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For more than a hundred years, industrial and modern development has been dependent on fossil fuels. The oil age was given extra momentum after the oil crisis in 1972, and has given a country like Norway an economy people could not dream of 50 years ago. Unfortunately there are also many hidden costs and dangerous side effects. Continued use could threaten the existence of mankind.

Vanishing ecosystems.  Time is running out.  (Photo: P. Prokosch, GRID-Arendal)

Oil has become a social drug, and we are addicted. Re-hab is long overdue, but combating addiction is difficult. We must realize that prolonged use of oil is dangerous. The next step is to streamline and reduce energy use, and quickly develop new forms of energy without the oil’s disadvantages. The future needs raw material resources like oil for things we cannot imagine today. It is irresponsible to just burn it.

For the last few decades it has been clear that the transition to a sustainable society should have been implemented on a large scale decades ago. Had we begun reducing the use of oil in the 1990s, the transition would have been smoother. Now the signs of coming disasters are increasingly visible. We have the technology, we have the resources. What we no longer have is time. The oil age must be dismantled over the next 20 years!

There are four main problem areas:

Environmental Pollution

Coal and oil contain chemicals and particles detrimental to health and environment. We emit carbon (soot), nitrogen oxides, benzene and sulphur in large quantities. Oil spills and air emissions have serious and long-term toxic effects. Fossil energy has many hidden costs. When costs of environmental damage and climate changes are included in the overall accounts, fossil fuels are no longer profitable. The IMF has calculated the annual subsidies to the fossil fuel industry to roughly USD 2 trilion.

Non-renewable, finite resources and vulnerable communities

Fossil energy is a limited resource. We use the most readily available sources first, and become addicted. To meet global demands; less accessible, marginal sources are needed. The cost of extracting one barrel of oil from the old, big sources in the North Sea, Saudi Arabia, Texas and Baku is between 5 and 8 dollars, approximately. The price of the same barrel from a marginal source such as the Barents Sea might be ten times that price or more. Profit margins on unconventional, marginal sources drop rapidly. When the old sources go dry, the oil revenues to countries like Norway will decrease while costs rise. The oil industry is therefore a “sunset industry”.  International oil trading requires the marginal, unconventional oil sources such as tar sands oil and expensive sources in difficult areas to keep the wheels turning.

Furthermore, the oil trade is a global system that relies on large subsidies. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Resources Institute (WRI), the global oil industry receives between 500 billion and 2000 billion dollars annually, depending on what factors are included. With tax cuts, state guarantees and other subsidies the oil industry gets, the development of renewable energy sources have difficulties competing. Profits to the people who control the old and cheap oil wells are already staggering, and they are willing to do almost anything to keep it going for another few years. It is irresponsible to let over-optimistic special considerations for the oil industry decide the future of our grandchildren. Subsidies must be transferred to “sunrise industries”: renewable energy sources, where environmental damage is small, and efficiency increases while costs decrease.

Vulnerable logistics, volatile prices and uneven geographical distribution

The largest reserves of cheap oil are concentrated in the Middle East, some old “Soviet countries” and Africa. These reserves are controlled by “Big Oil” – directors in close connection with corrupt and fanatical regimes or individuals with their own agendas. More than half of the global oil proceeds go to such regimes. The Carbon Society is dependent on a regular supply, and vulnerable to uncontrolled price fluctuations. Our societies are governed by groups like “Big Oil”, “Carbon Barons” and “Petro-Tyrants”. Huge accumulations of capital by corrupt individuals and undemocratic regimes create violent conflicts that threaten democratic governance and continuously cause new financial crises.

Global warming the last three decades has been dramatic. Source:  World Meteorological Organisation, 2013  http://library.wmo.int/pmb_ged/wmo_1119_en.pdf

CO2 emissions and climate change

The world’s most esteemed climate scientists have proven global warming of air, land and sea. Rising temperatures, rising sea levels, reduction in glacier ice and snow, warmer seas and acidification are among the symptoms. Our climate systems are already changing, resulting in more unpredictable weather, extreme weather events such as storms, droughts, heavier snow in winter seasons, fifty-year-floods every five years, forest fires and various difficulties for agriculture. Society’s vulnerability increases rapidly without massive development of alternative energy sources.

