Emission reduction targets in the USA and UK

In the United States just before Thanksgiving President Obama set a target to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 17% (from 2005 levels) by 2020. It is a very easy target. If you compare it on a like for like basis with the United Kingdom’s target of 20% cuts from 1999 levels it translates to about [...]

Broken promises

Developed countries clearly feel guilty that climate change, for which they have largely been responsible, affects most adversely the undeveloped poorer nations. They assuage their conscious by promising money to poorer nations. In 2001 twenty of the world’s richest countries promised $410 million each year until 2008 to help the least developed countries. Unfortunately these promises, [...]

Climate change is not a religion

Apparently less than half the population of the United Kingdom thinks that climate change is a problem. I suppose that we can compare the positions that people take on climate change to positions that they take on religion. There are believers, atheists and agnostics. The climate change atheists and agnostics make up more than half [...]

Climate change and war

Many commentators have been predicting that climate change will create conflict. Most of us have envisaged that the conflict will arise when large numbers of people have to move from land that climate change will make unfit for habitation. The great river deltas of the world are home to half a billion people and if [...]

The ice at the South Pole is melting

Humans are very clever; they have figured out that object have mass. Mass is often thought of as weight but scientifically it is more than weight. It can describe the properties of a body when it moves, or the properties of a body when it active or passive gravity is applied to it. Einstein told [...]

Why news of reductions in carbon emissions is not good news

Carbon emission reductions are falling in the United States; in 2008 figures released by Celsias have indicated that as oil use fell by three percent and coal use fell by one percent, overall emissions fell by three percent. It seems that the United States is on course for further reductions in oil and coal use, [...]

Barriers to installing micro generation

It has taken ten years of talking big about climate protection for the United Kingdom Government to turn its attention to removing the barriers that impede environmental and climate protection. These barriers are often imposed by the Government so correcting them is well within the gift of the authorities; when I explain the Government’s proposals [...]

Thoughts for Copenhagen

Around fifty years ago energy was relatively expensive and formed a large part of most people’s budgets. Then in the United Kingdom there were few homes with central heating and most homes had one light bulb for each room. Water was generally heated by an electric immersion heater (usually made of copper and un-insulated) and [...]

Vote for a steady state economy

Economic growth is assumed to be a Good Thing, by most economists but it is responsible for most of the environmental problems that affect us, because the growth is uncontrolled and rewards greed. Economic growth is presented as a benefit to society but it is actually a cancer infecting the environment which will ultimately destroy [...]

Rain, rain go away

One of the fears of climate scientists was that as the planet got hotter so weather patterns would change radically and that one of the changes would be that some parts of the world would have droughts and others would experience heavier than normal rainfall. This fear has proved well grounded. Unfortunately many people only [...]