp near Drax

I arrived back in London late Sunday night from the Climate Youth Network meeting in Bruxelles that I attended for most of the weekend.

It was an interesting experiance for me and hopefully not without use for the campaign as a whole--I found out that there is going to be a small event happening in Serbia for Nov 4th so that 39 countries where things should be going on!

I`ll make a few more comments about this trip when I get the minutes of the meeting so I can talk with reference to names not vague descriptions.

Now for a change of tone, i`m off to Drax power station for some Direct Action! I hope to see some of you theire...peaceful direct action is a proportionate response to inaction by govornment on an issue that is of crucial global importance. I think the camp for climate action is going to be a facinating event. For more on the much maligned practice of peaceful direct action I suggest Monboit or perhaps Gandhi.

Monboit

"Non-violent direct action is a misnomer. It is not a direct attempt to
change the world through physical action, but a graphic and symbolic means of
drawing attention to neglected issues, capturing hearts and minds through
political theatre."

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Climate 'skeptics' who have swapped sides.

I usually hate focusing any attention on the decisively settled question of the reality of climate change, preferring to deal with policies, technologies and campaigning. I`m making an exception in this case just to highlight a significant change in the last year...nay sayers dropping there arguments against climate change. Virtually all of these people where not skeptical but ideologically against climate change, what I mean is that it went against there agenda in varied ways and there is nothing like denial for an awkward problem. These changes therefore explicitly do not represent an accumulation of evidence but rather an accumulation of social/political will to deal with what promises to be a challenge of the greatest magnitude.
Gregg Easterbrook of the Brookings Institution and senior editor of The New Republic:

"Yes: the science has changed from ambiguous to near-unanimous. As an environmental commentator, I have a long record of opposing alarmism. But based on the data I'm now switching sides regarding global warming, from skeptic to convert."

-5/24/06 The New York Times, "Finally Feeling the Heat" by Gregg Easterbrook

Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC):

"Representative Bob Inglis, a South Carolina Republican, says he 'pooh-poohed' global warming until he trekked to the South Pole in January. 'Now, I think we should be concerned,' says Inglis, who heads the U.S. House Science Research subcommittee. 'There are more and more Republicans willing to stop laughing at climate change who are ready to get serious about reclaiming their heritage as conservationists.'"

-4/24/06 Bloomberg News, "Bush Faces Growing Dissent From Republicans on Climate Change" by Kim Chapman


University of Washington climate researcher John Wallace:

"Like many of his peers, Wallace wasn't convinced greenhouse gases were altering the world's climate, and he thought Gore was straining scientific credibility to score political points. More than a decade later, Wallace still won't blame global warming for any specific heat wave, drought or flood - including the recent devastating hurricanes. But he no longer doubts the problem is real and the risks profound."

- 10/11/05 The Seattle Times, "The Truth About Global Warming" by Sandi Doughton


Rev. Pat Robertson, founder and chairman of Christian Broadcasting Network:

"The Reverend Pat Robertson says he hasn't been a believer in global warming in the past, but this summer's record-breaking heat is -- quote -- 'making a convert out of me.' On his '700 Club' broadcast, Robertson said, 'It is getting hotter, and the icecaps are melting and there is a buildup of carbon dioxide in the air.' Switching sides on an issue that divides evangelical Christians, Robertson said, 'We really need to address the burning of fossil fuels.' The religious broadcaster told viewers, 'If we are contributing to the destruction of this planet, we need to do something about it.'"

- 8/3/06 The Christian Post, "Heat Wave Makes Pat Robertson a Global Warming 'Convert'" by The Associated Press


Stu Ostro, senior meteorologist and director of weather communications for The Weather Channel:

"There was a time at which reading anything more into that would have been the last thing you'd ever hear from me. I was a certified Global Warming Skeptic. As most climate scientists came to conclude that humans were changing the climate and those changes were significant, I, priding myself on also being an Objective Meteorologist, vehemently resisted as a result of what I felt was insufficient evidence.

"I eventually came to the judgment that I was wrong and global warming was real, largely caused by human activities, and profoundly changing the planet on which we live."

-9/24/05 The Weather Channel Blog, "If this isn't Global Warming, I don't know what is (Confessions of an Ex-Skeptic)" by Stu Ostro


Michael Shermer, founder of The Skeptics Society ( http://www.skeptic.com/ ) and editor of its magazine Skeptic:

"Nevertheless, data trump politics, and a convergence of evidence from numerous sources has led me to make a cognitive switch on the subject of anthropogenic global warming. [.] Because of the complexity of the problem, environmental skepticism was once tenable. No longer. It is time to flip from skepticism to activism."

-June 2006 issue Scientific American, "The Flipping Point:
How the evidence for anthropogenic global warming has converged to cause this environmental skeptic to make a cognitive flip" by Michael Shermer



Richard Branson, founder of The Virgin Group, including Virgin Atlantic Airways:

"I used to be skeptical of global warming, but now I'm absolutely convinced that the world is spiraling out of control. CO2 is like a bushfire that gets bigger and bigger every year. All of us who are in a position to do something about it must do something about it. Because Virgin is involved with planes and trains, we have even more responsibility."

-7/27/06 Business 2.0 Magazine, "Branson's next big bet" by Carleen Hawn


Frank Luntz, conservative pollster:
NARRATOR: Today, Frank Luntz says the advice he offered the administration on global warming was fair when he gave it. But, he's distanced himself from their policies since.
LUNTZ: It's now 2006. Now I think most people would conclude that there is global warming taking place, and that the behavior of humans are affecting the climate.
QUESTION: But the administration has continued to follow your advice. They're still questioning the science.
LUNTZ: That's up to the administration. I'm not the administration. What they want to do is their business. And it's nothing to do with what I write. And it's nothing to do with what I believe.
- "Global Warming: Bush's Climate of Fear," aired 6/26/06 at10pm ET/PT on CBC Newsworld (BBC)

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Experts available to discuss issues related to the 1st anniversary of Hurricane Katrina

Scientific Research Connects the Dots
Hurricane Intensity Influenced by Global Warming

Major Global Warming Research Findings of Past 12 Months

2005 was one of the worst years for natural disasters in the United States, setting an unprecedented cost of over $121 billion in damage, with over 1460 deaths. Since the day that Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf coast, scientists have uncovered sobering evidence that these natural disasters are becoming more common and severe.

· Global Warming is causing stronger and more frequent hurricanes:

"We conclude that global data indicate a 30-year trend toward more frequent and intense hurricanes, corroborated by the results of the recent regional
assessment. This trend is not inconsistent with recent climate model simulations
that a doubling of CO2 may increase the frequency of the most intense cyclones."

- P. J. Webster et al, "Changes in Tropical Cyclone Number, Duration, and Intensity in a Warming Environment," Science, 16 Sept 2005

"Our observational results based on long term trends of SST [sea surface
temperature] reveal that the anomaly reached a record 0.8 °C in the Gulf of
Mexico in August 2005 as compared to previous years and may have been
responsible for the intensification of the devastating Hurricane Katrina
into a category 5 hurricane..."

- Menas Kafatos et al, "Anomalous Gulf Heating and Hurricane Katrina’s Rapid Intensification," Center for Earth Observing and Space Research at George Mason University, Sept 2005

· First 6 months of 2006 are hottest on record:

"The average temperature for the continental United States from January through June 2006 was the warmest first half of any year since records began in 1895,
according to scientists at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville,
N.C."

- "Climate of 2006 - June in Historical Perspective," National Climatic Data Center - NOAA, 13 July 2006

· Hotter temperatures mean longer wildfire seasons:

"The average season-length [of wildfires] (the time between the reported first wildfire discovery date and the last wildfire control date) increased by 78 days(64%), comparing 1970-86 to 1987-03."

- A. L. Westerling et al, "Warming and Earlier Spring Increases Western U.S. Forest Wildfire Activity," Science Express, 6 July 2006



· Global Warming is happening now:

"Recent warming coincides with rapid growth of human-made greenhouse gases. […] Global warming is now 0.6°C in the past three decades and 0.8°C in the past century. It is no longer correct to say that 'most global warming occurred
before 1940.'"

- J. Hansen et al, "GISS Surface Temperature Analysis, Global Temperature Trends: 2005 Summation," NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University Earth Institute, 2005

· Antarctica ice sheet decreasing by 20 cubic miles or more each year:

"We found that the mass of the ice sheet decreased significantly, at a rate of 152 ± 80 cubic kilometers of ice per year [about 37 ± 20 cubic miles per year],which is equivalent to 0.4 ± 0.2 millimeters of global sea-level rise per year."

