Armond Cohen at Clean Air Task Force has provided helpful context in the face of recent headlines and a Greenpeace analysis focused on what appears to be the first drop in Chinese coal use in a century.
A Look Behind the Headlines on China’s Coal Trends by Andrew Revkin, Dot Earth, New York Times, Feb 18, 2015
Everyone loves to talk about the weather, and this winter Mother Nature has served up a feast to chew on. Few parts of the US have been spared her wrath.
Severe drought and abnormally warm conditions continue in the west, with the first-ever rain-free January in San Francisco; bitter cold hangs tough over the upper Midwest and Northeast; and New England is being buried by a seemingly endless string of snowy nor’easters.
Yes, droughts, cold and snowstorms have happened before, but the persistence of this pattern over North America is starting to raise eyebrows. Is climate change at work here?
A melting Arctic and weird weather: the plot thickens, Dr. Jennifer Francis, The Conversation US Pilot, Feb 18, 2015
In drought-stricken California, ensuring water flows from faucets is nearly as much about energy as it is about the water’s source.
Water needs more than gravity to flow from its sources, often hundreds of miles away. It is pumped through aqueducts and pipelines from mountain sources, reservoirs and the Colorado River, often far from Los Angeles, San Diego, the San Francisco Bay Area and the Central Valley, where most of the water is consumed.
With California in the throes of one of the worst droughts of the past century, researchers say slashing the energy requirements of supplying water to cities and farmers will become critical as long-term droughts become a greater possibility.
That is severe drought’s dirty secret: As surface water sources dry up, groundwater becomes the resource of choice, requiring more electricity to pump it out of the ground than it takes to transport surface water, possibly threatening the state’s renewable energy goals.
California Water Becomes Scarce and Energy Hungry by Bobby Magill, Climate Central, Feb 18, 2015
The US security establishment views climate change as real and a dangerous threat to national security. But Canada takes a very different view, according to a secret intelligence memo prepared by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP)..
The memo, stamped “Canadian eyes only”, repeatedly casts doubt on the causes of climate change – the burning of fossil fuels – and its potential threat.
The 44-page intelligence assessment of Canada’s environmental protest movement was prepared for the government of Stephen Harper, who is expected to roll out new anti-terror legislation.
In the memo, obtained by Greenpeace and seen by the Guardian, the RCMP repeatedly departs from the conclusions of an overwhelming majority of scientists – and the majority of elected leaders in the international arena – that climate change is a growing threat to global security.
Canadian mounties' secret memo casts doubt on climate change threat by Suzanne Goldenberg, Guardian, Feb 18, 2015
Today marks Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent for Catholics. The 40-day period leading up to Easter is a time when Catholics fast, and many try to give up something as a way to deepen their faith. This Lenten season, the Global Catholic Climate Movement, which formed in January, officially announced today the Lenten Fast for Climate Justice.
The goal is to “raise awareness on climate change” and to challenge Catholics to confront what Pope Francis has called “a globalization of indifference,” according to the National Catholic Reporter (NCR). “The essential message is reduce our carbon footprint and increase our spiritual footprint,”Jacqui Rémond, director of Catholic Earthcare Australia, told NCR.
So far, Catholics from 44 countries have signed up for the climate justice fast. Global Catholic Climate Movement hopes that the faithful’s unified front on climate will “spur world leaders to work out a binding agreement” to avoid the worst effects of climate change. The organizers are not asking anyone to fast for all 40 days. Instead they are asking each country to fast for one day. In keeping with church tradition, they are asking all Catholics to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.
Catholics fast for Lent in support of Pope Francis’ call for Climate Action by Cole Mellino, EcoWatch, Feb 18, 2015
The U.S. is experiencing one of the most unusual winters in years, with a pronounced and enduring bubble of warm, high pressure over the West, and blast after blast of frigid Arctic air and heavy snow in the eastern two-thirds of the country. The warmth is breaking all-time records, while the cold is rivaling some of the coldest weather in more than two decades.
In fact, the Arctic outbreaks outrank 2014's polar vortex cold waves in terms of severity and duration.
The weather pattern across North America, whose proximate cause is a series of fluctuations in high-altitude jet-stream winds, is leading to some bizarre occurrences.
Despite frigid conditions in the East, U.S. seeing more record warmth this winter by Andrew Freedman, Mashable, Feb 19, 2015
The sale of energy wasting ovens and cooking hobs will be banned across the European Union after the latest set of rules to make household appliances more efficient takes effect from Friday.
The European Commission said on Wednesday getting rid of inefficient cooking appliances would cut average consumer energy bills by around 50 euros ($57) per year, while the cumulative savings from the rules across the bloc would run into billions.
The policy, known as ecodesign, chimes with the EU goals of reducing fossil fuel imports and greenhouse gas emissions.
EU introduces new rules to make cooking greener, Reuters, Feb 18, 2015
There's a new big lie about global temperatures, and you'll never believe which "news" network is talking it up.
Fox News has no shame: Easily duped wingnuts spout phony science and climate-change lies by Brad Friedman, Brad's Blog, Feb 18, 2015
Climate change is coming to New York City.
In fact, it’s already arrived. That’s the alarming news laid out in a comprehensive new report from the New York City Panel on Climate Change (NPCC), which unites climate scientists, risk-management specialists and other experts from the academic and public sectors to form a hyper-localized analysis of the specific threats facing New York’s five boroughs.
The New York City area has already undergone major changes, the report finds: temperatures are getting hotter, heavy downpours are becoming more frequent and sea levels are rising. And as in the rest of the world, those changes are forecasted to intensify in the coming decades as climate change worsens.
Global warming is going to hammer New York: New study reveals a future of heat waves, downpours, rising seas by Lindsay Abrams, Slaon, Feb 18, 2015
That climate change is real and that we’re causing it is the conclusion scientists have come to based on the evidence. The very same evidence is what makes scientists also very concerned about what the consequences will be if we continue adding greenhouse gasses to our planet’s atmosphere.
If up to 97% of scientists agree on this why is there so much controversy and debate about climate change? Where does this gap between the public and scientists come from? Are there psychological and social drivers that explain this? How can we get around these effects to increase acceptance of well established science? What kind of role has climate science denial played in influencing public perceptions and attitudes towards climate change?
Important questions that the course Making Sense of Climate Science Denial can answer for you:
Making sense of climate science denial by Collin Maessen, Real Sceptic, Feb 21, 2015
A landmark directive with the potential to ban tar sands oil from Europe has been reprieved, the Guardian has learned.
The EU’s most senior energy official confirmed that the fuel quality directive (FQD) to encourage greener road fuels will not be scrapped at the end of the decade, as had been thought.
Around 15% of Europe’s carbon emissions come from road transport and ambitious plans for cutting emissions from vehicles are expected to form a significant chunk of the bloc’s ‘Energy Union’ proposals next week.
Asked by the Guardian whether that meant the FQD would continue after 2020, the EU’s vice president for energy union, Maroš Šef?ovi?, said: “My first reaction is yes. We just have to adjust it to all the lessons learned from biofuels, and all the [other] lessons learned from the previous time.”
New hopes that tar sands could be banned from Europe by Arthur Neslen, Guardian, Feb 19, 2015
If you’re like me, you wonder how we have yet to take the collective action that we need to address climate change. The signs are everywhere, and yet, as a society, we have failed to take meaningful action. Physicist Robert Davies wondered if it was simply that the public didn’t know the science.
Davies tells Joe Palca of NPR’s All Things Considered that he saw the “broad gap between what science understands about climate change and what the public understands” as a simple “problem of science communication.” So, he began giving lectures around the country about “the looming dangers of climate change and what it meant for sustaining life on this planet.”
What he found, though, is the public actually does understand the problem at least on an intellectual level. “But it was still very difficult to connect with,” Davies says. Palca makes the comparison of “lecturing people about the dangers of smoking and then watching them go out afterwards and light up a cigarette.”
Scientist Finds Remarkable Way to Connect People Emotionally with Climate Change by Colin Mello, EcoWatch, Feb 18, 2015
The politics of solar power keeps getting more and more interesting.
In Indiana, a fight over net metering — basically, whether people with rooftop solar can return their excess power to the grid and thereby lower their utility bills — has drawn out groups ranging from the state chapter of the NAACP to the conservative TUSK (Tell Utilities Solar won’t be Killed) in favor of the practice.
Arrayed on the other side of the issue, meanwhile, are the Indiana Energy Association, a group of utilities, and Republican Rep. Eric Koch, sponsor of a bill that would potentially change how net metering works in the state. The legislation, in its current form, would let utility companies ask the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission to include various “tariffs, rates and charges, and credits” for those customers generating their own energy at home.
Solar energy’s new best friend is … the Christian Coalition by Chris Mooney, Energy & Environment, Washington Post, Feb 20, 2015
The strandings of a record number of sea lion pups along the California coast this year are linked to a puzzling weather pattern that has warmed their Pacific Ocean habitat and likely impacted fish populations they rely on for food, federal scientists said on Wednesday.
Some 940 stranded sea lions, mostly pups, have been treated by marine mammal centers in California so far this year, according to Justin Viezbicke, West Coast Stranding Coordinator for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
That is well above the 240 strandings typically seen through April, and scientists suspect the emaciated pups are prematurely leaving Southern California sea lion rookeries to seek food on their own after their mothers failed to return swiftly from hunting trips to nurse.
Unprecedented California Sea Lion Strandings Linked To Warmer Pacific by Mary Papenfuss, Reuters/Huffington Post, Feb 18, 2015
The world’s largest public relations firm is ending its lucrative relationship with America’s powerful oil lobby – after more than a decade and at least $327m in billings.
Circumstances of the divorce between Edelman public relations and the American Petroleum Institute (API) were not immediately clear.
Edelman said it would not comment on the report, and there was no immediate response from API.
But ties between the oil lobby and the PR firm ran deep.
World's biggest PR firm calls it quits with American oil lobby – reports by Suzanne Goldenberg, Guardian, Fb 19, 2015
Posted by John Hartz on Saturday, 21 February, 2015
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