Earth Equity News

2013-03-19T08:29:00.000-07:00

EPA May Delay Proposed Greenhouse Gas Limits for Power Plants. By Juliet Eilperin and Philip Rucker, WashPost, March 15, 2013. “The Obama administration is leaning toward revising its landmark proposal to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants, according to several individuals briefed on the matter, a move that would delay tougher restrictions and anger many environmentalists… Rewriting the proposal would significantly postpone any action and also might allow the agency to set more permissive standards for coal-fired power plants, which are roughly twice as polluting as those fueled by natural gas… Standards for new power plants are less controversial than imposing carbon limits on existing plants, which emit 2.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide a year, or 40 percent of the nation’s carbon output. The administration has yet to say if it will pursue that policy.”

2013-03-19T08:05:00.001-07:00

It’s Lose-Lose vs. Win-Win-Win-Win-Win. Commentary by Thomas L. Friedman, NYTimes, March 17, 2013. “It strikes me as crazy that one of the obvious solutions to our budget, energy and environmental problems — the one that would be the least painful and have the best long-term impact (a carbon tax) — is off the table. Meanwhile, the solution that is as dumb as the day is long — a budget sequester that slashes spending indiscriminately — is on the table. Shrinking the tax deduction for charity is on the table. Shrinking Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid for the poor are on the table. But a carbon tax that could close the deficit and clean the air, weaken petro-dictators, strengthen the dollar, drive clean-tech innovation and still leave some money to lower corporate and income taxes is off the table. So the solutions that are lose-lose and divisive are on the table, while the solution that is win-win-win-win-win — and has both liberal and conservative supporters — is off the table…

“Alas, right now both sides are trying to inflict maximum pain on the other, rather than framing the debate as: “Here’s the world we’re living in; here’s what we need to thrive; and, if we cut and tax here, we can invest in these 21st-century growth engines over here.” Our goal is not to balance the budget. It’s to make America great.”

2011-04-06T18:35:00.000-07:00

Physicist Turns Tables on Congressional Climate Deniers. By Margot Roosevelt, LATimes, 4/4/11. “A team of UC Berkeley physicists and statisticians that set out to challenge the scientific consensus on global warming is finding that its data-crunching effort is producing results nearly identical to those underlying the prevailing view. The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project was launched by physics professor Richard Muller, a longtime critic of government-led climate studies, to address what he called ‘the legitimate concerns’ of skeptics who believe that global warming is exaggerated. But Muller unexpectedly told a congressional hearing last week that the work of the three principal groups that have analyzed the temperature trends underlying climate science is ‘excellent... We see a global warming trend that is very similar to that previously reported by the other groups.’… Muller said his group was surprised by its findings, but he cautioned that the initial assessment is based on only 2% of the 1.6 billion measurements that will eventually be examined.

“Other scientists noted that temperature is only one factor in climate change. ‘Even if the thermometer had never been invented, the evidence is there from deep ocean changes, from receding glaciers, from rising sea levels and receding sea ice and spring snow cover,’ [Peter Thorne, a leading expert at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.] said. ‘All the physical indicators are consistent with a warming world. There is no doubt the trend of temperature is upwards since the early 20th century. And that trend is accelerating.’”

2011-04-06T18:30:00.000-07:00

U.N. Warns of Long-Term Climate Change Impacts on Food Production. By Gargi Parsai, The Hindu, 4/1/11. “‘Potentially catastrophic’ impacts on food production from slow-onset climate changes are expected to increasingly hit the developing world in the future, and action is required now to prepare for those impacts, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) warned on March 31st in a report to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Food production systems and the ecosystems they depended on were highly sensitive to climate variability and change. Changes in temperature, precipitation and related outbreaks of pest and diseases could reduce production. Poor people in countries that depended on food imports were particularly vulnerable to such effects, the FAO said… A crucial measure highlighted in the FAO submission is need to develop staple food varieties better adapted to expected future climatic conditions. Plant genetic material stored in gene banks should be screened with future requirements in mind and additional plant genetic resources -- including those from wild relatives of food crops -- must be collected and studied because of the risk that they may disappear.”

