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The West is so dry even a rainforest is on fire

In a normal year, Washington state’s Olympic National Park is arguably the wettest place in the continental U.S. An annual 150 inches of rain inundate the park’s western slopes, soaking the soil and slicking the branches of the lush temperate rain forest that grows there. Mosses, lichens and ferns festoon the trunks of centuries-old trees, whose thick canopy casts the forest floor into damp, dark shadow. The landscape has a primordial feel to it — cloaked in mist and swathed in green, it looks as though a dinosaur could come stomping out of the underbrush at any minute. But this is not a normal year. This year, ancient tree trunks smolder at their base as they burn from within. The downed wood and debris that carpet the forest floor have dried up into kindling. The abundant lichens that are characteristic of this type of rain forest are now facilitating […]

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In California, Big Oil Finds Water Is Its Most Prized Commodity

California’s epic drought is pushing Big Oil to solve a problem it’s struggled with for decades: what to do with the billions of gallons of wastewater that gush out of wells every year. Golden State drillers have pumped much of that liquid back underground into disposal wells. Now, amid a four-year dry spell, more companies are looking to recycle their water or sell it to parched farms as the industry tries to get ahead of environmental lawsuits and new regulations. The trend could have implications for oil patches across the country. With fracking boosting the industry’s thirst for water, companies have run into conflicts from Texas to Colorado to Pennsylvania. California could be an incubator for conservation efforts that have so far failed to gain traction elsewhere in the U.S. Drillers may have little choice. The state’s 50,000 disposal wells have come under increased scrutiny this year, after regulators […]

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California Farms Are Using Fracking Wastewater to Grow Crops

OriginClear’s equipment purifies wastewater by zapping it with electric pulses. Source: OriginClear via Bloomberg California’s epic drought is pushing Big Oil to solve a problem it’s struggled with for decades: what to do with the billions of gallons of wastewater that gush out of wells every year. Golden State drillers have pumped much of that liquid back underground into disposal wells. Now, amid a four-year dry spell, more companies are looking to recycle their water or sell it to parched farms as the industry tries to get ahead of environmental lawsuits and new regulations. The trend could have implications for oil patches across the country. With fracking boosting the industry’s thirst for water, companies have run into conflicts from Texas to Colorado to Pennsylvania. California could be an incubator for conservation efforts that have so far failed to gain traction elsewhere in the U.S. CHART: Big Oil’s Other Gusher […]

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California grid expected to maintain reliability despite drought

graph of coal production at mines with mountaintop removal permits, as explained in the article text According to the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) , the bulk power system in California is not expected to lose grid reliability this summer, despite a drought that has lowered hydroelectric generation . Overall, NERC expects more than 72 gigawatts (GW) of electric generating capacity to be available this summer in the part of the electric grid covering much of California. Summer electricity demand is expected to peak at nearly 53 GW, resulting in a reserve margin of 38% for the region. California’s hydroelectric generation varies seasonally. From January 2014 to April 2015, hydroelectricity accounted for 6% to 14% of the state’s monthly generation , averaging near 9%. graph of 2014 coal production at mines with mountaintop removal permits, as explained in the article text Since early 2014, much of California has […]

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European heat wave gives Germany record temperature

AP Photo/Lionel Cironneau BERLIN (AP) — Europe’s heat wave has pushed the mercury to its highest level in Germany since measurements began in 1881. The country’s national weather service says an automated measurement station recorded a temperature of 40.3 degrees Celsius (104.54 Fahrenheit) in Kitzingen, northern Bavaria, on Sunday afternoon. Weather service spokesman Uwe Kirsche said Monday that the record won’t be official until technicians have manually checked the station. But he says "we assume that our equipment worked properly." The previous record of 40.2 Celsius was measured in the southwestern city of Karlsruhe in 2003. Storms across parts of Germany on Sunday night brought temperatures back down.

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California’s push for cleaner buses could edge out natural gas

LOS ANGELES Fifteen years ago, California led the way to cleaner transit buses with strict tailpipe emissions standards that effectively ushered out diesel as the primary fuel for buses in the state and replaced it with natural gas. Now, California is poised once again to take the lead, this time by mandating a switch to so-called "zero-emission" buses by 2040. The new push by California’s powerful Air Resources Board (CARB) has the potential to marginalize natural gas as a bus fuel in the same way its adoption once marginalized diesel. In response, the California Natural Gas Vehicle Coalition has proposed expanding the definition of “zero-emission vehicles” to include not just electric buses, but also those powered by so-called “renewable natural gas,” which is produced from cow manure or decomposing organic matter in landfills. Whereas regular natural gas offers a reduction in greenhouse gases of about 15 to 20 percent […]

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BP Agrees to Pay $18.7 Billion to Settle Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Claims

If approved by a federal judge, the deal would conclude a monumental legal showdown over the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which killed 11 crew members aboard the drilling rig and caused the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history. The agreement would avert years of litigation over the environmental impact of the spill, which leaked millions of barrels of crude into the Gulf and coated hundreds of miles of sensitive beaches, marshes and mangroves. The settlement would add at least $10 billion to the $44 billion BP has already incurred in legal and cleanup costs, pushing its tab for the spill higher than all the profits it has earned since 2012. But the payments would be stretched out over 18 years at around $1.1 billion annually, softening the blow to the company’s cash flow. Much of the penalties would likely be tax-deductible, analysts noted. The money largely will end up […]

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U.S. Supreme Court fires warning shot across EPA’s bow: Kemp

LONDON In a rare defeat for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered it on Monday to reconsider whether the EPA’s regulations on mercury and other toxic emissions from power plants are appropriate and necessary. While the EPA considered the costs and benefits of various regulatory options later in the rule-writing process, the court faulted it for not considering compliance costs at the beginning to determine whether regulation was appropriate in the first place. The ruling is unusual because so far the federal courts, including the high court, have been deferential to the EPA’s attempts to write ambitious rules to curb pollution from power plants. While the courts have become increasingly aggressive in invalidating regulations issued by other federal agencies, the EPA’s air pollution regulations have mostly survived judicial scrutiny. Starting with “Massachusetts versus EPA” in 2007, the Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld the EPA’s authority […]

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Energy Companies Can Be Sued Over Earthquakes, Oklahoma Supreme Court Says

The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a woman injured in a 2011 earthquake can file suit in district court against the two energy companies she accuses of causing the quake. The ruling raises the prospect of more lawsuits seeking to hold companies responsible for an increase in seismic activity in the state, as more scientific studies link the tremors to the energy industry. In particular, the studies have found evidence tying quakes to operations that inject wastewater left over from drilling into wells deep underground. Sandra Ladra of Prague, Okla., about 60 miles east of Oklahoma City, sued New Dominion LLC and Spess Oil Co. last summer for injuries she sustained during a 5.6-magnitude quake that toppled her stone chimney. The lawsuit in Lincoln County District Court contends that the companies caused the quake by injecting wastewater into nearby wells. The companies argued that they lawfully operated their […]

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EU Leaders Urge China to Adopt Tough Climate-Change Goals

BRUSSELS—European Union leaders Monday urged China to adopt tough climate-change goals as they and other nations head toward a critical climate conference in Paris at year’s end. “Our intention is to cut emission by 40% compared with 1990, and I would strongly welcome China to take on its shoulders commitments to have the same ambition” or something similar, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said at an EU-China summit. He spoke as Chinese Premier Li Keqiang stood beside him at a rare joint news conference. “Climate change is an important matter for the entire humankind, and both China and Europe have to bear particular responsibility in that respect,” Mr. Juncker said. Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, said the world’s goal should be to keep the Earth’s average temperature from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius compared with preindustrial levels, an aspiration reaffirmed earlier this month by the Group […]

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Green group’s unconventional fight against fracking

The residents of Grant Township, Pennsylvania, were worried about Little Mahoning Creek, a picturesque trout stream best fished in the spring when the water runs fast. The Pennsylvania General Energy Company had acquired a federal permit to drill an injection well down 7,000 feet about seven miles from the creek to dispose of wastewater from its natural gas hydraulic fracturing operations. Fearing the operation would harm the Little Mahoning watershed, the town’s supervisors last year passed a "community bill of rights" that blocked the well, stripped the company of its right to inject wastewater underground, and declared that the state had no jurisdiction in the matter. The ordinance, they openly acknowledged, was likely to be challenged, and defending its legality would be difficult. Driven largely by opposition to hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking, communities across the United States have passed or are considering measures to assert their right […]

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New York formalizes ban on fracking, ending 7-year review

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York formalized its ban on high-volume hydraulic fracturing for natural gas on Monday, concluding a seven-year environmental and health review that drew a record number of public comments. "After years of exhaustive research and examination of the science and facts, prohibiting high-volume hydraulic fracturing is the only reasonable alternative," Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Joe Martens said in announcing the decision. "High-volume hydraulic fracturing poses significant adverse impacts to land, air, water, natural resources and potential significant public health impacts that cannot be adequately mitigated." In its decision, the DEC noted that more than 260,000 public comments were submitted on its environmental impact study and proposed regulations, an unprecedented number. The agency said most of the comments urged it to severely restrict or prohibit fracking. New York is the only state with significant natural gas resources to ban fracking, which has allowed other states […]

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Activists deploy against Shell’s arctic plans

MUKILTEO, Wash., June 29 (UPI) — Activists said Monday they took to the water off the Washington state coast in kayaks to try to slow progress of a Shell drilling rig bound for arctic waters. "We know we can’t stop them," Carlo Voli, a campaigner from advocacy group 350 Seattle, said in an emailed statement. "But we can’t just watch them go; we have to do all we can to slow them down, and get people to focus on what a disaster Arctic drilling would be." Voli and others pushed off from the Washington state coast to protest against the Noble Discoverer drilling rig as it leaves for the arctic waters off the coast of Alaska. Voli and several others were arrested in early June for similar action against the rig, Polar Pioneer. Noble Discoverer suffered setbacks during a 2012 campaign off the coast of Alaska and activists said […]

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US power industry divided over importance of Supreme Court MATS ruling

Electricity industry representatives and consultants were divided Monday on how much impact the US Supreme Court’s remand of the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards to a lower court is likely to have on power markets and investments. Brian Walshe, managing director of ION Consulting in Denver, said he thinks the decision is likely to bring "significant" change in the electricity industry’s direction. "The biggest fallout will be to [Clean Power Plan] compliance strategies," Walshe said in an email. "Many utilities will now be forced to consider this ‘game of chicken’ strategy when CPP rules are announced, due to the enormity of their impact." But Tammy Ridout, American Electric Power spokeswoman, noted that the Supreme Court did not vacate the Environmental Protection Agency’s MATS rule. Article continues below… Sign up for Global Alert today. Platts Global Alert is a complete real-time information service for the global energy industry, providing breaking […]

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Michigan, Iowa utilities to go forward with coal retirements, conversions to gas

Despite the US Supreme Court’s ruling Monday against the Environmental Protection Agency’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards rule, electric power utilities in Michigan and Iowa say they are moving forward with plans to close coal-fired power plants or convert existing coal burners to natural gas over the next several years. The Supreme Court Monday ruled the EPA erred by refusing to consider cost when deciding to regulate emissions of mercury from the power sector. The Michigan South Central Power Agency’s decision late last week to retire its 55-MW Endicott coal plant at Litchfield in June 2016, has nothing to with MATS, general manager Glen White said in a Monday interview. Endicott, which went into commercial operation in 1983, is equipped with a scrubber and already complied with MATS, which took effect in mid-April, White said. Article continues below… Platts Coal Trader provides the latest prices for key benchmark coals, […]

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For U.S. power firms, EPA ruling barely a bump on road to natgas

For big U.S. power companies like FirstEnergy Corp, the Supreme Court’s decision knocking back landmark rules reducing air pollutants from coal-fired plants has arrived too late for them to turn away from a natural gas-fueled future. Big coal-fired generators said on Monday that they would press ahead with facility upgrades and plant closures even after the court invalidated one of President Barack Obama’s major environmental initiatives, which would set new limits on the amount of mercury and other hazardous pollutants. In a 5-4 decision, the court found that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) should have considered the compliance cost of the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) rule. The EPA has estimated it would cost the power industry $9.6 billion a year to comply with the rule. While the prospect of a suspension in the rule – and increased demand for coal – cheered some investors on Monday, […]

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4 more cities sign Global Clean Bus Declaration raising total to >40K ultra-low emission buses by 2020; London to trial BYD electric double-decker

« Wireless charging company Evatran gains $1.6M strategic investment from China Tier 1 supplier | Main | Tire-integrated triboelectric generator harvests electricity from rolling tire friction; est. up to +10% fuel econ » Four additional cities—Amsterdam, Lima, Catalonia (Barcelona) and Rome— signed up to the Global Clean Bus Declaration at the 1 st global Clean Bus Summit in London. The Global Clean Bus Declaration , developed by the Mayor of London Boris Johnson in partnership with the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group , launched in Buenos Aires in March 2015 with 20 original signatories. Bus manufacturers including BYD, Volvo, Wright Bus, Optare, Mercedes, Evo Bus, and Alexander Dennis attended the London summit and committed to supporting cities in delivering fleets of new ultra-low emission buses. The World Bank and Green Investment Bank have also signed up to this commitment. Cities of the Low Emission Vehicles Network collectively forged an […]

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Are We Headed For Global Warming Collapse?

This is the first of several posts I will do on Global Collapse. I am not saying, right here anyway, that civilization as we know it will collapse, but I am asking the question: “Can collapse be avoided?” This post will deal with global warming and the associated climate change. Collapse Post 2 Right now CO2 is higher than it has been in over 20 million years. But it has been higher, a lot higher. The chart below was published in the Worldwatch Institute’s State of the World 2015 and the source of their data was Goddard Institute for Space Studies Collapse Post 11 What this chart clearly shows is that global warming, so far, is primarily a northern hemisphere phenomenon and mostly above 60 degrees latitude. Texas C+C Eight month of flat to down production from the Bakken. Bakken Amplified OPEC 12 Saudi Arabia

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EPA’s New Fracking Study: A Close Look at the Numbers Buried in the Fine Print

When EPA’s long-awaited draft assessment on fracking and drinking water supplies was released, the oil and gas industry triumphantly focused on a headline-making sentence: “We did not find evidence of widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States.” But for fracking’s backers, a sense of victory may prove to be fleeting. EPA’s draft assessment made one thing clear: fracking has repeatedly contaminated drinking water supplies (a fact that the industry has long aggressively denied). Indeed, the federal government’s recognition that fracking can contaminate drinking water supplies may prove to have opened the floodgates, especially since EPA called attention to major gaps in the official record, due in part to gag orders for landowners who settle contamination claims and in part because there simply hasn’t been enough testing to know how widespread problems have become. And although it’s been less than a month since EPA’s draft assessment […]

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Canadian oil producers back lower emissions

Canadian oil production group said it has a commitment to lowering emissions. Alberta government expected to raise carbon taxes on industry struggling to navigate weak crude oil market. Photo by Pattie Steib/Shutterstock CALGARY, Alberta, June 26 (UPI) — An industry group in the Canadian oil sands sector said it was committed to playing a greater role in the effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers said that, since 1990, the sector has spent more than $1 billion on technologies needed to produce oil with a lower environmental footprint. With climate action moving to the forefront of the global conversation, the industry group said it was prepared to do more . "We developed the technology to get the oil out of the sand – and we are just as committed to getting our carbon out of the air," CAPP President Tim McMillan said in a […]

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Are We Headed For Global Warming Collapse?

Collapse Post 2 Collapse Post 11 Collapse Post 3 Collapse Post 4 Collapse Post 24 The above is an artist creation of what the pockmarks look like on the seafloor. Collapse Post 18 Collapse Post 20 Collapse Post 25 Collapse Post 21 Collapse Post 26 In an attempt to get an idea of any impact renewables are having on fuel consumption and carbon emissions in my neck of the woods, I have been trying to come up with figures for installed capacity of wind generation and solar. The utility has a virtual monopoly on hydro and there is a web page at the relevant ministry (department for all you yanks) that, has the data for hydro and fossil fuels. There is no data for wind, solar, biomass or any other non-hydro renewables. After being tired of the paucity of information on the total installed capacity of solar PV for […]

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Rains rally Asia crops in El Nino year, but relief seen short-lived

SINGAPORE Surprisingly strong rains in an El Nino year, typically marked by droughts in parts of Asia, have eased concerns of a lower crop output in the region. But weather forecasters are not convinced, warning of severe dryness in the autumn months. The last El Nino in 2009 had brought the worst drought in four decades to India. It hit Australian wheat crop and also reduced oil palm yields across Southeast Asia. While the forecast is for an equally severe dryness this year, recent rains have buoyed farming in India, China and Australia. "Indian monsoon (started in June) is on track, in fact it has been better than expected, and we haven’t seen any decline in rainfall in a serious manner in Malaysia or Indonesia yet," an Australia-based commodity fund manager said, declining to be identified to avoid speculation over the fund’s investments. "Australia is dry but we have […]

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Alberta to Double Carbon Tax in Step to Toughen Environmental Policy

CALGARY, Alberta—The recently elected government of Alberta said Thursday it will double a carbon tax on industrial emissions of greenhouse gases by 2017, calling it a first step in toughening this oil-rich province’s environmental policies. In a move closely watched by Canadian oil and gas producers, the left-leaning New Democratic Party, or NDP, government said the policy is part of a broader review of environmental policies that will result in additional measures to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in time for a year-end United Nations climate-change conference in Paris. Alberta implemented its current carbon tax—the first in North America—in 2007, but that was set to expire at the end of this month. The new policy will increase levies on large-scale emitters of carbon dioxide to 30 Canadian dollars ($24.19) a metric ton by 2017, up from C$15. Alberta’s energy industry has been shaken by the NDP’s win, and has warned about […]

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ADB: Poor face greater climate risks

