Biofuels are touted as a cleaner alternative to fossil fuels, but they come with their own set of problems. One of the biggest concerns lies in the displacement of food crops like corn, which can raise food prices and have other indirect effects around the world on land use and agriculture.
A new production method could begin to alleviate that problem while solving another: It turns trash into biofuel.
On Capitol Hill, the ship of state is so bereft of rudder and sail that the crew is jumping overboard. The latest to abandon ship is Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, who minced no words about the dysfunctional Congress he is choosing to leave.
Forget for a moment about health care and financial reform. On national energy and environmental issues, which have been stalled in the congressional queue, we have a critical national security threat, a danger to public health and welfare, and national policy that encourages American families to inadvertently fund terrorists.
Those are among the reasons the paralyzing partisanship on Capitol Hill is so serious a dereliction of duty.
So what can the president of the United States do? Quite a lot if he’s willing to use the executive powers he’s been given by the Constitution, the courts and past Congresses.
Fifty-five scientists from the Netherlands released the following open letter about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and errors discovered in its 2007 report on climate change.
In the letter, they explain how the IPCC works, and how the errors drawing so much attention "do not alter the key finding that human beings are very likely changing the climate, with far reaching impacts in the long run."
The past decade has brought the dangers of climate change into sharp relief, often most clearly through images.
In the Arctic, scientific expeditions this year found increasingly thin ice and surprisingly open seas. Higher up, photographers documented the disappearance of glaciers, including some in the Andes and the Himalayas that provide fresh water to billions of people. On lower lands, drought threatened crops and lives from China to Kenya, Australia to California.
Here’s a look at some of the most worrisome environmental changes through the lenses of scientists, satellites, explorers and humanitarians.
Nike, under pressure from shareholders, became the fourth company in the span of a week to pull away from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over the business group's opposition to federal climate action and its call for a "Scopes Monkey Trial" on climate science.
The sportswear giant announced this morning that it was resigning from the Chamber's board of directors, though it plans to retain its U.S. Chamber of Commerce membership so it can continue "to advocate for climate change legislation."
"Nike believes U.S. businesses must advocate for aggressive climate change legislation and that the United States needs to move rapidly into a sustainable economy to remain competitive and ensure continued economic growth," the company wrote.
"As we've stated, we fundamentally disagree with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on the issue of climate change, and their recent action challenging the EPA is inconsistent with our view that climate change is an issue in need of urgent action."
Nike's positions on federal climate action contrast sharply with those of Chamber executives, who have questioned the very science of global warming in their efforts to block greenhouse gas regulation by the EPA — regulations could change how high-emitting industries do business. Even in backpedaling from his Scopes Monkey Trial comment, Chamber Vice President Bill Kovacs continued to argue that there was no proof that global warming threatens public health and welfare.
Chamber President Thomas J. Donohue tried to clarify the group's position again yesterday
This summer saw the warmest ocean surface temperatures on record for July (62.5 F), surpassing the last record high in 1998, and combined average global land and ocean surface temperature that ranked fifth-warmest since global records began in 1880 according to data from the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
NOAA data also showed the highest ocean surface temperature on record for June and the sixth warmest June on record for land temperatures.
For both months, ocean surface temperatures were 1.06 degrees F higher than the 20th century average. While this may seem like a small variation, it has a tremendous impact.
“Based on the physics of the oceans being such a vast reservoir for heat, small changes in ocean temperatures are massively significant for the amount of energy in the overall planetary climate system,” says Derek Arndt, Director of the Climate Monitoring Branch of NOAA's National Climatic Data Center.
In recent weeks, retired military leaders have been stumping for a renewable energy policy on the grounds of national security.
Case in point, U.S. Navy Vice Admiral (Ret.) Dennis McGinn, a member of the military advisory board of the Center for Naval Analysis (CNA) is on a listening tour with former Republican Senator from Virginia John Warner to talk about energy dependence and national security.
"The house of America is founded upon our land and if we keep that whole, then the storm can rage, but the house will stand forever." – President Lyndon B. Johnson
Despite the easy association of American culture with prosperity and modernity, historically, it was America’s National parks that were seen as a reflection of national character, as well as national priorities.
Travel to America’s National Parks, and you are quickly reminded that it is not our wealth, not our cars, not our designer boutiques, our high rise buildings or our suburban homes that define America. Rather, as so many have said, it is these parks that are the crown jewels of our country.
I was reminded of this over the last two weeks as I hiked through the lunar landscape of Utah’s Capitol Reef National Park and the pine forests, streams and crystal blue lakes of California’s Yosemite National Park.
But I also learned something new and disturbing: All is not well in America's National Parks, where the impacts of climate change are already apparent, not only where I hiked, but in parks all across the nation.
Brian Ross of ABC News has been caught red-handed. He ran a story yesterday claiming that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. called President Obama an "indentured servant of the coal industry." RFK did no such thing.
But in the resulting story, Ross appears to have fallen into his own trap, putting words into RFK's mouth that he never said. What is even more egregious and offers further proof of ABC's questionable intent is the illustration that accompanied Ross's story online. It's a manufactured composite image, showing RFK and Obama in the same frame, separated by a belching smokestack.
RFK is an outspoken opponent of the coal industry. He doesn't mince his words. Here's what he said to an anti-coal protest in Washington, D.C., last month that succeeded in stopping the use of coal at the Capitol power plant:
Massey Coal and Peabody Coal and Arch Coal: These are criminal organizations (cheers) and the only way they can get away with what they are getting away with is by corrupting our pubic officials and subverting American democracy. They're not just destroying the environment, they are doing that as well.
Watch it:
That is RFK's message in a nutshell. The transcript reveals Ross wanted to see if he could make RFK paint the president with the same brush and succeeded only in learning about the boomerang effect. Ross is the one who actually ended up calling the president an "indentured servant of the coal industry," though he tried to pin it on RFK.
Now that the dust has settled on last week's UNFCCC Bonn climate talks, one thing is clear: The United States must be the architect and protector of a meaningful post-Kyoto global climate change deal, and it's not there yet.
The lack of strong U.S. commitments on vital issues – medium-term mitigation targets and financing for developing nations – clouded the two-week talks, even as President Obama's delegation wowed nations with its much-heralded international debut.
That was the general conclusion, at least, of green groups at a wrap-up press conference led by the U.S. Climate Action Network (full video available here).
In a nutshell, they said, the world's appreciation of Obama's re-engagement is high. But expectations for stronger leadership from the new president are much higher.
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