Tipping point ???

I watched this show on the ABC the other night called "Tipping point" - about the artic melting and whether we had reached tipping point yet.

It was a 4 Corners special reportand well worth watching!

Anyway, I found the link to the story about the show and an online free video link at http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/special_eds/20080804/arctic/default.htm

Tipping Point
Reporter: Marian Wilkinson
Broadcast: 04/08/2008

While Australians argue about when or whether to confront global warming, the top of the globe is melting away.

The Arctic sea ice – sprawled across an area roughly the size of Australia - is in retreat. Scientists now fear that in less than 25 years from now, for the first time in human existence, there will be no sea ice in the North Pole in parts of the summer.

These scientists are scrambling to model and measure the pace of the melt and to comprehend the enormity of the consequences – not just for the immediate ecosystem of polar bears and plankton, but for the world’s weather and its ability to feed itself.

At the same time governments and corporations scramble to be first at the table for a new resources feast of oil, gas and minerals. It’s being dubbed a "Cold Rush" as retreating sea ice opens new opportunities and faster, cheaper shipping routes.

Four Corners journeys to the Arctic Circle to explore how the melt is challenging human understanding of global warming. The Four Corners team* joins scientists on board a Canadian icebreaker, Louis S St Laurent, as they scout for icebergs, bears and evidence of a changing seascape. Across the scientific community there is a quest for answers: How fast is the melt happening? Is it stoppable? What may be lost? What riches will be unlocked? How much global warming is caused by people and how much by nature?

The Louis S St Laurent is bound for the legendary Northwest Passage where early explorers, among them a Tasmanian governor, strove vainly and often tragically to find a short cut shipping route across the top of the world.

Last September climate scientists were stunned when the waters of the Northwest Passage became virtually ice-free for the first time on record. No one knows if that will happen again this northern summer, but the broad trend is less and less sea ice…

Increasingly urgent predictions of an ice-free Arctic Ocean alarm veteran scientists on the icebreaker like Robie Macdonald. After more than 30 years working in the Arctic he almost takes it personally. "Not only do I see the change happening but it’s like they’re moving the goalposts towards me," he says. "The Arctic Ocean has not been seasonally clear of ice for a couple of million years at least, maybe longer, so this is very extraordinary."

But vanishing sea ice is only part of what worries Macdonald’s colleagues. Their gravest fears are landbound – that the melting of glaciers, the ice sheet covering Greenland and the permafrost that, so far, has safely locked millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases under frozen ground, may be accelerating and unstoppable. That is when the planet may approach "Tipping Point" – an Arctic journey on Four Corners at 8.30 pm Monday August 4, on ABC1.

Video available free online at:

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/special_eds/20080804/arctic/default.htm

More Australians are going solar

Here is a story on the growing uptake of solar power in Australia. While this is good news, a national feed in tariff is still required to really drive the industry. The economic incentive of being paid to provide solar power for others (by feeding it into the grid) would help to convince more Australians to make the switch to renewable energy.

August 02, 2008


GOVERNMENT figures on the solar panel rebate take-up show the solar industry is moving from strength to strength, the Clean Energy Council (CEC) said today.Environment Minister Peter Garrett said today an average of 522 applications have been lodged weekly since the Federal Budget announcement of the $8000 rebate.

"The rebate scheme, particularly in the last two years, has allowed the industry to build capacity and capability. "

However the industry is now ready to transition to a nationally consistent gross feed in tariff.

This policy will deliver the long-term certainty needed for investment and jobs growth.'' Mr Jackson said the figures demonstrated that the Australian solar PV industry continued to move from strength to strength.

AAP

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24116660-29277,00.html

The climate change smokescreen

August 2, 2008
SMH

Global warming scepticism is being manipulated by tactics reminiscient of an earlier campaign of denial, writes David McKnight.

When the tobacco industry was feeling the heat from scientists who showed smoking caused cancer, it took decisive action, engaging in a decades-long public relations campaign to undermine the medical research and discredit the scientists.

The aim was not to prove tobacco harmless but to cast doubt on the science. In the space provided by doubt, billions of dollars in sales could continue. Delay and doubt were crucial products of its PR campaign.

