Yesterday the International Energy Agency released their annual World Energy Outlook. Since many world governments take their cues from the agency’s figures, it’s well worth paying attention to what the IEA are saying. This year, they’re warning about a climate change lock-in. It’s not a term I’ve seen used much, but it’s a useful one. [...]
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Skeptic’s favourite confirms a warming trend
When it comes to climate change, I’m prepared to accept that some people have differing views on why the earth might be warming. Those that hold out that the earth hasn’t warmed are a different matter. Plenty of such people exist, and many of them justify their views with criticisms of the data sources that [...]
Chinese whispers and climate skeptics
Last week saw a rather bizarre spate of news stories about the weather, and particularly about Britain facing a new ice age. Needless to say the claim was gleefully repeated by the climate “skeptic” blogs, and it provides a rather interesting case study in internet noise. Here’s a sample skeptic headline: British mainstream news media [...]
How much of your carbon footprint is government services?
After last week’s post on carbon offsetting, Byron asked for some clarification on the amount of our carbon footprints that can be attributed to government services. Since it’s not information that’s readily available online, I thought it was probably worth re-posting my reply as a separate post. Each of us has a carbon footprint, a [...]
A positive angle on carbon offsetting
Carbon offsetting is the practice of reducing CO2 emissions by carrying out carbon positive action somewhere else. I could pay a company to plant three trees on my behalf in Costa Rica, and by balancing their carbon absorbing capacity against my carbon emitting activity, the net result is a zero carbon footprint for me. There [...]
Hell and High Water, by Alastair McIntosh
A couple of years ago I heard Alastair McIntosh speak about his new book, Hell and High Water: Climate Change, Hope and the Human Condition. He was one of the most compelling speakers I’d heard in a long time, and I bought all his books at the end of the talk – except the one [...]
The climate change policy tracker
Here’s a neat online tool from Britain’s largest business lobbying group, the Confederation of British Industry. CBI has called for the government to take climate change seriously, and has developed the Climate Change Policy Tracker to illustrate progress in a snapshot view. The tracker is divided into four categories: Power, transport, industry, and buildings. For [...]
The Climate Reality Project
The Climate Reality Project is planning ’24 hours of reality’ on the 14th of September, aiming to set the record straight on climate change. See what you make of this: # I’m generally in favour of anything that sets the record straight on climate change, but I’ve got to say, I don’t hold out much [...]
Paint your roof white
If you’ve ever crossed a hot car park in summer, you know about albedo. Dark colours absorb heat, while lighter colours reflect it. That’s one of the principles behind the idea that a melting arctic may be a self-reinforcing feedback loop: relective ice melts and is replaced by dark water, which holds heat better and [...]
Crowdsourcing the weather of the past
Did it rain on the 12th of March, 1863? It’s a good question. In order to better understand our climate and its weather systems, we need as much data as possible. The more we know about the weather in the past, the better we can predict the weather in the future. But where do you [...]
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