2007
2007
November 28. McKinsey
Report on Carbon Reductions.
2007 November
20. "The
Sky is Falling." Short video that won
the Ecospot Award.
2007 December 10. Al
Gore's Nobel Prize acceptance speech.
2007 December 3. Climate
Talks Take on Added Urgency
After Report. By PETER GELLING and ANDREW
C. REVKIN, NY Times. Excerpt:
JAKARTA, Indonesia, Dec. 2 - Thousands of
government officials, industry lobbyists,
environmental campaigners and observers are
arriving on the Indonesian island of Bali
for two weeks of talks starting Monday that
are aimed at breathing new life into the troubled
15-year-old global climate treaty.
A heightened sense of urgency surrounds the
meeting in light of a report issued last month
by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change, which detailed the potentially
devastating effects of global warming in the
panel's strongest language yet.
...By far, the biggest obstacle to forging
a new accord by 2009 is the United States,
analysts say. Senior Bush administration officials
say the administration will not agree to a
new treaty with binding limits on emissions.
Instead, President Bush recently proposed
that the world's biggest countries work toward
a common, long-term goal set decades in the
future, without specific targets or limits,
and more immediate goals set by individual
nations using whatever means they choose.
In his latest statement on climate change
last Wednesday, Mr. Bush said, "Our guiding
principle is clear: we must lead the world
to produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions,
and we must do it in a way that does not undermine
economic growth or prevent nations from delivering
greater prosperity for their people."
...The United States will soon stand alone
among industrialized nations in its refusal
to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, with the new
Australian prime minister, Kevin Rudd, having
said in no uncertain terms that his country
would now ratify it.
"The Bush administration is the only government in the
world that is opposed to mandatory emissions reductions being
included in a new treaty," said Philip Clapp, the deputy
managing director of the Pew Environment Group, based in Washington. "The
question is, will they block others from moving forward."
While most developing countries - including
China, which is poised to overtake the United
States as the largest source of greenhouse
gases - have agreed to negotiate treaties
that require richer nations to reduce emissions,
they remain opposed to taking on such mandatory
limits themselves....
2007 November 23. The
'Geo-Engineering' Scenario. Why even a desperate
measure is starting to look reasonable. By
Sharon Begley, Newsweek Web Exclusive. Excerpt:
After decades spent studying volcanoes, Alan
Robock can list 20 reasons why humans should
not try to play God with the world's climate
by, well, mimicking Krakatoa. Proponents of "geo-engineering" actually
like the idea because the eruptions spread
sulfate aerosols and other particles throughout
the planet's atmosphere, reflecting incoming
sunlight. The resulting cooling might counter
the global warming caused by carbon dioxide
and other greenhouse gases. But that's not
all sulfates do, which is where Robock's list
comes in. The particles also deplete the planet's
ozone layer, which is just starting to repair
itself now that ozone-shredding chemicals
are banned. They cause acid rain, too. And
by cooling large land masses like Asia and
Africa, the heat-reflecting particles reduce
the temperature difference between them and
the already-cooler oceans, which could stifle
the monsoons that millions of people depend
on for agriculture. Because the particles
block direct sunlight more than diffuse rays,
they also alter the balance of radiation reaching
Earth's surface, with unknown consequences
for plants that can be kind of finicky about
the kind of sunlight they need.
And yet É In a sign of how dangerous
global warming is starting to look and of
how pitiful the world's efforts to control
greenhouse gases are, even Robock-list and
all-hedges his bets. Geo-engineering, allows
the Rutgers University meteorologist, "might
be held in reserve for an emergency."
...Studies of volcanoes established what amount
of particles produces how much cooling, as
well as how the particles spread and how long
they remain aloft (a year or two). Knowing
this, it should be possible to roll back the
global warming projected for 2100 enough to
return the planet to its climate of 1900,
Damon Matthews and Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie
Institution reported in June.
The devil, however, is in the details. Injecting
sulfates into the atmosphere-by lofting big,
aerosol-filled balloons or rockets-would reduce
global precipitation to below the levels of
1900, their study showed, threatening agriculture.
Cooling would be uneven, with some regions
benefiting more than others....
2007 November 17. IPCC
- 4: the final, synthesis report from
the International Panel on Climate Change.
2007 November 13. Challenges
to Both Left and Right on Global Warming.
By ANDREW C. REVKIN. NY Times. Excerpt:
For many years, the battle over what to think
and do about human-caused climate change and
fossil fuels has been waged mostly as a yelling
match between the political and environmental
left and the right.
The left says global warming is a real-time
crisis requiring swift curbs on smokestack
and tailpipe gases that trap heat, and that
big oil, big coal and antiregulatory conservatives
are trashing the planet.
The right says global warming is somewhere
between a hoax and a minor irritant, and argues
that liberals' thirst for top-down regulations
will drive American wealth to developing countries
and turn off the fossil-fueled engine powering
the economy.
Some books mirror the divide, like the recent "Field
Notes from a Catastrophe," ...by Elizabeth
Kolbert, and "The Politically Incorrect
Guide to Global Warming" by Chris Horner,
a lawyer for the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Ms. Kolbert sounds a strong warning call,
and Mr. Horner's book fits with the position
of the institute, a libertarian and largely
industry-backed group that strongly opposes
limits on greenhouse gases.
But in three other recent books, there seems
to be a bit of a warming trend between the
two camps. Instead of bashing old foes, the
authors, all influential voices in the climate
debate with roots on the left or the right,
tend to chide their own political brethren
and urge a move to the pragmatic center on
climate and energy.
All have received mixed reviews and generated
heated Internet debate ... "A Contract
With the Earth," Mr. Gingrich, ... a
manifesto challenging conservatives not just
to grudgingly accept, but to embrace, the
idea that a healthy environment is necessary
for a healthy democracy and economy.
... Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger
in "Break Through: From the Death of
Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility." ...call
for an aggressive effort to invest in energy
research, while also building societies that
can be resilient in the face of the warming
that is already unavoidable....
2007 October 8. Expert
Studies Climate Change in Arctic. By THE
ASSOCIATED PRESS. Excerpt:
OTTAWA (AP) -- Climate change may make Arctic
energy resources easier to reach but it could
also make them harder to exploit because of
changes to sea ice, a U.S. scientist said
ahead of an international oil and ice conference
in Alaska.
Hajo Eicken, a University of Alaska scientist,
is one of the presenters from at least five
countries scheduled to speak about oil spills
in ice-choked waters at a conference in Anchorage,
Alaska, that starts Wednesday.
Eicken said ...''Conditions are more variable,
less predictable. Even in winter, when normally
you would expect to see the landfast ice to
be stable and locked in place, we're starting
to see ... larger tracts of landfast ice detach
from shore and drift out to sea,'' Eicken
said.
The conference is organized by Ottawa-based
SL Ross Environmental Research Ltd.
2007 September 20. STUDENTS
DISPLACED BY KATRINA TO ASSESS CLIMATE CHANGE. The
World Wildlife Fund and the Allianz Foundation
for North America have announced a new opportunity
for high school students displaced by Katrina
and now residing in nine U.S. cities to assess
the climate change vulnerability of the Southeastern
United States. "As these displaced students
know from being on the frontlines, we're all
increasingly vulnerable to climate change," said
Dr. Lara Hansen chief climate scientist, World
Wildlife Fund. "Now they have a unique
chance to shape the future of their region
-- by exploring the science of what's happening
and using what they discover to inspire action." The
project will give participating youth an opportunity
this spring to learn more about the science
of climate change by working closely with
scientists, using scientific tools for exploring
and explaining regional vulnerability.
Through this project, 25 students will be
chosen to assess the vulnerability of the
Southeastern United States to climate change
from public schools in New Orleans and Baton
Rouge, LA; Gulf Port, Jackson, and Biloxi,
MI; Mobile and Birmingham, AL; Atlanta, GA;
and Nashville, TN. Participants will receive
a $1500 stipend and an HP laptop computer
for their college studies. Selected students
will also attend Climate Camp in June 2008
as well as a Youth Summit in Washington D.C.
July 7-11, 2008. Nationally, teachers can
use a curriculum on climate change designed
for high school students to integrate climate
change into their lessons and equip students
for future responsibility and leadership.
2007 July 31. A
CONVERSATION WITH HEIDI CULLEN--Into the Limelight,
and the Politics of Global Warming. By
CLAUDIA DREIFUS, NY Times. Excerpt:
Heidi Cullen is the only climatologist with
a Ph.D. in the country who has her own weekly
show, a half-hour-long video-magazine focused
on climate and the environment. ...In June
2002, Heidi Cullen, a researcher at the National
Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder,
Colo., received a telephone call from an executive
at the Weather Channel. Would she audition
for a program on climate and global warming
that producers at the Atlanta-based cable
television network were contemplating?...
Q: What were you studying when you got that
call from the Weather Channel?
A: I was trying to understand the large-scale
mechanisms that had caused a drought in Afghanistan
from 1999 to 2001. I was also working with
engineers in Brazil and Paraguay to apply
climate forecasts to optimize water resource
management at Itaipu Binacional, the largest
operational hydropower facility in the world.
I hesitated when I got that call. Television
was a world I couldn't imagine. No one I knew
had ever done anything like that....
Q: Your coverage of global warming has been
controversial. Are you surprised?
A: In a way, yes. To me, global warming isn't
a political issue, it's a scientific one.
But a lot of people out there think you're
being an advocate when you talk climate science....
Q: Rush Limbaugh accused you of Stalinism.
Did you suggest that meteorologists who doubt
global warming should be fired?
A: I didn't exactly say that. I was talking
about the American Meteorological Society's
seal of approval. I was saying the A.M.S.
should test applicants on climate change as
part of their certification process. They
test on other aspects of weather science.
A lot of viewers want to know about climate
change. They are experiencing events they
perceive as unusual and they want to know
if there's a connection to global warming.
Certainly when Katrina hit, they wanted to
know if it was global warming or not. Most
Americans get their daily dose of science
through their televised weather report. Given
that fact, I think it's the responsibility
of broadcast meteorologists to provide viewers
with scientific answers....
2007 July 8. Wealthy
Nantucket Homeowners Stake $25 Million in
a War With the Sea. Cornelia Dean, The
New York Times. "When
erosion became a serious threat to bluff-top
homes in the village of Siasconset on the
island's southeast shore and homeowners decided
to fight back by replenishing the beach, cost
was not an issue. About two dozen of the owners
joined with other island residents to form
the Sconset Beach Preservation Fund, whose
members are seeking permission to spend at
least $25 million of their own money to dredge
2.6 million cubic yards of sand from a few
miles offshore and pump it onto a 3.1-mile
stretch of beach in Siasconset, or Sconset,
as it is called here. They realize that the
sand will inevitably wash away, so they are
prepared to do much of the work all over again,
perhaps as often as every five years. If the
sand had to be transported by dump trucks,
it could take 260,000 trips at 10 cubic yards
a trip. Instead, it will be dredged up from
the ocean bottom, mixed with water and pumped
to shore as a slurry that will spew out onto
the beach."
July - August 2007. Global
Meltdown. By Andrew Revkin, for AARP magazine. Excerpt:
It's becoming a legacy issue for older Americans:
what type of planet are we leaving our children?
One of the nation's top reporters on the environment
reveals the latest science behind climate
change.
KANGERLUSSUAQ, GREENLAND ...Great warmings
and coolings have sent ocean levels rising
and falling as enormous amounts of water were
locked in glaciers or released like the flows
we see here in Greenland.
But the current warming trend is happening
much faster than previous hot spells, says
[snow scientist, Joe] McConnell, and none
of the forces that usually affect climate-such
as variations in the sun's strength-are in
sync with this recent change. Should these
patterns continue, he believes, the consequences
are clear. "If Greenland melted, it'd
raise sea levels by twenty feet," he
explains. "There goes most of the Mississippi
embayment. There go the islands in the South
Pacific. Bangladesh is obliterated. Manhattan
would have to put up dikes." A similar
amount of ice is vulnerable in western Antarctica,
another focus of McConnell's work. While this
would most likely be a slow-motion sea change
taking many centuries, gases being pumped
into the atmosphere by cars, planes, factories,
and power plants could raise the odds of such
a shift.
...It may be that what we face is less a climate
crisis than an energy challenge. Many experts
believe the key to limiting climate risks
and solving a host of momentous problems-including
the end of abundant oil-is to begin an ambitious
quest for new ways to conserve, harvest, and
store energy without creating pollution.
Harnessing the power of the sun remains the
Holy Grail of most energy experts. But research
on solar technologies remains tiny in scale,
though the potential has been clear for decades.
Consider this incredibly prescient quote: "I'd
put my money on the sun and solar energy.
What a source of power! I hope we don't have
to wait until oil and coal run out before
we tackle that."
The year? 1931. The speaker? Thomas Edison....
2007 May 1. Recruiting
Plankton to Fight Global Warming. The
New York Times - MATT RICHTEL. Excerpt:
SAN FRANCISCO, April 30 - Can plankton help
save the planet? ...Planktos, an "ecorestoration
company," will deploy a ship to dissolve
tons of iron, an essential plankton nutrient,
over a 10,000-square-kilometer patch of ocean.
...In an effort to ameliorate the effects
of global warming, several groups are working
on ventures to grow vast floating fields of
plankton intended to absorb carbon dioxide
from the atmosphere and carry it to the depths
of the ocean. ... the first commercial project
is scheduled to get under way this month when
the WeatherBird II, a 115-foot research vessel,
heads out from its dock in Florida to the
Gal‡pagos and the South Pacific. The
ship plans to dissolve tons of iron, an essential
plankton nutrient, over a 10,000-square-kilometer
patch. ...When the trace iron prompts growth
and reproduction of the tiny organism, scientists
on the WeatherBird II plan to measure how
much carbon dioxide the plankton ingests.
The idea is similar to planting forests full
of carbon-inhaling trees, but in desolate
stretches of ocean. "This is organic
gardening, not rocket science," said
Russ George, the chief executive of Planktos,
the company behind the WeatherBird II project. "Can
it possibly be as easy as we say it is? We're
about to find out."....
2007 April 28. It's
Maple Syrup Time, So Why the Whiff of French
Fries? The New York Times - SAM HOOPER
SAMUELS. Excerpt:
WESTMINSTER, Vt. - ...To do his bit to stave
off global warming, Mr. Crocker this year
converted his sugar house from regular fuel
oil to used vegetable oil. Such oil, sometimes
pumped into the tanks of environmentally friendly "grease
cars," can also be used as an alternative
to heating oil. While a dwindling number of
small, traditional sugar makers still boil
their sap over wood fires, the majority burn
heating oil, a fossil fuel that contributes
to global warming. Derived from living plants
rather than fossil fuels, used vegetable oil
adds little or no carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
Mr. Crocker buys his from a company that collects
it as a waste product from restaurants, then
filters and processes out the dirt and impurities.
By converting from traditional oil, Mr. Crocker
is taking a stand for the environment. As
an industry, Vermont's maple sugaring is highly
vulnerable to climate change. Last year, of
the 1.45 million gallons produced in the United
States, nearly a third came from Vermont.
The entire year's harvest of sap is gathered
during a short season, which generally begins
in March and ends by early April. ...That
short season of daily freeze-thaw cycles is
getting shorter. "Right now, the season
is starting about a week earlier throughout
New England than it did 40 years ago," said
Timothy Perkins, director of the Proctor Maple
Research Center at the University of Vermont,
who has been warning of the challenge posed
by global warming for a while now. "And
it's ending about 10 days earlier than it
did. Over 40 years, we've lost a net of three
days of the season." Three days may not
sound like much. But because the season lasts
only about a month, it represents about a
10 percent reduction in the crop....
2007 April 3. Reports
From Four Fronts in the War on Warming.
By ANDREW C. REVKIN. NY Times. Excerpt:
Over the last few decades, as scientists have
intensified their study of the human effects
on climate and of the effects of climate change
on humans, a common theme has emerged: in
both respects, the world is a very unequal
place. ...Those most vulnerable countries
also tend to be the poorest. And the countries
that face the least harm - and that are best
equipped to deal with the harm they do face
- tend to be the richest. ...Around the world,
there are abundant examples of how wealth
is already enabling some countries to gird
against climatic and coastal risks, while
poverty, geography and history place some
of the world's most crowded, vulnerable regions
directly in harm's way. ...[Article contains]
four views of the climate divide. Malawi ...Australia
...India ...The Netherlands....
2007 April 1. Poor
Nations to Bear Brunt as World Warms.
The New York Times. By ANDREW C. REVKIN Excerpt:
The world's richest countries, which have
contributed by far the most to the atmospheric
changes linked to global warming, are already
spending billions of dollars to limit their
own risks from its worst consequences, like
drought and rising seas. But despite longstanding
treaty commitments to help poor countries
deal with warming, these industrial powers
are spending just tens of millions of dollars
on ways to limit climate and coastal hazards
in the world's most vulnerable regions - most
of them close to the equator and overwhelmingly
poor. ..."The inequity of this whole
situation is really enormous if you look at
who's responsible and who's suffering as a
result," said Rajendra K. Pachauri, chairman
of the United Nations climate panel. ...The
lack of climate aid persists even though nearly
all the world's industrialized nations, including
the United States under the first President
Bush, pledged to help when they signed the
first global warming treaty, the Framework
Convention on Climate Change, in 19927 March
2007. If
we want to save the planet, we need a five-year
freeze on biofuels. George Monbiot, The
Guardian. Excerpt: Oil produced from plants
sets up competition for food between cars
and people. People - and the environment -
will lose....The governments using biofuel
to tackle global warming know that it causes
more harm than good. But they plough on regardless.
In theory, fuels made from plants can reduce
the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by cars
and trucks. Plants absorb carbon as they grow
- it is released again when the fuel is burned.
By encouraging oil companies to switch from
fossil plants to living ones, governments
on both sides of the Atlantic claim to be "decarbonising" our
transport networks. ...So what's wrong with
these programmes? ...Already we know that
biofuel is worse for the planet than petroleum.
The UN has just published a report suggesting
that 98% of the natural rainforest in Indonesia
will be degraded or gone by 2022. Just five
years ago, the same agencies predicted that
this wouldn't happen until 2032. But they
reckoned without the planting of palm oil
to turn into biodiesel for the European market.
This is now the main cause of deforestation
there and it is likely soon to become responsible
for the extinction of the orangutan in the
wild....2....
2007 March 14. Renewing
a Call to Act Against Climate Change.
By FELICITY BARRINGER, NY Times. Excerpt:
MIDDLEBURY, Vt. - ...Bill McKibben ... is
46, his role as the philosopher-impresario
of the program of climate-change rallies called
Step It Up, .... His online call for locally
inspired, locally run demonstrations on April
14 has generated plans for a wave of small
protests under the Step It Up banner - 870
and counting, in 49 states (not South Dakota)
- to walk, jog, march, ski, swim, talk, sing,
pray and party around the idea of cutting
national emissions of heat-trapping gases
80 percent by 2050. Skiers in Wyoming plan
to descend a shrinking glacier. New Yorkers
plan to form an unbroken human line (dress
code: blue shirts) along what might be the
new southern shoreline of Manhattan. A group
of Dominican sisters and a Wisconsin environmental
group are organizing a conference on Sisinawa
Mound overlooking the Mississippi River....