In May, the multibillion-dollar oil giant Exxon Mobil acknowledged it had been doing something similar. It said it would cease funding nine groups that had fuelled a global campaign to deny climate change.

Exxon's decision came after a shareholder revolt by members of the Rockefeller family and big superannuation funds to get the company to take climate change more seriously. Exxon (once Standard Oil) was founded by John D. Rockefeller.

Brad Miller, chairman of the US House of Representatives oversight committee on science and technology, last year said Exxon's support for sceptics "appears to be an effort to distort public discussion". The funding of an array of think tanks and institutes which house climate sceptics and deniers also worried Britain's premier scientific body, the Royal Society. It found that in 2005, Exxon distributed nearly $3 million to 39 groups which "misrepresented the science of climate change by outright denial of the evidence that greenhouse gases are driving climate change". Its protests helped force Exxon's recent retreat.

The chief scientist at New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, Dr Jim Salinger, knows all about misrepresentation. Two months ago, an Exxon-funded group, the Heartland Institute, said his work undermined the theory that burning carbon was a cause of global warming.

The Heartland Institute - essentially a free-market lobby group - emphasises "the climate is always changing". It is a theme common to many climate change deniers who talk about a so-called Little Ice Age (1300-1900) and Medieval Warm Period (800-1200). Salinger's research studied variation in climate, so it was enrolled in the denial campaign.

Climate variations were normal, Salinger said, but this did not weaken conclusions about the dangers of burning oil and coal. "Global warming is real," he said, and demanded reference to his work be removed. The institute refused. The Heartland Institute received almost $800,000 from Exxon, according to Greenpeace research based on Exxon's corporate donation disclosures.

Another regular of the PR campaign is the Oregon Petition, which urges US rejection of the Kyoto Protocol and claims there is "no convincing scientific evidence" for global warming. It has been cited by climate sceptics such as the Herald Sun's Andrew Bolt among others. It is said to be signed by 31,000 graduates most of whom appear to have nothing to do with climate science.

The petition originated in 1998 with Frederick Seitz, a 1960s president of the US National Academy of Sciences (and a 1970s tobacco consultant) and was accompanied by a purported review of the science co-published by the George C Marshall Institute. This institute received at least $715,000 from Exxon Mobil over the past 10 years.

Claims about the world cooling, not warming, are common in the world of deniers. The Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, referred to this possibility recently. In his book Heat, George Monbiot gives the example of the TV presenter and botanist, David Bellamy, who is also a climate sceptic. He told the New Scientist in 2005 that most glaciers in the world were growing, not shrinking. He said his evidence came from the World Glacier Monitoring Service in Switzerland, a reputable body. When Monbiot checked the service, they said Bellamy's claim was "complete bullshit". The world's glaciers are retreating.

When pressed, Bellamy pointed to a website, iceagenow.com, which claims we are heading for a new ice age. Last week, it published an article that stated that last month, the American Physical Society had "reversed its stance on climate change and is now proclaiming that many of its members disbelieve in human-induced global warming". This is stunning. Global warming is all about physics and the society is the premier body of US physicists. A check with its website showed the opposite. Prominent was a press release reaffirming that the evidence for global warming was "incontrovertible". Once again, a sceptic website was simply lying.

In Australia, the main body trying to undermine the science of global warming is the Lavoisier Group. It maintains a website with links to the Competitive Enterprise Institute (more than $2 million from Exxon), the Science and Environmental Policy Project ($20,000) and the Centre for the Study of Carbon Dioxide (at least $100,000). The Competitive Enterprise Institute returns the compliment to Lavoisier in its publication, which praised the group for its work in defeating the Kyoto protocol. Lavoisier, it said, "provides the principal intellectual and organisational opposition in Australia to Kyoto". Its sources of funding are not public.

The Lavoisier group is certainly influential in the Federal Opposition. During the Howard years, a senior figure in the group told Guy Pearse, author of High & Dry, a study of climate policy in Australia, there was "an understanding in cabinet that all the science is crap".

The Lavoisier board includes former mining executives Ray Evans and Ian Webber, the latter a former chief executive of Mitsubishi, and Harold Clough, whose companies include a provider of services to the oil and gas industries. Its president is the former Labor finance minister Peter Walsh.

