Climate Climate & Energy

Critics say Peru pipeline is an accident waiting to happen

The boat ride down southeastern Peru’s Urubamba River cuts through mountains and sweltering jungle, passing wooden shacks of colonos — mixed race and grindingly poor Peruvians lured to the jungle with promises of free land — and nativos, tribes recently brought into contact with the modern world. The area is a biological gold mine, home […]

Umbra on water vapor and climate change

Dear Umbra, Coming from a scientific background, I was under the assumption that water vapor was the worst — or you could say the best — at causing global warming. Do you believe this to be false, and if not, why is no one talking about it? Erik Nash Dearest Erik, I’ve decided to use […]

Umbra on the greenhouse effect

Dear Umbra, Man-made greenhouse gases are blamed for recent global-warming trends. But man-made greenhouse gases account for only 5 percent of the greenhouse effect. Water vapor, over which civilization has virtually no control, accounts for some 95 percent of that greenhouse effect. Why has so much attention been focused on man-made gases when they comprise […]

Biodiesel: The slippery facts

Biodiesel -- the cleaner-burning vegetable-based oil that can be substituted for ordinary petroleum diesel -- is getting a lot of press these days. That's not too surprising: alternatives to oil tend to get a lot of attention when fuel prices are rising, which they're certainly doing right now.

Perhaps the biggest piece of recent policy news is Washington state's new renewable fuels standard, passed just last month, which mandates that 2 percent of the diesel sold in the state must be biodiesel by the end of 2008.

That got me thinking -- why just 2 percent? Couldn't we do better than that?

Well, maybe so. But perhaps not by a whole lot.

Are you America’s most energy-inefficient person?

Just got word that Lowe's, Whirlpool, and the U.S. EPA Energy Star program will search this summer for the country's 10 most energy-inefficient families. The lucky winners will receive a home energy makeover "to lower their monthly bills and help save the environment" and a return visit a year later to see how it's all going. During the search, Lowe's stores will host hands-on energy-conservation clinics. It's all in honor of the 10th anniversary of people ignoring Energy Star.

Death Rides a Slightly Less Pale Horse

Climate change may not totally wipe out the human species In what passes for good news on global warming these days, a new study has determined that climate sensitivity — the extent to which climate will react to increased greenhouse-gas levels — is likely within the mid-range of predictions. That means an atmospheric doubling of […]

One for the Record Books, If They Survive the Floods

U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions hit record high This week, the feds quietly — as in, tiptoeing in socks, holding breath — released annual stats on U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions, as required by the U.N. climate-change convention. The news is roughly as good as you would expect: The U.S., with only 5 percent of the world’s population, is […]

A climate-change compendium

Dear Umbra, I know you don’t make up questions, but in this instance I think it’s acceptable. Could you suggest a collection of resources on climate change? I think it might help us all get better educated on this vital topic. Even if they don’t spend an hour of their Earth Day sifting through the […]

Maybe Steps

Shell and ExxonMobil power gas platform with wind and solar The cognitive dissonance! It hurts! A new gas platform in the North Sea will be run entirely on wind and solar power. The tiny (26 by 26 feet) platform, co-owned by Royal Dutch Shell and ExxonMobil, cost about $143 million to develop and was built […]

Things That Go Lump in the Night

Coal makes a comeback As oil prices rise, coal will emerge as the fuel of the future. This depressing assessment is the collective judgment of international power company executives, expressed in a recent survey. Interestingly, the same execs cited greenhouse-gas emissions as one of their top concerns, and assumed there would be a push to […]