Anti-intellectual Climate Change Deniers

Prof. Brook nails it.

An Adelaide professor says scientists must do more to stand up to "anti-intellectual" climate change deniers, by explaining the difference between good science and spin. University of Adelaide Professor Barry Brook, director of the Research Institute for Climate Change and Sustainability, said in climate science and policy there were still a few, apparently well-educated people who continued to deny the vast body of scientific knowledge and analysis.

He said they were variously called sceptics, denialists, contrarians, delayers or delusionists. "Whatever the label you attach to them, they are all cut of the same anti-intellectual cloth," Prof Brook said in an article published in the latest issue of Australasian Science. "Their business is the dissemination of disinformation, doubt and unscientific nonsense." Climate change deniers 'smear science'

Scientists must work harder at making the public aware of the stark difference between good science and denialist spin. Scientists should beware of feeding trolls by engaging them on their terms. Instead be strong, well-informed advocates for good science! Don’t think that it is enough to be merely passive bystanders. Good science alone invariably wins these silly debates, but usually not before denialist spin does much damage.

Active and forthright public communication of science is not only an obligation of scientists, but a critical necessity. This is especially true for climate change and environmental sustainability, where we are perilously close to running out of time. Make a Stand for Good Science

Call for Presidential Science Debate April 18

Dear presidential candidate,

Given the many urgent scientific and technological challenges facing America and the rest of the world, the increasing need for accurate scientific information in political decision making, and the vital role scientific innovation plays in spurring economic growth and competitiveness, we call for a public debate in which the U.S. presidential candidates share their views on the issues of The Environment, Health and Medicine, and Science and Technology Policy.

We would like to hear how, as president, you plan to defend science from political interference, and how you plan to use science to inform your policies.

We call on you to participate in Science Debate 2008 in Philadelphia on April 18.

Scientific Freedom and the Public Good

Solar Thermal Power without Transmission?

Haven't seen any of these War-of-the-Worlds extras in the neighbor's backyard yet, but...

Infinia aims to deploy its Stirling dishes in smaller configurations so that solar power plants can be located near cities and at other sites that don’t require vast stretches of desert land where solar thermal plants are typically built. Each 21-foot-high, 15-foot-wide solar dish can generate 3-kilowatts... “We fly in the face of what has been the conventional wisdom in the solar thermal field that to be competitive you have to have a very large system,” says Sitton. “We can be deployed within city limits and be connected to existing transmission systems. No additional transmission capacity is required.” Another solar power plant play for Khosla, Idealab

Drove by Kramer Junction SEGS III, IV, V, VI,VII last Fall on way to & fro our Mt. Whitney climb.

And a lot more solar thermal is on the way...
PG&E Signs Agreement With Solel for 553 Megawatts of Solar Power
Solar power plants in the Mojave Desert
CSP Technologies Overview
Bureau of Land Management - Solar Energy

Sea-level rise could be twice IPCC estimates!

A comprehensive new study authored by University at Buffalo scientists and their colleagues for the first time documents in detail the dynamics of parts of Greenland's ice sheet, important data that have long been missing from the ice sheet models on which projections about sea level rise and global warming are based.

"If current climate models from the IPCC included data from ice dynamics in Greenland, the sea level rise estimated during this century could be twice as high as what they are currently projecting," she said.

Csatho's co-authors on the paper are Tony Schenk of the Ohio State University Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Geodetic Science; Kees van der Veen of the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets at the University of Kansas, and William B. Krabill of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Cryospheric Sciences Branch. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation and NASA.

New Greenland Ice Sheet Data Will Impact Climate Change Models

Global Cooling? Perhaps Not.

For all you Global Cooling activists out there...

Hi Tom,
Thanks for the message. The stuff on the web came from a casual chat with someone who managed to misunderstand what I said and then put the result on the web, which is probably a big caution for me regarding the future.

It is true that the beginning of the next solar cycle is late, but not so late that we are getting worried, merely curious.

It is the opinion of scientists, including me, that global warming is a major issue, and that it might be too late to do anything about it already. If there is a cooling due to the solar activity cycle laying off for a bit, then the a period of solar cooling could be a much-needed respite giving us more time to attack the problem of greenhouse gases, with the caveat that if we do not, things will be far worse when things turn on again after a few decades. However, once again it is early days and we cannot at the moment conclude there is another minimum started.

Thanks for the heads-up.
Regards,
Ken [Dr. Kenneth Tapping]

Time for America to take the lead!

