Choosing Electricity Generation Technologies

Choosing Electricity Generation Technologies

HT David Roberts @drgrist via twitter

WWII-Style Rationing to Fight Global Warming?

According to the London Daily Telegraph, scientists recommend limiting the use of electricity and stopping economic growth in developed countries.

WWII-Style Rationing to Fight Global Warming?


Stopping economic growth? I doubt any sane person would suggest this! We need a healthy economy to finance the transition off fossil fuels.
But the denier crowd is out to scare you to death. Remember that. They want you to think dealing with climate change is worse than just letting it happen.

But check in at Climate Progress to get an idea of how bad doing nothing can be

Royal Society special issue details ‘hellish vision’ of 7°F (4°C) world — which we may face in the 2060s!

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Update... evidently a scientist was stupid enough to suggest this:

In one paper Professor Kevin Anderson, Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, said the only way to reduce global emissions enough, while allowing the poor nations to continue to grow, is to halt economic growth in the rich world over the next twenty years.

Cancun climate change summit: scientists call for rationing in developed world

Idiot. How is the technology needed to mitigate excess GHG going to be developed if we crush the "rich world"?

Clever

Watch Cancun live

View Live and On-demand webcast

I love the internet.

Just walk away?

Stuck in a deep and stubborn recession

Possible peak oil has come and gone without official recognition

Possible abrupt climate change underway

The recession prevents real action on the two fronts we should be addressing with unprecedented vigor. Both fronts have the same enemy: fossil fuels.

We ordinary, working class citizens don't know what peak oil looks like. We did notice the $4/gal spike a couple years back... but that was attributed to speculators. It's a no-brainer that oil will cost more as the demand outstrips supply. There are abundant alternative oil sources, but they cost more to exploit.

Nobody, not even the most educated and insightful climatologist can tell us what abrupt climate change looks like. But I'll go out on a limb and say the onset of melting tundra is what it looks like.

We bought into the American dream. Buy the biggest house you can afford and fill it with stuff. The stuff crusade went crazy. Stuff we bought last month was obsolete. Nobody wanted old stuff, so into the landfills it went. Even the Goodwill got picky. Now we're trapped. Or are we?

Can we just walk away? Gather our like thinking friends and family and migrate north? Sell what we can, leave what won' sell?

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HT Lou @9
Facing the consequences

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A billion people will lose their homes due to climate change, says report

Still looking out to 2100... need more information about the next two decades.

Jeremy Rifkin on "the empathic civilization"

Chilean Economist Manfred Max-Neef on Barefoot Economics, Poverty and Why The U.S. is Becoming an "Underdeveloping Nation"

We speak with the acclaimed Chilean economist, Manfred Max-Neef. He won the Right Livelihood Award in 1983, two years after the publication of his book Outside Looking In: Experiences in Barefoot Economics. "Economists study and analyze poverty in their nice offices, have all the statistics, make all the models, and are convinced that they know everything that you can know about poverty. But they don’t understand poverty," Max-Neef says.

Stephen Schneider: Waking up to climate change

"There is no such thing as a Republican flood or Democratic wild fire"

Front-Line City in Virginia Tackles Rise in Sea

This from the N.Y. Times.

Who cares about our children and grandchildren

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Good post at Huffpo

The scientific debate is not between deniers and those who can prove that releasing massive amounts of warming gases will make the world warmer. Every major scientific academy in the world, and all the peer-reviewed literature, says global warming denialism is a pseudo-science, on a par with Intelligent Design, homeopathy, or the claim that HIV doesn't cause AIDS. One email from one lousy scientist among tens of thousands doesn't dent that. No: the debate is between the scientists who say the damage we are doing is a disaster, and the scientists who say it is catastrophe.

The Next Crash Will Be Ecological -- and Nature Doesn't Do Bailouts

We need to get the government's attention. Maybe next Earth Day (April 22 2011) we can go on strike.

Abrupt Climate Change?

An abrupt climate change occurs when the climate system is forced to transition to a new state at a rate that is determined by the climate system itself, and which is more rapid than the rate of change of the external forcing.

Wiki

Potential causes of a sudden transition (tipping points) include

• methane released by melting tundra
• decreased albedo due to melting sea ice in the arctic

We have a near record low in actic sea ice in the summer of 2010, and methane bubbling up out of melting tundra. But have we passed tipping points that will radically accelerate climate chaos?

With the dramatic weird weather of 2010 it's so in in your face that you'd have to be asleep to miss the fact that something is happening and it is happening very very fast. Or maybe not. Maybe 2011 will be more normal, and lull us into thinking that global warming is a gradual process, and although it increases the odds of having disruptive weather, it will not suddenly look like we live on a different planet.

It's odd that I can't find any recent reports on our current risk of abrupt climate change. The ones I find seem to be older than 5 years. We all know our climatologists have been very diligent in their efforts to better our understanding of climate, so reports 5 years old could be very stale.

But the truth is out there.
A stunning year in climate science reveals that human civilization is on the precipice

How bad is it? Please... somebody... tell us? Don't tell us about 2050 or 2100... tell us about 2015, 2020.

Ed Moses of NIF on Clean Fusion Power in this Decade

HT JShell at Debating new strategies for curbing global warming

Climate Change Debate: Will Green Put us in the Red?

Methane leaking out of the permafrost

My worst fear is that we don't act in time to prevent a run-away positive feedback that dooms us.

"In my view, methane is a serious sleeper out there that can pull us over the hump," said Robert Corell, an eminent U.S. climate change researcher and Arctic specialist. Corell, speaking by telephone from a conference in Miami, said he and other U.S. scientists are pushing Washington to deploy satellites to gather more information on methane leaks.

Leaking Siberian ice raises a tricky climate issue [The Associated Press
By ARTHUR MAX Associated Press]

Fabulous article. Read the whole thing.

Lord Nicholas Stern a climate change economist

He sees an opportunity to a new industrial revolution
(video, can't embed:)
Q+A: Guyon Espiner interviews Lord Nicholas Stern


He also sees there will be social, peer pressures to be carbon neutral... like that which occurred with smoking. Boycotts and stuff like that.

HT Grist

I'm starting feel hopeful.

Preparing for peak oil

Gail the Actuary paints a bleak picture
Economic Impact of Peak Oil Part 3: What's Ahead?

I think the consequences of peak oil are going to start very gradually, and the first thing we'll see is prices rise across the board, especially gas at the pump. Alternative sustainable liquid fuels eventually become competitive... and we will adapt to a more expensive and frugal society.

Ludicrous business practices will end. We will not ship raw materials to China for processing, only to have it shipped back as some final product.
Imported products will be too expensive for most of us.
We won't fly much anymore... too pricy. Airlines will go under right and left. We won't take long road trips for the same reason. So we'll stick closer to home. And we'll form barter clubs to help us weather the collapse of parts of our oil dependent economy.

The housing market will not recover. Nobody can afford todays prices because everything else costs so much.  People will start to walk away from their homes. Migrations not seen since the dust bowl of the 1930s will result in huge camps of refugees forming where ever they can survive. You will see Hummers rusting along side the road.
Cholera and other disease will take a toll.
It'll be like a thousand Katrinas. Our governments will not be able to cope.

Carpentry, horticulture, sewing, cooking... the homely skills will be valued.
We won't throw anything away that can be fixed, salvaged or re-purposed. The blacksmith will be the most respected person in town. The glut of horses of 2010 will turn into a shortage.

There may be jolts along the way, but for the most part it will happen over a few decades. The very rich will be able to afford energy. The rest of us, not so much.

In a couple of centuries innovation will allow us to pull out of this dark age. We'll form stable sustainable communities. It will be a good life, but there will be a lot fewer of us.

One thing that must be preserved is the internet. Without it, total collapse of modern civilization is almost assured.

Ok, that's me rambling and speculating...

There are more articulate and expert people who have studied this issue.
Summary of the Four Climate/Energy Descent Scenarios

And

Imagine

Imagine that you live on the 5th floor
And your office is either in your home or on the 2nd floor, or you work for one of the stores on the first floor, or maybe only a block away
And a mini-mall including a mega mart grocery is on the 1st floor
And on the roof you have a small garden where you can grow your own vegetables.
A doc in the box is a block away
A subway/train depot is two blocks away... it will take you where you need to go. It'll take some time, but that's better than sitting in traffic... and besides, gas is $10/gal and you can't afford that.
You don't need to own a car, but you can sign up to share one should you need one. Save up to go somewhere that's not evolved to the point your community has.
Your building has been designed or retrofitted to be energy efficient, so you feel good about the impact you have on the environment.
All the space that used to be paved has been returned to nature. Your community is surrounded by national reserves.
The air is clean
The water is clean
The river bed has not been replaced by a concrete. It's a nice place to picnic or stroll.


Basically the evolved human has encapsulated himself... to minimize his impact on nature. And we're all better off.

Imagine?

This is a world after peak oil. This is a world that has dealt with climate change. This is my dream.

With a dead ocean comes a dead planet

SEATTLE — States with coastal water that is becoming more acidic because of carbon dioxide should list them as impaired under the Clean Water Act, the U.S. Environmental Agency said

EPA: States Should List Coastal Waters As Impaired Due To Rising Ocean Acidification
This is a good start, albeit late.

People often forget how much we depend on the ecosystem to survive. With a dead ocean comes a dead planet.
HT CaliforniaYume via twitter

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Off topic for this blog

Pistole had been scheduled to speak to Congress long before John Tyner became a mini-celebrity for recording himself telling TSA agents, "Don't touch my junk." That incident, as well as other revelations about a series of run-ins over the invasive body scans and enhanced pat-down techniques have led to a public outcry against the TSA's new security methods.

TSA Chief to Get Congressional Pat-Down
I just want to mention the TSA issues, groping 3 year olds, threatening folks who find the methods offensive...etc.

Perfect example of a government system gone amok. Have we no shame? Has fear caused us to completely disregard our individual need for dignity and respect? I was put off flying before this, because of the delays... now I wonder what it would take to get my to fly again.

Ecocide

Red List

If I had my way the fact that we're killing off species faster than ever before, including all the previous 5 major extinction events, would be front page news, using the largest font, and it would appear every day.
Something like this:
In memoriam:

• Golden Toad (1989)
• Zanzibar Leopard (1996)
• Po'ouli (2004)
• Madeiran Large White (2007)
• Pyrenean Ibex (2000)

Extinct in Our Lifetime — 11 Species We've Lost Forever
I don't know who is keeping track of individual extinctions.
But here's a blog Exit Stage Right dedicated to it.

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The Sixth Great Extinction: A Status Report [2004]

The average extinction rate is now some 1,000 to 10,000 times faster than the rate that prevailed over the past 60 million years. Throughout most of geological history, new species evolved faster than existing species disappeared, thus continuously increasing the planet's biological diversity. Now evolution is falling behind

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The worst impact of climate change may be how humanity reacts to it

In particular it notes that one fifth of the world's remaining tropical forests lie within 50km of human populations that could be inundated if sea levels rise by 1m. These forests would make attractive sources of fuel-wood, building materials, food and other key resources and would be likely to attract a population forced to migrate by rising sea levels. About half of all Alliance for Zero Extinction sites – which contain the last surviving members of certain species – are also in these zones.

We are killing people

We’ve passed the threshold of safety and security, and each additional ton of carbon, each year emissions rise, each year concentrations do not drop — we are killing people

Copenhagen Prognosis: The ‘Almost Overwhelming Challenge’ Of A Carbon-Free Civilization
Well said!


See also
Why Did The Debt Commission Ignore The Carbon Budget?


And check in at Climate Progress where the comments are especially good

They believe they can fly

Reading the headlines these days, I can’t help but repeat this truism: If you jump off the top of an 80-story building, for 79 floors you can think you’re flying. It’s the sudden stop at the end that tells you you’re not. It’s striking to me how many leaders and nations are behaving today as though they think they can fly — and ignoring that sudden stop at the end that’s sure to come.
...


Closer to home, America’s climate-deniers mounted an effective disinformation campaign that made “climate change” a four-letter word in the Republican Party. This undermined efforts to get a clean energy bill — the sort that might break our addiction to oil and take money away from the people our soldiers are fighting in the Middle East. And all of this happened in 2010, which is on track to be the Earth’s hottest year on record. So here’s the math: 98 climate scientists out of 100 will tell you that man’s continued carbon emissions pose the risk of disruptive climate change this century. Two out of 100 will tell you it doesn’t. And “conservatives” today tell you to bet on the two. If the climate-deniers are right — but we combat climate change anyway — we’ll have slightly higher energy prices but cleaner air, more renewable energy, a stronger dollar, more innovative industries and enemies with less money. If the deniers are wrong and we do nothing, your kids will meet the sudden stop at the end.

I Believe I Can Fly
Read the whole thing

He mentions

Our priorities now are to mitigate the recession that was set in motion under Bush and to put the country on a path to sustainable economic growth.

Sustainable economic growth can only be achieved by development, not getting bigger.

Six Feet Under

As Glaciers Melt, Scientists Seek New Data on Rising Seas


Scientists are very conservative. They are reticent about predicting how a system will behave unless they have a lot of confidence in their understanding of the underlying processes. But in the coming years, I predict the estimates for sea level rise this century will increase. Because science is a system, and that's how that system works.

Missing the point?

The National Geographic Daily News blog cites a new International Energy Agency report that pins 2006 as the year in which oil production rates attained a pace that will not be again matched. Or, in other words, 2006 was the year of “Peak Oil.” That projection is just one scenario of several looked at by IEA, but in their view this scenario is the most likely outcome.


The Daily News blogger admits that the “peak” is not expected to be followed by significant declines – rather, IEA projects a leveling out of conventional oil production at levels just below 2006′s peak for at least the next 25 years and minor increases in unconventional oil production and minor increases in natural gas liquids production. In short, the IEA’s report more resembles CERA’s undulating plateau story than peak anything. Yet we are told the “age of cheap oil is over” and the consequences of relying on on natural gas liquids and unconventional fuels are “stark.”


A more reasonable characterization of IEA’s most likely scenario is that it estimates oil production will remain steady for the foreseeable future at around the level attained in 2006. Scary? Rioting in the Streets? Stark?

The author of this piece fails to address the fact that  if oil availability plateaus while demand increases (exponentially)  prices will increase until nobody can afford it.
Since everything, and I mean everything, depends on oil to get manufactured and delivered to whomever needs it, as oil prices rise so will everything else. Run-away inflation.


In other words, the author fails to appreciate the exponential function.

It is a well known fact that the United States has been importing Oil since the 1970's because the home oil production cannot meet the rising demand. According to 2009 yearly average, the U.S. Crude Oil consumption is around 21 million barrels a day and home production is only around 5 million. Why are things escalating so fast? Why are resources running out at such speed? We will try to answer these questions on this article. There is no simple answer but it is all pretty much related to one single concept: exponential growth.

United States Oil Consumption and Reserves: A matter of exponential growth and finite resources


And of course this youtube video which I have watched a gazillion times.

At the current pace of research and development, global oil will run out 90 years before replacement technologies are ready, says a new University of California, Davis, study based on stock market expectations

New forecast warns oil will run dry before substitutes roll out


HT The Climate Post: Climate scientists: It’s war

The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class

The vernerable Elizabeth Warren

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Reusable Grocery Bags Found To Contain Lead

We've seen this before. In an attempt to fix something, we make it worse.

