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Tagged : global-warming
At ski resorts green is the new white
October 31st, 2008 · 1 Comment
By Shermakaye Bass
If skiing or snowboarding is your brood’s idea of the perfect family vacation, then ask yourself: What could make it even “more” perfect?
Powdery white slopes and alpine valleys? Maybe a white Christmas? Chances are when you think of skiing, you think of things white, not green. But the green-ski movement, prompted by U.S. groups like the Ski Area Citizens Coalition (SACC), an outgrowth of nonprofit Colorado Wild, and National Ski Areas Association (NSAA) “Sustainable Slopes” program, is changing that – little by little.
A fairly young endeavor (SACC started in 1999; Sustainable Slopes in 2000), the movement’s emergence reminds us that as healthy and nature-loving as this sport might be, it hasn’t been known for its environmental sensitivity.
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Tags: · Aspen, Buttermilk, Colorado, global warming, Mt. Bachelor, National Ski Areas Association, Oregon, Ski Area Citizens Coalition, Skiing, Snowmass
World Wildlife Fund warns of accelerating climate change
By Harriet Blake
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) issued a report earlier this week stating that global warming is increasing at an even faster pace than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) forecast in 2007. The report, “Climate Change: Faster, Stronger, Sooner,” was pegged to the Oct. 20 Luxembourg meeting of the European Union’s Environment Ministers.
Despite concerns about the global financial crisis, the ministers have chosen to stick with their environmental improvement plan – to reduce greenhouse gases 20 percent by 2020. The WWF would like to see that increased to 30 percent.
According to the WWF’s scientific data, there were six key findings:
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Tags: · Arctic Ocean, Carbon Sink, Climate Change, European Union, global warming, Greenhouse Gases, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPPC, sea level, World Wildlife Fund
Virginia survey reveals public attitudes on global warming
By Barbara Kessler
Three in four Virginians believe that global warming has been occurred over the past four decades, according to an extensive survey of state opinions, released today by University of Virginia researchers.
A smaller percentage of the populace (39 percent) said that human activity “such as burning fossil fuels” is causing the phenomenon; 33 percent felt global warming was caused by a combination of human factors and natural trends; 20 percent attributed it to “natural patterns” and 8 percent reported they were “not sure” of the causes.
The survey of 660 Virginians, conducted by UV’s Miller Center of Public Affairs and released this week, was devised to better probe residents’ viewpoints on global warming, in light of the fact that states have “taken an unexpectedly central role” in forming climate change policy.
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Tags: · Climate Change, global warming, Miller Center of Public Affairs, Virginia
California report shows green energy policies generate jobs
By John DeFore
Anyone skeptical about talk of “green jobs” this campaign season might take note of a new report in which economists, not politicians, find that three decades of green policies in California have created about 1.5 million jobs. Some energy jobs were lost along the way as well. But the authors found that: “For every new job foregone in these sectors, however, more than 50 new jobs have been created across the state’s diverse economy.”
 Written by David Roland-Holst of Berkeley’s Center for Energy, Resources, and Economic Sustainability (CERES), the report is intended to help decision makers gauge the economic impact of enforcing the emission-reduction goals of a 2006 California law called the Global Warming Solutions Act.
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Tags: · California, clean energy, global warming, Green jobs
Many mammals at risk of extinction
October 7th, 2008 · 1 Comment
By Barbara Kessler
Polar bears, penguins, pandas have become symbols of the fight to save wild places around the world and push back global warming.
 According to conservationists meeting in Barcelona this week, they have a host of company. A broad assessment of the world’s mammals reveals an “extinction crisis” with nearly one-quarter of known mammal species at risk of disappearing forever due to habitat loss, pollution, global warming, over-hunting and food chain erosion.
The study, unveiled at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Conservation Congress, shows that 1,141 (and possibly nearly 2,000) of the world’s 5,487 mammals are known to be threatened with extinction.
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Tags: · extinction, global warming, habitat loss, International Union for Conservation of Nature, mammals, Wildlife
Cartoon contest satirizes government interference in scientific inquiry
September 16th, 2008 · No Comments
By Barbara Kessler
And the winner of the Union of Concerned Scientist’s “Science Idol” cartoon contest is. . . Justin Bilicki, a senior art director at ad agency Avenue A/Razorfish, who lives in Brooklyn.
 The contest, an annual event for the non-profit alliance of scientists, invited cartoonists to explore the challenges and political pressures that impede or distort scientific inquiry. Bilicki’s cartoon, clearly informed by the debate over climate change and global resource depletion, features a scientist in a lab coat with a poster that declares: RESEARCH CONCLUDES: WE ARE DESTROYING EARTH.
Two men in suits look on, and one, holding a briefcase overstuffed with money and labeled “Government” asks, “Could you kindly rephrase that in equivocal, inaccurate, vague, self-serving and roundabout terms that we can all understand?”
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Tags: · Climate Change, global warming, Union of Concerned Scientists
Palin, Biden: Where They Stand On Energy And The Environment
September 10th, 2008 · No Comments
By Shermakaye Bass
Republican presidential candidate Arizona Sen. John McCain, who has historically opposed drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), has been uncharacteristically taciturn on the energy issue since he chose pro-drilling Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.
Green-energy proponents find that ominous.
 “With the pick of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin for his running mate, John McCain’s race towards the Bush administration’s failed energy policy is now complete,” Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope said recently. “… No one is closer to the the oil industry than Governor Palin. Along with her support for drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge and off our coasts, she also opposes a windfall profit tax on the richest oil companies. …She has been dismissive of alternative energy, saying ‘alternative-energy solutions are far from imminent and would require more than 10 years to develop’, when in reality it is the oil she would like to drill that would take a decade to bring to market.”
The League of Conservation Voters (LCV) in Washington, D.C., showed a similar concern over Palin.
“Obviously, it’s a very disappointing pick for a (presidential) candidate who at one time made a priority of getting us away from the old fossil fuels of the past – Sen. McCain,” said David Sandretti, the League’s communications director.
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Tags: · Alaska, Carbon Emissions, Clean Air, global warming, Governor Sarah Palin, League of Conservation Voters, Oil Companies, Pebble Mine, Polar Bears, Project Vote Smart, Proposition 4, Riverkeeper. Alaska Clean Water Act, Salmon, Senator Barack Obama, Senator Joe Biden, Senator John McCain, Sierra Club
US Hurricanes Could Increase This Year, But Not Because of Global Warming
Weather experts are predicting that some 17 Atlantic storms — about seven more than average — will pack enough strength they’ll reach tropical storm strength in 2008, earning the right to be named and carrying the potential to reach hurricane status.
The best guess for the number of hurricanes, according to weather forecasters at the Colorado [...]
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Tags: · global warming, hurricanes, tropical storms
Bush's Global Warming Address Gets Cold To Lukewarm Reception
By Harriet Blake
Soon after President Bush’s address on greenhouse gas emissions yesterday, environmentalists criticized the president’s goal of halting the growth of emissions by 2025 as too little, too late.
The Environmental Defense Fund praised Bush for acknowledging that federal action is needed to address climate change, “a new and welcome shift.” But, it falls [...]
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Tags: · Climate Change, global warming, President George Bush
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