Green Options

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In a press conference on Thursday, Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, shared his concern that greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere will lead to grain and water shortages in India and China as well as rising grain prices in the United States.

“The world has never faced such a massively predictable potential reduction in grain harvest as we are now looking at with the melting of the glaciers in the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau,” said Mr. Brown. “Keep in mind, this is not based off of a climate model with somewhat theoretical projections. This analysis is based on what is already happening–on a trend that’s very well established in both India and in China.”

I played around for a few minutes with a heading that said something along the lines of “Scientists alert us to the Obvious… etc” for this story. It seems to me that I am dealing more and more with people who simply intend to live their lives with their heads buried in the sand.

That isn’t to say that [...]

Korea’s rapid industrialization can be felt everywhere, from the coastal landscapes, which are dotted with factories, to the large cities–Seoul, Busan, and Daegu–which often have air quality so poor that skylines are swallowed in smog.

Now, the outgoing government of Korea has passed new legislation to combat this pollution and join in the international battle against climate change.

The aptly named “Act on Climate Change” will establish an emissions trading market, raise the bar for renewable energy, assist in reducing industrial, home, and vehicle emissions, and increase carbon capture.

In a secret report,President Bush has been warned that rioting, nuclear war, rising seas that will sink costal cities are just a few of the calamities the will befall earth in 20 years if global warming continues.The Observer says it has obtained a copy of the report, which was commissioned by Pentagon defense adviser Andrew Marshall.

The report, according to Jeremy Symons, a former EPA employee, was suppressed for four months by the White House. President Bush has been under increasing pressure to pay some attention to the apparent growing evidence that global warming is an almost immediate threat to humanity.

Here are some of the dire predictions in the report:

• Millions of lives will be lost in wars and natural disasters.
• Major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas.
• Britain’s climate will become “Siberian”.
• “Abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies”.
• “The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism”
• “Warfare would define human life”
• Widespread flooding of coastal areas of the United States would create a major upheaval for millions.

Not a very pleasant look at the future.

Could he see where it would end?

Turner, arguably the greatest artist Britain has ever known, painted the scene above. A steam tug tows a wind-powered warship to its grave. The sun sets. It’s not optimistic. Maybe not pessimistic either, yet the artist knows something has changed. Wind power is no longer an option. It’s 1838.

Just as in the days when I was Hooked on Classics, it looks like humanity is going to be ‘hooked on fossil fuels’ for awhile longer. According to British Petroleum’s chief scientists, Physicist Steven Koonin, we’ll be stuck with the nasty for decades to come.

Speaking to a crowd gathered at the Frances C. Arrillaga Alumni Center to hear the annual Drell Lecture, Koonin decided to follow in

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Humans might have ushered Earth into the Anthropocene, but we’d be unwise to ignore the fact that we’re always going to be living in the Age of Microbes, according to a new article in Microbiology Today. “Microbes will continue as climate engineers long after humans have burned that [...]

Hi everyone!

Do you find yourselves searching for a green holiday gift that’s hip, relevant, and makes a difference in the fight against climate change? Well, look no further than WE ADD UP. WE ADD UP is a brand new global warming awareness project! It’s a global count of people committing to help fight global warming by taking simple steps in their everyday lives that make a big difference. WE ADD UP is an organic [...]

Bayer - the multinational chemical giant that also makes your aspirin - has announced it will spend $1.46 billion dollars in the next three years on a new climate program aimed at cutting carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions that contribute to global warming.

This is the first I’ve heard of Bayer taking a leadership role in reducing emissions, but apparently I’ve been asleep at the wheel. The German company has done quite a bit to cut emissions since 1990 and they say they’ve already reduced their CO2 output by 36 percent. Rather than using carbon offsets or credits, a big chunk of that reduction has come from energy efficiency.

I’m a few days late on this one, although the green blogosphere in general has been quiet on this news (thank you Grist, Sightline Institute, and It’s Getting Hot in Here!): on Thursday in Milwaukee, governors from nine Midwestern states and the Canadian province of Manitoba signed the Midwest Regional Greenhouse Gas Reduction Accord. Based on similar agreements in the Northeast and West Coast, the accord commits seven of the signatories to creating a regional cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gases by 2010 (Ohio, Indiana, and South Dakota signed on as observers); it does not yet establish a reduction goal (as Grist notes).

While this is accord is only a first step, there’s a lot to celebrate here. Politically, the Midwest is pretty purple: cities tend to be bright blue, while rural areas are fiery red. Culturally, it’s fairly conservative overall: the “Heartland” has meanings beyond geographical location. If governors from both political parties (and the event surrounding the signing was co-hosted by Wisconsin’s Democratic governor Jim Doyle, and Minnesota’s Republican governor Tim Pawlenty) are willing to spend political capital in such a manner, that’s a strong sign that the polls aren’t wrong: the desire to address climate change has reached the mainstream.

The current conditions Australia, my birthplace and home, are facing at the moment do not make it one of the “Greatest Living Condition” contenders of the world. Various levels of water restrictions ranging from level 3 to 5 make life very difficult. However, that is nothing compared to the problems being faced by our farmers. Crop failures and livestock loss are adding up to millions and millions worth of dollars lost.

As I said, it’s [...]