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Another Week of Climate Disruption News

Information is not Knowledge...Knowledge is not Wisdom

May 4, 2014

• Chuckles, COP20+, Post WGx, EGU, Landslide, Energiewende
• Bottom Line, Subsidies, Economics, EcoCrime, Cook
• Fukushima: Note, News
• Melting Arctic, Methane, Geopolitics
• Food: Crisis, Fisheries, Prices, Land Grabs, GMOs, GMO Labelling, Production
• Hurricanes, Monsoon, Notable Weather, Extreme Weather, New Weather
• GHGs, Aerosols, Volcanoes, Climate Sensitivity, Ozone, ENSO
• Temperatures, Paleoclimate, Attribution
• Oceans, Biosphere, Extinctions, Bees & CCD, Insects, Anthropocene
• Impacts, Forests, Climate Refugees, Disease, Smog & Health. Tornadoes
• Wildfires, Corals, Acidification, Glaciers, Sea Levels, GW Deluge, Floods & Droughts
• Mitigation, Transportation, Buildings, Sequestration, Geoengineering, Conservation, Adaptation
• Journals, Other Docs, Misc. Science, Science Orgs, Free Science, Mann, Pielke
• International Politics: Carbon Trade, Bank Tax, Hormuz, South China Sea, Ukraine
• Resources, Treaties, Misc., Security, Law, Activism, Divestment, Polls, H2O Biz, Groundwater
• National Politics: Britain, Europe, Australia, Abbott, CSG, MDBP, Tas Forest Deal, India, China, Japan, Asia
• Canada, Lac-Mégantic, CCA-Fracking, Grain Backlog, Pipelines, Salmon
• BC, Tar Sands, Alberta, Sask, Manitoba, Ontario, Maritimes, Canadiana
• America, Keystone, Spills & Leaks, Birth Control, Sequestration, 2014/2016, USAdmin, Congress, Lobbyists
• Ecological Economics, DeGrowth, Recycling, Apocalypso, Why We Fight, Media, Books, Video, Courts
• Energy, Fracking, Coal, Oil & Gas, Fossil Fuel Corps, Pipelines, Transportation, US Tar Sands, Independence, Biofuel
• Wind, Solar, Nukes, Nuclear Waste, Nuclear Fusion, Hydrogen, Grid, Utilities, Efficiency, Cars, Energy Storage
• Business, Other Lists, Quotes, Carbon Lobby, Inaction, Miscellaneous, Useful Links
• Shameless Self Promotion, A Simple Plea, .sig

 

We are definitely back in the black humour zone:

• 2014/05/03: TruthDig: (cartoon - Zyglis) Oil Rail Disaster
• 2014/05/02: DemNow: Posing as U.S. Officials, Yes Men Announce Renewable Energy Revolution at Homeland Security Congress
• 2014/04/28: uComics: (cartoon - Toles) Washington Priorities

Just a touch of irony?

• 2014/04/29: Slate: National Food Safety Conference Stricken by -- You Guessed It -- Food Poisoning
  

  Looking ahead to COP20 and future international climate negotiations:

  • 2014/05/04: UN: 'The race is on, it's time to lead', UN chief tells Abu Dhabi climate change event
  • 2014/05/02: RTCC: UN's Abu Dhabi climate meeting marks start of ascent to 2015
    Analysis: Ministerial gathering in Middle East can lay foundations for success at Ban Ki-moon's leader's summit This weekend, ministers and advisors to leaders will come together in Abu Dhabi to discuss the preparations for the Climate Summit hosted by Ban Ki-moon.
  • 2014/05/02: RTCC: UN set to target HFCs at Abu Dhabi climate meeting
  • 2014/05/02: RTCC: Carbon cuts for 2015 should not be determined by 2C target, says Russia
    Submission stresses need for developed and developing countries to contribute tougher emission reductions by 2015 Russia says a proposed UN climate deal should aim to limit warming to 2C, but does not think that target should determine what level of emission cuts countries decide to accept ahead of a proposed 2015 UN climate deal.
  • 2014/05/01: RTCC: It's time to look beyond the UN's $100bn climate finance target
    Comment: Fixation on hitting arbitrary figure distracts from true goal of building green and resilient communities
  • 2014/05/01: RTCC: Sweden delays $45m Green Climate Fund contribution
    Delays in setting up the UN's green bank have forced Sweden to postpone a promised US$ 45million contribution, which the government had pledged to deliver by the end of 2014.
  • 2014/04/30: UN: UN climate chief urges greater support for developing countries
  • 2014/04/30: RTCC: Obama and Figueres call for more focus on climate resilience
  • 2014/04/28: RTCC: US-China climate talks making progress, say envoys
    Chinese and US lead negotiators Xie Zhenhua and Todd Stern says talks on climate treaty are progressing well US-China climate change negotiations have been hailed as some of the "most promising" in two decades, according to a report in the Financial Times.
  • 2014/04/28: RTCC: Vagaries of weather could delay UN climate treaty
    Extreme weather events can prompt politicians into delivering strong policies on climate change - but relying on them too heavily could delay action for decades, say scientists.

  Post WG1/WG2/WG3 commentary:

  • 2014/04/29: Wunderground:RR: The One Page I Will Read - IPCC Working Group II
  • 2014/04/27: CCurrents: Governments Meddling In Crucial UN Climate Report
  • 2014/04/27: RTCC: Green credentials of fracking 'exaggerated', says IPCC author
    Yacob Mulugetta tells RTCC he was surprised by level of focus given to role of gas in cutting emissions post WG3 report

  The European Geosciences Union General Assembly went down this week:

  • European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2014 -- Vienna, Austria -- 27 April - 02 May 2014
  • 2014/05/03: JEB: Oh Vienna
  • 2014/05/02: QuantPalaeo: My presentation at EGU2014

  I hear wildly different numbers [350, 500, 2100, 2500], but this landslide looks to have been a major disaster:

  • 2014/05/03: CCurrents: Afghan Landslide Takes At Least 2,500 Lives
  • 2014/05/03: PSinclair: After Heavy Rain, Afghan Landslide, Thousands Missing
  • 2014/05/03: BBC: Afghanistan landslide: Rescuers end search for survivors
    Rescuers in Afghanistan have given up hope of finding any more survivors in a double landslide that is feared to have killed more than 2,500 people. They have stopped digging through the earth and mud that swamped a whole village in the remote north-east province of Badakhshan on Friday. Officials now say the site has become a mass grave for the village of Ab Barik.
  • 2014/05/03: BBC: Afghanistan landslide: Rescuers search for missing
    Rescuers in Afghanistan are sifting through mud for a second day after a landslide that is feared to have buried at least 2,000 people. The UN said more than 350 bodies had been recovered in the remote north-east Afghan province of Badakhshan. Hundreds of homes were buried on Friday when a section of a mountain collapsed following torrential rain.
  • 2014/05/03: ABC(Au): Afghan landslide death toll lowered as attention turns to thousands displaced
    Afghan officials believe a landslide that engulfed a remove village has claimed a maximum of about 500 lives, updating earlier information that put the toll at 2,100.
  • 2014/05/03: CBC: Afghanistan landslide kills at least 2,100 -- Hundreds of homes buried, rescuers give up on finding more survivors
  • 2014/05/03: al Jazeera: Thousands reported dead in Afghan landslide
    Provincial officials say 2,100 people from 300 families killed in disaster which buried a village in the Hindu Kush.
  • 2014/05/03: ABC(Au): Afghanistan landslide: Hundreds dead, more than 2,000 missing in country's north
  • 2014/05/02: BBC: At least 350 people have been killed and many more are missing, the UN says, after a landslide hit the north-east Afghan province of Badakhshan
  • 2014/05/02: CBC: At least 350 dead in Afghanistan landslide [triggered by heavy rain]
  • 2014/05/02: UN: UN rushes to support search, rescue effort after landslides hit north-eastern Afghanistan

  How is the German Energy Transition [Energiewende] doing?

  • 2014/05/02: GEB: Economics Ministry of Mecklenburg Part-Finances First German Floating Wind Turbine Project
  • 2014/04/28: GET: The cost of the energy transition in the power sector

  And on the Bottom Line:

  • 2014/05/01: RTCC: Campaigners release 'hit list' of 200 largest fossil fuel companies
    Divestment index reveals polluting companies which ethical investors 'should avoid' Fossil fuel divestment campaigners have released a hit list of 200 companies from which investors should remove their money.
  • FFI: The World's Top 200 Public Companies -- Ranked by the Carbon Content of their Fossil Fuel Reserves
  • 2014/04/29: PSinclair: Will Oil Sands Become Stranded Assets?
  • 2014/04/28: Tyee: Will Alberta's Oilsands Become 'Stranded Assets'?
    In Boston, top sustainable investors describe the industry's final days.
  • 2014/04/28: RNE: Fossil fuels face $30 trillion losses from climate, renewables

  Who's getting the subsidies, tax exemptions, loan guarantees & grants?

  • 2014/05/02: CleanTechnica: Fossil Fuel Subsidies Cost ~$2 Trillion Annually, According To IMF
  • 2014/04/29: BBC: Fossil fuel subsidies growing despite concerns
    Government subsidies for renewable energy cause great consternation to those who believe in the sanctity of free markets. "If they can't stand on their own feet, then why support them?" the argument goes. But in actual fact, most energy sources are subsidised, and none more so than fossil fuels. Indeed in straight numerical terms, subsidies for oil, coal and gas far outweigh those for renewables. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), in 2012 global fossil fuel subsidies totalled $544bn (£323bn; 392bn euros), while those for renewables amounted to $101bn. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) puts the total for hydrocarbons nearer $2 trillion.
  • 2014/04/29: RNE: Fossil fuel subsidies costing global economy $2 trillion: IMF

  What's new in the tussle between economists and climatologists?

  • 2014/05/03: CCP: Richard Tol loses claim to fame...
  • 2014/05/03: BCLSB: Richard Tol Corrects
  • 2014/05/01: TheWeek: Why don't economists get climate change?
  • 2014/04/30: Guardian(UK): Economics is clear on the need for climate action, now it's time to act
    Bob Ward has identified several errors in Richard Tol's IPCC economics chapter, but the economic need for action is clear
  • 2014/04/26: VoxEU: Greening Economics: It is time by Carlo Carraro et al.
    The concept of environmental capital is throughly entrenched in policy dicussions but largely missing from mainstream economic curriculums. This column argues environmental externalities, climate change, and constraints on natural resources will constantly and deeply affect humankind's future. The teaching of economics, especially growth economics, should stop ignoring them.

  The world inches toward creating a global legal framework for ecological crime:

  • 2014/04/29: CCurrents: Holding The Silent Killers Of Environmental Destruction Accountable

  John Cook and friends continue their point-counterpoint articles:

  • 2014/05/03: SkS: 2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #18B by John Hartz
  • 2014/05/02: SkS: The Australian quantum theory of climate denial by dana1981
  • 2014/05/01: SkS: 2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #18A by John Hartz
  • 2014/05/01: SkS: Past and Future CO2 by Gavin Foster, Dana Royer & Dan Lunt
  • 2014/04/30: SkS: The Quantum Theory of Climate Denial
  • 2014/04/29: SkS: What's your carbon footprint and where does it come from? by Marcin Popkiewicz
  • 2014/04/28: SkS: Palmer United Party needs to go back to school on carbon facts
  • 2014/04/27: SkS: 2014 SkS Weekly Digest #17 by John Hartz

  A note on theFukushima disaster:

  It is evident that the Fukushima disaster is going to persist for some time. TEPCO says 6 to 9 months. The previous Japanese Prime Minister, Naoto Kan, said decades. Now the Japanese government is talking about 30 years. [Whoops, that has now been updated to 40 years.]
  And the IAEA is now saying 40 years too.
  [Now some people are talking about a century or more. Sealing it in concrete for 500 years.]
  We'll see.
  At any rate this situation is not going to be resolved any time soon and deserves its own section.
  Meanwhile...
  It is very difficult to know for sure what is really going on at Fukushima. Between the company [TEPCO], the Japanese government, the Japanese regulator [NISA], the international monitor [IAEA], as well as independent analysts and commentators, there is a confusing mish-mash of information. One has to evaluate both the content and the source of propagated information.
  How knowledgeable are they [about nuclear power and about Japan]?
  Do they have an agenda?
  Are they pro-nuclear or anti-nuclear?
  Do they want to write a good news story?
  Do they want to write a bad news story?
  Where do they rate on a scale of sensationalism?
  Where do they rate on a scale of play-it-down-ness?
  One fundamental question I would like to see answered:
  If the reactors are in meltdown, how can they be in cold shutdown?

  Not much good news coming out of Fukushima:

   

  • 2014/05/03: EneNews: Gov't Investigator: Acute hemorrhaging found in dead owls along west coast -- Mortality event began 8 months after Fukushima explosions...
  • 2014/05/02: WNN: Taking on Fukushima
    One month after being put in charge of decommissioning Fukushima Daiichi, Naohiro Masuda talked to World Nuclear News about his priorities for the site and its workforce.
  • 2014/05/02: FukuLeaks: Fukushima Unit 4 Fuel Removal Hits Half Way Mark - 770 assemblies removed
  • 2014/05/02: FukuLeaks: Fukushima Reactor Water Leak Sources Admitted By TEPCO
  • 2014/05/01: EneNews: State Senator: Fukushima is "damaging the oceans and devastating the environment"; An enormous crisis that has no foreseeable resolution...
  • 2014/05/01: EneNews: No plan to stop Fukushima from contaminating Pacific? Tepco adviser 'doubts' ice wall can stop groundwater from flooding plant...
  • 2014/05/01: FukuLeaks: TEPCO Books 438 Billion Yen Profit
  • 2014/04/30: EneNews: Japan TV: Radioactive release was up to 500 times larger than thought for Fukushima reactor...
  • 2014/04/30: EneNews: NHK: Officials admit it may be impossible to stop leaking at Fukushima reactors -- Will be investigating 'bottom of containment vessels' for holes...
  • 2014/04/30: EneNews: AP: "This town is dead"... Locals feel Fukushima plant could explode any minute; Yearly 'safe' radiation levels exceeded "in a matter of a few hours" ...
  • 2014/04/30: EneNews: "Prestigious group of international scientists" interested in risk to West Coast from Fukushima radioactive plume...
  • 2014/04/30: RawStory: Fukushima operator TEPCO books $4.3 billion annual profit
  • 2014/04/29: TheCanadian: Fukushima residents unsure of return to no-go zone
  • 2014/04/29: EneNews: USA Today: Radiation tripled in some albacore tuna off West Coast after Fukushima...
  • 2014/04/29: Straight: Global scientists plan Vancouver Fukushima session
    The lack of available information about Fukushima-associated radiation risks in the Pacific Ocean and for North America's Pacific Northwest region has caught the attention of a prestigious group of international scientists. The Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) -- which represents about 5,500 chemists, biologists, and toxicologists from more than 100 countries -- is hosting a session on Fukushima's continuing radioactive legacy during its 35th annual North American meeting, to be held in Vancouver this fall.
  • 2014/04/29: FukuLeaks: Fukushima Spent Fuel Progress Report
  • 2014/04/28: FukuLeaks: Fukushima Unit 3; MSIV Shows Considerable Damage
  • 2014/04/28: FukuLeaks: Fukushima Unit 4; 748 Fuel Assemblies Removed
  • 2014/04/28: EneNews: NY Times in Fukushima: "It's all lies" from gov't about radiation -- They are forcing us to come back and live 10 miles from leaking nuclear plant...
  • 2014/04/27: NYT: Forced to Flee Radiation, Fearful Japanese Villagers Are Reluctant to Return
  • 2014/04/25: WashingtonsBlog: Fukushima Didn't Just Suffer 3 Meltdowns ... It Also Suffered Melt-THROUGHS and Melt-OUTS

