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News Analysis: Climate Scientists Hampered in Study of 2011 Extremes

Sat, 24 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By By JUSTIN GILLIS - Dec. 24 (Special Report) - Facing political hostility and lacking adequate financing, scientists are struggling to report on the causes of a concentrated span of extreme weather in the United States.

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EPA issues strong limits on mercury emissions from smokestacks

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Los Angeles Times - By Neela Banerjee - Dec. 21 (News Report) - The Obama administration on Wednesday announced a tough new rule to limit emissions of mercury, arsenic and other toxic substances from sources such as power plants, a landmark measure that could prevent up to 11,000 premature deaths annually, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

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Brazil’s forest policy could undermine its climate goals

Sun, 18 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Juan Forero, Juliet Eilperin - Dec. 18 (Special Report) - .. various loopholes, environmentalists warn, would permit farmers in some states to reduce the amount of land covered by trees.

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Warming Arctic Permafrost Fuels Climate Change Worries

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Justin Gillis - Dec. 16 (Research) - .. the gases from permafrost could eventually equal 35 percent of today's annual human emissions.

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U.N. Climate Talks End With Deal for New Emissions Treaty

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By John M. Broder - Dec. 11 (News Report) - More than 190 nations agreed to work toward a treaty that would require all countries to reduce emissions that contribute to global warming.

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Are America’s subways and roads overpriced?

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Brad Plumer - Dec. 07 (News Report) - Why do transportation projects cost so much in the United States?

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Planet Likely to Become Increasingly Hostile to Agriculture

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Scientific American - By Douglas Fischer - Dec. 07 (News Report) - YTo get a glimpse of the future, look to East Africa today. The Horn of Africa is in the midst of its worst drought in 60 years: Crop failures have left up to 10 million at risk of famine; social order has broken down in Somalia, with thousands of refugees streaming into Kenya; British Aid alone is feeding 2.4 million people across the region. That's a taste of what's to come, say scientists mapping the impact of a warming planet on agriculture and civilization.

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Record Jump in Carbon Emissions in 2010, Study Finds - New York Times

Sun, 04 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Justin Gillis - Dec. 04 (News Report) - Telegraph.co.uk Record Jump in Carbon Emissions in 2010, Study Finds New York Times Global emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel burning jumped by the largest amount on record last year, upending the notion that the brief decline during the recession might persist through the recovery. ...Global industry CO2 output rising even in weak economy

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Canada kept detection of salmon virus secret

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Seattle Times - By Craig Welch - Nov. 30 (News Report) - A decade before this fall's salmon-virus scare, a Canadian government researcher said she found a similar virus in more than 100 wild fish from Alaska to Vancouver Island. But Canadian officials never told the public or scientists in the United States about those tests.

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Is the end of the world really nigh?

Sun, 20 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Alok Jha - Nov. 20 (Special Report) - All too real are the human-caused threats born of climate change, excess pollution, depletion of natural resources and the madness of nuclear weapons. We tinker with our genes and atoms at our own peril. Nanotechnology, synthetic biology and genetic modification offer much potential in giving us better food to eat, safer drugs and a cleaner world, but they could also go wrong if misapplied or if we charge on without due care.

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Behind Shift on Smog and Re-election Calculus

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By John M. Broder - Nov. 16 (News Report) - Re-election strategy is tied to a shift on smog

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Energy Costs to Rise 'Viciously' Without Atomic Power, IEA Says

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 15:55:55 -0800

Bloomberg - By Lananh Nguyen - Nov. 09 (Special Report) - Energy will become "viciously more expensive" and polluting if governments don't promote renewable and nuclear power in the next two decades instead of burning coal, the International Energy Agency said. Global demand for energy is set to increase 40 percent by 2035, the Paris-based agency said today in its annual World Energy Outlook report. Consumption will rise 1.3 percent a year to 16.96 billion metric tons of oil equivalent in 2035, spurred by China and other emerging economies, the IEA said. The worst atomic accident in 25 years at the Fukushima plant in Japan on March 11 led Germany, Europe's biggest economy, to close eight of its 17 reactors permanently. Nuclear plants generate power continuously while emitting virtually no greenhouse gases. Without nuclear, keeping world temperature gains at 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) will cost an extra $1.5 trillion through 2035, the IEA said. "If we do not have an international legally binding agreement soon, and if it doesn't give a boost to a major investment wave of clean energy technologies by 2017, the door to 2 degrees will be closed forever," Fatih Birol, the IEA's chief economist in Paris, said in an interview yesterday. A shift away from nuclear power "would definitely be bad news for energy security, for climate change and also for the economics of the electricity price."

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Anxiety up as more salmon virus found in B.C.

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Seattle Times - By Craig Welch - Nov. 07 (News Report) - Three weeks after a potentially deadly virus was found for the first time in two juvenile wild sockeye on the Pacific Coast, it has been found again — this time in other wild salmon from British Columbia's Fraser River. And while that's caused anxiety among researchers and salmon growers, it's too soon to say whether it signals a fish crisis.

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Xenon detected at Fukushima plant

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0700

BBC News - By Roland Buerk - Nov. 02 (News Report) - A radioactive gas has been detected at Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, the facility's operator says. Tepco said xenon had been found in reactor two, which was previously thought to be near a stable shutdown. There has been no increase in temperature or pressure, but the discovery may indicate a problem with the reactor. Boric acid - used to suppress nuclear reactions - has been injected as a precaution. Ever since the meltdowns in March triggered by the huge earthquake and tsunami, engineers have been working to bring the Fukushima reactors under control.

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Obama allies’ interests collide over Keystone pipeline

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Juliet Eilperin, Steven Mufson - Oct. 17 (News Report) - Several key union allies and the Canadian Government are pitted against environmental and youth activists ..

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Escaped Pet Birds Are Teaching Wild Birds to Speak English

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Treehugger - By Stephen Messenger - Sep. 15 (News) - Across parts of Australia, reports have been pouring in of strange voices chattering high in the treetops -- mysterious, non-sensical conversations in English. But while the phenomena is certainly quite odd, its explanation isn't paranormal.

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Google discloses carbon footprint for the first time

Thu, 08 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Duncan Clark - Sep. 08 (News) - At around 1.5m tonnes of carbon, the energy usage of the online giant is on a par with the United Nations Google's carbon footprint is on a par with the United Nations, the internet giant revealed on Thursday as it published its energy usage for the first time. Google says that it emits 1.5m tonnes of carbon annually but claims that its data centres consume 50% less energy than the industry average. The emissions are slightly higher than the country of Laos in south-east Asia and equivalent to the UN's operational footprint. The company said that many of its "cloud-based" services for businesses, such as its popular Gmail system, can be up to 80 times less polluting than traditional alternatives , which require companies to operate their own, potentially more inefficient servers.

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Perry and Romney split on global warming

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Philip Rucker - Aug. 17 (News Report) - A sharp divide has emerged between two leading Republican presidential candidates on the issue of climate change. While apparent front-runner Mitt Romney believes the world is getting warmer and that humans are contributing to that pattern, Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Wednesday called that “a scientific theory that has not been proven.” Taking questions at the storied Politics and Eggs breakfast in Bedford, N.H., Perry was asked about a passage in his book, “Fed Up!,” in which he expresses skepticism of the science behind global warming. ...

