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Pollution warming atmosphere through summer thunderstorm clouds: Study
May 19, 2012
Eurasia Review: Pollution is warming the atmosphere through summer thunderstorm clouds, according to a computational study published May 10 in Geophysical Research Letters. How much the warming effect of these clouds offsets the cooling that other clouds provide is not yet clear. To find out, researchers need to incorporate this new-found warming into global climate models. Pollution strengthens thunderstorm clouds, causing their anvil-shaped tops to spread out high in the atmosphere and capture heat - especially...
Canada: Oil and gas: New pipeline proposal stokes enviro fears of a Keystone ...
May 19, 2012
Greenwire: Environmentalists battling Canadian oil companies over the proposed Keystone XL pipeline to the Gulf Coast and another link west to Asia are now girding for what they see as industry's Plan C: Move heavy crude to the East. At issue is a plan announced this week by Enbridge Pipelines Inc. to reverse the flow of a pipeline that now carries 240,000 daily barrels of imported oil west from Canada's East Coast. SPECIAL REPORT Congress and the Obama administration are preparing for an all-out clash...
How to smear sunblock on a planet
May 19, 2012
Bloomberg: Similar to the way a slather of sunscreen can help prevent sunburn, one of its ingredients--titanium oxide--could be injected into the stratosphere to help keep the Earth from overheating, according to a British chemical engineer. Peter Davidson, former senior innovation adviser to the United Kingdom’s Department of Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, wrote in the May issue of the chemical engineering journal tceToday that TiO2, which is also used in paint and inks, is nontoxic, readily...
Japan urges citizens to cut down on electricity use
May 19, 2012
BBC: Japan has urged businesses and households in parts of the country to cut electricity use by up to 15% to avoid possible blackouts. The country is facing power shortages this summer because its 50 nuclear reactors have been taken offline. Public confidence in nuclear safety was shaken by the meltdowns at the Fukushima power plant, triggered by last year's earthquake and tsunami. The call for electricity reduction will take effect from July to September. This time around the move to save...
Climate change action now an afterthought
May 19, 2012
Bangkok Post: As beneficial as a general international framework for emissions cuts might be for the planet, there seems almost no chance at this stage that such a framework will be agreed upon, and even if it were the problems in enforcing it would be enormous As the leaders of the G8 and other invited nations gather in the US state of Maryland this weekend it's not surprising that the focus will be on the unfolding financial crisis in Europe and how to implement measures to avoid a global recession or even...
West Papua’s big palm oil plantations rip-off
May 17, 2012
EIA International: An Indonesian oil palm plantation in which Norway has a financial stake paid Papuan tribal landowners as little as US$0.65 per hectare for their forestland, the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) can reveal. In the new report Clear-Cut Exploitation, EIA and its Indonesian partner Telapak expose woefully low payments by PT Henrison Inti Persada (PT HIP) to marginalised Moi tribe clans for land and timber. Evidence includes a copy of PT HIPs ‘contract’ with a Moi tribe clan leader, detailing...
With natural gas plentiful and cheap, carbon capture projects stumble
May 19, 2012
New York Times: A federal proposal to ban the construction of coal-fired power plants that release all of their carbon dioxide into the atmosphere would seem to smooth the way for carbon capture, a budding technology that traps the greenhouse gas for storage or other uses. But even as the Environmental Protection Agency prepares to open hearings on the proposed rule, unveiled in March, industry experts say the persistently low price of natural gas is threatening the viability of the nation’s carbon capture projects....
New EPA carbon pollution limit draws criticism and record support
May 18, 2012
The Republican: Protesters from a variety of organizations joined the Sierra Club on Saturday for a clean air rally outside Mass. gov. Deval Patrick's Springfield office on Dwight Street. (Republican Photo by Robert Rizzuto) Sierra Club Clean Air Rally in Springfield, Mass. gallery (8 photos) With the support of more than 1 million Americans, including approximately 31,000 Massachusetts residents, a coalition of environmental groups will deliver comments to the Environmental Protection Agency Friday to support...
Germany: Durban Platform climate talks in Bonn
May 19, 2012
AfriqueJet: Africa stresses ‘fair emission cuts’ as key to moving climate talks forward - African countries attending the opening of the 'Durban Platform' climate talks in Bonn, Germany, on Thursday expressed worry that there had been no change in proposed emission cuts, even though the current inadequate pledges risk 2.5-5C of warming. In the first session of discussions on the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, the European Union and other developed countries' proposed emission that cuts remained...
Gathering urges rethink on carbon emitters
May 19, 2012
Mail and Guardian: Divisions over who should lead the fight against climate change should be laid aside say ministers from some of the world's poorest countries. The vexed issue of which countries should bear the greatest responsibility for cutting greenhouse gas emissions has been a sticking point in international negotiations for two decades. Under the original settlement reached in 1992 at the Rio Earth Summit and formalised in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, some rapidly emerging economies such as China were left out...
