Most of the biofuels on sale in Britain do not conform to environmental standards according to a study by the Renewable Fuels Agency which has shocked experts. The agency found that only 19% of all biofuel on sale in Britain actually is environmentally friendly. The remainder fails to meet quality standards drawn up by the UK government.

In America, such reports are published almost weekly. Everybody knows that some biofuels are of dubious quality. The worst types are the biodiesel blenders (B20 biodiesels). These apparently contain anywhere between 10 to 74% of actual biodiesel content.

So is this a big deal? Well heck, yes. An official UK study released last June, the Gallagher Review, recommends that the government slows the introduction of biofuels until more is known about the possible negative impacts. Major issues need sorting out, including tracing back the countries of origin of some of the biofuels, the report’s authors concluded. The UK imports the majority of its biofuels from the US. So yes, big deal!

The main question now is how governments react to the reports evidencing that major parts of the industry effectvely are total scams. US consumers perhaps have the most reason to feel cheated because the manufacturers of blended biofuels get a standard tax credit based on the amount of biofuel components. This means that those that put in 10% instead of 20% biodiesel get rewarded for something they don’t deserve. And those that use higher percentages of biodiesel are putting their consumers at risk because the high blends of biodiesel can freeze in cold temperatures.

Biofuels like ethanol have had a lot of bad press and deservedly so. The news articles about their often dubious quality follow thousands of reports about the ethical issues linked with some biofuels, including allegations that cultivating biofuel crops lead to large scale deforestation in the Third World. Not to forget various other environmental catastrophes including the loss of plant and animal species.

The UK government’s current rules for biofuel quality standards are considered very lenient and that’s what’s keeping the ball rolling for the time being. Suppliers have to produce an end product with a content of 30% sustainable biofuels under the so called Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO) which went into effect last April. But the 30% is a guideline only. That means that you can have little confidence that the stuff is what the labels (and the sanctimonious ads) say it is.

There are as yet no signs that Downing Street is going to follow up on the recommendations of the Gallagher Report to research all the ins and outs of the biofuel industry before going ahead with blending all the fuels. Perhaps this is because it thinks the industry will sort itself out.

In the US, the government is equally ignorant of the concerns raised. The Environmental Protection Agency is hotly promoting the sale of biofuels. It recently stepped in when the State of Texas called for reducing the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) by 9 billion gallons. The EPA’s decision secured the extra supplies of ethanol on the US market for one purpose only; a reduction of the gasoline prices. The State of Texas had argued that biofuels are driving up food prices and hurting the economy. The RFS will add 11.1 billion gallons of ethanol to the supplies next year.

In addition to the controversy over the environmental effects of biofuels, the general marketplace for biofuels is thriving whilst consumers are struggling. This might turn out to be a lethal combination. A lot of unease lives among the populations of both in the US and the UK which is manifested especially when earnings reports are published of oil companies that provide the precise details of how the higher fuel costs are being passed on to end consumers.

Factual evidence that consumers end up paying for the extra costs of more expensive transports of food and services, combined with continued news reports about the destruction of forests due to biofuels makes people feel powerless and angry.

But producers themselves are striking endless international deals, which they can only do because of the rising demand for biofuel. So we’re faced with a healthy market of a dubious product which is oh so destructive for the environment. That’s even much more infuriating.

The demand for biofuel is actively promoted by government initiatives like the RFS. In Europe the market is created by the EU’s official target to run the European transport system on biofuel by 10% by the year 2020.

Despite all the controversy neither the American government nor the EU are acting in the best interests of the environment it appears. In the UK, this has already resulted in various street protests. People have even taken to target private companies. For instance Vopak in Essex was the target of activist protesters who raised awareness and concern about widespread deforestation in places like Brazil, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

The UK government appears to have turned a blind eye. But the solution as recommended by the Gallagher Report is relatively simple. A temporary suspension of biofuel imports that are hard to figure out in terms of standards or country of origin would have producers sort out their mess in a jiffy. It would also get clarity over the sustainable production methods.

The UK government also fails to urge Brussels to abandon its biofuel target, something other European countries are doing. The EU government thus far has ignored this.

