From the SMH

Heated reply to Stern's fire and brimstone alarm

John Garnaut
April 13, 2007

IT ALL ADDS UP

OIL companies were reportedly offering $US10,000 ($12,120) to anyone who could show where experts got it wrong in his prediction that the world is about to cook.

Here's ten thousand dollars' worth.

Nicholas Stern got it wrong in The Economics of Climate Change because he didn't think hard enough about how fast the world economy would grow. The omission is surprising, given Stern was chief economist at the World Bank.

If a more realistic world growth number is inserted into the climate-change equation, and his other assumptions prove correct, then the world is in for more of a roasting than even he imagined - if sensible policy makers do not intervene.

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Gus: yes, John, the problem is worse than we think... Already on this site, two years ago, we alerted the powers in command that things were not right. Under a heading "Global warming is baloney" we recognised "GLOBAL HOTTING'. Warming was too soft to describe the problem. Unfortunately due to technical reasons during a site clean up and updating, all of the article-blog (about 2000 words if my memory is correct) but a few words disappeared — the gist is still there though, including the follow-on "discussion"...

Population reduction is ESSENTIAL if we wish to do something tangible about "Global Burning"... So the person in the SMH with this published letter below should be made aware of his errant ways:

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"A question to the proponents of renewable energy: if our coal-fired power stations are to be switched off, just how many hectares of solar panels and how many windmills would be needed to replace them? Have you ever stood near one and listened to the noise they make?

The San Francisco Chronicle says a local wind farm of 5000 generators kills 80,000 birds a year, so how long before we lose our birds?

Ted Orme West Pymble"

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Yes Ted, it's most likely that 2007 will be the hottest year on record, then 2008 will be... Even with decade temperature fluctuation, 2009 might be as hot as 2007 but 2010 could be hotter than 2008...

The increase of the trend is difficult to gauge yet it could be placed at present between 0.1 to 0.25 degree increase per year. Should we do nothing, temperatures could be in the vicinity of 10 to 25 degrees HIGHER by 2100. The CONSERVATIVE consensus is a plateau-ing effect mainly due to cosmic dispersion would take place at around 6 degrees (possibly 9) degrees by 2100.

A 9 degree increase (global average) would mean an increase of 6 degree in the equatorial regions and up to 20 degrees in the pole regions. At that rate, unless we drastically arrest the problem (3 degree increase by 2100 if we stopped producing ANY CO2 in 1996) the ecosystem of the earth will be in an incredible turmoil — humanity itself in the thick of it.

... And as far as killing birds, it is recognised that cats kill far more birds (in the millions) than windmills and the figure of 80,000 for the 5000 windmills is quite exaggerated, although it is acknowledged that birds are killed in the "thousands" by the spinning blades (60 hawks and kites are killed per year).

On the other hand, one has to realise that a city like Sydney could supply its own electricity with solar panels on every second or third roof and a small wind farm to provide base-load power. No need for coal-generated power. On top of that Geothermic generated electricity is also a great non-CO2 producer of electricity and this could even add to the base-load power.

We are in URGENT need to stop coal creating more CO2. NOW.

Population reduction is ESSENTIAL too. Not through war, or such destructive culling (often used to readjust "economic" growth) but by a humanity becoming aware of the folly of GROWTH at all cost to feed greed.

"Greed is not good" should be our mantra.

We need to pull on the brakes as well as find non-CO2 sources of energy. URGENTLY. And no, "nuclear power" is not the answer. It is fraught with many "delayed" dangers despite the reassurance of those promoting it to "greed" from it.

 

From the ABC

PM refuses to set target for carbon emissions
Prime Minister John Howard has refused to set targets for carbon emissions when the issue was raised at today's meeting of the Council of Australian Governments (COAG).

The premiers had called for a target of a 60 per cent reduction by 2050.

Mr Howard says he will not commit to any targets before seeing the results of a federal task force on carbon emissions, which is due next month.

"We were unwilling, for reasons I've stated publicly, to commit to a particular target because of the possible consequences of that on the economy, especially on jobs," he said.

