Silicon Valley goes solar
CNN News reports here: As demand for clean energy rises around the world, the nation's high-tech hub is looking to squeeze more money out of silicon. Engineers and entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley are taking advantage of their expertise in computer chips to design and manufacture electricity-generating solar cells that they hope will be increasingly competitive with traditional energy sources such as coal and natural gas. Most solar cells and chips are made from the same raw material from which the valley gets its name.
Earth Headed for Warmest Temps in a Million Years
ABC News reports here: In about 45 years, temperatures on Earth will be hotter than at anytime during the past one million years, says the U.S. government's top climatologist in a new report released today. According to the report, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the planet is just two degrees shy of an average temperature of 59 degrees Fahrenheit, which is what they believe the temperature was about a million years ago. See also the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences websitehere .
Antarctic ozone hole close to 2000 and 2003 records
AFP reports here at Yahoo News: The seasonal ozone hole over Antarctica is reaching a record size previously seen in 2000 and 2003, the World Meteorological Organisation has said. The hole in the protective layer of gas in the earth's upper atmosphere, which is caused by a specific type of pollution, emerged late in the season and grew faster than expected due to climatic conditions, said WMO ozone expert Dr Geir Braathen.
Seeds in the Arctic
Spiegel Online reports here: The world's largest seed collection is being developed under the permafrost on the Arctic Sea island of Spitzbergen. The tens of thousands of varieties of wheat, corn and beans stored there could even survive a nuclear war. The survival of many crop plant could depend on it.
UK calls for action to save tuna
BBC News reports here: The UK is pressing the EU for action to stop overfishing of the bluefin tuna, which campaigners say is being fuelled by the demand for sushi. The environment group WWF says many EU fishing fleets are breaking the law and catching far more tuna than allowed.
State sues car firms on climate
BBC News reports here: The state of California is suing six carmakers for costs associated with their cars' greenhouse gas emissions. The suit names General Motors, Toyota, Ford, Honda, Chrysler and Nissan. California is asking for "monetary compensation" for the damage which it says their emissions are doing to health, economy and environment.
Farming the World's Energy
Spiegel Online writes here: Agriculture offers the first serious alternatives to fossil fuels: Diesel, natural gas, and petroleum could give way in the future to "biomass" energy. As development continues apace, so too do concerns about the farmed fuels' effectiveness.
Biofuels look to the next generation
BBC News reports here: Biofuels are being hailed by politicians around the globe as a salvation from the twin evils of high oil prices and climate change. (more)
The Pentagon tells Bush: Climate change will destroy us
Not new but worth reading again here: Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters...
A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world. (more)
Climate change seen pushing plants to the brink
Reuters reports here at Yahoo News: Thousands of plant species are being pushed to the brink of extinction by global warming, and those already at the extremes are in the greatest danger, a leading botanist said on Tuesday.
Humans 'causing stronger storms'
BBC News reports here: Increases in hurricane intensity are down to humanity's greenhouse gas emissions, according to new analysis. Scientists calculate that two-thirds of the recent rise in sea temperatures, thought to fuel hurricanes, is down to anthropogenic emissions.
Microbes can clean up toxic waste dumps: scientist
Reuters reports here at Yahoo News: Microbes with a taste for toxic waste may hold the solution to cleaning up contaminated industrial sites and poisoned waterways across the globe, saving billions of dollars in cleanup bills, an Australian scientist said.
Solve climate 'whatever it costs'
Climate change is "potentially the most serious threat there has ever been" to security and prosperity, according to Britain's new climate ambassador. In an article - read the article here - for the BBC News website - his first since taking the post in June - John Ashton says climate change must be tackled "whatever it costs".
Scientist: Planet going back to dinosaur era
Reuters reports here at CNN News: Global warming over the coming century could mean a return of temperatures last seen in the age of the dinosaur and lead to the extinction of up to half of all species, a scientist said on Thursday. Not only will carbon dioxide levels be at the highest levels for 24 million years, but global average temperatures will be higher than for up to 10 million years, said Chris Thomas of the University of York.
Between 10 and 99 percent of species will be faced with atmospheric conditions that last existed before they evolved, and as a result from 10-50 percent of them could disappear. "We may very well already be on the breaking edge of a wave of mass extinctions," Thomas told the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.
Climate change forged first civilizations
Reuters reports here at Yahoo News: The earliest civilizations were not a product of favorable conditions but rather a last resort in the face of dramatic shifts in the weather, a climate scientist said on Thursday.
Big Environmental Case on Supreme Court Docket
Newsweek reports here: This fall, the Supreme Court will consider perhaps its most important environmental case in recent history. Last week a coalition of green activists, states and cities, religious groups, energy companies and even a ski resort filed briefs before the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that the Environmental Protection Agency should regulate greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide.
Scientists see new global warming threat
AP reports here at Yahoo News: New research is raising concerns that global warming may be triggering a self-perpetuating climate time bomb trapped in once-frozen permafrost. As the Earth warms, greenhouse gases once stuck in the long-frozen soil are bubbling into the atmosphere in much larger amounts than previously anticipated, according to a study in Thursday's journal Nature. Methane trapped in a special type of permafrost is bubbling up at a rate five times faster than originally measured, the journal said.
The Return of the Bearded Vulture
Spiegel Online reports here: In the 19th century, the Bearded Vulture had a bad press. It was accused of carrying off and devouring lambs and even small children. Alpine authorities declared open season on the bird and the last one was shot in 1913. But the vulture, which is capable of digesting large bones, is back thanks to a successful and costly 20-year program of introducing bred birds into the wild.
China's Scramble for Energy
Spiegel Online reports here: With a rapidly expanding economy, China doesn't have enough of its own natural resources to cover its growing energy needs. Beijng is trying to close the gap by increasing its imports and by betting on nuclear energy and renewables.
Euro Cars to Drink and Drive
Bernhard Warner from Wired magazine reports here: Plans are afoot for excess wine to be turned into ethanol for the European alternative fuel market -- but not in Italy where the fruit of the vine is sacred.
More than half of Chinese cities suffer from air pollution
AFP reports here at Yahoo News: More than half of China's cities are suffering from air pollution and over one-third of them have no centralized sewage treatment facilities, state media reported. According to the state agency's report, only 45 percent of Chinese cities met the national standard for clean air. Forty-three cities were on the agency's "black list", with their air quality rated as seriously polluted.
Gore: We have to solve global warming
Reuters reports here at CNN News: Former Vice President Al Gore said on Tuesday that reducing drastically the amount of greenhouse gas emissions was vital for the future of the planet. "Unless we stop dumping 70 million tons of global warming pollution into the atmosphere every 24 hours, which we are doing right now ... the continued acceleration of this pollution would destroy the future of human civilization," Gore said in a news conference in Finland's capital Helsinki.
Car-Sharing Merges Into the Mainstream
Not Just for Tree-Huggers: Businesses and Universities Help Drive Growth of Flexcar, Zipcar, The Washington Post reports here: A growing number of business owners using shared-car services instead of their own vehicles. No longer a curious fad, the services boast 530 shared cars in the Washington area, making them increasingly attractive to new kinds of customers, including universities and businesses.
Deep ice tells long climate story
BBC News reports here: Carbon dioxide levels are substantially higher now than at anytime in the last 800,000 years, the latest study of ice drilled out of Antarctica confirms. The in-depth analysis of air bubbles trapped in a 3.2km-long core of frozen snow shows current greenhouse gas concentrations are unprecedented. The East Antarctic core is the longest, deepest ice column yet extracted. Project scientists say its contents indicate humans could be bringing about dangerous climate changes.
Focus on climate adaptation urged
BBC News reports here: Climate change is inevitable, and policies to help societies adapt to a warmer future are badly needed. That is the message from the President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BA), Frances Cairncross, at the BA annual festival. She will tell delegates that even maximal deployment of the best technology cannot stop climate change.
Terminator IV: Schwarzenegger vs. Emissions
In seeking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, California is distancing itself from President George W. Bush's environmental policies. Not a bad strategy for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who faces a re-election bid in the autumn. See this article here from Spiegel Online on what the German press writes about it.
California Set to Cut Greenhouse Gases
Spiegel Online reports here: In a clear break with the environmental polices of US President George Bush, California is set to become the first US state to impose limits on greenhouse gases contributing to global warming after Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger forged a deal with the state legislature.