It does not look likely that the problems will be resolved any time soon. The biofuels market is one big mess and various attempts to sort it out are falling short. One reason is that the industry itself is thriving and that countries want access to cheap fuel. The US considers itself as the world leader in biofuels because its ethanol production has quadrupled since 2000. The US market is 450 million gallons now and soon second generation ethanol (made from non-food feedstocks) will drive producers to drive up the market even more, production wise.

The UK’s Renewable Fuels Agency’s environmental standard addresses some issues but is by far not sufficient. It covers concerns about the environment as well as child labour and water and soil conservation issues. Yet it does not include carbon emissions from indirect effects such as changes in land use caused by biofuel planting, according to a report in the Guardian. This, experts say, could cancel out their environmental benefits altogether.

The Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels, global multi-stakeholder initiative to develop standards for the sustainability of biofuels appears more promising. This initiative is in its early stages yet, but it aims to operate much the same way as the Forest Stewardship Council, a global standard for paper which is highly effective and has a certification method that is respected globally. The Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels clearly takes over where governments are leaving off but nevertheless has already been signed by an impressive list of over 300 companies, NGOs and environmental organizations.

If the initiative proves successful, a lot will have been won. Because despite all the negative issues, let’s not forget the other side of the coin. Running your car on ethanol based fuels is still better than filling it up with ordinary petrol. Last year alone, US greenhouse gas emisssions prevented through the use of ethanol reached over 13 million tons. And there’s the decline of the price of petrol at the pump thanks to the extra ethanol, a mixed blessing perhaps, but hey less expensive oil means food producers have less costs to pass on to end consumers.

Edward T. Schafer, secretary at the U.S. Department of Agriculture says U.S. gasoline prices have already gone down 20 cents to 35 cents per gallon due to the extra ethanol. He also estimated that in 2007, consumers in Texas saved between $2.5 billion and $4.5 billion as a result of ethanol having entered the market.

Got a contrary eco product that needs branding/labeling? Why not try using an anti label? It’s free to use and you’ll get your marketing done via 100% open source principles.

The anti label is called Blackspot and anyone can use the logo; a black spot. Products you sell are not only branded under the world’s first truly open source label, but they’re also joining a product portfolio that’s almost 100% eco friendly/low on carbon output.

The people behind the Blackspot label are the organizers of the ever growing annual global BuyNothingDay at Adbusters.org. They represent a radical, no-compromise experiment, a total rethinking of capitalism from the ground up. People selling a Blackspot product tend not to talk of customers or clients but of ‘participants shaping the social enterprise’.

The organization offers great tips for practically marketing your stuff. Blackspotters are offering their wares to the big players in Jujitsu style.

The concept works. A few big names/companies have been enamored with the Blackspot anti label. One example is the Canadian designer John Fluevog –a hit in the US- who’s designed a Blackspot Sneaker and a Blackspot Boot. Neither looks bad and neither impacts the environment by much more than your literal footprint; both shoes are produced in a Portuguese union factory. Material is 100% organic hemp, 70% biodegradable rubber and the soles of the shoes are made from recycled car tyres. The shoes are also vegan certified. Price is 100 bucks (Canadian) which includes postage. In the UK, they’re available in four independent shops.

In short, the shoes only literally contribute to your carbon footprint. What more can a customer, eh, participant, ask for?

Entrepreneurs joining the operation will find that their fellow Blackspotters are a loose alliance comprising a few thousand other entrepreneurs. “For years the old pattern went on. People were jaded by corporate control of so much of their lives, but couldn’t see how they might take some power back. We decided to launch a counterattack”, the inventors say on their website. The profits made by Blackspot are funneled to Adbusters, which organizes many events to support the rise of ecofriendly economics at universities.

So the next climate deal is another watered down soapy substance now that China and India pulled the plug at the G8 meeting held in Japan. The stalemate that’s visible was exactly what was feared by everybody; diametrically opposed parties over the emissions by the world’s largest energy consuming countries.

Time for a change in approach? Perhaps time for a change in accounting methods. Take China for instance. At least 23% of this country’s carbon emissions are from goods that are exported to industrialized countries. So is it fair that the country is held responsible for all of its emissions in the new climate deal?

Academic researchers from the UK focusing their efforts on finding ways in which China can evolve into a coal independent nation say that determining countries’ carbon emissions should not be limited by national borders, as is currently the case under the Kyoto Protocol. The goings on at the G8 meeting in Japan appear to suggest something along similar lines.

The researchers, who embarked on their project in 2006 and have an end date in 2009, wrote a commentary note called the Tyndall Centre Briefing Note on the G8 meeting and suggested that a nation’s entire carbon footprint should also include imported goods and services manufactured elsewhere.

It’s an argument that is heard frequently. The supply chain logic follow through is gaining momentum in the corporate world these days in particular. As carbon calculations are increasingly getting more sophisticated, more and more companies are getting to the nitty gritty parts of their carbon emissions by including data on their suppliers.

The Tyndal researchers, Tao Wang and Jim Watson, make a few strong points. First of all they point out that China’s carbon emissions from goods exported to the first world are the equivalent of more than double the UK’s emissions or the whole of Japan’s. That is quite hefty. Then they claim that industrialised countries are both historically responsible for the majority of carbon emissions to date and that they’re likely to have accelerated the rapid growth in emissions in these countries.

The arguments build up to the logical deduction that it makes sense for the developed world to get on with cleaning up the environment by imposing strict rules and by helping the poor countries along the road.

Wang and Watson’s calculation of just how China’s greenhouse gas breaks down firmly supporting this argument. The numbers are taken from China’s official 2004 data (the most recent year for which full data was available) and they indicate that China is now the world’s top polluting country (having overtaken the US). And these results may be on the low side because between 2004 and 2006, China’s export increased from $32bn to $177bn.

The researchers, whose project assesses how China can industrialize without becoming locked long-term into an energy and economy dependent upon coal, oil and gas, believe there’s credible evidence that it makes sense for industrialised countries to move first to make real progress in cutting their carbon emissions and to help nations like China and India to shift to a more low carbon path of development. The United States in particular is vehemently opposed to reducing emissions unless new economies like China and India also do so. The US is the top importer of Chinese made goods.

China is working on reducing energy use, but its government has limited power because global demand and market forces determine much of this process. Take for example the steel industry. The Chinese government has tried to slow this sector’s expansion by slashing tax rebates. But steel exports nevertheless have increased over 200% due to worldwide demand for cheaper steel from China. Looks like there’s a whole lot of thinking that needs to go into what’s fair.

At the end of the G8 meeting, only three of the emerging economies, Indonesia, South Korea and Australia, did actually commit to the vague goals set; a 50 percent reduction of greenhouse gas by 2050.

Chinese participants to the global climate talks cited economic growth and political risks as the main factors deterring them from committing. The Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, was saying that his priorities were stacked up in a different order. He said food security, public health and water resources were the main issues on his list of important things to do.

But environmental activists are deeply disappointed at the G8 meeting’s outcome because the goal to set firm targets with smaller time frames has now been abandoned. They furthermore say that a specific base year to calculate carbon reductions on is missing. It is now hoped that a ‘do good’ mentality is going to become the export product of proper pride of the individual participating countries.

The UK and Europe (EU) have said that they will both be on target to reduce greenhouse gas 20% by 2020. It is assumed that countries that impose stringent goals also come up with the better competitive technology which they will be able to sell to other countries too.

Environmentalists are lobbying intensely for governments’ commitment to shorter-range targets, (also read a recent Triple Pundit post by me about G8 sponsored research) but the Japanese meeting concluded with this consideration left to the discretion of member countries.

European researchers say they have begun to develop fridges that are powered by a 100% alloy which will reduce their energy usage by 50%. In the last 15 years, fridge technology developers have had to consider what option would be the lesser of two evils. Environmentalists alerted them to the harmful side effects of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), the refrigerant chemical, but alternative refrigerants require a lot more energy.

