The wind, a favorite power source of the green energy movement, seems to be dying down across the United States. And the cause, ironically, may be global warming — the very problem wind power seeks to address.
The idea that winds may be slowing is still a speculative one, and scientists disagree whether that is happening. But a first-of-its-kind study suggests that average and peak wind speeds have been noticeably slowing since 1973, especially in the Midwest and the East.
"It's a very large effect," said study co-author Eugene Takle, a professor of atmospheric science at Iowa State University. In some places in the Midwest, the trend shows a 10 percent drop or more over a decade. That adds up when the average wind speed in the region is about 10 to 12 miles per hour.
There's been a jump in the number of low or no wind days in the Midwest, said the study's lead author, Sara Pryor, an atmospheric scientist at Indiana University.
Wind measurements plotted out on U.S. maps by Pryor show wind speeds falling mostly along and east of the Mississippi River. Some areas that are banking on wind power, such as west Texas and parts of the Northern Plains, do not show winds slowing nearly as much. Yet, states such as Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Kansas, Virginia, Louisiana, Georgia, northern Maine and western Montana show some of the biggest drop in wind speeds.
"The stations bordering the Great Lakes do seem to have experienced the greatest changes," Pryor said Tuesday. That's probably because there's less ice on the lakes and wind speeds faster across ice than it does over water, she said.
Still, the study, which will be published in August in the peer-reviewed Journal of Geophysical Research, is preliminary. There are enough questions that even the authors say it's too early to know if this is a real trend or not. But it raises a new side effect of global warming that hasn't been looked into before.
The ambiguity of the results is due to changes in wind-measuring instruments over the years, according to Pryor. And while actual measurements found diminished winds, some climate computer models — which are not direct observations — did not, she said.
Yet, a couple of earlier studies also found wind reductions in Australia and Europe, offering more comfort that the U.S. findings are real, Pryor and Takle said.
It also makes sense based on how weather and climate work, Takle said. In global warming, the poles warm more and faster than the rest of the globe, and temperature records, especially in the Arctic, show this. That means the temperature difference between the poles and the equator shrinks and with it the difference in air pressure in the two regions. Differences in barometric pressure are a main driver in strong winds. Lower pressure difference means less wind.
Even so, that information doesn't provide the definitive proof that science requires to connect reduced wind speeds to global warming, the authors said. In climate change science, there is a rigorous and specific method — which looks at all possible causes and charts their specific effects — to attribute an effect to global warming. That should be done eventually with wind, scientists say.
Jeff Freedman, an atmospheric scientist with AWS Truewind, an Albany, N.Y., renewable energy consulting firm, has studied the same topic, but hasn't published in a scientific journal yet. He said his research has found no definitive trend of reduced surface wind speed.
One of the problems Pryor acknowledges with her study is that over many years, changing conditions near wind-measuring devices can skew data. If trees grow or buildings are erected near wind gauges, that could reduce speed measurements.
Several outside experts mostly agree that there are signs that wind speed is decreasing and that global warming is the likely culprit.
The new study "demonstrates, rather conclusively in my mind, that average and peak wind speeds have decreased over the U.S. in recent decades," said Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University.
A naysayer is Gavin Schmidt, a NASA climate scientist in New York who said the results conflict with climate models that show no effect from global warming. He also doubts that any decline in the winds that might be occurring has much of an effect on wind power.
But another expert, Jonathan Miles, of James Madison University, said a 10 percent reduction in wind speeds over a decade "would have an enormous effect on power production."
Pryor said a 10 percent change in peak winds would translate into a 30 percent change in how much energy is reaped. But because the research is in such early stages, she said, "at this point it would be premature to modify wind energy development plans."
Robert Gramlich, policy director at the American Wind Energy Association, said the idea of reduced winds was new to him. He wants to see verification from other studies before he worries too much about it.
by Google News
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Global Warming Could be as Twice as Bad as Forecast
WASHINGTON, May 19 (Reuters) - Global warming's effects this century could be twice as extreme as estimated just six years ago, scientists reported on Tuesday.
Earth's median surface temperature could rise 9.3 degrees F (5.2 degrees C) by 2100, the scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found, compared to a 2003 study that projected a median temperature increase of 4.3 degrees F (2.4 degrees C).
