Climate Change News Digest

Telegraph. co. uk. Byrd''s death brings new problems for climate advocates. The Hill (blog)'Senator Byrd led efforts among coal state senators to devise global warming legislation that would smooth the transition for workers in their states,' said ...Byrd''s death could delay financial reform vote. Los Angeles Timesall 4,387

The emissions- lowering recession is masking failures on carbon- cutting, and new policies are needed, say advisors.

Harbour seals give birth to pups 25 days earlier than 35 years ago as a result of changes to marine ecosystems, a study shows.

Petrolheads aim to steer world round greener corner

Before getting to the irony of the anti- science Tea Partiers canceling their big convention because the weather is too hot, let''s look at some of the staggering extreme weather events around the globe. In China, 'The Southern Daily said over 600 millimetres (24 inches) of rain fell in Guangdong''s Huilai county over a six- hour period on Friday, a 500-year record.' That''s two feet of rain in 6 hours! As Dr. Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, told me earlier this month: There is a systematic influence on all of these weather events now- a-days because of the fact that there is this extra water vapor lurking around in the atmosphere than there used to be say 30 years ago.

Revkin asks me via Dot Earth, 'What if The Public had Perfect Climate Information?' Ahh, the hypothetical question that launches us into an alternative history. Reminds me of that Saturday Night Live routine, 'What if Spartacus had a Piper Cub?' I' d love your answer. Here''s mine. If the entire public had perfect information on all matters related to climate - the science and the solutions - we would certainly be on a path to below 450 ppm (see, for instance, Scientists find 'net present value of climate change impacts' of $1240 TRILLION on current emissions path, making mitigation to under 450 ppm a must).

[I' d be very interested in the comments of other Brits upon watching the video. UK readers who want to make a complaint to the BBC will find contact info below.] The BBC''s climate journalism has declined in recent months (see BBC asks CRU''s Phil Jones the climate version of 'When did you stop beating your wife'). It just hit a new low in the half hour show, 'What''s up with the Weather?' All you need to know about how distorted and sensationalistic the BBC''s worldview has become is to read how BBC''s News editors describe the show ...

Editor's note: This article is a summary of a new paper published in Energy Policy, available at sciencedirect. com [link]. For a detailed discussion of renewable energy's limits see Renewable energy - Cannot sustain an energy - intensive society [link]. The author told Culture Change, "Central in the delusion system moving us to the brink is the unquestioned faith that renewables can preserve affluence and the growth society; it is extremely difficult to get anyone to think about this."

The recent G8/G20 in Canada and the relatively small amount of time spent discussing climate change has again brought some to question the intent of the Canadian Government with regards the issue. The reality is that successive Canadian Governments have struggled to formulate a policy mix which will suit the country, but at the same time Canada has been a great champion of overtly climate change technologies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS). As such, it is worth spending some time giving thought to the dilemma that is the Canadian economy and greenhouse gas emissions, particularly as the government continues to seek a policy mix that will deliver a meaningful reduction in emissions over the coming decade " at least as a first step.

mike- whately. jpg Who knew the tentacles of the Canadian oil lobby could reach all the way down to Washington, DC? And who knew they were so powerful? I am sure many Americans will find it rather disturbing that a foreign entity (no matter how friendly they may be - full disclosure: I am Canadian) is holding so much sway over the clean energy future of their country. In a lengthy and well- researched new expose on the Canada oil sands industry''s lobbying activities in Washington, DC, reporter Geoff Dembicki untangles a complicated web that includes former Republican insiders, dirty energy front groups and powerful politicians on both sides of the border that are doing their best to kill US clean energy legislation.

leadwater. jpg When you have lived in the same place for 20 years and all of sudden your hair turns orange after you wash it, you might be more than a little concerned. But, of course, don' t blame the natural gas company that is pumping thousands of gallons of toxic sludge into the ground just up the street. That can' t possibly have anything to do with your hair turning orange or the chemically smelling sediment floating around in your water glass. After all, the natural gas industry, in a process called hydraulic fracturing (also called "fracking"), says that 99-percent of the sludge they use is just water and sand.

A flawed effort to sort views on global warming into "10 camps."

Energy trends in developing countries are causing per- capita emissions there to relentlessly rise even as the rich world gets cleaner.

Challenging climate sceptics is good sport but we' re in danger of forgetting the deadly serious matter at hand. Well this becomes more entertaining by the moment. Those who staked so much on the "Amazongate" story, only to see it turn round and bite them, are now digging a hole so deep that they will soon be able to witness a possible climate change scenario at first hand, as they emerge, shovels in hand, in the middle of the Great Victoria Desert. Here''s the story so far. In January the rightwing blogger Richard North claimed that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had "grossly exaggerated the effects of global warming on the Amazon rain forest".

Recycling and organic farming on the rise but so is white good energy use and overfishing. The popularity of dishwashers, televisions and the internet has seen the amount of electricity consumed by such items jump by 155% in four decades, according to the ONS report. Emblematic of this shift has been the rise of the home computer. Two- thirds of people buy goods on the internet now " the highest in Europe. Ten years ago less than one in 10 people had access to the internet at home. As significant is the environmental movement. In the 1970s Britain produced two- thirds of its electricity from coal, but smokestacks have been replaced by natural gas chimneys. However, the UK generates around 100 million tonnes of waste a year, most of which ends up in landfill.

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 at the midpoint between two major international conferences aiming to tackle the problem. 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 ...

Global investments in clean energy companies rose 43% in Q2 on last year, says new Cleantech Group and Deloitte report. Green tech is back in the green. Global venture capital investment in green technology companies reached $4.04 billion in the first half of 2010, exceeding -- slightly -- the record set in the boom year of 2008, according to a preliminary report released Thursday by the Cleantech Group and Deloitte. Venture investment in the second quarter rose to $2.02 billion, up 43 percent from the year- ago quarter. Investments in the first half of the year spiked 65 percent from the same period in 2009.

Thousands of miles of railway track to be examined for ability to withstand storms, flooding and heatwaves. Potential safety threats to thousands of miles of railway from extreme storms, floods and heatwaves as the impact of climate change worsens are being investigated by railway engineers and meteorologists. A study by Network Rail will look at exposed coastal tracks, embankments and thousands of bridges to see whether they can withstand the increase in extreme weather events that climatologists have predicted over coming decades. The UK- wide investigation will cost £750,000 but railway executives believe that implementing its expected recommendations could save the industry £1bn over the next 30 years by improving safety and preventing emergencies. The climate change adaptation programme, commissioned by the rail industry safety board (RSSB) follows the intense storm that flooded the south coast line bordering the sea at Dawlish in Devon in 2004, and ...

Vince Cable fails to confirm green car subsidy status as climate advisers say electric vehicles are key to hitting carbon targets. Electric carmakers warned the government that it was jeopardising the switch to green cars that experts believe is vital to meet the UK's climate change targets. The warning came after the business secretary, Vince Cable, failed to confirm the fate of the former Labour government's pledge to subsidise new electric cars by up to £5,000. On the same day, the government's climate change advisers said such vehicles were one of four key areas of focus for the UK to hit legally binding carbon budgets. In a letter to be sent to Cable and the transport secretary, Philip Hammond, Citroen, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Peugeot and Renault write that "without the incentives, the UK will become a significantly less attractive market".

Drop in rich countries' emissions caused by recession in 2009 was nullified by steep increases from China and India. Greenhouse gas emissions from rich countries fell a record 7% in 2009 because of the recession, but the cut was entirely nullified by steep increases from fast- growing China and India, according to one of Europe''s leading scientific research groups. Overall, this meant annual global climate emissions remained steady for the first time since 1992, says the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency which drew on energy- use data from the US government, the EU, BP energy data, the cement industry, and elsewhere. But the Dutch government- funded agency, which in 2007 was the first to correctly identify that China had overtaken the US as the world''s greatest greenhouse gas polluter, warned that the figures did not mean that rich countries had cleaned up their act."A large part of production capacity has been ...