2942

What I briefly thought of (with sarcasm) when viewing my place at the maximum increase on that application: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBwkJctDGjo

2943

I think if i can take anything from this thread, i will take that atleast i got a bunch of americans to actually consider where their house is in relation to the affects of AGW and global sea rising. That must mean some of my spiel is getting through :) I’ve been a hill dweller for the last 25 years, but only because i knew investing in low lying area’s that will be underwater in the future was a bad investment.

And Japan’s ex prime-minister is not a fan of Nuclear (which you can understand as Fukishima was on his watch):

‘Ex-Japan PM: nuclear power remains unsafe and too costly’:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/11/japan-naoto-kan-nuclear-power-unsafe-fukushima

I don’t think i’m happy about the prospect of japanese companies building nuclear power stations in the uk either!

2944

Don’t pat yourself on the back too hard, Zak. I got into this particular interactive map years ago when I lived in Brooklyn. I also play around with the Nukemap. Call me nihilistic. :)

2945

‘February breaks global temperature records by ‘shocking’ amount’:

Global temperatures in February smashed previous monthly records by an unprecedented amount, according to Nasa data, sparking warnings of a climate emergency.

The result was “a true shocker, and yet another reminder of the incessant long-term rise in global temperature resulting from human-produced greenhouse gases”, wrote Jeff Masters and Bob Henson in a blog on the Weather Underground, which analysed the data released on Saturday.

It confirms preliminary analysis from earlier in March, indicating the record-breaking temperatures.

The global surface temperatures across land and ocean in February were 1.35C warmer than the average temperature for the month, from the baseline period of 1951-1980.

The global record was set just one month earlier, with January already beating the average for that month by 1.15C above the average for the baseline period.

Although the temperatures have been spurred on by a very large El Niño in the Pacific Ocean, the temperature smashed records set during the last large El Niño from 1998, which was at least as strong as the current one.

The month did not break the record for hottest month, since that is only likely to happen during a northern hemisphere summer, when most of the world’s land mass heats up.

“We are in a kind of climate emergency now,” Stefan Rahmstorf, from Germany’s Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research and a visiting professorial fellow at the University of New South Wales, told Fairfax Media.

“This is really quite stunning … it’s completely unprecedented,” he said.

2946

‘Severe coral bleaching worsens in most pristine parts of Great Barrier Reef’:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/14/severe-coral-bleaching-worsens-in-most-pristine-parts-of-great-barrier-reef

Damage to parts of the Great Barrier Reef has worsened, leading authorities to raise the alert to the second-highest level, indicating severe local coral bleaching.

The bleaching is worst in the most pristine and remote parts of the reef north of Cairns, according to Terry Hughes, convenor of the National Coral Taskforce. “It’s the jewel in the crown of the Great Barrier Reef and it’s now getting a quite a serious impact from this bleaching event,” he said. “The northern reefs are bleaching quite badly now.”

Hughes said it appeared there was some coral death occurring in northern reefs.

Russell Reichelt, the chairman of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority said the area around Lizard Island, 250km north of Cairns, and sites further north, had fared the worst.

The US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration predicts bleaching conditions to worsen over the coming weeks.

The world is currently in the grips of the third global coral bleaching event. Coral bleaches when water temperatures are raised above a certain threshold for an extended period of time.

Hughes, director of the ARC centre of excellence for coral reef studies at James Cook University, said although the strong El Niño occurring now is partly to blame for the bleaching event, the real culprit is global warming caused by carbon emissions.

“These massive thousand-kilometer bleaching events didn’t happen thirty years ago,” he said. “No-one ever recorded a mass bleaching event in the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, until the middle of the 1980s … and the Great Barrier Reef didn’t bleach until 1998 for the first time.”

These events are sort of like the old canary in the cage that miners used, if you want an easy to understand analogy. They are indicators of AGW, just as a dead/dying canary was an indicator of bad air in the mines.

2947

Looks like the UK is sliding toward authorianism too?

But let me start with the newly-proposed ban on local Councils and public bodies which would prevent them from deciding which companies they felt comfortable about buying from and investing in, and which companies they didn’t. On ethical grounds, for example.

