Climate Climate & Energy

Electric cars could impact water supplies, says analysis

Converting most U.S. vehicles to run on electricity could have an impact on water supplies, according to an analysis to be published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology. Generating the needed electricity would require more water than producing gasoline, the report found — that is, if the nation’s electricity grid continues to be powered […]

Thoughts from a cellulosic ethanol agnostic

"If America can win a race to the moon, we can win a race for a battery," Bill Clinton said last night on TV, stumping for Hillary. He also pointed out that if our cars got 100 mpg, the rise in fuel prices -- which is inevitable -- will have a much smaller economic impact. In short, he thinks America needs to get its shit together and start leading the world again with innovation.

Easier said than done, in my opinion. We seem to be going backwards at present. All three of the remaining presidential hopefuls claim to be big supporters of corn ethanol.

Keep in mind that there is no such thing as commercially produced cellulosic ethanol, so the following is based on an assumption that may never come to fruition. Imagine for a moment that the picture to the right, a power plant being fed a continuous supply of coal, is instead a cellulose ethanol refinery, and instead of coal in those cars, you have cellulose.

Now, instead, assume it is a power plant again, but keep the cellulose in the train cars.

Climate change will make Ireland less green, says well-timed report

It’s St. Patty’s day — so you just knew someone would do a study on the impact of climate change on Ireland, didn’t you? Sure enough, the Irish American Climate Project has issued a report entitled “Changing Shades of Green,” warning that decreased rainfall could necessitate a nickname change for the Emerald Isle, and summer […]

China, with emissions rising, urges developed countries to carbon diet

China’s greenhouse-gas emissions are rising far faster than expected, according to a new analysis to be published in the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management. Researchers estimate that by 2010, China may spew 600 million more metric tons of greenhouse gases than it did in 2000; to put that in perspective, the total emissions reductions […]

Peruvian Amazon under threat from oil exploration, illegal logging

There’s no better way to start off a Monday than with depressing news from the Peruvian Amazon, which is under threat from both fossil-fuel development and illegal logging. Despite protests from environmental and human rights groups, Peru’s government plans to auction off dozens of parcels of remote rainforest for oil and gas companies to explore. […]

N.J. firefighters puttin’ out the flames of the planet

“We’d all be heroes if we quit using petroleum,” says the fictional firefighter played by Marky Mark in I Heart Huckabees, who memorably opted to ride his bike to fires rather than take the truck with the rest of the fire department. If he’d only known about a group of New Jersey firefighters who claim […]

World’s glaciers melting rapidly, report says

The world’s glaciers are melting quite rapidly and will likely cause all sorts of environmental problems, according to data from the World Glacier Monitoring Service. The WGMS tracks the health of 30 “reference” glaciers throughout the world and has said that their rate of melt has sped up significantly in recent years. Between 1980 and […]

The athletics news you can’t live without

Here’s a fun game for the whole family: You name a sport; I’ll tell you how it’s jumping on the green bandwagon. Ready? OK! Baseball: Milwaukee Brewers first basement Prince Fielder has become a vegetarian after his wife gave him a copy of the book Skinny Bitch. He’s probably not in their target demographic, but […]

Some of world’s purest water and pristine ecosystems under threat

International Rivers is fighting to preserve biodiversity against the large companies that want to dam this river:

The Pascua River, in Chilean Patagonia, is one of the most pristine and unknown regions on the planet. Why? For one, it is extremely difficult to even get there. Secondly, once you actually see the river, doing anything other than standing with your mouth open and hands over your ears is virtually impossible. This is a rip-roaring, roller-coaster of a river with rugged, impassable canyons and unsurvivable Class 6+ whitewater.

CO2’s connection to global warming is not murky

I like the L.A. Times. They do some of the best reporting on environmental issues. So I'm reading a pretty good piece on how the EPA administrator overruled his science advisers on the recent ozone ruling (more on that in a later post), and I come to this remarkable paragraph that shows how the president himself actually intervened to weaken the EPA regulations:

President Bush intervened at the 11th hour and turned down a second proposal by the EPA staff that would have established tougher seasonal limits on ozone based on its harm to forests, crops and other plants, according to documents obtained by The Times. Federal scientists had recommended those growing-season limits as a way to keep vegetation healthy and capable of trapping carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas linked to global warming.

No, no, a thousand times, no!

Can't the LAT do better than "linked to global warming"? The media use the word "linked" to deal with as-yet-uncorroborated or unproven allegations, as in the NY Times' recent blockbuster: "Spitzer Is Linked to Prostitution Ring."

Carbon dioxide has been proven conclusively to help warm the globe -- there is no serious scientific dispute of that. Why do you think scientists and everyone else calls it a "greenhouse gas"? Why do you think your own story calls it a "greenhouse gas"?

Time for the Times to stop soft-pedaling climate science.

[Note to the L.A. Times: I really really hope assume you know that greenhouse gases cause global warming. So were you afraid to say, " ... carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that causes global warming" because that means you are acknowledging that global warming is a real phenomenon and caused by humans? If so, that is perhaps even lamer.]

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.