-Isabella Velicogna and John Wahr, "Measurements of Time-Variable Gravity Show Mass Loss in Antarctica," Science, 2 March 2006

Geophysicists Isabella Velicogna and John Wahr of the University of Colorado,Boulder, reported in Geophysical Research Letters how … between 2002 and 2004, GRACE [the satellite] found a loss of about 82 cubic kilometers [about 20 cubic miles] of ice per year."
- Richard A. Kerr, "A Worrying Trend of Less Ice, Higher Seas," Science, 24 March 2006

· Greenland's glaciers are melting by 22 cubic miles or more each year:

"Accelerated ice discharge in the west and particularly in the east doubled the ice sheet mass deficit in the last decade from 90 to 220 cubic kilometers per year [about 22 to 53 cubic miles per year]. As more glaciers accelerate farther north, the contribution of Greenland to sea-level rise will continue to increase. […] Glacier acceleration in the east probably resulted from climate warming."

- Eric Rignot and Pannir Kanagaratnam, "Changes in the Velocity Structure of the Greenland Ice Sheet," Science, 17 Feb 2006

"The total melt extent of the ice sheet, experiencing at least 1 melt day between April 1 - September 25 shows a record extent in 2005 for the 27-year
long time PM data set. The 2005 melt extent exceeds the previous record of
2002."

- Konrad Steffen and Russell Huff, "Greenland Melt Extent," Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), University of Colorado at Boulder, 28 Sept 2005

· Greenhouse pollution levels are larger than ever:

"The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere climbed to a record 381 parts per million last year… The reading was up 2.6 parts per million, according to preliminary calculations, David J. Hofmann of the Office of Atmospheric Research at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Tuesday."

- Randolph E. Schmid, "Greenhouse Gas Hits Record High," Associated Press, 15 March 2006

Experts available to discuss issues related to the 1st anniversary of Hurricane Katrina:


Global Warming

Jerome Ringo – Chair of the Board of National Wildlife Federation; President of the Apollo Alliance; cited by The Nation magazine in July as “the most interesting environmentalist in the United States;” resident of Lake Charles, La.; actively involved in post-Katrina efforts to aid evacuees; he and his family were subsequently displaced for several weeks after Hurricane Rita; available to speak about local and regional impacts of global warming, including the connection between hurricanes and climate change, and implications for coastal communities.
Contact: Ben McNitt, NWF Communications: 202-797-6855, mcnitt@nwf.org

Larry Schweiger – President/CEO, National Wildlife Federation; co-chairman of the Alliance for Climate Protection; available to speak about efforts to educate the public about the effects of global warming on communities and wildlife habitat in the wake of Hurricane Katrina; also available to discuss grassroots movement to demand federal and state solutions to global warming.

Contact: Ben McNitt, NWF Communications: 202-797-6855, mcnitt@nwf.org

Jeremy Symons -- Director, Global Warming and Wildlife Campaign, National Wildlife Federation, Washington, DC; former Climate Policy Advisor to Christine Todd Whitman at the Environmental Protection Agency; represented EPA as a member of Vice President Cheney’s Energy Task Force working group in 2001; named one of Capitol Hill’s seven most influential global warming lobbyists in 2006 by The Hill newspaper; available to discuss legislative efforts and policy implications of global warming since Hurricane Katrina.
Contact: 202-939-3311, symons@nwf.org.

National Water Projects & Corps of Engineers

David Conrad – Senior Water Resource Specialist, National Wildlife Federation, Washington, DC; nationally-recognized water policy expert, author of Higher Ground and Crossroads, two reports analyzing National Flood Insurance Program and Army Corps of Engineers projects and their impacts on ecosystems and communities. Particular expertise on Mississippi River projects, New Orleans levee breaks and related damage from Hurricane Katrina.
Contact: 202-797-6697, conrad@nwf.org.

Adam Kolton – Senior Director of Congressional and Federal Affairs, National Wildlife Federation, Washington, D.C.; recognized by The Hill newspaper as one of Washington’s most influential conservation lobbyists; available to discuss efforts to pass national water policies to improve U.S. Army Corps of Engineers practices in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Contact: 202-797-6636, kolton@nwf.org.


Restoration of Coastal Louisiana

Susan Kaderka – Director, National Wildlife Federation Gulf States Office, Austin, TX; water policy expert; available to discuss ecological impacts of Hurricane Katrina and subsequent efforts to pass legislation to fully fund coastal Louisiana restoration.
Contact: 512-476-9805; kaderka@nwf.org.

Randy Lanctot, Executive Director, Louisiana Wildlife Federation; available to speak about Hurricane Katrina’s impact on Louisiana wildlife and habitats.
Contact: 225-344-6707, Randy@lawildlifefed.org

Katrina Wildlife Impacts in Mississippi

Don Jackson -- fisheries biologist, Mississippi State University; President of the Mississippi Wildlife Federation; knowledgeable about coastal and inland fisheries with particular expertise in impacts from Hurricane Katrina.
Contact: 662-325-7493; djackson@cfr.msstate.edu

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Camp for Climate Action: Hundereds of Workshops, A Blockade and Protest at Drax

I`m just going off to Brussels for a climate change meeting organised by the climate youth network, part of the climate action network. Before I go i just wanted to mention the climate camp which is going to be a vey exciting event...lots of hype and lots of excitement! Hopefully i will see some of you there.

Climate change is happening now and is set to get much worse.
Governments and corporations dream of growth without end, economy without
limits. When nuclear power is hailed as the solution to ecological crisis you
know there's a problem. There is a growing grassroots movement that
fundamentally challenges the fossil fuel economy.

The camp will be a place for this movement to get together. It will be a place for new people, people who have never been 'political' before but who want move beyond concern into activity. It will be a place for experienced activists: old and young, cynical and hopeful. We all need courage, the guts to step beyond the comfort of our concern or the borders of our group. Climate change casts a long shadow over the future. But we believe this time can be an opportunity, a moment when people come together and say 'enough'.

There are already quite a few articles and blog posts about the event, here is one from the Red Pepper:

We’re all doomed. That’s how I felt as I dragged myself through the streets
of Oxford tackling the assault course of confused tourists, hungover students
and irate locals. When you spend most of your waking life thinking about climate
change, impending apocalypse follows you around like a bad smell. It can make
you very unpopular at parties. On this particular day I’m trudging the crowded
streets on my way to meet some climate activists so they can tell me about their
new plan to save the world. If I’m honest I’m not optimistic, but that comes
with the territory.I sit outside the crowded cafe as the untrustworthy sunshine
retreats and leaves me shivering into my soya cappuccino, waiting. When they
arrive I ask one of them, Sally Reeve, to tell me about the ‘climate camp’,
their plan for solving climate change.
Sally pauses thoughtfully. ‘The
climate camp is an action camp taking place in the summer, getting people to
engage with climate change and take action.’ Another intense pause and then: ‘I
think people are really scared by climate change. They know that some massive
response is needed and that actions by the government and corporations aren’t
proportionate to the scale of the problem. We need to come together and educate
ourselves, share ideas and do some really important direct action.’Doubts enter
my mind unbidden as I hear those two little words: direct action. A common
response – a direct reaction – for many. Does that mean it’s all about climbing
trees and fighting the boys in blue? Sally patiently replies: ‘Obviously direct
action is an important part of the camp, but it’s not something we expect
everybody to take part in. People who haven’t taken direct action before
shouldn’t feel excluded.’ Ian Kilminster, another organiser of the camp, adds:
‘What we should remember is that solutions to climate change have to be
grassroots and that encompasses direct action but needs to include all sorts of
action. It’s not just about taking responsibility for yourself but making the
changes around you collectively.’ I begin to relax a little and ask why they
felt the need for a climate camp at this moment.Sally explains that most of the
focus for action on climate change has been on changing individual consumption,
with little scrutiny of the institutions and economic forces driving the climate
crisis. The bottom line of fossil fuel corporations precludes them from taking
real action on climate change because it’s an inherent contradiction for their
core business. She states that the real solutions must be determined by us, the
people. But why do we need to slum it in a campsite for two weeks in order to do
this? Sally skims over my whining: ‘Most of the NGO campaigning is asking the
government for reduction targets or persuading oil companies to be more socially
responsible. We don’t believe that either of those is going to be effective
because the government can only do what the corporations allow it to do. And the
corporations can only push for more consumption because that’s the way they’re
legally structured. Therefore it’s up to us.’As we talk more about the camp,
that it will be organised into ‘neighbourhoods’ to welcome people into an open
but organised structure, the childcare available, the range of topics covered –
from the effects of oil pollution in the ‘developing world’ to challenging the
irrepressible aviation industry – I can no longer deny the effect they’re having
on me and I spontaneously exclaim that they’ve even inspired me. Me! This is a
disturbing experience which I've done my best to repress ever since by
frantically watching Big Brother. Listening again to their words on my mini-disc
later brings back those tired old stirrings of, is it .... hope? Through my
headphones Ian enthuses: ‘If we don’t get this right everything else is wrong.
If you want a fair and equitable future then it will have to be envisioned and
created by everybody that will live in it. The camp won’t be the thing that does
that but will be a kick-start for it. When the camp is over it’s just the
beginning for grassroots movement on climate change.’ We may well be doomed, but
this old hack will certainly be there this summer with the positive and the
inspired. See you there?

The Camp for Climate Action runs from 26
August-4 September. See www.climatecamp.org.uk
Heidi Bachram is a research associate at the Transnational institute project, Carbon Trade Watch. She can be contacted at heidi[AT]tni.org

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Lighting with daylight, using windows? How passee!

One of my very favourite blogs would have to be renewable energy access, if you are a renewable energy geek like me you will probably also enjoy the regularly updated site.

There are a large number of interesting ideas passing through but one that really caught my eye recently was a technology for collecting sunlight and piping it through buildings using fiber optics.

I love this because:
1. Lighting is often a large cost in terms of energy and climate change.
2. Lighting is often really poor, daylight is such an improvement.
3. It's a stageringly obvious idea with huge potential, the fiber optics can be aslong as you like.

The hybrid solar lighting technology uses a rooftop-mounted 48-inch
diameter collector and secondary mirror that track the sun throughout the
day. The collector system focuses the sunlight into 127 optical fibers
connected to hybrid light fixtures equipped with diffusion rods visually
similar to fluorescent light bulbs. These rods spread light in all directions. One
collector powers eight to 12 hybrid light fixtures, which can illuminate about
1,000 square feet. During times of little or no sunlight, a sensor controls the
intensity of the artificial lamps to maintain a constant level of illumination.

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Support for Contraction and Convergence and Sanctions on Rogue States: By the UK Foresight Directorate

A report that has been going around a while here in the UK was just brought to my attention again, it covers some pretty interesting ideas.

This report is the result of work by the Orwellianly named 'Foresight Directorate' that exists to look ahead with long term vision--the opposite of what we are taught politicians do.

But before we get to excited it's worth remembering this is basically a think tank, the ideas are not gaurenteed to go anywhere. Here is a look at how the future looks if theire research is implemented.

"Regions and local authorities have followed the lead of theirgovernments and run local initiatives to reduce travel demand; and veryfew governments have opted out of the international Contraction and Convergence Agreement to reduce global emissions. Political and economicsanctions are imposed through the United Nations on rogue states thatdon’t comply.”

The fairly complete disclaimer is here:

"The views are not the official point of view of anyorganisation or individual, are independent of Government and do not constitute government policy."

I like the part about rogue states having economic sanctions levied, this is an idea that i had a while back and i believe the green party also supports the concept.

The way i see it is that countries bound by a carbon limit are accruing environmental/social benefits for the whole planet. These benefits will cost the involved countries a portion of their income, it is theifore fair that any imports from outwith this carbon constrained group of countries should have to pay this same price of carbon as an import tarrif, otherwise environmentally damaging policies in non-engaged countries are being encouraged by economic distortions. Why aren't we doing this in 2006? it's not something that requires a technical breakthrough!

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Where do i get my climate change information from?

I don't link to all of these organisations at the side of the page--maybe that should change?

Although there are many sources for content that i post on this blog some of the main sources that arent blogs are bellow:

Institute for Public Policy Research
(Independant UK Thinktank)
Sustainable Development Commission
(Just become the UK's offical sustianability watchdog)
Environmental Audit Committe
(Cross-party environmental policy auditors)
Tyndall Centre
(Internationally renowned climate change centre drawing on experts from acros industry/acedemia in the UK)
Pew centre for global clmate change
(Top US climate policy centre)

Any other sources that you think I should know about..?

