A project by the Public Interest Research Centre
SolutionsRichard Hawkins 21 September
There’s an emerging economic consensus – in parallel with the scientific consensus – that investing in mitigation and adaptation is good value for money.
Joe Romm points out an overlooked conclusion of a recent IIED study by Martin Parry and others on the underestimated cost of adaptation, Romm notes:
In the “aggressive abatement” case (450 ppm), the mean “Net present value [NPV] of climate change impacts” is only $410 trillion — or $275 trillion with adaptation. So stabilizing at 450 …
GeneralTim Holmes 17 September
Much commentary on politicians, and the political establishment in general, is heavily loaded with the rhetoric of corruption, personal accusation and recrimination. Politicians are accused of being greedy, corrupt, and contemptuous of the public. Many of these charges no doubt contain more than a grain of truth. Yet such personal accusations tend to miss the point.
Governments and political parties operate within an institutional framework that, while not entirely determining their actions, maintains intense pressures, and sets the limits of what can be achieved – the boundaries of the politically possible. As political analyst and former Downing Street insider James Humphreys suggests, the best way to understand how such political institutions work is to place oneself in policymakers’ shoes – what are the obstacles, blockages and pressures constraining your behaviour?
GeneralRichard Hawkins 1 September
Hat-tip to Greenfyre.
GeneralRichard Hawkins 28 August
A great new campaign from down under, Safe Climate Australia:
In their words:
Safe Climate Australia is a non-government organisation formed and steered by a foundation group of concerned scientists, community and business leaders with a shared understanding of the scientific and moral imperatives for emergency action to restore a safe climate.
Visit: www.safeclimateaustralia.org
SolutionsTim Holmes 1 August
Imagine for a moment that all manmade greenhouse gas emissions ceased tomorrow (go with it). What would be the likely consequence?
Unfortunately, the answer may be: runaway climate change.
As the Climate Safety report points out, the melting of the Arctic summer sea-ice is accelerating beyond even the worst-case predictions of the IPCC, potentially disappearing in the next decade. As Walt Meier of the National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) puts it, “for a number of reasons, we’re on …
ScienceRichard Hawkins 21 July
The Arctic Sea Ice Outlook has just been updated for July. It’s based on a synthesis of 16 estimates which utilise a range of different projection methods. They note that there is “no indication that a return to historical levels will occur”.
Big surprise!
The full range of estimates range from 4.0-5.2 million square kilometers, the record low in 2007 was around 4.3 million square kilometres (2008 was 4.7). Most estimates therefore fall between the record lows in 2007 and 2008, …
