Another week of GW News, January 24, 2010

Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years

This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week’s Global Warming news roundup

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Another week of Global Warming News

Sipping from the internet firehose…

January 24, 2010

• Chuckles, Copenhagen, BASIC, WFES, IRENA, Solar Cycle, Grumbine, WMO-GCW, NA Ozone, Himalayan Glaciers
• Bill Gates, Urban Heat Island, Cold Snap, GW & Natural Disasters, CRU, Late Comments
• Melting Arctic, Geopolitics
• Food Crisis, Food vs. Biofuel, Food Production
• Hurricanes, GHGs, Carbon Cycle, Temperatures, Aerosols, Paleoclimate, Ocean Currents
• Impacts, Forests, Wacky Weather, Tornadoes, Wildfires, Acidification, Glaciers, Sea Levels, Floods & Droughts
• Mitigation, Transportation, Buildings, Sequestration, Geoengineering, Adaptation
• Journals, Other Docs , Misc. Science, DIY Science, Pielke, Schwartz, Hansen
• Kyoto, UN, Pachauri, Carbon Trade, Carbon Tax, Optimal Carbon Reduction Strategy
• International Politics, Security, Law & Activism, Polls
• America, Obama, Congress, Britain, Europe, Australia, India, China, Asia, Africa, South America, Canada
• Ecological Economics, IPAT, Media, Books, Courts
• Energy, Fracking, Wind, Solar, Coal, Biofuel, Nukes, Peak Oil, Grid, Cars, Business
• Joe’s List, Carbon Lobby, Miscellaneous Climate, Useful Links
• Shameless Self Promotion, .sig

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Here’s a chuckle for ya:

• 2010/01/24: DM:SRK: (cartoon – PhDComix) Dear News Media…
• 2010/01/22: MoD: (cartoon – Piro) Elitist scientists
• 2010/01/21: MTobis: (cartoon – Roberts) Bloody Monkeys

  A little something to unzip the jaded:

• 2010/01/22: WHA: Wind farm wakes
• 2010/01/22: TreeHugger: Beautiful Photo Shows Wake Effects of Wind Turbines
• 2010/01/19: WiredSci: Cryosphere: Earth’s Icy Extremes Seen From Space
• 2010/01/19: TCoE: Eye candy alert: Satellite images of the cryosphere

  The Copenhagen post mortems continue:

• 2010/01/22: Grist: Did China block Copenhagen progress to pave way for its own dominance in cleantech?
• 2010/01/22: Reuters: Nations stick to CO2 goals before January deadline
  The world is showing only lukewarm enthusiasm for a “Copenhagen Accord” to curb climate change, with no sign so far of deeper-than-planned 2020 curbs on greenhouse gas emissions before a January 31 deadline.
• 2010/01/22: BBC: Copenhagen ‘fails forest people’
  A multi-billion dollar deal tabled at the Copenhagen climate summit could lead to conflicts in forest-rich nations, a report has warned. The study by the Rights and Resources Initiative said the funds could place “unprecedented pressure” on some areas. Six nations offered $3.5bn as part of global plans to cut deforestation, which accounts for about 20% of all emissions from human activity. Campaigners warn the scheme fails to consider the rights of forest people.
• 2009/12/21: CAC: A Climate Con – Analysis of the “Copenhagen Accord”
• 2010/01/21: EUO: UN fudges Copenhagen Accord deadline
• 2010/01/21: NatureTGB: Interpreting Copenhagen accord’s ‘soft’ deadline
• 2010/01/21: ABC(Au): Climate boss admits Copenhagen failed
  The United Nations climate change chief has admitted for the first time that last month’s Copenhagen summit failed to deliver an adequate outcome. The UN’s chief negotiator Yvo de Boer says the Copenhagen accord is an “important political tool” but did not achieve what was required for the world to avoid catastrophic climate change.
• 2010/01/20: NYT: U.N. Official Says Climate Deal Is at Risk
• 2010/01/20: SolveClimate: UN Climate Chief OK With Countries Missing Copenhagen Accord Deadline — Calls Accord ‘Political Letter of Intent’, Jan. 31 Deadline ‘Soft’
• 2010/01/21: BBC: UN climate deadline is ‘flexible’
  The UN climate convention says nations signing up to the accord reached at last month’s summit will not have to do so by the deadline of 31 January. The “Copenhagen Accord” asks countries to send figures by the end of the month on how much they will curb emissions. But amid uncertainty over who is going to sign up, climate convention head Yvo de Boer said the deadline was “soft”. He said the Copenhagen summit had not delivered the “agreement the world needs” to address climate change.
• 2010/01/20: Guardian(UK): UN drops deadline for countries to state climate change targets
  Copenhagen deal falters as just 20 countries of 192 sign up to declare their global warming strategies
• 2010/01/20: Grist: Copenhagen Accord is the priority, says U.S. climate envoy [Todd Stern]. But what about a binding treaty?
• 2010/01/20: Grist: No guarantee of climate treaty this year, says UNFCCC head [Yvo de Boer]
• 2010/01/20: EarthTimes: UN official gives [end of January] deadline to ‘associate’ with climate accord
• 2010/01/19: Yahoo:AFP: Binding climate deal ‘reachable this year’: UN [IPCC head, Rajendra Pachauri]
• 2010/01/20: SolomonTimes: Small Island Developing States [SIDS] Deserve Better Than Copenhagen Accord: [Minister for Environment, Conservation and Meteorology, Gordon Darcy] Lilo
• 2010/01/19: EnergyBulletin: Copenhagen & Economic Growth – You Can’t Have Both
• 2010/01/18: IndiaTimes: India readies tough response to UN
  Irked by letters written in bad faith by the UN secretary general and the Danish PM on the Copenhagen Accord, the government has finalized a robust response.
  […]
  The two in their letters have said that the Accord was only an essential first step in a process leading to a legally binding agreement, which is an infringement of the agreement reached between 29 countries that negotiated the Accord with India as one of the leading parties along with China, Brazil, South Africa and the US. On the insistence of the emerging economies, the US and others had relented and accepted that the Copenhagen Accord would remain a political statement and not lead on to a legally binding agreement.
• 2010/01/17: BBerg: EU Nations Spar Over Climate Policy After UN Summit Deadlock

  The BASIC group is meeting today:

• 2010/01/24: IPSNews: After Copenhagen, Back to Basics for BASIC Bloc
  As environment ministers from Brazil, South Africa, India and China (BASIC) prepared to meet in the Indian capital on Sunday to draw up a post-Copenhagen strategy, there were great expectations on the role they could play in pushing a consensus on how the world should go about dealing with climate change.
• 2010/01/24: Yahoo:AFP: Emerging nations pledge climate change unity in India
  Environment ministers from Brazil, South Africa, India and China said on Sunday that talks in New Delhi had further cemented their alliance following the Copenhagen climate change summit.
• 2010/01/23: EarthTimes: BASIC countries to discuss climate strategy at Delhi meeting [Jan 24th]
• 2010/01/22: IndiaTimes: Copenhagen & beyond: Stage set for BASIC meet in Delhi
  New Delhi: With an eye on the climate change conference in Mexico, the BASIC countries are considering ways to mend fences with the small island states and less developed countries. At the BASIC meeting to be held this week, India is likely to put forward a proposal for a fund to help vulnerable countries to deal with the effects of climate change. The BASIC meeting in New Delhi will focus on post-Copenhagen scenario. With the group — Brazil, South Africa, India and China — now focusing on climate change negotiations leading to the conference at Mexico, it will need to work out ways in which it can make common cause with the rest of the developing bloc. There has been a sense that in Copenhagen, the emerging economies or the more advanced developing countries had broken ranks with the G-77. For the BASIC to retain its negotiating strength it will need to reach out to the vulnerable countries in the developing group. The fund could serve this purpose.
• 2010/01/22: Reuters: China-led [BASIC] group may discuss climate fund for poor

  The WFES met this week in Abu Dhabi:

• 2010/01/22: GreenGrok: Green Technologies Get the Royal Treatment in Abu Dhabi
• 2010/01/22: KhaleejTimes: Energy Summit balances Copenhagen setbacks
  Abu Dhabi – The four-day World Future Energy Summit, or WFES, concluded on Thursday on a high spirit of consensus among the world leaders, brightening up the hopes of a better outcome at the ensuing global climate change talks in Mexico, in contrast with disappointing results of the Copenhagen Summit. The WFES which was an extraordinary assembly of large number policy makers, entrepreneurs, experts and activists from more than 130 countries across the globe ended with a categorical assertion that renewable energy is no longer the energy of the future ‘but it has already arrived ‘, and that it can make a significant contribution in mitigating the grave threats of climate change.
• 2010/01/18: BangkokPost: Fresh calls for clean energy [WFES]
  World leaders raised a fresh alarm on global warming Monday, urging international action to increase use of clean energy at a four-day forum that opened in the oil-rich emirate of Abu Dhabi. “If we don’t act now, our coral reefs and rainforests will die, desert countries will become unbearably hot and low lying countries like the Maldives, will slip beneath the rising seas,” said the president of the Maldives, Mohammed Nasheed. “Tackling climate change is not like dealing with other global issues, such as trade or disarmament. We do not have the luxury of time to meet, year after year, in endless negotiations,” the leader of the low-lying Indian Ocean nation told participants at the World Future Energy Summit.
• 2010/01/19: KhaleejTimes: Future of energy should be sustainable [WFES]
  Disappointments from the Copenhagen summit on climate change should not dampen efforts to reduce increases in global temperatures, said world leaders at a four-day forum held in the capital.
• 2010/01/18: PhysOrg: World leaders make new call for clean energy [WFES]
  World leaders raised a fresh alarm on global warming Monday, urging international action to increase use of clean energy at a four-day forum that opened in the oil-rich emirate of Abu Dhabi.

The IRENA meeting is coming up:

• 2010/01/23: CCurrents: A Global Push For Renewable Energy [IRENA]
• 2010/01/18: Recharge: Irena nabs Saudi Arabia, as questions linger over host
  After a day of “frenzied but successful” negotiations in which it finalised its budget and work programme for 2010, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) announced it has nabbed fossil-fuel powerhouse Saudi Arabia and ascendant South Africa.

That old favourite – the solar cycle:

• 2010/01/17: SkepticalScience: What does Solar Cycle Length tell us about the sun’s role in global warming?
• 2010/01/18: TCoE: Solar cycles and warming

  Rob Grumbine continued his gentle education series:

• 2010/01/21: MGS: Theory of Climate — Examples
• 2010/01/20: MGS: Theory of Climate — Philosophy
• 2010/01/18: MGS: Fingerprinting climate change
  I’ll take up one of the questions from the question place, how do we ‘fingerprint’ current climate change as being from CO2, rather than from any of the many other things that affect climate?

The WMO is setting up a Global Cryosphere Watch:

• 2010/01/20: WMO: Global Cryosphere Watch to support needs for weather, climate and water information and services
  The international community is working within the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) towards the establishment of a Global Cryosphere Watch (GCW) to serve societal needs for weather, climate and water and related environmental information and services. At its next quadrennial session in 2011, the World Meteorological Congress — WMO’s supreme governing body — is to consider ways and means of developing and implementing a GCW.

Surprise, Surprise! Pollution is portable:

• 2010/01/20: FuturePundit: East Asian Pollution Driving Western North America Ozone
• 2010/01/21: Guardian(UK): Asian ozone raising levels of smog in western United States, study shows
• 2010/01/21: NatureTGB: Asia to blame for American ozone woe
• 2010/01/20: NOAANews: Study Links Springtime Ozone Increases Above Western North America to Emissions Abroad
• 2010/01/20: Eureka: Study links springtime ozone increases above western North America to emissions from abroad

  The Himalayan glacier kafuffle:

