This is definitely climate progress. Next up: urban rickshaws to reduce emissions?
From a Newcastle University press release:
Growth versus global warming
A three-year project led by Newcastle University for the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research has outlined how our major cities must respond if they are to continue to grow in the face of climate change.
Using the new UK Climate Predictions ’09 data for weather patterns over the next century, the research looks at the impact of predicted rises in temperature – particularly in urban areas – increased flooding in winter and less water availability in summer.
The report “How can cities grow whilst reducing emissions and vulnerability” focuses on the particular challenges facing London but can be used as a model for other UK cities on how policy-makers, businesses and the public must work together to prepare for climate change.
As well as protecting our homes and buildings against the increased threat of flooding from rising sea levels, the report emphasizes the need to reduce our carbon emissions, reduce our water usage and move towards cleaner, greener transport.
Newcastle University’s Dr Richard Dawson, one of the report’s authors, said: “There’s not one simple solution to this problem. Instead we need a portfolio of measures that work together to minimize the impact of climate change while allowing for our cities to grow.
“Most importantly we have to cut our carbon dioxide emissions but at the same time we need to prepare for the extremes of weather – heat waves, droughts and flooding – which we are already starting to experience.
“The difficulty is balancing one risk against another while allowing for the expected population and employment growth and that is what our work attempts to address.”
Led by Newcastle University’s Professor Jim Hall, the project is the result of three years’ work to decide how our cities should respond to the threats of climate change.
Promoting the development of cycleways and public transport, low-carbon energy and water recycling it also shows how solving one problem can exacerbate another.
Dr Dawson explains: “Heat waves like the ones being predicted to occur more frequently in future are extremely serious, particularly for the eldest members of our population.
“To combat the problem we often resort to switching on the air conditioning. This is not only energy intensive (and therefore has potential to raise carbon dioxide emissions that drive climate change) but works by cooling the inside of the building and expelling hot air outside, raising the overall air temperature in the city as well.
“This can amplify what is known as the ‘urban heat island’.”
To reduce this problem, the authors show that one option might be to stimulate growth along the Thames flood plain as the water helps to keep the overall temperature lower.
“The problem then is that you are building in the flood plain so you have to prepare for a whole different set of challenges,” explains Dr Dawson. “Houses built on stilts, flood resilient wiring where the sockets and wires are raised above flood level, and water resistant building materials are going to have to be incorporated into our building plans.
“Good planning is the key – we have shown that land use planning influences how much people travel and how they heat and cool their buildings, and hence the carbon dioxide emissions.
“Land use also determines how vulnerable people will be to the impacts of climate change. Our research enables policy makers to explore these many issues on the basis of evidence about the possible future changes and to analyse the effectiveness of a range of innovative responses, so they can better understand and prepare for climate change.”
The Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research is funded by the Natural Environment Research Council, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and Economic and Social Research Council.
Bulldust (22:20:41) :
How did this guy get accredited as a Dr? no, really? Have British academic standards plummetted so badly?
Need we say more.
Tesco boss slams school standards as ‘woefully low’
By Sean Poulter
Last updated at 8:23 AM on 14th October 2009
Sir Terry Leahy, head of Tesco, has branded education as ‘woeful’, with many employees needing retraining in basic arithmetic and spelling
Sir Terry Leahy, head of Tesco, has branded education as ‘woeful’, with many employees needing retraining in basic arithmetic and spelling
The boss of Tesco has delivered a stinging attack on Labour’s education record and described school standards as ‘woeful’.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1220140/Tesco-boss-slams-school-standards-woefully-low.html?ITO=1490#ixzz0TyetomEn
Peter Davis & Alan the Brit.
Peter, we wore ear defenders tuning the Vulcans engines, the beat as you got close to getting all 4 engines matched was painful at full throttle. The idea was to eliminate the beat signal to give the impression of a single engined approaching.
Alan. My nearest airshows were R.A.F. Middleton St George. When I first went there the airctaft were Gloster Javelins FAW9s IIRC. (Had a nasty habit of flicking inverted on approach).
Later, 226 O.C.U. Lightning T2.
My big bang recollection was an F100 Super Sabre doing a touch & go. Halfway down the runway the pilot turned on the re-heat, there was one HELL of a bang & a huge flame from the back. He must have delayed ignition somehow as the flame was easily 50′ long, maybe more.
