Climate Change News Digest

Holy hydrocarbons ! Seems like BP America''s favourite unconventional fossil fuel is out of control. [link]2010/06/22/josh- fox- gasland- filmmake_ n_621341.html [link]2010/06/23/gasland- filmmaker- josh- fox- ignites- conversation- on- the- daily- show/ [link] files/2010/06/gasland- documentary- film- trailer- natural- gas- fracking. php [link] index. php? title= Gasland

The Financial Times advises :- [link] cms/ s/0/5dca38e0-8ac1-11df-8e17-00144feab49a. html 'Environmentalists have had a disappointing year. The Copenhagen talks fizzled and the economic crisis has overshadowed all other considerations. But the need for countries to repair towering fiscal deficits is an opening for the movement. As treasuries look for ways to raise more revenues, climate change activists should make the case for green taxes.' So, environmental campaigners should be campaigning for green taxes to plug holes in public deficits caused by crashing banks ? I think not. Tax revenue that is collected on the basis of environmental pollution should always be hypothecated, committed to remediation and removal of environmental pollution.

The Mozambican government has adopted various policies to address the effects of climate change, with special attention to women as studies show that they are more adversely affected by this phenomenon.

Germany already leads the world on renewable energy and could become first G20 country to kick the fossil- fuel habit Germany could derive all of its electricity from renewable energy sources by 2050 and become the world''s first major industrial nation to kick the fossil- fuel habit, the country''s Federal Environment Agency said today. The country already gets 16% of its electricity from wind, solar and other renewable sources " three times' higher than the level it had achieved 15 years ago."A complete conversion to renewable energy by 2050 is possible from a technical and ecological point of view," said Jochen Flasbarth, president of the Federal Environment Agency."It''s a very realistic target based on technology that already exists " it''s not a pie- in- the- sky prediction," he said. Thanks to its Renewable Energy Act, Germany is the world leader in photovoltaics ...

Today''s report into the hacked climate science emails follows two previous investigations that cleared the scientists involved of fraud and corruption, but with charges of secrecy upheld. The publication of Sir Muir Russell''s report on Wednesday is the third and final independent review into the hacked University of East Anglia emails sent by climate scientists. On 31 March, the House of Commons science and technology select committee strongly criticised UEA for not addressing a "culture of withholding information" among its climate scientists and for not being more open with raw data and computer codes. However, MPs chose not to criticise Professor Phil Jones, the climate scientist at the centre of the affair."He probably wishes that the emails were never invented," said Phil Willis MP, the committee chair, who had earlier questioned Jones in person during a committee hearing.

From Premiership teams to rock festivals, from governments and ministers to you - the 10:10 campaign has united a diverse band of carbon- cutters determined to slash emissions by 10% this year. Now, 3,000 businesses and 80,000 individuals have signed up " and there''s still half a year left to go

The Deepwater Horizon disaster should make us look to the sun, and start a revolution in how we meet our energy needs. Why hasn' t the Deepwater Horizon spill, one of the worst ecological disasters in US history, led to a storming of the Bastille of Big Oil? Why aren' t the most urgent problems of our time " environmental crises and climate change " being confronted with the same energy, idealism and optimism as past tragedies of poverty, tyranny and war? The current state of the oil industry is reminiscent of the ancien regime on the eve of the revolution. The Gulf of Mexico disaster has many faces.

Studies predict major extinctions and collapse of Greenland ice sheet with temperatures rising well above UN targets. The world is heading for an average temperature rise of nearly 4C (7F), according to analysis of national pledges from around the globe. Such a rise would bring a high risk of major extinctions, threats to food supplies and the near- total collapse of the huge Greenland ice sheet. More than 100 heads of state agreed in Copenhagen last December to limit the rise in global temperatures to 1.5C-2C (2.7-3.6F) above the long- term average before the industrial revolution, which kickstarted a massive global increase in the greenhouse gases blamed for warming the planet and triggering climate change. But six months on, a major international effort to monitor the emissions reductions targets of more than 60 countries, including all the major economies, the Climate Interactive Scoreboard, ...

