a presentation in Long Beach, California, this past February, former Vice President Al Gore cued up one of the most chilling scenes from his 2006 Oscar-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.

“[Climate change] deniers said this would never happen,” Gore told the crowd of about 50 people as they watched a computer simulation of floodwaters engulfing lower Manhattan.

Al Gore then played a news montage from Hurricane Sandy in October of 2012, in which the Hudson River rose up to swallow the southern tip of Manhattan.

The sobering parallel underscored a renewed sense of urgency around the issue of climate change. “Superstorm Sandy, in particular, represented something of a tipping point, I believe,” Gore told the crowd.

It would seem so. A recent spate of extreme weather events has forced the concerns voiced by An Inconvenient Truth back into the national conversation. And while scientists still cannot definitively say that climate change causes events like Sandy, they have developed a better understanding in recent years of how it may have exacerbated recent weather, amplifying the frequency and severity of such cataclysmic events—in the manner, say, of a steroid’s effects on an athlete’s performance.

“Greenhouse gasses could be juicing the environment by making extreme events more frequent and more intense,” says Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communications at Yale University.

On the seventh anniversary of Gore’s call to action, with consensus building that the perilous effects of global warming are now reaching an undeniable level of magnitude and frequency, it’s time to look at how far we’ve come—and how much more there is to do.

http://www.takepart.com/article/2013...at-we-know-now

IPCC video on its latest report:

"Clean energy now supplies nearly one-third of Germany's electricity. The industry has created 370,000 jobs. Environmental sectors contribute over eight per cent of the country's GDP. And carbon emissions are down 23 per cent from 1990 levels. If the world's fourth largest economy can achieve such results, then Jacobs thinks developed countries like Canada can certainly learn a thing or two."



http://thetyee.ca/News/2014/10/20/Ge...gy-Revolution/

New research explains and quantifies sea level rise.

http://www.theguardian.com/environme...sea-level-rise

I love playing Power Grid.

emerging technology

Sunlight Produces Hydrogen via ‘Artificial Leaf’

http://www.photonics.com/Article.aspx?PID=6&AID=57040&refer=weeklyNewslette r&utm_source=weeklyNewsletter_2015_01_08&utm_mediu m=email&utm_campaign=weeklyNewsletter
BERKELEY, Calif., Dec. 31, 2014 — A flat mesh of light-absorbing semiconductor nanowires can split water molecules, producing hydrogen gas that could be used for fuel.

The “artificial leaf” was developed by a team led by professor Dr. Peidong Yang of University of California, Berkeley, and professor Dr. Bin Liu of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

---

A diagram of the nanowire mesh. Courtesy of ACS Nano.

---

The mesh works without any electron mediators. The researchers said that large-scale networks of the mesh could be made using low-cost solution synthesis and vacuum filtration techniques. The hydrogen created by these mesh networks could fuel vehicles and power homes and businesses in an environmentally friendly way.

The U.S. Department of Energy and the Singapore-Berkeley Research Initiative for Sustainable Energy funded the project.

The research was published in the ACS Nano(doi: 10.1021/nn5051954).

For more information, visit www.berkeley.edu.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

"Clean energy now supplies nearly one-third of Germany's electricity. The industry has created 370,000 jobs. Environmental sectors contribute over eight per cent of the country's GDP. And carbon emissions are down 23 per cent from 1990 levels. If the world's fourth largest economy can achieve such results, then Jacobs thinks developed countries like Canada can certainly learn a thing or two."



http://thetyee.ca/News/2014/10/20/Ge...gy-Revolution/

Yes, the Germans are doing well in solar, but their decision to shut-down their entire nuclear generating capacity is forcing the use of NG and, assuming the Russians aren't cooperative, coal. It's hard to see that as beneficial.

Originally Posted by radind

emerging technology

This faux-tosynthesis process has real promise. It can't be used for the electrical grid, but it can put fuel cells in play. At the moment, they're mostly a niche source.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...ss_george-will

WTF has happened to George Will? I've noticed over the last few years that he seems to have run off the rails.

Despite his conservative perspective, I've, in the past, viewed him as a possible heir to William Buckley's more nuanced, more intellectual approach to conservatism.

Here he is, rambling through untethered thoughts about what?

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Yes, the Germans are doing well in solar, but their decision to shut-down their entire nuclear generating capacity is forcing the use of NG and, assuming the Russians aren't cooperative, coal. It's hard to see that as beneficial.

It will be beneficial as soon as Germany completes its switch to clean fuels. For nuclear, Germany would be smart to continue their ban until thorium or fusion alternatives prove safe and ready to build. Germans don't want large sections of their land rendered uninhabitable. They don't have much "living space."

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

It will be beneficial as soon as Germany completes its switch to clean fuels. For nuclear, Germany would be smart to continue their ban until thorium or fusion alternatives prove safe and ready to build. Germans don't want large sections of their land rendered uninhabitable. They don't have much "living space."

Lately, Germany's emission mask has grown, not shrunk. Priorities should be ordered, and getting the CO₂ levels down is at the top of the list. They seem to believe otherwise. I doubt they will be able to push solar and wind much further than they already have, and neither provides baseload power ... which you continue to pretend is not a critical need.

The real heroes in Europe are the French. Their emissions have been low for decades, because they rely on a well regulated nuclear solution. They are also in the lead on fusion.

I have a hard time understanding your total rejection of nuclear power. There have not been any deaths and very few injuries from that technology in this country in all the years we've had it in use. The French have done even better by using standardized reactor designs. They even have a waste depository, and have had one for decades.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Lately, Germany's emission mask has grown, not shrunk. Priorities should be ordered, and getting the CO₂ levels down is at the top of the list. They seem to believe otherwise. I doubt they will be able to push solar and wind much further than they already have, and neither provides baseload power ... which you continue to pretend is not a critical need.

The real heroes in Europe are the French. Their emissions have been low for decades, because they rely on a well regulated nuclear solution. They are also in the lead on fusion.

I have a hard time understanding your total rejection of nuclear power. There have not been any deaths and very few injuries from that technology in this country in all the years we've had it in use. The French have done even better by using standardized reactor designs. They even have a waste depository, and have had one for decades.

The US could be in the lead on nuclear power, or at least tied with France if we had not abandoned nuclear power development. It is ironic that this has led to more emissions from burning fossil fuels.

Originally Posted by TnT

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...ss_george-will

WTF has happened to George Will? I've noticed over the last few years that he seems to have run off the rails.

Despite his conservative perspective, I've, in the past, viewed him as a possible heir to William Buckley's more nuanced, more intellectual approach to conservatism.

Here he is, rambling through untethered thoughts about what?

I had hoped that George F. Will, who used to be a delight to read and listen to even if one disagreed with him, would take that role. The right has gladly fostered bigotry and superstition if such gives even a momentary advantage to the Cause, which will ensure that any follies are even more disastrous.

Does anybody on the Right have any moderating effect upon Movement Conservatives except to say "don't affiliate with people who burn crosses or prance around in brown shirts"?

Interesting, but probably a long way off.

How to Manipulate Plants to Build a Better Biofuel

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar..._id=SA_Twitter

”A recent study is bringing scientists a step closer to determining how plants regulate their cell wall thickness and strength, an advance that could make biofuel production more efficient.
Two groups of researchers at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and the University of California, Davis, have found the gene regulatory networks that are responsible for the synthesis of the secondary cell wall components, cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana.”…

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

IPCC video on its latest report:

The Republican Party isn't going to like it. It thrives in economic insecurity that allows elites to pit masses against masses in a race to the bottom whence economic elites can profiteer. It considers acceleration of resource use the hallmark of prosperity instead of a devouring of wealth. It sees profit for elites as the definitive expression of prosperity irrespective of human cost.

Climate change is itself a bad gamble. At the least it implies the inundation of prime real estate -- coastal port cities that now concentrate much of the trading and intellectual activity (sure, we would still have Paris... not to mention Chicago, Munich, Prague, and Moscow... but we would lose much else). In view of the certain disruption of food supplies, the loss of some of the most productive tracts of farmland implies that at least tens of millions will be unable to eat. Those who no longer have food will die.

Climate change could be even more destructive than nuclear warfare. It would work more slowly, but it would be just as lethal. Do not be fooled by the poverty of some regions of the world; with few exceptions people are where the food is. Yes, I count the Nile Delta, the lowland agricultural region of northern China, and Bengal as "rich farming areas". In view of the huge populations on those lands, those areas need be rich in productivity. But inundate those lands, and where do the people there go -- and where do the people who used to rely upon the productivity of prime farmland in lowland regions go?

That is before we ask ourselves how weather patterns will change, which could make life far nastier for those who face little loss of land from the rising of the seas. Should Australia get the sort of climates that one associates with Australia, then one whole large country is basically cooked into irrelevancy.

The American Right has incredible blindness to ethical consequences of climate change. It would never be so crass as to call for the detonating a hydrogen bomb upon Calcutta, but it sees nothing wrong with a process that would kill about as many people (if not more) by destroying their precarious source of survival. Global warming is an ethical issue. If most of the world can so see nuclear proliferation as a world menace deserving drastic action that requires some mitigation of ideological invective, then maybe global warming can force much the same.

Or are we Americans less humane than either Ronald Reagan or Mikhail Gorbachev this time?

Update on ITER. Hopefully, the world will eventually develop nuclear fusion. (The US has lost its way.)
-Still a long way off.

Progress in preparing scenarios for operation of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor
http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip...15?track=tweet
"The development of operating scenarios is one of the key issues in the research for ITER which aims to achieve a fusion gain (Q) of ∼10, while producing 500 MW of fusion power for ≥300 s. The ITER Research plan proposes a success oriented schedule starting in hydrogen and helium, to be followed by a nuclear operation phase with a rapid development towards Q ∼ 10 in deuterium/tritium. The Integrated Operation Scenarios Topical Group of the International TokamakPhysics Activity initiates joint activities among worldwide institutions and experiments to prepare ITER operation”…

New studies show possible greater impact of greenhouse gases.

Carbon Pollution Costs More Than U.S. Government Estimates


http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...medium=twitter

"Climate change could have much larger impacts on the economy than the U.S. government is anticipating, according to an analysis released yesterday that suggests the social cost of carbon should be six times higher.

A paper by two Stanford University researchers argues that the true cost of releasing greenhouse gases is about $220 a ton because rising temperatures could badly hinder a nation's economic growth over decades or centuries. The Obama administration estimates that the social cost of carbon is $37 a ton.”…

Originally Posted by radind

Interesting, but probably a long way off.

I know DARPA funded a project to bio-engineer algae to generate a byproduct similar to aviation fuel. I think it worked, but was very inefficient. I assume that this is still being worked somewhere, since we rely so heavily on aircraft for much of our military's ability to project power.

Originally Posted by radind

Update on ITER. Hopefully, the world will eventually develop nuclear fusion. (The US has lost its way.)

-Still a long way off.

ITER is one of those projects that has to be built to be evaluated. The single biggest challenge to controlled fusion is plasma managment, and that's ITER's primary mission. If ITER has the capability to be configured and operated in a steady state, 99% of all fusion issues will have been resolved.

Here's hoping.

Methane emissions cut.

Powerful Global Warming Pollution Cut by New U.S. Rules

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...medium=twitter

"Obama administration officials this morning announced a plan under which the oil and gas industry would have to cut methane emissions by 40 to 45 percent below 2012 levels by 2025. U.S. EPA will issue new regulations this summer under the Clean Air Act, and a final rule would be in place in 2016."...

Originally Posted by radind

Methane emissions cut.

Time to stock-up on Beano.

Regulation clearly needed.

Fracking Brings Ammonium and Iodide to Local Waterways

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...medium=twitter

…” Two hazardous chemicals never before known as oil and gas industry pollutants—ammonium and iodide—are being released and spilled into Pennsylvania and West Virginia waterways from the booming energy operations of the Marcellus shale, ”…
…”When dissolved in water, ammonium can turn to ammonia, highly toxic to aquatic life. The Duke team found ammonium levels in streams and rivers from energy industry wastewater outflows at levels 50 times higher than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's water-quality threshold. Under a loophole created by Congress in a 2005 energy law, fracking wastewater isn't regulated under the U.S. Safe Drinking Water Act.”…

…”In states like Texas and Oklahoma, with long histories of conventional drilling, oil and gas wastewater is disposed by injection in deep underground wells. But in Pennsylvania, a hotbed of fracking, there are few such sites. Some oil and gas wastewater is discharged to waterways after treatment at commercially operated industrial brine treatment plants, which were not designed to remove ammonium or iodide.”…

…””There are significant environmental and ecosystem impacts of current [oil and gas wastewater] disposal practices in the U.S.," they wrote, "Regulatory action is needed to address these concerns." "

Very interesting study on the effects of giant volcanic eruption on changing climate.

Past blast: The lost volcano that set off an ice age

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...e#.VLcQLsY_ZRo


"Their findings, just published ...., not only mark the culmination of three years of hard detective work, but also have far-reaching implications. The eruption of 1257 may have had a role in one of the most intriguing events in recent climate history, when three centuries of relative warmth and stability gave way to the Little Ice Age, a period marked by famines, epidemics and social turbulence. More generally, concerns over global warming have made it imperative to better understand Earth’s climate, and the potential impacts of very large volcanic eruptions are an important part of that puzzle.”…


…”The work suggests the Little Ice Age was caused not by solar forcing but by volcanic activity," says Alan Robock at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. More than three decades ago, he provided some of the earliest evidence that volcanism contributed to cooling in the Little Ice Age. The case is still not closed, but if the idea does become widely accepted, it will have important implications for our understanding of Earth's climate. Knowing the causes of earlier climate shifts is crucial to the quest to forecast what will happen next.
If the eruption of Samalas did help trigger the Little Ice Age, there can be little doubt that volcanism can have sudden, far-reaching consequences both for the climate and for civilisation. With the mystery of 1257 seemingly solved, we are one giant step closer to understanding the role of volcanic activity in dramatic climate change "

Originally Posted by radind

Very interesting study on the effects of giant volcanic eruption on changing climate.

A volcanic eruption may be the result of slow, steady change under the volcano, but above the Earth's crust it is an abrupt event upon world events. It can slow global warming (Mount Pinatubo)... but nobody can predict volcanic eruptions, especially the big ones, reliably.

The sure supervolcano eruption in the Yellowstone caldera puts an abrupt end to global warming and makes it the least of world problems for an extended time. It might not cause human extinction, but it would certainly make life precarious in the extreme for survivors. But we know not when, do we? A thousand years or ten thousand? As the North American continent pivots southwestward, the hot spot will remain in the same place as the continent moves with the hot spot passing through Montana and northwestern North Dakota in a few million years with many catastrophic eruptions.