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Reccomended Climate Website: BBC Radio 4 Science Shows

I recieved an email a while back from the people over at the Planet Under Threat blog, this is the pre-production blog of a group of people making a BBC Radio 4 Series about climate change. I've checked out their blog again recently, and they have some interesting stuff on their, and plenty of nice photos...which is a shame as it makes me feel like crap, but then again it makes you think this climate change action is all worth something.

Anyway, the broader bbc radio 4 environment section is pretty good, being largely dominated by climate change.

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How will california be affected by climate change?

In 2003, the California Energy Commission's Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) program established the California Climate Change Center to conduct climate change research relevant to the state.

This Center is a virtual organization with core research activities at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the University of California, Berkeley, complemented by efforts at other research institutions.

Priority research areas defined in PIER's five-year Climate Change Research Plan are: monitoring, analysis, and modeling of climate; analysis of options to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; assessment of physical impacts and of adap- tation strategies; and analysis of the economic consequences of both climate change impacts as well as the efforts designed to reduce emissions.

A summary report of recent work is just out, background documents here.

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Report of the Week:Reducing Carbon Emissions from Transport

This week's report of the week is by the ever insightful House of Commons Environmental Audit Select Committee.

I was actually just wondering what they where up to at the moment, well, now we know.

It's nice to see that this cross-party group dosent pull its punches. The quote bellow is of perticular current interest to me as i`m currently reading one book on globalisation and another on economic growth.


While we recognise the difficulties in decoupling economic growth from increases in
carbon emissions in the transport sector, we are concerned that the Department seems to
have a fatalistic attitude which sees carbon-intensive activities and economic growth as
going hand in hand. The Department must be much bolder in intervening to break the
upward spiral of economic growth leading to higher emissions.


Download Here: Part One : Part Two

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Current reading--climate and otherwise.

Just a quick update on my reading habits. I`m currently reading 5 books switching from one to another, i never could read a given book straight through--at least not very often.

I have done a lot of reading about climate change and related issues, from both books and reports but at the moment my interests are straying slightly.

I often get into arguments, or atleast get into strongly opinionated situations where i have the position that "what we really need to do is lobby govornment of practical measures, highlight key weakneses and just for a change work with big business as they are the ones runing the planet".

Basically what i ususaly get back is that big businesses are destroying the planet, that all they do is greenwash and the politicians are hopeless. Not without a completely different system of govornment, commerce and international trade will we make the progress we need. Basically i`m surrounded by radicals and i find myslef a reformist by default, i don't know enough about the way the world works to think in revoloutionary terms.

So I have just embarked on some political/philisophical reading, to find out how this will effect my views on climate change mitigation.

The curent political books i am reading are:

1. Growth Fetish by Clive Hamilton (Executive Director of the Australia Institute)
2. Green Alternatives to Globlisation--A Manifesto by Caroline Lucas and Michael Woodin (UK Green Party MEP's)

I have 3 books on order:

1. The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (Father of Capitalism).
2. Das Kapital by Karl Marx (Socialist Philospoher).
3. Globalisation and It's Discontents by Jospeh Stiglitz (Economist, Former World Bank Economicst, Nobel Laurette).

The other books i am currently reading are:

The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery
The Grapes of Wrath by John Stienbeck
How to Win Campaigns by Chris Rose

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The global climate campaign keeps growing...now 10'000 in Cameroon for Nov 4th

Just a quick update on the Global Climate Campaign.

There now seem to be events planned in over 30 countries, with recent countries joining including Cameroon where an educational charity is expecting to bring around 10'000 students, pupils and members of the public onto the streets.

In Australia things could be really big, there are rumours of 100'000 people taking to the streets, helped no doubt by Australias' utter intransigence in terms of climate policy.

In the uk a coallition of NGO's under the banner of Stop Climate Chaos are joining Campaign against Climate Change to organise the UK's largest ever environemtal demo.

More info? email info@globalclimatecampaign.org or leave a comment

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Join the global climate campaign!

How is your country doing in its preperations for the Nov 4th international day of climate action?

Find out, email your national contact!

Find out who that is at the website:

http://globalclimatecampaign.org/

There should be something in all these countries, give your contact a ring, contribute or just push for more action!

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Why aren't you part of the global climate campaign?

Nov 4th International day of Climate Action
Make sure you are involved if you live in...