Asian Development Bank finds those in poverty face a greater risk from the threat of climate change. File Photo by UPI Photo/Mohammad Kheirkhah. MANILA, June 24 (UPI) — A report from the Asian Development Bank finds widening income gaps in the Asia-Pacific leaves the poor more exposed to the risks of climate change. Vinod Thomas, general director of an independent evaluation at the ADB, said wealth gaps in the region have secondary consequences . "Climate change hurts the poor disproportionally," he said. "Environmental shocks push the poor into direr straits. Hence, responding to climate change helps to reduce inequality." The bank, in an annual review of the Pacific energy regime , said the region’s heavy reliance on imported fossil fuels leaves it particularly vulnerable to foreign markets. The bank said its regional investments of more than $500 million by next year will support a low-carbon transition. Asian economies, the […]

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Karachi Heat Wave Death Toll Tops 650 During Ramadan Fast

KARACHI, Pakistan — Karachi’s poor learned long ago to cope with the many adversities that afflict Pakistan’s most crowded and chaotic city, including flooding, street violence and political crises. But since a suffocating heat wave descended on Karachi three days ago, killing at least 650 people, they have found no respite and no escape. “It’s so hot,” said a security guard, Shamim ur-Rehman, 34, as he sat on a cot, looking beleaguered. “There is no fan, there is nothing. I can’t sleep at night or during the day.” Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif declared an emergency on Tuesday as the death toll from the heat wave soared, with overwhelmed hospitals struggling to treat a surge of casualties and morgues filling to capacity. The army set up emergency treatment centers in the streets and the provincial government closed schools and city offices. The Edhi Foundation , which runs an ambulance service […]

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Lawmakers mull stricter air pollution control law

BEIJING, June 24 (Xinhua) — Chinese legislators are deliberating regulating emissions from boats and ships as the country clamps down on air pollution. According to a draft amendment to the Air Pollution Law, tabled to the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee for a second reading on Wednesday, ships on inland or river-to-sea waterways must use standard diesel as fuel to cut emissions. Ocean-going vessels will also be required to use fuels that conform to China’s environmental protection standards after stopping at Chinese ports, the draft read. The shipping sector accounted for around 8.4 percent of China’s sulphur dioxide emissions and 11.3 percent of nitrogen oxide emissions in 2013. The country is also home to eight of the world’s ten largest ports in terms of cargo handling capacities. According to the draft, vessels at berth should operate on land-based power provided by the ports. Ports, both new and existing, […]

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DOE Study Finds Elevated Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Canadian Crude

A new peer-reviewed study funded by the U.S. Department of Energy says Canada’s oil sands greenhouse gas emissions are an average of 20% higher than U.S. conventional crude, adding ammunition to opponents of the Keystone XL pipeline and other critics of surging Canadian crude production. The study, conducted by DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory in collaboration with researchers at Stanford University and the University of California-Berkeley’s Institute of Transport Studies, calculated greenhouse gas emissions from oil field extraction to the tail pipe in a so-called well-to-wheel analysis. Noting oil sands output is projected to more than double in the next 15 years and that much of that crude could wind up in the U.S., the study said “higher [well-to-wheel] emissions for gasoline and diesel production in the U.S. are expected when oil sands products become a larger fraction of the U.S. fuel mix.” “All crudes are not created equally,” Hao […]

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Troubled Delta System Is California’s Water Battleground

Photo The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, anchored by the convergence of two rivers, is a 720,000-acre network of islands and canals that is the hub of California’s water system. Credit Jim Wilson/The New York Times BYRON, Calif. — Fighting over water is a tradition in California, but nowhere are the lines of dispute more sharply drawn than here in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta , a 720,000-acre network of islands and canals that is the hub of the state’s water system. Giant pumps pull in water flowing to the delta from the mountainous north of the state, where the majority of precipitation falls, and send it to farms, towns and cities in the Central Valley and Southern California, where the demand for water is greatest. For decades, the shortcomings of this water transportation system, among the most ambitious and complex ever constructed, have been a source of conflict and complaint. But […]

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Pakistan calls for urgent measures as heatwave toll tops 450

Pakistan’s prime minister called for emergency measures as the death toll from a heatwave in southern Sindh province topped 450. The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said it had received orders from Nawaz Sharif to undertake immediate response measures. The army has also been deployed to set up heat stroke centres and assist the NDMA, it added. Many of the victims are elderly people from low income families. The death toll from the heatwave has risen above 450 Health officials say many deaths have been in the largest city, Karachi, which has experienced temperatures as high as 45C (113F) in recent days. Hundreds of patients suffering from the effects of the heatwave are being treated at government hospitals, provincial health secretary Saeed Mangnejo said. The demand for electricity for air conditioning has coincided with increased power needs over Ramadan, when Muslims fast during daylight hours. Hot weather is not […]

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Green Star Over China

TLNIt wasn’t the sort of speech you’d expect from a soon-to-be minster of the Chinese government. On Jan. 27, Chen Jining waxed philosophical to graduating master’s degree students at the elite Tsinghua University in Beijing, where he was serving as university president. He talked about picking up Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers during a visit to Taiwan and about shooting the breeze with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg during a recent campus visit. Unlike the standard Chinese Communist Party apparatchik, Chen eschewed impenetrable party theory or bureaucrat-ese for personal anecdotes and motivational comments. The difference between mediocrity and excellence, Chen said , dressed in robes and a mortarboard, was not talent but “continued perseverance [and] sustained effort.” He closed his speech with a quote from China’s former premier and Tsinghua dean Zhu Rongji who in 2014 penned a letter to Tsinghua students telling them to be bold and fearless. “You’re young […]

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Climate Clashes Resume in Washington

Washington’s climate wars are heating up, with the White House and congressional Republicans both making moves this week that counter the other’s agenda. The Environmental Protection Agency released a report Monday highlighting the economic benefits of cutting carbon emissions, the first in a series of actions the administration is taking this week to bring attention to President Barack Obama ’s climate-change agenda. The focus comes two years after Mr. Obama first laid out his intentions to make acting on climate a legacy of his time in the White House during a speech at Georgetown University on June 25, 2013, where he directed EPA to write regulations cutting carbon emissions from the nation’s power plants, which at 30% are the largest source of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Other actions this week include a summit at the White House Tuesday linking climate change to public health. Mr. Obama’s climate agenda faces […]

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U.S. Plains flooding refills soil moisture, farmers’ wallets

CHICAGO Farmers are reaping higher yields and ranchers’ feed costs have fallen sharply since flooding swept across the southern U.S. Plains in May, with the record rains providing tangible benefits to agriculture despite causing damage that will likely cost billions of dollars to repair. The storms inundated fields across Texas and Oklahoma but they broke a years-long drought that wreaked havoc on the profitability of growers and cattlemen. Even though floods tend to grab more headlines, drought is actually much more costly in terms of its impact on agriculture. "The thing that differentiates it (drought) from all other natural hazards is the fact that it covers such a wide swath or spatial extent," said Don Willhite, climatologist in the School of Natural Resources at University of Nebraska-Lincoln. "Floods are much more localized. (Drought) goes on for so long. The impacts accumulate year to year." Floods also are less costly […]

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Risk of Extreme Weather From Climate Change to Rise Over Next Century, Report Says

Photo Drought in Puerto Rico has left the La Plata reservoir nearly empty. A study in The Lancet predicts a growing number of people will be affected by extreme weather over the next century. Credit Alvin Baez/Reuters WASHINGTON — More people will be exposed to floods, droughts, heat waves and other extreme weather associated with climate change over the next century than previously thought, according to a new report in the British medical journal The Lancet. The report, published online Monday, analyzes the health effects of recent episodes of severe weather that scientists have linked to climate change . It provides estimates of the number of people who are likely to experience the effects of climate change in coming decades, based on projections of population and demographic changes. The report estimates that the exposure of people to extreme rainfall will more than quadruple and the exposure of people to […]

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Society will collapse by 2040 due to catastrophic food shortages, says Foreign Office-funded study

The model, developed by a team at Anglia Ruskin University’s Global Sustainability Institute , does not account for society reacting to escalating crises by changing global behaviour and policies. However the model does show that our current way of life appears to be unsustainable and could have dramatic worldwide consequences. Dr Aled Jones, the Director of the Global Sustainability Institute , told Insurge Intelligence : "We ran the model forward to the year 2040, along a business-as-usual trajectory based on ‘do-nothing’ trends — that is, without any feedback loops that would change the underlying trend. "The results show that based on plausible climate trends, and a total failure to change course, the global food supply system would face catastrophic losses, and an unprecedented epidemic of food riots. "In this scenario, global society essentially collapses as food production falls permanently short of consumption." Plastic tree #20, Bolivia 2014 by Eduardo […]

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California Has Never Experienced A Water Crisis Of This Magnitude – And The Worst Is Yet To Come

Things have never been this dry for this long in the recorded history of the state of California, and this has created an unprecedented water crisis. At this point, 1,900 wells have already gone completely dry in California , and some communities are not receiving any more water at all. As you read this article, 100 percent of the state is in some stage of drought, and there has been so little precipitation this year that some young children have never actually seen rain . This is already the worst multi-year drought in the history of the state of California , but this may only be just the beginning. Scientists tell us that the amount of rain that California received during the 20th century was highly unusual. In fact, they tell us that it was the wettest century for the state in at least 1000 years. Now that things […]

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EPA defends controversial biofuels program at Senate hearing

WASHINGTON The U.S. environmental regulator on Thursday defended its handling of the nation’s controversial renewable fuels program at a congressional hearing, the first since its new biofuels targets last month provoked a furor among corn farmers and oil refiners. At the hearing by the Senate subcommittee on regulatory affairs and federal management, U.S. lawmakers criticized the agency for years-long delays to quotas and for last month setting unattainable targets for the amount of corn-based ethanol and other biofuels that must be used in the nation’s motor fuel supply over the next two years. They also questioned the future of the decade-old Renewable Fuels Standards (RFS), which critics say has inflated prices of food and fuel at the pump. The panel will likely increase congressional attention to the pitfalls of the decade-old biofuels policy as it faces a fresh wave of criticism from policymakers, the oil industry and environmentalists. But […]

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Obama Administration to Propose New Standards for Big Trucks

WASHINGTON—The Obama administration is set to propose Friday new standards for big trucks aimed at lowering fuel costs and cutting carbon emissions as part of President Barack Obama’s broad climate-change agenda. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Transportation Department will announce a suite of draft standards for big trucks, including garbage trucks, 18-wheelers and heavy-duty pickup trucks, according to a person familiar with the proposal. The standards will apply to big trucks built after 2018 and are a follow-up to the first-ever federal standards for big trucks that the Obama administration announced in 2011 that apply to models built between 2014 and 2018. The standards will also, for the first time ever, regulate trailers that are part of 18-wheelers and other big hauling trucks and issue tougher limits on the part of the truck hauling the trailer, called the tractor, according to multiple industry officials. The draft standards, […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Two Billion People Are Running out of Water

Forget about peak oil—we should be worrying about peak water: Groundwater basins that supply 2 billion people are being rapidly depleted , according to a new study. Worse: No one knows how long those reserves will last. A research team led by scientists at the University of California, Irvine, examined the world’s 37 largest aquifers between 2003 and 2013 and found that one-third of them were “stressed,” meaning more water was being removed than replenished, according to one of two studies published Tuesday in the journal Water Resources Research . The eight worst-off aquifers, labeled “overstressed,” had virtually no natural replenishment to offset human consumption. The scientists determined the Northwest Sahara Aquifer System, which supplies water to 60 million people, to be the most overstressed. The Indus Basin aquifer of northwestern India and Pakistan is the second-most overstressed, followed by the Murzuk-Djado Basin in northern Africa. California’s Central Valley […]

Posted On : Published By : ASPO-USA
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Pope Francis, in Sweeping Encyclical, Calls for Swift Action on Climate Change

Photo Pope Francis was greeted by crowds at St. Peter’s Square this week. Credit Filippo Monteforte/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Thursday called for a radical transformation of politics, economics and individual lifestyles to confront environmental degradation and climate change , as his much-awaited papal encyclical blended a biting critique of consumerism and irresponsible development with a plea for swift and unified global action. The vision that Francis outlined in the 184-page encyclical is sweeping in ambition and scope: He described a relentless exploitation and destruction of the environment, for which he blamed apathy, the reckless pursuit of profits, excessive faith in technology and political shortsightedness. The most vulnerable victims are the world’s poorest people, he declared, who are being dislocated and disregarded. The first pope from the developing world, Francis, an Argentine, used the encyclical — titled “Laudato Si’,” or “Praise Be to […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Pope Francis Aligns Himself With Mainstream Science on Climate

Photo An Indian boy with a bag filled with recyclable material at a garbage dump in Gauhati, India. Credit Anupam Nath/Associated Press The new papal encyclical on the environment is a ringing call to action, a critique of consumerism and a prophetic warning about the dangers of ignoring what Pope Francis calls “the ecological crisis.” But amid all his soaring rhetoric, did the pope get the science right? The short answer from climate and environmental scientists is that he did, at least to the degree possible in a religious document meant for a broad audience. If anything, they say, he may have bent over backward to offer a cautious interpretation of the scientific facts. For example, a substantial body of published science says that human emissions have caused all the global warming that has occurred over the past century. Yet in his letter, Francis does not go quite that […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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A child born today may live to see humanity’s end, unless…

Tags: carbon | climate change | geoengineering | global warming A couple hugs while standing on a hilly area overlooking Cairo on a dusty and hazy day where temperatures reached 114 Fahrenheit, May 27, 2015. REUTERS/Asmaa Waguih Humans will be extinct in 100 years because the planet will be uninhabitable, according to Australian microbiologist Frank Fenner, one of the leaders of the effort to eradicate smallpox in the 1970s. He blames overcrowding, denuded resources and climate change. Fenner’s prediction is not a sure bet, but he is correct that there is no way emissions reductions will be enough to save us from our trend toward doom. And there doesn’t seem to be any big global rush to reduce emissions, anyway. When the G7 called on Monday for all countries to reduce carbon emissions to zero in the next 85 years, the scientific reaction was unanimous: That’s far too late. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Day Of Reckoning For Fossil Fuel Industry

The fossil fuel industry is facing its day of reckoning – and not just because one of the world’s most prominent religious leaders, Pope Francis, is calling for action . In fact, the industry’s moment of crisis has been in the making for years, as a variety of trends – from rising production costs to cheaper renewable energy and expanding carbon-reducing rules – have taken stronger hold. Today, the fossil fuel monolith is under attack from some of the same people it used to count as its closest friends – Wall Street analysts, investors and governments – because fossil fuels are no longer a safe bet. It has become impossible to ignore the systemic financial risks inherent in the production of coal, oil and other fossil fuels. Perhaps the most glaring, pressing risks are those associated with carbon reserves still in the ground. Better known as “carbon asset risks,” […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Alaska’s glaciers are now losing 75 billion tons of ice every year

In a new study , scientists with the University of Alaska at Fairbanks and several other institutions report a staggering finding: Glaciers of the United States’ largest — and only Arctic — state, Alaska, have lost 75 gigatons (a gigaton is a billion metric tons) of ice per year from 1994 through 2013. For comparison, that’s roughly half of a recent estimate for ice loss for all of Antarctica (159 billion metric tons). It takes 360 gigatons of ice to lead to one millimeter of sea level rise, which implies that the Alaska region alone may have contributed several millimeters in the past few decades. “Despite Greenland’s ice covered area being 20 times greater than that of Alaska, losses in Alaska were fully one third of the total loss from the ice sheet during 2005-2010,” wrote the authors, led by Chris Larsen of the University of Alaska at Fairbanks’s […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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60 Million People Fleeing Chaotic Lands, U.N. Says

Photo Syrian children crossing into Turkey this week. The U.N. says the war in Syria is the world’s biggest source of displacement. Credit Bulent Kilic/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images UNITED NATIONS — Nearly 60 million people have been driven from their homes by war and persecution, an unprecedented global exodus that has burdened fragile countries with waves of newcomers and littered deserts and seas with the bodies of those who died trying to reach safety. The new figures, released Thursday by the United Nations refugee agency, paint a staggering picture of a world where new conflicts are erupting and old ones are refusing to subside, driving up the total number of displaced people to a record 59.5 million by the end of 2014, the most recent year tallied. Half of the displaced are children. Nearly 14 million people were newly displaced in 2014, according to the annual report by […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Beyond the Perfect Drought: California’s Real Water Crisis

The record-breaking drought in California is not chiefly the result of low precipitation. Three factors – rising temperatures, groundwater depletion, and a shrinking Colorado River – mean the most populous U.S. state will face decades of water shortages and must adapt. The Lake Oroville reservoir in Northern California was at less than 25 percent capacity last month. Image via raybouk/flickr. Creative Commons 2.0. The current drought afflicting California is indeed historic, but not because of the low precipitation totals. In fact, in terms of overall precipitation and spring snowpack, the past three years are not record-breakers, according to weather data for the past century. Similarly, paleoclimate studies show that the current drought is not exceptional given the natural variations in precipitation of the past seven centuries. Nor can it be confidently said that the current drought bears the unequivocal imprint of climate change driven by increasing greenhouse gases, since […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Two Billion People Are Running out of Water

Forget about peak oil—we should be worrying about peak water: Groundwater basins that supply 2 billion people are being rapidly depleted , according to a new study. Worse: No one knows how long those reserves will last. A research team led by scientists at the University of California, Irvine, examined the world’s 37 largest aquifers between 2003 and 2013 and found that one-third of them were “stressed,” meaning more water was being removed than replenished, according to one of two studies published Tuesday in the journal Water Resources Research . The eight worst-off aquifers, labeled “overstressed,” had virtually no natural replenishment to offset human consumption. The scientists determined the Northwest Sahara Aquifer System, which supplies water to 60 million people, to be the most overstressed. The Indus Basin aquifer of northwestern India and Pakistan is the second-most overstressed, followed by the Murzuk-Djado Basin in northern Africa. California’s Central Valley […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple