Holy Solar

Currently the Pope is visiting the UK. Speaking on BCC news after her brief meeting with him in Edinburgh today was Stephanie Hilborne who is the CEO of 47 Wildlife Trusts. She spoke about the importance of the influential catholic church supporting our pressing need to combat climate change whether it be by getting people, businesses, governments to act on reducing carbon emissions or preparing people to accept and adapt to the inevitable changes that lie ahead. Apparently the Vatican has now solar panels on the roof which is indicative of their commitment to fighting global warming and to recognising their role in our plight. Wildlife trusts are particularly concerned about our warming planet and the growing dislocation between people and their environment. For this reason I am delighted to be connected with Wildlife Trusts via Kindnessday UK – a project I founded with David Jamilly to raise awareness of the importance of consideration to others. Of course this begins with taking essential care of the very planet we inhabit and the air that we breath.

There are a million benefits to developing our world materially whether they be greater comforts, life saving medical facilities or increased knowledge of the universe. But one of the downsides would have to be that we have lost touch with essential benefit often by the natural world. Our very existence on earth.

Flash Floods and Hot Cities

A couple of weeks ago I was in sunny La Napoule in France with my husband. Four days later, just up the road, 20 people were killed in the most extreme weather conditions the region has seen for twenty years.

Is this a side effect of global warming? And if it is, what can we do to prepare as it seems that nature has a way of selecting new and unexpected destinations to act out her wrath. Right across the world violent storms claim lives on an almost weekly basis. How many depends on the population.

No surprise city mayors in particular are concerned because of the vast numbers of people living in cities. A couple of years ago at the Institute of Physics we alerted London councillors to the possibility of an extra tropic cyclone hitting our city and the devastation that would cause.

New York has already had experience. In 2007 the Subway was paralysed during morning rush hour when flash floods deposited debris on the tracks; the same thing as happened in 1992.

Our problem? You can't climate-proof anywhere, no campsite, no village, no city.

But what you can do is continue to counter what we believe are the causes of many of these extreme weather incidents. And that’s global warming. Like reducing CO2.And you can also turn a disadvantage into a plus. Take city buildings. Buildings account for 75 % of city emissions. But much of the 150 million square meters of rooftop in New York is black tar. In the summer it bakes under the sun and compounds the heat warming of climate change. Then it the winter it cracks when it freezes. But it is also the perfect landscape for photovoltaic panels which produce clean, much needed city energy. So just one example of a win-win. Let’s hope we can find some more.

Bjorn Lomborg at the RSA

If you want to influence people around to your way of thinking then firstly you have to make some sort of empathetic connection with them. Bjorn Lomberg knows that. He also knows if he talks common sense he will get a favourable response.

For example ask an impoverished mother struggling to survive whether she would rather have food for her children this week or go without for the sake of climate change the answer is obvious. Bjorn Lomberg is right, our current needs take preference over the future.

Talk about how no one wants to give up creature comforts like heated houses, cars and air travel if they can help it and you’ll them nodding their heads. Again Lomberg is right.

But tell a room of environmentalists and activists that you believe like they do that we are responsible however for global warming and we should be investing full speed ahead in sustainable energy like geo-engineering – in fact anything effective and that’s when people get very angry with him. In fact walk out of meetings as they did last night at the RSA event chaired by the Duke of Edinburgh – stormed out without even a backward glance at the Prince.

Why? Because he causes the same sort of irritation as someone who damns with faint praise. 'Global warming is a problem but it is not that much of an issue,' is his view. There, there. Which is probably worse than the declaring himself a global warming sceptic. He sounds so plausible he can actually upset people more.

For example, how their hard earned taxes are being squandered on inefficiencies and green schemes that are useless. And how they are being manipulated and duped into thinking they are doing the right thing.

There is even some common sense in his vision that if people want to do ‘the right thing’ more people in the developing countries could be helped today by doing the opposite to what everyone is banging on about; reducing emissions. Maybe, just maybe he is right and that we are obsessed with this one panacea. Cut carbon, save the world. As he says quite correctly more people may die from heat as a result of global warming, but less perish from cold. So there could be some positive spin to our warming planet. All stuff which is perfectly plausible.

