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Environment
US states bypass Bush to tackle greenhouse gas emissions
Julian Borger, The Guardian
America’s north-eastern states are on the brink of a declaration of environmental independence with the introduction of mandatory controls on greenhouse gas emissions of the kind rejected by the Bush administration.
In the first regional agreement of its kind in the US, nine states are expected to announce a plan next month to freeze carbon dioxide emissions from big power stations by 2009 and then reduce them by 10% by 2020.
The region stretches from New Jersey to Maine and generates roughly the same volume of emissions as Germany. Pennsylvania and Maryland have signed on as observers to the regional initiative and are considering joining it at a later date.
On the other side of the continent, California, Oregon, Washington, New Mexico and Arizona are exploring similar agreements, representing a clear break between state governments and Washington over global warming.
(25 August 2005)
Panel Sees Growing Threat in Melting Arctic
Randolph E. Schmid, Associated Press via ENN
WASHINGTON — The rate of ice melting in the Arctic is increasing and a panel of researchers says it sees no natural process that is likely to change that trend. Within a century the melting could lead to summertime ice-free ocean conditions not seen in the area in a million years, the group said Tuesday.
Melting of land-based glaciers could take much longer but could raise the sea levels, potentially affecting coastal regions worldwide. And changes to the permafrost could undermine buildings, drain water into bogs and release additional carbon into the atmosphere.
(24 August 2005)
U.S. judge OKs suit on global warming
Agencies’ financing of overseas energy projects challenged
Bob Egelko, SF Chronicle
A lawsuit accusing federal agencies of funding multibillion-dollar projects for oil and gas development overseas without regard for their impact on global warming has the green light from a federal judge in San Francisco who rejected the Bush administration’s attempt to derail it.
An attorney for the plaintiffs, who include two environmental groups and the city of Oakland, said Wednesday that the ruling was the first in the nation to allow private citizens to sue over the harm caused by industrial projects that allegedly contribute to climate change.
The goal of the suit is to get the federal agencies, the Overseas Private Investment Corp. and the Export-Import Bank, whose directors are appointed by the president, to fund “more alternative energy projects, more conservation measures, as opposed to fossil fuel,” said the lawyer, Ronald Shems.
(25 August 2005)
Also covered in the Sacramento Bee.
Court clears way for suit on energy projects abroad
Claire Cooper, Sacramento Bee
A federal judge has given a green light to a lawsuit filed by cities and environmental groups that contend the U.S. government’s quest for oil
abroad will promote significant climate change at home and across the globe.
The suit, filed by the California cities of Oakland, Santa Monica and Arcata, as well as Boulder, Colo., and the environmental groups Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, seeks to halt massive energy projects being developed on five continents until assessments are conducted under the National Environmental Policy Act.
(25 August 2005)
Water, Water Everywhere…
Thalif Deen, Znet
STOCKHOLM, Aug 23 (IPS) – The crisis-weary African continent, which has two of the world’s longest rivers — the 6,400-kilometre Nile River and the 4,370-kilometre Congo River — is suffering from a virtual economic paradox: a shortage of water amidst potentially plentiful supplies.
“In spite of a few large rivers like the Congo and the Nile, 21 of the world’s most arid countries, in terms of water per person, are located in Africa,” South Africa’s Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry told a symposium marking “World Water Week” in the Swedish capital.
(24 August 2005)
Is extreme weather down to climate change?
Paul Rincon, BBC
With fires raging through southern Europe – a region experiencing its worst drought for decades – and some parts of the continent submerged by floods, it is tempting to ascribe such extreme weather to the effects of global warming.
A firefighter looks on as fires rage in Moncao, Portugal Image: AFP
The wildfires are confounding attempts to contain them
But climate change researchers are reluctant to make this link.
“You can say that due to the Earth getting warmer there will be on average more extreme events,” said Malcolm Haylock, of the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit, UK, “but you can’t attribute any specific event to climate change.”
Dozens of wildfires have been raging out of control across Portugal, confounding attempts to contain them.
(25 August 2005)
No reversal seen in pace of Arctic melting
Randolph E. Schmid, AP via Seattle Times
WASHINGTON — The rate of ice melting in the Arctic is increasing and a panel of researchers says it sees no natural process that is likely to change that trend.
Within a century the melting could lead to summertime ice-free ocean conditions not seen in the area in a million years, the group said yesterday.
Melting of land-based glaciers could take much longer but could raise the sea levels, potentially affecting coastal regions worldwide.
And changes to the permafrost could undermine buildings, drain water into bogs and release additional carbon into the atmosphere.
(24 August 2005)
Needed: A Global Survival Movement
Ted Glick, Dissident Voice
There is no cause, no issue, no crisis more significant and more immediate than the crisis of global warming. There is a very real prospect that, absent a deep and broad clean energy revolution, we will see within our lifetimes a massive disruption of human society throughout the world — above and beyond the widespread structural injustice and poverty that already exists — via floods, major storms, rising sea levels, large-scale refugee movements, droughts, deforestation and a major decline in food production. More and more people in the United States are coming to realize this.
Why, then, are the many different actions being taken in the U.S. about this crisis, important as they are, so minimal when compared to the urgency?
Ted Glick is the coordinator of Climate Crisis: USA Join the World! (www.climatecrisis.us), which is building support for the Kyoto and Beyond petition campaign (www.kyotoandbeyond.org) leading up to actions around the country and the world on December 3rd.
(24 August 2005)
Study predicts world’s population will grow
Harry Dunphy, Associated Press via Eugene Register-Guard
WASHINGTON – Global population growth is ensured for many decades, with most of it in developing countries, a private group said Tuesday.
The rapid growth in developing countries, combined with declining birth rates in some industrialized nations, could affect the ability of the wealthy to aid the poor, said a demographer who prepared the group’s report.
“The countries of today’s developing world are growing almost three times faster than the developed countries,” said Carl Haub, a demographer for the Population Reference Bureau, a private research group. “The global population growth today has concentrated in the poorest countries and the poorest areas of those countries.
“Almost 99 percent of population growth today and for the foreseeable future will be in those developing countries,” he said. “There has been a complete shift in population growth.”
(24 August 2005)
From the Population Reference Bureau ‘About us’:
“For 75 years, the Population Reference Bureau has been informing people about the population dimensions of important social, economic, and political issues. …
Our donors and partners — government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, foundations, and universities — include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the United Nations Population Fund, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Save the Children, the University of Costa Rica, Thailand’s Mahidol University, the Population Council, and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.”
Climate Model Links Higher Temperatures to Prehistoric Extinction
Press Release, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR)
BOULDER—Scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) have created a computer simulation showing Earth’s climate in
unprecedented detail at the time of the greatest mass extinction in the planet’s history.
The work gives support to a theory that an abrupt and dramatic rise in atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide triggered the massive die-off 251 million years ago. The research appears in the
September issue of Geology.
(24 August 2005)
