Category Archives: Landmark

BP claims mission accomplished in Gulf cleanup; Coast Guard begs to differ

by MayeskiLatouf679 Posted on April 18, 2014

BP claims mission accomplished in Gulf cleanup; Coast Guard begs to differ

By

Katherine Welles / Shutterstock

BP this week metaphorically hung a “mission accomplished” banner over the Gulf of Mexico ecosystems that it wrecked when the Deepwater Horizon oil well blew up and spewed 200 million gallons of oil in 2010. Funny thing, though: BP isn’t the commander of the cleanup operation. The Coast Guard is. And it’s calling bullshit.

Here’s what BP said in a press statement on Tuesday, nearly four years after the blowout: “The U.S. Coast Guard today ended patrols and operations on the final three shoreline miles in Louisiana, bringing to a close the extensive four-year active cleanup of the Gulf Coast following the Deepwater Horizon accident. These operations ended in Florida, Alabama and Mississippi in June 2013.”

Helpful though it may have seemed for BP to speak on behalf of the federal government, the Coast Guard took some umbrage. From The Washington Post:

Coast Guard Capt. Thomas Sparks, the federal on-scene coordinator of the Deepwater Horizon response, sought to stress that the switch to what he called a “middle response” process “does not end cleanup operations.”

“Our response posture has evolved to target re-oiling events on coastline segments that were previously cleaned,” said Sparks. “But let me be absolutely clear: This response is not over — not by a long shot.”

The Gulf Restoration Network tried to explain the semantics behind BP’s deceptive statement. “When oil washes up on shore, BP is no longer automatically obliged to go out there and clean up the mess,” spokesperson Raleigh Hoke said. “Now the onus is on the public, and state and federal governments to find the oil and then call BP in.”

We get why BP would wish that the cleanup were over. The efforts have already cost $14 billion — a fraction of the $42 billion that the company expects to pay out in fines, compensation claims, and other costs related to the Deepwater Horizon disaster. It’s a nightmare that we all wish were over — but wishes and rhetoric do not remove poisons from an ecosystem.


Source
Active Shoreline Cleanup Operations from Deepwater Horizon Accident End, BP
Is gulf cleanup over or not? BP and Coast Guard differ, The Washington Post

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Business & Technology

,

Climate & Energy

Read this article:

BP claims mission accomplished in Gulf cleanup; Coast Guard begs to differ

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, Landmark, ONA, organic, solar, solar power, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on BP claims mission accomplished in Gulf cleanup; Coast Guard begs to differ

Obama makes a push for solar power

by YMKNildadcbtfzo Posted on April 18, 2014

A bright idea

Obama makes a push for solar power

By

Nellis Air Force Base

The White House threw a solar party on Thursday, and the streamers and ticker tape came in the form of millions of dollars of new support for solar projects. The Hill reports:

The Obama administration on Thursday announced a $15 million program to help state, local and tribal governments build solar panels and other infrastructure to fight climate change.

Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and White House counselor John Podesta announced the program at what the White House billed as a “solar summit” designed to push governments and private and nonprofit businesses to up their use of solar power.

Agence France-Presse elaborates:

Thursday, the White House launched a program to encourage federal agencies, military installations, and publicly-subsidized buildings in the Washington area to install more solar panels on roofs, covered parking garages and open land.

And, earlier in the week, the Energy Department guaranteed at least $2.5 billion in loans for “innovative” solar projects.

The Environmental Protection Agency also pledged Thursday to double the use of renewable energy at its network of 1,500 partners organizations — including schools, public buildings, and businesses — within the next 10 years.

Supporting solar energy isn’t just good for the climate and for air and water quality. It’s good for the economy. A White House fact sheet said the industry employs nearly 143,000 Americans — a number that has grown more than 50 percent since 2010.


