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One year later BP still not “making it right” in Gulf restoration funding

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 14:28:32 +0000

Fire boat response crews spray water on the blazing remnants of BP’s Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig Jorge Madrid and Kiley Kroh in a CAP repost . One year ago the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster caused immeasurable damage to the Gulf Coast and the people who live and work there. Unfortunately on the first anniversary of the spill those ecosystems and communities are still suffering. Solutions from both Congress and the parties responsible for the spill are slow moving or nonexistent. It is time for action to restore this vital region in the short term and start building lasting solutions to bring economic and ecological stability to the Gulf Coast over the coming decades. A group of trustees including federal agencies are responsible for determining the extent of damage done to the Gulf via a Natural Resource Damage Assessment, or NRDA, a process likely to drag on for several more years. Of course, the communities and sensitive environmental areas in the Gulf need their remediation to begin immediately.

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One year later BP still not “making it right” in Gulf restoration funding

Our climate models are ‘Dangerously Optimistic " and the Action we need is more than we are taking

Sun, 27 Feb 2011 05:00:07 +0000

At the crossroads: Floods, fires and the speech Obama should give on climate change

Sat, 29 Jan 2011 04:31:06 +0000

Our guest blogger is Bill Becker. Like the BP disaster, the extreme weather events occurring worldwide offer a Sputnik moment to focus attention on the urgent need to address climate change. Here is the speech I’d love to see Obama give in a special session of Congress, perhaps on Earth Day

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At the crossroads: Floods, fires and the speech Obama should give on climate change

So you want to find a peer-reviewed paper in the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report

Wed, 05 Jan 2011 07:00:11 +0000

This guest post by Miloslav Nic was first published on Skeptical Science . This is a post about my website Zvon.org where I’ve created a resource for the IPCC 4th Assessment Report (AR4).

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So you want to find a peer-reviewed paper in the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report

Worldchanging’s bright green contribution

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:09:02 +0000

by Jonathan Hiskes. Rumors have been floating around for a while, but on Monday the unfortunate fact became public : the sustainability news and advocacy site Worldchanging is shutting down. The 501c3 non-profit will dissolve by the end of the year, though the hope is to preserve its seven-year online archive. A note on the site says the organization had grown almost completely dependent on revenue from the speaking fees of co-founder and editor Alex Steffen: Why is this happening? Worldchanging readers were generous over the years and an important part of our ongoing operations, but we were never able to secure major foundation support, so Worldchanging relied most heavily on income generated from Alex Steffen’s speaking engagements (Alex gave more than 400 talks over the past five years) and the Worldchanging book

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Worldchanging’s bright green contribution

How carbon dioxide controls earth’s temperature – NASA’s Lacis: "There is no viable alternative to counteract global warming except through…

Tue, 19 Oct 2010 04:40:55 +0000

A study by GISS climate scientists recently published in the journal Science shows that atmospheric CO 2 operates as a thermostat to control the temperature of Earth …. CO 2 is the key atmospheric gas that exerts principal control (80% of the non-condensing GHG forcing) over the strength of the terrestrial greenhouse effect. Water vapor and clouds are fast-acting feedback effects, and as such, they are controlled by the radiative forcing supplied by the non-condensing GHGs….

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How carbon dioxide controls earth’s temperature – NASA’s Lacis: "There is no viable alternative to counteract global warming except through…

