[News] from [guardian.co.uk]
[Environment > Climate change scepticism]
Public loses faith in climate change science after leaked emails scandal
Surveys show increase in number of people who believe claims are exaggerated
Jo Adetunji guardian.co.uk, Sunday 7 February 2010 20.36 GMT Article history
The number of Britons who believe the science of climate change has fallen over the last 12 months, according to recent polls. Although the vast majority of people still believe the planet is heating up, there has been an increase in those who believe climate change claims are exaggerated.
Public perception could have been influenced by the recent scandal of leaked emails between climate change scientists at the University of East Anglia. The emails, which appeared to encourage data to be kept from Freedom of Information requests, have been seized upon by climate change sceptics – although none of them dispute the science behind the "greenhouse effect" of gases such as carbon dioxide, which traps solar heat and warms the atmosphere.
A BBC poll, which surveyed 1,000 people, revealed that 25% of adults did not believe in global warming – a rise of 8% since a similar poll in November – and the percentage of those who thought climate change was a reality fell to 75%. Of those who believed, one in three felt climate change had been exaggerated. Only 26% of people thought climate change was "established as largely manmade".
Robert Watson, the chief scientific adviser for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said the results were "very disappointing". "The fact that there has been a very significant drop in the number of people that believe that we humans are changing the Earth's climate is serious," he told the BBC. According to an Ipsos poll of 1,048 people, the proportion of the public who believe in climate change has dropped from 44% to 31% in the past year.
It has been claimed most Tory MPs are sceptical about the party's focus on climate change policy. Tim Montgomerie, editor of the ConservativeHome website, said at least six shadow cabinet ministers were sceptical about the economic consequences of a low-carbon policy.
The polls come as Professor Phil Jones, the director of climate research at the University of East Anglia who is at the centre of the leaked emails scandal, said he had received death threats since the correspondence was published online. He told the Sunday Times: "There were death threats. I was shocked. People said I should go and kill myself."
Allegations about the accuracy of a 2007 report produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – including a claim that global warming could cut north African crop production by 50% by 2020 – could damage public perception further. The claim, used in a speech by Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, has since been questioned.
[Buainess > Oil]
Branson warns that oil crunch is coming within five years
> Virgin chief and fellow business leaders call for action
> Energy crisis threatens to be more serious than credit crunch
Terry Macalister
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 7 February 2010 20.18 GMT Article history
Sir Richard Branson and fellow leading businessmen will warn ministers this week that the world is running out of oil and faces an oil crunch within five years.
The founder of the Virgin group, whose rail, airline and travel companies are sensitive to energy prices, will say that the coming crisis could be even more serious than the credit crunch.
"The next five years will see us face another crunch – the oil crunch. This time, we do have the chance to prepare. The challenge is to use that time well," Branson will say.
"Our message to government and businesses is clear: act," he says in a foreword to a new report on the crisis. "Don't let the oil crunch catch us out in the way that the credit crunch did."
Other British executives who will support the warning include Ian Marchant, chief executive of Scottish and Southern Energy group, and Brian Souter, chief executive of transport operator Stagecoach.
Their call for urgent government action comes amid a wider debate on the issue and follows allegations by insiders at the International Energy Agency that the organisation had deliberately underplayed the threat of so-called "peak oil" to avoid panic on the stock markets.
Ministers have until now refused to take predictions of oil droughts seriously, preferring to side with oil companies such as BP and ExxonMobil and crude producers such as the Saudis, who insist there is nothing to worry about.
But there are signs this is about to change, according to Jeremy Leggett, founder of the Solarcentury renewable power company and a member of a peak oil taskforce within the business community. "[We are] in regular contact with government; we have reason to believe their risk thinking on peak oil may be evolving away from BP et al's and we await the results of further consultations with keen interest."
The issue came up at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos where Thierry Desmarest, chief executive of the Total oil company in France, also broke ranks. The world could struggle to produce more than 95m barrels of oil a day in future, he said – 10% above present levels. "The problem of peak oil remains."
Chris Skrebowski, an independent oil consultant who prepared parts of the peak oil report for Branson and others, said that only recession is holding back a crisis: "The next major supply constraint, along with spiking oil prices, will not occur until recession-hit demand grows to the point that it removes the current excess oil stocks and the large spare capacity held by Opec. However, once these are removed, possibly as early as 2012-13 and no later than 2014-15, oil prices are likely to spike, imperilling economic growth and causing economic dislocation."