According to Oliver Wright, Political Editor of The Independent: “Under the plan, all publicly-funded institutions will lose the freedom to refuse to buy goods and services from companies involved in the arms trade, fossil fuels, tobacco products or Israeli settlements in the Occupied West Bank.”

And as J W Bode wrote on The Ecologist, “All in all, preventing councils from boycotting oil and gas is ill considered and threatens not just local authority assets but the financial security of future pensioners, especially in light of COP21 and the commitment made to investing in renewables.”

Wright went on to quote from Government sources claiming that such boycotts “undermined good community relations, poisoned and polarised debate and fuelled anti-semitism.”

2948

Surprise, surprise - investing in cleaner energy is both smart AND efficient:

“The new figures confirm last year’s surprising but welcome news: we now have seen two straight years of greenhouse gas emissions decoupling from economic growth,” said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol. “Coming just a few months after the landmark COP21 agreement in Paris, this is yet another boost to the global fight against climate change.”

So yeah, the chicken littles stating that the sky is falling if we stop burning coal are a bunch of douchbags selling fear.

2949

Think the only (good) story from that article is that emissions remained flat and that wasn’t due to an economic crisis, since the only time emissions ever previously went down was during serious recessions (and even then, not always - only when things got really bad, like 2008 and the early 80s

That headline and your broader conclusion are overblown. Cutting coal is only punitive if you depend upon it for your livelihood or consume energy to support your existence, but it’s great if your livelihood depends upon green energy investment and subsidies and you personally prefer paying more for energy because you want to support the transition from legacy fuels. How much of an economic impact that transition has depends upon many factors unrelated to broader economic trends

2950

So, your point is that we should still be supporting Buggy Whip manufacturers with tax breaks and land use subsidies, as well as the externalities associated with increased health care and disaster recovery?

If Coal mining/burning companies had to pay their full costs in terms of taxes/land use/additional health care/disaster recovery they would be out of business - so we should be subsidizing them?

2951

‘Surge in renewable energy stalls world greenhouse gas emissions’:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/16/surge-in-renewable-energy-stalls-world-greenhouse-gas-emissions

Falling coal use in China and the US and a worldwide shift towards renewable energy have kept greenhouse gas emissions level for a second year running, one of the world’s leading energy analysts has said.

Preliminary data for 2015 from the International Energy Agency (IEA) showed that carbon dioxide emissions from the energy sector have levelled off at 32.1bn tonnes even as the global economy grew over 3% .

Electricity generated by renewable sources played a critical role, having accounted for around 90% of new electricity generation in 2015. Wind power produced more than half of all new electricity generation, said the IEA.

The figures are significant because they prove to traditionally sceptical treasuries that it is possible to grow economies without increasing climate emissions.

“The new figures confirm last year’s surprising but welcome news: we now have seen two straight years of greenhouse gas emissions decoupling from economic growth. Coming just a few months after the landmark COP21 agreement in Paris, this is yet another boost to the global fight against climate changem” said IEA director, Fatih Birol.

The two largest emitters, China and the US, both reduced energy-related emmisions in 2015. In China, they declined 1.5%, as coal use dropped for the second year running and in the US they declined 2%, as a large switch from coal to natural gas use in electricity generation took place.

However, these declines were offset by increasing emissions in most other Asian developing economies and the Middle East, said the IEA.

In the 40 years in which the IEA has reported on CO2 emissions, there have been only four short periods in which emissions stood still or fell compared to the previous year. Three of those — the early 1980s, 1992 and 2009 — came in periods of economic crisis.

But the new stall in emissions comes amid economic expansion. According to the International Monetary Fund, global GDP grew by 3.4% in 2014 and 3.1% in 2015.

So we can do it, reduce fossil fuel use and increase renewable energy to reduce the overall CO2 output. We just need to will.

2952

LOL. Permission to share this one?

2953

Prime example - much better article on the exact same topic as Pyerkub linked to, but it doesn’t add the absurd nonsense. We can do it, people, we just need to will.

2954

Anytime.

2955

I kind of didn’t want to link to the Guardian story, as a lot of people will dismiss it because of the source - I thought the IEA would be a better link, but whatever works.

2956

It’s not even just that - I want the good ole US of A to be a leader here, not a follower… it’s good business if were the ones selling China and Africa clean energy (plus it would completely cut the rug out from under the idiots in the Middle East).

