Here we go again....

Human influence comes of age

Geologists debate epoch to mark effects of Homo sapiens.

Nicola Jones

Humanity's profound impact on this planet is hard to deny, but is it big enough to merit its own geological epoch? This is the question facing geoscientists gathered in London this week to debate the validity and definition of the 'Anthropocene', a proposed new epoch characterized by human effects on the geological record.

"We are in the process of formalizing it," says Michael Ellis, head of the climate-change programme of the British Geological Survey in Nottingham, who coordinated the 11 May meeting. He and others hope that adopting the term will shift the thinking of policy-makers. "It should remind them of the global and significant impact that humans have," says Ellis.

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110511/full/473133a.html

Anthropocene: Have humans created a new geological age?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13335683

"Dr Jan Zalasiewicz of the University of Leicester is one of the leading proponents of the Anthropocene theory. He told BBC News: "Simply put, our planet no longer functions in the way that it once did. Atmosphere, climate, oceans, ecosystems… they're all now operating outside Holocene norms. This strongly suggests we've crossed an epoch boundary."

As might be expected from the group think on a Nature sponsored blog (Soapbox Science)
http://blogs.nature.com/soapbox_science/2011/05/11/risk-perception

Harvard instructor in risk analysis (formerly a journalist), David Ropeik, tells us:

"We worry about some things more than the evidence warrants (vaccines, nuclear radiation, genetically modified food), and less about some threats than the evidence warns (climate change, obesity, using our mobiles when we drive). That produces what I have labeled The Perception Gap, the gap between our fears and the facts, which is a huge risk in and of itself."

and then explains this in terms of Cultural Cognition & the dreaded "free market-fossil fuel status quo":

"Individualists prefer a society that maximizes the individual's control over his or her life. Communitarians prefer a society in which the collective group is more actively engaged in making the rules and solving society's problems (Individualists deny environmental problems like climate change because such problems require a 'we're all in this together' communal response. Communitarians see climate change as a huge threat in part because it requires a social response). Along the other continuum, Hierarchists prefer a society with rigid structure and class and a stable predictable status quo, while Egalitarians prefer a society that is more flexible, that allows more social and economic mobility, and is less constrained by 'the way it's always been'. (Hierarchists deny climate change because they fear the response means shaking up the free market-fossil fuel status quo. Shaking up the status quo is music to the ears of Egalitarians, who are therefore more likely to believe in climate change.)"

I'm not sure it's worth your trouble looking at the whole post (though it's not long).

BOFA

Thanks for the Indie link and pointer to comments there. A little more useful information in the Vesta bin. It all adds up.

Missing link from last post

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/wind-turbine-plant-to-create-2000-jobs-2282275.html

BBD,
according to comments in this Independent version Vestas are serial 'Open factory with subsidy and close it down a bit later' junkies.

@BBD re: IPCC renewables report

It reads more like desperation on the part of the IPCC: govts may not be able to say they disagree with the report's findings but they can still do what the hell they like when it comes to setting energy policy.

A report commissioned by Friends of the Earth, of all people, has found that cold houses are bad for people, in this (uncommentable) story in the Graun:

Warmer UK homes 'would save thousands of lives'

Who here finds this concluding paragraph from the Graun report on the IPCC renewables study unusually honest and extremely sinister?

As with all IPCC reports, the summary for policymakers – the synopsis of the report that will be presented to governments and is likely to impact renewable energy policy – had to be agreed line by line and word by word unanimously by all countries. This was done at Monday's meeting in Abu Dhabi. This makes the process lengthy, but means that afterwards no government or scientist represented can say that they disagree with the finished findings, which the IPCC sees as a key strength of its operations.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/09/ipcc-renewable-energy-power-world

This is effectively saying: IPCC insiders create a consensus and impose it on absolutely everyone else. And then claim this behaviour as a 'key strength'. Which of course it is, if you are hell-bent on getting your own way without bothering with rubbish like democracy or indeed, dissenting opinion.

So, first we get the IPCC consensus on climate. Now we have one on how to solve the problem with renewables. I refrain from comment on the former, but the latter is simply wrong. And it is very worrying that the IPCC has now started to enforce renewables as the mainstay of global energy policy when there is a mountain of evidence that shows this approach will fail.

In fact the whole thing is appalling.

This really, really is our last chance this time, says Hansen:

Time is running out

"I think, this decade really is our last chance. And it's not inconsistent with what I've said before in 2005 I said we had ten years, we've still got a few of those years left but not many."

Does this mean they're all going to STFU in 2015 when the world hasn't spun off its axis because of a trivial global temperature rise? Gawd, we can only hope ...

BOFA @ May 11 5:31pm

You quite rightly ask:

Even with all the subsidies you only get 2000 jobs, how many are destroyed by the increased energy bills needed to generate the subsidies.

And here is the answer:

The economic candle in the U.K. is being blown out by wind power. The Verso study finds that after the annual diversion of some 330 million British pounds from the rest of the U.K. economy, the result has been the destruction of 3.7 jobs for every “green” job created

Read the rest here:

http://www.offshorewind.biz/2011/03/02/for-every-green-job-four-other-are-lost-uk/

I note that the Graun references the IPCC fabulism about 80% world energy from renewables post-2050. But sayin' it don't make it so...