Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Nicholas Stern I got it wrong on climate change – its far far worse
Lord Stern, author of the government-commissioned review on climate change that became the reference work for politicians and green campaigners, now says he underestimated the risks, and should have been more "blunt" about the threat posed to the economy by rising temperatures.In an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Stern, who is now a crossbench peer, said: "Looking back, I underestimated the risks. The planet and the atmosphere seem to be absorbing less carbon than we expected, and emissions are rising pretty strongly. Some of the effects are coming through more quickly than we thought then."
The Stern review, published in 2006, pointed to a 75% chance that global temperatures would rise by between two and three degrees above the long-term average; he now believes we are "on track for something like four ". Had he known the way the situation would evolve, he says, "I think I would have been a bit more blunt. I would have been much more strong about the risks of a four- or five-degree rise."
He said some countries, including China, had now started to grasp the seriousness of the risks, but governments should now act forcefully to shift their economies towards less energy-intensive, more environmentally sustainable technologies.
"This is potentially so dangerous that we have to act strongly. Do we want to play Russian roulette with two bullets or one? These risks for many people are existential."
Stern said he backed the UKs Climate Change Act, which commits the government to ambitious carbon reduction targets. But he called for increased investment in greening the economy, saying: "Its a very exciting growth story."
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Renewables vs nuclear energy What is better for climate change
Renewable energy certainly seems like the better solution than building more nuclear power plants, and this is not just because of the recent Fukushima accident. The accidents such as Fukushima and Chernobyl are rare but when they occur they are usually accompanied by massive environmental damage which is usually long-lasting, and difficult to clean up.
Nuclear power plants are extremely expensive to be built because they need to comply with number of different safety measures and also because they are technologically complex. Even choosing site for nuclear power station is very difficult because communities usually oppose having plant nearbye. Renewable energy technologies have been constantly dropping in prices, and its only matter of time before wind and solar become cost-competitive with fossil fuels, in fact if you calculate the total damage in environmental, social and health costs due to climate change and pollution then renewable energy is already better in terms of costs than fossil fuels.
The technologies used for nuclear power generation could be also used for the development of nuclear weaponry, and we must also not discount the possibility of terrorist attack, just imagine what could happen if some radical terrorist organization would take over the nuclear power plant.
Clean energy race is well on, and all countries of the world have been seriously considering their renewable energy options, in order to choose the one best suited for them. In many countries future nuclear power development has been pretty much abandoned and the golden age of nuclear power generation seems to be well behind us.
In the last 10-15 years, from 2000 upwards global renewable energy capacity has more than doubled. In 2012, in United States, renewable energy accounted for 56% of new electricity generation.
It would be wrong to say that we should abandon nuclear energy straight away because nuclear energy accounts to significant share of electricity generation in many countries of the world. The solution is to focus primarily on renewable energy sources such as solar and wind when discussing our energy future. Nuclear power had a pretty good run, and once current nuclear power plants end their lifetime we should consider replacing them with some of various renewable energy solutions.
Friday, September 26, 2014
Climate change episode of Frozen Planet wont be shown in the U S
An episode of the BBCs Frozen Planet documentary series that looks at climate change has been scrapped in the U.S., where many are hostile to the idea of global warming..
British viewers will see all seven episodes of the multi-million-pound nature series throughout the Autumn.
But U.S. audiences will not be shown the last episode, which looks at the threat posed by man to the natural world.
It is feared a show that preaches global warming could upset viewers in the U.S., where around half of people do not believe in climate change.
Saturday, August 30, 2014
Marcotts Climate Reconstruction For the past 11 000 Years
Back in 1999 Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann released the climate change movements most potent symbol: The "hockey stick," a line graph of global temperature over the last 1,500 years that shows an unmistakable, massive uptick in the twentieth century when humans began to dump large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Its among the most compelling bits of proof out there that human beings are behind global warming, and as such has become a target on Manns back for climate denialists looking to draw a bead on scientists.Now its gotten a makeover: A study published in Science reconstructs global temperatures further back than ever before -- a full 11,300 years. The new analysis finds that the only problem with Manns hockey stick was that its handle was about 9,000 years too short.