DaveE.
Staring at that picture and one word comes to mind: slum. The last time I saw houses on tilts was outside Buenos Aires, south of the city where a lot of people have built houses on top of the rover, on stilts, because they had nowhere else to put them. Similar sights can be found all over the second and third world, especially parts of India and the far east.
This seems to be yet another greenie obsession with the “rustic” lifestyle The idealised romanticist view of these slum dwellings as somehow better than our own, technically advanced homes. They’re divorced from nature and see these style of homes as somehow getting “close” to it again.
They don’t see the water-borne diseases, the filth, the stink, the way that any sort of run-off from these homes pollutes the water they’re built over or the accidents that inevitably happen. They don’t see the fires that devastate these slums. Like a ship at sea, a fire on one of these stilt houses is the greatest fear. They’re highly flammable because of the materials used and – ironically – their position out over the water makes it a lot harder to effectively douse the flames. Oh sure you could get a fireboat… except the last fireboat the sail the Thames was retired nearly half a century ago.
They’re the fantasy of rich, deluded city-dwellers who would never actually live in these pestilent hovels.
Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase
“getting on the property ladder”
Oooops.
That was Patrick Davis. Sorry 🙂
DaveE.
It occurs to me that oil companies have a lot of experience with platforms on stilts. Perhaps the new “green” business of stilt housing could help wean them off their devil’s brew. 🙂
Climate doctors say ‘feel the pain’…
Richard Black | 16:01 UK time, Monday, 12 October 2009
It’s worth looking at some of the international ramifications of the conclusions of the UK’s official climate advisers – reported on Monday – that the country needs a “step change” in ambition if it’s to achieve government targets on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The UK has been one of the developed world’s champions when it comes to curbing emissions, having cut greenhouse gas output by about 16% since 1990.
How as it achieved this, by distroying its manufacturing base.
Thailand on Thames does not look like a well thought out concept. The UK government plan to tax all practical forms of energy is coinciding with what may be a deep solar minimum. Given what happened to the Thames in the LIA, I would predict that desperate freezing tax oppressed crowds would simply walk out onto the ice and tear down those houses for firewood.
More evidence of of global warming Alarmist Lies!
http://petesplace-peter.blogspot.com/2009/10/more-evidence-of-global-warming.html
At least plenty of Londoners already know how to cook a spicy chicken vindaloo. Exchange the tweeds for Ghandi diapers, let the cows roam at will, and stop waiting in line for the tram and the conversion will be complete
Yeah… I got it…. Bangkok on the Thames…
LOL! Seriously, my question is – how are we not crushing these clowns in the climate change debate?
The whole world is now an extrapolation of the Art Bell Coast to Coast late night radio show.
There is entertainment value.
Rabe, crosspatch:
I was in the hospital in Toronto, Canada for a week last month. They gave me a two-blade disposable razor to shave with after a few days. It sliced my face to ribbons! I’d forgotten how carefully you have to handle one of these things.
Once I got home, I picked up my trusty Gillette Fusion (5 blades with battery action), and without a care, shaved perfectly clean without a single cut. I know it’s fashionable to make fun of such things, but I sincerely believe that my 5-blade razor delivers a faster, cleaner, easier shave.
Now, if only I could bring myself to believe in global warming… naaaah, not gonna happen.
Mike:
“Happy the man whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound;
Content to breathe his native air
In his own ground.”
from History of New Hampshire…
Would that this again be true.
JMcCarthy (17:51:38) :
We are.
DaveE (14:00:23) :
And Peter Davis and Alan the Brit.
OT I was a regular attendee at Abbotsford Airshow in British Columbia for about five
years. The first time I saw the Vulcan I was absolutely astounded at this Pterodactyl
in aluminum.It was rainy, nasty and few were flying.Then the Vulcan.Full AB(ok,
Reheat) takeoff impressively short. then infield turns and: the Aileron roll. Twice.
Upon landing the crew got out and I got to talk to the crew,the command pilot was this smallish,fellow with a great handlebar and a calabash pipe,that he promptly lit upon leaving the cockpit.He said-“Not a bad day,thought you had better weather here, this timeof year,though. ”
Loved Abbotsford,i am a big fan of the Spitfire, and if offered a flight in a Spit or
a Mustang-I’d take the Spit.Merlins in general are music from on high..