2011-04-06T18:27:00.000-07:00

Combating the Fossil Fuel Industry with Political Will. Speech by Steve Valk, USC Daily Gamecock, 4/3/11. “It's been a while since I graduated from USC. When I left, Jimmy Carter had just been elected president and Elvis was still shaking his then-considerable hips on stages across America. I return this evening on a mission -- to help citizens discover their voice and the power they have to make a difference, particularly when it comes to enacting policies that will keep the Earth livable for future generations… We're on track to leave an unmanageable mess for those future generations and they're going to be plenty aggravated that we didn't do something about it when we had the chance. What's stopping us? Why aren't we making the transition to clean energy that will produce millions of new jobs, reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and lower the risks of climate change?...

“It comes down to political will, and the fossil fuel industry buys as much of that as it needs, beginning with think tanks that confuse the public into believing the science on climate change isn't settled. Add to that millions of dollars in campaign contributions to members of Congress and limitless TV advertising from coal and oil interests and it's little wonder that legislation to put a price on carbon has stalled in Washington. It starts with ordinary citizens sitting down with their members of Congress and having an honest discussion about the problem we're facing and the way to solve it. In a time of cynicism and animosity toward politics, we have to develop a relationship of respect and trust with lawmakers that gives them the courage to do the right thing. ” ~ The Daily Gamecock is the student newspaper at the University of South Carolina. Steve Valk, communications director of Citizens Climate Lobby, is a 1976 graduate of USC's College of Journalism. He lives in Atlanta.

2011-04-05T18:29:00.000-07:00

Deepwater Horizon Firm Gives Execs Safety Bonuses, with No Apparent Sense of Irony. By Jess Zimmerman, Grist, 4/4/11. “Transocean, the offshore drilling firm that ran the Deepwater Horizon rig, has given its top execs massive bonuses for having ‘the best year in safety performance in our company's history… Notwithstanding the tragic loss of life in the Gulf of Mexico, we achieved an exemplary statistical safety record as measured by our total recordable incident rate and total potential severity rate.’… Transocean said that executives would be getting a 3.8% raise, millions in stock options, and a cash bonus of 44.8 percent of their ‘target bonus opportunity. What’s that mean? Well, for the CEO (who’s not getting a bonus, having just gotten a promotion and a raise), ‘target bonus opportunity’ would be his full annual salary of $900,000, so he would be getting over $400,000.”

2011-04-05T18:28:00.000-07:00

No to a New Tar Sands Pipeline. NYTimes editorial, 4/2/11. “Later this year, the State Department will decide whether to approve construction of a 1,700-mile oil pipeline from Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast called Keystone XL. The underground 36-inch pipeline, built by TransCanada, would link the tar sands fields of northern Alberta to Texas refineries and begin operating in 2013. The department should say no…

“The environmental risks, for both countries, are enormous. The first step in the process is to strip-mine huge chunks of Alberta’s boreal forest… The E.P.A. estimates that the greenhouse gas emissions from tar sands oil -- even without counting the destruction of forests that sequester carbon - are 82% greater than those produced by conventional crude oil. The project poses a major threat to water supplies on both sides of the border... Operations in Alberta have already created 65 square miles of toxic holding ponds, which kill migrating birds and pollute downstream watersheds, a serious matter for native communities… Political pressure to win swift approval has been building in Congress... From all of the evidence, Keystone XL is not only environmentally risky, it is unnecessary.”

