The lawyers have gotten involved!

Yes, according to this article from the Toronto Daily News, governments and companies may face law suits for their role in global warming. I've already seen global warming skeptics compared with people who claimed cigarettes weren't harmful to health, but this is a new twist. Of course, California has already sued the "big 6" automakers over greenhouse gas emissions.

Earlier this week, the Stern Review tackled the issue of the economics of global warming. Now, an article in The Independent Online questions whether the UK will be able to meet any sort of expectations on reduced emissions as airport expansions plan to treble the number of flights by 2030. The increases in air traffic will effectively eliminate Britain's ability to meet Kyoto targets.

So what is to be done? Eliminate growth to curb the potential for warming? That doesn't fly (pun intended) too well with the profit-driven West. Interestingly, Sir Richard Branson, Virgin Group chairman, has proposed some efficiencies which could cut aviation carbon emissions by up to 25 percent globally. In addition, Branson announced back in September that he would take all the profits from his "dirty" businesses - such as Virgin Air - over the next ten years (estimated at 3 billion dollars) and invest them in the development of new fuels and renewable energy initiatives.

Sir Richard's not just being noble (oh! that was another pun) here. He's a businessman, and a shrewd one. He's fully expecting his energy initiatives to make even more money for the Virgin Group.

Sports fans, it's FRIDAY. The Friday before a college football Saturday. Followed by an NFL Sunday. Is there anything better? Oh, and it's my favorite Saturday of the year, when my beloved Badgers take on the Nittany Lions. This fan is hoping for some pay back from last year's beat down in Happy Valley.

Face it, our society is sports CRAZED. Even at AccuWeather.com, we regularly provide a sports forecast. And it's not just here in America. Much of the rest of the globe is as soccer-mad as we are for the guys on the gridiron. Then there's THE global sporting event, the Olympics. Beijing is expecting 1.5 million visitors to the 2008 games. That's a lot of visitors doing a lot of traveling. This column, from the UK Guardian, asks whether the carbon emissions produced directly and indirectly as a result of sports are worth it. Now, I'm no fan of auto racing, and would gladly see it go the way of the dinosaur. But the millions of NASCAR fans in the country would probably pillory me for that opinion. It's a question worth asking though. Should we be fueling global warming (if it is indeed caused by greenhouse gases) for our entertainment?

Just food for thought on this Football Friday.

When in read a summary of this article from the Denver Post, and it mentioned hurricane expert Dr. Bill Gray, I expected an explanation of Dr. Gray's well-known skepticism over global warming. What I got was a whole lot more. A very sound overview of the difficulties of modeling the climate, and an unbiased representation of both sides of the global warming issue. Read this one, folks. It's worth the time.

With the significant changes in leadership brought by Tuesday's election, expect a policy shift on global warming and other economic issues. Democrat Barbara Boxer of California takes over as chair of the Senate Environmental Public Works Committee and she is looking to California's aggressive response to the issue of global warming as a potential model for the nation.

Australia's Prime Minister, John Howard has changed his stand on global warming. After years of taking a pro-industry position on the issue, he is now willing to consider an international carbon trading system, according to MSNBC.

The article contains a brief discussion of the cap-and-trade system. For a somewhat more in-depth look, here's an article from the Bangor Daily News which summarizes how it works.

I like to keep my eyes open for any documentaries on climate or climate change, so when I saw The History Channel had an episode of MegaDisasters titled Mega Freeze, I had to check it out. The title was actually a little misleading, as the only parts of the world heading for a Mega Freeze were the mid- to upper-latitudes. The rest of the world was dealing with Mega Heat, Mega Floods and Mega Droughts. I guess Mega Climate Meltdown was too cumbersome a name.

The point of the program was that global warming may cause too much ice melt which will cause too much "freshening" of the sea water which will shut down at least a portion of the Thermohaline circulation. The Thermohaline circulation is a broad ocean circulation which acts to transport heat from the equatorial region toward the poles. If it were to shut down, or at least if the northern extent of it were shut down, places like western Europe, eastern Canada and the northeastern part of the United States would turn sharply colder.

Here's a simple graphic of the Thermohaline circulation, from NOAA's web site:

This idea has been creeping into the media, with articles such as this one from the UK Guardian. However, at this point there seems to be little to be concerned about, and in fact RealClimate.org effectively argues that the article in the Guardian was groundless.

The program on the History Channel did make some fairly strong correlations between past climate change and periods of societal unrest which made for interesting viewing. If you've been reading this blog for any period of time though, you know I can do without the hyperbole. And that's the MegaTruth.

After reading articles that seem to blame global warming for.....well....for all of this stuff, it was nice to read an article from the Portsmouth Herald that discusses current weather and takes pains to mention that it's NOT warm because of global warming. Natural - and temporary - variations in the weather can't be used to "prove" global warming. The cold blast poised to move into the northern Rockies and northern Plains doesn't "prove" anything about the global climate, either.

I don't know how many of you have followed up with the story I linked a couple of days ago, so here is a reminder about the MSNBC reporter and photojournalist visiting Antarctica. They are there to observe a massive drilling project going on there. I'm linking the second page of the article, because that's the story of his journey to Antarctica. The first page then tells the story of the reporters first trip onto the Ross Ice Shelf. If you follow the link to the interactive page, you can listen to a lot of information about Antarctica and what makes it so interesting to researchers.

Here is a map to get you acclimated with the scene. The men are staying at McMurdo Station, which is located near the coast along the bottom of this image (tempting to say southern coast, but that would not be accurate!). McMurdo is located right at the rim of the Texas-size Ross Ice Shelf. That ice shelf sits over the water and helps to hold back the ice which is over land on Antarctica. If it were to break away from the continent, some of the ice on land would slip into the sea as well.

The Greentech Innovation Network - created by venture capital group Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers - met late this week to discuss which strategies - both policies and technologies - could most effectively fight global warming.

The group has already exercised considerable political clout, playing an important role in persuading California's law makers to pass some of the nation's toughest legislation on greenhouse gas emissions. Now they're debating whether to push for national limits.

They're all putting considerable economic backing into companies developing alternative fuels, renewable sources of energy and "green" products. In addition, they sponsor the $100,000 "KPCB Prize for Green Innovation" to reward entrepreneurs in green technology.

I liked this quote from Iceland's president, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson:

"If we put all our efforts on the parliaments, this will take decades. We need to build constructive alliances between the scientific community and the business community."

Grimsson wants his country to develop a hydrogen-based economy.

An article today in the New York Times (registration required, but free) discusses many of the economic issues raised by addressing global warming. The article covers a lot of the familiar ground of cap-and-trade controls versus a carbon tax, including references to legislative proposals before Congress, including one from these two:

which envisions a cap-and-trade system. In nosing around looking for more information on the various legislative proposals, I found site with a couple of very interesting graphs comparing the different global warming bills before the 109th Congress. That site also includes a brief description of each of the proposals. It amazes me how much emissions have increased since 1990.

Back to the article in the Times - I had a quibble with this paragraph...

Yet it is increasingly clear that there is a considerable cost to carbon dioxide emissions, especially to future generations, as climate specialists warn of declines in farm output in poor tropical countries, fiercer hurricanes and coastal floods that could make many people refugees.

It seems to me that better examples of potential future threats could have been used. We've already discussed the "fiercer hurricanes" controversy - will they, won't they? No one really knows. As for farm output in poor tropical countries - why not hit Times readers where they live, or rather where they eat, by talking about America's breadbasket moving to Canada, as the NY Times Blog did just last week? I had to laugh at that blog entry, too...for the same reason one of the commenters over there did....it contains this quote from a news release:

In a world where 75 percent of poor people depend on agriculture, climate change will have a profound impact on their food security.

Do you know ANYONE who doesn't rely on agriculture? Unless some people have a Star Trek-style replicator, or on the opposite side of the spectrum, are completely reliant on hunting and gathering - I would guess EVERYONE depends on agriculture.

Ahhhhh....I've drifted a little off topic. That's what happens when I get up too early!