One other thing-that same show we had a flyby of an SR-71 I popped out of the sky like a Space Spider, roared by in a gear down slow flyby an infield turn,with water vapor flowing off the’chine’ then it went north, into the murk.It came by in full AB
the blue diamond exhaust clearly visible and a noise like none other. The
pilot pulled back into the near vertical.I’m sure with a grin (or two ) in a space helmet.They went back to near space where it belonged.”Bye bye Earthings!”
Heaven on earth to a young pilot…
Meant “It popped ..”
Smokey (10:17:46) :
“…
These busybodies would squeal so loud after three days that they’d make the Caitlin clowns sound like they never uttered a single complaint.”
Speaking of Caitlin clowns:
Flash!
The latest from the Catlin Arctic Survey team.
We’ve all probably been awaiting this news with baited breath.
Fox news Caitlin article
Another sea level data from Japan:
http://cais.gsi.go.jp/cmdc/center/graph/oosakag.gif
The graph shows sea level evolution, from 1903 to 2008, for the coast of Osaka, the second largest city in Japan with population of 2.7 million.
The sea level there “rose” by 2.6 meters (!) in 105 years.
Of course this reflects “ground subsidence” due to urbanization (load increase by social development), which progressed first from 1920s to 1940s and, after about 10 years of plateau during and just after the war, progressed vigorously during the high-growth period of Japan from 1950 to 1970s.
Nobody is scared by thie huge “sea level rise” because the levees are constructed with a 4-meter margin at important coasts.
Conversely:
Dr Dawson explains: “Cold spells like the ones being predicted to occur more frequently in future are extremely serious, particularly for the eldest members of our population.
To combat the problem we often resort to switching on the heating system. This is not only energy intensive (and therefore has potential to raise carbon dioxide emissions that drive climate change) but works by heating the inside of the building and expelling hot air outside, raising the overall air temperature in the city as well.
Complete computer generated fantasy. Shame we can’t post pictures here at WUWT.
[ screen capture of “sim city”. Everyone living in stilted houses wearing grass (sorry – hemp) skirts]
[ Reality of Newcastle in October ]
Air conditioning anyone? UHI? Ironically, from a City built both economically and quite literally on Coal.
The only thing demonstrated by this piece is the ever widening gulf between academics and reality.
Harold Vance (08:16:56) :
NOBEL PEACE PRIZE ALERT:
The Catlin Expedition (that got stuck in the Arctic ice) is predicting ice-free summers for the North Pole in 10 years.
Wow, the team damm near won a darwin award, why would anyone listen to them?
First thought: 3 years for this?
Second thought: I thought that “they” knew that UHI did not exist. Small scale energy generation? Didn’t anyone tell them that small scale = lower efficiency? 3 years? For real? I wish I could get money to surf for pron all day for 3 years, then spend a week at the end making up some fairytale. Is that picture actualy from the study? If so, why do the stilt houses have thach roofes? Is this realy energy efficient for a home in London? Just because a house is on stilts does not mean it must look like it is from a small tribal island.
Douglas DC (19:58:55) :
Perhaps surprisingly, the Vulcan did not have afterburners, (reheat).
There may have been one Vulcan that had reheat but not on the main engines. IIRC That aircraft flew out of R.A.F. Finningly near Doncaster. It was the flying test-bed for the Rolls Royce Olympus engine for the TSR2. TSR2 was cancelled in 1964. At that time I used to watch aircraft mainly from Finningly or R.A.F. Benson in Oxfordshire. Finningly is favourite for the prize.
DaveE.
Douglas DC (19:58:55) :
Also, you stated that you’d choose the Spitfire over the P51 Mustang.
It may interest you to know that the P51s supplied to the R.A.F. had Merlins fitted.
DaveE.
What a nice artist’s rendition of houses on stilts. Couldn’t they be more up to date? I don’t care for that “Gilligan’s Island” motif.
I’d like mine to be a yellow colonial on steel stilts that can be hydraulically actuated to raise and lower to my preference. Instead of saving money to have a pool built on my property, I’ll be able to buy a neat boat! The kids can just dive out of their bedroom windows into the “yard”.