2011-04-05T18:27:00.000-07:00

Women and Climate Change. By Jamie Henn, 350.org, 04/04/11. “Many of the most inspirational leaders in the growing climate movement are women. It's only appropriate. Women have not only lead many of the successful social movements of the past, they're also those most impacted by the climate crisis. At the UN climate negotiations in Bangkok on April 4, women from around the world spoke out about the ways the climate change is impacting their lives and those of their sisters back at home. ‘In climate change induced disasters it is primarily the poor who have suffered the most, the majority of which are women,’ said Anne Maine of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA). ‘This is the result of women's marginalized status and dependence on local natural resources, which in turn increases their domestic burdens.’”

2011-04-04T18:37:00.000-07:00

UN Talks Aim to Thrash Out Tough Details on Climate. By Claire Snegaroff, AFP, 4/3/11. “The first UN climate talks of the year in Bangkok this week look to hammer out tough details of a global pact that has offered hope in the fight against global warming. The six days of talks, which began Sunday with informal workshops, are being held as the world's energy problems are in sharp focus amid Japan's nuclear power crisis and with oil prices hovering near record highs. Negotiators will be seeking to build on an accord reached in the Mexican resort of Cancun in December last year that infused cautious optimism into the often tortuous United Nations process aimed at tackling climate change… UN's climate chief, Christiana Figueres, said… a key goal of the talks was to set out a workplan for the year so that countries could arrive in South Africa for the UN's annual climate summit in November able to make concrete and substantial agreements.”

2011-04-04T18:34:00.000-07:00

Carbon-Rich Mangroves Ripe for Conservation. By Janelle Weaver, Nature, 4/3/11. “Mangrove forests in tropical regions of the Indian and Pacific Oceans store more carbon than previously recognized, according to a study published today in Nature Geoscience. The findings indicate that much of the carbon in such forests is found in the surrounding soil, which is rich in organic material. Cutting down mangrove forests, which occupy less than 1% of tropical forest area, could therefore contribute up to 10% of global carbon emissions from deforestation. Although carbon reserves in other types of tropical wetland forest have been assessed, the amount of carbon in mangroves has been largely ignored, even though they are present in more than 100 countries.”

2011-04-04T18:33:00.000-07:00

Solar Energy Firms Take Advantage of NJ's Pro-Renewable Energy Climate. By Tara Kolton, Bergen County Record, 4/3/11. “Solar opportunities are shining down on NJ homeowners as the state continues to be one of the best places in the country for homeowners to invest in clean and efficient solar power. At the end of the year, two key federal initiatives are due to expire -- a federal grant that covers 30% of the installation cost of a solar-energy system and a 100% depreciation tax credit… But while the future of some federal solar incentives may be uncertain, state rebates in New Jersey are still strong… New Jersey is currently the number-one state for renewable energy incentives and is second only to California in the total installations of renewable energy in the entire country. The Garden State is also a national leader with its Solar Renewable Energy Certificate (SREC) program, which allows home and business owners to sell clean energy credits back to utility companies.”

2011-04-04T18:29:00.000-07:00

World Bank to Limit Funding for Coal-Fired Power Stations. By Fiona Harvey, Guardian UK, 4/4/11. “The World Bank is planning to restrict the money it gives to coal-fired power stations, bowing to pressure from green campaigners to radically revise its funding rules. The new proposals would not mean an end to funding for fossil fuels, but would represent a departure from previous regulations. Under these rules, the bank has provided sizeable financial support for coal-fired power stations in the developing world in spite of protests from governments and green groups. Under the proposed new rules, only the very poorest countries would be eligible to receive grants or loans for building new coal-fired power stations, and then only if they could prove they were necessary and that alternatives -- such as renewable energy -- were not feasible.”

