Ireland’s looming bird crisis

Posted on February 24, 2010 by Coilin MacLochlainn

Back in 2002, the parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity set a target of halting biodiversity loss by 2010.

It is now 2010, the declared UN Year of Biodiversity, and although some endangered species have been saved, notably within the EU, in general species of flora and fauna are being pushed into extinction at a faster rate.

There was really little hope of halting species loss in such a short time, even though the idea had its genesis as far back as 1992, at the Earth Summit in Rio, though it didn’t get legs until the turn of the millennium.

But whatever hope there was then is now fast receding as climate change becomes the newest and most formidable driver of declines and extinctions. Continue reading →

Posted in Biodiversity, Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Irish Focus, Sustainability | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Permafrost retreats further north

Posted on February 23, 2010 by James Nix

Buried in the ‘Weather Eye’ page of our paper of record again…

Climate change forcing frozen soil retreat

Mon, Feb 22, 2010

THE PERMANENTLY frozen ground known as permafrost is retreating northward in the area around Canada’s James Bay, a sign of a decades-long regional warming trend, a climate scientist has said.

When permafrost melts, it can liberate the powerful greenhouse gas methane that is locked in the frozen soil.

The amount of methane contained in permafrost around James Bay is slight compared to the vast stores of the chemical found in ancient, deep permafrost in the Yukon, Alaska and Siberia.

The southern edge of permafrost in the James Bay area has moved about 130km (80 miles) north of where it was 50 years ago, Serge Payette of Laval University in Quebec City said in a telephone interview. Continue reading →

Posted in Global Warming | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Now there’s an App to zap the sceptics

Posted on February 17, 2010 by Paddy Morris

The always useful site Skeptical Science, with its handy list of the most common arguments used by climate change sceptics and detailed rebuttals of them, is now available as an iPhone app.

So next time a discussion occurs and one of the old reliable arguments like ‘it’s the sun’ is trotted out, this app will give you the information needed to rebut the argument, and also allow you to report the arguments used, so skepticalscience.com can maintain an up-to-date list of the most common arguments being used by sceptics.

The highly regarded site is operated as a pro bono public information service by Australian physicist, John Cook.

The handy iPhone widget is available for free from the App Store or  www.skepticalscience.com.

Posted in Global Warming, Media, Sceptics | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Do you believe in miracles?

Posted on February 15, 2010 by John Gibbons

Bill Gates is for many the Dr Evil of the corporate world. His Microsoft behemoth has had a stranglehold on the world’s personal computer market for the last two decades, and wrung hundreds of billions out of users in the process. All of which makes Mr Gates ridiculously rich.

So rich in fact that his Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is now possibly the world’s largest private charity. It recently pledged a staggering $10 billion to help develop and deliver vaccines for children in the so-called developing world. However, Mr Gates may have had something of an epiphany recently, in terms of his understanding of where the real threats lie. Continue reading →

Posted in Energy, Global Warming, Nuclear, Sustainability | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments

Copenhagen & beyond: where now for the EU?

Posted on January 27, 2010 by Joseph Curtin

The EU was marginalized amid the realpolitik which dominated at Copenhagen. As a consequence the Copenhagen Accord neither conceptually nor substantively reflected the EU’s negotiating position.

In a recent policy brief (available here) I argue that this failure must lead to a reevaluation of its modus operandi at international negotiations. This is particularly true if Europe wishes to match its rhetoric of leadership on climate protection with real influence.

The extent of the EU’s failure an be gauged from both the extent to which the Copenhagen Accord fell short of the Danish Text which was leaked at the start of the talks, and by the reaction of EU leaders to the Accord. Continue reading →

Posted in Global Warming, Sustainability | 3 Comments

Pachauri should go?

Posted on January 25, 2010 by James Nix

Claims that Himalayan glaciers would have melted by 2035, and that there would be a rise in hurricanes, typhoons and other extreme weather events were never properly peer reviewed before inclusion in the IPCC’s reports.

So-called ‘grey’ literature was used in contravention of the IPPC’s own rules. While the claims are not central, they were high-profile. Agencies linked to IPCC chair Pachauri obtained funding using these claims. Yesterday Charles Clover (author of ‘The End of The Line‘, an investigation into overfishing) called on Pachauri to go (see below). Today there are more reports of monies obtained on foot of wrong material. Continue reading →

Posted in Global Warming | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

OMG, what if the deniers are actually right?

Posted on January 19, 2010 by John Gibbons

Fat chance, of course, that the climate change deniers/liars from the assorted propaganda factories will, in the end, miraculously turn out to know more about climate science than, well, all of climate science. But hey, when we’re told that natural disasters like flooding can “boost the economy” (wow, lucky old Haiti, then?) we have to admit that anything is, in theory at least, possible.

In that spirit, here’s a cartoon of the nightmare scenario that might unfold should the whole thing turn out to be, speak it softly, a big ol’ h-o-a-x…..

big hoax cartoon

Posted in Global Warming, Media, Sceptics, Sustainability | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

Reporting our changing world

Posted on January 16, 2010 by James Nix

I nearly missed the report below. In yesterday’s the Irish Times the near one-third rise in arctic methane emissions wasn’t reported in world news; rather it was on the bulletin page, a fine page – no quibbles here – but a page dominated by weather forecasting, the crossword, chess and cartoons, and, simply put, not the world news pages. Could a 31 per cent in methane emissions in the arctic between 2003 and 2007 be world news?

It’s not the first time. I did a quick check back, just honing in on late 2008, and found some similar instances. Continue reading →

Posted in Global Warming | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Plimer vs Monbiot

Posted on January 13, 2010 by James Nix

From the website of Australian TV network ABC. Click here to view the debate.

Transcript

TONY JONES, PRESENTER: Here is some background notes to tonight’s debate. When Professor Ian Plimer’s outright denial of man-made global warming was championed in the UK Spectator magazine earlier this year after the publication of his book Heaven and Earth in Britain, the magazine’s editor promoted the idea of a great public debate in London between Professor Plimer and the Guardian’s George Monbiot. Monbiot is a renowned champion of climate science. In the end, George Monbiot’s key condition for the debate, that Professor Plimer first answer in writing a series of questions about claims in his book was not met, the debate was cancelled. And tonight, with no preconditions, George Monbiot joins us in Copenhagen and Ian Plimer is here in our Sydney studio.

Thanks to both of you for being there. Continue reading →

Posted in Global Warming, Media, Sceptics | Tagged , , , , , , | 15 Comments

Repeat after me: Weather is NOT climate!

Posted on January 7, 2010 by John Gibbons

Oh dear, here we go again. An editorial in the Irish Times yesterday was headlined ‘Global cooling’. It began: “So much for all of that guff about global warming! Are world leaders having the wrong debate? We are experiencing the most prolonged period of icy weather in 40 years and feeling every bit of it”.

In fact, what the above piece illustrates is the hazards of conducting climate science by looking out the window. The good ol’ Daily Express took it a degree or three further yesterday in its screeching front page headline: ‘SNOW CHAOS – And they still claim it’s global warming’.

I could spend another thousand words trying Online Pokies to unpick this silliness, or instead hand over to the excellent Peter Sinclair, who runs an intriguing YouTube channel called ‘Climate Denial Crock of the Week’. The clip below is from Feb 2009, but it perfectly illustrates the recurring problem that as soon as the temperatures plummet, the deniers start banging loudly on their tin drums, and many folks in the media who really ought to know better, just take a peek out through the net curtains, see the snow and experience an almost instantaneous 50-point drop in their IQs.

Over to you, Peter…

An archive of Peter Sinclair’s excellent series can be accessed by clicking here.

Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus, Media, Sceptics | Tagged , , , , , , | 17 Comments

Copenhagen a new framework for climate chaos?

Posted on January 5, 2010 by Joseph Curtin

The original intention of Conference of Parties (COP) 15 in Copenhagen was to complete negotiations on a new international agreement on climate change to come into force before 2012. What emerged was a slim three page Copenhagen Accord with a couple of blank appendices.

To the dismay of many EU countries, not even this rather watery three page Accord managed to secure the unanimous approval of the COP. A handful of countries, including Sudan and Saudi Arabia, refused to sign, and the COP thus only succeeded in “taking note” of its contents.

Legally it remains unclear how a non-binding Accord will function. “Takes note of” according to Yvo de Boer, head of the UNFCCC, “is a way of recognizing what is there without going so far as to directly associate yourself with it”. Continue reading →

Posted in Global Warming | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Time for prosperity without growth

Posted on December 22, 2009 by James Nix

If there’s one book you read this winter make it Tim Jackson’s Prosperity without Growth. We can have a stable climate and leave enough resources for future generations. Or we can continue with the fantasy of perpetual economic growth, with all the additional consumption that it entails – but we can’t have both.

That’s Jackson’s central message. In environmental and resource terms, endless economic growth is a slow but sure collective suicide pill. In economic terms it doesn’t work either. Jackson builds up the picture of how global economies were wound into financial freefall in September 2008. The 1980s and 1990s saw the paying down of a large amount of public debt only to be replaced by even greater private debt. Lending rules were deliberately eased in the US to squeeze out a bit more economic growth: contrary to what you might have gathered from other media sources, it was no regulatory bungle, at least in the US. Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Energy, Global Warming, Sustainability | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Greens Flavor of the Day in Domestic Climate Policy

Posted on December 15, 2009 by Joseph Curtin

Amid the white noise surrounding last week’s budget, the government made a number of announcements with potentially profound and long-term implications for Irish climate policy. Much as the PD’s allegedly provided the sauce in the meaty Fianna Fail coalition sandwich, it seems that the Greens are now flavor of the day.

The introduction of a carbon tax attracted most comment. A level of €15 per tonne of carbon was chosen. According to Finance Minister, Brian Lenihan: “The yield from the Carbon Tax will be used to boost energy efficiency, to support rural transport and to alleviate fuel poverty. The Carbon Tax will also allow us to maintain or reduce payroll taxes”. Continue reading →

Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus, Sustainability | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments

Latest recruit to Confederacy of Climate Dunces

Posted on December 13, 2009 by John Gibbons

One by one, they’re coming out of the woodwork. Occasional climate sceptic William Reville was the latest to re-surface, this time in his weekly Irish Times column. I read it with dismay; I genuinely have no problem with him having a personal pop at me (all’s fair in the public domain) but his cynical piece, masquerading as an honest scientific review of the so-called ClimateGate deserved to be properly dissected and shown for what it is.

I am indebted to writer Marco Chiappi for the article below, which both deconstructs and eviscerates Reville’s contribution:

=============================================

Professor Reville (Associate Professor of biochemistry and public awareness of science officer, UCC) in his article published 10/12/2009 characterises the debate surrounding anthropogenic global warming as a debate between a ‘majority’ and a ‘minority’ position and regrets the incivility with which both sides engage. Continue reading →

Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus, Media, Sceptics | Tagged , , , , , , , | 33 Comments

Leaks no Impact on Copenhagen Blueprint

Posted on December 9, 2009 by Joseph Curtin

The leaking of hacked emails from one of the most highly regarded climate research units was perfectly timed to coincide with the start of the Copenhagen COP. Without entering into the minute details of just what was or was not exposed by the thousands of leaked emails, it is clear the credibility of one of the world’s most respected institutions of climate science has been undermined.

In a sense this is a reality check for anyone who tend to the view that Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) is the greatest threat facing humanity. It poses an important question: is the science behind climate change now more open to question as a result? Continue reading →

Posted in Global Warming, Sustainability | 1 Comment