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Recent report published projecting values of sea-level rise
As anyone who reads my posts knows, I am a big fan of the IPCC reports. They are the best summary of what the scientific community knows about climate change and how confidently we know it.
A recent article (subscription required, sorry) in Science suggests that some scientists view the IPCC as overly cautious:
In the latest report, its fourth since 1990, the IPCC spoke for scientists in a calm, predictably conservative tone (Science, 9 February, p. 754). It is, after all, an exhaustive, many-tiered assessment of the state of climate science based exclusively on the published literature. In IPCC's Working Group I report on the physical science of climate, 600 authors contributed to an 11-chapter report that drew 30,000 comments from reviewers. The report was in turn boiled down to a 21-page "Summary for Policymakers" (SPM). Its central projection of sea-level rise by the century's end -- 0.34 meter -- came within 10% of the 2001 number. And by getting a better handle on some uncertainties, it even brought down the upper limit of its projected range, from 0.89 to 0.59 meter.
The SPM did add that "larger values [of sea-level rise] cannot be excluded." Whatever has accelerated ice-sheet flow to the sea, the report said, might really take off with further warming -- or not. "Understanding of these effects is too limited" to put a number on what might happen at the high end of sea-level rise, it concluded. Lacking such a number, the media tended to go with the comforting 0.34-meter projection or ignore sea level altogether.I have two conflicting views of this.
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A short, powerful video
Greenpeace UK passes along this short, powerful video drawing attention to the dangers of biofuels:
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Dam it all
TucuruÃ, Brazil's second largest dam has many times the GHG emissions of a natural gas plant of the same capacity -- though there is fierce argument over whether that output substantially exceeds what a natural watercourse would produce. (The emissions are due to methane from trapped organic matter in the dam.)
There is now a proposal to tap that methane to run gas turbines and produce electricity, reducing the emissions many times, since CO2 from burning the methane has a much lower impact than the methane itself. It would also close to double the electrical output from the dam. This seems very close to an acknowledgment that critics of methane from dams are correct. Outside of estuaries, I don't know many natural water courses that might be tapped in such a way. I have to admit that it is an ingenious solution to the problems of dams as methane sources.
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Find ITT on eBay
Ecuador offers to keep oil in the ground for compensation Ecuador offered to play “Let’s Make a Deal” this week, suggesting that it could afford to keep a pristine area from oil drilling if developed nations and green groups ponied up some cold, hard cash. “We are willing to do this sacrifice, but not for […]
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Wisdom from the heart of coal country
It's not news when I criticize Congress's proposals to subsidize coal-to-liquids (CTL). After all, my focus is avoiding serious global warming, which CTL would only make more likely.
But when two newspapers from traditional coal regions say "no" to CTL, that is a man-bites-dog story.
The Kentucky Herald-Leader has a great headline:
Liquid coal a new version of snake oil: Don't subsidize energy plans that would worsen global warming.
The Roanoke Times of the coal-region of Southwestern Virginia has an equally strong headline:
Billion-dollar boondoggle: Coal-to-liquid technology is expensive, harmful to the environment and inefficient. The federal government should take no part in subsidizing it.
Wisdom in the media on these issues is rare. Kudos to both papers for putting the long-term national interest above short-term local interests.
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Carbon tax v. cap and trade — the hottest arguments since McCartney v. Lennon
The argument over the best climate change mitigation policy is gathering steam. Busting out all over. Topping the charts. All the kids are dancing to it. Before getting to the latest, though, it’s worth making a simple point: either cap-and-trade or a carbon tax could reduce GHG emissions if properly designed and implemented; either could […]
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The Whine of the Motor
Big Auto pleads for smaller gains in fuel efficiency The heads of Ford, GM, and Chrysler returned to Washington, D.C., yesterday to try to convince Congress not to hike fuel economy standards. Next week, the Senate will consider a proposal to raise average fleet-wide mileage to 35 miles per gallon by 2020 from the current […]
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We’re Sorry, Angela
G8 participants report climate-agreement highs and lows We can’t possibly do justice to the intricacies of this week’s G8 summit in this space. So brace for some injustice: German Chancellor Angela Merkel wants the G8 to agree to cut greenhouse-gas emissions 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. U.S. President George Bush doesn’t dig that […]
