climate solutions

Sounds good: Worse targets than Kyoto

Submitted by naught101 on Wed, 12/09/2009 - 15:31

Of the three announced national carbon targets I've heard of lately, two are arithmetically worse than Kyoto targets, and one is technically worse. The latter is Australia's target, already discussed here.

The others are the recent US announcement, and the recent China announcement.

The US announcement was for a 17% cut, which sounds a bit better than the Kyoto US commitment (or non-commitment, as it turned out) of 7%. But it's not really better, because it's on 2005 levels, where as Kyoto was based on 1990.

Population and climate

Submitted by naught101 on Sat, 06/06/2009 - 14:40

This is in response to a discussion about population control and climate change on an e-list I'm on. In particular, it's in response to a line by a mate, Jono:

it's not the number of people that is important, but rather the power of the argument. Population control arguments need to be challenged wherever they occur, because they turn the climate movement into a war against human rights rather than for human rights.


Population control doesn't have to infringe human rights.

Limits to Density: Beginning

Submitted by naught101 on Thu, 08/30/2007 - 22:33

I've spoken to a number of people about this topic, but I've never seen any definitive answers. So I'm going to try and find some of my own. For a student or architecture, permaculture, and ecology, it's important to understand just how much of an impact it's possible to sustain on this planet.

Clean Coal

Submitted by naught101 on Thu, 07/19/2007 - 22:57

Aint.

The term's been popping up a LOT lately, so I thought I'd give a few links to pages worth reading (there's not much point me re-doing it, it's already done so well)

Steve from Rising Tide Newcastle has written a clean coal fact sheet, with a lot of good stuff about carbon capture and storage.

We need value changes, not technofixes: the Aswan Dam as a metaphor for climate change.

Submitted by naught101 on Thu, 03/15/2007 - 16:28

I had a very interesting lecture today, on thermodynamics, ecosystems, and human values relating to technology (lecture 4, Technology and Human Values, PHIL3910 at the University of Newcastle. I recommend it). It didn't give me a lot of information that I hadn't heard before, but Yin Gao's presentation definitely cemented a lot of that information in place for me.

One thing that did strike me, was Yin's case study: the Aswan Dam. I've heard of it before of course, but never paid a lot of attention. Almost as soon as she mentioned it, I saw the link with climate change. As she went on, the similarities blew me away. let me explain: