Superwinds:
Plan Ahead Now
The Global Warming Alliance will be holding a mini conference
at the Institute of Physics, 76 Portland Place, London W1 on Friday
6th June 2008. For more information on Superwinds,
Plan Ahead Now
Update Bali
14th December 2007:
Reason
prevails against all the odds. Donald
Burfitt-Dons,GWA
In the most dramatic
conference yet held on global warming, the US did an 11th hour
turnaround and agreed to join the consensus of developed nations.
Although no specific reduction targets were left in the agreement
the importance of Australia the week before and now the Last of
the Mohicans coming on board must not be underestimated. As the
contributor of nearly a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions the
absence of the US would have undermined in a psychological way
the efforts of the other signatories. The country is renowned
for it’s generosity towards others less fortunate in times
of adversity. If the USA now directs it’s formidable research
and technological powers towards what could be the greatest threat
to us as a high level species, together we can all solve it.
Of course the developing
world has issues, but the signs are there that China and \India,
as the principal industrial powers, are paying attention too.
In the large a good decision and a good day for the world.
The Last of the Mohicans
6th December 2007
Donald Burfitt-Dons
The Australian
delegate covered himself in glory in Bali by signing up to the
Kyoto Agreement. Timing was perfect as 187 delegates assembled
in Bali to begin the process of shaping up the son of Kyoto, which
is due to expire in 2012.
Since the original
agreement, which puts statutory limits on greenhouse gas emissions
limiting them to 5% below the 1990 levels, Australia had been
amongst just two recalcitrant nations which refused to endorse
the agreement. read more
THE MAGIC
ROUNDABOUT
7 November
2007
Hazel Prowse
Report of the President’s Address on cycles
of energy by John Loughhead to the Institution of Engineering
& Technology, 4 October 2007. He is Executive Director of
UK Energy Research Centre, after a career in GEC Labs.
The first slide was of Swindon roundabout; the name from
the children’s cartoon, originally French but it was not
SO successful in France.
A picture of Earth from space, centred on Moscow, shows the Earth
is self—illuminated, proof of a civilisation read
more.
CLIMATE
CHANGE ON THE LIVING EARTH
6 November
2007
Hazel Prowse
Notes of a
talk by James Lovelock to the Royal Society, 29 October 2007.
This was an open meeting with no advance booking, so I turned
up early and was about number 40 in the queue an
hour before the start, and I still worry if those at the back
ever got in...
Professor Lovelock’ visited the Hadley Centre at Exeter
some forty years ago and found from talking to climate scientists
that each individual study (eg ocean, warming) showed accelerating
change, but they were not thinking together. Polar ice melting
was separated from tropical rain forests, reflecting the division
of science into specialities. Chemists saw one reason for climate
change, other scientists saw others, in essence, ‘physical’
v ‘biological’, so the dynamics of the whole system
were being missed read more
SCIENCE & POLITICS OF CLIMATE CHANGE
6 November 2007
Hazel Prowse
Report of one session
at a weekend of seminars held by the Institute of Ideas at the
Royal College of Art, 27—28 October 2007.
Professor Mike Hulme said giving the Nobel Peace Prize to the
IPCC is only the beginning, and the real issues are on what to
do about it. He posed the following: read
more
GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE
6 October 2007
Hazel Prowse for GWA
Report and notes of RAE 2007 International Lecture by
Dr R K Pachauri,chairman of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change), at RIBA
on 3 October — a week before he shared the Nobel Peace Prize
with Al Gore.
He said the role
of science was to gather knowledge of the complex relationships
between humans and the environment, and to define specific solutions
for large scale application. He produced the well—known
graphs of both global temperature rise, and the frightening one
of carbon dioxide increase read
more
