The pit-prop that supports much of the current energy debate about what we will do once Hubbert's Peak has passed, is the belief that the world has plenty of coal. Well, David Strachan*, who brought us "The Last Oil Shock" has some more bad news…
Geoscientist 18.3 March 2008
Depending on your standpoint, coal represents either a massive threat to the climate, or a potentially vital substi...
A new flurry of climate change correspondence has been inspired by Hugh Richards’ recent soapbox article - a periodic recurrence which confirms differing views among fellows on this major subject. With near universal agreement on the principal facts: CO2 is a greenhouse gas, human emissions contribute to global warming, and we need to be cautious about the consequences - the differences...
Sir, In responding to Stephen Foster, I hereby wish to fill the vacuum left by Colin Summerhayes' reluctance to comment on the integrity and independence of the IPCC (which I do not believe should go unchallenged).
Dr Foster's letter is essentially a lengthy re-statement of a number of talking points promoted by organisations like the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which Colin has alread...
Reply to Summerhayes Rec'd & Pub'd 19 April)
Sir, This should be seen by all Fellows!
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/12/david-archibald-on-climate-and-energy-security/#more-33809
Colin Summerhayes comments:
I have no doubt that there are a lot of global warming nay-sayers out there; some of them are among our Fellows. In due course I hope that we can persuade doubters by sound scientific a...
The following texts are all comments on the 40-signature paper by Schulte et al., published in Science. (Schulte, P. and 40 others, 2010, The Chicxulub Asteroid Impact and Mass Extinction at the Cretaceous-Paleogene Boundary: Science, v. 327, p. 1214-1218.)
The journal refused to print all but one letter and comments by Gerta Keller et al. and Courtillot and Fluteau. However the ve...
Dear Editor, With the greatest of respect, I am afraid Dr Ridd has fallen foul of at least two talking points that former BBC journalist James Painter has proven to be predominantly a feature of right-of-centre media in English speaking countries (see http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/our-research/poles-apart). The two most obvious fallacies implied in Dr Ridd’s remarks are: (1) The marke...
Dear Editor, It is a difficult skill being an editor when contentious issues are discussed. Try to ‘present a balance’ and ‘don’t allow abuse’ are a couple of my rules. I suggest the proportion of climate change (0% to 100%) due to humans is a fair matter to debate—and it is important. So, comments in Readers’ letters in Geoscientist, August 2018 that &lsq...
September's Shell London lecture, delivered by Tom Dunkley Jones (Imperial College London) at the Geological Society on 21 September 2011.
The Paleogene period represents two thirds of the time elapsed since the end Cretaceous mass extinction event. Dominated in its early stages by a continuation of late Mesozoic warm climates, the early Paleogene witnessed geologically short-lived tran...
Sir, As a result of overpopulation, overconsumption, global warming and environmental degradation, it now looks increasingly likely that there will be a major societal collapse within the forseeable future.
Between 1997 and 2007, world population increased from 5835 million to 6,600 million which is equivalent to an increase of 210,000 per day during this period. Between 1950 and 2000, world GDP i...
Dear Editor, The recent Soapbox piece by Martin Lack (Join the decarbonisation bandwagon, Geoscientist 29 (3), 9, April 2019) is a disturbing use of the good offices of the Geological Society to promote the objectives of an external organisation, particularly one based on the hypothesis that climate change is caused by human activities.
As geologists, we are all familiar with the concept of the ...