Author: Jo

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Climate Change Media

The Tetchiness of Richard Black

[ UPDATE : More science on solar irradiation change and how it cannot explain the high levels of recent Global Warming : https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/a-problem-of-multiplicity/ ]

Some people have been asking why I’ve been so picky about Richard Black, the BBC environmental journalist.

I found fault with a blog post of his that had a lot of good, illuminating stuff in it, yet still managed to misdirect people, in my opinion.

What we read in the papers, online and watch on the television has a longlasting effect on us. If the news is skewed, and if it continues to be skewed, we are being manipulated.

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Big Picture Carbon Capture Carbon Commodities Climate Change Emissions Impossible Energy Revival Pet Peeves Political Nightmare

Cut To The Chase

So this big plan for international Carbon Trading, how long will it take to set up all the national and regional markets ? And how long will it take to get some kind of serious reduction in Carbon Emissions using the market ?

Well, judging by this week’s slalom race on the melting Climate piste, I’d say it will be a good few years yet before a functioning international Carbon market will be viable, and a good few years after that that it will start to deliver any real reductions in emissions.

That could easily take us past 2015, the year that Kevin Anderson of the Tyndall Centre knows we have to peak our emissions or face Climageddon (unless we can produce negative emissions. Yeah. Right.) :-

https://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/4degrees/programme.php
Presentation Slides : https://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/4degrees/ppt/10-1anderson.pdf
Presentation Audio : https://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/4degrees/audio/10-1anderson.mp3

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Behaviour Changeling Big Picture Burning Money Climate Change Contraction & Convergence Eating & Drinking Pet Peeves Protest & Survive Social Change Unsolicited Advice & Guidance

Stop Consuming For Christmas

https://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/10617

I know a couple of people who are not eating because of Climate Change.

It’s not that their country is experiencing drought, flood, famine, storm, trade disruption, economic seizure or war.

It’s because they believe in Climate Justice.

We have consumed, and we will be consumed.

All our Fossil Fuel burning and plunder from the forests and intensive agriculture has eaten up the Earth’s ability to maintain its cool.

The sky will rain down disaster, plague, heatwaves, hurricanes. The sea will rise up and drown our cities.

We have eaten too much, and now it is time to stop.

Just in time for Christmas.

https://www.buynothingday.co.uk

What Would Jesus Buy ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGi21YQFjMM

Rights. Fair shares. It’s time for a Global Carbon Budget.

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Carbon Capture Climate Change Emissions Impossible Pet Peeves Technological Sideshow Unutterably Useless

Urgently Seeking Experienced Journalists

Someday, all journalists who report on Climate Change and Energy will not only have relevant Science and Technology training, but they will also be allowed the time to fact-check corporate-sponsored-academic-research Press Releases before being asked to publish articles written around those Press Releases.

I absolutely adore Alok Jha writing for the The Guardian newspaper. He’s young, smart, good-looking, intelligent, and studied Physics at Imperial College, London. He writes well. His heart is clearly in the right place. Some of the things the The Guardian publish with his name under them could, however, be a little more incisive.

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Bad Science Bait & Switch Carbon Capture Energy Revival Non-Science Pet Peeves Public Relations Technological Sideshow Unutterably Useless

ExxonMobil Errs On Television

Unlocking Potential in Algae

https://www.media.exxonmobil.com/media/microsite/index1.html?contentID=04B

It’s there, right in the script, an outright fallacy. If you were in converstion with your friend on the sofa you would have missed it.

ExxonMobil have been playing an advertisement on British television about algae. Apparently there’s green algae, red algae, golden… While the rest of the world is trying to get rid of pond scum, they’re growing it. To make biofuel. Green, Low Carbon driving fuel.

And it’s not competing with the world’s food supply. Hurrah !

And it eats up Carbon Dioxide, the narrator narrates in passing… “Algae are very beautiful… they absorb CO2 so they help solve the Greenhouse problem as well.”

Is that a hooray, also ? No, it’s not.

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Energy Revival Nuclear Nuisance Nuclear Shambles Peak Energy Pet Peeves

Free Energy : The Nuclear Power Dead-End

“Sustainable Development” is a phrase with two distinct meanings.

When people trained in Economics think about what “Sustainable Development” means, they normally assume that Nature’s continuing bounty will sustain our development path. That the pyramid of wealth, the wealth accrual machine and monetary incentives will bring more and more people and material resources into optimal production, and there will be no end to the development of the enrichment of all peoples and the quality of their habitat. Growth is good, for it brings prosperity to all, health, wealth, education, freedom from want and a top-notch built environment.

