Once-mighty caribou herds dwindle, global warming blamed
By CHARLES J. HANLEY
Here on the endlessly rolling and tussocky terrain of northwest Canada, where man has hunted caribou since the Stone Age, the vast antlered herds are fast growing thin. And it’s not just here.
. . .
Halfway around the world in Siberia, the biggest aggregation of these migratory animals, of the dun-colored herds whose sweep across the Arctic’s white canvas is one of nature’s matchless wonders, has shrunk by hundreds of thousands in a few short years.
From wildlife spectacle to wildlife mystery, the decline of the caribou — called reindeer in the Eurasian Arctic — has biologists searching for clues, and finding them.
They believe the insidious impact of climate change, its tipping of natural balances and disruption of feeding habits, is decimating a species that has long numbered in the millions and supported human life in Earth’s most inhuman climate. |
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Economists Join to Say: We Can Afford a World Climate Policy
By (Business Wire)
America’s largest network of independent climate economists has issued a major new report showing that the more aggressive world leaders are in curbing world carbon emissions, the greater the economic benefits will be.
The new report is co-authored by researchers from universities and think-tanks across the country, and it is designed to inform major initiatives including the Waxman-Markey climate legislation before
. . .
The report concludes that the estimated cost of reaching a target of 350 parts per million is roughly equivalent to one to three percent of world gross domestic product. However, the financial, human and environmental cost of not stabilizing the earth at 350 parts per million over the next 200 years will likely be much greater. |
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Thai villagers in bid to halt disappearing coas
By Papitchaya Boonngok
Some villagers use bamboo fencing. Others plant mangroves. And some do both to fight back against erosion transforming centuries-old communities on the Gulf of Thailand.
Only a half hour drive south of Bangkok, coastal regions already show alarming signs of erosion: electricity poles, once on land, are submerged in parts of Bang Khun Thien, a district on the outskirts of Bangkok.
Kongsak Lerkngam, who lives in Bang Khun Thien and works on an erosion protection initiative in six coastal provinces, said about 1,140 acres of village land have disappeared in the past 30 years at a rate of between 1.2-4.6 meters a year.
Caused by a combination of expanding fishing industries such as shrimp farms and global warming that has raised sea levels, the erosion has wiped out many of the mangrove forests that once offered a natural buffer on the Gulf of Thailand coast. |
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Danish secrets of renewable energy
By Jeff Kart
We've been introduced to a whole new world in Copenhagen. Green energy is the norm. People "believe" in climate change.
. . .
During Day One of my visit to Denmark with six other members of a Michigan delegation, I quickly found that while the country has embraced renewable energy, the decade-long trip to a low-carbon economy has been expensive, and leaders here still face many of the same problems as we do in Michigan when it comes to making the transition.
Danes pay the highest energy prices in the world. Most of the reason is high government taxes, I'm told. Most of the tax money goes to subsidize the renewable energy industry, with a little left over for programs to educate the public on energy conservation. The government here signed on to the Kyoto Protocol years ago and committed to reducing greenhouse gases. The treaty is being renegotiated here in December.
Unemployment is shockingly low, at about 3.5 percent. And that's with a recent rise.
. . .
It's unclear why the attitudes here are different when it comes to renewable energy versus fossil fuels like coal. People, or at least government and business leaders, seem to have accepted that the world needs to take steps (however expensive and painful) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which scientists say contribute to global warming and climate change. |
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Which is greener: Portland or New York? (guess again)
By Peter Ames Carlin
This is a tale of two cities.
One of them is famously green. Lots of urban wilderness. An expanding light rail system. Bikes everywhere. Enviro-friendly buildings, some with grassy roofs. Drive 90 minutes one way, you're at the mountains. Ninety minutes the other way, you're standing in the ocean.
The other is notoriously filthy. Don't even ask why the sidewalks are so sticky. Or why the air smells like that. Tens of millions of residents, half of whom seem to be swearing at the other half, loudly, in the middle of the night. . .
One is far more environmentally sustainable than the other. And it's almost certainly not the one you're thinking of.
Because, according to David Owen, a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author, most recently, of "Green Metropolis," the most sustainable city in the United States is, in fact, New York City.
. . .
Here's why: density. |
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How Will Future Sea-Level Rise Linked to Climate Change Affect Coastal Areas?
By (Florida State University)
The anticipated sea-level rise associated with climate change, including increased storminess, over the next 100 years and the impact on the nation's low-lying coastal infrastructure is the focus of a new, interdisciplinary study led by geologists at The Florida State University.
"Our hypothesis is that the historic storm record, which extends back only about 150 years, isn't a reliable indicator of true storm frequency, but the long-term geologic record is," said Joseph F. Donoghue, an associate professor of geology at Florida State University and the study's lead investigator. "This project is crucial because the rates of change in environmental parameters predicted for the near future are much greater than those of the past several millennia. For example, some of the worst-case sea-level rise scenarios predicted for the near future have not been experienced by the coastal system for more than 8,000 years."
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By 2012, the study is expected to produce methodologies and models that help coastal planners and managers in all low-lying coastal regions better understand, address and mitigate the near-future effects of sea-level rise -- an especially critical issue for the Sunshine State. The research team will perform its field work along the Gulf of Mexico coast in Northwest Florida, a region of the Florida Panhandle distinguished by rare coastal lakes, which harbor sediments that form an environmental record dating back thousands of years. |
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DOE Introduces Big Oil to New Energy Source: Waste Heat Geothermal
By Susan Kraemer
Every barrel of oil extracted in the US also produces ten barrels of hot fluids in addition to the oil. Why not use that potential energy in the waste heat?
Rather than discard that "geothermal" resource created by the process of oil extraction, the DOE is going to show the traditional energy industry how to tap into those waste fluids to power equipment at the site.
The renewable energy division (EERE) of Steven Chu’s energetic new Department of Energy is buying the waste heat geothermal unit from Ormat Technologies to do the demo. Ormat makes both geothermal and combined heat and power units.
The DOE’s Geothermal Technologies Program at the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) will collaborate with Office of Fossil Energy to make low temperature geothermal power from waste drilling fluids using a waste heat geothermal unit. |
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Europe to throw $73 billion behind energy research
By Pete Harrison
Europe will this week launch a campaign to triple funding for energy research to 8 billion euros ($11.7 billion) a year in a technology race with Japan and the United States, a draft document shows.
Solar power should get 16 billion euros over the next decade and up to 30 energy-sipping "Smart Cities" should be built with the backing of around 11 billion euros, added the report by the European Union's executive, the European Commission.
In total, at least 50 billion euros of additional funding is seen over the next 10 years to ensure a wide range of technology emerges to help the EU meet its goal of cutting greenhouse gases by 80 percent by 2050. |
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Burning Coal Deep Down has Huge Potential, Untested
By Gerard Wynn
Burning coal underground could be one of the next breakthroughs to increase the world's energy supply, similar to establishment of Canadian oil sands, executives and academics told a conference in London on Monday.
The world could exploit huge additional coal reserves that are too deep or remote to mine, using a technology that burns the fuel hundreds of meters underground.
But the approach is so far untested on a commercial scale, making the initial expense a concern for governments and investors. "The potential is huge," said Gordon Couch, from the International Energy Agency's Clean Coal Center. |
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Do Dust Particles Curb Climate Change?
By (ScienceDaily)
A knowledge gap exists in the area of climate research: for decades, scientists have been asking themselves whether, and to what extent man-made aerosols, that is, dust particles suspended in the atmosphere, enlarge the cloud cover and thus curb climate warming. Research has made little or no progress on this issue.
Two scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg (MPI-M) and the American National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) report in the journal Nature that the interaction between aerosols, clouds and precipitation is strongly dependent on factors that have not been adequately researched up to now. They urge the adoption of a research concept that will close this gap in the knowledge.
Greenhouse gases that heat up the earth's atmosphere have their adversaries: dust particles suspended in the atmosphere which are known as aerosols. They arise naturally, for example when wind blows up desert dust, and through human activities. A large proportion of the man-made aerosols arise from sulfur dioxides that are generated, in turn, by the combustion of fossil fuels.
The aerosols are viewed as climate coolers, which compensate in part for the heating up of the earth by greenhouse gases. . . |
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Illegal toxic waste spotted from space
By Shanta Barley
MOVE over Erin Brockovich. Today's environmental detectives can use radar, helicopters and even satellite images to help them spot illegal toxic waste dumps and help catch those responsible.
Ironically, the tightening of restrictions on waste disposal and the enforcement of new recycling laws have made illegal dumping more likely, turning it into big business for the criminals involved.
The trouble is digging up suspect dumps to investigate their contents can release toxins into local water supplies. But with new remote-sensing techniques, such as ground-penetrating radar (GPR), you can find toxic trash without disturbing the soil. Instead, you bounce microwaves off buried materials and the strength of returning signals provides clues to what they are. |
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Hopi Tribe's Message to Sierra Club and Other Enviros: Keep Out!
By Tara Lohan
This is sad on many different levels. The Navajo-Hopi Observer reports:
The Hopi Tribe has a message for the Sierra Club and other environmental groups: Keep out!
That is the response of the Hopi Tribal Council on Monday to what it says has been continuous concerted attacks from local and national environmental groups "bent on advancing their interests and agenda at the expense of the Hopi Tribe and its sovereign interest." . .
Apparently the conflict is over a coal plant. Here's more:
By a resolution approved 12-0, the council said environmentalists have deprived the tribe "of markets for its coal resources" and coal revenues needed to sustain governmental services, provide jobs for tribal members and safeguard Hopi culture and tradition. . .
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Algae Energy Orgy
By Emily Waltz
. . . the algae industry's slimy secret: Some companies have promised impossible amounts of oil based on speculation, raising millions from unwitting investors. "We can overtake petroleum by 2030!" one algae executive proclaimed at a meeting in June. Biofuel experts say that with the technology expected in the next three to five years, an acre of algae can theoretically yield as much as 5,000 gallons of oil annually—enough to fuel about 10 cars for a year. Sounds impressive, especially compared with other biofuels; the current yield for corn ethanol is about 400 gallons per acre. Yet ethanol sells for about $2 a gallon, while making algal oil is still so prohibitively expensive that the algae companies have produced only a few dozen gallons of it.
Not one algae company has a commercial-scale system. In fact, most haven't moved out of the lab. Their big claims, explains Stephen Mayfield, a biologist at the Scripps Research Institute, are extrapolated from their best lab results. But the numbers aren't so easy to fudge in other biofuel industries. Startups working on cellulosic ethanol made from switchgrass, for instance, must prove they can outperform the corn ethanol industry. |
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Israeli scientists turn rush-hour traffic into electricity
By Avi Bar-El
An Israeli company has developed a method of generating electricity from road traffic, and Israeli may look to implement the system on the nation's highways.
The system works by using generators implanted in the asphalt that create energy when cars drive over them. Each generator produces 2,000 watts per hour, which is stored in batteries along the side of the road.
The technology was developed by the Israeli firm Innowattech, with the cooperation of the Technion University.
A trial of the system was performed on Tuesday morning, along a 10 meter stretch of asphalt on Highway 4. The experiment was viewed as a success, with passing cars providing the power for street lights set up next to the 10 meter strip. |
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Adaptation provisions in the Kerry-Boxer Senate climate and clean energy legislation
By Rick Piltz & Alexa Jay
In its sections on adaptation and preparedness for global climate disruption, the bill introduced by Senator Kerry and Senator Boxer on September 30 parallels in some respects and differs in others from the Waxman-Markey climate and clean energy bill as passed by the House in June. In this aspect of climate policy, as with its Pollution Reduction and Investment mitigation provisions, the Kerry-Boxer Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act as introduced is a work in progress, a first step toward what must become a fully-developed climate change preparedness strategy. |
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