A Win-Win-Win Situation
with David Keith | What should we do with the carbon we produce when we burn fossil fuels? Some experts say we should fight climate change by putting the carbon back underground, whence it came.
Positive Feedbacks, Dynamic Ice Sheets, and the Recarbonization of the Global Fuel Supply: The New Sense of Urgency about Global Warming
A Globally Integrated Climate Policy for Canada, University of Toronto Press, 2008.
With Cracks and Holes in the Greenland Ice Sheet, We May Well Have to “Geo-Engineer” the Climate
A few years ago, these scientists regarded global warming as a matter of serious concern; now many appear to think that it's a matter of grave urgency - that we may be running out of time. The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports are increasingly viewed as out of date.
A Swiftly Melting Planet
The Arctic ice cap melted this summer at a shocking pace, disappearing at a far higher rate than predicted by even the most pessimistic experts in global warming. But we shouldn’t be shocked, because scientists have long known that major features of earth’s interlinked climate system of air and water can change abruptly.
Terror in the Weather Forecast
DOES climate change threaten international peace and security? The British government thinks it does. As this month’s head of the United Nations Security Council, Britain convened a debate on the matter last Tuesday. One in four United Nations member countries joined the discussion — a record for this kind of thematic debate.
The End of Ingenuity
Having to search farther and longer for our resources isn’t the only new hurdle we face. Climate change could also constrain growth. A steady stream of evidence now indicates that the planet is warming quickly and that the economic impact on agriculture, our built environment, ecosystems and human health could, in time, be very large.
Unleash Capitalism’s Creativity on Climate Change
If we unleash Canada’s capitalist creativity, we could be an international leader in a suite of technologies urgently needed in a warming world that will depend on fossil fuels for many decades. These include technologies for the clean combustion of coal, for storing carbon dioxide underground, and for using hydrogen as a transportation fuel. We could make staggering amounts of money selling these technologies around the world.
Ahead: More – and Worse – Katrinas
with James Risbey and Karl Braganza | The science of climate change is the kind of topic that gives journalists great difficulty. As they bounce from issue to issue in our info-glutted world, they aren’t able to explore each one in depth or develop detailed expertise about a subject. So when it comes to complex scientific problems, journalists tend to cherry-pick findings and cite opinionated statement by outspoken researchers. Context and nuance are lost. And in the case of research on the links between global warming and hurricanes, context and nuance are everything.
Coal in a Nice Shade of Green
with S. Julio Friedmann | When it comes to energy, we are trapped between a rock and several hard places. The world’s soaring demand for oil is pushing against the limits of production, lifting the price of crude nearly 90 percent in the last 18 months.
Out of the Energy Box
with S. Julio Friedmann | The prognosis for the future of climate change is indeed alarming. Scientists say plausible scenarios include terrible droughts, crop failures, and dying forests around the Mediterranean and in the United States, South America, India, China, and Africa. Sea levels are expected to rise significantly, drowning islands and possibly displacing hundreds of millions of people from coastlines, where more than a third of the world’s population lives. Ground water supplies are set to shrink, reservoirs to dry up. Wildfires and violent storms will strike more often and much harder. And much of this change is expected within the next 50 years.