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Climate Change Media

Kevin Rudd versus Rupert Murdoch

A huge round of applause for Kevin Rudd, Australia’s Prime Minister, for lambasting, basting and roasting the Climate Change deniers :-

https://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/06/2735769.htm

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Emissions Impossible Geogingerneering

Deep Pockets : Carbon Sinks News

Possibly some good news from the world of Carbon Sink science : the Earth may be soaking up progressively more Carbon Dioxide as time goes by instead of refusing to do so :-

https://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL040613.shtml

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Cost Effective Energy Revival Pet Peeves

Poepen is Gezond : The Rise of Poo Power

Sustainable Energy comes from doing what comes naturally. Wind, waves, sunlight. And pooping.

With some fairly minor adaptations to all sewage treatment plants, and a little AD – Anaerobic Digestion – we could hook up our off-gassing into the National Grid, and reduce our Fossil Gas use, big-time.

Watch this technology for meteoric rise. Cheap, cheerful, but slightly pongy. But they do BioGas in China and India all the time, and 2.4 billion Chinidians can’t be wrong.

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Carbon Capture Pet Peeves

Carbon Capture : Dead Technology Walking

The IPCC’s best guess was that Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) could not be developed quickly enough to make much of a contribution on Carbon Dioxide Emissions Reductions before about 2030 :-

https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg3/ar4-wg3-spm.pdf
Figure SPM.9

The Carbon Capture and Storage Association chief says that CCS is only an “elastoplast technology” – patching the gap between Coal burning and new Low Carbon Energy :-

https://www.joabbess.com/2009/03/26/carbon-capture-and-storage-merely-an-elastoplast-technology/

And now, the “competition” for Carbon Capture in the United Kingdom appears to have stalled :-

https://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/09/carbon-capture-and-storage

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Burning Money Energy Revival Nuclear Nuisance Nuclear Shambles Pet Peeves

Would You Trust This Man ?

Ed Miliband is today assuring us that New Nuclear Power will be safe, and that we will all have a say in the planning process – so tantalising us with the idea that we will be able to influence the outcome.

I don’t believe either of these things.

Nuclear Power is inherently dangerous, operationally unreliable, dirty, wasteful, expensive and any public money used to support it in any way will prevent us from pursuing truly sustainable Energy.

New Nuclear won’t work without Government subsidy, either for the construction of the plants themselves, or guaranteed customer pricing, or the insurance to cover the failure of projects to complete (or radioactive accident). The Government’s Department of Energy and Climate Change can expect to find any New Nuclear direct public funding, price fixing, subsidy or tax breaks in court.

No, it won’t be me personally taking the Government to court.

Nuclear Power is a dinosaur technology, and judging by the number of countries that have signed up for new fleets of reactors, the Uranium fuel to run the plants being planned will be exhausted within the lifetime of the plants. With supplies of fuel running out, early decommissioning means the plants will never pay back on the investment.

Sounds like a high risk strategy to me, even before looking at the risks of radioactive explosions.

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Carbon Rationing Emissions Impossible Social Change

Carbon Rationing : Energy Rights

The long drawn-out journey towards the inevitable policy of Carbon Rationing took another step closer to sanity with the pronouncements of the good Lord Smith of the Environment Agency.

If we are to guarantee Human Rights for everyone, we have to assert the right to access to Energy for everyone. The only way to do that, given a Carbon-constrained world is to agree on fair shares, and ration power : parcelling the goodness out equitably.

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Uncategorized

Remembrance Sunday

With so many facts and figures swirling around, it’s sometimes hard to recall the important things, pin them down and make a rational argument out of them.

One thing for Remembrance Sunday, something to remember in future : warfare creates Carbon Emissions :-

https://www.britannica.com/bps/additionalcontent/18/34522876/Warfare-Ecology

“The scientific evidence that Homo sapiens is causing unprecedented environmental change is now compelling (MEA 2003). Among human activities, war is common, almost constant, and sweeping in its ecological impact. There have been 122 armed conflicts around the world in the past 17 years, and 163 of 192 countries currently maintain regular armed forces (Majeed 2004, Harbom and Wallensteen 2007). War preparations alone utilize up to 15 million square kilometers (km²) of land, account for 6% of all raw material consumption, and produce as much as 10% of global carbon emissions annually (Bidlack 1996, Biswas 2000, Majeed 2004).”

I didn’t get my white poppy this year because of the problems with the postal service. I did however fashion one myself out of a Haig poppy and a paper serviette napkin :-

https://www.whitepoppy.org.uk/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Poppy

Turn warplanes into wind turbines. Turn the defence industry over to manufacturing concentrated solar power plant.

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Climate Change Contraction & Convergence

Contraction & Convergence : Agreeable, Workable, Ethical

This week, the campaigning organisation Friends of the Earth took the bold step of publishing their critical negative analysis of Carbon Trading. It is clear that money, alone, cannot buy you Carbon Emissions reductions, and as we come up to Copenhagen, it is essential that we reach beyond the ifs, buts, greys and muted tones to a framework that can be made to work, agreeable to all : Contraction & Convergence from the Global Commons Institute :-

https://www.gci.org.uk/contconv/cc.html

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Climate Change Contraction & Convergence

Africa Has Now Left The Building (Not)

No, Africa did not walk out on the Barcelona Climate talks. Africa needs a global Climate deal. They are insisting that the rich/developed nations make firm commitments on Greenhouse Gas Emissions reductions, is all.

Great Britain has since managed to bailout the Banks, once more. Some of these Banks are financing Carbon-intensive projects, so you could say that the UK is investing in Climate megadeath in Africa. The Africa Group is entitled to strong feelings of injustice. Listen and watch at Climate Radio for a strong analysis :-

https://climateradio.org/41-africa-makes-a-stand/

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Bad Science Bait & Switch Behaviour Changeling Big Picture Climate Change Energy Revival Low Carbon Life Media Non-Science Obamawatch Peace not War Pet Peeves Political Nightmare Protest & Survive Public Relations Renewable Resource Social Change Technological Sideshow Unsolicited Advice & Guidance Unutterably Useless Utter Futility Vote Loser

David Miliband : Expecting Someone Shorter

To be honest, he was taller than I expected, and more Eastern in appeareance, a kind of lanky version of Mehmet behind the deli counter at my local Turkish International Food Emporium.

David Miliband was also considerably thinner than I would have liked, considering he might one day rule the New Labour Party, who might just rule my country again. We wouldn’t want him blown away by the slightest breeze, surely, would we ? He needs feeding in my opinion.

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Carbon Capture Nuclear Nuisance Nuclear Shambles Pet Peeves

The Nuclear Begging Bowl Fights Back

We told you all along : New Nuclear will be expensive, and the privatised Energy suppliers will not be interested in financing them on their own. Too big a risk.

All that capital tied up in projects that could roll on for years and years and years with no guarantee of a decent generation capacity at the end.

Building infrastructure with no assurances of a return on investment – well, in this Economic climate, it’s not going to happen. New Nuclear will need public sector finance – yet another bailout.

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Carbon Capture China Syndrome Climate Change

Bad China : David Miliband’s Radio Myth

Heads up to MediaLens for pointing me in the direction of this broadcast of an interview with the British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00nkxz6

“Free Thinking – David Miliband : Last broadcast on Tuesday 3rd November 2009, 21:15 on BBC Radio 3. In an interview given in front of an audience at The Sage Gateshead as part of the 2009 Free Thinking festival, Foreign Secretary David Miliband talks to Philip Dodd about his family background, his life in politics and his vision for democracy – both home and abroad. A rising star in the Blair government, Miliband has become a government heavyweight under Gordon Brown. He is among the youngest foreign secretaries in history.”

Somewhere during the interview David Miliband utters what I consider to be a myth. He said something along the lines of “…China…building four coal-fired power plants a month…or a week.”

Is there any truth in this ? And how could we verify it ? And why does pointing at China let American and European Coal expansion off the hook ?

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Climate Change Contraction & Convergence

Carbon Leakage : Europe Compromises Again

The European Parliament, far from closing down Big Carbon, has just agreed a whole raft of exemptions to the Emissions Trading Scheme.

The original plan was to have all Carbon Allowances auctioned as of 2013. That won’t be happening now.

There will be more Carbon Dioxide floating away into the skies. And less revenues from the sale of Carbon Permits to finance Carbon Capture and Storage (which was part of the original plan).

Energy supply and Carbon-intensive industry : protected once again from serious change over Global Warming.

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Bait & Switch Carbon Capture Climate Change Public Relations

Everyone Should Read This (2)

[ PREVIOUS ARTICLE : https://www.joabbess.com/2009/11/02/everyone-should-read-this/ ]

Since the book “Climate Cover-Up : The Crusade to Deny Global Warming” by James Hoggan does not appear to be available in the United Kingdom as of now, I have taken the liberty of transcribing a brief passage about Carbon Capture and Storage.

The thrust of the passage, and in fact two whole chapters of the book, which everybody should read, is that

(a) even with Carbon Capture, Coal will never be “Clean” and

(b) that there has been a deliberate propaganda campaign amongst the public and in the corridors of power to promote Carbon Capture even though it cannot clean up Coal.

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Climate Change Extreme Weather Political Nightmare

Overwhelming Disaster

A couple of weeks ago I was in discussion with some people considering what would trigger urgent global action on reducing Greenhouse Gas emissions.

Not just words and forms of words, but serious practical action to re-figure the global Economy around Low Carbon principles.

Someone mentioned Katrina. And someone else mentioned that despite the estimations showing that the damage from Hurricane Katrina was probably partly due to global warming (or, rather, ocean warming), it hasn’t been a wake-up call.

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Carbon Commodities Climate Change

Carbon Trading Isn’t Working (3)

Friends of the Earth have come out with another report on the poor state of Carbon Trading, just in time for the Copenhagen Climate talks where Carbon Trading could become one of the planks on which we will be made to walk :-

https://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/05/friends-of-the-earth-attacks-carbon-trading

“Friends of the Earth attacks carbon trading : An FoE reports says ‘cap and trade’ carbonn markets have done little to reduce emissions but have been plagued by corruption and inefficiency : Ashley Seager : The Guardian, Thursday 5 November 2009 : The world’s carbon trading markets growing complexity threatens another “sub-prime” style financial crisis that could again destabilise the global economy, campaigners warn today. In a new report, Friends of the Earth says that to date “cap and trade” carbon markets have done almost nothing to reduce emissions but have been plagued by inefficiency and corruption that render them unfit for purpose…”

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Burning Money Carbon Capture Energy Revival Pet Peeves Technological Sideshow Unutterably Useless Utter Futility Vote Loser

The Carbon Capture Begging Bowl

Colin Challen MP [Member of the United Kingdom Parliament], the author of “Too Little, Too Late : The Politics of Climate Change” has told the nascent Carbon Capture industry to stop bleating for funding, effectively a bailout for the Coal industry :-

https://www.newenergyfocus.com/do/ecco.py/view_item?listid=1&listcatid=32&listitemid=3178&section=Carbon

“CCS industry should support itself, claims MP : Wednesday 04 November 2009 : Labour MP Colin Challen believes the CCS industry should fund itself : A Labour MP has called on the Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) industry to stop giving a “sob story” about needing government investment and instead fund new projects itself. Colin Challen, the MP for Morley and Rothwell, made the comments at today’s (November 4) Energy and Climate Change Committee meeting at Westminster, which was held as part of its inquiry into low carbon technologies. Responding to calls from industry body representatives for more government help in developing CCS plants, Mr Challen said: “It seems to me that research and development (R&D) has plummeted to a fraction of what it was. This industry has had billions of pounds out of the consumers’ pockets but yet we get this sob story about needing more money.” However, the director of technology and external affairs at Alstom – which builds integrated power plants – Philip Sharman, argued that utility companies have been investing in CCS, but said that the larger scale projects would need government help…”

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Behaviour Changeling Big Picture Climate Change Energy Revival Pet Peeves

Copenhagen Is All Wrong

Many people around the world are praying and crossing their fingers for some kind of Climate Change treaty to be signed at Copenhagen.

Practically all the nations of the world will have their United Nations delegations in Denmark’s capital this December, and many governments are hoping for a breakthrough of one sort or another on the form of words, the financial commitments and the political drive to get things done.

Trouble is, the nations can promise and sign and agree all they like, but nothing will happen, because the wrong players are in the room.

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Bad Science Bait & Switch Climate Change Non-Science

State of Emergency

Image Credit : Rahmstorf et al. (2007)

When is Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister going to appear on TV and tell it to us straight ?

Climate Change is real, and it’s happening now, and the sceptics, deniers, delayers and cynics are all wrong. And somebody with some kind of respect needs to be saying that, regularly, with backup, in all the media channels.

It’s time that scepticism, denialism, delayism and cynicism were ruled out of order.

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