Climate facts to warm to

[Tdave]

If it were down to me, I would mandate developers to use those PV roof tiles on new builds. Adding a few more thousand onto your mortgage at purchase time doesn't seem like such a financial burden.

Since break even on a PV installation is quicker than a typical mortgage is long, there is savings from month 1.

 

[vfx]

If it were down to me, I would mandate developers to use those PV roof tiles on new builds.

I down with that. While we are at it, mandate that all new roads to have bike lanes.

 

[SByer]

While we are at it, mandate that all new roads to have bike lanes.

Please no! As a cyclist, I hate it when roads have "bike lane" stripes but don't really have room - and that happens a lot already!

 

[vfx]

Please no! As a cyclist, I hate it when roads have "bike lane" stripes but don't really have room - and that happens a lot already!

Then let me rephrase more explicitly.

While we are at it, mandate that all new roads are to be designed and built wide enough to accomodate safe bike travel.

 

[dpeilow]

The Met Office's climate PC is a super-polluter | Metro.co.uk

The office in Exeter, Devon, contains a £30million IBM machine that fills halls the size of two football pitches and is thought to be the second most powerful system in the country.

But running it produces 12,000tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, dragging the organisation towards the bottom of a new 'green' league table published by the Department of Communities and Local Government.

...

By 2011, the computer is expected to have a peak processing speed approaching 1 petaflop, equivalent to more than 100,000 PCs and more than 30 times more powerful than what is in place at the moment. It will have 15million megabytes of memory - but will require 1.2 megawatts of electricity to run.

Funny - ironic even - but I think someone has their sums wrong.

If it is using 1.2MW then by my reckoning, it only produces 3700 tonnes per year (taking the UK grid mix of sources).

 

[SByer]

While we are at it, mandate that all new roads are to be designed and built wide enough to accomodate safe bike travel.

Now, when you say it like that...
Yes, as a long term Effective Cycling devotee, that page sums it up quite nicely.

Especially for bridges, mandating the extra space is critical.

 

[vfx]

Especially for bridges, mandating the extra space is critical.

The Richmond bridge is a travesty!

 

[dpeilow]

Major cities at risk from rising sea level threat - Times Online

'Nations will vanish and millions lose their homes to rising seas' - Times Online

Carbon 'must be sucked from the atmosphere' - Times Online

 

[dpeilow]

BBC News - This decade 'warmest on record'

 

[shark2k]

Science not faked, but not pretty - Yahoo! News

-Shark2k

 

[dpeilow]

BBC News - Copenhagen climate summit negotiations 'suspended'

 

[stopcrazypp]

Bjorn Lomborg: Time for a Smarter Approach to Global Warming - WSJ.com

Not really that special of an article, but it gives some insight into the lengths people go to avoid any action on climate change. Here's the typical "there are more important things" argument, though near the end he does provide a better suggestion than Kyoto to address climate problems.

 

[dpeilow]

So it seems that COP15 is a cop out.

I guess it willi fall to the likes of the people on this board to do the right thing...

 

[dpeilow]

Last decade warmest ever: NASA - Environment - The Independent

 

[dpeilow]

BBC News - I will not go, says climate chief

"I got the entire top team of the IPCC to go through the details of this case, and we decided that this was an error but we also saw that this did not in any way move away from the reality that these glaciers are melting."

 

[bobw]

The Sufis tell stories about Nasruddin. In my favorite, his neighbor found him daubing flour paste on the walls of his house.

"Why are you doing that?"

"To keep the lions away."

"But there are no lions in Bagdad!"

"See?"

 

[dpeilow]

BBC News - UN body to look at meat and climate link

 

[dpeilow]

BBC News - Climate science must be more open, say MPs

MPs investigating the climate change row at the UK's University of East Anglia (UEA) have demanded greater transparency from climate scientists.

The Commons Science and Technology Committee criticised UEA authorities for failing to respond to requests for data from climate change sceptics.

But it found no evidence Professor Phil Jones, whose e-mails were hacked and published online, had manipulated data.

It said his reputation, and that of his climate research unit, remained intact.

Let's see how widely this outcome gets reported...

 

[dpeilow]

BBC News - Today - Lovelock: 'We can't save the planet'

 

[TEG]

From the "doom and gloom" newsroom: something else we will contend with someday;
NOVA | Magnetic Storm | See a Reversal | PBS
Geomagnetic reversal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia