Do we need to be preparing for Arctic cruising strategies because of Global Cooling

[Rustic Charm]

Originally Posted by adoxograph

The Galileo trials are a little more complex. He got only prosecuted after he portrayed the pope as an imbacil. The fact that Earth was spherical was known since the old Greeks pot a stick in the ground and measured the circumference of the planet ~2500 years ago.

I wrote a paper about this. Let me know if you want to read it

I remember talking about this when I was doing my seminarian studies. No one argued that the science was wrong. More that the church seen the science as a threat. Pretty much the same as fundamentalists and creationists do today.

[Celestialsailor]

Originally Posted by GoingWalkabout

The country that brought us the Salem Witch trials has a political party (Democrats) who have just made it official party policy to prosecute and criminalize global Global Warming denial.

If I lived in Salem at the time of the witch trials I would get rid of my black cat and bake free bread for the local vicar.

George Orwell gave us a glimpse into the world to come. The climate fascists are delivering the nightmare.

The world is becoming a very dangerous place. I for one vote in favor of going sailing... and having a plan to go sailing until such time the winds of mass madness have blown away from our lands.

Funny how in Salem it was puritan's who escaped religious persecution to find a new home of liberty used that freedom and liberty to murder and deny the freedom, life and liberty of others. We now see the stage being set for the new climate sceptic witch trials to begin.

Fear mixed with ignorance supported by those in power make for a powerful concoction that poisons the mind of the people.

Time to hide my black cat and go sailing I think.

Nice how you glossed over the "Patriot Act" which took our freedoms away. That's ok though...right? Look...both party's have their faults. Wanna sail away?...I totally support that but not the Dems are demons and the Repubs are saints.

[adoxograph]

Originally Posted by Going Walkabout

The scientific thought of Galileo ...

Here part of one of my masters research papers. The title of the paper was: "The role of the Roman Catholic Church in encouraging/preventing the advancement of astronomy."

Imagine me as Astrophysicist/Mathematician doing something like this . First I hated it, however it turned out to be really fun as it included hanging around in the archive of the Vatican in Rome and in the archives of several renowned old universities in Europe. Free holiday I thought but I was wrong as I got hooked on the fascinating history.

Here chapter 8.5 of the paper.

8.5 Observational proof – Galilei Galileo
Galilei Galileo (1564-1642) can be considered one of the first modern scientists. He changed the methods of mechanics by deviating from the classical way of studying the somewhat theoretical teachings of past scientists, based almost entirely on the writings of Aristotle. Those writings were considered as church-approved dogma since St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) preserved a huge amount of Aristotle’s teachings in the 13th century. However, those teachings were lacking any empirical basis. Until the Renaissance, natural philosophers referred to Aristotle’s writings and did not question them, even though it was in discrepancy with what they observed. Nonetheless, Galileo was using experimentation as well as mathematics as his tools of research. He realised that the physics of his time was incorrect and attempted to improve it. Galileo also carried out theoretical and experimental work on the motions of bodies in general, which when combined with Johannes Kepler’s and René Descartes efforts, was a precursor for Newton’s classical mechanics.
Galileos academic career began at the University of Pisa where he studied medicine but dropped out shortly after he had started in order to follow his interest in mathematics and mechanics. Galileo discovered the isochronism of the pendulum when he was 19. With 22, he had developed the hydrostatic balance. Galileo started lecturing at the University of Pisa at 25 and gained a reputation as a scientist and outstanding professor all over Europe. He accepted a position at the University of Padua, where he developed an interest in the Copernican theory and concluded that Copernicus’ heliocentric model was correct. 1597, he wrote in a letter to Johannes Kepler: “[…] Like you, I accepted the Copernicun position several years ago and discovered from thence the causes of many natural effects which are doubtless inexplicable by the current theories. […]” (Santillana 1981). In the same letter, Galileo admited that he had so far desisted from becoming a public advocate for the Copernican view for the reason of fear of public ridicule by his fellow astronomers.
Galileo presented observations made with his improved telescope design that supported a heliocentric model (Carlos 1880). His observations included the seas of the Moon as well as the moons of Jupiter, which he saw as a separate planetary system by itself. This led to Galileo abandoning his reservations, and he began to make public arguments in favour of a heliocentric system discussing his observations at dinner parties and in public debates in Florence. Galileo was confident that his observations, which could have been easily repeated by everyone, would convince at least the educated elite of Florence of the validity of the Copernican system. He was about to find himself disappointed. 1610, in another letter to Kepler, he wrote, “My dear Kepler, what would you say of the learned here, who, replete with the pertinacity of the asp, have steadfastly refused to cast a glance through the telescope? What shall we make of this? Shall we laugh, or shall we cry?” (Santillana 1981). Eventually the acceptance of Galileo’s work gained momentum. With that, Galileo, a devoted catholic, triggered a chain of events resulting in open hostility from the Dominican friar Father Lorini, who expounded Copernican doctrine violating scripture by placing the Sun and not the Earth at the centre of the universe. Galileo’s argued in response in his letter to Castelli that the scripture should be understood sometimes in a more figurative sense referring that the biblical “hand of God” is not meant to represent the physical hand of God, rather describes God’s presence in everyone’s life (Santillana 1981).
Determined to get rid of the “Galileists” Lorini sent to the Roman Inquisition a heavily modified copy of Galileo's Letter to Castelli. For example, Lorini took Galileo’s original sentence “There are in Scripture words which, taken in the strict literal meaning, look as if they differed from the truth,”, and added to it “which are false in their literal meaning.” Lorini's deceiving and false denunciation succeeded in setting the inquisitional apparatus of the RCC in motion.
Galileo’s trial records are available. He faced the inquisitional court two times. His first appearance was in 1616. He ended up with the proverbial slap on the wrist and was ordered by Cardinal Bellarmine “[…] to abandon completely […] the opinion that the sun stands still at the center of the world and the earth moves, and henceforth not to hold, teach, or defend it in any way whatever, either orally or in writing.”