More thoughts on the offensive ‘No Pressure’ video

Sat, 02 Oct 2010 20:15:44 +0000

It is laughable for any of the anti-science, pro-pollution disinformers to attack the idiotic, offensive “No Pressure” video by the British 10:10 group but give a free pass to the lies and hate speech they routinely spout. You can safe ignore the comments or posts of anyone who hasn’t denounced people like the widely discredited Anthony Watts (with his utterly offensive comments on the purported eco-terrorist who was shot and killed by police and general disinformation ) the Swift Boat smearer (see “ UK Guardian slams Morano for cyber-bullying and for urging violence against climate scientists “); and worst of all, Lord Monckton (see Monckton repeats and expands on his charge that those who embrace climate science are “Hitler youth” and fascists ). Those folks maintain a noxious double standard: They can spread endless lies and smears and never apologize for a word of it, but are outraged at everything anyone else does, whether it is beyond tasteless crap like this “No Pressure” video, which actually deserves condemnation or, merely the IPCC Fourth Assessment, a science-based effort to inform the public on how to avoid misery and suffering for billions of humans, which contains a few small errors, but mostly downplays the multiple catastrophes humanity faces if we actually listen to the disinformers. As I’ve said , none of this excuses that disgusting “No Pressure” video. I agree with Bill McKibben on that. But the difference is that those who are trying to preserve a livable climate and hence the health and well-being of our children and billions of people this century quickly denounce the few offensive over-reaches of those who claim to share our goals — but those trying to destroy a livable climate, well, for them lies and hate speech are the modus operandi, so such behavior is not only tolerated, but promoted. Again, please keep the comments civil. This isn’t WUWT, which allows and indeed encourages the most vicious comments that smear people like Gore, Holdren and Hansen.

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More thoughts on the offensive ‘No Pressure’ video

Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise to perform independent assessment of oil spill impacts on Gulf

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 15:04:49 +0000

Mike G from our US office writes… Since the Deepwater Horizon offshore rig exploded and sank in April, BP has devoted inadequate resources to the oil spill response, withheld information from the American public, and denied access to spill sites to journalists. So our ship the Arctic Sunrise is heading to the Gulf to do an independent assessment of the impacts. We believe it’s way past time the full, unabridged truth about the extent and nature of this oil catastrophe was told to America and the world. The reports coming out of Louisiana about cleanup workers and even local police helping BP enforce a media blockade have been nearly as frustrating as watching the oil spew into the Gulf without cease for almost three months (a hat tip is most definitely deserved here to Mother Jones ’ Mac McClelland , who has been chasing this story all along and doing a great job of reporting what’s happening on the ground). It’s in BP’s best interest to limit media access to oiled beaches and wildlife, as the more they can contain the truth about just how much damage has been done, the more they can limit their liability to pay for that damage later on. We released our ScamWow video last week to highlight this very sad and galling state of affairs

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Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise to perform independent assessment of oil spill impacts on Gulf

Dutch assessment of IPCC: “Overall the summary conclusions are considered well founded and none were found to contain any significant errors.” -…

Mon, 05 Jul 2010 18:34:14 +0000

Our findings do not contradict the main conclusions of the IPCC on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability related to climate change. There is ample observational evidence of natural systems being influenced by climate change on regional levels. The negative impacts under unmitigated climate change in the future pose substantial risks to most parts of the world, with risks increasing at higher global average temperatures. The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) examined the Regional Chapters in the Working Group II portion of the 2007 Fourth Assessment. Full 100 page report is here ; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change comment is here . Overall, as the BBC headline makes clear, “ Dutch review backs UN climate science report .” So, naturally, the Wall Street Journal headline on the report was, “ Dutch Review Raises Concerns About Climate Report .” Also, there is an effort to spin this report as showing the IPCC has some sort of a bias toward reporting negative impacts. In fact the overwhelming majority of research since the IPCC has found that the IPCC has consistently underestimated many key current and future impacts, particularly sea level rise (and carbon-cycle feedbacks). The Dutch do find a bunch of “very small” errors and one or two medium-sized mistakes, but note: Realistically speaking, a thousand-page assessment by hundreds of authors involving thousands of reviewers conducted within a limited timeframe could hardly be expected to be free of errors.

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Dutch assessment of IPCC: “Overall the summary conclusions are considered well founded and none were found to contain any significant errors.” -…

Scotland quietly approves 6.4GW of new offshore wind projects

Thu, 20 May 2010 19:59:49 +0000

Jessica Shankleman, BusinessGreen , Thursday 20 May 2010 at 13:37:00 Scottish Government Strategic Environmental Assessment urges offshore wind developers to push ahead with new wind farm proposals “as soon as possible” The Scottish Government has approved The Crown Estate’s plan to build 6.4GW of offshore wind farms and identified 25 further sites for potential development by 2030, paving the way for…

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Scotland quietly approves 6.4GW of new offshore wind projects