Continued long-term use of fossil fuels is deeply unethical, threatens life on earth and in the long run will be financially devastating. All people must join efforts for a transition to the renewable and sustainable society, and this process must start immediately! According to the World Bank’s Sir Nicholas Stern’s report on climate change and the economy, delays will dramatically increase costs.

It is politically irresponsible and unethical not to develop alternative and renewable sources quickly. It is meaningless to let tax payers all over the world continue to give monetary gifts to the world’s richest people so that they may continue to destroy our common environment! Only by gradually weaning ourselves from our oil addiction and build a new, environmentally responsible economy we can ensure future generations a genuine opportunity for a brighter, cleaner, and a more dynamic and attractive future.

Sources:

Global warming and climate change

• IPCC (2014) Mitigation of climate change
• IPCC: Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability
• IPCC 2013: Climate change. The physical science basis
• What the U.N.’s new climate report says about North America and the other continents (April 2014)
• New Scientist (2013) IPCC digested: Just leave the fossil fuels underground
•  National Academies: A Discussion on Climate Change: Evidence and Causes (March 2014)
• So, after the IPCC report, which bit of the world are you prepared to lose? When people say we should adjust to climate change, do they understand what that actually means? (April 2014)
• World Running Out Of Time To Stop Global Warming, UN Report Says (April 2014)
• Let’s Call Climate Change What It Really Is—Violence (April 2014)
• AAAS (2014) What we know
• NASA (2014) Long-Term Warming Likely to Be Significant Despite Recent Slowdown
• Climate Science Systems (2014) Solution to cloud riddle reveals hotter future
• Jamall, D. (2014)  Evidence of Acceleration of Anthropogenic Climate Disruption on All Fronts
• What Are The Chances That Climate Change Is “Natural”?

• Nature 2013; Outlook for Earth
  
• Climate change gets clocked
• True climate stories
• Climate change in facts and figures
• Two or three degrees more – does it really matter?
• The crime of the century (Jan 2014)
• Your warming world. New Scientist 2014
•  Climate Change Is ‘Perhaps The World’s Most Fearsome Weapon Of Mass Destruction’  (Feb 2014)
• The Mainstream Media’s Criminal Climate Coverage  (Feb 2014)
• AAAS: Climate change is putting world at risk of irreversible changes, scientists warn (March 2014)
• Data Gov Climate (US government)

• NOAA: Global Analysis – Annual 2013 (Jan 2014)
• NASA: 2013 Continues Long-Term Warming Trend  (Jan 2014)
•  NASA scientists react to 400 ppm carbon milestone  (March 2014)

• NOAA/NASA: Global temperatures 2012
• NASA: 2012 temperature anomaly   
• NASA: Climate
• NOAA: The Keeling curve
• NOAA: Arctic report card
• NOAA/NCDC: State of the climate
• NOAA Climate
• CRU: Climate
• Jones, Phil (2013) Global temperature records, CRU information sheets
• A Win for the Climate Scientist Whom Skeptics Compared to Jerry Sandusky
• IPCC: Climate
• Pentagon Calls Climate Change Impacts “Threat Multipliers,” Could Enable Terrorism (March 2014)
• AAAS 2014: What we know   |

• Bjerknes Center for Climate Research
• CICERO center for Climate Research
• UK Met office: Climate change
• UNEP: Climate change
• Tyndall Centre for climate change research
• Global carbon emissions set to reach record 36 billion tonnes in 2013 (Tyndall centre)
• Climate change task force
• Climate change summary and update
• IPCC report 2013: Summary for policy makers
• What the IPCC found: The big news from the new climate assessment
• Carbon trust IPCC report summary
• 7 things to know about the new UN climate change report
• Climate Change Report Predicts Warming Will Only Make Human Ills Worse
• Low Carbon Economy Index 2013 | Busting the carbon budget
• IPCC: 30 years to climate calamity if we carry on blowing the carbon budget
• Al Gore: World is on brink of “carbon bubble”
• Greenhouse gas volumes reached new high in 2012: WMO (Reuters)
• Greenhouse Gas Concentrations in Atmosphere Reach New Record (WMO)

