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Green dreams
Bibi van der Zee, Guardian
Academia is making moves to tackle climate change – but are they going far enough, fast enough?
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Following planes and scooping up their emissions, making buildings out of carbon, weighing rubbish and getting staff on their bikes: these are just a few of the ideas that universities are coming up with to combat climate change, according to a report out today. It all sounds wonderful, but it’s hard to believe that this is the full picture.
And, of course, it is not. The report, Greening Spires, is a showcase, put together by the lobby group for higher education, Universities UK, and it paints an extremely rosy picture of an academia gone crazy for greenness. There is no doubt that in some areas our academics are leading the world. In Leeds, for example, the report highlights research into contrails, the aviation vapour trails from planes that cause rows about how to measure emissions from aircraft because no one can work out if they intensify the greenhouse-gas effect of flying, and if so, by how much.
…But the problem is that while all this certainly takes us in the right direction, Universities UK’s glowing report fails to mention the nagging anxiety in the sector that things are really not moving far enough, fast enough. One might like to believe that academics would be the first to embrace uncomfortable new scientific truths, but some universities appear to be finding it as hard to move out of their comfort zone as the rest of us: vice-chancellors are afflicted with the same short-termism that hobbles politicians.
(22 January 2008)
Europe plans revamp of carbon trading
James Kanter and Stephen Castle, International Herald Tribune
European Union officials will propose this week a major overhaul of the bloc’s sometimes dysfunctional carbon emissions trading system, aiming to reduce corporate influence and make polluting more expensive.
The new system would oblige more factories in Europe to pay for pollution and aims to reduce the oversupply of permits. That, in turn, could push up their cost.
It also would be governed centrally in Brussels, rather than partly by member countries, as is now done, with the aim of reducing the ability of companies to profit by lobbying pliant governments for more pollution permits than they need.
(20 January 2008)
Businesses want a say in global-warming bill
Renee Schoof, McClatchy Newspapers
U.S. businesses are betting that the federal government soon will put mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions, and they’re making sure they have a say in shaping a vast new regulatory system.
Some of the country’s biggest businesses support a cap and trade system, the approach that Congress is considering. Under cap and trade, the government gives or sells companies allowances to emit certain amounts of greenhouse gases, and companies may sell unused allowances to other companies.
While it may sound simple, the details would be complex and the plan would affect the entire economy and require monitoring for decades.
The U.S. Climate Action Partnership – which includes U.S. automakers, other big manufacturers such as Alcoa and Caterpillar Inc. and energy companies such as FPL Group, Duke Energy and PG&E Corp. – supports a cap and trade system, but its members have questions about key elements, such as how emissions could be offset and how much they’d have to pay for the allowances.
(21 January 2008)
Environmental photojournalist Braasch gives first-hand account of warming’s impact on world (video and transcript)
Monica Trauzzi:, OnPoint
In 1999, award-winning photojournalist Gary Braasch began a six year journey around the world exploring many regions that are said to be affected by global warming. During today’s OnPoint, Braasch, author of “Earth Under Fire: How Global Warming is Changing the World,” discusses his travels and uses his first-hand experiences to assess international and domestic climate policy discussions. Braasch also explains how adaptation is a growing reality for many communities as they begin to feel the effects of global warming.
(22 January 2008)