However, it is at that point where he becomes offensive by suggesting that all efforts on carbon reduction are futile and that public relations movements like Kyoto agreements are no more than hypocritical and costly gestures. As he goes on to elaborate, if we were interested in saving mankind then we would do so the way he suggests. If we want to stop people dying from heat, we can give them air conditioning. Concerned about malaria, pay for drugs.

But the problem is that he avoids the central issue. That empathising with people’s immediate concerns will only work so far. How no one can accurately foretell the tipping point, when our greed for natural resources drives us too far. How none of us will ultimately benefit from our continued use of irreplaceable natural resources. And if it hadn’t been for these dramatic scenarios – possibly a little overdone - we would not have begun the good trend of environmental concern that is genuinely underway. People the world over are now are aware that we need energy sources other than fossil fuels. The world population is aware that our rainforests are precious, that our coral reefs are poisoned and that sea levels will rise as glaciers melt.

And whatever personal preferences we hold for helping out those in need it should not veer from our focus of stemming climate change.

Hopefully we can continue discussing the way forward with an open mind and an optimistic attitude.

Sea Change at Copenhagen

Anyone who has run a committee knows how difficult it is to get consensus on anything. And anyone who has been involved with the debate on global warming will know how particularly difficult it is to get consensus on reductions in CO emissions..

The reason for this is understandable. Whatever action we take will affect some people more than others. Plus there is no perfect action on the power point presentation yet. Some of the schemes over the past few years have been shown to be completely ineffectual— not stopped rising emissions anyway.

But when sixteen and half thousand people converge on the city of Copenhagen this week—sceptics, alarmists and fence sitters alike—they will all have something in common. And that is an unease for the welfare of the planet we inhabit.

Whatever your views on whether we’re responsible or not for disrupting the balance of atmospheric gases which has provided us to date with the necessary living conditions to survive and develop as a species, the fact is that something like a change in ocean current could reverse that irrevocably.

We do have access to technologies which can provide cleaner energy, we do have the will to replant and restore the rainforests and we can cut down drastically on unnecessary landfill waste with just small changes in our consumption.

Whether the US, China, India can yet agree to work together or not, I believe next week will mark the beginning of at least one welcome sea change. And that is the profound transformation of attitude towards the environment. We now know that we should be extremely grateful to be here at all.

Prince Charles and the Frog

If you are campaigning to the public to get them to help save the planet what are the best ways to do it?

Well there are several different approaches you can take. You can go the scary route like the Prince of Wales did in Brazil recently saying in a speech we only have 100 months left to change our ways or else! Then he went down the comic route....lashings of humour whether intentional or not with his You Tube 'Save the Forest' video featuring amongst other celebrities Prince William and Prince Harry and a digitalised South American frog.

Another completely different approach - an unusually positive one - has been taken by a rural campaigning group here in the UK ....they are showing pictures of beautiful countryside ....a bit like this one but nicer.... saying that this is how we will be in fifteen years time because we are going green and we all will have gone back to living how we used to do a hundred years or so ago as model citizens. A very different approach...

But with a survey by the US Pew Research conducted in 2006 showing how little we cared about global warming at all across the world - the Japanese came out on top of that with 66 per cent of them concerned; the Chinese scored 20 out of 100 and the US came out bottom with just 19 per cent of Americans giving any damn about it at all it is obvious that we desperately need our awareness raising campaigns to hit home.

Since then, however, attitudes have begun to change. Maybe the global recession does have something to do with the downturn in sales of luxury goods ..particularly gas guzzling items but just maybe - hopefully - it is also a growing awareness that whatever approach we have used on our campaigning the message is out there that we must act together to save our planet and we must do so quickly.

Black Carbon

Black carbon! It sounds like bad news...and it is and, as far as the Arctic is concerned..it is very bad news - probably responsible for half if not more of the increase in the warming in that region over the past 120 years.

Are we considering black carbon seriously enough? Well, what is it? It's a form of soot, a product of the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels or the burning of coal..wood..dung.. That sort of thing. The Arctic is particularly sensitive to it. It darkens the ice and the snow and this in turn affects the Arctic's ability to reflect light. Therefore the ice absorbs heat and this all has been contributing to the reduction in summer ice we are now seeing. As well as that black carbon in the atmosphere absorbs solar radiation and converts that to more heat. So it contributes to our changing climate in at least two ways. And it is no surprise that black carbon is the second leading cause of global warming after CO2.

Now ...unlike carbon dioxide .. black carbon remains in the atmosphere for days or weeks at the very most but with the melting of the Arctic ice much quicker than previously expected - and this melting of the ice being one of the climate "tipping points" ...and with black carbon known to be responsible for much of this damage some scientists are now suggesting that this problem should be addressed.

So… immediate reductions in black carbon could indeed be the white knight of climate change - even a rescue plan. Because...at least this would bring about a more immediate result in the Arctic . And quick responses are just what we need right now!

Antarctica Appeal

We produce around 32 billion tons of CO2 each year .Out of that about 15 actually stays in the atmosphere contributing to climate change. The oceans, forests, vegetation and soil store the rest of that CO2. So obviously if this current storage facility starts declining we are in more trouble than before. Out of these carbon sinks about a quarter of the carbon dioxide is absorbed by the oceans... and the biggest ocean for this is the Southern Ocean which surrounds Antarctica.

Recently scientists have reported that this large volume of water now only able to absorb a fraction of the CO2 it use to. CO2 needs to be stored at below 300 metres to stay there permanently. It is reckoned that the stormy seas being whipped up by higher wind speeds which are themselves a by-product of the changing climate is causing the mixing of deep water with the shallower water which absorbs less of this greenhouse gas. I

t is like some vicious circle - which we are looking desperately to address. While doing so we must galvanize ourselves and our Governments to work harder on reducing emissions.

To Russia With Love From Denmark

Russia has begun to work on modernising its inefficient power plants and that's thanks to The Danes. The good news about this is that Russia is one of the world's highest emitters of green house gases. Much of this however is due to antiquated inefficient industrial centres. Supplying heat and hot water for the public sector, accounts for a staggering 45 per cent of Russia’s domestic energy usage. So any clean up operation like the Danish venture in Kirov which will reduce emissions form 100 of these leaky power stations is a step along the right path.

So what's in it for Denmark? Well, they're in fact buying emissions reductions units from Russia which is providing the investment for this venture and this will allow them...Denmark...expansions within their Kyoto agreements.

Now.. not only will this operation reduce CO2 emissions from Russia obviously it will also conserve to some degree some natural gas. Russia is in fact the largest exporter of natural gas in the world. ..but with only about fifty years of supply left ..in the pipeline.. so to speak it is not only in the interests of the Russian people to rejuvenate their plants and so waste less of this precious resource but aso it will keep the cost of gas to Europe at a lower price.

Well... no incentives maybe then for Europeans to cut usage with cheaper gas you, may well say... But surely over all this is a positive move and a sign of Russia's endorsement of initiatives to halt climate change.

High Rivers Run Low

Not only are the rivers at the lowest point on earth that's the Dead Sea - under threat because of global warming but also those that run from higher up ... particularly the Tibetan Plateau. That's the largest, highest area in the world today and the source of many major rivers in Asia .rivers which flow from China to Pakistan.

Over the past 40 years the glaciers on this plateau have been melting. In fact they have receded nearly 200 square kilometres due to rising temperatures. The knock -on effect is that rivers are starting to run lower.

One example is the River Yangtze.... China's longest river. Scientists have calculated a loss of nearly 1 billion cubic metres of water. This is not a short term problem because the melting glaciers actually replenish these rivers. However, long term the effects will become more obvious leading to a change in the ecosystem of the area which is of grave concern to us all.

With Tibet the only true source of fresh water to Asia China’s is responding by building a range of reservoirs to catch the glacial melt..the precious, needed water that would otherwise run off into the desert and be wasted…. but long term it seems that global cooperation on solutions to halt climate change by reducing emissions now....is imperative for all of us.

Canada softened by US

Canada is ready to talk with the US on tackling global warming which is fantastic news because it seems that President Obama's commitment to go all out to 'green' America may encourage this other great nation to do the same.

The history behind this is that Canada had agreed years ago to reduce CO2 to 6.0 percent below their 1990 levels by 2012 But instead and recently in particular emissions have increased quite enormously. In 2007 Canada revised their previous target saying that their levels were unattainable and the expectations of a former adminstration were not realistic. In fact this reversal of attitude stemmed more from the US position at the time than anything because Canada and the US are the world's largest trading partners and with America's refusing to comply with Kyoto Canada..not wanting to be disadvantaged .. pulled back a bit.

However with the change in US administration has come a softening of position from Canada and a fresh and more optimistic approach to tackling this problem of their emissions which is good news because Canada is in fact one of the greatest consumers of energy per capita. Much of their energy goes to driving cars...heating homes...operating factories but there are also huge emissions from Alberta's energy intensive tar sands...and the effects of global warming on Canada are many as there are ...right across the world. With Canada it is possibly wildland fires... Their fires have been trending up over the past forty years as temperatures have been rising. Now not only do these wildfires reap human devastation We saw this past week in Melbourne the terrible, terrible loss of life when fires broke out in temperatures of 46.4 degrees and heard of 100 kmh hot winds spreading the fire Canada has similar problems to face..it certainly has had these problems in the past.

Deforestation..however it happens... whether it be by logging... or by these wildfires which are caused by increasing temperatures...the global environmental implications are huge. As we are all in this together, the spirit of the cooperation emerging from North America..to the global problem we face is very encouraging indeed.

Blown Away in UK

When we think of hurricanes or cyclones we automatically think of the tropics. But Powerful winds could threaten both UK and Europe with the potentially destructive force of a tropical category four hurricane. And all because of global warming.

Why is this happening? There have been large scale changes in the atmosphere itself for example the boundary of the troposphere – where all the weather occurs - has moved higher by 900 feet.

Also the Hadley Cells – the circulation pattern – rising near the Equator – polewards motion in higher up and then descending in the subtropics - have expanded towards the poles by one degree of latitude or 60 nautical miles over the last thirty years.
That change represents a huge volumetric increase in stored heat energy which must be recycled to the poles one way or the other’. It is as if the extra tropic cyclones are part of the planets way of redistributing it.

Last Summer the Global Warming Alliance held a conference at the Institute of Physics Our research has shown an increase in total energy of tropical cyclones of seventy percent, while wind strength itself has increased by fifteen percent. Such an increase in velocity plays out as a doubling in aeronautical force and even more in destructive damage..

The deadly storms that pounded southwest France and northeast Spain this past week end took at least 12 lives. Should these winds hit more densely populated countries and in particular those who are not accustomed to dealing with them these numbers could be greatly increased.

Over the past ten years eighteen ETCs made landfall. We are also seeing typhoon twins or two storms one following another within a day or so. Uk for example, the geographical position where polar air masses meet tropical ones coming up from the equator makes it in particular a fertile breeding ground for tornadoes.

During the half century from 1948 to 1997 thirteen windstorms hit Europe, an average of one every three point eight years.The two most catastrophic in terms of human life, the storms of 1953 and 1962, had almost identical core pressures. Now we are getting extra tropic cyclones with pressures 12 millibars lower than that.

GWA Strong wind warning!

The Global Warming Alliance has issued a warning. Cat 1 Extra tropic Cyclone Alpha 01 heads towards U.K. with potentially gale force winds gusting up to 80 knots or 92 MPH expected along the Irish Sea coast line and across Scotland. An intense Atlantic low with a core pressure of 945 mbs is due to make landfall around midnight Saturday night 17th January . This is the first extra tropic cylone making landfall in 2009. For more information www.globalwarmingalliance.com

Yes We Can!

Yes we can reduce our greenhouse gas emissions says the Obama administration in the States. Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Chu, if his position is confirmed next week, says he is going to pursue all policies to address just that.

Firstly Mr Chu is committed to reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil which is good news indeed for most Americans (for reasons of economy and security as well) but this fact alone has provoked a conflict of opinion. Senators from states with oil and gas reserves see this– that’s cutting back on foreign oil - as a fine opportunity to increase home production. Currently the US produces around 4 per cent of the world’s oil but that apparently doesn’t take into account potentially untapped resources. But Mr Chu’s focus is on weaning Americans off oil and gas altogether. There has been some concern that the effect the credit crunch has had in reducing the costs of cars combined with the drop in the price of oil has been reviving for example the market for gas guzzlers. But the new administration is intent on promoting more energy efficiency as part of their measures to reduce oil imports as well as encouraging the use of bio fuels and solar energy.

The US oil producers are therefore unhappy about the proposed cap-and-trade system in which oil refineries and industrial facilities that have high emissions will have to pay more than those that invest in technologies that curb emissions.

