Below is the second piece published on BNC on the lessons learned from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear crisis. For an earlier perspective, see: Preliminary lessons from Fukushima for future nuclear power plants. Below is a Guest Post by Dr. William Sacks. Bill is a highly experienced physicist and radiologist. He earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from [...]
Filed under: Future, Nuclear, Policy | 186 Comments »
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear crisis has moved off the front page of most newspapers, but a lot continues to happen, and the situation remains unresolved. Below I offer some personal perspectives on some of the things that have been widely reported over the last few days, and then I conclude with some official updates. Disclaimer: [...]
Filed under: Future, Hot News, Nuclear | 222 Comments »
It was suggested in a comment — and I agree — that the previous open threads on the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident were becoming difficult to read, because they are such a mixture of technical details and philosophical discourse. That is, it’s generally a bad idea to cater to two different audiences in one comment thread. So, [...]
Filed under: Future, Nuclear, Open Thread | 475 Comments »
Guest Post by Ben Heard. Ben is Director of Adelaide-based advisory firm ThinkClimate Consulting, a Masters graduate of Monash University in Corporate Environmental Sustainability, and a member of the TIA Environmental and Sustainability Action Committee. After several years with major consulting firms, Ben founded ThinkClimate and has since assisted a range of government, private and [...]
Filed under: Clim Ch Q&A, Future, Nuclear | 122 Comments »
For context, make sure you read this first: A toy model for forecasting global temperatures – 2011 redux, part 1 Here is a list and brief description of the data sources I will be analysing: 1. Annual global temperature (WTI): This is the ‘dependent variable‘ in the model. The time span is 1979 to 2010. [...]
Filed under: Future | 43 Comments »
A little over two years ago, I wrote the following post on BNC: How hot should it have really been over the last 5 years? In it, I did some simple statistical tinkering to examine the (correlative) relationship between global temperatures and a few key factors, namely greenhouse gases, solar irradiance, and ENSO. In the next [...]
Filed under: Clim Ch Q&A, Future | 39 Comments »
Here is a blog-post version of the poster to accompany the AMS paper discussed in the previous post. You can download a printable, high rez (11 MB) version of the poster here, or a low rez (1 MB) version here. —————————
Filed under: Emissions, Future, IFR FaD, Nuclear | 43 Comments »
After a long, hot period of drought in eastern Australia, spanning much of the 1990s and 2000s and referred to as the worst in 1000 years (see also discussion on BNC on the drought here and the strange winter of 2009 here), the period 2010-2011 has seen record rainfall and rural flooding events in Australia. [...]
Filed under: Future, Impacts | 101 Comments »
Here is a selection of sustainable energy and climate change books I read in 2010. I’ve provided a few sentence summary of each book (from my perspective) and a Rating out of 5. Some books have been reviewed in more detail on BNC already — enter from the title of the book in this website’s search box [...]
Filed under: Clim Ch Q&A, Emissions, Future, Hot News, Impacts, Nuclear, Renewables | 20 Comments »
This is a book review I wrote for the UK Times Higher Education Supplement, for the book “The Flooded Earth” by Peter D. Ward. You can read my original THE piece here. Click on the cover image of the book for details of the title. ——————————- A chilling look at our possible destiny indicates the limits [...]
Filed under: Clim Ch Q&A, Future | 58 Comments »
Given the flurry of heated discussion on the topic of ‘peak oil‘ on another BNC post, I invited one of the protagonists, Dave Lankshear (a.k.a. “Eclipse Now” — see here for his blog), to write up a summary piece which described his position on the topic. This is given below, and should provide a good [...]
Filed under: Emissions, Future | 185 Comments »
I’m about to hit the road once again, this time to take the great American road trip for 13 hours, from Sacremento to Idaho Falls, with Tom Blees, leaving bright and early tomorrow morning. Today I had a fantastic visit to UC Berkeley and the lab of Prof Per Peterson, and will have lots more [...]
Filed under: Emissions, Future, Nuclear, Renewables | 28 Comments »
This is part II, on impacts of climate change. Be sure to read climate change basics I – observations, causes and consequences, and for more on pragmatic energy solutions, see here. Climate change impacts on ice, rain and sea level The term “global warming” says it all – a heating of the atmosphere right across [...]
Filed under: Clim Ch Q&A, Future, Impacts | 28 Comments »
The recent reports in the media and the spin-off commentaries on sea level rise have been enough to confuse anyone. Here, I wish to set the record straight on a few key points. Last week, a journalist emailed me with the following: In a recent New Scientist article you’re quoted as saying that sea-level rise [...]
Filed under: Clim Ch Q&A, Future, Impacts | 51 Comments »
I’ve read deeply on Earth history over the last 30 years of my life — both for personal interest, and as an underpinning of my research and teaching. I first got into science because I wanted to be a palaeontologist (a specialist on past life and evolution in deep time), an interest that traces its [...]
Filed under: Future | 193 Comments »
Guest Post by Dr Paul Babie. Paul is is Associate Dean of Law (Research), Adelaide Law School. He holds a BA in sociology and politics from the University of Calgary, a BThSt from Flinders University, a LLB from the University of Alberta, a LLM from the University of Melbourne, and a DPhil in law from [...]
Filed under: Clim Ch Q&A, Future | 54 Comments »
Here is an incomplete list of the sustainable energy and climate change books I read in 2009 (actually, a few also scraped in from late 2008). I’ve provided a 2 — 3 sentence summary of each book (from my perspective) and a Rating out of 5. Some books have been reviewed in more detail on [...]
Filed under: Clim Ch Q&A, Emissions, Future, Impacts, Nuclear, Renewables | 28 Comments »
Time for some updates from the world of climate science. First up, the December issue of Nature Reports Climate Change is definitely worth checking out. (This spin-off internet magazine, produced by the Nature Publishing House, is always worth reading, and you can download a full-colour PDF if you prefer this format — good for printing). Three [...]
Filed under: Emissions, Future, Hot News | 21 Comments »
Here in Australia, there’s currently a political storm over a proposed cap-and-trade system for putting a price on carbon pollution. In brief, the federal Labor (left wing) government has passed the legislation for an emissions trading scheme in the house of representatives (where they have a clear parliamentary majority), but have had it blocked in [...]
Filed under: Emissions, Future, Nuclear | 68 Comments »
Summer 2009 — 2010 hasn’t even begun in Australia, and yet we are already sweltering under another record heat wave — the third in two years. Temperature records for the month of November have been broken across the region, caused by a blocking high pressure system over the Tasman Sea. This follows an abnormally hot [...]
Filed under: Future, Impacts | 79 Comments »
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