EnviroMania

Detroit Freep on Supreme Court Decision

2007-04-24T16:54:00.000-07:00

Thinking that the Detroit Free Press might have something interesting to say about the April 2 Supreme Court ruling that the EPA must regulate CO2 emissions, I checked out their Web site. An April 9 editorial said that the court was right "to tell the Bush administration that it can no longer brush off global warming," but noted that Congress must start to investigate actions and solutions because "The truth is that the court's decision means only that the Environmental Protection Agency must re-examine an earlier decision not to regulate carbon dioxide emissions as pollutants." That process could easily chew up the rest of the Bush presidency without producing meaningful action. EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson has already started the dithering.

EPA Administrator Stalling on Action to Regulate CO2

2007-04-24T16:24:00.000-07:00

EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson is stalling on setting a timetable for his agency's response to the April 2 Supreme Court ruling that the EPA should be regulating carbon dioxide. Senators repeatedly pressed him for a date for compliance, such as four months (suggested by Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.), but Johnson refused to be rushed. "I'm not going to be forced into making a snap decision," he told reporters. The Washington Post reporting on Johnson's appearance before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, quoted Johnson as stating that he doesn't see one environmental issue as more pressing than any other. The court decision focused on emissions from automobiles, but the delay is apparently because the agency is assessing the impact the ruling may have on regulating emissions from power plants and other industrial sources.
"We will move expeditiously, but we are going to be moving responsibly," Johnson said.

Biofuels

2007-04-19T06:12:00.000-07:00

The New York Times reports that Tyson Foods and ConocoPhillips are forming a partnership that will produce biodiesel out of pork, chicken and beef fat. The reporter sees this is another sign that agribusiness and farmers will be playing an increasingly important role in the nation's development of alternative energy sources. This sounds like it will be a mega-income producing venture for farmers. Does it also mean reduced Federal agricultural subsidies?
BP has a partnership with DuPont, working on biofuels and Chevron has a research allilance with the Georgia Institute of Technology to develop cellulosic fuels.

Scaring Little Children

2007-04-19T05:41:00.000-07:00

The Washington Post reports that Republicans are in a froth about climate change. At the first meeting of Nancy Pelosi's Senate Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming , Sen. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis) questioned "why global warming has suddenly become an issue of national defense" and accused global warming realists of scaring little children.
Democrats want mandatory emissions limits and plan to send a bill to Pres. Bush before the 2008 election. As the world knows, Bush is still calling for more research (isn't almost 20 years of research and a 90% certainty by the scientists monitoring the research enough?) and voluntary measures.
The Post article quotes a national security think tank report written by a battalion of retired Army and Navy brass that warned that global warming poses a "serious threat" to U.S. national security. The report, published by The CNA Corporation, "predicted worsening terrorism and fights involving the United States over dwindling natural resources that will result from a warming of the earth."

Hinkle to Skeptics: Admit You're Wrong

2007-04-13T10:22:00.000-07:00

I'm going a little farther afield than I usually do to find an opinion piece by award-winning columnist A. Barton Hinkle in the Richmond Times Dispatch that advises global warming skeptics to admit that they've been wrong all these years. It's time to stop howling at the moon, spitting into the wind and saying that global warming is an act of God (i.e., natural not anthropogenic). I've noticed that since the release of IPCC AR4, skeptics have taken to reminding us of the "Great Global Cooling Scare" of the 1970s as a proof that claims of global warming is wrong are misguided. Hinkle has noticed this, too, and says that A+B doesn't equal C in this case. (My take is that the global cooling scare was a blip in our continuous learning about the atmosphere and other global systems.)
Hinkle writes: "By now denials about climate change begin to have about them the air of arguments against evolution, which rest on the fallacy of thinking that if a single piece of a jigsaw puzzle is missing, then the rest of puzzle does not exist. Not every piece of the climate puzzle has been found."
That last sentence says it all. What many people don't seem to grasp is that this is an ongoing, evolving, ever-changing fluid situation. We'll never know everything about global systems and how they work together, but we can certainly identify problems and likely consequences. The atmosphere is heavily polluted and must be cleaned up if we are to have a healthy place to live.

Resistance is Futile!

2007-04-11T21:59:00.000-07:00

After mentioning a Yale survey that found that 83% of Americans think global warming is a serious problem, George Will implies that individual actions are futile in battling global warming. The assault of the "media-entertainment-environmental complex" to get citizens to urge action by their political leaders is unprecedented except during WW I and II, according to Will. He reminds us that in 1997 Congress voted 95-0 against the Kyoto Protocol. That was ten long years ago, George--we know a lot more now than we did then. Will then quotes discredited statistician Bjorn Lomborg on how expensive to the US Kyoto compliance would be. He also quotes a report by CNW Research (a retired marketing guy operating out of his home in Oregon) stating that a Hummer is actually more cost effective and efficient in the long run than a Prius--apparently, the use of zinc in the Prius is the problem. And then he disses Arnold Schwarzenegger's initiatives.
The two biggest global warming skeptics, George Bush and ExxonMobil, are talking nice about the issue and ExMo even claims to have withdrawn support from from its skeptical minions (although I'm not sure I believe the behemoth). People across the country are rallying around the need for action, but blowhards like Will keep telling us action is futile.
Idling in our Hummers won't solve anything, either.

More on IPCC SWG Report

2007-04-06T06:30:00.000-07:00

The Post's main article on the IPCC's Second Working Group report talks about the negotiations that went into the consensus-building to create the final report. "The climax of five days of negotiations . . . which was based on 29,000 sets of data, much of it collected in the last five years. 'For the first time we are not just arm-waving with models,' Martin Perry, who conducted the grueling negotiations, told reporters." The United States, China and Saudi Arabia objected to some of the stronger language in the report. More than 120 nations attended the meeting. Changes to the report had to be approved by the scientists who wrote that section of the report. Approval by consensus of every report is SOP for the IPCC and its subcommittees. The report breaks down the scientific predictions into regions, and predicts that climate change will affect billions of people.
The third Post article tells how climate change threatens the world's natural wonders, including the Great Barrier Reef and tropical rainforests, according to the World Wildlife Fund for Nature. WWF reps observed the conference and issued their own report on regions and species affected by global warming.

Post quoting global warming supporters, not skeptics

2007-04-06T05:34:00.000-07:00

The Washinton Post carries three articles this morning on the IPCC's Second Working Group report on "Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability." Marc Kaufman writes about the changes to the American southwest. "Global warming will permanently change the climate of the American Southwest, making it so much hotter and drier that Dust Bowl-scale droughts will become common, a new climate report concludes." Then instead of turning to energy industry skeptics to balance the report, Kaufman bolsters the IPCC findings by quoting other scientists who also attribute the changes to climate change: "Independently of the new study, others [climate scientists] note that the Southwest has been experiencing environmental changes besides drought that many believe are associated with global warming." The last sentence, though, mentions "others" who think the changes are due to natural climate shifts.

5 (Believers) - 4 (Skeptics)

2007-04-04T14:01:00.000-07:00

Monday's Supreme Court decision to repudiate the Bush administration's denial of the government's authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions is a great step forward in battling climate change. However, at this point it's a more of a symbolic victory since the EPA could stall for years (or at least until the next administration comes in). In an ABC News on-line article, the Sierra Club's Josh Dorner said, "It puts a process into motion that essentially compels the EPA to at some point issue regulations on carbon dioxide. I think, obviously, that process will be a slow one and we might see some action in Congress before that process comes to full fruition."
The only skeptics quoted in this article were the four dissenting justices.
The Washington Post notes another environmental case, Environmental Defense et al. v. Duke Energy Corp. et al ., in which the court unanimously supported a Clinton-era initiative to force old coal-powered power plants to install pollution-control equipment.
The L.A. Times called the high court's ruling a victory for California.
The NYT called the ruling a "strong rebuke" to the Bush administration.

ABC News Global Warming Videos

2007-04-04T13:55:00.000-07:00

ABC News On-Line has a nice set of global warming videos.
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/GlobalWarming/
Global warming 101, retreating glaciers, goodbye to wildlife, etc.
Definitely worth checking out.

Skeptics at the WSJ

2007-04-01T05:41:00.000-07:00

In doing research for another project, I've discovered that the Wall Street Journal is a bunch of global warming skeptics! Their main constituency being business people, I guess that's not too surprising, but as some people have come to realize, if the planet is burnt to a crisp, the economy will suffer!

Problems Down Under

2007-04-01T05:13:00.000-07:00

Australia, the only country that puts more CO2 in the air per capita than the United States, is rumbling about environmental issues. An ABC local radio interview with Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull reported "In its chapter on Australia, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [report published in January] predicts more intense and more frequent heatwaves and fires, along with floods, droughts and storms."
Turnbull's response: "We have a whole climate change adaptation framework underway, we are very focused on adapting to climate change. And you have to remember that the changes to our climate over the next ... well, most of this century for all of our lifetimes in any event, the changes in our climate are built into the systems." (What?)
Then the reporter reveals: "The Auditor-General has assessed the protection of threatened species . . . [and] finds the Environment Department hasn't been resourced . . . despite asking four times for more funding." No money for threatened species.
An Aussie environmentalist says: "There's been a failure to implement this legislation. It's not doing the job of protecting our threatened species and our biodiversity in Australia."
Australia is the only other major country that didn't sign the Kyoto Protocol.

Gore's Testimony a Success

2007-03-27T08:59:00.000-07:00

The general consensus is that Al Gore's testimony was a success even if it lacked "fireworks."
Washington Post's Warren Brown said that Gore "actually made sense, especially on the matter of fuel economy and its relationship to global warming." He quoted Gore's chastising of Congress, saying it should "abandon its habitual blame-shifting, responsibility-dodging approach to energy conservation."
"It was part science class, part policy wonk paradise, part politics and all theater," according to the New York Times. NYT noted a subtle divide between global warming believers and the die-hard skeptics: "Beneath the carefully groomed surface of the House and Senate committees’ scripted production, a rift was evident. Republican committee leaders, including Mr. Barton in the House, and Mr. Inhofe in the Senate, seemed somewhat isolated from their rank-and-file colleagues, who appeared more receptive to Mr. Gore’s message and the scientific consensus on climate change."
The L.A. Times, land of Hollywood, placed more emphasis on the hoopla surrounding Gore's return to the halls of politics than on his actual testimony: "The doors swung open and he made his entrance with cameras clicking, the wooden politician denied the presidency and derided as "Ozone Man" was coming home to the Capitol. But this time they called him a movie star and likened him to a prophet." There's more (Gore "can share a stage with Leonardo DiCaprio and still manage to be the center of attention"), but you get the idea.
All and all a pretty good outing for the "Goracle."

That dirty word

2007-03-21T11:23:00.000-07:00

Al Gore is on Capitol Hill today (3/21) testifying before the House and Senate on climate change. The panels he will be addressing will include climate change skeptics "of the sort Gore probably hasn't met on the red carpet," according to the Washington Post. Who are these scary skeptics?
First, that giant of climate science, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.). The other climate skeptic is Bjorn Lomborg, currently adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School. Back in 1998, Lomborg wrote The Skeptical Environmentalist, in which he denounced many of the concerns of environmental science, especially climate change. This brought much condemnation from the scientific community and Lomborg was roundly denounced by the likes of Edmund O. Wilson, Lester Brown and the Union of Concerned Scientists.
I've seen some of the morning testimony, and Gore more than held his own.

Hansen Outspoken As Ever

2007-03-20T04:35:00.000-07:00

Climate scientist James Hansen is in the news again. Testifying before Congress, the director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies says the Bush administration used "Nazi tactics" in controlling and manipulating climate change information. Testifying before the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee, Hansen acknowledged that Bush and his cohorts are not the first administration to practice information management, but they have been the most vigorous. In an LA Times article, Hansen complained about having his writings and speeches edited by non-scientists.
Philip Cooney, former chief of staff to the White House Council on Environmental Quality (2001-2005), said he reviewed Hansen's testimony for "consistency." Before taking his post at the White House, Cooney worked for the American Petroleum Institute. Hmmm . . .
Hansen was one of the very first scientists of stature to speak out on global warming many years ago. The Bush White House has tried to muzzle him, but he managed to keep his views in the public eye. He was one of the first to mention the idea of a tipping point. This means that if we don't do something to reverse CO2 emissions within ten years, it will be too late.

Fairfax going green

2007-03-15T07:29:00.000-07:00

Also in today's Post, Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Gerry Connolly announced an ambitious program to reduce his county's carbon footprint in his State of the County address (delivered Tuesday, but televised this evening). Partnering with the Sierra Club and King County, Washington, and Cook County in Illinois, the plan calls for hybrid county vehicles, establishing wind power for homes, green construction techniques for county buildings, tree planting, etc. It would establish incentives for businesses to conserve energy.
The plan will take millions of dollars and must be passed by the Board of Supervisors.
"There are over 3,000 counties and this could have an enormous impact across the nation," Connolly told Post reporter Amy Gardner. The plan would put Fairfax among the many jurisdictions taking action locally across the country. In this region, Arlington and Montgomery Counties, and Alexandria, Chevy Chase and the District, have local initiatives.

