This is something I wrote on the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference summarizing what happened during these talks. I understand that there may have been posts about this topic before and I'm sorry if this has already been thoroughly discussed.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_Summit

      EXCERPT: In my opinion, the 2009 UN Climate Change Conference was a failure. I’m not the only one who thinks so, the very people involved have said so themselves. From what I’ve heard on the news, nothing concrete was accomplished during this year’s talks, which is a shame since these meetings only do come once a year.

            So what exactly did happen during those talks, and why did they fail? I decided to find out by searching the Internet about what went on during these talks. What I found out made me feel even more disappointed than I was before.

More HERE!

Disclaimer: This is my original work so please don't copy without crediting.

cross-posted to fanearth, a small community dedicated to building awareness for Mother Nature.

Hello folks,

I'm getting the word out about a very important film about climate change called The Age of Stupid. eco_fan already made a post about the film in this community but much has happened since that post :)

( Get more info, see the trailer and more after the cutCollapse )

Pulling Yourself Off the Ground By Your Whiskers

Here is the simple mathematical reason why large scale carbon offsets can’t work

...
Last week the G8 summit adopted the UK’s two key targets: it proposed that developed countries should reduce their greenhouse gases by 80% by 2050 to prevent more than two degrees of global warming(1). This meant that it also adopted the UK’s key contradiction, as there is no connection between these two aims. An 80% cut is very unlikely to prevent two degrees of warming; in fact it’s not even the right measure, as I’ll explain later on. But let’s work out what happens if the other rich nations adopt both the UK’s targets and its draft approach to carbon offsets.

...
So here’s the outcome. The rich nations, if they follow the UK’s presumed lead, will cut their carbon pollution by 40%. The poorer nations will cut their carbon pollution by 60%.

If global justice means anything, the rich countries must make deeper cuts than the poor. We have the most to cut and can best afford to forego opportunities for development. If nations like the UK cannot make deep reductions, no one can. We could, as I showed in my book Heat, reduce emissions by 90% without seriously damaging our quality of life(3). But this carries a political price. Business must be asked to write off sunk costs, people must be asked to make minor changes in the way they live. This country appears to be doing what it has done throughout colonial and post-colonial history: dumping its political problems overseas, rather than confronting them at home.

Befuddled yet? I haven’t explained the half of it. As the G8 leaders know, a global cut of 50% offers only a faint-to-non-existent chance of meeting their ultimate objective: preventing more than two degrees of warming. In its latest summary of climate science, published in 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggested that a high chance of preventing more than two degrees of warming requires a global cut of 85% by 2050(4). In drafting the climate change act, the UK government promised to keep matching the target to the science. It has already raised its cut from 60% to 80% by 2050. If it sticks to its promise it will have to raise it again.

Global average CO2 emissions are 4.48 tonnes per person per year. Cutting the world total by 85% means reducing this to 0.672t. Average per capita output in the 38 Annex 1 countries is 9.98 tonnes: to hit this target they must cut their emissions by 93.3% by 2050. If the rich persist in offsetting 50% of this cut, the poorer countries would have to reduce their emissions by 6989mt to absorb our offsets. To meet a global average of 0.672t, they would also need to chop their own output by a further 10838mt. This means a total cut of 17827mt, or 125% of their current emissions. I hope you have spotted the flaw.

Story here.

Makes sense to me. While reductions in C02 emissions are desperately needed, they are unlikely to be sufficient to reverse global warming trends in the foreseeable future. Which means that we need some level of geoengineering to deal with global warming - and painting lots of surfaces oriented towards the sun is probably one of the less complex ways we can do that, since it increases the planet's albebo. Reducing the heat trapped in cities (and thus reducing the need for air conditioning) is an added bonus.

I'm a bit worried about brighter streets, though. Wouldn't that lead to increased glare which in turn would affect the ability of drivers to remain aware of the surrounding traffics?

Maybe we should wait with that step until most cars have brightness-sensitive smart windows which can adjust their opacity...

I found this interesting

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8001749.stm

2.4 million HOMES! It makes me also think about how many trees we could save w/o junk mail.

The new president of the island nation of Maldives is planning to spend billions of dollars buying enough land in another country to relocate his entire nation before global warming's rising sea levels submerge his low-lying nation of coral reefs entirely.

[Full Story]

Global warming is recognized to be the increase in the average temperature of the Earth’s near-surface air, and the projection that it will continue. However, the media often depicts global warming as a catastrophic epidemic, categorized by melting icecaps and hotter seasons, strictly induced by human activity. People claim the reason for a warmer climate is a result of human carbon emissions alone and only we can prevent the climb further. Realistically, there is a copious number of factors determining our current weather shift, so cutting our carbon dioxide output may only save our own lungs from pollution. Global warming is a natural occurrence and is not heightened by human activity, but rather mainly by geological climate trends.
A climate record of the past 1,000 years shows that periods of temperature rises are not unique. Information obtained on historical variations display a Medieval Warm Period from about 800 to 1200A.D. Soon after, the Little Ice Age was a period of cooling lasting up to the 20th century. The increase in current temperature only seems natural to recover from the cold stretch. Most rising occurred before 80% of the CO2 in the atmosphere was a result of human activity, meaning the early warming must be mostly natural.
While it is true that greenhouse gas emissions have increased in the past few decades, there is no evidence linking it directly to global warming. In an essay, Patrick Michaels writes, “In spite of the current increase in CO2. . . there’s precious little evidence that the Northern Hemisphere has warmed up significantly over the last fifty years” (Michaels 41). He is admitting that the carbon dioxide levels have risen, but that does not effect the climate. The increase in CO2 is thought to be the cause of the increase in temperature, but in actuality, it is just the opposite. Scientific evidence shows that most of the temperature increase occurred before 1940 and most new carbon dioxide was added after 1960. The rise in CO2 is therefore not contributing to the warmth trend, and poses little threat to global warming.
Proponents of human-made global warming may argue their climate models as their strongest weapon. They bear sophisticated computer simulations dealing solely with carbon dioxide emissions and the greenhouse effect associated with the gas. These models, though, have many problems for the reason that they are far too simplistic. To determine climate changes, the models must deal with over 5 million variables, many of which are uncertain, unmeasured, or unknown. Nonetheless, the models continue to lack key information about major climate sways, one example being the sun’s magnetism. A change in the sun’s magnetism has been measured to be periodic and the energy output to be changing in step with it. An increase in the sun’s energy output by a few tenths of a percent show the same results as nearly doubling the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. As we know, a change caused by the sun is nothing humans can help.
Millions of dollars in research in America has only proved that the threat of fatal warming is insignificant as compared to the large probability of natural change. Against the reliable evidence from science, the theory that humans are drastically effecting the warming of the Earth seems almost nonsensical. Human impact is only a small piece of the pie. We must first improve climate simulations to better pinpoint any human effect on global warming and ready affordable adaptation to it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/13/science/earth/13book.html?em&ex=1195102800&en=ded28c5bb88c44b1&ei=5087%0A

For many years, the battle over what to think and do about human-caused climate change and fossil fuels has been waged mostly as a yelling match between the political and environmental left and the right.

The left says global warming is a real-time crisis requiring swift curbs on smokestack and tailpipe gases that trap heat, and that big oil, big coal and antiregulatory conservatives are trashing the planet.

The right says global warming is somewhere between a hoax and a minor irritant, and argues that liberals’ thirst for top-down regulations will drive American wealth to developing countries and turn off the fossil-fueled engine powering the economy.

Some books mirror the divide, like the recent “Field Notes from a Catastrophe,” built on a trio of articles in The New Yorker by Elizabeth Kolbert, and “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming” by Chris Horner, a lawyer for the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Ms. Kolbert sounds a strong warning call, and Mr. Horner’s book fits with the position of the institute, a libertarian and largely industry-backed group that strongly opposes limits on greenhouse gases.

But in three other recent books, there seems to be a bit of a warming trend between the two camps. Instead of bashing old foes, the authors, all influential voices in the climate debate with roots on the left or the right, tend to chide their own political brethren and urge a move to the pragmatic center on climate and energy.

