Climate Climate & Energy

Diamonds Are Forever

Swiss glacier to be wrapped up, saved for later A Swiss ski resort worried about global warming’s ill effects on its future is taking matters into its own mittened hands. At the ski season’s end in May, the Andermatt resort will cover some 32,200 square feet of the Gurschen glacier with an insulating PVC foam […]

Busy Bee

Environmental series on Hetch Hetchy Valley wins Pulitzer Prize The best opinion writing takes the unthinkable and makes it a live possibility. That’s what Sacramento Bee Associate Editor Tom Philp did with “Hetch Hetchy Reclaimed,” his editorial series on breaching the dam that has held Yosemite National Park’s famed valley under water since 1923. The […]

Route Scootin’ Boogie

Shell alters pipeline route to spare whale feeding grounds It’s one small step for environmentalists, one giant leap for endangered gray whales: Energy giant Royal Dutch/Shell has agreed to alter the planned route of a massive oil and gas pipeline off of Russia’s Sakhalin island by 12 miles to preserve the charismatic mammal’s feeding grounds. […]

An interview with risk-taking park ranger Jordan Fisher Smith, author of Nature Noir

If you had to guess which federal agents in the U.S. face the greater danger, who would you put your money on: the officers who wage the endless War on Drugs, or the rangers who patrol the green acres of the national parks? Well, it's the rangers. According to a 2001 study by the Bureau of Justice, nature's security guards are twice as likely to be assaulted on the job as agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Waste

On Energy Priorities, a short but interesting piece on France's struggles with nuclear waste. The good bit:

Every day, about ten shipping containers arrive on trucks at the Soulaines-Dhuys storage facility outside Troyes, in the province of Ardennes, 180 kilometers east of Paris. On board are barrels of waste that isn't radioactive enough to be stored at Marcoule. Every year, 15,000 cubic meters of waste contaminated with uranium, plutonium and tritium arrive here.

The 350-acre site is like an above-ground Yucca Mountain. Construction cranes hover above a hundred bunker-like cement blocks already filled with barrels encased in concrete. In 60 years, the cranes' job will be done, the 400-bunker facility will be full, and the entire facility will be covered with a concrete lid. What then?

The Soulaines-Dhuys site will enter a 300-year surveillance phase. After that, the plan is to observe the site until the stored waste loses its radioactivity.

The initial 300 years is just the beginning. Even moderately radioactive plutonium retains hazardous for 24,000 years. Skeptics wonder if future generations will follow the plan -- or even remember where the site is located.

Is it smart to rely on a form of energy the byproduct of which requires 24,000 years of constant, careful monitoring? Honestly.

Scrubs

Debate over mercury-reduction technology rages on The Bush administration’s release of its Clean Air Mercury Rule this week has reignited debate over how well existing technology can remove mercury from emissions at coal-fired power plants. The rule mandates a 70 percent reduction in emissions by 2018, a number many enviros contend current mercury-removal technology can […]

SUV-Loving Public Deems Itself Unpatriotic

Americans think fuel efficiency is patriotic, poll finds According to a new poll released yesterday, fuel efficiency ranks up there with apple pie, baseball, and hating liberals as emblematic of American patriotism. Some 66 percent of Americans believe it’s “patriotic” to purchase a fuel-efficient vehicle, as it would aid the U.S. in kicking its addiction […]

Gotta Run for Shelter, Gotta Run for Shade

Even without new emissions, planet would still see global warming Even if all the factories and power plants and cars on earth were to suddenly stop clogging the atmosphere with greenhouse gases, the atmosphere would still continue to warm over the next 100 years, two new studies in the journal Science suggest. And, says researcher […]

Joevangelism

Evangelical leaders rally to fight global warming Following its adoption of an environmental platform in October, the National Association of Evangelicals, an umbrella group of 51 denominations, has scheduled two meetings in the Washington, D.C., area to focus on global warming. To be attended by influential religious leaders, scientists, politicians, and members of international aid […]

Umbra on Green Tags

Dear Umbra, My power company (Florida Power and Light) sent me a letter asking me to choose its Sunshine Energy program, which, for an additional $9.75 a month, helps support the building of a 150-kilowatt solar facility in Florida. Do you think I should do it? LindaCoral Springs, Fla. Dearest Linda, Yes. And I am […]