Climate change projections indicate a steady increase in temperature progressing through the 21st century ..... 

.......generally resulting in snowpack reductions, changes to the timing of snowmelt, altered streamflows, and reductions in soil moisture, all of which could affect water management, agriculture, recreation, hazard mitigation, and ecosystems across the nation. 

Despite some widespread similarities in climate change trends, climate change will affect specific water basins in the U.S. differently, based on the particular hydrologic and geologic conditions in that area.

New USGS modeling studies project changes in water availability due to climate change at the local level. So far, the USGS has applied these models to fourteen basins. See list;

The Himalayan Mountains in central Asia and Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the range and in the world, is one of the front lines for global warming in the world. Most climate scientists agree that the Himalayas, sometimes called the Third Pole because the range boasts the world's largest mass of non-polar ice, is quickly changing.

Annapurna, Himalayan MountainRange, Nepal.
[Photo: Jagdish Poudel]

The 1,500-mile-long range, straddling seven countries including China/Tibet, India, Nepal, Bhutan, and Pakistan, has over 46,000 glaciers that fill huge glacial valleys, cirques, and perch on the faces of high peaks like Mount Everest. These glaciers, a huge repository of fresh water, are, like the ice caps in Antarctica, Greenland, and the North Pole region, melting. Right now it's estimated that about 95 percent of the Himalayan glaciers are shrinking--the result of soot from coal- and wood-burning stoves, highway emissions, and industrial pollution in nearby countries. And as the glaciers melt, bare rock, which absorbs sunlight and warmth, is exposed, leading to more melting. Read more;

It was the worst oil disaster in U.S. history, though for much of the nation, it remained a worrying but distant drama. 

Julie Creppel raises six children here, steps away from the lapping waves of the Gulf of Mexico. Her modest mobile home, on a narrow peninsula roughly an hour and a half south of New Orleans, puts her about as close as anyone to where, two years ago today, a BP offshore drilling operation went terribly wrong, spewing 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf's constant saltwater churn.

Creppel says that for her and her family, the impacts were very clear and very present. The spill, she says -- and the months of efforts to stop it -- made them sick.

One son, 2-year-old Wyatt, struggles with constipation and severe skin rashes, Creppel says. Daughters Kylee and Atrea suffer massive headaches almost daily. Kasie, meanwhile, is due for an electrocardiogram for her heart palpitations. Just about everyone in the house relies on a steady supply of Nasonex nasal spray to clear their permanent congestion. Creppel counts 17 prescriptions filled for the family's ailments just last week.

“It was like a war zone,” Creppel says, recalling the squadrons of military and support planes overhead, the smoky air and the unforgiving chemical stench that characterized the summer of 2010. “When we would walk out on the porch, we couldn’t breathe. Our eyes and throats would burn.”

Creppel's complaints are not unique.....Read more;

The New York Post, the New York-based daily newspaper run by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., has published 21 opinion pieces on the controversial process of natural gas extraction called hydraulic fracturing (or 'fracking') since January 1, 2011.* Many of the op-eds on fracking attack Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) or "enviro-radicals" for not acting faster to cash in on the economic benefits associated with domestic drilling. In addition, the Post almost always fails to acknowledge the health and environmental risks associated with fracking -- when it does, it immediately dismisses the dangers, despite ample evidence to the contrary. Read more;

A typical shale-gas drilling and fracking site  ---->

I recently visited the column of Shub Tnediserp Remrof to read an article he posted asking the question What is causing Climate Change? (Poll). In the discussion on the thread for that article 1+2=potatoe posed the following question (#3.5);

Feel free to enlighten me on how global warming is the cause for the unprecedented cold weather in Europe this past winter.

This is my response;

The global warming trend is causing more water to evaporate into the atmosphere, which in turn generates more precipitation. In many parts of the Northern Hemisphere that precipitation comes in the form of snow. Snow reflects most of the suns rays which causes colder temperatures.

Also, the rapid melting of the polar cap glaciers, the land glaciers and ice fields, plus the snow caps of the high peaks is causing copious amounts of fresh water to run into the oceans, changing the salinity levels, which it turn is having serious effects on the oceans currents.

Among the most important of those currents is the Gulf Stream that flows from the Gulf of Mexico northward along the west coast of Europe to the Northern Hemisphere, where it cools and flows back to the Gulf. That warm water is what gives the Northern Hemisphere the moderate temperatures we need and enjoy.

As a result of the salinity change I mentioned, the "pumping action" of the Gulf Stream is slowing down, bringing less warm water to the N. Hemisphere, thus causing colder temperatures.

You see 1+2, it's not as simple as 1+2=, it's a complicated series of integrated events that is causing the weather chaos we are experiencing. Floods in some places, drought in other places, extreme cold in the north, extreme heat in the south, more hurricanes, stronger hurricanes, more frequent and powerful tornadoes, earthquakes, ..... everything is being effected.

Some experts are saying, the now smaller polar caps weigh much less than they did before and the pressure change from that weight shift is causing the earths crust to move, causing the more frequent and more severe earthquakes the world has suffered in recent years.

Take my advice in #1.4 . Go to the links I provide, do some research. This GW and Climate Change thing is no bull@!$%#, it's a serious problem and we need to start preparing for the inevitable.

Man may not be causing all this chaos, but we are certainly contributing to it, and we damn well are going to be affected by it.

And don't forget;

"....For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being oblig'd by better Information or fuller consideration, to change Opinions even on important matters, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise.
[Benjamin Franklin]

There is nothing wrong with changing your position on things you believe, everybody has to do it from time to time.

That's it. .... What is your position on Climate Change?

One of climate change’s biggest impacts is on water systems. 

Unreliable water can impact both corporate bottom lines and jeopardize natural security, as two recent reports point out.

Climate-change drying out Western US, as snows melt ------------>

[Photo Credit: Greg Pederson, 2009, © Science/AAAS]

Climate change is changing precipitation patterns and intensity, increasing the incidence of droughts, floods, and erosion. These changes are making water supply and quality more difficult to obtain, affecting runoff and soil moisture, increasing water temperatures, decreasing snowpack and lake and river ice, threatening fish and aquatic species, and allowing saltwater intrusion and sea level rise. These changes are difficult to plan for, as past water patterns can no longer be used to predict the future. Read more;

There have been 69 reported incidents of oil and chemical spills in the North Sea during the last three months, figures have revealed.

A total of 18 companies have been named in the table of incidents published by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC). The most recent one reported was the Total gas leak at the Elgin platform on March 25, with its status described as "under review".

BP and Shell were among the companies listed, with BP reporting the highest number of incidents at 23. Other companies included EnQuest, British Gas and Nexen.

Dr Richard Dixon, the director of WWF Scotland, said: "People will be shocked to learn that there have been so many spills in such a short time.

"Operating in the North Sea is tough but the companies involved should be ashamed of this catalogue of faulty valves, operator mistakes and broken hoses. Read more;

Warm spring weather can help convince Americans that global warming is happening and a problem. But scientists must change the way they talk about this subject. They must leave their ivory towers and learn to speak about climate change in a language that people understand.

A recent study by the Brookings Institution shows that unusually warm winter weather has made climate-change converts out of many Americans. Unseasonable temperatures are continuing with warm spring weather in much of the United States. In Washington DC, which just recorded its warmest winter, the famed cherry blossoms have opened two weeks early.

The American public is generally illiterate when it comes to science (so says the National Science Foundation). And when American scientists complain about public illiteracy and lethargy on the vitally important subject of climate change, they also have themselves to blame. Read more;

THE MONITOR'S VIEW: Keep the climate challenge in focus

Greenhouse gases that drive man-made climate change are also dangerously changing ocean chemistry, likely faster than at any other time in the past 300 million years, according to research coordinated between New York state and the United Kingdom.

The change — known as ocean acidification — is associated with several massive extinctions of marine life in that period of Earth's history, and now presents a growing threat, said study lead author Barbel Honisch, a paleoceanographer at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

Located in Rockland County on the Hudson River, where the ocean tides stretch upriver to Troy, the observatory was joined by the University of Bristol in southern England in the report, which examined several hundred independent studies from around the world done over the last two decades.

The work is the first of its kind to survey the geologic record of the oceans for such a vast time period. Read more: 

Research by Michael E. Mann confirmed the reality of global warming. Little did he know that it would also expose him to a vicious hate campaign.

The scientist who has borne the full brunt of attacks by climate changedeniers, including death threats and accusations of misappropriating funds, is set to hit back.

Research by US physicist and climatologist Michael E. Mann demonstrating an increase in global temperatures infuriated climate change deniers. ------->
[Photograph: Greg Rico]

Michael E. Mann, creator of the "hockey stick" graph that illustrates recent rapid rises in global temperatures, is to publish a book next month detailing the "disingenuous and cynical" methods used by those who have tried to disprove his findings. The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars is a startling depiction of a scientist persecuted for trying to tell the truth. Read more;

We conclude that the recent decline of Arctic sea ice has played a critical role in recent cold and snowy winters.

Scientists have tied the rapid decline of Arctic sea ice, caused by global warming pollution, to the recent extreme winters that hit the United States last year and Europe this year. In “Impact of declining Arctic sea ice on winter snowfall,” a new report published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers find that the loss of polar ice has changed atmospheric circulation and increased atmospheric water vapor, driving the popularly-dubbed “snowpocalypse” conditions:

 Sea ice decline is contributing to catastrophic, deadly winters in two ways, the researchers find. The loss of ice changes wind patterns over the northern oceans, which in turn disrupts the jet stream, allowing cold polar air to plunge across the northern hemisphere. Read more;

A new report from the Defense Science Board (PDF) recommends that the U.S. Department of Defense needs to have a much broader understanding of global climate change because—get this—it represents a fundamental threat to U.S. and international security. To help the DoD wrap its head around climate change, the report recommends the agency manage a widespread information system for climate change data that gathers intelligence and other climate data from a number of federal agencies and from extra-governmental sources. The idea is to enable the Department of Defense to forecast and, perhaps, mitigate the negative impacts of climate change—and the security threats it represents.

The DoD’s climate information system would bring together data from multiple federal sources, including NASA, the U.S. Geological Survey, the CIA, The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Defense, Energy, State, and Agriculture, and meld them together with data from private climate researchers and experts. One goal of the system would be to produce actionable climate forecasts. Read more;

It's been more than 40 years since the first Earth Day and the founding of the modern environmental movement -- an awakening to the notion that human beings can, and do, have a profound impact on the planet. If Republicans in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail have their way, the nation would be put right back to sleep.

Environmental advocates say Democrats -- and chiefly President Obama -- aren't doing much to help.

But Kathleen Rogers, president of the Earth Day Network, sees cause for hope in modern grassroots movements like Occupy Wall Street. Read more;

Danger zones are emerging across the mountain region as glaciers melt.

   Treacherous beauty: Imja Lake, created from melt water from the Imja Glacier, is the fastest growing of about 1600 glacier lakes in Nepal. Photo: AFP ---->

IT'S strangely calming to watch the Imja glacier lake grow, as chunks of ice part from black cliffs and fall into the grey-green water below.

But the lake is a high-altitude disaster in the making - one of dozens of danger zones emerging across the Himalayas because of glacier melt caused by climate change.

If the lake, situated at 5100 metres in Nepal's Everest region, breaks through its walls of glacial debris, known as moraine, it could release a deluge of water, mud and rock as far as 100 kilometres. This would swamp homes and fields with a rubble layer up to 15 metres thick, leading to loss of the land for a generation. But the question is when, rather than if. Read more:

Climate envoys from around the world opened talks Saturday in Panama in a bid to help break the deadlock on key sticking points ahead of a closely watched year-end conference in Durban, South Africa.

The major obstacle is the fate of the landmark Kyoto Protocol, which requires wealthy countries to cut carbon emissions blamed for climate change. Its obligations run out at the end of 2012 with no new treaty in sight.

Dessima Williams, who represents small island states that fear catastrophic damage from rising water levels, appealed to all negotiators to "step forward and guarantee the continuity of the Kyoto Protocol."

"Countries that are serious about addressing climate change should be using this meeting to raise, not lower, expectations for Durban," Williams, who is Grenada's representative to the United Nations, said in a statement.

UNITED NATIONS -- The Palestinians want the United Nations to recognize a state. And the island nation of Tuvalu wants the United Nations to act - now - to keep their state above water.

The high drama surrounding the historic Palestinian bid for statehood has to a degree overshadowed other issues facing the U.N. General Assembly, which Saturday heard from the leaders of island nations where the impact of climate change is already having a profound effect.

They argue that the U.N. is moving too slowly despite many initiatives designed to reduce carbon emissions worldwide. U.N. officials have recognized climate change as the greatest environmental threat to the planet but efforts to slow its inexorable progress have foundered.

The message Saturday from island leaders was that there is little time left for concerted action that could prevent their small, vulnerable countries from facing severe problems, or worse, as sea levels rise and flooding and storm activity increases. Read more;

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Women are leading the fight against climate change and other urgent environmental issues that confront the planet, according to Dr. Sarah Otterstrom, Executive Director of Paso Pacifico, at the Clinton Global Initiative.

In Nicaragua, women are leading reforestation efforts and have planted over 100,000 native trees.  Their work has offset more than 150,000 tons of greenhouse gases and help protect watersheds that are crucial to the health of their communities.  Paso Pacifico provides job training in entrepreneurship and forestry which enable women to build businesses and become leaders in their communities.  "They are strengthened by our program," Otterstrom says, "but ultimately they are the ones who are making Paso Pacifico projects a success." Read more:

Former president Bill Clinton blasted GOP presidential contenders Tuesday, saying their refusal to acknowledge climate change makes the United States "look like a joke."

"If you're an American, the best thing you can do is to make it politically unacceptable for people to engage in denial" about climate change, he said on the opening day of the three-day Clinton Global Initiative's seventh annual meeting in New York City, according to Politico.

"I mean, it makes us — we look like a joke, right? You can't win the nomination of one of the major parties in the country if you admit that the scientists are right? That disqualifies you from doing it? You could really help us there," Clinton said. He called the lack of debate in the U.S. on climate change "really tragic." Read more;

 Shell Oil Co. on Monday took a step closer to tapping vast petroleum reserves off Alaska's Arctic coasts when the federal Environmental Protection Agency approved an air quality permit for one of the company's drilling vessels.

The EPA approved the air permit for the drilling vessel Noble Discover, which Shell hopes to use for exploratory wells in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska's northwest coast, and its support fleet of oil spill response and supply vessels.

Shell Alaska spokesman Curtis Smith said the permit was a hopeful step. Read more;

Former Vice President Al Gore of Nashville, Tenn. will host a worldwide, live-streamed, climate change-focused event called “24 Hours of Reality”.  It will begin Wednesday at 7 p.m., Central time, and end with the last hour presentation at 7 p.m. Thursday, Eastern time. The first will be from Mexico City and in Spanish, followed by hour-long presentations — one after another — in different areas of the globe, moving west. Several are in English, as will be the final one in New York City. Broadcast by Ustream, it can be viewed at climaterealityproject.org.

Climate Institute CEO John Connor says many Australians and probably a few politicians have been left confused by "the mother of all scare campaigns" over the carbon pricing legislation.

Taking decisive action now will open up new clean energy opportunities, creating up to 34,000 new jobs in the electricity sector alone by 2030, and ensure our industries remain globally competitive as the world switches to cleaner energy and cleaner economies.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has warned of economic and social instability in the Pacific Islands region if nothing is done to combat climate change.

Mr Ban also urged the Solomon Islands to lead the way in advancing women's rights in the region.

During a press conference at the offices of Prime Minister and Cabinet in the Solomon's capital Honiara, Mr Ban called on the international community to do more to fight climate change, warning that low-lying atoll nations are under threat of obliteration from rising tides.

"Ocean waves can be more dangerous than an army. They can wipe out whole islands," Mr Ban said.

"The oceans are already destroying crops in low lying atolls.

"That puts food security at risk. Poor food security means weak social stability. Read more;

Actress Daryl Hannah has joined the over 500 peoplewho have been arrested since August 20 for a sit-in protest outside the White House.

In a HuffPost blog piece, Philip Radford and Daryl Hannah wrote:

This week, President Obama will find hundreds more people in front of the White House -- us included -- willing to go to jail for peacefully protesting the President's short-sighted decision to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. President Obama's decision on this enormous fossil fuel project will not be a quiet deal with oil industry lobbyists; it will be witnessed by millions of voters who had hoped that President Obama would have the vision to get America off of oil with a moonshot program for oil-free cars by the next decade. Instead, oil profits have been pitted against the world that our children will live in, hooking America to some of the highest polluting oil without moving America quickly to a foreign oil-free future.

On Friday, the State Department found that the pipeline would have "no significant impact" on the environment and suggested that the project move forward. Over the weekend, an interview aired of a former State Department official saying that Clinton would likely approve plans for the pipeline.

Earlier this month, an editorial in The New York Times opposed the pipeline, reading, "We have two main concerns: the risk of oil spills along the pipeline, which would traverse highly sensitive terrain, and the fact that the extraction of petroleum from the tar sands creates far more greenhouse emissions than conventional production does."

Check out the infographic suggesting that the proposed pipeline is "Built to Spill."

NASA scientist James Hansen, who galvanized the environmental movement decades ago with his congressional testimony about the dangers of climate change, said yesterday that President Obama has a rare opportunity to show he is not a "hopeless addict."

The climatologist, who will appear at the National Press Club on Monday before joining protests at the White House, where he expects to be arrested, told ClimateWire in an email interview that the Keystone XL pipeline awaiting approval from the president is like a dirty needle from a fellow oil addict, Canada.

The pipeline, if built, would run 1,700 miles from Canada to Texas and bring in a form of crude to the United States that releases more carbon dioxide emissions in the production process than traditional oil. Read more;

There are six nuclear reactors within 150 miles of the earthquake’s epicenter, and a recent report by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission says that we’re not properly prepared for a disaster.

With the earthquake now appearing to have passed, it shines a brighter light on our lack of preparedness for a earthquake-initiated nuclear disaster. As this map shows the East Coast of the United States has many nuclear power plants. A government task force, commissioned by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, just deemed many of these to be unsafe in the event of a Fukushima-like situation.

    Nuclear Reactor by rayharvey.org ---->

An international team of researchers, including physical oceanographers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), has confirmed the presence of a deep-reaching ocean circulation system off Iceland that could significantly influence the ocean's response to climate change in previously unforeseen ways.

They suggest that increasing amounts of fresh water from melting ice and other warming-related phenomena are making their way into the northern North Atlantic, where it could freeze, which would prevent the water from sinking and decrease the need for the loop to deliver as much warm water as it does now. Eventually, this could lead to a colder climate in the northern hemisphere. Read More;

The Texas governor was appearing at a New Hampshire breakfast event with business leaders Wednesday morning when he said "there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects." 

Perry said scientists are coming forward almost daily to question "the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change." He said the climate is changing but that it has been changing "ever since the earth was formed."

Perry rival,Mitt Romney, has said he accepts the scientific consensus.

 "I believe the world is getting warmer, and I believe that humans have contributed to that," Romney said in New Hampshire in June. "It's important for us to reduce our emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases that may be significant contributors."

Read more;

n 1859, physicist John Tyndall ran an experiment demonstrating the greenhouse effect. Visible sunlight easily passes through our atmosphere to warm the Earth. However, invisible heat rays rising from the Earth’s surface, otherwise known as infrared radiation, don’t easily escape back to space. What Tyndall showed by shining heat rays through tubes filled with different gases is that certain gases like water vapour and carbon dioxideblock the heat rays. These became known as greenhouse gases.

Tyndall also made several predictions of what we should expect to see if greenhouse gases were causing warming (Tyndall 1861). In fact, we expect to see a number of distinctive greenhouse patterns in global warming. Observing these patterns strengthens the evidence that humans are causing global warming, as well as eliminates other possible natural causes. Let’s have a look at the many human fingerprints on climate change: Read more;

No wonder global warming has Al Gore so hot under the collar.

His harangue against climate change deniers induced a frenzy of conservative chest-pounding last week wherein Fox News and the usual suspects swore his scatological sermon must be a symptom of dementia. They went on to spew the same misleading memes the ex-vice president decried in Aspen.

Science, however, is on Gore’s side. Read more;

During a July event at the U.S. Department of Education, children from D.C. schools and day care centers were treated to free books, including two featuring Nickelodeon characters as part of the media organization’s “The Big Green Help” Series. One of the books promotes the idea that global warming is man made and the second book talks about what kids can do to save the Earth.

SpongeBob Goes Green! An Earth-Friendly Adventure! tells the story of SpongeBob’s friend, Krusty Krab, who builds a swimming pool. Mr. Krab is frustrated that it is not hot enough to attract paying customers to his new swimming pool and decides that the exhaust from boats and cars could solve his dilemma. Read more;

Mitt Romney, arguably the leading Republican candidate for president of the United States in the 2012 election, recently significantly diminished his prospects for obtaining the support he needs from the right wing of his party. 

How did he do this? He simply declared that he believes the Earth is warming, and that human activities are responsible. To most scientists, such a statement would be considered fairly innocuous, and an accurate assessment of current understanding. But to a large fraction of the US Republican party, this is a completely unacceptable position - ranking alongside gay marriage, gun control and abortion rights. Anthropogenic climate change has become a litmus test for Republicansin the United States.

If you want to appeal to the hard core of the party - those whom you need in order to obtain the party's nomination - you simply can not acknowledge what almost every national science academy and scientific organisation has accepted for many years. Read more;

"We are following the long-term effects of fire in the Yellowstone area and encountering some lessons and surprises that challenge the way we think about fire in the area," said Erica A. H. Smithwick, assistant professor of geography and ecology, Penn State, and principle investigator on the project. 

"Yellowstone National Park is the first national park in the world and is now a wonderful natural laboratory for studying natural processes."

The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is centered around Yellowstone National Park but encompasses about 20 million acres in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho and includes Grand Teton National Park, many national forests and a small amount of private land. 

Read more;

Warming in the Arctic is causing the release of toxic chemicals long trapped in the region's snow, ice, ocean and soil, according to a new study.

Researchers from Canada, China and Norway say their work provides the first evidence that some persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are being "remobilized" into the Arctic atmosphere.

"Our results indicate that a wide range of POPs have been remobilized into the Arctic atmosphere over the past two decades as a result of climate change, confirming that Arctic warming could undermine global efforts to reduce environmental and human exposure to these toxic chemicals," write the scientists, whose analysis was published yesterday in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Read more;

The business of electric utilities is to provide reliable, affordable, and (increasingly) clean electricity—except when it is not. 

Con Ed recently started a campaign extolling the virtues of saving electrons. Imagine a business that runs ads telling customers not to buy its products.

ConEd hasn’t suddenly found religion, it's found regulators. 

Washington regulators are trying to decouple revenue from sales and essentially tell the company how much electricity it can sell.

If this doesn't seem to make sense; Read more

One-in-five Americans (20%) say they or someone they know has bought large quantities of traditional light bulbs to use when those bulbs disappear off store shelves next year under new federal light bulb regulations

The new government regulations provide for the manufacture of similar-looking bulbs that will last longer and be more energy-efficient – but also more expensive. Critics view the regulations as unnecessary government intrusion in the free market and see them as effectively banning the kind of light bulb Americans have used for decades.

Scientists say the world can no longer ignore the link between climate change and extreme weather events, and they are urging countries to face up to the growing risks ahead.

Last year was the warmest on record and that warming was directly related to increases in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, he said. It brought with it devastating floods in Pakistan and a heatwave in Russia, which resulted in riots around the world because of increased food prices.

Disastrous floods, heatwaves, storms and droughts are becoming more frequent because of climate change, and will continue to do so.

The Cuomo administration is seeking to lift what has effectively been a moratorium in New York State on hydraulic fracturing, a controversial technique used to extract natural gas from shale, state environmental regulators said on Thursday.

             Frac fluids --------------->
Considered "proprietary" formulas and therefore NOT subject to full disclosure of their chemical makeup, even to emergency personnel. Things will improve in this area if The FRAC Act is passed by Congress. 

It will most likely take months before the NY policy becomes official. On Friday, the State Department of Environmental Conservation will release a long-awaited study of the process, widely known as hydrofracking. The report will include recommendations about how to proceed, and then there will be a lengthy period for public comments before a final determination can be made.

Last week, former Vice President Al Gore took to the pages of Rolling Stone magazine to criticize various elements in our political culture for not championing the cause of stopping anthropogenic climate change. Gore went right for the top – President Barack Obama.

On his Friday night program on HBO, “Real Time” host Bill Maher doubled down on Gore’s claim, offering anecdotal evidence that climate change (not global warming) is real. (h/t Real Clear Politics Video)

Although they appear in just about every Australian postcard, koala bears are actually quite hard to spot in the wild, where their numbers are gradually declining. Scientists are now sounding the alarm — and urging Australia's senate to declare the iconic, sleepy-eyed marsupials an endangered species.

There are several factors that might be pushing koala bears close to extinction. Topping the list is urbanization and farming, which have destroyed the cuddly creature's natural habitats. For both food and shelter, koalas rely on large eucalyptus trees that grow in only specific places.

No Silicon Valley venture capitalist has invested in it.

Government subsidies for it are skimpy, at best.

It lacks clout in Washington.

And it's been around forever.

Yet it's by far the most popular form of renewable energy used at home, dwarfing the impact of rooftop olar panels and appealing not just to well-to-do greens but to poor people, African-Americans and, we'd bet, climate change deniers, too.

In low-lying Florida, where 95 percent of the population lives within 35 miles of its 1,200 miles of coastline, a swelling of the tides could cause serious problems. So what is Florida's Department of Environmental Protection doing about dealing with climate change?

"DEP is not pursuing any programs or projects regarding climate change," an agency spokeswoman said in an email to the Times earlier this month.

Four hundred scientists gathered in Copenhagen recently to talk about the warming temperatures in the Arctic. Their conclusion: The Arctic's glaciers are melting faster than anyone expected due to man-made climate change.

As a result, the world's sea level will rise faster than previously projected, rising at least two feet 11 inches and perhaps as high as five feet three inches by 2100, they said.

AlterNet recently received a document through a tip that appears to be right out of the playbook of an oil company. The document lays out the strategy for their field agents to convince landowners to give up drilling rights -- despite how risky this may be for the landowners.

They're working on verifying its authenticity, but wanted to give their readers a chance to take a look and make your own assessment. They're not sure yet if this did indeed come from a gas company, nor which one, but if so, the information sure is damning, and is obviously designed to mislead homeowners as to what they are being offered.

"We're not asking for a lot and now they're taking it all away. In a million years, I never would have thought that people could do this and get away with it."

Cassie Spencer returned home one day and found her 5 year old daughter playing in the midst of little red flags sprinkled around her lawn like land mine markers in a war zone. The family property had become a methane field.

The cause: two Chesapeake gas wells 3,000 feet away that she never saw and doesn't profit from, had somehow been sending methane onto her property,into her water, and onto her neighbors' properties in Wyalusing, Pennsylvania.

Testing by the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) traced the methane to the Chesapeake wells but the company has denied responsibility.

Scientists from Queen's and Carleton universities head a national multidisciplinary research team that has uncovered startling new evidence of the destructive impact of global climate change on North America's largest Arctic delta

Increases in the Navicula salinarum species at the time of the storm surge show that the lake went from a fresh to a saline-water system. (Highly magnified image: more than 3,000 would fit on the head of a pin.) ------>
[Credit: Joshua Thienpont, Queen's University ]

>B>When they poison your water, destroy your community and call you liars, you fight back.

Julie and Craig Sautner just got back from the Rally for a Statewide Gas Drilling Ban in New York at the Capitol in Albany on Monday May 2nd and have been traveling to numerous anti-fracking events, forums and fund-raisers since they have been living with the consequences of gas drilling for three years. I think of them as messengers and American heroes, Julie and Craig Sautner of Dimock, Pennsylvania who live on Carter Road and are among one of 14 families there that have lost their water.