2011-04-01T08:14:00.001-07:00

Climate Meddling Dates Back 8,000 Years. By Alexandra Witze, Science News, 3/29/11. “People started influencing their home planet’s climate millennia before the industrial revolution’s fossil fuel–burning machines began spewing carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere, a new study suggests. Clearing land -- first to hunt and gather, and then to farm -- removed trees that otherwise would have soaked up carbon dioxide. The new work suggests that humans working the land put nearly 350 billion metric tons of carbon -- many times other estimates -- into the atmosphere by the year 1850. (For comparison, between 1850 and 2000 people added 440 billion tons of carbon, mostly from burning fossil fuels — surpassing in a century and a half what had taken humanity eight millennia.)…

“[Team leader Jed Kaplan of the Federal Polytechnic School in Lausanne, Switzerland] reported the work on March 25 at an American Geophysical Union conference on past civilizations and climate. He and Lausanne colleague Kristen Krumhardt also describe the findings in an upcoming issue of Holocene… Climate scientists often select 1850 as the putative start of the industrial revolution. But the world in 1850 was not a pristine globe untouched by human hands... Rather, people cut down forests and cleared land early on... Previous research often assumed that as the world’s population grew, the proportion of cleared land grew as well. But the more people crowded onto a landscape, the more efficient they became at extracting dinner from it… Irrigation, fertilizer, multicropping and new tools allowed farmers to increase crop yields, and per-capita land use began to drop...

“Kaplan and Krumhardt looked at how growing population and changing land-use trends affected carbon emissions. The scientists gathered data on how many people lived in each population center for the past 8,000 years, then cataloged how land use changed over time. The result: a dramatic video showing a green-forested world giving way to a brown spread of deforestation, up until the modern era.”

2011-04-01T08:13:00.000-07:00

Aircraft Contrails Stoke Warming, Cloud Formation. By Alister Doyle, Reuters, 3/29/11. “Aircraft condensation trails criss-crossing the sky may be warming the planet on a normal day more than the carbon dioxide emitted by all planes since the Wright Brothers' first flight in 1903, a study said on Tuesday. It indicated that contrails -- white lines of Vapor left by jet engines -- also have big knock-on effects by adding to the formation of high-altitude, heat-trapping cirrus clouds as the lines break up. The findings may help governments fix penalties on planes' greenhouse gas emissions in a U.N.-led assault on climate change. Or new engines might be designed to limit Vapor and instead spit out water drops or ice that fall from the sky…

“But a key difference is that CO2 lingers for decades while warming from contrails quickly ends if flights are grounded, such as after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, or in Europe after last year's Icelandic volcano eruption. ‘You can get rid of contrails very quickly. You can't get rid of CO2 quickly,’ lead author Ulrike Burkhardt at DLR told Reuters... Olivier Boucher, of the Met Office Hadley Center in England…said the findings might bring changes in air traffic control, for instance diverting planes from regions or altitudes where air moisture was high and favored cirrus formation. But a problem was that any benefits of fewer contrails might be canceled out by higher fuel use on longer routes.”

2011-04-01T08:12:00.002-07:00

San Onofre Wave Farm Idea Churns Up Concerns. By Tony Barboza, LATimes, 3/30/11. “The waves off San Onofre have for generations beckoned surfers and sport fishermen to a wild stretch of coastline in the shadow of domed nuclear reactors. Now, an Orange County entrepreneur wants to tap the power of that legendary surf in a novel but highly controversial plan to build one of the nation's first hydrokinetic wave farms. Federal energy regulators have given JD Products of Fountain Valley permission to begin a three-year study looking at the feasibility of installing thousands of ocean wave electricity generators a mile off San Onofre State Beach. The firm's general manager, Chong Hun Kim, said he chose the site because it is close to transmission lines that serve the San Onofre nuclear power plant…

“Environmental groups, which are broadly supportive of renewable energy projects, said putting the devices in the waters of San Onofre could harm marine life and potentially mar the view from the coastline. Surfers are worried it would dampen waves and alter seafloor terrain along a stretch of coast famed for its surf breaks. Sport-fishing groups said a wave farm could block off favored waters for sand bass, bonito and barracuda fishing.”

2011-04-01T08:12:00.001-07:00

Confidence Slips Away as Japan Battles Nuclear Peril. By Ken Belson and Hiroko Tabuchi, NYTimes, 3/ 29/11. “After workers switched on the first set of control room lights at Japan’s crippled power plant in Fukushima last week, the Japanese government offered its strongest assurances yet that its nuclear crisis was close to being under control… But less than a week later, a deluge of contaminated water, plutonium traces in the soil and an increasingly hazardous environment for workers at the plant have forced government officials to confront the reality that the emergency measures they have taken to keep nuclear fuel cool are producing increasingly dangerous side effects…

“The setbacks have raised questions about how long, and at what cost, Japan can keep up what experts call its “feed and bleed” strategy of cooling the reactor’ fuel rods with emergency infusions of water from the ocean and now from freshwater sources. That cooling strategy… has released harmful amounts of radioactive steam into the atmosphere… making it perilous for some of the hundreds of workers at the plant to further critical repair work… The continuing crisis also underscores the unprecedented scale and complexity of the problems facing Fukushima… containing more long-lived radioactivity than the Chernobyl reactor, according to the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research [IEER], based in Takoma Park, Md.”

2011-04-01T08:10:00.000-07:00

Charging Ahead: Report Predicts 3.8 Million Electrics on Road by 2016. By Todd Woody, Grist, 3/29/11. “The big question is whether battery-powered vehicles are the future or a fad. The answer won't be known for years but a new report from GTM Research offers some interesting insights into where the electric road might lead. The report, ‘The Networked EV: The Convergence of Smart Grids and Electric Vehicles,’ predicts there will be 3.8 million electric cars on the road worldwide by 2016, with about 1.5 million in the United States, 1.5 million in Europe and 760,000 in Asia. ‘It is the hope of this industry that just as cellular phones and laptops before them, EVs will begin as luxury products but will eventually become widely affordable,’ wrote David J. Leeds, the report's author… The early adopters of electric cars that will like drive the industry aren't so much all those Prius owners but corporate accountants looking to keep a lid on the cost of company fleets of cars and trucks… wrote Leeds. ‘More than any other sources, commercial and government fleet purchases have the power to accelerate the adoption curve of this market.’”

2011-03-28T09:29:00.000-07:00

Renewing Support for Renewables. By Nancy Folbre, NYTimes, 3/28/11. “The biggest positive result of the accident at Fukushima Daiichi could be renewed public support for the development of renewable energy technologies. Many influential policy makers, including President Obama, continue to insist that we must expand nuclear power to help meet our energy needs. But plenty of experts disagree… renewable energy sources (including hydropower and biofuels) already account for almost the same share of total energy consumption in the United States as nuclear power… The cost per kilowatt hour of generating electricity from wind and solar power has declined steadily in recent years and is projected to decline further… The cost of nuclear power, by contrast, has increased, even without factoring in the huge social costs imposed by accidents... In Nuclear Power: Climate Fix or Folly, Amory Lovins, a physicist with the Rocky Mountain Institute, and two colleagues argued that expanded nuclear power does not represent a cost-effective solution to global warming and that investors would shun it were it not for generous government subsidies lubricated by intensive lobbying efforts…

“Can wind, water and solar power be scaled up in cost-effective ways to meet our energy demands, freeing us from dependence on both fossil fuels and nuclear power? Yes, they can, say two highly respected scientists, Mark Z. Jacobson of Stanford University and Mark A. Delucchi of the University of California, Davis. In 2009 they published A Plan to Power 100 Percent of the Planet with Renewables in Scientific American. The article persuasively addresses a number of concerns, such as the worldwide spatial footprint of wind turbines, the availability of scarce materials needed for manufacture of new systems, the ability to produce reliable energy on demand and the average cost per kilowatt hour. A more detailed and updated technical analysis can be found in a two-part article (see Part I [PDF, 16 pp] and Part II , [PDF, 21 pp] recently published in the journal Energy Policy)…

“The proven dangers of nuclear power amplify the economic risks of expanding reliance on it. Indeed, the stronger regulation and improved safety features for nuclear reactors called for in the wake of the Japanese disaster will almost certainly require costly provisions that may price it out of the market. The role of the market, however, is small relative to political battles over relative levels of subsidy to fossil fuels, nuclear power and renewable energy. While both the fossil fuel and nuclear power industries are dominated by large companies with considerable political clout, renewable energy is a more decentralized, small-business-oriented sector that often finds itself outmaneuvered on Capitol Hill.