Skrebowski believes that Britain is particularly vulnerable because it has gone from being a net exporter of oil, gas and coal to being an importer, and is becoming increasingly exposed to competition for supplies.
"This is likely to put pressure on the UK balance of payments and in a world of floating exchange rates is also likely to put downward pressure on the valuation of sterling. In other words, the positive benefits to the valuation of the pound as a petrocurrency are now eroding," he said.
The question of peak oil came to centre stage last November when a whistleblower told the Guardian the figures provided by the IEA – and used by the UK and US governments for much of their planning scenarios – were inaccurate.
"The IEA in 2005 was predicting that oil supplies could rise as high as 120m barrels a day by 2030, although it was forced to reduce this gradually to 116m and then 105m last year," said the IEA source. "The 120m figure always was nonsense but even today's number is much higher than can be justified and the IEA knows this."
But Saudi Arabia launched a counter-strike at Davos, insisting the issue was overblown. "The concern about peak oil is behind us," said Khalid al-Falih, chief executive of Saudi Aramco.
Tony Hayward, the BP chief executive, downplayed fears about dwindling supplies in an interview with the Guardian last week.
[Environment > Wildlife]
New laws to help endangered eels swim against the tide
Legislation to build river passes for eels will help creature swim up and down rivers to breed
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 7 February 2010 18.29 GMT Article history
New laws could help save critically endangered eels in English and Welsh rivers, the Environment Agency said today. The legislation will require eel passes and screens to be installed in rivers as barriers may prevent from going up or downstream.
European eels, a traditional east London dish, need to move both ways in the water so they can give birth and grow, but weirs and sluice gates can stop them from migrating.
In the river Thames alone the eel population has fallen by 98% over the past five years.
Figures have shown that, after two passes were put into the River Parrett in Somerset, 40,000 eels used them in 2008 and 2009.
Andy Don, an eel expert for the Environment Agency, said 10,000 eels queued up to use the passes on the first night.
He said: "Enabling eels to get across to habitats they would otherwise be deprived of gives them the best possible chance to grow and mature before making their incredible journey back to the Sargasso Sea."
The eels are thought to take up to three years migrating as larvae from the Sargasso Sea to European rivers, where they spend up to 20 years before making the 4,000-mile return journey across the Atlantic to spawn and die.
[Environment > Climate change scepticism]
Public loses faith in climate change science after leaked emails scandal
Surveys show increase in number of people who believe claims are exaggerated
Jo Adetunji guardian.co.uk, Sunday 7 February 2010 20.36 GMT Article history
The number of Britons who believe the science of climate change has fallen over the last 12 months, according to recent polls. Although the vast majority of people still believe the planet is heating up, there has been an increase in those who believe climate change claims are exaggerated.
Public perception could have been influenced by the recent scandal of leaked emails between climate change scientists at the University of East Anglia. The emails, which appeared to encourage data to be kept from Freedom of Information requests, have been seized upon by climate change sceptics – although none of them dispute the science behind the "greenhouse effect" of gases such as carbon dioxide, which traps solar heat and warms the atmosphere.
A BBC poll, which surveyed 1,000 people, revealed that 25% of adults did not believe in global warming – a rise of 8% since a similar poll in November – and the percentage of those who thought climate change was a reality fell to 75%. Of those who believed, one in three felt climate change had been exaggerated. Only 26% of people thought climate change was "established as largely manmade".
Robert Watson, the chief scientific adviser for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said the results were "very disappointing". "The fact that there has been a very significant drop in the number of people that believe that we humans are changing the Earth's climate is serious," he told the BBC. According to an Ipsos poll of 1,048 people, the proportion of the public who believe in climate change has dropped from 44% to 31% in the past year.
It has been claimed most Tory MPs are sceptical about the party's focus on climate change policy. Tim Montgomerie, editor of the ConservativeHome website, said at least six shadow cabinet ministers were sceptical about the economic consequences of a low-carbon policy.
The polls come as Professor Phil Jones, the director of climate research at the University of East Anglia who is at the centre of the leaked emails scandal, said he had received death threats since the correspondence was published online. He told the Sunday Times: "There were death threats. I was shocked. People said I should go and kill myself."
Allegations about the accuracy of a 2007 report produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – including a claim that global warming could cut north African crop production by 50% by 2020 – could damage public perception further. The claim, used in a speech by Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, has since been questioned.