Source
Obama puts $15M into solar power, The Hill
Obama launches measures to support solar energy in US, Agence France-Presse
FACT SHEET: Building on Progress – Supporting Solar Deployment and Jobs, The White House

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Business & Technology

,

Climate & Energy

,

Politics

Link to original: 

Obama makes a push for solar power

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, Landmark, ONA, organic, solar, solar panels, solar power, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Obama makes a push for solar power

No, the IPCC climate report doesn’t call for a fracking boom

by Abraham Lowe Posted on April 16, 2014

No, the IPCC climate report doesn’t call for a fracking boom

By

Shutterstock

You might have heard that the latest installment of the big new U.N. climate report endorses fracking, urging a “dash for gas” as a bridge fuel to put us on a path to a more renewable energy future. These interpretations of the report are exaggerated, lack context, and are just plain wrong. They appear to have been based on interviews and on a censored summary of the report, which was published two days before the full document became available.

The energy chapter from the full report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says “near‐term GHG emissions from energy supply can be reduced” by replacing coal-fired power plants with “highly efficient” natural gas–burning alternatives — a move that “may play a role as a transition fuel in combination with variable renewable sources.” But that’s only true, the report says, if fugitive emissions of climate-changing methane from drilling and distribution of the gas are “low” — which is far from the case today. Scientists reported Tuesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that methane measurements taken near fracking sites in Pennsylvania suggest such operations leak 100 to 1,000 times more methane than the U.S. EPA has estimated. The IPCC’s energy chapter also notes that fracking for gas has “created concerns about potential risks to local water quality and public health.”

To protect the climate and save ourselves, the new IPCC report says we must quit fossil fuels. That doesn’t mean switching from coal to natural gas. It means switching from coal and gas to solar and wind, plugging electric vehicles into those renewable sources, and then metaphorically blowing up the fossil-fueled power plants that pock the planet.

Stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations at “low levels” requires a “fundamental transformation of the energy supply system,” the IPCC says. Overall, its latest report concludes that we must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 to 70 percent by midcentury, and stop producing any such pollution by the turn of the century, if we’re to keeping warming to within 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.7 F. And nothing is more important in meeting those goals than revolutionizing the way we produce electricity. Humanity’s thirst for electricity is the biggest single cause of climate change, with the energy sector fueling a little more than a third of global warming.

Wind, solar, hydro, and other renewable forms of energy account for a little more than half of all new generating capacity being built around the world, the report says. But that is not enough. The report notes that renewable energy still requires government support, such as renewable portfolio standards and prices and caps on carbon emissions.

But, as desperately as we need to be curbing fossil-fuel burning, we just keep increasing it instead. Greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector rose 3.1 percent every year from 2001 to 2010. In the 1990s, they rose just 1.7 percent annually. “The main contributors to this trend were a higher energy demand associated with rapid economic growth and an increase of the share of coal in the global fuel mix,” the report states.

Of course, slaking our thirst for electricity with renewables wouldn’t just be good for the climate. The energy chapter highlights “co-benefits” from the use of renewable energy, “such as a reduction of air pollution, local employment opportunities, few severe accidents compared to some other forms of energy supply, as well as improved energy access and security.”

A revolution doesn’t sound so scary when you put it that way.


Source
Chapter 7: Energy Systems, IPCC

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Climate & Energy

More here – 

No, the IPCC climate report doesn’t call for a fracking boom

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, Landmark, ONA, organic, PUR, solar, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on No, the IPCC climate report doesn’t call for a fracking boom

Power plants lose legal bid to douse you with mercury

by KrystalBoothe Posted on April 16, 2014

Power plants lose legal bid to douse you with mercury

By

Shutterstock

When it proposed strict pollution rules in late 2011, the EPA paid no heed to the $9.6 billion worth of costs that coal-burning power plants would have to swallow. Its only concern in drafting the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards was keeping mercury and other poisons out of the environment — and away from Americans — by demanding that power plants use scrubbers and other clean-air technology.

And on Tuesday, over the legal whimpers of the coal industry, federal judges said that’s just fine.

Coal power plants are responsible for half of the country’s mercury pollution and two-thirds of its arsenic emissions. By cracking down on this health-harming, brain-damaging, ecosystem-ruining pollution, the EPA has estimated that the standards will prevent 4,700 heart attacks and 130,000 asthma attacks — every single year. Thousands of lives will be saved.