• 2007//: IPCC:WG2: Section 10.6.2 The Himalayan glaciers
• 2010/01/24: Guardian(UK): UN pledges tighter controls after melting glaciers blunder — Head of climate change refuses to resign over false claims
• 2010/01/23: PhysOrg: Glacier alarm ‘regrettable error’: UN climate head [IPCC Head, Rajendra Pachauri]
• 2010/01/23: Independent(UK): A distraction of Himalayan proportions
  A claim that the mountain glaciers of the Himalayas will vanish by 2035 has been debunked. Climate-change sceptics are jubilant. They shouldn’t be, says Steve Connor. Their disappearance is still only a matter of time
• 2010/01/23: CCurrents: Climate Sceptics And The Himalayan Glacier Melt
• 2010/01/22: CCurrents: A Mistake Over Himalayan Glaciers Should Not Melt Our Priorities
• 2010/01/21: Stoat: IPCC use of non-peer reviewed material?
• 2010/01/20: CAC: “Glacier gate” – how the Murdoch press have got it wrong on the Himalayan big melt
• 2010/01/21: NatureTGB: IPCC apologises for Himalayan glacier melt error
• 2010/01/21: NewScientist: Climate chief [Pachauri] admits error over Himalayan glaciers
• 2010/01/21: CSW: Worldwide glacier melt a real concern; Himalaya controversy leaves questions about IPCC leadership
• 2010/01/21: EarthTimes: India welcomes UN’s body ‘regret’ on 2035 alarm on Himalayan glacier melt
  India’s Minister for Forests and Environment Jairam Ramesh has welcomed the admission by the Nobel prize winning group, United Nations Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), expressing “regret” and “poor application” its three-year-old claim that most of the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035. Ramesh said the IPCC’s statement was only to be expected. “I am glad that they have issued an regret. But let us not forget that the health of the Himalayan glaciers is poor and we need to take immediate remedial measures”.
• 2010/01/21: NatureCF: IPCC apologises for Himalayan glacier melt error
• 2010/01/21: CBC: UN climate report hurt by errors on glaciers
• 2010/01/20: Guardian(UK): The real Himalayan scandal
  What’s really shocking about research into the glaciers of the Himalayas is how little there has been
• 2010/01/20: Guardian(UK): IPCC officials admit mistake over melting Himalayan glaciers
• 2010/01/20: Guardian(UK): Claims Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035 were false, says UN scientist
• 2010/01/20: ScienceInsider: IPCC Expresses “Regret” Over Glaciers Error
• 2010/01/20: GreenGrok: IPCC Slips on Himalayan Ice
• 2010/01/21: ABC(Au): UN admits Himalaya glacier data dodgy
  The UN’s climate science panel has acknowledged that a grim prediction on the fate of Himalayan glaciers in a benchmark report on global warming had been “poorly substantiated” and was a lapse in standards.
• 2010/01/20: ABC(Au): Scientist denies UN glacier melt date
  An Indian scientist at the centre of a new climate science storm has denied saying that Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035 – an alarming date used by the UN’s top global warming body. Syed Hasnain, however, did acknowledge making comments suggesting that many of the glaciers could disappear by the middle of this century.
• 2010/01/20: CNN: U.N. climate chiefs apologize for glacier error
• 2010/01/20: Grist: U.N. climate panel admits Himalayan glacier data “poorly substantiated”
• 2010/01/20: DM:80B: Climate Panel Admits Glacier Blunder, Scrambles to Save Face
• 2010/01/20: Yahoo:AFP: Indian scientist [Syed Hasnain] denies UN glacier melt date
• 2010/01/20: BBerg: Indian Scientist Says He Was Misquoted on Melting Glaciers
  Syed Iqbal Hasnain, the Indian scientist credited with initial claims that Himalayan glaciers may disappear by 2035, has denied making the assertion. The New Scientist magazine carried Hasnain’s comments on the rate at which the glaciers are melting in 1999. The article was cited in a report by environmental group WWF and picked up by the Nobel Prize-winning United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
• 2010/01/20: DerSpiegel: A Costly Mistake — UN Climate Experts Under Fire for Glacier Melt Error
  In its 2007 report on climate change, the United Nations included a prediction that the Himalayan glaciers had a high probability of melting by 2035 — a forecast that came as an unpleasant surprise for many. But the forecast is wrong and the Nobel Prize-winning UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change is be criticized heavily for its methods.
• 2010/01/20: CBC: Himalayan glaciers warning not backed up: UN
  A UN warning that Himalayan glaciers were melting faster than any other place in the world and may be gone by 2035 was not backed up by science, UN climate experts said Wednesday — an admission that could energize climate change critics. In a 2007 report, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said the Himalayan glaciers are very likely to disappear within three decades if the present melting rate continues. But a statement from the panel now says there is not enough scientific evidence to back up those claims.
• 2010/01/19: BBC: The vice-chairman of the UN’s climate science panel [Jean-Pascal van Ypersele] has admitted it made a mistake in asserting that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035
• 2010/01/19: Guardian(UK): UN climate scientists review Himalayan glaciers claim
• 2010/01/19: NatureN: Glacier estimate is on thin ice — IPCC may modify its Himalayan melting forecasts
• 2010/01/19: KSJT: New Scientist, Times of India, lots more: IPCC’s Himalaya glacier forecast getting slammed
• 2010/01/19: RealClimate: The IPCC is not infallible (shock!)
• 2010/01/19: ABC(Au): UN to probe doomsday glacier forecast
  The United Nations’ panel of climate scientists says it will probe claims its doomsday prediction for the disappearance of Himalayan glaciers was wrong, as an expert said he had warned of the mistake.
• 2010/01/19: Grist: U.N. climate panel will probe disputed Himalayan glacier forecast
• 2010/01/19: CSW: IPCC slips on the ice with statement about Himalayan glaciers
• 2010/01/19: Deltoid: A beat up of Himalayan proportions
• 2010/01/18: NYT: U.N. Panel’s [Himalayan] Glacier Warning Is Criticized as Exaggerated
• 2010/01/18: CalcuttaNews: Pachauri too doubts if glaciers would vanish by 2035
  Noted environment scientist R.K. Pachauri, who heads the United Nation panel for assessment of climate change, Monday said that Himalayan glaciers are indeed melting faster but whether these snow rivers would vanish by the year 2035 is questionable. ‘There is no doubt that glaciers are melting faster, but, yes, there is a question mark over the 2035 date,’ said Pachauri, who is the chairman of United Nations Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
• 2010/01/19: TreeHugger: IPCC Reviewing Disputed Himalayan Glaciers Gone by 2035 Claim – Will This Be Underestimated Too?
• 2010/01/18: ClimateP: Memo to IPCC: Please reanalyze ALL of your conclusions about melting ice and sea level rise
  Good news: The Himalayan glaciers will probably endure past 2035. Bad news: If we don’t reverse our emissions trend soon, their disappearance is likely to become irreversible before then.
• 2010/01/17: Times(UK): World misled over Himalayan glacier meltdown
• 2010/01/18: IoD: Forget climategate; here’s a real embarrassment for the IPCC [Himalayan glaciers]
• 2010/01/18: Guardian(UK): A mistake over Himalayan glaciers should not melt our priorities
• 2010/01/18: Reuters: U.N. panel re-examines Himalayan glacier thaw report
  The U.N. panel of climate scientists said Monday it was reviewing a report containing a little-known projection that Himalayan glaciers might vanish by 2035, a finding trenchantly criticized by the Indian government. The 2007 U.N. panel report says global warming could cause the Himalaya’s thousands of glaciers to vanish by 2035 if current warming rates continue.
• 2010/01/18: ABC(Au): Wong defends UN over [Himalayan glacier] climate mistake
• 2010/01/18: PhysOrg: In new row, UN climate body [IPCC] to probe Himalayan glacier forecast
• 2010/01/18: JQuiggin: Beatup of the century [Himalayan glaciers]
• 2010/01/18: TerraDaily: Himalayan Glaciers Will Take Centuries To Melt Not Decades
• 2010/01/18: EarthTimes: Indian Ecology Minister Ramesh says ‘I was right on glaciers’ melting
• 2010/01/18: HindustanTimes: Himalayan glaciers won’t melt by 2035, says new finding

  Bill Gates opinion:

• 2010/01/20: HuffPo: Why We Need Innovation, Not Insulation
• 2010/01/21: TreeHugger: Bill Gates’ Vision of Combating Climate Change is Mostly Myopic, Out of Touch, and a Little Bit Scary

  Yes but…for the permanently uninformed, no bad idea ever dies:

• 2010/01/22: TCoE: Urban ice island effect, again
• 2010/01/21: DeSmogBlog: Urban Heat Island Myth is Dead

  There is still some talk about the cold snap that was:

• 2010/01/20: C411: Clearing Up Confusion: The Recent Cold Snap and Global Warming
• 2010/01/17: ClimateP: Climate Crock video on cold snap vs. global warming
• 2010/01/17: TCoE: Video alert: Arctic oscillation

  I wonder what the big reinsurance corps will have to say about this:

• 2010/01/24: TerraDaily: UN climate panel reviewing claim natural disasters: report
• 2010/01/24: Times(UK): UN wrongly linked global warming to natural disasters

  The CRU email theft still got some coverage:

• 2010/01/22: Parliament(UK): The Science and Technology Committee today announces an inquiry into the unauthorised publication of data, emails and documents relating to the work of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA)

  Late Comments on the UN Investor Summit:

• 2010/01/19: PlanetArk: Investors Urge Governments To Act On Climate Change [UN Investor Summit on Climate Risk]

  Late Comments on the AGU meeting:

• 2010/01/22: KSJT: Science Magazine: A roundup from the AGU last month

  The Arctic melt continues to garner a lot of attention:

• 2010/01/23: SciDaily: Ice Is ‘Rotten’ in the Beaufort Sea
• 2010/01/20: CBC: Polar bear trade ban not needed: wildlife monitor
  An international wildlife trade monitor says a U.S. proposal to ban the trade of polar bear products from countries like Canada is not necessary. The U.S. is proposing to ban all commercial trade of polar bear products in many countries under the Convention on International trade on Endangered Species (CITES). The 175 countries that have signed the international treaty are expected to vote on the U.S. proposal when they meet in Doha, Qatar, in March. But in documents released Wednesday, the wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC concluded that shrinking sea ice, caused by climate change, is the main threat polar bears face — not the trade of products from polar bears that are often harvested by aboriginal hunters, such as Inuit in northern Canada.

As for the geopolitics of Arctic resources:

• 2010/01/22: KSJT: Anchorage Daily News, AP, etc: Warming Arctic attracting a big practical investment — all for a few milliseconds’ edge
• 2010/01/22: WaPo: Global warming opens up Arctic for undersea cable

  The food crisis is ongoing:

• 2010/01/19: AllAfrica: Nation: Zimbabwe: Country Faces Mass Starvation
  Zimbabwe is facing massive food shortages again this year with crops already wilting in many parts of the country due to a prolonged dry spell. The United States funded Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWSNET), in its latest forecast predicts that as a result of the poor rainfall and the severe shortage of agriculture inputs, 2.2 million Zimbabweans would need food aid. This means that people who will need urgent food aid between January and March has increased from the 1.7 million projected at the end of last year.
• 2010/01/19: PlanetArk: Dry Spell, Army Worms Damage Malawi Crops
  A persistent dry spell and an army worm outbreak in Malawi have destroyed about 35,000 hectares of crops, threatening the food security of 123,000 families so far, a senior government official said on Monday.
• 2010/01/18: UN: Ban reiterates UN commitment to ensure food security at time of global crisis
  With the global economic downturn causing the “disastrous combination” of high food prices and reduced buying power, leaving hundreds of millions more people unable to feed themselves or their families, the United Nations today reiterated its commitment to work with regional bodies to ensure food security.
• 2010/01/15: CNBC: Food Shortages Coming, Buy Commodities: Jim Rogers

  The conflict between biofuel and food persists:

• 2010/01/23: TCoE: Infonugget: 25% of US corn — U.S. Feeds One Quarter of its Grain to Cars While Hunger is on the Rise
• 2010/01/23: TreeHugger: U.S. Feeds One Quarter Of Its Grain To Cars While Hunger Is On The Rise
• 2010/01/22: CDreams: One Quarter of US Grain Crops Fed to Cars – Not People, New Figures Show
• 2010/01/21: EPI: Data Highlights: U.S. Feeds One Quarter of its Grain to Cars While Hunger is on the Rise
• 2010/01/22: Guardian(UK): One quarter of US grain crops fed to cars – not people, new figures show
  New analysis of 2009 US Department of Agriculture figures suggests biofuel revolution is impacting on world food supplies
• 2010/01/22: Guardian(UK): US corn production and use for fuel ethanol
  Following George Bush’s push for biofuels from crops in 2007, ethanol is now big business – in 2009, 25% of US grain crops was used to create ethanol for cars
• 2010/01/21: Grist: U.S. feeds one quarter of its grain to cars while hunger is on the rise
  The 107 million tons of grain that went to U.S. ethanol distilleries in 2009 was enough to feed 330 million people for one year at average world consumption levels. More than a quarter of the total U.S. grain crop was turned into ethanol to fuel cars last year. With 200 ethanol distilleries in the country set up to transform food into fuel, the amount of grain processed has tripled since 2004.

And how are we going to feed 9 billion?

• 2010/01/23: UN: UN emergency food agency reaches 2 million Haitians with meals
• 2010/01/10: DailyKos: Millions Against Monsanto
  After years of complaints from the Organic Consumers Association and our allies, the Department of Justice is investigating how big biotech and food corporations, including Monsanto, are monopolizing and controlling our seeds, food and farming. On November 13, 2009, the Obama Administration opened a public comment period that closed on December 31, 2009, seeking comments and information about how corporate control of the food system affects average Americans.
  [long list of comments]
• 2010/01/22: PhysOrg: UiS develops global fish price index
• 2010/01/22: PhysOrg: Biofuel crop diversity adds value, researchers say
• 2010/01/22: InfoShop: Birth Of Production and The End of Life
  The historical contradiction of agriculture has always been how its proliferation destroys the ecological conditions which made its existence possible
• 2010/01/17: Xinhuanet: China to tackle climate change challenges to agriculture

  Tropical Storm Magda hit the Australian North West coast and Cat 2 Olga hit the Australian North East:

• 2010/01/24: ABC(Au): Cooktown to feel Olga’s wrath
  Gale force winds and heavy rain are expected to buffet far north Queensland coastal communities early this afternoon as Cyclone Olga hovers off the coast. The Category 2 system is about 60 kilometres east of Cooktown and is due to cross the coast between Cape Flattery and Port Douglas between 3:00pm and 4:00pm (AEST) today.
• 2010/01/22: NASA: NASA’s TRMM Satellite Doesn’t Need 3-D Glasses for [Tropical Storm] Magda
• 2010/01/21: PhysOrg: Tropical Storm Magda puts North Western Australian on alert

  While elsewhere in the hurricane wars:

• 2010/01/22: SolveClimate: Atlantic Hurricanes to Become Less Frequent But More Intense — NOAA-Led Study Looks at the Impact of a Warming Ocean
• 2010/01/21: NatureN: Most powerful hurricanes on the rise — Global warming could lead to fewer but more-intense storms
• 2010/01/20: NASA: Tropical Depression 01W Fading Over Vietnam and Cambodia

  As for GHGs:

• 2010/01/18: WWF: Emissions from UK food industry far higher than believed
• 2010/01/18: ABC(Au): A report by the Climate Group says South Australia’s greenhouse emissions reduced by more than 4 per cent last year
• 2010/01/18: ABC(Au): A new report has revealed that greenhouse gas emissions from energy use in Australia’s eastern states have fallen by 1.8 per cent.

