Climate Climate & Energy

The scoop on the new IPCC climate-change report

What is the IPCC, and what’s the deal with its new report? When climate change emerged as an important environmental issue in the late 1980s, the world governments’ first response was to establish an international body to produce summaries of scientific knowledge of climate change. That body is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The […]

The 411 on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Unless you’ve been living under a rock — if so, way to live simply! — you’ve probably heard a smidgen about the summary of a hefty climate report released to the public today by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In fact, you’ve probably heard the acronym “IPCC” bandied about with some regularity in the […]

Now We’ve Done It

Humans “very likely” changing the climate, says long-awaited IPCC report A few weeks of leaks stole some thunder, but the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has released the first installment of its long-awaited fourth report, and the news is — well, not news, thanks to those meddling leakers. But let’s pretend. The news is out! […]

He predicted climate change in the ’60s

With poetic license: Come gather ’round people Wherever you roam And admit that the waters Around you have grown And accept it that soon You’ll be drenched to the bone. If your time to you Is worth savin’ Then you better start swimmin’ Or you’ll sink like a stone For the clime, it is a-changin’. […]

Another silly debate around the IPCC report

News stories have been reporting that the IPCC will make a statement about the relation between global warming and hurricanes:

During marathon meetings in Paris, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change approved language that said an increase in hurricane and tropical cyclone strength since 1970 "more likely than not" can be attributed to man-made global warming, according to Leonard Fields of Barbados and Cedric Nelom of Surinam.

The blogosphere is already awash with discussion about this (see here and here), and I expect all the usual suspects to weigh in on this soon.

Frankly, My Dear, We Don’t Want These Dams

Federal decision may be first step toward dam removal on the Klamath River Four hydroelectric dams along the Oregon-California border must ease fish passage to earn license renewal, says the Bush administration. The decision may spur the largest dam-removal project in history, as installation of fish ladders and other devices could cost far more than […]

Fetch Me Another Rouge Taureau

Scientists, officials hash out climate report wording in Paris Call it the cram session from hell: about 500 scientists and officials are spending the week cooped up in Paris, undertaking a word-by-word edit of a major report on climate change. The first installment of the fourth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, due Friday, is […]

It’s all about inequality

Blogging about the new Elizabeth Kolbert article in the New Yorker, David writes:

But then, there's the nagging thought. Lovins can always talk and explain and persuade better than we can -- he's a friggin' genius -- but the intuitive question keeps returning: if there were so many errors, and so much benefit to be gained by correcting them, and it's all so easy ... why isn't it happening? Something doesn't fit.

Roberts quotes Kolbert expressing similar thoughts:

Lovins's promise that apparently intractable problems -- oil dependence, global warming, nuclear proliferation -- can be profitably resolved is both the great appeal of his approach and its biggest liability. Much of what he recommends sounds just too good to be true, the econometric version of "Shed pounds by eating chocolate!"

This is a good question, and one of my early posts on this blog partially answered it. Energy demand has low long-term price elasticity (PDF). (That's economic jargon for, "people tend to overlook a lot of profitable opportunities to save energy.") That, in turn, implies that Amory Lovins has spotted something real. We have overlooked, over a period of decades, profitable opportunities at market prices -- opportunities that were profitable even without carbon taxes or emissions caps. "Market failure" is not a strong enough term for a system that could consistently go so wrong.

Umbra on trusting scientists

Hi Umbra, We’ve had some bizarre weather in New England, and more and more people are wondering if it’s due to global warming. On NBC News, they had a 30-year veteran of NOAA state flatly that it’s not global warming, it’s El Niño. As a greenie/leftie I got angry, thinking here goes the MSM denying […]

And it ain’t pretty

Read this and weep. When we have the Governor, the Lt. Governor, the Speaker of the House, and a senior member of the Texas legislature denying the truth of global warming, we are in bad trouble.

I wrote and sent in this letter in response to the article: