Green Options

A plethora of corroborative data shows that this year’s sea ice levels in the Arctic are the lowest seen in 800 years.

The new research, published in the journal Climate Dynamics, doesn’t specify a cause or reason for the retreat, but it does note that if sea ice melt continues at this level, it’s likely that the North Pole will be completely ice-free during the summer months within a few decades.

Besides posing threats to structures and landscapes on a local scale, melting permafrost emits carbon dioxide and methane, according to the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), making permafrost a threat on a global scale.

Like millions of Americans, we’re celebrating July 4th, Independence Day.

However, we’re celebrating this national holiday by focusing on the many aspects of our life that, in various ways, have led us to quite a different vision for a sustainable tomorrow – complete with local, renewable energy and lots of delicious meals harvested within ten miles of where we live – if not from our own kitchen garden.  Sometimes we even celebrate July 4th with a rainbow.

Here’s how our Independence Day is different — and yours can be too:

•  Be energy independent by generating all our power with renewable energy systems.
For a vast portion of the United States, there is enough solar and wind energy to completely meet our needs right where we live.  True, adopting renewable energy will require an investment either personally or for your business if you work from home.  But with present Federal tax credits and many state incentives, the time couldn’t be better.  We completely power our Inn Serendipity Bed & Breakfast and Farm with solar electric and wind turbine systems.  In fact, we overproduce renewable energy to the tune of about 4,000 kWhs (kilowatt hours) a year.  We share the surplus with our neighbors.

Mot of the developing countries have refused to accept emission reduction goals but with the proposed financial help from developed nations they can certainly set renewable energy targets for themselves.

Divisions within the EU have led to an agreement which ignores Carbon Dioxide as a pollutant and allows member nations to delay implementation of stricter emission standards.

For the first time, the World Trade Organization (WTO) teamed up with the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) to release a report outlining the relationship between trade and climate change. The report describes the multitude of ways in which climate change and trade intersect.

Today’s post is by Lisa Moore, a climate scientist at EDF.

NOAA recently released a terrific scientific report that explains, in plain English, the current and projected effects of climate change on the U.S. The nonpartisan report, prepared by the 13-agency U.S. Global Change Research Program, tells a grim but important story, clearly and with lots of powerful maps and charts. I encourage you to check it out to see how climate change will affect your area of the country.

Here are some of the “business-as-usual” projections that my colleagues and I find most striking and disturbing:

You think August is hot now?

By the end of this century, we could be in for much more severe summers all across the country (see maps that follow).

• If you live in New Hampshire, summer could feel like it does today in North Carolina (p.107).
• If you live in Michigan, brace yourself for summers that feel like today’s summers in Oklahoma (p 117).
• And if you live in Texas, you now experience 10 to 20 days a year over 100 °F. By the last two decades of this century, look for 100 such days - that’s more than three months (p. 90).

According to a recent survey, more than three quarters of African Americans would back federal policy action on climate change.

Apparently Fox News tele-pundit and GOP cheerleader, Dick Morris, thinks the only way people will consider him relevant is if he tells everyone that he was once an adviser to President Bill Clinton.

Late Friday, the House passed the first legislation solely dedicated to reversing global warming. Now the fate of the Climate Change Bill is in the hands of the Senate, and political pundits are predicting the bill won’t pass. This exact bill might not pass but sooner than later one will and until then they will have several things in common. A climate bill will change how we produce and use electricity. It will change how you travel from point A to point B. It will change how every business operates and how every American lives. Our lives will never be the same. Dramatic? Yes. True. Yes.

The passage of this bill will change your life in three ways:

1. It would affect what type of car you can drive - smaller.
2. It would affect how much you pay for energy - more.
3. It would affect what type of job you have - green job.

Energy affects every facet of our lives. When energy prices go up, food prices go up, clothing prices go up..the price for everything we buy gets more expensive. Why? Because our society is intricately intertwined with energy, and energy is intertwined with our economy.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) calls Waxman-Markey climate bill “ridiculous”, and a “piece of sh*t”.