helenk's blog http://www.operationnoah.org/blog/11/atom/feed 2008-05-20T09:19:11+00:00 New car registrations plummet 21% (6 October) http://www.operationnoah.org/news/climatechangenews/new-car-registrations-plummet-21-6-october 2008-10-06T12:00:05+00:00 2008-10-06T12:01:07+00:00 helenk New UK car registrations fell 21% in September, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) has announced.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/7654648.stm

 

]]> How to make the cap fit (3 October) http://www.operationnoah.org/news/climatechangenews/how-make-cap-fit-3-october 2008-10-06T09:39:18+00:00 2008-10-06T09:40:48+00:00 helenk The UN meeting at Copenhagen next year should focus on limiting the carbon emissions from a single sector first - the power producers.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2008/oct/03/network.carbonemissions

 

]]> London to Italy: our family's "No Flight" summer holiday http://www.operationnoah.org/blog/helenk/london-italy-our-familys-no-flight-summer-holiday 2008-10-02T16:07:16+00:00 2008-10-07T09:39:24+00:00 helenk I won't pretend that travelling with two children (10 and 7) by train from Balham (South London) to Lucca in Tuscany was totally stress free! ]]> I won't pretend that travelling with two children (10 and 7) by train from Balham (South London) to Lucca in Tuscany was totally stress free! But it was a joy to avoid air travel with its hermetically sealed airport waiting rooms, hermetically sealed tubes in the air, and endless waiting at security and passport control.

Yes, it took longer, but the waiting was far less because the journey, with its changing scenery and languages, became part of the adventure. My children got a sense for how far we travelled. And they relished the responsibility they shared with me for asking directions, buying tickets, following maps and signs and dealing with the luggage.

Overall the cost was something like £250 more than it would have been for the 3 of us by air, and all in all it probably took twice as long. But it was eminently worth it. We all loved the overnight train and we all slept well in the properly made-up beds. For my 7 year old daughter it was a bit like a wendy house on wheels.

The journey:

Departed Balham 10 am, arrived Lucca 12 pm the following day:

  • Balham to St Pancras by tube
  • St Pancras to Paris Gare du Nord by Eurostar 
  • Across Paris from Gare du Nord to Gare Bercy by RER (stopping for dinner in a restaurant on the way)
  • Gare Bercy on the overnight sleeper to Florence Campo di Marte
  • Across Florence from Campo di Marte to Santa Maria Novella by bus
  • Santa Maria Novella by local train to Lucca
]]> Rebuttal of Nigel Lawson's Case http://www.operationnoah.org/blog/helenk/rebuttal-nigel-lawson%C3%A2%E2%82%AC%E2%84%A2s-case 2008-05-08T11:34:42+00:00 2008-05-20T09:19:11+00:00 helenk ]]> At a recent session of the All-Party Parliamentary Climate Change Group, the speaker, Lester Brown, author of Plan B: 3.0, Mobilising to Save Civilisation, had a key message - that scientific findings have not found their way into political thinking. The truth of this could not be more sharply revealed than by Nigel Lawson's book An Appeal to Reason. In this book, he single-handedly, and inconsistently, tries to debunk a growing, international scientific body of evidence about the existence, and likely impacts of climate change.

A non-scientist and politician, Lawson asserts with great confidence that: "There is, indeed, a real question about the extent to which modern global warming science is genuine science at all", page 6.

Scientists have responded to this insult quite coolly. For example, Peter Stott, from the Met Office Hadley Centre in a letter to The Guardian, Tuesday, 6th May 2008, wrote in response to Lawson: "One simple result stands out from the data. Readings taken from land stations, the decks of ships and records of sea surface temperatures all show a long-term warming trend. Other observations, such as the retreating Arctic ice, demonstrate the effects of this human-induced warming. The message the data is telling us is very clear."

Even the shadow spokesperson for the Conservative Party, Peter Ainsworth, has distanced himself and the party from Lawson's commentary.

As to mitigating against the risks of catastrophic climate change, or adaptation to it, Lawson draws heavily on the prevailing economic view that future generations will be richer than we are. As a result, he claims, we should leave any potential costly adjustments to them because they will be better able to afford them... If they still have a choice of course. The gathering evidence on climate feedback loops for example is indicating, with ever-increasing certainty, that beyond certain tipping points, no amount of cash thrown at the problem will have any effect at all.

This book should be taken seriously by scientists and others for the fact that a lot of people are likely to read it and may give it credence, even though it is ill-argued and subjective (on the heat wave in Europe in 2003, during which thousands of people died from heat stress, Lawson notes: "As it happens, I spent the summer of 2003 in south-west France myself, and found it perfectly tolerable", page 34). People are afraid of climate change, but they are also afraid of what it will mean for their lives if we are to take serious action to avoid the worst effects. This populist book will serve to allay these fears and gather support for a business-as-usual approach. Those serious about protecting our civilisation and life on earth, scientists especially, cannot allow Lawson to go unchallenged.

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