But now there’s an alternative to both chemicals, a solution that will reduce your fridge’s energy bill by half. Trick is to use electromagnetic fields cleverly. No joking. The scientists work on behalf of BASF, the chemicals company, and a Dutch foundation called Fundamental Research on Matter (FOM). They are pioneering technology based on magnetocaloric materials (again, no joking). These materials are a new class of refrigerants and are set to significantly reduce the negative impact of today’s cooling systems on the environment.

Full testing is underway but it’s very likely that magnetocaloric materials are highly efficient cooling agents. Research leader Prof.dr. Ekkes Brück from Delft University of Technology has reserved five years for developing the materials with the best properties. He and his team will be working in the BASF laboratories in the Netherlands and Germany to improve the alternative chemicals requiring lower energy levels.

Magnetocaloric materials are solid alloys and earlier research by the scientists has already proven that it’s set to be an attractive alternative for cooling fridges. “The [magnetocaloric materials] warm up in a magnetic field and cool down when the field is removed. Theoretical considerations show an energy savings potential of up to fifty percent”, the scientists say. Not only will the technology be applicable to fridges, but because of its compactness it’s likely it can easily be installed in air conditioners, central heating systems and even in computers.

The technology, if it makes the commercial stages, will be staggeringly useful because it’s estimated that 25% of our total energy consumption today is used for cooling applications, for instance in refrigerators and air conditioners.

Despite all the talk about green interior design, there’s a long way to go before we live with furniture and household items that are actually biodegradable. A truly green sofa ought to be disposable via the compost heap in your own garden by the time you’re done with it, don’t you agree? That’s the central argument in the Cradle2Cradle philosophy. Unlike durable design, C2C is the real end of the throw away society.

The C2C philosophy has been around for the last five years, but to find furniture designers that adhere to its principles it’s like searching for a needle in a haystack. A recently created design house by eight Dutch design students has embraced C2C fully. The company, called Artishok, has just completed its first designs after spending months researching the best 100% biodegradable materials for modern furniture.

The team was directly inspired by William McDonough, an architect, and the chemist Michael Braungart, the two inventors of C2C. The duo believes that another Industrial Revolution is at hand which is concentrated around ecological production methods.

The Artishok design studio embodies this perfectly, creating furniture from corn based plastics. Artishok’s products look no different than other designer stuff and the advantage of the Artishok items is that they virtually do not contribute to your carbon footprint. After use, you can safely throw the furniture on your garden’s compost heap without polluting the soil even 1%. That means that the eight students are about as close as any designers to replicating the natural cycle directly. There’s likely strong demand for such items because other than recycled materials, 100% natural materials effectively eliminate the garbage problem. C2C based items can be ´fed back´ to mother nature no questions asked! Artishok buys its materials from Biopearls www.biopearls.nl, another Dutch enterprise which makes biodegradable polymers.

C2C has turned the design world on its head in some ways. Everybody agrees that the throw away society must be stopped, but C2C appears to clash with durable design. Because unlike durable designs which seem to deny a product’s end point, C2C is sold primarily because of its ‘rotting away’ value. Critics say that it’s the trash heap nightmare, and not nature, which inspires this and that C2C is merely a marketing ploy. Some people also believe that nature doesn’t need extra compost. That might very well be true, but McDonough and Braungart aren’t too extreme. They say that so long as you create stuff that can be re-used by industry, you might consider it on equal terms with biodegradable materials. Every item that´s not ending up in a rubbish dump helps solve the landslide problem.

Other designers working with corn based plastics have mostly been involved with soft finishings like pillows. And Umbra, the US mid market designer has manufactured a 100% corn based Garbine trashcan. Another natural material that’s used in designs is sugar, which, believe it or not, can be used for making lamps. Other than furniture designers, HP is also experimenting with natural plastics.

Artisjok’s competition in the Netherlands is virtually zero, but there is massive interest in the C2C philosophy throughout Europe. This entire year and in 2009 the agenda’s of McDonough and Braungart are chockerbloc with Dutch speaking appointments. There are also plans to offer Braungart a position as professor at a newly created C2C institute in Venlo, the Netherlands.