  And in the carbon cycle:

• 2010/01/23: SciDaily: Worldwide Nitrogen Deficit Constrains Carbon Dioxide Uptake by Plants
• 2010/01/18: PhysOrg: If a Tree Falls in the Forest…

  As for the temperature record:

• 2010/01/23: ClimateP: NASA makes it official: 2000s were the hottest decade on record, 2009 tied for second warmest year
• 2010/01/22: ArsTechnica: NASA: 2009 tied for 2nd-warmest year, 00s hottest decade too
• 2010/01/22: TCoE: Picturing global warming
• 2010/01/22: Grist: Last decade was the warmest ever, says NASA
• 2010/01/22: TreeHugger: NASA Makes it Official: 2000-2009 Was Hottest Decade on Record
• 2010/01/21: NASA: NASA Research Finds Last Decade was Warmest on Record, 2009 One of Warmest Years
• 2010/01/21: NYT: Past Decade Warmest on Record, NASA Data Shows
• 2010/01/22: CCP: NYT: Past Decade Warmest Ever, NASA Data Shows
• 2010/01/22: CCP: M. J. Menne, C. N. Williams, Jr., & M. A. Palecki, JGR-A (2010), On the reliability of the U.S. Surface Temperature Record
• 2010/01/22: SkeptiSci: On the reliability of the U.S. Surface Temperature Record
• 2010/01/21: TCoE: Infonugget: NASA confirms it’s still toasty out there
• 2010/01/21: NOAANews: December Global Ocean Temperature Second Warmest on Record — For the year, 2009 Annual Temperature Tied for Fifth-Warmest
• 2010/01/21: PhysOrg: NASA Research Finds Last Decade was Warmest on Record, 2009 One of Warmest Years
• 2010/01/19: MSNBC: U.S.: 2000s warmest decade on record — Federal agency [NCDC] reports temps top previous record set in 1990s
• 2010/01/20: TS:QuarkSoup: The past decade: Still More Warming
• 2010/01/19: TCoE: December temperatures
• 2010/01/18: NRDC:SwitchBoard: More on 2009 Global Temperature Data
• 2010/01/18: ERabett: Backwards
• 2010/01/19: Tamino: Hottest Year
• 2010/01/18: NatureTGB: How warm was 2009?
• 2010/01/18: ClimateP: So it’s in the 50s in DC again — and the global temperature is still breaking records for January!

  Aerosols are making their presence felt:

• 2010/01/19: WoodHeat: Do soot emissions mean that wood heating causes global warming?

  While in the paleoclimate:

• 2010/01/20: Eureka: Cave reveals Southwest’s abrupt climate swings during Ice Age

  As for ocean currents:

• 2010/01/17: CCP: Kjetil VÃ¥ge et al., Surprising return of deep convection to the subpolar North Atlantic Ocean in winter 2007-2008
• 2010/01/17: CCP: Ocean Conveyor’s ‘Pump’ Switches Back On
  How will climate warming affect ocean circulation? The answer isn’t so simple.

The campaign to uncover DSCOVR [Deep Space Climate Observatory] is not quite dead:

• 2010/01/20: Tyee: This Satellite Could Help Save Humanity — But DSCOVR remains grounded. That fact is key to interpreting the so-called ‘climategate’ emails.

  More GW impacts are being seen:

• 2010/01/23: NatureN: Early humans wiped out Australia’s giants — Climate not to blame for the extinction of Australia’s big animals
• 2010/01/19: CCTimes: Butterflies struggling with climate change and development

  And then there are the world’s forests:

• 2010/01/23: TP:WR: Travels In Ecuador: Choosing The Riches Of Life Or Of Oil
• 2010/01/22: TreeHugger: Desertification May Curb Global Warming in the Short Term [actually about the total energy budget of forests]
• 2010/01/21: PhysOrg: ‘Cooling’ forests can heat too
  The simple formula we’ve learned in recent years – forests remove the greenhouse gas CO2 from the atmosphere; therefore forests prevent global warming – may not be quite as simple as we thought. Forests can directly absorb and retain heat, and, in at least one type of forest, these effects may be strong enough to cancel out a good part of the benefit in lowered CO2. This is a conclusion of a paper that will be published tomorrow, Friday 22, in Science by scientists in the Weizmann Institute’s Faculty of Chemistry
• 2010/01/19: Eureka: Scientists identify Ecuador’s Yasuni National Park as one of most biodiverse places on earth
• 2010/01/20: CSM: After the earthquake: Haiti’s deforestation needs attention
• 2010/01/14: DailyKos: “The Haitian people have literally picked their country apart”
• 2010/01/19: PLoS One: Global Conservation Significance of Ecuador’s Yasuní National Park by Margot S. Bass et al.
• 2010/01/19: NatureTGB: In the Ecuadorian Amazon, it’s biodiversity versus oil
• 2010/01/19: MongaBay: Scientists: [Yasuni National] Park in Ecuador likely contains world’s highest biodiversity, but threatened by oil
• 2010/01/18: NewInt:TYB: Urgent: Yasuní’s future hangs by a thread. Take action now!
  When I was at the climate talks in Copenhagen, I noticed that the Yasuní initiative (encouraging the international community to pay Ecuador not to exploit a huge reserve of oil…
  […]
  So I was shocked to receive, out of the blue, an email last week informing me that Ecuador’s President Correa had seemingly pulled the plug on the initiative. During Copenhagen, it seems he moved to block the agreement with UNDP. This forced most of those working on the Yasuní initiative to resign – including Yolanda and Ecuador’s foreign minister. Correa has now said the oil exploration will begin in the Yasuní National Park in June.

Yes we have no wacky weather, except:

• 2010/01/24: ZeeNews: Delhi fogged out on Sunday morning; air, rail traffic hit
  New Delhi: Delhiites woke up to a chilly morning on Sunday, with heavy fog engulfing the national capital’s sky for the fifth consecutive day. Air and rail traffic was hit badly, with several flights and trains in and out of the national capital cancelled.
• 2010/01/22: WMO: World Record Wind Gust: 408 km/h
  According to a recent review conducted by a panel of experts in charge of global weather and climate extremes within the WMO Commission for Climatology (CCl) the record of wind gusts not related to tornados registered to date is 408 km/h during Tropical Cyclone Olivia on 10 April 1996 at Barrow Island, Australia. The previous record was of 372 km/h, registered in April 1934 across the summit of Mount Washington, USA.
• 2010/01/22: Wunderground: A wild weather night in Arizona
• 2010/01/22: Wunderground: Strongest winter storm in at least 140 years whallops Southwest U.S.
• 2010/01/20: WpgSun: Open water halts river-trail work

  Huntsville got zapped by an F2:

• 2010/01/22: DWWSJ: Huntsville Tornado Rated an EF2
• 2010/01/21: DWWSJ: Tornado Develops Over Huntsville Thursday

  As for heatwaves and wild fires:

• 2010/01/21: UAdelaide: Researchers develop new bushfire warning device
  A new, low-cost bushfire detection and monitoring system is being developed by University of Adelaide researchers using mobile communications technology. The same technology used to send SMS messages on mobile phones could be used to develop an efficient and cost-effective early warning message to authorities and people living in fire-risk areas, according to researchers from the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering.
• 2010/01/19: ABC(Au): Another Perth scorcher — Perth has sweltered through a third consecutive day of temperatures above 40C
• 2010/01/18: ABC(Au): Perth wilts as mercury soars — The temperature in the city hit 42.7C about 12:40pm (AWST)

  Acidification is changing the oceans:

• 2010/01/22: KSJT: Seattle Times: Broad stretch of Pacific ocean confirmed to be more acid as CO2 soaks in
• 2010/01/20: PhysOrg: USF Study Shows First Direct Evidence of Ocean Acidification
  Seawater in a vast and deep section of the northeastern Pacific Ocean shows signs of increased acidity brought on by manmade carbon dioxide in the atmosphere — a phenomenon that carries with it far-reaching ecological effects — reports a team of researchers led by a University of South Florida College of Marine Science chemist.
• 2010/01/20: STimes: Pacific’s rising acid levels threatening marine life
  A sweeping 15-year study of pH levels in the Pacific Ocean confirmed that upper reaches of the sea are becoming increasingly more acidic

Glaciers are melting:

• 2010/01/21: UNEP: Understanding Glacier Melt : UNEP and WGMS report highlights global trends on glaciers and ice caps
• 2010/01/22: Independent(UK): Creating glaciers out of thin air — Chewang Norphel has an ingenious solution to the droughts in his Himalayan homeland
• 2010/01/20: CSM: Mt. Rainier’s retreating glaciers are making a mess
• 2010/01/20: Guardian(UK): World’s glaciers melting at accelerated pace, leading scientists say

  Sea levels are rising:

• 2010/01/19: IPSNews: Small Islands Await Haitian-Type Disaster
  The devastation caused by the earthquake in Haiti last week has brought into sharp focus the threat of another natural disaster waiting to happen: a sea-level rise that could obliterate the world’s small island states, triggering fears of mass migration.

As for hydrological cycle disruptions [floods & droughts]:

• 2010/01/23: EarthTimes: Eight killed, 13 missing in Indonesia floods
• 2010/01/23: SciDaily: Brazil’s Northeast Under the Vagaries of the Oceans
• 2010/01/22: PlanetArk: Storms Bring Badly Needed Snow, Rain To California
• 2010/01/22: PlanetArk: Winter Storm Pounds Southern California Again
• 2010/01/22: SciDaily: Global Warming Increases Flood Risk in Mountain Areas
• 2010/01/22: BBC: Storms threaten Los Angeles homes
  An estimated 800 homes in the Los Angeles area remain evacuated under threat of mudslides as storms cause renewed transport chaos and power cuts. Flash flood warnings have been put in place with hills saturated, Los Angeles County officials said. Torrential rains and waves as high as 25ft (7.6m) have eroded beaches and flooded low-lying roads. A run of four storms has been the worst in southern California since 2005, officials say, causing two deaths.
• 2010/01/21: PlanetArk: Paris Could Become Another Venice With Next Flood
• 2010/01/21: Wunderground: Storm battering California sets record low pressure mark
• 2010/01/21: CBC: California storms force mass evacuation — Mudslides, flooding expected
• 2010/01/20: CBC: Storm threatens more California mudslides
  Over 600 residents in the Los Angeles area were ordered to leave their homes on Wednesday morning ahead of a powerful Pacific storm expected to arrive midday. The U.S. National Weather Service said the new storm would bring winds of close to 100 km/h along the Southern California coast and drop rain at a rate of up to 38 millimetres per hour. As much as 125 millimetres of rain was forecast for some mountain areas in the region. The storm follows on the heels of weather systems that have already flooded coastal communities in the region, spawned a tornado and killed at least one person.
• 2010/01/20: CNN: Southern California braces for more storms and possible mudslides
• 2010/01/20: EarthTimes: Two more dead as heavy rains in Egypt cause extensive damage
• 2010/01/19: Wunderground: Top global weather story of 2009: drought in the Horn of Africa
• 2010/01/18: Eureka: Mixed water portfolio helps thirsty cities
  Computer simulations for drought-prone areas reveal that when urban water planners combine three approaches of buying water — permanent rights, options and leases — the city avoids surplus water and high costs, and reduces shortages, according to civil engineers
• 2010/01/18: SeattlePI: As climate warms, what will our rivers do?
  A team of University of Washington researchers is finishing the most detailed yet report what is likely to happen to Pacific Northwest rivers as the climate warms. The Columbia Basin Climate Change Scenarios Project predicts a shift in the landscape so great that engineers and planners are going to have to fundamentally change their methods of predicting what rivers are likely to do.
• 2010/01/18: TerraDaily: Flooding rains bring rare waterfalls to Australia’s Uluru [Ayers Rock]
• 2010/01/18: BBC: Deadly flash floods hit Mid-east — Heavy rains and flash floods have left seven people dead in Egypt and Israel
• 2010/01/18: BBC: Cost of 2007 floods put at £3.2bn
  Flooding in parts of England in the summer of 2007 cost the economy £3.2bn, the Environment Agency has said. It also calculates that investment in flood defences will need to almost double, to £1bn a year, to protect properties in the future.

Elsewhere on the mitigation front:

• 2010/01/21: TreeHugger: Jason Aramburu on the Promise of Biochar

  Consider transportation & GHG production:

• 2010/01/20: CNN: 2009 airline revenue: Worst drop ever
  The airline industry suffered its largest drop ever in passenger revenue last year as a weak economy grounded many would-be travelers, an industry group said Wednesday. The Air Transport Association of America said total passenger revenue for the major U.S. carriers fell 18% in 2009 versus the year before. It was the largest drop on record, exceeding the 14% decline in 2001. The revenue decline was due to a 6% drop in passenger volume, and a 13% plunge in the average price paid to fly one mile, the ATA said.
• 2010/01/20: CalcRisk: DOT: Vehicle Miles increase slightly in November
• 2010/01/20: AutoBG: Bu$ vs. car? Public transit can save riders an average of $9,200 a year
• 2010/01/19: G&M: Japan Airlines files for bankruptcy protection
  Asia’s biggest airline plans to slash nearly 16,000 jobs, cut routes and shift to more fuel-efficient aircraft as part of its restructuring

While in the endless quest for zero energy, sustainable buildings and practical codes:

• 2010/01/22: TEC: How an Energy Audit, Some Caulk and Insulation (Total Cost $1175) is Saving Me $1000… Per Year
• 2010/01/21: TreeHugger: Forget LEED and Energy Star, the Real Green Building Standard is Passivhaus (Slideshow)
• 2010/01/20: SolveClimate: California Greening: State’s New Green Building Codes Have Some Crying Foul — ‘An Example of the Law of Unintended Consequences’
• 2010/01/18: CSM: ‘Cash for Caulkers’ aims to make Americans greener at home

  As for carbon sequestration:

• 2010/01/23: TelegraphIndia: Indian makes molecule suck carbon dioxide [Leiden]
• 2010/01/22: ABC(Au): Loy Yang Power study to consider carbon capture technology
  The CEO of Loy Yang Power, Ian Nethercote, says a new carbon capture and storage technology could prolong the life of the Loy Yang power plant. The company has received $1 million from the Victorian Government to conduct a $3 million feasibility study. A total of $1 million will come from the Federal Government and Loy Yang Power will contribute the remaining funds.
• 2010/01/19: Reuters: Masdar’s first carbon capture in Abu Dhabi in 2012

  Large scale geo-engineering keeps popping up:

• 2010/01/13: Parliament(UK): Uncorrected transcript of oral evidence — (SCience and TEchnology sub-committee) — The Regulation of Geoengineering
• 2010/01/18: NYT:CW: A Search for Rules Before Climate-Changing Experiments Begin
  Responding to renewed interest in geoengineering schemes to combat global warming, scientists and policymakers are beginning several efforts that could set new ground rules for research, including large-scale field experiments. Last week, a committee in Britain’s House of Commons began an inquiry to determine whether developing and deploying geoengineering methods will require new British or international regulations. The U.K. panel is cooperating with an American counterpart, the House Science and Technology Committee, which which is planning its own hearings this year on scientific, engineering, ethical, economic and governance aspects of the emerging field. Meanwhile, a group of scientists will meet in California this spring to attempt to set guidelines for large-scale field tests of proposed geoengineering techniques, which range from employing artificial trees to suck carbon dioxide from the air to spewing massive amounts of sulfate particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect sunlight. Sponsored by the newly created Climate Response Fund, the conference is being modeled on a landmark 1973 meeting, the Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA, that set ground rules for biotechnology research.

While on the adaptation front:

• 2010/01/21: PhysOrg: Managing Pacific Northwest dams for a changing climate
• 2010/01/19: CCurrents: A Manual To Manage Drought In India

  Meanwhile in the journals:

• 2010/01/15: Science: (ab$) Electrocatalytic CO2 Conversion to Oxalate by a Copper Complex by Raja Angamuthu et al.
• 2010/01/23: AGWObserver: Papers on methane emissions
• 2010/01/18: NERC:NORA: Turbulence, heat and trace gas fluxes above a South-East Asian rainforest by Carole Helfter et al.
• 2010/01/22: ACP: Contributions from transport, solid fuel burning and cooking to primary organic aerosols in two UK cities by J. D. Allan et al.
• 2010/01/22: ACP: Secondary organic aerosol production from modern diesel engine emissions by S. Samy & B. Zielinska
• 2010/01/22: ACP: Different characteristics of char and soot in the atmosphere and their ratio as an indicator for source identification in Xi’an, China by Y. M. Han et al.
• 2010/01/21: TC: Simulation of the specific surface area of snow using a one-dimensional physical snowpack model: implementation and evaluation for subarctic snow in Alaska by H.-W. Jacobi et al.
• 2010/01/19: JC: (ab$) Why Hasn’t Earth Warmed as Much as Expected? by Stephen E. Schwartz et al.
• 2009/12/24: GRL: (ab$) Perennial pack ice in the southern Beaufort Sea was not as it appeared in the summer of 2009 by David G. Barber et al.
• 2010/01/20: CP: Climate in continental interior Asia during the longest interglacial of the past 500 000 years: the new MIS 11 records from Lake Baikal, SE Siberia by A. A. Prokopenko et al.
• 2010/01/19: CP: Sea level ~400 000 years ago (MIS 11): analogue for present and future sea-level? by D. Q. Bowen
• 2010/01/21: ACP: Carbonyl sulfide exchange in a temperate loblolly pine forest grown under ambient and elevated CO2 by M. L. White et al.
• 2010/01/20: ACP: Forecasted deep stratospheric intrusions over Central Europe: case studies and climatologies by T. Trickl et al.
• 2010/01/19: ACP: Correlations of mesospheric winds with subtle motion of the Arctic polar vortex by Y. Bhattacharya & A. J. Gerrard
• 2010/01/18: ACP: The impact of dust on sulfate aerosol, CN and CCN during an East Asian dust storm by P. T. Manktelow et al.
• 2010/01/21: ACPD: Direct radiative effect of aerosols emitted by transport: from road, shipping and aviation by Y. Balkanski et al.
• 2010/01/20: ACPD: Cluster analysis of midlatitude oceanic cloud regimes — Part 2: Temperature sensitivity of cloud properties by N. D. Gordon & J. R. Norris
• 2010/01/20: ACPD: Cluster analysis of midlatitude oceanic cloud regimes — Part 1: Mean cloud and meteorological properties by N. D. Gordon & J. R. Norris
• 2010/01/20: ACPD: Tropospheric ozone variations at the Nepal climate observatory — pyramid (Himalayas, 5079 m a.s.l.) and influence of stratospheric intrusion events by P. Cristofanelli et al.
• 2010/01/19: ACPD: Trans-Pacific transport of Asian dust and CO: accumulation of biomass burning CO in the subtropics and dipole structure of transport by J. Nam et al.
• 2010/01/18: ACPD: Sunphotometry of the 2006-2007 aerosol optical/radiative properties at the Himalayan Nepal Climate Observatory — Pyramid (5079 m a.s.l.) by G. P. Gobbi et al.
• 2010/01/18: ACPD: Cirrus clouds triggered by radiation, a multiscale phenomenon by F. Fusina & P. Spichtinger
• 2010/01/18: ACPD: Estimated total emissions of trace gases from the Canberra wildfires of 2003: a new method using satellite measurements of aerosol optical depth and the MOZART chemical transport model by C. Paton-Walsh et al.
• 2010/01/18: ACPD: bservational constraints on the global atmospheric budget of ethanol by V. Naik et al.
• 2010/01/18: AGWObserver: Papers on solar cycle length
• 2010/01/20: AGWObserver: Viewing Angle on ISCCP [International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project] Problems
• 2010/01/19: TC: Geometric changes and mass balance of the Austfonna ice cap, Svalbard by G. Moholdt et al.
• 2010/01/19: PNAS: Evidence disputing deforestation as the cause for the collapse of the ancient Maya polity of Copan, Honduras by Cameron L. McNeil et al.
• 2010/01/19: PNAS: [Letter$] The Maya Forest: Destroyed or cultivated by the ancient Maya? by Scott L. Fedick
• 2010/01/19: PNAS: Mitigation implications of midcentury targets that preserve long-term climate policy options by Brian C. O’Neill et al.
• 2010/01/19: PNAS: [Letter$] Alberta oil sands development by John P. Giesy et al.

  And other significant documents:

• 2010/01/20: EWG: [link to pdf] Drilling Around the Law

  Before we get into politics, there was some science done:

• 2010/01/22: SciAm: Scrutinizing Swamp Gas: Model Helps Predict Global Wetland Greenhouse Emissions
  Researchers develop a new model to describe the correlation between wetland water levels and temperature, and methane production
• 2010/01/22: BNC: Real holes in science
• 2010/01/21: Eureka: Bubble physicist counts bubbles in the ocean to answer questions about climate, sound, light
• 2010/01/21: DWWSJ: The Real Uncertainties About Climate Change (and why Antarctica may have the answers.)
• 2010/01/20: NatureN: The real holes in climate science
  Like any other field, research on climate change has some fundamental gaps, although not the ones typically claimed by sceptics. Quirin Schiermeier takes a hard look at some of the biggest problem areas.
• 2010/01/20: NatureCF: AMS2010: Let us see
• 2010/01/19: NatureCF: AMS2010: Data gaps and errors may have masked warming
• 2010/01/18: ERabett: Another damn puzzler
• 2010/01/19: Eureka: Measuring carbon dioxide over the ocean
• 2010/01/19: UCI: Urban ‘green’ spaces may contribute to global warming, UCI study finds
  […] Turfgrass lawns help remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis and store it as organic carbon in soil, making them important “carbon sinks.” However, greenhouse gas emissions from fertilizer production, mowing, leaf blowing and other lawn management practices are four times greater than the amount of carbon stored by ornamental grass in parks, a UC Irvine study shows.

More DIY science:

• 2010/01/21: CC&G: RCimate Script: Recent Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) Trends
• 2010/01/20: CC&G: RClimate Script: CO2 Trends

  The Pielke fan clubbe, alas:

• 2010/01/23: ERabett: The Honest Joker

  Regarding Schwartz et al.:

• 2010/01/19: JC: (ab$) Why Hasn’t Earth Warmed as Much as Expected? by Stephen E. Schwartz et al.
• 2010/01/24: AGWObserver: Comments on Schwartz et al. (2010)
• 2010/01/19: BNL: Why Hasn’t Earth Warmed as Much as Expected? New report on climate change explores the reasons
• 2010/01/19: SciDaily: Why Hasn’t Earth Warmed as Much as Expected? New Report on Climate Change Explores the Reasons

  Hansen, redux:

• 2010/01/17: MoD: Long-term trends vs cold snaps
• 2010/01/17: RealClimate: 2009 temperatures by Jim Hansen

  Meanwhile on the Kyoto front:

• 2010/01/23: VoxEU: Long live the Kyoto Protocol by Richard S.J. Tol
  Most feel the Copenhagen summit on climate change failed. This column argues for a “plan B” — to go back to Kyoto. The Kyoto Protocol has the tools needed for international policy. Future negotiations should focus on refining existing agreements instead of trying to impress voters at home.

While at the UN:

• 2010/01/22: PS: The UN to the Rescue on Climate Change
• 2010/01/21: ScienceInsider: UNFCCC head Yvo de Boer Takes IPCC to Task
• 2010/01/20: Reuters: UN insists to guide climate talks, despite setback
  The United Nations insisted on Wednesday that it should keep guiding talks on a new climate pact despite near-failure at a summit last month when a few countries agreed a low-ambition “Copenhagen Accord”. Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N.’s Climate Change Secretariat, said negotiations in 2010 would be based on U.N. talks launched in 2007 about how to extend the existing Kyoto Protocol and on involving all nations in action. The three-page Copenhagen Accord, championed by big emitters including the United States and China, could however be a valuable spur towards agreement at the next U.N. meeting in Mexico in November, de Boer said.
• 2010/01/18: PlanetArk: Japan To Propose Detailed Marine Fuel Levy Plan
  Japan, one of the world’s top shipping operators, will submit details of its proposal for an international levy on marine fuel ahead of a meeting of the U.N.’s shipping agency in March, a government official said on Friday.

There appears to be a campaign underway to turf IPCC head, Rajendra Pachauri:

• 2010/01/24: Times(UK): UN climate panel blunders again over Himalayan glaciers
• 2010/01/23: EarthTimes: Climate panel chief Pachauri says he won’t quit over glacier blunder
• 2010/01/20: Guardian(UK): UN climate chief jabs back at allegations of financial impropriety – but fails to land a blow

  And on the carbon trading front:

• 2010/01/22: BBerg: EU Carbon Emission Permits Post First Weekly Decline This Year
• 2010/01/22: PlanetArk: EU Carbon Down 2.5 Percent On Power, Gas As Bears Weigh
• 2010/01/19: PlanetArk: How Forest Carbon Markets Fared in 2009
• 2010/01/19: BBerg: Carbon Falls as Climate Failure Is Oil Polluter Boon
  The inability of government leaders to agree on stricter pollution controls at meetings in Copenhagen last month is showing up in commodity markets, where it’s getting cheaper to emit greenhouse gasses. The price of permits to emit a ton of carbon dioxide sank 10 percent in London, while oil gained 6 percent in New York since Dec. 7, when 8,000 delegates attended a summit in the Danish capital to prepare for a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, the climate treaty that expires in 2012. Not only did the summit fail to increase regulation on polluters, it also reduced incentives to invest in clean energy. Carbon and oil prices are diverging the most in three years and their correlation this year will be weaker than in 2009, according to a Bloomberg News survey of seven analysts. The European Union, which tried to reduce emissions by limiting the allocation of carbon allowances to companies, may be stuck with a 2.3 percent surplus just as economies from China to Brazil drive crude near $80 a barrel, the survey showed.

The idea of a carbon tax is still bouncing around:

• 2010/01/22: EurActiv: France plans transitional CO2 tax for big emitters
  France has outlined plans to impose a carbon tax on large industrial installations until 2013 when they start paying for emission permits under the revised EU Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS). The tax would come into effect in July.
• 2010/01/20: Reuters: France to tax big polluters under revised scheme
  France plans to tax big polluters on their carbon dioxide emissions until 2013, when a separate EU-wide scheme will make such firms pay for emissions permits, Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo said on Wednesday.
• 2010/01/21: ABC(Au): Greens propose interim carbon tax
  The Greens are attempting to break the political deadlock over emissions trading by suggesting an interim two-year scheme with a fixed price on carbon.
• 2010/01/18: Guardian(UK): [Connie] Hedegaard says now is not the time for carbon tax
  But carbon levy ‘could come later’ says candidate for future EU climate commissioner role.
• 2010/01/18: ERabett: Another adapter of the Rabett Simple Plan to Save the World

  The debate over the optimal strategy [carbon trading, carbon offsets, auction vs. allocation, and/or a carbon tax] to use in dealing with GHGs continues:

• 2010/01/20: TEC: What Now for Cap & Trade?
  In the course of a single month, from the conclusion of the Copenhagen climate conference to yesterday’s special election in Massachusetts, the anticipated global response to climate change has shifted dramatically. What had once seemed a likely scenario of coordinated, mandatory cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions suddenly looks unattainable, at least any time soon, and the whole approach to addressing climate change is in urgent need of a rethink.

Meanwhile on the international political front:

• 2010/01/24: IndiaTimes: US to World Bank: Don’t fund coal-fired plants

  As for GW & security:

• 2010/01/22: Nation(Ke): Future wars could be fought over lakes, rivers
• 2010/01/20: AJC: Military considers global warming threat
  The hand-wringing over global warming is often done by scientists and preservationists, but on Tuesday several high-ranking current and former military men visited Atlanta and talked about the possible consequences for U.S. security. They imagine disruptions in the supply of food and water that lead to unrest and to conflict around the globe. They see poverty-stricken countries becoming increasingly unstable. And they worry about whole populations on the move, as the seas rise and rivers change their courses.

The issue of the law and activism is playing out around the world as nations scramble to deal with climate change:

• 2010/01/18: PRWatch: U.K. Police Lobbied Power Company to Sue Protestors
• 2010/01/20: TerraDaily: Egypt police disperse flood victims with rubber bullets
• 2010/01/17: Guardian(UK): Chief constable accused of undermining power station protest
  Documents reveal head of Kent police urged owner of Kingsnorth to do more to disrupt environmental activists

Polls! We have polls!

• 2010/01/21: C411: Poll Results: The People Want a Climate Bill
• 2010/01/21: PhysOrg: Go easy on the environment — and our wallets, says Generation Y
• 2010/01/19: GreenGrok: U.S. Blows Cold

  And on the American political front:

• 2010/01/23: DeSmogBlog: When Corporations Rule The World (thanks to the Supreme Court)
• 2010/01/21: IoD: Campaign finance ruling and the climate
• 2010/01/21: EnvFin: US will lose clean-tech dollars without climate plan
  Countries such as the US that fail to adopt concrete climate plans risk losing the race for clean energy dollars to the emerging markets, investors said.
• 2010/01/22: OilChange: Prominent Oil Critic [Rick Steiner] Forced from University in Alaska
• 2010/01/22: Yahoo:AP: [Indiana] Senate, House panels approve `net metering’ bills
  A bill aimed at utility customers who install renewable power sources such as wind turbines is seriously flawed and would hurt Indiana’s renewable energy movement, clean energy advocates told a state Senate committee Thursday.
  […]
  Current rules allow homeowners and schools that generate up to 10 kilowatts per customer to get credit on future bills for excess power they produce. The amended bill sponsored by Sen. James Merritt, R-Indianapolis, would bar customers who generate more than 10 kilowatts from carrying over such credit on future bills.
• 2010/01/20: Grist: Why are libertarian right wingers defending a dysfunctional, state-engineered food system? [US pol]
• 2010/01/20: Freep: California may pull out of fuel economy standard — Automakers worry about state-by-state regulations
• 2010/01/19: Grist: Save the endangered hillbilly — Stephen Colbert on mountaintop-removal mining
• 2010/01/19: NRDC:SwitchBoard: Coal Comfort: ‘The Colbert Report’ Takes on Mountaintop Removal
• 2010/01/19: NYT:CW: Sparks Fly as Senate Aides Try to Untangle a Power Lines Dispute
  Senate aides and staff for the governors of five Western states are trying to to mend a dispute over transmission policy for renewable power that has provoked a sharp exchange of letters over the past month.
• 2010/01/17: Tennessean: Global warming public relations flap follows official [David Mould] to TVA — Former NASA spokesman says censorship claims preceded him
• 2010/01/18: CBC: ‘Green jobs’ are key to U.S., Canadian recovery
• 2010/01/19: AlterNet: How Carbon Polluters Have Hijacked Part of California’s “Green” Business Movement
  An organization representing some of California’s biggest carbon polluters is working to alter the state’s global-warming law, while claiming to represent several “green” environmental companies that have since left the coalition after learning of its recent actions. The coalition, calling itself the AB 32 Implementation Group, says it represents a broad section of California interests focused on global-warming regulations. The group, which is being managed by a large public relations firm, Woodward & McDowell, features photographs of white clouds and a field of flowers on its Web site. But the organization itself includes 22 of the state’s biggest carbon polluters as ranked by the state Air Resources Board. Oil refiners, cement manufacturers, chemical companies, and trucking firms figure prominently. And, according to environmentalists and lawmakers, the Implementation Group has engaged in a steady campaign to undermine the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, which mandates a 25 percent reduction in the state’s emissions by 2020.

A DOE study on the feasibility of wind power in the Eastern USA got some attention:

• 2010/01/22: Grist: Thar she blows — A gust of energy
  A new Department of Energy study says that for just $93 billion — about what we spend in eight months in Iraq and Afghanistan — the eastern half of the U.S. could get 30 percent of its electricity from wind by 2024. How do we make it happen? Cloak the argument in national security terms.
• 2010/01/22: FuturePundit: Eastern US Could Get 20% Electricity From Wind In 2024
• 2010/01/20: NYT:GW: Big Boost in Wind Power Doable but Complicated in Eastern U.S. — Study
  The eastern United States could get 20 or even 30 percent of its electricity from wind by 2024, but it would cost up to $175 billion and wouldn’t take a big bite out of greenhouse gas emissions without a price on carbon, according to a study by released today by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
• 2010/01/20: ClimateP: NREL study shows 20 percent wind possible by 2024

  Robert F. Kennedy Jr, and Don Blankenship had a debate this week:

• 2010/01/22: DeSmogBlog: Blankenship: ‘There are treesitters in the trees;’ Plus Lame Questions From Real Reporters and Debate Wrap, Part 1
• 2010/01/22: Guardian(UK): Kennedy takes on the coal baron in mountain duel — University debate personifies America’s deep political and environmental divides
• 2010/01/22: NRDC:SwitchBoard: Bobby vs. Blankenship: The Debate Over Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining
• 2010/01/21: DeSmogBlog: LiveBlog: RFK JR and Don Blankenship Debate Energy, Climate Change, And Mountaintop Removal
• 2010/01/21: WVGazette: Blankenship, Kennedy debate coal’s future
• 2010/01/22: Grist: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. takes on mountaintop-mining magnate Don Blankenship
• 2010/01/21: DeSmogBlog: Blankenship And Kennedy Debate Today; Catch The Liveblog Here
• 2010/01/19: SolveClimate: Appalachia Coal Report Adds Fuel to Kennedy-Blankenship Smackdown
• 2010/01/18: TreeHugger: Robert Kennedy and Don Blankenship to Debate, MTR, Climate This Week

  The Obama chatter is nonstop:

• 2010/01/20: Grist: Coal ash first real test of Obama commitment to health and safety regulation
• 2010/01/19: Mercury: Obama’s first year: On environment, big changes but little notice
• 2010/01/20: PlanetArk: U.S. Group [LCV] Gives Obama B-Plus Grade On Climate
• 2010/01/20: TreeHugger: The 11 Green Milestones in Barack Obama’s First Year as President
• 2010/01/20: OilChange: One Year On…
• 2010/01/19: Reuters: U.S. group [LCV] gives Obama B-plus grade on climate
• 2010/01/19: KSJT: San Jose Mercury News: A story overlooked in these bleak times — ongoing overhaul of enviro policies, led by the President
• 2010/01/18: CSW: Will Obama’s FY2011 budget fund essential new climate change research priorities?

  The actions of the Obama administration are being watched closely:

• 2010/01/21: NYT:GW: Chu Defends U.N. Climate Science, Admin Efforts on Nuclear Waste
• 2010/01/23: CSW: Climate change endangerment to human health: Where is the Obama Administration’s plan?
• 2010/01/21: McClatchyDC: Cement, glass firms agree to add pollution controls
  For the first time in the history of the Clean Air Act, the federal government has reached settlements that will require a glassmaker and a cement company to add pollution controls at all their plants across the country. Lafarge, the nation’s second largest maker of Portland cement, and Saint-Gobain Containers, the second largest manufacturer of glass containers for beverages and foods in the U.S., agreed to add up-to-date pollution control devices, accept emissions limits and pay penalties to settle complaints that they violated the law.
• 2010/01/21: SolveClimate: EPA Rethinking Coal Ash Regulation — Questions About Costs and Recycling
• 2010/01/22: MTobis: Ocean Observatories Initiative
• 2010/01/21: SolveClimate: EPA Rethinking Coal Ash Regulation — Questions About Costs and Recycling
• 2010/01/19: HuffPo: Jumpstarting Energy Independence
  In an effort to jumpstart America’s efforts toward energy independence, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced last week that 69 early career researchers at U.S. academic institutions and Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratories have been chosen to receive a collective total of up to $85 million in funding for five years under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The money is going to young scientists doing basic research in six major areas covered by DOE’s Office of Science: advanced scientific computing, basic energy sciences, biological and environmental research, fusion energy sciences, high energy physics, and nuclear physics.
• 2010/01/20: Grist: Copenhagen Accord is the priority, says U.S. climate envoy [Todd Stern]. But what about a binding treaty?
• 2010/01/19: AutoBG: Daimler Trucks North America gets $40M [DOE] grant to develop cleaner trucks
• 2010/01/19: TreeHugger: Green Eyes On: 7 New Priorities for the EPA
• 2010/01/18: TreeHugger: EPA and US Army Corps Forcing Real Change With West Virginia, Mountain-Top Removal Permit Limits
• 2010/01/18: BizGreen: White House signals support for low carbon transit plans

  As for what is going on in Congress:

• 2010/01/23: HillHeat: Senate Watch: Bingaman, Boxer, Cardin, Casey, Corker, Dorgan, Graham, Kerry, Landrieu, Lincoln, Murkowski, Nelson, Reid, Sanders, Snowe
• 2010/01/22: TP:WR: [Senator] Ben Nelson (D-NE) Joins The Global Warming Denial Caucus
• 2010/01/22: SciAm: Greenhouse Bananas: Non-Science Smear Campaigns — Two men tout stuff you didn’t learn in school, if you went to a good school
  Here’s my conclusion: the only strong evidence we have that Oklahoma Senator James M. Inhofe isn’t a clown is that his car isn’t small enough.
• 2010/01/21: NYT:CW: Sen.-Elect Brown Is a ‘Blank Slate’ on Climate, Drawing Concern and Optimism
• 2010/01/22: TP: After hottest decade in history, senators attempt to outlaw science of global warming
• 2010/01/21: ArkTimes: Ross gets ‘energized’ — Polluters’ dollars flow before key vote
  Rep. Mike Ross (D-Ark) received close to $80,000 in contributions from energy, mining and related interests close to the time of his vote earlier this year against sensitive climate-change legislation, Federal Election Commission records show.
• 2010/01/21: SF Gate: Senate loss sends shock waves through Dems
  From San Francisco to North Dakota, Democrats were rocked to their core Wednesday by the loss of the late Edward Kennedy’s Massachusetts Senate seat, presaging a sharp pivot from health care to creating jobs and cutting the enormous federal deficit, which has enraged voters. […] Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., pronounced two key components of the Democratic agenda – health care and climate-change legislation – all but dead. “I think we do go slow on health care,” Feinstein said. “People do not understand it. It is so big it’s beyond their comprehension. And if you don’t understand it and somebody tells you it does this or it does that, you tend to believe it, even though it isn’t true. It’s hard to debunk all of the myths out there.” As for the climate-change legislation she supported: “A large cap-and-trade bill isn’t going to go ahead at this time,” she said.
• 2010/01/20: NatureTGB: Senate upset reshapes US climate battle
• 2010/01/20: PlanetArk: [US] Congress To Prioritize Climate Change
• 2010/01/19: DeSmogBlog: Republican Candidate Scott Brown’s Flip Flopping on Climate a Loser for Clean Energy and Green Jobs
• 2010/01/19: TheHill: Dorgan calls climate bill unlikely in 2010, pushes for energy measure
• 2010/01/20: ClimateP: Majority Leader Reid to Senate Today: “We will tackle our daunting energy and climate challenges, and by doing so will strengthen our national security, our environment and our economy.”
• 2010/01/19: DeSmogBlog: Scott Brown’s win in Massachusetts will put the chill on climate legislation
• 2010/01/20: Guardian(UK): Blow for Barack Obama as Republicans win key Senate seat in Massachusetts
• 2010/01/18: TreeHugger: Vying for Kennedy’s Senate Seat, Scott Brown Does Major Flip Flop on Climate

  Kerry-Boxer, Waxman-Markey or whatever — the future climate bill — defines a battleline:

• 2010/01/22: Reuters: Climate bill setback forces clean development rethink
  Still reeling from disappointing UN climate talks in Copenhagen in December, clean energy project developers were dealt another blow this week when U.S. Democrats lost their Senate supermajority, potentially killing a federal cap-and-trade scheme for years to come.
• 2010/01/22: C411: New Ad Shows Broad Support for a Climate Bill
• 2010/01/22: NatureN: Senate climate debate up in the air — Moves by Republicans shift the US legislative landscape
• 2010/01/22: NRDC:SwitchBoard: Businesses Agree: Climate Bill Is Good for the Economy
• 2010/01/21: Reuters: Carbon market exec still hopes for climate bill
• 2010/01/21: DeSmogBlog: Republican pollster [Luntz] confirms Americans’ energy concerns
• 2010/01/22: TreeHugger: Clean Energy Reform Still Has Huge Bipartisan Support from Americans
• 2010/01/21: Reuters: US climate bill backers seen pushing wrong message
• 2010/01/21: NRDC:SwitchBoard: Climate Bill: Its Just Good Business
• 2010/01/20: Reuters: U.S. [Massachusetts] vote dims hopes for stronger world climate pact
• 2010/01/20: KSJT: DEM-GOP wars at polls give media reason to wonder about major climate legislation
• 2010/01/20: Guardian(UK): Fate of US climate change bill in doubt after Scott Brown’s Senate win
• 2010/01/20: ScienceInsider: Scott Brown/Climate Bill Fallout Roundup
• 2010/01/20: Reuters: Massachusetts vote hurts US climate bill
• 2010/01/19: Reuters: Senate not seen passing climate bill in 2010
  The Senate is unlikely to pass climate change legislation this year after going through the contentious health care debate, and will focus on a separate energy bill that has more bipartisan support, a key Democratic senator [Byron Dorgan (D-ND)] said on Tuesday.
• 2010/01/19: BSD: So much for the left-wing strategy of waiting for better bills on climate and health
• 2010/01/18: Yahoo:AFP: Uncertain future for US climate law after Copenhagen
• 2010/01/18: TCoE: Infonugget: US climate law
  The future of a US climate law is hanging in the balance in Congress as lawmakers gear up for crucial midterm elections amid a persistent economic slump, experts say.

The Republicans introduced their amendment banning EPA CO2 endangerment regulations this week:

• 2010/01/21: NYT: Senators Want to Bar E.P.A. Greenhouse Gas Limits
  In a direct challenge to the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority, Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, introduced a resolution on Thursday to prevent the agency from taking any action to regulate carbon dioxide and other climate-altering gases. Ms. Murkowski, joined by 35 Republicans and three conservative Democrats, proposed to use the Congressional Review Act to strip the agency of the power to limit emissions of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The Supreme Court gave the agency legal authority to regulate such emissions in a landmark 2007 ruling.
• 2010/01/22: TP:WR: Climate Outlaw Lisa Murkowski Defends Her Dirty Air Act
• 2010/01/21: Grist: Murkowski’s floor speech on EPA regulations was full of deceptions
• 2010/01/22: NRDC:SwitchBoard: Murkowski Amendment Undermines Public Health and Protects Polluters
• 2010/01/21: SolveClimate: Sen. Murkowski Launches Attack on EPA, with 3 Democratic Co-Sponsors
  Deep-pocketed industries and polluters, already basking in this morning’s Supreme Court ruling that cleared the way for more corporate political influence, got more to smile about when Sen. Lisa Murkowski took the Senate floor this afternoon. The Alaska Republican introduced a “resolution of disapproval” under the Congressional Review Act to prevent the EPA from regulating greenhouse gas emissions.
• 2010/01/22: WaPo: Senators try to thwart EPA efforts to curb emissions
• 2010/01/21: TP:WR: [Senator] Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) Cosponsors Murkowski’s Dirty Air Act
• 2010/01/21: Guardian(UK): Alaskan senator seeks to block EPA’s power to regulate greenhouse gases
• 2010/01/21: Guardian(UK): Murkowski to call on Congress to block federal greenhouse gas regulation
  Alaskan senator seeking to invoke obscure measure that would prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from curbing greenhouse gas emissions if Congress fails to act
• 2010/01/21: LCV: Statement on Resolution Introduction by Senator Murkowski
• 2010/01/21: Grist: An argument against Murkowski’s radical attempt to overrule EPA scientists by Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Ore)
• 2010/01/21: WarmingLaw: And Off She Goes…
  Per yesterday’s review of Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s efforts to gut the Clean Air Act so the EPA cannot regulate greenhouse gases, the Washington Post reports today…
• 2010/01/21: HillHeat: Lincoln Cosponsors Murkowski Effort To Block Greenhouse Gas Regulation
• 2010/01/20: TheHill: Landrieu, Murkowski collaborate on plan to block EPA climate rules
• 2010/01/21: TP: Senator Of Katrina-Ravaged Louisiana [Mary Landrieu (D-LA)] Collaborates To Block Climate Action
• 2010/01/20: TP:WR: Murky Democrat Revealed: Katrina-Ravaged Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu
• 2010/01/20: ClimateP: The Dirty Air Act
• 2010/01/20: Grist: The Big Murkowski — Hanging EPA regulations around Democrats’ necks
• 2010/01/20: WarmingLaw: Update on the Murkowski Menace
• 2010/01/19: ADN: Murkowski generates heat over attempt to curb EPA
• 2010/01/18: NYT: Ms. Murkowski’s Mischief
  Senator Lisa Murkowski’s home state of Alaska is ever so slowly melting away, courtesy of a warming planet. Yet few elected officials seem more determined than she to throw sand in the Obama administration’s efforts to do something about climate change.
• 2010/01/19: TP:WR: Which Democrat Supports Murkowski’s Bid To Bake Alaska?
• 2010/01/19: Guardian(UK): Obama faces emissions U-turn with new Congress challenge
  Senator Lisa Murkowski is expected to put forward a proposal that would seek to prevent federal regulation of carbon emissions
• 2010/01/19: TreeHugger: Senator Who Hopes to Block EPA from Regulating Greenhouse Gas Pollution is Top Fundraiser from Utility Companies

  The Gore-apalooza is still bopping along:

• 2010/01/19: IJI: Is Coleman v. Gore still dead? — part deux

  While in the UK:

• 2010/01/21: Times(UK): Clean energy drive to turn UK into giant forest
• 2010/01/21: NewScientist:TSW: Beddington does the climate change shuffle
• 2010/01/20: Times(UK): Roof-mounted wind turbines ‘no help in reducing carbon’ [says RAE: Royal Academy of Engineering]
• 2010/01/20: KSJT: Times (UK): Home-scale wind turbines just rooftop green bling. Says the Royal Acad. of Engineering?
• 2010/01/20: Grist: British engineers slam home wind turbines as ‘eco-bling’
  Installing wind turbines and solar panels in people’s homes is “eco-bling” that will not help meet Britain’s targets on cutting carbon emissions, engineers warned Wednesday. In a new report by the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE), Professor Doug King said it was better to adapt buildings to make them more energy efficient than try to offset energy use with “on-site renewable energy generation.”
• 2010/01/20: BBC: Buildings ‘threaten carbon hope’
  UK targets for cutting carbon emissions by 2050 will not be met without radical changes to the engineering of buildings, a report says. One of the study’s authors criticised the government’s “woeful track record on setting ill-considered targets”. The Royal Academy of Engineering report lays out a groundwork for reducing the environmental impact of new buildings as well as refurbishment of old ones. It added there was a serious skills gap in the sector that could grow worse.
• 2010/01/18: Guardian(UK): E.ON chief: Preserve coal plants to keep lights on — Mothballed coal plants are vital back-up, says Paul Golby
• 2010/01/18: Guardian(UK): Fair weather friends — Long term forecasting is a science in its infancy. The BBC should stick with Met Office expertise
• 2010/01/19: Independent(UK): Will climate change be the Tories’ new Europe? Many in the party do not share Cameron’s zeal for environment, survey reveals
• 2010/01/17: NatureCF: Interview: David King [Former chief science advisor to the UK government]

  And in Europe:

• 2010/01/22: Reuters: EU to stick with lower climate offer to U.N [20% below 1990 levels by 2020]
• 2010/01/22: Reuters: France wants “G28” to guide climate change talks
  French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Friday proposed setting up a group of 28 countries to guide global negotiations on climate change and avoid a repetition of last year’s chaotic talks in Copenhagen. In a New Year address to the diplomatic community, Sarkozy said United Nations climate negotiations in Copenhagen in December had failed because of the huge number of countries involved in preparing the accord.
• 2010/01/18: DeutscheWelle: Bavarian prince hits resistance over plans for giant solar park
• 2010/01/22: EurActiv: EU faces years more wrangling over car emissions
  Europe’s incoming climate chief is determined to crack down on emissions from cars, but any new goals are at least a decade away. Connie Hedegaard will struggle against political inertia, the complexities of electric vehicles and the power of big auto, making a rigid 2020 target her best possible outcome.
• 2010/01/22: EurActiv: France devises sustainable development barometer
• 2010/01/21: EurActiv: EU sticks to climate pledges amid ‘soft’ UN deadline concerns — While the EU has decided to stick to its pledge of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 20%…
• 2010/01/21: DerSpiegel: Not In Our Backyard — Popular Protests Put Brakes on Renewable Energy
  Most Germans are in favor of the expansion of renewable energy — provided the plants aren’t built in their neighborhood. All over the country, local groups are coming together to stop solar, wind and biogas projects. But where can power plants be built if no one wants them in their backyard?
• 2010/01/21: DerSpiegel: Reversing Germany’s Atomic Phase-Out — Negotiations Begin for Extending Nuclear Plant Lifespans
• 2010/01/20: Reuters: France to tax big polluters under revised scheme
  France plans to tax big polluters on their carbon dioxide emissions until 2013, when a separate EU-wide scheme will make such firms pay for emissions permits, Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo said on Wednesday.
• 2010/01/21: EarthTimes: German government and utilities go head-to-head over nuclear power
• 2010/01/20: Google:AFP: France adapts carbon tax climate plan
• 2010/01/20: BBC: EU Emissions targets set for delay
  The future of the EU’s Low Carbon Revolution hangs in the balance as it becomes likely its emissions targets will be delayed again. The ongoing uncertainty is rooted in the EU’s offer to the Copenhagen climate summit of a 30% emissions cut. But this was dependent on “comparable effort” from other big polluters.
• 2010/01/20: EurActiv: Greens embrace enzymes in climate change fight
• 2010/01/20: EUO: Zapatero announces EU electric car plan
  Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has provided further details of his vision for the EU’s 2020 economic strategy, including measures to promote electric car production in Europe.
• 2010/01/19: AutoBG: French president Sarkozy signs letter of intent for electric vehicle test using renewable energy
• 2010/01/18: Guardian(UK): [Connie] Hedegaard says now is not the time for carbon tax
  But carbon levy ‘could come later’ says candidate for future EU climate commissioner role.
• 2010/01/18: EurActiv: EU unlikely to extend emissions cuts, say ministers
  The European Union is unlikely to raise its commitment to cut carbon emissions by 30% from the current 20% until other countries show greater willingness to follow suit, ministers said on Saturday (16 January)
• 2010/01/18: EurActiv: Hedegaard eyes tougher emission cuts from transport
  Connie Hedegaard, the EU’s incoming climate policy chief, pledged to tackle transport emissions during a confirmation hearing in the European Parliament on Friday (15 January), saying she would table an integrated legislative package on climate and transport during her mandate. The legislative package, akin to that on energy and climate change agreed in 2008, would include initiatives to rein in growing emissions from transport, Hedegaard said.
• 2010/01/18: EUO: EU states divided over jump to 30% cut in CO2

  In Germany, the solar feed-in tariff rate, after much dithering, is being cut:

• 2010/01/21: EnvFin: German ministers reach consensus on solar tariff cuts
  Key German government ministers have agreed to make double digit cuts to solar feed-in tariffs (FITs), to the dismay of the German solar industry. The country’s FIT encourages the construction of solar energy plants by setting a price for the electricity they produce at above usual market rates, for up to 20 years. This means that developers can raise finance against a guaranteed revenue stream and enables higher-cost renewables to compete with traditional fossil-fuelled plants. Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen (Christian Democratic Union) and the Minister for the Economy Rainer Brüderle (Federal Democratic Party) this week both backed a 15-17% reduction, for cabinet consideration in February. The cut would come on top of already agreed a 9% reduction in the FIT for 2010 and a further 9% in 2011, slashing a total of 35% from the tarriff within two years. The reductions are likely to come into force in April. Ground-mounted installations would be hit with an additional 10% cut and very large solar PV plants would also be subject to slightly higher reductions.
• 2010/01/20: BBerg: Solar Shares Drop in Germany on Proposals to Cut [feed-in tariff] Aid
• 2010/01/20: Reuters: German Env Min eyes 15 pct solar [feed-in] tariff cut
• 2010/01/19: Grist: German solar industry faces [feed-in tariff] subsidy cut

  Meanwhile in Australia:

• 2010/01/24: ABC(Au): Keneally takes up carbon footprint challenge
  The New South Wales Premier Kristina Keneally is among a group of MPs who have taken up a challenge to cut their personal carbon footprints 10 per cent by the end of the year.
• 2010/01/21: TheAge: Greens propose early bird carbon scheme
• 2010/01/22: CPositive: Australia mulls carbon tax in ETS absence
  The Australian government says it will consider a proposal by the Green Party to levy a carbon tax on the country’s big emitters as an interim measure in the absence of parliamentary support for an emissions trading scheme.
• 2010/01/21: JQuiggin: Nuclear power and Australia
• 2010/01/21: ABC(Au): Greens propose interim carbon tax
  The Greens are attempting to break the political deadlock over emissions trading by suggesting an interim two-year scheme with a fixed price on carbon.
• 2010/01/20: Australian: Tony Abbott sinks forests on farms
  Tony Abbott will rule out the use of prime agricultural land for carbon sinks when he announces a new policy on climate change in a move aimed at avoiding a damaging split with the Nationals. The new Coalition policy, expected to be released ahead of next month’s parliamentary showdown with Kevin Rudd on the emissions trading scheme, is expected to hold back on declaring an emissions-reduction target before the Prime Minister names his final position. The policy will also include incentives to boost soil carbon levels and revegetate land.
• 2010/01/20: HeraldSun: Populate and pollute
  Australia would find it much easier to meet its climate change targets if it slashed the migrant intake, a Monash University report says. The study said the Federal Government was in a difficult policy situation because record immigration was undermining its efforts to cut greenhouse gas levels.