• Global carbon emissions set for a record in 2013

• World Social Science Report 2013 – Changing Global Environments
• Hansen et al (2013) ‘Assessing “Dangerous Climate Change”: Required Reduction of Carbon Emissions to Protect Young People, Future Generations and Nature’
• What Happens if We Don’t Prevent Average Global Temperatures from Rising?
• Hansen (2013) What we owe our kids on climate
• Watch out for climate ‘surprises,’ scientists warn
• National Research Council (2013) Abrupt impacts of climate change (National Academies press)
• Earth’s Sensitivity to Climate Change Could Be ‘Double’ Previous Estimates, Say Geologists
• Spread in model climate sensitivity traced to atmospheric convective mixing (Nature, 2014)
• The madding cloud: When forecasting the future, scientists’ blind spot is above them (Jan 2014)
• The climate champions of 2013
•  World Bank, 2012, Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4°C World Must Be Avoided
• Global Warming and the Common Man (March 2014)

• Bubbles don’t crack. They burst
• McKibben: Do the math
• Global Mash-up: The Next Enlightenment, Part I
• Climate Change Worse Than We Thought, Likely To Be ‘Catastrophic Rather Than Simply Dangerous’

• Australia Heat Wave Sets Records Across Continent (Jan 2014)
• Check out this shocking map of California’s drought (Jan 2014)
• The Pyromaniacs Arrive with Blowtorches on Planet Earth (Jan 2014)
• White House smacks down climate deniers in new video (Jan 2014)
• National Academics / National Research Council: Climate change – lines of evidence video series

• A song of our warming planet
• Our biggest enviro threat
• Why It’s So Difficult to Face the Frightening Climate Change Reality
• OECD: ‘No bailout’ for climate threat
• Fossil Fuel Emissions Must Be Eliminated To Save The Planet, And The Economy, OECD Warns
• How to divest from fossil fuels, no matter the size of your piggy bank
• Increased Debt and decreased GDP – Is that some new “smart” economic logic…?
• Naomi Klein: Why Science Is Telling All of Us to Revolt and Change Our Lives Before We Destroy the Planet
• Time for a Mass Upheaval Against the Perpetrators of Global Destruction
• The Government Scandal That Shows the People Have to Take Radical Action to Prevent Climate Change
• Being Passive or Neutral is not an option…
• Global power shift
• Remember the heat amid the clattering teeth: In a picture (Jan 2014)
• Is climate change humanity’s greatest-ever risk management failure?

• Climate consensus – the 97% (The Guardian)
• Obama: Climate change demands our attention now
• Hansen et al (2013) Climate sensitivity, sea level and atmospheric carbon dioxide

Pause in global warming?

• Cowtan and Way: Surface temperature data update (2014)
• The global climate 2001-2010 (WMO, 2013)
• NASA: 2012 the 9th warmest year on record
• June 2013 Temperatures Continue String Of 340 Consecutive Warmer-Than-Average Months
• Who created the global warming “pause”?
• NASA: the nine warmest years on record have occured since 1998
• New Research Confirms Global Warming Has Accelerated
• The Pacific Ocean is now warming 15 times faster than it used to
• President of Marshall islands: Climate Change Has Reached Our Shores 
• World Bank: Dramatically warmer this century
• Forget Climate Change, We Must Prepare for a Catastrophic Climate Breakdown
• Climate set to change “orders of magnitude” faster than at any other time in the past 65 million years 
• Global warming in one unmistakably compelling chart
• Climate changing 10 times faster than in the past 65 million years
• Arctic sea ice delusions strike the Mail on Sunday and Telegraph
• Faux Pause: Ocean Warming, Sea Level Rise And Polar Ice Melt Speed Up, Surface Warming To Follow 
• Sorry, skeptics: Arctic ice is still melting quickly this summer
• Solar activity heads for lowest low in four centuries

Fossil fuels, Climate change and environmental impacts

• Nature (2014) Carbon is forever
• Coal – The Greatest Threat to Civilization
• The real story behind coal
• Global carbon atlas
• Plants will reach point where they couldn’t possibly take another bite of our CO2
• In the Wake of Haiyan, We Must Divest from Fossil Fuels
• Recognizing the Elephant in the Room: Future Climate Impacts across Sectors
• The End of the Conflict-Creating Oil Age Is Coming Into View — Here’s What the Future Looks Like
• Extreme Weather Events in Europe: preparing for climate change adaptation
• IPCC digested: Just leave the fossil fuels underground
• The 10 Most Toxic Cities in the World |
• Another Toxic Threat from Climate Change

• Are We Witnessing The End Of Coral?

• Rising sea levels (NG, 2013)

• Forget Climate Change, We Must Prepare for a Catastrophic Climate Breakdown
• Are you willing to take on the immense risk that Climate Change is posing?

• Turning climate action into reality (WRI)
• Climate change and ethics
• Climate change: evidence, impacts and choices  (NRC)
• UN climate chief’s tears over future generations

• Sea level rise threatens to flood 1400 US cities
• You can’t deny global warming after seeing this graph (Washington Post July 2013)
• Climate change threatening future life
• Why climate change has Darwin down for the count

Pollution from fossil fuels

• City of light dims: smog in Paris (March 2014)
• Harbin Smog Crisis Highlights China’s Coal Problem
• This scary map shows the health impacts of coal power plants in China (Jan 2014)
• Coal pollution in China lowers life expectancy by 5 years
• Pollution From China Is Hitting America’s West Coast (Business Insider, Jan 2014)
• Air Pollution from Asia Affecting World’s Weather (Jan 2014)
• Wide Gap Between New Delhi, Beijing Smog Policies As India Lags On Curbing Pollution
• Coal Industry Report On Social Cost Of Carbon Relies On Climate Science Denial (Feb 2014)
  

• The 10 Biggest Polluters of the Industrial Age
• World wide air pollution causes 2 million deaths
• Diesel pollution causes 6% of lung cancers in US and UK, according to new study

• What A Year: 45 Fossil Fuel Disasters the Industry Doesn’t Want You to Know About

• Gulf of Mexico oilspill
• The warning label on oil products
• 4 Things You Need to Know As BP Gulf Oil Spill Trial Resumes
• Outdoor air pollution kills 2,5 million each year
• Europe: 22,300 premature deaths are caused by coal pollution… every year
• King coal in the Appalachians – mountain top removal mining

Extreme and freaky weather

• Is A Super El Niño Coming That Will Shatter Extreme Weather And Global Temperature Records? (April 2014)
• Scientific American: extreme weather events series
• Is Weird Winter Weather Related to Climate Change? (March 2014)
• Is polar warming to blame for America’s and Britain’s bad winter weather? (Economist Feb 2014)
• Typhoon Haiyan – Was That Huge Storm Caused by Climate Change?
• 2013 in review: a year of increasing extreme weather events. John Vidal looks back at a year of record heatwaves, floods, rainstorms and cyclones (Guardian, Dec 2013)
• Climate Change This Week: The Good, The Bad, The Old, The New in 2013, and More!
• Typhoon Haiyan death toll tops 6,000 in the Philippines
• The where and when of wetter and drier: disappearing Arctic sea ice plays a role (Feb 2014)

• The effects of climate change: Storm damage in Europe on the rise (Swiss re)
• Ocean Toastiness Sending Fish Fleeing for the Poles 
• Extreme heat waves to quadruple by 2040, study says
• Heat waves in China 2013
• Flooding due to rising seas could cost $1 trillion by 2050
• Deadly 1,000-year floods strike Colorado
• It’s hard to sea but the globe is still warming
• Pakistan can expect worse heatwaves to come, meteorologists warn
• Rate of Temperature Change Along World’s Coastlines Changed Dramatically Over Past Three Decades
• Climate change’s heat intensifies drought in the USA
• El Nino Patterns Could Become Twice As Likely In A Warming World