  The Arctic melt continues to garner attention:

  • 2014/04/30: ScienceInsider: Bigger, Better Arctic Studies Needed, U.S. [NAS] Report Argues
  • 2014/04/30: RScribbler: Barrow Sea Ice Break-up: Dark Open Water In Late April
  • 2014/04/30: UKISS: The melting polar icecap is creating waves the size of houses
  • 2014/04/29: ASI: Getting ready
  • 2014/04/28: CLBook: Predictable September Arctic sea-ice minimum?
  • 2014/04/28: IOTD: Ice in the Sea of Okhotsk [on April 14]
  • 2014/04/09: Yale360: On Far-Flung Wrangel Island, A Scientist Sizes up Muskoxen
  • 2014/04/16: Yale360: Studying a Polar Menagerie On an Island in Arctic Russia
  • 2014/04/30: Yale360: Russian-American Collaboration Carries on in Key Arctic Ecosystem

  That Damoclean sword still hangs overhead:

  • 2014/05/02: TP:JR: Is This Why Heat-Trapping Methane Emissions Are On The Rise?
  • 2014/05/01: CCentral: Arctic Methane Emissions 'Certain to Trigger Warming'
  • 2014/04/28: ERW: Thawing permafrost releases more methane
  • 2014/04/28: UGuelph: Wetlands Likely to Blame for [CH4] Greenhouse Gas Increases: Study

  As for the geopolitics of Arctic resources:

  • 2014/04/28: RTCC: Total buys Gazprom's first offshore Arctic oil shipment
  • 2014/04/27: GreenCan: Canada is playing Russian Roulette in the Arctic
  • 2014/04/27: CBC: No benefit to developing Arctic shipping: U.S. report
    The U.S. Government Accountability Office's report says improvements will only go so far

  The food crisis is ongoing:

  • 2014/05/03: SimpleC: Climate change-boosted disease could endanger China's food supply
  • 2014/05/03: BBC: Concerns grow in Europe over threat from deadly pig virus
    France is expected to suspend pig-related imports from a number of countries as worries grow over the spread of a deadly swine virus. Porcine Epidemic Diarrhoea Virus (PEDv) has killed some seven million piglets in the US in the past year. The disease has also been found in Canada, Mexico and Japan.
  • 2014/05/02: WFP: UNHCR And WFP Warn: Fighting Is Preventing Aid Delivery In South Sudan
  • 2014/05/02: EurActiv: Rampaging US pig virus spreads concern in Europe
  • 2014/05/02: ABC(Au): Queensland citrus harvest down, a year after flood
  • 2014/05/01: ABC(Au): Wet season fails western Queensland
    Western Queensland primary producers have suffered through their second consecutive below average wet season.
  • 2014/04/30: ABC(Au): Bushfire affected farmers begin sowing on a moonscape
  • 2014/04/28: ABC(Au): Cane survives cyclone, now dying from grubs

  The state of the world's fisheries is a concern. See also, and:

  • 2014/04/29: NOAANews: Two new NOAA reports show strong economic gains from fishing, continued improvement in fish stocks
  • 2014/04/26: PressDemocrat: Ground zero for future of oyster farming
    [...] the shellfish farming industry's future is clouded by climate change, and Hog Island is at ground zero of the impact.

  Food Prices are still problematic:

  • FAO: World Food Situation - Food Price Indices
  • 2014/04/29: TP:JR: Drought Causes Chipotle To Increase Its Steak Prices
  • 2014/04/27: TruthDig: Coffee Is on a High

  So, are these land grabs Colonialism V2.0?

  • 2014/04/28: ABC(Au): Oxfam accuses Big Four banks of funding companies accused of land grabs

  Regarding the genetic modification of food:

  • 2014/05/02: CCP: 'Extreme Levels' of Monsanto's Roundup glyphosate Herbicide Found in Soy Plants
    A new study led by scientists from the Arctic University of Norway has detected "extreme levels" of Roundup, the agricultural herbicide manufactured by Monsanto, in genetically engineered (GE) soy.
  • 2014/05/01: Grist: Is Monsanto's Roundup linked to a deadly kidney disease?
  • 2014/04/30: SciAm:FM: Vox Off to a Good Start on GMOs

  Regarding labelling GM food:

  • 2014/04/29: DemNow: "As Consumers, We are Guinea Pigs": Vermont Set to Become First State to Require GMO Food Labeling

  And how are we going to feed 9 billion, 10 billion, 15 billion?

  • 2014/05/01: FAO: Global recognition for traditional farming systems in China, Iran and South Korea
    FAO urges further protection of Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems for sustainability, food security, livelihoods and culture
  • 2014/05/01: UCSUSA:B: More Herbicide, or More Innovative, Sustainable Farming?
  • 2014/05/01: TP:JR: A Bug's Life: Will Americans Eat (More) Insects Before Or After We Stop Running Our Cars On Corn?
  • 2014/04/30: NatureN: Agriculture: Engage farmers in research
    A new wave of small-scale agricultural innovation will boost yields and protect the planet, contend Tom MacMillan and Tim G. Benton.
  • 2014/04/30: USheffield: Research finds a new way to protect crops from pests and disease
  • 2014/04/29: Grist: Farmers vacuum maple syrup out of trees in an attempt to save breakfast
  • 2014/04/28: WUStL: A protein key to the next green revolution sits for its portrait
    NolR is a master off-switch for the process that converts bacteria from free living to nitrogen-fixing
  • 2014/04/28: Eureka: Optimizing sweetpotato production -- Study reveals best cultural practices for increasing yield, economic benefits

  Another blessedly quiet week after TC Tapah [06W] faded in the Western Pacific:

  • 2014/05/01: Eureka: Tapah downgrades to a Tropical Depression
  • 2014/04/28: NASA: Newborn Tropical Storm Tapah Threatens Saipan and Tinian

  While elsewhere in the hurricane wars:

   

• 2014/05/01: ABC(Au): Forecast of below average cyclone season proves accurate
  Today marks the end of the 2013/2014 cyclone season, with just one system making landfall in WA. The Bureau of Meteorology says it was a below average season as predicted, with four tropical cyclones recorded in the western region. Category three Cyclone Christine caused extensive damage in Roebourne and Wickham in December, while another three failed to cross the WA coast.
• 
  

  As for the Monsoon:

   

  • 2014/04/30: RTCC: Indian monsoon becoming more erratic - study
  • 2014/04/29: CCurrents: South Asian Monsoons Increasingly Experience Extreme Wet And Dry Spells
  • 2014/04/28: UKISS: Extremes in wet, dry spells increasing for South Asian monsoons, scholars say

  This week in notable weather:

  • 2014/05/02: Wunderground:RR: It seemed a little apocalyptic: Climate Case Study
  • 2014/05/01: TP:JR: While The West Dries Up, The East Is Drenched
  • 2014/04/29: al Jazeera: Kalboishakhis - Bangladesh's deadly storms
    Not much is known about these major storm systems but they can be as lethal as anything that occurs in Tornado Alley.
  • 2014/04/28: ABC(Au): At least 16 dead, 1,000 homeless in Bangladesh storm

  This week in the New Normal -- extreme weather:

  • 2014/05/01: CNN: U.S. storm system rages for 5th day -- Flood threats remain, but storm begins to fade, finally
    Flood warnings remain, but storm starts to dissipate as it heads out to sea - Alabama community got a staggering 22-26 inches of rain, weather service says - Storms caused 38 deaths since Sunday, including one in Florida flooding - Weather service says devastating Arkansas tornado was powerful EF-4
  • 2014/05/01: Wunderground: April 27 - 30 Severe Weather Outbreak: 39 Dead, $1 Billion+ in Damage
  • 2014/04/29: NASA: NASA Satellite Sees Colder Temperatures at Tops of Severe Weather Thunderstorms

  Polar Vortex? Rossby Waves? Blocking Patterns? Arctic Oscillation?
  What is the Arctic melt doing to our weather?

  • 2014/04/29: RScribbler: Summer 2014 Melt Season to Ramp up in Early May Heat Wave: Fixed Jet Stream, Dual Ridges Form Sea Ice Achilles Heel

  As for GHGs:

  • 2014/05/03: CCurrents: Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Levels Are The Highest In 3 Million Years
  • 2014/05/01: QuarkSoup: CO2eq Has Jumped to 479 ppm

  Aerosols are making their presence felt:

  • 2014/05/04: MODIS: Dust storm over the Aral Sea (afternoon overpass) [on April 22]
  • 2014/05/02: MODIS: Dust storm over the Aral Sea (morning overpass) [on April 22]
  • 2014/05/01: MODIS: Dust storm in southern Sudan [on April 21]
  • 2014/04/30: DD: Image of the Day: Satellite view of dust storm in China, 23 April 2014

  What's up with volcanoes this week?

  • 2014/05/03: IOTD: Fresh Lava Arrives at Ubinas Volcano [on April 28]

  Regarding Climate Sensitivity:

  • 2014/05/01: TMasters: Effective vs. Equilibrium Sensitivity: Uncertainty in projections resulting from the CMIP5 OHU efficacy range in a two-layer model

  As for ozone:

  • 2014/05/03: CCP: Neela Banerjee: Switch from gasoline to ethanol linked to higher ozone levels [in Brazil]
  • 2014/04/28: Eureka: Ozone levels drop 20 percent with switch from ethanol to gasoline
    First-of-its-kind analysis shows impact of human behavior on air quality in São Paulo
  • 2014/04/28: NatureN: Ethanol fuels ozone pollution
    Shifts in use between petrol and ethanol in São Paulo's cars creates unique atmospheric chemistry experiment.

  And on the ENSO front:

  • 2014/05/01: TheConversation: Are we heading for a worrying Super El Niño?
  • 2014/05/01: QuarkSoup: Trenberth on the Coming El Niño: How Big, Not If
  • 2014/04/30: ATTPh: On the coming El Nino
  • 2014/04/29: ABC(Au): El Nino could bring double whammy for northern croppers
  • 2014/04/28: PSinclair: Kevin Trenberth on El Nino: The Only Question is How Big

  As for the temperature record:

  • 2014/05/01: ATTPh: Assessing global warming
  • 2014/04/30: QuarkSoup: More Accurate Temperature Trends

  While in the paleoclimate:

  • 2014/05/03: CCurrents: Secrets About The Origin Of Life Revealed
  • 2014/05/03: QuantPalaeo: Transfer function and palaeoenvironmenal reconstruction diagnostics
  • 2014/04/30: BBC: Scientists probe Earth's last warm phase
    Scientists now have a fuller picture of what happened at the poles during the last warm phase on Earth. Known as the Eemian, this time period extended from roughly 129,000 years ago to about 116,000 years before present.
  • 2014/04/29: SciNow: How Sheep Became Livestock

  In the attribution debate:

  • 2014/04/29: KSJT: Atlantic Etc: Was the Everest tragedy global warming's fault? Maybe. But it's the wrong question, again.

  What's the State of the Oceans?:

  • 2014/05/03: DeSmogBlog: Salish Sea Orca Whales Not Mating, Socializing in Polluted Soundscape
  • 2014/05/03: EneNews: 'Marine Mystery' in California: "Toxic outbreak threatening marine life" in California ...
  • 2014/05/01: SciNow: Slideshow: Sea Stars Dying in Mysterious Plague
  • 2014/05/01: EneNews: SF Chronicle: "Unbelievable hordes" of fish near California coast; Most birds, sea lions, dolphins, whales anywhere -- Expert: 'Off the charts' pelican population "highly unusual... could reflect breeding failures elsewhere"; "Abnormal ocean conditions" to blame?
  • 2014/04/30: UCDavis: Algae "see" a wide spectrum of light
    Aquatic algae can sense an unexpectedly wide range of color, allowing them to sense and adapt to changing light conditions in lakes and oceans.

  Some particulars in the State of the Biosphere:

  • 2014/04/30: NatureN: Bird reproduction collapsed after oil spill
    Study of shag colonies on Spanish coast shows lingering effect of 2002 Prestige disaster.
  • 2014/04/30: BBC: Rare pine marten 'photo-bombs' red squirrel survey
    Scientists behind a red squirrel monitoring project in County Fermanagh have been surprised after finding an even more elusive mammal has been 'photo-bombing' their research.
  • 2014/04/29: SciAm:EC: Giant Otters Damned by Giant Hydroelectric Dams
  • 2014/04/28: Brown: Studies affirm crabs killing Northeast marshes
  • 2014/04/27: JFleck: Beavers in the Colorado River Delta

  And on the extinction watch:

  • 2014/05/03: CBC:Q&Q: Why Finicky Cats Went Extinct
    Cougars survived Ice Age extinction, while American lions and sabre-toothed cats didn't - possibly because of their diet.
  • 2014/04/27: CCurrents: Geological Extinction Events And Runaway Climate Change

  The bees and Colony Collapse Disorder are a constant concern. And then, there are the Neonicotinoids:

  • 2014/05/02: CBC: Cold winter may have killed off 30% of honeybees
    Canadian entomologists concerned that honeybee and butterfly numbers will decline
  • 2014/05/02: ABC(Au): Beekeepers a buzz about honey month
  • 2014/05/01: Weather: The Sting - Fighting the Rise of Bee Rustlers
  • 2014/04/29: ABC(Au): National awareness month celebrates humble honey bee
    The national bee industry's Honey Month in May provides an opportunity to focus on the importance of bees to agriculture, according to West Australian apiarists.
    [...]
    According to a 2009 UN Food and Agriculture Organization report, about a third of all plants are directly or indirectly populated by bees.
  • 2014/04/28: CDreams: Report: Pesticide Pushers Spin Bee Crisis to Protect Profits
    As bee collapse threatens global food supply, report says chemical industry employing Big Tobacco-style PR blitz to deflect blame
  • 2014/04/28: CDreams: Follow the Honey: 7 Ways Pesticide Companies Are Spinning the Bee Crisis

  How are the Insect Orders doing?

