Climate Climate & Energy
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Report identifies areas where natural disasters could hit hardest
Natural disasters made more severe by climate change will hit especially hard in regions with shaky political, economic, and security situations, says a new report from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and relief agency CARE International. Vulnerable areas include central Africa, the Horn of Africa, and the Sahel; Afghanistan, the […]
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Nations gather in Ghana to talk shop on next climate-change accord
Some 1,600 delegates from 160 nations are moving forward on negotiations for a successor to the Kyoto Protocol as they gather this week in Accra, Ghana. The meeting is the third in a series of eight that will culminate in the adoption of a new global climate-change accord in Dec. 2009. “The negotiations need to […]
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Why electricity is the energy carrier of choice
Our already substantial 120-year investment in an electric infrastructure in industrial countries, makes the transition to a electricity based energy economy less expensive. There are sound physical reasons why the three main contenders for the energy supply for transport turn out to be the three electron economies: renewables, nuclear, and coal CCS. We have determined […]
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Short-term dip in oil prices will not offset long-term increases
A: “Who knows?” and “It doesn’t really matter.” Much higher gasoline prices that are sustained for a long, long time are now inevitable. The fundamentals in the oil market are that we are in the beginning stages of peak oil. Supply can no longer keep up with demand, which keeps soaring even in the face […]
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Gates, Buffet to invest in massive climate change?
Apparently two of the richest men in the world, Warren Buffet and Bill Gates, recently went up to visit the Alberta oil sands. Just based on their interest, oil sands stock jumped over 5 percent. Please, please tell me these guys, who are so active in good causes, are not seriously considering investing in oil […]
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Take note, everyone: Oil is not energy
Should business-section newspaper articles about tobacco companies ritually include statements such as, “The company’s profits and future existence, of course, wholly depend on its ability to externalize the health effects of its products”? Probably not. The newspaper article is a genre narrowly focused on one item — perhaps that’s why newspaper articles are sometimes called […]
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Ocean temperture levels indicate planet has kept warming since 1998
As part of their climate myth series, New Scientist cuts through the nonsense on what’s happened globally in the last decade: In fact, the planet as a whole has warmed since 1998, even in the years when surface temperatures have fallen. According to the dataset of the UK Met Office Hadley Centre (see figure, right), […]
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Nasty chemicals used in oil and gas drilling go largely unregulated
Toxic chemicals pumped underground to break up seams of rock and increase oil and gas production have a fun nickname: fracking fluids, short for fracturing. (Go on, say it: frack!) But the fun stops there. Fracking fluids go largely unregulated, despite millions of gallons of use and hundreds of reported spills each year. Thanks to […]
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Science orgs plead for more funding for severe-weather preparation
More floods, storms, and droughts are a-comin’, and the U.S. lacks funding to predict and prepare for ’em, say eight scientific organizations. The groups, including the American Geophysical Union and American Meteorological Society, made a plea Wednesday for Congress and the next U.S. president to double the current budget for climate research and forecasting between […]
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Colorado utility voluntarily shuts down two coal plants
Two coal-fired power plants in Colorado will be shut down — not because green groups sued like crazy to make it happen, but because a utility volunteered. Citing concerns about public health and greenhouse-gas emissions, Xcel Energy asked permission of state regulators to close its coal plants, and regulators have approved the plan. Xcel becomes […]
