People have been asking why there have be no ice blog entries for a few weeks. Sorry, but I have been out of action. Yes, I know, we missed lots of opportunities to talk about the latest climate change developments, from international politics to alarming sea ice measurements and a record number of species under threat. But – sadly – these problems will stay with us for quite some time to come, so we’ll still have plenty of opportunities for debate.
A quick reply to KwanLam Wong, who has been asking how he can contribute to the blog from California. Please keep following it and commenting Kwanlam, and keep us posted on how climate change is affecting California. Your state’s financial problems seem to have been stealing the limelight (as well as Michael Jackon, of course). Otherwise California has the reputation of being a leader in the USA on environmental issues. How do you see that from the inside? An as an architect, are you designing buildings with a minimal environmental impact?
The big Ice Blog news is that I am off to GREENLAND, via Iceland next Monday. That will be my 3rd Arctic trip. More in the Ice Blog in the days to come.

The latest round of UN climate talks are underway here in Bonn.
I came across this “beggar” outside the swish hotel in Bonn where the conference is taking place. I think his motto says it all:

Apologies from the Ice-Blogger for a lack of news over the past couple of weeks. I have been away on climate-related business, visiting a couple of renewable energy projects, one in southern, one in northern Ireland.
The first involves a resource that is more than common in Ireland:

These are graduate scientists from University College Dublin, out in the field at Oak Park, the National Centre for Arable Crops Research, near Carlow. They are monitoring the progress of different types of grass, with the ultimate aim of finding out whether they can be used viably to produce energy in the form of bio-gas. I’ll have a bit more to say about this and Ireland’s attempts to reduce emissions by using bio-energy soon. I talked to Dr. John Finnan from the Centre, Dr. Cara Augustenborg from UCD (you may remember Cara as the Irish “climate ambassador” on the Climate Change College Arctic field trip) and Professor Christoph Müller, from UCD.I also talked to the researchers pictured here braving the wet and windy Irish weather.
There’s more information on the UCD projects here:

More information on the UCD bioenergy project

The Centre’s website is also worth a click:
Oak Park Crop Research Website

More on this and the project in northern Ireland, which involves the world’s first commercially viable tidal generator, located in Strangford Lough, over the next couple of days.
Meanwhile, thanks to Donna for encouraging comments on the Ice Blog, and to my Irish colleague Mary P. (let me know if you’re happy for your name to be mentioned), a committed environment journalist I met on my trip, who also tells me she likes the blog.Thanks for some interesting conversations on the state of the planet and just how much of the land we would have to use if we wanted to supply Ireland with electricity from biomass, Mary. You are a kindred spirit and I look forward to a continuing exchange of views.
More on the “Irish Projects” soon…

It doesn’t often happen that I hear something on the news that makes me shout “hooray” as I’m driving along in the car. I did that yesterday when I heard the Obama administration has revoked a rule passed by their predecessors excusing oil and gas companies in polar bear habitat from special reviews to make sure their work doesn’t harm the animals.

(One of those great pics for WWF by Erik Malm)
It was a scandalous decision, taken as one of President Bush’s last official acts, which illustrates his low respect for nature conservation and backward policies on fossil fuels and climate change.
US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said science had to serve as the foundation for government decisions and federal agencies would have to consult with biologists before taking any action that might affect threatened or endangered species. Good on you Mr Salazar, and more power to you and your team. As President Obama marks his first 100 days in office, there are plenty of positive signs for the environment and climate policy. Nature conservation, renewable energies for energy security and job creation – let’s take that as an upbeat ending to today’s blog post. Good news for the bears for a change. We’ll catch up with the penguins’ problems later…

I recently had an interesting visitor. Moira Rankin, from the US Soundprint Media enterprise, one of my partners in the ongoing Arctic feature series, dropped in to Bonn on a trip to Europe. She is heading for Siberia, to visit a core drilling project, which I hope to be able to give you more news on in May.
Moira was telling me about a forum they’d held to get peoples’ reactions to some of our programmes on climate change. One of the main things that came out was that people really want to know “what does it mean for me”? Climate change really comes home to people when they know it is going to affect them personally.
Well here in Bonn, on the Rhine, in the German state of North-Rhine Westfalia, we’ve been presented with the results of a study looking exactly at that today.
The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, one of the world’s most renowned bodies of its kind, conducted a study commissioned by the states’ Ministry for Environment, Conservation, Agriculture and Consumer Protection. And the results indicate the need for future-oriented policy, now.
We are going to get more heavy rain in winter, with higher risk of flooding. In summer, it’s likely to be the very opposite, with hot, dry summers and less water in the rivers. This, in turn, will affect energy, because we need water for cooling. In some regions, we may also see less ground water forming, because of higher evaporation in hot weather. There are a lot of implications for health, agriculture and biodiversity. We can also expect more frequent and more powerful storms.
Of course this in not as dramatic in some areas of the world, where people’s very existence will be under threat and they will have to migrate to survice.
But as Moira found in her listener research – people are more likely to pay attention and see a need for action if they know they’re going to be affected personally.