[GWSG] C pricing; black C; saving species; IBM's sunflower; Energiesprong; self-interest converts?; weather & climate

[Tilley, Al]

1.  At the UN, China is leading a hard charge toward pricing carbon.  http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/26/us-un-climatechange-carbon-pricing-idUSKCN0HL2HM20140926?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
Chile is the first country in this hemisphere to institute a carbon tax.  Mexico and Costa Rica have closely similar arrangements.  http://www.trust.org/item/20140927000016-jx232/?source=fiHeadlineStory

2.  Black carbon emissions are only about half as bad for the climate as we had thought, according to a Norwegian study.  http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/sep/26/climate-impact-of-black-carbon-severely-overestimated-says-study

3.   Several efforts are underway to preserve species which would otherwise perish as our climate degrades.  What can be preserved and what cannot?  How do we choose which to save and which to ignore?  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/28/sunday-review/building-an-ark-for-the-anthropocene.html?emc=edit_tnt_20140927&nlid=43628374&tntemail0=y

4.  IBM’s sunflower array uses concentrated solar energy to provide 12 kilowatts of electric power and desalinate water at the same time.  It achieves 80% efficiency at half to a third of the cost of existing solar converters and should become commercially available in 2017.  http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/sep/28/solar-energy-sunflower-ibm-airlight-electricity

5.  The Dutch corporation Energiesprong retrofits homes for net zero energy use in a week at the cost of the current energy bill.  They intend to expand to the UK and France next.  http://www.energypost.eu/zero-energy-zero-cost-industrialising-building-sector/

6.  As a transition to renewable energy promises to increase economic health, self-interest becomes a motivator for dealing with climate change even in the absence of treaties.  Still, we must contend with the distorting pressures of the entrenched fossil fuel industry.  http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/sep/29/beyond-climate-change-treaties-a-deal-in-paris-is-not-essential

7.  A set of studies on the influence of climate disruption on selected extreme weather events found definite linkage with heat waves in Australia and more nuanced influence on the California drought.  At the other extreme, the UK’s abnormally cold winter of 2013 is much less probable under growing global heat.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2014/09/29/the-fingerprint-of-climate-change-on-the-california-drought-extreme-weather-in-2013/
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