The power plant owners felt it was unfair that the government cared about public health but didn’t care about their bottom lines. More mercury in your air means more money in their pockets. So they sued. And they were joined in their battle by the governments of conservative-led states like Alaska, Kansas, and Michigan.

On Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected the lawsuit, ruling 2-1 that the Clean Air Act does not require the agency to consider costs to an industry when imposing new pollution rules on it.

“Basically, the petitioners and our dissenting colleague seek to impose a requirement that Congress did not,” one of the judges wrote in her opinion.


Source
Federal appeals court says EPA can force power plants to cut mercury emissions, The Washington Post
U.S. Court of Appeals Upholds Historic EPA Protections to Limit Mercury and Toxic Air Pollution from Power Plants, Environmental Defense Fund

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Business & Technology

,

Climate & Energy

,

Politics

Continue reading: 

Power plants lose legal bid to douse you with mercury

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, Landmark, LG, ONA, organic, PUR, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Power plants lose legal bid to douse you with mercury

Fearless teenage fish don’t run from climate change, death

by EduardoQ85 Posted on April 15, 2014

Smells like teen spirit

Fearless teenage fish don’t run from climate change, death

By

Geir Friestad

Watch out, these hooligans will win a game of chicken or literally die trying.

When we were teens, we rebelled by stealing printer paper from the school library and staying out 15 minutes past curfew. Damselfish, however, really take that burn-the-world attitude to the next level.

A new study out this week in Nature Climate Change suggests that instead of making the fish scared for their very lives, ocean acidification lulls the little buggers into a false sense of security. Rather than being frightened by the smell of predators, the juvenile damselfish subjects of the experiment were more likely to be attracted, leading researchers to say: Dang it, teenagers! Didn’t we warn you about the lionfish in the cool leather jacket?

Researchers gathered fish from sites near seafloor CO2 vents off of Papua New Guinea, where the water is already more acidic than the rest of the ocean — though the researchers predict that the rest of the ocean could hit similar levels by 2100. The four species studied, common varieties of reef-dwelling damselfish and cardinalfish, were placed in tanks that were filled with various streams of water, some straight seawater, others conditioned to smell like predators.

Instead of being damselfish in distress, the CO2-habituated fish spent up to 90 percent of their time in the predator-stinking stream. In contrast, the control fish pretty much only hung out in the undoctored water like little goody-two-shoes. Other experiments involved chasing the fish around with a pencil, then seeing how quickly they emerged from a safe hiding spot; again, most of the acid-head fish just rolled their eyes.

Klaus Stiefel

So moody. Thinking of getting its septum pierced.

Basically, scientists think the increased CO2 is messing with the fish neurotransmitters needed to make sound decisions. If the same effect is present in other juvenile fish, the problem could quickly compound: Increased fearlessness may lead to increased predation of different species, which could take a real toll on future fish populations throughout the ecosystem. From The Economist:

Experimental studies have previously shown that carbon dioxide-induced behavior increases mortality in fish newly settled at a reef by fivefold. As the three sites studied were small, Dr Munday and his team believe that fish who were casualties of their own rash behavior could have been easily replaced. … But as ocean acidification increases, reefs will not be able to recruit new inhabitants from unaffected areas so easily.

Great. Adding dumb teenage fish to the list of ways climate change and its evil twin ocean acidification are messing up the ocean: Fish anxiety, blindness, and bodily dissolution, plus possible total ecosystem collapse. Just no one give those fish a Twitter account, or they’ll probably start sending terrorist threats to airlines.


Source
Rebels without a cause?, The Economist
Ocean Acidification Could Make Fish Lose Their Fear Of Predators, Study Finds, ThinkProgress

Amelia Urry is Grist’s intern. Follow her on Twitter.

Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Climate & Energy

,

Food

Visit site: 

Fearless teenage fish don’t run from climate change, death

Posted in Anchor, ATTRA, FF, G & F, GE, Landmark, ONA, organic, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Fearless teenage fish don’t run from climate change, death

U.N. climate report was censored

by EzequielQXI Posted on April 15, 2014

U.N. climate report was censored

By

Shutterstock

Keep walking past the earthly conflagration, folks. There’s nothing to see here.

When the latest installment of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report landed over the weekend, only a 33-page summary was published. The full report, which details the radical steps we need to take to reduce greenhouse gas pollution if we are to succeed in capping warming at 2 degrees Celsius, wasn’t published until this morning. So that summary was the basis for hundreds of media reports beamed and printed all around the world.

And it turns out the summary was watered down — diluted from an acid reflux–inducing stew of unpalatable science into a more appetizing consommé of half-truth. The Sydney Morning Herald has the details:

A major climate report presented to the world was censored by the very governments who requested it, frustrating and angering some of its lead authors. …

[E]ntire paragraphs, plus graphs showing where carbon emissions have been increasing the fastest, were deleted from the summary during a week’s debate prior to its release. Other sections had their meaning and purpose significantly diluted. They were victims of a bruising skirmish between governments in the developed and developing world over who should shoulder the blame for, and the responsibility for fixing, climate change.

One report author joked that he felt like a “pawn” who had been sacrificed in a game. Several others told Fairfax [Media Limited] the rancour was much greater than in previous IPCC meetings.

The encounter was a prelude to what promises to be a bitter battle in Paris next year, where countries are intended to sign a new binding treaty on radical action against global warming. Countries including — but not limited to — the United States, Brazil, China and Saudi Arabia fought to ensure the summary could not be used as a weapon against them in pre-Paris negotiations.

This sad story has precedence. The previous installment of the report, which dealt with climate adaptation, stated that poor countries need $100 billion a year to help them cope with climatic changes – but that dollar figure was yanked from the report’s summary by rich governments at the last moment.


Source
IPCC report summary censored by governments around the world, The Sydney Morning Herald

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Climate & Energy

,

Politics

Source article:

U.N. climate report was censored

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, Landmark, ONA, organic, PUR, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on U.N. climate report was censored

The four fossil fuel stockpiles that could toast the world

by neogrom Posted on April 14, 2014

Burn Baby Burn

The four fossil fuel stockpiles that could toast the world

By

Shutterstock

By now it’s old news that the U.S. is in the midst of an oil and gas boom. In fact, with 30.5 billion barrels of untapped crude, our proven oil reserves are higher than they have been since the 1970s. But if that oil doesn’t stay in the ground, along with most U.S. gas and coal reserves, then the planet and all of its inhabitants are in trouble.

A new report from the Sierra Club takes a look at what will happen to the climate if we burn through four of our biggest fossil fuel reserves — and it ain’t pretty. The four stockpiles are Powder River Basin coal in Wyoming and Montana; Green River shale in Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah; oil and gas in the Arctic Ocean north of Alaska; and frackable oil and gas across the U.S. Together these deposits could release 140.5 billion tons of CO2, the report says, enough to get the world a quarter of the way toward a global 2-degree Celsius rise, aka climatological catastrophe.

While the Sierra Club also reports that, for the first time in 20 years, domestic CO2 emissions are actually decreasing (and the U.S. has lost its place as No. 1 CO2 emitter to China), exploiting our oil, gas, and coal reserves will make it hard to maintain that trend. And, if we’re exporting the fuel, domestic trends don’t tell the whole story. Extracting even a fraction of these fossil fuel deposits would outweigh all of the positive climate steps the Obama administration is taking.

As Dan Chu, an author of the report, told Grist, “We have more [fossil fuels] than we can afford to burn. Our argument is … unless we are proactively keeping some of those proven reserves in the ground, we will assuredly go over that tipping point.”

Samantha Larson is a science nerd, adventure enthusiast, and fellow at Grist. Follow her on Twitter.Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Climate & Energy

Originally from: 

The four fossil fuel stockpiles that could toast the world

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, Landmark, ONA, organic, oven, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The four fossil fuel stockpiles that could toast the world

Ohio blames frackers for earthquakes

by MeganChelmsford Posted on April 14, 2014

Let’s get ready to not rumble!

Ohio blames frackers for earthquakes

By

Shutterstock

Ohio officials have linked fracking in the state to an unprecedented swarm of earthquakes that struck last month. Following its investigation, the state is imposing new rules to help reduce frackquake hazards.

It’s well-known that frackers can cause earthquakes when they shoot their polluted wastewater into so-called injection wells. But a swarm of earthquakes that hit Mahoning County, Ohio, last month was different — it occurred not near an injection well, but near a site where fracking had recently begun. State officials investigated the temblors and concluded that there was a “probable connection” between them and hydraulic fracturing near “a previously unknown microfault.”

On Friday, following the discovery, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources announced that frackers will need to comply with new permit regulations. Under the tougher rules, frackers operating within three miles of a known fault or seismically active area will need to deploy sensitive seismic monitors. And if those monitors detect an earthquake, even if the magnitude is as small as 1.0 on the Richter scale, fracking will be suspended while the state investigates.

Meanwhile, the fracking operation linked to the recent quakes will remain suspended until a plan is developed that could see drilling resumed safely, an official told Reuters.

“While we can never be 100 percent sure that drilling activities are connected to a seismic event, caution dictates that we take these new steps to protect human health, safety and the environment,” said agency head James Zehringer.

Leaders in other states, including fracker-friendly California Gov. Jerry Brown (D), might want to pay attention to Ohio’s findings and its sensible new regulations. You may recall that frackers recently called L.A. city council members “appallingly irresponsible” after they asked scientists to investigate whether a swarm of earthquakes in the city was linked to nearby fracking. “Appealingly responsible” might be more apt.


Source
Ohio Announces Tougher Permit Conditions for Drilling Activities Near Faults and Areas of Seismic Activity, Ohio Department of Natural Resources
Ohio links fracking to earthquakes, announces tougher rules, Reuters

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Business & Technology

,

Climate & Energy

,

Politics

Continue reading: 

Ohio blames frackers for earthquakes

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, Landmark, ONA, organic, Ringer, Uncategorized, wind energy | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Ohio blames frackers for earthquakes

U.S. urges IPCC to be less boring, try this whole “online” thing

by LeahShowers Posted on April 14, 2014

More GIFs, please

U.S. urges IPCC to be less boring, try this whole “online” thing

By

Shutterstock

Thousands of scientists volunteer to review research published by thousands of other scientists – part of an effort to pack all of the latest and best climate science into assessment reports from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. But anybody who takes the time to read these reports is in danger of being bored to tears — even before they break down in tears over the scale of the damage that we’re inflicting on humanity and our planet.

After publishing five mammoth reports during its quarter-century of existence, the IPCC is facing an existential crisis. How can it reinvent its aging self – and its dry scientific reports — to better serve the warming world?

The U.S. is clear on what the IPCC needs to do: It needs to get with the times.

Despite the exhaustive amount of work that goes into producing each of the IPCC’s assessment reports, relatively little effort goes into making the information in those reports easily accessible to the public. The IPCC’s main website is ugly and static, mirroring the dry assessment reports to which it links. The IPCC’s online presence seems designed to meet day-to-day demands for climate information by bureaucrats — and nobody else.

Instead of publishing huge, three-part reports every five to seven years, the U.S. thinks the IPCC’s assessment reports should be divided into two main sections that would be published on staggered timelines — a little bit like how the winter and summer Olympics arrive two years apart. The U.S. is also urging the IPCC to publish “special reports” on emerging topics between its blockbuster assessments. Here are some highlights from the U.S. recommendations to the IPCC about its future:

Between these regular assessments (which would be easily searchable on a web-based platform), IPCC authors could add relevant publications to the web site to yield a “living document.” … A possible solution could be the kinds of modalities used in various moderated listserves and wikis. …

Consider taking advantage of the significant advances in information technology by providing the full content of the reports online in an interactive format that hyperlinks in-text citations to the abstracts/articles/reports they reference, as well as links to underlying data and research, where available.

