Archived material from historical editions of The Generator
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Mankind’s effect on global warming was less than previously thought, according to a United Nations report on climate change to be released next year, reported Britain’s Sunday Telegraph on 10 December.
No doubt humans responsible for warming planet: The report said the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change finds there is no doubt that humans are responsible for warming the planet, but it has reduced its overall estimate of this effect by 25 per cent.
Temperatures tipped to jump 4.5 degrees in 100 years: In a final draft of its fourth assessment report, to be published in February, the panel reports that the level of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere accelerated in the past five years. It also predicts that temperatures will rise by up to 4.5 degrees Celsius during the next 100 years, bringing more frequent heatwaves and storms.
Sea level predictions halved: However, the panel has lowered predictions of how much sea levels will rise in comparison with its last report in 2001. It has halved predictions for the upper sea-level rise by 2100 from 34 inches (85cm) to 17 inches (42.5cm).
Sceptics to seize on revised figures: The newspaper said climate change sceptics were expected to seize on the revised figures as evidence that action to combat global warming was less urgent.
Revised figures reflect refinement due to better data: However, scientists insisted that the lower estimates for sea levels and the human impact on global warming were simply a refinement due to better data on how climate works rather than a reduction in the risk posed by global warming.
3 per cent emissions rise in five years: The IPCC report, which has been handed to the British Government for review before publication, said CO2 emissions had risen during the past five years by 3 per cent, well above the 0.4 per cent a year average of the previous two decades. The authors also estimate the climate will warm by at least 1.5 degrees during the next 100 years.
Alpine resorts without snow: Such a rise would be enough to take average summer temperatures in Britain to those seen during the 2003 heatwave, when August temperatures reached a record-breaking 38 degrees. Unseasonable warmth this year has left many Alpine resorts without snow by the time the ski season started.
"You must glorify war in order to get the public to accept the fact that you’re going to send their sons and daughters to die." The inside story of the cozy relationship between big box office American war movies and the Pentagon. Video Runtime 57 Minutes
Heliotubes are the panels designed to improve solar concentrators, which use sun-tracking dishes to collect sunlight, reports New Scientist (9 December 2006, p32).
The problem: These dishes need space in which to move, so they occupy twice the area of flat panels that gather the same amount of light. This rules them out for sites like rooftops where space is limited. They also need an external power source to keep them pointed at the sun.
The answer: Each Heliotube panel is made up of 10 troughs, each 1 metre long and 12 centimetres wide, which use motorised lenses to focus light onto a strip of photovoltaic material only 12 millimetres wide. The unit is self-sufficient, because even when the troughs are pointing away from the sun, they generate enough power to drive the motor that swivels them back into position.
Same solar efficiency … By concentrating sunlight onto the photovoltaic strip, a 1.8-square-metre panel of Heliotubes can produce up to 175 watts – about the same as a conventional solar panel of the same area.
… one eighth the photovotaics size: But as they require only about one-eighth as much expensive and hard-to-source photovoltaic material, they cost about a third less, says Brad Hines of Practical Instruments in Pasadena, California, which developed the technology.
The dangers can be seen all too clearly in remote villages like Longuchuk, near the oil-rich Sudd marshes of Upper Nile state in the Sudan, says The Economist (9/12/06, p.22).
No permission: Two years ago, Chinese oil workers arrived there. They were escorted by armed men in T-shirts, whom locals later identified as Sudanese soldiers. They stayed for six months, sank four wells and cleared access roads, all without talking to the villagers or asking their permission.
Cattle dying: A pool of slimy water beside one of the capped wells shows where the surplus oil was dumped. A hundred cows, the villagers say, died from drinking that water. When the oilmen came back last April, the local people – furious that they had got neither jobs from the project nor compensation for their losses – refused to let them in.
Part of pattern: Diane de Guzman, a specialist on oil in Sudan for the United Nations, argues that the rape of Longuchuk is part of a pattern across the oil zones of the south. Villagers are displaced by militias to allow exploration, the land is despoiled, cattle die within hours of drinking contaminated water.
South fighting back: Under the terms of a settlement, the southern government is meant to be consulted about these oil missions; but it is not, and almost no compensation has been paid. The southern government has just begun to fight back; it recently impounded two oil-company helicopters that were carrying out unauthorised seismic tests.
Villagers attacking: Individual villages and militias have also begun to mount their own attacks on oil workers and installations. The past few weeks alone have brought reports of seven oil workers killed around the village of Paloich and an attack, by a group from another village, on a convoy of 21 oil tankers.
Not insurgency – yet: More worrying for the northern government is the news that rebel groups from elsewhere are joining in. On November 27, for the first time, one such band ventured out of terrorised Darfur to attack a refinery at Abu Jabra in North Kordofan state. This is not yet an insurgency against oil companies of the type that has been seen in Nigeria, but the first signs are there.
Oil-producing countries have reduced their exposure to the US dollar to the lowest level in two years and shifted oil income into euros, yen and sterling, according to data from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), reported The Australian (12/12/2006, p.21).
Income shifted from US dollars: The revelation in the latest BIS quarterly review, which was expected to be published on 11 December, confirmed market speculation about a move out of US dollars and could put new pressure on the ailing currency.
OPEC’s euro holdings up to 22pc: Russia and the members of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) cut their dollar holdings from 67 per cent in the first quarter to 65 per cent in the second. Meanwhile, they increased their holdings of euros from 20 to 22 per cent, BIS said.
US dollar hits 20-month low: The speed of the shift may help explain the weakness of the US dollar, which recently fell to a 20-month low against the euro and a 14-year low against sterling.
BIS admits "modest shift": The BIS, the central bank for the developed world’s central banks, is customarily cautious in its language. However, it noted: "While the data are not comprehensive, they do appear to indicate a modest shift over the quarter in the US dollar share of reporting banks’ liabilities to oil exporting countries."
Iran cuts holdings by $US4bn: The review showed that Qatar and Iran, whose foreign exchange policy has sparked widespread market speculation, cut their dollar holdings by $US2.4 billion ($A3 billion) and $US4 billion respectively. Overall, OPEC’s US dollar deposits fell by $US5.3 billion, while euro and yen-denominated deposits rose $US2.8 billion and $US3.8 billion, respectively.