There are at least three other reasons the oil companies' PR campaign has had success for climate change deniers. First, the implications of the science are frightening. Shifting to renewable energy will be costly and disruptive. Second, doubt is an easy product to sell. Climate denial tells us what we all secretly want to hear. Third, science is portrayed as political orthodoxy rather than objective knowledge, a curiously postmodern argument.

The tide slowly turned on tobacco denial and the science finally was accepted. Some people still choose to smoke and some pay a price for it.

But climate is different. There are no "smoke-free areas" on the planet. Climate denial may turn out to be the world's most deadly PR campaign.

David McKnight is an associate professor at the University of NSW. He researches media, including public relations, and is the author of Beyond Right And Left: New Politics And The Culture Wars.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/global-warming/the-climate-change-smokescreen/2008/08/01/1217097533885.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap2

Some climate change politics . . .

It looks like the Liberal party is having some problems coming to terms with the complexities of climate change. Here is a story from The Australian.

Nelson leaves Libs looking incompetent and inconsistent on emissions

Jennifer Hewett
July 30, 2008
The Australian

SO much for certainty. The Liberals' erratic approach to an emissions trading scheme will leave the business community as confused as the voters.

Brendan Nelson's spectacularly inept handling of the issue still means there is unlikely to be any such scheme in place by 2010 -- no matter how firm the Rudd Government's supposed timetable.

But the Liberals are now ready to argue they will support the introduction of an Australian scheme by 2011 or 2012 no matter what the rest of the world does.

The only question is how tough it should be. That's a pretty big and complicated question, of course.

However, it's a major retreat from the Opposition Leader's insistence of the previous few days that the introduction of any Australian scheme should be conditional on whether the other major emitters had made similar commitments.

That will make for a very angry Liberal party room meeting today after Nelson was comprehensively humiliated by his own dismayed shadow cabinet yesterday. It can only increase the sense of misery about his suitability for leadership.

Courtesy of Brendan on-again, off-again Nelson, the Liberals just look incompetent and inconsistent on an issue of huge importance to the economy and of potential vulnerability for the Government.

None of Nelson's tortured attempts to explain his position post-shadow cabinet altered that sorry equation.

But at least the Liberals seem finally to have a semi-coherent policy to try to sell from now on. The Opposition will claim that the 2010 date is too rushed and that it is pointless to risk the Australian economy with a botched system.

They should have plenty of leeway to argue that the Australian scheme should also have a very soft start because of the likelihood there will be relatively little action by the major emitters any time soon.

Given their recent policy peregrinations, it's hard to guarantee that the Liberals won't change their position on timing yet again. But that's the obvious intention of the moment. Nor will Labor negotiate enough concessions with the Greens in order to get the scheme through the Senate in time for the 2010 deadline.

Kevin Rudd will argue that a responsible government cannot give in to Green demands that would do excessive damage to Australia's economy.

It means the form and deadline for Australia's response to climate change remains as clear as the Beijing skyline on a still, hot day.

Most of the business community will be relieved at the prospect of a modestly delayed start. The yelps of pain that quickly followed the release of the Government's green paper are only going to increase in intensity and scope.

A suddenly much more threatening economic climate will also strictly limit commercial tolerance for experiments that will increase costs and decrease competitiveness. The massive lobbying effort from business under way at the moment is part of the financial reality check on Rudd.

But that doesn't mean there was ever going to be enthusiastic support from the business community for Nelson's big idea of indefinitely blocking any active response by Government either.

Remember, it was big business and particularly the Business Council of Australia that prodded the Howard government into commissioning the Shergold report as part of its intention to introduce a scheme by 2012.

At the time, then BCA president Michael Chaney described this approach as a sensible form of insurance.

It meant Nelson's determination to revert to a pre-Shergold position worried many business leaders. The Opposition was swimming too vigorously against the rising international tide.

The Rudd Government's dire pronouncements on the risks of inaction may verge on hysteria but Nelson's tough-guy approach was hardly risk-free. From a business point of view, this had less to do with Labor's emotive arguments about the fate of the Barrier Reef and far more with the potential difficulties for Australian companies because of the country's perceived inaction.

Business may see through the absurd Labor logic that implies a scheme imposed by Canberra will make the crucial difference on the future of rainfall patterns in Australia, for example.

But by making their support for any Australian scheme contingent on action by other emitters, the Liberals would have ensured that Australia had nothing other than Rudd's good intentions in which to cloak itself.

That would invite retaliation on Australian exports from areas such as Europe, for example.

It's also evident to many Australian chief executives that no matter how long it takes -- and whether or not developing countries sign up to formal reductions in carbon emissions quickly -- the pressure to shift to less carbon-intensive industries is only going to accelerate.

The developing world will be forced into adopting new technologies and approaches themselves -- if only to ensure their own societies remain viable. The Beijing smog is only a modest prelude of what will come otherwise.

That suggests that companies and countries leading in technological adaptation and energy efficiency will have their own version of valuable commodities to sell -- including making the use of Australian resources more attractive.

That may not require immediate dramatic shifts in the Australian economy, let alone the closing of the coal industry and its exports.

But it means that Australia should head steadily down the path of greater carbon efficiency and technological improvements, including the use of price signals. This can be so gradual that it makes the large reduction targets look much less achievable over the short term. But it's like a version of training wheels. It's more effective to start slow and limit the spectacular crashes rather than advance straight to speed racing in the Tour de France.

It's also more honest than the approach adopted by most other countries so far -- pledging to meet targets that are routinely missed.

And companies will at least be able to invest for the future with some confidence about how the new rules will be applied.

The political dilemma for the Liberals in delaying this beyond the next election is that it also delays the inevitable collision of rhetoric with reality.

It suggests a replay of the 2007 campaign where Rudd can campaign on the need for leadership on climate change without Labor or the voters having to face up to the costs. But that's likely to be a problem for a different Liberal leader to manage.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24098555-30538,00.html

Greenpeace protests against coal carriers

Source: Fairfax Media

28 July 2008

Australian police have detained four Greenpeace activists after they painted 10 coal ships with anti-coal export slogans off the coast of Mackay in central Queensland.

The four people were in a group of nine protesters who approached the ships in three small inflatable boats early this morning, Greenpeace spokesperson Louise Clifton said.

The protest began about 6am and continued until a police boat arrived at the scene around 9.30am.

The green group is protesting the Queensland Government's plans to double coal exports in the next 20 years.

"The action was all about trying to highlight the contradiction between Prime Minister Rudd and Premier Bligh's stated intention to urgently reduce greenhouse pollution while presiding over a doubling of Australia's coal exports,"

Greenpeace campaigner Simon Roz said.

"Greenhouse pollution doesn't know any borders so coal burnt anywhere will be destroying pristine environments all around the globe including the Great Barrier Reef and the Murray Darling."

Queensland exports roughly 80 per cent of all coal mined in the state, according to a November 2007 report from the Department of Mines and Energy.

Coal exports are worth at least A$16 billion to the Queensland economy each year.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4634202a12.html

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COMMENTS ALWAYS WELCOME !!

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So please, tell us what you think.

Some info on the IPCC

The IPCC is divided up into 3 working groups.

The IPCC Working Group I (WG1) assesses the physical scientific aspects of the climate system and climate change.

Its latest report "Climate Change 2007 - The Physical Science Basis" was launched on 2 February 2007 in Paris.

The report includes information on changes in greenhouse gases and aerosols in the atmosphere and the extent to which they affect climate. It provides details of recent changes in air, land and ocean temperatures, rainfall, glaciers and ice sheets and considers a large amount of new satellite and other data that have not been assessed previously. A paleoclimatic perspective considers the Earth's past cold and warm periods and the understanding of climate processes that can be gained from these. New information on feedbacks arising from the interaction of climate change with the biosphere and geochemistry is also considered. The most recent climate models are evaluated in detail, as is their use to explain observed climate change in terms of different driving factors. Projections of future climate change using climate models are considered broadly and cover near term climate change, the degree to which this is 'committed' due to past increases in greenhouse gases, and a range of potential longer term climate changes. Patterns of future climate change are considered both globally and regionally.

The IPCC Working Group II (WG2) assesses the vulnerability of socio-economic and natural systems to climate change, negative and positive consequences of climate change, and options for adapting to it.

