Global Warming

Today is Arbor Day folks so go outside today and plant a tree or bush your one tree you plant or bush you plant may make the difference we need. The national holiday is celebrated every year on the last Friday in April; it is a civic holiday in Nebraska and was founded by Julius Sterling Morton. Each state celebrates its own state holiday. The customary observance is to plant a tree. On the first Arbor Day, April 10, 1872, an estimated one million trees were planted.

The last time Congress passed major environmental laws, acid rain was destroying lakes and forests, polluted rivers were on fire and smog was choking people in some cities.

The fallout from global warming, while subtle now, could eventually be more dire. That prospect has Democrats pushing legislation that rivals in scope the nation's landmark anti-pollution laws.

Lawmakers this coming week begin hearings on an energy and global warming bill that could revolutionize how the country produces and uses energy. It also could reduce, for the first time, the pollution responsible for heating up the planet.

If Congress balks, the Obama administration has signaled a willingness to use decades-old clean air laws to impose tough new regulations for motor vehicles and many industrial plants to limit their release of climate-changing pollution.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday said rising sea levels, increased flooding and more intense heat waves and storms that come with climate change are a threat to public health and safety. The agency predicted that warming will worsen other pollution problems such as smog.

"The EPA concluded that our health and our planet are in danger. Now it is time for Congress to create a clean energy cure," said Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., one of the sponsors of the American Clean Energy and Security Act.

If passed, it would be the first major environmental protection law in almost two decades. In addition to attempting to solve a complex environmental problem associated with global warming, the bill also seeks to wean the nation off foreign oil imports and to create a new clean-energy economy.

"It's a big undertaking," said the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif. Waxman and Markey presented their 648-page bill last month.

From 1969 to 1980, Congress passed more than a dozen environmental bills tackling everything from air and water pollution and garbage, as well as protections for fisheries, marine mammals and endangered species. In 1990, the Clean Air Act was overhauled to address the problem of acid rain created by the sulfur dioxide released from coal-burning power plants.

"We had two decades of extraordinary legislation and almost two decades of nothing," said Richard Lazarus, a Georgetown University law professor and author of "The Making of Environmental Law." "If this one passes, it will certainly be an outburst."

There are many reasons why Congress' chances to succeed in passing global warming legislation are improved this year, but by no means assured.

After President George W. Bush did little about global warming in his two terms, there is "a lot pent up demand" for action on climate, said William Ruckelshaus, the first administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Both the Democratic-controlled Congress and President Barack Obama agree that legislation is needed to limit emissions of greenhouse gases and radically alter the nation's energy sources. They want to pass a bill by the end of the year.

"For the first time ever, we have got the political actors all aligned," said Lazarus. "That is not enough to get a law passed, but that is a huge start. We haven't been close to that before."

Unlike the 1970s, when the first environmental laws passed nearly unanimously, Republicans are opposed. They question whether industry and taxpayers can afford to take on global warming during an economic recession.

Then there is the question whether the public will have the appetite to accept higher energy prices for a benefit that will not be seen for many years. Climate change ranks low on many voters' priority lists.

Every year since 2001 has been among the 10 warmest years on record. Sea ice in the Arctic and glaciers worldwide are melting.

But the problems are not as apparent as they were in the 1970s, or even the early 1990s, when Congress addressed acid rain and depletion of the ozone layer.

"If carbon dioxide were brown, we wouldn't have the same problem," said Gus Speth, who organized the Natural Resources Defense Council in 1970. "But it's a subtle issue. ... The problems are chronic not acute, and it is largely invisible to people unless they're reading the newspaper or checking the glaciers or going to the South Pole."

In 1969, oil and debris in the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland burst into flames, an incident that led to the passage of the Clean Water Act. That same year, a blowout at an offshore oil platform off Santa Barbara, Calif., spilled millions of gallons of oil onto beaches. And long before that, a smog episode in Donora, Pa., in 1948 killed 20, sparking a crusade against air pollution.

"There was so much evidence — sort of smell, touch and feel kind of evidence — that the environment was really in trouble," said Ruckelshaus. "We had real problems, real pollution problems that people could see on the way to work. And there were rivers catching on fire and terrible smog events."

With climate, "you are asking people to worry about their grandchildren or their children," he said. "That is why it will be so tough to get something like this through."

A social science experiment at the University of Rhode Island has had an unanticipated result: Students won't shorten the length of hot showers to help global warming - but they will shower less often.

Officials at the Kingston campus set out to see if they could change student behavior around some of the most common and wasteful energy habits on campus: leaving computers on when not in use, keeping the heat and/or air conditioners on when they leave a room, and taking excessively long showers.

The semester-long behavior modification program is one of the first of its kind on a US college campus.

Overall, it worked. Only 18 percent of students surveyed before the campaign said they turned off computers when not in use; most left them on for an average of 16 hours per day. But after the campaign, which included pledging to reduce energy consumption and posting reminders in dorms, 35 percent turned off the computers.

Meanwhile, the rate of students who turned off their heat and air conditioning when leaving the room increased to 65 percent, from 45 percent, and those who "hibernate" their computer after use went to 75 percent, from 62 percent.

But it was the showering that really took researchers by surprise. Based on an initial survey, URI students took showers that lasted an average of 13 minutes each. After the first semester, shower length remained virtually unchanged, but students reduced the number they took from eight to 6.8 per week.

"Shower length is the most difficult behavior to change; it seems to be ingrained in people as a right," said Scott Finlinson, coordinator of the project for NORESCO, the energy services company hired by the University.

"While men tend to be willing to reduce the length of their showers, women say that they have too much to do in the shower to cut back on the time spent there."

The end result with less frequent showers is still impressive: Students cut back the time they spend under the nozzle by 13 minutes a week.

JUNEAU, Alaska — Global warming conjures images of rising seas that threaten coastal areas. But in Juneau, as almost nowhere else in the world, climate change is having the opposite effect: As the glaciers here melt, the land is rising, causing the sea to retreat.

Morgan DeBoer, a property owner, opened a nine-hole golf course at the mouth of Glacier Bay in 1998, on land that was underwater when his family first settled here 50 years ago.

“The highest tides of the year would come into what is now my driving range area,” Mr. DeBoer said.

Now, with the high-tide line receding even farther, he is contemplating adding another nine holes.

“It just keeps rising,” he said.

The geology is complex, but it boils down to this: Relieved of billions of tons of glacial weight, the land has risen much as a cushion regains its shape after someone gets up from a couch. The land is ascending so fast that the rising seas — a ubiquitous byproduct of global warming — cannot keep pace. As a result, the relative sea level is falling, at a rate “among the highest ever recorded,” according to a 2007 report by a panel of experts convened by Mayor Bruce Botelho of Juneau.

Greenland and a few other places have experienced similar effects from widespread glacial melting that began more than 200 years ago, geologists say. But, they say, the effects are more noticeable in and near Juneau, where most glaciers are retreating 30 feet a year or more.

As a result, the region faces unusual environmental challenges. As the sea level falls relative to the land, water tables fall, too, and streams and wetlands dry out. Land is emerging from the water to replace the lost wetlands, shifting property boundaries and causing people to argue about who owns the acreage and how it should be used. And meltwater carries the sediment scoured long ago by the glaciers to the coast, where it clouds the water and silts up once-navigable channels.

Here in Montana, climate change poses unique challenges. As levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases continue to rise, our state faces a daunting future of increased fire activity, pine beetle infestations, drought and the loss of glaciers. To preserve the landscapes and lifestyles that define us as Montanans, we must act now.

Largely due to our state’s high levels of coal and natural gas production, Montana is one of the highest per capita greenhouse gas emitters in the nation. But while our state is rich in coal, it is also blessed with other assets, including the fifth-greatest wind energy potential in the U.S. For these reasons, Montana has an obligation and an opportunity to reduce its carbon footprint n an opportunity that would simultaneously create much-needed jobs as well as stave off irreversible climate change.

With this in mind, students are calling on government to take action. After traveling to Washington, D.C., to lobby Montana’s congressional delegation, our student group n University of Montana Climate Action Now n returned to Big Sky country to make students’ voices heard at the state level.

On April 23, UMCAN was honored to host Gov. Brian Schweitzer on the UM campus, where he devoted an hour of his schedule to a brief speech and a meeting with UMCAN members.

During the meeting, UMCAN presented a platform that encompasses the essential ways Montana can take action on global warming. We asked Schweitzer to commit to the following:

n a) The scientific community’s recommended “25x20” policy, meaning a 25 percent reduction in statewide greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels by 2020;

n b) A 100 percent renewable energy future, with a goal of no coal, coal to liquid, natural gas or biofuels development; and

n c) A veto of Senate Bill 257, which would have undermined Montana’s Renewable Energy Standard and the incentive to invest in new renewables.

While we appreciate Schweitzer’s ongoing work on climate change, his continued support of “clean” coal leaves us unsatisfied. “Can we walk away from coal?” the governor asked us. “I don’t think we can.”

While UMCAN understands the challenges in shifting away from coal, we do not believe that investing Montana’s time and money in coal-to-liquid and carbon sequestration technologies is responsible, given the inevitable switch to renewables. With strict regulations on carbon emissions forthcoming from Congress, energy sources such as coal and natural gas will rapidly become more costly for producers and consumers alike. The time is now for the governor and the rest of Montana to read the writing on the wall and prepare for a sustainable future.

Schweitzer has the opportunity to become a climate champion. We are waiting to see if he will rise to the challenge.

Whitney Gaskill is a senior in environmental studies and member of UMCAN; Martha Sample is a senior in environmental studies and co-president of UMCAN; Zack Porter is a junior in geography and member of UMCAN. They write from Missoula.

Americans don't like to lose wars—which makes sense, since we have so little practice with it. Of course, a lot depends on how you define just what a war is. There are shooting wars—the kind that test our mettle and our patriotism and our resourcefulness and our courage—and those are the kind at which we excel. But other struggles test those qualities too. What else was the Great Depression or the space race or the construction of the railroads or the eradication of polio but a massive, often frightening challenge that we decided as a culture we ought to rise up and face? If we indulge in a bit of chest-thumping and flag-waving when the job is done, well, we earned it.

We are now faced with a similarly momentous challenge: global warming. The steady deterioration of the very climate of our very planet is becoming a war of the first order, and by any measure, the U.S. is losing. Indeed, if we're fighting at all—and by most accounts, we're not—we're fighting on the wrong side. The U.S. produces nearly a quarter of the world's greenhouse gases each year and has stubbornly made it clear that it doesn't intend to do a whole lot about it. Although 174 nations ratified the admittedly flawed Kyoto accords to reduce carbon levels, the U.S. walked away from them. While even developing China has boosted its mileage standards to 35 m.p.g., the U.S. remains the land of the Hummer. Oh, there are vague promises of manufacturing fuel from switchgrass or powering cars with hydrogen—someday. But for a country that rightly cites patriotism as one of its core values, we're taking a pass on what might be the most patriotic struggle of all. It's hard to imagine a bigger fight than one for the survival of the country's coasts and farms, the health of its people and the stability of its economy—and for those of the world at large as well.

The rub is, if the vast majority of people increasingly agree that climate change is a global emergency, there's far less consensus on how to fix it. Industry offers its plans, which too often would fix little. Environmentalists offer theirs, which too often amount to naive wish lists that could cripple America's growth. But let's assume that those interested parties and others will always be at the table and will always—sensibly—demand that their voices be heard and that their needs be addressed. What would an aggressive, ambitious, effective plan look like—one that would leave us both environmentally safe and economically sound?

President Obama will meet tomorrow at the White House with House Democrats who are struggling to reach consensus on a major energy and global warming bill.