Galilei was brought before the court again in 1633 in regards to his “Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo (Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems: Ptolemaic and Copernican)” (Galilei 1632; Galilei, Heilbron, & Einstein 2001). He wrote this text in form of a fictional dialogue, which allowed him to represent his scientific advancements in an apparently neutral form. His characters were the academic Salviati, who presented the arguments pro Copernican system; Sagredo a bright nonprofessional, who is in the beginning neutral but in the end more inclined towards the Copernican model; and Simplicio, who believed in Ptolemy and Aristotle. It probably did not help Galileo that he put the words of Pope Urban VIII in the mouth of his character Simplicio, who was depicted as an imbecilic fool that stumbled constantly over his own errors. Galileo pretended to present both views alike, but could not avoid having his dialogue leaning towards the Copernican model. Galileo tried to gain permission from Holy Office in Rome to publish the “Dialogue” in 1630 and finally received permission from the inquisitional court in Florence, but with stringent conditions and many changes to his original text. He had to ensure that the text discussed the heliocentric theory unambiguously as a hypothesis. Even with this permission, the publishing of the “Dialogue” was seen as a breach of the condition of his earlier trial in 1616.
His four depositions before the inquisitional court (Archivio-Segreto-Vaticano 1633b, 1633c, 1633d, 1633e) show a careful man trying to please the court in order to avoid the severe punishment of Giordano Bruno. In fact, Galilei was a religious man, who tried to reconcile his findings with catholic dogma and the court acknowledged this fact (Galilei 1957; McMullin 2005; Santillana 1981). Since Galileo’s findings clashed with dogma and because of his personality and attitude, he ran into problems with the clergy of his time. Nevertheless, the transcripts show Galileo as a humble and apologetic man when he was facing the court. Galileo was sentenced to lifelong imprisonment (Archivio-Segreto-Vaticano 1633a), which was carried out in the form of house arrest. The translated transcript of his sentence can be found in Appendix A. Besides the punishment of detention, Galileo’s work was put on the Index of forbidden books, but somehow his followers managed to get a copy published in Holland where it found a vast readership. Galileo was under house arrest until his dying day.
On a sidenote: There is no record of Galileo ever saying the legendary words “Epur si muove (and yet it does move)” during or after his trial and, considering the court transcripts, it is unlikely that he would have dared to do so. Those words first appeared around 1644 on a painting most likely by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo. It shows a portrait of Galileo in a prison cell where those words are scratched graffiti-like on the cell wall.
The RCC made parts of Galileo’s work available as early as 1718 in a limited censored edition (Heilbron 2010; McMullin 2005) but it took the RCC until 1835 to completely remove heliocentric texts from its index of banned writings. Even then, the RCC fell short of endorsing the heliocentric model directly, only just by Pope Pius VII, granting an “imprimatur” to the work of “Canon Settele”, in which Copernicus’ findings became taken as factual and no longer treated as a hypothesis. (McMullin 2005). It took the RCC until 1939 before Pope Pius XII recognised Galileo’s work and until 1992 before Pope John Paul II conveyed compunction for how the Galileo affair was handled (Cowell 1992). Neither Copernicus, Brahe nor Kepler’s work encountered any relevant resistance from the church when it was published. Copernicus’ written work together with any other publications of a heliocentric system was banned only in context of the inquisition of Galileo Galilei.
It is obvious that Galileo was persecuted by the RCC because of his scientific advancements, especially his astronomical discoveries. However, there were other confounding factors in play. With the reformation spreading in Europe the RCC lost its standing, power and influence. There was a struggle between Catholics and Protestants, Reformation and Counter-Reformation. One name shows up in the case against Giordano Bruno as well as in the case of Galilei Galileo: The Jesuit Cardinal Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621).
Bellarmine was the first Jesuit who held a professorship at the University of Louvain. He was teaching in Louvain at a time when Protestantism was gaining momentum. Consequently, the university became a fortification of Catholic orthodoxy. In his “Disputationes de Controversiis Christianae Fidei Adversus Hujus Temporis Haereticos (Disputations about the Controversies of the Christian faith Against the Heretics of this Time)” Bellarmino (1587) tried to bring structure to the pandemonium of theological arguments between the RCC and Protestants. It is a fair assumption that Bellarmine’s intention was to protect the RCC from outside forces of Protestantism as well as from inside struggles presented by Galileo’s advancement of astronomy and the growing amount of followers of Galileo’s teachings. Being involved in Bruno’s case earlier, he might have seen an emerging pattern of astronomy challenging the authority of the RCC. From his point of view, he might have tried to block this trend before it got out of hands.

