A small detail about environmental monitoring in the Gulf

BP got a company to monitor the coastline, to see how bad the effects of their spill are there. The company, CTEH, is the same that found Chevron/Texaco not liable for the bad effects they caused while getting oil out of Ecuador.

See Texaco's report here

The House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming

Don't miss this. The United States' Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming:

http://globalwarming.house.gov/

With great info and live coverage of our government's moves with regard to climate science.

Valeria kindly sent me this:

California is in the process   of updating and revising its science curriculum to include much more   information about Climate Change pursuant to the Education and   Environment Initiative (EEI http://www.calepa.ca.gov/Education/EEI/default.htm)  .  This curriculum update is still in process but the California Air   Resources Board has posted the following page as an interim resource   for Teachers who want more curriculum on climate change now: http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/curriculum/curriculum.htm  Meanwhile, the final drafts of the new EEI curriculum (for K through   12)  is available for review here: http://www.calepa.ca.gov/Education/EEI/Curriculum/Default.htm 

Great stuff!

Cap-and-Dividend: Congress has a bill for climate change? really? yes indeed; a great start to one, at least!

THE CARBON LIMITS AND ENERGY FOR AMERICA’S RENEWAL (CLEAR) ACT:

How the CLEAR Act Works:

from:

http://cantwell.senate.gov/issues/CLEARAct.cfm

and more specifically:

http://cantwell.senate.gov/issues/CLEAR%20Act%20how%20it%20works.pdf

Beginning in 2012, the President sets the initial target amount of carbon from fossil fuels

that can be emitted to the atmosphere without disrupting the economy, using a gradually

declining “cap.” The concept is to gradually accelerate emission reductions.

 Revenue generated by carbon permits comes from producers and importers of coal, natural

gas and oil. In other words, a power plant that burns coal does not buy carbon permits; it is

paid by the mining company that mined the coal.

 Carbon permit prices will be determined by the bidding process among fossil fuel

companies participating in monthly auctions. Only entities with a compliance obligation are

eligible to participate in auctions—no Wall Street traders or speculators are allowed in.

 To minimize price volatility for consumers, fuel producers, and investors in new energy

technologies, a price collar governs carbon permit prices.

 75% of auction revenues are given back to consumers directly each month on an equal per

capita basis to offset energy cost increases.

o Average annual refunds for a family of four are estimated to be approximately

$1000.

o Sending auction revenues directly to consumers means 80% of the American public

will incur no net costs and the lowest income population will receive net positive

benefits. The remaining 20% percent – the highest income earners—will see less

than a 0.3% decrease in income.

The Attack on Climate-Change Science Why It’s the O.J. Moment of the Twenty-First Century by Bill McKibben

Bill McKibben- inevitably thought provoking.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175211/tomgram%3A_bill_mckibben%2C_climate_change%27s_o.j._simpson_moment/

How climate change is increasing our vulnerability to chemical pollution

from Joe Romm's blog, http://climateprogress.org (Joe Romm? U.S. News & World Report call Joe Romm "one of the most influential energy and environmental policymakers in the Obama era"

"I trust Joe Romm on climate" — Paul Krugman, New York Times)

Cloudy with a chance of toxics: How climate change is increasing our vulnerability to chemical pollution

December 3, 2009

"...At a November 19 briefing in Washington, researchers from the Harvard Center for Health and the Global Environment, representatives of the American Medical Association and American Public Health Association detailed the likely negative health effects of global warming. These are conditions, reported Paul Epstein, Associate Director of the Harvard center, to which children, the elderly, and poor are especially vulnerable.

Rising temperatures, ozone and sulfur dioxide levels, along with particulate and other pollutants released by forest fires, will create conditions that are expected to increase rates of hospitalization for respiratory diseases, among them pneumonia, asthma, and chronic lung disease...

...our reliance on fossil fuels has helped make petrochemicals the foundation for the overwhelming majority of our synthetic materials – manufactured substances that go into everything from computers to cosmetics. And petrochemicals have particularly problematic environmental and health impacts. To begin stem this tide, as we begin to shift away from fossil fuels and create new materials – alternatives to those with adverse environmental and health impacts – among the questions we must ask to help ensure new materials’ safety must be: how a substance behaves biologically – its impact on living cells – and how it behaves physically, including its possible contribution to the impacts of climate change."

Sheer scientific legitimacy isn't quite enough...

We'll (forgive the sexism inherent in Sir Houghton's quote which is a self-proving piece in itself, and) issue a heads up for this consideration:

Climate Change Scientists Losing 'PR War' to Vested Interests
A Nobel peace prize-winning Welsh physicist says climate change scientists are losing "a PR war" against sceptics with vested interests.

Published on Friday, February 12, 2010 by BBC News

Original article from BBC site here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/8511780.stm

Let's talk about that Himalayan glacier melt thing...

Climate Scientists Hit Out at 'Sloppy' Melting Glaciers Error

Experts who worked on the IPCC report say the error by social and biological scientists has unfairly maligned their work

by David Adam

...[E]xperts, who worked on the section of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report that considered the physical science of global warming, say the error by "social and biological scientists"...[made their work look bad. They said,]

"I am annoyed about this and I do think that WG1 [Working Group 1], the physical basis for climate change, should be distinguished from WG2 and WG3. The latter deal with impacts, mitigation and socioeconomics and it seems to me they might be better placed in another arm of the United Nations, or another organisation altogether."

Ouch.

The Original Guardian/UK Article here

'Goal post with venetian blinds' to trap CO2?

SO this and a few coal plants upwind huh? No substitute for the real thing. A real forest's ecological services go far beyond mere carbon sequestration...

Synthetic trees could purify air

By Molly Bentley, BBC News

The invention is confined to paper so far

A scientist has invented an artificial tree designed to do the job of plants.

But the synthetic tree proposed by Dr Klaus Lackner does not much resemble the leafy variety.

"It looks like a goal post with Venetian blinds," said the Columbia University physicist, referring to his sketch at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Denver, Colorado.

But the synthetic tree would do the job of a real tree, he said. It would draw carbon dioxide out of the air, as plants do during photosynthesis, but retain the carbon and not release oxygen.

the whole thing is at:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2784227.stm

Liftoff: between 386 to 389 parts per million of CO2 and counting

This is to collect recent articles and anything relevant to the teaching, learning and activities involving climate science :

...so here we go

Article from www.independent.co.uk : "thinktanks-take-oil-money-and-use-it-to-fund-climate-deniers"