Guest essay by Eric Worrall UK Environment Minister Michael Gove just slammed President Trump for walking out on the Paris Agreement. Michael Gove ‘deeply regrets’ Trump’s approach to Paris climate agreement In first speech since cabinet return, environment secretary says he hopes US president will have a change of heart Michael Gove has said he…
via Watts Up With That?
July 24, 2017 at 06:09PM
What began with Daimler’s massive recall of more than 3 million diesel cars to lower their emissions, ended on Friday with Audi also embarking on a voluntary recall of 850,000 vehicles. Adding to the spate of bad news was a report in Der Spiegel magazine that the biggest car manufacturers — Daimler, BMW and Volkswagen as well as VW’s Audi and Porsche brands — may have colluded for decades on technology. The companies declined to comment.
For almost two years now, the German car industry has sought to get out from underneath the cloud of the diesel scandal that erupted first at VW and has cost it billions in fines and has since threatened to engulf other carmakers, tainting the image of German engineering and hurting the industry that’s among the country’s biggest employers.
The scandal comes as automakers wrestle with an unprecedented technology shift in the industry, with electronic cars made by Tesla or Toyota finding more buyers and German manufacturers trying to catch up with the battery-powered vehicle trend.
According to the Spiegel report, the five German car brands met starting in the 1990s to coordinate activities related to their vehicle technology, costs, suppliers and strategy as well as emissions controls in diesel engines. The discussions involved more than 200 employees in 60 working groups in areas including auto development, gasoline and diesel motors, brakes and transmissions. Talks may have also involved the size of tanks for AdBlue fluid for diesel autos, the magazine reported, which is at the heart of the emissions case.
“These allegations look very serious and would mean more than 20 years of potential collusion,” said Juergen Pieper, a Frankfurt-based analyst with Bankhaus Metzler. “There seems to be a never ending story of bad news about the industry’s bad behavior.”
Shares in the three biggest German automakers fell Monday by as much as 3.7 percent after the Spiegel report, the Associated Press reported.
European carmakers are shoring up diesel because they need it to bridge the gap between tightening rules for greenhouse-gas emissions and ramping up electric-car plans. Authorities are scrutinizing the technology after Volkswagen admitted in September 2015 to rigging cars to cheat on emissions tests.
via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)
July 24, 2017 at 03:06PM
Could ‘cocktail geoengineering’ save the climate? From the CARNEGIE INSTITUTION FOR SCIENCE Geoengineering is a catch-all term that refers to various theoretical ideas for altering Earth’s energy balance to combat climate change. New research from an international team of atmospheric scientists published by Geophysical Research Lettersinvestigates for the first time the possibility of using a “cocktail”…
via Watts Up With That?
July 24, 2017 at 02:09PM
Guest post by David Middleton If President Obama was the “war on coal,” President Trump might just be the post-war “Marshall Plan”… U.S. Coal Finds Footing In European Markets By Oil & Gas 360 – Jul 22, 2017 A report by the EIA indicated that coal exports—for both steam coal, used for power generation, and metallurgical coal,…
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July 24, 2017 at 01:08PM
Iowa Climate Science Education 