The Arctic and the Antarctic

•  West Antarctic ice sheet falling apart (NYT, May 2014)
• A note on collapse
• Massive Antarctic Glacier Has Entered Irreversible Melt  (Jan 2014)
• Arctic sea ice freefall is mirror image of carbon dioxide ascent (Jan 2014)
• Consider Clashing Scientific and Societal Meanings of ‘Collapse’ When Reading Antarctic Ice News (May 2014)
• How the Melting Antarctic Glacier Will Make These 14 Coastal U.S. Attractions Look
• New Studies Suggest Many Coastal Cities Will Be Abandoned with Antarctic Ice Collapse (May 2014)
• Arctic ice shrinking in volume, too: ESA (Sep 2013)
• Arctic theme page (NOAA)
• Study: Arctic Sea Ice Loss Shifts Jet Stream, Driving Deluges In NW Europe, Drought In Mediterranean
• Arctic Temperatures Reach Highest Levels In 44,000 Years, Study Finds
• Antarctica is Sliding Sideways Due to Ice Loss
• Arctic news
• Thinning out on Antarctica
• The Jet Stream: How Its Response To Enhanced Arctic Warming Is Driving More Extreme Weather
• Arctic sea ice melts at alarming rate
• Arctic sea ice loss (video)
• Scientists Predicted A Decade Ago Arctic Ice Loss Would Worsen Western Droughts. Is That Happening Already?
• Like Butter: Study Explains Surprising Acceleration Of Greenland’s Inland Ice
• Say goodbye to the Arctic ice

• Possible arctic methane releases called ‘economic time bomb’

• Shipping has already quadrupled this year through the melting Arctic

Methane and climate change

• We’re Looking at the End of Humanity — And It Might Happen Sooner Than You Think
• Methane Levels going through the Roof
• The Climate Time Bomb That Will Cost Us $60 Trillion
• Vast costs of climate change in the Arctic (Nature, 2013)
• The tipping point in action: twice as much methane released due to seabed permafrost melting
• Last hours  (on the methane feedback mechanism)
• Last hours website
• The ‘Ticking Time Bomb’ That Could Cause Such Rapid Global Warming We’d Be Unable to Prevent Extinction
• Researchers say Arctic Ocean leaking methane

Tipping points

• Mr. President: Regulate Our Emissions Now or We Face Extinction (Feb 2014)
• Report warns of climate change ‘tipping points’ within our lifetime

Biodiversity and climate change

• Humans Are Causing Largest Die-Off Since Dinosaur Age

Agriculture and climate change

• Climate Change Drying Out Southwest Now, With Worse To Come For A Third Of The Planet (April 2014)
• Cook, B. et al (2014) Global warming and 21st century drying
• Riots, Towns Gone Dry, Soaring Prices: The Food-Pocalypse Is Already Upon Us (April 2014)

Oceans and Acidification

• Ocean acidification fact sheet
• Scientists Focus on Polar Waters As Threat of Acidification Grows (April 2014)
• Ocean acidification
• Key Species of Algae Shows Effects of Climate Change Over Time (Science daily, Jan 2014)
• Climate change is scaring the fish due to acidified oceans, study says
• Watch this scientist fight climate change on the gorgeous Olympic Coast

• Oceans Face Triple Threat Of Warming, Declining Oxygen And Acidification, Study Shows
• Climate Change Devastating Ocean Fisherman: ‘Sometimes We’ll Catch 5,000 Pounds Of Jellyfish’
• Local Factors Cause Dramatic Spikes in Coastal Ocean Acidity: Fluctuation ‘Adds Insult to Injury’ for Marine Creatures (Science Daily Jan 2014)

• An Upwelling Crisis: Ocean Acidification
• Ocean Acidification Happening at 10X Rate Than Ever Before – Study
• World ocean systems undermined by climate change by 2100

