Rising Tide Australia

Independent (UK): America's 4 July bonfires served a dual purpose yesterday. They burned the wood of trees destroyed by a trio of bugs that are devastating parts of the nation's forests. With 750 million acres of forests in the United States, the scale of the problem is massive. Since 1999, the country has lost, on average, 1 per cent of its tree cover per year. This means these small insects have killed about 10 per cent of all US forests in 10 years. Two of the bugs, says the government, have ...

The internet may be awash with bogus or untested stem cell-based treatments targeted at unwary patients, but that is no reason to condemn "scientifically justifiable" therapies, say researchers

The G8 summit in Italy next week is an opportunity for the rich world to unite in cutting emissions and protecting the world's poor

World leaders have a unique opportunity this year to lay the essential foundations of a solution to the global climate crisis. At the G8 summit in Italy next week, and at numerous other meetings this year, culminating in the UN Copenhagen climate talks in December, they will be responsible for deciding the future direction of the entire planet and its inhabitants. It is indeed a weighty and urgent responsibility given that so many lives depend upon the outcomes.

It is particularly the voices of the world's poorest that must be heard at these meetings. It is they who will bear the brunt of rising temperatures and the consequent impacts of floods, droughts, rising sea levels and severe water shortages, all of which will lead by mid century to hundreds of millions of environmental refugees.

In the west, we have grown rich over the past 200 years because we have had cheap energy in the form of coal, oil and gas. Those who are poor have not benefited – 1.6bn people (a quarter of humanity) live without electricity and other basic necessities – yet they will be hardest hit. The moral imperative for us to redress past damage and avoid future damage is inescapable.

For many years I have supported the Christian development agency Tearfund in its work with the world's poorest and most vulnerable communities. Interestingly, it's local churches who are leading the way in adapting to climate change in many parts of the world, mobilising local communities to find solutions to changing climate trends.

For instance, local church organisations in Niger are working with pastoralists to adapt their farming practices to respond to a changing climate, and in Brazil, we see Christian organisations working to enable people to adapt to the harsh realities of climate change through well-drilling, building cisterns and agro-forestry.

The church is one of the few movements that is both local and global. As an international network it has the ability to mobilise hundreds of thousands of people worldwide to lobby policymakers. I believe that as well as the valuable work that it carries out in communities, the church must also call out for a global, political solution to climate change through the Copenhagen process.

So far, progress at talks aimed at negotiating a new climate treaty by December this year has been slow, lacking the urgency that is so desperately needed. The most immediate challenge faced especially by the rich nations is that of turning the current year-on-year growth of global greenhouse gas emissions to a reduction year-on-year.

It is increasingly recognised as the scientific evidence grows stronger that a limit needs to be set of no more than two degrees increase in global average temperature above its preindustrial value – a limit first proposed by the European Union Council in 1996. For there to be a good chance of achieving this limit, global emissions must peak within about the next seven years. That implies for developed countries cuts in emissions in the range 25-40% by 2020. Failure to achieve this limit will create severe disadvantage for billions of the world's people.

There is also an absence of any serious offer from rich countries of large scale additional finance for poor countries to adapt to climate change and to help them develop in a sustainable, low carbon way. This is a lynchpin of any agreement – without it, it is difficult to see why developing countries should sign up. The G8 this summer could build trust among developing countries by giving some of the short-term finance for adaptation that is so desperately needed and long overdue, as long as this does not replace longer-term finance.

It is to be hoped that the meetings of the G8 and the Major Economies Forum can provide impetus towards a tough Copenhagen deal, with developed countries being willing to put more on the table in the way of finance and emissions reductions.

But ultimately a global deal on climate change cannot simply be brokered between the rich and powerful or it will surely fail. It must be an inclusive and visionary deal that involves all nations and puts the needs of poor people at its heart.

• Religion
• Climate change
• Copenhagen climate change summit 2009
• G8
• Italy

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Science is undermining the notion that there are only two sexes and presenting a broad spectrum – from male to female and everything in between, says the author of Between XX and XY

The coal train protest judge said "climate change is of no relevance to this court" – but that was why we were there

I am on the wrong side of the dock, with two years in jail hanging over me, and no curly grey wig of my own. I have watched the prosecuting barrister spend a whole day setting out his case in surreal and painstaking detail; 29 ways to prove what we have already admitted.

There are enormous files of photographs of the orange boilersuits we used to impersonate railway workers and flag down the train; of the tents, food and locks we brought, to stay for as long as possible; of our coal-blackened faces on arrest. It's hard not to look like a convict after 16 hours on a coal hopper. Witnesses dutifully traipse in one by one to confirm that we safely stopped a train, and blocked coal deliveries to Drax for a day and a half.

When it's our turn, the first one of us to act as a witness is Paul Chatterton – an embarrassingly over-qualified senior geography lecturer from Leeds university . He has barely finished his first sentence when Judge Spencer interrupts: "I'm afraid, Mr Chatterton, that climate change is of no relevance to this court."

Uh oh, we're going down. If the jury are told climate change isn't relevant, how are they going to reach a verdict that considers the urgent necessity of stopping carbon emissions from coal? Would it have been "irrelevant" if there had been a child on the tracks to Drax on that day? Because that's how I feel about it.

I realise the only hope of way of salvaging the situation is to disregard the judge's instructions.

But as I try to explain my motivations to the jury – of imminent tipping points, of much of my home county of Lincolnshire being lost to the sea – a lump rises in my throat. The ushers look flustered, waving some tissues my way. Smiling like a kindly grandad, Judge Spencer warns me, "That is what happens when you stray from the issues at hand." I reply, "Your honour, this is what happens when you reflect on the facts of climate change."

Those facts are why we are here, and the prosecution could not contest a single one. A recent report by a thinktank run by Kofi Annan estimates that climate change kills 300,000 people a year. So, by ratio, that would make Drax responsible for 180 deaths. Sir Nicholas Stern, the government's chief economic advisor, estimates that the social cost of carbon is £50 a tonne. So Drax's emissions cost more than £3m every day.

In a recess, I step outside into the baking heat. I am reminded of the artificial divide between reality inside the court and reality outside - just as the air conditioning keeps the heat out of the court, the judge is determined to keep climate change out of our case. Was this because the last time people were allowed to demonstrate the harm caused by coal, at Kingsnorth, they were acquitted, effectively putting the government's energy policy on trial? Or was it because the judge doesn't think climate change is real?

In his pretrial ruling he asserted that we "were in no immediate danger and nor was anyone else" from the coal in the train hoppers. That's not what the experts reckon: a Nasa director, a frontbench MP, a UN expert, the head of RSPB, were all ready to testify to the millions of people in immediate danger. But according to Judge Spencer their views were "make-weight and fanciful".

Why then did we press ahead on this kamikaze mission, with no witnesses, no lawyers, no legal defence and no realistic hope of acquittal?

For me it was because to give in would allow this sort of legal blindness to prevail over common sense, to undermine our common interest in a habitable planet. Because complete strangers were opening their homes, offering us food, and counting on us. And, in the words of George Eliot, because "any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning, but give me the man who has the pluck to fight when he's sure of losing. That's my way, sir, and there are many victories worse than a defeat."

• Activism
• Coal
• Climate change
• Drax
• Protest
• Climate change
• Fossil fuels
• Law

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EDF Energy will scale down plans to build a new generation of nuclear reactors in the UK unless the government fixes the price of carbon, its chief executive, Vincent de Rivaz, has warned.

De Rivaz said that EDF's business case to build four new reactors depended on a carbon tax or minimum carbon price being introduced.

The government will publish a wide-ranging white paper this month detailing plans to meet the UK's new carbon budgets. It is expected to discuss measures to prevent the carbon price fluctuating wildly.

Two years ago prices fell to as little as €0.10 (£0.08) a tonne. Experts say that a far higher price - at least €60 (£51.40) a tonne - is necessary to make low-carbon technologies, such as nuclear power generation or carbon capture and storage, economic.

De Rivaz told the Observer: "If we are serious about decarbonising electricity generation, we need to be serious about the price of CO2. It's very important to strengthen the emissions trading scheme ... and to sustain a credible, robust carbon price."

He said that EDF's plan to build the UK's reactors assumed there would be a "stable energy policy which delivers a stable carbon price for low-carbon generation".

If the government did not guarantee a minimum carbon price, or guaranteed one at too low a rate, this could result in fewer reactors being built than planned, he said, adding: "The business case has to be competitive. I am a businessman. It's a no-brainer."

EDF launches Green Britain Day on Friday.

• EDF Energy
• Oil and gas companies
• Nuclear power
• Energy

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Jonathon Porritt, one of Britain's leading environmentalists, has attacked the Treasury for being "startlingly arrogant" and for dragging its feet over sustainability.

This month Porritt steps down as chairman of the Sustainable Development Commission, an independent government watchdog, after occupying the role since it was founded nine years ago.

He said: "Looking back now, as I am in my last few days, I see a terrain of wasted opportunity. I am not saying the only reason is the intransigence of the Treasury, but I do think the Treasury has killed a lot of the energy around sustainable development."

Porritt, who is being replaced by William Day, gave the Treasury credit for hiking the landfill tax and for commissioning Sir Nicholas Stern's review on the economics of climate change. However, he added: "Too often they have been foot-dragging and obstructive."

He said: "It is a startlingly arrogant part of government. There is almost no curiosity about sustainable wealth creation. There is no readiness to interrogate the macro-economic model. SDC produced a report, Prosperity without Growth, in an attempt to start a debate on redefining prosperity, but we were met with a weird mixture of hostility and indifference."

According to Porritt, the Treasury was slow to set an example on sustainability through programmes such as the private finance initiative (PFI) or Building Schools for the Future (BSF). He said he tried to engage with the Treasury over PFI, which he saw as one of the main mechanisms by which the government could send out signals to the private sector about promoting sustainability. But, he said: "The whole PFI process from 1999 onwards has been a sustainability-free zone.

"With the Building Schools for the Future programme it took four or five years for the Treasury to understand it had to have sustainability at its heart. It was straight Treasury obstinacy."

Since it was founded in 2000, the SDC lobbied the government consistently to use its multibillion-pound budget to promote sustainable development through its procurement of buildings, goods and services. But Porritt said his efforts fell on stony ground for years. "At meetings relatively senior civil servants from the Treasury were sitting there glowering and wondering what they could do to scupper things when they got back to base," he said.

"Last year, the Treasury realised government had to play a role but it was blindingly obvious all along."

• Ethical business
• Corporate social responsibility
• Climate change
• Green politics

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Business Standard: A multilateral forum on climate change is all set to call for a 50 per cent cut on global emissions by 2050 and an 80 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions for industrialised nations, according to a draft declaration obtained by Kyodo News. Also Read Related Stories News Now -'Finance, efficiency deficit hindering renewable energy use'-'India will renegotiate emission reduction target'-US House passes historic climate change bill-WB okays $180-mn loan for India's power ...

Inter Press Service: Africa needs a Green Revolution, but one that will increase agricultural productivity by using practices that build soil fertility while minimising harm to the environment. Organic farmers, traders and researchers from are pushing organic agriculture as suitable for Africa because it is based on active management of the agricultural ecosystem rather than on external inputs. Organic farming relies on compost manure, crop rotation, mulching, biological pest control. It excludes ...

CQPolitics: Within hours of House passage June 26 of sweeping energy legislation, the party fund-raising letters were already going out. The Democratic message, delivered the day of the vote, said the bill to combat climate change would "create millions of new jobs" by investing in clean energy sources. Three days later, an appeal to Republican supporters took the opposite tack, calling it an "energy tax" measure that "will put millions of Americans out of work." The bill (HR 2454) ...

Telegraph: Detailed plans for expanding renewable energy tenfold and cutting emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses that heat up the planet -- all in little more than a decade - will be announced. The plans will be spelt out in three documents due to be published in about ten days time. Ed Miliband, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, will unveil a White Paper that will spell out how emissions will be cut by at least 34 per cent on 1990 levels by 2020 and a ...

Cosmic strings may have broken into pieces in the early universe – but, if so, they should have left traces that we could observe, say researchers

Anxiety seems to prompt the release of a chemical that automatically triggers empathy in anyone who sniffs it

The world's most peaceful primate is observed launching a lethal attack, giving clues to the origins of human gang warfare

Patterns of gene expression in a woman's blood may give couples a clue as to whether she is likely to get pregnant using IVF

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The folks at Fox News were fuming this week that the EPA apparently suppressed an internal “scientific report” the questioned the rational for listing CO2 as a pollutant under the Clear Air Act.

Sunshine is said to be the best disinfectant, so lets drag this stinky story into the light of day and give it a good airing out.

First of all, the report is hardly secret since it has been helpfully posted on the websites of the Heartland Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and several other cheerleaders for the denial industry. The file is available here and if you are having troubling sleeping, you may find it a useful read.

The person listed as the author of the report, Alan Carlin, is not a scientist all, but an economist who works for National Center for Environmental Economics. But is seems Carlin had some considerable help.

Several years ago Ken Gregory of the Astroturf group Friends of Science compiled an eye-glazing compendium of the mish mash of pseudo science that passes for the climate skeptic brain trust. According to the good folks at Real Climate, it seems the Carlin report simply imports sections of this verbatim. Gregory’s name is also referenced 20 times in the report.

Other notorious sources referenced include Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, and our old friend S. Fred Singer.

