Friday, July 03, 2009
Every week readers send me news clippings. I couldn't write what's new
without them and am deeply grateful. A disproportionate number, however,
are clipped from right wing publications by global warming skeptics. I
read those too, and I appreciate receiving them, but generally find them
unconvincing. Years ago I warned about positive feedback from methane
released by thawing tundra, but more recently I wrote that this seems to be
partially offset by increased plant growth
http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN07/wn092807.html . This week a reader
sent me a story by Sarah Simpson in Scientific American about the Arctic
thaw which began by relating how Katey Walter of the University of Alaska-
Fairbanks found methane emissions from Arctic lakes. These lakes could fart
10 times the amount of methane already in the atmosphere.
The American Clean Energy and Security Act, alias The Waxman-Markey Energy
Bill, alias the Climate Change Bill, barely passed in the House by
weakening key features and adding tons of pork. To capture farm votes, for
example, they added a provision blocking any accounting of the carbon
emissions from biofuels, corn ethanol in particular. Senate Democrats,
reinforced by Al Franken, must now pass their version. Their 60 vote,
filibuster-proof majority won't help, only 45 Democrats can be counted on.
On Wednesday, Sweden assumed the presidency of the EU from the Czech
Republic just in time to lead the EU into the Copenhagen Summit on global
warming, which may have had something to do with the timing of the
summit. The president of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus, a libertarian
economist, authored a book that translates to something like "Blue Planet
in Green Shackles". He describes global warming as a myth. Swedish Prime
Minister Frederik Reinfeldt, who replaces Klaus as EU President,
immediately called on the EU to do more to combat climate change. Sweden
is a perfect example, with a 50% economic growth since 1990 combined with a
10% cut in CO2 emissions. All of Sweden's electricity comes from
hydroelectric or nuclear power giving it a 20% rate of renewable
energy. We have put our renewable target at 50% for 2020," Reinfeldt
said, "so we are preparing for a huge increase in wind power."
Looking at China's immense deserts from an airplane, you would not imagine
they could be productive. What they produce is wind, lots of wind. And
China is harvesting the wind. China is on the verge of passing the United
States as the world's largest market for wind turbines. The wind power
capacity of China has doubled every year for four years.
Reporting on the crash of the A330 Airbus in the Atlantic, CNN reported
that the plane hit the surface of the water flat. Therefore, everything
was pushed upwards from the bottom to the top of the plane. Incredible!
The French crash investigator, however, reported that shelves in the galley
were compressed to the bottom.
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