Its latest report "Climate Change 2007 - Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability" was launched on 6 April 2007 in Paris.

The report assesses the latest scientific, environmental and socio-economic literature on "Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability". It provides a comprehensive analysis of how climate change is affecting natural and human systems, what the impacts will be in the future and how far adaptation and mitigation can reduce these impacts. It also takes into consideration the inter-relationship between adaptation and mitigation, and the relationship between climate change and sustainable development. The report contains chapters on specific systems and sectors (water resources; ecosystems; food & forests; coastal systems; industry; human health) and regions (Africa; Asia; Australia & New Zealand; Europe; Latin America; North America; Polar Regions; Small Islands).

The IPCC Working Group III (WG3) assesses options for mitigating climate change through limiting or preventing greenhouse gas emissions and enhancing activities that remove them from the atmosphere.

Its latest report, "Climate Change 2007 - Mitigation of Climate Change" was launched on 4 May 2007 in Bangkok.

After describing the GHGs emission trends, the report analyses mitigation options for the main economic sectors in the near-term ? between now and 2030, providing an in-depth analyses of the costs and benefits of different approaches. It further evaluates long-term mitigation strategies for various stabilization levels, paying special attention to implications of different short-term strategies for achieving long-term goals. Cross-sectorial matters such as synergies, co-benefits and trade-offs are taken into consideration. The report, oriented at assessing the solutions to respond to climate change, considers the policy measures and instruments available to governments and industries to mitigate climate change. It also addresses the significant relationship between mitigation and sustainable development.

Source:

http://www.ipcc.ch/index.htm

Lessons learnt ???

These are the 12 lessons outlined by the European Environment Agency:

(1). Acknowledge and respond to ignorance, uncertainty and risk in technology appraisal.

(2). Evaluate alternative options for meeting needs, and promote robust, diverse and adaptable technologies.

(3). Provide long-term environmental and health monitoring and research into early warnings.

(4). Ensure use of ‘lay’ knowledge, as well as specialist expertise.

(5). Identify and work to reduce scientific ‘blind spots’ and knowledge gaps.

(6). Account fully for the assumptions and values of different social groups.

(7). Identify and reduce interdisciplinary obstacles to learning.

(8). Maintain regulatory independence of interested parties while retaining an inclusive approach to information and opinion gathering.

(9). Account for real-world conditions in regulatory appraisal.

(10). Identify and reduce institutional obstacles to learning and action.

(11). Systematically scrutinize claimed benefits and risks.

(12). Avoid ‘paralysis by analysis’ by acting to reduce potential harm when there are reasonable grounds for concern.

http://reports.eea.europa.eu/environmental_issue_report_2001_22/en/Issue_Report_No_22.pdf

More George Pell Madness !!!

Populate or perish: Pell
Linda Morris
July 14, 2008

The Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, today warned Western nations such as Australia to populate or perish.

"There is a crisis in the Western world. No Western country is producing enough babies to keep the population stable, no Western country," he said.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/populate-or-perish-pell/2008/07/14/1215887502895.html

George Pell madness!!!

I was so happy to read that the Pope understands that global warming is a serious problem.

But then I saw this story and all I can say is that I hope the Pope can make sure that George Pell is severely punished here on Earth for his stupidity!!!!


Cardinal Pell disagrees with Pope on climate change

AAP

THE Pope may have put climate change on the agenda, but the head of the church in Australia, Cardinal George Pell, is a self-proclaimed sceptic.

During his flight to Sydney yesterday, Pope Benedict XVI spoke of environmental concerns and "our responsibility towards creation".

"We have to face up to this great challenge and find the ethical capacity to change the situation of the environment for the good," the 81-year-old Pontiff told reporters aboard his Alitalia flight.

Dr Pell was today questioned about those remarks and whether there was a division within the Australian church on the issue of climate change.

"I myself am a little bit of a sceptic, but that means I'm open to evidence," Dr Pell said.

"I'm a bit of a sceptic about the claim that human activity is likely to produce a man-made catastrophe."Even though the Pope made his views clear on the environment, Dr Pell said the pontiff did not weigh into the scientific debate on climate change.