DDT to fight typhus and malaria nearly kills off many species of birds.

MTBE in the water supply



But I don't know how you can get worse than the plastics that accumulate in our oceans and on our beaches. Bottled water, however, is the biggest offender.

The Tampa Tribune tested more than a dozen bags from major grocers and found certain bags sold in Winn-Dixie and Publix stores had lead levels that concerned health officials. In a preview of a Sunday article, the newspaper's website reported that some bags had enough lead they could be considered hazardous waste if residents disposed of them in household trash.

 Winn-Dixie, Publix Reusable Grocery Bags Found To Contain Lead, Some Enough To Be Considered Hazardous Waste: Tampa Tribune

Not sure it's that bad

But this site, this man, and these ideas are definitly provocative!
collapsenet.com




HALLOWEEN AND THE ELECTION: WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE? from CollapseNet.com on Vimeo.


You know, if it is this bad, I think more of us will seek refuge in sustainable cities, built by the brilliant and foresighted, not reverting to the olden days.

If you have Netflix, watch Collapse, it's riveting!

Future eaters

Future eaters. I like it.

Shimkus brought in “a theologian and leaders of the Lutheran church” to “testify as witnesses” as if to prove that their connection to God trumped science. He sought to convince those present at the committee hearing that global warmng was not going to destroy the planet. He even said, “The Earth will end only when God declares it's time to be over. Man will not destroy this Earth. This Earth will not be destroyed by a Flood.” Meaning, all mankind’s fears about melting polar ice caps should be ignored; God will get his best people on it and restore Earth to its original state soon.
...
The intent of these climate zombies or future eaters is clear: they think industry profits or the contents of religious stories should trump a person’s right to a clean planet. And, by casting doubt on science, they demonstrate a callous insensitivity toward the right not just future generations of Americans but future generations of the world should have to live free and prosper on Planet Earth

Republican Plan for Climate Change: “God Will Save Us -by Kevin Gosztola ”


Meanwhile reality continues to follow the laws of nature


NASA reports 2010 hottest year on record so far



A little KO


House Energy Committee to fall into BP’s hands?

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Money can't make it right

The federal government is going out of its way to assure the public that seafood pulled from recently reopened Gulf of Mexico waters is safe to consume, in spite of the largest accidental release of crude oil in America's history.

Exclusive: Multiple independent lab tests confirm oil in Gulf shrimp

It is important to protect the economy in the gulf. BP does not have enough money to 'make it right'. In fact money can't make it right. Only Mother Nature can do that, and she will, in time. This situation is a perfect example of how much we depend on nature to support our way of life, and how we can totally screw ourselves by taking that so for granted we make stupid decisions like being lackadaisical about safety in an inherently very dangerous endeavor such as deep water drilling.

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The Bush administration obfuscated scientific climate change studies we tax payers paid for. The motive? To protect the oil industry. By doing so, they may have sentenced our children and grandchildren to a hellish world. Not only the 8 wasted years, but the years it will take to overcome the damage done by the Bush era propaganda machine. That's not carelessness, that's a crime against humanity.

Watching Everything's Cool on Netflix.

The population bomb exploded

It did, but it just didn't look like what we expected it to. We humans were not the victims, the rest of the ecosystem was.
Now we'll see how humans do without the ecosystem. I predict, not too good.

How much would you pay?

How much would you pay for a tank of gas? How high would gas prices have to go before you simply could not afford to drive to work?
If that happened would you have an alternative? Bus? Train?
How close to a grocery store do you live? You realize that all the food there got there by truck. The prices of food will go up if oil goes to, say, $150 a barrel.

So there you are, comfortable in your suburban home that's 20 miles away from your work, and 5 miles from Von's. You can't find a buyer for your SUV, and you cannot afford to buy a more ecofriendly car. You can't move because every home buyer is looking for a place really close to stuff.

