Still Going Strong!

I've been doing this blog for 6 months now. Not bad going: I didn't think I'd be able maintain the output this long.

It's been an interesting journey. I've learnt a lot about the climate change issue and the exciting things that have been going on it's name.

All sorts of stuff on it's way for solar power, electric cars, fuel cells, possible key climate change bills and more.

I can also see the writing on the wall for carbon emissions: Even if the politicians can't get their act together on a worldwide agreement, economics will do the job anyway as the price of increasingly hard to find fossil fuels goes up and a renewables 'war' breaks out between China and (mainly) the U.S.

Fingers crossed, the economic route is fast enough to cut emissions to required level.

2 Degree C Rise May Be Too Much

A study conducted by Stanford University climate scientists has concluded, amongst other things, that a 2 degree rise in temperature across the globe could be devastating to US health and agriculture (See here).

You might remember that 2 degrees is the upper limit of what most governments of the world are aiming at with their climate policies. Time for a re-think?

Solar Impulse Completes Flight

After 26 hours in the air, the solar powered plane I mentioned yesterday, has landed safely. What's more, after the night time part of the flight, they still had enough stored energy in the batteries to fly another 3 hours in darkness.

The next step will be a transatlantic flight.

Solar Plane Takes Off for 24 hour flight

Solar Impulse, a completely solar powered plane, took off today for the start of a 24 hour test flight. Yes, that's right, they intend to fly through the night. The plan is to charge the batteries during the day part of the flight and use that power to keep it going through the night. More here.

The ultimate aim is to do a round the world trip in a couple of years time and show the potential of solar power to aviation and transport generally.

I think solar powered airliners are decades away yet but this might be a good way of saving fuel in the nearish future.

Let's not forget what an amazing feat of engineering this looks like being: An aircraft that can take off, fly for a day and night, then land again without using a drop of fuel! That's just incredible.

'Climategate' University Exonerated....Again

The third and final inquiry into so-called 'Climategate' has cleared the University of East Anglia (the Uni at the centre of this non-event) of any dishonesty. In other words, claims that the emails hacked from their computers proved that they were fiddling climate change data were wrong. See here for more.

These inquiries have shown Climategate up for what it really is: A cynical, political act designed to scupper any chance that the Copenhagen conference might have had of being a success.

Predictably the climate deniers are already calling "white-wash!" because they didn't get what they wanted from any of these inquiries. There are even plans to kick-off their own inquiry (We can guess the result of that one!). But any reasonable person should believe the findings of 3 independant commitees.

The BBC Looks At the Climate Change Debate

The long running and much respected BBC documentary series Panorama took a look at Climate Change this week in a program entitled "What's up with the weather?". It makes for an interesting summary of the current state of play.

You can find it here on-line for a week until about the 4th/5th of July. [UPDATE: It will now be available until 28th June 2011!]

For those haven't got the time to watch the 30 minute program or didn't get to view it in time, this is a summary:

• The first half of the program goes into public opinion on the debate: That a sizeable proportion of the public ( 40% in Britain) have doubts that climate change is happening. The reasons given are various like the recent bad winter, 'climate-gate', unreliable weather forecasts, and the IPCC's mistake in saying that Himalayan glaciers would be gone by 2035.

• They also touched upon how heated and personal the debate had become between the two sides of the debate.

• In the second half of the program, they went to the experts on both sides to find out where they actually differed. Surprisingly, they agree that climate change is happening, that Mankind is a part of that, the Greenhouse Effect is real, and CO2 is the reason. Where they differ is over how much we're influencing climate change (Though even the sceptics say the majority think we are having a large effect) and what we should do about it. Sceptics say we shouldn't bother spending huge amounts on cutting emissions and should be putting our efforts into R&D and adapting to the change.

So it all comes down to what we think the future will bring and what we should do about it. Do we gamble the lives of future generations on the minority scientific view or work on seeing off the threat predicted by the majority?

US Climate Bill Mark 2

In an earlier posting I said that the US government was going to attempt to get a fairly feeble climate bill through this year. The prospects of getting even this watered down effort passed weren't great. Yet it was crucial it was successful so that things could move forward on a global front.

But this was all before a certain oil rig started spilling it's guts in the Gulf.

Now the Democrats feel the time has come to draft a bill that will set targets and timelines for moving the US towards a low emission economy and away from it's dependence on fossil fuels. This not only makes sense from a global warming point of view but, crucially, it makes sense for America's energy security. And, it sounds like that's how the Democrats are going to try to sell it to the Republicans they need with them to get the bill through. The Democrats seem confident they can do this too.

This is good news. Fantastic news in fact. If they have the time to both draft and pass this bill before the mid term elections (When the Democrats are likely to be weakened) this could represent a turning point in the battle against climate change.

(More here & here).

Answers To Climate Sceptic Arguments

Ever wondered what the main climate sceptic arguments are? Well here are over a hundred of them with the counter arguments.

You know what? I wish there was a website where you could just read the various articles on climate change - pro and con - without the obvious bias that these sites always seem to bring with them. Trouble is, it's all become so politically charged, there doesn't seem to be such a creature.

How can us ordinary folk come to an informed decision over this crucial issue if everyone - websites, scientists, bloggers, newspapers, politicians etc - is following their own agenda.

Japan To Pass Climate Bill

The Japanese are aiming to get a climate change bill passed before the next UN climate conference in Mexico this December.

The bill will lead to emission cuts of 25% over 1990 figures by 2020. That's more than the current EU target! They also hope to bring in a mandatory emissions trading system that will effectively force their industry to cut emissions whilst stimulating investment in renewable energy technology.

The driver behind all this seems to be that Japan are looking to reduce their dependence on increasingly expensive fossil fuels whilst attempting to catch up with the Chinese in terms of renewable energy tech. Basically, the Chinese are threatening to dominate the entire renewables market, so Japan wants a piece of the action. More here.

Hottest May Since Records Began

The headline says it all really. That's 4 out of the first 5 months this year that have been the warmest! A worrying trend if I ever saw one. More here.