PS: If you PM me your email I send you the whole paper.

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by adoxograph

Here part of one of my masters paper to this subject.

Ironically Martin Luther did not accept the Copernican view.

[GoingWalkabout]

Originally Posted by Rustic Charm

Oh come on. Not even a resemblance of fact in this post. You could probably guess that 99% of church leaders and lay people thought the world was flat because firstly 99% of lay people were illiterate and relying on church leaders to 'tell them' what to believe. And 99% of church leaders would follow the head of the church because it's what he said and it was death to disagree.

Rejectiong Galileo was an ecclesiastical political act. Nothing to do with science.

Yes. A political ecclesiastical act. It was an attack on free minds and true science. Exactly my point. Followers today of science approach science with the same maddening closed mindedness as did the followers of the Church influenced science of Galileo's day.

[adoxograph]

Originally Posted by GoingWalkabout

Yes. A political ecclesiastical act. It was an attack on free minds and true science. Exactly my point. Followers today of science approach science with the same maddening closed mindedness as did the followers of the Church influenced science of Galileo's day.

Not many people believed in a flat earth in Galileo's times. A spherical Earth and the Ptolemaic cosmology was very persistent. Chapter 3.3

3.3 Ptolemy: A model for 1400 years
In the second century CE, also in Alexandria, Claudius Ptolemaeus (Ptolemy) (Figure 3) developed a more fine-tuned mathematical model based on the Hellenistic geocentric concept with the difference that Ptolemy put the Earth slightly off-centre (Toomer 1996). Ptolemy compiled the “Almagest”, a mathematical and astronomical treatise, consisting of 13 books on the apparent motions of the stars and planetary paths (Ptolemy & Gingerich 1998).
The Almagest was based on Hipparchus’ Aristotle’s and Eudoxus’ work, using eccentric deferent. Ptolemy used Hipparchus’ star catalogue of 850 stars, extending it to 1022 stars. There are accusations that Ptolemy manipulated or used extrapolations techniques and older data to compile his catalogue (Gingerich 2002; Hardorp 1987; Hetherington 1997; Toomer 1996). Ptolemy extended the Greek epicycle-on-deferent model by adding a device which is referred to as a “crank mechanism” (Hoskin 1999). He created successfully analogous constructs for the planets creating the concept of the equant (Figure 4). Similar to his Greek predecessors, Ptolemy used perfect circles for the Moon, Mercury and Venus, the Sun, and then Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Beyond the farthest planet, Ptolemy put a circle for the stars. The Sun and Moon were pictured as orbiting the Earth in circular paths while, in order to compensate for their observed motions, each planet was imagined to move around a circle or epicycle, the centre of which moved around a larger circle, the deferent, that was centred on Earth.
Ptolemy’s model (Figure 4) used these additional complex structures in order to account and predict planetary motions. The model was surprisingly accurate but was not able to produce exact predictions of planetary motions (Murdin 2000).
Ptolemy’s model was not in conflict with the belief system of the RCC as the Earth was still the centre of the universe and humans the crown of creation. Yet, Christian Europe was for a long period not familiar with Ptolemy’s model, while the Islamic world embraced his work. It was first translated into Arabic in the 9th century and adopted by the Islamic world.
The Almagest only found its way back to Christian Europe much later. First in the 12th century, when it was translated into Spanish and a second time in the 15th century when it was translated into Latin and reintroduced to Europe (Timberlake 2013). Nevertheless, Ptolemy’s scientific work was considered valid almost unchanged for over 1400 years.

PS: I never thought this paper as useful for anything. Guess I was wrong.

Originally Posted by jackdale

Ironically Martin Luther did not accept the Copernican view.

Yes, that was not the only surprise I had when I did this research. I was never a history buff even my dad was a history Prof (or maybe because he was?). But doing this history of Astronomy research project I realised that most of the things I knew based on "common knowledge" where completely wrong.

[GoingWalkabout]

Originally Posted by Celestialsailor

Nice how you glossed over the "Patriot Act" which took our freedoms away. That's ok though...right? Look...both party's have their faults. Wanna sail away?...I totally support that but not the Dems are demons and the Repubs are saints.

Though we differ in some things on this I think we both can agree. A pox on all of them.

[GoingWalkabout]

Originally Posted by adoxograph

Not many people believed in a flat earth in Galileo's times. A spherical Earth and the Ptolemaic cosmology was very persistent. Chapter 3.3



PS: I never thought this paper as useful for anything. Guess I was wrong.



Yes, that was not the only surprise I had when I did this research. I was never a history buff even my dad was a history Prof (or maybe because he was?). But doing this history of Astronomy research project I realised that most of the things I knew based on "common knowledge" where completely wrong.

The CC in Galileo's world was the determiner of what was acceptable and "true" science. Scientific dogma and church dogma were indivisible. And CC dogma, even though it ran contrary to observed facts and against other contrary popular views outside of Rome, was still church teaching which was all supreme.

The schools, the Universities of the time under the influence of Rome were the antithesis of free scientific enquiry and thought. CC dogma ruled supreme and divergence from it was a matter for the inquisitors.

I noted how you found Galileo somewhat deferential before the Catholic Church inquestion. Did you stop to think why that was so? Those robed sadistic men would have put fear into anyone who has an ounce of understanding of their despicable deeds.

