Shaping Tomorrow's World

On Thursday next week the ABC (Australia, 26 April, 8:30pm AEST) will be airing the documentary I can change your mind about … climate, which has been attracting quite a bit of media attention already. Its main protagonists are two polar opposites: A conservative politician, former Senator Nick Minchin, and a young climate activist, the founder and chair of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition Anna Rose.

In a previous post, we saw that uncertainty is not your friend. In a nutshell, if there is uncertainty, things could be worse than anticipated as well as better.

The debate on the regulation of GM technology should be placed into a broader context.

The Australian Future fund is tasked with delivering high risk-adjusted returns on public funds, such as the Australian Government’s budget surpluses, in order to cover the Government’s unfunded superannuation liability arising from entitlements to public servants and defence personnel.

A few years ago I was standing next to a colleague preparing for Sunday church. Someone had just come in and asked us, as the leaders of the service, to ‘pray for rain’ for farmers who, at that stage, were experiencing a protracted drought. Now while I generally encourage people to pray for whatever they want, my colleague was insightful when he later quipped to me, ‘rather than praying for rain we ought to be praying for repentance’. He’d hit the nail on the head in the sense that prayer is really, first and foremost, about changing the human mind and heart rather than trying to change the mind of God (as if God arbitrarily interferes with nature anyway).

Das “Debunking Handbook,” daß John Cook und Stephan Lewandowsky for einigen Monaten auf Englisch produziert haben, ist inzwischen mehr als 465.000 mal heruntergeladen worden. Unter Anderem ist das “Handbook” von Richard Dawkins und Al Gore auf deren Internetseiten empfohlen worden.

Das “Handbook” ist jetzt auf Deutsch übersetzt worden, und wir machen es nun hier zum herunterladen verfügbar. Der deutsche Titel ist “Widerlegen: aber richtig!”

Wir bedanken uns sehr bei unseren ehrenamtlichen Übersetzern, Bärbel Winkler und Oliver Marchand, für ihre sehr detaillierte und ausführliche Arbeit.

Peter Boghossian is an expert on critical thinking, and in this video lecture he explores the relative merits of faith and evidence as tools to understand 'the truth'.

Ensuring that natural resources are consumed and waste is produced at sustainable rates represent major contemporary challenges. Recognition of these challenges resulted in the endorsement in 2000 of environmental sustainability as one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to be achieved by 2015. However, by 2003 global rates of consumption and waste production were estimated to be at least 25% higher than the capacity of the planet to provide resources and absorb waste (Kitzes, et al., 2007) and this rate may have risen as high as 50% by 2007 (WWF, 2010). A vital aspect of achieving sustainability is widespread social change, yet the current theoretical knowledge of societal transformation processes is limited. In order to improve nations’ environmental performance, a better understanding of socioeconomic and behavioural forces driving such unsustainable development is required.

Who hasn’t heard the phrase “in today’s dollars”? We all know that this refers to the price of goods being adjusted to reflect the passage of time.

When we published the Debunking Handbook, I have to admit, we completely underestimated the impact it would make. A few days after the launch, it suddenly went viral with over 150,000 downloads in a single day. This week, it just ticked over 400,000 downloads. We always planned that the Handbook would be useful not just for climate myths but for communicators having to deal with any type of misinformation. Nevertheless, it was surprising to see the Handbook featued on websites as diverse asRichard Dawkins and Silobreaker. A website devoted to debunking MLM myths saw it as "useful when debating with brainwashed members of MLM organizations". A Muslim forum speculated that it "Should be useful when engaging people who believe lies about Islam". Currently, several educators are looking to integrate it into their curriculum.

Whereas most species of bears hibernate, Australians indulge in estivation instead, preferring slightly cooler beaches to their offices, especially when university air conditioning is turned down or off.

The fact that health costs will consume the entire State Government budget in less than 25 years is a wicked problem* that precipitated the South Australian (SA) Government to explore a new approach to improving the health and wellbeing of the population.

