"California, long cold coastline, mountains, geothermal close to surface, huge lakes and rivers (some redirected), vast urbanisation, horrendous smogs and forest fires, just the kind of place to study global climate change."

While this is not entirely correct you are right that these man made conditions make California perfect for studying UHI. As presented in the map, vast areas of California that have remained low density/undeveloped/wilderness, show no significant warming over the 20th century.
If there was was significant AGW due to pollution/CO2 this is precisly where you would see it because of its varied geographical nature. Where there has been massive urbanisation over the century, there we see a heat signal.

As for the methods of data collection, it is based on the same historical data used by HadCrue/Hanson/Mann etc for their climate models. The only difference being that they have heavily adjusted the data.

I can show you weather station data from all over the world that shows the same effect, especialy data collected in remote areas such as Greenland the Artic or Antartica where the weather stations are always sighted on airports!

While the same data but un"corrected" tells this rather different story...

While weather stations outside urbanised areas, isolated away from UHI effects in the arctic circle show no significant warming for the 20th C:

"Niwa sued over data accuracy

The country’s state-owned weather and atmospheric research body NIWA is being taken to court in a challenge over the accuracy of its data used to calculate global warming.

"Coalition spokesman Bryan Leyland said many scientists believed although the earth had been warming for 150 years, it had not heated as much as Government archives claimed.

He said the New Zealand Meteorological Service had shown no warming during the past century but Niwa had adjusted its records to show a warming trend of 1degC. The warming figure was high and almost 50 percent above the global average, said Mr Leyland.

“The New Zealand Met Service record shows no warming during the last century, but NIWA has adopted a series of invariably downward adjustments in the period prior to World War 2. Because these move the old temperature records downwards, the 7SS NZTR shows a huge bounce-back of over 1°C in the first half of the century” said Mr
Leyland. “Although this is out of line with dozens of other records, and has been the subject of sustained questioning by both the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition and the ACT party, NIWA refuses to accept that there are serious problems with the adjustments. In fact, no one has been able to explain exactly how they were
arrived at.”

That's right james - bringing us back to topic.

Posted By: jamesingram.
What do you think about bringing permaculture ideas into the corporate world , and attempting to inspire
people to re-think, re-design and build a sustainable future.

The proletariat would probably accept it, not much to loose. The further up the food chain we get the more resistance you'd meet. Yes, on reflection start at the top and work down.

It doesn't matter how much shit's already there, or why or how.

First is to
a) stop accumulating more, which was the start of this thread, or at least
b) reduce the accumulation to a rate that the planet's 'environmental services' can handle. About 1980, we crossed that threshold http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/earth_overshoot_day/

Beyond that, the sustainability of the human race's existence on earth depends upon either
c) leaving the planet and its plants to clear up the shit, or
d) as c) but co-operating actively in facilitating c).

It's not that we humans have to get out there with our limited supply of buckets - we humans (in fact we animals) can't do the job - only the planet and its plants can. We just have to get out of the planet's way, or even co-operate with it.

d) isn't a proposition that needs scientific verification - it's a state of awareness that some people, even on this forum, immediately start denying.

Lao Tzu, he say "The best way to run the world is to let it take its course - and to get yourself out of its way. Hua!"

Video of some of the lectures from
Bradford 10+1 international conference
"The Ellen MacArthur Foundation is joining forces with Bradford University to run a two day international conference on closed loop thinking."
http://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/videos
Waste as Future Feedstock , Speaker: James Clark, Green Chemistry Group, University of York
http://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/videos?video=Waste%20as%20Future%20Feedstock%20-%20%20Part%201

http://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/videos?video=Waste%20as%20Future%20Feedstock%20-%20%20Part%202
11.45 minutes , "elemental unsustainabilty, we are running out of key elements"

Interesting example in one of the talks of a carpet tile manifacturer showing growth in turn over and profit
over the last few years , through this recession , bucking the downward trend of thier competiors , which the CEO puts down to the companys goal and attempts to move towards the cradle to cradle approach in thier manifacturering processes and business ethos

By changing production materials and offering end of life collection and reprocessing its placed its raw material in a closed loop , removing the need to source new materials for future production

Venlo: First cradle-to-cradle region in the world

"The Venlo-region in the south-east of the Netherlands, bordering Germany, is developing initiatives at different scales which can test the concepts of Cradle-to-cradle at a regional scale. The intention is to boost social, economic and environmental welfare internally in the region whilst at the same time creating a knowledge base which can be exported across Europe and internationally."

http://www.dac.dk/en/dac-cities/sustainable-cities-2/all-cases/master-plan/venlo-first-cradle-to-cradle-region-in-the-world/?bbredirect=true

http://circulareconomy.wikispaces.com/
"Words ought to be a little wild for they are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking. - J M Keynes

Welcome to our Wikispace. One overview and a largely borrowed glossary, five sections with a total of 20 briefings which will be followed by 20 videos and a scattering of workshop ideas for exemplification.
Each can be a stand alone topic but there are deeper relationships, as befits the notion of relational thinking. The choice of a boundary and these particular categories is not an attempt at a studious comprehensiveness but it is, hopefully, enough of a narrative if read in the round to be of assistance to those interested in the basics of the circular economy.
We wanted to be able to move from the abstract (systems thinking) to the practical outworking (whole systems design) and then through ‘energy and materials’ – as deservedly a pairing as what follows: ‘products and services’ and finally to the great facilitators of human endeavour ‘money..’ and the messaging which is ‘…prices’.
Contributions have been made by a number of authors and each has their own emphasis and boundary in mind. These differences have not been subject to extensive editing and represent what is always the case: variations of interpretation within patterns and themes. As well as rejecting a formulaic approach to the parts there is also an impermanence about them. In any event this is, of course, a wiki and edits and clarifications are most welcome. Updates will be frequent and anyone who feels they have a much better candidate for any section should feel free to submit it."

Circular Economy Reports
http://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/business/reports

As part of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s mission to accelerate the transition to the circular economy, we have conducted analysis and published the first ever report series highlighting the economic rationale for the transition to a circular economy – an opportunity in excess of 2 trillion USD for the global economy

RMI ? Retail Marketing international , Retail motor industry or Rocky mountain institute
I guess the last one , yes no point preaching to the convert ( like we may be here) It's those in big business that need help steering back to course