Climate & Environment Review: August 3, 2006

Climate & Environment Review
August 3, 2006

Climate & Environment Weekly is brought to you by The Center for Science and Public Policy (CSPP). CSPP is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy organization.

CSPP relies on scientific experts in many nations and the vast body of peer-reviewed literature to help lawmakers, policy makers, and the media distinguish between scientific findings that are agenda-driven and those that are based on accepted scientific methods and practices. In a timely manner, the Center's Science Watch Team alerts policy makers, the media, and the public to unreliable scientific claims and unjustified alarmism which often lead to public harm. We strive for a fair and balanced examination of science.

Who Killed the Electric Car?
Upon hearing the word 'electricity,' I paid closer attention to the vehicle which was going by me at that precise moment and it was easy for me to notice that, in fact, the 'soul' of the movement was indeed electricity... >>Read More<<

SCIENTISTS CRITICISE HAWKING 'HYPE'
Professor Stephen Hawking's latest fears for the future of humanity have been criticised by academics for being contradictory and little more than hype for his forthcoming book... >>Read More<<

HOW TO SAVE THE WORLD: BOLTON VS GORE
A question of priorities: hunger and disease or climate change?.. >>Read More<<

WARNING: BRITISH GOVERNMENT RISKS ECONOMIC STABILITY OVER CARBON POLICIES
Business groups hit out at the Government for cutting its cap on carbon emissions which they say will push up energy prices and make Britain less competitive... >>Read More<<

NUCLEAR POWER COMPANIES DEMAND FREE CARBON CREDITS
EDF Energy chief Vincent de Rivaz has stated that financial backing for new nuclear build would require nuclear power to be classified as a non-carbon-emitting form of generation within the European emissions trading scheme (ETS). However this would then amount to a subsidy of nuclear by fossil-fuelled power plants... >>Read More<<

LETTER: THE HOCKEY STICK CONTINUES (THE REAL ONE)
The EEA has now updated its priceless 21 June 2005 chart which causes equally priceless expressions among Kyotophiles when I present it across the continent... >>Read More<<

Anti-seal hunt ads in U.S. dismissed by fisheries minister by Mike De Souza
OTTAWA - An American environmental lobby group has placed full-page anti-Canadian ads in the New York Times ''to fatten up their own purses,'' Fisheries and Oceans Minister Loyola Hearn said Monday... >>Read More<<

HOW ADAPTATION WORKS - ISRAELI RESEARCHERS STEM THE TIDE OF DESERTIFICATION
As the planet heats up, the population grows and natural resources are exploited, drylands - over half of the world's productive land - are becoming increasingly infertile and uninhabitable... >>Read More<<

NOBLE GREEN MAY HAVE HUNTED MEGAFAUNA TO EXTINCTION
New evidence shows Aborigines may have hunted our giant beasts to extinction, writes Brendan O'Keefe... >>Read More<<

GOOD NEWS OF THE WEEK - GENE THAT WITHSTANDS SALINITY COULD MARK AGRICULTURAL BOON
Imagine what it would mean for the world hunger problem if farmers could grow wheat and other crops on land considered unsuitable for agriculture... >>Read More<<

CARBON MARKET TESTED AS EUROPEAN STATES MISS DEADLINE
BRUSSELS, June 30 (Reuters) - The European Union's emissions trading scheme faces its second major hurdle in a matter of weeks on Friday as EU states struggle to meet a deadline to finish plans laying out industry pollution rights for 2008-2012... >>Read More<<

GOODBYE KYOTO, HELLO ASIA-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP
Goodbye Kyoto, hello Asia-Pacific Partnership. They sound alike, charmingly Oriental you might say. But in fact there is a world of difference between the two climate schemes... >>Read More<<

AP INCORRECTLY CLAIMS SCIENTISTS PRAISE GORE'S MOVIE
AP chose to ignore the scores of scientists who have harshly criticized the science presented in former Vice President Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth... >>Read More<<

"KYOTO PROMISES ARE NOTHING BUT HOT AIR"
Governments are hugely under-reporting greenhouse gas emissions from their territories... >>Read More<<

THE END IS NEAR – HAS IT REALLY COME DOWN TO THIS?
There are a lot of really crummy ways we could all die, including nuclear annihilation or a flu pandemic... >>Read More<<

Mad Hatter’s Tea Party - UK OPPOSITION PARTIES FALL OUT OVER CLIMATE TAXES
An attempt by the two main opposition parties to agree a platform on tackling climate change has collapsed after the Liberal Democrats pulled out of the process... >>Read More<<

WHY THE USA IS UNLIKELY TO JOIN KYOTO OR ANY OTHER UN CLIMATE TREATY
The US government is being pressured by both international and domestic influences to re-engage in international climate control... >>Read More<<

EUROPE'S CLIMATE POLICIES FALL APART
The German government is about to trigger a new crisis in Europe's flagship climate policy, the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS)... >>Read More<<

EUROPE'S CARBON TRADING LEAVES A NASTY SMELL
Companies have made millions selling excess permits - while hospitals and schools have to buy them, reports Robert Watts... >>Read More<<

RISING GAS PRICES, FEAR OF ECO-LAWS SPUR US COAL RUSH
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. power companies are rushing to build coal-fired plants, in part because they are hoping to get them on the books ahead of potential U.S. regulations on greenhouse gases, the author of a book on the coal industry said in an interview... >>Read More<<

BRITISH AND FRENCH ARE COOKING THE GREENHOUSE BOOKS
The UK's emissions of the powerful greenhouse gas methane are nearly double what the government says they are, according to a global audit of methane emissions... >>Read More<<

OPINION: STAR SEARCH
A recent AP news story by Seth Borenstein claimed to report on the science community's opinion of the accuracy of the science in Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth", coming soon to a theatre near you... >>Read More<<

EU AND US AGREE ON MARKET-BASED MECHANISMS, COST-EFFECTIVE CLIMATE POLICIES
VIENNA, Austria, June 21, 2006 (ENS) - The United States and the European Union have agreed to "act with resolve and urgency to reduce greenhouse gas emissions," a new relationship for the two governments. The two sides have for years been at odds over the Kyoto climate protocol, which the EU has ratified, but the Bush administration has resisted... >>Read More<<

NEW REPORT - EU CLIMATE POLICY IS NOT EFFECTIVE
The report "Climate strategy - between ambition and realism" of the Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) was presented to the Dutch environment minister on 28 June 2006... >>Read More<<

LETTER: THE HOCKEY STICK CONTINUES (THE REAL ONE)
One year does of course not make a trend, though had emissions fallen it doubtless would have been reported as such. The actual trend remains obvious: EU emissions continue to rise... >>Read More<<

TEN THINGS YOU CAN DO TO SAVE THE PLANET (ONE SUGGESTION FROM THE EU)
Nearly ten years after the Kyoto accords, our planet continues to careen helplessly toward certain environmental destruction. The skies are choked with pollutants. Polar bears are plunging through the thinning ice caps. Ben Affleck is still having problems finding a decent comeback project... >>Read More<<

Supreme Court to Hear Key Environment Case
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court agreed Monday to consider whether the Bush administration must regulate carbon dioxide to combat global warming... >>Read More<<

PROTESTERS DEMANDING THE RESIGNATION OF SCIENTIST FOR IGNORING SCIENCE THAT DOESN'T EXIST
When I read this the first two times I thought it came from The Onion, but apparently it's true... >>Read More<<

CARBON IS THE WORLD'S BEST FRIEND
History has it that an apple fell on Isaac Newton's head allowing him to realise why, "what goes up must come down" and go on to formulate the basic laws of physics... >>Read More<<

"KYOTO PROTOCOL WAS A COLOSSAL MISTAKE," THERNSTROM CLAIMS
With Al Gore's new movie opening this week, there are some inconvenient truths its maker should consider: Gore himself has done incalculable harm to the cause of combating global warming. His efforts to call attention to the dangers of climate change may prove prescient but his policy prescriptions have been nothing short of disastrous... >>Read More<<

"PUTIN STILL HAS DOUBTS ABOUT THE SCIENCE OF CLIMATE CHANGE"
Moscow, Russian Federation - Energy security requires an energy revolution to save the climate was the message that Greenpeace took to Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin at a meeting with international NGO leaders at the Novo-Ogarevo presidential residence outside of Moscow today... >>Read More<<