  • 2014/04/28: NCSU: Urbanization, Higher Temperatures Can Influence Butterfly Emergence Patterns

  Oh look! The Anthropocene came up again:

  • 2014/05/04: Independent(UK): The age of Anthropocene: Was 1950 the year human activity began to leave an indelible mark on the geology of Earth?
    [...] Scientists are now considering a formal declaration that 1950 marked the dawn of a new geological epoch called the Anthropocene -- a time defined by humans' dominance of the planet.
  • 2014/04/30: Resilience: Time to take ownership of the Anthropocene

  More GW impacts are being seen:

  • 2014/05/02: PSinclair: Rain Saturated Street Collapse in Baltimore
  • 2014/05/01: Eureka: Some Ohio butterflies threatened by rising temperatures
  • 2014/04/29: Stanford: Climate change to intensify important African weather systems, Stanford scientists say
    Climate change could strengthen African easterly waves, which could in turn have consequences for rainfall in the Sahel region of northern Africa, formation of Atlantic hurricanes and dust transport across the Atlantic Ocean.

  And then there are the world's forests:

  • 2014/04/29: ERW: Why don't field plots reveal true tree death rates in the Amazon?
  • 2014/04/29: ABC(Au): Indonesian pulp and paper company to restore one million hectares of rainforest
    Indonesia's largest pulp and paper company Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) says it will restore one million hectares of rainforest.
  • 2014/04/29: ICN: A Reporter Travels to Brazil's Amazon: Can the Battle Against Deforestation Be Won?
  • 2014/04/28: DD: NASA satellites show drought taking toll on Congo rainforest

  Climate refugees are becoming an issue:

  • 2014/05/02: EUO: African migrants storm Spanish border fence - 669 arrested, 20 taken to hospital

  Emerging diseases accompany ecological change:

  • 2014/04/30: CCurrents: Half Of All Americans -- 148 million -- Live With Unhealthy Levels Of Air Pollution
  • 2014/04/28: UCSB: Declines in Large Wildlife Lead to Increases in Disease Risk
  • 2014/04/27: G&M: Lyme disease on the rise in Canada, linked to ticks

  Aerosols affect the climate, but they also affect people's health:

  • 2014/05/01: Grist: EPA takes on three villains at once: Pollution, climate change, and racism
  • 2014/04/30: TP:JR: Half The Country Lives With Unsafe Air Pollution, American Lung Association Report Finds
  • 2014/04/28: Grist: Decades-old ["startup shutdown malfunction"] pollution loophole still burns people of color and the poor

  The US Midwest got zapped by a string of tornadoes:

  • 2014/05/03: ERabett: More tornadoes
  • 2014/04/30: Wunderground: Extreme Flooding in Alabama and Florida; 1 EF-4 and 5 EF-3 Tornadoes Rated
  • 2014/04/30: Eureka: Multiple consecutive days of tornado activity spawn worst events
  • 2014/04/30: CBC: U.S. tornadoes kill 35 over 2 days -- Tens of thousands without power in Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi
  • 2014/04/30: al Jazeera: Tornadoes destroy towns across southern US
    Arkansas is one of the worst states affected by storms that have killed at least 28 people across the region.
  • 2014/04/30: StarTrib: Odd weather pattern baffles experts: US lately lurches from lots of tornadoes to unusual quiet
  • 2014/04/29: ERabett: Compare and Contrast
  • 2014/04/29: PSinclair: Are Tornadoes Getting Stronger? Too Soon to Tell, But...
  • 2014/04/29: ABC(Au): US tornadoes: Death toll rises to 21 as new tornado roars through Mississippi town
  • 2014/04/28: NASA:EO: Tornado Track near Conway, Arkansas
  • 2014/04/28: TP:JR: Tornadoes, Extreme Weather And Climate Change
  • 2014/04/29: Wunderground: Two-day U.S. Tornado Outbreak Kills at Least 29 People; More Tornadoes Expected Today
  • 2014/04/29: CBC: U.S. tornadoes: Why twisters are so unpredictable
  • 2014/04/29: WSWS: Tornadoes cut a path of destruction across Southeast US
  • 2014/04/29: al Jazeera: Tornadoes hit southern US [pix]
    A second day of deadly twisters caused death and destruction across the country.
  • 2014/04/29: CBC: U.S. tornadoes kill 28 over 2 days -- Tens of thousands without power in Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi
  • 2014/04/29: BBC: Search for US tornado survivors goes on
    Emergency crews have been digging through the rubble for survivors of deadly tornadoes that ripped through several central and southern states of the US.
  • 2014/04/28: NASA: Satellite Movie Shows U.S. Tornado Outbreak from Space
  • 2014/04/28: CBC: U.S. tornadoes: Mississippi hit as twisters continue southern sweep
  • 2014/04/28: DeSmogBlog: Mayflower: Deadly Tornado Sweeps Through Arkansas Town That Endured ExxonMobil Tar Sands Pipeline Spill in 2013
  • 2014/04/28: CNN: 18 killed as tornadoes hit central U.S. -- Millions threatened with severe weather after deadly Sunday storms
    Forecast warns of "particularly dangerous situation" in South, Midwest - Wave of severe weather forecast to hit a day after storms killed at least 16 - Two Faulkner County, Arkansas, towns hit hardest - Widespread devastation reported in Vilonia, Mayflower
  • 2014/04/28: Wunderground: Tornadoes Kill 18 in Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Iowa
  • 2014/04/28: BBC: Deadly tornadoes devastate US states
    At least 17 people have been killed by tornadoes as a huge storm system swept across the central and southern United States.
  • 2014/04/27: CBC: Arkansas, Oklahoma tornadoes kill 12 -- Powerful storm front rumbles through parts of the U.S. Plains, Midwest and South
  • 2014/04/28: ABC(Au): Tornadoes rip through towns in US south-west; at least 10 killed in Arkansas, Oklahoma, officials say
  • 2014/04/28: al Jazeera: Deadly tornadoes rip through south-central US
    At least 12 people reported killed in Arkansas and Oklahoma, as rescuers continue search for survivors.
  • 2014/04/27: CBC: Oklahoma tornado kills 2 people -- Powerful storm front rumbles through parts of the U.S. Plains, Midwest and South

  As for heatwaves and wild fires:

  • 2014/05/03: Grist: This year's wildfires could incinerate the nation's fire budget
  • 2014/05/03: MODIS: Fires in Indochina [on April 22]
  • 2014/05/02: IOTD: Fires in North Korea [on April 25]
  • 2014/05/01: TP:JR: Record Heat And Drought Help Kick Off California Wildfire Season In Full
  • 2014/04/30: DD: Forest fires arrive early as Siberia sees record high temperatures...
  • 2014/04/29: TP:JR: Triple Digits Expected In California And Texas In Early Spring Heat Wave
  • 2014/04/28: NASA: Wildfire Outbreak in Far Eastern Russia
  • 2014/04/28: RScribbler: When April is the New July: Siberia's Epic Wildfires Come Far Too Early

  Corals are a bellwether of the ocean's health:

  • 2014/05/01: TheConversation: Great Barrier Reef 'facts' TV ads ignore dredge dumping risks
  • 2014/05/01: RT: UNESCO slams Barrier Reef dumping plans
  • 2014/04/29: CoralCOE: More coral babies staying at home on future reefs
  • 2014/04/29: Eureka: New research shows increasing ocean temperatures affecting coral reefs -- More coral babies staying at home on future reefs

  Acidification is changing the oceans:

  • 2014/05/02: Grist: How CO2 is killing [pteropods] the cutest snails you haven't seen
  • 2014/05/01: SciNow: Snails Are Dissolving in Pacific Ocean
  • 2014/04/30: CChallenge: Ocean acidification already eating away at tiny creatures
  • 2014/04/30: NOAANews: NOAA-led researchers discover ocean acidity is dissolving shells of tiny snails off the U.S. West Coast

  Glaciers are melting:

  • 2014/05/01: FaGP: Kerguelen Island Glacier Retreat Forms New Lake District

  Sea levels are rising:

  • 2014/05/02: UCSUSA:B: How Much Did Sea Levels Rise Over the Past 50 Years? A Lot If You Live on the U.S. Gulf or East Coasts
  • 2014/04/29: BBC: Megacities contend with sinking land
    Subsiding land is a bigger immediate problem for the world's coastal cities than sea level rise, say scientists.
  • 2014/04/28: ABC(Au): Pacific islands may be more adaptable to rising sea levels than first thought, say researchers
  • 2014/04/28: TheConversation: Who owns the beach when the sea is rising?
  • 2014/04/28: TP:JR: Storms Are 20 Times More Likely To Top New York City's Seawall Than In The Mid-1800s

  These extreme rainfall events are becoming all too frequent:

  • 2014/05/02: SciAm: Florida Deluge Was All-Time Record
    More than 15 inches of rain in one day was aided by a warmer atmosphere that can hold more moisture

  As for hydrological cycle disruptions [floods & droughts]:

  • 2014/05/04: al Jazeera: Torrential rains cause Italy flooding
    One person is killed and another is still missing after torrential rain pours across the country.
  • 2014/05/03: CCP: California drought: Sierra snowpack is barely there
  • 2014/05/02: WSWS: Florida: Record floods kill two and devastate Panhandle region
  • 2014/05/01: al Jazeera: Hundreds rescued from floodwaters in US
    Region's worst floods in decades deluge roads and engulf homes and cars in Florida's Panhandle and coastal Alabama.
  • 2014/05/02: PSinclair: Devastating Flooding Across South: Notice a Pattern here?
  • 2014/05/02: ABC(Au): Exmouth declared natural disaster zone after flooding
  • 2014/05/01: BBC: Afghan flood death toll rises as thousands need aid
    The death toll from last week's flash floods in northern Afghanistan now stands at almost 150.
  • 2014/04/30: CBC: U.S. storms: Flooding adds to woes in South, Midwest -- People stranded in cars and homes, waiting for rescuers in widespread flooding
  • 2014/04/30: BYU: Tree rings reveal nightmare droughts in the West
  • 2014/04/30: CBC: Manitoba flooding: Homes flooded at Peguis First Nation
  • 2014/04/29: TP:JR: Years Of Drought Exacerbate Deadly Floods In Afghanistan
  • 2014/04/28: Grist: Californians, stop watering your lawns -- for real this time
  • 2014/04/27: ArsTechnica: Climate change, El Niño, cold winters, and California's drought
    Blame the western Pacific, but climate change might have made it worse.

  First, stop putting GHGs into the atmosphere,
  Second, begin to reduce current levels of GHGs,
  Third, save as many species as possible,
  Fourth, begin to reduce the human population,
  And elsewhere on the mitigation front:

  • 2014/05/02: ERW: Halving meat and dairy consumption could slash farming emissions
  • 2014/04/30: UCSUSA:B: Global Agriculture As Part of the Climate Solution
  • 2014/04/28: Grist: The Guardian says your cats are a climate menace
  • 2014/04/28: ABC(Au):TDU: Meat the hidden culprit of climate change
    Most of us agree that action needs to be taken to address climate change, but when it comes to moving to a meat-free diet to drastically reduce emissions, suddenly we're not so keen, writes Ruby Hamad.
  • 2014/04/28: TreeHugger: Here's how much UN scientists think we should cut our meat and dairy consumption
  • 2014/04/27: CCurrents: Climate Crisis: Don't Wait Until You Feel It

  Consider transportation & GHG production:

  • 2014/05/04: CleanTechnica: Airbus E-FAN [electric] Airplane's First Flight (video)
  • 2014/05/02: CleanTechnica: Barnacle-Repellant Paint Developed To Reduce Shipping Costs
  • 2014/04/29: TreeHugger: Transit Oriented Development is the key to better cities

  While in the endless quest for zero energy, sustainable buildings and practical codes:

  • 2014/05/02: CleanTechnica: USGBC Launches New Online LEED Resource
  • 2014/05/02: GET: And the winner is... Passive House!

  As for carbon sequestration:

  • 2014/04/30: Eureka: Capturing carbon to produce more oil: Climate solution or folly?
  • 2014/04/29: NatureN: [Editorial] No magic fix for carbon
    Carbon capture and storage projects promise to make a dent in global emissions -- but only as part of a broader programme of technology deployment and economic incentives.

  Large scale geo-engineering keeps popping up:

  • 2014/04/09: ERL: Explicit feedback and the management of uncertainty in meeting climate objectives with solar geoengineering by Ben Kravitz et al.
  • 2014/05/03: CEConf: Why We Should Not Engineer A Global Thermostat by Mike Hulme
  • 2014/04/29: Polity(UK): [Book Plug] _Can Science Fix Climate Change?: A Case Against Climate Engineering_ by Mike Hulme
  • 2014/04/28: TreeHugger: Did Russ George's Geoengineering experiment actually work?

  What's new in conservation?

  • 2014/05/01: SciAm:EC: Sea Turtle Hatchlings Saved by LED Lights Funded by Deepwater Horizon Fines
  • 2014/04/30: SFU: Scientists propose amphibian protection
    An ecological strategy developed by four researchers, including two from Simon Fraser University, aims to abate the grim future that the combination of two factors could inflict on many amphibians, including frogs and salamanders. A warming climate and the introduction of non-native fish in the American West's mountainous areas are combining to threaten the habitat that this ecologically critical group of species needs to thrive.
  • 2014/04/27: Eureka: Important migratory corridor for endangered marine species off north-west Australia

  While on the adaptation front:

  • 2014/05/01: BBC: Met Office's Laki volcano impacts study due soon
    The UK Met Office aims to deliver its report in June on the consequences of a future Laki-style eruption. The Icelandic volcano caused widespread disruption and death on the island, in Britain, across Europe, and beyond when it let rip in 1783.
  • 2014/05/01: RTCC: Adaptation funding must be driven by local communities, say experts
    Kathmandu Declaration signed by scientists, civil society and developing country envoys calls for new adaptation focus Half of all funding towards climate adaptation efforts should be directed towards community-based projects, say representatives from developing countries.
  • 2014/04/30: IIED: Conference ends with declaration on finance for community-based adaptation to climate change

  Meanwhile in the journals:

  • 2014/04/29: PNAS: (abs) Abrupt increases in Amazonian tree mortality due to drought-fire interactions by Paulo Monteiro Brando et al.
  • 2014/04/29: PNAS: (ab$) Endemism and functional convergence across the North American soil mycobiome by Jennifer M. Talbot et al.
  • 2014/04/29: PNAS: (ab$) Establishing the validity of domestication genes using DNA from ancient chickens by Linus Girdland Flink et al.
  • 2014/04/29: PNAS: (ab$) Multiple lines of evidence for the origin of domesticated chili pepper, Capsicum annuum, in Mexico by Kraig H. Kraft et al.
  • 2014/04/29: PNAS: (ab$) Implementing the optimal provision of ecosystem services by Stephen Polasky et al.
  • 2014/04/29: PNAS: (ab$) Toward a better understanding and quantification of methane emissions from shale gas development by Dana R. Caulton et al.
  • 2014/04/29: PNAS: (ab$) Fundamental differences between Arctic and Antarctic ozone depletion by Susan Solomon et al.
  • 2014/04/29: PNAS: (ab$) Younger Dryas deglaciation of Scotland driven by warming summers by Gordon R. M. Bromley et al.
  • 2014/04/29: PNAS: (ab$) Archaeological and genetic insights into the origins of domesticated rice by Briana L. Gross & Zhijun Zhao
  • 2014/04/29: PNAS: (ab$) Evaluating the roles of directed breeding and gene flow in animal domestication by Fiona B. Marshall et al.
  • 2014/04/29: PNAS: (ab$) Particularism and the retreat from theory in the archaeology of agricultural origins by Kristen J. Gremillion et al.
  • 2014/04/29: PNAS: (letter$) Reply to Rehm: Why rates of upslope shifts in tropical species vary is an open question by Benjamin G. Freeman & Alexandra M. Class Freeman
  • 2014/04/29: PNAS: (letter$) Rates of upslope shifts for tropical species depend on life history and dispersal mode by Evan M. Rehm
  • 2014/04/29: BG: Forest summer albedo is sensitive to species and thinning: how should we account for this in Earth system models? by J. Otto et al.
  • 2014/04/29: BG: Variability of the transport of anthropogenic CO2 at the Greenland-Portugal OVIDE section: controlling mechanisms by P. Zunino et al.
  • 2014/04/28: BGD: Disentangling the response of forest and grassland energy exchange to heatwaves under idealized land-atmosphere coupling by C. C. van Heerwaarden & A. J. Teuling
  • 2014/04/28: BGD: Quantification of iron-rich volcanogenic dust emissions and deposition over ocean from Icelandic dust sources by O. Arnalds et al.
  • 2014/04/30: CP: NGRIP CH4 concentration from 120 to 10 kyr before present and its relation to a ?15N temperature reconstruction from the same ice core by M. Baumgartner et al.
  • 2014/04/30: CP: Temperature reconstruction from 10 to 120 kyr b2k from the NGRIP ice core by P. Kindler et al.
  • 2014/04/30: CP: Blue intensity and density from northern Fennoscandian tree rings, exploring the potential to improve summer temperature reconstructions with earlywood information by J. A. Björklund et al.
  • 2014/04/30: CP: Late Glacial-Holocene climatic transition record at the Argentinian Andean piedmont between 33 and 34° S by A. E. Mehl & M. A. Zárate
  • 2014/04/28: CP: Terrigenous input off northern South America driven by changes in Amazonian climate and the North Brazil Current retroflection during the last 250 ka by A. Govin et al.
  • 2014/04/28: CPD: Ocean Biogeochemistry in the warm climate of the Late Paleocene by M. Heinze & T. Ilyina
  • 2014/04/28: CPD: Observations of a stratospheric aerosol veil from a tropical volcanic eruption in December 1808: is this the "Unknown" ~1809 eruption? by A. Guevara-Murua et al.
  • 2014/04/28: CPD: SST phases in the open-ocean and margins of the tropical Pacific; implication on tropical climate dynamics by L.-J. Shiau et al.
  • 2014/04/28: WoL:GCB: (ab$) A synthesis of methane emissions from 71 northern, temperate, and subtropical wetlands by Merritt R. Turetsky et al.
  • 2014/04/30: ACP: Variations in tropospheric submicron particle size distributions across the European continent 2008-2009 by D. C. S. Beddows et al.
  • 2014/04/30: ACP: Three years of aerosol mass, black carbon and particle number concentrations at Montsec (southern Pyrenees, 1570 m a.s.l.) by A. Ripoll et al.
  • 2014/04/30: ACPD: Recent advances in understanding the Arctic climate system state and change from a sea ice perspective: a review by R. Döscher et al.
  • 2014/04/30: ACPD: Meteorological factors controlling low-level continental pollutant outflow across a coast by D. L. Peake et al.
  • 2014/04/29: ACPD: Global dataset of biogenic VOC emissions calculated by the MEGAN model over the last 30 years by K. Sindelarova et al.
  • 2014/04/28: ACPD: Variability of the infrared complex refractive index of African mineral dust: experimental estimation and implications for radiative transfer and satellite remote sensing by C. Di Biagio et al.
  • 2014/04/09: ERL: Explicit feedback and the management of uncertainty in meeting climate objectives with solar geoengineering by Ben Kravitz et al.
  • 2014/04/29: GMDD: Modelling of primary aerosols in the chemical transport model MOCAGE: development and evaluation of aerosol physical parameterizations by B. Sic et al.
  • 2014/04/29: HESS: Climate information based streamflow and rainfall forecasts for Huai River basin using hierarchical Bayesian modeling by X. Chen et al.
  • 2014/04/29: TC: Sea ice and the ocean mixed layer over the Antarctic shelf seas by A. A. Petty et al.
  • 2014/04/28: TC: Empirical estimation of present-day Antarctic glacial isostatic adjustment and ice mass change by B. C. Gunter et al.
  • 2014/04/28: TCD: Repeat UAV photogrammetry to assess calving front dynamics at a large outlet glacier draining the Greenland Ice Sheet by J. C. Ryan et al.
  • 2014/04/28: TCD: A sea ice concentration estimation algorithm utilizing radiometer and SAR data by J. Karvonen
  • 2014/04/28: TCD: Using records from submarine, aircraft and satellite to evaluate climate model simulations of Arctic sea ice thickness by J. Stroeve et al.
  • 2014/04/23: WoL:GRL: (ab$) Swell and sea in the emerging Arctic Ocean by Jim Thomson & W. Erick Rogers
  • 2014/04/27: Nature:GeoSci: (ab$) Reduction in local ozone levels in urban São Paulo due to a shift from ethanol to gasoline use by Alberto Salvo & Franz M. Geiger
  • 2014/04/28: Nature:CC: (ab$) Observed changes in extreme wet and dry spells during the South Asian summer monsoon season by Deepti Singh et al.
  • 2014/04/28: Nature:CC: (ab$) Increased local retention of reef coral larvae as a result of ocean warming by Joana Figueiredo et al.
  • 2014/04/28: Nature:CC: (ab$) Cheap carbon and biodiversity co-benefits from forest regeneration in a hotspot of endemism by James J. Gilroy et al.
  • 2014/04/28: Nature:CC: (ab$) Oyster reefs can outpace sea-level rise by Antonio B. Rodriguez et al.

  And other significant documents:

  • 2014/05/01: CCA: [links to several pdfs] Environmental Impacts of Shale Gas Extraction in Canada

  As for miscellaneous science:

  • 2014/05/02: LoE: Geoscientists get all ethical about climate change [misc sci]
  • 2014/04/30: BBC: Warming boosts UK flooding risk
    A citizen science project [climateprediction.net] suggests climate change really has increased the risk of flooding in the UK.

  In the science organizations:

  • 2014/04/29: NatureN: Basic science finds corporate refuge
    As many older companies move away from fundamental research, young technology firms are picking up the slack.

  What developments in the ongoing struggle for Open Science?

  • 2014/04/29: QuarkSoup: AGU Journals to Become Freely Available [2 years after being published]

  Regarding Mann:

  • 2014/04/28: GLaden: Michael Mann Receives NCSE Friend of the Planet Award

  The Pielke fan clubbe, alas:

  • 2014/04/27: ERabett: Which Came First

  Meanwhile on the carbon trading front:

  • 2014/04/29: ABC(Au): UN carbon credits fund sits idle
    Nearly US$200 million in funds for reducing carbon emissions sits idly as the price of carbon credits reaches new lows. The United Nations body responsible for channelling hundreds of billions of dollars towards cutting emissions is under growing scrutiny as its once booming investment program dries up, leaving most of its funds unspent while other climate initiatives are short of cash. The Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has helped funnel almost US$400 billion into emission-cutting projects in developing countries by allowing investors to earn carbon credits they can sell to companies and governments of richer nations that use them to meet emission targets. From 2003, developers flocked to register projects, such as destroying waste greenhouse gases at Chinese chemical plants or installing hydroelectric power stations in Brazil, and made huge profits by selling the resulting carbon credits for up to 22 euros (US$30.40) a tonne in 2008. But interest has waned while countries wrangled over setting new emission goals under the United Nation's Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), hammering carbon credit prices down to unprofitable levels below 0.20 euros.

  The Robin Hood tax, aka the Tobin tax, aka the Bank tax, aka the Financial Transaction tax, keeps coming up:

  • 2014/04/30: EurActiv: UK legal challenge rebuffed as euro nations prepare FTT statement
  • 2014/04/30: BBC: Europe rejects UK's financial transaction tax challenge
    Europe's top court has rejected the UK's challenge to the introduction of an EU financial transactions tax (FTT), which ministers have said will damage British firms. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) described the UK's challenge as premature, since the details of the tax had not been finalised. The FTT will be adopted by 11 EU states, but not by Britain. The UK said it was prepared to take further legal action.

  On the international political front, tensions continue as the empire leans on Iran:

  • 2014/04/28: al Jazeera: Iran nuclear talks: The 'trust but verify' dictate
    We can only understand Iran's real intentions by engaging Iranians - not cornering them.

  South [& East] China Sea tension persists, as the empire leans on China:

  • 2014/05/03: WSWS: US military basing deal sets legal framework for neocolonial rule in the Philippines
  • 2014/05/02: CPunch: Obamanized Asia -- Welcome Barack Obama! You are the top!
  • 2014/05/02: Asia Times: Strong ties, loose ends in Philippine-US pact
  • 2014/04/30: WSWS: Wall Street Journal outlines US military options against China
  • 2014/04/29: AntiWar: Obama in Asia: Washington Extracts Rent-free Basing From the Philippines
    By linking itself to Washington in its territorial disputes with China, the Philippines risks getting caught up in a superpower conflict.
  • 2014/04/28: NakedCapitalism: Did Japan's Prime Minister Abe Serve Obama Beefsteak-Flavored Revenge for US Trade Representative Froman's TPP Rudeness?
  • 2014/04/28: al Jazeera: US and Philippines sign ten-year defence pact
    Deal allows for more high-profile war games between the allies and for US army hardware to be stationed in Philippines.

  Tensions continue as the empire leans on Syria, Ukraine, Russia...:

  • 2014/05/03: WSWS: Washington responsible for fascist massacre in Odessa
    In what can only be described as a massacre, 38 anti-government activists were killed Friday after fascist-led forces set fire to Odessa's Trade Unions House, which had been sheltering opponents of the US- and European-backed regime in Ukraine. According to eye-witnesses, those who jumped from the burning building and survived were surrounded and beaten by thugs from the neo-Nazi Right Sector. Video footage shows bloodied and wounded survivors being attacked. The atrocity underscores both the brutal character of the right-wing government installed in Kiev by the Western powers and the encouragement by the US and its allies of a bloody crackdown by the regime to suppress popular opposition, centered in the mainly Russian-speaking south and east of Ukraine.
  • 2014/05/02: CCurrents: Washington Intends Russia's Demise
    Washington has no intention of allowing the crisis in Ukraine to be resolved. Having failed to seize the country and evict Russia from its Black Sea naval base, Washington sees new opportunities in the crisis. One is to restart the Cold War by forcing the Russian government to occupy the Russian-speaking areas of present day Ukraine where protesters are objecting to the stooge anti-Russian government installed in Kiev by the American coup. These areas of Ukraine are former constituent parts of Russia herself. They were attached to Ukraine by Soviet leaders in the 20th century when both Ukraine and Russia were part of the same country, the USSR.
  • 2014/05/02: Asia Times: The Roving Eye - NATO's soft war on Russia
  • 2014/05/02: RT: Russia, EU, Ukraine fail to reach agreement at gas talks
  • 2014/05/02: EurActiv: Russia takes EU energy rules to WTO arbitration
  • 2014/05/02: EUO: Russian gas supplies 'not guaranteed', EU commissioner [Oettinger] warns
  • 2014/05/02: BBerg: Russian Slump Less Risky Than Energy Squeeze, Central Bank Says
    A shrinking Russian economy would have a "very small" effect on the euro area compared with the impact of rising oil prices as the bloc's trade links are less relevant than its energy dependence, according to a study of economists at the Austrian central bank.
  • 2014/05/01: BBC: How does Europe wean itself off Russian gas?
  • 2014/05/01: CBC: Pipeline gap has Canada unable to fill Ukraine energy need
    Canada has little hope of reaping any kind of energy or resource windfall from the crisis in Ukraine. That message was delivered Thursday to a House of Commons committee in testimony by energy experts from Alberta, Europe, and Ukraine.
  • 2014/05/01: EUO: Russia to file WTO lawsuit against EU energy laws
  • 2014/04/30: NakedCapitalism: Mirable Dictu! Americans Diss Obama's Ukraine Adventurism, Want US to Play More Modest Global Role
  • 2014/04/30: CBC: Ukraine crisis: IMF approves $17B US bailout amid risks
    IMF bailout paves way for Ukraine to receive additional $15B US assistance from other entities
  • 2014/04/30: ZeroHedge: IMF Approves Loan (To Pay Ukraine's Gazprom Bill): Putin 1 - 0 IMF
  • 2014/04/30: WSWS: Kerry warns of "hot confrontation" with Russia
  • 2014/04/30: EurActiv: Russia to 'reconsider' Western energy projects
  • 2014/04/30: EUO: Trade talks will fail without more US 'commitment', warns business boss
  • 2014/04/30: RNE: Renewables as security hedge against Putin and rising fuel costs
  • 2014/04/30: Asia Times: Ukraine crisis forces Eurasian evolution
  • 2014/04/29: BBerg: Putin Says Sanctions Jeopardize U.S., EU Energy Deals
  • 2014/04/29: EurActiv: Ukraine expected to join gas crisis talks
    Brussels and Moscow have agreed to a tentative date and venue for a trilateral meeting with Kyiv to discuss the gas supplies to Ukraine and the EU, the Commission said Tuesday (29 April). President Vladimir Putin has warned that Russia could halt supplies to Ukraine over non-payment of more than $2 billion in debt for gas.
  • 2014/04/29: OilChange: BP Sides with President Putin
  • 2014/04/29: Asia Times: The Roving Eye - Obama's 'strategy' against 'pariah' Russia
  • 2014/04/28: Rediff:B: Obama aims at regime change in Russia by M K Bhadrakumar
  • 2014/04/28: EUO: Ukraine signs gas deal with Slovakia
  • 2014/04/28: RNE: Solar's role in geo-politics: Why Ukraine and Qatar are at centre
  • 2014/04/25: IPSNews: As EU Reconsiders Russian LNG, Qatar Waits in Wings

  In the "global competition for natural resources":

  • 2014/04/27: DD: First-ever deep ocean mine to destroy seabed for ore...

  These 'free trade' treaties should be called the corporate control treaties:

  • 2014/05/01: OpenMedia: Top U.S. Senator [Ron Wyden (D-Or)]: TPP's secrecy must end and the agreement must "reflect the need for a free and open Internet"
  • 2014/04/30: RealEconomics: Is the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership in trouble too?
  • 2014/04/29: RealEconomics: Is TPP in trouble?

  As for miscellaneous international political happenings:

  • 2014/05/02: RTCC: UK and Japan outline plans for climate cooperation
    The governments of Japan and the UK say they will intensify cooperation on a range of climate change issues, including energy efficiency, renewables and energy storage.

  Climate Change is a threat multiplier exacerbating existing conflicts in food, energy, water, race, resources, religion, ideology ... etc.:

  • 2014/05/01: PSinclair: Climate and National Security with Admiral David Titley

  The issue of the law and activism is playing out around the world:

  • 2014/05/03: CCP: 17 WashU students arrested for protesting against Peabody Coal in St. Louis after 17-day sit-in
  • 2014/05/02: EUO: Dutch police stop activists from blocking Russian oil tanker
  • 2014/05/01: Grist: Greenpeace activists arrested -- again -- for trying to block Russia's Arctic oil activities
  • 2014/05/01: RTCC: Arrests as Greenpeace targets Gazprom Arctic oil shipment
    Dutch security board Rainbow Warrior vessel in Rotterdam as campaign against Arctic oil extraction intensifies Over 40 Greenpeace activists have been arrested in Rotterdam protesting against the first delivery of oil extracted from offshore Arctic waters. According to report from the NGO, Dutch security agents also took control of Greenpeace's flagship Rainbow Warrior, which was trying to prevent Gazprom oil tanker Mikhail Ulyanov from docking. The tanker is carrying 70,000 tonnes of crude oil extracted by the Prirazlomnaya oil rig, located in the Pechora Sea, 60 kilometers off the Russian coast.

  What are the activists up to?

  • 2014/05/01: CensoredNews: Eighty activists intercepted Russian tanker carrying first Arctic oil
  • 2014/05/01: LoE: The Arctic 30 are back - please help Shell say no to Gazprom
  • 2014/04/29: TreeHugger: Winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize [Rudi Putra] tackles illegal palm oil companies in Indonesia
  • 2014/04/28: TP:JR: Russian Tanker Carrying First Arctic Offshore Oil Shipment Will Be 'Escorted' By Greenpeace Vessel
  • 2014/04/28: Grist: One frack mind: How a determined New Yorker [Helen Slottje] won the green Nobel
  • 2014/04/28: CDreams: 2014 Goldman Prizes Bestowed on 'Fearless' Eco-Activists
  • 2014/04/28: FukuLeaks: Taiwan Protests Grow To 50,000, Govt. Halts Nuclear Plant Construction

  The move to divest from fossil fuel investments is growing slowly:

  • 2014/05/02: RTCC: Australian banks lose millions of dollars as customers divest
    Hundreds of customers have closed accounts at Australia's four biggest banks in protest at their fossil fuel investments
  • 2014/04/30: CCP: Harvard Students Blockade President's Office Building in Effort to Win Public Meeting on Fossil Fuel Divestment
  • 2014/04/30: DeSmogBlog: 160 Faculty Members Join Call for Fossil Fuel Divestment at B.C.'s University of Victoria

  Polls! We have polls!

  • 2014/04/30: NakedCapitalism: Mirable Dictu! Americans Diss Obama's Ukraine Adventurism, Want US to Play More Modest Global Role
  • 2014/04/29: RTCC: UK public back renewables over fracking - survey

  Regarding Water Politics and Business; See also:

  • 2014/05/03: JFleck: The Salt/Verde, climate change and Upper Basin Envy
  • 2014/05/01: EnvEcon: Dam costs
    Researchers at Oxford University have found that planners and policymakers systematically underestimate the costs and time required to implement large dam projects.
  • 2014/05/01: JFleck: Colorado River Pulse Flow On the Move Again
  • 2014/05/01: Grist: Longtime Vegas water czar [Patricia Mulroy] warns other cities to brace for climate change
  • 2014/05/01: IOTD: A River Renewed - Colorado "pulse flow"
  • 2014/04/30: al Jazeera: Hydro-electric blamed for deadly floods
    What made Uttarkhand's floods of 2013 so bad? A report suggests India's power generation programme may be the cause.
  • 2014/04/29: JFleck: more stuff I wrote elsewhere: NM Env. Dept. dings Air Force over groundwater cleanup (or lack thereof)
  • 2014/04/29: JFleck: Stuff I wrote elsewhere: Embudo and the history of measuring water

  And on the groundwater front:

  • 2014/05/01: ANL: Study in 'Science' finds missing piece of biogeochemical puzzle in aquifers

  While in the UK:

  • 2014/05/04: TP:JR: First Wind, Now Solar Could Face Cuts In U.K.
  • 2014/05/02: TPride: Lib Dem endgame as party pushed into 5th place behind Greens
  • 2014/05/01: BBC: London Luton Airport expansion plan backed by government
    Expansion plans of London Luton Airport that would increase capacity to 18m passengers a year, have won government approval. London Luton Airport Operations said its plans could mean 45,000 extra flights and more than 5,000 new jobs.
  • 2014/04/30: TPride: UKIP to ban teaching of climate change in UK schools
  • 2014/04/30: RTCC: UK political uncertainty undermining carbon targets - report
    Political uncertainty risked derailing Britain's low-carbon ambitions, says a major new report from the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC), published on Wednesday.
  • 2014/04/29: RTCC: UK public back renewables over fracking - survey
  • 2014/04/28: CleanTechnica: UK Prime Minister Puts Interests Of His Party Before Country In Blocking Onshore Wind
  • 2014/04/28: BBC: Fresh questions over HS2 benefits as PM faces rebellion

  And in Europe:

  • 2014/05/02: AutoBG: Fleetwide CO2 improvement in EU might not be as good as it appears
  • 2014/05/02: EurActiv: EU must end landfilling, says top environment official [Falkenberg]
  • 2014/05/02: CleanTechnica: Poland's Renewable Energy Story (Warning: It Sucks)
  • 2014/05/02: EurActiv: Marshall Islands minister: The EU needs shorter-term goals on climate
  • 2014/05/01: TP:JR: This Island [El Hierro in Spain's Canary Islands] Is The First In The World To Be Powered Fully By Wind And Water
  • 2014/04/30: TreeHugger: Clever! Polluting cars will be charged more by Madrid's smart parking meters
  • 2014/04/29: GEB: First Information on Electromobility Act Suggest that Certain Hybrid Cars May Also Benefit
  • 2014/04/29: BBerg: EU 2030 Climate Goal Compromise Possible in October, Poland Says

  Meanwhile in Australia:

  • 2014/05/03: ABC(Au): Mining giant BHP declines invitation to visit Pacific island nation Tokelau
  • 2014/05/02: ABC(Au): Pacific warriors plan Australia invasion to highlight effects of climate change
    Pacific Islanders from 16 countries and territories are planning a major sea voyage to Australia later this year as part of a campaign to highlight the effects of climate change. The Pacific Climate Warriors will set sail in September and are expected to arrive in Sydney Harbour in October.
  • 2014/05/02: ABC(Au): New building code in bushfire-prone areas to hit home builders by up to $20,000
  • 2014/05/02: ABC(Au): Spike in fishing offences in marine national parks
  • 2014/05/02: ABC(Au): Battle for "Pagoda Country"
    Conservationists in NSW are battling a coal mining company to protect what they say is a unique landscape known as "Pagoda Country", an area bordering the world heritage-listed Blue Mountains National Park.
  • 2014/05/01: ABC(Au): Conflict of interest concerns raised over coal mine
    Questions have been raised over a potential conflict of interest involving a controversial coal mine on the Central Coast. Opponents says the head of the Planning Assessment Commission (PAC), currently considering the Wallarah Two underground mine, Dr Neil Shepherd, is also chairman of Coal Innovation New South Wales.
  • 2014/05/01: TheConversation: Great Barrier Reef 'facts' TV ads ignore dredge dumping risks
  • 2014/05/01: RT: UNESCO slams Barrier Reef dumping plans
  • 2014/05/01: RNE: Surge in rooftop solar PV displaces more fossil fuels
  • 2014/04/30: ABC(Au): Port of Newcastle sold by NSW Government for $1.75 billion
  • 2014/04/29: ABC(Au): Exmouth clean-up continues after heavy rains caused extensive flood damage
  • 2014/04/29: RNE: Rooftop solar uptake still highest in low-income Australia
  • 2014/04/29: RNE: SunPower says Australia could be global leader in local generation
  • 2014/04/29: RNE: Ergon to set California-style energy storage target for 2020
  • 2014/04/29: ABC(Au): WA Senate election: Liberals secure three seats, one for Labor, Palmer United Party and Greens
  • 2014/04/29: ABC(Au): QCoal expansion at Sonoma mine: farmer Garry Reed faces financial ruin after failed legal challenge
  • 2014/04/28: ABC(Au): Jobs at risk if Wirrabara Forest not replanted after bushfire
    Wirrabara Forest, which was largely destroyed by a bushfire, could be another victim of a ForestrySA efficiency drive. The state Forests Minister will not confirm if the area in the mid-north of South Australia will be replanted after a bushfire early this year destroyed 90 per cent of the forest.
  • 2014/04/28: TheConversation: Palmer United Party needs to go back to school on carbon facts
  • 2014/04/28: ABC(Au): Oxfam accuses Big Four banks of funding companies accused of land grabs
  • 2014/04/27: TheConversation: Explainer: could Clive Palmer spark a constitutional crisis?
  • 2014/04/27: BBerg: New South Wales Considers Selling Electricity Network

  Now we get to watch the suppository of wisdom destroy what little Australia has done to fight climate change:

  • 2014/05/03: DHorton: New Blighty
  • 2014/05/03: ABC(Au): Labor demands explanation over Tony Abbott's cancelled Bali trip to meet Indonesian president
  • 2014/05/02: WSWS: Australian audit report sets out a corporate blueprint for social counter-revolution
  • 2014/05/02: RNE: Pollie Watch: Joe Hockey reveals true colours on renewables
  • 2014/05/02: RNE: What hope green energy? Hockey says turbines "utterly offensive"
  • 2014/05/02: ABC(Au): Commission of Audit's recommended funding cuts to film, arts would be 'devastating': screen industry
  • 2014/05/02: ABC(Au): CSIRO needs $175 million to upgrade ageing buildings: Commission of Audit
  • 2014/05/02: ABC(Au): Joe Hockey says wind turbines 'utterly offensive', flags budget cuts to clean energy schemes
  • 2014/05/01: WSWS: Australian government in turmoil over budget tax levy
  • 2014/05/01: ABC(Au): Fact file: What Tony Abbott promised on tax
  • 2014/05/01: ABC(Au): Budget 2014: Spending priorities to become clearer with release of Commission of Audit report
  • 2014/05/01: RNE: [Env Minister, Greg] Hunt disputes Clean Energy Council [CEC] modeling on renewable energy target
  • 2014/05/01: ABC(Au): Commission of Audit recommends cradle-to-grave cuts in report released by Federal Government
    A raft of potentially explosive spending cuts to government services and payments have been recommended by the Federal Government's Commission of Audit. Family payments, child care, health care, education, unemployment and pension payments, aged care and the National Disability Insurance Scheme are all among those areas in the firing line. The audit also recommends swingeing cuts to industry assistance and the public service and a radical shake-up of the way all governments tax and do business.
  • 2014/05/01: ABC(Au): Commission of Audit: From crazy brave to politically suicidal, no easy options for Federal Government
  • 2014/05/01: ABC(Au): Commission of Audit: Industry assistance and support for exporters targeted
  • 2014/04/30: RNE: Axeing carbon tax could deliver $40bn budget hit
  • 2014/04/30: JQuiggin: A rose by any other name ...
  • 2014/04/30: ABC(Au): Manus Island: Lawyers say witnesses to Reza Berati's death need urgent protection
    Lawyers acting for Manus Island detainees today filed an urgent application to the High Court to have witnesses to the death of Reza Berati returned to Australia. They say local guards at the centre have made death threats against the five witnesses and they should urgently be placed in protective custody in Australia. The lawyers have also lodged a writ in the High Court, alleging crimes against humanity by both the Australian and Papua New Guinean governments.
  • 2014/04/29: ABC(Au): Asylum seekers: Amnesty accuses Nauru of hiding conditions after refusing detention centre access
  • 2014/04/29: ABC(Au): Drought-hit farmers still waiting for loan agreement
  • 2014/04/28: RNE: RET Road Trip #3: Portland's renewable energy economy
  • 2014/04/28: RNE: Abbott's renewables attack makes [Bernie] Fraser "sick and disappointed"
  • 2014/04/28: RNE: Abbott should stop pretending he is acting on climate change
  • 2014/04/28: ABC(Au): Manus Island riots: Scott Morrison backs down from guaranteeing safety of asylum seekers in PNG detention

  The fight over coal seam gas continues:

  • 2014/05/02: ABC(Au): Alliance distributes anti-fracking flyer
    The Limestone Coast Protection Alliance says it is distributing 10,000 flyers opposing unconventional gas exploration in south-east South Australia. Homes began receiving the pamphlet this week, which the alliance says outlines its concerns about the exploration techniques involved, including the risk of groundwater contamination. The document was paid for and created by the alliance.
  • 2014/05/01: ABC(Au): Green groups hope to be heard during CSG consultation
    Environment groups have welcomed the Victorian Government's plans to consult with the community about unconventional gas mining. The Government will hold a series of community consultation sessions from June to find out whether people want the industry to be established in Victoria. A Government moratorium on new coal seam gas (CSG) exploration licences and the controversial gas extraction process, fracking, is in place until after the election.
  • 2014/04/28: ABC(Au): CSIRO researchers study whether CSG activity causes methane seeps
  • 2014/04/28: ABC(Au): CSIRO research seeks information on methane seeps

  After years of wrangling, the Murray Darling Basin Plan is in place, but the water management fights are far from finished:

  • 2014/05/02: TheConversation: Alien fish boom shows difficulty of replenishing Murray-Darling

  The Federal and now the State Liberals are bent on trashing the hard won Tasmanian forest deal:

  • 2014/04/29: ABC(Au): New Forests the new owner of Gunns timber
  • 2014/04/29: ABC(Au): Gunns trees sold, pulp mill still for sale
  • 2014/04/28: ABC(Au): Financial analyst says Tasmanian pulp mill 'dead in the water'

  And in the Indian subcontinent:

  • 2014/04/29: al Jazeera: Indian man on fire hugs politician on TV
    Spectator sets himself ablaze and embraces local politician during live TV debate in Uttar Pradesh state.

