Spread this around, as it nicely refutes the erroneous claim that the IPCC climate change science is not valid. Of course, it is. It also somewhat describes the process by which the reports are written.

Photo: Reuters A farmer shows a yellowing leaf of a vegetable seedling in a field in drought-hit Chenggong county, Yunnan province February 24, 2010.

Climate Scientists Defend IPCC Peer Review as Most Rigorous in History

by Stacy Feldman, Solve Climate (Feb. 26)

“The peer review process at the heart of the UN climate science panel is one of the most rigorous in the “history of science,” climate scientists said as they attempted to shore up trust in an institution that has been battered in the media.

It is hard to conceive of a more comprehensive and transparent process than that used by the IPCC,” said Neville Nicholls, a climate scientist and lead writer on parts of the most recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

“An error in the 3,000-page IPCC report that exaggerated the rapid melting of the Himalayan glaciers has triggered claims of sloppiness in the panel’s peer-review procedures, and the UN said today it would appoint an independent panel to review the planet’s top climate science body.

“The world’s climate change skeptics have gone a step further, taking advantage of the gaffe to promote their point of view that global warming is not real.

Scientists say that the calls for substantial reform of the IPCC’s expert and government peer-review process by opponents are overkill.

“Peer review can certainly be trusted,” said Paul Beggs, a climate scientist from Australia’s Macquarie University. This is particularly true of the IPCC peer review process, he said, which is “arguably the most rigorous and transparent peer review process in the history of science.”

Nicholls, a professor at Monash University in Victoria, Australia, said the IPCC 2007 Fourth Assessment report was subjected to several rigorous tiers of review. The study cites over 10,000 papers from the scientific literature, “most of which have already been through the peer-review process to get into the scientific literature.”

The report went through four separate reviews and received 90,000 comments from 2,500 reviewers, all of which are publicly available, along with the responses of the authors, Nicholls said.

Kurt Lambeck, a geophysicist at the Australian National University and president of the Australian Academy of Science, said the Himalayan blunder is one of few that “slipped through.”

Occasional errors are not surprising, said Kevin Walsh, a professor of meteorology at the University of Melbourne.

“Even rigorous peer review can let things slip through, or assess work incompletely,” Walsh said. “It’s not surprising, therefore, that in the several thousand pages of the IPCC reports, a few problems have been found with the review process.”

The fact that the error did not make it into the report summary — which contains all the findings of importance [...]

“Three of nine boundaries – climate change, biodiversity and nitrogen fixation – have been exceeded.”

Unnaturally heating and cooling the planet (Image: Mauri Rautkari/Rex Features)

A hotter earth is a situation that that will lead to many other issues very soon, like lack of water and food, extinctions, change in air quality, and more.  In a  new article in New Scientist these issues are separated into nine individual challenges that people will have to soon deal with. (Never mind getting some people to even admit they exist). This particular list is about Earth’s nine “support systems” and how they are being threatened by human activity.

Every year or so someone puts together a list like this to bluntly point out to people, very clearly, what is at stake. In 2008 there was a list of the 9 critical tipping points we are approaching with climate change, and I have read others that are similar.   Which list is more important to you is probably based on whether or not you are concerned about the future effects of climate change, or are worried about the planet, or are worried about animals, etc.  I like this list because it emphasizes the bottom line of climate change:  how far can we push the earth’s systems before they will no longer support human life?  Personally, I’m not as worried about the particular animals or fish or trees as I am about people.  The planet will likely be OK no matter what we do to it, with new species evolving to take the place of others that go extinct, but it’s very possible that humans will cause their own extinction. If we ruin this planet, our only home, to the point where it can no longer support us, that’s it for us.  We have no where else to go.

Because there are so many people who deny climate change is  even happening right in front of their eyes and therefore pushing for no action at all, things could get very ugly in a few years.  The saddest thing of all is that it doesn’t have to be that way. If we were taking aggressive steps now to prepare for climate change’s worst effects and strongly curbing emissions, we could transition into a hotter world a little easier, and there would be less loss of life.  But it’s not happening that way.  Here is what to look out for in the coming years. Each segment leads to its own article.

