News: ‘Actors & Narratives’ Archive
On Thursday, President-elect Barack Obama called for doubling production of alternative energy in the United States over the next three years as part of his “American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan.” In a speech officially rolling out the plan, he also set a goal of retrofitting more than 75 percent of federal buildings and 2 million homes to make them more energy-efficient.
via The first step toward recovery | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist.
“The European Union’s new figurehead believes that climate change is a dangerous myth and has compared the union to a Communist state.
The views of President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic, 67, have left the government of Mirek Topolanek, his bitter opponent, determined to keep him as far away as possible from the EU presidency, which it took over from France yesterday. ”
FriendsOfScience.com denies human agency in climate change, presenting themselves using a scientific argument and tone. For example:
‘MYTH 1: Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate.
FACT: Accurate satellite, balloon and mountain top observations made over the last three decades have not shown any significant change in the long term rate of increase in global temperatures…’
Watching the video, it seems they are attributing climate change in part to the same extra terrestrial energy which gave the fantastic four their extraordinary powers: cosmic rays. They argue that when the solar wind is low, more cosmic rays reach the earth which can be shown to be correlated with cloud formation.
See the alledged scientific video:
via Friends of Science.
From Energy@Berkeley: Solutions for Global Warming
18:05 Energy efficiency and conservation is and will remain the lowest hanging fruit for the next several decades, there’s no question about this.
…
Free markets fail when there is what’s called a commons problem. So what’s a commons problem ? It’s a common shared resource. The fish in the ocean is a common shared resource, and so when one country or one sector doesn’t have total control over this resource, they might think “well, I gotta fish what I can fish, because someone else might over fish and cheat me out of my fair share”, let me put it bluntly, that’s typically what happens , that also happens in air and water pollution issues, sharing of water resources across borders, and the climate change issue and greenhouse gasses is the ultimate commons problem.
The choice of Steven Chu provides strong clues as to the direction of Obama’s upcoming Green New Deal:
21:15 Buildings are 40% of the energy consumption in the United States … Many many progressive architects tell me you can save a factor of two in energy which would have a payback in five years or less.
From Select Committee Oceans Hearing:
“Americans told us they wanted:
safe seafood, healthy seafood, number one,
number two clean beaches,
number three, abundant wildlife,
number four stable fisheries -no more of this boom and bust and closures,
and fifth, vibrant coastal communities.
Now I think that’s a really nice summary and synthesis of the way Americans think about oceans. And I think that they truly understand that they appreciate them, they want these things. What they don’t understand is that all of those things depend on healthy, productive, and resilient ecosystems and that’s not what we’re seeing now, we’re seeing serious degradation and disruption and depletion, and climate change is going to exacerbate that very, very seriously.” ~ Jane Lubchenco
Jump ahead to 4:45 for Jane Lubchenco’s part.
From John Holdren’s 7/7 Harvard Talk: Global Warming: What do we know and should do.
“I actually thought the biggest shortcoming in Kyoto achetecture, besides focusing on absolute reductions from 1990 which has a lot of problems, was that if focused altogether too much on targets and not enough on mechanisms. …in a way, focusing on exactly where you need to be by exactly what time is not as important as figuring out what you’re going to do to bend the curve away from this business as usual growth that we’re now on.”
“This climate change challenge is certainly one of the most interdisciplinary problems that society has ever faced in the way it links and requires understandings from science, from engineering, from economics, from policy analysis, from politics, in order to understand both what is needed and how to get there.”
Hopes are high for an Obama-led climate strategy, but when it comes to true details there are still more questions than answers. Andrew C. Revkin has stationed himself at the intersection of science, technology, and policy for two decades, watching closely and writing like a madman…
via The TH Interview: Andy Revkin—Climate in the Obama Age : TreeHugger.
From his speech at the Poznan climate talks December ’08 full text here:
We must link poverty reduction with the sharp reduction of CO2 emissions, including reduced emissions from deforestation with reform of the clean development mechanism and adequate funding for adaptation that is essential and must be financed even though obviously mitigation and prevention are the primary task because without them adaptation would ultimately prove to be impossible.
… Our children have a right to hold us to a higher standard when the future of all human civilization is hanging in the balance. They deserve better, and politicians who sit on their hands and do nothing to confront the greatest challenge humankind has ever faced. This crisis does offer us the chance to experience what few generations have had the privilege of experiencing, a generational mission, a compelling moral purpose, a shared cause and the opportunity to put aside the pettiness and conflict of politics and narrower concerns to embrace a genuine moral generational mission. I believe that it is time between now and the gathering in Copenhagen 1 year from now for heads of state to become personally involved in meeting several times between Poznan and Copenhagen. I don’t think that they can stay disengaged from this process any longer.
In 2008 interviews with ABC News, The Guardian, and in a separate op-ed, Hansen has called for putting fossil fuel company executives, including the CEOs of ExxonMobil and Peabody Coal, on trial for “high crimes against humanity and nature”, on the grounds that these and other fossil-fuel companies had actively spread doubt and misinformation about global warming, in the same way that tobacco companies tried to hide the link between smoking and cancer. He also blamed lobbyists for inaction on climate change, stating: “It’s the fact that money talks in Washington, and that democracy is not working the way it’s intended to work.”
via James Hansen – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
In his own words: