Saturday, 27 July 2013

Global Power Shift: Phase 1 Report-Back

http://stories.350.org/if-somebody-tells-you-that-young-people-dont-care-about-the-future-tell-them-to-watch-this

Spread the truth about climate change

"Our challenge is to fight denial where it's happening and spread the truth about man-made climate change. Reality Drop finds climate news from around the web and connects it with the most relevant science." (Reality Drop)

Reality Drop: https://realitydrop.org

About: https://realitydrop.org/#about

Global Warming Is Very Real (Rolling Stone)
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warming-is-very-real-20130912

Climate Change Report From UN Introduces Purple Color To Depict Worsening Climate Risks (Associated Press)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/13/climate-change-report-un_n_3918823.html

Rupert Murdoch's Newspapers Mislead Public On Climate Change and Environment (DeSmog Blog)
http://www.desmogblog.com/rupert-murdoch-s-newspapers-mislead-public-climate-change-and-environment

Dollars for Deniers: Big Oil Funds Climate Science Denialism (Daily Kos)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/01/26/1182365/-Dollars-for-Deniers-Big-Oil-Funds-Climate-Science-Denialism/

The 5 stages of climate denial are on display ahead of the IPCC report (The Guardian)
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/sep/16/climate-change-contrarians-5-stages-denial?CMP=twt_gu

Thursday, 20 June 2013

‘The Critical Decade 2013: Climate Change Science, Risks and Responses’

Steffen, W. & L. Hughes, 2013, Two years ago in its report The Critical Decade: Climate science, risks and responses, the Climate Commission stated that this decade, 2011-2020, is the decade to decisively begin the journey to decarbonise our economy, thereby reducing the risks posed by climate change. One quarter of the way through the Critical Decade, many consequences of climate change are already evident, and the risks of further climate change are better understood. To meet the widely accepted policy goal of limiting climate change to a temperature rise of no more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels, global society must virtually decarbonise in the next 30-35 years. This means that most of the fossil fuel reserves must stay in the ground.

Download/s: http://climatecommission.gov.au/report/the-critical-decade-2013
http://climatecommission.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/The-Critical-Decade-2013_Website.pdf

Monday, 18 February 2013

Cap on Capitalism? Jeremy Grantham on BBC World Service Global Business

A colleague at UNSW shared this interesting and disquieting interview by the BBC's Peter Day with investment expert Jeremy Grantham on taking a long-term view on capitalism and the global economy: "[T]he assumptions which have powered the industrial revolution for two centuries are looking pretty threadbare. So, how do we manage technological progress in a world of finite resources?" (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0148yp8)

Here is an excerpted passage I transcribed, in my view worth meditating on: @ 23:00

"We need to reconcile ourselves to the fact that in the long run you cannot have physical growth in a finite world. You can have qualitative growth, but you can't have physical growth. All you have to do is be slightly familiar with the compounding problem. I used to talk about 4.5% was the GDP growth rate of the entire planet in physical output in 2005 and 2006, and I was saying, if the ancient Egyptian empire had kept that up for 3,000 years, a cubic metre of physical possessions would have compounded to more than our ... solar system could handle ... A full of physical possessions at 4.5% compounded for 3,000 years, go and check it, it's correct, you can't compound at the kind of loony numbers we've been talking about. Now you can have qualitative improvements, you can have even better iPads, you can have even smaller television sets that project on the wall in three dimensions, you can do that, but you cannot have compound increase in physical output, nor can you use your resources in a compound way." (Jeremy Grantham on BBC World Service Global Business)

(http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0148yp8)

Thursday, 24 January 2013

Charting the garbage patches of the sea

A colleague Dr Erik van Sebille from UNSW's Climate Change Research Centre has completed a study of ocean "garbage patches", and has found that in some regions the amount of plastic outweighs that of marine life. Source: http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/7/4/044040

Related article:

Yachtsman describes horror at ‘dead’, rubbish strewn Pacific Ocean: Ivan MacFadyen says he was shocked by absence of sea life during his 37,000km voyage between Australia and Japan

Whole article in the Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/oct/21/yachtsman-describes-horror-at-dead-rubbish-strewn-pacific-ocean

Saturday, 19 January 2013

Monday, 17 December 2012

Storms of My Grandchildren's Opa


Today I came across this essay written by NASA Goddard's and Columbia University Dr. James E. Hansen. He says, "We have tremendous potential for innovation that will be spurred once there is a rising carbon price. New products, more jobs. As the carbon price rises, tipping points will be reached where low-carbon or no-carbon alternatives phase in rapidly, leaving fossil fuels in the ground." Thought provoking. I'm sharing the link to his intriguing webpage (http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/), as well as the link to the essay mentioned. (http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2012/20121213_StormsOfOpa.pdf) Worth a visit. Especially if you care about your children or grandchildren. See also: http://www.nationofchange.org/newsmaker-memo-interview-pioneering-climate-scientist-james-hansen-1366899686

Monday, 10 December 2012

Climate change math


Insightful further reading:

Climate change math
"It’s simple math: we can burn less than 565 more gigatons of carbon dioxide and stay below 2°C of warming — anything more than that risks catastrophe for life on earth. The only problem? Fossil fuel corporations now have 2,795 gigatons in their reserves, five times the safe amount. And they’re planning to burn it all — unless we rise up to stop them."
(cited verbatim from http://math.350.org/)

Global Warming's Terrifying New Math
Three simple numbers that add up to global catastrophe - and that make clear who the real enemy is
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719

Divest from fossil fuels now
To Stop Climate Change, Students Aim at College Portfolios
Article published in the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/05/business/energy-environment/to-fight-climate-change-college-students-take-aim-at-the-endowment-portfolio.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hpw&&pagewanted=all