Climate Change News - November 3, 2008

(Kitchen Table Climate Study Group)

• The New Scientist, the popular science magazine from the UK, has multiple articles on "The Folly of Growth: How to Stop the Economy Killing the Planet."  SC's very own Gus Speth has a fascinating article on how conventional environmentalism cannot compete with surging global capitalism.
• Academics in China warn of huge increases in GHG emissions by 2030.  And an Australian economist, in what is being called the Australian Stern Report, notes today's rapidly increasing global CO2 emissions and predicts that we'll be lucky to stablize global CO2 levels at 550 ppm.  Can you spell "runaway global warming?"
• In the US, plans for as many as 34 nuclear power plants are taking shape according to a NYT article.  Meanwhile, there is no place to safely store our current inventory of high level radioactive waste and the cost for doing so at Yucca Mt., Nevada, has been estimated by the DOE to be around $96 billion.  Gee, maybe South Carolina can host (another) high level nuclear waste storage site in addition to the one at the Savannah River Site.
• The European Union has voted to require airlines landing at or taking off from European airports to joint the EU emissions trading system on Jan. 1, 2012.
• The new President will have little time to begin combating global warming.  However, a few people have been planning ahead. Bill McKibben has a brief article about the climate action plan that has been prepared for the next President by workers at Oberlyn College.
• The State newspaper reports that a Winthrop University poll of South Carolinians shows strong support for offshore drilling for oil.  I'm trying to get the link for the whole poll.
• And, in what appears to be a parting gift to the utility industry, the Bush administration is asking the EPA to relax air pollution rules for older electrical power plants.  Will they also ignore the law and change the rules for reporting GHG emissions from ethanol production?  
• Gov. Frist has received the recommendations from the Florida Action Team on Energy and Climate Change.  They include development of a cap-and-trade program and include initiatives that would do better than the Governor's goal of reducing 2025 emissions to 1990 levels.  Click here for a news report and here for the full report.
• What is it, do you think, that people do not get about manmade global warming?  A Time Magazine article says its because we do not understand the earth's climate and cites a MIT study where 84% of 215 graduate students had no clue as to what would sort of emissions reductions would have to occur to stabilize atmospheric CO2 levels.  The full Science article can be accessed here.
• The Pew Center on Global Climate Change has released an article that is more optimistic about the Dingell-Boucher climate bill being prepared in the US House of Representatives.  For details about the bill click this link.
• And, yes, just a predicted, the rapidly rising Arctic temperatures are causing the first increases in atmospheric methane concentrations in 8 years.  Methane is 20 times more powerful than CO2 as a GHG but has a much shorter half-life in the atmosphere (7 years vs. 100 years for CO2).
• Hope is rising as the rust belt goes green according to this interesting and informative NYT article.