Terrorists MIGHT get us, but global warming WILL

2007-03-15T07:06:00.000-07:00

Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), newly appointed chairman of the newly formed Senate Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, says he will use the issue of national security as a focus for reducing US dependence on foreign oil. A Post article quotes Markey: "The more we reduce our dependence on foreign oil, the more we reduce the money we send these countries, and the less they will have to fuel the terrorists." Can't we leave the terrorists out of it and simply work on correcting the problem because it's the right thing to do and, incidentally, will ensure our continued survival as a species. Apparently, he hasn't noticed the last two words in the title of his new committee.

Protecting the Ozone

2007-03-15T04:47:00.000-07:00

We got rid of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) years ago because they were proven to be eating a hole in the ozone layer of the atmosphere. Now we have to get rid of HYDROchlorofluoro- carbons, or HCFC-22, which were never banned for use by developing countries. China, the largest manufacturer of air conditioning units in the world, still uses HCFC-22 as a refrigerant. Most air-conditioning systems in the United States also use HCFC-22. According to a New York Times article, the US has joined Argentina, Brazil, Iceland, Mauritania and Norway in saying that they want to speed up a phaseout of HCFCs at an international conference in Montreal scheduled for September.
The article mentions that a report last week by five US and European scientists found that sharp cutbacks in gases that reduce ozone since 1987 have been far more effective in fighting global warming than the Kyoto Protocol. Particle for particle, CFCs are far more damaging to the atmosphere than CO2, but there is vastly more CO2 in the atmosphere.
Currently, developing countries are allowed to continue to increase use of HCFCs until 2016, then continue that level until 2040, at which time all use of HCFCs will be banned. The EU discontinued use of HCFC in 2004 and the US will stop using it in 2010.

Carbon offsets

2007-03-15T04:35:00.000-07:00

Back to feet of carbon for a moment. Last night I reread an article about Al Gore in Wired magazine (May '06) that mentioned his use of carbon offsets. He and Tipper regularly calculate their home and business energy use, including their frequent international travel, then they purchase offsets. Last year (2005), they redeemed their million miles of air travel by giving money to an Indian solar electric company and a Bulgarian hydroelectric project.

Criticism of "Balance" in Environmental Reporting

2007-03-06T07:08:00.000-08:00

In January, Joseph Romm, scientist and former Department of Energy official, said that climate change skeptics are a dwindling lot. In fact, they are a small enough group to be stuffed in a shower stall, he said.
Romm appeared on Environment and Energy webcast OnPoint on January 16, interviewed by Monica Trauzzi.
When asked why conservative climate skeptics are so successful in getting their message out, Romm said that they are better at rhetoric. They are also very well funded. He mentioned a report by the Union of Concerned Scientists that found that “Exxon Mobil [is] pumping millions and millions of dollars into shadow groups and conservative think tanks.”
In addressing the media’s penchant for trotting out climate skeptics in the name of “balanced reporting,” Romm had the following to say:

“the media has this notion that you have to give both sides
equal time, even if, in this case, 99.9 percent of the scientists
believe one thing and a small number of scientists, usually
funded by the fossil fuel industry, state another thing. And
I just think the media coverage has been incomplete. There
have been a lot of stories about recent heat waves or the
record wildfire season that hasn't talked about the impact
that climate is having on that. This is a tricky subject, but
I think it's incumbent on the media to understand what's
going on and report what the growing, emerging consensus
is and not spend a lot of time with industry flaks who are
spreading disinformation.”

Here, here! There has been much criticism of the media for giving a platform to a tiny group of scientists who make a lot of noise on behalf of their corporate sponsors. Balanced reporting should mean exactly that—give a proportionate amount of space each side.

Feet of CO2?

2007-02-27T08:57:00.001-08:00

Does Al Gore have feet of CO2? Apparently, he and Tipper live in a 10,000 sq ft mansion that eats up lots of energy. According to the Tennessee Center for Policy Research:

"The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh—more than 20 times the national average. . . . Gore’s average monthly electric bill topped $1,359. . . .
Natural gas bills for Gore’s mansion and guest house averaged $1,080 per month last year."