South Australian Premier Mike Rann says carbon emission targets are an important part of addressing climate change.

"Unless you have targets in terms of reducing emissions, then basically you're flying blind," he said.

"What you really need with targets, you need the targets to act as a road to action, something to aim at and something to reach."

Victorian Premier Steve Bracks has also expressed disappointment that a carbon emissions trading scheme agreement has not been reached.

He says the Prime Minister has missed a big chance to address climate change.

From the Guardian

Looking ahead to this summer, the Met Office warned yesterday there was a "high probability" that temperatures would exceed the averages of the last 30 years.

"Through the summer we can experience periods of very hot weather which has implications for people's health," it said, noting that 2007 was likely to be the warmest year since records began in 1850, beating the current record of 1998.

 

From Four Corners, ABC

ONATHAN HOLMES: When the great Snowy Mountains scheme was finally completed in 1974, almost no one had even heard of global warming. But back then, emission-free, renewable energy from falling water provided 20 per cent of Australia's electricity. Thirty years later, with climate change a looming reality, hydro's share has fallen to 7 per cent. And despite five years of growth, wind power contributes less than 1 per cent. Yet the Federal Government won't increase Australia's renewable energy target. Both government and opposition are obsessed with coal.

MALCOLM TURNBULL, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER RESOURCES: A key focus of our whole energy and greenhouse policy is ensuring that we have the means to clean up coal.

KEVIN RUDD, OPPOSITION LEADER: If we're serious about climate change, we've got to be serious about clean coal.

JONATHAN HOLMES: But clean coal is at least a decade and a half away and no one knows what it will cost. Meanwhile, Australia's greenhouse emissions from electricity generation are soaring. Across the Pacific, in the state of California, they're focussing on wind, and sun, and steam from deep beneath the earth.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA, USA: California has taken the leadership in moving the entire country beyond debate and denial to action.

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Gus: Arnold, you're a champ! I did promise myself not to watch any of your "mofies" after as the Governor or California, you signed the death execution of a convicted person... See I am against the death penalty full stop and so should all of us. But with your awakening to the problems faced by this little planet on which we eke a living, you deserve a second chance as long as you do not let anyone else hang, go to the electric chair or get the lethal injection.

So Aussie fellows, lend me your ear, etc... Let's rattle our own government on its pitiful response to a major problem (See ministers of the Crown utter much inanities with gravitas and a bean counting mentality.

As mentioned in the blog above this one, conservatively global temperatures are rising by about 0.1 degree per year at the moment. It does not seem much, but at that rate, average global temperatures will be 5 degrees hotter by 2057 and 10 degrees hotter by 2107. All due to CO2 and methane levels in the atmosphere. All due to human activity, such as burning coal. oil and wood. In the past, burning was much less and offset by absorption from the sea and forests. This is no more balanced, nor it is offset... The steady climb of CO2 is undeniable. Globally we create so many billion tons of CO2 that I've lost track of the numbers (see previous blogs on subject). I might have to go and dig the figures again.

It is too late for the Howard Government. After ten years of denial and telling fibs, Howard and his gang of fakes should hold their head in shame and resign. Pass the baton to others with more foresight in the health of the planet. As prime Minister, Rudd will be in for a shock but he will rise to the enormous challenges. Howard lives in denial and will carry on living in denial. Presently he pays lip service to global warming in order to stay in "power" by "appearing to do something (which he resents anyway). That something is very far from what should be done, and most of it "in the wrong direction".

At least one should strongly encourage (if not enforce) industries that would for example help make most mode of transport (car, boats, trucks, motorcycles...) operate from electricity generated from the sun, wind or geothermal by 2030 (by then temperature will have increased by 2.3 degrees). IT"S URGENT. Said industries would also operate from same sources of energy.

The next G8 meeting and the next WTO meeting have no choice but to tackle global warming from an "economic downsizing" view point. Either-way, voluntarily or by massive conflicts (unfortunately generating more CO2), the world population has to be downsized then stabilised in an energy efficient and equitable way.

IT"S URGENT. by 2200, the surface of this planet could look like the surface of Mars, apart from the hot near-boiling seas that could have turned green by then.

Far fetched? At the rate of global warming, at the increasing rate of flogging coal (clean coal? the most expensive joke of the century) burning oil, etc... the temperatures by 2200 would at least be 20 degrees higher that now. Some people might suggest that dimming from steam clouds would reduce the problem but most likely the clouds in presently "temperate" regions would be hovering at ground level at 50 degrees C...

Some people also argue that natural phenomenon like volcanoes etc, release far more energy than we do... (Mt Pinatubo in the Philippines: 200,000 times the power of an "Hiroshima" nuclear explosion.). In fact, volcanoes release far more sulphur dioxide that CO2. Sulphur dioxide acts more like a coolant in the atmosphere, creates acid rain — and the clouds from the "plume" of a volcano actually create dimming.

We are cooking our goose... and we are the geese.

Thanks to Four Corners for providing more rattle munitions against our Rattus Denialus, who has to go — even if there was a sign of awakening. He's done too much damage and porkying already.

 

In the etherblog up above, I laud the value of wind, solar, geothermal-ly run electric cars...

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From the BBC

French plan green postal service
New electric vehicle for La Poste

The French postal service, La Poste, plans to order 10,000 electric delivery vehicles, which it says are far more economical than normal cars or vans.

The state-run service is inviting tenders from European manufacturers for the first batch of 500.

"There has never been such a big order [for the vehicles] in the world," said French Industry Minister Francois Loos, quoted by the AFP news agency.

La Poste wants to reduce its 70m-euro (£48m; $95m) annual fuel bill.

La Poste has been testing eight French electric vehicles since 2005, made by SVE - a firm owned by the defence group Dassault and vehicle manufacturer Heuliez.

"According to our tests, it is six times cheaper to run an electric vehicle than a diesel vehicle," said La Poste chairman Jean-Paul Bailly.

La Poste believes the change will also cut emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) by four tonnes per vehicle annually.

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Gus: unfortunately, the French run their electricity mostly from nuclear energy... but it's a good start towards lessening CO2 emissions.

From the ABC

US professor refutes carbon emissions theory

A professor from the University of Houston has told a petroleum conference in Adelaide that carbon emissions do not cause climate change.

Doctor Michael Economides says he can not find any evidence that carbon emissions cause a change in global temperatures.

He says governments are barking up the wrong tree when they look at reducing emissions, such as through carbon trading schemes.

"For example, I am using, I'm admitting carbon so if I adopt a village in Zimbabwe, on the average it's fine," he said.

"My head is in the oven, my feet are on ice and on the average I'm fine.

"This is carbon trading."

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Sure, sir... but then... the good professor has no vested interest, has he?

Here is an extract from his curricullum THAT DOESN NOT INCLUDE CLMATE CHANGE...

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EDUCATION

— B.S., M.S., Chemical Engineering, University of Kansas
— Ph.D., Petroleum Engineering, Stanford University (1984)

COURSES
— PETR 6397: Natural Gas Engineering
— PETR 6308: Advanced Petroleum Production Operations

RESEARCH INTERESTS

Dr. Michael Economides’ research efforts involve the optimization of the overall hydrocarbon production system from the reservoir, the wellbore and to the market. He has done major contributions on reservoir stimulation theory, advanced reservoir exploitation strategies and complex well architecture design features. He is currently conducting industry efforts for driving deep offshore technology development, world energy scenario forecast and natural gas development. Next generation technology of oil and gas industry involves the development of advanced computer-aided tools.

› Petroleum Production Engineering:
The Petroleum Production System, starting from the reservoir, to the well and the surface facilities. Improving reservoir deliverability (fracturing and acidizing), lift performance and artificial lift.

› Complex Well Architecture in Petroleum Production:
Maximizing reservoir recovery by using multi-branched well architecture and intelligent completion systems.

› Reservoir Stimulation (fracturing and acidizing):
Promoting hydraulic fracturing as the completion of choice for nearly all wells, and improving the Productivity Index by better understanding the near-well state of stress in elastic and plastic rocks. Development of tools to measure these stresses during stimulation.

› Advanced Reservoir Exploitation Strategies:
Accelerated production and simultaneous improved recovery by combining complex well architecture and a various production/injection schemes.

› Next Generation High Intensity Design:
Development of a High Intensity Design Engine, which would enable the petroleum strategist to look at all different exploitation schemes before the platform is first built and reduce design time significantly.

CURRENT RESEARCH PROJECTS

1. Next Generation High Intensity Design.
2. Complex Well Architecture in Petroleum Production.
3. Advanced Petroleum Exploitation Strategies.
4. Near-well state of stress in Elastic and Plastic Rocks.

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Gus: beyond that, The "professor" is quite right to say "My head is in the oven, my feet are on ice and on the average I'm fine."... because that's the way the WHOLE EARTH works... The various regions from polar to equatorial follow specific patterns of exchanges that have been going on for eons, even if at some times long ago, there was no ice on earth... As a petrochemist, he should know. The various sedimentations, the various decays of plants and animal matters, the various igneous imtrusions, the whole geology of the earth when studied give some precise timelines about weather and weather changes... The present NOTICEABLE increase in temperatures of the past three decades is telling a story that in geological terms is being played out mighty fast. Specialist scientists in climate change recognise the importance of CO2 in this process. The melting of many of the world's glaciers and of frozen seas is a strong indication that present processes of climate change are faster that we could imagine.

The Carbon Dioxide Greenhouse Effect

In the 19th century, scientists realized that gases in the atmosphere cause a "greenhouse effect" which affects the planet's temperature. These scientists were interested chiefly in the possibility that a lower level of carbon dioxide gas might explain the ice ages of the distant past. At the turn of the century, Svante Arrhenius calculated that emissions from human industry might someday bring a global warming. Other scientists dismissed his idea as faulty. In 1939, G.S. Callendar argued that the level of both carbon dioxide and temperature had been rising, but most scientists found his arguments implausible. It was almost by chance that a few researchers in the 1950s discovered that global warming truly was possible. In the early 1960s, C.D. Keeling measured the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere: it was rising fast. Researchers began to take an interest, struggling to understand how the level of carbon dioxide had changed in the past, and how the level was influenced by chemical and biological forces. They found that the gas plays a crucial role in climate change, so that the rising level could gravely affect our future. (This essay covers only developments relating directly to carbon dioxide, with a separate essay for Other Greenhouse Gases. For related theoretical issues, see the essay on Simple Models of Climate. )

From the same scientist (Spencer Wear) as the above quote:

Like many threats, global warming calls for greater government activity, and that rightly worries people. But in the 21st century the alternative to government action is not individual liberty: it is corporate power. And the role of large corporations in this story has been mostly negative, a tale of self-interested obfuscation and short-sighted delay. The atmosphere is a classic case of a "commons" — like the old shared English meadows, where any given individual could only gain by adding more of his own cows, although everyone lost from the overgrazing. In such cases only public rules can protect the public interest.

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Gus: corporations behave like cows... and I wish our Miranda Devine of the SMH would read the full article on "global warming" from this scientist and the annotations. But then... I can only hope and hold fast to my dreams...

Schwarzenegger terminates BHP gas plan

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has vetoed a bid by Australian mining giant BHP Billiton to build a permanent natural gas terminal off the state's coastline.

In a letter to the US Maritime Administration, Mr Schwarzenegger agreed with earlier rejections of the proposal by the state Lands Commission and the California Coastal Commission.

Under the proposal, BHP would have moored a massive floating terminal 22 kilometres off the coast of Malibu, west of Los Angeles, in order to unload liquefied natural gas and process it before pumping it ashore.

But the plan met with furious opposition from environmentalists, as well as celebrity Malibu residents, including actors Tom Hanks and Pierce Brosnan.