It’s a known fact that trees are only temporarily carbon sequesters and that by the time they start to rot, all the nasty material gets transmitted back into the atmosphere again. So why not prevent this? Thus far we’ve been held back from doing so because intervening into the natural cycle somehow doesn’t feel right. But if we only tidied up one sixth of all the tree wastage lying around on the forest floors, we’d be nearing the carbon levels emitted by burning fossil fuels.

That’s quite a compelling idea. Climatologist Ning Zeng who works at the University of Maryland, published a paper describing the impact of clearing up forests on a the Carbon Balance and Management Journal website recently. The article, now flagged ‘highly accessed’, was picked up by various other journals in no time.

It must be said that the numbers –Zeng made his calculations on the basis of national US forests and CO2 data- are enough to spark anyone’s interest. Zeng’s says that to relieve forests of some of their excess debris, could lead to a recurring carbon sequestering of 10 gigatons of carbon a year. Trees and plants are believed to scrub the air free of some 60 gigatons of carbon a year. Most of that gets emitted back into the atmosphere when living organisms decompose.

Removing one sixth of the debris before it sets out to rot away might be a hugely efficient way to prevent greenhouse gas emissions, says Zeng. So long as enough woody debris is left on the forest floors to feed new cycles and to maintain bio systems, this is a feasible solution. The dead wood is best stored air tight underground. That way a continuous carbon sink is created. Every square kilometer of forest would fill trenches of 10×25 meters in size and 10 meters deep. Some 10 million of those would have to be dug every year to store 5 billion tons of carbon at a cost of $14 per ton worth of buried wood.

The proposal will trigger odd associations because something natural is proposed to be treated as if it’s a chemical. And in some ways the proposed interaction (if not interference) with forests’ bio rhythms is risky to say the least. Nevertheless Zeng’s argument is no waste of time because the scientist has analyzed all the factors involved. Including the types of soil and their reactions to types of wood. And he admitted to New Scientist that in some cases, the creation of methene gases won’t be prevented. Methane is known as one of the worst greenhouse gas types. This indicates that extreme care should be taken before big mistakes are made. Also, burying a biomass like trees and plants will inevitably attract termites which would mess up the project by puncturing holes in the airtight burial chambers. That’s not to speak of the natural habitats of some animals that you might ruin by clearing out wood.

But on the other hand the advantage of Zeng’s proposal is that if it’s well executed, it’s highly efficient. To date there’s hardly any technology that could match up to a 100% efficient burial of biomass with such greenhouse gas reductions. You could also argue that it’s very likely that managed forests likely offer plenty of evidence that not all human interference in the natural cycle is bad.

Equity analysts divide into three distinct groups based on their climate change perspective, according to a new report from independent research firm Verdantix.

The survey, entitled Equity Analysts Link Climate Change And Company Valuation shows that there are virtually equally sized groups of climate change believers, sceptics and cynics. Believers represent 30% of analysts. These guys already include climate change factors like regulations and risks in their financial models. Sceptics, comprising 28% of the research participants, think that climate change will have a material impact on profitability within 2 to 5 years. Cynics, comprising 30% of analysts, doubt climate change will ever impact valuations.

Verdantix Director David Metcalfe, author of the report, said that the utilities sector thus far is the only industry about which analysts seem to have agreed on a consensus on how to incorporate climate change into financial models. In other sectors such unanimity is lacking. Some oil and gas analysts are in complete denial while others view climate change regulations, risks and strategy as intrinsic to financial valuation. Metcalfe believes this is bound to change. He believes that by 2010 all industries will see a consensus of opinion of analyst.

The Verdantix analysis is based on in-depth interviews with 50 equity analysts who cover 13 different industry sectors and represent 22 investment banks including ABN AMRO, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and UBS. In addition to the high-level segmentation of analyst perspective, the research found that:

-Analysts suffer from information and knowledge gaps. Thirty-two per cent of analysts (covering industries as diverse as food production, basic resources, retail, oil, gas, media and banks) said they “didn’t know” if firms provide sufficient data on greenhouse gas emissions. Half of the respondents stated that firms didn’t need to verify greenhouse gas emissions although this is essential to establish a baseline for reporting.

-Regulations rank highest among climate change factors. Forty-two per cent of the analysts in the Verdantix survey, from sectors like industrial goods, oil, gas, travel and construction, conducted research into climate change regulatory impacts. The EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme loomed large in analysts’ minds. By contrast, the UK’s Carbon Reduction Commitment was deemed less important.

-Carbon emission reductions and renewable energy ranked lowest. While 32% of analysts had changed a profit forecast due to an energy or fuel efficiency initiative, just 8% did so due to a commitment to reduce carbon emissions and only 6% made an adjustment because a firm committed to buying the majority of energy from renewable sources.

“Climate change is perceived as a corporate branding issue” Metcalfe says. A total of 80% of the surveyed analysts were more or less convinced that brand image is enhanced through climate change initiatives. The report also includes pointers for companies’ corporate communications designed to take advantage of the analyst mindset based on the survey’s results.

Heard the scare stories about greenwashing? Turns out that most of the trickery happens when business 2 consumer deals are involved. B2B is an entirely different story, not least because of reputational risks involved. But European legislation also will soon facilitate the combat of greenwashing.

The European environment commissioner Stavros Dimas has said he’s drawing up plans to achieve lower energy consumption by legislating what actually makes a green product. The initiative, the Sustainability Package, comprises new rules that organizations can used to get green procurement operations in place.

The concept of green procurement is not new. Around the globe, companies and public organizations are busy implementing software modules that allow them to make sure they’re purchasing goods and services that score well in terms of green credentials.

Check out the Business and Sustainable Development website for case studies of private companies around the globe that have already got a green procurement strategy in place, including Dupont, Elextrolux, AMP, the BBC, Dow Jones Sustainable Indexes and Humboldt’s Legacy. There are also various small business on this website.

Green procurement is now set to receive backing from European policymakers who are devising a set of minimum requirements for the most environmentally damaging products, Stavros told the Environmental Committee of the European Parliament. The rules, a first draft of which is expected to be published next year, also will facilitate competition because incentives are awarded to products that outperform.

The EU policymakers are especially bullish on resource-efficient products. The new product requirements will be periodically reviewed, Stavros said.

The European Union website already published a green procurement training toolkit, designed for use by public organizations pondering green public procurement Check it out here.

A recent annual survey into the carbon reduction efforts by suppliers has revealed that business leaders dread the potential impact of emissions legislation on their activities.

The survey, carried out by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), a transatlantic not for profit organization, covered responses of 144 supply companies to multinational corporations.

Only 26% of the suppliers have actual plans in place to achieve greenhouse gas reductions. But more than double that number (58%) was tracking their emissions. Around 33% of all the surveyed suppliers has a dedicated board member in place dealing with climate change issues.

Nevertheless almost all company bosses (96%) cited emisssions legislation as a major risk. The CDP survey focused on finding out what progress companies are making toward reducing their carbon footprint. The report underscored that business leaders in the supply chain area are most serious about measuring greenhouse gas emissions, which is an important first step.

CDP sends a climate change questionnaire annually to the largest publicly listed companies globally on behalf of investors. Companies report their emissions data using the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol - which is the most widely used international accounting tool for government and business leaders to understand, quantify, and manage greenhouse gas emissions. The organization represents 385 institutional investors with assets under management of $57 trillion.

England’s Climate Change Minister Joan Ruddock unveiled a new two year plan by the UK government for tackling climate change, stressing a local approach. She spoke at a conference about preparing for climate change organized by the Guardian newspaper. The UK government is one to watch because it has made impressive progress toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and is on track to achieve almost double its Kyoto target.

Ruddock revealed a two year plan to tackle the problems with new and existing projects in regional Britain, speaking at a conference on planning for climate adaptation. The UK government believes that local authorities, regional government and devolved administrations have a vital role to play in reducing carbon emissions because they happen to manage large estates and act as community leaders.