All have received mixed reviews and generated heated Internet debate — perhaps because they do not bolster any one agenda in a world where energy and environmental policies are still forged mainly in the same way Doctor Dolittle’s two-headed pushmi-pullyu walked. (It didn’t move much.)

One such book comes from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, one of the most polarizing forces in politics a decade ago.

In “A Contract With the Earth,” Mr. Gingrich, with his co-author Terry L. Maple (a professor of psychology at Georgia Tech and president of the Palm Beach Zoo), has written a manifesto challenging conservatives not just to grudgingly accept, but to embrace, the idea that a healthy environment is necessary for a healthy democracy and economy.

( Read more...Collapse )

The New Math Of Global Warming

Commentary:
A descriptive slideshow by Craig Damrauer
showing the equations for the new math of global warming.

July/August 2007 Issue Mother Jones

Artwork by Craig Damrauer

  There are so many theoretics who push the issue of the global warming today. Their number is increasing every minute, with every new real or pseudo evidence about the climate change. Anti-globalists and environmentalists alike are pursuing their own agendas, turning the problem into a political issue and this way perverting everything. This is not how we can deal with a potential problem. If it really exists.

Because this documentary film, "The Great Global Warming Swindle" suggests just the opposite: there is no global warming, everything is a hoax of a group of powerful interests who want to obstruct the development and advancing of humankind. Maybe it sounds strange how come the powerful business interests will want to stop the development of industry but this is another question.

I personally have strong environmentalist inclinations. I believe that humans affect our fragile ecosystem in a way that has already become very dangerous. And although the film is very controversial and full with discrepancies... but controversial and contested mainly because the proponents of global warming have already become mainstream, even if part of them are laics and pseudo scientists... I feel that the other side should be heard too. Every side in an argument has equal right to be listened to and every opinion to be seriously examined. Because the truth is not what most people say is true or believe is true. The truth is just... Truth...and we should search for it constantly. And never resort to axioms.

The film can be watched here: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8 (also see the comments).

Is it Just Me or is Everything Shit? by Steve Lowe & Alan McArthur.
To hear an audio excerpt of this passage, click here.

If you're worried about global warming, you must be some kind of pussy. The ice caps aren't melting. There aren't more forest fires or old people dying in heatwaves. The seas aren't getting substantially warmer - and even if they are, which they aren't, the fish are absolutely loving it!

We know this because of a small cabal of scientists who believe in big business more than life itself and who, funnily enough, often receive funding from ExxonMobil. These 'sceptics' get everywhere: by the President's ear; near to big business; on news programmes keen to stir up 'debate' and show they're not biased against frothing nutjobs.

In 2004, Myron Ebell, a director at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told Radio 4's Today programme that global warming fears were 'ridiculous, unrealistic and alarmist' and that European countries were 'not out to save the world, but out to get America.'

In 2005, White House official - and former oil industry lobbyist - Philip Cooney was found to have filed reports on the link between greenhouse gases and climate change with dozens of amendments that all exaggerated scientific doubts. That was before he left the White House for a job with... ExxonMobil! Could you make it up? Probably, but there's no need.

All this despite the fact that virtually all other climatologists - the ones without links to the fossil fuel industry - now predict that even a conservative rise of 2.1 degrees will probably result in tens of millions of people losing their lives. Even a supressed Pentagon report warned of a danger that far outstripped terrorism, mega-droughts, famine. Thanks to a newly submerged Gulf Stream, by 2020 the British climate could rival Siberia's. Thankfully, President Bush responded immediately. By standing proud alongside the British PM and declaring: 'We need to know more about it.'

More about what? You can see how this will develop in years to come... But Myron, I've just put a page of A4 paper in sunlight and watched it spontaneously combust. 'Sheer alarmism - we've always had hot days!' But Myron, a heard of gazelles has just elegantly pranced past the window of our London studio. 'Er, yes, they're mine. I brought them along with me especially. That big one - he's called Dave and he likes crisps.'

And Myron, now you're being swept into the skies by a freak tornado. 'What a funny thing you are! I see nothing extraordinary in this turn of events... It's great up here! Hi George, good to see you! Pretty breezy, I know! You what? You want to know more about it? It's okay, I'm on it!!'