Scientists give scheme thumbs-up

A group of the world's most eminent scientists and economists have written to the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, congratulating her on the government's carbon pricing legislation. Sir David King, former chief scientific adviser to British prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, Sir David Hendry, head of Oxford University's Institute for New Economic Thinking and 11 other leading academics from the US, Britain, Norway, Spain and Denmark sent the letter yesterday. They said addressing climate change was "one of the greatest and most urgent economic challenges facing the world" and the carbon tax, moving to an emissions trading scheme, would "help ensure emission reductions at the lowest possible cost". "Evidence demonstrates that market-based solutions such as cap and trade schemes have exceeded expectations in reducing emissions of pollution rapidly and at low cost," they wrote. The legislation is set to pass Parliament by the end of the year but the Coalition has vowed to repeal the carbon pricing laws and instead reduce Australia's carbon dioxide emissions with a 10-year, $10.5 billion scheme of government grants.

Green groups sue to stop work on Keystone oil pipeline

Green groups sued the U.S. government on Wednesday to stop the clearing of grasslands and other work on a pipeline to bring Canadian oil sands crude to Texas, opposed by environmentalists for the petroleum's high greenhouse gas emissions. The Center for Biological Diversity, the Western Nebraska Resources Council and Friends of the Earth sued the U.S. State Department and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to stop work they called "illegal construction" on the 1,700 mile pipeline. Backers of the $7 billion TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline say it will provide jobs and reduce U.S. dependence on oil from countries that are unfriendly to Washington. Environmentalists oppose the line, however, because crude produced from oil sands releases large volumes of gases blamed for warming the planet and because it would cross the Ogallala Aquifer, a massive source of water in the heartland of the country. There have been several small leaks on an existing Keystone pipeline in recent months and environmentalists say a larger leak could damage the aquifer. "It's outrageous that TransCanada is already clearing the way for the Keystone XL pipeline before the public has had a chance to have its say and, indeed, before federal agencies have even said it can be built," said Noah Greenwald, endangered species program director at the Center for Biological Diversity.

How Long Can Greenland's Ice Cap Survive?

Scientists recently scrambled to correct a wildly exaggerated estimate of how fast Greenland's ice cover is melting. Although climate denialists often claim that we climate scientists are too politically biased to be objective about climate change, this example shows that our professional code leads us to challenge factual errors regardless of who makes them. Errors of omission are also common in public discussions of climate change, though they are less often addressed by scientists. For example, widespread melting is generally thought to imply imminent collapse of the entire ice sheet. In reality, however, a total greening of Greenland would take longer than most of us realize. We care about such a melt-off because it's shocking to imagine the place without ice, and especially because such melting could raise sea levels by more than 20 vertical feet (Antarctic ice could add another 200 feet to that total). Considering the mineral wealth hidden in the now-glaciated bedrock, the potential for much-needed local agriculture, and the opening of ocean shipping lanes and marine resources, a demise of the great ice sheet could yield important local benefits as well as losses. On the other hand, sea level rise is a global-scale problem with little to no benefits, and it underlies most concerns about the great Greenlandic thaw. Few of us seem to recognize that the melting rate is only meaningful if we also consider how large the ice sheet is. Just as spending a million dollars on some project can seem unimaginable for a small village but easy for a large nation, describing how much water leaks from Greenland's shrinking flanks means little unless you also know how big the ice sheet is. What we don't often hear is what a surprisingly huge lot of ice there is to melt.

Source: Green Times