Two Giants Compare

What do the two highest carbon emitters - US and China – have in common apart from both being dependent on imported oil for their transport and using domestic coal to generate power and both being reluctant to reduce emissions? Well very little it would appear. Their energy expenditure patterns are completely dissimilar and reflect two totally different cultural habits. In the US more than 70 per cent of the emissions come from consumerism – as Americans are more inclined to borrow money if needs be and spend it on their homes and cars where as in China 70 per cent of the emissions come from factories making goods which are then exported. Because their citizens spend less on gas guzzling items. Steel production emits twice as much as Chinese households. Aluminium production takes up another large chunk.
Therefore if the US concentrates on consumer reductions such as upgrading the electricity grid, improving fuel economy and weatherizing homes to reduce their 70 per cent and China on reducing its energy-intensive manufacturing and moving to lighter services to reduce their 70 per cent then maybe both super nations will emerge from the global financial crisis with a greener perspective on our world future.

TV aids climate victims

Tuvalu is a tiny Polynesian island nation, It’s in the Pacific Ocean about midway between Hawaii and Australia.

Its only 10 square miles, in fact the fourth smallest country on earth. But it resides on nine extremely low-lying coral atolls. Tuvalu is in all just 5 meters above sea level.

It is virtually a foregone conclusion that this tiny island will be uninhabitable within the next 50 years. Hurricane winds - rain - high seas are becoming increasingly frequent in Tuvalu. There is a lot of hardship as a result.

Recently the European Union provided them with funds totalling €700,000 (US$892,000) to supply households with additional rainwater storage helping the community to become more self sufficient to help them with their plight.

Another source of income is from royalties form the sale of their country code domain name which ends in tv or dot tv.

Initial windfall income paid for paving the streets of Funafuti - the capital - and installing street lighting. It’s also allowed residents of the impoverished nation other improvements such as access themselves to the Internet and to be able to buy televisions and satellite dishes or travel abroad.

So if you are thinking of setting up a website and you are in need of a domain name. And with posting video footage on sites like You Tube what better than to register a dot tv site. Its a bit on the expensive side. But not only is it apparently the hottest ending in the online media world but it will also help a place on earth that is one of the most vulnerable to the affects of global warming.

Native Americans are climate experts

A group of native Americans the Dene nation in Canada and representatives of other indigenous peoples have been lobbying national delegations to ask them to recognize them as an "expert group" that can participate in the talks like other nongovernment organisations on climate change.

They claim to bring traditional knowledge to the debate that other people don't have. Nearly 40 years ago tribal elders noticed changes in the annual migrations of animals. The weather, which they could then forecast three weeks in advance from animal behavior and the appearance of the sunsets, is now apparently unpredictable.

Scientists have long warned that the Arctic conditions herald climate change. The region is warming faster than more temperate zones, and the seas are ice-free for longer periods so who best to comment than those living there?

Asia's spat with the UN!

A UN report which said that enormous brown clouds of pollution over Asia – over India in particular - were killing hundreds of thousands of people has started a bit of a spat. Kapil Sibal, India’s Science and Technoogy Minister was deeply offended and dismissed it as propaganda. While the UN report suggested that the cloud was due to the burning of fossil fuels by countries - traffic, factory emissions and indoor cooking - Mr Sibal hit back with his answer.

'The atmosphere knows no territorial boundaries. So the source of the haze might be the increasing levels of pollution because of the great contribution of the western world," he said.

There are two different opinions here.Greenhouse gas emissions are 1.2 tonnes per capita in India compared with 23 tonnes in the US and 10 tonnes in European countries. But while per capita emissions are low in India, its huge population puts it among the world's top five greenhouse gas emitters. India, like China, says that having to meet binding emission cuts now will prevent it from bringing its people out of poverty as rich countries have already done on the back of industrial growth fuelled by coal, oil and gas.

Per capita income in India, which has over a 1.1 billion population, hovers at just above 700 dollars.

And so the debate continues.

Louise Burfitt-Dons Global Warming Alliance

Australia fears climate change effects!

Australia is to join with Indonesia in fighting climate change. Up to 120 million people could be affected in the Asia-Pacific region by climate change effects. The consequences for Indonesia could mean conflicts over water, food riots and the collapse of state institutions. Then where will they go? So one implication for Australia could be the arrival of masses of environmental refugees overwhelming border controls.

Australia itself has a lot to loose. The effect on Australia could me more intense bushfires, rising temperatures, increasing drought and the koala bears, already listed as vulnerable could be set to die in greater numbers.

This is the blog for the Global Warming Hotspot