Climate change crop garden wins Hampton Court prize. BBC News... such as apples and herbs, are featured as well as plants including peaches and nectarines to highlight the potential changes global warming will bring. Climate change 'bringing new crops' to South East. BBC Newsall 3

Salon. Heat wave air conditioners of doom. Salon. AP An independent investigation of the Climate. Gate hacked e- mails that rocked the global warming debate in 2009 has found that the "rigor ...and more

Salon. Heat Wave! Is This Global Warming? TIME (blog) First of all, the usual caveat, which should be obvious but needs to be repeated: no single weather event can be said to be "caused" by climate change. ...Heat wave smothers climate skeptic jokes. Salon. Heat wave smothers climate skeptic jokes. Salonall 7

by David Goldstein. Cross- posted from the NRDC Switchboard blog. The most important component of an effective climate bill- one that helps the economy recover and assures that greenhouse gas emissions will decline rapidly over the decades to come- is setting a cap on emissions. Opponents of a cap misunderstand how and why the cap will work, and their stated reasons for opposition reflect this misunderstanding. Typical of these self- described conservative arguments is made by Steve Everley at American Solutions. Everley tries to paint efforts to price carbon through a cap broadly as socialism, and narrowly as a tax.

by David Doniger. Cross- posted from NRDC Switchboard. As President Obama and senators consider their options on energy and climate legislation, it''s important to be clear about what will move the country forward and what will move it backward. Will our leaders put us on the road towards the carbon pollution cuts desperately needed to take back control of our economic, environmental, and national security, or will they drive in the wrong direction and make matters even worse? As my colleague Dan Lashof shows here, the Senate can at least get us started towards the economy- wide carbon pollution reductions we need, by adopting a cap on utilities and other stationary sources along with robust policies to save oil and curb emissions from the transportation system.

by Jonathan Hiskes. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have shut down most of the nation''s programs using Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE), an innovative tool that helps Americans finance green improvements to their homes. Here''s a homeowner' s perspective on the story: Kayla Thomason spent last winter wondering if the furnace would hold out in her two- bedroom ranch home in Longmont, Colo. The middle- school teacher had plenty of need for it: Her home, built in 1963, has no wall insulation, little attic insulation, and original metal- frame single- pane windows. In the winter, heat seeps out through recessed kitchen lights, ceiling- fan connections, the garage door, the crawl space, and especially uninsulated heating ducts, she learned.

I was in telephone conversation with somebody in the Climate Change policy arena in the last two weeks (names will remain unnamed for obvious reasons), and they complained to me about George Monbiot''s position on Climategate. I could sense incandescent rage, even at the other end of the phone line, as the person expressed extreme displeasure with George Monbiot, and asserted that he was a 'nasty little man'. I don' t agree with that summary. For a start, George Monbiot is probably taller than the average Briton, so the epithet is literally inaccurate. I don' t even agree that George Monbiot is 'little' in terms of influential, public figures, either.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Leading climate scientists on Thursday welcomed a British report that cleared researchers of exaggerating the effects of global warming and said they hoped it would restore faith in the fight against climate change.

The first weather health alert of the summer has been issued as temperatures are set to soar in parts of the UK.

Understanding the common but differentiated principle is the start of how the world has delegated responsibilities to the players around the globe in order to tackle the energy challenge of the 21st century. Approaching this principle is an important beginning in order to start working on the policy, business, research and development, and the environmental potential solutions. Stephen Eule and Julian Wong bring us their own angles on why and how this basic principle should be renewed and implemented to keep pace with a fast- changing and carbon- intense world. Read more here.

Assisted by climate change, the ecologists who saved the butterfly from extinction are reintroducing it to its former haunts. It is the butterfly that was brought back from the dead and one of the most successful examples of insect conservation in the world. Now, assisted by climate change, the large blue butterfly is to be moved northwards in a bid to double its UK population. The ecologists responsible for reviving the large blue will next month release hundreds of caterpillars at two secret locations in the Cotswolds in an attempt to reintroduce them to the region for the first time in more than half a century. After the butterfly''s extinction in Britain in 1979, Jeremy Thomas, professor of ecology at Oxford University, and his colleague David Simcox successfully masterminded its return by collecting eggs from Sweden and reintroducing this rare and incredibly fussy insect in Devon and the Polden Hills, Somerset. ...

Arguing that rail investment is pointless because more people use cars ignores the reality of congestion and climate change. So the RAC Foundation''s Stephen Glaister argues that roads are missing out on the lavish attention spent on rail. The argument that the road network suffers in comparison with rail simply does not stand up. Rail, as part of a better integrated and supported public transport network, has to be the future priority for investment if we are to stop adding to congestion and climate change. The RAC Foundation''s arguments against rail seem to come down a circular argument that not enough people use rail, therefore it shouldn' t receive significant investment to expand its capacity, which will mean that not enough people will use it, which justifies not investing in it This just won' t do as the basis for deciding where scarce public investment should go. So why should we invest ...