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'War spirit' can beat climate change (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 12:00:53
| Reuters: BRITAIN can lead the fight against climate change using the same spirit of grit it displayed in World War II, Prince Charles told business leaders overnight. The heir to the throne has already flaunted his personal green credentials, at a time when fighting global warming is high on the British political agenda, and overnight urged top industry executives to do the same for business. "Just think what they did in the last war," he said, referring to Britain's allied ... |
Administration Proposes New Energy Drilling (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 12:00:55
| New York Times: The Bush administration proposed on Monday leasing out millions of acres along the coasts of Alaska and Virginia to oil and gas drillers, a move that would end a longstanding ban on drilling in those environmentally sensitive areas. Both areas have been closed to new drilling for many years. The areas off Virginia are still covered by laws that prohibit new drilling in all areas along the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards. But Congress lifted the prohibition on Bristol Bay off Alaska in ... |
Counting On Trees: Scientists Are Creating A National Biomass And Carbon Dataset For USA (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 12:00:56
| Science Daily: After completing a two-year pilot phase, scientists at the Woods Hole Research Center are expanding the scope of the "National Biomass and Carbon Dataset" for the year 2000 (NBCD2000), the first ever inventory of its kind, by moving into the production phase. Through a combination of NASA satellite datasets, topographic survey data, land use/land cover data, and extensive forest inventory data collected by the U.S. Forest Service -- Forest Inventory and Analysis Program ... |
Another consequence of global warming - ocean dead zones (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 03:00:41
| Health Sentinel: A panel discussion titled "Energy Choices and Global Warming" was held at the auditorium of the National Academy of Sciences on Sunday April 29. Jane Lubchenco, zoology professor at the University of Oregon, presented information on the impact of global climate change on the Earth's oceans. As the Earth warms, sea levels will rise and the salt content of the oceans will change as will the ability of the oceans to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. These changes will interact ... |
Developing countries tell climate conference they need help to cope (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 03:00:42
| Associated Press: Developing countries say a key climate report being negotiated this week should reflect a dreadful reality: they will be hit worse by a warming world and need help to deal with it. The report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - the United Nations network of 2,000 scientists - is being debated in Bangkok this week by delegates from more than 120 governments. A final version is expected by Friday. The heart of the report calls for the world to embrace a basket ... |
How to Stop the Planet From Burning (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 03:00:42
| AlterNet: The following is an excerpt from George Monbiot's Heat: How to Stop the Planet From Burning (South End Press, 2007). All over Washington, you can hear the giant scraping sound of officials and legislators frantically back-tracking. After years of obfuscation, denial, and lies about climate change, all but the most hardened recidivists are rebranding themselves as friends of the earth. In February, two senior White House officials published an open letter seeking to correct ... |
United States: Snowpack is at very low level, but state's reservoirs are well supplied (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 03:00:42
| Associated Press: State hydrologists typically strap on snowshoes for their monthly survey of snow depths near South Lake Tahoe. On Tuesday, they needed only tennis shoes. The last Sierra snow survey of the season found that the average snow depth along the 400-mile-long range was just 29% of normal, the lowest since 1988. At Echo Summit, near Lake Tahoe, hydrologists found only bare earth. The snowpack was 27% of normal for this time of year in the northern Sierra, 33% of normal in the central ... |
United States: Support for high-speed rail (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 03:00:42
| San Francisco Bay Guardian: High-speed rail got a timely and significant vote of support from the California Democratic Party on April 29 when delegates at the state convention approved a resolution pushing the project. The measure was the top vote getter, tied at 24 with a resolution urging accountability for the errors and deception that led to the Iraq War. Yet a last-minute move weakening part of the measure raises questions about whether the Democrats are truly willing to fight Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, ... |
Thai scientists fear global warming could empty world`s rice bowl (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 03:00:42
| Agence France-Presse: In Thailand, rice is more than just a food -- it is said to represent life itself. Rarely is a grain wasted and a common greeting translates as "have you eaten rice yet?" Thailand is thought to have been one of the first countries to cultivate rice, and today the kingdom is the world's largest exporter, with 7.5 million tonnes of the grain shipped overseas in 2005. It is unsurprising that rice has gained such reverence in a country where it is eaten three times a day ... |
Australia to help Chinese CO2 emissions (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 03:00:42
| AAP: The Australian government will spend $18.5 million helping China reduce greenhouse gas emissions from its underground coal mining operations. Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull said Australia was working with China, the United States and other nations to respond to the challenges of global warming. He said cooperation with China on reducing emissions was of critical importance because of China's heavy reliance on coal-generated energy. "I'm pleased to announce ... |
Australia: Climate change to be top of agenda at NSW farmers conference (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 03:00:43
| Australian Broadcasting Corporation: The head of New South Wales' peak agricultural group says farmers in areas such as the Monaro are in the front line of the fight against climate change. The New South Wales Farmers Association chief executive officer, Shaun Morgan, was in Cooma and Bombala yesterday on a fact-finding tour. Mr Morgan says the association is taking global warming so seriously it will be the top agenda item at its state conference later this year. He says there is a need for greater ... |
United Kingdom: Energy groups set sights on new nuclear plants (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 03:00:43
| Guardian: The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, which owns the sites of Britain's Magnox reactors, has been consulting the local communities about what they want to replace the power plants. It has set up stakeholder groups to choose a replacement use for the Magnox sites from a series of options. The NDA is still collating the results but the favoured option at Dungeness A, which closed at the end of last year, is another nuclear power plant, according to a spokesman for the ... |
United States: May snow reading just 29% of normal (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 03:00:43
| San Francisco Chronicle: California snow surveyors found nothing to survey Tuesday during their last check of a dwindling Sierra snowpack. State officials renewed calls for voluntary water conservation to head off rationing after the annual May 1 survey found the Sierra snowpack at just 29 percent of normal statewide, the lowest since 1988. Frank Gehrke and Dave Hart of the state Department of Water Resources didn't even bother to take their measuring devices out of their vehicle before they hiked ... |
National greenhouse emissions trading scheme needed (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 03:00:43
| Australian Broadcasting Corporation: The Legislative Assembly has passed a motion calling on the Commonwealth to work with the states and territories on a national greenhouse emissions trading scheme. The Federal Government has so far rejected calls by state and territory leaders to join them and commit to a trading system. The Chief Minister Jon Stanhope says it is time for both levels of government to work together and lead the way on climate change. "There is no doubt, I think we all accept it, or ... |
Nuclear storm gathers as climate change experts meet (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 03:00:43
| Agence France-Presse: Few issues are as divisive as nuclear power, and the furore over its use threatens to resurface as leading scientists meet in Thailand to thrash out a plan to reduce the impact of climate change. Nuclear supporters hail it a "clean" energy that will help lessen the world's dependence on the polluting fossil fuels, gas, oil and coal, which spew damaging greenhouse gasses into the air and drive global warming. The potential of nuclear energy to help reduce carbon ... |
Australia: PM urged to expand renewable energy scheme (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 03:00:43
| Australian Broadcasting Corporation: The Tasmanian Government has urged the Prime Minister to expand a scheme that requires industries and retailers to meet 2% of their energy needs through renewable sources. Government backbencher Bryan Green says the Commonwealth has stymied the development of energy sources such as wind power in Tasmania, by capping the scheme. Mr Green says the Prime Minister should use his visit to Tasmania to demonstrate his commitment to the local renewable energy sector, by lifting the ... |
Australia: Alarm at hidden rise in gas emissions (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 12:00:38
| Sydney Morning Herald: BUSINESS and conservation groups have expressed alarm at government figures showing Australia's greenhouse gas pollution from electricity consumption and car use has soared in the past 15 years. Releasing the figures yesterday, the Environment Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, insisted the nation was still on track to meet its greenhouse gas targets under the UN's Kyoto Protocol, despite emissions from electricity use increasing more than 42 per cent and transport's rising 30 per cent ... |
Australia wants new Kyoto pact (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 12:00:39
| ITN: Kyoto was signed but not ratified by Canberra, believing it should be replaced with a global agreement that includes emerging heavyweights India and China, as well as the world's biggest polluter the US. "In my view the United States will never ratify the protocol as it stands," Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull said. "Whatever the accounting washup of Kyoto may be, the fact is that the protocol's first commitment period, beginning next year, is rapidly ... |
Global carbon market tripled in 2006, World Bank says (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 12:00:39
| Reuters: The global carbon market tripled last year to $30 billion from $11 billion in 2005, the World Bank's carbon finance unit said Wednesday. Carbon markets put a price on carbon, and so are seen as a possible key weapon against climate change, motivating people and businesses to think harder about their greenhouse gas emissions. The emissions-trading scheme of the European Union is the hub of the global market, and tripled to $24 billion in turnover last year, the bank said in a ... |
It's survival of the toughest at UN climate talks (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 12:00:39
| Reuters: Welcome to U.N. climate talks where days of frustration, political point-scoring, long hours and sheer exhaustion guarantee a memorable meeting, if not always much progress. And if you're the last one standing, you're the winner. "This process is agreement by exhaustion. It's not the smartest way to work out key issues which should be driving the world forward, but that's the way it's done," a senior delegate at U.N. climate talks in Bangkok said this week. The ... |
Melting Greenland can raise oceans 7m (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 12:00:39
| Agence France-Presse: The world's oceans could rise by up to seven meters if Greenland's ice cap entirely melts because of global warming, climate scientists said on Tuesday. Glaciers on Greenland, the world's most icy land mass, are now melting most quickly where they are in contact with surrounding ocean, while ice in the high centre remains intact, said Garry Clarke, a professor at the University of British Columbia in this western Canadian city. But if global warming causes the freezing level ... |
Poor nations brake greenhouse gas rise: UN draft (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 12:00:39
| Reuters: Developing nations that are fast industrializing, such as China and India, have braked their rising greenhouse gas emissions by more than the total cuts demanded of rich nations by the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol. A draft U.N. report, to be released in Bangkok on Friday after talks between governments and scientists, also shows that policies meant to curb air pollution from factories or cars or to save energy, have had a side-effect of fighting global warming. "Efforts ... |
UN official: private carbon offset plans are being confused with U.N.-sponsored program (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 12:00:39
| Associated Press: U.N. programs to cut carbon emissions by investing in climate-friendly projects are being confused with less-regulated private carbon offset programs found on the Internet and elsewhere, the U.N.'s top climate official said Wednesday. The official investment plan, called the Clean Development Mechanism, is designed to help countries and heavy industries meet targets they accepted under the Kyoto Protocol, which requires industrial nations to slash emissions by an average five percent ... |
Arctic sea ice smaller than ever, melting faster than predicted, satellite images show (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 12:00:39
| San Francisco Chronicle: The Arctic Ocean sea ice area was smaller last month than any other April since NASA starting taking satellite images nearly 30 years ago, climate scientists said. The National Snow and Ice Data Center uses the daily satellite data to continually measure the vast floating pack ice, and is releasing the April findings today. "It's safe to say that this April will be a new record low. Up until now, last year had been the lowest,'' said Walt Meier, a research scientist at ... |
Thailand: Bangkok faces flooded future, expert says (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 12:00:39
| Reuters: Thailand's capital, Bangkok, will be under water in 20 years because of rising seas from global warming and subsidence, says a top Thai climate expert who warned of a tsunami years before the 2004 disaster. "If nothing is done, Bangkok will be at least 50 centimeters to one meter under water," Smith Dharmasaroja, head of Thailand's National Disaster Warning Centre, said in an interview. Bangkok, a sprawling city of more than 10 million people and criss-crossed by more ... |
Carbon sequestration possible in 15 years, experts estimate (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 12:00:39
| Helena Independent Record: Government and company officials and scientists on Tuesday urged more federal attention and funding for new technologies to capture and store carbon dioxide when burning coal, keeping the greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere. Witnesses at the joint hearing of two House Natural Resources subcommittees estimated that the technology could be in widespread commercial use in 10 to 15 years, but only if well funded and researched projects begin now. The technology would allow carbon ... |
CO2 row threatens climate report (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 12:00:40
| BBC: Environmentalists fear that a key climate report to be published this week is using outdated science, and will lead to dangerous climate change. Campaigners say the IPCC's economics report has based its recommendations on the safe limit of atmospheric CO2 being 550 parts per million (ppm). But more recent scientific studies now put that figure at 450ppm, they argue. Attempts by the report's authors to amend the findings to reflect the new data have been resisted by the ... |
Environmentalists push for renewable energy and efficiency at climate change conference (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 12:00:40
| Associated Press: There's no shortage of ideas for high-tech measures to combat global warming: develop clean biofuels made of corn or palm oil, ramp up production of advanced nuclear power stations, or bury harmful carbon emissions in underground vaults. Those are the last solutions many environmentalists want to hear about. For the green lobby pushing this week for forceful action at a U.N. conference on limiting the rise in global temperatures, such answers either cost too much, delay an ... |
G8 Meet Asked to Show the Way Past Kyoto (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 12:00:40
