News: Author Archive
‘April 9 Bloomberg — Venezuela and Bolivia urged negotiators at United Nations climate talks to set aside the Copenhagen agreement on global warming, threatening to keep open a rift that led to a breakdown in the discussions last year.’
via Venezuela, Bolivia Urge UN to Set Aside Copenhagen Climate Pact – Bloomberg.com.
‘A team of scientists lead by material science professor Angela Belcher has genetically modified a virus that can exploit sunlight to split water into oxygen and hydrogen. If it works and can be commercialized, the process could help solve the vexing problem of energy storage and the equally vexing problem of producing hydrogen in a reasonable and cost-effective way.’
‘Since grazing animals eat mostly cellulose-rich roughage while their feedlot counterparts eat mostly simple sugars whose digestion requires no rumination, the grazing animals emit two to four times as much methane, a greenhouse gas roughly 30 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.’
via Grass-fed beef packs a punch to environment | Analysis & Opinion | Reuters.
‘(Reuters) – The United States will host a meeting of major economies on April 18-19 in Washington to advance talks on a global deal to fight climate change, the top U.S. climate negotiator said on Wednesday.’
via Washington to host major economies meeting on climate | Reuters.
‘(Reuters) – Climate negotiators meet in Bonn on Friday for the first time since the fractious Copenhagen summit but with scant hopes of patching together a new legally binding U.N. deal in 2010.’
via U.N. climate talks resume, scant chance of 2010 deal | Reuters.
‘More than 10,000 megawatts of wind power capacity, or 5,700 turbines, were installed in 2009, the American Wind Energy Association said in its annual report, bringing the total capacity in the United States to 35,000 MW.’
via U.S. adds record amount of wind power in 2009: AWEA | Reuters.
‘WASHINGTON — Several Texas oil companies are bankrolling a petition drive to suspend California’s path-breaking climate change law in a move that may prove a bellwether for national efforts to address global warming.’
via Texas Oil Companies Oppose California Climate Change Law – NYTimes.com.
‘PRAGUE — The United States and Russia opened what they called a new era in their tumultuous relationship on Thursday as they signed an arms control treaty and presented a largely united front against Iran’s nuclear program, marking a sharp change since they broke over the Georgia war two years ago.’
via Russia and U.S. Sign Nuclear Arms Reduction Pact – NYTimes.com.
Paul Krugman’s recent climate piece in the New York Times is well written and relatively thorough at ten pages. While the articles’ outlook is insightfully bleak in its own right, the cap & trade / carbon tax sections are lacking the additional troubling point raised by UC Berkeley’s Severin Borenstein that the price of oil and coal can flexibly drop towards their low extraction cost in response to any added carbon penalties or emerging competitive green energy sources, which means that to keep fossil fuels from entering the market (and the atmosphere), either far higher carbon penalties must be considered or other mechanisms need to be added.
Krugman excerpt: ‘…this risk of catastrophe, rather than the details of cost-benefit calculations, makes the most powerful case for strong climate policy. Current projections of global warming in the absence of action are just too close to the kinds of numbers associated with doomsday scenarios. It would be irresponsible — it’s tempting to say criminally irresponsible — not to step back from what could all too easily turn out to be the edge of a cliff.’
via Magazine Preview – Climate Change – Building a Green Economy – NYTimes.com.
‘BILLINGS, Mont. – Glacier National Park has lost two more of its namesake moving icefields to climate change, which is shrinking the rivers of ice until they grind to a halt, the U.S. Geological Survey said Wednesday.’
via 2 more glaciers gone from Glacier National Park – Yahoo! News.