EARTH’S NINE LIVES

From New Scientist

UP TO now, the Earth has been very kind to us. Most of our achievements in the past 10,000 years – farming, culture, cities, industrialisation and the raising of our numbers from a million or so to almost 7 billion – happened during an unusually benign period when Earth’s natural regulatory systems kept everything from the climate to the supply of fresh water inside narrow, comfortable boundaries.

This balmy springtime for humanity is known as the Holocene. But we [...]

Bloom Energy CEO, K.R. Sridhar

Last night 60 Minutes aired a story that was very exciting in its promise for clean energy.  It was  a story about the Bloom Box, an amazing energy source produced by Bloom Energy. The Bloom Box sounds like one of those magic perpetual motion machines you hear about, that are going to be a great provider of endless energy in the future — except this is real.  It’s a stand-alone plug-in power plant that is powerful enough to power businesses and homes, not just a single light bulb.

It’s possible that these fuel cell boxes could change energy usage all around the world.   Theoretically they would emit no CO2 unless they are powered in part by natural gas, which for some reason they need in some installations.  (They greatly increase the energy output from the amount of natural gas used.)   If  these boxes work as advertised, they could be the power plant of the future, — personal power plants that everyone has in their neighborhood, if not their homes.   The might replace the electrical grid and completely change the way energy is disseminated to regular people.  Imagine generating all the electricity you need from a box in your backyard.

Here is one of the videos from 60 Minutes.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

The Bloom Box is a set of fuel cells that run on oxygen. It was first developed for NASA, for a project to provide power and breathable air on Mars. When the Mars missions were scrapped, at least for now, the developer and CEO, K.R. Sridhar is taking the idea to the public and American business.

The Bloom Box is already being used by Google, eBay, and other large companies in California as a test power source.  It works, according to them.   (More videos  from 60 Minutes are here.) Since that story ran, the Wall Street Journal, always skeptical, has weighed in, along with other skeptics.

Besides the excitement of the technology, this could be just the thing that we need to replace fossil fuels, when used in conjunction with solar, geotheormal and wind power.  This could put renewable energy over the top into providing baseload power sooner, instead of later.  Here is why this is so important.  The AAAS  recently reported:

Governments ‘misjudging’ scale of CO2 emissions
21-Feb-2010 — Policymakers are markedly underestimating the changes needed to mitigate CO2 emission required to prevent dangerous climate change because they work in “silos.” Dr. Sebastian Carney, from the University of Manchester, discovered that the lack of communication between government departments, NGOs and other authorities has resulted in significant differences over who is responsible for what. He will describe his work at the 2010 AAAS Annual Meeting.

Read more here.

Tomorrow, Bloom Energy makes its big public announcement.

[on Wednesday] . . . the company is scheduled to host “a special event” in Silicon Valley featuring presentations by luminaries including John Doerr, partner in the venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the key financial backer of [...]

Worry — who,  us?  Americans seem immune to action on issues of real concern, like climate change.  It seems like some people are more prone to believe the false things they hear (especially things about Obama and the scary things he might do) just because it’s almost more fun to worry about them.  It makes more sense to be concerned about things that are real and truly threaten us.  Maybe  the lack of concern about climate change (and the ongoing debate about it) is because people think claims about global warming are coming from the government — a government they don’t trust. But that’s not the case.  Climate change warnings are not coming from governments, they are coming from scientists, and that’s why we need to pay attention. Below are three stories (out of many) that we need to pay close attention to.

The first story of concern is new today, and about melting in the Antarctic peninsula.

Climate change melting southern Antarctic Peninsula ice shelves

The US Geological Survey (USGS) has found that every ice front in the southern part of the Antarctic Peninsula—the coldest part—has been retreating overall for the past sixty years with the greatest changes visible since 1990.

“This research is part of a larger ongoing USGS project that is for the first time studying the entire Antarctic coastline in detail, and this is important because the Antarctic ice sheet contains 91 percent of Earth’s glacier ice,” said USGS scientist Jane Ferrigno. “The loss of ice shelves is evidence of the effects of global warming. We need to be alert and continually understand and observe how our climate system is changing.”

The melting of ice shelves won’t directly lead to sea level rise, since ice shelves already rest in the ocean. However, the loss of the shelves will allow melt from the terrestrial Antarctic ice sheet to reach the ocean and eventually raise sea levels threatening islands, low-lying areas, and coastal communities and cities. If all the land-based ice in Antarctica melted, researchers estimate that sea-levels would rise by over 213-240 feet (60-73 meters).

That’s a bit serious, to say the least!  See the graphic here to see where this peninsula is.

Evidence of climate change is all around us.  The second story of concern is about runaway climate change and how methane is contributing to it.  How much time do we have left before it’s too late to stop the methane leakage?  No one knows for sure, but the signs are not good as the permafrost melting is continuing and there are measurable increases in atmospheric methane.   Scientists say that methane is leaking to the point where we might see runaway methane, leading to runaway climate change sooner than previously thought.

Methane in the atmosphere: The recent rise

Many climate scientists think that frozen Arctic tundra. . .  is a ticking time bomb in terms of global warming, because it holds vast amounts of methane, an immensely potent greenhouse gas. Over [...]

President Obama portrayed himself as a business-loving centrist today at a Business Roundtable.   Obama is stepping up his pursuit of an energy/jobs/climate bill and he did say that we need to address climate change. But as always, he emphasized jobs and the economy, calling this the ‘lost decade’. Though it was a good speech,  it was uninspired-sounding. (possibly due to his audience; see photo below.)   You can read a summary of his remarks here.   He also said we need a price on carbon.

If this helps sell a climate bill it will be worth it.  He did say quite a bit about energy and climate and keeping America competitive through keeping up with the rest of the world.  Here are those remarks from the transcript:

[President Obama]:  “A competitive America is also America that finally has a smart energy policy.  We know there’s no silver bullet here.  We understand that to reduce our dependence on oil and the damage caused by climate change, we’re going to need more production in the short term, we’re going to need more efficiency, and we need more incentives for clean energy.

Business Roundtable audience. Are the people who run America's businesses really this homogenous? Capitalism needs some diversity! Photo from whitehouse.gov

And already, the Recovery Act has allowed us to jumpstart the clean energy industry in America -– an investment that will lead to 720,000 clean energy jobs by the year 2012.  To take just one example, the United States used to make less than 2 percent of the world’s advanced batteries for hybrid cars.  By 2015, we’ll have enough capacity to make up to 40 percent of these batteries.

We’ve also launched an unprecedented effort to make our homes and businesses more energy efficient.  We’ve announced loan guarantees to break ground on America’s first new nuclear plant in nearly three decades.  We’re supporting three of the largest solar plants in the world.  And I’ve said that we’re willing to make tough decisions about opening up new offshore areas for oil and gas development.  So what we’re looking at is a comprehensive strategy, not an either/or strategy but a both/and strategy when it comes to energy.

But to truly transition to a clean energy economy, I’ve also said that we need to put a price on carbon pollution.  Many businesses have embraced this approach — including some who are represented here today.  Still, I am sympathetic to those companies that face significant potential transition costs, and I want to work with this organization and others like this to help with those costs and to get our policies right.

What we can’t do is stand still.  The only certainty of the status quo is that the price and supply of oil will become increasingly volatile; that the use of fossil fuels will wreak havoc on weather patterns and air quality.  But if we decide now that we’re putting a price on this [...]

Nuova Enciclopedia del Futurismo Musicale

Testi di Daniele Lombardi, introduzione di Gino Di Maggio
Milano: Edizioni Mudima, 2010
Nota lingua: Italiano
Pagine: 457 + 8 CDs

Il cofanetto contiene anche otto cd di Musica Futurista:

- Musica Futurista 1, Daniele Lombardi Piano, brani di Francesco Balilla Pratella, Silvio Mix, Franco Casavola, Daniele Napoletano, Virgilio Mortari, Luigi Grandi, Aldo Giuntini, F.T.Marinetti, Antonio Russolo, Luigi Russolo, Esempi sonori di Intonarumori. Durata totale: 59′02″

- Musica Futurista 2, Metropolis per intonarumori e computer music, di Daniele Lombardi, 2006. Durata totale: 59′28″.

- Musica Futurista 3, a cura di Daniele Lombardi, testo introduttivo di Carlo Piccardi, brani di Francesco Balilla Pratella, F.T.Marinetti, Francesco Balilla Pratella, Ardengo Soffici, Franco Casavola, Carmine Guarino, Nicky. Durata totale: 67′47″.

- Musica Futurista 4, a cura di Daniele Lombardi, scrittura vocale e voce di Gabriella Bartolomei.