Does any of this sound familiar? Yes, it just happened. Gas at $4/gal was enough for folks to try to unload their SUVs, but there were no buyers. House values plummeted... and we're not out of this yet. We're hanging on, waiting for things to get better. When it does, it would be in our best interests to recognize the future is gloomier than the past, and position ourselves to weather the storm.


Gas prices will go up as the supply declines. Since oil is used ubiquitously in our economy, all prices will go up.  That's likely to happen in the next decade or so. It may happen very fast. It will be a permanent condition.

My next car

2010 Aptera 2e Review and Prices


This will take some getting used to. I like horsepower... like 200 or more, but in order to reduce my carbon foot print, I will select the sort of car that will not use up more than my share of carbon.

Oil and the End of Globalization

Jeff Rubin: Oil and the End of Globalization
-ASPO.tv


HT The Oil Drum

Watch the Lawrence Rice talk too!

The age of peak everything

Malthusian catastrophe

A Malthusian catastrophe (also phrased Malthusian check, Malthusian crisis, Malthusian disaster, or Malthusian nightmare) was originally foreseen to be a forced return to subsistence-level conditions once population growth had outpaced agricultural production. Later formulations consider economic growth limits as well. The term is also commonly used in discussions of oil depletion. Based on the work of political economist Thomas Malthus (1766–1834), theories of Malthusian catastrophe are very similar to the Iron Law of Wages. The main difference is that the Malthusian theories predict what will happen over several generations or centuries, whereas the Iron Law of Wages predicts what will happen in a matter of years and decades.

An August 2007 science review in The New York Times raised the claim that the Industrial Revolution had enabled the modern world to break out of the Malthusian growth model,[1] while a front page Wall Street Journal article in March 2008 pointed out various limited resources which may soon limit human population growth because of a widespread belief in the importance of prosperity for every individual and the rising consumption trends of large developing nations such as China and India.[2]

Because of technological advances the predictions Paul R. Ehrlich made back in the '60. failed to materialize on schedule.


So far we continue to put off the Malthusian catastrophe by virtue of technological advances and perhaps reducing population growth rates.  But not only do we need to figure out how to deal with peak oil and other natural resources, we need to also deal with the consequences of zero population growth and even population decline. Peak population.
The next 30 years will be the age of peak everything.

To reach out to those that deny this is real, I say unto you, it's your ass on the line too. Your economic survival is at risk whether or not you 'believe'. This issue isn't about green, it isn't liberal, it isn't ecology or environmentalism... it's about survival as a civilization.



Found the movie Collapse


If even a fraction of what this guy says is true we're frog soup.
Michael Ruppert is too extreme for you? How about General Wesley Clark?




Here's an explaination why Ehrlich's predictions never materialized.

Yemen, a preview of what is to come

Yemen

Watch the full episode. See more Need To Know.

Buried in this piece is that Yemen is about to run out of oil and water. That's important to this story because the stability of the government is at risk.


Does this sound familiar?

May I suggest we pay attention to what happens here?  It will be a preview of what is to come. If we can see it coming, will we act?

The laws of physics are liberal plots

There are people who think the laws of physics are liberal plots, conceived to grab political power from Big Oil and Coal and give it to sustainable energy industries. Leaders in the oil and coal industries pay real money to create them.

For example:

But the tide seems to be turning. The Climate Conference fiasco in Copenhagen, the Climategate scandal and stabilization of worldwide temperatures since 1995 have given rise to growing doubts about the putative threat of "dangerous global warming" or "global climate disruption." Indeed, even Phil Jones, director of the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit and one of the main players in Climategate, now acknowledges that there has been no measurable warming since 1995 despite steadily rising atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Climate change no longer scares Europe by Hans Labohm

I would laugh out loud at stuff like this but so many are following these pied pipers.
But the oil and coal industry leaders must realize they can't win this game... that in the end they will have to reinvent themselves.  Oil will peak in the next few years, which means the hallowed 'growth' will be impossible to achive in the oil industry.  As for coal...I guess I believe that some black swan event will occur, that the world leaders will finally finally understand how dire our situation is, and act as if we were at war with CO2.

