Gwynne Dyer: Prioritize reducing coal emmissions as climate change solution, not niche issues | Straight.com

The major problem with airliners is not the carbon dioxide they produce as they fly—and in any case, that can be solved just by substituting some bio-fuel with a high enough energy content. Several such fuels are being experimented with now, and will almost certainly be commercially available in ten or fifteen years.

The real issue—three or four times bigger than the CO2 problem, by most estimates—is the water vapour that high-flying airliners dump into the stratosphere, which turns into persistent high-altitude clouds that reflect heat back to the surface and contribute to global warming.

The solution to that, obviously, is to fly lower than 8,000 metres—down in the weather, where the water vapour turns harmlessly into rain. But that means smaller wings, because the air is denser down there, and smaller wings mean longer takeoff and landing runs. Flying in the troposphere also means constant turbulence and a lot of airsickness bags.

Be Green - Stop Children! « Blowing Our Tax Dollars on Wind Farms

Another anti people post from the BBC. The writer of this story, like most green writers, just doesn’t get it. Humans live on the earth.

“Childbearing should be a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license.
All potential parents should be required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing.”
- David Brower, first Executive Director of the Sierra Club

Dirty Harry 4: When Harry Met Gill « Climate Audit

British Antarctic Survey Erases Harry Data
Yesterday, I observed that there was trouble with Harry, notifying readers that today's post was on the way. Triggered by this teaser, a reader pointed out that Gill and Harry had been spliced (something that I'd noticed yesterday and was one of the reasons why I put out a teaser for today's post). About 1 pm Eastern today, when I went to verify some information at BAS , I found (as a CA reader had also just observed) that BAS had erased the "New Harry" data and a correct Harry version suddenly appeared (different from either old Harry or new Harry) - which, in its way, is a pretty compelling verification of the points made above.