A historic new ordinance bans natural gas drilling while elevating community decision making and the rights of nature over the "rights" associated with corporate personhood.

Faced with the potential for drilling—and the controversial new practice known as "fracking" or hydraulic fracturing—within city limits, the Pittsburgh City Council unanimously said "no." Fracking means injecting water laced with sand and toxic chemicals underground to create deep ground explosions that release the gas. It's a technique first tried in Texas, and which is now being used in Pennsylvania, where the Marcellus Shale geological formation, a source of natural gas, is buried over a mile down. The Marcellus Shale stretches from New York, through Pennsylvania, into Ohio and West Virginia.

The new Tea Party Republicans in the House of Representatives decry the "fact" that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) continues to promulgate "job-killing regulations" for made-up non-problems.

And Democrats in the Congress – not to mention the Administration – are eager to talk about "win-win" policies that will produce "clean energy jobs" and protect Americans from the evils of imported oil and gas.

Neither side seems willing to admit that environmental regulations bring both good news – a cleaner environment – and bad news – costs of compliance that affect not only businesses but consumers as well.

Andrew J. Hoffman, the Holcim professor of sustainable enterprise at the University of Michigan, has spent the last year or so applying his tools as a social scientist to researching the cultural and social underpinnings of the backlash against climate change science.

Scientists have revealed that fossilized mollusks from some 3.5 million years ago hold clues that can predict global climate change of the future. UCLA geoscientists and colleagues have been able to construct an ancient climate record from fossils about the long-term effects of Earth's current levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

These ancient fossils, harvested from deep within the Arctic Circle, may have once lived in an environment in which the polar ice cap melted completely during the summer months.

Inupiat Eskimo villagers in the Chukchi Sea village of Kivalina, Alaska rely on wild animals to survive, but a recent arrival associated with climate warming is causing health concerns.

Beavers are among the unwelcome changes associated with climate change, said Michael Brubaker, lead author of reports documenting how two northwest villages have been affected. The appearance of North America's largest rodent was a signal that a traditional water source had changed.

Warming is rotting the sea ice that villagers use to hunt marine mammals, thawing ice cellars used to store food, disrupting utilities and interrupting the rhythms of life that have sustained Arctic communities for centuries.

As the world collectively holds its breath to see how the Fukushima crisis plays out (the quote of the day has got to be: "The worst-case scenario doesn't bear mentioning and the best-case scenario keeps getting worse...") there's a positive story which is not yet being reported.

Despite assertions by its detractors that wind energy would not survive an earthquake or tsunami the Japanese wind industry is still functioning and helping to keep the lights on during the Fuksuhima crisis.

The collision between natural hazards and human society and economy is what creates a disaster.

This century, barely out of the box, is already flush with mega-disasters: Hurricane Katrina, Haiti's earthquake, the 2004 Boxing Day earthquake, the BP oil spill, Cyclone Nargis and the Sichuan earthquake in 2008, and now Japan's earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdowns.

Apart from industrial screw-ups like the BP oil spill and Hungary's "red sludge tsunami," these events are classified as natural disasters, which is a misleading term. The adjective "natural" should remind us that earthquakes, wildfires, hurricanes and tsunamis are part of a healthy planetary process. Hurricanes and fires in particular play an important role in ecological renewal. It is the collision between a natural hazard and human society and economy that creates the disaster.

Truthfully, we should probably cover the relationship between food and climate change more, as climate change is a leading driver of a potential (likely) food crisis worse than anything we've seen before.

But rather than only dwell on the potential causes of this crisis and leave everyone feeling hopeless and extremely depressed (which will probably make you run for some unhealthy, sugary food), I think we need to go one step beyond that and focus on some of the key solutions from time to time as well. Going organic and eating vegetarian or vegan are actually two important solutions to global climate change.

Inspectors from all over the world are trying to figure out how dangerous the Japan nuclear situation actually is. It can't be good: hydrogen explosions, fuel rods exposed, reactors overheating, radioactive vapor being released into the atmosphere.

The director of the International Atomic Energy Agency said today the situation at the Fukushima Daiichi power plants is unlikely to become another Chernobyl. Really? Why is my BS detector on red alert? And what happens if a series of major aftershocks rock that region?

France's nuclear watchdog today said the situation at Fukushima is worse than Three Mile Island, the 1979 meltdown at a plant in central Pennsylvania. That was the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history so far.

All 31 Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee declined on Tuesday to vote in favor of a series of amendments acknowledging the scientific consensus around climate change.

The committee passed the measure, but voted down the amendments, with 30 of the 31 Republicans voting against them. Democrats unanimously voted in favor of the amendments.

Republicans, who have strongly opposed Obama administration efforts to regulate greenhouse gasses, have been pushing to strip the EPA of its regulatory power. The party blocked Democratic efforts last year to pass climate change legislation.

Apparently Scientific findings are not important in Climate Change legislation.

(?!)

The operating reactors at Fukushima Daiichi power station automatically shut down during the earthquake. But after subsequent cooling failures, two of them went into partial meltdown.

In 1979, the cooling system failed at the Three Mile Island plant, causing a partial meltdown of the reactor core. The reactor vessel was not breached. In Chemobyl in 1986 a poorly designed test of the cooling system caused a huge power spike; the reactor exploded. There was no containment vessel, so radioactive gases and material were spewed into the atmosphere.

Republicans in Congress may be focused on denying climate change and dismantling the EPA's authority to fight it, but the military apparently doesn't want to waste time denying reality. A new report commissioned by the U.S. Navy and conducted by the National Research Council suggests that the Navy should get started right away in preparing for the effects of climate change.

Climate hearing appears to fail to sway Republicans before Thursday's vote on curbing Obama's green ambitions

Democrats have attempted to get Republicans to confront the science on climate change, in an effort to halt moves to block regulation of greenhouse gas pollution. But it's not clear that the appeal to reason worked.

In an increasingly contentious hearing, Republicans insisted that science on climate change was "not settled" or accused world-recognised experts who had been called to testify of holding "elitist and arrogant views".

American skepticism about whether the world's weather is changing depends partly on wording. More believe in "climate change" than "global warming," a new study by the University of Michigan shows.

Three of four people, or 74%, thought the problem was real when it was referred to as climate change, while 68% thought it was real when it was called global warming, according to questions posed by U-M psychologists on a RAND-conducted survey of 2,267 U.S. adults..

(Reuters) - This winter's heavy snowfalls and other extreme storms could well be related to increased moisture in the air due to global climate change, a panel of scientists said on Tuesday.

As the planet warms up, more water from the oceans is evaporated into the atmosphere, said Todd Sanford, a climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. At the same time, because the atmosphere is warmer, it can hold onto more of the moisture that it takes in.

Intense storms are often the result when the atmosphere reaches its saturation point, Sanford said.

South Africa is the world's 13th biggest emitter of greenhouse gases that are causing human-induced global climate change, Parliament's portfolio committee on water and environmental affairs has heard.