[Buainess > Oil]
Branson warns that oil crunch is coming within five years
> Virgin chief and fellow business leaders call for action
> Energy crisis threatens to be more serious than credit crunch
Terry Macalister
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 7 February 2010 20.18 GMT Article history
Sir Richard Branson and fellow leading businessmen will warn ministers this week that the world is running out of oil and faces an oil crunch within five years.
The founder of the Virgin group, whose rail, airline and travel companies are sensitive to energy prices, will say that the coming crisis could be even more serious than the credit crunch.
"The next five years will see us face another crunch – the oil crunch. This time, we do have the chance to prepare. The challenge is to use that time well," Branson will say.
"Our message to government and businesses is clear: act," he says in a foreword to a new report on the crisis. "Don't let the oil crunch catch us out in the way that the credit crunch did."
Other British executives who will support the warning include Ian Marchant, chief executive of Scottish and Southern Energy group, and Brian Souter, chief executive of transport operator Stagecoach.
Their call for urgent government action comes amid a wider debate on the issue and follows allegations by insiders at the International Energy Agency that the organisation had deliberately underplayed the threat of so-called "peak oil" to avoid panic on the stock markets.
Ministers have until now refused to take predictions of oil droughts seriously, preferring to side with oil companies such as BP and ExxonMobil and crude producers such as the Saudis, who insist there is nothing to worry about.
But there are signs this is about to change, according to Jeremy Leggett, founder of the Solarcentury renewable power company and a member of a peak oil taskforce within the business community. "[We are] in regular contact with government; we have reason to believe their risk thinking on peak oil may be evolving away from BP et al's and we await the results of further consultations with keen interest."
The issue came up at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos where Thierry Desmarest, chief executive of the Total oil company in France, also broke ranks. The world could struggle to produce more than 95m barrels of oil a day in future, he said – 10% above present levels. "The problem of peak oil remains."
Chris Skrebowski, an independent oil consultant who prepared parts of the peak oil report for Branson and others, said that only recession is holding back a crisis: "The next major supply constraint, along with spiking oil prices, will not occur until recession-hit demand grows to the point that it removes the current excess oil stocks and the large spare capacity held by Opec. However, once these are removed, possibly as early as 2012-13 and no later than 2014-15, oil prices are likely to spike, imperilling economic growth and causing economic dislocation."
Skrebowski believes that Britain is particularly vulnerable because it has gone from being a net exporter of oil, gas and coal to being an importer, and is becoming increasingly exposed to competition for supplies.
"This is likely to put pressure on the UK balance of payments and in a world of floating exchange rates is also likely to put downward pressure on the valuation of sterling. In other words, the positive benefits to the valuation of the pound as a petrocurrency are now eroding," he said.
The question of peak oil came to centre stage last November when a whistleblower told the Guardian the figures provided by the IEA – and used by the UK and US governments for much of their planning scenarios – were inaccurate.
"The IEA in 2005 was predicting that oil supplies could rise as high as 120m barrels a day by 2030, although it was forced to reduce this gradually to 116m and then 105m last year," said the IEA source. "The 120m figure always was nonsense but even today's number is much higher than can be justified and the IEA knows this."
But Saudi Arabia launched a counter-strike at Davos, insisting the issue was overblown. "The concern about peak oil is behind us," said Khalid al-Falih, chief executive of Saudi Aramco.
Tony Hayward, the BP chief executive, downplayed fears about dwindling supplies in an interview with the Guardian last week.
[Environment > Wildlife]
New laws to help endangered eels swim against the tide
Legislation to build river passes for eels will help creature swim up and down rivers to breed
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 7 February 2010 18.29 GMT Article history
New laws could help save critically endangered eels in English and Welsh rivers, the Environment Agency said today. The legislation will require eel passes and screens to be installed in rivers as barriers may prevent from going up or downstream.
European eels, a traditional east London dish, need to move both ways in the water so they can give birth and grow, but weirs and sluice gates can stop them from migrating.
In the river Thames alone the eel population has fallen by 98% over the past five years.
Figures have shown that, after two passes were put into the River Parrett in Somerset, 40,000 eels used them in 2008 and 2009.
Andy Don, an eel expert for the Environment Agency, said 10,000 eels queued up to use the passes on the first night.
He said: "Enabling eels to get across to habitats they would otherwise be deprived of gives them the best possible chance to grow and mature before making their incredible journey back to the Sargasso Sea."
The eels are thought to take up to three years migrating as larvae from the Sargasso Sea to European rivers, where they spend up to 20 years before making the 4,000-mile return journey across the Atlantic to spawn and die.
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