Stories tagged with "global warming"
Risk Assessments: Playing the "What If?" Game
Posted by Robert Rapier on July 2, 2009 - 10:15am
Topic: Supply/Production
Tags: climate change, global warming, greenhouse gas, peak oil [list all tags]
I spend a lot of time playing "What if?" It is an important aspect of my line of work, but we all do this to some extent. I do it when I am driving - "What if that car at the next intersection pulls out in front of me?" - when I am working "What if that high pressure line ruptures?" - and at home - "What if I wake up and find the house is on fire?" I also spend a lot of time pondering the question "What if there are energy shortages in the near future?"
When we do this, we are generally trying to understand the potential consequences of various responses to a given situation. This sort of exercise is a form of risk assessment, and it is a very important tool for making decisions about events that could impact the future. Sometimes the consequences are minor. If I choose not to take an umbrella to work and it rains, there is probably a small consequence. If I choose to pass a car on a blind hill, the consequence may be severe, and may extend to other people.
In this essay I will explore the implications of the question: "What if I am wrong on peak oil or global warming?"
Book Review: Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller
Posted by Robert Rapier on May 25, 2009 - 9:38am
Topic: Supply/Production
Tags: book review, carbon tax, global warming, jeff rubin [list all tags]
Jeff Rubin - the former chief economist at CIBC World Markets - has always struck me as someone who "gets it." I have seen him do a number of interviews, both on television and in print - and he consistently sounds the alarm on peak oil. He understands very well that cheap oil is the lifeblood of the global economy, yet this is an era that will soon come to an end. His new book - Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller: Oil and the End of Globalization
Fire or Ice? The role of peak fossil fuels in climate change scenarios
Posted by Ugo Bardi on March 9, 2009 - 9:59am in The Oil Drum: Europe
Topic: Environment/Sustainability
Tags: climate change, environment, global warming, original, peak coal, peak gas, peak oil [list all tags]
Carbon dioxide emission scenarios according to IPCC (from http://www.globalwarmingart.com). "Peaking" of the major fossil fuels, oil, gas and coal, could radically change these projections.
Mission Earth
Posted by Ugo Bardi on February 12, 2009 - 11:55pm in The Oil Drum: Europe
Topic: Environment/Sustainability
Tags: climate change, global warming, hubbert peak, resource depletion, world models [list all tags]

The seminar "Mission Earth - Modeling and Simulation for a Sustainable Future" (http://www.inf.ethz.ch/personal/fcellier/AGS/AGSME_2009.html) was held in Zurich on Jan 26 2009, organized by Francois Cellier and Andreas Fischlin. It was a rare occasion of a truly interdisciplinary meeting where people from different fields of modeling were given a chance to present their work and exchange views. Climate modelers and resource modelers haven't interacted very much, so far; however, resource depletion will surely have a strong effect on the future of earth's climate. While we are still far from integrated world models that take into account all factors, economic as well as environmental, this seminar was a first attempt at understanding what issues are involved.
The “Mission Earth” meeting was about three kinds of models: climate models, world models, and resource exploitation models.
Thoughts on the New Energy Team
Posted by Robert Rapier on December 22, 2008 - 11:35am
Topic: Policy/Politics
Tags: cellulosic ethanol, coal, conservation, doe, energy policy, gas tax, global warming, greenhouse gas, politics, steven chu [list all tags]
In case you are just venturing out of your cave for the first time in a week, you are probably aware that President-elect Obama has announced his new energy team:
The team includes Nobel Prize winning physicist Steven Chu as Secretary of Energy, former EPA head Carol Browner to fill the newly-created job of Energy Czar, and Lisa Jackson to head the EPA. The focus of this essay will be on Dr. Chu, but I will comment briefly on the others.
Lisa Jackson is trained as a chemical engineer (as was the outgoing Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman). It should go without saying that I like to see technical people in roles like this, where understanding science and data are both critical. Carol Browner, while not trained as a technical person, has a lot of administrative experience within the EPA. Incidentally, I once met Mrs. Browner, as she was the person who presented my research group with the 1996 Green Chemistry Challenge Award at the National Academy of Sciences for our work on biomass conversion to fuels.
IEA WEO 2008 - Fossil Fuel Ultimates and CO2 Emissions Scenarios
Posted by Luis de Sousa on December 2, 2008 - 10:25am in The Oil Drum: Europe
Topic: Policy/Politics
Tags: carbon dioxide, climate change, global warming, greenhouse gas emissions, iea, ipcc, magicc, original, urr, weo 2008 [list all tags]
Report authors: Luís de Sousa and Euan Mearns
Part 3 of IEA WEO 2008 analyzes the expected impact of fossil fuel combustion upon climate change.
Page 382: As emissions of greenhouse gases build up in the atmosphere faster than natural processes can remove them, their concentrations rise. The Reference Scenario puts us on a path to doubling the aggregate concentration in CO2 equivalent terms by the end of this century, entailing an eventual global average temperature increase up to 6 ºC.
Rather surprisingly, IEA WEO 2008 does not provide any data on fossil fuel reserves and production forecasts to 2100 to back up this claim. Instead, it chooses to rely upon fossil fuel reserve figures underlying the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) models. Furthermore, using MAGICC (climate temperature model), and the default climate sensitivity constants, we are unable to reproduce the outcome of as much as a 6 ºC increase.

Using a CO2 emissions scenario based on our 2008 Olduvai Assessment combined with MAGICC, we estimate that global average temperatures may peak at around 1.6ºC above 1990 values toward the end of this century. Other climate models may produce temperature outcomes higher or lower than this.
Solving Climate Change without Pain
Posted by Big Gav on September 24, 2008 - 6:42am in The Oil Drum: Australia/New Zealand
Topic: Environment/Sustainability
Tags: australia, climate change, garry glazebrook, global warming, infrastructure, investment, original [list all tags]
This is a guest post from Garry Glazebrook of UTS (the University of Technology, Sydney).
After listening to Al Gore, Nicholas Stern, Ross Garnaut and Tim Flannery, it is now obvious to most thinking people that we have to address climate change, and soon. It is becoming equally clear that the fall in oil prices over the last few months is only a temporary respite, brought on by a faltering world economy, and that oil prices will likely surge again as soon as the economy recovers. The implication is a need for massive investment in renewable energy, energy efficiency and sustainable transport. But how to fund such investment without sacrificing our economy, jobs or lifestyles?
A Plan for Increasing Your Carbon Emissions
Posted by Robert Rapier on August 11, 2008 - 10:11am
Topic: Policy/Politics
Tags: energy policy, global warming, nancy pelosi, original, politics, spr [list all tags]
I recently received an interesting e-mail:
Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House and Author of "Know Your Power: A Message to America's Daughters
" will answer questions in a live discussion on washingtonpost.com today (Wednesday, Aug. 6 at 3 pm ET).
Pelosi will discuss the current political scene heading into the conventions, the message of her new book and other questions submitted by readers.
To submit questions and participate in the live discussion click here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2008/08/01/DI2008080102174.html
This seemed to me to be an ideal opportunity to question her on two issues that she is clearly passionate about, but seem to me to be diametrically opposed: Tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) and reducing carbon emissions. So, I submitted the following question, several hours prior to the chat:
Telework Pros and Cons: 28 Reasons To "Telework"--With Data To Back Them Up
Posted by Prof. Goose on July 22, 2008 - 10:30am
Topic: Demand/Consumption
Tags: automobile, carbon footprint, climate change, commuting, conservation, four hour workweek, gas prices, global warming, original, telecommuting, telework, traffic congestion, undress4success, work at home, work from home, work-life [list all tags]
This is a guest post by Kate Lister. Kate, along with partner Tom Harnish, runs a web site called Undress4Success.com, which offers advice on work at home jobs, freelance opportunities, and home-based businesses. Kate and Tom are telecommuting researchers and authors; their academic study of the topic is balanced with practical lessons they've learned from over twenty years of home-based work and business ownership. They are currently working on a book, Undress4Success—The Naked Truth About Working From Home for John Wiley & Sons (March 2009). This will be their third book for Wiley.
| The terms telework and telecommuting were coined by Jack Nilles (http://www.jala.com), a former NASA engineer, more than three decades ago. "One of my colleagues at NASA was carrying on about if we can put a man on the moon, we ought to be able to do something about traffic," recalls Jack. So that's what he set out to do. Today, about five million Americans earn a full-time paycheck working at home. Our research shows than another fifty million could. While the concept of telework has been simmering for years, soaring gas prices are fanning the flame such that we may have finally reached a tipping point. |
Performance Governing: Getting Lucky and Staying Lucky
Posted by Robert Rapier on July 4, 2008 - 9:17pm
Topic: Policy/Politics
Tags: alternative energy, congestion, edict, energy, energy policy, global warming, netmobil, peak oil, personal rapid transit, personal transit, prt, public transportation [list all tags]
Gasoline prices give a a clear measure of consequences of making oil the lifeblood of our economy. As our economic lifeblood, oil is giving us:
- Heart attacks, unstable price spikes in this plateau of Peak Oil
- Leukemia, undermining our planets ability to support us with Global Warming
Facing the facts and acting to resolve them can defeat peak Oil and Global Warming, both civilization killers. A primary fact is that our current infrastructure is the cause of these killers. We built the infrastructure. We can build better. The purpose of this essay is a call to action to defeat these civilization killers by changing the way we govern infrastructure from specifying HOW to build it, to stating WHAT is needed and allowing a free market to find the rare individuals with lucky breakthroughs that can build sustainable infrastructure. We must get lucky and discover the energy equivalents of lasers, personal computers, cell phones, the Internet, etc....


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