The EU’s emissions trading scheme has so far failed to deliver any reductions in CO2 emissions while at the same time strangling energy-efficiency investment in the electricity sector. Read more here.
Threats of Carbon Trade Wars
The Chinese government has warned that a proposed US border tax on carbon sensitive materials “smells of protectionism” and could spark retaliation from developing countries. Read more here.
Quiet Sun Shouldn’t Baffle Astronomers
THE Sun is the dimmest it has been for nearly a century. There are no sunspots, very few solar flares – and our nearest star is the quietest it has been for a very long time.
That’s according to a BBC report by Pallab Ghosh, which goes on to explain these observations are baffling astronomers … the Sun normally undergoes an 11-year cycle of activity. At its peak, it has a tumultuous boiling atmosphere that spits out flares and planet-sized chunks of super-hot gas. This is followed by a calmer period… Last year, it was expected that it would have been hotting up after a quiet spell. But instead it hit a 50-year low in solar wind pressure, a 55-year low in radio emissions, and a 100-year low in sunspot activity.
Defining the Greens (Part 4)
ALL Greens have a deep passionate desire to make sure we live well without doing serious damage to the environment, but apart from that are a motley lot impossible to accurately define.
This is one of the messages that have emerged from my series entitled ‘Defining the Greens’.
But I can’t agree.
In the 70s there was some agreement that protecting the planet required fewer people, less wealth and simpler technology – I’m paraphrasing John Tierney from an article in Monday’s New York Times.
Jared Diamond Just Keeps Making It Up
JARED Diamond is not a man to spoil a good story for the sake of the truth.
Some years ago I reviewed the chapter on Australia in his highly acclaimed book ‘Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive’. I found it full of factual errors that played to popular myth while denigrating Australian primary industries.
Today I received a copy of his article ‘Annals of Anthropology: Vengeance is Ours’ published by The New Yorker in April 2008, which Professor Diamond claims tells the true story of Daniel Wemp and the battles he led in the New Guinea Highlands. Along with this article I also received research by Rhonda Roland Shearer exposing it as a hoax.
Rather than the true story of clan warfare that resulted in the death of 30 men and the theft of over 300 pigs, the story may well represent nothing more than the contrived ramblings of an aging Professor inspired by a yarn from a man who fancied himself as a hero once responsible for the marshalling of hundreds of warriors and the provision of some sex on the side.
Defining the Greens (Part 3)
WHAT we consider to be the ‘right’ sort of environmental protection is necessarily going to be influenced by our understanding of nature.
According to Harald Kehl, the modern environmentalist either subscribes to a dualistic-anthropocentric (speculative) definition of nature with a philosophical-religious background or a scientific (hypothetical-deductive) proposition influenced by modern epistemology.
Those who subscribe to the dualistic-anthropocentric definition would probably consider global warming foremost a moral issue, while the latter might consider it more a technological problem.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.