| Inter Press Service: The eight most industrialised countries and the five big developing ones must "send a clear signal" this year that they want agreement on a new international framework for tackling global warming, the world's leading policy advisor on climate change said here Wednesday. The industrialised G8 countries (the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia) and the five strongest developing countries (China, India, Brazil, South Africa and Mexico) ... |
Australia needs climate plan: institute (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 12:00:40
| AAP: The government's climate control initiatives announced on Wednesday fail to establish a national plan to rein in pollution, the Climate Institute has warned. The independent public policy institute continued the attack it initiated last week, saying Australia is on track to overshoot its 2012 greenhouse gas emissions target established in the Kyoto Protocol. The government's figures released on Wednesday show the nation's annual output remained stable from 2004 to 2005 at 559 ... |
China, India, Brazil hold up climate change talks (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 12:00:41
| AFX: A demand by China, India and Brazil that rich nations accept they are mainly responsible for global warming has held up progress at a key UN climate change conference here, delegates said. The three nations' insistence since the talks started on Monday that the developed world recognize their dominant role in climate change has stolen precious time meant for debate on how best to tackle global warming, they said. 'Progress is slow,' one delegate from a European nation, who ... |
United Kingdom: Climate change is NO laughing matter (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 12:00:41
| Telegraph: It's business NOT as usual. That was the resounding message from this week's Think climate change jamboree for property companies and developers. Kicking off the proceedings, albeit a little late, was HRH the Prince of Wales who managed to open two events at once via a blurry live-link to St James' Palace, the other being his "May Day" environmental bunfight for business leaders such as Stuart Rose at M&S and Richard Baker at Boots. It was no good, said the ... |
Canada: Harper climate plan 'terrible mistake' scientists say (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 12:00:41
| CanWest News Service: The federal government's plan to cut greenhouse gases falls far short of what is needed, say leading climate scientists, who predict Canada's emissions are going to continue to climb "like a rocket." "It's not nearly sufficient to do what we need to do in order to make a difference on this issue, or to make an appropriate Canadian contribution to solving this problem," says Richard Peltier, a senior atmospheric physicist at the University of Toronto and co-author ... |
The IPCC report: Fighting climate change (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 12:00:41
| CTV: So far this year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has released two reports. On Feb. 2, the UN body looked at the scientific basis for climate change, and found that Earth's climate has warmed and that it's 90 per cent likely that human activity, primarily the burning of fossil fuels, is driving that warming. On April 6, the IPCC looked at the likely impacts of climate change over the next 100 years. For example, a two-degree Celsius rise in the Earth's temperature ... |
Nature's carbon 'sink' smaller than expected (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 09:00:39
| Christian Science Monitor: When it comes to global warming, nature's help is limited. While the continents and oceans have absorbed much of the carbon dioxide that humanity has pumped into the atmosphere so far, they won't be able to keep up with the expected rise in greenhouse-gas emissions over the next several decades. Indeed, some recent studies suggest that current scientific estimates about natural absorption are too optimistic: Earth's climate by century's end could be on average up to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 ... |
Zero-Carbon UK Houses 1/8th Dearer to Build - Report (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 09:00:39
| Reuters: It costs an extra 21 pounds (US$42) per square foot, or 12.5 percent, to build a UK house which meets zero-carbon standards and there are still insufficient incentives to meet the added cost, a study showed on Wednesday. The report by Nick Jopling, managing director of property services firm CBRE Hamptons International, said market forces were not yet in a position to help reduce the carbon emissions associated with property to meet climate change goals. According to the ... |
Arctic melt-off: ahead of schedule (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 09:00:39
| Christian Science Monitor: Hundreds of scientists and government officials from around the world are meeting in Bangkok, preparing to issue a May 4 report on what steps should be taken to combat global warming. But a new study released May 1 showed that one of the group's predictions on climate change, made in an earlier February report, may already be too conservative. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) had said that Arctic sea ice was shrinking by as much as 5.4 percent per decade. At that ... |
How surge in plankton may be the saviour of mankind (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 09:00:40
| Times (UK): The first commercial venture into growing vast plankton blooms big enough to suck carbon from the atmosphere starts this month. Tons of powdered iron will be poured into the Pacific to induce the growth of blooms big enough to be seen from space. The scheme's backers believe that the iron seeding technique could radically reduce the carbon in the atmosphere and will open up a multimillion-pound carbon-offsetting industry. Simultaneously, they hope to reverse the decline in plankton ... |
India, China hold up climate talks (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 09:00:40
| Agence France-Presse: A demand by China, India and Brazil that rich nations accept they are mainly responsible for global warming has held up progress at a key UN climate change conference here, delegates said Wednesday. The three nations' insistence since the talks started on Monday that the developed world recognise their dominant role in climate change has stolen precious time meant for debate on how best to tackle global warming, they said. "Progress is slow," one delegate from a European ... |
Small, Unexciting Steps Can Make Big Climate Leap (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 09:00:40
| Reuters: Simple steps to save energy such as changing light bulbs or not quite filling up the kettle can also save carbon emissions, a UN report will say this week. The numbers are big: some $122 billion will be saved and nearly a billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions avoided globally by 2020 just by screwing in more efficient light bulbs. The trouble is getting business and individuals motivated by measures like energy efficiency. "It's not that exciting," said ... |
Canadian controversy: How do polar bears fare? (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 09:00:40
| Christian Science Monitor: Polar bears are the poster animals of global warming. The image of a polar bear floating on an ice floe is one of the most dramatic visual statements in the fight against rising temperatures in the Arctic. But global warming is not killing the polar bears of Canada's eastern Arctic, according to one ongoing study. Scheduled for release next year, it says the number of polar bears in the Davis Strait area of Canada's eastern Arctic – one of 19 polar bear populations worldwide – has ... |
France Records Hottest April Since 1950 (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 09:00:40
| Reuters: France recorded its hottest April in almost 60 years and parts of the country have not had any rain for 30 days, weather forecaster Meteo France said on Wednesday. "The month of April 2007 has been the hottest in France since at least 1950," Meteo France said in a statement, adding that reliable temperature records started in that year. Hot weather hit the whole country, with temperatures around 3-4 degrees Celsius above normal in southern France and 5-6 degrees ... |
Nuclear Power No Sure Cure for Climate Ills - Groups (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 09:00:40
| Reuters: Nuclear energy may not live up to its promise as the solution for global warming, according to separate reports released this week by an environmental group and an independent think tank. US President George W. Bush and others tout nuclear power as a way to boost electricity supplies without using coal, natural gas or other carbon-based energy sources that can contribute to global warming. "The truth of the matter is, if people really want to solve the issue of ... |
Pacific funding urged to tackle climate change (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 09:00:40
| Radio Australia: Australia's opposition Labor party has called on the federal government to allocate more money in its forthcoming budget to help nations in the Pacific region deal with the forecasted impact of climate change. Opposition climate change spokesman Peter Garrett says the aid budget for the Pacific is too heavily focused on other areas such as governance and business development. Mr Garrett says that while these areas need attention, the situation for low-lying states in the ... |
Australia: Reservoirs hit new low water mark (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 09:00:40
| Herald Sun: MELBOURNE'S water supplies have drained away to less than 30 per cent of capacity for the first time in decades. Our nine main reservoirs are now just 29.9 per cent full, the lowest total level since the Thomson Dam was completed in 1983. It is only the second time dams have fallen below 30 per cent since May 29, 1968, when Victoria was recovering from the 1967-68 drought. Melbourne is on stage 3a water restrictions, limiting people to manual watering on two ... |
US-Based Index Allows Bets on Global Warming Fight (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 09:00:40
| Reuters: Boston-based group KLD Research & Analytics licensed an index on Wednesday that allows investors to bet on companies taking steps to combat global warming. KLD says its Global Climate 100 Index holds small to large-cap companies whose activities reduce the social and economic consequences of climate change. The weighted index holds 100 companies ranging from the energy and utility sectors to industrials and consumer products. Some of the companies invest in efficiency ... |
Carbon tax or carbon market (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 09:00:40
| Reuters: Maybe the best thing about a carbon market is that it is not a tax. Meant to be a pivotal weapon in the fight against global warming, carbon markets still have much to prove ahead of a major United Nations report this Friday that will detail climate policy options. Hitherto, the idea of a market has been widely acceptable while carbon taxes met opposition. But the market's own failings -- including a system which hands windfall profits to Europe's biggest polluters -- may yet ... |
China, India, Brazil hold up climate change talks (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 09:00:40
| Agence France-Presse: A demand by China, India and Brazil that rich nations accept they are mainly responsible for global warming has held up progress at a key UN climate change conference here, delegates said Wednesday. The three nations' insistence since the talks started on Monday that the developed world recognise their dominant role in climate change has stolen precious time meant for debate on how best to tackle global warming, they said. "Progress is slow," one delegate from a ... |
Drought Limits Tropical Plant Distributions, Scientists Report (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 09:00:41