The new study, published in the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate, said the difference in projection was due to improved economic modeling and newer economic data than in previous scenarios.
Earlier climate warming may also have been masked by the global cooling effect of 20th-century volcanoes and by the emission of soot, which can add to warming, the scientists said in a statement.
To reach their conclusions, the MIT team used computer simulations that took world economic activity as well as climate processes into account, they said in a statement.
These projections indicate that "without rapid and massive action," this dramatic warming will take place this century, the statement said.
The outcome looks much worse if nothing is done to combat climate change, compared to earlier projections. But there is less change if strong policies are put in place now to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Without action, said study co-author Ronald Prinn, "there is significantly more risk than we previously estimated. This increases the urgency for significant policy action."
The study was released as U.S. President Barack Obama announced a plan to set national emissions standards for cars and trucks to cut climate-warming pollution [nN19374415] and as a bill to institute a cap-and-trade system to curb greenhouse gases was debated in the House Energy and Commerce Committee. [nN19402140]
Earth's median surface temperature could rise 9.3 degrees F (5.2 degrees C) by 2100, the scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found, compared to a 2003 study that projected a median temperature increase of 4.3 degrees F (2.4 degrees C).
The new study, published in the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate, said the difference in projection was due to improved economic modeling and newer economic data than in previous scenarios.
Earlier climate warming may also have been masked by the global cooling effect of 20th-century volcanoes and by the emission of soot, which can add to warming, the scientists said in a statement.
To reach their conclusions, the MIT team used computer simulations that took world economic activity as well as climate processes into account, they said in a statement.
These projections indicate that "without rapid and massive action," this dramatic warming will take place this century, the statement said.
The outcome looks much worse if nothing is done to combat climate change, compared to earlier projections. But there is less change if strong policies are put in place now to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Without action, said study co-author Ronald Prinn, "there is significantly more risk than we previously estimated. This increases the urgency for significant policy action."
The study was released as U.S. President Barack Obama announced a plan to set national emissions standards for cars and trucks to cut climate-warming pollution [nN19374415] and as a bill to institute a cap-and-trade system to curb greenhouse gases was debated in the House Energy and Commerce Committee. [nN19402140]
Monday, May 4, 2009
Fire Influences Global Warming
From the USNews.com
Fire's potent and pervasive effects on ecosystems and on many Earth processes, including climate change, have been underestimated, according to a new report.
"We've estimated that deforestation due to burning by humans is contributing about one-fifth of the human-caused greenhouse effect -- and that percentage could become larger," said co-author Thomas W. Swetnam of The University of Arizona in Tucson.
"It's very clear that fire is a primary catalyst of global climate change," said Swetnam, director of UA's Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research.
"The paper is a call to arms to earth scientists to investigate and better evaluate the role of fire in the Earth system," he said.
The team also reports that all fires combined release an amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere equal to 50 percent of that coming from the combustion of fossil fuels.
"Fires are obviously one of the major responses to climate change, but fires are not only a response -- they feed back to warming, which feeds more fires," Swetnam said.
When vegetation burns, the resulting release of stored carbon increases global warming. The more fires, the more carbon dioxide released, the more warming -- and the more warming, the more fires.
The very fine soot, known as black carbon, that is released into the atmosphere by fires also contributes to warming.
"The scary bit is that, because of the feedbacks and other uncertainties, we could be way underestimating the role of fire in driving future climate change," Swetnam said.
The report's 22 authors call for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, to recognize the overarching role of fire in global climate change and to incorporate fire better into future models and reports about climate change.
David Bowman, a lead co-author, said, "We're most concerned that fire has not been rigorously and adequately incorporated in the climate models. It's remarkable that such an integral part of the landscape has been so sidelined."
Swetnam, Bowman of the University of Tasmania in Hobart, Australia, the other lead co-author Jennifer K. Balch of the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis in Santa Barbara, Calif. and their colleagues published their paper, "Fire in the Earth System," in the April 24 issue of the journal Science.
Because fire on Earth predates humans, its ubiquitous activity is simultaneously accepted and overlooked. Bowman says, "Fire is extraordinarily obvious, but deeply subtle."
The article ties together various threads of knowledge about fire from disparate fields including ecology, global modeling, physics, anthropology, environmental history, medicine and climatology.
A more complete understanding of how the Earth works requires recognizing how fire is intertwined with and also a driver of human history and the Earth's history, the authors write.
Balch said of the article, "This synthesis is a prerequisite for adaptation to the apparent recent intensification of fire feedbacks, which have been exacerbated by climate change, rapid land-cover transformation, and exotic species introductions."
She commented about "fires where we don't normally see fires," and pointed to the occurrence of bigger and more frequent fires from the western U.S. to the tropics.
Swetnam said that, in addition to the burning in the tropics, huge tracts of the boreal forests of Siberia, Canada and northern Europe burn each year.
"The role of fire in forests in the boreal zone is unappreciated," he said.
"Russian forests alone contain more than 50 percent of the carbon stored on land in the Northern Hemisphere," Swetnam wrote in an e-mail, adding that warming is happening fastest at high latitudes.
In some recent years, the acreage burned in the forests of Siberia exceeded the size of the U.S. state of Virginia, he said. As the world warms, more of those regions are likely to burn, accelerating the warming.
Calling for a holistic fire science, Balch said, "We don't think about fires correctly."
"Fire is as elemental as air or water. We live on a fire planet. We are a fire species. Yet, the study of fire has been very fragmented. We know lots about the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle, but we know very little about the fire cycle, or how fire cycles through the biosphere."
Fire's potent and pervasive effects on ecosystems and on many Earth processes, including climate change, have been underestimated, according to a new report.
"We've estimated that deforestation due to burning by humans is contributing about one-fifth of the human-caused greenhouse effect -- and that percentage could become larger," said co-author Thomas W. Swetnam of The University of Arizona in Tucson.
"It's very clear that fire is a primary catalyst of global climate change," said Swetnam, director of UA's Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research.
"The paper is a call to arms to earth scientists to investigate and better evaluate the role of fire in the Earth system," he said.
The team also reports that all fires combined release an amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere equal to 50 percent of that coming from the combustion of fossil fuels.
"Fires are obviously one of the major responses to climate change, but fires are not only a response -- they feed back to warming, which feeds more fires," Swetnam said.
When vegetation burns, the resulting release of stored carbon increases global warming. The more fires, the more carbon dioxide released, the more warming -- and the more warming, the more fires.
The very fine soot, known as black carbon, that is released into the atmosphere by fires also contributes to warming.
"The scary bit is that, because of the feedbacks and other uncertainties, we could be way underestimating the role of fire in driving future climate change," Swetnam said.
The report's 22 authors call for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, to recognize the overarching role of fire in global climate change and to incorporate fire better into future models and reports about climate change.
David Bowman, a lead co-author, said, "We're most concerned that fire has not been rigorously and adequately incorporated in the climate models. It's remarkable that such an integral part of the landscape has been so sidelined."
Swetnam, Bowman of the University of Tasmania in Hobart, Australia, the other lead co-author Jennifer K. Balch of the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis in Santa Barbara, Calif. and their colleagues published their paper, "Fire in the Earth System," in the April 24 issue of the journal Science.
Because fire on Earth predates humans, its ubiquitous activity is simultaneously accepted and overlooked. Bowman says, "Fire is extraordinarily obvious, but deeply subtle."
The article ties together various threads of knowledge about fire from disparate fields including ecology, global modeling, physics, anthropology, environmental history, medicine and climatology.
A more complete understanding of how the Earth works requires recognizing how fire is intertwined with and also a driver of human history and the Earth's history, the authors write.
Balch said of the article, "This synthesis is a prerequisite for adaptation to the apparent recent intensification of fire feedbacks, which have been exacerbated by climate change, rapid land-cover transformation, and exotic species introductions."
She commented about "fires where we don't normally see fires," and pointed to the occurrence of bigger and more frequent fires from the western U.S. to the tropics.
Swetnam said that, in addition to the burning in the tropics, huge tracts of the boreal forests of Siberia, Canada and northern Europe burn each year.
"The role of fire in forests in the boreal zone is unappreciated," he said.
"Russian forests alone contain more than 50 percent of the carbon stored on land in the Northern Hemisphere," Swetnam wrote in an e-mail, adding that warming is happening fastest at high latitudes.
In some recent years, the acreage burned in the forests of Siberia exceeded the size of the U.S. state of Virginia, he said. As the world warms, more of those regions are likely to burn, accelerating the warming.
Calling for a holistic fire science, Balch said, "We don't think about fires correctly."
"Fire is as elemental as air or water. We live on a fire planet. We are a fire species. Yet, the study of fire has been very fragmented. We know lots about the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle, but we know very little about the fire cycle, or how fire cycles through the biosphere."
Sunday, April 19, 2009
NASA Arctic Sea Levels are Rising
Arctic ice is thinner and melting away faster than previously thought.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
FEEDBACK - Accelerated Global Warming
The Arctic and Antarctic ice shelves are rapidly melting, sea level and global temperatures are on the rise, ocean acidification is increasing
Emissions cuts can tame global warming
The worst of the global-warming effects can still be reversed, if proper steps are taken fairly quickly to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, according to an analysis by the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
A team led by Warren Washington, a senior scientist at NCAR's Climate and Global Dynamics Division, ran various climate-predicting scenarios with a Community Climate System Model run through a global supercomputer. Most notable is the simulation of what would happen in a world continuing on a path of unchecked human-made emissions of greenhouse gases versus one in which emissions are cut globally by 70 percent.
The results by the year 2100 are a difference between the global temperature rising an average of 1 degree versus 4 degrees Fahrenheit; the sea level rising 5.5 inches versus 8.7 inches; and Arctic ice stabilizing versus having its thin seasonal layer melt away completely.
"The threat of global warming can still be greatly diminished, if nations cut emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases by 70 percent this century, according to a new analysis," according to an NCAR statement. "While global temperatures would rise, the most dangerous potential aspects of climate change, including massive losses of Arctic sea ice and permafrost and significant sea level rise, could be partially avoided."
The levels of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere have already risen from 284 parts per million (ppm) before the industrial revolution to more than 380 ppm this year, according to NCAR.
The computer simulation showed that if greenhouse gas emissions can be held at 450ppm--the target labeled as reasonably achievable by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, if the world reduces emissions by 70 percent--the global temperature would rise by about .6 degrees Celsius (about 1 degree Fahrenheit) by the year 2100. If human-made emissions are left unchecked, the model predicted that greenhouse gas levels would rise to 750ppm by 2100, causing a global temperature increase of 2.2 Celsius (about 4 degrees Fahrenheit).
In the unchecked world, the model found that increasingly warm water temperatures would lead to a greater rise in sea levels, which, in turn, would lead to a negative impact on fisheries, sea bird populations, and mammals living in areas such as the northern Bering Sea. The simulation showed Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America as the areas that would see the greatest increase in average temperature.
It also simulated the U.S. climate specifically. In the world with 70 percent reduced emissions, for example, the U.S. Southwest would see double the amount of annual precipitation by the year 2100.
NCAR, which is funded by the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation, will publish a full report on its findings next week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. NCAR's report comes just as the U.S. Congress is about to debate the proposed American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, an energy and climate bill that would (among other things) impose a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions permits and mandate increased use of renewable-energy resources for utilities.
"Our goal is to provide policymakers with appropriate research so they can make informed decisions," NCAR's Washington said in a statement. "This study provides some hope that we can avoid the worst impacts of climate change--if society can cut emissions substantially over the next several decades and continue major cuts through the century."
A team led by Warren Washington, a senior scientist at NCAR's Climate and Global Dynamics Division, ran various climate-predicting scenarios with a Community Climate System Model run through a global supercomputer. Most notable is the simulation of what would happen in a world continuing on a path of unchecked human-made emissions of greenhouse gases versus one in which emissions are cut globally by 70 percent.
The results by the year 2100 are a difference between the global temperature rising an average of 1 degree versus 4 degrees Fahrenheit; the sea level rising 5.5 inches versus 8.7 inches; and Arctic ice stabilizing versus having its thin seasonal layer melt away completely.
"The threat of global warming can still be greatly diminished, if nations cut emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases by 70 percent this century, according to a new analysis," according to an NCAR statement. "While global temperatures would rise, the most dangerous potential aspects of climate change, including massive losses of Arctic sea ice and permafrost and significant sea level rise, could be partially avoided."
The levels of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere have already risen from 284 parts per million (ppm) before the industrial revolution to more than 380 ppm this year, according to NCAR.
The computer simulation showed that if greenhouse gas emissions can be held at 450ppm--the target labeled as reasonably achievable by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, if the world reduces emissions by 70 percent--the global temperature would rise by about .6 degrees Celsius (about 1 degree Fahrenheit) by the year 2100. If human-made emissions are left unchecked, the model predicted that greenhouse gas levels would rise to 750ppm by 2100, causing a global temperature increase of 2.2 Celsius (about 4 degrees Fahrenheit).
In the unchecked world, the model found that increasingly warm water temperatures would lead to a greater rise in sea levels, which, in turn, would lead to a negative impact on fisheries, sea bird populations, and mammals living in areas such as the northern Bering Sea. The simulation showed Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America as the areas that would see the greatest increase in average temperature.
It also simulated the U.S. climate specifically. In the world with 70 percent reduced emissions, for example, the U.S. Southwest would see double the amount of annual precipitation by the year 2100.
NCAR, which is funded by the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation, will publish a full report on its findings next week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. NCAR's report comes just as the U.S. Congress is about to debate the proposed American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, an energy and climate bill that would (among other things) impose a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions permits and mandate increased use of renewable-energy resources for utilities.
"Our goal is to provide policymakers with appropriate research so they can make informed decisions," NCAR's Washington said in a statement. "This study provides some hope that we can avoid the worst impacts of climate change--if society can cut emissions substantially over the next several decades and continue major cuts through the century."
Monday, March 30, 2009
Earth Hour World Wide
The worldwide event to call attention to climate change puts up its strongest numbers in the three-year history of Earth Hour. From the remote Chatham Islands in the southern Pacific Ocean to Sydney's Opera House to the Eiffel Tower to the Empire State Building to Seattle's Space Needle, lights dimmed for 1 hour in a symbolic call to change the Kyoto Protocol.
More than 15 million Filipinos were estimated to have joined Earth Hour on Saturday night and a total of 647 cities and town participated, making the Philippines number one among all the countries that joined the global event, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Philippine representative said on Sunday.
"Earth Hour Philippines is an astounding success," said Yeb Sano, WWF Philippines campaign manager, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer by phone.
Sano said the country ranking was based on the initial reports of WWF offices the world over.
Greece was second with 484 participating towns and cities.
Sano said the WWF Philippines noted a "very significant drop" in power consumption during Earth Hour but that the group was still "validating exact figures" from Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.
Earth Hour was a global effort encouraging people from all over the world to turn off electricity from 8:30 to 9:30 pm to raise awareness about the effects of climate change and global warming.
Only a million Filipinos were estimated to have joined the 2008 Earth Hour and the 10-fold jump in the number of participants in 2009 was attributed by Sano to the Filipinos' increasing awareness about climate change and its effects.
Sano added that WWF also stepped up its campaign for the 2009 Earth Hour.
He said the group networked with several other non-government organizations, government agencies, schools, a thousand private corporations as well as the media, which proved to be an effective strategy to disseminate information about Earth Hour.
Sano said WWF Philippines was still gathering data as reports from various parts of the country continued to come in as of Sunday afternoon.
More than 15 million Filipinos were estimated to have joined Earth Hour on Saturday night and a total of 647 cities and town participated, making the Philippines number one among all the countries that joined the global event, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Philippine representative said on Sunday.
"Earth Hour Philippines is an astounding success," said Yeb Sano, WWF Philippines campaign manager, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer by phone.
Sano said the country ranking was based on the initial reports of WWF offices the world over.
Greece was second with 484 participating towns and cities.
Sano said the WWF Philippines noted a "very significant drop" in power consumption during Earth Hour but that the group was still "validating exact figures" from Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.
Earth Hour was a global effort encouraging people from all over the world to turn off electricity from 8:30 to 9:30 pm to raise awareness about the effects of climate change and global warming.
Only a million Filipinos were estimated to have joined the 2008 Earth Hour and the 10-fold jump in the number of participants in 2009 was attributed by Sano to the Filipinos' increasing awareness about climate change and its effects.
Sano added that WWF also stepped up its campaign for the 2009 Earth Hour.
He said the group networked with several other non-government organizations, government agencies, schools, a thousand private corporations as well as the media, which proved to be an effective strategy to disseminate information about Earth Hour.
Sano said WWF Philippines was still gathering data as reports from various parts of the country continued to come in as of Sunday afternoon.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Global Warming Book
Nobel Peace Prize winner and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore will publish a follow-up to his global warming awareness bestseller "An Inconvenient Truth" on Nov. 3.
The book will be called "Our Choice" and will describe solutions to global warming, the environmental crusader and U.S. publisher Rodale Inc. said in a statement on Tuesday.
"An Inconvenient Truth' reached millions of people with the message that the climate crisis is threatening the future of human civilization and that it must and can be solved," Gore said.
"Now that the need for urgent action is even clearer with the alarming new findings of the last three years, it is time for a comprehensive global plan that actually solves the climate crisis. 'Our Choice' will answer that call," he said.
Gore was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his work to raise awareness about climate change and the same year also won an Academy Award for a documentary based on his slide show lecture and book "An Inconvenient Truth."
He said he will donate all proceeds from "Our Choice" to the Alliance for Climate Protection. (Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
The book will be called "Our Choice" and will describe solutions to global warming, the environmental crusader and U.S. publisher Rodale Inc. said in a statement on Tuesday.
"An Inconvenient Truth' reached millions of people with the message that the climate crisis is threatening the future of human civilization and that it must and can be solved," Gore said.
"Now that the need for urgent action is even clearer with the alarming new findings of the last three years, it is time for a comprehensive global plan that actually solves the climate crisis. 'Our Choice' will answer that call," he said.
Gore was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his work to raise awareness about climate change and the same year also won an Academy Award for a documentary based on his slide show lecture and book "An Inconvenient Truth."
He said he will donate all proceeds from "Our Choice" to the Alliance for Climate Protection. (Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
Monday, March 23, 2009
Obama Warns of Global Warming
Didn't you know global warming could lead to disasters in the future? On Monday, US President Barack Obama acknowledge the current flood emergency int the Red River Valley.
The President having a sit-down interview with six hand-picked from around the country in the Roosevelt Room of the White House West Wing. This six are Alex Daniels, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette; Jim Carroll, Louisville (Ky.) Courier Journal; Kevin Miller, Bangor (Maine) Daily News; Andrew Barksdale (back to camera), Fayette (N.C.) Observer; Janell Cole, Forum Communications Bismarck Capitol Bureau, and Robert Swift, Scranton (Penn.) Times and Tribune.
Among President's statements:
“I actually think the science around climate change is real. It is potentially devastating,”
“If you look at the flooding that’s going on right now in North Dakota and you say to yourself, ‘If you see an increase of 2 degrees, what does that do, in terms of the situation there?’ that indicates the degree to which we have to take this seriously,”
Obama talked about flooding and answering a question about North Dakotans being concerned how a “cap-and-trade” greenhouse gas reduction policy could hurt the state’s coal and power-generating industries.
Gov. John Hoeven ask for disaster declaration because there are always developing flodd emergency in the state.
The President having a sit-down interview with six hand-picked from around the country in the Roosevelt Room of the White House West Wing. This six are Alex Daniels, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette; Jim Carroll, Louisville (Ky.) Courier Journal; Kevin Miller, Bangor (Maine) Daily News; Andrew Barksdale (back to camera), Fayette (N.C.) Observer; Janell Cole, Forum Communications Bismarck Capitol Bureau, and Robert Swift, Scranton (Penn.) Times and Tribune.
Among President's statements:
“I actually think the science around climate change is real. It is potentially devastating,”
“If you look at the flooding that’s going on right now in North Dakota and you say to yourself, ‘If you see an increase of 2 degrees, what does that do, in terms of the situation there?’ that indicates the degree to which we have to take this seriously,”
Obama talked about flooding and answering a question about North Dakotans being concerned how a “cap-and-trade” greenhouse gas reduction policy could hurt the state’s coal and power-generating industries.
Gov. John Hoeven ask for disaster declaration because there are always developing flodd emergency in the state.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Global Warming 101
Global warming could do more than just melt polar ice. It could change our maps, and displace people from cities and tropical islands.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Antarctica Ice Melting Fast
GLOBAL WARNING - Antarctica Ice Melting Fast Global Warming Potential Sea Level Rise of 75 Metres
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