Latest Articles

Founder of The Body Shop dies of a brain hemorrhage at age 64

Anita Roddick, the pioneering founder of The Body Shop, has died. Roddick was dubbed the “Queen of Green” for her trailblazing environmentally friendly, humane business practices that made her a leader in her native England and around the world. “Businesses have the power to do good,” Roddick wrote on the company’s website. Roddick opened her […]

Penguins in peril, Navy allowed to test underwater sonar, and more

Read the articles mentioned at the end of the podcast: Whale Meets Its Makah Play It Again, Uncle Sam Put Some More Lead on the Barbie Ursine of the Times All Dressed Up and No Place to Go Read the articles mentioned at the end of the podcast: A Summer Send-Off Nothing to Sneeze At […]

Danish model plans to go (quite literally) green

Well, this certainly is an interesting way to show how green you are.

Bush administration begins plotting its legacy

Presidents traditionally wind up their tenure by pushing through as many executive regulations as possible. Bill Clinton was no exception: he instituted the famous roadless rule in the last days of his presidency, as well as other enviro-friendly measures. “Starting in early 1999 we had people down in the White House basement with word processors […]

John Edwards would not require that new coal plants sequester their CO2 emissions

There was some question in this thread about what exactly John Edwards means when he says he would "require that all new coal-fired plants be built with the required technology to capture their carbon dioxide emissions." Would he require that new coal plants sequester their emissions, or merely that they be built in such a […]

Glacial melting is accelerating more quickly than projected

Climate change is occurring much faster than the IPCC models project. The Greenland ice sheet is a prime example. Robert Correll, chairman of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, said in Ilulissat recently:

We have seen a massive acceleration of the speed with which these glaciers are moving into the sea. The ice is moving at two metres an hour on a front 5km [3 miles] long and 1,500 metres deep. That means that this one glacier puts enough fresh water into the sea in one year to provide drinking water for a city the size of London for a year.

The glacier's movement is accelerated as water flows down "moulins" (see picture) to the ice-bedrock interface at the bottom and acts as a lubricant for the entire glacier to slide and glide on. This "provides a mechanism for rapid, large-scale, dynamic responses of ice sheets to climate warming," according to research led by NASA and MIT scientists [PDF]. Yet this factor has been given "little or no consideration in estimates of ice-sheet response to climate change."

Greenland glaciers melting at an alarming rate

Depressing climate news, version 17,354: Greenland’s two-mile-thick ice sheet is melting at a rate unforeseen to scientists and climate models. Chunks of ice breaking off are so huge that they’re triggering earthquakes; the glaciers are adding some 58 trillion gallons of water annually to the oceans, more than twice as much as they were 10 […]

Ex-heads of state tell current heads of state how to solve climate crisis

If you're into exclusive clubs, check this one out: the Club de Madrid, membership limited to former heads of state. (Actually, even heads of state can get blackballed.) Those former heads of state are trying to get their successors to do what they couldn't and tackle the climate crisis. In collaboration with the United Nations Foundation, the Club today released their recommendations for what the world should do on the next round of climate crisis. The ex-heads acknowledge the severity of the crisis and call for current leaders to facilitate rapid reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions, or face massive disaster:

Avoiding such a future requires global greenhouse emissions to peak in the next 10-15 years, followed by substantial reductions of at least 60% by 2050 compared to 1990 -- a formidable task that requires international cooperation and collective action without further delay. The cost of taking action now, however, is small -- about 1% of global GDP, according to the Stern Review -- and the benefits are large compared with the much heavier penalties of postponing action. The costs of both mitigation and adaptation will rise substantially with delay.

They call for all countries, developing and developed, to take on concrete greenhouse-gas-emission targets, but note that that will only happen if the next round is perceived to be equitable (i.e., the United States and other rich countries make cuts themselves and don't just lecture poor countries about what they should do). Here's the crux of their recommendation:

All countries should commit to reduce collectively global emissions by at least 60% below the 1990 level by 2050. Developed countries should take the lead in emissions reduction by adopting effective targets and timetables. As a first step, this could include a commitment to reduce their collective emissions by 30% by 2020. Rapidly industrializing countries should commit to reduce their energy intensity [greenhouse gas emissions per unit of economic growth] by 30% by 2020 (an average of 4% per year) and agree to emissions reduction targets afterwards.

They also call for an international carbon tax system, but are light on details of how this would work. They argue that carbon taxes are "easier to implement than cap-and-trade schemes and are economically efficient. A system of harmonized, universal carbon taxes should be agreed by the international community." Uh, if we can't even get cap-and-trade, how are we going to get a carbon tax? And how do we deal with the problem that carbon taxes don't provide certainty about exactly how much reductions will be achieved -- maybe people will just to decide to bite the bullet, pay more taxes, and keep on polluting.

More info and discussion below the fold.

Umbra on reusing bath water

Hi Umbra, My new (to me) house has a somewhat larger than standard bathtub with jets. I rarely have time for a bath, but last night took the opportunity to indulge. I had a nice soak, in water heated by solar energy, but then I had a tubful — perhaps 50 gallons? — of relatively […]

Some reviews and criticism of Bjorn Lomborg’s new book Cool It

I was all geared up to recommend this review of Bjorn Lomborg’s new book Cool It, written by The Weather Makers author Tim Flannery, but it turns out to be pretty bad. It’s kind of scattered all over the place a makes no coherent, forceful critique. Much better is Eban Goodstein’s review in Salon, which […]