Americans in particular — the world's most promiscuous emitters of greenhouse gases and the ones best placed to do something about it — can set an example. A good start would be to remove the government subsidies for fossil fuels, which are huge, mostly hidden, and economically unsound. Another sensible step would be to tax carbon emissions, including gradually raising the tax on gasoline by a dollar or so (comparable to what nearly all other industrial nations pay, and compensated by lowering other taxes). That would also help to cover the actual costs of roads, traffic congestion, accident injuries and illness due to smog. Other economically beneficial policies could improve fuel efficiency in many areas, protect forests, and so forth.

Most important of all, regulation and "price signals" will stimulate development of technologies and practices that can advance human welfare with far lower greenhouse gas emission. The control of CFCs, for example, turned out to be far easier and cheaper than the regulated industries feared.

Without delay, nations should join — as nearly all but the United States have done — in working out systems for applying standards on the international scale, which is where climate operates. Indeed most nations have already joined in this process, and disdain the United States for standing aside when it should be the natural leader.

Like many threats, global warming calls for greater government activity, and that rightly worries people. But in the 21st century the alternative to government action is not individual liberty: it is corporate power. And the role of large corporations in this story until very recently has been negative, a tale of self-interested obfuscation and short-sighted delay. The atmosphere is a classic case of a "commons" — like the old shared English meadows, where any given individual could only gain by adding more of his own cows, although everyone lost from the overgrazing. In such cases only public rules can protect the public interest.

The Discovery of Global Warming

Trillions of Green for Green!

The world will be investing $trillions in energy development & infrastructure over the next couple decades anyway, so why not make it green?

Increasing public concerns about climate change -- and its potential economic and political security consequences -- are driving public policy and private investment to bring clean energy technologies from the fringes of the global energy industry to the center of activities as quickly as possible, a new analysis by Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) has concluded.

The result of this rising public and private momentum is an increase in worldwide clean energy investment that could surpass US$7 trillion by 2030 in cumulative real 2007 dollars, according to the CERA report Crossing the Divide: The Future of Clean Energy.

"We are seeing a major shift in public opinion, reinforced by the expectation that carbon policies could fundamentally change the competitive landscape of the global energy business," said Daniel Yergin, CERA Chairman and IHS Executive Vice President. "This is providing a vital impetus that is moving clean technology across the great divide of cost, proven results, scale and maturity that has separated it from markets served by mainstream technologies and processes."

Global Climate Change Response Can Spur $7 Trillion in Clean Energy Investment by 2030: CERA Analysis

The WEA?

Simon Linnett, Executive Vice-Chairman of Rothschild, has called for a new international body, the World Environment Agency, to regulate carbon trading.

In a recently published paper, Trading Emissions, for the Social Market Foundation, Mr Linnett argues that the International problem of climate change demands an international solution.

Unless governments cede some of their sovereignty to a new world body, he says, a global carbon trading scheme cannot be enforced and regulated. Carbon trading must be globally regulated

GE to pump another $2-billion into green power

General Electric Co.'s energy investment business, buoyed by rising demand for alternative power, said yesterday it will increase its investment in renewable energy by 50 per cent, to $6-billion (U.S.) by 2010.

Alex Urquhart, president and chief executive officer of GE Energy Financial Services, cited record-high oil prices, an increased focus on environmental protection and improved technology for boosting interest in wind, solar, biomass, hydro and geothermal power.

In addition, large price spikes fade with the elimination of fossil fuels as an energy source, said Kevin Walsh, managing director and leader of renewable energy at GE Energy. "There are no fuel costs with wind and solar, no volatility," he said.

The most active investment in renewable energy for GE Energy is wind, representing about two-thirds of its portfolio, Mr. Urquhart said. The company's also invested in landfill gas-to-energy projects, solar power projects in California, a solar power plant in Portugal and other deals.

GE Energy also said yesterday it's investing in wind farm projects owned by Horizon Wind Energy LLC, a Houston-based developer that is a subsidiary of Energias de Portugal SA. The wind farms are in Illinois, Minnesota, Oregon and Texas.

The four wind farms will annually produce enough electricity to power more than 180,200 average homes in the United States and will avoid nearly 1.4 million tonnes a year in greenhouse gas emissions, compared with equivalent fossil fuel generation, GE Energy said.

With the Horizon deal, GE Energy has invested or committed to invest equity in 85 wind farms and increased its global wind equity holdings to more than 3,600 megawatts of generating capacity.

The Big Picture: Climate Chaos

"Climate Chaos" & "Resource Collapse" could make other emerging trends mute if we don't get on the stick.

As the New Guinea delegate at the Dec 2007 Bali conference so aptly put it...

There's an old saying: If you are not willing to lead, then get out of the way. I ask the United States: We asked for your leadership; we seek your leadership. But if for some reason you are not willing to lead, leave it to the rest of us; please get out of the way.

I say we lead! Better a Blueprint than a Scramble.