Gore's response:
Vice President Gore’s office told ThinkProgress:
1) Gore’s family has taken numerous steps to reduce the carbon footprint of their private residence, including signing up for 100 percent green power through Green Power Switch, installing solar panels, and using compact fluorescent bulbs and other energy saving technology.
2) Gore has had a consistent position of purchasing carbon offsets {emphasis mine} to offset the family’s carbon footprint. Gore’s office explains: What Mr. Gore has asked is that every family calculate their carbon footprint and try to reduce it as much as possible. Once they have done so, he then advocates that they purchase offsets, as the Gore’s do, to bring their footprint down to zero.

I admire Al Gore for the work he's done on behalf of global warming and for his refusal to hide in a corner and pout after the Presidency was stolen from him. But I'm disappointed in his dependence on a lame scheme like carbon offsets to minimize his environmental footprint. All of these types of schemes, whether they're used by individuals or corporations or countries, are nothing more than the rich avoiding the hard facts and choices necessary to cut energy consumption. In Gore's defense, both he and his wife work out of their home and it's an older home that they're renovating. Presumably, when the renovation is complete, the house will be more energy efficient.
Now, let's take a look at the Tennessee Center for Policy Research. Founded by 24 year-old Drew Johnson in 2004, it is an obscure conservative think tank. Johnson began his career at the tender age of 22 at the American Enterprise Institute (aka the George Bush-Exxon Mobil Bedfellows Institute)! Who funds TCPR? I'm sure someone (i.e., some blogger) is looking into that even as I write.
In the meantime, Al, get that house updated and start saving energy!

An Inconvenient Truth Wins Award!

2007-02-26T19:46:00.000-08:00

An Inconvenient Truth, the movie of globetrotting Al Gore's powerpoint presentation on climate change, won an Academy award last night. Gore has also been nominated for the Nobel Peace prize, according to several websites. Him and 180 other individuals and organizations!
I admire Gore and hope he makes the most of all this attention and adulation he's receiving right now. Makes the most of it for the environment--i.e., the planet and you and me--and for himself.
Go Al!

Carbon Cost Labels

2007-02-26T17:35:00.000-08:00

Peter Martyn of the Toronto Star writes about "a small idea to fight climate change" (2/25). His idea is to create labels that list the carbon cost for every consumer good. The cost--in carbon emissions--of the manufacture, transport, marketing and distribution of every product available for purchase would be front and center on the product.
Would you be so determined to buy that SUV if the precise cost to the environment was pasted on the windshield next to the sticker price? Maybe a hybrid might be a better choice. Or public transportation.
The next time you're in Starbucks, imagine the menu labeled with the environmental and social cost of each $5 cup of coffee. The last time I checked, Starbucks used very little Fair Trade coffee. You overpay for a product that Starbucks pays pennies to acquire from the farmers who grow the beans. But I'm getting far afield here.
Martyn's idea takes Bill McKibben's "local food" idea a step further by labeling everything with an environmental sticker so people know exactly what kind climate havoc--or climate healing--they're causing when they make a purchasing decision.
He also has an idea how to get started with the project by using college students and their professors to compute the formulas and supercomputers to back them up.
Food for thought!

Diseases Spread to New Territories

2007-02-25T14:21:00.000-08:00

The L.A. Times (2/25) carries an article about the small, very small, effects of climate change. Small referring the organisms that cause disease. Germs are on the move. Environments that were previously too cold for them to survive are now warmer and the preferred destination for pathogens on the move. Vibrio, a bacteria in oysters that causes the runs in people who eat them, used to be confined in temperate waters in the Gulf of Mexico. In 2004, it turned up in Prince William Sound off the coast of Alaska.
Encephalitis-carrying ticks are moving further north in Sweden and up into the mountains of the Czech Republic. "This shift of the ticks is clearly connected with climate changes," says Milan Daniel, a parasitologist the Institute for Postgraduate Medical Education in Prague.
Malaria is turning up in the cool, mountainous regions of Africa. The villages of formerly snow-covered Mt. Kenya are now warm enough that germ-laden mosquitos are able to advance up the mountain.
Diseases spread by many methods: with the movement of people, by developing resistance to medications, breeding in environments with poor sanitation, etc. If bacteria or parasites are carried into a hostile environment they won't survive. But if they are able to colonize a newly hospitable site, they surely will. Like the mountain pine beetle ravaging Canada's spruce forests, diseases will soon lay waste to populations that have never before experienced them.

Exxon CEO Can't Make Up His Mind

2007-02-15T07:51:00.000-08:00

Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson is at it again. NYT reports on a speech he gave at an energy conference organized by Cambridge Energy Research Associates in which he said that “the scale advantages of oil and natural gas across a broad array of applications provide economic value unmatched by any alternative."
Tillerson predicted that carbon-based fuels would dominate other forms of energy as energy demand grows by as much as 40 percent in the next quarter century.
Saying that he hasn't read the IPCC's latest report published earlier this month, Tillerson said that “my understanding is there’s not a clear 100 percent conclusion drawn.” However, he seemed to acknowledge the severity of the problems caused by climate change: “So, despite the uncertainties, it is prudent to develop and implement sensible strategies that address these risks.”
But then he warned that "precipitous" policy decisions could damage the global economy and make future generations pay for hasty actions taken now.
Mentioning that Exxon scientists are working on a specific type of ethanol, Tillerson then said that he doesn't see a role for Exxon. In developing alternative fuels or what?
His comments seem to go from wanting to be perceived as being "sensitive" about climate change (see previous post) to defending the corporation's unchanging position as a unrepentent carbon fuel dinosaur.

Exxon Mobil "Misunderstood"

2007-02-11T06:23:00.000-08:00

Saying that "the appropriate debate isn't on whether the climate is changing but rather should be on what we should be doing about it," Exxon Mobil VP Kenneth Cohen claims the oil monster has been misunderstood all these years. The Post reports that the statement is an "evolution" of Exxon's former position that global warming is not affected by human activities. Former Exxon CEO and unrepenant climate foe, Lee Raymond, considers GW a hoax. According to the Economist (12/24/05), Raymond's view of GW is "heartfelt and extreme scepticism about climate science." This would require that the man has a heart--he is after all the force behind the paltry sum of $300,000 paid out to Alaska citizens affected by the Exxon Valdez oil spill. And 17 years later, Exxon is still trying to avoid paying out $4 billion in punitive damages to Alaska fishermen.
Back to the poor, misundestood corporate behemoth. Post staff writer Steven Mufson writes that Exxon is no longer funding the Competitive Enterprise Institute, cynical base of GW obfuscation. And Exxon has given $100 million to Stanford University's Global Climate and Energy Project.
So is Exxon doing an about face? Between the rock of dwindling oil supplies and the hard facts of climate change, one might expect Exxon and the other oils companies to throw themselves and their enormous resources into finding alternative energy sources. Wouldn't they rather be known as Exxon Mobil Energy Corp? (Yes, I'm an optimist!)

New IPCC report in the news

2007-02-06T07:13:00.000-08:00

The Post's Juliet Eilperin reported findings of the new IPCC report released on 2/2/07. The report states, with a 90 percent certainty, that humans are responsible for global temperatures that will propbably increase by as much as 4.5 degrees F by 2100. This will result in melting polar ice sheets and the extinction of huge numbers of species--events that could be irreversible. More extreme weather, such as droughts in the US southwest and heavier rains in the northeast, are to be expected.
NYT carries the basically the same reporting on the publication itself, then reports that some scientists believe the IPCC is too conservative in its forecasting. Cornelia Dean reports that scientists researching sea level rise are particularly unhappy with the IPCC's latest warnings. Quoting a US scientist as asserting that "the observed sea level rise has been tracking the upper range," Dean reports that with a 2005 cutoff for research findings, the panel didn't take into account the fact that ice sheets appear to be melting at a more accelerated rate than had been expected.
Newsweek.com also weighs in with a pre-release article that criticizes the IPCC for being too reticent. Based on some of the same information as the NYT article, Newsweek also quotes a German scientist on the speed of ice melting. The problem of conservative estimates is blamed on the requirement for unanimous agreement on report language by representatives of 154 countries.

Welcome!

2007-02-06T06:58:00.002-08:00

Welcome to my new blog. I'm a first-time blogger and my interest is in environmental issues and climate change specifically. I'll be monitoring the mainstream media to see what they're reporting about the environment and climate change. I'm interested in the mainstream media because that's where many Americans still get their news. I'll be looking primarily at print media and occasionally television news.
If you share these interests, please drop in from time to time to see what's new--and what's news!