Widow's Peak

Good news I guess for all the man-made global warming sceptics (crazy name, crazy guys) keen for reliable research that shows the IPCC may have over-estimated the possible warming of the globe due to the burning of fossil fuels. Professor David Rutledge of Caltech has attempted to apply the theory of Hubbert's Peak, commonly used to predict the maximum possible production of oil for a given area across a range of fuels, including coal.

It stands to reason that any estimates of likely warming must be based on the projections of accessible accessible reserves - we can't warm the planet if we don't burn the fuel. Rutledge contends that estimates of accesible reserves have been grossly over-estimated. Read the full report here:

http://rutledge.caltech.edu/

Before y'all take off on a celebratory once-around-the-block-in-the-sports-utility-vehicle be aware that this fits in with information leaked by an oil industry whistleblower claiming that oil supplies are running out faster than either the multi-nationals or their governments are telling us.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/warning-oil-supplies-are-running-out-fast-1766585.html

Even more reason for any rational person to press authorities to switch to a low-carbon economy

Peace & love

Make (Fuel) Poverty History - Just not on Fridays!

The House of Commons has done much in the last 12 month’s to infuriate the electorate but one snub to the poorest families passed almost unnoticed. Last March a private members bill aimed at eliminating fuel poverty was lost due to too few MPs being bothered to turn-up (Devastating blow for households in fuel poverty). The two main provisions of the bill allowed for the upgrading of homes to make them more energy efficient and the introduction of cheaper social tariffs for the poorest consumers. The bill was aimed at the 5.5 million households spending 10% of more of income on gas and electricity. It is estimated that the energy savings would cut average bills from £1,272 to £610 per year – a saving of more than 50% and a huge reduction in each beneficiary’s carbon footprint.

The reading of the bill was timetabled for Friday afternoon (when MPs rarely bother to turn up) and lacked government support.

That the New Labour government should allow the bill to fail by refusing to support it speaks much of its priorities and the importance it attaches to both helping the most vulnerable in our society and green issues – it’s attachment to either being as slim as Gordon Brown still being Prime Minister on May 6th (and that cloud of dust you see is Slim, a-whooping and a-hollering heading for the Mexican border). If politicians are serious about de-carbonising our economies then these are the types of measures they should be enthusiastically adopting.

It would be churlish not to mention that the bill was sponsored Liberal Democrat MP David Heath – I’m not a Lib Dem supporter but hats off

Cold, Dead Hands

Where to start with the extraordinary amount of heat and light generated in the blogosphere over the issue of man-made global warming – most of it from sources sceptical of its existence? Without claiming expert knowledge my understanding is that climate is shaped by the position of the Earth/Sun, variations in sunspot activity, debris in the atmosphere, both natural (volcanic) and man-made (industrial pollutants) which cools the earth, ocean currents which both cool and warm and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that raise the earth’s temperature by around 33 degrees from a chilly -18 degrees to a hospitable 15. We know that CO2 in the atmosphere has risen by almost 40% since the onset of the industrial revolution, and there is now more CO2 in the atmosphere than at anytime for at least 600,000 years.

Knowing this, and also that there is reliable evidence to suggest that the earth is warming (and the trend has increased since the 1970s), why in the wide, wide world of sports try to explain recent rises without including artificially enhanced greenhouse gases in one’s reasoning?

Simply applying the precautionary principle suggests it’s a sensible thing to do. If we de-carbonise our economy and it turns out the view of the scientists is wrong we have slowed the onrushing locomotive that is Peak Oil, increased our fuel security and reduced acidification of the oceans. If we do nothing and the man-made global warming sceptics are wrong we exacerbate all those problems, and add large-scale environmental destruction with massive increases in immigration of environmental refugees.

You would imagine that any reasonable human being would at least consider this option. But of course scepticism to man-made global warming isn’t about reason, it’s about ideology. The free market libertarian orthodoxy that has held sway over the global economy since the end of the Second World War that came crashing down with the quasi-nationalisation of the banks during the credit crunch. It is a primal scream, a 500-lb gorilla howl of rage at seeing everything change around them. The unsustainability that western society is built on is no longer an option, and frankly they’re agin this whole idea.

Of course these are dangerous times. The last time an Empire allowed its power to drift away was in 1945 when an exhausted Britain was mostly glad to see the back of its imperial adventure. America is likely to be a different proposition. A wiser fella than me once said that fascism will arrive in America wrapped in the flag and holding a cross – to paraphrase a much less wise fella (and speaking metaphorically), they will have to prise power from its cold ideologically dead hand!

Peace & love