Official government bodies called Regional Climate Change Partnerships can apply for funding for taking action to
- Develop/update regional strategies
- Landscape scale natural environment issues and biodiversity
- Economic development
- Multi-area agreements
- Innovation/specific regional opportunities

Ruddock’s announcement at the Guardian conference follows a flurry of news reports containing alarming statistics indicating that CO2 levels are much worse than assumed thus far.

At the moment, CO2 emissions have reached the highest levels in 800,000 years according to recent data published on the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) website. The annual mean growth rate for 2007 was 2.14 parts per million (ppm). This is a harrowing number because it’s the fourth year since 2001 that the 2ppm has been exceeded. To get an idea of proportion, check out these numbers for the previous decades. From 1970 to 2000, CO2 in the air increased way less, by about 1.5ppm annually. The problems exacerbated tremendously since 2000 as ppm numbers averaged 2.1ppm annually.

Another study recently published in Nature reconfirmed key scientific evidence that climate change is caused by human actions, a finding which had been concluded with 66-90 percent certainty in landmark February 2007 research on behalf of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC). That research document is considered the basis for the international climate negotiations.

The Nature article was authored by many of the collaborators of the groundbreaking February 2007 IPCC research. Just like the NOAA information, the study asserts that the effects of global warming are undeniable and that things are getting worse. Greenhouse gas emissions trigger changes in natural systems on all continents as well as in most oceans, the scientists say, led by Cynthia Rosenzweig of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the Columbia Center for Climate Systems Research. Antarctica is the only territory on the globe that is not affected, the researchers say. The study derives its findings from an 150,000 more years of data compared to the IPCC’s February 2007 information. “The warming world is causing impacts on physical and biological systems attributable at the global scale,” lead author Rosenzweig was quoted as saying in the Rawstory recently.

What’s all the more convincing is that a separate article in Nature by skeptics concludes that Rosenzweig et al’s research indeed contains an overwhelming amount of undeniable evidence. The commentary, by Francis Zwiers and Gabriele Hegerl, two climatologists, focused in on the question whether climate change is a result of human actions. “The sheer number of changes” in ecological systems listed in the study outweighed the skepticism that Zwiers and Hegerl reserved for the supposedly shortish time frames of the studied data.

Most of the recent gloom and doom in newsreports includes the harrowing comment that even if we curbed all greenhouse gases today the scenario would still be desperate. That’s of course a scientific observation that people are free to make. Whilst normally I’d be loath to devote too much attention to that particular assertion at the moment I think the time is more than appropriate to postulate the fact because it so obviously has a positive effect; many people are spurred into action. (I am on eagerly on the lookout for an agency/blog which monitors the ‘triggers’ spurring people/organizations to take environmental action. If anyone knows of such a monitoring service, please let me know.) Who knows, perhaps instilling fear turns out to be hardly the issue here; instead we could be absolutely ignorant of the real horrors that lie ahead of us.

Ruddock for one pointed out at the conference on planning for climate adaptation that “even if we stopped all emissions of greenhouse gases tomorrow we would still be locked into 30 to 40 years of climate change”. And a similar comment was made by Martin Parry, co-chair of the IPCC working group on climate impacts and also a speaker at the conference. He said that “despite all the talk, the situation is getting worse. We are already seeing the impacts of climate change and the scale of those impacts will also accelerate, until we decide to do something about it.”

Incidentally, some horrors are expected to change as a result of global warming. NOAH’s Thomas Knutson published an article in Nature Geoscience asserting that greenhouse gases will not necessarily lead to an increase in the frequency with which hurricanes take place this Century. That’s good news, but nevertheless Knutson asserts that the intensity of hurricanes is likely to get worse as a result of temperature rises.

The various sounding alarm bells have reinvigorated more people’s environmental concerns, a trend that’s intensified in recent months. We’re likely going to hear a lot more about the local factor. This is absolutely essential, also in the US. Read these comments by a US blogger called ClimateFrog who believes that the local initiative for climate change is key in waking up people. In many ways the local approach appears to be making sense because it’s at this level that anyone can decide that ‘the economy’ doesn’t have to be adversely affected by climate considerations.

This blog post was also published on Triple Pundit, a blog I contribute freelance articles to.