Climate Climate & Energy

It’s a Floor Wax and a Dessert Topping!

Algae being harnessed to combat climate change and other eco-woes Consider the algae. Three years ago, Massachusetts Institute of Technology rocket scientist Isaac Berzin had an idea: use the slimy plants to clean up emissions from power plants. Today, at a power plant next to MIT, tubes of healthy algae slurp up 40 percent of […]

Croak and Dagger

Mass frog die-offs linked to global warming The mass disappearance of colorful harlequin frog species in Central and South America has long puzzled biologists, but research published in the latest issue of Nature fingers a culprit: global warming. (When in doubt …) The deadly chytrid fungus that’s killing off the tiny amphibians is flourishing in […]

Damn You, Bush!

Plants are major methane producers, new research says Methane: it’s not just from cow farts anymore. Apparently, ordinary plants emit significant amounts of the potent greenhouse gas. Clearly, all cows and plants must be killed. For the health of the planet! Ahem. Writing in Nature, German researchers suggest that the never-before-noted phenomenon — which they […]

Doin’ What Comes Dastardly

Not-Kyoto climate pact meeting ends with much hot air The U.S. and Australia today marked the end of the Asia-Pacific climate summit in Sydney by pledging $127 million to support technology projects that would lower greenhouse-gas emissions. Climate activists derided the commitment from the two big polluters as laughably small; the Kyoto Protocol, which both […]

OK, We’ll Just Drill Over Here Instead

Bush administration opens up Alaska wildlife habitat to drilling The Bush administration’s lust for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge having gone unrequited, it’s going to stick its derricks in some sloppy seconds: The Department of Interior is opening up hundreds of thousands of acres of other Alaskan wildlife habitat to drilling. The land around Teshekpuk […]

Over 150 activists send letter asking Kennedy to reconsider position

Cape Wind Associates' plan to build a big wind-power farm off the coast of Cape Cod has been dividing enviros for years, but the disagreement got a lot more heated last month when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ran a high-profile op-ed railing against the project in The New York Times.

An excerpt:

These turbines are less than six miles from shore and would be seen from Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. Hundreds of flashing lights to warn airplanes away from the turbines will steal the stars and nighttime views. The noise of the turbines will be audible onshore. A transformer substation rising 100 feet above the sound would house giant helicopter pads and 40,000 gallons of potentially hazardous oil. According to the Massachusetts Historical Commission, the project will damage the views from 16 historic sites and lighthouses on the cape and nearby islands. The Humane Society estimates the whirling turbines could every year kill thousands of migrating songbirds and sea ducks.

That didn't sit so well with many enviros who see climate change as the big environmental issue and therefore think renewable-energy projects should be welcomed in all our backyards. More than 150 green leaders and activists this week sent a letter to Kennedy asking him to reconsider. Word is Kennedy said he'll meet with them to discuss. We'll keep you posted.

Meantime, here's the letter:

According to Wired.

1. Your property value will decrease.
2. They're ugly.
3. You'll hear noises similar to those Nazi troops used to torture Jews with during the holocaust.
4. They'll cause strokes.
5. Women will menstruate five times a month.

At least some people think so, according to a Wired article about the battle against wind farms in upstate New York.

You Light Up My Strife

Solar LED lamps provide clean, cheap lighting to rural poor A handful of villagers in rural India are receiving a life-transforming technology: low-cost, solar-powered light-emitting diode (LED) lamps. Bombay-based Grameen Surya Bijli Foundation has installed the $55 lamps free of charge in about 300 homes. “Children can now study at night, elders can manage their […]

Freeze Tibet

Global warming liquefying the glaciers of Tibet High-altitude Tibet is known as the “rooftop of the world,” but lately the roof is a bit saggy. Global warming is rapidly melting glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau, water source for many of the region’s rivers. This great melt — already being felt in flooding — could eventually […]

Forth by Northeast

Seven Northeastern states sign greenhouse-gas pact Thumbing their noses — or whatever states have where noses should be — at the Bush administration, seven Northeastern states have committed to cut their planet-toasting carbon dioxide emissions 10 percent by the end of 2018. New York Gov. George Pataki (R) dreamed up the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative […]