As reported by UtilityDIVE, a dozen New York lawmakers have introduced a bill aimed at codifying Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s climate change goals, including a 100% reduction in anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2050. “This is, quite simply, one of the strongest, smartest, and most thoughtful pieces of climate legislation the public has
The oceans are huge carbon sinks for the world. Fish and whales comprise only a tiny part of their overall biomass. Nevertheless, studies have shown that fishing and whaling by humans have altered the ocean’s carbon storage and sequestration capabilities by causing a change in the food chain, or a trophic cascade. As naturalist and
Phoenix, Arizona and Blacksburg, Virginia top this year’s list of the top green cities according to the US Conference of Mayors (USCM). The Mayors’ Climate Protection Awards honor cities for innovative programs that increase energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. An independent panel of judges selected the winners from a pool of applicants. The awards
You may not have consciously thought about it, but I imagine that to some of you out there who have an environmentally conscientious brain, the fact that the Northern Hemisphere has more landmass and the Southern Hemisphere has more ocean would have triggered some interesting questions. For example, if there is such regional variation in
A team of scientists from Britain, Russia, Mongolia, and Switzerland have released a report which finds that evidence obtained from Siberian caves suggest that a global temperature rise of 1.5 degrees Celsius could result in permanently frozen ground end up thawing across a massive swathe of Siberia, threatening a release of carbon dioxide. Such a
It’s too late! We’re all going to die! So says the latest research to be published in the respected journal Environmental Research Letters. OK. I might be jumping to a bit of a dramatic conclusion there. In fact, the study in question has shown that the levels of greenhouse gasses we have already pumped into the
Achieving a state of so-called ‘carbon neutrality’ has long been the Holy Grail for individuals, businesses, and even nations that have an eye fixed on the threat posed by global climate change. It’s a phrase that evokes the idea of a balanced equation, where the emissions we produce can be, in one way or another,
A new report has shown that the Arctic Ocean could be a significant contributor of methane to the atmosphere. The study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, looked at airborne observations of methane to determine how much of the greenhouse gas was being expelled from the Arctic Ocean, up to latitudes of 82° north. “We
Even if we somehow managed to restore our planet’s atmosphere to zero greenhouse gases, temperatures would still continue to rise by a few tenths of a degree over the next 10 years. That is the best case scenario discovered by researchers who have written a paper to be published online in the journal Nature. Written
by Rob Painting of Skeptical Science As a recent SkS post by Dana Nuccitelli has pointed out global warming hasn’t stopped, despite a recent lull in global surface temperatures. The oceans, which are the main heat sink for global warming, have scarcely skipped a beat in soaking up heat. The hiatus in global surface temperatures appears to
The EPA release a cool new interactive map yesterday that lets you check out who are the biggest greenhouse gas polluters in your neighborhood (or anyone’s neighborhood in the U.S.). It’s pretty awesome… if you’re really into protecting our climate and/or maps. I just checked out my home town of Sarasota and some neighboring
A friend/fellow Important Media director, Becky Striepe, shared this story with me a few weeks ago. I’ve been dying to get to it but just haven’t. The idea, one I hadn’t really given much thought to, is that the world would probably be a lot more gung-ho about stopping global warming and greenhouse gas
Here’s another fun video from Peter Sinclair. And his text intro or summary of it: I’m working on an update of my “The Sun is Doing it” crock – but this one seemed to want to get done sooner – in time for me to head out to the American Geophysical Union conference for
Witch hunts seem to be all the current GOP has money or time for. For example, Senator James M. Inhofe (Okla.) — one of the most outspoken climate change deniers in the world — requested a review of the EPA’s greenhouse gas endangerment finding by the Office of Inspector General (IG) recently.
The report from the IG is in. Surprise, surprise.. it found that:
– “EPA met statutory requirements for rulemaking and generally followed
requirements and guidance related to ensuring the quality of the supporting
technical information.”
– “…the TSD was a highly influential scientific assessment
because EPA weighed the strength of the available science by its choices of
information, data, studies, and conclusions included in and excluded from the TSD.”
UC Berkeley Researchers Jones and Kammen, working at the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory (RAEL) have conducted a landmark GHG emission analysis of U.S. households, and which also provides a tool for more effective consumer and governmental policy decision-making. The “tool” here is the “carbon calculator” made available for free on the Cool Climate Network website.
Natural gas production has skyrocketed in the U.S. and elsewhere lately. And one big supposed benefit of this energy source is that it creates a lot fewer greenhouse gas emissions than coal. However, new research from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shows that these climate change claims may have been greatly overstated. ProPublic, in a
Other than all the big news we wrote about last week (click on our Global Warming or Science categories above), here are a number of climate science stories I thought were worth sharing: Climate Science Human Impact of Climate Change While many might think that environmentalists only want to protect the environment for its own
The release of methane from underneath Arctic ice is expected to be a major issue in coming years as permafrost melts (if we don’t act to stop climate change soon). Methane is about 25 times more potent a greenhouse gas than CO2 over a 100-year time period and about 72 times more potent over a 20-year
Since we had plenty of news last Friday and I was heading out of town, I decided to leave our weekly roundup of global weirding and environmental news (that we didn’t already cover) to Monday. Here’s the global weirding portion. Climate: Student Reporters Take on Climate Change and Security Coincidences abound—just after posting an item
“It’s a vicious cycle – warmer temperatures mean clouds trap more heat, which in turn leads to even more warming,” explains Andrew Dessler, a professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at Texas A&M University. Dessler warns that clouds will amplify the warming of anthropogenic climate change in a cloud feedback which will lock the
Not much has come of the climate conference in Cancun, I hear. But not far from there, Mexico City just passed a historic climate change bill aimed at regulating greenhouse gas emissions and creating a carbon market. Just one city? Well, technically yes, but that one city is home to 20 million people. It is
Lester R. Brown We are entering a new era, one of rapid and often unpredictable climate change. In fact, the new climate norm is change. The 25 warmest years on record have come since 1980. And the 10 warmest years since global record keeping began in 1880 have come since 1998. The effects of rising temperature
By the 2030’s, more and more regions across our planet will be entering drought conditions, according to a recently published study by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) at the University of Colorado, Boulder. This dryness trend, which encompasses much of the temperate and tropical Western Hemisphere along with large areas of Eurasia and
Continuing on with our Going Green Tips series, Going Green Tip #6 should be no surprise (we’re starting with the big boys). The general tip is to stop using coal power. Easier said than done, right? Maybe, but it is VERY important, and there are a lot of reasons why it’s easier now than ever.
Going Green Tip #4 — Green your transport, not only for the environment, but for your health, happiness, personal finances, and time.
The Green Revolution of the late 20th century saw advances in high-yield agriculture which scientists are only now realizing had a massive impact on climate change. [social_buttons]Researchers have estimated that if not for the increased yield of crops the additional greenhouse gases that would have been entered into the planet’s atmosphere would have been equal
Senate rejects “Dirty Air Act”, votes “no”. Reportedly, the Senate has just made one of the biggest environmental or climate change decisions of the year and voted against Senator Lisa Murkowski’s (R-AK) infamous “Dirty Air Act” (53-47).
Earlier this Spring, 200 climate science experts and policy makers gathered in Pacific Grove, California for ‘Asilomar 2’ (named after the first conference on bio-engineering held there in 1975), a pivotal conference for the emerging science of geoegineering. It was a meeting that many attendees regretted was even necessary. [social_buttons] 2009 was a big year for
All the focus on reducing climate change is based on what will happen this century, but what happens the century after if we fail? According to new research findings, reasonable worse-cast scenarios for global warming if rising greenhouse gas emissions are not stamped out immediately could see Earth’s temperature exceed that which humans can tolerate
The last major section from the EPA’s new Climate Change Indicators in the US report is society and ecosystems. Below are key summary points. Clear changes in growing seasons, bird migration leaf growth and blooming dates have occurred and the trends suggest that they will continue. Heat-related deaths show much more variability, despite clear heating trends,
The US EPA just released an excellent report on climate change indicators in the US. In this first of a series of Planetsave posts summarizing the report, we look at greenhouse gases. [social_buttons] The US Environmental Protection Agency just released Climate Change Indicators in the U.S., a report showing “compelling evidence that the composition of
Apart from the major disruption in flight traffic and the economy, the Icelandic volcano eruption promises in the short-term to disrupt upper atmospheric circulation patterns and temperatures, with an additional impact due to sulfuric acid “nucleation” and subsequent acid rain. But the medium to long-term impacts of continuous, or increasing, volcanic eruptions is a matter of on-going scientific debate.
A new Minnesota stakeholder report identifies 38 solid waste reform recommendations that could dramatically reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions. [social_buttons] A report submitted December 31 to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) outlines 38 ways the state could achieve a 20-year reduction of 52.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions through changes
[social_buttons] The beverage container industry continues to fight state and national container legislation despite evidence that such laws could contribute significantly to greenhouse gas reduction while providing energy, recycling and litter control benefits. The industry says community recycling programs, which put the cost burden on communities rather than container manufacturers, are a superior system for
[social_buttons] Although images of giant coal-fired smokestacks and automobile tailpipes characterize greenhouse gas scenarios, a new report proposes a different way of thinking about it – product policy. Products and packaging contribute 44% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and reduction plans are more likely to succeed if extended producer responsibility (EPR) is made a cornerstone
[social_buttons] Brazil soya traders agreed to extend a moratorium on buying soya linked to Amazon destruction this week and Greenpeace was quick to give them a big thank you from the world. International companies such as McDonald’s are happy, and companies like Nike, Wal-Mart and Carrefour are asking for more.
Ever get upset because you got stuck behind a bus while driving your car? Think again. That bus is saving you time. How many people are on that bus? If they were driving, how many cars would be in your way instead? A new report by the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) finds that public transit
Power plants play a huge role in emitting pollutants that make up the ozone. This pollution browns and blackens our horizons. We call it smog. Smog has been linked to premature deaths, thousands of emergency room visits, and tens of thousands of asthma attacks each year. Pollution in the ozone is particularly dangerous to small children and the elderly, who are often warned to stay indoors on days with poor air quality due to pollutants.
[social_buttons] Dow AgroScience’s proposed use of sulfuryl fluoride to sterilize soil in farm fields would release large amounts of a potent greenhouse gas, increasing the global warming effects of agricultural practices, says a group of scientists and activists.
For the first time, the World Trade Organization (WTO) teamed up with the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) to release a report outlining the relationship between trade and climate change. The report describes the multitude of ways in which climate change and trade intersect.
One of the biggest issues facing us right now is global warming. Its effects on animals and on agriculture are indeed frightening, and the effects on the human population are even scarier. The facts about global warming are often debated in politics and the media, but, unfortunately, even if we disagree about the causes, global warming effects are real, global, and measurable. The causes are mainly from us, the human race, and the effects on us will be severe.
[social_buttons] Scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California have suggested a plan to drastically reduce global warming, by painting the world white. If implemented successfully, it would be the equivalent of taking the world’s 600 million cars off the road for 18 years. Hashem Akbari and Surabi Meno, along with Art Rosenfeld, California
[social_buttons] Nasa scientists have told government’s that a simple cut in worldwide emissions of soot could lead to a dramatic reduction in the effects of global warming, as well as preventing hundreds of thousands of deaths from air pollution. Soot contains black carbon, thought to be the second largest cause of global warming after carbon
This is a guest post by Meg Hamill, a freelance writer, also working at the environmental non-profit LandPaths in Sonoma County, California This summer at the University of Calgary in Canada, great strides were made in an air capture system, built to filter CO2 emissions from diffuse sources. Professor David Keith, director of the Institute
This is a guest post by Meg Hamill who works at LandPaths, in Partnership with The Open Space District of Sonoma County, California Monday evening, the UN’s top Climate Scientist, Rajendra Pachuari, will speak in London at a meeting organized by Compassion in World Farming (CIWF), urging people to fight global warming by taking meat
Well, this may not be a hidden issue, but I think it is a highly under represented issue. Transportation is the leading contiributor to greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the country, according to a report by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and is also the fastest growing contributor, at a time when we are supposed
Human exhalations are contributing to the ongoing increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels that are driving climate change, according to a new study released today from the University of Northwest Florida (UNWF). The four-year-long study by atmospheric scientist Lawrence Meany concluded that human respiration and conversation could be responsible for up to 12 percent of