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Safety doubts raised at U.S. nuclear waste cleanup project

Sun, 14 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Ralph Vartabedian - Aug. 14 (Investigative Report) - Senior scientists at the site said in emails obtained by The Times that Bechtel's designs for tanks and mixing equipment are flawed, representing such a massive risk that work should be stopped on that part of the construction project. But Energy Department officials in Washington said they believed the problems were fixable and that they had authorized Bechtel to keep going

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Global warming is a litmus test for US Republicans

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Raymond S. Bradley - Aug. 03 (News Analysis) - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney crossed a dangerous party line when he stated his belief in anthropogenic climate changeMitt Romney, arguably the leading Republican candidate for president of the United States in the 2012 election, recently significantly diminished his prospects for obtaining the support he needs from the right wing of his party. How did he do this? He simply declared that he believes the Earth is warming, and that human activities are responsible. To most scientists, such a statement would be considered fairly innocuous, and an accurate assessment of current understanding. But to a large fraction of the US Republican party, this is a completely unacceptable position - ranking alongside gay marriage, gun control and abortion rights. Anthropogenic climate change has become a litmus test for Republicans in the United States.If you want to appeal to the hard core of the party - those whom you need in order to obtain the party's nomination - you simply can not acknowledge what almost every national science academy and scientific organisation has accepted for many years. In fact, many other prominent Republicans, sensing the winds of retribution, have already back-tracked on whatever previous statements they might have made, if they contained even a whiff of climate reality. Given the importance of getting the United States on board to obtain a comprehensive international agreement on controlling greenhouse gases, this dismissal of scientific evidence about global warming is both sad and alarming.Climate scientists on the frontlines of this battle have suffered badly from the poisonous political atmosphere. Rightwing blogs and talk radio demagogues have promoted the idea that climate science is a worthless charade, where data are simply manipulated to obtain a politically motivated result. Scientists have been abused on blogs and via emails and some have even been physically threatened. Government officials have misused their positions to intimidate and harass prominent scientists, following a strategy of attacking the messenger when they don't like hearing the message. A leading Republican senator asked the Justice Department to investigate 17 climate scientists (myself included) for committing fraud and other crimes. How have we arrived at this sorry state?In order to understand the current state of play, one has to recognise that the issue of global warming is being completely manipulated by a group of individuals, businesses and organisations that have entrenched financial interests in making sure that the United States does not enact any legislation to control greenhouse gas emissions. At the extreme, these groups believe in complete market fundamentalism - that free markets, stripped of all constraints, will take care of any and all problems that we may face. To bolster this fundamentalist strategy, they provide major financial support to organisations that promote nonsensical ideas, such as global warming is a hoax and the IPCC reports are full of errors.They also flood the electoral system with money, to ensure that like-minded rightwing politicians are elected to Congress. These politicians then dutifully hold hearings, inviting hand-picked scientists (often with minimal qualifications in climate science) to provide testimony which sows the seeds of doubt about the reality of global warming. The political objectives of these hearings are rarely discussed by the media. The general public just hears that more scientists disagree about an issue they find hard to deal with (which it is) and so they conclude that if scientists can't agree, why should they support legislation to control emissions? In this way, the cynical but very effective strategy of the rightwing runs its course, and the US sits on its hands while atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations approach levels not seen on Earth for more than 2.5 million years.If climate scientists were indeed all working together to manipulate data and create a fictitious scenario of the future, that would require a truly remarkable feat of coordination, and a sense of common purpose. What could the motivation of this cohort be? The answer was given to me by Congressman James Sensenbrenner (remarkably, now vice-chairman of the US House committee on science, space and technology). This high-ranking Republican carefully explained that the Kyoto protocol was a conspiracy by developing nations to cripple the US economy. Since these developing countries (apparently) could not compete on a level playing field with the US, they had devised the Kyoto treaty to tilt things in their direction, and climate scientists were complicit in this strategy. To those who subscribe to Sensenbrenner's bizarre idea, it is only a small step further to frame the argument in patriotic terms. If you support Kyoto (or its goals) you must be anti-American, or at the very least a socialist. Which brings me back to Mitt Romney.The Republican party in the United States is now in thrall to the extreme right wing, which is in turn financed and coached by those with the financial muscle to promote their narrow ideological agendas. To obtain the backing of these groups, you have to toe the line, and speak the words their dogma requires: global warming is not happening, perhaps even a hoax; whatever warming has occurred is just a natural oscillation; even if humans had something to do with it, it's not a big deal and we can adapt to it. And besides, we can't afford to control greenhouse gases, as such action will result in massive job losses. For a politician seeking the party's nomination for president, it is a dangerous strategy to cross the line on this topic.To the idealogues who have invested millions to support their political factotums in the US Congress, their money has been well spent, as meaningful legislation to control greenhouse gases has virtually disappeared from the congressional agenda. But not content with that success, they have now drawn a line in the sand for those seeking political office; global warming is off limits entirely. It is not something they want to be discussed at all.Meanwhile, the rest of the world has recognised the reality of global warming and acknowledged the real dangers that it poses for the future. Although taking steps to address the matter is difficult, many countries have embraced the opportunity to reduce energy consumption, implement conservation strategies and promote new technologies that involve energy production from non-carbon based fuels. Politicians who embrace these strategies represent the future. Those who don't will simply become footnotes in history. Romney made the right decision - on this topic, at least.• Raymond S Bradley is director of the Climate System Research Center at the University of Massachusetts AmherstClimate change scepticismClimate changeClimate changeRepublicansUnited StatesUS politicsguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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EPA in 1987 found fracking fouled well water in W.Va