  While in China:

  • 2014/05/02: PSinclair: Coal Plants Toppling in China
  • 2014/04/29: PSinclair: China Slowly Pushing Away from Fossil Fuel
  • 2014/04/29: NBF: China is trying to ramp up energy from natural gas and nuclear energy

  And in Japan:

  • 2014/04/28: Asia Times: Japan joins nuclear horror show

  While elsewhere in Asia:

  • 2014/05/02: ABC(Au): An open letter to BHP from Tokelau
    The leader of a tiny Pacific island state wrote to Australian coal mining giant BHP Billiton asking company executives to visit Tokelau and learn about their struggle with climate change. Here he responds to their decision to decline.
  • 2014/05/02: EurActiv: Marshall Islands minister: The EU needs shorter-term goals on climate
  • 2014/04/29: ABC(Au): Taiwan forced to halt construction of fourth nuclear power plant amid protests
  • 2014/04/28: BBerg: Taiwan Ruling Party Concedes on Halting Nuclear Power Plant
    Taiwan's ruling Kuomintang party agreed with the opposition on suspending construction for a nuclear power plant that attracted tens of thousands in a demonstration last weekend. Premier Jiang Yi-huah said the government won't be seeking additional funding to complete the project, located 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of Taipei, as a gesture of goodwill to the opposition Democratic Progressive Party, during a press briefing carried on cable television networks.

  In Canada, neocon PM Harper, aka The Blight, pushes petroleum while ignoring the climate and ecology:

  • 2014/05/03: NorRe: Mr. Harper And The Judge
  • 2014/05/02: TStar: Stephen Harper lashes out at top judge on Supreme Court
  • 2014/05/02: CPW: Fracking: Council of Canadians' 'Frack Corp' Fracks Parliament Hill
  • 2014/05/01: CoC: Parliament Hill gets "fracked"
  • 2014/04/30: WMTC: dark times in canada, part 1: the lancet: the case against canada as a world citizen
  • 2014/04/28: PI:B: Support needed to move Canada's geothermal industry past 'have not' status
  • 2014/04/28: DeSmogBlog: Canada's Climate Incoherence is Killing Keystone XL
  • 2014/04/28: GreenHerring: It's not just me ... and it's not just climate
    This commentary on Canada's falling standing globally in the top-tier UK medical journal The Lancet pulls no punches.
  • 2014/04/27: TheCanadian: National Post: How Keystone XL spoiled Canada-US 'special relationship'
  • 2014/04/28: TheCanadian: Green jobs see huge growth globally: Why is Canada missing out?
  • 2014/04/27: GreenCan: Canada is playing Russian Roulette in the Arctic

  Resonances of the Lac Mégantic tragedy linger:

  • 2014/05/02: CBC: New rail regulations a 'knee-jerk' reaction, CP Rail boss says

  The Council of Canadian Academies released their fracking report this week:

  • 2014/05/01: CCA: [links to several pdfs] Environmental Impacts of Shale Gas Extraction in Canada
  • 2014/05/02: CBC: Fracking report validates environmental concerns in N.W.T.
    'This report ties it all in a bow and says yes, in fact, we don't really know a lot of the impacts' A director of the Pembina Institute in Edmonton says a new report on the risks of shale gas development validates northerners' concerns about fracking, and points out the importance of public consultation. The report released this week by the Council of Canadian Academies was commissioned by the former federal environment minister two years ago because of growing health and environmental concerns about fracking.
  • 2014/05/01: CBC: Fracking's effect on water not properly monitored, report finds
    Environment Canada commissioned report by international experts A new report commissioned by Environment Canada says there's little information about the effects of shale gas development on the environment. The report by a panel of 14 international experts concludes "data about potential environmental impacts are neither sufficient nor conclusive."
  • 2014/05/01: DeSmogBlog: Fracking Data Woefully Lacking in Canada, Finds Federal Report
  • 2014/05/01: PostMedia: Politicians go on the attack after scientists call for more research into fracking
    Deputy premier claims no well has ever leaked in B.C. and hints scientists are biased Deputy Premier Rich Coleman challenged Thursday the conclusions of a scientific panel into the environmental effect of shale gas development using fracking. The group of Canadian and U.S. scientists, appointed in 2011 by former federal environment minister Peter Kent to examine the sector's potential and risks across Canada, urge a cautionary, go-slow approach until more research is done on a relatively new sector. Coleman, responsible for an industry that Victoria considers an economic linchpin for decades, said the B.C. industry is advanced and a model for the world.
  • 2014/05/01: Tyee: Fracking Growth Outpacing Scientific Knowledge in Canada: Report
  • 2014/04/30: CBC: Fracking data about environmental impacts insufficient, report finds
  • 2014/04/30: iPolitics: Fracking's greatest risk is water contamination: leaked report
    A landmark report commissioned by Environment Canada has found water contamination to be the greatest threat posed by the shale gas extraction method known as fracking. The "Expert Panel on Harnessing Science & Technology to Understand the Environmental Impacts of Shale Gas Extraction" report finds publicly-available science on shale gas extraction to be woefully inadequate while pointing to a long list of potential negative environmental effects -- of which water contamination is the most worrisome.

  The grain backlog continues:

  • 2014/05/01: CBC: Speaker blocks bid to force compensation for grain producers
    Rare procedural defeat for government triggered by Independent MP Brent Rathgeber Sympathetic though he may be to the plight of Prairie farmers, Commons Speaker Andrew Scheer, a Saskatchewan MP, has blocked the government's efforts to force rail companies to compensate producers "adversely affected" by the recent grain transport slowdown. It was a rare procedural defeat by the government, and a victory for Independent Alberta MP Brent Rathgeber, who lodged a point of order questioning the admissibility of the proposal earlier this month, although the defeat may be short-lived. The House voted later Thursday to try again by sending the bill back to committee.
  • 2014/04/29: CBC: Farmers borrow government cash as grain backlog continues

  There are getting to be so manyoil [2] andnatural gas [2]pipelines, one almost needs a scorecard:

  1. There are hearings for the Kinder Morgan expansion coming up
  2. Pipeline tussles

The Kinder Morgan expansion hearings are coming up:

• 2014/05/02: BCLSB: Kinder Morgan On The Upside To An Oilspill

What the ruckus all about?

• 2014/04/29: CBC: Pipeline push-back: What's behind the rising opposition to Canada's big oil pipelines
  Climate change debate behind animosity toward Northern Gateway and Keystone XL

What's the state of the West Coast salmon fishery?

• 2014/04/29: TheCanadian: Salmon farms: Has anything changed after a decade of controversy? [Suzuki]
• 2014/04/28: WCEL: "Certainty" for Fish Farms Could Mean Uncertain Future for Fish

Meanwhile in BC:

• 2014/04/30: PEF: Don't believe the (LNG) hype
• 2014/04/30: TheCanadian: BC LNG economics don't add up: New report
• 2014/04/28: DeSmogBlog: Could BC be First to Enact Full Financial Disclosure Rules for Extractive Industry?

Meanwhile in that Mechanical Mordor known as the tar sands:

• 2014/05/02: BBerg: How Canada's Flirtation with a China Oil Market Soured
• 2014/04/30: CleanTechnica: First Nations Community Hit Hard By Fossil Fuel Industry [Fort Chipewyan] Asks It For Solar Panels
• 2014/04/29: CBC: Suncor posts record profit on booming oil shipments -- Record amounts of crude shipped by pipeline and rail during quarter
• 2014/04/28: Tyee: Will Alberta's Oilsands Become 'Stranded Assets'?
  In Boston, top sustainable investors describe the industry's final days.

Also in Alberta:

• 2014/05/02: CBC: SNC-Lavalin to sell AltaLink for $3.2B -- AltaLink owns more than half of Alberta's [electricity] transmission grid

While in Saskatchewan:

• 2014/05/02: CBC: Eye-popping farmland prices may have peaked, experts say
  Farm Credit Canada predicts 'soft landing' as agricultural land prices level off
  [...]
  According to a survey by Farm Credit Canada, farmland values shot up by 28.5 per cent in Saskatchewan between Jan. 1 of 2013 and Dec. 31 of the same year. Nationwide, farmland prices increased by 22 per cent.

In Manitoba, people have flooding on their minds:

• 2014/04/30: CBC: Manitoba flooding: Homes flooded at Peguis First Nation
  136 First Nation members have had to leave their homes since the weekend
• 2014/04/28: CBC: Flood threat in numerous Manitoba communities
  Birtle, Miniota, Rossburn, Waywayseecappos and Birdtail Sioux First Nations at risk as dike crumbles
• 2014/04/27: CBC: Flood evacuations begin in Birtle, Waywayseecappo First Nation -- Surge of water expected along Birdtail Creek as embankment fails

In Ontario, Wynne has been forced into an election. Poll date is June 12th:

• 2014/05/03: PaiD: Ontario Politics
• 2014/05/02: NNW: Ontario: Get ready for June 12 election
• 2014/05/02: CBC: Ontario election 2014: Wynne vows to re-introduce budget
• 2014/05/01: BCLSB: Gas Plants Redux...But With Torys And Wind Farms
• 2014/04/29: BCLSB: MPAC Turbines And Property Values Study Update

In the Maritimes:

• 2014/05/02: CBC: Gros Morne oil fracking plan leads UNESCO to seek buffer zone

As for miscellaneous Canadiana:

• 2014/04/30: DeSmogBlog: Barrick Gold Faces Demonstration Against Human Rights, Environmental Abuses at Toronto AGM

And on the American political front:

• 2014/05/04: PSinclair: Politico: The Al Gore Interview
• 2014/05/02: Grist: If the Chamber of Commerce wants to raise the gas tax, it should stop backing Republicans
• 2014/05/02: TP:JR: Hawaii's Largest Utility Ordered To Help Customers Install More Rooftop Solar
• 2014/05/02: DeSmogBlog: Energy Industry Makes Last-Ditch Effort to Short Circuit Colorado Fracking Ballot Initiatives
• 2014/05/01: OilChange: Oil money behind Keystone XL Senate bill breaks 20 million dollars
• 2014/05/01: Grist: Chicagoans fight the Kochs and their petcoke
• 2014/05/01: Grist: Why is Environmental Defense Fund backing Lindsey Graham?
• 2014/05/01: TP:JR: Iowa Senate Candidate Wants To Hand Public Lands Over To Fossil Fuel Companies
• 2014/04/30: UCSUSA:B: Michigan Needs a Stronger Renewable Energy Standard
• 2014/04/30: TP:JR: Washington State Announces Effort To Take Climate Fight Into Its Own Hands
• 2014/04/30: Grist: This man is on the hunt for California's next climate leaders
• 2014/04/30: DemNow: ALEC in the News: Oklahoma Punishes Solar Power Users; Wisconsin Voter ID Law Overturned
• 2014/04/30: OilChange: Response to CA Senate Environmental Quality Comm. vote on fracking moratorium
• 2014/04/30: Grist: Why is Alaska fighting the cleanup of Chesapeake Bay?
  [...]
  The American Farm Bureau Federation, corn growers, pork and poultry producers, and home builders are fighting that plan in a federal lawsuit, accusing the EPA of making an illegal power grab. Twenty-one states -- including Alaska and many others that are nowhere near the Chesapeake watershed -- have joined the suit, worried that the cleanup plan could set a dangerous precedent and spread ecological health to their own tainted waterways.
• 2014/04/29: UCSUSA: Washington Governor [Jay Inslee] Announces Climate Action Plan
• 2014/04/29: DemNow: "As Consumers, We are Guinea Pigs": Vermont Set to Become First State to Require GMO Food Labeling
• 2014/04/29: UnderTheBanyan: It will take hundreds of Al Gores or millions of 'little people' to overcome the political inertia on climate change
• 2014/04/29: CPunch: The Assault on Common Sense -- Are Republicans, or Their Scientists, Wearing Rose-Colored Glasses?
• 2014/04/28: DeSmogBlog: Oil Industry Cherry-Picks Drilling Data to Mislead Public on Federal Lease Programs
• 2014/04/28: TP:JR: GOP Governor Candidate: Plan Ahead (But Not For Climate Change)
• 2014/04/28: RTCC: New York's solar industry receives $1 billion boost
  State Governor Andrew Cuomo outlines plans to generate 3GW from the sun by 2023 Solar providers in New York State have received a huge boost after Governor Andrew Cuomo announced $1 billion in incentives for new photovoltaic systems.
• 2014/04/27: DeSmogBlog: Untangling Colorado's Flood of Anti-Fracking Ballot Initiatives
• 2014/04/17: TheWeek: The world's dumbest idea: Taxing solar energy

The Keystone XL wheel grinds slowly. And it grinds woe:

• 2014/05/02: Resilience: Corporate hegemony and the Keystone Pipeline
  The oil industry has corrupted the Keystone XL environmental assessment process just as it has hijacked the climate change debate and interfered with action. Reading the US Department of State Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), it is clear whose interests are served by this report. The confluence of arguments presented in the report with the arguments of the American Petroleum Institute (API) is stunning.
• 2014/05/02: CBC: TransCanada holds NAFTA challenge on Keystone in reserve
• 2014/05/01: ICN: Did TransCanada Try to Discredit a Pipeline Safety Whistleblower?
  Email suggests TransCanada sought to sap the credibility of a former employee who accused the Keystone pipeline builder of lax safety.
• 2014/04/30: ETI:RRapier: Keystone XL's Emissions Versus Coal-Fired Power
• 2014/04/30: BBerg: Keystone Future Hinges on 19th-Century Railroad Reforms
  The future of the Keystone XL oil pipeline may turn on a century-old measure to curb the influence of railroad barons. If Nebraska's Supreme Court decides Keystone has the same legal status as a rail line, it could trigger a review by the state's Public Service Commission. That would push a decision on a project first proposed in 2008 into the second half of 2015 at the earliest, and may force pipeline builder TransCanada Corp. (TRP) to alter the route for a second time.
• 2014/04/30: CensoredNews: Video Indigenous Youths Collective Resistance 'Reject and Protect' from Keystone!
• 2014/04/30: Grist: The Cowboys and Indians pipeline protest was a throwback -- in more ways than one
• 2014/04/29: TP:JR: Photos: Final Day Of Keystone XL 'Reject And Protect' Rally Draws Thousands
• 2014/04/29: DeSmogBlog: TransCanada Charitable Fund Launches Keystone XL "Good Neighbor" Charm Offensive
• 2014/04/28: DemNow: Cowboy Indian Alliance Protests Keystone XL Pipeline in D.C. After Latest Obama Admin Delay
• 2014/04/28: DemNow: "We Need to End the Fossil Fuel Age": Music Legend Neil Young Protests Keystone XL Oil Pipeline
• 2014/04/28: OilChange: "Keystone XL is a death warrant for our people"
• 2014/04/27: CensoredNews: VIDEO Cheyenne River Robin LeBeau: Fighting Keystone pipeline in DC
• 2014/04/27: CensoredNews: VIDEO Rosebud Hip Hop artist Frank Waln live in DC 'Reject and Protect'

Leaks and spills:

Jeez! It's getting hard to keep all the spills and leaks straight. You need a map. Let's see...:

1. In North Caroline, Duke Energy spilled coal ash slurry into the Dan River
2. In West Virginia, Freedom Industries spilled coal cleaning chemicals into the Elk river
3. In Arkansas, Exxon, spilled dilbit into the suburb of Mayflower
4. In the Gulf of Mexico, BP and company had the Deepwater Horizon oil spill
5. Alpha Natural Resources is being fined for 6,000 Clean Water Act violations in 7 years
6. BP Well Sprays Crude Oil Mist Over 27 Acres Of Alaskan Tundra
7. A CSX train derails, explodes in Lynchburg, Virginia

In North Carolina, Duke Energy spilled coal ash slurry into the Dan River:

• 2014/04/29: Grist: Duke Energy says it would be too hard to actually fix its coal-ash problem

In West Virginia, Freedom Industries spilled coal cleaning chemicals into the Elk river:

• 2014/05/02: Grist: The men who poisoned Charleston's drinking water now have a "new" business [Freedom Industries]

Earlier in Arkansas, Exxon, spilled dilbit into the suburb of Mayflower:

• 2014/04/28: DeSmogBlog: Mayflower: Deadly Tornado Sweeps Through Arkansas Town That Endured ExxonMobil Tar Sands Pipeline Spill in 2013

The BP disaster continues to twist US politics:

• 2014/04/28: Grist: BP won't pay for Gulf oil spill research
  [...] The oil giant is refusing to pay for some of the ongoing research into the environmental effects of its 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, forcing the federal government to spend money on the needed science...