"California needs to diversify fuel sources for California consumers with cleaner alternatives such as LNG," Mr Schwarzenegger wrote in his letter.

"However, any LNG import facility must meet the strict environmental standards California demands to continue to improve our air quality, protect our coast and preserve our marine environment."

Mr Schwarzenegger has vowed to make the environment one of his priorities in his final four years in charge of the most populous US state.

The California Coastal Commission ruled last month BHP's proposed technology would deposit hundreds of tons of soot and smog annually near the Los Angeles basin, in violation of local regulations.

The proposed terminal and its fleet of carriers would have been visible from the coastline on clear days, according to environmental studies.

Supporters of the terminal said it would help to provide California with clean-burning natural gas and said it would meet all local and federal environmental laws.

But environmental groups and Malibu-based celebrities voiced opposition to the plan, questioning the impact of the terminal on the coastline.

Malibu's city council and almost every elected official representing the area also expressed opposition to the project on environmental and energy-policy grounds.

November 22, 2008

G.M. Pins Hopes on a Plug-In Car, 2 Years Off

By MICHELINE MAYNARD

DETROIT — The Chevrolet Volt, a plug-in hybrid, will not arrive in showrooms until late 2010. But it is already straining under the weight of an entire company.

Executives at General Motors, the largest and apparently the most imperiled of the three American car companies, are using the Volt as the centerpiece of their case to a skeptical Congress that their business plan for a turnaround is strong, and that a federal bailout would be a good investment in G.M.’s future.

In ads that ran this week, the company said of the Volt: “This is not just a car. It’s a vision of our future.” Another claimed that the vehicle would “completely reinvent the automotive industry.”

There is a long tradition in Detroit of relying on a single new model or technology as a silver bullet to quickly solve bigger problems. Sometimes it works — the Chevrolet Corvette, the Ford Mustang and Ford Taurus, and Chrysler’s K-car lineup of compact, fuel-efficient cars in the early 1980s all gave their companies an enormous boost.

But whether the Volt can live up to its billing is already a matter of debate. And some industry analysts note that General Motors has a poor track record of introducing green technology to the market.

Thirty years ago it was one of the great environmental issues, along with the hole in the ozone layer and CFC chemicals. Now acid rain may be making a comeback – but this time, there's a change in the chemicals responsible.

Nitrogen emissions from motor vehicles and agricultural fertilisers, are combining with rain to produce nitric acid, and are starting to replace the sulphuric acid resulting from power-station emissions as a major source of the environmental scourge of the 1970s and 1980s, according to American experts.

The result is a renewed and serious environmental risk for forests, rivers and wildlife, as nitric acid rain can – just like its sulphuric equivalent – kill plants, fish and insects by leaching important plant nutrients such potassium, calcium and magnesium from the soil. At the same time, it can help to liberate potentially toxic minerals such as aluminium, which can flow off into watercourses. The concern is surfacing in the US, where several scientists have voiced their worries in the current issue of the journal Scientific American.

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 Gus: from what I remember from my school days, nitric acid was "stronger" than chloridric or sulphuric acid... see toon of Dubya as a farting penguin at top...

It was his signature line from his days as an action hero: "I'll be back." Now Arnold Schwarzenegger's fight to protect his climate legacy is fuelling speculation that he is seeking a role as environmental defender on a bigger stage.

With just a week to go until Californians choose his successor as governor, Schwarzenegger has hurled himself into the campaign against the Proposition 23 ballot initiative brought by Texas oil refiners and the billionaire Koch brothers that would effectively kill off his climate change law, which requires 25% cuts in emissions levels by 2020.

He has called oil company executives and eco-entrepreneurs, visited investment bankers and held a fundraising event at his home, helping to build a huge cash advantage for the climate campaigners over the oil firms. He has lobbied Hollywood directors and used a Tweetcast to urge his 1.8 million followers to vote down the measure.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/28/arnold-schwarzenegger-proposition23-oil-climate-change

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see toon at top