Mr. McKibben also noted in a column on the
environmental Web site Grist.org that popular
momentum had lagged. "We don't have a
movement," he wrote. "The largest
rally yet held in the U.S. about global warming
drew a thousand people. If we're going to
make the kind of change we need in the short
time left us, we need something that looks
like the civil rights movement, and we need
it now. Changing light bulbs just isn't enough." ...Van
Jones, director the Ella Baker Center for
Human Rights in Oakland, Calif., is one of
relatively few black community organizers
to find common cause with those calling for
drastic cuts in emissions from the country's
tailpipes and smokestacks. Such changes could
make poor peoples' electrical bills go up.
But Mr. Jones says climate change will hit
the poor first and harder than any increase
in their electricity. "Two thousand seven
is the year that global warming will become
a marching issue; 2008 is the year it will
become a voting issue," Mr. Jones said. "McKibben
is one of the main drivers in moving this
thing from the cafes and blogs into the streets."....
13 March 2007. From
a Rapt Audience, a Call to Cool the Hype.
By WILLIAM J. BROAD. NY Times. Excerpt:
Hollywood has a thing for Al Gore and his
three-alarm film on global warming, "An
Inconvenient Truth," .... But part of
his scientific audience is uneasy... alarmed,
some say, at what they call his alarmism. "I
don't want to pick on Al Gore," Don J.
Easterbrook, an emeritus professor of geology
at Western Washington University, told hundreds
of experts at the annual meeting of the Geological
Society of America. "But there are a
lot of inaccuracies in the statements we are
seeing, and we have to temper that with real
data." ...Some backers concede minor
inaccuracies but see them as reasonable for
a politician. James E. Hansen, ...director
of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies
and a top adviser to Mr. Gore, said, "Al
does an exceptionally good job of seeing the
forest for the trees," adding that Mr.
Gore often did so "better than scientists." Still,
Dr. Hansen said, the former vice president's
work may hold "imperfections" and "technical
flaws." He pointed to hurricanes, an
icon for Mr. Gore, who highlights the devastation
of Hurricane Katrina and cites research suggesting
that global warming will cause both storm
frequency and deadliness to rise. Yet this
past Atlantic season produced fewer hurricanes
than forecasters predicted (five versus nine),
and none that hit the United States. "We
need to be more careful in describing the
hurricane story than he is," Dr. Hansen
said of Mr. Gore. "On the other hand," Dr.
Hansen said, "he has the bottom line
right: most storms, at least those driven
by the latent heat of vaporization, will tend
to be stronger, or have the potential to be
stronger, in a warmer climate."...the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change...
estimated that the world's seas in this century
would rise a maximum of 23 inches - down from
earlier estimates. Mr. Gore, citing no particular
time frame, envisions rises of up to 20 feet
and depicts parts of New York, Florida and
other heavily populated areas as sinking beneath
the waves, implying, at least visually, that
inundation is imminent. ..."Nowhere does
Mr. Gore tell his audience that all of the
phenomena that he describes fall within the
natural range of environmental change on our
planet," Robert M. Carter, a marine geologist
at James Cook University in Australia, said....
12 March 2007. Cooling Off Global Warming From Space. By John C. Cramer, Analog Science Fiction and Fact Magazine. Excerpt: …Is there anything that can be done to avert this global calamity? Several technical fixes have been suggested. One of them is based on the cooling effects of volcanic eruptions… The side-effects of such a remedy, however, appear to be as bad as the problem it is intended to fix. Acid rain form the sulfuric acid formed from the sulfur dioxide would become the standard kind of rainfall, irreversibly altering the ecology of the planet.
…Prof. Roger Angel of the University of Arizona, a prominent astronomer and creator of some of the world’s largest telescope mirrors, has proposed an interesting alternative. He would like to place scatterers at the L1 Lagrange point of the Earth-Sun system that would remove about 1.8% of the ambient sunlight.
…What goes into the L1 orbit and how much will it cost? The cheapest solution would be to place a light-absorbing dust cloud there. However …one must instead use a “cloud” of autonomous sunshade spacecraft with “station-keeping” capabilities. Angel’s unit sunshade spacecraft design is essentially a navigable sheet of silicon nitride containing holes with their centers placed 15 mm apart in a vast hexagonal planar array, so that light passing through the holes is coherently deflected in an interference pattern by a few degrees. Each unit has a mass of about a ton (1000 kg) and has a shade area of about 2.4 square kilometers.
…If the lifetime of the project is 50 years, than average annual cost would be $100 billion, about 0.2% of the world’s gross domestic product… Nevertheless, it’s an interesting idea, and it certainly has implications for science fiction as well as geopolitics.
March 2007 Exxon
Exposed. Catalyst magazine, Union of Concerned
Scientists. By Emily Robinson.Excerpt:
While publicly expressing concern about global
warming, oil giant ExxonMobil has quietly funded
organizations that portray climate science as
uncertain. The disinformation strategy parallels
the tobacco industry's campaign to confuse the
public about the dangers of smoking. ...As concern
over global warming has grown, some oil companies
such as BP, Occidental Petroleum, and Shell
have made public commitments to reducing their
heat-trapping emissions and have begun investing
in clean energy technologies. ExxonMobil has
made no such commitment, instead choosing to
confuse the public's understanding of the problem.
...Scientific Spokespeople Affiliated with
ExxonMobil-funded Groups
Sallie Baliunas Annapolis Center for Science
Based Public Policy; Committee for a Constructive
Tomorrow; Competitive Enterprise Institute;
George C. Marshall Institute; Global Climate
Coalition; Heartland Institute; Heritage Foundation;
Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and
Peace; Tech Central Station
Robert C. Balling, Jr. Cato Institute; Committee
for a Constructive Tomorrow; Heritage Foundation;
International Policy Network; Tech Central
Station John Christy Competitive Enterprise
Institute; Independent Institute....
March 2007. Will
the Northeast Be the Next Dixie? Catalyst
magazine, Union of Concerned Scientists. By
Erika Spanger-Siegfried. Excerpt:
Without deep cuts in heat-trapping emissions,
summers in New York near the end of the century
may feel as hot as Georgia summers do today.
Fortunately,
it's not too late to preserve the traditional
character of our northeastern states.
...In recent decades, ... the characteristic
climate of the Northeast has begun to change
dramatically. Between 1970 and 2000 alone,
summer temperatures rose about one degree
Fahrenheit (¼F) and winter temperatures
rose nearly 4 ¼F. Spring is arriving
sooner, summers are growing hotter, and winters
are becoming warmer and less snowy.
...If global warming emissions continue unabated,
a number of large northeastern cities could
experience triple the number of days over
90 ¡F by mid-century. In the latter
part of the century, most of these cities
could experience more than 60 days per year
with temperatures topping 90 ¡F, and
some could experience as many as 80 days.
With lower emissions, roughly half this increase
is expected.
...Emphasizing the regional consequences of
global warming can motivate local policy makers.
The findings of the October 2006 NECIA report
Climate Change in the U.S. Northeast have
not only received the attention of the region's
media but its policy makers as well.
...To download the full report (in PDF format)
visit the Union of Concerned Scientists' Climate
Choices website (http://www.climatechoices.org/ne).
....
March 2007. Carbon
offset calculator - Native Energy
13 February 2007. Companies
Pressed to Define Green Policies. By CLAUDIA
H. DEUTSCH, NY Times. Excerpt:
Tracey C. Rembert, the coordinator of corporate
governance and engagement for the Service
Employees International Union, acknowledges
that Wells Fargo is the country's largest
purchaser of renewable energy offsets and
has specialists on staff studying all of the
implications of climate change on its businesses.
Still, Ms. Rembert's union has filed a shareholder's
resolution asking Wells Fargo to specify how
it is addressing both the risks and market
opportunities presented by global warming.... "We
want them to rethink their business, and set
themselves up to take strategic advantage
of climate change," Ms. Rembert said.
The New York City Comptroller's Office feels
the same way about Dominion Resources, an
electric power and natural gas company, and
Massey Energy, a coal mining company. The
Sierra Club Mutual Fund feels that way about
the retailer Bed Bath & Beyond, and the
Calvert Group about ACE Insurance. All of
them are calling upon companies to provide
proof that their business decisions also consider
issues involving climate change.... According
to Ceres, a coalition of investors and environmental
groups, investors have filed 42 resolutions
asking for such information during the 2007
proxy season, up from 31 last year. And today,
Ceres will issue a list of 10 companies that
shareholders say are not looking at climate
change through an investor's eye and may not
be investing in alternative energy technologies. "This
has nothing to do with social investing," the
president of Ceres, Mindy S. Lubber, said. "These
investors are owners who want the companies
to stop being laggards when it comes to minimizing
risk and taking advantage of opportunities."....
13 February 2007. A
Cool $25 Million for a Climate Backup Plan.
By JOHN TIERNEY, NY Times. Excerpt:
On Friday, when Richard Branson offered a
$25 million prize to anyone who figures out
how to remove a billion tons of carbon dioxide
per year from the atmosphere, Al Gore sat
by his side and called it an "important
and welcome" initiative. ...may be the
start of competitions that ultimately yield
nanobots or microbes capable of gobbling up
carbon dioxide. As far-fetched as it seems
today, removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
could turn out to be a lot more practical
than the alternative: persuading six billion
people to stop putting it there. ...the Gulf
Stream scenario ...about it shutting down
and sending Europe into an ice age, ..., originated
by a 19th-century oceanographer, is "the
earth-science equivalent of an urban legend," in
the words of Richard Seager, a climate modeler
at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of
Columbia University....
February 2007. Political
Science: A Report on Science and Censorship
at National. Produced by Coalition
Against Censorship. NCAC
promotes and defend First Amendment values
of freedom of thought, inquiry and expression. |
|
What
do you think about Global Climate Change:
Archived Articles
Archives
for Other Chapters
Recent
Articles for What do you think about Global
Climate Change? |
2006
12 December
2006. The
Cost of an Overheated Planet. By STEVE LOHR.
Published: NY Times. Excerpt:
The iconic culprit in global warming is the
coal-fired power plant. It burns the dirtiest,
most carbon-laden of fuels, and its smokestacks
belch millions of tons of carbon dioxide, the
main global warming gas. So it is something
of a surprise that James E. Rogers, chief executive
of Duke Energy, a coal-burning utility in the
Midwest and the Southeast, has emerged as an
unexpected advocate of federal regulation that
would for the first time impose a cost for emitting
carbon dioxide. But he has his reasons. "Climate
change is real, and we clearly believe we are
on a route to mandatory controls on carbon dioxide," Mr.
Rogers said. "And we need to start now
because the longer we wait, the more difficult
and expensive this is going to be." ..."Setting
a real price on carbon emissions is the single
most important policy step to take," said
Robert N. Stavins, director of the environmental
economics program at Harvard University. "Pricing
is the way you get both the short-term gains
through efficiency and the longer-term gains
from investments in research and switching to
cleaner fuels." ...Mr. Rogers, who is also
chairman of the Edison Electric Institute,...
are also pushing for a carbon dioxide-pricing
policy to reduce the risk to their companies.
...The two methods of pricing carbon are to
charge a tax on each ton of carbon dioxide emitted
into the air, or to place a cap on total emissions
and then let polluters trade permits to emit
a ton of carbon dioxide. Economists like William
D. Nordhaus of Yale and Mr. Cooper of Harvard
... suggested an initial tax around $14 a ton
of carbon dioxide emitted, which he calculated
would translate roughly into a 100 percent tax
on coal and add 12 cents to each gallon of gasoline.
Such a tax would raise as much as $80 billion
a year in the United States. ...a cap-and-trade
system ... limit would be placed on overall
emissions, with polluters allocated permits.
Then, companies able to go below their emission
targets would be allowed to sell their unused "permits
to pollute" to companies that could not.
... developing nations like China and India,
energy specialists say, would certainly avoid
joining any international effort on global warming
without an emphatic move by the United States....
27 November 2006. Changing
Climate Is Forcing World Cup Organizers to Adapt,
By NATHANIEL VINTON Excerpt:
Nov. 26 - High temperatures in Europe have disrupted
the Alpine skiing World Cup, throwing the calendar
of the sport's premier circuit into disarray
and raising questions about the future of a
sport so vulnerable to climate change. "It
will very quickly be a big crisis for us if
we continue canceling races in December," said
Atle Skaardal, who oversees the women's portion
of the tour for the International Ski Federation.
On Saturday, race organizers in St. Moritz,
Switzerland, canceled World Cup races scheduled
for Dec. 9-10, saying temperatures were too
high for them to make artificial snow. Men's
races scheduled for that weekend in Val d'Isere,
France, are in peril, too, and the International
Ski Federation, which runs the World Cup, will
make a decision about that race Wednesday. There
is a chance that some of the canceled events
will be relocated to Colorado, where forecasters
predict a heavy snowstorm over the early part
of the week. Until Wednesday, when the F.I.S.
makes its final decision about the European
races, a number of World Cup athletes are stranded
in the United States, looking for training venues
and accommodations. Others will go home, and
possibly fly back if the races are indeed rescheduled
at Aspen or Beaver Creek - the two resorts considering
adopting the canceled European races. In recent
years, managers of some of the highest ski resorts
in the Alps have taken the extreme measure of
wrapping glaciers and snowfields with foam insulation
to decelerate the ravages of summer heat. Resorts
that do chose to have World Cup races - especially
those early in the season - have always cast
a worried eye on late-arriving winters. They
run the risk of a major financial hit, both
in operational costs and lost television marketing
value. Resorts playing host to World Cup events
must provide at least 100,000 Euros ($131,352)
in prize money for each race, production of
a live television broadcast feed, and accommodations
for athletes and team staff.
22 November 2006. Co-op
America's 12-Step Plan for Climate Action. Excerpt:
...Scientists at the Princeton University's
Carbon Mitigation Initiative (CMI) ...propose
stabilizing carbon emissions by ... doable
action "wedges" of equal size-each
with the capacity to reduce carbon emissions
by 1 billion tons/year by 2054. ...Here at
Co-op America, we ... screened out measures
that are too dangerous, costly, and slow (like
nuclear power plants, synfuels, and "clean" coal),
and we beefed up those that are safe and cost-effective.
...Here's our 12-step plan:
1. Increase fuel economy for the world's 2
billion cars ... 30 mpg to 60 mpg.
2. Cut back on driving. Decrease from 10,000
to 5,000 miles per year....
3. Increase energy efficiency ...in existing
buildings and appliances....
4. Decrease tropical deforestation to zero,
...double ...new tree plantings.
5. Stop soil erosion. ...Encourage local,
organic agriculture.
6. Increase wind power. Add 3 million 1-MW
windmills, 75x current....
7. ...solar power. Add 3,000 GW-peak ...photovoltaic
units, 1,000x current....
8. Increase efficiency of coal plants from
...32% efficiency to 60%....
9. Replace 1,400 GW of coal with natural gas,
a 4x increase ....
10. Sequester carbon dioxide at existing coal
plants....
11. Develop ...plug-in hybrids and electric
vehicles powered by renewable energy.
12. Develop biomass as a short-term replacement
for fossil fuel....
12 September 2006. A
CONVERSATION WITH JAMES E. LOVELOCK: Updating
Prescriptions for Avoiding Worldwide Catastrophe,
By ANDREW C. REVKIN. NY Times.
September 2006. Arctic
sea ice continues "drastic" melting. Earth & Sky
Radio Show.
27 June 2006. THE
ENERGY CHALLENGE | EXOTIC VISIONS - How to
Cool a Planet (Maybe). By WILLIAM J. BROAD. Excerpts:
In the past few decades, a handful of scientists
have come up with big, futuristic ways to
fight global warming: Build sunshades in orbit
to cool the planet. Tinker with clouds to
make them reflect more sunlight back into
space. Trick oceans into soaking up more heat-trapping
greenhouse gases.
...Dr. Angel outlined a plan to put into orbit
small lenses that would bend sunlight away
from earth - trillions of lenses, he now calculates,
each about two feet wide, extraordinarily
thin and weighing little more than a butterfly.
... Paul J. Crutzen ...paper newly examines
the risks and benefits of trying to cool the
planet by injecting sulfur into the stratosphere.
...Dr. Broecker of Columbia proposed doing
so by lacing the stratosphere with tons of
sulfur dioxide, as erupting volcanoes occasionally
do. The injections, he calculated in the 80's,
would require a fleet of hundreds of jumbo
jets and, as a byproduct, would increase acid
rain. By 1997, such futuristic visions found
a prominent advocate in Edward Teller, a main
inventor of the hydrogen bomb. "Injecting
sunlight-scattering particles into the stratosphere
appears to be a promising approach," Dr.
Teller wrote in The Wall Street Journal. "Why
not do that?" ... John Latham, an atmospheric
physicist at the National Center for Atmospheric
Research in Colorado, told how he and his
colleagues had unsuccessfully sought for many
years to test whether spraying saltwater mists
into low ocean clouds might increase their
reflectivity. ...Other plans called for reflective
films to be laid over deserts or white plastic
islands to be floated on the world's oceans,
both as ways to reflect more sunlight into
space. Another idea was to fertilize the sea
with iron, creating vast blooms of plants
that would gulp down tons of carbon dioxide
and, as the plants died, drag the carbon into
the abyss. ...Critics of geoengineering argued
that it made more sense to avoid global warming
than to gamble on risky fixes. They called
for reducing energy use, developing alternative
sources of power and curbing greenhouse gases....
13 June 2006. Atlantic
Hurricane Trends Linked to Climate Change.
Michael E. Mann, EOS TRANSACTIONS, AMERICAN
GEOPHYSICAL UNION, Vol. 87, No. 24, pp. 233-244. Excerpt:
Increases in key measures of Atlantic hurricane
activity over recent decades are believed
to reflect, in large part, contemporaneous
increases in tropical Atlantic warmth [e.g.,
Emanuel, 2005]. Some recent studies [e.g.,
Goldenberg et al., 2001] have attributed these
increases to a natural climate cycle termed
the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO),
while other studies suggest that climate change
may instead be playing the dominant role [Emanuel,
2005; Webster et al., 2005]. Using a formal
statistical analysis to separate the estimated
influences of anthropogenic climate change
from possible natural cyclical influences,
this article presents results indicating that
anthropogenic factors are likely responsible
for long-term trends in tropical Atlantic
warmth and tropical cyclone activity. In addition,
this analysis indicates that late twentieth
century tropospheric aerosol cooling has offset
a substantial fraction of anthropogenic warming
in the region and has thus likely suppressed
even greater potential increases in tropical
cyclone activity. climate data [e.g., Delworth
and Mann, 2000].
24 April 2006. Earth's
Big Heat Bucket. By Michon Scott ·for
NASA Earth Observatory. Excerpt:
... Researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
and Goddard Institute for Space Studies have
learned to think of the ocean as ... Earth's "biggest
heat bucket." And like a bucket placed
under an overflowing sink, the ocean is filling
up with the heat that increasing levels of
greenhouse gases are preventing from escaping
to space. By comparing computer simulations
of Earth's climate with millions of measurements
of ocean heat content collected by satellites
and in-the-water sensors, a team of climatologists
and oceanographers has provided what leading
NASA climate scientist James Hansen calls
the "smoking gun" of human-caused
global climate change: a prediction of Earth's
energy imbalance that closely matches real-world
observations. ..."It turns out that the
atmosphere, the air, really can't hold that
much heat," explains Josh Willis, an
oceanographer with the California Institute
of Technology working at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory. Heat capacity is the amount of
energy that must be put into something to
change its temperature, and air has a very
low heat capacity. "If you put energy
into the ocean, on the other hand, its temperature
changes only very slightly." |
|
Table
of Contents
|