- Musica Futurista 5, W Russolo, a cura di Daniele Lombardi, opere per voce, pianoforte, intonarumori e sistemi digitali dedicate a Luigi Russolo.

- Musica Futurista 6, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti Declama, a cura di Antonio Latanza e Daniele Lombardi. Durata totale: 57′57″.

- Musica Futurista 7, Zavod, a cura di A. Latanza e D. Lombardi, brani di A. Mossolov, Henry D. Cowell, A. Honegger, Malneck-Signorelli, Mc Huges- M. Malneck, W. Ruttmann, Julius. S. Meytuss, G. Antheil. Durata totale: 70’13”.

- Musica Futurista 8, a cura di Daniele Lombardi, Futur, Roberto Fabbriciani flauto. Durata totale: 50′05″.

Thanks Daniele!

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Gran Varietà Futurista

una produzione del Piccolo Teatro di Catania, affidata alla regia sapiente di Gianni Salvo

February 23-28, 2010
Teatro Erba di Torino

di Marinetti, Petrolini ed altri

con

TIZIANA BELLASSAI
GIUSEPPE CARBONE
NICOLA ALBERTO OROFINO
ANNA PASSANISI
GIANNI SALVO

musiche originali

Giuseppe Arezzo

scene e costumi

Oriana Sessa

more info

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Vestivamo alla Marinetti

Sunday, February 28, 2010 | 11am
Vicolo Carpi 5,  Busto Arsizio

Conversation with the art critic Matteo Tosi and banquet.

more info

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We all still have to deal with the anti-science people or just the political deniers who are frightened of progress on anything.  Now President Obama is getting involved in explaining the science of storms to the American people, and how more storms are the result of growing global warming, not less global warming.  If he can do this, anyone can, mainly because the concept is  quite simple and you don’t have to be a scientist to explain it.  Communicating climate change and its effects  should not be left up to the scientists. Here is Obama last week:

He is also right to emphasize jobs and how the new energy revolution is going to be a huge money maker for people who get involved right away (like now). I guess Republicans deniers will lose out on the energy revolution, which is ironic since they have traditionally been so interested in making money from everything possible, even exotic financial “instruments” that exist only on paper.   Why would they reject a huge money-making opportunity that is actually something real and useful? (We don’t know.  It defies all logic.)

I call the deniers the anti-science bunch because “group” seems too large. People who reject the concept of man-made climate change are actually only a tiny, noisy, mostly partisan minority of people.   For this tiny minority, and the larger group of skeptics, it does help to emphasize that the clean energy revolution will create jobs –  millions of them eventually, and that’s largely because we need to rely on a mix of new renewable types of energy, not just one thing.  This is already a tech boom in parts of the U.S. (like Silicon Valley). If Republicans deniers want to miss out, well, that’s their decision.

This is a nice summary of Obama’s recent efforts at educating the  denier movement by Think Progress:

“The anti-science crowd has been doing a killer job pushing the myth that the big recent snowstorms somehow undercut our understanding of human-caused global warming,” writes ClimateProgress’ Joe Romm. Indeed, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), Sean Hannity, and even Donald Trump have found great pleasure in mocking Al Gore over the snowy winter storms. Today in a Nevada town hall meeting, President Obama took on the global warming deniers, explaining in straightforward language how record snowstorms in the nation’s capital are connected to manmade climate change. . . “

Read more here and get to work!  We all have to help educate the public.   And President Obama and others in our government have to do a much better job of doing this more too.  I think that instead of telling people what we have to do, they should emphasize how this is in peoples’ best interests because it will create thousands of U.S. jobs and will make us less reliant on oil and gas and less reliant on other countries, and make some people very wealthy.  There is a lot of money [...]

Giacomo Balla

February 18, 2010 – ?
Studio d’arte la Margherita – Roma

18 works by Balla on display to inagurate this new gallery space.

more info

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A utility taps this electric vehicle for reserve electricity, and pays a nice price to the University of Delaware for the privilege. Credit: University of Delaware

Walking around the local mall today, I took in the latest car show in the aisles. That’s when they simply drive cars into the mall to advertise dealers or certain cars that they want to get rid of. It was clear why local dealers were trying to get rid of these cars. Their gas mileage varied between 17 mpg to 22 mpg in the city to only a little better mileage for the highway. I thought what great cars some of them could be if they were electric cars, but as they were — most people would not want these cars, even if deeply discounted.  So when is the electric car renaissance coming?  I hope it’s coming soon because my current vehicle is getting rusty.  Like a lot of people, I’m waiting until someone starts to manufacture the affordable electric vehicle that I can charge up without going broke(r).

According to a recent ScienceNOW article, this is something that is poised to happen.  We can soon expect to plug in our electric vehicle to the smart grid and make money from our car’s batteries. Now, wouldn’t that be great?

Here is what came out of the most recent AAS annual meeting on this:

Widespread adoption of plug-in electric vehicles could dramatically cut greenhouse gas pollution and reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. But results of an electric-car pilot project presented here today at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (which publishes ScienceNOW) provide added incentive to go electric: Car owners could return unused electricity back to the grid and make real money while doing it.

Electric cars need big, powerful batteries to accelerate to highway speeds and travel scores or even several hundred kilometers on a single charge. But because most drivers drive just a few dozen kilometers a day, most of that battery capacity sits unused. To take advantage of that storage capacity, Willett Kempton, director of the University of Delaware’s Center for Carbon-Free Power Integration in Lewes, teamed up with an electric car maker, several utilities, a software company, and PJM Interconnection, one of 10 regional organizations that coordinate and control the U.S. electrical grid.

To ensure that electricity flows steadily and without interruption, the U.S. government requires PJM Interconnection and its counterparts to have reserves of power to tap into in case a generator goes down and other electrical reserves to maintain the 60-hertz frequency of alternating current that our appliances and devices are accustomed to dealing with. Today, PJM Interconnection and its counterparts pay conventional power plants to maintain this reserve power. But as renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, which provide energy cleanly but intermittently, come online, these grid operators need to ramp up their storage capacity to ensure a steady electricity supply. So Kempton, electrical engineer Ken [...]

This is a recording of a highly anticipated talk by Bill Gates, who has come up with an equation you see in this graphic. He presented this at the latest TED conference during a short talk on February 12th. This was followed by a short Q&A at TED and on livestream.com which is also in the podcast you can download below. Gates says he’s happy to get Twitter questions, so visit his website and fire off some questions to him. The download link for the talk is below, after the break.

Gates discussed energy, his “equation”, and his goal in life at the TED conference — getting us to zero carbon by 2050. He feels this is doable in a variety of ways. Mainly he feels that a new transformation of nuclear power that he explains in the talk is very promising. He is getting a large amount of criticism from some environmentalists for saying that we need an “energy miracle” and lots of tech development to solve the climate problem. As he defines “miracle”, and in his pursuit of the technology to do that, his ideas are good. It especially helps that he is investing his own money into the company developing the type of energy he talks about. (Read an article discussing this here.) The type of energy he is promoting is not just any nuclear power but specifically, a “traveling wave” type of nuclear power, which is being developed by a company called TerraPower.

Is Gates just another T. Boone Pickens trying to cash in? Nope, Gates actually does understand and believe in the importance of climate change and is really seeking zero carbon solutions, unlike Pickens.

Gates seems to genuinely care about getting us to zero-carbon energy. Check out another article from last Monday for more on what Gates is doing to promote zero carbon energy. “When we talk about zero climate emissions, we sound crazy. When Bill Gates does it, bankers pick up the phone,” from Alternet.

Download this speech here — it’s a short one — or subscribe on the podcast site at Climate Files radio.

Below is an interesting graphic I found of Bill Gates after he left Microsoft, click on more. I wanted to include it for the cover art for the podcast but it needed the equation on it to make sense.

And that translated to this with my help.

How close to reality is this new nuclear power technology? According to this presentation by Gilleland, “operation of a traveling wave reactor can be demonstrated in less than ten years, and commercial deployment can begin in less than fifteen years.” …that’s what Gates was talking about.

***I posted this on the 19th and my wonderful WordPress software ate it up and it disappeared. I had to recover it and repost so I re-dated it the 20th. In my opinion, the WordPress people should stop working on the software and trying [...]

Ancora una volta…Futurismo

February 20, 2010, 4pm
Biblioteca Palatina di Parma

Il 20 febbraio 1909 Filippo Tommaso Marinetti annunciava al mondo dalla prima pagina del parigino Le Figaro il “Manifesto del Futurismo”, già preannunciato con minori echi in Italia nei giorni precedenti. Iniziava così l’avventura della più importante avanguardia italiana, di cui sta per concludersi il primo centenario. E proprio il 20 febbraio l’Associazione Linguaggi Teatro Arte (ALTA) chiuderà questo anniversario con un pomeriggio futurista alla Biblioteca Palatina, organizzato con il patrocinio e il contributo del “Comitato Nazionale per le celebrazioni del centenario del Manifesto Futurista” insieme alla stessa Biblioteca e con la collaborazione della Galleria d’Arte Niccoli. Si inizierà alle ore 16.00 con la presentazione del libro Al Cavallino. Fonofotointervista in un atto di Gabriello Anselmi, figlio del futurista veronese Piero Anselmi (al quale l’opera è ispirata), proseguendo con uno spettacolo di letture a cura di Enzo Vanarelli, Simonetta Checchia, Federico Dilirio e Toni Buccarello.

20 Febbraio 2010 ore 16,00 – Salone Maria Luigia, Biblioteca Palatina, piazza della Pilotta, 3 – Parma

L’iniziativa è ad ingresso libero;

Per ulteriori informazioni: tel. 333.6305824 – http://www.associazionealta.it

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Why not?

Link

Here’s mine:

VERGINE (23 agosto -22 settembre)
Vergini sorpassano a galoppo giornate dai freschi mantelli, notturni respiranti chiardiluna, tenebrose pianure del non so. In sé confidenza! Su questo mio AMORE mostro impazzito, a galoppo! AMICI di passo: passi precipitano pesanti passaggi; tutto scorre e voi, voi restate. FEROCIA regolarità LAVORO: basso grave a scandere strani folli agitatissimi acuti. Vergini di Norimberga, s’offrono.

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Photo: Romeo Ranoco A farmer walks with his carabao on cracked and dried farmland in Escribano town, Batangas province, south of Manila February 18, 2010

Climate change is going to greatly affect food security for millions in the future. It’s already affecting the ability to grow food in areas that are now suffering serious drought. The UN is working with countries and NGOs to develop the means to make sure everyone in the world, especially poor countries has enough to eat. Because of droughts and floods, this will get more difficult in the years ahead.

Finding the food to feed 9 billion people is going to be a huge challenge by 2050, according to a special issue of the journal Science.   When you factor in the desirability of reducing carbon emissions to zero by 2050, that presents even more challenges.  What will people use for cooking and keeping food refrigerated?  I assume solar power will be world-wide and cheap by then, but food may not be.  There may also be distribution problems.  In a special issue available to everyone (instead of only its usual subscribers) Science covers food security and the science of the possibility of plenty of food for everyone.  Below is the introduction to this special issue and more information about the impact of global warming on food production..  There is a lot more on the Science site including a podcast and a special audio interview with a food science intern.  (You can find much of this after the break).  Below is the intro to the Science supplement on food security and climate change.

Feeding the Future

Feeding the 9 billion people expected to inhabit our planet by 2050 will be an unprecedented challenge. This special issue examines the obstacles to achieving global food security and some promising solutions. News articles take us into the fields, introducing farmers and researchers who are finding ways to boost harvests, especially in the developing world. Reviews, Perspectives, a special single-topic podcast, and an audio interview done by a high school intern provide a broader context for the causes and effects of food insecurity and point to paths to ending hunger.

We have little time to waste. Godfray et al. (p. 812) note that we have perhaps 40 years to radically transform agriculture, work out how to grow more food without exacerbating environmental problems, and simultaneously cope with climate change. Although estimates of food insecurity vary (Barrett et al., p. 825), the number of undernourished people already exceeds 1 billion; feeding this many people requires more than incremental changes (Federoff et al., p. 833).

Also Online

Special-issue Podcast [MP3]: Host Robert Frederick talks with contributors to this special section about how to measure food insecurity, the case for not eating meat, and radically rethinking agriculture

Audio Interview [MP3]: Science intern Lan-Vy Ngo, a senior at the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, Alexandria, VA, talks with Dr. John Hoddinott, a senior policy fellow [...]

Yvo de Boer has announced today, February 18th, that he will resign his position as Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change  (UNFCCC) on 1 July 2010.

Mr. de Boer will be joining the consultancy group KPMG as Global Adviser on Climate and Sustainability, as well as working with a number of universities.   I personally don’t think it’s important who the executive secretary of the UNFCCC talks is, but maybe someone younger would be a good idea, given what they have to physically endure during the climate talks (going for several days without sleep during the last talks).  Yvo de Boer worked very hard during the climate change talks but often appeared overwhelmed and exhausted and he was unable to pull a binding agreement together.   According to the press release today:

“Working with my colleagues at the UNFCCC Secretariat in support of the climate change negotiations has been a tremendous experience”, said Mr. de Boer who has led the organisation since September 2006. “It was a difficult decision to make, but I believe the time is ripe for me to take on a new challenge, working on climate and sustainability with the private sector and academia,” he explained.

“I have always maintained that while governments provide the necessary policy framework, the real solutions must come from business” said Yvo de Boer. “Copenhagen did not provide us with a clear agreement in legal terms, but the political commitment and sense of direction toward a low-emissions world are overwhelming. This calls for new partnerships with the business sector and I now have the chance to help make this happen”, he added.

Mr. de Boer will remain in his current position until 1st July and help negotiations move forward ahead of the Climate Change Conference in Mexico in November this year. “Countries responsible for 80% of energy related CO2 emissions have submitted national plans and targets to address the climate change. This underlines their commitment to meet the challenge of climate change and work towards an agreed outcome in Cancun”, he said.

[I thought the conference would be in Mexico City, but Cancun is even better, if you plan on going down there].

Mr. de Boer (1954) was appointed Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC in [...]

Obama announces new nuclear power plant construction

This may persuade the more right-leaning in Congress to back a new climate and energy bill that is now expected to pass not until after the midterm elections in November.  That’s a long ways off so it’s good that business and clean tech industries are not waiting for our government to actually do anything on climate change.  It’s not clear if they ever will, but I would call this a good step towards a type of clean energy that is much better than something like the Canadian oil and tar sands.  It will also create about 3,800 jobs.  (see below)

. . . .President Obama just announced his administration will provide more than $8 billion in loan guarantees to help build a nuclear power plant in Georgia.

The anticipated announcement, made to union electricians and others at a job training facility in Lanham, Maryland, begins to fulfill a pledge the president made in his State of the Union address, his budget and in a meeting with the nation’s governors this month to recharge the nuclear energy industry after a 30-year hiatus.

“We’re going to have to build a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in America,” Obama said. “This is only the beginning. My budget proposes tripling the loan guarantees we provide to help finance safe, clean nuclear facilities.”

The budget would add $36 billion to an existing $18.5 billion in available loan guarantees, for a total of $54.5 billion. Federal regulators are reviewing applications for 22 plants to be built in the next two decades.  Source — USA Today

Many environmental groups who have traditionally been against nuclear energy are coming up with all kinds of reasons why this is bad.  I can think of only one reason why this is questionable:  there is no permanent place to store nuclear waste, although there are plenty of temporary places to store it, like on-site, which is where most of it is.  It is safe where it is now, but eventually it will have to be moved.  The other concerns, especially that it’s very expensive, may also be a concern but to me they are merely an excuse to be opposed to it. Coal is more frightening and damaging to the environment in every way imaginable than nuclear power, and the new kinds of nuclear power being developed will address and possibly solve the nuclear waste problem.   Above is the video from the White House today; and below is more that was said by President Obama in making his announcement.

Earlier today in Maryland, President Obama spoke about the importance of clean energy for the country’s future.

Whether it’s nuclear energy, or solar or wind energy, if we fail to invest in the technologies of tomorrow, then we’re going to be importing those technologies instead of exporting them.  We will fall behind.  Jobs will be produced overseas, instead of here in the United States of America.  [...]

Capolavori del ‘900 italiano. Dall’Avanguardia al Ritorno all’ordine

March 5 – June 6, 2010
Museo d’Arte della Provincia di Nuoro
Curated by Gabriella Belli (MART) and Adriana Collu
Catalog (Silvana Editoriale)

Includes works by Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Giorgio de Chirico, Arturo Martini, Giorgio Morandi, Medardo Rosso, Gino Severini, Alberto Savinio and Mario Sironi.

more info

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CFP:  ”Reconsidering Futurism,” January 2011 AHA/SIHS Panel Colleagues,

We are planning a panel for the 2011 American Historical Association convention in Boston entitled “Reconsidering Futurism.”  If approved, it would appear under the auspices of the Society for Italian Historical Studies.

On the hundredth anniversary of Futurism in 2009 there were a number of conferences, exhibits, and symposia that celebrated the event.  Often times, however, much of the attention was focused on extolling the cultural influence of the movement and the emphasis was on the period of “First” or “Heroic” Futurism.

We are looking for papers that specifically question the standard notions of any aspect of Futurism and promote new areas of research.  Thus, we envision each speaker providing a very brief overview of the existing state of the literature in their specific area of expertise in addition to presenting their particular contributions to Futurist studies.  We welcome submissions dealing with all elements of Futurism, but encourage papers dealing with “Second” Futurism (ca. 1920-1944).

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

-political Futurism and its specific connections to Fascism
-biographies of the leading Futurists
-how Futurist women challenged/appropriated/shaped the Futurist message
-Futurist reaction to the role of the Church under the Fascist regime
-Futurism and the Race Laws
-the role of dissident and/or left-wing Futurists under the Fascist regime
-how Futurists were viewed from abroad
-the political context of Futurist art and/or Futurism’s many other cultural initiatives (Cucina futurista, Naturismo, etc.)

Please send a 250 word abstract and your CV by March 15, 2010 to: eialongo@hostos.cuny.edu

Sincerely,

Ernest Ialongo
Assistant Professor of History
Dept. of Behavioral and Social Sciences
Hostos Community College, CUNY
500 Grand Concourse, B-317
Bronx, NY  10451
718-319-7933

“Ma la vita a New York e estremamente dispendiosa ed ardua. Occorrono nervi d’acciaio, dosi di pazienza all’infinito e MOLTI DOLLARI.”
- Fortunato Depero in New York to F.T. Marinetti, 31 October 1929.

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Like other environmental issues, peak oil is not an issue we can ignore.  Are you ready for peak oil?  You probably aren’t,  because our entire social and economic structure is totally reliant on cheap, abundant oil and gas.  Cheap abundant oil is about to end.   Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Middle East are not sticking their heads in the sand about it because they can’t — too much of their economy has depended on oil.  They are now “diversifying” and getting ready in other ways for the inevitability of peak oil.   “The push for cleaner technology is pivotal for the oil rich kingdom.” This is why it’s not strange that countries in the Middle East — like Iran — would want to use nuclear power.  Peak oil is going to hit the entire world, not just the countries who use the most of it, so every country on earth will need to find alternatives to fossil fuels for power.

More from the AP– JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia — A top Saudi energy official expressed serious concern Monday that world oil demand could peak in the next decade and said his country was preparing for that eventuality by diversifying its economic base.

Mohammed al-Sabban, lead climate talks negotiator, said the country with the world’s largest proven reserves of conventional crude is working to become the top exporter of energy, including alternative forms such as solar power.

. . . .  Al-Sabban said the potential that world oil demand had peaked, or would peak soon, was an “alarm that we need to take more seriously” as Saudi charts a course for greater economic diversification.

“We cannot stay put and say ‘well, this is something that will happen anyway,” al-Sabban said at the Jeddah Economic Forum. The “world cannot wait for us before we are forced to adapt to the reality of lower and lower oil revenues,” he added later.

Some experts have argued that demand for oil, the chief export for Saudi Arabia and the vast majority of other Gulf Arab nations, has already peaked. Others say consumption will plateau soon, particularly in developed nations that are pushing for greater reliance on renewable energy sources. . . . .   Al-Sabban said that along with investing in education and economic diversification, Saudi must ensure that it become the top energy exporter, including in solar power, to keep moving forward.

The country recently launched its first solar-powered desalination plant and al-Sabban said oil giant Saudi Aramco was working on a pilot project to inject carbon emissions back into wells to help boost output. The carbon sequestration project, which he said would be operational by 2012, was a sign of Saudi Arabia’s commitment to environmentally sound energy development.”

And Bloomberg News reported on Monday that a Saudi oil adviser called declining oil demand in developed nations a serious “alarm”that should push Saudi Arabia to diversify its economy and reduce its reliance on oil exports.”

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