Dr Peter Johnston, of UCT's Climate Analysis Group, told the committee this week that China had recently overtaken the US as the world leader in greenhouse gas emissions

Baby bottlenose dolphins are washing up dead in record numbers on the shores of Alabama and Mississippi, alarming scientists and a federal agency charged with monitoring the health of the Gulf of Mexico.

Moby Solangi, the executive director of the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies (IMMS) in Gulfport, Mississippi, said Thursday he's never seen such high death numbers.

"I've worked with marine mammals for 30 years, and this is the first time we've seen such a high number of calves," he said. "It's alarming."

A report from the Commerce Department's inspector general is the latest to exonerate climate scientists whose communications with the Climate Research Unit at England's University of East Anglia were stolen and made public in 2009.

The department reviewed all 1,073 leaked emails, but focused on 289 that involved National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists.

Climate change skeptics have sought to characterize some of the emails as indicating scientists failed to follow proper procedures or altered data. Investigations in both England and by the National Research Council and Pennsylvania State University in the United States have also concluded that there was no indication of scientific impropriety.

By JUSTIN GILLIS - NY Times

After reporting a few months ago on the rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, I got e-mails from readers asking where they could find more information about the basics of climate science. My interlocutors even included climate-change contrarians who seemed open to the possibility that they might be wrong. I found myself struggling with the question of where to send them.

The Web is chockablock with blog posts and other material about climate change, of course, but picking your way through that to the actual science, or even to reliable write-ups on what the science means, is no easy task.

The House of Representatives budget battle has produced a few shots at the ethanol industry, including "Sullivan of Oklahoma Amendment No. 94," a proposal to prevent the EPA from taking steps to encourage the sale of gasoline with higher ethanol content for use in newer cars. The amendment succeeded, 285-136 (12 not voting), and the resulting map of yeas and nays is so predictable, unsurprising, and boring that even as I am posting it I wonder why I bother.

Anyway, here is the map of the vote (blue is a vote opposing ethanol, red a vote favoring ethanol), followed by a USDA map showing corn production and ethanol plants:

Carbon dioxide is the elephant in the room for any discussion of how to stem global warming. But a new report suggests that tackling emissions of two other short-lasting pollutants—methane and the black component of soot—could slow expected warming by a full 0.5˚C beyond what targeting CO2 alone could accomplish by 2070.

WASHINGTON – Extreme rainstorms and snowfalls have grown substantially stronger, two studies suggest, with scientists for the first time finding the telltale fingerprints of man-made global warming on downpours that often cause deadly flooding.

Two studies in Wednesday's issue of the journal Nature link heavy rains to increases in greenhouse gases more than ever before.

One group of researchers looked at the strongest rain and snow events of each year from 1951 to 1999 in the Northern Hemisphere and found that the more recent storms were 7 percent wetter. That may not sound like much, but it adds up to be a substantial increase, said the report from a team of researchers from Canada and Scotland.

It's not the heat that might get us with climate change—it's the humidity, so to speak.

The risk of sea level rise due to melting land ice is one of the most recognized—if controversial and hard to predict—threats posed by global warming. Other potential impacts from global warming include increasingly powerful storms and floods of the sort that have ravaged Australia this past month and a half (while recognizing scientists can't yet fingerprint individual weather events as caused by warming).

Posted February 10, 2011 by Scott Anderson -theenergycollective

Really?

What counts as "clean"? How do we get there? Is the goal feasible?

President Obama threw down an ambitious national goal in his second State of the Union Address: by 2035, 80% of America's electricity will come from "clean" energy sources, double the share we now derive from clean sources.

Dr Nathan Lewis, a distinguished professor of chemistry at CalTech and direct of the new, Department of Energy-funded Fuels from Sunlight Energy Innovation Hub (which also got a shout-out in the President's SOTU) appeared on NPR/WBUR's "On Point" radio yesterday, to discuss the President's clean energy objectives, the energy innovation challenges that must be overcome to reach that goal, and the economic and environmental consequences at stake.
[Link for On Point in comment #1]

Researchers from Wageningen University in the Netherlands say that insects produce far less greenhouse gases than cattle and pigs do, and would thus be a viable alternative to eating meat. Published in the journal PLoS ONE, the study found that pigs, for instance, produce up to one hundred times more greenhouse gases than the equivalent weight of mealworms.

Researchers compared the greenhouse gas emissions of mealworms, crickets, locusts and pigs. Particularly with methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), the insects produced far lower emissions than pigs did overall. Ammonia emissions, which can pollute groundwater supplies, were also lower among insects compared to cattle.

First, give U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston, credit for having the backbone to be an occasional guest on Real Time, Bill Maher's weekly program on HBO that often knocks the GOP.

On the Jan.28th episode, Kingston, as he often does, joined a panel of pundits, politicians and celebrities to discuss current events. The topic that evening was climate change. (Kingston's a skeptic.) For some reason, talk moved to evolution, which the congressman revealed he also thinks is a bunch of hooey. (Delicious quote: "I don't believe a creature crawled out of the sea and became a human being one day." When it's explained like that, I kind of wish one did, as it'd make a great ABC Family series.)

See the article for an unedited video of the discussion.

The public's belief in global warming as a man-made danger has weathered the storm of climate controversies and cold weather intact, according to a Guardian/ICM opinion poll published Jan. 31, 2011

Asked if climate change was a current or imminent threat, 83% of Britons agreed, with just 14% saying global warming poses no threat. Compared with August 2009, when the same question was asked, opinion remained steady despite a series of events in the intervening 18 months that might have made people less certain about the perils of climate change. Emails between climate researchers that were released online in November 2009 had led to unfounded suggestions that the scientific basis for global warming was flawed. World leaders also failed to agree to a global deal to combat warming and a mistake over the melting of Himalayan glaciers was handled badly by the UN's science panel.

More than 11,000 solar panels will be installed at two Perdue facilities this summer, resulting in one of the largest commercially-owned solar power systems in the eastern United States.

By September 2011, Standard Solar Inc. of Rockville, Md. will install the ground-mounted solar panels, covering the equivalent of approximately 10 football fields, on Perdue property. Almost half will be at the Perdue corporate offices in Salisbury and will be visible to passers-by on westbound U.S. Route 50. The others will be at the company's feed mill in Bridgeville, Del.

Steve Schwalb, Perdue's Vice President of Environmental Sustainability, estimates the clean electricity from the solar panels will reduce Perdue's carbon footprint by 3,000 tons per year, the equivalent of eliminating greenhouse gas emissions from 300,000 gallons of gasoline per year, or nearly 4.5 million gallons through the life of a 15-year agreement with Washington Gas Energy Services, Inc. (WGES).

Craig D. Allen, a research ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

This year 503 members have been awarded this peer-nominated honor by AAAS because of their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications. New Fellows for 2010 were announced today in the journal Science and will be formally recognized during the 2011 AAAS Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., in February.

Allen was elected as an AAAS Fellow, "for outstanding leadership in the synthesis of global forest responses to climate change, built from worldwide collaboration and a deep understanding of the environmental history of the southwestern United States."

The U.S. government has decided to take a step back on wave/tidal energy development.

Wave/Tidal energy has been considered one of the most promising renewable energy sectors. Europe, especially the United Kingdom, is investing in this quick advancing technology which experts say is powerhouse energy source. It is estimated that if only 0.2% of the energy of the ocean was harnessed it would be enough to power the entire world.

In its proposed budget to congress, the Obama administration has requested a 25% cut to wave energy's research and development budget. This cut will take $10 million of funding from this renewable energy sector. The administration, on the other hand is seeking to increase the budgets for solar, wind, and geothermal energy.

After first day in Congress, Republicans have outlined three bills aimed at limiting power of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Republicans have wasted no time in using their new majority in Congress to try to block the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to act on climate change. In their first full day in the new Congress, Republicans outlined three different bills – encapsulating three different strategies – aimed at limiting the powers of the EPA. It also shut down a house committee that had tackled energy and climate issues.

The first, introduced by Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, would declare that greenhouse gas emissions are not subject to the Clean Air Act - even though supreme court ruled in 2007 that they are.

The second, introduced by Ted Poe of Texas, would block funding to any government agency associated with cap-and-trade.

The third, introduced by Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, is relatively modest, seeking a two-year delay in EPA regulation of carbon dioxide and methane emissions.

Four days after an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 red-winged blackbirds fell from the sky in Beebe, Ark., about 500 more dead birds were found lying lifeless on a quarter-mile-long stretch of highway in Pointe Coupee Parish in Louisiana.

The birds, red-winged blackbirds and starlings, were discovered on Monday, Baton Rouge's The Advocate reported. Biologists will send some of the birds to labs in Georgia and Wisconsin to conduct necropsies and tests to determine the cause of death.

After examining the birds found in Arkansas, state officials concluded that they had died as a result of blunt trauma, possibly caused by flying into buildings after being startled by New Year's fireworks.

The thousands of birds that fell from the sky just before midnight New Year's Eve in Arkansas likely died from massive trauma, according to a preliminary report released Monday.

The birds, most of which were dead when they were found, were red-winged blackbirds and starlings. They were found within a one-mile area of Beebe, about 40 miles northeast of Little Rock, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission said.

Keith Stephens, a spokesman for the commission, said the birds showed evidence of trauma in the breast tissue, with blood clots in the body cavity and a lot of internal bleeding. All major organs were normal.

BEEBE, Ark. - The carcasses of some of the nearly 2,000 red-winged blackbirds that inexplicably fell on an Arkansas town on New Year's Eve night will be sent for testing to determine the cause of death.

The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission says the state Livestock and Poultry Commission Lab and the National Wildlife Health Center Lab in Madison, Wisconsin, will examine the dead birds starting Monday.

There have also been nearly 500 measurable earthquakes recorded since Sept. 2010 in nearby Guy, Arkansas

See comment #1 for links to related stories

BEEBE, Ark. -- Wildlife officials are trying to determine what caused more than 1,000 blackbirds to die and fall from the sky over an Arkansas town.

The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission said Saturday that it began receiving reports about the dead birds about 11:30 p.m. the previous night. The birds fell over a 1-mile area of Beebe, and an aerial survey indicated that no other dead birds were found outside of that area.

The specialists of the authoritative, Washington-based IFPRI said they fed 15 scenarios of population and income growth into supercomputer models of climate and found that "climate change worsens future human well-being, especially among the world's poorest people."

The study, issued here at the annual U.N. climate conference, said prices will be driven up by a combination of factors: a slowdown in productivity in some places caused by warming and shifting rain patterns, and an increase in demand because of population and income growth.

Change apparently already is under way. Returning from northern India, agricultural scientist Andrew Jarvis said wheat farmers there were finding warming was maturing their crops too quickly.

House Republicans plan to eliminate a global warming committee created by Democrats despite an attempt by the panel's top Republican to preserve it.

A spokesman for Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who created the panel three years ago to highlight climate change issues, called the decision "very disappointing."

The panel's chairman, Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., was an architect of so-called cap-and-trade legislation to limit carbon emissions.

Republicans denounced it as a job-killing energy tax and used it as a cudgel against Democratic candidates in elections that cost them control of the House.

"I call on my fellow Republicans to open their minds to rethinking what has largely become our party's line: denying that climate change and global warming are occurring and that they are largely due to human activities."

Why do so many Republican senators and representatives think they are right and the world's top scientific academies and scientists are wrong? I would like to be able to chalk it up to lack of information or misinformation.

I can understand arguments over proposed policy approaches to climate change. I served in Congress for 24 years. I know these are legitimate areas for debate. What I find incomprehensible is the dogged determination by some to discredit distinguished scientists and their findings.
[BY: Sherwood Boehlert]
Former Republican U.S. Congressman from New York

One reason why the energy business is so fascinating is that smart, thoughtful and well-meaning people can look at the same facts and come to dramatically different conclusions.

Two examples crossed my (Marc Gunther) desk this week: the cover story in the new issue of The Atlantic and a report out today from DB Climate Change Advisors.

In The Atlantic, James Fallows--one of my favorite journalists, who's worth reading on a wide range of topics--argues that clean coal offers the best hope of dealing with the threat of climate change:

To environmentalists, "clean coal" is an insulting oxymoron. But for now, the only way to meet the world's energy needs, and to arrest climate change before it produces irreversible cataclysm, is to use coal—dirty, sooty, toxic coal—in more-sustainable ways. The good news is that new technologies are making this possible.

Then read Natural Gas and Renewables: A Secure Low Carbon Future Energy Plan for the United States, available here for download. This incredibly detailed look at the U.S. energy market for the next 15 years reaches a surprising conclusion: that the use of natural gas, which is now in abundant supply, combined with solar and wind, can cut coal's share of the U.S. electricity market from a little under 50% to less than 25% by 2030.

What's more, it says, very little in the way of new policy--other than current EPA regulation of health pollutants (not GHG emissions) from coal plants--would be need to drive the change.

Here's the introduction to the study.............

One of the most pronounced effects of climate change has been melting of masses of ice around the world. Glaciers and ice sheets are large, slow-moving assemblages of ice that cover about 10% of the world's land area and exist on every continent except Australia. They are the world's largest reservoir of fresh water, holding approximately 75%.

One of the best-documented examples of glacial retreat has been on Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa. It is the tallest peak on the continent, and so, despite being located in the tropics, it is high enough so that glacial ice has been present for at least many centuries. However, over the past century, the volume of Mount Kilimanjaro's glacial ice has decreased by about 80%. If this rate of loss continues, its glaciers will likely disappear within the next decade. Similar glacial meltbacks are occurring in Alaska, the Himalayas, and the Andes

"......what do you really think we should do about "climate change" ?"

I think we need to get a majority of the people that are being affected by the changes (which is everybody), to agree that there are changes. Then, I think what we should do is ...... something!

The affects the changes are having on the earth are very complex, making the question of what we should do about them very complex.

The melting of the polar caps is not making the ocean levels rise (ie; an ice cube in a glass displaces more water frozen than it does when melted), but it is not just the polar caps that are melting, the ice glaciers, caps and ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica plus the Himalayas, the Rockies and the Andes that are also melting, causing sea levels to rise. It is also changing the salinity of the oceans, which in addition to having an affect on sea life, is having an affect on the oceans currents, for instance the Gulf Stream, which brings moderate temperatures to the northern hemispheres.

The Gulf Stream has already slowed down, causing colder temperatures in the north, if (when, actually) the GS stops completely, the Northern Hemisphere will get very cold, as in very, very cold. (that's where all that talk of a new ice age comes from).

Studies are indicating that main affect the melting of the Polar Caps is having, is the change the caps are having on the pressure they exert on the earths plates. As the caps melt the pressure is lessened, causing earthquakes to be more frequent, and to occur in places they have never occurred in the past (like Kansas). It is also causing the same phenomenon with volcanoes (ie; the recent Eyjafjallajokull eruption in Iceland.)

Climate change is also causing more widespread and more severe drought than in the past, like in China, Russia, Africa, South America, and the United States. Drought affects water supply and it affects food supply, which causes mass migrations, which in turn causes food and water supply shortages in other places due to increased population of those places.

So, what do I think we should do about the problem? As I said, first we have to recognize we have a problem, only then will any solutions have any meaning. And I certainly don't know what those solutions will be, those answers will have to come from folks like the boys and girls that are meeting in Kiribati this week.

ABOUT 40 officials from around the world will fly to the tiny atoll nation of Kiribati this week, to take a look at the immediate impact climate change is having on the Pacific nation.

Representatives from the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, along with AusAid senior officials, will join delegates from 19 nations including New Zealand, the US, Canada, the UK, Cuba, the European Union and various Asian countries, at a three-day talkfest in the nation's capital Tarawa.

Kiribati is a collection of atolls scattered around the central Pacific, none more than three metres above the average sea level.

Australia and the United States have forged a pact to fight climate change by agreeing on a new solar research collaboration.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced the deal at a climate change event in Melbourne attended by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Ms Clinton is in Melbourne for tomorrow's AUSMIN talks.

See Hilary at work [video]

The good news: Californians voted down a proposition to junk its global warming laws.

The bad news: U.S. lawmakers who supported global warming measures were decimated in the midterm elections.

So where does that leave Ontario, which has partnered with California in a climate change initiative?

Screwed!

And what does Canada do next, after doing nothing in recent years while waiting for Washington to take the lead?

Guess.

Scientists say evidence from around the globe clearly shows that human activity is changing the climate.
Conservative Republican candidates in U.S. Senate races nationwide, however, don't agree.

It's a point that scores well with tea party activists, but contradicts what NASA, the National Academy of Sciences and other prominent science organizations have been telling readers on their websites.

Victories by these candidates Tuesday could make Senate action on reducing emissions of greenhouse gases — already stalled — even more unlikely to restart next year.

2010 has been a bad year for climate, and an even worse year for climate policy. But for that very reason, it's been a good year for geoengineering—the notion that humans can deliberately manipulate the climate and cool the earth.

David Keith, a leading scholar of geoengineering who administers Gates' $4.6 million grant with with Stanford climate scientist Ken Caldeira, also spoke at Brainstorm Green. So I was pleased to have a chance to reconnect with him at the excellent annual conference run by the Society of Environmental Journalists at the University of Montana in Missoula. I expected him to be pleased by the momentum gathering behind geoengineering lately, but I was wrong.

About the Author;
Marc Gunther is a contributing editor at FORTUNE magazine who writes and speaks about business and sustainability.

There is an article in the October 12, 2010 issue of the New York Times titled Offshore Wind Power Line Wins Praise, and Backing. In that article, Matthew Wald describes an announcement by by Google and a New York financial firm named Good Energies indicating plans to build an undersea cable along the eastern seaboard of the United States.

The project is getting enthusiastic responses from Jon Wellinghoff, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and Melinda Pierce, the deputy director for national campaigns for the Sierra Club.

The U.S. offshore wind industry got a boost last week when Interior Secretary Ken Salazar signed the lease for Cape Wind. Today brings word of a big new project that also could help jump-start the industry–a 350-mile offshore transmission line, running about 10 to 15 miles off the Atlantic coast from New Jersey to Virginia.

The Atlantic Wind Connection, as it's being called, will grab attention because it has backing from Google. Google previously invested in North Dakota wind farms and backed a startup called Makani Power that is developing airborne wind turbines.

How the military's shift to renewable fuel could lower the entire nation's energy costs.

There are two main motives for the military's push, neither having anything to do with green consciousness.

The U.S. military is rushing to deploy solar-energy equipment on the battlefields of Afghanistan, according to Elizabeth Rosenthal's story in the Oct. 5 New York Times, and, though the article doesn't say so, this could prove to be a huge boon—even a turning point—for the fate of renewable energy here at home.

October 11, 2010 by RyanAvent - Energy Collective

The Republican party is almost unique among major political parties across the world in its overwhelming skepticism of the science of global warming. As an American living in America, I counted this as one of the pieces of knowledge I held in my possession, but not one which I tended to reflect on and fully appreciate.

But one needn't spend much time in the main offices of one of the world's top weeklies to understand the real significance of this state of affairs. It poses an enormous problem to the leaders of the world's other major powers, and there is almost nothing they can do about it.

Four environmental advocacy groups said Thursday that they have found widespread fraud in the monitoring of water-pollution discharge by Kentucky's two largest strip-mine operators.
Four advocacy groups have filed a notice of intent to sue International Coal Group of Knott County and Hazard and Frasure Creek Mining for more than 20,000 violations of the federal Clean Water Act over two years.

The groups, in reviewing forms filed from 2008 and 2009, said they found numerous instances of forms signed and dated by supervisors before testing was conducted, forms copied and pasted from one quarter to the next, and testing dates scratched out and rewritten to appear compliant.

Each of the 20,000 violations could net a minimum penalty of $37,500, totalling about $740 million. Any award from a lawsuit would go to the U.S. Treasury.

Organism is one of the longest living life forms.

A little-known marine organism on Canada's East Coast contains what a team of U.S. and Canadian scientists believes is a rich, untapped archive of temperature data, which could vastly improve the world's understanding of climate change.

Corallines -- specifically Clathromorphum compactum -- are a pinkish, coral-like plant that cover parts of the rocky bottom of the coastal sections of the Labrador Sea.

The failure to reach a meaningful resolution on global climate change talks in Copenhagen last December left many advocates of climate action badly disheartened.>/b>

One of the notable global holdouts, the United States, is quietly poised to act. Efforts to enact a "cap-and-trade" policy in Congress to control greenhouse gas emissions have thus far failed. But come January, an alternative system is set to begin: The Environmental Protection Agency, a U.S. government body, is due to start regulating greenhouse gas emissions.

President Barack Obama is pledging to throw his full weight next year behind efforts to overhaul the nation's energy and climate change policies, though he concedes such moves might need to happen "in chunks."

In an interview published Tuesday by Rolling Stone magazine, Obama lamented how the economic crisis contributed to this year's Senate stalemate over a comprehensive bill to cap carbon dioxide emissions and establish renewable power standards.