How sad they took away his liberty.

How much more sad if we allow the modern day high priests of science to take away free thinking and scientific argument. History can and often does repeat itself. Let us hope that we don't see the new inquisitors succeed.

[adoxograph]

Originally Posted by GoingWalkabout

The CC in Galileo's world was the determiner of what was acceptable and "true" science. Scientific dogma and church dogma were indivisible. And CC dogma, even though it ran contrary to observed facts and against other contrary popular views outside of Rome, was still church teaching which was all supreme.

The schools, the Universities of the time under the influence of Rome were the antithesis of free scientific enquiry and thought. CC dogma ruled supreme and divergence from it was a matter for the inquisitors.

I noted how you found Galileo somewhat deferential before the Catholic Church inquestion. Did you stop to think why that was so? Those robed sadistic men would have put fear into anyone who has an ounce of understanding of their despicable deeds.

How sad they took away his liberty.

How much more sad if we allow the modern day high priests of science to take away free thinking and scientific argument. History can and often does repeat itself. Let us hope that we don't see the new inquisitors succeed.

Yes reading all the court transcripts, letters and other documents I found Galileo a very humble, deferential and very religious man. He tried to merge church dogma with science and even found a way to do it. Unfortunately the cardinal was not interested.

He was also very careful and sometimes scared. This does not come as a surprise as he knew what the inquisition did to Bruno.

[GoingWalkabout]

Originally Posted by adoxograph

Yes reading all the court transcripts, letters and other documents I found Galileo a very humble, deferential and very religious man. He tried to merge church dogma with science and even found a way to do it. Unfortunately the cardinal was not interested.

He was also very careful and sometimes scared. This does not come as a surprise as he knew what the inquisition did to Bruno.

To understand the events surrounding the persecution of Galileo you also need to understand the power struggles going on within the Catholic Church at the time.

The inquisition was started and lead by Dominicans. At the time of Galileo the Dominicans had lost control of the inquisition which was now under Jesuit control.

Copernicus lived in Russia/Poland somewhat physically distant and out of the direct control of Rome which had fallen under the influence of the Jesuits. As stated befire, the Jesuits were at the time of Galileo in charge of the Catholic Court of the inquisition.

Copernicus came from a long line of Dominicans and he himself was a practising lay Dominican. The Jesuits had a problem. Given Copernicus family deep political roots in the Dominican order the Jesuits would have run the risk of causing an incredible upheaval that could have split the Church if they attacked Copernicus directly.

Galileo had no such political protection from within the church and as such fell easy pray to the inquisitors at the hands of the Jesuits.

Could it be that the attack on Galileo was more to do with internal power struggles from within the Church itself? Could it be that the Jesuit leadership feared being attacked for holding dogma that was being ridiculed by a leading Dominican scientist?

This is what I love about history. As with the present, nothing is as it appears on the surface. The complexity of modern and past history is often lost with the passage of time.


"The Jesuits are famous for their role in the Spanish Inquisition, though contrary to popular opinion the Jesuit order did not begin it. The inquisition was set up in 1480, 60 years before the Papal bull that formalised the creation of the Society of Jesus.

The Spanish Inquisition was originally overseen by members of the Dominican order, though members of the Jesuit brotherhood were involved at a later date.

Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition was not formally disbanded until 1834, though its influence had significantly dwindled prior to that date.

The Inquisition was famous for its use of torture to elicit confessions from accused 'heretics'. It was believed that confessions extracted after torture must be true, an idea that was later dispelled."

[SailOar]

In hot water: Climate change is affecting North American fish | Science Daily

Climate change is already affecting inland fish across North America -- including some fish that are popular with anglers. Scientists are seeing a variety of changes in how inland fish reproduce, grow and where they can live, according to four new studies published today in a special issue of Fisheries magazine.

Fish that have the most documented risk include those living in arid environments and coldwater species such as sockeye salmon, lake trout, walleye, and prey fish that larger species depend on for food.

