November 24th, 2009

East Anglia hacking: is this the ultimate litmus test on environmental politics?

Posted by Harry Fuller @ 4:18 pm

Categories: Blogroll, air pollution, climate change, conservation, environmental health, global warming, law & politics, research

Tags: Hacking, Global Warming, Harry Fuller

It seems the response a group or person has to the East Anglia climate center hack job is a good indication of moral and political values.

The right-wing John Birch Society calls the revelations from the email “global warming fraud unmasked” and “ideology masked as science.”

Rush Limbaugh declares the emails were made public by “a whistleblower.” In Rush’s world the science of global warming is a hoax. “the whole global warming — manmade global warming movement is a fraud. It is a hoax. It’s made-up lies.”

One Fox news commentator says, “Usually academic research is completely ignored by the general public but in this case proposed regulations, costing trillions of dollars, are being based on many of these claimed research results. This coordinated campaign to hide scientific information appears unprecedented.”

Unprecedented? Guess he chooses to overlook the tobacco companies’ efforts to cleanse records connecting cigarettes and various cancers. And then there’s the usual claim that cleaning up the atmosphere is too costly. In fact, like scrubbing the gases that were causing acid rain, cleaning the air often creates more jobs and more profits as well as makes the planet healthier.

On the left there’s already a call for one scientist prominently represented in the emails ro resign, and a call for the data to be re-analyzed.

That scientist granted his first interview since the theft. He says there is no conspiracy. “That the world is warming is based on a range of sources: not only temperature records but other indicators such as sea level rise, glacier retreat and less Arctic sea ice.”
It’s likely there’ll be a United Kingdom government investigation, not just of the theft, but the actions of those at the East Anglia climate study center. Says one British scientist, “The selective disclosure and dissemination of the messages has created the impression of impropriety, and the only way of clearing the air now would be through a rigorous investigation. ”

The BBC quotes one American climate scientist on the issue of transparency:
“The need for public credibility and transparency has dramatically increased in recent years as the policy relevance of climate research has increased.”

That’s shorthand for “We’re asking countries to make the kind of effort that usually goes for war or hosting the Olympics, so let’s be careful.”

That opinion in favor of transparency coincides with the majority of ZDnet blog readers repsonding to our poll on the hacking affair.

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There’ll no doubt be much palaver in the U.S. Congress with Republican global warming skeptics there already calling for an investigation.

So far there’s no indication the hacking and publication of the docs from East Anglia will have any material effect on the Copenhagen talks.

November 24th, 2009

Climate scientists saying global warming trend is worsening

Posted by Harry Fuller @ 4:00 pm

Categories: Blogroll, Kyoto Protocol, air pollution, climate change, conservation, environmental health, global warming, law & politics, ocean, research

Tags: Scientist, Climate, Global Warming, Harry Fuller

Today a 64-page “Copenhagen Diagnosis” was released by a group of climate scientists from several nations. They say now it looks like the average global temps couldclimb more than ten degrees Fahrenheit this century. Sea levels could increase more than three feet.

This report concludes that CO2 levels in the atmosphere are near the top of what the IPCC thought was possible when they issued their most recent report in 2007. The group says work on reducing man-caused greenhouse gasemissions must begin now.

“Our available emissions to ensure a reasonably secure climate future are just about used up,” said Matthew England, co-director of the Climate Change Research Centre of the University of New South Wales in Australia.

The 26 scientists from eight countries also say the polar ice caps are melting faster than expected. That the need for international action is “urgent.”

The group urges international action at the Copenhagen talks that begin December 7.

November 24th, 2009

Intel encourages green tech at the university level

Posted by Heather Clancy @ 5:50 am

Categories: China, Russia, climate change, conservation, green tech, research

Tags: Team, Green Technology, Intel Corp., Team Management, Management, Heather Clancy

Spoke with one of the teams that participated last week in the Intel+UC Berkeley Technology Entrepreneurship Challenge. Although not strictly a green technology competition, there were a number of teams focused on solving environmental issues through innovative applications of technology.

One great example was the team I interviewed, which represented AMIREco, a year-old Russian venture that has developed a phosphate material that can be used to remove oil from soil or from other materials.

Igor Rozhdestvensky, senior partner of the venture from St. Petersburg, says the company recently earned a contract to test its idea at a site in Russia in conjunction with a large Russian company in his company’s target customer demographic. Rozhdestvensky and several other AMIREco partners traveled to the challenge event in order to gather ideas for how to develop and market their idea, as well as how to produce it in scale and not just small test batches. “Intel gave us an excellent course on entrepreneurship,” he says.

They also walked away from the event with some suggestions about how to overcome certain potential challenges with the materials, says the company’s research and development manager Oleg Rozhdestvensky.

Two other green-techie ideas represented during the competition were Treems from Technical University Munich, which is pitching a way of identifying, selling and managed protected trees or other forestry resources, and the New Green team from Shanghai, which was pitching cards (sort of like the ph tests you would do on the pool in your backyard) for detecting the presence of pesticides and bacterias in Chinese food products.

Here’s a link to more information about the winner of the challenge, a Chinese student development team called Ihealth that is working on biodegradable bone screws. The team was awarded $25,000 by Intel to help fund it idea. Here’s a list of all the teams that participated.

November 23rd, 2009

Atmospheric CO2 levels to hit million-year high

Posted by Harry Fuller @ 8:29 pm

Categories: Blogroll, air pollution, cars & traffic, climate change, energy, environmental health, fossil fuel, global warming, petroleum, research

Tags: Carbon Dioxide, Current Climate Change Theory, IPCC, Harry Fuller

American scientists say the CO2 levels in the earth’s atmosphere are going to hit levels not seen in the past million years. Current climate change theory says CO2 is one of the gases that is causing global warming.

Researchers say the additional CO2 entering the atmosphere is stable and can remain for thousands of years. As fast as plants absorb CO2, more is being added. The IPCC says the additional CO2 is partially due to human acticity, especially burning fossil fuels and wood.

The rise of CO2 in the atmosphere has been measured since 1998 when records were first kept. This past year has seen the CO2 concentration increase slightly faster. The World Moeteorlogical Organization says the increase began with the Industrial Revolution over 200 years ago. The three main greenhouse gases are CO2, methane and N2O (nitrous oxide). All three have both natural and man-made causes.

The IPCC projects that the current CO2 emission curve would raise global temps from 4.3 to 11.5 degrees Fahrenheit by century’s end. Temperatures are already 1 degree higher in the past century. The IPCC says this warming’s mainly due to the build-up of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

Such warming is predicted to change weather patterns with more extreme weather events. More drought and famine. Political and demographic disruption. More floods. Extinction of numerous plant and animal species. Rising sea levels along with the melting of land ice. Those are the IPCC predictions. Sounds like just another 2012 movie, doesn’t it?

November 23rd, 2009

Solar powered airplane: ready for take-off?

Posted by Harry Fuller @ 8:07 pm

Categories: Blogroll, Europe, aviation & aeronautics, energy, engineering, green tech, renewable energy, research, solar

Tags: Monitoring, Plane, Web Site Development, Web Technology, Internet, Harry Fuller

A solar powered airplane has passed its first set of tests. On the ground. The “Solar Impulse” has been undergoing runway tests in Switzerland. It’s powered by over 11-thousand solar panels on its very long wings.

Here on the Impulse’s website you can see videos of the plane. The goal is to fly it around the world. Omega, Solvay and Deutsche Bank are the main corporate sponsors of the project.
Image courtesy of Solar Impulse.

So far the plane has not left the ground, but both engines definitely run. Says the website, “At the controls of the HB-SIA, Solar Impulse test pilot Markus Scherdel cautiously took to the runway under the watchful eyes of the whole team, with computers monitoring the plane’s behaviour online via the embedded telemetric devices.
“This inaugural day out on the runway allowed low-speed runway testing with the prototype going through a series of acceleration and breaking manoeuvres, checking that the calculated and simulated strains are not being exceeded.”

November 23rd, 2009

EPA reports positive news on vehicle emissions, efficiency front

Posted by Heather Clancy @ 6:40 pm

Categories: air pollution, cars & traffic, climate change, conservation, energy, environmental health, green tech, research

Tags: Carbon Dioxide, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Carbon Dioxide Emission, Heather Clancy

For the first time, the Environmental Protection Agency is included carbon dioxide emissions information in its annual report, “Light-Duty Automotive Technology, Carbon Dioxide Emissions and Fuel Economy Trends: 1975 through 2009.”

The news is relatively positive: Not only has fuel efficiency increased for the fifth consecutive year — to an average of 21.1 miles per gallon compared with 21 miles per gallon — the agency reports that average carbon dioxide emissions have decreased since 2005. Since 2004, average carbon dioxide emissions have been reduced by 39 grams per mile, which is a reduction of about 8 percent. This reverses a trend from 1987 to 2004, when carbon dioxide emissions increased and fuel efficiency decline, according to the EPA.

Here’s the trends report.

Try to tell me this is a bad thing.

November 23rd, 2009

British scientists call for action in Copenhagen

Posted by Harry Fuller @ 5:55 pm

Categories: Blogroll, Europe, air pollution, climate change, energy, environmental health, global warming, law & politics, research

Tags: U.K., Copenhagen, Harry Fuller

Here’s a joint statement from the UK’s Met Office, the Natural Environment Research Council and the Royal Society on the the science of climate change ahead of the Copenhagen climate conference.

If you don’t care to read it, they’re saying: evidence of global warming is piling up, things are already deteriorating and humans should do something. Not mentioning the East Anglia hacking there in the UK, they say, “Climate scientists from the UK and across the world are in overwhelming agreement about the evidence of climate change, driven by the human input of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.”

The Copenhagen climate conference begins December 7th.

November 23rd, 2009

Could global warming be self-limiting?

Posted by Harry Fuller @ 10:46 am

Categories: Antarctic, Blogroll, air pollution, climate change, conservation, environmental health, green tech, ocean, research

Tags: Global Warming, Carbon, Harry Fuller, Antarctic, melting ice, glacier

Some recent research on the disappearing Antarctic ice sheet examined what happens AFTER the ice goes away. The conclusion: more water exposed to more sunlight means more phytoplankton and zooplankton absorbing more carbon. In other words: a natural, living carbon sink.

The scientists estimate the Antarctic Peninsula has lost nearly 24-thousand square kilometers of ice cover in the past half century.

November 22nd, 2009

East Anglia: one hacked U.S. scientist is hacked off

Posted by Harry Fuller @ 8:56 pm

Categories: Blogroll, Europe, Russia, air pollution, climate change, environmental health, global warming, law & politics, research

Tags: Scientist, Global Warming, E-mail, Online Communications, Harry Fuller

One American climate scientist says the hacked documents from the University of East Anglia are being used for propaganda, that only those hurting global warming scientists were released. The scientist found over 100 of his own emails posted online and said he was appalled. He went on to say the emails were posted out of context and some stolen material was not released.

The scientist also pointed out that the Copenhagen climate conference begins in two weeks.

Meanwhile global warming skeptics are having a fine time. The “Daily Mail” has this column on the stolen emails “…now come these leaked emails showing that the very scientists who were responsible for championing the hockey stick - all at the heart of the IPCC establishment - have been regularly discussing how the evidence could be manipulated to promote their cause.”

A right-wing American paper claims, “A partial review of the hacked material suggests there was an effort at East Anglia, which houses an important center of global climate research, to shut out dissenters and their points of view.”

Clearly this is going to be grist for much future name-calling and fear mongering. Is global warming threatening the future of civilization or is it just the figment of a global warming conspiracy?

Here are the three previous blogs on the East Anglia hacking:
The story breaks on Friday.
Early reaction.
More reaction.

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November 21st, 2009

East Anglia: Chapter 3

Posted by Harry Fuller @ 3:59 pm

Categories: Blogroll, Europe, climate change, environmental health, global warming, law & politics, research

Tags: Theft, Global Warming, Global Warming Skeptic, University, E-mail, Blogging, Online Communications, Internet, Harry Fuller

More projections and extrapolations based on the hacked emails and documents from the University of East Anglia.

A “Wall Street Journal” writer sees the scientists trying to hide data and reject Freedom of Information Act claims.

The global warming skeptics are perfectly happy to overlook the illegality of the hacking and theft of private emails, according to this blogger.

Police are investigating this data theft. The University says it cannot confirm that all the documents are genuine. The University’s public statement says the theft and release of the documents were done to deliberately undermine “the strong consensus that human activity is affecting the world’s climate in ways that are potentially dangerous.”

Copenhagen climate talks begin December 7, but it’s already been conceded that no binding agreement is likely to result from the talks.My first East Anglia blog. The second.

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