Rising sea levels

• Rising sea levels – Bangla desh
• The flood next time (NYT, Jan 2014)
• This is what Earth will look like if we melt all the ice

Diseases and climate change

• As Global Temperatures Rise, the Malaria Pandemic Will Spread Upland
• The World’s Deadliest Animals You Don’t Know About – animals that might thrive in a warmer climate

Oil and economy

• Climate Panel Stunner: Avoiding Climate Catastrophe Is Super Cheap — But Only If We Act Now |
• Why Hasn’t Wall Street Imploded Over “The Carbon Bubble” Yet?   |
• Rent in a Warming World  (March 2014) |
• The booming business of global warming (March 2014)
• Industry awakens to threat of climate change  (NYT, Jan 2014)
• The 9 things utilities should worry about
•  It’s time to stop investing in the fossil fuel industry  |
• You May Be Surprised How Much Our Climate Inaction Is Costing You
• Climate change threatens economy of 4 PH cities  (Nation, Jan 2014)
• Billion-Dollar Weather/Climate Disasters (NOAA)
•  Nasa-funded Study: Industrial Civilization Headed for ‘Irreversible Collapse’ Due to Inequality, Exploitation |

• Inaction on Climate Change: The Cost to Taxpayers
• The Stern review on the costs of climate change
• Big corporations are getting ready for carbon taxes, even if we’re not
• Carbon-Free Nuclear-Free Energy Economy Is Inevitable
• Assault on Clean Energy Revealed: How ALEC-Inpsired Laws Plans to Charge Homeowners Who Install Solar
• The Climate Change Performance Index
• Carbon fees?

• Climate change may pose threat to economic growth
• The hidden costs of fossil fuels
• World War 3: the unthinkable cost of preserving the petrodollar
• Nicholas Stern: I got it wrong on climate change. It is far, far worse (Guardian 2013)
• Recklessly slow or a rapid transition to a low-carbon economy? Time to decide (Stern)
• The Stern review on climate change
• Unburnable carbon: wasted capital and stranded assets
• The unburnable carbon
• The Grantham institute on the climate and the environment
• Stern, N. (2013) The case for a European low-carbon economy
• Economists Forecast the End of Growth as We Know It — It’s About Time
• Ekonomernas skuld (SVT, 2013)
• An economy without Debt and Banks – is that reality or fiction…
• The end of the beginning. World Bank no longer supports coal 
• Climate change could put $6 trillion in fossil fuel reserves at risk
• Vasakronan issues the world’s first green corporate bond
• Make the rich change their ways to avoid a 2C rise, says top scientist
• “We Have to Consume Less”: Scientists Call For Radical Economic Overhaul to Avert Climate Crisis
• Economist: the future of oil – yesterday’s fuel (Aug. 2013)
• Climate policy and dependence on traded carbon
• Working for the Few – Political capture and economic inequality (Oxfam Jan 2014)

Mitigation and adaptation

• New IPCC report calls for 300-400% more zero-CO2 energy by 2050 to avoid catastrophic warming

Peak oil 

• Think “peak oil” is a discredited idea? Think again
• Peak oil lives – but will kill the economy
• Why peak oilers are still right
• Were the Peak Oil Theorists Right?
• Peak soil: industrial civilisation is on the verge of eating itself
• Peak Oil: The rise and fall of humans
• Former BP geologist: peak oil is here and it will ‘break economies’

Subsidies

• Time to change the game: fossil fuel subsidies and climate
• IMF Experts and Others Envision a World without Energy Subsidies. IMF calculates real subsidies to fossil fuels to be USD 2 trillion annually
• The basics of climate science in 5 minutes
• Fossil Fuel and Renewable Energy Subsidies on the Rise
• How you subsidise energy giants to wreck the planet
• What if solar got fossil fuel subsidies
• IMF Rejects Fossil Fuel Subsidies, Calls for Reform
• Buy Coal! A Case for Supply-Side Environmental Policy 
• IEA (2012) World energy outlook

Fracking and unconventional oil sources

• How Much Will Tar Sands Oil Add to Global Warming? (Scientific American)