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - By Don Hopey - Aug. 03 (News Report) - A 1987 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finding, which the agency has ignored for years, concluded that hydraulic fracturing of a deep natural gas well in Jackson County, W.Va., contaminated groundwater and private wells. Although the gas drilling industry has repeatedly claimed that such "fracking" operations in Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale natural gas fields pose no threat to rural underground aquifers, groundwater and drinking water wells, EPA investigators concluded a gas well drilled and fracked by the Kaiser Gas Co. in 1982 did contaminate groundwater.

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Wafting poison makes fertile ground for suit in Stearns County

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Minneapolis Star Tribune - By Josephine Marcotty - Jul. 26 (News Report) - Court rules pesticide drifting onto organic farm constitutes trespass.

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Wind farms multiply, fueling clashes with nearby residents

Sun, 24 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Tiffany Hsu - Jul. 24 (News Report) - Demand for clean energy has led to a wind turbine building boom. But many living in their shadow decry the electricity generating projects as pesky eyesores.

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A New Study Shows That Global Warming Is Leading to Extinctions

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Time - By Tara Thean - Jul. 12 (Special Report) - With all the climate conversation currently littering the Internet, and the myriad ways that extreme weather is linked to global warming, it's hard not to get confused about climate change sometimes – and given the sheer volume of muddled information out there, you might even be forgiven for being unconvinced by the arguments thus far. But University of Exeter scientists have brought us some simple proof that climate change seems to be as bad for our planet as we've been led to believe. Their study shows that the loss of animal and plant species that have already happened match previous predictions in terms of the relative risk to different species around the world. And based on that information, the scientists have made a frightening forecast: one in 10 species will be extinct by 2100 if climate change continues affecting the world the way it is now.

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Rush for Arctic's resources provokes territorial tussles

Wed, 06 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Terry Macalister - Jul. 06 (News Analysis) - US, Canada, Russia, Denmark and Norway are becoming embroiled in disputes over boundaries on land and at sea Two nations on opposite sides of the Nato military alliance divide – Russia and Norway – have signed a deal over who owns what in the Barents Sea. But there are plenty of other territorial tussles going on – some between good friends. The United States and Canada still disagree on the setting of the boundaries in the Beaufort Sea – an area of intense interest to oil drillers . Similarly, Canada has yet to resolve a dispute with Denmark over the ownership of Hans Island and where the control line should be drawn in the strait between Greenland (whose sovereignty remains with Denmark) and Ellesmere Island. But of even greater significance in a world of melting ice floes is control of the North West Passage . Canada insists that it has sovereignty over the sea route and therefore must be asked about usage. The US sees it as a potential area of open water which gives it automatic ...

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