Posts tagged with “Climate Change” (All posts)

  • Note: As a part of the ENTS climate change theme year, senior Becky Dernbach will be reporting on her experiences and observations from the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Bali. Look for regular posts from Becky over the next two weeks.

    Taipei is my new favorite airport in which to have a layover. So far I have discovered a garden of purple Taiwanese flowers, a modern art exhibit, free Internet, three prayer rooms for different religions, a bamboo hut honoring one of the Architecture Styles of Indigenous Peoples of Taiwan, and an entire gate decorated with a Hello Kitty theme, complete with pink and white Hello Kitty chairs and a large TV screening area with colorful bleacher-style seats. Rather than Buy Stuff and Buy More Stuff, the theme of most American airports, the message here seems to be Buy Stuff but also Enjoy Life, a theme I appreciate after traveling for 35 hours including a claustrophobic overseas thirteen-hour middle-seat flight.

    Continue by clicking the “read more” link below

  • The Saudi Arabia of Renewable Energy

    Via Environmental News Network,

    Yesterday a group of Midwest governors including Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty agreed to a plan that would support renewable energy and cut greenhouse gases in the region.

    A broad agreement was reached to support a region-wide renewable energy standard of 30% by 2030 and an increase in the use of biofuels in the region.

    An additional accord, agreed upon by Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Kansas, and Manitoba, will set up a regional carbon trading system by 2010, although the group did not set any greenhouse gas reduction targets.

    The governors are hopeful about the prospects for their plan. Iowa Governor Chet Culver said the agreement is “a great opportunity for our country to come together and put partisan politics aside, and become an international leader on this issue.” Particularly hopeful about the prospects for wind production in the Midwest, Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle said the region could “become the Saudi Arabia of renewable energy.”

    The agreement is the third of its kind among U.S. regions. Groups of Western states and Northeastern states have made similar moves in the absence of an overarching federal policy.

  • Where is Your Power Coming From?

    Catering to GIS and data geeks, the Center for Global Development has a new web-based tool for monitoring GHG emissions from powerplants across the world. Carbon Monitoring for Action (CARMA) reveals the carbon emissions of more than 50,000 power plants and 4,000 power companies in every country on Earth.

    To me, this has some really cool features. Embarrassingly, I had no idea where the most of the local power plants were located. Now, not only do I know where they are, but also how many megawatts they produce and how many tons of carbon dioxide they emit.

    It would be really cool if they continue to develop this tool and would begin to indicate power sources and also show pictures of the plants (GIS tagged photos anyone?).

    Update: Here’s why there’s little information on power sources: “Proprietary licensing agreements with some of our data suppliers prevent us from revealing the fuel sources (coal, gas, nuclear, etc.) of individual plants. Whenever possible, we reveal this information at the level of companies and geographic regions, although we group coal, oil, and natural gas into a “Fossil” category and combine various renewable technologies under a single heading (see the Glossary for details).”

  • Cyclone Sidr keeps gaining strength

    Via Chris Mooney, Cyclone Sidr, a category 4 storm, is heading for Bangladesh, one of the most vulnerable sites in the world for a large storm. The storm is still gaining strength.

    Will anyone take notice? Apparently, CNN.com won’t so far.

  • Two recent Op-eds in two of our nation’s leading papers, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, have intensified discussions about geo-engineering as a potential solution to global warming. Fred Ickle and Lowell Wood (subscription required) lambaste all parties involved in developing an international treaty on global warming because they have focused only on mitigation and have intentionally ignored “climate geo-engineering”. Ken Caldeira took a different stance arguing that while we should continue to try to apply regulation with the goal of transitioning to a new, clean energy system, we should also set aside 1% of research funding to large-scale techno-fixes just in case we’re unable to reduce emissions enough to limit the impacts of climate change.

    While I agree with Caldeira that we shouldn’t remove these options from the table, it’s important to recognize that every hypothesized solution so far has the potential of creating new problems. Do we really want to solve one problem while creating a catastrophe of a different variety?