Alpha Natural Resources is being fined for 6,000 Clean Water Act violations in 7 years:

• 2014/04/28: TP:JR: Coal Company Unlawfully Polluted West Virginia Water, Federal Judge Rules
  Coal company Alpha Natural Resources violated its state-issued pollution permit by allowing toxic amounts of selenium to seep into West Virginia waters, a federal judge ruled Thursday, the latest event in the state's ongoing coal-driven water pollution saga.

Another BP spill, this time in Alaska:

• 2014/04/30: TP:JR: BP Well Sprays Crude Oil Mist Over 27 Acres Of Alaskan Tundra
• 2014/04/30: Grist: A week after Alaska OKs a big gas pipeline, another gas pipeline ruptures

A CSX train derailed in Lynchburg:

• 2014/05/01: TP:JR: Less Than 24 Hours After Virginia Oil Train Spill, Same Company [CSX] Derails Again In [Bowie,] Maryland
• 2014/05/01: Grist: Oil train derails in Virginia, explodes, pollutes river
• 2014/04/30: DeSmogBlog: Explosive Virginia Train Carried Fracked Bakken Oil, Headed to Potential Export Facility
• 2014/04/30: TP:JR: Crude Oil Train Derails, Catches Fire, Spills Into Virginia's James River
• 2014/04/30: DeSmogBlog: CSX Railroad "Bomb Train" Carrying Crude Oil Explodes in Lynchburg, Virginia
• 2014/04/30: BBerg: CSX Oil Train Derails in Virginia With One Car Ablaze
  A CSX Corp. (CSX) crude train derailed in Lynchburg, Virginia, sparking a fire in at least three tank cars, spilling oil into a river and forcing a partial evacuation of the city's downtown. No injuries were reported, and the fire was out within about three hours after today's accident. About 15 tank cars came off the tracks as the train rolled through Virginia from Chicago, according to a statement from CSX, the largest carrier in the eastern U.S.
• 2014/04/30: BBC: A freight train carrying crude oil has derailed and burst into flames in Lynchburg, Virginia
• 2014/04/30: CBC: Lynchburg, Virginia train derailment spills crude oil into James River -- Some 300 people in the area were evacuated, no injuries reported

The GOP War on Women continues:

• 2014/05/02: CPunch: Justice Upheld -- Supreme Court Upholds Disbarment of Anti-Abortion Kansas Ex-AG Phill Kline
• 2014/05/01: TruthDig: In Matters of Abortion, the Personal Is Political, Especially for Women of Color
• 2014/05/01: TruthDig: Congratulations, Tennessee: You've Just Become the Scariest State for Pregnant Women
• 2014/04/30: al Jazeera: Access restricted: abortion in Texas
  Fault Lines travels to Texas to investigate why some women are taking abortion into their own hands.

The impacts of the sequestration are coming home:

• 2014/05/03: Grist: This year's wildfires could incinerate the nation's fire budget
• 2014/05/01: WSWS: US sequester cuts gut scientific research
  Last year, the US government announced an eight-year federal budget sequester that immediately cut funding for various social welfare programs and for scientific research programs. Among the targets for cuts were the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF), which face cuts of 5.1 and 2 percent respectively in the first year alone.

Looking ahead to the 2014 & 2016 elections:

• 2014/04/30: TruthDig: It's Going to Be Close, but Republicans Have a Good Shot at Taking the Senate
• 2014/04/30: NYT:PK: The Other Christie Scandal

The actions of the Obama administration are being watched closely:

• 2014/05/02: ScienceInsider: Let's Call It 'Climate Disruption,' White House Science Adviser Suggests (Again)
• 2014/05/01: ScienceInsider: White House Science Adviser [John Holdren] Criticizes [House Republican] FIRST Act
• 2014/05/01: Grist: EPA takes on three villains at once: Pollution, climate change, and racism
• 2014/04/30: GreenGrok: Clean Air Ruling Strikes One Must-Do off EPA's List
• 2014/04/30: Grist: EPA's McCarthy slams the agency's anti-science critics
• 2014/04/30: UCSUSA:B: After Doubling Down on Scientific Integrity, EPA Ditches Its Science Advisor [with one year left on his EPA contract]
• 2014/04/30: RTCC: US solar power installed costs on course for 2020 target
  Solar initiative put in place under Obama administration causes solar prices to fall every quarter for three years
• 2014/04/29: RTCC: Coal central to US emissions trajectory, says Energy Dept
  Coal and nuclear provide more than half of the country's electricity, with the future mix central to the USA's climate ambitions Future US carbon emissions will fall if the competitiveness of coal-fired power plants continued to suffer compared with natural gas, the statistics arms of the Department of Energy said on Monday.
• 2014/04/28: CCP: EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, Remarks at the National Academy of Science, As Prepared
• 2014/04/28: NOAANews: NOAA ships set sail for 2014 hydrographic survey season
  New data will increase coastal environmental intelligence around the country

As for what is going on in Congress:

• 2014/05/02: ScienceInsider: Harry Truman Agreed With Me, Says Chairman of House Science Panel [Lamar Smith (R-Tx)]
• 2014/05/02: TP:JR: The National Budget For Fighting Wildfires Is $400 Million Short
• 2014/05/01: MoJo: Republicans in Congress Are Trying to Gut Local Fracking Regulations ... And basically every other state rule on toxic chemicals
• 2014/04/30: ScienceInsider: U.S. Science Chiefs Field Questions, Hard and Soft, at Innovation Hearing
• 2014/04/29: ScienceInsider: House Spending Panel Backs NSF, NASA Science
• 2014/04/28: Grist: Decades-old ["startup shutdown malfunction"] pollution loophole still burns people of color and the poor

What are the lobbyists pushing?

• 2014/05/02: Guardian(UK): Barack Obama's emissions plan comes under new line of attack
  Documents reveal co-ordinated campaign by influential lobbyists working to block the regulation of power plant emissions
  [...]
  Documents obtained by the Guardian offer a rare glimpse into the inner workings of ALEC as the organisation tried to drum up opposition from coal, oil and electricity industry groups and state officials. The documents showed ALEC adopting a new tactic of encouraging state attorney generals to bring lawsuits against the new EPA regulations -- and so sink the emissions controls before they come into effect.
• 2014/05/01: GreenGrok: Following the Money: Energy Dollars Hard at Work on Capitol Hill
• 2014/04/29: TP:JR: Why Is The Oil Industry Giving Millions To The NRA?
• 2014/04/27: DD: Coal industry lobby won't admit to role in climate change...

The movement toward a long term ecologically viable economics is glacial:

• 2014/05/01: BBC: Can tech deliver a sustainable future for Planet Earth?
• 2014/04/30: CPunch: What About Cooperatives as a Solution? The Case of Mondragon
• 2014/04/29: BackReaction: FQXi essay contest 2014: How Should Humanity Steer the Future?
• 2014/04/29: CPunch: Getting There From Here -- Catastrophe, Reform or Revolution?
• 2014/04/29: Resilience: The Aztecs of Mexico: A Zero Waste Society
• 2014/04/28: Resilience: Why We Need Visions of a Sustainable and Desirable World
• 2014/04/28: RTCC: Ten ways to secure social justice in the green economy

What comes after Capitalism?

• 2014/04/30: Resilience: Krugman's Growthism
• 2014/04/27: CCurrents: Utopian Dreamers

In nature, there is no garbage:

• 2014/05/02: EurActiv: EU must end landfilling, says top environment official [Falkenberg]
• 2014/04/28: ABC(Au): What's the future for recyling aluminium cans in Australia?
• 2014/04/28: Eureka: Determining biocontainers' carbon footprint
  'Cradle-to-gate' assessment examines global warming potential, sustainability of a variety of biocontainers

Apocalypso anyone?

• 2014/04/27: CCurrents: War, Economic Catastrophe And Environmental Degradation Under The Guise Of Progress And Development

Why we fight:

• 2014/04/30: Resilience: To My Friend the Climate Defeatist: Here's Why I'm Still In the Fight

How do the corporate media measure up?

• 2014/05/02: QuarkSoup: Oregon Senate Candidate, Climate Change, and the Easter Bunny
• 2014/05/01: CleanTechnica: Link Between Electricity Prices & Renewable Energy Completely Warped In Forbes Article [by Christine Harbin Hanson, the Federal Affairs Manager for Americans for Prosperity]
• 2014/04/30: SciAm:Obs: Here's What Happened When I Told Fox News I Wanted to Talk about Climate Change
• 2014/04/29: GET: Springer Without Borders
  Media conglomerate Axel Springer AG is known in Germany for its populist and archconservative tone. What most don't know is the degree to which it also owns publications across Central Europe - in which it spreads deep-seated skepticism of Germany's energy transition, remarks Paul Hockenos.
• 2014/04/27: JFleck: How the media gets drought coverage wrong

Here is something for your library:

• 2014/04/30: UBardi: [Book Plug] "Extracted" published
• 2014/04/29: Polity(UK): [Book Plug] _Can Science Fix Climate Change?: A Case Against Climate Engineering_ by Mike Hulme

And for your film & video enjoyment:

• 2014/05/02: PSinclair: The Weekend Wonk: Gavin Schmidt on Climate Models
• 2014/05/01: V V: Gavin Schmidt's TED talk on climate modelling: The emergent patterns of climate change
• 2014/04/30: PSinclair: Glacial Ice Tea
• 2014/04/30: PSinclair: Why Honda is Building Net Zero Homes
• 2014/04/30: PSinclair: Dark Side of the Dakota Oil Boom, Part 1
• 2014/04/30: JFleck: Groundwater depletion in the High Plains Aquifer

Meanwhile among the 'Sue the Bastards!' contingent:

• 2014/05/02: BBerg: Black Lung Mine Rule Challenged by Murray Energy
  Murray Energy Corp. challenged a new federal mine-safety regulation aimed at reducing black lung disease, having argued the objectives are unattainable. The company yesterday asked for a review of the rule at the U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati. The measure, which requires a 25 percent cut in the levels of coal dust in mines, was announced last week and takes effect Aug. 1.
• 2014/04/30: TruthDig: Did the Supreme Court Just Kill Dirty Coal Plants and Save the World?
• 2014/04/30: ERabett:BSD: Peering at Supreme Court entrails
• 2014/04/30: GEB: Environmental Group NABU Files Lawsuit Against Offshore Wind Farm Butendiek
• 2014/04/30: TP:JR: Koch Brothers To Face Lawsuit Over 'Swirling' Chicago Petcoke Pollution
• 2014/04/30: RTCC: US Supreme Court backs rule to limit coal pollution
• 2014/04/30: BBC: Europe rejects UK's financial transaction tax challenge
• 2014/04/29: NYT: Justices Back Rule Limiting Coal Pollution
• 2014/04/29: Grist: Supreme Court slaps down Big Coal
• 2014/04/29: TP:JR: What The Supreme Court's Latest Air Pollution Ruling Means
• 2014/04/29: UCSUSA:B: Supreme Court Decision in Favor of the Cross State Air Pollution Rule Is a Major Win for Public Health
• 2014/04/29: CDreams: Victory for Millions as High Court Rules Against Cross-State Pollution
  "The EPA safeguards follow the simple principle that giant utility companies shouldn't be allowed to dump their dirty emissions onto residents of downwind states"
• 2014/04/29: BBerg: Obama Power-Plant Pollution Rule Upheld by Top U.S. Court

Developing a new energy infrastructure is a fundamental challenge of the current generation:

• 2014/05/03: Lenz: Energy Slaves
• 2014/05/02: UCSUSA:B: How Much Could Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs) Lower the Cost of Renewable Energy Projects?
• 2014/05/01: Resilience: Why Wave Power Has Lagged Far Behind as Energy Source
• 2014/05/01: CleanTechnica: The Energy Ethic
• 2014/05/01: TP:JR: This Island [El Hierro in Spain's Canary Islands] Is The First In The World To Be Powered Fully By Wind And Water
• 2014/05/01: ABC(Au): Australia to pilot new [solar & storage] power plan
• 2014/05/01: RNE: Networks see light on energy future, but can they get there?
• 2014/04/29: Eureka: Solving a mystery of thermoelectrics
  New analysis explains why some materials are good thermal insulators while similar ones are not
• 2014/04/28: PSinclair: Renewables Industry has Bigger Bang for Buck
• 2014/04/27: NYT: Experimental Efforts to Harvest the Ocean's Power Face Cost Setbacks

Hey! Let's contaminate the aquifers for thousands of years! It'll be a fracking gas!

• 2014/05/02: DeSmogBlog: Energy Industry Makes Last-Ditch Effort to Short Circuit Colorado Fracking Ballot Initiatives
• 2014/05/02: TP:JR: Stronger 'Frackquakes' Are On The Way, Scientists Warn
• 2014/04/27: TheCanadian: Halliburton refuses to disclose fracking chemicals

On the coal front:

• 2014/05/02: BBerg: Black Lung Mine Rule Challenged by Murray Energy
• 2014/04/30: TheConversation: Is 'underground coal gasification' the new fracking?
• 2014/04/29: ABC(Au): CSIRO to trial new technology in bid for cleaner coal [in the Latrobe Valley]
• 2014/04/29: NatureN: Two plants to put 'clean coal' to test
  Large-scale carbon-capture projects set to go live this year. [Unit 3 at the Boundary Dam Power Station in Saskatchewan, Canada & advanced coal plant in Kemper County, Mississippi, run by Mississippi Power, a subsidiary of Southern]
• 2014/04/27: DD: Coal industry lobby won't admit to role in climate change...

On the gas and oil front:

• 2014/05/02: BBerg: Closing oil prices Friday
  OIL (US$/bbl)
  Dated Brent Spot....108.59
  WTI Cushing Spot.....99.76
• 2014/05/02: TP:JR: Mexico's Impending Oil And Gas Boom Gets Oscar-Worthy Scolding
• 2014/05/01: TP:JR: Two Texas Oil Field Workers Die In Explosion
• 2014/05/01: BBC: Deloitte: Oil activity 'to remain at steady low'
  Drilling and deal activity on the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS) will remain at "a steady low" for at least the next year, a new report has suggested. Business advisers Deloitte said poor weather and high costs had already impacted ...
• 2014/04/30: OilChange: Hell Freezes Over: OCI and API Agree! ... On Oil Production Impacts of Lifting the Crude Export Ban
• 2014/04/28: DeSmogBlog: Oil Industry Cherry-Picks Drilling Data to Mislead Public on Federal Lease Programs
• 2014/04/27: EconBrowser: Oil and gasoline prices: many still missing the big picture

In the gas and oil corps:

• 2014/05/01: BBerg: Exxon's First-Quarter Profit Declines ...
  [...] First-quarter net income was $9.1 billion, or $2.10 a share, compared with $9.5 billion, or $2.12, a year earlier, the Irving, Texas-based company said in a statement today.
• 2014/04/30: BBC: Royal Dutch Shell profits hit by refinery writedowns
  Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell has reported a 44% drop in first-quarter profits after it wrote down the value of refineries in Asia and Europe. Shell said profits fell to $4.47bn (£2.7bn) from $7,95bn a year earlier.
• 2014/04/29: Lenz: ExxonMobil Report "Energy and Carbon - Managing the Risks"
• 2014/04/29: OilChange: BP Sides with President Putin
• 2014/04/29: BBC: Oil giant BP reports $3.2bn profits
  Oil giant BP has reported a 23% drop in profits to $3.22bn (£1.92bn) for the first quarter of 2014.

And in pipeline news:

• 2014/05/01: DeSmogBlog: Gulf Stream: Williams Suspends Bluegrass Gas Export Pipeline, Announces New Export Line
• 2014/04/29: TP:JR: Company Halts Plans On 500-Mile Pipeline Through Kentucky

Ships and boats and trains -- How to tranport the stuff?

• 2014/05/02: DeSmogBlog: U.S. Officials Search For Answers On Bitumen Spills As Canada Eyes Enbridge, Kinder Morgan Oil Pipelines
• 2014/04/30: DeseretNews: Tanker spills, pipelines raise questions about crude oil transport
• 2014/04/30: DeSmogBlog: How This U.S. Rail Safety Measure Has Been Delayed for 44 Years ... And Counting
• 2014/04/27: DeSmogBlog: No Community is Prepared for Major Oil-By-Rail Accident, Senate Hearing Told

Marvelous! Now the USA has their own Mechanical Mordor:

• 2014/05/03: al Jazeera:USA: Oil boom jars small-town North Dakota -- Farming and ranching used to be everything in Watford City, but not anymore
• 2014/05/01: PSinclair: The Dark Side of Dakota's Oil Boom, Part 2
• 2014/04/30: OilChange: Bakken Fracking Industry Celebrates its Billionth Barrel

A rush of American triumphalism pervades the energy independence PR campaign. Think it will last?

• 2014/04/30: BBerg: Shale Drillers Feast on Junk Debt to Stay on Treadmill
  Rice Energy Inc., a natural gas producer with risky credit, raised $900 million in three days this month, $150 million more than it originally sought. Not bad for the Canonsburg, Pennsylvania-based company's first bond issue after going public in January. Especially since it has lost money three years in a row, has drilled fewer than 50 wells -- most named after superheroes and monster trucks -- and said it will spend $4.09 for every $1 it earns in 2014. The U.S. drive for energy independence is backed by a surge in junk-rated borrowing that's been as vital as the technological breakthroughs that enabled the drilling spree. While the high-yield debt market has doubled in size since the end of 2004, the amount issued by exploration and production companies has grown nine-fold, according to Barclays Plc. That's what keeps the shale revolution going even as companies spend money faster than they make it.
• 2014/04/29: Resilience: The Energy Independence Illusion
• 2014/04/28: RealEconomics: Saudi America? oh please
• 2014/04/27: Resilience: New York state shale gas: Not so much

Biofuel bickering abounds:

• 2014/05/02: DerSpiegel: A Tangle of Conflicts: The Dirty Business of Palm Oil
  Palm oil can be found in many of the products we consume each day. Much of it comes from Indonesia, where brutal methods are deployed against locals. One of the main suppliers says it is cleaning up its act, but has it really changed?
• 2014/05/02: ICN: New Ad Links U.S. Oil Industry's Anti-Biofuel Campaign to Saudi Arabia
  In high-stakes battle over renewable fuels, pro-biofuels camp takes a page out of the playbook used by the oil industry repeatedly -- and successfully.
• 2014/04/30: AutoBG: Ethanol supporters attack oil industry head on with Oil Rigged
• 2014/04/29: RTCC: Biofuels can increase ozone pollution more than gasoline - study

The answer my friend...

• 2014/05/02: CleanTechnica: Gamesa Lands 100 MW Wind Turbine Order From Indian Company
• 2014/04/29: UCSUSA:B: Reconciling the Local Wildlife Risks of Wind Energy with its Global Climate Benefits
• 2014/04/29: CleanTechnica: Wind Turbines Can Generate Lightning Via Movement Of Turbine Blades

Meanwhile among the solar aficionados:

• 2014/05/03: Lenz: Energy From the Desert and Transmission Cost
• 2014/05/02: CleanTechnica: Solar PV Standards -- Differences Between US & The Rest Of The World
• 2014/05/02: RNE: Graph of the Day: Global solar PV demand by country
• 2014/05/01: RealEconomics: Cheap solar cells change a LOT
• 2014/05/01: TruthDig: Round-the-Clock Solar Power is Here
• 2014/05/01: CleanTechnica: Solar Panels & Their Toxic Emissions
• 2014/05/01: CleanTechnica: 290-MW [Agua Caliente] Solar Project Says Get Over It: The Age Of Solar Is Here
• 2014/05/01: RTCC: Spain's solar salt opens door to 24-7 clean electricity
  Analysis: Sun power can now keep electricity turbines running however cloudy it may be, both night and day
• 2014/05/01: RNE: Solar 'Ray' of hope in battle against energy poverty
• 2014/04/30: Grist: Arizona's enormous [Agua Caliente] solar [PV] plant is up and running
• 2014/04/30: RNE: Oz solar tech hopes to tap $109bn Saudi clean energy drive
• 2014/04/29: CleanTechnica: Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells Continuing To Move Forward -- Efficient Replacement For Platinum Found
• 2014/04/29: CleanTechnica: Largest Solar PV Power Plant In Japan [82 MW Oita Solar Project] Now Online
• 2014/04/29: CleanTechnica: Solar Cooperatives Growing
• 2014/04/28: CleanTechnica: SunPower Solar Systems To Save Five Schools In Pajaro Valley, California $380,000 Annually

The nuclear energy controversy continues:

• 2014/05/01: WNN: MBIR reactor supplier selected
  The reactor vessel and internals for the multi-purpose fast neutron research reactor (MBIR) project in Russia will be supplied by AEM Technology. Construction of the demonstration reactor should be completed by 2020.
• 2014/04/29: TBAS: The rising cost of decommissioning a nuclear power plant
• 2014/04/29: ABC(Au): Taiwan forced to halt construction of fourth nuclear power plant amid protests
• 2014/04/28: Cryptome: Chernobyl: Capping a Catastrophe [pix]
• 2014/04/28: DD: Photo gallery: Chernobyl's Half Lives
• 2014/04/28: ABC(Au): Taiwan to halt construction at fourth nuclear power plant
• 2014/04/28: FukuLeaks: Taiwan Protests Grow To 50,000, Govt. Halts Nuclear Plant Construction
• 2014/04/27: NYT: Chernobyl: Capping a Catastrophe

Nuclear waste storage requires _very_ long term thinking:

• 2014/05/02: WNN: Mystery of WIPP release deepens
  Workers investigating the radiological release in the underground Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico have found no evidence of a roof collapse but could not explain the discovery of damage to several bags of backfill.
• 2014/05/02: EneNews: Officials: "Grossly disturbed... disintegrated.. destroyed" bags found above nuclear material inside WIPP...
• 2014/05/02: CPunch: A Rhetorical Outburst -- Canadian 'Experts' Comfy with Radioactive Pollution of Great Lakes

Nuclear fusion has been 'Just 20 years away' for the past 50 years:

• 2014/04/29: NBF: JET plans deuterium-tritium fusion tests

The possibility of a Hydrogen Economy shimmers on the horizon:

• 2014/05/02: UCSUSA:B: California is Filling Up the Hydrogen Station Map
• 2014/05/01: BBerg: Toyota Joins California Hydrogen Push in Station Funding
  Toyota Motor Corp. is funding a startup led by General Motors Co.'s former marketing chief to speed up the opening of hydrogen-fuel stations in California needed for zero-emission cars.

More people are talking about the electrical grid:

• 2014/04/29: RNE: Microgrids: How resilience is driving energy localisation
• 2014/04/28: CleanTechnica: What Can We Do About Grid Loss?

How are the utilities adjusting (or not)?

• 2014/05/02: RNE: Stand-alone power becomes growing reality for utilities
• 2014/05/02: TP:JR: Hawaii's Largest Utility Ordered To Help Customers Install More Rooftop Solar
• 2014/04/30: RNE: SA network operator: Rural communities could quit the grid
• 2014/04/29: RNE: New York orders utilities to focus on local generation, storage
• 2014/04/17: TheWeek: The world's dumbest idea: Taxing solar energy

And then there is the matter of efficiency & conservation:

• 2014/04/30: P3: Nine Lessons from the Newfangled Lightbulbs

Automakers & lawyers, engineers & activists argue over the future of the car:

• 2014/05/02: CBC: Luxury electric vehicle hits Vancouver streets -- Tesla opens first showroom in Vancouver this weekend
• 2014/05/02: AutoBG: China's BYD electric bus factory comes online in California
• 2014/05/02: TreeHugger: The most efficient car in the United States is now the BMW i3 electric car
• 2014/05/01: PSinclair: Anti-EV Flyers Pop up on Teslas
• 2014/05/01: TP:JR: How Scientists, Car Companies, And The Military Are Creating The Smartest Energy Solution On The Market
• 2014/04/30: RTCC: US rollout of electric charging stations slowing down
• 2014/04/30: RNE: Pulling back the veil on EV charging station cost

As for Energy Storage:

• 2014/05/02: CleanTechnica: Energy Storage -- Greater Use Of Wind Power & Benefits To Grid Operators
• 2014/05/01: RNE: Is an energy storage tsunami about to hit California?
• 2014/04/29: CleanTechnica: Floodgates Open For Vanadium Flow Batteries
• 2014/04/28: Rice: Flexible battery, no lithium required
• 2014/04/27: NBF: Lithium Sulfur batteries last for more charge cycles using a nickel-based metal organic framework cathode

The reaction of business to climate change will be critical:

• 2014/05/02: TreeHugger: Candy maker MARS to build a wind farm massive enough to fully power its 37 US factories
• 2014/05/01: Grist: These businesses buy the most clean energy

What do we have in (weekly) lists?

• 2014/05/04: NewAnthropocene: Sunday Reads: all things climate, environmental and politics
• 2014/05/03: SkS: 2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #18B by John Hartz
• 2014/05/01: SkS: 2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #18A by John Hartz

Anything in pithy (or piffling) quotes this week?

• 2014/05/03: P3: "It isn't that we failed to act..."
• 2014/05/01: TreeHugger: Quote of the day: "Oil spills can have positive effects"
• 2014/05/01: QuarkSoup: "If we had observations of the future...."

The carbon lobby are up to the usual:

Note: You may notice my denialist coverage flagging. I am finding it increasingly difficult to give any attention to these people.

• 2014/04/30: Stoat: Oh good: the dork side still don't like wiki
• 2014/04/30: RealClimate: Faking it
• 2014/04/29: GWC: Debating skeptics is like mud wrestling with pigs
• 2014/04/29: Wonkette: As If Denying Climate Change Wasn't Bad Enough, Heartland Institute Has Now Sinned Against George Carlin
• 2014/05/01: QuarkSoup: On the Depth of the Horse Shit
• 2014/05/02: HotWhopper: Roy Spencer isn't always wrong ...
• 2014/05/02: TP:JR: Koch-Funded Groups Continue Their Assault On Kansas Clean Energy Law
• 2014/05/01: Grist: Chicagoans fight the Kochs and their petcoke
• 2014/05/01: Grist: Why we talk about the Kochs
• 2014/04/28: DeSmogBlog: Wealthy Corporate CEOs Behind Fake Anti-Fracking Ads
• 2014/04/28: ATTPh: Mud wrestling with a pig
• 2014/04/28: DD: The Koch attack on solar energy
• 2014/04/28: PSinclair: Koch's War on Renewables Bogging Down as US Heartland Wakes to Risks of Climate Change, Benefits of New Energy
• 2014/04/27: ATTPh: Critically analysing horse shit

So why is nothing getting done?

• 2014/04/07: MWatch: 10 reasons Americans ignore climate disasters

As for climate miscellanea:

• 2014/04/30: GLaden: Government Responsibility in Addressing Weather Disasters
• 2014/04/30: TreeHugger: Climate Change and the Medical Analogy
• 2014/05/01: BBC: Smart umbrellas 'could collect rain data'
• 2014/05/04: BorneoPost: Protecting Earth's support system
• 2014/04/28: TruthDig: Flat Denial Rejects 'Very Likely' Science
• 2014/04/28: CChallenge: scientific debate vs political debate, Victor Venema

And here are a couple of sites you may find interesting and/or useful:

• FFI: Fossil Free Indexes - Fossil Fuel Divestment for Index Investors
• IIED: International Institute for Environment and Development
• DHorton: The Watermelon Blog
• At The Edge Of Time - Luís de Sousa
• BeeAction campaign
• Green Herring
• Caldeira Lab
• Grain Web
• ILSR: Institute for Local Self-Reliance
• Rising Ocean Levels
• MNN: Mother Nature Network
• Wiki: Holodomor

Low Key Plug

My first novel _Water_ was published in May 2007. An Introduction is available.
My most recent novel _The Bottleneck Years_ is being serialized online atmy siteand on AFTIC at Table of Contents
If you want further information, see A Gentle Introduction. If you want a copy, see The Deal.
An overview of my writing is available here.

A Simple Plea

Webmasters, web coders and content providers have mercy on your low bandwidth brethren. Because I am on dial-up, I am a text surfer -- no images, no javascript and no flash. When you post a graphic, will you please use the alt text field ... and when you embed a youtube/vimeo/flash video, please add some minimal description. Thank you.

<regards>

-het

P.S. Recent postings can be found in the week archive and the ancient postings can be accessed here, which should open to this.

I notice moyhu has set up a monster index to old AWoGWN on AFTIC.

"Indigenous sovereignty is all about protecting the land, the water, the animals, and all the environment we share." -Sylvia McAdam, Idle No More co-founder

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• Energy News
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Last modified May 4, 2014