Bluestone

The BBC report indeed states that over the past 60 years the sun has been more active than at any time in the previous 1000 years. It then goes on to say that sunspot activity cannot explain the warming observed over the last 20 years, which is instead put down to a human-induced greenhouse effect. The following article, published online in Proceedings of the Royal Society A, also shows that solar variability can in no way explain the observed temperature rise since 1985. There does seem to be a wider problem in receiving climate science through the mainstream media. After hearing the arguments against anthropogenic global warming, as presented in the Channel 4 documentary "The Great Global Warming Swindle", I was left feeling pretty confused and a bit like I’d been had by the green lobbyists. The documentary subsequently attracted a lot of criticism and its arguments were shown to be based largely on half-truths and outdated science: http://inthegreen.typepad.com/blog/2007/03/deconstructing_.html http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2007/03/13/channel-4s-problem-with-science/#more-1047 http://www.jri.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=137&Itemid=83 RealClimate is a commentary site on climate science, run by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists. They aim to provide a quick response to developing stories and provide the context sometimes missing in mainstream commentary (see the posts on 9th and 13th Jul 2007, regarding the resistance of the Greenland Ice Sheet to climate change and the solar theory, both mentioned earlier on this thread). The Hadley Centre at the Met. Office also has a short section on common climate change myths which I’d recommend reading. The IPCC 4th Assessment Report: Summary for Policymakers (OK, so I didn't read the full report, but it's massive) states that "warming of the climate system is unequivocal" and that "most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations". In IPCC terminology, "very likely" means more than 90% likelihood. Really, I think 90% probability is about all we can reasonably ask for. Check out the following interview with Carl Wunsch, Professor of Oceanography at MIT. The interview was given in response to his being grossly misrepresented in the above-mentioned documentary. In particular, note the following extract: (my emphasis) Given that the stakes are so high, I tend to agree with him.

Here's the link to the Tradable Energy Quotas (TEQs) website: Tradable Energy Quotas Basically, every adult is given an equal (free) entitlement of units. Fuels (and electricity) each carry a rating: one unit represents one kilogram of carbon dioxide, or the equivalent in other greenhouse gases, released when the fuel is used. If you use less than your entitlement of units, you can sell your surplus, and if you need more, you can buy them. The number of units available on the market is set out in the TEQs budget, which looks 20 years ahead. The size of the budget goes down yearly. The TEQs scheme is designed to enable nations to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases, along with their use of fossil fuels, and to provide fair access to energy. This can be done within whatever international framework might apply at the time, such as Contraction and Convergence, or the Oil Depletion Protocol. So it would ensure we reduce our greenhouse emissions and also help minimize the effects of Peak Oil. I'm personally in favour of the scheme. It's pretty demoralizing trying to reduce your own energy consumption when someone down the road is taking 4 transatlantic flights a year (hypothetical example). As long as you stay within your ration you can spend it however you like. Certainly seems a lot less coercive than high petrol taxes and microchips on your wheelie bin.

To a large extent, peak oil and climate change seem to be two sides of the same coin. Both are due to Western civilisation’s overwhelming dependence on oil (climate change also being due to other factors). However, I think you’re right in that peak oil will soon become a much more urgent problem than climate change. Living in a wealthy country, the effects of climate change are quite remote for us, at least for the most part and in the short-term: it’s our children and certainly our grandchildren who will suffer the most serious effects. Climate change is already causing droughts in the Horn of Africa, but in the West we’re insulated from these effects. In contrast, the effects of peak oil will be immediate in terms of the impact on our economies and the constraints imposed on our whole society. The following link is an interview with Richard Heinberg, an American journalist and educator, and author of “The Party’s Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies†(2003): http://www.financialsense.com/transcriptions/2003/Heinberg.html The interview is very informative in explaining the origins of our current fossil fuel dependence. Fossil fuels gave us a huge energy input into our societies; oil in particular has a very high energy payback, in terms of the energy it produces relative to the energy expended in extracting it. Tractors run on petrol, for example, meant that we were able to free up land that would otherwise be used for feeding livestock to pull the ploughs. We were also able to transport food over vast distances, so we didn’t have to depend on local food production; and nitrogen fertilizers derived from coal and natural gas increased the productivity of our land. As a result of these technological advances made possible by the greater availability of energy, the world population has increased from about 1 billion at the beginning of the 19th century to 6.3 billion today. Fossil fuels are of course an exhaustible resource, and since the 1970s there have been a lot of signs warning us to reduce our oil dependence. However, governments have generally been very reluctant to address the problem, for reasons of political expediency (as highlighted by the following extract): This encapsulates much of the political problem. Few politicians are willing to tell people uncomfortable (or ‘inconvenient’) truths. Instead, they pay lip-service by, for example, investing in biofuels (regardless of the destructive environmental and social consequences, mentioned in an earlier post), while assuring us that we can maintain our current lifestyles. I’m all for renewable energy when it’s pursued responsibly with a recognition of its limits, but the dominant paradigm at present seems to be that we can pursue economic growth in perpetuity and simply deal with the environmental and associated problems through technological or other advances. This isn’t intended to be pessimistic. I know plenty of people making their own individual efforts to save energy and conserve resources, and certainly this is part of the solution. But it seems clear that the big changes that are necessary (decarbonising our economy, localised food networks, a new transport system) are structural ones, and that we’re going to have to convince the politicians they won’t be re-elected unless they make them.

I wouldn't worry too much about it. A friend of mine feels the same way about Angel (David Boreanaz) from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Some of my favourite horror films: Candyman Hellraiser Halloween Evil Dead (all 3 films) The Lost Boys (Kiefer Sutherland and "Bill" from Bill and Ted both play vampires) I haven't seen the Howling, but that Picardo chap has certainly played a bunch of weird roles. He was in Gremlins 2, and also the Wonder Years where he played Coach Cudlip. Although I'm not sure if that qualifies as horror; then again....

Thought this was worth adding to the discussion: it's an article from the Guardian yesterday (again by George Monbiot) about the negative impacts of biofuel production. Here's an extract: Another key point is that, due to deforestation, biodiesel produced from palm oil is responsible for ten times as much climate change as ordinary diesel. The full article is available here: http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2007/03/27/a-lethal-solution/#more-1051 I didn't listen to the whole budget speech last week, but this point is certainly relevant:

I don’t think I’m doing Mr Monbiot justice here at all. The impression I get from reading his book is that he does consider all the available options, and how they may fit into an overall scheme. I’ll try to put his point about biofuels into context. The main gist of the chapter on transport (by my reading) is as follows: Biofuels Should only be employed on a small scale, as at present. Setting higher targets will lead to a massive surge in imports of both palm oil (for biodiesel) from Malaysia and Indonesia, and sugar cane (for ethanol) from rainforest land in Brazil. This report by Friends of the Earth highlights the negative impacts of palm oil production: http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/burning_palm_oil_fuels_cli_23082006.html Improved fuel efficiency and hybrid vehicles The Toyota Prius (the 'greenest' car currently on the mass market) achieves a saving of 31% in terms of carbon emissions. In 2001, Toyota unveiled its Earth-friendly ES3 Concept Car (claimed to be twice as efficient as the Prius), but this appears to have since been abandoned. Similarly, the Rocky Mountain Institute in the US published a design for a new hybrid car which could save at least 70-80% of the fuel used by other models, and this has yet to materialize. The implication is that buyers (and therefore car manufacturers) simply aren’t that interested in serious fuel economies. While the majority of manufacturers' revenue continues to be made from selling sports utility vehicles, I don't think this is likely to change much. Hydrogen fuel cells Cars powered using hydrogen fuel cells are hampered by technical problems (storage, energy requirements). Their development is therefore predicted to be too slow to significantly reduce either carbon emissions or oil imports over the next 25 years. Fully electric cars These could use batteries provided by a network of filling stations. As the battery runs down, you pull into a station, pay a fee and swap it for another one (batteries run out every 100-300 miles). The stations could charge their batteries from electricity provided by renewable energy (e.g. offshore windfarms could be used to charge the batteries when the wind is blowing strongly and demand is low). Public transport Switching from car to coach is estimated to reduce the carbon emissions by roughly 88% (the reduction is 86% when switching from car to train). These figures assume that the car is of average size, containing the national mean of 1.56 people, that the train is a modern electric model with 70% of its seats occupied, and that the coach has 40 passengers. The transport analyst Lynn Sloman has estimated (based on studies conducted in Australia, three English towns, and a rural area in mid-Wales) that 40% of car journeys could already be made by bicycle, on foot or by public transport. Another 40% could be made by other means if public transport of cycling provision were improved, while roughly 20% of journeys cannot be swapped. Here Monbiot outlines a scheme proposed by the economist Alan Storkey to radically improve our coach system: http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2006/12/05/life-coaching/#more-1034 On this basis then, I believe the solution to our domestic transport emissions should come mainly from an improved coach system. When the practicalities of biofuels are considered, it becomes clear they can only make a very marginal contribution. There is scope for ‘eco-cars’ and indeed I believe these will be needed, particularly for those living in remote regions or who need a car for other reasons.

Hi Freyr, thanks for your questions. Yes, I was referring to road transport in the UK only. Here's the relevant extract from Monbiot's book: According to the report Monbiot cites, the UK has 17 million hectares of agricultural land, of which 5.7 million hectares is arable land: http://statistics.defra.gov.uk/esg/publications/auk/2003/chapter3.pdf I see what you mean; since trees don't need to be grown on as high-quality land, there may be considerable scope for them to be used as biofuels.

Sorry, I wasn't at all clear in my earlier post when I said that biofuels are a pipedream. What I meant was not that they weren't being developed, but that in terms of meeting demand they simply aren't feasible. In George Monbiot's recent book: "Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning", he discusses how supplying all our cars, buses and lorries with biofuels would require 25.9 million hectares of arable land to grow them (in the UK we currently have 5.7 million hectares). Even if we used up all of our potential cropland for growing biofuels, we wouldn't even meet a quarter of the demand. This gets a lot worse. The European biofuels directive rules that 5.75% of our transport fuel should come from renewable sources by 2010; the European Commission is planning to increase this to 20% by 2020 (the US is pursuing similar policies). This target alone would require almost all of our cropland, meaning that the biofuels would have to be grown in other countries. This would have a huge environmental cost as the carbon released from clearing forests vastly outweighs any potential gains. Monbiot also argues (convincingly, I think) that there would be a huge human cost. As the world market responds to money, and people in the developed world have more purchasing power, if land were used to grow biofuels rather than crops, the price of food could rise such that hundreds of millions would be pushed into starvation (there is a sinister parallel here with the meat and dairy industries). In contrast, switching from cars to coaches is estimated to reduce the CO2 you would otherwise have produced by 88% (this assumes the coach has 40 passengers). Utilizing waste products as biofuels is fine in itself, but intentionally growing them will only exacerbate global warming (and possibly perpetuate a humanitarian crisis into the bargain). I would strongly recommend reading Monbiot's book. It really does expose a lot of the spin you hear from politicians and the media. The information given here is all from the chapter on transport.

Hello all, I'm new to Shetlink so this is my first post. Nice to meet everyone. I've been doing a lot of reading about global warming lately, and would like to hear folks' opinions on a suggested framework for reducing emissions. "Contraction and Convergence" is a framework put forward by a chap named Aubrey Meyer, of the Global Commons Institute of London. His idea is that a global agreement is first reached on the maximum level of greenhouse gases we can reasonably permit in the atmosphere (from what I've read and heard on the news, this is likely to be at most 450ppm CO2 equivalent). On the global level, greenhouse gas emissions are then reduced in line with this target (the "contraction" bit). "Convergence", as the name implies, means there is an agreed year (say 2030) by which the per capita emissions of everyone in the world will be the same. Countries can trade emissions entitlements if they are unable to meet their targets. What is appealing about the framework is that countries such as China and India would actually be able to increase their emissions over an interim period. Given that China has pretty much said "forget it" to reducing emissions if it means halting its economic growth, this seems like an equitable solution. On the domestic level, this could be achieved by a system of carbon rationing (Malachy Tallach mentioned this idea in the editorial of this month's Shetland Life). The idea is that only fuel, electricity and (possibly) use of public transport would be rationed. It does sound harsh, and I have some reservations about the implementation of such a scheme. However, a mandatory cap on personal emissions seems a lot better than a voluntary one. Moreover, if the reductions were gradual, I think it could work. For one thing, there would be a lot more stimulus to improve our flagging public transport system. This is absolutely necessary in my opinion: green taxes won't stop people having to commute to work, and everything I hear about biofuels suggests they're just a pipedream. Anyway, that's me. What do people think? Contraction and Convergence with Carbon rationing? The three C's. As opposed to the three B's (for those of you who've seen Bad Santa).