Toxic waste weighs on revival of nuclear industry.
Reviving the U.S. nuclear industry could get hung up on the political minefield of how to handle the security, legal and environmental risks posed by a growing mountain of radioactive waste. Reuters
Top StoriesCan smiley faces (and a 14-step program) save the global climate?When rational appeals fall short, environmentalists enlist social and economic incentives--and even neuroscience--to get the public in on national efforts to combat climate change Scientific American High-speed rail gains traction in Spain.The shift to high-speed rail has environmental, political and economic benefits for Spain. But passengers are not necessarily thinking green. New York Times 'Energy bonanza' to power 750,000 homes.Scotland has taken a world-leading role in the emerging multi-billion-pound marine energy industry by approving ten projects with the potential to power almost a third of the country's homes. Edinburgh Scotsman Algae's solar electrons hijacked to steal power.An international gang of biologists has carried out an audacious heist, stealing valuable electrons from photosynthesising algae. The power grab could open a route to more efficient exploitation of photosynthesis to power machines. New Scientist Farming feels like 'gambling,' but insurance helps cut risks.After two years of drought, the rains now falling in Kenya are not bringing the expected relief for Kenya's farmers. Why? Erratic weather means no one knows when to put in a crop anymore. Reuters UN at odds over climate policy.Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary-general on Tuesday appeared to be at odds with his own climate change envoy over the role the UN should play in securing international agreement on tackling global warming. London Financial Times Senators pump gas fee into bill.Climate bill supporters are leaning toward exempting big oil companies from a broader cap on greenhouse gases as a way of winning critical support from industry players and key lawmakers. Politico Ritter urges lawmakers to back coal plant bill.Gov. Bill Ritter urged lawmakers to back a framework for retiring or retrofitting coal-fired power plants along the Front Range, arguing it would likely be cheaper in the long run than reacting to a series of expected new emission rules from the federal government. Associated Press White House: Economic recovery may stall without CO2 bill.Senior White House and Obama administration officials say they are worried the nation's economic recovery could stall if Congress doesn't pass a climate bill this year. Dow Jones Newswires Underwater cable an alternative to electrical towers.Generating 20 percent of America’s electricity with wind would require up to 22,000 miles of new high-voltage transmission lines, so utility companies have found an alternative to the huge towers and unsightly tree-cutting that traditional lines require: underwater lines. New York Times All renewables: How realistic is it?Europe can meet 100 percent of its power supply from renewable sources by 2050 if countries work together and massively invest in grids and storage, experts and politicians say. United Press International Brown’s government says carbon plants will add 100,000 jobs.Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government said carbon capture and storage projects may add 6.5 billion pounds ($10 billion) a year to the U.K. economy and create 100,000 jobs by 2030. Business Week Jamaica's beaches in danger, says UN expert.A United Nations environmental expert is predicting that several beaches on the western end of Jamaica could be totally wiped out in the next five to 10 years if local authorities and citizens do not act now to protect the environment. Kingston Jamaica Observer Miami Waterworld? it could happen.And you thought the down economy made it hard to sell your home? New scientific data says the sea is rising faster than anyone thought and under worst-case scenarios, much of Miami and South Florida could be under water by the end of the century, unless drastic measures are taken soon. Miami NBC6 Africa 'lacks vocabulary to deal with climate change.'A new survey suggests many Africans blame themselves for climate change even though fossil fuel emissions there are less than 4% of the global total. BBC Utility regulators want Yucca open.An organization of state utility regulators on Tuesday joined a number of states in challenging the Department of Energy's plan to drop a site at Yucca Mountain, Nev., from consideration as a repository for high-level radioactive waste. Wall Street Journal Misgivings over minerals boom.The coal industry in the Hunter is booming again, thanks to higher prices and expanding port capacity. But is it too good to be true? When this minerals boom deflates, what damage will have been caused to the environment and the health of local populations? Sydney Morning Herald Coming soon: Oil-less economic growth.The world may soon achieve something long dreamed of by governments and policymakers: higher economic growth without using more oil. Reuters Wyoming's crash program to develop 'green' coal.In the summer of 2008, Wyoming's governor, Dave Freudenthal, went to California for meetings with state officials and utility executives. What he brought was, quite literally, a burning question. ClimateWire Arch Coal bids $86 million on Otter Creek.Coal-mining giant Arch Coal Inc. on Tuesday offered to pay nearly $86 million for the right to develop state-owned coal in southeastern Montana’s Otter Creek Valley, the latest development in a decade-old tug-of-war over developing the Otter Creek coal. Helena Independent Record Poll: Fewer Americans worry about global warming.Former Vice President Al Gore's insistence that global warming was behind a spate of bad weather could fall on some very deaf ears. American's concerns over environmental worries are at the lowest level in two decades, according to a new Gallup poll. Washington Times Prepare for new farming revolution, CSIRO says.In 50 years the world's population will be more than nine billion people, supplies of fertiliser could be severely depleted, and competition for land will have increased. According to CSIRO scientist Peter Carberry, these factors, combined with climate change, will challenge our agriculture industry like never before. Sydney ABC News Experts link climate change, agriculture in Asheville area.As the climate changes, so must agricultural practices in Western North Carolina, a group of panelists on the topic said Tuesday. Asheville Citizen-Times Obama Administration lists Pacific smelt under Endangered Species Act.They're important to Native American tribes, to ocean and river food chains and -- when they're abundant -- to recreational and commercial fishermen, who sell them as food and fish bait. Portland Oregonian Pacific smelt listed as threatened; impact unclear.The Pacific smelt, a small silvery fish that was a staple of Northwest American Indian tribes when the Lewis and Clark expedition arrived, is getting federal protection because it's been declining toward extinction due to global warming and other factors. Associated Press Butterflies 'fly early as planet warms.'Australian scientists say they have uncovered a "causal link" between the early emergence of a common butterfly and human-induced global warming. Sydney ABC News Climate change and habitat loss posing great threat to Europe's small creatures.The latest European Red List, commissioned by the EU and released yesterday, shows that habitat loss and climate change are having a serious impact on Europe’s butterflies, beetles and dragonflies. Dublin Irish Times Habitat loss wipes out dragonfly, butterfly, beetle species.The destruction of natural habitats in Europe is wiping out butterfly, beetle and dragonfly species across the region, the updated European "Red List" of endangered species showed Tuesday. Agence France-Presse One third of Europe's butterflies in decline, according to Red List.Almost a third of Europe's butterflies are in decline and nearly one in 10 species is threatened with extinction in the region, conservationists warned. London Daily Telegraph Indian farmers battle against nuclear plant.A robust people's movement against a major nuclear power project has built up in a cluster of small villages on India's picturesque Konkan coast. BBC Renewable energy strong despite recession.A devastating recession slowed but did not stop the clean energy industry's growth in 2009, a report issued Tuesday found. San Francisco Chronicle Let nature electric bill help pay.There is a tiny but growing movement among Indiana and Kentucky homeowners, farmers and schools to plug wind and solar panel systems into the power grid - conserving energy, while also saving money by selling the excess energy back to the utility. Louisville Courier-Journal Africa’s largest wind project advances.Kenya’s Lake Turkana Wind Power project - set to become Africa’s largest wind farm - looks to be back on track after securing financing through a new shareholding structure. New York Times Offshore wind a boon to the shipping industry.With ocean-going trade slackening amid the global recession, shipping companies and shipyard operators in Europe are finding the offshore wind industry to be a welcome ally in weathering the bad times. New York Times Czechs seek to temper solar investment boom.The Czech Republic does not spring to mind as one of Europe's hot spots, yet an over-used subsidy scheme has created a bonanza for solar power that has ignited fears of a spike in energy prices and grid instability. Reuters Hydrokinetic power developers face technical and regulatory hurtles in bid to tap tides.The quest to turn the motion of the world's waterways into a significant source of energy may still be in its nascent stage, but several tidal power projects are making headway. Scientific American Crystals + sound + water = clean hydrogen fuel.Every drop of water is stuffed with the greenest of fuels, hydrogen, but getting it out is a challenge. A new material raises the prospect of doing so using noise pollution – from major roads, for example. New Scientist Home charging for electric vehicles.By the end of the year, at least five plug-in cars are expected to be on the market. And as electric vehicles roll out, their owners will be wiring their homes to accommodate wall-mounted boxes that can recharge an electric vehicles battery. New York Times Tide power projects offer Scots a green energy dream.For those despairing over longer-term prospects for Scotland's economy, the Scottish Government's go-ahead yesterday for wave and tidal energy projects will come as a desperately-needed tonic. Edinburgh Scotsman Marine energy projects approved for Scotland.The seabed off the north coast of Scotland could be transformed into the "Saudi Arabia of marine energy" after seven power firms were awarded contracts for a landmark project designed to harness the area's potential for tidal energy. London Independent Marine tidal power generating clean electricity.The waters of Strangford Lough run cold, fast and deep, but the experimental technology being tested in Northern Ireland is being promoted as one of the ways to reduce the UK's carbon emissions. BBC Ten sites named in £4bn UK marine energy project.The heavy Atlantic swell and some of the world's strongest tides are to be harnessed by a breakthrough scheme to generate clean marine energy off northern Scotland, with predictions it will rival the output of a nuclear power station. London Guardian U.S. Chamber petitions EPA to reconsider greenhouse gas endangerment finding.The U.S. Chamber of Commerce petitioned U.S. EPA for reconsideration of the agency's finding that greenhouse gases "endanger" public health and welfare – a determination that sets the stage for broad climate change regulations. Greenwire UN chief wants UN in charge of climate talks.Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Tuesday the United Nations will remain in charge of talks on a new global climate change accord, dismissing a shift to negotiations with a streamlined group of countries suggested by U.N. climate envoy Gro Harlem Brundtland. Associated Press |
From the Daily Climate NewsroomEnterprise and investigative reporting by DailyClimate.orgSaving carbon by burning forests.By now everyone knows that forests sequester carbon and that forest fires pump enormous amounts of that stored carbon skyward. But researchers are now coming to a somewhat contrary conclusion: Carefully controlled burns can help reduce forest carbon emissions.
The most recent study, from the National Center of Atmospheric Research and Northern Arizona University, looked at dry forests of the western United States and discovered that prescribed burns can reduce carbon fire emissions by nearly a quarter throughout the West – and by as much as 60 percent in some forests.
Opinion: Translating science.
Chris Lim/flickr
Do researchers have an obligation to help the general public understand the relevance of their work? One academic thinks so – despite sporting scars from his effort.
I've had threats, and I've had police escorts. I've dealt with people who were trembling with rage and with others who took swings at me.
Cyber bullying rises as climate data are questioned.
Bullying UK
The e-mails come thick and fast every time NASA scientist Gavin Schmidt appears in the press. Rude and crass e-mails. E-mails calling him a fraud, a cheat, a scumbag and much worse.
To Schmidt and other researchers purging their inboxes daily of such correspondence, the barrage is simply part of the job of being a climate scientist. But others see the messages as threats and intimidation – cyber-bullying meant to shut down debate and cow scientists into limiting their participation in the public discourse.
Ethanol's contrasting carbon footprints.
PXLated/flickr
The federal government last week concluded corn-based biofuels help reduce emissions; California regulators say they don't. Who's right? Oddly enough, both may be.
Regulators and policy experts insist there's no conflict: Both rules match the science; it's simply a matter of what year you start counting emissions.
US loses opportunity with home energy efficiency.
Great Lakes Home Performance
Despite EPA gains with its Energy Star program, some 99 percent of American houses remain "sick" – damp, drafty, expensive to heat and cool – and could be made at least 30 percent more energy-efficient with "highly cost-effective, tried-and-true" improvements, according to experts.
Those experts add that economics and regulations are the root of the problem: Mortgages are structured in ways that fail to recognize efficiency's benefits, while a patchwork of inconsistent and ill-enforced energy codes provides conflicting signals to industry.
Stern: Copenhagen Accord 'best way to make progress.'
Demark Foreign Ministry
Lead U.S. climate negotiator Todd Stern said Thursday the Copenhagen Accord represents the best way forward for a binding global climate deal but that success likely rests with a smaller group of countries working outside the unwieldy, multi-national United Nations process.
In his first public remarks since the conclusion of the United Nations climate talks in December, Stern said the Copenhagen Accord – despite its shortcomings – included "significant breakthroughs in a number of respects."
Disappearing options.
Denmark Foreign Ministry
Climate policy has a tipping point. Failure to set and meet strict emissions targets over the next 40 years puts long-term goals – such as limiting planetary warming to 2ºC by 2100 – permanently out of reach, according to a study published Monday.
The study establishes the notion of "feasibility frontiers," the point at which end-of-century goals become unobtainable or increasingly unlikely unless specific mid-century benchmarks are met.
Top environmental health stories of 2009.In 2009, the team at Environmental Health News hand-selected and posted 71,143 stories that were published in the worldwide media. Here's a list of those we consider the year's most important. 2009 offered a trove of climate stories.
D.Fischer/Daily Climate
Journalists worldwide produced more than 32,000 stories on climate change last year, but the coverage failed to garner a spot on a map showing major news events of 2009.
Those articles were written by some 11,000 different reporters, columnists and editorial boards, based on an analysis of DailyClimate.org's archives. Reuters led the pack, publishing at least 2,550 different articles on the topic last year – the equivalent of seven stories a day. The Associated Press had 1,600.
One planet, different worlds.
Denmark Foreign Ministry
All eyes in Copenhagen were on China and President Barack Obama Friday night, but nothing captured the discord, distrust and distance separating all sides at these climate talks better than a pair of press conferences held simultaneously at the Bella Center earlier in the afternoon.
In the main room, refusing to cede the stage to other dignitaries, Venezuela' Hugo Chavez and Bolivia's Juan Evo Morales railed against the developed world's inability to accept responsibility for previous emissions obligations and the role it has played in warming the atmosphere.
Cities pushing nations toward deeper cuts.
Steve Oldham/flickr
Mayors of some of the world's largest cities flexed their muscle at the United Nations climate talks Wednesday, warning that "billions of people" are prepared to cut emissions far beyond whatever agreement world leaders may ink this week. "We at the local level have too much to lose," said Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels. more Samsø cuts the cord.
(c) Frosina Pandurska Drmikanin
Steve Chu and a host of foreign energy ministers announced Monday a $350 million initiative to boost renewable technologies worldwide. But out here on windswept Samsø, a remote rural island in Denmark, residents have already transited to the carbon-free world these ministers envision. They did so without the new technology or fancy investments envisioned by the ministers. Their secret? The residents themselves. And their desire to make a buck. more Copenhagen talks start minus a key player.
Pew Environment Group
No one at the Copenhagen climate talks is filling the role of the late Phil Clapp, director of the former National Environmental Trust and considered by some to be the most influential campaigner the United States offered.
Clapp – Harvard-educated chain-smoker, fluent in French, an expert on British royalty and an accomplished pianist – died of pneumonia in September 2008 while vacationing in Amsterdam. He was 54.
For clean energy, Britain looks out to sea.
(c) Jennifer Weeks
England has placed a big bet on offshore wind power to cut emissions radically by 2050 and is driving hard to get projects built. The government has shown a willingness to intervene heavily in energy markets and overrule local concerns.
"Offshore wind is going to be the greatest special use of the seas around the U.K. in a short period of time, which can be scary," said Victoria Copley, a senior energy specialist with the advocacy group Natural England. "But a lot of research has been done, and we're in a much better place than we were three years ago."
Special Report: 'New' economy rolls forward.
Douglas Fischer/Daily Climate
The low-carbon economy has arrived on the prairie north of Denver. Vestas is building the West's largest turbine factory, a $700 million investment in what Gov. Ritter calls a "new energy economy." Some say these efforts – not the Copenhagen talks – provide the most promising solutions to climate change.
Vestas isn't the only company spending millions of its capital. Several utilities are investing some $1 billion on an industrial-scale carbon capture and storage tests at coal plants in Wisconsin, West Virginia and Oklahoma. The race to perfect the batteries that will power the next generation of automobiles and buses has manufacturers in Europe, the United States and China scurrying to build plants and research centers.
Special Report: The escape route.
jasmic/flickr
Failure to confront hard decisions about emissions puts humanity in a box. But we have a way out. Call in the geoengineers.
The idea of tinkering with planetary controls is not for the faint of heart. Even advocates acknowledge that any attempt to set the Earth's thermostat is full of hubris and laden with risk.
Special Report: Busting emissions in the 'Boulder bubble.'
350.org/flickr
Amid increasing gloom that the Copenhagen talks will produce a global climate accord, state and local leaders pushing their own reductions efforts in the United States see only one choice: Proceed.
The number of cities and regional governments undertaking this transition to a low-carbon economy is growing. These efforts, leaders vow, will continue whatever the outcome of political debates in Copenhagen, Brussels or Washington, D.C.
Special Report: An 'all-in' bet for the planet.
Lucas Janin/flickr
This is the consequence of failure at Copenhagen: A marked shift in scientific effort from solving global warming to adapting to its consequences, a hodge-podge of uncoordinated local efforts to trim emissions – none of which deliver the necessary cuts – and an altered climate.
Climate experts, scientists and negotiators say that, absent international agreement, the children and grandchildren of those living today will negotiate a world where planetary geo-engineering is a part of daily life, sea-walls defend coastal cities, the world's poor are hammered by drought, floods and famine and our planet is heading toward conditions unseen for the last 100 million years.
Rapid change threatens foundations of human health - report.
Medecins Sans Frontieres
Rapid changes already underway to the Earth's climate, ecosystems and land cover threaten the health of billions, undermining key human life-support systems and threatening the core foundations of healthy communities worldwide, according to a new report released Wednesday. The disruption represents the greatest public health challenge of the 21st century and leaves poor populations mostly in developing nations most vulnerable – even though they contribute the least to many of the problems. more A day built around a data point goes viral.
350.org
Organizers of 350 Day aim to stabilize the climate and prevent disaster. Turns out many more are paying attention than they expected. Organizers credit the increasing inter-connectedness of Web, cellular and social networks for the spread, saying such random and organic growth would have been impossible even two years ago. more Forest's death brings higher temps, researchers suspect.
(c) Carlye Calvin/NCAR
Forests of dead beetle-kill pine could be speeding regional climate change, increasing temperatures and decreasing rainfalls across the American West. "The local impacts where the forest has been destroyed will be fairly dramatic," said Peter Harley, an associate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. "The big question is how much of an impact will this have?" more A man, a plane, a very big picture.
(c) Ecoflight
From his Cessna, Bruce Gordon provides politicians, reporters and others with an eye-opening view of an American West increasingly fractured by energy and resource development. That awareness of scale, over both time and vast distances, is what gives Gordon - and his many passengers – the ability to piece together a startling and disturbing picture. Whether it's clear-cut forests in the Pacific Northwest, coal bed methane development in Wyoming, pine beetle blight across the Western Slope of Colorado, giant open pit gold mines in Nevada, scars from a decades-long natural gas boom in New Mexico or melting Montana glaciers, his vantage point connects the disparate dots that reveal a tattered Western tapestry. With video. more Green shoots rise from brownfields.
Courtesy First Wind
Uncle Sam looks to eliminate the biggest hurdle to expanding renewable energy – the need for suitable sites to place commercial-scale wind and solar farms – by reusing hundreds of old mines, landfills and industrial sites. Using already disturbed lands would help avoid conflicts between renewable energy developers and environmental groups concerned about impacts to wildlife habitat. These conflicts have stalled some high-profile projects despite the fact that renewable energy sources do not produce heat-trapping emissions of carbon dioxides, the primary greenhouse gas driving global warming. more Op-ed: The fate of our civilization.
Mary Harrsch/flickr
Forget about protecting the Earth. It's the underpinnings of our civilization that climate change most endangers. If I had one thing to impart to our leaders and opinionmakers, it would be this: Start worrying instead about the fate of human civilization. The Earth will survive the assault of the modern era. The urgent question is whether the Earth will remain a place that can support a complex, interconnected global civilization like our own. more Altered climate shifts Andes culture.
(c) Walter Hupiú
For ages Qoyllur Rit'i pilgrims have hauled themselves ever upward to celebrate the glaciers' life-giving waters. As that world rapidly melts, the Andes' Quechua-speaking farmers face a profound change in their relationship with their environment.
While governments seek technical solutions to climate-related problems, farmers in the Andes are struggling to understand events that are altering their livelihood. Drip irrigation and water reservoirs are only a partial response.
Op-Ed: One giant leap ... on Earth.
NASA
Our continued focus on economic growth makes clear that we remain seriously mistaken about the geography of the future. This radical experiment with the Earth's metabolism is our predicament, the unifying force of our planetary era. The greatest challenges of the 21st century will not be those of the space age, but rather urgent earthly ones in a new planetary era that arrived in the second half of the 20th century. If any single event marked this profound watershed in the human journey, it was the sudden appearance of a yawning hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica first reported in May 1985. With the explosive, exponential expansion of modern industrial civilization following World War II, human activity reached a scale great enough to disrupt essential, but invisible planetary systems, in this case, the ozone layer which shields the Earth from deadly ultraviolet radiation. The human enterprise had become agent of risky global change. more Seeking change in human behavior.
joiseyshowa/flickr
Frustrated by society's inability to tackle pressing environmental dilemmas, Stanford ecologist Paul Ehrlich has launched a new endeavor aimed at changing human behavior.
Called the Millennium Assessment of Human Behavior, or MAHB (pronounced "mob"), the venture seeks to change human activities to better confront issues threatening humanity's future – among them climate change, declining food security, loss of biological diversity, water shortages, pollution, land use changes.
Rising acidity erodes Alaska's fisheries.
Corey Arnold/flickr
New research suggests Alaska's marine waters are particularly susceptible to acidification, with potentially dire consequences to the state's rich crab and salmon fisheries.
"Everything is acting in unison on the environment – it's not just the ice loss or the warming or the acidification," said UAF chemical oceanographer Jeremy Mathis. "The Arctic is taking a multilateral hit."
Op-Ed: The return of the population bomb.No driver of environmental deterioration is more obvious than population growth, and none has been more taboo to talk about. A collapse of civilization now seems ever more likely than it did back in 1968, when the Population Bomb was written. The role of population growth and related issues (especially patterns of rising consumption) as drivers of some of our most serious problems has been largely ignored. That makes a collapse of civilization now seem ever more likely than it did back in 1968, when the Population Bomb was written. more Climate change solution: one billion emitters.
Adreina Lairet Morreo/flickr
A new framework for reducing carbon emissions takes a crack at the knottiest dilemma confronting a global climate solution: how to divvy cuts between rich and poor nations. The study, published Monday, attempts to sidestep the rancor, finding that virtually every country has a class of individuals – the so-called "high emitters" - enjoying a rich, carbon-intensive lifestyle. If those individuals, no matter their locale, are forced to take responsibility for their emissions, a great swath of countries become participants in the climate effort, the study claims. more Calling for action, White House underscores climate impact.
chascar/flickr
A report showing that climate disruption is already leaving deep imprints on every sector of the environment and that the consequences of these changes will grow steadily worse in coming decades was released Tuesday by the Obama Administration. The 196-page report crisscrosses the United States and finds that global warming has touched every corner: Heavier downpours, strengthened heat waves, altered river flows and extended growing seasons. more Climate change hitting poor in U.S. hardest.
GreenAction
Climate change is disproportionately affecting the poor and minorities in the United States – a "climate gap" that will grow in coming decades unless policymakers intervene. Everyone, the researchers say, is already starting to feel the effects of a warming planet, via heat waves, increased air pollution, drought, or more intense storms. But the impacts – on health, economics, and overall quality of life – are far more acute on society's disadvantaged, the researchers found. more Drought, conflict and tension in Andes.
Icelight/flickr
Rapid disappearance of Andean glaciers is already producing conflicts in the region and is likely to force major human migrations in the relatively near future. With cities growing and agriculture expanding throughout South America, experts predict that climate change will exacerbate water scarcity, increasing conflicts between competing users, pitting city dwellers against rural residents, people in dry lands against those in areas with abundant rainfall, Andean mining companies against neighboring farm communities, and eucalyptus plantation operators on the Argentinian and Uruguayan plains against farmers who say the trees are sucking the water table dry. more The Andes' triple bottom line.
(c) Walter Hupiú
Climate change is hitting South America with a triple whammy: More water stress, more migration, more disease.
Rising temperatures can change the way diseases behave, while collateral effects — from the retreat of glaciers that provide vital drinking and irrigation water to more frequent, intense storms and flooding — increase the burden on developing economies.
Andes at risk: Slideshow.
Walter Hupiú
Climate change is further straining Peru's already stressed public health system. Two minute slideshow. Cherry growers, deciphering models, find uncertainty.
Andrew McFarlane/absolutemichigan.com
A novel interdisciplinary effort strives - and struggles - to give Michigan's $44 million tart cherry industry a roadmap for a warmer future. Their work provides insight on the promises and pitfalls of what researchers and policy makers agree is an urgent task of climate science: translating the global problem to backyard consequences. more First fruits of cap-and-trade.
(c) Doug Struck
Some of the first workers on energy efficiency programs are now hitting the streets with salaries paid by proceeds of the cap-and-trade program started by 10 Northeast States. The initiative may or may not be a good model for the Obama Administration, but it already has raised millions for efficiency programs. And there is little dispute the program is achieving one main goal, to finance an aggressive expansion of energy efficiency programs. The first reductions of carbon dioxide allowances raised $262 million for the programs, just the beginning of a steady stream of funds being funneled to the 10 participating states. more California takes on King Corn.
fafou, flickr
California regulators, trying to assess the true environmental cost of corn ethanol, are poised to declare that the biofuel cannot help the state reduce global warming.
As they see it, corn is no better – and might be worse – than petroleum when total greenhouse gas emissions are considered.
Valley fever blowin' on a hotter wind.
Christopher Taggart, flickr
Harsher weather conditions – hotter temperatures and more intense dust storms fueled by global warming – are spreading the transmission of valley fever, a fungal disease endemic to the southwestern United States. Forecasts of rising temperatures and moisture levels and alternating hot-dry and wet periods create a hospitable environment for the disease, and researchers believe climate change may impact it more than other infectious ailments. more Steep cuts avert the worst problems - study.
NCAR
Drastic, economy-changing cuts to greenhouse gas emissions will spare the planet only half the trauma expected over the next century as the Earth warms. And that’s the good news. Because a failure to significantly curb these planet-warming gases will truly transform our world in less than 100 years. more All tapped out.
(c) David Biello
All farming depends on the weather, but few foods are more dependent on a specific climate than maple syrup. And change underway in New England suggests the region's sugar country faces a bitter future.
After all, for the sugar maple's sap to run at all requires cooperative weather — freezing nights followed by warmer days.
Clean fuels are a social panacea - EPA.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Shifting the United States to clean-burning renewable fuels has the potential to solve long-standing social ills across the entire spectrum of American life, from manufacturing to national security to clean water, the country’s top environmental cop said on Wednesday.
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said weaning the country from fossil fuels remains a top priority of the Obama administration because it offers such a broad suite of solutions across all aspects of American life: rewarding innovation, discouraging pollution, investing in jobs and encouraging energy independence.
Climate change comes to your backyard.
Darien Library/flickr
A standard gardening reference – the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Plant Hardiness Zone Map – is about to make very clear how much rising temperatures have shifted planting zones northward. By injecting climate change into one of America’s favorite pastimes, the revised USDA map could become an important public education tool, experts say. “Hopefully the new map will clear up a lot of confusion about what’s happening to the climate,” said Charlie Nardozzi, a National Gardening Association horticulturist. more Changing climate ups West Nile threat in U.S.
ikkoskinen/flickr
The higher temperatures, humidity and rainfall associated with climate change have led to increased outbreaks of West Nile Virus infections across the United States in recent years, according to a study published this week.