America’s comments mirror those of other groups and countries. Here, for example, are highlights from the European Union’s recommendations to the IPCC:

[G]iven the relatively long period between assessment reports (currently seven years) there is a clear need for updates over shorter time-periods, especially when important new elements of information are available and existing pieces of information become outdated. This could be facilitated by a full digitalisation of the reports and complementary use of a web-based ‘wiki-type’ approach, to provide an ‘interim’ (advanced) version of the assessment report.

The changes that would be needed to get climate science onto smartphones and into living rooms seems like basic stuff in an increasingly internet-savvy world. But it could be challenging to drive such change in a group that’s understandably more interested in climate science than public engagement. To this end, Sweden and other countries have suggested that the IPCC hire professional science writers, while others are urging it to hire multimedia professionals.


Source
Future work of the IPCC: Collated comments from Governments, IPCC

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Climate & Energy

,

Politics

Read this article: 

U.S. urges IPCC to be less boring, try this whole “online” thing

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, Landmark, LG, ONA, organic, Uncategorized, wind energy | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on U.S. urges IPCC to be less boring, try this whole “online” thing

U.N. report spells out super-hard things we must do to curb warming

by Andrew Karolitz Posted on April 14, 2014

Mission not-quite-impossible

U.N. report spells out super-hard things we must do to curb warming

By

Shutterstock

Hooboy, it’s gonna get hot. A U.N. climate panel on Sunday painted a sizzling picture of the staggering volume of greenhouse gases we’ve been pumping into the atmosphere — and what will happen to the planet if we keep this shit up.

By 2100, surface temperatures will be 3.7 to 4.8 degrees C (6.7 to 8.7 F) warmer than prior to the Industrial Revolution. That’s far worse than the goal the international community is aiming for — to keep warming under 2 C (3.7 F). The U.N.’s terrifying projection assumes that we keep on burning fossil fuels as if nothing mattered, like we do now, leading to carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere of between 750 and 1,300 parts per million by 2100. A few centuries ago, CO2 levels were a lovely 280 ppm, and many scientists say we should aim to keep them at 350 ppm, but we’re already above 400.

These warnings come from the third installment of the latest big report from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, compiled by hundreds of climate scientists and experts. (WTF is this IPCC? See our explainer. Feel like you’ve heard this story before? Perhaps you’re thinking of the first installment of the report, which came out last fall, or the second installment, which came out last month. Maybe the IPCC believes that breaking its report into three parts makes it more fun, like the Hobbit movies.)

Here’s a paragraph and a chart from the 33-page summary of the latest installment that help explain how we reached this precarious point in human history.

Globally, economic and population growth continue to be the most important drivers of increases in CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion. The contribution of population growth between 2000 and 2010 remained roughly identical to the previous three decades, while the contribution of economic growth has risen sharply … Between 2000 and 2010, both drivers outpaced emission reductions from improvements in energy intensity. Increased use of coal relative to other energy sources has reversed the long-standing trend of gradual decarbonization of the world’s energy supply.

IPCCClick to embiggen.

Of course, we could change our fossil-fuel-burning, globe-warming ways. It’s too late to avoid climate change — it’s already here — but the scientists who collaborated on the latest IPCC report think they know what it would take to keep warming within 2 degrees. It would require “substantial cuts” in greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century “through large-scale changes in energy systems,” and maybe also changes in how we use land and protect CO2-slurping forests. By 2050, we would need to be pumping far less pollution into the atmosphere than we were in 2010 — perhaps 40 to 70 percent less. And by 2100, we would need to stop polluting the atmosphere entirely.

Achieving these seemingly impossible but utterly crucial reductions in greenhouse gas pollution will require international agreement, the report notes. The trans-boundary nature of the climate crisis means no one government or group can fix this problem on its own. So come on, everybody — let’s get to it!


Source
• Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change IPCC Working Group III Contribution to AR5, IPCC

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Climate & Energy

Read the article: 

U.N. report spells out super-hard things we must do to curb warming

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, Landmark, LG, ONA, organic, Uncategorized, wind energy | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on U.N. report spells out super-hard things we must do to curb warming