Saturday, August 09, 2008

Prepare for 4 C

The UK's Chief Scientist for their Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), Tom Watson, says EU goals are probably unrealistic and we need to prepare for a 4°C increase in world temperatures. That's an incredible 7°F.

The UK's former chief scientific advisor, David King, says
"My own feeling is that if we get to a 4 degree rise it is quite possible that we would begin to see a runaway increase."

3 comments:

charlesH said...

All those who really believe we are looking at 4dc should get behind nuclear power in general and LFTR in particular.

http://www.energyfromthorium.com/

Thorium is the green nuclear. Every nuclear plant we don't build is another coal plant.

charlesH said...

China likes nuclear. If they didn't these would all be coal plants.

"It is huge," [Westinghouse CEO Aris] Candris said in an interview Thursday with the Tribune-Review. "Originally we were thinking somewhere around 40."

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_575073.html

charlesH said...

Here is James Hansen on nuclear.

http://tinyurl.com/5e7xxw

“Bottom line: I can’t seem to agree fully with either the anti-nukes or Blees. Some of the anti-nukes are friends, concerned about climate change, and clearly good people. Yet I suspect that their ‘success’ (in blocking nuclear R&D) is actually making things more dangerous for all of us and for the planet. It seems that, instead of knee-jerk reaction against anything nuclear, we need hard-headed evaluation of how to get rid of long-lived nuclear waste and minimize dangers of proliferation and nuclear accidents. Fourth generation nuclear power seems to have the potential to solve the waste problem and minimize the others. In any case, we should not have bailed out of research on fast reactors. (BTW, Blees points out that coal-fired power plants are exposing the population to more than 100 times more radioactive material than nuclear power plants – some of it spewed out the smokestacks, but much of it in slag heaps of coal ash.”