Australia
Bangladesh
Belarus
Bulgaria
Cameroon
Canada
Croatia
Czech republic
Denmark
Finalnd
France
Germany
Greece
Ireland
Italy
Kenya
South Korea
Mexic
The Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Portgal
Romania
Russia
Slovenia
Spain
Taiwan
Turkey
UK
Northern Ireland
USA

Why isn't your country here? Get in contact if you want to be involved info@globalclimatecampaign.org

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Reccomended Climate Websites

Just a quick update on a couple of websites you might like to check out.

Both of these where emailed to me...if you have any climate change related sites you would like to promote, books to review or anything else climate related then send me an email or leave a comment.

The first link is part of the environmental defense website dedicated to hurricanes.

http://www.environmentaldefense.org/go/hurricanes

"The site includes: local maps created by Environmental Defense which project coastal impacts for FL (Miami), NC (Wilmington) and SC (Charleston) over the coming decades; recent studies and fact sheets by leading experts, all detailing how climate change adds to the ferocity of hurricanes; a hurricane image library; a list of experts and how to reach them."

The second link is about renewable energy

http://www.newenergychoices.org

..

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Climate News Roundup

Just a quick roundup of recent pieces of news that i havent gotten around to brining to you during the last week.

Wind power expansion begins in ernest on the indian sub-continent.

IGCC a step towards the future, and finally gaining momentum? (via TheWatt)

Within the next few years, utility-scale power plants using integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) technology will be built and fully integrated into utility fleets. Standardized IGCC plant designs incorporating knowledge acquired over decades of operation at industrial facilities worldwide, and more recently honed to utility power requirements at two demonstration plants in the United States, will allow IGCC to take this big step.

The Clinton Initiative takes on climate change.

"The fate of the planet that our children and grandchildren will inherit is in our hands, and it is our responsibility to do something about this crisis. The partnership between my Foundation and the Large Cities Climate Leadership Group will take practical and, most importantly, measurable steps toward helping to slow down global warming, and by taking this approach I think we can make a big difference. I commend Mayor Livingstone and the Large Cities Group for their leadership on this issue."

Will the UK harness the power of the river severn to produce 5% of its energy?

National parks threatened by climate change.

The report “Losing Ground: Western National Parks Endangered by Climate Change,” came out in late July and observes climate change via the ecosystems and culture of the great Western national parks. From Rocky Mountain to Yellowstone and Mesa Verde to Yosemite, none of the West’s recreational or cultural gems are safe from climate change effects.

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Video of the Week: Inovative Soloutions to Climate Change--Technologies and Practices

There are many things that i could say to prompt you to watch this video of the week, however i will leave it at this: Amory Lovins from the Rocky Mountian Institute is one of the speakers.

If you don't know Amory then you should watch this, then when he is next mentioned you won't feel so rediculous in your ignorance of this legend. If you do know Amory then you probably won't read this far as you will be watching his talk.

This is the third of the Sino-US dialogues from the unversity of Berkeley that i have chosen as a video of the week.

"This panel argues the merits of a wide range of emerging technologies for reducing CO2 emissions from energy use, including energy ... all » efficiency, renewable energy, and nuclear power, and their prospects in China and the U.S. The China-U.S. Climate Change Forum was organized by the Berkeley China Initiative, which is forging closer ties between U.C. Berkeley and China by bringing together key experts on important international and bilateral issues. Growing concern over climate change makes this topic an obvious choice for the first of this series of annual events. This panel will highlight the mutual vulnerability of China and the U.S. to climate change, and the indispensable role of scientific research in understanding the problem and developing solutions. The Forum is co-sponsored by Peking University's College of Environmental Sciences and UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, International and Area Studies, Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Chinese Studies, Energy and Resources Group, and Berkeley Institute of the Environment. Financial sponsors include the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund, the Energy Foundation, and the Hewlett Foundation."

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Report of the Week: How are we telling the climate 'story' and can we tell it better? (IPPR)

Amongst fields that i have previously underestimated are marketing and social science. Marketing or--more acurately-- comerical propeganda is profoundly powerful but that's not a discussion for now.

More recently the closely related area of social science has called upon my attention. One interesting work of this field that will no doubt be ingnored, laughed at and generally not utilised by many of the people it was written for is this weeks report of the week.

Written by the institute of public policy research the report addresses the problem of connecting people to a huge problem but doing so in a way that they feel enthused to do something and empowered to act on this enthusiasm.

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Wal-Mart Being Green?

I have mentioned Wall-Mart before in relation to its new 'green' image as with many organisations the first claim to arise is that of Greenwashing.

So let us not look at the words lets look at the facts.

1. Wal-Mart Own ASDA in the UK. These stores are currently an environmental nightmare.

• Fridges/Freezers routinely refrigerate large parts of the store.
• Lighting is overwhelingly artificial.
• Facilities for non-automotive transport are near non-existant.
• Packging waste is huge.
• Plastic disposable bags are given out by the million.
• Fruit and many other products are imported from across the globe.

To put all this bad practice into context check out their co2 emmissions:

"in addition to the 23 million tons of CO2 equivalent that Wal-Mart emits each year, there are an estimated 220 million tons of annual greenhouse-gas emissions in the company's supply chain."

Either of those numbers are huge, in a globe govorned by the physical systems of the planet each person would have around 1.5 MtCO2 as a quota...Wal-Mart and its supply chain would therefore have the emmissions of a country of 160 million people; roughly the population of Japan and England combined!

2. This is the starting point, things can only get better!

• The Rocky Mountain institute have been hired to carry out some advisory work.
• A meeting of Wal-Mart execs and suppliers met with Al Gore to view An Inconvenient Truth.
• Their are some goals: CEO H. Lee Scott Jr. announced that the company would invest $500 million in technologies to reduce its stores' greenhouse-gas emissions by 20 percent in seven years, increase its truck fleet's fuel efficiency by 25 percent in three years and double it in 10 years, design a 25 percent more energy-efficient store within four years, work to reduce packaging, and pressure its worldwide network of suppliers to follow its lead.
• CEO Lee Scot is Saying: "there can't be anything good about putting all these chemicals in the air. There can't be anything good about the smog you see in cities. There can't be anything good about putting chemicals in these rivers in Third World countries so that somebody can buy an item for less money in a developed country. Those things are just inherently wrong, whether you are an environmentalist or not."

We will only discover in the years to come whether this was all an elaborate green wash or the begining of genuine large scale corporate action on climate change. For now, don't worry about it just keep avoiding Wal-Mart for it's lousy treatment of workers: healthacare policies, union busting tactics, a whole range of sociatal mis-deeds...perhaps it will get round to these some day?

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Blair and Schwarzenegger enter climate change pact.

Today Tony Blair did what we in the UK have been asking of him for years, he threw up his hands, cursed and gave up on the whitehouse.

Blair attended a long arranged climate summit in California with Gov. Schwarzenegger and without any representation from the whitehouse. Finally the blatantly clear was exposed for all to see. The real action is going on at the state level, this is where we must work untill the Bush Junta are out of the whitehouse and rational policy can replace paid for intransigence.

The details where pretty thin. The words where good though, and lets not under-estimate what efect the 4th and 8th largest economies in the world saying this will have:

"We are collaborating on a long term challenge that Prime Minister Tony Blair has correctly called the single most important issue that we face as a global community."

I occasionally feel like defending my views from accusations of socialism/eco-extremism, this is basically becase socialists tend to dislike my views and eco-extremists are straw men. I`m a pragmatist with an objective view on our situation and if this means i should be labelled then i need to be labbled along with the following participants of this recent round table on climate change.

From Lord Browne

"I think from the business leaders' viewpoint there is no disagreement that
climate change is something which requires action to be taken; and secondly, that there are actions that can be taken."

Lord John Browne, CEO, BP;
Charles O. Holliday Jr., CEO, DuPont;
Sir Richard Branson, CEO, Virgin Group;
Sergey Brin, Founder, Google;
John Bryson, CEO, Edison International;
Jacques Dubois, Swiss Re;
Dan Hendrix, Interface;
Michael Morris, AEP;
James Murdoch, British Sky Broadcasting;
Anthony Pratt, Pratt Industries/Visy;
Tom King, PG&E;
Jeff Swartz, Timberland;
Tracy Wolstencroft, Goldman Sachs;
Rick Lazio, JP Morgan Chase, and others.

This event created a fair amount of interest in the blogosphere some of the posts are:
Fuelture (TM), Krioma.Net, WiredBlogs, TerraBlog, DeSmogBlog

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