Climate News and Resources

Study Sees Climate Change Impact on Alaska

By William Yardley of the NY Times
Climate change is expected to raise the repair and replacement cost of thousands of infrastructure projects as much as $6.1 billion for a total of nearly $40 billion from now to 2030, the study says.

Posted in Climate at 12:32:47 pm MST on 06/29/07

The Secret Campaign of President Bush's Administration To Deny Global Warming

Earlier this year, the world's top climate scientists released a definitive report on global warming. It is now "unequivocal," they concluded, that the planet is heating up. Humans are directly responsible for the planetary heat wave, and only by taking immediate action can the world avert a climate catastrophe. Megadroughts, raging wildfires, decimated forests, dengue fever, legions of Katrinas - unless humans act now to curb our climate-warming pollution, warned the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, "we are in deep trouble."

Posted in Climate at 09:15:24 am MST on 06/26/07

Warming Proposals

A Washington Post Editorial
ONE OF THE benefits of being in the second tier of presidential candidates is feeling freer to promote worthy ideas that might seem too risky to a front-runner. That may be the case with Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), whose plan to tackle climate change involves a bold move for any politicia...

Posted in Climate at 09:11:23 am MST on 06/26/07

Gloom and Doom in A Sunny Day

By Emily Yoffe of the Washington Post
Al Gore's scare tactics on global warming are having a chilling effect on the debate over climate change.

Posted in Climate at 09:09:21 am MST on 06/26/07

Coal Fuels A Debate Over Obama

By Alec MacGillis and Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writers
BENTON, Ill. -- In 2004, as a state legislator running for the U.S. Senate, Barack Obama came to this small town 300 miles from Chicago to pledge support for southern Illinois' struggling coal country.

Posted in Energy at 10:04:29 am MST on 06/25/07

Exclusive Global Warming Poll: The Buck Stops Here

Was it Al Gore's movie? Or is it the legacy of hurricane Katrina and a growing realisation that the US is as vulnerable as anyone to extremes of weather and climate? Whatever the explanation, Americans are growing more worried about global warming. According to a recent poll, climate change now looms larger than any other environmental threat in the mind of the American public.

Posted in Climate at 08:44:41 am MST on 06/25/07

China overtakes U.S. as top CO2 emitter: Dutch agency

Courtesy of Reuters
China has overtaken the United States as the top emitter of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, because of surging energy use amid an economic boom, a Dutch government-funded agency said on Wednesday.

Posted in Climate at 08:42:08 am MST on 06/25/07

Signs of Energy

A NY Times Editorial
The energy bill passed by the Senate on Thursday includes an important breakthrough: the first substantial improvement in the nation’s automobile fuel-efficiency standards since 1975.

Posted in Energy at 08:39:00 am MST on 06/25/07

Democrats Press Plan to Channel Billions in Oil Subsidies to Renewable Fuels

By Edmund L. Andrews of the NY Times
Senate Democrats are seeking a major reversal of energy tax policies that would reverse incentives and benefits to the oil industry and instead underwrite renewable fuels.

Posted in Energy at 11:51:44 am MST on 06/19/07

Democrats Push Coal-to-Liquids Energy Plan

By Steven Mufson
A group of Senate Democrats from coal-rich states is drafting an amendment to proposed energy legislation that would provide as much as $10 billion in federal loans to pay for capturing and storing greenhouse gases produced by plants that would turn coal into liquid transportation fuels or...

Posted in Energy at 01:09:37 pm MST on 06/13/07

Senate, House Turn Focus to Energy Bills

By Steven Mufson
With U.S. gasoline prices near record levels, the Senate is to take up an energy bill today that Democratic leaders hope will be a rallying point for voters concerned about national security and climate change as well as pump prices.

Posted in Climate at 09:18:01 am MST on 06/12/07

California Attorney General seeks presidential candidates' backing on climate plan

By ERICA WERNER
06/08/07 05:14:02

California Attorney General Jerry Brown wants presidential candidates to weigh in with the Environmental Protection Agency in favor of his state's bid to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars and SUVs.

Brown, a Democrat, sent a letter to the 18 leading Democratic and Republican presidential contenders in advance of testifying on the matter Friday before a House global warming panel.

He asked them to submit written testimony to the federal EPA, which is weighing whether to grant California a waiver needed to put in place a state law that would cut greenhouse gas emissions, mostly carbon dioxide, by 25 percent from cars and 18 percent from sport utility vehicles beginning in 2009.

At least 11 other states are ready to follow California's lead if the state gets the needed federal waiver.

"As one who may be the next president of the United States, I believe that your written statement, which we will submit to EPA as part of the legal record, will help bolster our case," Brown wrote in the letter sent late Thursday. "I urge you to give us the strongest possible statement for submission to EPA."

Brown asked the candidates to weigh in by June 15, the public comment deadline.

He was assured of a favorable response from at least two of the Democratic contenders. Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson already have submitted testimony to EPA favoring California request.

California's waiver request became controversial in Congress this week when Democratic leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee included language in a draft energy bill that would block EPA from granting such a waiver.

Committee Chairman John Dingell, R-Mich., an auto industry stalwart, argues that letting California implement its own emissions rules would lead to confusing separate requirements. The auto industry wants one federal standard.

But Dingell is opposed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and by Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., Pelosi's pick to head a new Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.

Markey's committee was holding a hearing later Friday on the implications of an April Supreme Court decision that gave EPA the authority to regulate greenhouse gases. The ruling led the agency to hold hearings last month on California's two-year-old waiver request. Brown was testifying Friday along with EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson and others.

States that are ready to impose emission reductions for greenhouse gases from automobiles if California gets its waiver are Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. Other states, including New Mexico, are moving to adopt them.

Posted in Climate at 02:52:49 pm MST on 06/11/07

Smaller Vehicles Speed Ahead As Auto Sales Exceed Forecast

By Sholnn Freeman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 2, 2007; Page D01

U.S. auto sales grew 5 percent in May as car buyers snapped up fuel-sipping models while gas prices rose.

Posted in Climate at 10:46:31 am MST on 06/04/07

Bush Proposes Goals on Greenhouse Gas Emissions

By Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the NY Times
Such an agreement would be a major shift for a White House that has resisted setting firm limits on emissions.

Posted in Climate at 02:32:47 pm MST on 06/01/07

NASA Administrator Questions Need to Fight Global Warming

By Marc Kaufman
NASA Administrator Michael Griffin says that although global warming is changing Earth's climate, he's not convinced that is "a problem we must wrestle with."

Posted in Climate at 02:31:08 pm MST on 06/01/07