One of the largest surveys of West Nile Virus cases to date links warming weather patterns and increasing rainfall – both projected to accelerate with global warming – to outbreaks of the mosquito-borne disease across 17 states from 2001 to 2005.
Climate science: A call to think big - and think policy.
Peter Rejcek/NSF
Researchers question whether our scientific institutions can solve the climate dilemma, arguing that daunting pressures require a new degree of political cooperation - from the county commission up to the United Nations. Without a fundamental shift in emphasis, they caution, the scientific infrastructure so painstakingly erected to identify the problem will find itself impotent to ensure that global warming will be mitigated and civilization will adapt. more Saving the oceans: 'Mission Possible.'
Claire Fackler, NOAA
Marine scientist Joanie Kleypas was one of the first to link ocean acidification to coral death. Now she's working to bolster reef health to help them weather the climate crisis. Losing a third of the coral species on a reef “is like losing a third of the colors from a Van Gogh painting,” she said. “The loss of biodiversity is like having a football team with only tight ends.” more Climate science: Where next?
(c) Charles Meertens, NCAR
With the human role in climate change largely settled, researchers see a need to shift science's focus from discovery to mitigation, solutions and policy.
The climate community, in other words, must emerge from field and lab to point the way out of this mess.
Malaria rates, drug resistance tied to climate.
Pierre Holtz, UNICEF
Warmer temperatures are at least partly to blame for a surge in malaria cases in the highlands of East Africa and the increasing development of drug-resistant strains of the disease, according to a University of Michigan researcher.
The malaria parasite is highly sensitive to changes in temperature, and even subtle warming can dramatically increase populations of the mosquitoes that transmit the disease, said ecologist Mercedes Pascual.
Climate change erodes marine preserves.
Nick Lucey
Climate change has undermined fundamental assumptions about oceanic conservation, challenging the notion that today’s sanctuaries will protect tomorrow’s fish.
Conservationists have long assumed fish harvested at a sustainable rate will forever be available for future generations.
First glimpse of global greenhouse gases comes into view.
NCAR
Scientists have taken the first crack at a climate mystery, criss-crossing the globe in a souped-up jet to map where and when greenhouse gases enter and leave the atmosphere. An understanding of how these climate-warming gases move about the globe is a critical prerequisite for any policy aimed at curbing global warming, scientists said Thursday. Information gained over the next three years will play a crucial role in sharpening future predictions and improving their accuracy. more Rx for Arctic warming.
(c)Elizabeth Grossman
The quickest way to curb Arctic melting now underway may be to turn off the tap of short-lived pollutants swirling north from cities and industry far to the south, say scientists. Preliminary data suggest that these pollutants can increase Arctic surface temperatures as much as three degrees. more Climate change is killing forests, scientists say.
Eric Magnuson/flickr
The death rate of the most stable and resilient forests in western North America has doubled during the past few decades.
These new data from a team of 11 scientists provide more evidence that climate change is having a broad and significant impact, independent of other human activities such as logging and development. A tale of two pollutants.
Brian Parmeter
Excess nitrogen mitigates carbon dioxide's effects – but with considerable risk, scientists say. Coal is the great danger as 'peak oil' approaches, scientist warns.The most important question about peak oil - and the largest source of uncertainty in climate models - is whether the end of oil will usher in a century of coal. Science must evolve to tackle the challenges of warming, researchers say.As the science of climate change matures, scientists must change their focus to advise local and regional leaders on how best to adapt to a warmer future, senior climate researchers said Monday. Cleaning the air helps cool planet.
John B. Mueller/flickr
Local and state regulators have new ammunition in the fight to justify expensive air pollution rules: Cutting smog and soot has an immediate impact on climate change. Solar thermal comes out of the shadows.There is energy to be harvested in deserts of Southern California, Arizona, Spain and Africa: Sunlight focused so intensely it can melt salt, vaporize water and run air conditioners from Phoenix to Seville long after the sun has set. This is concentrated solar power, and it represents the best hope for utility-scale power from renewable energy and the surest way to get energy-sucking Sun Belt cities off carbon. more |