Bryan Walker
Science sidelined at Durban - Hot Topic
Dec 14, 2011 •
An image that has lingered with me from all the reports of the Durban conference was the Democracy Now interview with a somewhat disconsolate Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chair. He was at Durban to represent the science, a rather thankless task since he detected very little interest in what the science has to say. “I’d [...]
Welcome political forthrightness - Hot Topic
Dec 05, 2011 •
I felt a twinge of envy watching a recent BBC Hardtalk interview with Chris Huhne, Britain’s Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. The tone of his statements was much more forthright than anything we’re likely to hear from New Zealand government ministers. It was no more than we have a right to expect [...]
The counsel of failure: Greenhouse Policy Coalition on Durban - Hot Topic
Dec 03, 2011 •
“There is a danger that, in trying to encourage major emitters to sign up to a new agreement or to bridge the Kyoto legal gap, New Zealand might commit itself to something short of a global deal that binds us to making economic sacrifices which are not reflective of fair burden sharing.†So wrote David [...]
Vidal’s voyage to Durban - Hot Topic
Nov 28, 2011 •
How better to journey to the climate conference at Durban than through the African countries along the way which are already grappling with climate change? That’s the route John Vidal, the Guardian’s environment editor, has been following over the past ten days and reporting on in a series of articles. He started in Egypt. The [...]
NZ wind: call for 20% by 2030 - Hot Topic
Nov 27, 2011 •
My attention was caught by a press release this week from the NZ Wind Energy Association (NZWEA) announcing the results of an Infometrics report they had commissioned on the likely economic effect for New Zealand of an increase in wind power by 2030 to the point that it supplied 20 per cent of the country’s [...]
Introduction to Modern Climate Change - Hot Topic
Nov 23, 2011 •
I wouldn’t normally seek a text book for review, but a pre-publication recommendation described this one as excellent reading for any lay person interested in the subject. I’d also seen the author, Andrew Dessler, in an television interview which I wrote about, which was further encouragement. The book is An Introduction to Modern Climate Change. [...]
The scientific yardstick for political policy - Hot Topic
Nov 14, 2011 •
I was pleased to see the Labour Party’s announcement that it is opposed to the Southland lignite development planned by Solid Energy, and went looking for more detail in the party’s climate change policy. The opening paragraph of the policy statement struck me as more direct than I expected: Climate change poses an enormous global [...]
Too Many People? - Hot Topic
Nov 12, 2011 •
In 1932 I was born into a world of 2 billion people. Â Nearly 80 years on there are 7 billion, more than three times as many. My own small country New Zealand has nearly tripled its population in that time. I confess to feeling anxiety about the capacity of the globe to sustain this level [...]
Let the sun shine in - Hot Topic
Nov 10, 2011 •
Soon after writing the post in which I reported Carbon War Room CEO Shigar Khan’s prediction that within this decade incremental energy will all be coming from renewables I saw Paul Krugman’s latest column in the New York Times. He draws attention to the rapidly falling cost of solar power: If the downward trend continues [...]
The promise of renewables - Hot Topic
Nov 04, 2011 •
No sooner had I finished reviewing Fools Rule, which recounts the determination of many nations to carry on with the further discovery and exploitation of fossil fuels in blunt defiance of the warnings of science, than I read Fred Pearce’s article in Yale Environment 360 detailing how the world is in fact burning more and [...]