“As Professors Jacobson and Delucchi put it, ‘The barriers to a 100% conversion to wind, water and solar power worldwide are primarily social and political, not technological or even economic.’”

~ Nancy Folbre is an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

2011-03-16T07:46:00.000-07:00

Japan’s Nuclear Armageddon and the Experts. By Mina Hamilton, Dissident Voice, 3/16/11. At 4:45 PM more grim news from Japan. Yet another fire breaks out at a Fukushima reactor. Searing flames shoot to the sky. Radiation levels are too high for workers to get close enough to put out the inferno. Even so, maybe, this fire will be doused. What’s next?

Coming hard on the heels of a monster earthquake and devastating tsunami, the nuclear disaster unfolding in Japan is more than heart-breaking. The magnitude of the tragedy is truly unfathomable.

Who has not groaned seeing pictures of the tsunami-claimed bodies? Who has not wept seeing thousands and thousands of Japanese mourning the loss of family, loved ones and homes? Who does not wince at the desperate refugees without water or food packed into freezing shelters?

Now add to the untold miseries multiple reactor core meltdowns? And a fuel pool meltdown? Plus, a radioactive plume heading out over the Pacific to deposit its toxic load in the ocean and its rich fisheries? Not to mention the threat of the wind shifting and carrying the radioactivity towards Tokyo? Korea?

It is understandable for those of us watching from a distance to feel hopeless. What can I do? Who doesn’t want to turn off the TV, climb under the covers – and leave the unfolding disaster in the hands of the experts?

If there’s one lesson this catastrophe should convey: don’t leave it to the experts.

These experts got us here in the first place. One example: what the industry and most media commentators refer to as “spent fuel.”

“Spent” fuel? What’s that?

“Spent” is an industry-euphemism. It implies something harmless, wasted or used up. Quite the opposite.

Spent fuel is irradiated fuel: fuel that has been irradiated inside a nuclear reactor’s core. After removal from the reactor, this fuel is massively contaminated with radioactive elements and must be stored in giant pools.

On March 15 the New York Times said these fuel pools “could pose an even greater danger” than the reactors melting down.

An even greater danger? Isn’t a core meltdown as bad as it gets?

Alas, a fuel pool meltdown could be worse than a reactor core meltdown. Much worse. This is because fuel pools contain far more radioactivity than that which is inside a reactor core. Unfortunately, at Fukushima we may get both types of meltdowns.

Robert Alvarez, formerly of the US Department of Energy and now at the Institute of Policy Studies, provided insight into this potential nuclear Armageddon. In a recent blog Alvarez states the fuel in each of the pools at the Fukushima complex has 5 to 10 times the radioactivity of the fuel inside one reactor core. And much of this radioactive material is the highly toxic and long-lived radionuclide, cesium-137. See http://www.ips-dc.org/blog/meltdowns_grow_more_likely_at_the_fukushima_reactors.)

Another problem: Unlike the reactor cores, which have a hefty, six-inch thick steel containment vessel, the fuel pools at Fukushima are in unhardened and therefore highly vulnerable concrete structures. The roof of one of these structures has been completely demolished in at least one of the stricken reactors, Unit 4.

Why is irradiated fuel sitting in pools? (They’re sort of like swimming pools, though considerably deeper. About 40 feet long, 40 feet wide and 45 feet deep.)

After removal from the reactor core, the irradiated fuel is fiendishly hot. The fuel is so hot it will cause the water it is immersed in to boil – if the water is not cooled. What if fuel pool’s cooling systems fail? Disaster. If the water is not cooled for a certain number of days or weeks, the water will boil off. Next, the fuel can catch fire, releasing its toxic load to the environment.

