What happened in Cancun: necessary but not sufficient.

by RLMiller

The UN negotiators reached a deal in Cancun very early this morning. It's being praised from virtually all angles, and it's being labeled as "modest" at the same time.

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Blackened Pork: Liquid Coal Subsidies Sneak into Senate Tax Bill

by Target Global Warming

Is regular coal not dirty enough for you? Meet liquid coal fuel! Destructive to mine, water-intensive to manufacture, devastating to our climate at every step of the way – liquid coal is one of the world’s dirtiest fuels. Liquid coal production emits twice as much global warming pollution as gasoline & requires at least four gallons of water per gallon of fuel produced.  

Today the National Wildlife Federation has learned the Senate version of tax legislation includes subsidies for liquid coal fuels.

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eKos: Acidifying Oceans Endanger Web of Life

by FishOutofWater

Oceans acidifying at the highest rate since the last great mass extinction 65 million years ago, threaten marine life, coral reefs and nutrition for over a billion people according to a report (PDF)just released by the UN. Fossil fuel burning, cement production, deforestation and land use changes have increased atmospheric CO2 from 280 to 390 PPMs. Increasing atmospheric CO2 has dissolved in the oceans, increasing the acidity (decreasing the pH) by 30%. Increasing acidity is destabilizing shells and corals, threatening the web of life in the ocean.

Recent studies of a Mediterranean vent in shallow waters revealed key ecosystem changes in high CO2 areas compared to normal CO2 areas. Certain algae and seagrasses were found to grow more efficiently closer to the vents where there was also a large reduction in biodiversity, notably a loss of calcifying organisms adjacent to the vents where the pH was lowest.

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Unvarnished truth is hard to swallow

by Steve Masover

A summary for a study titled Global Warming Warnings Can Backfire begins:

From  Priuses to solar panels and plastic-bag bans (and even green dating!),  it seems that everyone’s going green. The message that our world is in  danger if we do not take action is also everywhere: from images of baby  polar bears drowning to frightening images of a parched barren future.  The push to go green is based in good intentions, but an upcoming study  in Psychological Science shows that the popular 'do or die'  global-warming messages can backfire if the situation is presented too  negatively.

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COP16, hairy flies, and giant storks: a mishmash Earthship Wednesday

by eKos

Welcome to the eKos Earthship, your one-stop-shop for green diaries and series.

Beneath the fold you will find news and notes, community announcements, and our eco-diary roundup.

Peruse the eKos Library to find previously listed diaries. You can also follow eKos on Twitter.

Tonight's editor: patrickz

With contributions from: citisven and WarrenS

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While you were arguing about taxes...

by LaughingPlanet

primary challenges, and Dancing with the Stars, our planet is galloping one day closer to real-life Waterworld.

Yesterday on my local listener-supported radio, I heard a powerful & terrifying interview with the author of a book I am now afraid to read.

"The Flooded Earth" by University of Washington professor Peter D. Ward, paints a detailed picture of where we are headed in the not-distant future. If mankind does not change its ways, and quick, the reality of what our planet will look like is not pretty, to put it very mildly.

Hearing the facts about climate change, it is hard for me to watch our current discourse about minor day-to-day trifles when it is so clearly this one, singular issue which will supersede all else unless we turn our full attention to it right now.

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Did China just save the world?

by eKos

Welcome to the eKos Earthship, your one-stop-shop for green diaries and series.

Today's editor: LaughingPlanet

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(Reuters) - China on Monday offered for the first time to submit its voluntary carbon emissions target to a binding U.N. resolution, buoying climate talks where Bolivia accused rich world policies of causing "genocide."

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Beneath the fold you will find news and notes, community announcements, and our eco-diary roundup.

All views expressed by today's editor do not necessarily represent those of eKos or eKos listed diarists.

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Eco Activists "Greatest Threat" to Society and Church

by Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse

A right-wing religious organization says that environmentalists are "one of the greatest threats to society and the church today." Not surprisingly, this right-wing group, the Cornwall Alliance, is a disinformation front group funded by Big Oil.  Cornwall Alliance calls environmentalists the "Green Dragon" on claims that activists are "using the message of climate change to take over the world" to place it "under its destructive control."

The scary part is not just that a GOP lawmaker who might become chair of an environmental committee may be an adherent of this group's extreme views, but the GOP selected the founder of Cornwall Alliance as a witness for Congressional hearing on climate policies.  

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A Song When Hope Dims: Pete Seeger and The Napalm Ladies

by WarrenS

I think I was twelve when my parents gave me a new Pete Seeger lp.  They knew I loved his music; I’d listened over and over to "We Shall Overcome: The Carnegie Hall Concert" and knew most of the songs, or at least their lyrics, by heart.  I’d memorized most of the songs on the "Children’s Concert at Town Hall," and forty years later I can get a good laugh from any kid by singing "Where have you been all the day long, Henry my boy?" with its gross, lugubrious "greeeeeeeeen and yeller" chorus.

But this was a new disc, and I’m quite sure my folks just went into the store and grabbed something off the shelf.  After all, Pete had a lot of albums, and they were all pretty much the same, right?

Well, actually, no.

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What matters.

by RLMiller

I'm sorry.  I've been lurking since the election, and now the recommended list is alien to me.  

Tax cuts.

Unemployment insurance.

Wikileaks.

These matter today, and they'll matter tomorrow, but I tend to take a long view: what will matter in 2020? what will matter in 2100?

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We Protect Endangered Wildlife, Why Not Endangered People?

by Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse

On Monday, right-wing contrarian Bjorn Lomborg argued that we have "twenty to forty years" to spend on researching new technology for global warming.

He argues that "efforts to reduce global warming pollution can wait, because 'coping with climate change is something we know how to do.'"  Go tell this to Pakistan flood victims.

I guess "coping" now means death, illness, economic deficits, job losses, hunger, national security risks, environmental destruction, wildlife extinction and environmental racism.  

It also means allowing nations to face the threat of extinction. When wildlife is threatened by extinction, our endangered species law may provide protected status while recovery remedies are implemented to save the wildlife.  What about people threatened with rising sea levels that might swallow up entire nations?  Are people as important as our wildlife?

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DAILYCANCUN: Why I’m Voting TROTSKY/ASSANGE in 2012

by todbrilliant

One met death by ice pick seventy years ago, and the other is a furtive, fugitive Australian, but I’m giving my votes (thanks to my hacker buddies) to the TROTSKY/ASSANGE ticket in 2012.

WTF am I talking about and how does this apply to the ongoing UNFCC "negotiations" in Cancun? You'll see...

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eKos Earthship Wednesday, Snow-pocalypse edition

by eKos

Welcome to the eKos Earthship, your one-stop-shop for green diaries and series.

Beneath the fold you will find news and notes, community announcements, and our eco-diary roundup.

Peruse the eKos Library to find previously listed diaries. You can also follow eKos on Twitter.

Tonight's editor: LokiMom

continued at Daily Kos....

Royal Society: 4C (Catastrophic) Global Warming by 2070

by FishOutofWater

Greenhouse gas emissions are on track to cause catastrophic global warming of 4 Celsius by 2070 devastating American agriculture and the earth's ecosystems according to a volume of reports published today by the Royal Society.

Temperature changes of between 4 and 8°C are projected in the summer across various temperate and tropical regions for a global 4°C temperature rise [42]. This suggests that these adaptive capacities might be exceeded, especially in the areas with the larger temperate rises such as the USA, the Mediterranean and many parts of Africa [42]. Many of these studies do not include damage caused by concomitant increases in tropospheric ozone and extreme weather events, and so the estimated adaptive capacities might be over-optimistic. For ecosystems, while adaptation to a 2°C world is considered feasible, the options for adapting, either naturally or with human assistance, to a 4°C world are extremely limited, since at these temperatures few ecosystems would be expected to be able to maintain their current functioning [43].

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DAILYCANCUN #1: What if They Threw a Climate Conference & Nobody Cared?

by todbrilliant

It's an exciting day for the global band of climate legislation watchers. We're few in number, and our quarry is rarer than an Ivory-billed woodpecker, but we press on through the thickets and brambles in the hopes that we get to witness, once in our lifetime, meaningful and binding climate legislation. Hats off to Boatsie aka Deborah Phelan for making her way all the way to Cancun for a premier viewing angle.

After going to Copenhagen last year and experiencing the lows and lows of being in the midst of an ill-organized clusterfuck, I realized that I'd been swept up in the ferver. That is, I thought EVERYONE knew about Copenhagen. When I got home and talked to friends in 'progressive' Sonoma County, I realized the only footage relayed of Denmark was of some minor rioting I'd witnessed. Alas. Alack. So this year I decided to proactively assess how many of my local citizens are tuned in to the great and heroic mission that our man in Cancun, Todd Stern (huzzah!), is leading up. And so...

A Man, A PhoneCam & An Hour Productions Presents: What if They Threw a Climate Conference and Nobody Cared?

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Climate Change News Roundup: 28 November 2010

by billlaurelMD

Looks like a duality of riches: CCNR#1

What elements of climate result in drought? And how is drought impacted by global warming?  Here's a diary on surface water balance, and then some recent findings from climate change researchers on drought that the "primer" on water balance will help you better understand why reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is a social, economic, and political imperative.

A graphic telling the tale is below. The original study by NCAR (Meehl et al, 2007) was published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

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Calling all bloggers! Climate Conference in Cancun.

by rb137

The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico, will be held from November 29 to 10 December 2010, and it includes the sixteenth Conference of the Parties (COP 16) and the sixth Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP 6), among other regular climate meetings (see link).

This 12-day conference kicks off tomorrow, when delegates the world over will talk about climate financial aid, energy, deforestation, and attempt to forge a path to a comprehensive, international climate deal. Among the key objectives is focusing on the climate impact on developing countries, and pointedly launching a "Green Fund" as a primary source for aid to poor countries that suffer the brunt of climate change, as promised at Copenhagen. The need is expected to reach $100 billion by 2020.

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Major data error in critical global temperature data set

by A Siegel

Anthony Watts (Watt's Up With That) and others have long argued that there are quite serious problems with temperature records, problems that are so serious that they call into question what science is / scientists are telling us is happening in our planetary climate system due to human influence (through greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, but also land use practices and other actions).  

Let me be the first to write this: according to recent reporting, Watts and his compatriots look to have been absolutely right.  

There has been, over the last decade or so, a systemic bias in a critical global temperature system that has created a serious error in reporting that has not been understood by scientists until quite recently.

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Climate scientist takes on AM radio host and wins!

by Keith Pickering

Until a few months ago, nobody ever heard of John Abraham, an engineering professor at St. Thomas University in St. Paul. Maybe you've never heard of him. But he's shaping up to be perhaps the biggest hero of the fight against global warming, evah.

On Tuesday, John was a guest of Jake Judd, radio host and climate skeptic on KDLM-AM in Detroit Lakes, MN. But in less than half an hour, Judd was waving the white towel.

"All right, all right," Judd said. "No matter what side you are on, most people agree that Earth is warming and we have to do something about it."

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Shimkus Lies: CO2 is Bad News For Food (and the Earth)

by Steven D

Remember the GOP propaganda pushed by Rep. John "God is infallible and science is not" Shimkus that more CO2 is good for us because it is "plant food?"

It's a lie, a lie of omission, but a lie nonetheless.  Here's the reality:

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