• 10 Reasons to Oppose the Keystone XL Pipeline (Huffington post)

• This is what fracking looks like
• Man made earthquakes
• Fracking and methane – gangplank to a warm future
• What so bad about fracking?
• With Tar Sands Development,Growing Concern on Water Use
• Setting the Record Straight on Tar Sands and Water Use
• Extreme Energy Extraction Roadtrip — The Scary Ways We’re Ruining the Country to Get Fossil Fuels
• Shale: High depletion rates in Bakken
• Hansen, J. (2013) Tar sand and dirty tricks

• How Much Will Tar Sands Oil Add to Global Warming? (Scientific American)

• 10 Reasons to Oppose the Keystone XL Pipeline (Huffington post)

Denial

• Global scientific consensus
• The Koch brothers and their XL Pipeline filthy oil connection (March 2014)
• Science Deniers Are Freaking Out About “Cosmos”  (March 2014)
• Just 90 companies are responsible for two-thirds of greenhouse gas emissions
• 2013′s Climate Grinches — Stealing Christmas Warmth And Putting It Into The Atmosphere
• Now the Kochs Are Coming After Your Solar Panels
• Examining ‘Media’s Global Warming Fail’
• The terrarists -How to Make Staggering Amounts of Money and Ruin the Planet
• Feet to the Fire: Time to Hold the Big Energy Villains Who Kill the Earth While Making a Killing Accountable
• New study looks at how the Agenda 21 conspiracy is poisoning public discussion about sustainability
• IPCC report: sceptic groups launch global anti-science campaign
• Scientists take the Mail on Sunday to task over claim that warming is half what IPCC said last time
• Why Would A Climate Scientist Need A Quick Course In Legal Self-Defense?
• The 5 stages of climate denial are on display ahead of the IPCC report
• Climate Change Report From UN Introduces Purple Color To Depict Worsening Climate Risks (Associated Press)
• Rupert Murdoch’s Newspapers Mislead Public On Climate Change and Environment (DeSmog Blog)
• Dollars for Deniers: Big Oil Funds Climate Science Denialism (Daily Kos)
• The 5 stages of climate denial are on display ahead of the IPCC report (The Guardian)
• The Difference Between Global Warming Skeptics And Normal People
• Capitalism and the Destruction of Life on Earth: Six Theses on Saving the Humans
• Why wouldn’t we want to have a positive impact on the world…?

Renewable energy

• Ensuring an Energy Sustainable Development Goal delivers for poor people and the planet
• 100% sun, wind, and water can power each U.S. state and the world –Stanford study |
• DualWingGenerator – power generation with the wing-beating principle

• Hansen, J. (2014) World’s Greatest Crime against Humanity and Nature (Nuclear is part of the solution!)
• Solar Academy Established in Egypt (March 2014)
• Heavy Duty Vertical Axis Wind Turbines — HiVAWT Technology Corp
• This graph shows why solar power will take over the world. The price of solar energy drops dramatically
• Record German Wind Power Lifts Renewable Share Over ’20 Goal
• We Have the Renewable Energy We Need to Power the World—So What’s Stopping Us?
• Renewable energy for all (UN & World Bank, 2013)
• Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation (SRREN)
• The European Energy Centre – training

• Interview With Robert F Kennedy Jr On Environmental Activism, Democratization Of Energy

• As Our Planet Fries, Think We Are Headed for Renewable Energy? Think Again
• Debunking the Renewables “Disinformation Campaign”
• Have we hit a “permanent slowdown” in the growth of global CO2 emissions?
• What is the energy of the future? Some orders of magnitude
• Solar Startup Could Make At-Home Renewable Energy Purchases As Easy As Booking Travel
• Solar Power Could Be A Total Game-changer — But They Still Need To Figure Out One Thing
• Sizing your residential solar PV system
• Zero energy homes have arrived
• Sustainable living

• Small Solar Installations To Help California City Save Millions
• Renewables to create quarter of world’s electricity by 2018-IEA

• Solar Power Cheaper Than Coal Foreseen By German Solar CEO

• CETO wave energy
• Renewables now cheaper than coal and gas in Australia
• New Arizona Solar Plant Uses Salt To Keep Producing Electricity When The Sun Goes Down

• Renewables future no more costly than fossil fuels
• Graph of the Day: A turning point for the global solar market?
• Global capacity set to surpass 2 terrawatts by 2020 with power shifting to emerging markets
• Amory’s Angle: Three Major Energy Trends to Watch
• Scientist James Hansen Proposes “People’s Climate Stewardship Act”: A Simple Carbon Fee with Revenue Returned to Americans
• Making green sexy and spiritual
• A High-Renewables Tomorrow, Today: Greensburg, Kansas
• Renewables
• UNEP 2011: Green technology
• U.S. Solar Energy Installations Reach Record High in First Quarter
• Solar is Shining Bright in 2013 and Beyond
• Green Inventions: 10 Hot Eco-Innovations That Could Change The Planet (PHOTOS)
• Mapping the energy revolution (World Bank)
• Transition cultures – future without oil (TED lecture)

• Gamechanger: Next Generation Wind Turbines With Storage Are Cheap, Reliable And Brilliant
• Wind Turbines Are Quieter Than A Heartbeat, Acoustical Experts Find

• Cost effective benefits of geothermal energy
• eGallons: How much does it cost to drive on electricity compared to gasoline?
• Solar energy: how close is an off the grid reality?
• When Will Solar Get Cheap Enough for Everyone to Use?

Geo-engineering

• Why Messing With the Earth’s Climate to Reverse Greenhouse Gas Emissions Could Make Everything Worse (March 2014)
• Climate engineering (Articles)
• Al Gore: Use of Geo-Engineering to Head Off Climate Disaster Is Insane
• IPCC (2007) 11.2.2 Ocean fertilization and other geo-engineering options
• Geo-engineering methods
• Geoengineering Could Reduce Critical Global Rainfall
• GEA@275 Bio-Carbon Capture
• Could Australia Use Plants To Pull CO2 Out Of The Air And Store It Underground?
• Geo engineering watch
• World May Have To Suck Gases From Air To Meet Climate Goals
• Global warming: Warning against abrupt stop to geoengineering method (if started)

Climate change and conflicts

• How Could A Drought Spark A Civil War?
• Syria, Water, Climate Change, and Violent Conflict
• Environmental protests throughout the Middle East
• Mass Protest, Not a Speech, Is Needed to Address Climate Change
• The biggest control knob: CO2 in Earth’s climate history

Climate change and development

• Climate change is decreasing farm yields just when we need them to go up
• World Social Science Report 2013: “Changing Global Environments”.
• UNEP: the emission gap 2012
• 5 Things We Learned in 2013 That Could Move the Needle on Sustainability
• The Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN)  |
• This Cozy Cabin Was Built In A Single Day. The Secret Is What It’s Made Of. (Emergency housing for climate refugees)

• Greenhouse gas emissions explained, in seven balloons
• World Bank: What climate change means for Asia,Africa and the coast poor
• Almost Too Horrible to Contemplate: Global Warming Could Destroy the Lives of 750 Million People in the Short Future
• Cooling Pacific has dampened global warming, research shows
• Climate change in Africa will hit the poor hardest
• A Closer Look at Climate Panel’s Findings on Global Warming Impacts
• How A Former Tea Party Congressman Learned To Love Al Gore

• Peak soil: industrial civilisation is on the verge of eating itself
• Plants matter. Is photosynthesis the best defence against climate change?
• Aid groups warn of growing hunger and disease as planet warms
• I am an eco warrior

Climate migration

• Which is more likely to drive people from their homes — floods or heat waves? Climate migration in Pakistan (Feb 2014)

• The sustainable society of 2040

 This article has jointly been written by 

Dagny Nyfelt, Sven Åke Bjørke, Ellen Schei Tveitdal, Toril E. Storengveien and Odd Skaug Syvertsen on behalf of the Grandparents climate action campaign