Climate

Wood is a renewable fuel because young trees grow up to replace those harvested for fuel. That’s a simple enough statement, but there is much more to consider when you look into the details.

None of [the major papers] thought that the IPCC's statement that the Himalayan glaciers would likely melt by 2035 was in itself worth mentioning, let alone basing a story around. So how much effort should the same papers spend reporting on the withdrawal of this claim? That depends on whether you think melting glaciers, or scientific misstatements about melting glaciers, are the bigger threat to humanity.

-Defusing the Methane Greenhouse Time Bomb
-Think-tanks take oil money and use it to fund climate deniers
-China: Prince of Denmark
-Loss Of Species Hits Economy

- U.S. Defense Review Serious About Climate Change
- Climate Science Under Fire
- Burning the biosphere, boverty blues (cows & climate)

It is simply impossible to assign a clear, calculable probability to any scenario for climate change or future oil supplies. The best we can do is to characterize the incalculable. But, by knowing the range of presumed outcomes, we can start to characterize the effects and therefore gauge the probable severity of any particular outcome.

In a busy week for energy policy, UK energy watchdog Ofgem finally acknowledged what has been obvious for years: that liberalized markets cannot deliver energy security in the era of carbon reduction and resource depletion.

-Scientist in climate row speaks out
-Copenhagen Failed, Mexico is Already Doomed - What's Next?
-Negative Energy
-Climate consensus under strain

-How long before the lights go out?
-Peak Oil Theory: implications for Australia’s strategic outlook and the ADF
-The Iraqi Oil Conundrum
-A New Clean Economy — With Old Sources of Energy
-Business as Usual: Hooked on Foreign Oil
-Stop the Green Tech Coup, Military Industry on the Offensive

-Energy bills will be unaffordable without system overhaul, says regulator
-Is the world awash in oil?
-Demand for oil will peak by 2030 – BP chief

-White House Budget Proposal Gives Ax to Fossil Fuel Tax Breaks, Some Interior Programs
-US Navy to halve fossil fuels by 2020
-Oil, trucking interests sue over 2011 fuel law

-Shell stakes green future on sugar biofuel in $2bn Brazil venture
-Obama Set to Outline Biofuels Strategy
-Biofuel requirements for cars may help destroy the rainforest, watchdog says
-Biofuels: the Biggest Supply Response to the 2000s Oil Shock

-Depletion of Key Resources: Facts at Your Fingertips
-Cities, peak oil, and sustainability
-Reconsidering Cities
-Peter Newman: The Crash, Peak Oil and Resilient Cities
-Where do we go from here?

Humankind has reached a fork in the road. The business-as-usual path implies robust economic growth with a rise in the carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to anthropogenic climate change...Considered alternatives invariably lay out a vision of the future in which emissions steadily decline while economies continue to grow. Is such a vision realistic? This essay questions standard assumptions underlying this "have your cake and eat it too" view.

Many of you watched President Barack Obama’s recent State of the Union speech...It is the position of Post Carbon Institute that the President, however well-intentioned, is overlooking critically important considerations.

In the open letter below, we call on President Obama to face reality and ask our fellow Americans to do the same. We are seeking the support and endorsement of our community...