Cheshire gas

Gas prospector IGas has announced that there could be huge quantities of shale gas in the area it has been licensed to explore (story here).

The company's licences cover an area of 300 sq miles across Cheshire.

It had previously said it had about nine trillion cubic feet of shale gas. It now estimates that the volume of "gas initially in place" could range from 15.1 trillion cubic feet to 172.3 trillion cubic feet - nearly 20 times more.

To put that in perspective, UK demand is currently about 3TCF per annum, so we are talking about a lot of gas. Of course, there's the question of how much is extractable, but this is still very good news.

Davey rants and raves

Desperately trying to put off a decision on a 2030 decarbonisation target, but beset by the serried ranks of woolly-jumpered Lib Dem backbenchers, who are all demanding that he take the UK back to the 17th century, Ed Davey has decided to do what climate secretaries always do. He is going to give a speech bashing global warming sceptics! Nice one. That will please LibDem MPs, earn him nice write-ups in the Guardian and the Independent, and distract attention from the fact that he will be unable to give them what they want.

...some sections of the press are giving an uncritical campaigning platform to individuals and lobby groups.

This is not the serious science of challenging, checking and probing.

Click to read more ...

ECCO chamber

Last month, climate-concerned communicators from across Europe jetted off to Norway (#greensgobyair) to discuss, yet again, how better to construct a message that will convince the public that they are not simply a bunch of spin doctors and publicly funded propagandists. ECCO, the organisers of the conference, describe themselves as follows:

ECCO is an informal network with the broad aim of information-sharing and capacity-building among communicators. It strives for increased uptake of climate science and climate communication in Europe. Communicators and communication advisors of climate research centres and associated institutions across Europe are the prime targets of the network. ECCO membership is personal and by invitation only. ECCO will aim to improve its members’ communication capacity through the sharing of ideas, best practices and knowledge, and by providing a forum for discussion and support.

The conference was described as a kick-off-conference "as part of the network’s efforts to prepare the scientific community in Europe, and in particular communications officers working for the home institutions of IPCC authors, for the launch of the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report".

Familiar names abounded: Bob Ward, James Painter, Asher Minns, and the Antarctic fox herself, Emily Shuckburgh. Dan Kahan flew in from the USA.

Amazing to think that all those airmiles were clocked up for a chat about a report. They must be really worried by the fate of the planet.

(H/t Bebben)

More from the 'Wrong Files' - Josh 224

The Met Office (along with everyone else, it seems) has much to say about Doug Keenan's post (simplified by our host here) and can be found on their blog here and website here. 

Cartoons by Josh

Click image for larger version

#Greensgobyair

I was amused to see that Tom Nelson picking up on a Twitter hashtag I had used a few days ago when I noticed enviro-lawyer Anthony Hobley heading off to Barcelona. Tom had seen Jonathan Overpeck on his way to China and Time magazine's Bryan Walsh on his way to Las Vegas.

I wonder if the #greensgobyair hashtag might take off. If so, expect to see a great deal of Futerra's Solitaire Townsend, whose addiction to air travel seems hard to kick. In February she visited Vienna and San Francisco. In March it was Brazil. She was back in Brazil at the start of May, noting that customs officers were remarking about her regular visits:

Boarder [sic] guard flicks through stamps in my passport "you must like Brazil". Well, duh.

In the last few weeks she has visited Amsterdam, Cumbria and today has jetted off to San Diego.

Solitaire's twitter name is GreenSolitaire. But if she is green, who isn't?