But what about un-referenced sources? I took the liberty of randomly plugging in quotes from Carlin’s report into a helpful search engine called Plagiarism Checker.com. Guess what? It turns out that some sections  appear to have been lifted verbatim and unreferenced from the website of well-known climate denier Patrick Michaels, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. <!--break-->

Have a look: Page 79 of Carlin's PDF states:

“For instance, despite the overall rise in U.S. and global average temperatures for the past 30 years, U.S. crop yields have increased (Figure 3-1), the population’s sensitivity to extreme heat has decreased (Figure 3-2), and our general air quality has improved (Figure 3-3). Further, there has been no long-term increase in weather-related property damage once changes in inflation, population size, and population wealth are accounted for (an essential step in any temporal comparison). All of these trends are in the opposite sense from those described in the EPA’s Endangerment TSD.”

Small world. It seems that a November 19th op-ed piece on Michael’s website entitled “Why the EPA should find against Endangerment” has exactly the same wording and exactly the same graphs. In fact the entire section 3 of Carlin’s report seems to be a very thin re-write of the anti-EPA piece from last November.

Plagiarism is a serious academic offence, particularly if it involves obviously biased sources. It is therefore ironic that Carlin's unsolicited 85 page report, on a subject well outside his area of expertise, is devoted to criticizing the scientific community for their shoddy work.

This week an indignant Senator Inhofe demanded an inquiry into this strange report. Maybe that’s not such a bad idea…I haven’t perused this document in detail but there may be other un-cited sources to be unearthed by Plagiarism Checker.com. Try it out for fun.

Lets also take a moment to follow the funding. Desmog blog readers will recall some recently revealed tax documents showing that Michaels’ consulting firm was paid $242,900 by the Cato Institute since April 2006.

In 2006, the Cato Institute received $612,000 from 26 corporate supporters including ExxonMobil, General Motors and the American Petroleum Institute.

But what does money have to do with anything?

Since neither Carlin nor Gregory are climate scientists, what do active climate researchers think of the “suppressed” report? Dr. Gavin Schmidt of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies provides an amusing evisceration here, pointing out the numerous non-peer reviewed and discredited sources that have loomed into public view yet again.

The blog for Nature, the most prestigious scientific journal in the world also dismissed this report out of hand, calling it “rehash of old, scientifically dubious arguments”.

Hardly a bombshell, but you would never know that watching the hyperbolic media coverage. Have a look at remarkable puff piece from Fox News that interviews the aggrieved Carlin himself.

Perhaps the next time Mr. Carlin is in the presence of the media, someone should ask him why his name is on a report that instead seems to be largely written by well-known members of the denial industry. 

I will leave readers to draw their own conclusions, but it does seem odd that this dubious story based on dubious sources appears in high media rotation just as the Waxman Markey bill moves to the Senate.

You make your own mind up.

 

 

Inter Press Service: "Now the fish are going to disappear," said Luis Umpunchi, an Awajún Indian, one of about 20 people gathered around a broken oil pipeline in the Jayais community, in the northern Peruvian province of Amazonas. Everyone was looking at the oil spill with concern. Some touched the black liquid, which had mixed with the mud resulting from a recent rainfall. "That oil will reach the Marañón River, where our crops grow along the banks," added Antonio Chu Pumpunchig, who was ...

Canadian Press: The theory is simple, the debate divisive: To survive global warming, simply insert billions of dollars, suck, and blow. It's called carbon capture and storage, and Canada is ponying up to support what is effectively big-ticket enviro liposuction for a generation of consumers who can't -- or won't -- stop gobbling up fossil fuels. Is carbon capture technology the most practical way to combat global warming? (Rich Pedroncelli/Associated Press) "This isn't the silver ...

Reuters: China is considering new air quality regulations as it looks to build on its success clearing Beijing's skies during the Olympics, environmental officials from the capital said on Friday. Beijing's claim to have guaranteed safe air to Olympic athletes and spectators has been questioned by some foreign experts, and a testing station set up by the U.S. embassy has highlighted dangers from pollutants China does not yet measure. But in the year since the Games the capital has ...

Economist: THOUGH half of Ecuador lies in the Amazon basin, its rainforest is shrinking faster than in neighbouring countries (by 1.67% a year). It has been ravaged by logging, poachers and oil extraction. Settlers have streamed in to carve out a precarious life. Over the past decade they have been joined by thousands of refugees fleeing violence in Colombia, as well as guerrillas and drug traffickers who inflict it. Native tribes have been uprooted, forced deeper into the forest or have ...