"It's very difficult to predict what will happen tomorrow," Dr Pell said.

"It's even more difficult when you're trying to predict what will happen in five or 10 or 15 or 20 or 100 years."

The archbishop acknowledged climate change had taken place over the centuries, but questioned the cause.

"I'm well aware that over hundreds of years there has been great changes in the climates," he said.

"Whether we are going through one of those changes or whether we are contributing to that I don't know.

"I'm pretty certain if you look at the figures, the temperature dropped worldwide in the past 12 months."

But, Dr Pell said, everyone had "an obligation to care for our environment - a moral obligation".

"We also very clearly have a moral obligation not to damage and destroy or ruthlessly use the environment at the expense of future generations."
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Source

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Also check out:

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Pope believes in Global Warming !!!

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Archbishop says "give up carbon emissions for Lent"

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Pope believes in Global Warming !!!

Here is a story about the pope wanting to raise awareness about global warming while in Australia.

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Pope in Australia will highlight climate change

By Victor Simpson

Pope Benedict XVI began a pilgrimage in Australia Sunday, saying he wants to use his visit to raise awareness about global warming and to address the crisis of clergy sexual abuse.

The pope met with reporters aboard his plane during the flight, and was asked about climate change following discussions on the environment during this month's Group of Eight summit in Japan.

There is a need to "wake up consciences," Benedict responded. "We have to give impulse to rediscovering our responsibility and to finding an ethical way to change our way of life."

Benedict said politicians and experts must be "capable of responding to the great ecological challenge and to be up to the task of this challenge."

"We have our responsibilities toward creation," Benedict said, stressing, however, that he had no intention of weighing in on technical or political questions swirling around climate change.
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Source

Also check out:

Archbishop says "give up carbon emissions for Lent"

'Saving God's Creation'

Not looking good . . .

Hmmmm.

Just a few days after the Garnaut preliminary report comes this story.

Growing calls to delay emissions trading

7th July 2008

Federal Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson has backed away from emissions trading any time soon, warning it would be “economic suicide” for Australia to go it alone.

The coalition made a pre-election promise to introduce emissions trading in 2012, but Dr Nelson today refused to stand by that and said he had not made up his mind when the scheme should start.

Dr Nelson wants the focus to be on a global solution to climate change, and has urged Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to be a “human blowtorch” on the issue at this week's G8 meeting in Japan.

The federal government appears to have its own doubts about a quick start to emissions trading, which will levy a tax on carbon pollution and force up prices for some goods.

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong has downgraded the government's promised 2010 start date to an “ambition”.

“Well look (the 2010 start date) is the ambition and we've said that before the election,” she told Fairfax radio.

“That is the intention ... that is what we have said we will do.”

There are growing calls for emissions trading to be delayed due to concerns about price rises, and concerns by business and electricity generators that they will suffer.

Dr Nelson said Australia should only start emissions trading when the rest of the world was ready to follow suit.

“It will be an act of environmental suicide, an act of economic suicide, if Australia were to be so far in front of the world implementing an ill-considered ... emissions trading scheme, if we haven't got a genuinely global response,” Dr Nelson said.

Dr Nelson wants Mr Rudd to take action at the G8 meeting.

“Now he's actually going to be able to eyeball these people,” Dr Nelson told reporters.

“And he ought to be a human blowtorch and put direct pressure on them to actually commit to a global response to climate change.”

Mr Rudd hit back at Dr Nelson's doubts about emissions trading, saying the coalition was incapable of sticking to one position on climate change.

“The reality is the Liberal Party changes their position on the emissions trading scheme every time the headlines change,” a spokesman for Mr Rudd said.

“The Liberal Party is engaged in short-term politics when it comes to the ETS, which is bad for the economy and bad for the environment.”

Mr Rudd's spokesman said over the past 13 months the Liberals had fluctuated between 2010, 2011 and 2012 as a start date for emissions trading - and now wouldn't give a date at all.

The Australian Workers Union has also called for emissions trading to be delayed by at least two years to ensure its design is right.

As key groups get cold feet on a quick start to emissions trading, the nation's top climate change adviser Ross Garnaut reiterated his message that there was no need to delay past 2010.