And in the Indian subcontinent:

• 2010/01/20: PlanetArk: India Unveils Rules To Boost Green Power Investment
• 2010/01/19: IndiaTimes: Plan panel team to meet on Jan 20 on emission targets
  With the Planning Commission expert committee set to meet on January 20 for the first time to decide how to achieve the emission intensity reduction target of 20-25% by 2020, the climate team within the government is a confused lot. While the committee is to break down the target undertaken in haste by the UPA government before the Copenhagen meet and give an interim report only by April, the government is under pressure to put its targets under the Copenhagen Accord by January end, as the UN Secretary General and the host of the just-concluded climate talks, Denmark, have requested. To add to the conundrum, the Planning Commission expert committee does not have representation from the key ministries on board. Key ministries such as power, new and renewable energy and agriculture have not found representation on the committee created under the chair of Kirit Parikh. On the other hand, the committee is loaded with a large number of powerful heads of corporates.
• 2010/01/18: IndiaTimes: India readies tough response to UN
  Irked by letters written in bad faith by the UN secretary general and the Danish PM on the Copenhagen Accord, the government has finalized a robust response.
  […]
  The two in their letters have said that the Accord was only an essential first step in a process leading to a legally binding agreement, which is an infringement of the agreement reached between 29 countries that negotiated the Accord with India as one of the leading parties along with China, Brazil, South Africa and the US. On the insistence of the emerging economies, the US and others had relented and accepted that the Copenhagen Accord would remain a political statement and not lead on to a legally binding agreement.
• 2010/01/18: BizStd: ‘Negotiations have dictated our climate change moves’ [Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh interview, part 2]

  While in China:

• 2010/01/19: VoxEU: The greenness of China: Household carbon dioxide emissions and urban development by Matthew E. Kahn & Siqi Zheng
  China’s economic growth has profound environmental implications. This column estimates the household carbon emissions of China’s major cities. Even in China’s most polluting city, per household emissions are just one-fifth of those in San Diego, the greenest city in the US.
• 2010/01/18: SolveClimate: Simple Green: China’s Development Strategy

  And elsewhere in Asia:

• 2010/01/20: PhysOrg: GS Engineering to build major tidal power plant
  South Korean firm GS Engineering and Construction said Wednesday it has won a 3.4-billion-dollar contract to build one of the world’s largest tidal power stations. Under the deal signed with the state-run Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Co, GS Engineering will build the power station on the west coast near Gangwha Island, 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of Seoul. Construction will start in late 2011 with a view to completion in 2017.
• 2010/01/19: MongaBay: Indonesian government report recommends moratorium on peatlands conversion

  While in Africa:

• 2010/01/19: Guardian(UK): Kenya at carbon crossroads, says report
  Kenya’s planned development path will more than double its carbon emissions unless efforts are taken to pursue low carbon development, according to an environmental think tank.

And South America:

• 2010/01/20: PlanetArk: Brazil Opens World’s First Ethanol-Fired Power Plant
• 2010/01/18: NewInt:TYB: Urgent: Yasuní’s future hangs by a thread. Take action now!
  When I was at the climate talks in Copenhagen, I noticed that the Yasuní initiative (encouraging the international community to pay Ecuador not to exploit a huge reserve of oil…
  […]
  So I was shocked to receive, out of the blue, an email last week informing me that Ecuador’s President Correa had seemingly pulled the plug on the initiative. During Copenhagen, it seems he moved to block the agreement with UNDP. This forced most of those working on the Yasuní initiative to resign – including Yolanda and Ecuador’s foreign minister. Correa has now said the oil exploration will begin in the Yasuní National Park in June.

In Canada, minority neocon PM Harper, continues his do-nothing policy:

• 2010/01/23: CanWest: Fewer temperature reports could underestimate warming trend, Environment Canada says
  Environment Canada says climate scientists who track global temperature trends may be underestimating the amount of warming in the Canadian Arctic, because they are working with data from a declining sample of weather stations across the region. A U.S. government agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, compiles an important database of historic surface temperatures, based on readings from thousands of local weather stations across the planet. The raw data is obtained from the World Meteorological Organization, which receives temperatures from national governments around the world. The number of local stations included in that database has dropped precipitously in recent years. In Canada, for example, temperature measurements for the 1970s were sampled from nearly 600 stations across the country, compared to only 35 stations today.
• 2010/01/22: CBC: Canada bans Baffin Bay polar bear exports
• 2010/01/20: CanWest: Ottawa questions biofuel impact, Environmental Risk
  Three years after announcing $2-billion in subsidies for the biofuels industry, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government has decided to probe whether the so-called renewable fuels might actually be harming the environment. In a notice posted this month, Environment Canada said it plans to award a contract for consultants to study whether production of the fuels, which can be derived from crops or waste products, do more damage to air and land than gasoline.

The always fun prospect of interprovincial wrangling:

• 2010/01/23: G&M: Albertans agree: A carbon tax was the best solution
• 2010/01/20: G&M: Ontario edges B.C. in green-energy fight — Provinces locked in heated battle to provide best climate for investments in alternative power

  Ontario has it’s Green Energy Act, now comes the implementation:

• 2010/01/23: TStar: McGuinty Liberals fear green-deal backlash — MPPs worry they’ll face voter wrath over higher power costs from Samsung accord
• 2010/01/22: TStar: ‘Historic’ deal energizes Ontario — McGuinty trumpets $7 billion investment to make province a green power leader
• 2010/01/21: CBC: Ontario backs $7B renewable energy deal
  Ontario has signed a deal with a South Korean consortium that plans to invest $7 billion in wind and solar energy projects in the province. The agreement, which includes a promise to buy electricity produced by the projects, was signed Thursday by Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty and representatives of the South Korean group headed by Samsung.
• 2010/01/20: CBC: Critics pan Ont.’s green energy deal with Samsung
  Critics took aim Wednesday at the terms of a $7-billion renewable energy deal the Ontario government has reportedly reached with South Korean industrial giant Samsung. Premier Dalton McGuinty is expected to sign the deal Thursday, a deal that would see Samsung build wind and solar farms across Ontario and also build four manufacturing plants. Some say it gives the huge company an unfair advantage over local wind and solar producers. The provincial government hopes the agreement will create about 15,000 jobs — a big part of the province’s goal to create 50,000 new jobs in the emerging green energy sector.

Meanwhile in that Mechanical Mordor known as the tar sands:

• 2010/01/19: G&M: Conoco, Total to expand oil sands project
  With development costs down and price of oil rising, international partners to quadruple production at Surmont project
• 2010/01/18: CanWest: Alberta’s CO2 targets ‘ambitious,’ research warns — Targets ‘hard to meet,’ says researcher
  For all the criticism environmentalists have heaped on Alberta’s climate change program, the goals the province has set to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will be extremely diffi cult and expensive to meet, says a University of Alberta researcher. Andrew Leach, an assistant professor and researcher in energy and environment economics, says the Stelmach government’s plan to capture and store 50 million tonnes of carbon annually by 2020 and 139 million tonnes annually by 2050 without any other action is “seems almost impossible.” “The goals are quite ambitious and hard to meet,” he told an audience of about 100 recently at the university’s school of business. “We’ll probably have to put signifi-cantly more resources into climate change than any other jurisdiction in the world.”
• 2010/01/19: CBC: ConocoPhillips plans oilsands expansion — Construction to start this year
• 2010/01/18: Guardian(UK): Shell faces shareholder revolt over Canadian tar sands project — Investors call for review of oil production in Alberta

  The movement toward a long term ecologically viable economics is glacial:

• 2010/01/24: OilDrum: Thinking about Planning for the Future
• 2010/01/22: InfoShop: Birth Of Production and The End of Life
  The historical contradiction of agriculture has always been how its proliferation destroys the ecological conditions which made its existence possible
• 2010/01/21: EnergyBulletin: Biophysical economics: Putting energy at the center
• 2010/01/20: FRAW: Face up to natural limits, or face a 70s-style crisis (full length version)
• 2010/01/20: EnergyBulletin: Face up to natural limits, or face a 70s-style crisis (article excerpt)
• 2010/01/19: CCurrents: The War Against Nature Resumes
• 2010/01/19: EnergyBulletin: Copenhagen & Economic Growth – You Can’t Have Both
• 2010/01/18: MTobis: Growth
• 2010/01/18: EnergyBulletin: The Great Reskilling
• 2010/01/17: EnergyBulletin: Useful work versus useless toil revisited

  IPAT [Impact = Population * Affluence * Technology] raised its head once again:

• 2010/01/21: EarthTimes: Germany’s population keeps on declining: another ‘city’ gone
• 2010/01/15: GuruFocus: Miguel Barbosa Interviews Albert Bartlett: “Arithmetic, Population, and Energy” — Puzzling Growth Rates

  As for how the media handles the science of climatology:

• 2010/01/23: BSD: News results for Guantanamo suicides and the IPCC glacier mistake
• 2010/01/22: KSJT: Who is doing the investigative science stories?
• 2010/01/19: ClimateP: Australian Scientists: Contrary to media reports (and tweets), “our paper does not discount climate change as playing a role in this most recent drought, the ‘Big Dry’. In fact, there are indications that climate change has worsened this recent drought.”
• 2010/01/18: PeakEnergy: An endangered species: the environmental reporter
• 2010/01/18: OilChange: A green oil industry: a contradiction in terms…

  While activists search for effective communication techniques:

• 2010/01/19: ClimateP: Is progressive messaging a “massive botch”?
  Part 1: Duh!
• 2010/01/21: ClimateP: Is progressive messaging a “massive botch”?
  Part 2: Drew Westen on how “The White House has squandered the greatest opportunity to change both the country and the political landscape since Ronald Reagan”
• 2010/01/22: ClimateP: Is progressive messaging a “massive botch”?
  Part 3: How bad messaging creates a self-fulfillling failure of will

Here is something for your library:

• 2010/01/19: HotTopic: [Book Review] _The Climate Crisis: An Introductory Guide to Climate Change_ by David Archer & Stefan Rahmstorf

  Meanwhile among the ‘Sue the Bastards!’ contingent:

• 2010/01/21: OilChange: Groups Fight “Irresponsible Shell” in the Arctic
• 2010/01/20: Yahoo:AP: Groups file legal challenge to Chukchi drilling
• 2010/01/18: NYT: A Pacific Island Challenge to European Air Pollution
  A Pacific island nation has challenged plans by the Czech Republic to refit a coal-fired power station, in an appeal that environmental advocates on Monday described as the first of its kind. The case focuses on efforts by a Czech utility, the CEZ Group, to prolong the life of the power plant in Prunerov, close to the German border. The Federated States of Micronesia maintains that doing so would result in continued emissions of greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, which it says threaten its existence.

Developing a new energy infrastructure is a fundamental challenge of the current generation:

• 2010/01/24: OilDrum: SAGD [Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage] and Well Production from Oil Sands
• 2010/01/24: PeakEnergy: Venezuela oil reserves twice Saudi Arabia’s?
• 2010/01/23: NBF: Venezuela Oil and North Dakota Oil Updates
• 2010/01/23: BBC: Venezuela oil ‘may double Saudis’
  A new US assessment of Venezuela’s oil reserves could give the country double the supplies of Saudi Arabia. Scientists working for the US Geological Survey say Venezuela’s Orinoco belt region holds twice as much petroleum as previously thought. The geologists estimate the area could yield more than 500bn barrels of crude oil. This assessment is far more optimistic than even the best case scenario put forward by President Hugo Chavez. The USGS team gave a mean estimate of 513bn barrels of “technically recoverable” oil in the Orinoco belt.
• 2010/01/22: SolveClimate: States Look to Feed-in Tariffs to Boost Renewable Energy — Rep. Inslee Working on National Feed-in Tariff Legislation
• 2010/01/19: IR^2: Prices of Various Energy Sources
  […]
  Current Energy Prices per Million BTU
  
  • Powder River Basin Coal – $0.56
  • Northern Appalachia Coal – $2.08
  • Natural gas – $5.67
  • Ethanol subsidy – $5.92
  • Petroleum – $13.56
  • Propane – $13.92
  • #2 Heating Oil – $15.33
  • Jet fuel – $16.01
  • Diesel – $16.21
  • Gasoline – $18.16
  • Wood pellets – $18.57
  • Ethanol – $24.74
  • Electricity – $34.03
• 2010/01/08: NREL: Energy Data Available Anywhere, Any Time
• 2010/01/19: REA: Energy Data Available Anywhere, Any Time [at NREL VIBE]
• 2010/01/20: REA: Does Geothermal Drilling Cause Earthquakes?
• 2010/01/21: NBF: EMC Solar Claims Calcium Hydride Has Ten times the density of conventional molten salt solar storage
• 2010/01/21: EnergyBulletin: Oil Caused Recession, Not Wall Street
• 2010/01/21: NYT:GW: Geothermal Advocates Tout Plants’ Smaller Environmental Footprint
  As the geothermal industry seeks approval for hundreds of new projects in the West, it brings with it a promise most wind and solar developers have been unable to make: more power using less land. Geothermal plants use wells to pump searing hot steam and water to the surface in order to drive turbines that generate electricity. But unlike wind and solar farms that threaten to carve up vast areas of public lands — potentially compromising sensitive species and disrupting picturesque landscapes — most of the geothermal energy footprint is hidden miles underground.
• 2010/01/22: TreeHugger: Oil Is Too Important To Burn In Cars
• 2010/01/22: PeakEnergy: The New World Energy Order
• 2010/01/19: EL: Hydrokinetic Energy Could Add 22 GW by 2015
• 2010/01/20: TreeHugger: Planned [EADS Astrium] Solar Satellite Will Send Energy to Earth via Infrared Laser
• 2010/01/20: HotTopic: The power of the ocean
• 2010/01/18: BBerg: Oil Shortages to Reappear in 2011, Goldman Sachs Says
• 2010/01/19: Time: Christophe de Margerie [Total CEO]: Big Oil’s Straight Talker
• 2010/01/19: BBC: Astrium develops space power idea [SBS]
  Europe’s biggest space company is seeking partners to fly a demonstration solar power mission in orbit. EADS Astrium says the satellite system would collect the Sun’s energy and transmit it to Earth via an infrared laser, to provide electricity.
• 2010/01/19: PhysOrg: More reliable forecasts for water flows can reduce price of electricity
  Brazil, Canada, China, the US, Russia, Norway, Japan, and Sweden are among the largest producers of hydroelectric power in the world. One problem for hydroelectric power companies is that the great variations in the river flow and the lack of long-term forecasts make it difficult for power companies to determine how much water in their dams should be saved or released. But by scaling down information from global climate models and combining it with local measurement data, researchers at the Lund University School of Engineering (LTH) have developed a method that yields four-month forecasts that are twice as reliable as similar methods for run-off forecasts. The findings are published in the coming issue of Hydrology Research, and the model will be tested by StatKraft in Norway.
• 2010/01/18: Grist: When it comes to energy, Mark Jacobson thinks big [interview]
• 2010/01/19: SciAm: 100 Percent Renewable? One Danish Island Experiments with Clean Power [Slide Show]
  Samso is technically 100 percent powered by sustainable sources of energy. Could the experiment succeed anywhere else?
• 2010/01/19: OilDrum: Oil, Gas, and Electric Power: Some Issues for 2010
• 2010/01/19: PeakEnergy: Mighty River Power tests $430m geothermal project
• 2010/01/18: ABC(Au): Australia’s first wave energy plant on track
  Australia’s first wave energy plant, off Perth’s Garden Island, is expected to be completed by early next year.
• 2010/01/18: OilDrum: McMoRan Davy Jones Gas Discovery [US GoM 2-6 Tcf]
• 2010/01/18: CalcRisk: Oil Prices and Domestic Petroleum Exploration and Wells Investment

