"We have a choice to condemn ourselves to an energy abyss in the name of the status quo and lack of enlightened leadership, or we can choose to develop alternatives. John Hofmeister former president of Shell Oil"

"I think in this regard, we are missing in the whole construct, a meaningful voice of government as an intermediary and an enabler to a better future when it comes to fuel choice."

"The US has been crippled for 7 years by high-priced fuel; the government has done nothing to speak of to address the issue."

"In November 2006, I sat at the back of the Barn Cinema, Dartington, and watched ‘An Inconvenient Truth‘. It had such an impact on me that by the time it ended, I had decided that I couldn’t just leave the cinema without marking the event by making some kind of change in my life. I decided that evening not to fly again, and I haven’t flown since."

"I have played an active part in supporting the growth of an international movement in 40 countries since then, participating in countless workshops, and discussing Transition internationally through Skype and pre-recorded talks, most of which I begin with how much carbon I have saved by not travelling in person."

"However, I recently watched the film ‘Chasing Ice’, and it had, if anything, a more visceral impact than ‘An Inconvenient Truth’. My resolution at the end of watching it, re-enforced by the recent passing, for the first time, of 400 ppm of C02 in the atmosphere, was that it was time to get back on a plane"

"Powell examined nearly 14,000 abstracts, searching for explicit rejections of human-caused global warming, finding only 24. We took this approach further, also looking at implicit rejections, no opinions, and implicit/explicit endorsements."

"Each paper was rated independently at least twice, with the identity of the other co-rater not known. A dozen team members completed most of the 24,000+ ratings. There was no funding provided for this project; all the work was performed on a purely voluntary basis."

"A 2012 poll from US Pew Research Center found less than half of Americans thought that scientists agreed that humans were causing global warming. One contributor to this misperception is false balance in the media, particularly in the US, where most climate stories are 'balanced' with a 'skeptic' perspective. However, this results in making the 3% seem much larger, like 50%."

"Fish and other sea life have been moving toward Earth’s poles in search of cooler waters, part of a worldwide, decades-long migration documented for the first time by a study released Wednesday."

"While larger boats can reach those fish populations in cooler, deeper water farther offshore, smaller boats cannot"

"We’re seeing significant declines in the number of boats that can fish. The crews that go along with that, they’re out of work"

"Private insurers paid only 25% of the $139 billion damages"

"Federal spending related to climate disruption falls into two major categories: Storms and droughts."

"The true scorekeepers of climate risk—the insurance industry—realizes it can’t win when the dice are increasingly loaded with carbon pollution, so it’s walking away from the table, leaving taxpayers holding the bag. Last year that cost amounted to over $1100 per taxpayer, and we can expect to see even higher costs in future as CO₂ concentrations continue to soar past 400 parts per million."

"When Lord Stern warned us last week that climate change will make hundreds of millions homeless, I was reminded of Lynas' horrifying scenario and the Thomas paper."

"The Kalahari Desert ..... becomes a true hyper-arid desert once again, complete with raging sandstorms and rapidly diminishing vegetation."

"Botswana may be the worst hit, but Namibia, Angola, part of Zambia and a small area of Zimbabwe are all badly affected."

"Genieve Long recalled the fear of waking to her 5-year-old son 'wheezing and struggling to breathe' a few days after an oil spill hit her town of Mayflower, Arkansas."

"Tests in the days after the spill identified some 30 toxic chemicals in Mayflower. The chemicals detected in the samples match the health impacts experienced both in the immediate neighborhood of the spill, and in the surrounding community."

"Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel is now expressing his concerns for the health of Mayflower residents, as well as his frustrations with ExxonMobil for not taking extra steps to safeguard the public or to adequately compensate residents whose property or health has already been harmed."

"Students from the State University of New York (SUNY) School of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, NY held their 2013 graduation ceremony yesterday. Dr. Sandra Steingraber was given an honorary doctoral degree for her life's work on environmental health and science, including her work to fight fracking in New York. She was given a standing ovation for her inspirational speech and called on our future environmental scientists to take action."

"What an amazing moment. Thank you. And what makes this a special honor for me is not just that SUNY-ESF is the nation’s oldest and most venerable college of environmental science, which is my field of study, too, but also that its official motto consists of the three words that I happen to live by.Those words—for the guests here who may not know them—are not a Latin phrase about the nature of truth and wisdom. They are a set of simple directions in English. Improve your world."

"The trouble will come when they try to migrate into new lands, however. That will bring them into armed conflict with people already living there. Nor will it be an occasional occurrence."

"Scientists have warned for decades of the danger of allowing industrial outputs of carbon dioxide to rise unchecked."

"The last time the Earth's atmosphere had 400ppm carbon dioxide, the Arctic was ice-free and sea levels were 40 metres higher."

The changes will take decades or (for sea-level) even centuries. But they are like a super-tanker - once started they are almost impossible to reverse ....[Ian]

"The US-based energy technology company SheerWind claims that, during tests, their 'Invelox' wind turbine generated six times as much energy as its traditional equivalent, as well as with cheaper costs that allow it to compete with natural gas and hydropower."

"According to a news release by SheerWind the Invelox wind turbine can also:

- operate at wind speeds 'as low as 1 mile per hour'
- features an installation cost of 'less that $750 per KW'
- increases 'energy production capacity to record high of 72%'
- minimised environmental impacts"

"As with all emergent energy technologies, especially those claiming a performance breakthrough, there results need to be treated with caution. Especially as 'SheerWind makes the claim based on its own comparative tests, the precise methodology of which is not entirely clear.' Large-scale availability of the Invelox turbine is slated for 2014."

"In 2010, the number of public relations specialists in the U.S. had risen to an all time high of 320,000. By contrast, the number of reporters had fallen to a low of 58,500."

"Free content on the Internet has eroded the number of staff writers and newscasters and lent traction to corporate interests, it has given rise to a volunteer corps of citizen journalists, muckrakers, and filmmakers."

"The fight over the cause and consequences of methane seeping into private water wells in Susquehanna County is one example of an issue that could stand a little more legal leverage from professional news outlets"

In California, NREL have been evaluating the possible advantages for using Solar CSP with storage as 'peaker' plants. The results are surprisingly good.

Ambri are looking to have a full sized working prototype of their liquid metal battery on display next year.

But Isentropic, from the UK, are already building their full sized demonstration unit there and claim the containerised units will store 6MWh of electricity for R0.32 per KWh. So when the wind blows at night wind power plants could be storing their unwanted electricity for sale during peak demand hours later on. Similarly unwanted power from morning sunlight can be stored for the evening.

"Unchecked burning of fossil fuels has driven carbon dioxide to levels not seen for 3m years when, the sediments show, temperatures were 8°C higher than today, lush forests covered the tundra and sea levels were up to 40m higher than today."

"Sixteen shipping containers of equipment had to be hauled 90km over snow by bulldozers from the nearest ice road, used by gold miners."

The 'Polar amplification' mentioned in the article is the factor that must be applied to global temperature changes to calculate the change in polar regions. This is currently estimated at 2 for the Arctic. So 8°C would mean 4°C globally. But it could be higher or lower, we simply don't know accurately enough yet.....[Ian]

"Amid growing concerns that South Africa’s economy will be further hamstrung by another round of Eskom load-shedding, government and the private sector are quietly taking the next step in the country’s renewable energy journey."

"The second bid window for the procurement of 1 043.9 MW of renewable energy capacity from independent power producers reached financial close on Thursday. It clears the way for the construction of seven new wind farms and nine solar energy projects worth a collective R28bn and will be a step toward alleviating the country’s energy shortage."

"'It may be small in the scheme of things, but over the next 36 months, more than 2 500MW of green energy will be added to the grid,' says Peter Venn, MD of Windlab Developments. 'The advantage of most renewable energy projects is that they are much faster to construct than fossil-fired facilities.' he says. They are also financed with private capital."

"For the sake of our children and our future, we must do more to combat climate change. Yes, it’s true that no single event makes a trend. But the fact is, the 12 hottest years on record have all come in the last 15. Heat waves, droughts, wildfires, floods – all are now more frequent and more intense."

"We can choose to believe that Superstorm Sandy, and the most severe drought in decades, and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen were all just a freak coincidence. Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science – and act before it’s too late."

"I will direct my Cabinet to come up with executive actions we can take, now and in the future, to reduce pollution, prepare our communities for the consequences of climate change, and speed the transition to more sustainable sources of energy."

"The study shows that air sampling near natural gas operations reveals numerous chemicals in the air, many associated with natural gas operations. Some of the highest concentrations in the study were from methane, ethane, propane, and other alkanes that occur as a result of natural gas operations"

"Although concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) found in this study appear low, they may have clinical significance."

We thank them sincerely on behalf of all South Africans for the effort they are making to understand the effects of drilling and fracking for natural gas that will result in better protection for our workers and communities alike. [Ian]

You might have gained the impression climate change caused by rising amounts of CO2 in our atmosphere is a contentious theory added only recently to our scientific understanding.

Not so – we can trace the basis for it all the way back to Isaac Newton's work in the early 1670's and the first, generally accepted theory around 1859, more than 150 years ago."

Here's our plain English version of the history of its development and some detail on the scientists involved.

"Many have justified the low price of natural gas as good for our climate because it saves CO2 by displacing coal. But the portion of those emissions that displaced coal and oil emissions was limited."

"If gas were not excessively cheap, it is quite likely that some of this (48 million MWh) would have come from renewables."

"Once we add in methane leakages to its CO2 emissions, natural gas could surpass coal in terms of its overall impact on our climate (Wigley 2011 and The New York Times 2011). And, just like coal, natural gas from shale rock also has a variety of local environmental impacts. When you combine these impacts —global and local, natural gas looks more and more like coal."

The IEA published a report showing CO2 emissions from fossil-fuel combustion hit 31.6 gigatonnes (Gt) in 2011, just 1Gt below the threshold that scientists say could give the world a 50% chance of preventing a 2°C global temperature rise.

Large numbers of climate scientists are concerned that temperature increases of above 2°C could trigger runaway climate change whereby natural carbon sinks such as permafrost and the Amazon Rainforest start to release greenhouse gas emission.

Those scientists are also concerned that the 2°C limit, suggested in the 2007 IPCC AR4 report, is now out of date and should be set at 1.5°C. The surprising speeds of Arctic ice reduction and methane increase underpin that conclusion. The most recent science about the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is concerning. [Ian]

"During the hot, dry summer of 1988, Hansen announced that 'it is time to stop waffling…. The evidence is pretty strong that the [human-amplified] greenhouse effect is here.'" Much criticism followed.

"Hansen, it turns out, was right, and the critics were wrong. Rather than being reckless, as some of his critics charged, his announcement to the world proved to be prescient – and his critics were proven overly cautious."

"Given the prescience of Hansen’s science, we would be unwise to ignore his latest, more dire warning."

"The time for debate about the reality of human-caused climate change has now passed. We can have a good faith debate about how to deal with the problem – how to reduce future climate change and adapt to what is already upon us to reduce the risks that climate change poses to society. But we can no longer simply bury our heads in the sand."