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| Germany: Solar influence on climate in public spotlight |
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Surprisingly, a book co-written by a well-known former German environmental activist presents a strong revisionist story and is able to capture both headlines and spot on the best-seller list. I read the book “The cold sun: why the climate catastrophe is not happen” by Fritz Vahrenholt and Sebastian Lüning (VL) for a coherent revisionist argument.
The book was written with strong conviction and a very pervasive style. It is richly illustrated with charts displaying the time series of climatic and other variables. Not satisfied with the inability of climate models to predict shorter term climate variability on an annual to decadal scale, VL argue that the influence of solar activity and cosmic rays has been underestimated and are responsible for much of the warming observed fr...
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Posted by Edgar Hertwich at Wednesday, August 08, 2012
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| Unsustainable Developments |
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It seems like we right now are running hard from facing the truths and some associated pain, and that in at least two instances that are striking for their similarities: the global financial crisis and climate change. Let me begin with the financial crisis. The main problem of the financial crisis is that levels of debt have become too large and cannot be repaid by the original debtors. Lenders and many politicians are now desperately searching for others to take on these debts, and throughout the crisis unfortunately governments have been all too willing to take over the liabilities of banks and other financial institutions. They should not have done that!
How do I know that debt levels are too large? An analysis by McKinsey shows that debt levels have reached a new high in 2010 at 212...
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Posted by Edgar Hertwich at Thursday, December 22, 2011
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| Recognition for the Carbon Footprint |
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NATURE recently recognized the work presented in this web page, and more specifically the Carbon Footprint of Nations paper. In the category 'Community choice - the most viewed papers in science', the paper was reviewed under the title Where greenhouse gases start. At the same time, we got word that the Resource Panel Report Priority Products and Materials - which triggered the work presented here - has been downloaded over half a million times from the UNEP webservers since its launch in June. Not at all bad!
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Posted by Edgar Hertwich at Monday, December 13, 2010
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| Contributing to the IPCC |
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I have the great honor to be selected to serve on the IPCC as lead author of the fifth assessment report. It has always been my desire to contribute to addressing environmental problems. Climate Science is fascinating – the ways scientists have found to tease out evidence about past climate are amazing. It is scary to see how the various pieces of the puzzle – not all of them yet found or correctly placed – provide an increasingly complete and compelling picture that – in rich and unforeseen detail –confirms the basic physics laid out by the Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius 110 years ago.
My task is to contribute to the volume on Climate Change Mitigation – how to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases as to limit climate change to a not-too-disruptiv...
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Posted by Edgar Hertwich at Friday, July 30, 2010
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| UN Resource Panel highlights food and fossil fuel as global problems |
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It was my big day in Brussels: The deputy director of the United Nations Environment Programme, Angela Kropper, and the EU's Commissioner for the Environment, Janez Potocnik, were there for the launch of our report, The Environmental Impact of Production and Consumption: Priority Products and Materials. It was the request for the report that prompted me to work on the Carbon Footprint of Nations. The report was written by a working group of the Resource Panel and published by UNEP. The evening before we spent on our mobile phones, giving interviews to Reuters, the Guardian and other news outlets.
The story, as we framed it, was of a top-down assessment to identify the most important causes of environmental problems - the most important consumption categories, materials and industry sec...
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Posted by Edgar Hertwich at Wednesday, June 30, 2010
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| Top Environmental Policy Paper |
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The Carbon Footprint of Nations has been recognized as the Top Environmental Policy Paper in 2009 by Environmental Science & Technology (announcement).
It is a big honor for us to win that award. ES&T is the most important journal in environmental science and environmental technology, publishing 1500 papers in 2009. We were apparently among 80 papers nominated for the award. Most likely, the popular appeal and policy relevance of our paper was an important factor in our favor.
We have previously been awarded by ES&T. In 2007, Glen Peters and his collaboration parters won the award for their analysis of China's growing CO2 emissions, identifying the growth of the urban population and investment in infrastructure as important causes.
In 2005, Edgar Hertwich was the runner-up to the Top En...
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Posted by Edgar Hertwich at Thursday, March 11, 2010
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| Sharing the atmosphere |
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The Climate Conference in Copenhagen has ended as expected: with a political declaration instead of a legally binding agreement. Nonetheless, there seems to be wide-spread disappointment among the public. Commentators are busy portioning out blame for the failure of the negotiations, where the U.S., China, and the unwieldy UN procedures receive the largest shares. Those involved in the negotiations process see Copenhagen as a stepping stone rather than a finish line: they point out that the Copenhagen Accord keeps going the process towards a final agreement – scheduled for next winter’s meeting in Mexico City. Furthermore, as a first international document to trace developing country commitments, the Accord is necessary to get the US Senate to pass climate legislation. From my ...
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Posted by Edgar Hertwich at Monday, December 28, 2009
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| “Exported Emissions” at COP15 |
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The Guardian and industry actors call for considering Carbon Embodied in Trade as part of a climate deal at Copenhagen.
On December 7, 2009, 56 newspapers from 20 countries published a joint editorial calling world leaders to use the 14 days of climate negotiations in Copenhagen in order to come to an effective and fair agreement to limit climate change.
At the time I am writing this, it is too early to see whether the call will be heeded. The editorial points correctly to what has emerged as the core element of the negotiations: the need to fairly distribute the responsibility for reducing emissions. A critical passage of the editorial, calls for recognizing the issue of emissions embodied in trade:
Social justice demands that the industrialised world digs deep into its pockets and p...
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Posted by Edgar Hertwich at Monday, December 14, 2009
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