Much current thinking about climate change and renewable energy has been based on rational economic theory and standard modelling. A core assumption of this approach is that individuals always seek to maximise their utility; however, in many fields where human behaviour plays a substantial intervening role—such as finance, health, or taxation—this assumption has been shown to be flawed. It must therefore be of concern that the same flawed assumption is prominent in the response to climate change.

The Australian sustainable business market will grow to $2.9bn in 2014 from $1.6bn in 2010, according to a new report from independent analyst firm Verdantix. Their report, issued on 19 April 2011, goes on to quote author Susan Clarke that “... carbon regulations, rising energy prices and natural resource scarcity also create new market opportunities. Innovative firms ... already benefit from the market for energy efficiency and carbon management."

The climate talks in Durban have drawn to a close at around 5AM local time after a marathon all-night session.

In the final week in Durban a sense of frustration is permeating the COP, where aspirations for a global deal remain high, but expectations swing between mildly hopeful and almost absent.

There is a climate conference on in Durban, South Africa. This event has been difficult to miss because it has been accompanied by the usual distractions: First, we had another release of stolen personal correspondence among climate scientists (the two-year old rejects from the “climategate” non-scandal), presumably in the hope that this would torpedo the climate negotiations. No one has shown much interest in this very transparent attempt to malign scientists.

The beachside city of Durban is packed, with 10,000 people from 194 countries in town for the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to negotiate the next step in the process of the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Professor Wendy Bacon and a team of researchers have published a report on the coverage of climate change in the Australian media.

The research is based on a comprehensive review of 3971 media articles which were published in ten Australian newspapers on the topic of climate change policy, during the period February 2011 and July 2011.

Key Findings of the research are at the front of the report. They include:

Failure at the Copenhagen and Cancun climate change conferences in 2009 and 2010 can be put down, broadly, to two reasons: concerns by developing countries about what binding emission reduction targets might mean for their economic development, and the deadlock over post-2012 targets for developed countries.

I was recently asked to talk about Western Australia in 2031 focussing on climate change. Before I spoke on this topic I made two important points: firstly, that due to the convergence of various critical trends at the global scale, it is difficult to make any kind of reasonable guess for 2020, let alone 2031; and secondly, even a future without global warming or peak energy promises to be scary because of these trends.

The Debunking Handbook, a guide to debunking misinformation, is now freely available to download. Although there is a great deal of psychological research on misinformation, there's no summary of the literature that offers practical guidelines on the most effective ways of reducing the influence of myths. The Debunking Handbook boils the research down into a short, simple summary, intended as a guide for communicators in all areas (not just climate) who encounter misinformation.

The Handbook explores the surprising fact that debunking myths can sometimes reinforce the myth in peoples' minds. Communicators need to be aware of the various backfire effects and how to avoid them, such as:

The Debunking Handbook is an upcoming guide to debunking myths, by John Cook and Stephan Lewandowsky. Although there is a great deal of psychological research on misinformation, unfortunately there is no summary of the literature that offers practical guidelines on the most effective ways of reducing the influence of misinformation. This Handbook boils down the research into a short, simple summary, intended as a guide for communicators in all areas (not just climate) who encounter misinformation. The Handbook will be available as a free, downloadable PDF at the end of this 6-part blog series.

This post has been cross-posted at Skeptical Science.

Dr Phil Lawn visited recently from Flinders University and gave a lecture at UWA. The audio-video recording of the lecture can be found here, and the abstract of his talk is shown below.

This is the full text of a written submission to the independent inquiry into media and media regulation, which commenced public hearings in Melbourne on 7 November 2011.

Series of articles on State of the Science

at The Conversation has kicked off

All pieces can be found through this page.

(The remainder of this post summarizes the series and was originally posted before the series started.)

This is the text of a speech given by John Connor at Notre Dame University in Fremantle, Western Australia, on 28 September. It is reproduced in full with the exception of some introductory remarks.

The financial woes of 2008-9 are expected to be minor compared to 2012 and beyond. My understanding of the state of global finances, based on discussion with people who understand the economy, combined with my knowledge of resources, food production, technology and climate change, leads me to conclude that we are on the cusp of ‘peak growth’.

Helium is the second most abundant element in the known universe, after hydrogen. Strangely, however, a shortage of helium will be faced in the near future (Scholes, 2011).

It appears self-evident that democracy functions best if its citizens share a common reality. There is common agreement that society stands to benefit from diversity of opinions, but most people also appear to agree that a society would suffer when segments of the population operate within a fictional social world that is disconnected from reality.

This is introducing yet another new type of StW post; namely, a pointer to a lecture recorded during an event (usually here at UWA). Those post are identified by the new icon at the top right:

I entered the debate on climate, energy and food because I am concerned about the planet and our future. Understandably, emotions run high and some views are extreme. At one extreme some people deny that the climate is warming and others deny that we are causing it, despite overwhelming scientific consensus to the contrary. Among such deniers are people in the business and political sectors, who fear the loss of livelihoods and prosperity.

Back in late May 2011, there were news stories of charges of manslaughter laid against six earthquake experts and a government advisor responsible for evaluating the threat of natural disasters in Italy, on grounds that they allegedly failed to give sufficient warning about the devastating L'Aquila earthquake in 2009. In addition, plaintiffs in a separate civil case are seeking damages in the order of €22.5 million (US$31.6 million). The first hearing of the criminal trial occurred on Tuesday the 20^th of September, and the second session is scheduled for October 1^st.

Some of you may know of the story related by the famous psychiatrist specialising in death and dying, the late Dr Elizabeth Kübler-Ross. She described how she had noticed that some of her patients in her hospital in Chicago were happier and more at peace on certain days. She discovered that this coincided with the days that an uneducated elderly black cleaning lady sat on their beds, occasionally held their hands and chatted and laughed with the patients. In particular there was one dying lady on oxygen who was in pain and in denial about her impending death who expressed concern to the cleaner that plugging in the vacuum cleaner might spark an explosion. The astute cleaner recognised this worry as a call for help with her fear of dying and seized the moment to explore her thanatophobia.

Australia’s CO2 emissions are among the highest in the world, when expressed on a per capita basis. When our historical responsibilities are taken into account, we are 14^th—out of about 200 countries in the world. Nonetheless, political figures and the media like to point fingers at other countries whose per capita emissions are even higher than ours. For example, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) spew out nearly 30 tonnes of CO2 per capita, compared to our 19 tonnes (but don’t rejoice—the Swiss get by with about 5 tonnes, or nearly 75% less than us!).

A few months ago I attended the formal launch and information session, at UWA, for this blog site that you are reading. One of the speakers introduced a perspective on the whole conversation around energy use and climate change which I found challenging and helpful. The essential argument, if I understood correctly, is that introducing more renewable energy into the system is not, of itself, going to resolve climate and other sustainability challenges, unless there is, at the very least, a corresponding reduction in energy production from all sources.

Andrew Craig hit the start-button on a balmy Albany April day. His Landcruiser unhooked from the household power, then the twin electric motors cut in and moved it quietly down the drive. The silence disturbed some people when HydroElectrics first took over the V8 market, so they’d bought the audio option that simulated the sound of a historical V8 engine. Now the only time you’d hear anything like that was when the amplified “chugga, chugga, chugga” of a Harley Electro Hog drifted through the open window.

Before we can consider whether there are limits to economic growth, we first need to understand what is meant by the term ‘economic growth’. In conventional terms, economic growth means either the growth in a nation’s real GDP (an increase in a nation’s output of goods and services) or the physical expansion of the nation’s economy (note: the two are not the same) (see Lawn, 2007a). So, when people refer to economic growth, what they really mean is either ‘growth of real output’ or ‘growth of the economy’.

It’s beginning to add up. After some period of uncertainty, the picture that emerges is beginning to fit into the neo-McCarthyite pattern of attack on scientists that has become all too common in the United States.

As Carmen Lawrence has pointed out here in her series on economic growth and human well-being, the issue of climate change is directed related to that of economic growth. Our endless quest for growth is leasing us up against planetary limits in resources (resource limits) and in the earth’s capacity to absorb the outputs of that growth (sink limits). Climate change is essentially an atmospheric sink limit that demonstrates the planet’s growing inability to absorb further emissions of carbon dioxide without significant disruption to the climate system. Growth and climate change are running into each other and this impasse will not be solved without a transformation in the way we define, measure and regulate economic growth.

Discussion of the proposed carbon tax is practically inescapable for most Australians at the moment, but the proliferation of information doesn’t mean that things become more understandable.

In two recent posts (here and here), colleague David Hodgkinson eloquently presented the case for nuclear power as one strategy to deal with climate change. Rather than revisiting all arguments in favour of nuclear power or against it, he focused on three core issues: (a) expense, (b) nuclear waste, and (c) militarization. In addition, Hodgkinson suggests that unless we put in place an infrastructure now, an ostensibly “cheap” nuclear power option will be precluded when the world gets serious about emission cuts within the next 10 years or so.

Some time ago we introduced the Earthworker Cooperative, a cooperative dedicated to providing finance, assistance with marketing strategy, R&D and networking of the various, loose strands of the social sector of the Australian economy. Their goal is to create a powerful force for the collective good, on behalf of its member cooperatives, unions, shire councils, faith-based communities and individuals.

An earlier post set out the climate change problem. This post sets the role of nuclear power, or nuclear energy, in addressing that problem. My argument is that nuclear power (with renewable energy) is an important option for achieving electricity production with a small carbon footprint – for reducing emissions.

Fresh on the heels of our "in the news" items, we introduce another type of post, called "Point and Counterpoint", identified by this icon:

PART I

I set out here the climate change problem and the role of nuclear power, or nuclear energy, in addressing that problem. My argument is that nuclear power (with renewable energy) is an important option for achieving electricity production with a small carbon footprint – for reducing emissions. As a report from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2009 makes clear,

Given the mass of conflicting information surrounding Australia’s climate change policy; one might want to try to find out what the rest of the world really is doing. Unfortunately, currently missing from the online information about climate change policies around the world is one non partisan website that compares and contrasts the policy action being undertaken by governments around the world. However, there are various Wikipedia sites that do a reasonable job of aggregating ETS, RETs, carbon tax and other policy instruments commonly utilised around the world. These include;

A reader recently emailed us and posed the following very good question: "The jump from academic and worthy discussion to our daily discourse is so vast a leap. How do we go about infusing our daily conversations with real information and thoughtful opinion."

Three seemingly unconnected news items caught my attention this week, but they each tell us something about the stresses on our world.

Well before the recent fuss about increases in energy prices, the reduction of electricity use by households and businesses had already been identified as an important national policy goal, with benefits for the climate, the electricity supply sector, business costs and household budgets. However, despite increasing costs to both users and producers and warnings about the impacts of climate change, consumption of electricity continues to rise and is predicted to continue rising over the coming decades. This increased demand, and the need to shift away from fossil fuel sources, is driving costly investment in the electricity generation and distribution networks, further increasing the cost of power. These higher electricity prices, in turn, are causing heightened community sensitivity to price, and problems for some household budgets, particularly those of low income earners (although as a proportion of household budgets, power costs are not rising). While the probable effects on prices of the introduction of a price on carbon are being wildly exaggerated by the tabloid press and political opportunists (and the compensation overlooked), it is clear that helping households and businesses cut their electricity consumption would assist in reducing the impact of rising prices. And by all accounts, there is plenty of room to move without compromising current standards of convenience and comfort.

Examples in the media of regular beachgoers who see no evidence for sea-level rise, farmers trusting long-term experience over Bureau of Meteorology forecasting, and Antarctic sea-captains whose memories of pack-ice from years past conflict with reported trends in ice-contraction, all provide grist to the mill for those who are skeptical about the scientific basis of anthropogenic global warming (AGW).

News outlets have recently been busy reporting a new paper in Nature Geoscience from a Japanese team documenting very large amounts of Rare Earth Elements (REE) in the mud at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

One of the most studied topics in the field of economics is the impact of a per-unit tax when it is applied to one product and not to others. It is well understood that such a tax increases the costs of production for the taxed product thereby leading to an increase in its price. This discourages demand for the taxed product while encouraging the consumption of alternatives.

In the wake of the Fukushima disaster, Germany has decided to phase-out its nuclear power plants by 2022. Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that Germany would need to replace a substantial amount of this phased-out energy with coal and natural gas power plants.

What a week it’s been for the climate debate in Australia. The furore surrounding Christopher Monckton’s visit, the letter signed by 50 academics calling for a cancellation of his speaking engagements, the ensuing backlash against those petitioners by readers of The West Australian and of course Tony Abbott’s very public swipe at the calibre of our leading economists.

The emphasis on growth as the pre-eminent social goal has seen rises in inequality within societies. In developed economies, the degree of income inequality has been shown to be associated with a wide variety of health and social problems, including reduced trust and civic engagement, which may themselves reduce overall well-being. One of the consequences of the tendency for people to assess their position relative to others – rather than in absolute terms - is that high levels of inequality in wealth and income are likely to produce greater levels of unhappiness. More people see themselves as losing out, even when they are well off. While there is continuing debate about the exact nature of the relationship, a recent study (Verme, 2011) which investigated a very large global sample found that income inequality has “a negative and significant effect on life satisfaction” and that the result “persists across different income groups and across different types of countries” (p 111). Wilkinson and Pickett (2010) argue that such ill effects of income inequality are not the result of income differences per se but rather are a consequence of social stratification and the associated “social evaluative stress” people experience.

The myth that renewable energy sources can't meet baseload (24-hour per day) demand has become quite widespread and widely-accepted. After all, the wind doesn't blow all the time, and there's no sunlight at night. However, detailed computer simulations, backed up by real-world experience with wind power, demonstrate that a transition to 100% energy production from renewable sources is possible within the next few decades.

(This is a two-part post on communicating about probability and uncertainty in climate change. Read Part I.)

The first-ever official meeting of Ministers of Agriculture from G20 countries, to be held in Paris on June 22-23, presents an extraordinary opportunity. Tasked with developing an action plan to address price volatility in food and agricultural markets and its impact on the poor, the ministers are uniquely positioned to not only tackle the immediate price volatility problems, but also to take on a more fundamental and long-term challenge—extreme poverty and hunger.

So you've worked hard with solar passive design concepts to achieve an 8 or 9 star rated house and you feel comfortable you won't be needing any air-conditioning. You've got layers of insulation, double glazed windows, they are in the right spots to keep the sun out in summer and let it in during winter, you can make use of the lovely cooling breeze, and it's so air tight you could take it to Mars and be comfortable. You've also dropped a massive polished concrete slab on the ground for thermal mass, keeping things nice and warm in winter. You've then complemented the lovely house with a lovely solar hot water system (perhaps Australian made) and maybe even some solar photovoltaic power panels.

How many wake up calls do we need? The latest International Energy Agency figures, published recently in The Guardian newspaper, show global carbon emissions are at their highest ever levels.

Australia's sum total of historical emissions places us near the top of the world's polluters. Despite our small population and the relatively small size of our economy, across history, we have emitted more CO2 from burning of fossil fuels than 94% of all other countries.

The ‘green revolution’ and industrialisation of agriculture led to huge increases in crop production around the world. Now the pressure is on to feed 3 billion extra mouths in the next 40 years while the climate changes and the costs of energy and resources escalate. As a plant geneticist and physiologist, I see the future contribution to be made by plant breeders as valuable, but quantitatively small. Instead, changes in the expectations and actions of people will play the major role in steering us through some challenging decades ahead. Here I summarise some of the issues that will challenge food production and suggest that our greatest need is to recognise that ‘business as usual’ is not an option.

Professor Ross Garnaut, the nation’s chief independent climate advisor, doesn’t believe in worrying about the things he cannot change. He just works “quite hard” on the things he can. Western Australians were treated to an example of his hard work yesterday as he packed 3 engagements into half a day in Perth.

It has often been claimed that Australian annual CO2 emissions are such a tiny fraction of the world’s total, around 1.5%, that there is no need for us to take action. If we are only responsible for such a small proportion, why should we bother with a carbon tax or emissions trading scheme?

(This is a two-part post on communicating about probability and uncertainty in climate change. Read Part II.)

About a month ago, we unveiled Shaping Tomorrows World, a website dedicated to exploring solutions to the multiple crises and challenges that are currently facing our societies.

Why Earthworker Cooperative?

Leading public health organisations and the peer reviewed health literature have increasingly recognised the serious impacts for our health and quality of life should we fail to tackle climate change.

Let’s face it. The 1960’s were a time of radical change. And what we need today, like it or not, is another substantial transformation of our societies—from our current fossil-fuel based economies to an alternative means of economic productivity that is based on other sources of energy.

In all the to and fro of the current carbon pricing debate here in Australia, one important aspect of the story on climate action is missing.

Britain has just announced an emissions reduction target of 50% by 2025. Germany has adopted a renewable energy target of 35% by 2020 and 80% by 2050. Japan is talking about moving away from fossil fuels and nuclear energy, toward renewables. Even China is investing in equally massive amounts of fossil fuel and renewable energy capacity. These are four of the top ten economies and greenhouse gas emitters of the world. Certainly they could be doing more, but they are leaving Australia for dead.

News updates on Germany’s renewables achievements and objectives to 2020 caught my attention because I had recently drafted a policy paper on solar PV feed in tariffs in WA, and naturally a quick literature review highlighted Germany as the pace setter in clean energy policy delivery and outcomes.

The tactics and techniques for manufacturing doubt in the face of a scientific consensus were perfected by major tobacco companies during the 1950’s and 60’s, in their efforts to discredit cancer researchers’ burgeoning evidence of the link between smoking and lung cancer. In his 1995 book “Cancer Wars,” Robert Proctor documented the influences of professional, economic, and political interest groups on American governmental priorities and funding of cancer research. An infamous 1969 memo from one corporate executive declared that “Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the mind of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy.”

This week’s Australian budget, with its withdrawal of subsidies for renewable energy, has left many commentators wondering if we’ve turned our back on carbon-neutral power. They should focus on the main game – the introduction of a carbon tax later this year. Without this, our renewable industry really will be left behind.

Ecological Footprint Analysis and Obesity

Posted on 11 May 2011 by Glenn Albrecht

Modern humans have rapidly changed the conditions that were prevalent during their emergence as a species some 200,000 years ago. For tens of thousands of years humans lived within the constraints of their bioregions and made adaptive adjustments to climatic and biophysical changes. Within the last 10,000 years, humans have successfully colonised nearly every type of ecosystem and bioregion on the planet.

Read more... 2 comments

Environmentalism: The Case for Radical Incrementalism

Posted on 8 May 2011 by Stephan Lewandowsky

Clive Hamilton makes a strong case in favour of a radical environmentalism. Citing the suffragettes and the U.S. civil rights movement as precedent, he proposes a similar radicalism as the way forward for the environmentalist movement, and in particular for stimulating long overdue action on climate change.

What Can I Do?

Posted on 7 May 2011 by Anne Young

What can I do to reduce my carbon footprint? There has been much talk and public debate about taxes, trading schemes, emission cuts and jobs lost or gained. Putting all that aside, what role can each individual play in reducing one’s carbon footprint?

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Environmentalism: The Case for Radicalism

Posted on 6 May 2011 by Clive Hamilton

The difficulty and importance of the global warming campaign is many times greater than every other environmental struggle. Controlling carbon pollution requires a wholesale industrial restructuring and defeat of the most powerful industry coalition ever assembled.

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Economic Growth and Human Wellbeing (Part III)

Posted on 5 May 2011 by Carmen Lawrence

(This post is the final post of a three-part series. See Part 1: Introduction and Part 2: Revisiting Limits to Growth.)

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Economic Growth and Human Wellbeing (Part II)

Posted on 3 May 2011 by Carmen Lawrence

(This post is the second of a three-part series. See Part 1: Introduction and Part 3: The Psychological Down Side of Growth.)

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Economic Growth and Human Wellbeing (Part I)

Posted on 1 May 2011 by Carmen Lawrence

Economic Growth and Human Wellbeing in Three Parts

The current debate about our planetary future is infused with fear that we may lose some economic prosperity during the transition to a low-carbon economy. Although those fears are largely misplaced, it is nonetheless important to examine to what extent our wellbeing as a species relies on economic growth. Do we need growth to be happy?

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The Importance of Conversational Frames

Posted on 28 April 2011 by Stephan Lewandowsky

Societies rely on tacit “frames” to conduct and understand conversations. One popular frame in Western democracies is the notion of “balance”—the idea that all sides of an issue deserve to be heard and that solutions can be found by balancing their demands and needs. This idea entails the assumption that all sides have a roughly symmetrical entitlement to be heard.

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Acceptance of Science and Ideology

Posted on 28 April 2011 by Stephan Lewandowsky

President Barack Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961. Recent U.S. surveys reveal that only 1 in 3 Republicans accept this simple fact, notwithstanding the incontrovertible evidence provided by something as straightforward as a Hawaiian birth certificate. The remaining 2 out of 3 Republicans either believe that President Obama was born outside the United States (between 45% and 51%, depending on the particular poll) or they profess uncertainty about his place of birth.

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Cutting Emissions and Growing the Economy

Posted on 23 April 2011 by Dana Nuccitelli

Putting a price on carbon emissions is often discussed as one of the main solutions to anthropogenic global warming. Carbon dioxide is a pollutant and in economic theory, pollution is considered a negative externality – a negative effect on a party not directly involved in a transaction, which results in a market failure. The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change concluded that climate change represents "the greatest example of market failure we have ever seen."

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Energy is neither renewable nor sustainable

Posted on 21 April 2011 by Steven Smith

The pressure is on to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to slow climate change. The way proposed by most people is to switch away from fossil fuels to alternatives such as wind, solar, tidal and geothermal. Such alternative energy sources are often described as ‘renewable’ or ‘sustainable’. This terminology implies to most people that such alternatives can meet our energy demands in perpetuity, without polluting the environment. This is wrong, and will lead to serious errors in policy making.

Shaping Tomorrow's World

Posted on 6 April 2011 by Stephan Lewandowsky

Our planet is finite. We have 510,072,000 km² of surface area to sustain all human economic and social activity. We have 510,072,000 km²to support all of life. Nothing will change this physical limit. Our economy is based on growth. A fundamental tenet of capitalism is a continually growing economy that produces more and more goods. Indeed, per capita world economic output (GDP) has increased nearly 20-fold since 1960. During the same period, the world's population has increased from 3 billion to nearly 7 billion.

A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050

Posted on 4 April 2011 by Dana Nuccitelli

We recently examined how Australia can meet 100% of its electricity needs from renewable sources by 2020. Here we will examine how that goal can be scaled up for the rest of the world.

A Convention for Persons Displaced by Climate Change

Posted on 31 March 2011 by David Hodgkinson

Climate change displacement refers to population migration caused by the effects of climate change, which include rising sea levels, heavier floods, more frequent and severe storms, drought and desertification.

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Series of articles on State of the Science

at The Conversation has kicked off

All pieces can be found through this page.

PART I

Why Earthworker Cooperative?

Economic Growth and Human Wellbeing in Three Parts