Not to mention cable and better toilets. Remember, those who ignore the past, ignore the past.
Britain Is More Energy Efficient Today Than In Time Of Shakespeare
ScienceDaily (Oct. 24, 2007) — Restricting energy use is the only way to tackle climate change, according to new research by a historian at the University of East Anglia.
Dr Paul Warde argues that policies focused on energy efficiency are unlikely to produce the cuts in consumption needed to control carbon emissions. His paper Facing the challenge of climate change: energy efficiency and energy consumption is published in the journal History and Policy.
Politicians have hailed energy-saving technology as a solution to climate change and current EU environmental policy aims to cut energy use by 20 per cent by improving energy efficiency. Dr Warde’s research shows that energy efficiency improvements of this order are easily achievable, having occurred in the 1920s, 1950s, and again in the 1980s, but on their own have had little impact on climate change.
He argues that even if energy efficiency is improved it will not offset the overall dynamic of economic growth; carbon emissions will still increase. Increasing energy efficiency will only make energy-intensive development even more attractive.
Dr Warde said: “Since the late 19th century Britain’s energy efficiency has improved considerably. We are more energy efficient now than we were in Shakespeare's time, and far more efficient than during the industrial revolution. Although we are over three times more energy efficient than we were in the 1880s, we each consume about a third more energy, so carbon emissions keep rising.
“History suggests that we cannot rely on the transition to biofuels and renewable energy sources to cut our carbon footprint. To return to an ‘organic economy’ and supply our total energy needs from biofuels, each hectare of European land would have to be 30 times more productive than it was 200 years ago. While the history of our transition from coal to oil-dependency suggests that a significant shift to renewable energy sources would require an extraordinary and unprecedented growth in their use, driven by huge incentives and political willpower.
“The bottom line is that technology can’t contend with the realities of climate change. The only effective solution is to curb consumption. To stand a chance of meeting emissions targets, politicians need to switch their attention from energy efficiency to controls on consumption.”
Dr Warde’s analysis of four centuries of energy consumption and economic growth in England and Wales reveals:
* Per capita energy consumption in Europe is about 10 times higher than it was under the wood-fuelled ‘organic economy’, although the population is only three times larger than it was 200 years ago. This suggests that a return to an organic economy through the widespread use of biofuels is not feasible.
* From the early 17th century, coal began replacing wood as the primary source of fuel, but even at this early stage pamphleteers warned that coal could not be relied upon in the long-term because, unlike wood, it was non-renewable.
* By 1700 coal was providing the majority of England and Wales’ energy. This led to periodic fears about its exhaustion and, in the early 1870s, a Royal Commission, which reported there were centuries of stocks remaining – a considerable under-estimate.
* From the 1890s, economic growth was driven by the use of electricity, but oil did not begin to take up a significant share of national consumption until the 1960s.
* Since the late 19th century, there have been frequent and significant energy efficiency improvements, but with growing prosperity and an increasingly energy-reliant economy, consumption has consistently outstripped any efficiency savings.
* Most historic efficiency gains have been in industry, but well over half of final energy consumption is now in homes and transport, where efficiency gains have been minimal and outpaced by the expansion of travel and the increasing number of households.
* There would have to be an extraordinary and unprecedented growth in the use of renewable energy sources to keep up with the continued expansion of energy use – even the transition from coal to oil took more than 50 years, shifting from 2 per cent of total energy supply in 1920 to 50 per cent in 1972.
Dr Warde is a reader in Early Modern History at the University of East Anglia and Research Associate at the Centre for History and Economics, University of Cambridge.
Does the Early Modern History Department have a Jumbo Shrimp section?
While there is no global warming, the possibility of world-wide non-cooling does exist
Massive California Fires Consistent With Climate Change, Experts Say
ScienceDaily (Oct. 24, 2007) — The catastrophic fires that are sweeping Southern California are consistent with what climate change models have been predicting for years, experts say, and they may be just a prelude to many more such events in the future -- as vegetation grows heavier than usual and then ignites during prolonged drought periods.
See also:
"This is exactly what we've been projecting to happen, both in short-term fire forecasts for this year and the longer term patterns that can be linked to global climate change," said Ronald Neilson, a professor at Oregon State University and bioclimatologist with the USDA Forest Service.
"You can't look at one event such as this and say with certainty that it was caused by a changing climate," said Neilson, who was also a contributor to publications of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a co-recipient earlier this month of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.
"But things just like this are consistent with what the latest modeling shows," Neilson said, "and may be another piece of evidence that climate change is a reality, one with serious effects."
The latest models, Neilson said, suggest that parts of the United States may be experiencing longer-term precipitation patterns -- less year-to-year variability, but rather several wet years in a row followed by several that are drier than normal.
"As the planet warms, more water is getting evaporated from the oceans and all that water has to come down somewhere as precipitation," said Neilson. "That can lead, at times, to heavier vegetation loads popping up and creation of a tremendous fuel load. But the warmth and other climatic forces are also going to create periodic droughts. If you get an ignition source during these periods, the fires can just become explosive."
The problems can be compounded, Neilson said, by El Niño or La Nina events. A La Niña episode that's currently under way is probably amplifying the Southern California drought, he said. But when rains return for a period of years, the burned vegetation may inevitably re-grow to very dense levels.
"In the future, catastrophic fires such as those going on now in California may simply be a normal part of the landscape," said Neilson.
Fire forecast models developed by Neilson's research group at OSU and the Forest Service rely on several global climate models. When combined, they accurately predicted both the Southern California fires that are happening and the drought that has recently hit parts of the Southeast, including Georgia and Florida, causing crippling water shortages.
In studies released five years ago, Neilson and other OSU researchers predicted that the American West could become both warmer and wetter in the coming century, conditions that would lead to repeated, catastrophic fires larger than any in recent history.
At that time, the scientists suggested that periodic increases in precipitation, in combination with higher temperatures and rising carbon dioxide levels, would spur vegetation growth and add even further to existing fuel loads caused by decades of fire suppression.
Droughts or heat waves, the researchers said in 2002, would then lead to levels of wildfire larger than most observed since European settlement. The projections were based on various "general circulation" models that showed both global warming and precipitation increases during the 21st century.
Adapted from materials provided by Oregon State University.
We heard that Paris Hilton thinks climate change is so hot.
La la la I can’t hear you and if I could hear you it wouldn’t matter because those word thingies just mean what I want them to mean. And, beside, you’re a doody head.
Sources: White House cut CDC testimony
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House severely edited congressional testimony given Tuesday by the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the impact of climate change on health, removing specific scientific references to potential health risks, according to two sources familiar with the documents.
Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Atlanta-based CDC, the government's premier disease monitoring agency, told a Senate hearing that climate change "is anticipated to have a broad range of impacts on the health of Americans."
But her prepared testimony was devoted entirely to the CDC's preparation, with few details on what effects climate change could have on the spread of disease. Only during questioning did she describe some specific diseases that likely would be affected, again without elaboration.
Her testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee had much less information on health risks than a much longer draft version Gerberding submitted to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review in advance of her appearance.
"It was eviscerated," said a CDC official, familiar with both versions, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the review process.
The official said that while it is customary for testimony to be changed in a White House review, these changes were particularly "heavy-handed," with the document cut from its original 14 pages to four. It was six pages as presented to the Senate committee.
The OMB had no comment on Gerberding's testimony.
"We generally don't speculate and comment on anything until it is the final product," said OMB spokesman Sean Kevelighan. He added that OMB reviews take into consideration "whether they ... line up well with the national priorities of the administration."
The CDC is part of the Department of Health and Human Services and its congressional testimony, as is normal with all agencies, is routinely reviewed by OMB.
But Gerberding, who could not be reached late Tuesday for comment, was said to have been surprised by the extensive changes. Copies of the original testimony already had been sent to a number of associated health groups representing states, county and city health agencies that the CDC routinely coordinates with, a CDC official said.
CDC spokesman Tom Skinner sought to play down the White House changes. He called Gerberding's appearance before the Senate panel "very productive" and said she addressed the issues she wanted during her remarks and when questioned by the senators.
"What needed to be said as far we're concerned was said," said Skinner in a telephone interview from Atlanta. "She certainly communicated with the committee everything she felt was critical to help them appreciate and understand all the issues surrounding climate change and its potential impact on public health."
The deletions directed by the White House included details on how many people might be adversely affected because of increased warming, according to one official who has seen the original version. Also deleted were the scientific basis for some of the CDC's analysis on what kinds of diseases might be spread in a warmer climate and rising sea level, the official added.
Gerberding seems to have tried to address some of those issues during questioning from senators.
Sen. Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat and the committee's chairman, produced a CDC chart listing the broad range of health problems that could emerge from a significant temperature increase and sea level rise
They include fatalities from heat stress and heart failure, increased injuries and deaths from severe weather such as hurricanes; more respiratory problems from drought-driven air pollution; an increase in waterborne diseases including cholera, and increases vector-borne diseases including malaria and hantavirus; and mental health problems such as depression and post-traumatic stress.
"These are the potential things you can expect," replied Gerberding when asked about the items listed. "... In some of these areas its not a question of if. It's a question of who, what, how and when."
Peter Rafle, a spokesman for Boxer, said the senator knew nothing about changes that might have been made to Gerberding's testimony by the White House.
We think there might also be an increase in the number of people who come down with the vapors.
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