Cabalamat's Britblog roundup tipped me off to one of those storm in a tea-cup debates on Global Warming... Steve McIntyre, a long term climate sceptic, has made analysis of tree ring data used as a basis for claiming significant temperature rise in modern times.. and concludes that by substituting other tree ring data the apparent rise disappears.
I don't have the statistics or knowledge of dendrochronology to know whether his analysis is accurate or pertinent. Whether it is evidence of a 'global warming hoax' I very much doubt (by which I mean whether the results have been skewed deliberately to mislead)- but if this genuinely shows problems in the previous data or analysis it is a valuable contribution to the debate.
Reading Keith Briffa's response to the post you could almost wonder though if it isn't McIntyre that's guilty of selecting the data to exclude to substantiate his scepticism. Briffa promises a more detailed review of McIntyre's analysis. In the meantime RealClimate's response puts the argument into perspective by showing a range of other indicators of long term climate all with the same trend - none of them reliant on the Yamal peninsular tree-ring data.
Getting down to hard facts is important and not easy to do. Nobody wins and nobody loses by establishing the truth... which is why it's a little sad to see the climosceptic crowing that accompanies this type of report. If someone categorically proves that there is no global warming we will all be able to celebrate... but don't you think it's time we all started thinking about plan B?
Showing posts with label environment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label environment. Show all posts
Monday, 5 October 2009
Monday, 21 September 2009
On yer Bike: World Car Free Day
Welcome to World Car Free Day - September 22nd - which I hope you will be celebrating in the only way possible..... leaving your car at home!
Stockholm City is not officially joining those cities supporting the event but not all Stockholmers are so complacent... The jazzy image above is borrowed from Klimax - who are organising a car-free zone round Sergels Torg in the middle of Stockholm tomorrow (at 5pm) as part of their campaign for a fossil fuel free world.
If you've not yet checked out the World Car Free Day site then jump here to sample a few interesting statistics on just why we need to be car free....
Tags:
car free day, green,
Friday, 11 September 2009
Three cheers for the postman
As an individual it's sometimes easy to think that doing my bit to cut waste and energy is irrelevant. It's so small, why should I bother? The simple fact is that if we share the responsibility and each make a contribution our collective effort is significant.
There is though a big chunk of our lives that we only have a limited control over - and that's what business does on our behalf. Shops, offices and fleets of lorries all busily burning energy to bring us the goods and services we use every day. These businesses polllute on our behalf a situation we have limited control over. We can make some choices but many parts of the social and commercial infrastructure we have no control over.
That's why it is great to read yesteray's news that the Royal Mail have signed up to the UK Governments 10:10 challenge - cutting emissions 10% in 2010. Any organisation that uses 35 million litres of diesel a year clearly has a lot of scope for improving it's environmental footprint - helping it's customers to a cleaner world, and no doubt saving themselves some money in the process.
There is though a big chunk of our lives that we only have a limited control over - and that's what business does on our behalf. Shops, offices and fleets of lorries all busily burning energy to bring us the goods and services we use every day. These businesses polllute on our behalf a situation we have limited control over. We can make some choices but many parts of the social and commercial infrastructure we have no control over.
That's why it is great to read yesteray's news that the Royal Mail have signed up to the UK Governments 10:10 challenge - cutting emissions 10% in 2010. Any organisation that uses 35 million litres of diesel a year clearly has a lot of scope for improving it's environmental footprint - helping it's customers to a cleaner world, and no doubt saving themselves some money in the process.
Monday, 7 September 2009
Drax black and Oxford blue. Coal on the agenda
Sometimes it's not what you look at but how you look at it that's important...
Climate Feedback reports an interview with Oxford economist Dieter Helm, the salient point of which is that in tackling climate change it's not comparatively small investments in renewables that will make a difference (and certainly not improving things at home by shipping manufacturing abroad!) - it's what to do about the BIG pollution that comes from other sources - most notably coal.
Coal is cheap and often readily available (in a fairly low tech sort of way). If you need energy and have big coal reserves you are going to burn them. As Dieter puts it "It's time to realize that coal is where the core of the problem lies, and to think cleverly about solutions towards that.".
By coincidence this week the courts sentenced the protesters that in June set out to highlight the environmental issues with burning coal by hijacking a train on its way to Drax powerstation - the UK's largest coal powered power station. Sentences were fairly lenient - but it still seemed to me to be a little surreal - had the protesters parked a few dozen tractors on a motorway protesting about farm subsidies, or parked fishing boats at a dock gate, or oil tankers at a terminal gate then the economic consequences would be as great - but it would probably be seen as lawful protest, not criminal activity. Wouldn't it? And at the end of the day the message they wanted to put across matters.
The point is that they are both right. Burning coal is a BIG long term issue. Coal fired power stations continue to be built and they will be in service for decades. Investing in polluting technologies is not the answer - not at home... nor in the farthest Orient.
Factoid: Power generation in Yorkshire & Humberside (including Drax) is 58% of the regions emissions and accounts for almost 7.5% of total UK emissions (2005). This is more than four times the impact of the total road and air transport in the region.