2957

Meanwhile Osborne has just announced a whole bunch of new tax breaks and subsidies for the oil and gas industries, on top of the stuff he did last year. Great work, Tories.

Budget 2016 delivers the next stage of the government’s plan to ensure the fiscal regime supports the objective of maximising economic recovery while obtaining a fair return on the nation’s resources. The government will:

effectively abolish Petroleum Revenue Tax by permanently reducing the rate from 35% to 0%, to simplify the regime for investors and level the playing field between investment opportunities in older fields and infrastructure and new developments. The change will take effect from 1 January 2016
reduce the Supplementary Charge from 20% to 10%, to send a strong signal that the UK is open for business and in recognition of the exceptionally challenging conditions that are currently facing the sector. The change will take effect from 1 January 2016
provide a further £20 million of funding for a second round of seismic surveys in 2016‑17, as announced by the Prime Minister in January, to build on the success of the seismic programme in 2015 and encourage exploration in under-explored areas of the UKCS
extend the Investment and Cluster Area Allowances to include tariff income, in order to encourage investment in key infrastructure maintained for the benefit of third parties
provide certainty that companies will be able to access tax relief on their costs when they retain decommissioning liabilities for an asset after a sale, to encourage new entrants for late-life assets and the development of late-life business models
build on the new decommissioning powers of the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) by undertaking further work with the OGA and industry to reduce overall decommissioning costs, to deliver significant savings for industry and the Exchequer. If significant progress can be made, the government will explore whether decommissioning tax relief could better encourage transfers of late-life assets
This radical package will ensure the UK has one of the most competitive tax regimes for oil and gas in the world, supporting jobs and investment and safeguarding the future of this vital national asset.

The government is willing to consider proposals for using the UK Guarantees Scheme for infrastructure where it could help secure new investment in assets of strategic importance to maximising economic recovery of oil and gas. Any proposals would also need to meet the existing criteria of the scheme, including in relation to commerciality and financial credibility.

2958

The Tories are so out of touch with the real pressing issues of the day (and too busy fleecing/flogging the poor while favouring the richest) it is almost Trump Worthy. Below is the trend we should be moving in, the Tories are trending the complete opposite direction.

‘Doubling global renewables by 2030 could save $4.2tn – research’:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/17/doubling-global-renewables-2030-save-42tn-research-global-warming

Doubling the share of renewables in the global energy mix to 36% by 2030 could save the world economy up to $4.2tn a year, research by the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) showed on Wednesday.

Renewable sources, such as wind and solar, accounted for around 18% of global energy consumption in 2014. Under existing national policies, the share of renewables is forecast to reach 21% by 2030.

Doubling the current share would help achieve a global target to limit the rise in the global average temperature to below 2C above pre-industrial levels, which was agreed at a summit in Paris last year.

Irena is an intergovernmental organisation that focuses on realising the potential of renewables.

The report said the cost of doubling the renewable share by 2030 would be $290bn a year, but the annual net savings from reducing pollution and emissions on human health and agriculture would be between $1.2tn and $4.2tn.

“Achieving a doubling is not only feasible, it is cheaper than not doing so,” Irena’s director general Adnan Amin said in a statement.

“It would create more jobs, save millions of lives from reduced air pollution and set us on a pathway to limit global temperature rise to two degrees as agreed in Paris,” he added.

2959

I agree with you there.

Your other post was just a weird statement that seemed to suggest that the industry most responsible for the industrial revolution and most of the largess and standard of living we currently enjoy wouldn’t be in business without government, when of course the opposite is true: there wouldn’t be our form of government or society as we know it without the coal industry.

Which doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be retired if we can advance beyond and its potentially adverse effects, but it dragged us into the modern age and was perhaps the most fundamental economic building block for human society, while you implied it was a constraint that needed subsidizing to succeed.

2960

I think the contention is that coal is not a competitive technology at this point in time, once you consider all the externalities and the available alternatives. Not that is was always uncompetitive. Coal-powered industry is a lot more productive than muscle-powered!

Edit: Basically ignoring all the external costs of coal tilts the scales like an explicit subsidy would.

2961

Sure, if you just make up a bunch of fictional “costs” and ascribe $10 trillion to them, then it’s a poor business. But in reality it’s one of the more economically profitable ventures in human history, and remains so.