  Fracking is back:

• 2010/01/22: TreeHugger: Hydraulic Fracturing For Natural Gas Development Gets Added Regulatory Scrutiny
• 2010/01/20: EWG: Drinking Water Threatened by Toxic Natural Gas and Oil Drilling Chemicals
  Drilling Companies Skirt Federal Law Requiring Permits for Diesel in Wells Across the Country
• 2010/01/20: EWG: [link to pdf] Drilling Around the Law
• 2010/01/20: NRDC:SwitchBoard: Experts concerned about New York State’s draft plan for natural gas drilling
• 2010/01/20: NRDC:SwitchBoard: New report on the threats to drinking water from hydraulic fracturing
• 2010/01/21: TEC: Does ExxonMobil-XTO Merger Mean More Hydrofracking?
• 2010/01/20: SolveClimate: Exxon CEO Defends Fracking on Capitol Hill
  The CEOs of Exxon Mobil and XTO told Congress today that they’re confident hydraulic fracturing is safe: Over 1 million wells drilled with that method and no documented water table contamination, they said.

The answer my friend…:

• 2010/01/22: Grist: Thar she blows — A gust of energy
  A new Department of Energy study says that for just $93 billion — about what we spend in eight months in Iraq and Afghanistan — the eastern half of the U.S. could get 30 percent of its electricity from wind by 2024. How do we make it happen? Cloak the argument in national security terms.
• 2010/01/19: SciDaily: Smart Embedded Sensor Systems for Offshore Wind Turbines
• 2010/01/18: Rabble: There’s trouble blowing in the wind
  Big wind farms in financial or deadline trouble, sometimes being bailed out by Nova Scotia Power, are almost daily fare on the business pages these days. Like much of the rest of the world, we’ve cast wind as the saviour in our quest for green energy. Here’s stuff we should know while we still have time to reset our options. In Spain, Italy, the U.S. and elsewhere, big wind power scams have erupted, the result of hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies being pumped into wind with little control. Some politicians and entrepreneurs are already in jail.

Meanwhile among the solar aficionados:

• 2010/01/23: TreeHugger: Solar Affordable Housing Project Hires Residents for Install
• 2010/01/21: REA: How Much PV Capacity Is Actually Installed in Germany?
• 2010/01/22: PlanetArk: California Sets Incentives For Solar Water Heaters
• 2010/01/21: EurActiv: Germany, France cut support for solar power
• 2010/01/21: OilDrum: Solar Hot Water Heating
• 2010/01/20: BBerg: Sahara Project [Desertec] Planning May Take Two More Years
• 2010/01/20: TechRev: Solar Shingles See the Light of Day — Dow Chemical readies easy-to-install solar roofs
• 2010/01/18: PeakEnergy: Stunning Solar Roof Rises Over Perugia, Italy

  On the coal front:

• 2010/01/19: NRDC:SwitchBoard: Declining Role of Coal in Appalachia’s Economy
• 2010/01/20: TreeHugger: Appalachian Coal Set For Big Decline, Protests & High Profile Debates or Not
• 2010/01/19: SolveClimate: Appalachia Coal Report Adds Fuel to Kennedy-Blankenship Smackdown
• 2010/01/19: TreeHugger: Oregon Utility Moves to Shut Down the State’s Last Coal Plant
• 2010/01/18: SolveClimate: Early Closure of Oregon’s Only Coal-Fired Power Plant Has National Implications — Utility Proposes Shutdown in 2020

  Biofuel bickering abounds:

• 2010/01/23: TreeHugger: Algae Biofuels Enviro-Impact Found Worse Than Corn Ethanol in New Study
• 2010/01/22: CBC: Sunflower DNA map could produce plants for fuel
• 2010/01/21: PhysOrg: Engineers find significant environmental impacts with algae-based biofuel
• 2010/01/21: TreeHugger: Camelina Acreage for Aviation Biofuel in US to More Than Double in 2010
• 2010/01/20: PlanetArk: Brazil Opens World’s First Ethanol-Fired Power Plant

  The nuclear energy controversy continues:

• 2010/01/21: JQuiggin: Nuclear power and Australia
• 2010/01/21: TEC: Small fast reactor to offer 100 MW
• 2010/01/17: TEC: Nuclear reactor scorecard

  Yes we have a peak oil sighting:

• 2010/01/23: CCurrents: Dealing With Peak Oil

  More people are talking about the electrical grid:

• 2010/01/19: TEC: Do We Need a Smart Grid, A Strong Grid, Or Less Grid?

  Automakers & lawyers, engineers & activists argue over the future of the car:

• 2010/01/21: Yale360: The Electric Car Revolution Will Soon Take to the Streets
• 2010/01/22: AutoBG: EnerDel shows off battery production facility, plans for $237 million expansion
• 2010/01/23: AutoBG: New York City early adopter demand to far outstrip electric vehicle supply
• 2010/01/22: BBC: UK car production slumped in 2009
  UK car production fell 30.9% in 2009 from the previous year following the collapse in the global car market, industry figures have shown. Just under one million cars were made in the UK last year, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers (SMMT).
• 2010/01/21: PhysOrg: Russian firm [Yarovit-Motors] to produce cheap electric cars
• 2010/01/21: TCoE: Infonugget: Lutz strikes again
• 2010/01/20: WaPo: Toyota in Argentine lithium deal for hybrid car push
• 2010/01/19: AutoBG: China not feeling the love for electric bicycles any more
• 2010/01/19: TEC: Toyota to double global production of hybrid vehicles by 2012
• 2010/01/19: TEC: EVs and Energy Density
• 2010/01/18: AutoBG: Not gonna let it die: Felix Kramer issues detailed response to anti-plug-in vehicle report

  The reaction of business to climate change will be critical:

• 2010/01/22: GreenBiz: Nike Shrinks GHG Footprint to 2007 Levels and Dumps Carbon Offsets
• 2010/01/20: MongaBay: Sixty corporations volunteer to measure full lifecycle emissions of products
• 2010/01/18: TEC: Does Your Firm Understand its Climate Change Risk?

  Joe Romm posts a daily list of top energy and climate stories:

• 2010/01/22: ClimateP: Energy and Global Warming News for January 22…
• 2010/01/21: ClimateP: Energy and Global Warming News for January 21…
• 2010/01/20: ClimateP: Energy and Global Warming News for January 20th…
• 2010/01/19: ClimateP: Energy and Global Warming News for January 19…

  Other (weekly) lists:

• 2010/01/21: Grist: A Walk Through the Week’s Climate News — The Climate Post: Asian ice granted temporary stay of execution

  The carbon lobby are up to the usual:

• 2010/01/24: Deltoid: The Australian’s War on Science 43
• 2010/01/22: AK: Climate Cover Up: How to Manipulate Public Opinion
  Stolen emails and erroneous predictions have damaged the image of climate science, leaving many wondering if global warming is real. But this seemingly rational doubt, says the author of ‘Climate Cover Up’ James Hoggan, is not founded on facts but on a sophisticated campaign of disinformation.
• 2010/01/22: CSW: Richard Somerville: A Response to Climate Change Denialism
• 2010/01/22: JQuiggin: An interesting reversal
• 2010/01/21: DeSmogBlog: George Monbiot Unveils Winner of Annual Award For Most Distorted Climate Coverage
• 2010/01/21: Warming101: “Scientific literates” who are doubters, and who they trust on climate change
• 2010/01/21: Guardian(UK): Winner of climate change denial’s premier award revealed
  John Tomlinson, the Michigan Mauler, wins the one and only Christopher Booker prize for falsehoods about global warming
• 2010/01/21: MTobis: Not Evil, Just Wrong (Mostly)
• 2010/01/20: TheAge: Monckton is on the fringe: Barnaby Joyce
• 2010/01/20: DeSmogBlog: Climate Denial Industry Blowing Hot Air On Himalayan Glaciers
• 2010/01/20: TCoE: 13C is juuuuuust peachy [Motl alert]
• 2010/01/20: MTobis: The Pink Line
• 2010/01/19: D-HW: The Australian’s War on Science, continued
• 2010/01/18: ClimateShifts: The price of climate change skepticism?
• 2010/01/19: Stoat: Poor old Monckton
• 2010/01/19: HotTopic: Analysis of stolen CRU emails by NZ blogger [Poneke, aka David McLoughlin] shows tawdry manipulation of facts — Poneke’s credibility now in tatters
• 2010/01/19: DeepClimate: National Post’s Lawrence Solomon claims Google censors search results
• 2010/01/19: AlterNet: How Carbon Polluters Have Hijacked Part of California’s “Green” Business Movement
  An organization representing some of California’s biggest carbon polluters is working to alter the state’s global-warming law, while claiming to represent several “green” environmental companies that have since left the coalition after learning of its recent actions. The coalition, calling itself the AB 32 Implementation Group, says it represents a broad section of California interests focused on global-warming regulations. The group, which is being managed by a large public relations firm, Woodward & McDowell, features photographs of white clouds and a field of flowers on its Web site. But the organization itself includes 22 of the state’s biggest carbon polluters as ranked by the state Air Resources Board. Oil refiners, cement manufacturers, chemical companies, and trucking firms figure prominently. And, according to environmentalists and lawmakers, the Implementation Group has engaged in a steady campaign to undermine the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, which mandates a 25 percent reduction in the state’s emissions by 2020.
• 2010/01/18: DeSmogBlog: The wacky land of Amy Ridenour
• 2010/01/18: MoD: Bjorn Lomborg, wrong with a dash of socialism
• 2010/01/18: BSD: One image showing why short time periods give rotten conclusions on climate
• 2010/01/19: GreenHerring: SEPP – tying up loose ends
• 2010/01/17: GreenHerring: Tracking the Elusive Oregon Signer, part 2
• 2010/01/17: GreenHerring: Tracking the Elusive Oregon Signer
• 2010/01/17: ClimateSight: Manufacturing Doubt
• 2010/01/17: Deltoid: More Monckton

  As for climate miscellanea:

• 2010/01/23: Grist: No good speech goes unpunished — Will Google’s fight with China stymie climate negotiations?
• 2010/01/24: MWDN: Evidence for climate change caused by man mounts
• 2010/01/23: TCoE: Climate change quotes
• 2010/01/22: BobPark: What’s New?
• 2010/01/19: Tyee: He Sees Our Hot Future — A ‘Trees and Us’ podcast with botanist geologist Richard Hebda
• 2010/01/22: BBC: Harrabin’s Notes: Cash for influence
  In his regular column, BBC environment analyst Roger Harrabin looks at how the global climate debate could be affected by a US Supreme Court ruling that lifts a cap how much companies can spend on political advertising.
• 2010/01/22: SkeptiSci: The chaos of confusing the concepts
• 2010/01/21: ERabett: The hedgehog and the hyena
• 2010/01/19: NYT:CW: Silicon Valley Rocks Climate World With New Breed of Software
• 2010/01/18: IrishTimes: Damaged credibility doesn’t alter climate facts [Richard Tol]
• 2010/01/18: NewScientist: The United Nations of science: why we need it

  And here are a couple of sites you may find interesting and/or useful:

• Quark Soup (Note change of address (again))
• Wiki: Corporate personhood debate
• OpenEI – Organizing the World’s Energy Information
• NREL:VIBE: Virtual Information Bridge to Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy
• WHA: Without Hot Air
• [Book Site] _A Climate For Change Book – Global Warming Facts for Faith-Based Decisions_ by Andrew Farley and Katherine Hayhoe
• Wiki: [png] Climate Change Attribution
• Our Changing Climate — Bart Verheggen’s weblog
• GG: Planet 3.0
• CAC: Climate Action Centre
• Skeptical Science: Examining Global Warming Skepticism
• Wiki: Jule Gregory Charney [the father of modern dynamical meteorology]
• NAS: What You Need to Know About Energy
• EL: Environmental Leader · Green Business, Sustainable Business, and Green Strategy News for Corporate Sustainability Executives
• TERI: The Energy and Resources Institute
• Food Crisis and the Global Land Grab
• GRAIN: Genetic Resources Action International

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Low Key Plug

My first novel Water was published in Canada May, 2007. The American release was in October. An Introductionto the novel is available, along with the Unpublished Forewordand the Launch Talk. An overview of my writing is available here.

<regards>
-het

P.S. Recent postings can be found in the week archive and the ancient postings can be accessed here, which should open to this.

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“A net cooling bias was perhaps not the result the surfacestations.org volunteers were hoping for but improving the quality of the surface temperature record is surely a result we should all appreciate.” -John Cook

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