Category: Climate
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Can algae save the world?
Yet another story today about how genetically engineered algae can produce much more crude oil per acre than biofuels. But how do the numbers stack up?
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Climate Science for Dummies
If the mainstream science is wrong, we need to reduce GHG emissions even more than is currently planned. Simple really. Now let’s get on with it.
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Is it politically possible to avert dangerous climate change?
The Stockholm Network’s Carbon Scenarios describe 3 plausible futures resulting from 3 different approaches to climate policy at the international level. Worryingly, none of the scenarios provides a policy which achieves climate ‘success’ as defined by the UK, EU and UN (a greater than 90% chance of no more than 2°C warming above preindustrial levels).
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Australia turns up the heat on climate change?
“Australians should be proud of what we are achieving at home to meet the climate change challenge” Alexander Downer in the Age this morning. Is he right? UPDATE: CSIRO and BoM report on the future for Australia
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Wedging the climate
No one strategy can do all that we need to stop dangerous climate change. We need to follow several strategies simultaneously – but which ones? And are there solutions without nuclear power?
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How Warm will Warming be?
Mark Lynas’ “Six Degrees: our future on a hotter planet” works systematically through the impact of warming the planet one degree at a time through the range of predictions for the next century. Key sentence: “none of the continent of Australia – except perhaps the extreme north and Tasmania – will be able to support significant crop…
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Rita, Katrina, Oil and the Economy
“Commentators at the positive end had already started writing their “why the world economy survived Katrina” pieces within a week or so of the disaster. The (economic) question is – will US consumer confidence (and market confidence generally) survive Rita? I leave for others the shorter term questions around whether the US authorities learned enough…
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Warming up the energy debate
A recent New Scientist editorial sets out a handy scoring mechanism for energy sources: “We want them to have a small environmental impact, yet be able to supply energy on a huge scale. We want costs to be low, the method of generation to be safe and for there to be plenty of available fuel.…