It’s Gettin’ Hot in Here | David Roberts: ‘Climate Change Is Simple’ (remixed by Ryan Cooper)

Via YouTube:

David Roberts is staff writer at Grist.org. In “Climate Change is Simple” he describes the causes and effects of climate change in blunt, plain terms.

On April 16, 2012, speakers and attendees gathered at TEDxTheEvergreenStateCollege: Hello Climate Change to reflect on the ability — and responsibility — of formal and informal education to inspire and empower action in this era of climate change.

Related:

• David Roberts: ‘Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed’ (Grist)
• ‘Why can’t we quit fossil fuels?’ (The Guardian)
• ‘Global warming’s new frightening deadline’ (Vancouver Sun)

Happy Earth Day!

It’s Gettin’ Hot in Here: Arctic Sea Ice Breaking Up, February-March 2013 (Video)

For those keeping score at home, February and March are winter months.

Video source: NOAA via YouTube

Related:

• ‘Ice Breaking News: This Is Your 2013 Arctic Freezing Season On Crack’ (Climate Progress)
• ‘‘Spectacular’ 1,000 kilometre-long crack rips across ice in Canada’s Beaufort Sea’ (The National Post)
• ‘Scientists link frozen spring to dramatic Arctic sea ice loss’ (The Guardian)

From Xinhaunet:

China will proactively introduce a set of new taxation policies designed to preserve the environment, including a tax on carbon dioxide emissions, according to a senior official with the Ministry of Finance (MOF).

…

China is among the world’s largest emitters of greenhouse gas and has set goals for cutting emissions. The government has vowed to reduce carbon intensity, or the amount of carbon dioxide emitted per unit of economic output, by 40 to 45 percent by 2020 in comparison to 2005 levels.

Check out the rest of the article here.

Related:

• ‘China is getting serious about taming coal’ (Grist)

It’s Gettin’ Hot in Here: ‘Weathergirl Goes Rogue 2: Still Hot, Still Crazy’

After the huge viral success of ‘Weathergirl Goes Rogue’, the folks at Deep Rogue Ram are back with another hilarious, but deadly serious weathercast.

Related:

• ‘September Bookends the Warmest 12 Months on Record’ (Climate Central)
• ‘Extreme Weather Means Extreme Food Prices Worldwide, Aid Agency Warns’ (NPR)
• U.S. Election 2012: ‘Climate Change, The Debate’s Great Unmentionable’ (New Yorker)

Energy on the Mind: ‘Don’t Worry, Drive On’ (Video)

From The Post Carbon Institute:

In recent months we’ve seen a spate of articles, reports, and op-eds claiming that peak oil is a worry of the past thanks to so-called “new technologies” that can tap massive amounts of previously inaccessible stores of “unconventional” oil. “Don’t worry, drive on,” we’re told.

But as Post Carbon Institute Senior Fellow Richard Heinberg asks in this short video, what’s really new here? “What’s new is high oil prices and … the economy hates high oil prices.”

You can read more about the video, including its script here. As for Heinberg’s claim that the economy and high oil prices aren’t exactly best friends the UK’s Telegraph newspaper recently reported:

… a disturbing pattern has emerged where each tentative recovery in the world economy sets off an oil price jump that it turn aborts the process. A two point rise in global manufacturing indexes leads to a 30pc rise in oil prices a few months later.

“Oil has become an increasingly scarce commodity. A tight supply picture means that incremental increases in demand lead to an increase in prices, rather than ramping up production. The price of oil is in effect acting as an automatic stabilizer,” they said. If so, it is “stabilizing” the world economy in perma-slump.

Yet another big reason to speed the transition to a clean energy economy while building resilience.

Related:

• ‘We’re still on the slippery slope to peak oil’ (New Scientist)
• ‘The resilience imperative’ (The Tyee)

From Business Insider:

Figures from China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) regarding the impact the 4-year plastic bag ban came out earlier this week, and frankly they’re incredible.

China Daily cites a government official who says the ban has saved 4.8 million tonnes of oil (the equivalent of 6.8 million tonnes of standard coal), not to mention 800,000 tonnes of plastic.

If these figures are true, it’s not only a remarkable success for China’s environmental policy, but also a strike for international effort to ban plastic bags.

Check out the rest of the article here.

Related:

• ‘The Plastic Bag Wars’ (Rolling Stone)
• ‘Phase-out of lightweight plastic bags’ (Wikipedia)
• ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch a bigger worry than tsunami debris’ (Los Angeles Times)
• ‘10 Things You Should Know About the Great Pacific Garbage Patch’ (Greenbang)

(Photo credit: Treehugger)

Climate Cartoon: A Big (Oil) Barrier to a Clean Energy Future… 

(Source: Dayton Daily News via The Oil Drum)

Related:

• ‘The Great Carbon Bubble: Why the Fossil-Fuel Industry Fights So Hard’ (Grist)
• ‘Clean Energy Switch to Cost Fossil Industry $4 Trillion by 2020’ (Clean Technica)
• ‘Today, ALEC Hosts Legislators & Big Oil — Topic? Undermining Clean Energy’ (Clean Technica)
• Memo: Group Wants To Create Fake Grassroots Wind ‘Subversion’ Campaign That ‘Should Appear As A Groundswell’ (Climate Progress)

From The Winnipeg Free Press: 

A fresh round of global environment talks has just begun, and Canada has the dubious distinction of being the second country to receive a “Fossil of the Day” award.

Tens of thousands of government delegates and organizations from around the world are gathering this week and next in Brazil for the Rio+20 talks on sustainable development.

As at other summits in the past, some of the non-governmental organizations in Rio are singling out countries for what the groups say is an obstructionist role in negotiations.

On Friday, activists handed Canada the award for deleting wording for funding for developing countries, weakening language on fossil-fuel subsidies, and causing confusion on policies related to oceans and fisheries.

They also pointed to C-38, the government’s omnibus budget bill that streamlined environmental assessment rules and changed protections for fisheries.

“As leaders gather in Rio, Canada is weakening key parts of the Rio agreement while rolling back decades of environmental legislation and climate protection by pushing through Bill C-38,” Amara Possian of PowerShift Canada, a youth organization said in an email from Brazil.

“They are being given the Rio Fossil for standing in the way of a just and sustainable future at home and here in Rio.”

• ‘The C-38 debate is a last-ditch effort to save democracy’s soul’ (Vancouver Sun)

• ‘Canadians will pay for Harper’s approach to environment: former Tory’ (Canada.com)

• Canada falling well short of greenhouse-gas emission targets: environment advisory panel (Winnipeg Free Press)

• Oil sands must do ‘heavy lifting’ to meet climate goals, Ottawa told (Globe & Mail)

• Research on oil-sands impact cost centre its funding, scientists say (Globe & Mail)

  
  

A prophetic ad from 1962: “Each Day Humble Supplies Enough Energy to Melt 7 Million Tons of Glacier!”  

The ad, which appeared in Life Magazine, reads:

“This giant glacier has remained unmelted for centuries. Yet, the petroleum energy Humble supplies — if converted into heat — could melt it at the rate of 80 tons each second! To meet the nation’s growing needs for energy, Humble has supplied science to nature’s resources to become America’s Leading Energy Company. Working wonders with oil through research, Humble provides energy in many forms — to help heat our homes, power our transportation, and to furnish industry with a great variety of versatile chemicals. Stop at a Humble station for new Enco Extra gasoline, and see why the “Happy Motoring” Sign is the World’s First Choice!”

Source: Huffington Post