Category: Climate

Oil refiners will be required to further curb air pollution from storage tanks, flares and heavy-oil processing equipment under proposed rules released on Thursday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The agency’s proposals—which are now open to a 60-day public-comment period—also aim to require air tests for benzene at refineries’ fence-lines to make sure that air-quality standards are being met and neighboring communities aren’t affected by emissions. The EPA’s proposed rules issued on Thursday come on the agency’s deadline for reviewing regulations that govern refinery emissions, which it was ordered to do by a federal judge. Several environmental groups sought that ruling, arguing the agency had not fulfilled Clean Air Act requirements to review emissions standards for plants that make fuels such as gasoline and diesel. Calling the measures "common sense steps," the EPA estimated that implementing its proposals would reduce emissions of toxic gases such as benzene, toluene […]

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In response to environmental threats, companies are investing in preventative measures, reducing carbon footprint Climate change isn’t just causing the ice caps to melt, it’s costing corporations big bucks and forcing some to factor its likely impact into their long-term plans. A new report from the Carbon Disclosure Project  (CDP) released Friday says 63 of America’s S&P 500 companies are already paying to counter the effects of climate change. The past few years of extreme drought, stronger hurricanes and severe flooding have caused immense damage to some businesses’ core assets, requiring millions of dollars in repairs and threatening billions more in future profits. "Dealing with climate change is now a cost of doing business" Tom Carnac, president of CDP in North America, said in a news release. "Making investments in climate-change-related resilience planning both in their own operations and in the supply chain has become crucial for all corporations […]

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Retired U.S. military leaders say armed forces should create long-term plan to counter effects of climate change The effects of climate change — including extreme weather, drought and sea-level rise — pose a serious threat to U.S. national security, according to a report released Wednesday. Because of the effects, the country’s already "stretched" military capacity is being put to the test, it said. “National Security and the Threat of Climate Change,” written by 12 retired military leaders and published by the Center for Naval Analyses, a national security analysis nonprofit, said the U.S. armed forces should create a 30- to 40-year plan to address the risks. “It is not possible to discuss the future of national and international security without addressing climate change,” retired Air Force Gen. Donald Hoffman  said Wednesday  in a press release. “Food shortages, droughts, floods — all directly tied to climate change will be catalysts […]

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A large section of the mighty West Antarctica ice sheet has begun falling apart and its continued melting now appears to be unstoppable, two groups of scientists reported on Monday. If the findings hold up, they suggest that the melting could destabilize neighboring parts of the ice sheet and a rise in sea level of 10 feet or more may be unavoidable in coming centuries. Global warming caused by the human-driven release of greenhouse gases has helped to destabilize the ice sheet, though other factors may also be involved, the scientists said. The rise of the sea is likely to continue to be relatively slow for the rest of the 21st century, the scientists added, but in the more distant future it may accelerate markedly, potentially throwing society into crisis. “This is really happening,” Thomas P. Wagner, who runs NASA’s programs on polar ice and helped oversee some of […]

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Dozens of snowplows were taking to the streets of Denver early Monday, after a powerful spring storm dropped heavy snow across parts of Colorado and Wyoming, even as stormy weather moved into the plains states and drew warnings about conditions ripe for severe thunderstorm and tornadoes. The Mother’s Day storm dropped more than a foot of sloppy, wet snow on parts of the two states. The National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning for most of northern Colorado and parts of southern Wyoming for all of Sunday and for Monday morning. Forecasters warned that instability ahead of the cold front created conditions for damaging winds as thunderstorms and tornadoes developed in Nebraska Sunday and threatened to push south. The storm also created high winds across the West. Powerful thunderstorms produced tornadoes as they moved across Nebraska on Sunday caused damage in several towns and rural […]

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It would be healthy — in the sense of promoting honesty — if every report warning of global warming and climate change (the two terms are interchangeable) came with the following disclaimer: Despite our belief that global warming poses catastrophic threats to many of the world’s 7 billion inhabitants, we acknowledge that we now lack the technologies to stop it. The purpose of our analysis and policy proposals is to create the political and economic conditions that foster the needed technologies. But there is no assurance that this will happen, and much time and money may be invested in futile and wasteful efforts. I am not optimistic. Our climate-change debates confuse more than they clarify. They follow a ritualistic script that is now playing out again. First came a downbeat report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an international group of scientists set up by the United […]

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The Obama administration scored a third legal victory in less than a month in its fight to cut air pollution as regulators prepare rules to reduce emissions from power plants. In a unanimous decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington said the Environmental Protection Agency was within its discretion to tighten standards on fine particulate matter, or soot, from coal power plants, refineries, manufacturers and vehicles. The court struck down a challenge by the National Association of Manufacturers , which said the rule overreached. The administration has now defeated challenges to pollution rules three times since mid-April, as the Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals tossed aside industry objections and gave the EPA broad leeway to set standards. “Time after time, courts have found that EPA’s clean air standards are solidly based in science and the law,” Peter Zalzal, an attorney with the Environmental Defense Fund, […]

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President Barack Obama on Friday will trumpet new executive actions and public- and private-sector commitments aimed at cutting carbon pollution and improving energy efficiency as he continues to make the pitch that the impacts of climate change must be addressed. In a speech in California, the president will focus on clean-energy objectives he can accomplish without Congress’s help, laying out a list of modest proposals, as well as pledges to expand the deployment of solar power. The initiatives are wide-ranging but small-bore—from training workers for jobs in the solar industry to strengthening commercial energy building codes and from making federal buildings more energy efficient to setting new efficiency standards for walk-in coolers and freezers. But administration officials argue that cumulatively, the efforts could have a significant impact. Dan Utech, special assistant to the president on energy and climate change, said the initiatives would help cut pollution, save businesses money […]

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