I can imagine the shared advertising now : a cartoon of a large tanker, shaped like a floating Coke bottle, with the caption “We funnel your fizz”.
Tag: Climate Change
The Thane of Fife had a little meeting this week that reminded me somewhat of “The Scottish Play” in its treachery, and faith in the Nuclear Power Ghost to absolve Carbon stains, rather than the harsh inevitability of true Energy Conservation grit.
Glowing Gordon Brown and E.On-atomic-bright Ed Miliband travelled to the seat of the Scottish Government from the seat of the English Government, seemingly to push the Nuclear button.
Steven Chu is a grown up. He has an education, he doesn’t have a mental health problem, he’s not a member of a fringe environmental campaigning group and he doesn’t have anyone pointing any weapons at him.
But he admits in public that he finds Climate Change “very, very scary”.
Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) has been just the wisp or filament of an idea for so long; and never really taken on a bodily form. It’s still ectoplasmic, in the worst of ways. Despite the various attempts around the world to drag it kicking and screaming into a corporeal existence.
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Glass Dome USA
Hands up, all of you who’ve seen The Simpsons Movie ?
[ I can hear choral singing in the background and see white clouds on a blue, blue sky; but it’s not the title sequence for the “propaganda” film “The Great Global Warming Swindle”. ]
For those of you who missed it, Al Gore’s Climate Project hit the hallowed halls of Cambridge, England, in March 2007 :-
https://www.cpi.cam.ac.uk/gore
It was a whirlwind love affair, and I recall hearing about a couple of the more fringe people who attended the training. They were wowed.
Debating about Carbon policy outside the Bank of England this rainy London afternoon, was, I thought, rather appropriate.
My opponent was weaving the great Al Gore, James Hansen, ExxonMobil line, “so…why don’t we just have a flat Carbon Tax ?”
It seems that the not-so-secret Security Services and Police so-called Intelligence have been listening in at Climate Camp national gatherings and spin-off direct action groups (colour me un-surprised) :-
https://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/apr/13/nottingham-police-raid-environmental-campaigners
In my family, the children were always warned, “Don’t eat the blackberries growing near the road on your walk to school.” What they didn’t tell us, and we didn’t properly know until recently, was that the air pollution was much more dangerous to us than lead deposits in the dust on wayside foraging.
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One Dead Man
Good Friday. The start of the special Christian weekend when we remember brutal, inhuman torture and a completely unnecessary death.
With the emergence of the social movement around Climate Change and Energy policy, it was to be expected that campaigners and protesters would come up against the ruling systems of the day.
The green figleaf is well and truly fluttering off into the windy landscape for Royal Dutch Shell. They’re an oil and gas company, with some petrochemistry on the side, and to prove it, they announced on 17th March 2009 that they were pulling their last tiny percentage points out of Renewables :-
https://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/26/fred-pearce-greenwash-shell-exxon
“Greenwash: Shell betrays ‘new energy future’ promises”
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Shell’s Day in Court
I’ve just been to a very nice little shindig with refreshments at the offices of Amnesty International in London.
We were treated to speeches and wine and Nigerian poetry and rap. And there was dancing.
What was it all for then ? And what does it have to do with Climate Change ?
Why is the Government in the United Kingdom so poor on Climate Change and Energy ?
Why have they signed the Climate Change Act without a clue as to how to implement it, and are delaying any obvious low-cost actions, kicking it all into the long grass ?
I can’t see global panic taking hold. Well, I never expected mass hysteria actually, but I would have thought that news of accelerating Antarctic meltdown would have brought out the doom-mongering commentators in droves. But I don’t see much sign of that.
A question repeatedly occurs to me. “Why are the cigarette manufacturers still in business ?”, I ask myself, when I look at how much effort, money and time goes into helping smokers become non-smokers.
This week has seen a flurry of “Yes, We Can” news articles about the Carbon Capture and Storage technology, or CCS.
“Solution to the carbon problem could be under the ground : Hope for the fight against climate change as study finds greenhouse gas can be buried without fear of leaking : By Steve Connor, Science Editor : Thursday, 2 April 2009 : Carbon dioxide captured from the chimneys of power stations could be safely buried underground for thousands of years without the risk of the greenhouse gas seeping into the atmosphere, a study has found.”
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Medieval Warm Period, Busted
Climate Change Denialists, or Sceptics (Skeptics) as they like to call themselves, will not be liking this piece of research one single teensy-eensy-weensy bit.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16892-natural-mechanism-for-medieval-warming-discovered.html
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The Rain in Spain Today
The Times newspaper confuses the present with the future in an otherwise useful article today :-
https://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6025056.ece
I got on the train yesterday evening with a very gentle fellow, who was reading a free newspaper intently.
I noticed he was carrying a camera with quite a large lens, so I said to him, “You can’t believe anything you read in the papers”, trying this gambit to get him to spill about what he was doing.
He gave a non-commital response, and we didn’t strike up.
Down at the G20 Climate Camp today, I had the opportunity to meet up with people I know from Climate Change work all over the UK and beyond.
Don’t be tempted to dismiss the Campers as sensationalism-seeking wildcats : we’re talking about a collection of some of the finest Science, Policy and Society minds there are, with a bit of the Press mixed in for good voyeuristic effect.
1st Apriil 2009
SPACE 1
2pm : Trading our way into Trouble – How carbon trading hasn’t worked so far, why it’s not going to work and the problems it’s causing in the Global South (CarbonTradeWatch).
3pm : Plenary (all together session) – “Their solutions / our solutions” – with starting contributions on “their solutions” and an open discussion on “our solutions”.
I’m getting reports of people with an outline plan to take a skinny dip in the fountains in Trafalgar Square.
Apparently, to raise the profile of Carbon Trading, they’re going to paint themselves with some kind of black paint, or black marker pen, and splash about shouting something like “Carbon Trading doesn’t wash !”
The London Press today have been thumbscrewing public opinion down against the G20 demonstrations – with fear-laden messaging and nasty tagging of protestors as “violent”.
I’ve overheard several conversations today between various casually dressed office workers moaning about tomorrow’s happenings.
STOP PRESS : Just received a text “Big Brother is turning off CCTV for the day. Don’t forget to bring your own. Please forward this text.” What can go on when nobody is watching ?
I’ve just been at one of several G20 Climate Camp convergence spaces this evening to get the full briefing.
I expected Police presence on the door, and yes, once again they were illegally photographing people coming and going from a public meeting.
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Never Mind the Wind Rush
Jonathan Leake, writing in the Sunday Times on 29th March 2009 betrays a certain ignorance, and casual disregard for sound European Renewables policy :-
https://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5992864.ece
“Consumers beware the costly spin of wind turbines”