Also blogging on:
coal,environment,Drax,
Climate Feedback reports an interview with Oxford economist Dieter Helm, the salient point of which is that in tackling climate change it's not comparatively small investments in renewables that will make a difference (and certainly not improving things at home by shipping manufacturing abroad!) - it's what to do about the BIG pollution that comes from other sources - most notably coal.
Coal is cheap and often readily available (in a fairly low tech sort of way). If you need energy and have big coal reserves you are going to burn them. As Dieter puts it "It's time to realize that coal is where the core of the problem lies, and to think cleverly about solutions towards that.".
By coincidence this week the courts sentenced the protesters that in June set out to highlight the environmental issues with burning coal by hijacking a train on its way to Drax powerstation - the UK's largest coal powered power station. Sentences were fairly lenient - but it still seemed to me to be a little surreal - had the protesters parked a few dozen tractors on a motorway protesting about farm subsidies, or parked fishing boats at a dock gate, or oil tankers at a terminal gate then the economic consequences would be as great - but it would probably be seen as lawful protest, not criminal activity. Wouldn't it? And at the end of the day the message they wanted to put across matters.
The point is that they are both right. Burning coal is a BIG long term issue. Coal fired power stations continue to be built and they will be in service for decades. Investing in polluting technologies is not the answer - not at home... nor in the farthest Orient.
Factoid: Power generation in Yorkshire & Humberside (including Drax) is 58% of the regions emissions and accounts for almost 7.5% of total UK emissions (2005). This is more than four times the impact of the total road and air transport in the region.
Also blogging on:
coal,environment,Drax,
Wednesday, 26 August 2009
Little Green Apples
" ..and God didn't make the little green apples...."
The season is upon us. Swedish apples have appeared in the shops again. Fresh, and good, local produce..... Great!
Do the earth a favour. Stop buying peaches, bananas, kiwis, nectarines and all that exotic imported stuff and fill your fruitbowl with the real McCoy. Just do it!
The season is upon us. Swedish apples have appeared in the shops again. Fresh, and good, local produce..... Great!
Do the earth a favour. Stop buying peaches, bananas, kiwis, nectarines and all that exotic imported stuff and fill your fruitbowl with the real McCoy. Just do it!
Thursday, 14 May 2009
Whales return in Alaska
Good news.... Blue Whales have appeared off parts of Canada & Alaska for the first time since they were eradicated by commercial whaling activities in the last century.
Scientists are now pondering just why they have re-appeared - one of the possible reasons being the affects of global warming on the krill population (krill being the whale's staple diet). Hopefully it's the other reason - that krill , and hence whale migrations, are affected by long term shifts in the pattern of ocean temperatures and that it is these that are bringing the whales northward.
Scientists are now pondering just why they have re-appeared - one of the possible reasons being the affects of global warming on the krill population (krill being the whale's staple diet). Hopefully it's the other reason - that krill , and hence whale migrations, are affected by long term shifts in the pattern of ocean temperatures and that it is these that are bringing the whales northward.
Tuesday, 5 May 2009
Hot (green) air on the tube
So you want to keep up to date on the latest environmental news... and you don't want to fall asleep at the same time???
Checkout Zaproot on Youtube.
In this episode... how Swedes are getting hot under the collar...
Checkout Zaproot on Youtube.
In this episode... how Swedes are getting hot under the collar...
Friday, 10 April 2009
Green cars
I recent received the latest newsletter from Grönabilister, a swedish consumer group focussed on green motoring. As usual it's full of interesting news on making motoring more environmentally friendly.
In a quieter moment I'll post more of the interesting facts and figures it includes. First off though:
Sales of 'miljöbilar' - cars meeting set environmental standards for emissions and fuel consumption - exceeded one third of new sales for the first time during the first quarter - and in March they were 37% of sales....
Progress!
(according to BilSweden)
Monday, 6 April 2009
Infiltrating the Vegan Underground
By a kind of circuitous route I ended up at an interesting blog post on Greenisthenewred with the interesting title "10 easy ways to be labelled a "Terrorist" by the government". ..meaning of course the American government.
I liked number 8 - attend Vegan Potlucks.......
..but ... the article gives a scary reminder that legislation aimed at stopping suicide bombers and plane hijacks gets pointed at a completely different scale of activity - including things that are explicitly legal (not least in constitutional America). Running a website reporting on activist activities for instance.
In a separate piece the same author - Will Potter - highlights the hypocracy in labelling activists as 'Eco-terrorists' when it is in fact big corporations that are actively polluting the environment - and at times breaking the law to do so.
I liked number 8 - attend Vegan Potlucks.......
..but ... the article gives a scary reminder that legislation aimed at stopping suicide bombers and plane hijacks gets pointed at a completely different scale of activity - including things that are explicitly legal (not least in constitutional America). Running a website reporting on activist activities for instance.
In a separate piece the same author - Will Potter - highlights the hypocracy in labelling activists as 'Eco-terrorists' when it is in fact big corporations that are actively polluting the environment - and at times breaking the law to do so.
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