 |
Parting company with McKibben and, maybe, Hansen: The nation’s top climate scientist, NASA’s James Hansen, apparently now believes “the safe upper limit for atmospheric CO2 is no more than 350 ppm,” according to an op-ed by the the great environmental writer Bill McKibben. Yet while preindustrial levels were 280, we’re now already at more than 380 and . . . → Read More: More on the magic 350 Remember This: 350 Parts Per Million (emphasis added): This month may have been the most important yet in the two-decade history of the fight against global warming. Al Gore got his Nobel in Stockholm; international negotiators made real progress on a treaty in Bali; and in Washington, Congress actually worked up the nerve to raise gas mileage . . . → Read More: A new magic number: 350 Directors Dan Gold and Judith Helfand have delivered a delightful oddity in Everything’s Cool: A Toxic Comedy About Global Warming!. It’s not an environment-themed documentary in the more traditional, serious, hammer-points-home mode of An Inconvenient Truth, but neither is it a comedy as claimed. The content ranges from infuriating (thank you, Senator Inhofe, et . . . → Read More: Movie review: Everything’s Cool Last night I attended the Rochester Sierra Club’s airing of the movie Crude Impact, which seems to have gone very well. They filled the room (about 80 people, I’m guessing), and there was some good discussion afterwards. One point that an audience member brought up is something I’ve agonized over on this site numerous times, the . . . → Read More: Wizards and teachers Time for a reminder of something I first talked about roughly seven months ago, The Inhofe Scale, which a kind correspondent asked about in e-mail today. Forgive me while I quote the page from March of this year and old, pre-WordPress version of this site extensively and without change, but with an update at the . . . → Read More: Resurrecting The Inhofe Scale Here’s a transcript of Julian Darley’s recent interview with Chris Skrebowski. I highly recommend you take a few minutes and read the whole thing. But just to tease you a bit, I’ll include some excerpts. On the EWG report: Julian Darley: This is at least a dramatic a report as has been released, I think, by any official . . . → Read More: Skrebowski interview I’ve been digging into the minimum operating levels of gasoline thing again. (See prior post.) And things got a little interesting. I Googled “minimum operating level” once more, and found a Congressional Research Service report, “Oil and Gas: Supply Issues After Katrina”. As it turns out, the Google link is to a PDF file . . . → Read More: Minimum operating levels, one more time I’m still struggling to get my hands on a reliable number for the MOL (minimum operating level) of gasoline for the US. The article that jump-started my decision to look into this is Peak Oil Crisis: Minimum Operating Levels Redux by Tom Whipple. Matt Simmons refers to MOL in Commentary: Gasoline Picture Looking Grim for Dog Days of . . . → Read More: Minimum operating levels, again Energy Tech Stocks has posted the first, small piece of a six-part series about Matt Simmons’ current views of our oil situation. It says, in part: To meet the challenge of future energy requirements, Simmons told EnergyTechStocks.com that one of the first things that must be done is to institute a policy of “conservation production.” He . . . → Read More: Paradigm shift happens From Hansen et al. 2007 [web page for the article "Climate change and trace gases"]: Paleoclimate data show that the Earth’s climate is remarkably sensitive to global forcings. Positive feedbacks predominate. This allows the entire planet to be whipsawed between climate states. One feedback, the “albedo flip” property of water substance, provides a powerful trigger mechanism. A . . . → Read More: The climate tipping point |
|
|
Copyright © 2003-2012 The Cost of Energy - All Rights Reserved |
||
