Last Hours

The Scorched Earth

James Hansen and colleague's latest paper, 'Climate Sensitivity, Sea Level and Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide', appearing in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society here and here [warning: pdf download], is suitably blunt. Burning all fossil fuels would generate approximately 20 degrees C average warming over land areas and appoximately 30 degrees C at the poles. Certainly fatal for civilization, most human life as we know it and countless other-than-human species and beings too. Hansen et al conclude that, '[i]t seems implausible that humanity will not alter its course as consequences of burning all fossil fuels become clearer.' But they then add the caveat, '[y]et strong evidence about the dangers of human-made climate have so far had little effect.'  Quite - or arguably there is no evidence whatsoever of the brakes being applied yet. The race for unconventional fossil fuels is just heating up.

News from Balcombe

Some recent news on the anti-fracking protests at Balcombe from an ex-student of mine here.

For an interesting and pointed critique of the economics of fracking and an overview of the ecological costs, I'd strongly recommend Richard Heinberg's Snake Oil: How Fracking's False Promise of Plenty Imperils Our Future. Alan Tootill's Fracking the UK also looks good, although I have yet to read it.

One Skyscraper. Six Women. No Permission.

"Behind-the-scenes film captures the build-up and the experience of six ordinary women who climbed the tallest building in Europe to protest against Shell’s plan to drill for oil in the Arctic."

An Extreme Weather Primer

A good short documentary introduction to current extreme weather events, presented by Anja Taylor.

British Eco-Activists Scale the Shard in London

Re-blogging this from Climate Progress, information on an amazing protest climb in London. Online signatures requested in support here.

 Six environmental activists began scaling the tallest building in London on Thursday morning in a symbolic protest against the oil company Shell and its practice of arctic drilling.
The activists, who Greenpeace identified as Sabine, Sandra, Victo, Ali, Wiola and Liesbeth, picked the building — named The Shard — because it is “modelled on a shard of ice” and “sits slap bang in the middle of Shell’s three London headquarters.” They started their “ice climb” at 4:00 am London time, and plan to “unveil a massive art installation at the top.”
At time of publishing, the climbers had reached 230 meters on their 72-story journey. You can watch a live feed of the climb here.

The Cosmological Verification of Schopenhauer

Note: It's the Onion.