Given the repeated explosions at the Fukushima reactors and the latest fire at Unit 4, this count-down to an irradiated fuel pool meltdown appears to be underway.

Pools of water hanging up in the air? With no back-up water circulation, no back-up generators? Pools not in hardened or sealed containments? Pools stuffed to the gills with extraordinarily toxic materials that are now threatening the health and safety of thousands of already suffering Japanese citizens?

Over the last 30 years, repeatedly citizens have challenged the safety of irradiated fuel pools and repeatedly the nuclear industry and its experts have said, no problem.

Yes, right now, we all need to do whatever we can to assist the Japanese people.

For the longer term, however, let’s remember the nuclear industry and its “experts” got us to this extremely dangerous moment. An informed, organized and determined citizenry is the only way to free us of our dependency upon this exceedingly dangerous and unforgiving energy source.

~ Mina Hamilton is a writer based in New York City. She is a Research Associate at Radioactive Waste Management Associates. Formerly she was the Co-founder and Director of the Sierra Club’s Radioactive Waste Campaign, an organizing and educational program on the hazards of the nuclear fuel cycle. She frequently writes about nuclear issues. Mina can be
reached at minaham@aol.com.

2011-01-01T09:43:00.000-08:00

The EPA Regs Kick in on Jan 2. By John Broder, NYTimes, 12/31/10. “With the federal government set to regulate climate-altering gases from factories and power plants for the first time, the Obama administration and the new Congress are headed for a clash that carries substantial risks for both sides… The administration is on notice that if it moves too far and too fast in trying to curtail the ubiquitous gases that are heating the planet it risks a Congressional backlash that could set back the effort for years. But the newly muscular Republicans in Congress could also stumble by moving too aggressively to handcuff the Environmental Protection Agency, provoking a popular outcry that they are endangering public health in the service of their well-heeled patrons in industry… With Mr. Obama’s hand forced by the mandates of the Clean Air Act and a 2007 Supreme Court decision, his EPA. will impose the first regulation of major stationary sources of greenhouse gases starting Jan. 2.”

2011-01-01T09:42:00.000-08:00

EPA Moving Unilaterally to Limit Greenhouse Gases. By Merrill Hartson, AP, 12/24/10. “EPA announced [on 12/23 that] it is moving unilaterally to clamp down on power plant and oil refinery greenhouse emissions, announcing plans for developing new standards over the next year. EPA administrator Lisa Jackson said the aim was to better cope with pollution contributing to climate change. ‘We are following through on our commitment to proceed in a measured and careful way to reduce GHG pollution that threatens the health and welfare of Americans,’ Jackson said in a statement. She said emissions from power plants and oil refineries constitute about 40% of the greenhouse gas pollution in this country.”

2011-01-01T09:39:00.000-08:00

The Legacy of Charles Keeling. By Justin Gillis, NYTimes, 12/22/10. “Charles David Keeling’s discovery, of the increasing level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, transformed the scientific understanding of humanity’s relationship with the earth. A graph of his findings is inscribed on a wall in Washington as one of the great achievements of modern science… The essence of his scientific legacy was his passion for doing things in a meticulous way. It explains why, even as challengers try to pick apart every other aspect of climate science, his half-century record of carbon dioxide measurements stands unchallenged… Some of the most important data came from an analyzer he placed in a government geophysical observatory… near the top of Mauna Loa, one of the volcanoes that loom over the Big Island of Hawaii.