Regardless of what happens, the future is going to be a bumpy ride.

And since all the other bloggers posted this, I will too. Classic Maddow

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While browsing I came across this site, and watched a couple of videos:





And my take away is that we climate hawks are doing it all wrong!
Maybe Obama is using these techniques to try to get somewhere with people I have no hope for.

Why Environmentalists Must Accept Nuclear

Do you see why I think we're frog soup?

There's this:

NEW YORK, New York, November 5, 2010 (ENS) - Funding of $100 billion a year by 2020 to help developing nations deal with climate change is "challenging but feasible" a high-level advisory group convened by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today.

$100 Billion a Year Climate Change Financing 'Feasible'

And then there's this:

Following last night’s election, over 100 freshmen Republicans will take their seats in the 112th Congress. These GOPers come from disparate backgrounds, but they are united by their adherence to the extreme wing of conservative ideology.



A ThinkProgress analysis has found that the incoming GOP freshman class is rife with legislators who not only oppose climate change legislation, but deny that manmade global warming even exists

REPORT: Half the 2010 GOP freshman class are climate science deniers


Do you see why I think we're frog soup?

Out of Balance

Watched Out of Balance on Netflix. I recommend it.
In the documentary Ross Gelbspan accuses Exxon of crimes against humanity. That was back in 2006. I hope this mime gets amplified. I hope some of the perpetrators of the climate denial machinery end up in court and are made accountable for the death and destruction that will result from delays in addressing climate change.


Out of Balance




More along these lines:
US Press Coverage: A Damning Betrayal of Public Trust

Personally, given my own professional background, I don’t really see the captains of big coal and big oil as the primary villains. They’re doing what they’re paid to do – bring us abundant and affordable energy while protecting their industries – albeit with deplorable and dishonest means. To me, the primary villains are our news outlets whose negligence and indifference are bringing us to the brink of catastrophe.

Read the whole thing.

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HT The Cost of Energy via twitter

So what is the future for the climate change story in the mainstream media?


The forecast is grim. Around 4,000 reporters went to Copenhagen, Denmark; only 150 attended follow-up negotiations in Bonn, Germany, and some senior correspondents say they might not go to Cancun, Mexico, in December for the next UN climate change summit. Some believe climate change as a story is finished. New York Times blogger, Andy Revkin, says it is now turning into an energy and business story.

A stormy forecast for climate change reporting

I have met the enemy, and he is us.

Don't look for the government of the great United States of America to effectively address CO2 emissions any time soon.

It is mysterious to me how anybody can claim they can cut taxes and balance the budget and get away with it. Somehow they mesmerize voters into believing the cuts required to actually do that will only hurt the other guy. At any rate, to focus on taxes and the deficit in these times is ignoring the elephant in the room. The government we've just elected  is littered with anti-science climate change deniers who are unlikely to effectively address the greatest problem mankind has ever faced.

It is appropriate to be alarmed when facing extinction.

Meanwhile floods affect millions

There is no Frodo

We have a great common enemy
And we are addicted to it.
It is called Oil
It is called Coal
Our use of and dependency on these fossil fuels has wounded Earth
Like a cancer in its early stages, the symptoms are subtle
But the potential for this disease is so horrific many are in denial

My instincts scream to me to save my family
But I don't know how!

You see it is not so simple as it is in the stories
There is no Frodo to throw a ring into the abyss

It is appropriate to be alarmed when facing extinction.

However, it may be that climate change has lead to major evolutionary advances. We can hope.
If this is the case, if we rise to the challenge, this time could be the greatest achievement ever for mankind.