October 31st, 2012

As Hurricane Sandy approached Virginia Beach, I watched churning surf form a troublesome backdrop to two skateboarders harnessing the wind to propel themselves rapidly along the boardwalk. Those same winds were piling up water to form a dangerous storm surge and portended a powerful blow that would ultimately cause widespread devastation throughout the region. Since that moment, I have been asked many questions about Hurricane Sandy. Here are answers to the most common ones.

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May 15th, 2012

You may feel that your hands are simply too full with work or raising your kids to get into the “saving the planet” business. If you are curious enough to look through Cooler Smarter, though, you will still find valuable information. Many of the choices offered in the book won’t just lower your emissions of carbon dioxide; they can also improve the quality of your life, save you money and time, and even improve your health.

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March 30th, 2011

From Green Right Now Reports

Testifying before the U.S. Congress on Tuesday, Union of Concerned Scientists nuclear safety expert David Lochbaum, dissected how rippling power outages forced the Fukushima nuclear power plant into a situation where workers couldn’t contain overheating radioactive fuel and spent fuel.

Lochbaum, director of the the Nuclear Safety Project for the UCS, outlined how the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission could require better backup and fuel storage procedures at U.S. nuclear facilities to help prevent a breakdown similar to that still unfolding at Fukushima.

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March 14th, 2011

(The following is an excerpt of a report by Ed Lyman posted Sunday evening EDT.)

The nuclear crisis in Japan took a turn for the worse as serious problems developed at a second reactor at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear facility. Earlier concerns were focused on reactor Unit 1, but now the situation at Unit 3 is becoming serious.

Officials from Tokyo Electric reported that after multiple cooling system failures, the water level in the Unit 3 reactor vessel dropped 3 meters (nearly 10 feet), uncovering approximately 90 percent of each of the fuel rods in the core. Authorities were able to inject cooling water with a fire pump after reducing the containment pressure by a controlled venting of radioactive gas. As with Unit 1, they began pumping seawater into Unit 3. Seawater is highly corrosive and probably precludes any future use of the reactor, even if a crisis is averted.

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March 11th, 2011

A Boiling Water Reactor system (Source: Nuclear Information and Resource Service.)

Update (3-12-11):

An explosion at one of the Fukushima reactors on Saturday intensified concerns about possible escaping radiation.

But experts at the site reported that the threat of radiation was receding and that the explosion, which damaged an exterior concrete containment wall, had not compromised the metal containment surrounding the core.

“We’ve confirmed that the reactor container was not damaged. The explosion didn’t occur inside the reactor container. As such there was no large amount of radiation leakage outside,” Japan’s chief cabinet secretary, Yukio Edano, said in a news conference Saturday night. “At this point, there has been no major change to the level of radiation leakage outside, so we’d like everyone to respond calmly.”

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July 6th, 2010

With time running short to act on climate change this year, a group of environmental organizations have sent President Obama a letter, asking him to encourage movement on the gridlocked Senate negotiations on climate and energy legislation.

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June 24th, 2010

In an effort to house all the info about efficient vehicles in one virtual garage, the Union of Concerned Scientists has created HybridCenter.org.

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May 6th, 2010

From Green Right Now Reports

Seeing the pictures of the flooding in Nashville this past week may have reminded you of other recent U.S. floods — in Fargo, Iowa City and the Mississippi River Valley.

Nashville Flooding, May 2010 (Photo: ABC News)

And if you keep up with global warming, you may be wondering if this trend isn’t proving what scientists have been telling us about extreme rain events growing more severe and more frequent under climate change.

That question certainly came up in Nashville, according Rich Hayes, deputy communications director at the Union of Concern Scientists and a Nashville resident.

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January 12th, 2010

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

You’d think in the era of the Weather Channel and 24-hour-news, Americans would be well informed about the difference between “the weather” and “the climate”.

And yet, people seem genuinely befuddled. This winter especially, with the Midwest up to its window sashes in snow and Texas through Florida experiencing protracted periods below freezing, people can be heard questioning climate change and global warming.

How can a warming world be so cold? they ask.

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January 5th, 2010

By Shermakaye Bass
Green Right Now

The clock has just struck midnight on New Year’s Eve, 2020, and your rooftop cocktail party is in full swing. An urban garden, with potted evergreens and fruit trees, carpets the top of your downtown apartment building. The structure itself is vintage – a 1960′s brownstone that’s been retrofitted, by city-wide mandate. It operates on the new multi-source national electrical grid, which is supplied by wind, solar, geothermal power, as well as fossil fuels whose emissions are trapped underground.

Rooftop Garden (Photo: Adpower99/Dreamstime.)

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December 14th, 2009

From Green Right Now Reports

As international climate treaty negotiations continue in Copenhagen amid debate over the potential economic impact of new standards, a new report shows that the costs for small business operating under California’s landmark climate law (AB 32) can be measured in pennies.

Border Gill in Santa Monica

Conducted by leading economists and released by the Union of Concerned Scientists, the report found that AB 32 policies will only increase the percent of small business revenue spent on energy by only 0.3 percentage points–from 1.4 to 1.7 percent–in 2020. In a case study of one small business — Border Grill restaurant — the report fond AB 32 will cost diners 3 cents extra per $20 meal in 2020.

The peer reviewed analysis, The Economic Impact of AB 32 on California Small Businesses, used data on the cost characteristics of small businesses to estimate the economic impacts of AB 32 and was commissioned by UCS and conducted by The Brattle Group, an international economic consulting firm.

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September 10th, 2009

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

Not convinced that climate change matters? The Union of Concerned Scientists has concluded that if Americans adopt that stance, they’ll be gambling not just with their lungs, but with their pocketbooks.

The UCS surveyed 60 studies to better examine the anticipated financial toll of global warming if we fail to “dramatically curb emissions.” The nonprofit released the findings today in a report called “Climate Change in the United States: The Prohibitive Costs of Inaction”.

It found that rising sea levels, intense hurricanes, flooding, impaired public health and strained energy and water resources would all add up to one monumental price tag.

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