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Copenhagen
Mar. 16th, 2009 11:08 pmCopenhagen #1:
There was an important conference in Copenhagen last week - 2,500 international geo scientists and climate scientists met to compile a list of the latest findings, because the IPCC report from 2007, which is presumably the document international leaders will mainly look to when trying to come up with an international climate treaty in December, is based on data from before 2002, and therefore *badly* needs updating. If you only followed the German media, you could be forgiven to believe the conference didn't happen or wasn't very important; I found exactly *one* article in a major newspaper. The UK newspapers did better; so did blogs, but that was to be expected. Here's a small and somewhat random links roundup, mostly (but not exclusively) focusing on what scientists think, feel, and do about the situation, because I'm very interested in that - it's the most reliable seismograph of the situation I can imagine:
"World leaders told to act on climate before it's too late" - Times Online
"Top scientist: don't trust politicians on climate change" - Times Online
"Plan B: scientists get radical in bid to halt global warming ‘catastrophe’" - Times Online
"Scientists claim global warming ‘can be controlled’" - Times Online
- "Nicholas Stern: politicians have no idea of the impact of climate change" - Times Online. (Okay, so Stern's only an economist. But he apparently heard a lot of the talks at the conference, so he seems to have a pretty good idea of the issues at hand.)
"Scientists plan emergency summit on climate change" - Guardian. (I already linked to this a few weeks ago.)
"Climate change warning: 'We're sick of having our messages lost in political noise'" - Guardian
"Stern attacks politicians over climate 'devastation'" - Guardian
A whole bunch of articles at the Guardian
"World's leading scientists in desperate plea to politicians to act on climate change" - Telegraph (The Telegraph's placement of this article is quite funny: it's filed under "Home" and "Motoring." *snerk*)
Der einzige Artikel, den ich in den deutschen Zeitungen, die ich regelmäßig lese/überfliege, gefunden habe! - Süddeutsche Zeitung
"Climate change blues: how scientists cope" - Yahoo (Yes, I know yahoo is not a serious news source.)
"Can scientists save the world?" - Greenpeace blog
I am actually - tentatively - heartened to read about scientists getting angrier and more radical and outspoken. While I'm not certain that there is anything that will move politicians (and also the great masses of largely passive ordinary people) to act as decisively as the situation requires, I do think scientists who study this issue getting really, really blunt is a crucial link in the chain of events leading to the possibility of that type of change. So, here's to angry scientists!
A critical voice can be found here. And this is the same article again, on a different site - please scroll down for two reader comments that sum up my own reaction to this guy's opinion pretty well.
And here's why the IPCC report is problematic if relied on exclusively.
**
Copenhagen 2:
A shop here in the city has a sale on all porcelain! I've found Royal Copenhagen's Blue Fluted Mega marked down fifty percent!!! My parents have offered to give me two plates as a present! (They're still insanely expensive - not something I'd easily buy for myself. 40 euros per plate, here - but usually it's 80 per plate.)
To everyone who's wondering at all the wasteful spending going on in the House of Hmpf lately: these two plates - while inarguably expensive - do actually make a useful addition for me because they're soup plates and despite having inherited several sets of china from my grandma, none of them include soup plates.
The only - mild - regret here is that, this being a sale, my favourite designs were already sold out. Each Musselmalet Mega, err, Blue Fluted Mega plate comes in six different designs, and only three of those were left today.
There was an important conference in Copenhagen last week - 2,500 international geo scientists and climate scientists met to compile a list of the latest findings, because the IPCC report from 2007, which is presumably the document international leaders will mainly look to when trying to come up with an international climate treaty in December, is based on data from before 2002, and therefore *badly* needs updating. If you only followed the German media, you could be forgiven to believe the conference didn't happen or wasn't very important; I found exactly *one* article in a major newspaper. The UK newspapers did better; so did blogs, but that was to be expected. Here's a small and somewhat random links roundup, mostly (but not exclusively) focusing on what scientists think, feel, and do about the situation, because I'm very interested in that - it's the most reliable seismograph of the situation I can imagine:
"World leaders told to act on climate before it's too late" - Times Online
"Top scientist: don't trust politicians on climate change" - Times Online
"Plan B: scientists get radical in bid to halt global warming ‘catastrophe’" - Times Online
"Scientists claim global warming ‘can be controlled’" - Times Online
- "Nicholas Stern: politicians have no idea of the impact of climate change" - Times Online. (Okay, so Stern's only an economist. But he apparently heard a lot of the talks at the conference, so he seems to have a pretty good idea of the issues at hand.)
"Scientists plan emergency summit on climate change" - Guardian. (I already linked to this a few weeks ago.)
"Climate change warning: 'We're sick of having our messages lost in political noise'" - Guardian
"Stern attacks politicians over climate 'devastation'" - Guardian
A whole bunch of articles at the Guardian
"World's leading scientists in desperate plea to politicians to act on climate change" - Telegraph (The Telegraph's placement of this article is quite funny: it's filed under "Home" and "Motoring." *snerk*)
Der einzige Artikel, den ich in den deutschen Zeitungen, die ich regelmäßig lese/überfliege, gefunden habe! - Süddeutsche Zeitung
"Climate change blues: how scientists cope" - Yahoo (Yes, I know yahoo is not a serious news source.)
"Can scientists save the world?" - Greenpeace blog
I am actually - tentatively - heartened to read about scientists getting angrier and more radical and outspoken. While I'm not certain that there is anything that will move politicians (and also the great masses of largely passive ordinary people) to act as decisively as the situation requires, I do think scientists who study this issue getting really, really blunt is a crucial link in the chain of events leading to the possibility of that type of change. So, here's to angry scientists!
A critical voice can be found here. And this is the same article again, on a different site - please scroll down for two reader comments that sum up my own reaction to this guy's opinion pretty well.
And here's why the IPCC report is problematic if relied on exclusively.
**
Copenhagen 2:
A shop here in the city has a sale on all porcelain! I've found Royal Copenhagen's Blue Fluted Mega marked down fifty percent!!! My parents have offered to give me two plates as a present! (They're still insanely expensive - not something I'd easily buy for myself. 40 euros per plate, here - but usually it's 80 per plate.)
To everyone who's wondering at all the wasteful spending going on in the House of Hmpf lately: these two plates - while inarguably expensive - do actually make a useful addition for me because they're soup plates and despite having inherited several sets of china from my grandma, none of them include soup plates.
The only - mild - regret here is that, this being a sale, my favourite designs were already sold out. Each Musselmalet Mega, err, Blue Fluted Mega plate comes in six different designs, and only three of those were left today.