    Some of the potential solutions I’ve seen include James Lovelock and Chris Ripley’s recent letter to the editor in Nature who advocate for the use of pipes “to increase the mixing of nutrient below the thermocline with the relatively barren waters at the ocean surface.”


    Continue by clicking the “read more” link below

  • Our friends over at Williams had their take on this, and I wanted to add a few more points about the differences between Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) and Offsets.

    First of all, RECs and offsets are entirely different environmental commodities. There are many misconceptions about RECs and offsets, and while some will say that it is because vendors have been misleading, I think it is more likely due to the fact that they are both somewhat abstract concepts to consumers and it does require a fair amount of research to be able to understand the differences between them.

    A REC, also referred to as a green tag, represensts the environmental benefits of one megawatt-hour of electricity generated by a renewable sources such as wind, solar, or small-scale hydropower. Another commonly cited benefit of RECs is that the money will incentivize the production of renewable energy resource.

    As many of our readers probably know, with out turbine, Carleton’s renewable energy credits were sold to Xcel and served as a monetary incentive to construct our wind turbine. Though I was not at Carleton when talks about the turbine were taking place, it is easy to say that the project might not have been financed if Carleton hadn’t been able to sell the credits.

    Continue by clicking the “read more” link below

  • :60 Seconds to Save the Earth

    I know there are a lot of people trying to go today without using their computers, but I thought I would highlight this Current TV’s :60 Seconds to Save the Earth video contest.

    Some of these are really inspiring, check them out here.

  • Via the AP, important news for the wonks in our audience:

    “Lawmakers took the first step Thursday on a bipartisan global warming bill that would impose mandatory cuts in greenhouse gases from power plants, industrial facilities and transportation.

    Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., pushed the legislation out of his global warming subcommittee by a 4-3 vote, agreeing to a number of changes aimed primarily at garnering the needed majority to advance it.”

    Continue by clicking the “read more” link below

  • Dot Earth added to our blogroll.

    Andrew Revkin has been reporting on the environment for the New York Times since 1995, and just recently started working on a blog titled Dot Earth.

    Dot Earth will be providing information on climate change and sustainability. Revkin explains, “I’ve decided to focus Dot Earth on the broad-brush theme of sustainability for a few reasons. One is that “slow drip” issues are hard to capture and convey through traditional media tools, which are mostly (and appropriately) focused on dramatic events happening now, not eventually momentous trends that hide in plain sight.

    Another is that some of the underlying problems related to humanity’s impact on the environment are largely irreversible. The greenhouse effect appears a lot easier to amplify than to reduce. Extinction is forever (at least for now). Such issues deserve sustained attention.

    Finally, I just have this innate interest in subtle problems, or solutions, that over time can change the world, for better or worse.”

  • This weekend, seven Carleton students representing all four classes will travel to College Park, Maryland for what is shaping up to be the largest youth conference on climate change ever–Power Shift 2007. There are currently over 5,000 students attending from all 50 states and the list of speakers and events is lengthy and still growing. On Saturday and Sunday, students will attend panels and workshops where they will learn about the current status of the climate crisis as well as how to make a difference on a local (specifically on their campuses), national and international level. Then, on Monday, the entire conference will rally at DC and spend a full day lobbying senators and representatives. Examples of available workshops are: Make Your Campus Climate Neutral, Sustainable Design on Campus, and a discussion of case studies on universities from around the country. The panels will include talks on the environmental priorities of the 2008 presidential candidates, briefings on the status of climate change legislation and much more.

    The seven Carleton students were able to obtain funding from the CSA, the ENTS deparment as well as the office of the president and will depart on Friday (11/2) and return on Monday night (11/5). “It was no easy task to raise this money” says one of the organizers, Elizabeth Webb’09 , “but we can guarantee that Carleton’s presence at this conference will be a strong one and all attendees will return with invaluable skills and information about the climate crisis and what to do about it.” Plans for bringing some of the information back onto campus after the conference include a “chili night” that will take place in the winter with the support of the ENTS department to discuss some of the environmental options available to Carleton.