Weather, Water, Energy 8-29-07

2006 the second warmest year since we started formal records over a century ago, greenhouse gases accounted for the most of it, real scientists say it so start the denying. (See a pretty, and pretty scary, map of the heating last year in the US here at Climate Progress.) Also from Terra Daily, stories on the US crapping on the carbon markets Europeans, Canadians, and Aussies are trying to develop, on the inability of plants to push out moisture in conditions to too much CO2 and thus keeping the ground wetter (do the words “worse flooding” come to mind?), on the report that the next cycle of Ice Ages might be put off 500m. years because of warming, and on global warming likely making Ireland even wetter (how could that even be possible???) . . . . . More rain in the tropics, basically what the climate models predict, so start the denying now if you didn’t before. . . . At Grist, Brits admit to lying about their concern about the warming and a lot of them don’t even know how to be green if they did want to and Dave's Second Law of Sustainability Politics which says that “Coal can be clean and cheap, but it can't be both at once” with proof from the toxic ash that remains unstorable if you do manage to create cleaner emissions from coal. While you’re catching David Roberts’ posts, check out the ones on Honda trying to catch up after giving away the hybrid game to Toyota, on the absolutely immoral Bushevik water giveaway to Big Ag in CA, and on how on earth do we continue to let those proven so wrong in the past still have a voice in the debate? Let me know when you answer that last one. . . . Great graph on the emissions changes from different alternative fuels being considered. Cellulosic ethanol comes out best, actually really impressive. Guess which is worst. That’s right—liquefied coal, actually increasing emissions 119% if no sequestration occurs. So we do sequestration, right? Good, that way emissions only GO UP 4%. Good plan. . . . Actual good news on water. VA Tech researchers are developing new techniques to manage stormwater runoff and to minimize the major pollution it carries. . . . The more beer and whisky we drink, the more emission-reduced fuel we could have from their production byproducts? There IS a God.