Monday, March 08, 2010

Six-day salt stockpile imposed on Bristol councils | Bristol News
The Government is to order councils in the Bristol area to hold a six-day stockpile of gritting salt to prevent chaos on the roads during cold snaps.

Just two weeks ago Bristol council continued to face problems as grit tubs across the city lay empty, despite continued wintry weather forecasts.
BBC News - Spring has sprung but where are all the daffodils?
...this year, the extreme cold weather has delayed England's daffodil season by up to four weeks, causing a shortage of the flowers.

And as Mother's Day approaches, a prime selling time for growers, farmers and suppliers fear they will miss out on profits.
Bristol news | Recycling minister brands Bristol's chip and bin plan 'naive'
The bins would be weighed each time they are emptied and the number of people living in each household taken into account.

The results would be logged on a website and if a household's target for cutting waste was reached, then they would receive a cheque at the end of the year from the city council. Residents would be rewarded up to a maximum of £17.50 per person per year.

Elsewhere in the country, some outraged householders have ripped out the microchips when similar schemes have been introduced, with councils being accused of spying.
Roger Pielke Jr.'s Blog: Bias in IPCC WGIII? A Guest Post by Richard Tol, Part III
Although the target becomes substantially more stringent, costs increase by only a little bit!

This is an amazing result. The models assessed by the IPCC all have that abatement costs grow and accelerate as targets become more stringent. Typically, doubling the rate of emission reduction would lead to a quadrupling of costs. The cost curve in SPM.6 (and SPM.4) bends the wrong way: Incremental costs fall as policy become stricter.

This was not picked up by the referees of the SPM because neither Table SPM.4 nor Table SPM.6 appeared in the drafts circulated for comment.

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