Prof Garnaut says Australia has the resources to share the leadership role on tackling climate change, and has more to lose than most countries from global warming.

Prof Garnaut also took aim at NSW Treasurer Michael Costa for saying “Chicken Little” warnings about the dangers of climate change were no substitute for a proper debate.

Mr Costa says emissions trading could send electricity generators broke, and he wants free permits to pollute as compensation.

But Prof Garnaut said Mr Costa was a “well-known denier” of the science of climate change.

CANBERRA
AAP

http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=2&ContentID=83387

Great photo . . .

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I saw this photo of Peter Garrett talking to Conan (sorry, I mean the Governator) and had to put it up.
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The open box in the background contains the sword from Conan the Barbarian.

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Hopefully Peter Garrett is learning how to fight his way out of a plastic bag (LOL).

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http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/oil-be-back-garrett-and-governator-make-green-team/2008/07/01/1214678038472.html

Some money for the environment

There were a couple of stories in the news today about large sums of money being made available to help the environment.

First: the World Bank agreed to set up two investment funds (Clean Energy Fund and Strategic Climate Fund).

"The G8 is likely to broadly support the establishment of the climate investment funds," Warren Evans, director of the World Bank's environment department, told reporters.

He said the World Bank was counting on an initial $4 billion to $5 billion in donations by G8 nations for the Clean Technology Fund, adding that media reports that $10 billion would be raised for the fund "are on the high side".

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSN0131191820080701


Second: Gerhard Andlinger (chairman and founder of the investment company Andlinger & Co. ) donated $100 million to Princeton University to create a center for energy and the environment.

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=azWcHx7jec.0&refer=us

World might have already reached the tipping point of climate change

June 28th, 2008

Washington, June 28 (ANI): Climate experts have warned that the world might have already reached the tipping point of climate change, where immediate actions needed to be done to avert the effects of global warming.

According to a report in Discovery News, the scientist who first put forward this theory is NASA climate scientist James Hansen.

Though Hansen had earlier warned about the dangers of climate change in 1988, his latest theory determines that we have used up all slack in the schedule for actions needed to defuse the global warming time bomb.

Hansens message painted a stark and urgent picture of a world already past the point where significant damage would occur.

According to Hansen, the safe level of atmospheric carbon dioxide should be no more than 350 ppm (parts per million), and it may be less.

This recommended level is less than the amount currently in the atmosphere - 385 ppm.

Already, arid lands are expanding, glaciers are receding, and Arctic sea ice is shrinking, driven by cycles of positive feedback, where melting leads to more warming of the exposed dark ocean water, which leads to more melting, according to Hansen.

As a result, without any additional greenhouse gases, the Arctic soon will be ice-free in the summer, he added.
When Discovery News got in touch with other scientists, they more or less agreed with Hansen on his hypothesis.
While other scientists agree that 350 ppm is a safer target that increases the likelihood we will avoid many of the negative effects of climate change, some also think its unrealistic.

Three hundred and fifty is impossible. Were going to overshoot 350 and 450 and probably 550, though I sure hope not, according to climatologist Stephen Schneider of Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.

My cynical scenario is that there will be more Katrinas, massive fires, melting of the Arctic, and people will say, Oh my God, what have we done. Wed better undo this, he said.

Such catastrophes could finally spark the dramatic change thats needed, if we dont take action sooner of our own accord, he added.

My view is that weve probably passed some tipping points. Weve entered some realms of irreversibility. There are probably many more, but we dont know where they are, said John Harte of the University of California, Berkeley.

Many scientists have agreed that the problem is urgent and that not doing anything will lead to disaster, which includes rising sea levels, food shortages, spread of infectious diseases and extinctions.

We know that if we dont take action, it will be a disaster. Thats all we need to know, said Harte.

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/india-news/world-might-have-already-reached-the-tipping-point-of-climate-change_10065534.html

North Korea blows up its nuclear cooling tower

North Korea destroyed the most visible symbol of its nuclear weapons program Friday, blasting apart the cooling tower at its main atomic reactor in a sign of its commitment to stop making plutonium for atomic bombs.

http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2008/06/28/nkorea_saddened_by_loss_of_reactor_tower/