Climate change can cause suboptimal habitat for some fish; warmer water, for example, can stress coldwater fish. When stressed, fish tend to eat less and grow less. For other fish, climate change is creating more suitable habitat; smallmouth bass populations, for example, are expanding.[...]

Other major findings:

• Climate change may be altering abundance and growth of some North American inland fishes, particularly coldwater fish such as sockeye salmon, a species experiencing well-documented shifts in range, abundance, migration, growth, and reproduction.
• Climate change may be causing earlier migration timing and allowing species that never occurred together previously to hybridize. For example, native westslope cutthroat trout in the Rocky Mountains are now hybridizing with rainbow trout, a non-native species.
• Shifts in species' ranges are already changing the kinds of fish in a specific water body, resulting in new species interactions and altered predator-prey dynamics. For example, in Canada, smallmouth bass have expanded their range, altering existing food chains because the species compete against other top predators for habitat and prey fish.
• Droughts are forecasted to increase in frequency and severity in many parts of North America, especially in arid rivers. Such droughts exacerbate the impacts of water flow regulation in ways that affect people, fish, and aquatic systems.[...]

[SailOar]

These Places Could Be Underwater This Century | Forbes

New research out this week in the journal Nature Climate Change finds that over 13 million Americans could find themselves facing the prospect of being underwater – literally – by 2100 because of rising sea levels.

Many scientists believe that sea levels could rise by 3 – 6 feet by the end of the century, inundating some coastal counties in the continental United States. The new research from the University of Georgia is the first to run the numbers on how many people would be affected if those predictions come true using the forecasted populations for those counties in 2100 rather than current population figures.

“The impact projections are up to three times larger than current estimates, which significantly underestimate the effect of sea level rise in the United States,” said Mathew Hauer, who led the study. “In fact, there are 31 counties where more than 100,000 residents could be affected by 6 feet of sea level rise.”[...]

[Florida, Texas, New York, California, Georgia]

Hauer says he hopes the research encourages people and leaders in the most threatened regions to start planning for the future sooner than later.

“Adaptation strategies are costly, and these are areas of especially rapid population growth, so the longer we wait to implement adaptation measures the more expensive they become.”

[SailOar]

Environmentalists, automakers applaud Ontario's $8.3B climate change plan | CBC News

Ontario's climate change plan, which will provide billions of dollars in subsidies and incentives to businesses and homeowners, was greeted with cautious optimism Wednesday by environmentalists and businesses.

The province will spend up to $8.3 billion on a range of programs to encourage people and companies to switch to more energy-efficient heating systems, buy electric or hybrid cars, convert big trucks to natural gas, add more bio-fuel to gasoline, and help the agriculture and industrial sectors adopt low-carbon technologies.

Most of the money is expected to come from a cap-and-trade program for industrial polluters that the Liberal government expects will raise $1.9 billion a year. All of the cap-and-trade money will go into a dedicated fund for lowering Ontario's carbon footprint.[...]

However, the manufacturers want more details on the cap-and-trade plan, which will take effect in January when Ontario joins an existing carbon market with Quebec and California.[...]

Details on rebates for home retrofits will come later, but Environment and Climate Change Minister Glen Murray said no one will have to get rid of their natural gas furnace or old car until they're ready.

"We're not forcing anyone to do this. The incentives are quite generous because it's not revenue neutral," he said. "We want people to avoid the carbon price in the future, and the way you do that is to use very low or non-carbon emitting fuels and technologies in your homes and transportation systems."[...]

Among the details of the plan announced Wednesday morning:

• Electric vehicles: Rebates of up to $14,000 will be offered until 2020 to make leasing or buying an electric vehicle more affordable. There will also be moves to add more public charging stations at workplaces, in city cores and at parking spaces for apartments and condos. By 2018, new homes in Ontario will come ready with a power outlet in their garages — similar to a stove plug — to help Ontarians avoid costly electrical retrofits in the future.
  
• In homes and buildings: The government plans to offer rebates that will encourage homeowners and businesses to install green technology such as solar water heating, better windows and geothermal heating. Starting in 2019, homeowners who sell their houses in Ontario must first have an energy audit, to be paid for by the province. The province also wants to take steps through "legislative and/or regulatory change" to make sure landlords don't just pass on the cost of any retrofits to tenants.
  
• Vehicles: The province will introduce a "cash for clunkers" program in a move to get older, less efficient vehicles off the road. The province also aims to increase the volume of renewable content — such as ethanol — in gasoline.[...]

[SailOar]

High and Dry: Climate Change, Water, and the Economy | World Bank

A new World Bank reports finds that water scarcity, exacerbated by climate change, could hinder economic growth, spur migration, and spark conflict. However, most countries can neutralize the adverse impacts of water scarcity by taking action to allocate and use water resources more efficiently.

Key Findings

• Water scarcity, exacerbated by climate change, could cost some regions up to 6% of their GDP, spur migration, and spark conflict.
• The combined effects of growing populations, rising incomes, and expanding cities will see demand for water rising exponentially, while supply becomes more erratic and uncertain.
• Unless action is taken soon, water will become scarce in regions where it is currently abundant - such as Central Africa and East Asia - and scarcity will greatly worsen in regions where water is already in short supply - such as the Middle East and the Sahel in Africa. These regions could see their growth rates decline by as much as 6% of GDP by 2050 due to water-related impacts on agriculture, health, and incomes.
• Water insecurity could multiply the risk of conflict. Food price spikes caused by droughts can inflame latent conflicts and drive migration. Where economic growth is impacted by rainfall, episodes of droughts and floods have generated waves of migration and spikes in violence within countries.
• The negative impacts of climate change on water could be neutralized with better policy decisions, with some regions standing to improve their growth rates by up to 6% with better water resource management.
• Improved water stewardship pays high economic dividends. When governments respond to water shortages by boosting efficiency and allocating even 25% of water to more highly-valued uses, such as more efficient agricultural practices, losses decline dramatically and for some regions may even vanish.
• In the world’s extremely dry regions, more far-reaching policies are needed to avoid inefficient water use. Stronger policies and reforms are needed to cope with deepening climate stresses.
• Policies and investments that can help lead countries to more water secure and climate-resilient economies include:
  • Better planning for water resource allocation
  • Adoption of incentives to increase water efficiency, and
  • Investments in infrastructure for more secure water supplies and availability.

Download the full report (PDF)

[SailOar]

Climate, Environment, and the IMF | International Monetary Fund

Stabilizing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases will require a radical transformation of the global energy system over coming decades. Fiscal instruments (carbon taxes or similar) are the most effective policies for reflecting environmental costs in energy prices and promoting development of cleaner technologies, while also providing a valuable source of revenue (including, not least, for lowering other tax burdens). Fiscal policies also have a key role to play in addressing other environmental challenges, like poor air quality and urban congestion. Getting energy prices right has large fiscal, environmental and health benefits, and need not wait on international action. Falling energy prices, fiscal pressures and emissions mitigation pledges made by 191 countries for the 2015 Paris Agreement create an opportune time for reform.[…]

Fiscal implications
Broad-based charges on greenhouse gases, such as a carbon tax, are the most effective instruments for encouraging cleaner fuels and less energy use. Carbon taxes can also raise substantial amounts of government revenue, are a highly practical extension of existing administration for fuel taxes, and can be in countries’ own national interests due to domestic health and other co-benefits. Emissions prices can be aligned with mitigation pledges.

Cap-and-trade systems are another option, but generally they should be designed to look like taxes through revenue-raising and price stability provisions.

Designing a response
There are many issues to consider in designing fiscal policies to mitigate climate change:

• the appropriate tax level and base, and the treatment of traded goods;
• revenue use and the balance between carbon and other taxes;
• technology policies, the treatment of forestry and other non-energy emissions;
• the potential for reforming pre-existing energy taxes and regulations;
• how to address impacts on vulnerable households and firms; and
• international coordination (e.g., through carbon price floor arrangements).[…]