Author: Gareth

A big week coming: meanwhile Anglicans divest

It’s shaping up to be a big week. On Friday in Stockholm (Saturday in NZ) the IPCC will release the final version (not the one that’s been leaked to and seen by all and sundry) of the Summary for Policy Makers of the Working Group One report of their Fifth Report (AR5 — official web site here). As you might expect, the usual suspects have been lining up to try and dominate the news media — to provide a carbon friendly “frame” through which to view the IPCC’s findings. Most of it has been singularly ineffective, as Graham Readfearn noted in the Guardian, but I’ll hold my fire until the final SPM is released. Watch this space…

Meanwhile, the Anglican Diocese of Wellington voted this weekend to join their colleagues in Auckland by divesting itself of any fossil fuel investments in its portfolio. The Auckland synod at the beginning of the month took the opportunity to listen to two presentations that I think it worth drawing attention to here. First, Jim Renwick from VUW (an IPCC lead author) lays out the basic science that underlies the case for action to reduce emissions:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv4YvHGj8yE&w=480]

…then economic commentator Rod Oram explains the “carbon bubble” in market valuations of fossil fuel energy stocks, and why it would make sense to avoid that risk:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Lw0XXAcx_w&w=480]

Two compelling presentations, with an obvious conclusion that the members of the Anglican church were happy to accept. We should not be investing in companies whose value depends on the burning of excessive amounts of carbon.

The Climate Show #35: elections, extremes and a big wind

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeF_85fk8-s&w=480]

We’re running a bit late with this one: recorded last week before the big wind left Gareth powerless for six days (a bit like Glenn’s PC), John Cook ruminates on the result of the Australian election, the boys marvel at the Mail’s myth making about Arctic sea ice, and look forward to the release of the first part of the next IPCC report. And much, much more. Show notes below the fold…

Watch The Climate Show on our Youtube channel, subscribe to the podcast via iTunes, listen to us via Stitcher on your smartphone or listen direct/download from the link below the fold.

Follow The Climate Show on Facebook and Twitter.

Continue reading “The Climate Show #35: elections, extremes and a big wind”

Normal service will be resumed shortly

Something of a global warming (coverage) hiatus has hit Hot Topic in the last couple of days, courtesy of the rather dramatic gale that hit my part of New Zealand on Tuesday evening. We are all well, and suffered no damage to our house — but there’s a hell of a lot of tidying up to do to damaged trees and fences, and we are still without power and mobile phone coverage. With luck we’ll get reconnected in the next day or so. Normal bloggage will resume as soon as I finish chainsawing fallen branches and clearing debris.

This is not cool: no slowdown in global warming

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=047vmL6Q_4g&w=480]

Peter Sinclair’s latest video in his This Is Not Cool series for the Yale Forum on Climate Change & the Media looks at why global warming — the steady accumulation of energy in the climate system — continues, despite media buying into the denier-promulgated myth of a hiatus, pause or slowdown in warming. Sinclair’s compiled interviews with real experts — Josh Willis, Kevin Trenberth, and James Hansen among them — and they explain what’s going on in a clear and compelling way. The next time someone claims that warming’s stopped, point them at this video.

TDB today: letting the Pacific drown

This year’s Pacific Islands Forum is under way in the Marshall Islands, and the hosts have made climate change the urgent focus of discussions. In my column at The Daily Blog this week — Letting the Pacific drown — I take a look at New Zealand PM John Key’s depressing, but entirely predictable, response to pleas for leadership from the island nations that through inaction face inundation. Discussion over there, please.