The Australian Government’s independent Climate Change Authority (CCA) is conducting a Caps and Targets Review this year. In this series I will explain why the review is important, outline what I think its recommendations should be, and attempt to deconstruct everything I believe is wrong with the Government’s climate policies and its underlying flawed beliefs …
Category Archive: Tipping Points
Dec 05 2012
Doha climate talks: Island states stand up for ambition
“We have not seen concrete progress on the issues that are important to ensuring the survival of all our members. How many conferences do we have to endure where we go back to our countries and say, ‘next year we will increase ambition to reduce emissions, next year we will see finance, next year we …
Sep 21 2012
Arctic sea ice minimum: A planetary emergency
The news that Arctic sea ice is in meltdown is being treated as merely one news item among many, even though it threatens to set off a chain of tipping points affecting all of humanity and life on Earth. I’m reminded of how the iceberg warnings sent to the Titanic by other ships were interspersed …
Aug 29 2012
Arctic sea ice in a death spiral
Source: International Arctic Research Center As Australian politicians fiddle with the details of an extremely insufficient climate change policy, I’ve been watching Arctic sea ice news with increasing dismay. Summer sea ice in the Arctic is fast melting away, accelerated by amplifying feedbacks in what has been called a “death spiral”. The disappearance of Arctic …
Jul 25 2012
Is Greenland close to a climate tipping point?
Recent findings suggest climate change in Greenland may be approaching a tipping point, beyond which amplifying feedbacks could lead (probably over centuries) to complete melting of the ice sheet, raising sea level by about 7 meters. In June, a team of glaciologists led by Jason Box predicted that we would see melting across 100% of …
Jul 05 2012
Climate change explained in 15 minutes
The other day I found this great TED video where blogger David Roberts explains the significance of increasing degrees of global warming:
Apr 15 2012
Titanic and Global Warming
After the RMS Titanic’s collision with an iceberg a century ago today, the passengers did not believe the ocean liner would sink. The ship was so gargantuan and stably designed it showed few outward signs of being in imminent danger, and took 2 hours and 40 minutes to sink. But sink it did. The Earth’s …
Feb 20 2012
Get ready for the carbon bubble
Remember the sub-prime mortgage bubble? The next economic bubble could be caused by investing in the unsustainable fossil fuel industry. The idea might sound incredible, but it results from our failure to seriously address the science of climate change. The science tells us we can’t burn all fossil fuels Fossil fuels formed over millions of …
Dec 09 2011
What Should Happen in Durban
“We have shown that phase out of fossil fuel emissions is urgent. CO2 from fossil fuel use stays in the surface climate system for millennia.” – NASA climate scientist James Hansen and 16 co-authors “We would be quite open to a discussion about a process that would lead to a negotiation for the thing, whatever …
Mar 08 2011
Climate Emergency: Time to Slam on the Brakes
I wrote this post for Skeptical Science as a basic rebuttal of the argument “It’s not urgent”. Global warming is an increasingly urgent problem. The urgency isn’t obvious because a large amount of warming is being delayed. But some of the latest research says if we want to keep the Earth’s climate within the range …
Loading tweets...