| Science Daily: Drought tolerance is a critical determinant of tropical plant distributions, researchers working at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama report in the journal Nature, May 3. In a novel coupling of experimental measurements and observed plant distributions across a tropical landscape, drought tolerance predicted plant distributions at both local and regional scales. This mechanism to explain a common observation will contribute significantly to models of land use and climate ... |
High corn prices threaten Guatemalans with hunger (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 09:00:41
| Reuters: Hundreds of thousands of landless Guatemalan laborers clustered in drought-prone hamlets could face a hunger crisis if corn prices rise further, the United Nations says. The cost of the nation's main food staple has soared along with world prices near 10-year highs on soaring demand for ethanol, a crop plague in Guatemala's top corn-growing area, and dwindling supplies ahead of the next harvest. The price of corn tortillas -- flat, round patties eaten with almost every ... |
Renewables seen powering half the nation (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 09:00:41
| CNN: Renewable energy could have the capacity to supply up to half the nation's current electricity demand and 40 percent of its transportation fuel demand by 2025, proponents said Tuesday. In generating electricity, wind energy could play the biggest part, having the capacity to supply nearly 40 percent of the renewable power, according to a report from the American Council On Renewable Energy. Wind is followed by solar at 26 percent, Geothermal at 16 percent, biomass at 16 ... |
War eating climate satellite funds, group warns (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 09:00:41
| Reuters: Satellites that monitor global warming are in jeopardy because of cost cuts, as military and human spaceflight programs get larger shares of the U.S. budget, according to the American Association for the Advancement of Science. "Environmental research and development has been hit particularly hard over the last few years ... The satellite capability that's projected over the next few years looks pretty bleak," said Kei Koizumi, an expert on science budget policy at the ... |
Buyer beware, carbon cuts not always real (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 09:00:42
| Reuters: Companies and individuals who want to pay others to cut carbon emissions on their behalf are not always getting real cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, as a voluntary, unregulated trade in carbon offsets mushrooms. Groups like Atmosfair, TerraPass, e-BlueHorizons, CO2 Balance, Climate Care and the Carbon Neutral Company are among a plethora of conscience-salving offerings for would-be greens, as growing climate-change awareness prompts people to fund intermediaries to make emissions ... |
Climate change could dramatically change forests in Central America (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 09:00:42
| Mongabay.com: Drought could cause dramatic shifts in rainforest plant communities in Central America, reports a new study published in the May 3 issue of Nature. The research shows that many rainforest plants are ill-equipped to deal with extended dry periods, putting them at elevated risk from changes in climate projected for the region. Measuring the drought tolerance of 48 plant species across 122 tropical forest plots in Panama, a team of researchers led by Dr. Bettina Engelbrecht of the ... |
Debate rages on emission cuts (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 09:00:42
| BBC: A climate change conference in Bangkok is wrangling over a report which will propose measures to reduce emissions of the gases thought to be warming the world. It is the third such summit this year held by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). But while it has green motives, this abatement of emissions under discussion involves economic costs prompting the question of how much of it is worthwhile? It is a controversial issue which will influence the ... |
Ethanol bill heads to full Senate, prompts debate over coal as motor fuel (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 09:00:42
| Associated Press: Senators moved ahead Wednesday on legislation to replace one-quarter of the nation's gasoline with ethanol and set a goal of cutting gasoline consumption nearly in half by 2030. Coal-state lawmakers tried to promote liquefied coal as a motor fuel substitute, but their effort stalled amid a debate over global warming. The energy bill, passed by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on a 20-3 vote, would require a sevenfold increase in ethanol production, to 36 ... |
Fixing climate carries big costs (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 09:00:42
| USA Today: Global warming's demands on human ingenuity, and pocketbooks, will take center stage Friday in the latest international report on climate change. Whether humans bury greenhouse gases, blunt them with new technology or buy them off with tax incentives, banishing the emissions responsible for global warming will take quick action, experts conclude in advance of the report. The latest International Panel on Climate Change report, "Mitigation of Climate Change," examines ... |
Weaponized Weather (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 05-02-2007 at 09:00:43
| Utne Reader: As the world slowly wakes up to the threat of global warming, a few high-profile scientists known as geoengineers are pushing plans for large-scale technological "solutions" to the looming crisis. According to David Shiga, writing for the New Scientist's environmental blog, the various ideas have included a proposal to launch trillions of tiny "sunshades" into space to angle the sun's rays away from the earth and a plan to inject sulfur into the atmosphere to create a ... |
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