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Soot pollution a big contributor to climate change, study finds

Soot pollution contributes significantly to climate change and is second only to carbon dioxide as a climate-warming factor, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Geoscience. The study estimates that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change may have underestimated soot’s role as a climate-warming factor by about three or four times. If […]

McCain talks climate change with European leaders

Republican presidential candidate John McCain traveled to Europe and the Middle East last week, meeting with various European leaders to discuss climate change and U.S. foreign policy. McCain broached climate change in separate meetings with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, current U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, who recently announced […]

New study: Ordinary soot second biggest driver of climate change

After carbon dioxide, the second largest contributor to global warming is ordinary soot, according to new research published Sunday in Nature Geoscience. So-called "black carbon" has up to 60 percent the warming effects of the more oft-noted culprit CO2. The implication is fairly radical: Quickly reducing soot could have substantial short-term effects on the rate […]

Out of the mire man made of Earth, back to the father who gave us birth

In the Christian tradition, Easter Sunday marks Jesus’ ascent from death to eternal life. In Iraq, this Easter Sunday marked the death of the war’s four thousandth U.S. solider.

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria thrives in CAFO pork, and Wall Street gobbles up Big Meat shares

In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat industry. Back in December, Michael Pollan wrote a important article about the antibiotic resistant bacteria MSRA, which Pollan decsribed like this: … the very scary antibiotic-resistant strain of Staphylococcus bacteria that is now killing more Americans each year than AIDS — 100,000 infections […]

Reducing your carbon footprint from travel

If want to reduce your carbon footprint, what should you do about your air travel until we have carbon-free jet fuel?

The Stockholm Environment Institute and the Tufts Climate Initiative have a good handout on the subject, titled "Flying Green." They note:

... the average American is responsible for the emissions of about 20 tons of CO2 annually ... If you fly to Europe and back from the U.S., you'll add about 3-4 tons to your (already large) carbon footprint. With one flight you will have caused more emissions than 20 Bangladeshi will cause in a whole year. Unfortunately they are the ones who will lose their homes and livelihood once sea level rise inundates their low lying country.

For fossil fuel fans, bleak is the new black

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is on a barnstorming tour, holding a series of innocuously-named "State Climate Dialogues." While the promotional materials sound forward-looking -- conservation, clean energy, efficient technology -- make no mistake about the purpose of the events. The national chamber is trying to derail the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act or any other legislation that puts a price on greenhouse-gas emissions.

How's the tour being received so far? Not so well:

Claims of dramatic job losses and rising prices for consumers were quickly dismissed by environmentalists, Gov. Brian Schweitzer's office, Montana economists, and others. Those forecasts fail to account for new technology and emerging economies that will reduce carbon emissions and keep Montana's economy humming.

"It's fake and it's not realistic," Eric Stern, senior counselor to Gov. Brian Schweitzer, said of the industry forecast. "There is a clean-energy future, and Montana sits at the center of that."

...

In the audience, former Billings Mayor Chuck Tooley, who began offering public presentations on climate change and the need for action two years ago, said he was taken aback.

"He's from upside-down land," Tooley said of ["Frontiers of Freedom" President George] Landrith. "I wasn't sure if he was serious or not."

As oil prices top $109 a barrel, it's quite an odd time to make the case that climate action will destroy our economy:

If 100 percent auctioning is done right, the trade component will be trivial

If all permits are auctioned, where is the need for large-scale trading? With modern electronics, there is no reason most permits can't be bought directly by those using them.

Yes, there will be some trading: people will buy too many and need to resell, or engage in hedging, or use a broker for convenience's sake. But if the auctioning process is not made a major pain, these should be trivial in scale compared to direct purchase. Our short name should not emphasize the role of trade.

Why is the terminology important? If you refer to support for 100 percent auctioning as a variation on cap-and-trade, you make political judo easy for giveaway advocates. They can take all the political effort that was put into building support for 100 percent auctioning and use it to win support for giving free permits to large corporations. After all, it is all cap-and-trade, the giveaway advocates will say. Only extremists, the gifts-for-Big-Coal supporters will say, would make a fuss about the exact form cap-and-trade takes. Seriously, brand differentiation is important in politics. If you think 100 percent auctioning is important, don't use a term that lets your opponents pretend there is little daylight between you and them.

Duplicitous sand dollars and tenacious sea worms

A federal appeals court ruled that a Hong Kong company should not have been forced to give up the proceeds from 32 tons of shark fins seized by the U.S. Coast Guard in 2002 from the vessel King Diamond II. The 64,695 pounds of shark fins were valued at $618,956 ...

... a three-year study found a thriving reef fish community around three freighters sunk off the coast of Florida ...

... a graduate student discovered that sand dollar larvae can clone themselves in an effort to escape predation ...

Friday music blogging: Kathleen Edwards

Sometimes an artist you’ve categorized and filed away surprises you. So it is with Canadian singer-songwriter Kathleen Edwards. Her 2003 debut Failer introduced her as a total kick in the pants — an Americana-tinged female singer who combined disarming vulnerability with raspy, almost confrontational bluntness. The follow-up, Back to Me, sounded less varied and more […]