U.S. Launches Effort to Cut Short-Lived Pollutants
The U.S. launched an international initiative aimed at reducing emissions of so-called short-lived global warming agents, such as soot and methane, in order to make near-term gains in fighting global warming and improving public health. The program, which includes participation by Bangladesh, Canada, Ghana, Mexico, and Sweden, will provide funding for developing countries to reduce emissions, and will be administered by the United Nations Environment Program.
New U.S. launched initiative targets the reduction of short-lived global warming agents, such as soot and methane, which may have contributed up to 40& of global warming to date.
The U.S. will contribute $12 million over two years to launch the initiative, known as the Climate and Clean Air Coalition to Reduce Short-Lived Climate Pollutants, with a goal of raising additional public and private funding. The targeted emissions include black carbon, which is more commonly known as soot, ground-level ozone and its precursor methane, and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) that are used as refrigerants. Studies show these gases — all of which remain in the air for a far shorter time period than carbon dioxide (CO2), the main cause of long-term manmade global warming — may have contributed up to 40 percent of global warming to date.
The new initiative does not set targets for pollution reductions. Instead, the money will go toward education projects and other emissions reduction efforts. Some ways to reduce soot emissions include installing special filters on diesel tailpipes and switching to cleaner-burning cookstoves, rather than biomass.
Many of the steps to reduce soot and ozone e...
Artist Takes Plunge in Depicting Extreme Sea Level Rise
Despite hearing a lot about how sea levels are rising because of global warming, it can be challenging to envision how they may alter the landscape in the not too distant future. An artist in London named Michael Pinsky set out to change that. In a public art project called "PLUNGE," he placed low energy blue LED lights on three of the city's iconic monuments, including the Seven Dials Sundial Pillar and the Duke of York Column.
Artist Michael Pinsky's blue LED lights seen on the Seven Dials Sundial Pillar in London. Credit: PLUNGE.
Pinsky set the blue light rings at the height of projected sea level in the year 3012, when waters could be as high as 90 feet above current levels. As treehugger described the scenario used for the installation, "It is all conceptual, because no one really knows, so consider it an extreme example of what could happen if the UK (and the rest of the world) continues with a ‘business as usual’ emissions scenario, i.e.without changing anything they do today."
The exhibit's website notes that the blue rings are intended to inspire people to imagine a city reshaped by higher sea levels. "Together, the Plunge monuments create an arc across central London, following the line of a future Thames that has swallowed much of the capital in its wake."
There are artists working on communicating climate science in the United States as well. For example, journalist Eli Kintisch is working on curating an exhibit that focuses on the relationship between climate change and extreme weather events, which is slated to open in Cambridge, Mass. in...
Climate in the Golden State: A Look at “Cal-Adapt”
By David Kroodsma
As a resident of the Golden State, I was thrilled to see the new Cal-Adapt website. The site uses interactive graphics and maps to show how climate change is expected to affect the state, and it allowed me to see what is predicted for where I live.
The background: In 2009, the California Natural Resources Agency, working in conjunction with numerous other state agencies, published a 200-page document entitled California Climate Adaptation Strategy. In great detail, drawing on numerous scientific studies, the document outlined how the state is at risk to rising temperatures, reduced snowpack, increased wildfires, and higher sea levels. Well-aware that 200-page reports don’t often gain wide readership, the authors recommended building a website to better share their findings.
Nearly two years later, in an effort led by UC Berkeley’s Geospatial Innovation Facility and supported by public and private agencies, the result is the Cal-Adapt website. While originally designed for “decision makers” and technical users, the site’s interface makes it easy for any Californian to understand how climate change may affect their community.
The main feature is a series of interactive maps where the user can enter in their location (or click on it on the map), and get detailed statistics about what climate models project for that location. Users can look at projections of forest fires, sea level rise, temperature change, precipitation, or even snowpack th...
Is the Financial Community Ready for Straight Talk on Climate and Peak Oil?
By Keith Kloor
In the 1980s, commercials like this one for E.F. Hutton made the brokerage firm a household name with this catchy phrase: "When E.F. Hutton talks, people listen."
Today, the same might be said of Jeremy Grantham, the mega-successful hedge fund manager who, according to Wikipedia, "has built much of his investing reputation over his long career by correctly identifying speculative market "bubbles" as they were happening and steering clients' assets clear of impending crashes."
Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
This week Grantham, a former economist for Royal Dutch Shell, caught the attention of people who believe in "peak oil" — that world oil production has already hit its high point and is now declining — and those who are concerned about climate change. He released his quarterly newsletter to GMO Capital, an investment firm that manages over $100 billion in assets. His essay is titled, "Time to wake up: days of abundant resources and falling prices are over forever."
Grantham cuts to the chase at the outset of his piece, writing that his purpose "is to persuade investors with an interest in the long term to change their whole frame of reference: to recognize that we now live in a different, more constrained world in which prices of raw materials will rise and shortages will be common."
What follows in his analysis is a "comprehensive look" at data that spells out the upward economic growth trajectories (and their rising populations) of developing countries, su...
Can Catastrophe Galvanize Action on Global Warming?
By Keith Kloor
In recent years, public apathy and a political impasse on global warming has led some to a grim resignation — society might not take serious action on climate change until catastrophic events force our hand. For example, in 2009, Canadian scholar Thomas Homer-Dixon said, "I am convinced that we won't really address the climate change problem until it produces some major shocks or instabilities that mobilize broad populations."
Last week, Robert Stavins, director of Harvard’s Environmental Economics Program, expressed a similar view, at least as it relates to the United States. In an interview with Bloomberg news, Stavins remarked that, “It’s unlikely that the U.S. is going to take serious action on climate change until there are observable, dramatic events, almost catastrophic in nature, that drive public opinion and drive the political process in that direction."
Is he right? Over the weekend, I canvassed a diverse spectrum of climate voices for reaction. Jonathan Gilligan, a climate policy scholar at Vanderbilt University, cast doubt on whether catastrophes will succeed in moving policy makers and the public.
Stavins is an optimist. In the past several years the US has experienced a catastrophic economic collapse and many examples of catastrophic flooding, but no significant progress toward reforming financial regulations or land-use policies to address the causes. If catastrophes can't spur reform in these areas, why would they induce pr...
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