Posted on September 25, 2008 by Dennis Pfaff
- The battle to curb heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere just keeps getting tougher, it seems, with the release of a study showing that global carbon emissions rose rapidly in 2007, from a Reuters dispatch. The news agency also produced a fact box displaying information from the study. The full report is here.
- The United Nations has launched a program it hopes could be the foundation for a system in which rich countries would pay poor ones to slow climate change by protecting and planting forests, from another Reuters report.
- In a related vein, there's evidence that northern forests may soak up carbon longer than previously believed, a finding that could influence efforts to control climate change, reports the Christian Science Monitor.
- There may not be many short-term consequences for the renewable energy industry from the financial crisis on Wall Street but it may -- or may not -- be another story in the long term. One key: keeping costs under control, suggests this posting from Fortune's Green Wombat.
- A major environmental group has joined with Boeing and some big airlines collectively accounting for about 15 percent of jet fuel use worldwide in an effort to develop and bring to market sustainable aviation fuels, from a statement from the Natural Resources Defense Council.
- A small program at the National Center for Atmospheric Research working to help poor deal with climate change had its budget eliminated this year but it will be re-born at the University of Colorado, reports Dot Earth, environmental blog of The New York Times.
- The findings are preliminary but sobering: There's evidence that millions of tons of a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere from beneath the Arctic seabed as the region becomes warmer, according to the U.K.'s Independent.
- Where some see green scum others see the color of money, as this look at a man who is betting he can produce biodiesel from algae shows, in a report from the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
- The U.S. House has formally moved to drop a quarter-century congressional ban on drilling off the East and West coasts, but the Bush administration is moving even faster, preparing for the day companies might gain access to now off-limit waters, the Houston Chronicle reports.
Posted on June 27, 2008 by Dennis Pfaff
- A federal appeals court panel in Washington has rejected a move by numerous states (including California and Massachusetts) and private groups to pressure the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency into regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. Here are stories from The New York Times and the Boston Globe's The Green Blog, as well as Climate Law Update's previous coverage of this case.
- The big anti-greenhouse gas plan unveiled by California air pollution regulators this week prods the state toward a future less dependent on cars, according to this analysis by the San Francisco Chronicle. It also constitutes "the first comprehensive effort to combat global warming by any American state," but it has a long way to go before it takes effect, reports the Los Angeles Times, as the news media weigh in heavily on the document.
- Republicans in the Senate have introduced legislation to open up public lands in Utah and elsewhere to oil shale exploration and production, according to the Deseret News. But such an attempt faces intense opposition from environmental groups, including the Wilderness Society and the Center for Biological Diversity, warning of the time it would take to produce the oil and high levels of greenhouse gases it would generate.
- Forest plant species may be migrating to higher elevations to survive climate change, scientists report in a study cited in this Reuters dispatch.
- Along similar lines, an analysis of data from nearly 50 years of weekly fish-trawl surveys in Narragansett Bay and adjacent Rhode Island Sound reveals a long-term shift in species composition, likely related to global warming, reports Science Daily.
- Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair concedes he could have done more to combat climate change but he nevertheless defends his record, in this article in the Guardian.
