GROUNDWATER LEVELS PLUMMETTING ROUND COCA COLA’S INDIAN BOTTLING PLANT AS DROUGHT IS DECLARED

Groundwater levels in Kala Dera, the site of Coca-Cola's controversial bottling plant in India, plummeted 5.8 metres (19 feet) in the year ending May 2008, according to government data obtained by the India Resource Centre. Such a precipitous drop in a single year is unprecedented and has never been witnessed in Kala Dera.

Kala Dera was declared a drought area by the Indian government last week, adding to the water shortages in the area. Adding further to the severe water crisis are Coca-Cola's bottling operations. The company reaches peak production capacity in the summer months - using the most amount of water - exactly when the water shortages for the community are the most pronounced.

Source: http:/www.indiaresource.org/

G20 AGREES TO PHASE OUT FOSSIL FUEL SUBSIDIES

According to the Environmental Law Institute, the U.S. government provided no less than $72 billion in subsidies to the fossil fuel industry during the last 6 years of the Bush administration.

The U.S. and many other countries around the world currently provide financial aid — in the form of both direct payments and tax breaks — to help produce oil, natural gas and coal which have contributed to rapid climate change over the past half century. The G20 world political leaders have now agreed on the phase-out of fossil fuel subsidies over time, in language that does not outline a specific timetable for the phase-out and makes clear that poorer citizens may still receive help in paying their energy bills. The wording of the statement, advanced by the Obama administration, signalled the world’s most influential nations are ready to take an initial step away from the fossil fuels economic model.

“We commit to rationalize and phase out over the medium term inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption…As we do that, we recognize the importance of providing those in need with essential energy services, including through the use of targeted cash transfers and other appropriate mechanisms. This reform will not apply to our support for clean energy, renewables and technologies that dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

THE WAY FORWARD

Drew Jones

WHY PEOPLE DON'T ACT ON CLIMATE CHANGE

By George Marshall, Climate Change Denial.org

At a recent dinner at the University of Oxford, a senior researcher in atmospheric physics was telling me about his coming holiday in Thailand. I asked him whether he was concerned that his trip would make a contribution to climate change - we had, after all, just sat through a two-hour presentation on the topic. "Of course," he said blithely. "And I'm sure the government will make long-haul flights illegal at some point."

I had deliberately steered our conversation this way as part of an informal research project that I am conducting - one you are welcome to join. My participants so far include a senior adviser to a leading UK climate policy expert who flies regularly to South Africa ("my offsets help set a price in the carbon market"), a member of the British Antarctic Survey who makes several long-haul skiing trips a year ("my job is stressful"), a national media environment correspondent who took his family to Sri Lanka ("I can't see much hope") and a Greenpeace climate campaigner just back from scuba diving in the Pacific ("it was a great trip!"). Intriguing as their dissonance may be, what is especially revealing is that each has a career predicated on the assumption that information is sufficient to generate change. It is an assumption that a moment's introspection would show them was deeply flawed.

It is now 44 years since US president Lyndon Johnson's scientific advisory council warned that our greenhouse gas emissions could generate "marked changes in climate". That's 44 years of research costing, by one estimate, $3 billion per year, symposia, conferences, documentaries, articles and now 80 million references on the internet. Despite all this information, opinion polls over the years have shown that 40 per cent of people in the UK and over 50 per cent in the US resolutely refuse to accept that our emissions are changing the climate. Scarcely 10 per cent of Britons regard climate change as a major problem.

I do not accept that this continuing rejection of the science is a reflection of media distortion or scientific illiteracy. Rather, I see it as proof of our society's failure to construct a shared belief in climate change.

I use the word "belief" in full knowledge that climate scientists dislike it. Vicky Pope, head of the Met Office Hadley Centre for Climate Change in Exeter, UK, wrote in The Guardian earlier this year: "We are increasingly asked whether we 'believe in climate change'. Quite simply it is not a matter of belief. Our concerns about climate change arise from the scientific evidence."
I could not disagree more. People's attitudes towards climate change, even Pope's, are belief systems constructed through social interactions within peer groups. People then select the storylines that accord best with their personal world view. In Pope's case and in my own this is a world view that respects scientists and empirical evidence.

But listen to what others say. Most regard climate change as an unsettled technical issue still hotly debated by eggheads. Many reject personal responsibility by shifting blame elsewhere - the rich, the poor, the Americans, the Chinese - or they suspect the issue is a Trojan horse built by hair-shirted environmentalists who want to spoil their fun.

Many people regard climate change as a Trojan horse built by hair-shirted environmentalists. The climate specialists in my informal experiment are no less immune to the power of their belief systems. They may be immersed in the scientific evidence, yet they have nonetheless developed ingenious storylines to justify their long-haul holidays. How, then, should we go about generating a shared belief in the reality of climate change? What should change about the way we present the evidence for climate change?

For one thing, we should become far more concerned about the communicators and how trustworthy they appear. Trustworthiness is a complex bundle of qualities: authority and expertise are among them, but so too are honesty, confidence, charm, humour and outspokenness.

Many of the maverick, self-promoting climate sceptics play this game well, which is one reason they exercise such disproportionate influence over public opinion. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), on the other hand, plays it badly. Rather than let loose its most presentable participants to tell the world how it achieves consensus on an unprecedented scale, it fails even to provide a list of the people involved in the process. It has no human face at all: the only images on its website are the palace or beach resort where it will hold its next meeting.
Since people tend to put most trust in those who appear to share their values and understand their needs, it is crucial we widen the range of voices speaking on climate change - even if this means climate experts relinquishing some control and encouraging others who are better communicators to speak for them.

Another key to achieving a widely held belief in climate change is collective imagination. We will never fully appreciate the risks unless we can project ourselves into the future - and that requires an appeal to the collective emotional imagination. In the past years I have been delighted to observe a growing partnership between scientists and the creative arts, such as retreats for scientists, artists and writers.

It is clear that the cautious language of science is now inadequate to inspire concerted change, even among scientists. We need a fundamentally different approach. Only then will scientists be in a position to throw down the ultimate challenge to the public: "We've done the work, we believe the results, now when the hell will you wake up?"

George Marshall is founder of the Climate Outreach Information Network.

FREE AS THE WIND

by Thomas Blakeslee


Wind power is a way to indirectly harness the power of the sun. Landmasses absorb the sun’s energy, smoothing it out and concentrating it based on terrain features. Mountain passes and cool water can create amazingly windy places that are easily tapped by standardized wind turbine designs. Wind power peaks in the afternoon, a few hours before power usage peaks but an almost perfect match to demand if the power is sent West over power lines.

Hot days mean high loads to run air conditioning and wind can sometimes be still on the hottest days. Peaking capacity must then be provided to keep the lights on. On certain windy days when demand is low, wind turbines could actually make it necessary to discard energy to keep the grid from going to excess voltage. Fortunately, hydroelectric power can be used like a giant battery to stabilize the grid. With pumped storage, excess power is used to pump water back into a reservoir - to be released later when there is a shortage of power. Pumped storage is 70-85% efficient.

Denmark’s grid is connected to hydro-rich Sweden and Norway. When the wind gets really strong, excess power is simply stored behind dams in Sweden and Norway for future use. In 2003, there were 9 occasions when wind produced power in excess of 85% of installed capacity, and one when the wind stopped. Danish wind turbines produce an average of 20% of their stated capacities, and the country is lucky to have neighbours happy to level their load. Wind currently supplies 19% of total electrical load and Denmark plans to go to 50% in future.

It is interesting to study a particular day and see the wind die down and gas powered or hydro plants kick in to support the load. It’s a complex problem that uses a kind of auction with highest prices during shortages and very low prices during surplus. The electricity into the grid must equal what is taken out at all times or the voltage will go unstable. Wind and solar are a special challenge because they can be unpredictable.

Environmentally, wind is squeaky-clean and doesn’t even take up any space if developed in farming areas. Cows happily graze under the towers and the farmer gets a nice monthly check. Wind is a real success story that didn’t start out well. Early windmills built in the 1970s had a kind of frenetic feel to them with fast spinning blades. Today’s giant towers are graceful, majestic,restful looking and much more reliable. Modern turbines have electronic monitoring of blade condition and can electronically signal for help before trouble develops. The energy used in building a wind turbine can be paid back in the first 7-9 months of operation.

Power output rises as the cube of wind velocity; so doubling wind velocity gives 8 times the power output. Power output also increases as the square of rotor diameter so large turbines in good locations really pay off. We already have towers as tall as a 35-story high-rise. As they get bigger they are more and more like a building. Instead of ladders, many now have elevators that lead to an equipment room inside the nacelle. Repairs can be done from inside the nacelle including generator replacement and gear repairs. Gearboxes tend to wear out in about 5 years, so some new designs are gearless. Wind power ratings in Watts are meaningless as they only apply at a very strong wind velocity. What really matters is average kilowatt-hours over the year. That is what we pay for and what should be used to estimate payback time.

Wind power is already cheaper than coal. The amazingly fast evolution of wind turbine design and cost effectiveness will continue, leaving coal power in the dust. Offshore wind promises another jump in reliable capacity factor. Possibly more pumped storage will have to be built to allow wind to continue to grow, but the cost of pumped storage is a drop in the bucket compared to the billions being spent trying to rescue the coal business with carbon capture and storage.

Modified from an article at the excellent Renewable Energy World.

THE PARALLEL UNIVERSES OF CLIMATE CHANGE

By Paul Gilding

Some days my head hurts, as I shift between what feels like two parallel universes in the climate change debate. First I have these conversations with world-class scientists who calmly lay out the scientific view of the various risks posed by climate change and their relative scale and likelihoods. They tell me the science says it is almost certain the impacts will be serious and destabilising for our society and our economy. The science also describes a lower level of risk – which they find hard to quantify but generally say between 10% and 50% – that the impacts of climate change will be catastrophic, perhaps even civilisation threatening. This could include widespread famine, war and economic collapse. Not certain, but a reasonable possibility.

It is very clear when you listen to these scientists and read their peer-reviewed reports that, on any calm and rational analysis, we should be preparing for a carbon reduction war. Yes, a war – with all that implies about focus, effort and sacrifice. The threat posed is, after all, a “clear and present danger” and the response should be strong, global and immediate. This should be a ‘whatever it takes’ moment.

Then I shift into the parallel universe. I spend time in corporate boardrooms and listen to the analysis of business executives who explain how we mustn’t damage the economy by “over-reacting”. They explain their concern about protecting jobs and economic growth, how we must not jeopardise “our” (insert India, China, South Africa, USA, Australia etc) national competitiveness by acting “early” because, after all, without a global solution what difference will our actions make anyway? When I engage with policy makers, even those supportive of climate action, I get only a marginally stronger response.

Of course, each of these arguments has its narrow appeal. There’s always a bit of truth and rationality, and that’s why people use them. But the collective consequence of these arguments is the real story here – the story that historians will tell. We have had the risk thoroughly analysed and explained to us and we are choosing, with endlessly shifting reasons for prevarication and delay, not to act commensurate to the level of risk.

I wonder what it was like in the lead up to WWII, the last time we had a serious and clear global threat. When Hitler invaded Poland, did Winston Churchill order an economic modelling exercise to understand the implications of spending over a quarter of GDP on the war effort? When Pearl Harbour was bombed, did US industry argue we shouldn’t over-react, that America shouldn’t respond until there was a global agreement to act so as to avoid a disproportionate share of the cost?

No, fortunately for us, that wasn’t their response. In fact, just four days after Pearl Harbour was bombed, the auto industry was ordered to cease all civilian production in order to focus on the war effort. Such actions soon spread across the economy. I imagine US political leaders thoughts were something like this: “Well damn the objectors, this is a threat to our freedom and to our way of life. In fact, this is such a profound threat we will throw everything we have at it and make it work, even though we don’t know whether we will succeed nor the costs of trying.” They would have said: “We will have to do this because if we don’t, our children will curse our lack of courage and our selfishness. If we act we may fail. But if we don’t act, we won’t be able to live with ourselves for not trying.”

In our present day to day lives, when the weather is a bit warmer than normal but often rather pleasant, and our economy is showing signs of improving, it is hard for most of us to think like this. The business leaders I talk to about this topic are not bad people. Nor are the policy makers grappling with the complexities of transforming an economy and the uncertainty of the outcomes. They are normal people with children and friends – they go to church, they volunteer in their communities and they care about the world. But they still fall for the easy way out, the path of denial and avoidance. Not because they’re bad people, but because they’re not thinking clearly and courageously.

My message on this topic is clear and direct. We are at a crucial moment in human history. 2009 is to climate change what 1939 was to WWII. Poland has been invaded – the Arctic is melting, the bushfires are burning, the droughts are strengthening and the floods are sweeping away communities. There is only one question you have to ask yourself: “what will I tell my children?”
So now, imagine yourself in 2030. The world is teetering on the edge of geopolitical and economic chaos (this is not a certainty, but it is certainly a reasonable risk). You are talking to your children (add 20 years to their current age) and explaining what it was like in 2009 – what the scientific consensus was and how you personally responded, then and there, when the reality became clear. What did you do in 2009 and why?

In 2030, the parallel universes will have closed and there will only be one left. It will be called reality and you and your children will be living in it. Imagine the conversation. Do it now, then decide what to do.

Paul Gilding is the former executive director of Greenpeace International

INTERVIEW WITH FRANNY ARMSTRONG, DIRECTOR OF "THE AGE OF STUPID"