A White House aide said the meeting between Obama and Energy and Commerce Committee Democrats is expected to cover a wide range of issues on the panel's plate, including health care reform and the proposal to set a first-ever mandatory cap on U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

The session comes at a critical juncture for Obama's energy and environmental agenda. Democratic leaders last week postponed plans for a markup because they did not have enough votes to pass the legislation out of subcommittee, and closed-door talks since then with about a dozen conservative and moderate Democrats from districts with strong ties to industry have yet to yield an agreement.

BURLINGTON (AP) – University of Vermont undergraduates have become among the first researchers to apply what is known about global warming in the Northeast directly to questions about Lake Champlain's future.

The students spent a semester synthesizing and analyzing previous research to assess how climate change might affect the lake. No one else has undertaken that task, and for good reason, said Mark Watzin, dean of UVM's School of Environment and Natural Resources.

"There are a lot of people thinking about what climate change might mean to the lake, but the reality is we don't have the luxury of spending several months reviewing the literature and trying to piece together the data," she told the Burlington Free Press. "The (students') holistic perspective is a fantastic contribution."

The students concluded that as the climate warms, the lake is likely to become richer in phosphorus and more susceptible to noxious blue-green algae blooms. Phosphorus is a nutrient that feeds weed and algae growth, and the state has been making expensive efforts to reduce the amount that reaches the lake. Global warming is expected to drive more intense rainstorms, which can lead to more erosion and more phosphorus in the lake.

Thee students believe mass die-offs of alewives may occur more frequently, while potentially toxic mercury content may rise in food fish.

Tom Berry of the Nature Conservancy is working on a similar assessment of the lake. He said he has followed the students' work and plans to make use of it.

"Climate change is a slow-motion disaster," he said. "It's like rust on your car. If you crash your car, you pay attention, but rust creeps up on you."

ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) - The Environmental Protection Agency should not wait for Congress before taking steps to control the gases blamed for global warming, supporters of federal greenhouse-gas regulation said Monday.

The EPA hearing is the first of two public forums on the agency's April finding that concentrations of carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere pose dangers to human health and welfare - and that emissions from new motor vehicles and engines are contributing to the problem.

The proposal could eventually lead to regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, starting with emissions standards for motor vehicles.

"The severity and urgency of the climate change crisis requires that we take all available actions to address the crisis immediately," said Navis Bermudez, speaking on behalf of New York Gov. David A. Paterson. "Therefore we must reduce greenhouse gas emissions now without further delay and without waiting for a perfect solution."

"While we also hope that Congress enacts comprehensive federal climate change legislation, we believe EPA can act now under the existing Clean Air Act without waiting for such legislation," she said.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee planned to begin work later on Monday on legislation that, for the first time, would limit the emissions blamed for global warming from large industrial sources.

The EPA proposal has put pressure on Capitol Hill to take action.

Global warming could cost corn growers in Ohio $50-million-dollars a year according to a new report by Environment Ohio.

At a press conference Thursday morning in Zanesville, officials with the organization said Ohio ranks 8th for highest damage estimates. "Nationwide the damages to America's #1 crop total more than $1.4-billion annually. Ohio expects these costs to grow unless congress and the president take decisive action to re power America with clean energy and reduce global warming pollution" said Katy Kiefer with Environment Ohio.

Scientists expect the temperature increases due to global warming will hurt corn production.

The Environment Ohio group pointed out that transitioning to a clean energy economy will help build the economy. "Clean energy sources including wind turbines and distributed generation such as on-site solar panels, can provide farmers an independent source of electricity or income while reducing global warming pollution. Wind developers , for example, are offering $4-thousand to 8-thousand a year per turbine to farmers that allow them to be installed on their land" Kiefer said.

This spring, the House Energy and Commerce Committee, of which Congressman Zack Space is a member of, will consider a bill answering President Obama's call for comprehensive clean energy and global warming legislation.

The full House is expected to consider the bill this summer.

Wednesday, 8 April 2009, 07:07 CDT

According to the UN Environmental Program, an enormous breakaway piece of Antarctica’s ice shelf could amplify the already significant effects of global warming in the region.

The 40-kilometer (25-mile) ice bridge – which was the Wilkins Ice Shelf’s last bridge to the coast – has now completely broken off and can be seen in satellite images as a free-floating island of ice roughly the size of Jamaica.

Before it starting melting in the early 1990’s, Wilkins Ice Shelf had an area of roughly 16,000 square kilometers or 6,000 square miles. As early as last summer, the ice bridge was its last link to the Charcot and Latady islands.

UNEP officials speculate that the ice bridge may have been protecting the shelf and that the break-off of the ice bridge “may now allow ocean currents to wash away far more of the shelf.”

One of the important functions of the ice shelf has been to deflect sunlight rather than absorb it, thus helping to moderate global temperatures. UNEP officer Christian Lambrechts expressed fears that the broken ice shelf may end-up “contributing to continued and accelerated (global) warming” as more area of the ocean’s surface are exposed to absorb sunlight.

The Antarctic Peninsula has been impacted by increasing global temperatures more intensely than almost anywhere else on the planet.

Global temperatures of have increased by 2.5 Celsius (4.5 Fahrenheit) in the last half century. This represents a six-fold increase over historical global averages for the same length of time.

An ice shelve is a large sheet of ice that floats on the ocean’s surface but remains connected to land on at least one side.

Ice shelves do not raise sea levels, since they displace their own volume’s worth of water as they float on top of the ocean. Researchers fear, however, that the glaciers that caused the shelf to form may now leak directly into the ocean without forming a new shelf.

“Although the Wilkins ice bridge collapse will have no direct consequence on sea level rise, it might have an indirect impact, as the decay of the ice shelf will reduce the stability of the glaciers that are feeding it,” worried Lambrecht.

Since scientists have begun monitoring the effects of global warming, they have observed the loss of 7 major Antarctic ice shelves in just the past 20 years.

Breakaway ice shelves do not usually happen all at once. It is a gradual process where small pieces break-off over time, slowly weakening the remaining shelf until the main shelf itself comes loose from land. The giant pieces of ice then break into continually smaller pieces and eventually melt as they float northwards into warmer waters.

WELLINGTON, April 6 (Xinhua) -- An ice shelf that is wrenching itself away from Antarctica is a symptom of global warming and will have further environmental consequences, according to a New Zealand scientist.

A satellite picture showed that a 40-km-long strip of ice believed to pin the Wilkins Ice Shelf in place has snapped at its narrowest point, off the Antarctic Peninsula.

Professor Tim Naish from the Antarctic Research Center at Victoria University in Wellington said it was the ice sheets behind the ice shelf that concern him and other scientists, Radio New Zealand reported on Monday.

The ice bridge had held a vast Antarctic ice shelf in place for hundreds of years.

Naish said the shelf measures about 14,000 square km and as the ice shelves melt, the ice sheets start sliding faster into the ocean.

Researchers regarded the ice bridge as an important barrier to holding the remnant shelf structure in place.

Scientists said the collapse provides further evidence or rapid change in the region.

The loss of the ice bridge, which was almost 100 km wide in 1950, could allow ocean currents to wash away more of the shelf.

Temperatures on the Antarctic Peninsula have risen by up to about 3 degrees Celsius in the past 50 years, the fastest rate of warming in the Southern Hemisphere.

Nine other shelves have receded or collapsed around the Antarctic Peninsula in the past 50 years.

“Scientists have devised a new way to transform coal into gas for your car using far less energy than the current [Fisher-Tropsche] process,” Wired reports. “The advance makes scaling up the environmentally unfriendly fuel more economical than greener alternatives.”

Now, you might think that inexpensive motor fuel is a good thing, especially in these times of financial peril, fiscal chaos, and high unemployment. In addition, since America is the “Saudi Arabia of coal,” conversion of coal to motor fuel, provided it is economical and market-driven, could enhance U.S. energy security.

So why is this “bad news”? Because coal-derived fuel “could produce twice as much CO2 [carbon dioxide] as traditional petroleum fuels