global climate change

This year's international climate change conference begins tomorrow, November 26, in Doha, Qatar. With much of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol expiring in December and the world on track for a six degree Celsius (eleven Fahrenheit) temperature rise, a new climate change treaty is being negotiated to be signed in 2015 and to take effect in 2020. Read below the fold...

Until late last Thursday night, I was in Aruba for eleven glorious days with my beloved hubby. I didn't pay any attention to politics, I didn't blog, I didn't read my email. I just turned it all off and did nothing but enjoy myself. It was pure heaven. Read below the fold...

Right before being silenced forever, the Wall Street Journal's "Environmental Capital" blog writes this post entitled Who's Afraid of a Clean Energy Future, which contains the following truth so blindingly obvious you will never read it anywhere in the MSCM: Read below the fold...

It's been a while since I've posted on this. Mostly that's because of real life, but also a lack of good sourcing. After a long time looking, I finally found a pretty concise description of how wind and solar energy developments were financed, and how they are going to be financed in the near future. Please read this very carefully if you care about the topic.

Here is the key graph for "the old way" it worked:

"This is how it worked: Large financial institutions like AIG, Wachovia, J.P. Morgan, Wells Fargo, Lehman Brothers and others would buy federal tax benefits from renewable energy startups that did not have enough taxable income to use the credits on their own.

Read below the fold...

This snapshot will focus on wind, which I am most familiar with and where most of the action is currently happening anyway.

From the Jan. 15 edition of Electric Power Monthly, a publication of the Department of Energy, came the preceding pie chart showing combined "alternative" energy sources at 3.2% of total power generation as of Oct. 2008 (latest available data). Read below the fold...

Only useless information intended to save human life on Earth.

This blog, Climate Progress is a fantastic one-stop resource for the most important issue facing your life, the life of your loved ones and the generations to (hopefully) come.

Here are some interesting quotes there:

"The UK’s Independent reported today some pretty shocking news in “Exclusive: The methane time bomb“:

The first evidence that millions of tons of a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere from beneath the Arctic seabed has been discovered by scientists.

Read below the fold...

Maybe if the government created a special tax break for scuba-diving equipment, Republicans might be convinced to give a shit about this.

"Since NOAA's last report in 2005, the Caribbean region has lost at least 50 percent of its corals, largely because sea temperatures have risen, Keeney said."

Read the article: it's the first comprehensive study of it's kind. Read below the fold...

Al Gore gave a talk at the recent TED Conference. It’s an updated and abbreviated version of his climate change slide show, with both alarming new data on the increasing speed of climate change and some heartening information on the growing public awareness that we need to act and soon. Read below the fold...

Praise Be to the FSM, that we still have McClatchy:
Read below the fold...

Think about what this means in the social sense:
Read below the fold...

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report:

Published on Saturday, February 3, 2007 by the lndependent/UK
Global Warming: The Final Warning
Carbon Dioxide Rate is at Highest Level for 650,000 Years
by Steve Connor

Concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are at their highest levels for at least 650,000 years and this rise began with the birth of the Industrial Revolution 250 years ago, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Read below the fold...

In Federal Way, Washington, a suburb of Seattle, in a region of America that is perceived to be Liberal, the school board has a poorly worded policy that is preventing the showing of "An Inconvenient Truth" in classrooms! From the Seattle Post Intelligencer: Read below the fold...

I was cruising through the sphere today and wandered off into Kos. I usually don’t. I’ve been trying to reformulate my worldview. I found one of my axiomatic themes (geography determines economy) at Political Cortex. The change in climate, the development of quantum, photonic, encryption, simulated brains, feudal intellectual property rights, massive capital domination by a disproportionate few, not to mention electronic voting. Read below the fold...

Great Lakes draining away.

A decade of warm winters with sporadic snowfall has failed to refill the snow-dependent Great Lakes, with falling water levels bringing the top ever closer to the bottom in Lakes Michigan and Huron.

Read below the fold...