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New-Year-heralding ball will be energy-efficient

As promised, the ball that will drop in Times Square tonight to herald the new year will be dazzling both in its brightness and its energy efficiency. On the 100th anniversary of the tradition, the 1,415-pound ball with a circumference of some 6 feet will glow with more than 9,500 energy-efficient LED lights. Its descent […]

United Nations declares 2008 International Year of Planet Earth

When the clock strikes midnight tonight and you kiss your nearest partygoer in drunken revelry, the world will be entering the United Nations-declared official International Year of Planet Earth. (The IYoPE technically lasts from January 2007 to December 2009, which makes it a three-year-long International Year, but why quibble?) In 2008, the U.N. will also […]

New Year’s Resolutions 2008

Make our Olympic debut We’re good at shooting the breeze, bouncing from clubs, and spiking the punch, so look for us in Beijing at the archery, trampoline, or volleyball competitions. Obviously we’re totally qualified, but we still might not go — the decision’s up in the air. Literally. Photo: Marco Scala via flickr Eat organicagefreeganatural […]

Sea levels may rise five feet by 2100

A recent Nature Geoscience study, "High rates of sea-level rise during the last interglacial period," ($ubs. req'd) finds that sea levels could rise twice what the IPCC had project for 2100. This confirms what many scientists have recently warned (also see here), and it matches the conclusion of a study (PDF) earlier this year in Science.

[As an aside, in one debate with a denier -- can't remember who, they all kind of merge together -- I was challenged: "Name one peer-reviewed study projecting sea-level rise this century beyond the IPCC." Well, now there are two from this year alone!]

For the record, five feet (PDF) of sea level rise would submerge some 22,000 square miles of U.S. land just on the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts (farewell, southern Louisiana and Florida) -- and displace more than 100 million people worldwide. And, of course, sea levels would just keep rising some six inches a decade -- or, more likely, even faster next century than this century.

Beijing struggles to clear air in time for Olympics

The good news: Beijing narrowly achieved its air-pollution goal of 245 “blue sky days” in 2007. The bad news: Skepticism abounds that the city will offer wholly breathable air when it hosts the upcoming Summer Olympics. “We’re definitely hoping for the best,” says Jon Kolb, a member of the Canadian Olympic Committee, “but preparing for […]

What is the safe upper limit for atmospheric CO2?

The nation's top climate scientist, NASA's James Hansen, apparently now believes "the safe upper limit for atmospheric CO2 is no more than 350 ppm," according to an op-ed by the great environmental writer Bill McKibben. Yet while preindustrial levels were 280, we're now already at more than 380 and rising 2 ppm a year!

Like many people, in the 1990s I believed 550 was the target needed to avoid climate catastrophe -- but now it's clear that:

1. 550 ppm would lead to the greatest disaster ever experienced by human civilization -- returning us to temperatures last seen when sea levels were some 80 feet higher. This is especially true because ...
2. long before we hit 550, major carbon cycle feedbacks -- the loss of carbon from the tundra and the Amazon, the saturation of the ocean sink (already beginning) would almost certainly kick into high gear, inevitably pushing us to much, much higher CO2 levels (see here, here, and my book).

Exactly when those feedbacks seriously kick in is the rub. No one knows for sure, but based on my review of the literature and interviews of leading climate scientists, somewhere between 400 and 500 ppm seems most likely. It could be lower, but it probably couldn't be much higher.

So I, like the Center for American Progress and the world's top climate scientists, now believe 450 ppm is the upper bound. That said, I have spent two decades managing, analyzing, researching, and writing about climate solutions and can state with some confidence that:

1. Staying below 450 ppm is technologically doable, but would be the greatest achievement in the history of the human race, by far. It would require a global effort sustained for decades, comparable to what the U.S. did for just the few years of World War II (the biggest obstacle is not technological, but political -- conservatives currently would never let progressives and moderates pursue such a strategy).
2. If 350 ppm is needed (and I'm not at all sure it is) then the deniers and delayers have won, since such a target is hopeless.

In 2008, I will devote a fair amount of ink bits to laying out the solution (there really is only one), but to understand why 450 is so hard, and 350 all but inconceivable, let's look at the odd way McKibben describes the solution:

Avoid burgers in Texas, Hillary gets charred for CAFO ties, and more

In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat industry. In a proper finale to an E. coli-tainted 2007, the USDA has issued a public-heath alert regarding 14,800 pounds of stolen hamburger meat down in Texas. Get this: the hot meat is “thought to be contaminated with E. coli bacteria.” By my […]

Off-road vehicle use has surged in Western wilderness areas

Motorized outdoor enthusiasts are converging in increasing numbers on Western public lands — not only in areas marked for such outdoor enthusiasm, but in wilderness areas where rules against off-roading are nearly impossible to enforce. Registration of all-terrain vehicles and motorbikes in four Western states tripled from 1998 to 2006. The surge is traceable to […]

2007 was the year of warm temperatures and wacky weather

The year 2007 was typified by warm temperatures and wacky weather. This year in the U.S., 263 all-time high temperature records were tied or broken. New York City was hit by a tornado in August, the same month that more than 60 percent of the U.S. was abnormally dry or in drought. The Middle East […]

When do green ads translate to green action?

The greening of the U.S. of A. still has a ways to go. We’re plundering Canada’s tar sands and mining the Midwest’s topsoil to keep our cars on the road. We lay waste to ton after ton of Chinese coal to fuel our cheap-stuff habit. And so on. But if our habits remain environmentally ruinous, […]