[GWSG] G20 on subsidies; biochar stoves; alarming; cars and cc; ultracapacitors; Science lettter; hearings; US faces boycott

[Tilley, Al]

1.  The G20 nations have agreed to phase out fossil fuel subsidies.  The US administration’s budget proposal for 2010-11 will remove $3 billion a year in tax subsidies to fossil fuel industries.  http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/11/12/g-20-fact-sheet-energy-issues

2.  Biochar stoves for individual use could be especially significant in areas still using open fires for cooking.  http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/innovation/11/17/green.barbecue.stove/?hpt=C2

3.  A UC-Berkeley study shows that people who are traumatized by alarming climate projections are more likely to discount the evidence for climate change because it violates their faith that the earth is safe, stable, and fair.  So unless your views are already destabilized, please skip the next item.  (Though it is coupled with a solution, as recommended—and that is a most serious point.  Adaptation planning without a mitigation plan is likely to create resistance.) http://www.reuters.com/article/idUS130876665720101119

4.  In the last newslist I said that rational no-regrets planning leads to using seat belts and traffic laws.  We know that traveling by auto exposes us to risk, but we accept that for the convenience and pleasure of driving the car and make plans to lessen the risk.  The analogy to climate change planning needs improvement.  What if the risk were not personal but general?  What if the worst case were not a crash in which we might die but one in which everyone would?  What if we could see that slow-motion crash already in progress, and knew that the longer we kept driving the worse, and the more certain, it would become?  We would find some other means of transportation.  Similarly, we need to move to renewable, sustainable sources of energy.  Rational no-regrets planning requires it.  (Peggy Tilley says that I need to support this argument by reminding people of James Hansen’s statement in Storms of My Grandchildren that if we burn the shale oil and the rest of our fossil fuel reserves, the Venus Syndrome, in which the atmosphere heats to 500° or so and stays there, is a dead certainty.  He began his scientific career as a specialist in the atmospheric physics of Venus.)

5.  Commercial production of the carbon necessary to manufacture ultracapacitors for use in vehicles is expected to begin in 2012.  Ultracapacitors are expected to replace batteries in vehicles, especially heavy vehicles, and should find other energy storage applications.  They release energy more readily than batteries and, as they do not degrade in use, have indefinite usage spans.  http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2010/11/the-story-of-an-energy-storage-startup?cmpid=WNL-Friday-November19-2010

6.  A letter in Science from ten luminaries in science, government, and communications calls for an initiative to share information about climate change risks and solutions with the public.  “Humankind has waffled and delayed for decades; further delay risks serious consequences for people and the ecosystems on which we rely.”   http://www.climateengage.org/

7.  The new Congress will hold hearings meant to attack climate science and climate scientists.  Rep. Inglis, an outgoing Republican, calls on the scientists to seize it as a teaching opportunity.  http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/19/a-warning-about-climate-change-from-a-departing-republican/

8.  Britain’s Sir Nicholas Stern warns that the US faces trade boycotts if it does not control its carbon emissions.  http://www.grist.org/article/2010-11-19-leading-climate-change-economist-warns-u.s.-of-trade-boycott