“When Dr. Keeling, as a young researcher, became the first person in the world to develop an accurate technique for measuring carbon dioxide in the air, the amount he discovered was 310 parts per million… By 2005, the year he died, the number had risen to 380 parts per million. Sometime in the next few years it is expected to pass 400. Without stronger action to limit emissions, the number could pass 560 before the end of the century, double what it was before the Industrial Revolution… As the political debate drags on, the mute gray boxes atop Mauna Loa keep spitting out their numbers, providing a reality check: not only is the carbon dioxide level rising relentlessly, but the pace of that rise is accelerating over time…

“On Dec. 11, another round of international climate negotiations, sponsored by the United Nations, concluded in Cancún. As they have for 18 years running, the gathered nations pledged renewed efforts. But they failed to agree on any binding emission targets. Late at night, as the delegates were wrapping up in Mexico, the machines atop the volcano in the middle of the Pacific Ocean issued their own silent verdict on the world’s efforts. At midnight Mauna Loa time, the carbon dioxide level hit 390 -- and rising.”

2011-01-01T09:34:00.000-08:00

The Wesleyan Conference: Seeking a Meaningful Price on Carbon. By Andrew Revkin, NYTimes, 12/22/10. “One month ago, Wesleyan University hosted a weekend conference called ‘Pricing Carbon.’ It was a revival meeting of sorts, bringing together about 500 economists, campaigners, scientists, students and lawmakers seeking, despite recent setbacks, to apply the age-old ‘polluter pays’ principle to carbon. A prime goal of many attendees, from carbon campaigners Charles Komanoff and Peter Barnes to James Hansen of NASA, was to explore various strategies for creating a carbon tax that American consumers could accept.

“In reviewing many of the presentations, which are nearly all archived online, it’s clear that the death of a federal cap-and-trade system for curbing emissions is seen as a potential opening by proponents of a more direct approach to making polluting energy choices costly while buffering the impact on consumers. Many presenters acknowledged the daunting political hurdles in Washington, which were most vividly described by Representative Bob Inglis, a Republican of South Carolina who was defeated in his primary race largely, he said, over his stance on global warming and the need for a carbon tax.”

2010-12-18T08:09:00.001-08:00

Cancun Breakthrough? By Kate Shepard, Mother Jones, 12/11/10. “It's not perfect, and it's not binding, but international climate negotiators have struck a deal. The final hours in Cancun were a world of difference from the closing night of the Copenhagen climate talks. Last year's summit closed with drama, confusion, and plenty of unhappy delegations, but the Mexico conference came to an end with multiple standing ovations for the host country and widespread agreement among countries to approve the text of an agreement. It was after 3 a.m. when the parties adopted the two agreements -- one that delays a decision on the future of the Kyoto Protocol and another laying out in more detail a new agreement on climate that includes major emitters like the US and China.

“Of the 194 countries represented in Cancun, 193 backed the text… Much of what is included in the Cancun Agreements [PDF, 32 pp] for a new climate agreement is based on the spare Copenhagen Accord, formalizing it within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change… The greatest success may have been that the Mexican organizers, particularly Espinosa, were able to restore faith in the process… Bolivia objected to the adoption of the agreements, saying it did not require enough of wealthy nations… Most delegations, however, were eager to walk away with something they could declare a win -- including the US and China, a signal that the language in the text bridged differences between the two countries about emissions targets and how they would be tracked by other countries.”

2010-12-18T08:08:00.000-08:00

A Distraction from the Decisions that Have to Be Made. By Emily Cross, NYTimes Dot Earth, 12/13/10. “Quite frankly, the ‘point’ of these meetings is to distract. Everything I attended this week, except the last day and evening, was a distraction from the decisions that need to be made to achieve a substantive and legally binding agreement to eliminate the emissions of climate-changing greenhouse gases… The so-called Cancun Agreements are not nothing: in other words, the diplomats did agree, and decisions were made. However, the decisions made were not the difficult ones that need to be made, and the agreements made were essentially those of the pre-Copenhagen era. In doing so, the participants, having been so distracted and eager for the climax of ending of COP16, agreed to agree, thus pushing the real work for the next distracted climax of COP17." Emily Cross, a student from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, was one of many young people observing climate negotiations in Cancún, Mexico.