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Written by Ed Ring, EcoWorld
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| on Sep 11, 2008, 01:24 PM E.S.T.
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In a story today in the Los Angeles Times entitled “To slow global warming, install white roofs,”
author Margot Roosevelt reports on a recent study that concludes, if
you take it at face value, that all we have to do is paint all of
our urban rooftops and pavements white and “the global cooling effect
would be massive.”
“According to Hashem Akbari, a physicist
with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a 1,000-square-foot
roof — the average size on an American home — offsets 10 metric tons of
planet-heating carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere if
dark-colored shingles or coatings are replaced with white material…
Globally, roofs account for 25% of the surface of most cities, and
pavement accounts for about 35%. If all were switched to reflective
material in 100 major urban areas, it would offset 44 metric gigatons
of greenhouse gases.”
It would be interesting to understand exactly
what Akbari means by this. Is this 44 metric gigatons per year? If
not, over what period of time would reflective roofs collectively
offset these 44 gigatons? Considering all the nations of the world
combined are still emitting somewhat less than 30 gigatons per
year, this is a very impressive statistic, no matter how you slice it.
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Written by Rob Port, Say Anything blog
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| on Sep 11, 2008, 12:50 PM E.S.T.
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Because the Farmer’s Almanac says so:
DUBLIN, N.H. — The Old Farmer’s Almanac is going further
out on a limb than usual this year, not only forecasting a cooler
winter, but looking ahead decades to suggest we are in for global
cooling, not warming.
Based on the same time-honored, complex calculations it uses to
predict weather, the Almanac hits the newsstands on Tuesday saying a
study of solar activity and corresponding records on ocean temperatures
and climate point to a cooler, not warmer, climate, for perhaps the
next half century.
“We at the Almanac are among those who believe that sunspot cycles
and their effects on oceans correlate with climate changes,” writes
meteorologist and climatologist Joseph D’Aleo. “Studying these and
other factor suggests that cold, not warm, climate may be our future.”
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Written by EDGAR GÄRTNER, Wall Street Journal
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| on Sep 11, 2008, 12:47 PM E.S.T.
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Following Russia's invasion of Georgia, a vital link
between Europe and the energy resources of Central Asia, energy
security is back at the top of Europe's agenda. For years now, many
Europeans thought that a major part of their future energy security
might come from wind turbines and solar panels. Industry, too, has
suggested that this may be the case: At this summer's World Petroleum
Congress in Madrid, most major oil and gas companies presented new
plans for big renewable energy projects. But this renewables push,
particularly when it comes to wind, is probably just a very clever
short-term business strategy that will not improve Europe's
geopolitical situation.
Wind turbines generate electricity very irregularly,
because the wind itself is inconsistent. Therefore wind turbines always
need backup power from fossil fuels to keep the electricity grid in
balance. Gas turbines are the best way to do this. They are able to
respond quickly and push power production when wind generators stop
suddenly. They can be turned on and off almost instantly, whereas
traditional coal-fired plants need to be maintained in a very
inefficient standby mode if they are to respond to large fluctuations
in power demand.
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Written by Nature.com Blog
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| on Sep 11, 2008, 12:15 PM E.S.T.
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Criminal damage in the name of climate change is not a criminal offence, according to a shock ruling from a British court.
A jury yesterday acquitted six Greenpeace activists [pictured] who claimed that
the threat of global warming was a ‘lawful excuse’ for the damage they
caused while protesting at a coal power plant (see this blog post for background).
Climate change scientist James Hansen had previously backed
the six: he released a statement declaring “We will need our
Mercedes-driving lawyer friends to tell us if the verdict has greater
significance -- but the jurors were common people, not politicians.
“The main point, that the government, the utility, and the fossil
fuel industry, were aware of the facts [of climate change] but
continued to ignore them are more generally valid worldwide. It raises
the question of whether the right people are on trial.”
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Written by Anthony Watts, Watts Up with That
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| on Sep 11, 2008, 12:06 PM E.S.T.
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I’ve been wrestling with this topic for hours now as to how to best
present it in this forum. I finally decided to simply just write it as
I see it.
It has been an ugly day for law and common sense in the world.
Vandalism in the name of ecological causes is now “ok” thanks in part
to Dr. James Hansen, of NASA GISS coming to the defense of
eco-vandals. See the second story below. Now, encouraged by this
“victory” that gives a sanction to eco-vandalism in the UK, how many
more shall we see? And if one of these people is injured and kills
themselves or others in the process of the next stunt? What then? Who
is responsible?
Certainly I want a cleaner world, and better energy resources with
focus on the future. But, sanctioning vandalism for these causes is not
the way to get there. What do I want from NASA as a taxpayer? Science,
solutions, and inspiring ideas turned into reality. I don’t want
political activism in the name of science.
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Written by John Nicol, Canada Free Press
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| on Sep 10, 2008, 03:15 PM E.S.T.
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There is no evidence, neither empirical nor theoretical, that carbon dioxide emissions from industrial and other human activities can have any effect on global climate. In addition, the claims so often made that there is a consensus among climate scientists that global warming is the result of increased man-made emissions of CO2, has no basis in fact.
The results of accurate measurements of global temperatures continue to be analysed by the international laboratories, now with 30 years experience in this process while a large number of scientists continue to perform high quality research. The results of these activities clearly demonstrate a wide range of errors in the IPCC projections.
Among the more obvious of these errors was the prediction of global warming expected by modelling of climate for the last three years. The actual measurements of global cooling in 2007/2008, flew directly in the face of these IPCC models. It would be difficult to find a more definitive illustration of an experimental error.
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