Materials News Feeds (BBC News) "If you run your own website, you can use RSS feeds to display the latest headlines from other websites on your site." 09-08 Multimedia -09-07-08 Long-Term Green Strategy for the Economy (MSNBC News) Tom Friedman discusses his book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded, about a green technology revolution to handle global warming and boost the economy. 09-08 Antarctic Ice Shelf Breaking Up (UK.Reuters.com) "An Antarctic ice shelf is on the brink of collapse with just a sliver of ice holding it in place, the latest victim of global warming that is altering maps of the frozen continent." 01-09 News -01-26-09 Obama to Let States Set Higher MPG and Auto Emission Standards (CNN News) "President Obama signed a memorandum Monday requiring the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider an application by California to set more stringent auto emissions and fuel efficiency standards than required by federal law." "If the EPA grants a waiver allowing California to set its own emissions standards, the nation's largest state will be allowed to require automakers to produce trucks and cars that get better mileage than what is required under the current national standard." "Thirteen other states could take similar action." 01-09 -01-26-09 Raising the Bar on Fighting Climate Change (Time.com) "The Bush White House was so profoundly hostile to action on global warming that during its eight-year tenure, one could have qualified as a 'green progressive' simply by asserting that climate change was real. In 2007, under these circumstances — perhaps because of them — was born an unlikely alliance between Duke Energy, a North Carolina-based utility that depends heavily on coal, and the Environmental Defense Fund, which together with 30 other green groups and major corporations, formed the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP)." 01-09 -02-20-09 Water May Be Cut Off From California Farms (MSNBC News) "Federal water managers said they may have to cut off all water to some of California’s largest farms as a result of the deepening drought affecting the state." "U.S. Bureau of Reclamation officials said Friday that parched reservoirs and patchy snow and rainfall this year would likely force them to cut surface water deliveries completely. It would be the first time in more than 15 years such a move was taken." 02-09 -02-23-09 NASA To Launch Its First Carbon-Testing Satellite (PBS News) "The mission's purpose is to map global CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, which scientists can use to pinpoint sources of CO2 emissions and areas where CO2 is being removed from the air through absorption, called 'sinks.' " "In the earth's natural carbon cycle, trees, land plants and oceans can act as carbon sinks. Scientists know that humans emit approximately 8 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year, mostly through burning fossil fuels. But of those 8 billion tons of carbon, less than 4 billion tons remain in the atmosphere. Scientists know that the oceans absorb about 2 billion tons but that leaves more than 2 billion tons of carbon being absorbed somewhere on land. And scientists working on land haven't been able to find evidence that trees and plants absorb that much CO2." "According to Crisp, there's another intriguing layer to the mystery of the missing sink. 'The bigger puzzle is that the amount of CO2 that stays in the atmosphere from one year to the next changes dramatically,' he said. 'Some years the earth absorbs almost all of the CO2 that humans emit, and other years it absorbs almost none. We don't know why.' " "While NASA's satellite will measure CO2 sinks, Ibuki will concentrate on CO2 sources. Crisp says the teams are looking forward to sharing data and results, both with each other and the global scientific community." Editor's Note: The rocket launch failed and the satellite was destroyed. 02-09 -03-12-09 Chairman of House Energy Committee Pushes for Action (U.S. News) "If America doesn't act, Waxman warns, the country will pay a hefty price in terms of health, the environment, national security, and global instability. 'We're more and more suffering the consequences of global warming and climate change, which scientists tell us could be irreversible if we don't take very serious action now,' he says." 03-09 -03-18-09 Is Obama's Environmental Agenda Losing Out? (Time.com) "Already, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman has told environmental groups that while he aims to have the greenhouse gas legislation they have pushed hard for ready by Memorial Day, he'll be competing with House and Senate working groups aiming to have a health care reform bill done at about the same time." 03-09 -03-20-09 Robotic Fish to Monitor Water Pollution (CBS News) "A school of mechanical, battery-powered robots in the shape of fish will be released into a Spanish port to help monitor pollution there, scientists said Friday." 03-09 -03-25-09 Earth Hour (EarthHour.org) "2,848 cities, towns and municipalities in 84 countries have already committed to VOTE EARTH for Earth Hour 2009, as part of the worlds first global election between Earth and global warming." Editor's Note: Buildings will turn off their lights on March 28th, 2009, to show solidarity with efforts to reduce human contributions to climate change. 03-09 -03-26-09 Six Scientists on the Cutting Edge of Environmental Research (U.S. News) Provides an update on the work of six scientists. 03-09 -03-29-08 Earth Hour '08: Will It Matter? (Time.com) "Starting at 8 p.m. on Saturday in Christchurch, New Zealand, citizens from around the world will shut off their lights for an hour, to draw attention to the connection between energy use and climate change. From New Zealand, the event will move westward with the sun to Australia, Manila, Dubai, Dublin, New York, Chicago and finally end in San Francisco, where both the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge will go dark for an hour. Earth Hour is being sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), and its head Carter Roberts says the global event 'will make a statement about our commitment to solve the climate change problem and symbolize the commitment that people will make throughout the rest of the year.' (Hear Roberts talk about Earth Hour on this week's Greencast.)" 03-08 -03-30-09 World's Most Polluted Cities (Time.com) "This soot-blackened city [Linfen] in China's inland Shanxi province makes Dickensian London look as pristine as a nature park. Shanxi is the heart of China's coal belt, and the hills around Linfen are dotted with mines, legal and illegal, and the air is filled with burning coal. Don't bother hanging your laundry — it'll turn black before it dries. China's State Environmental Protection Agency says that Linfen has the worst air in the country, which is saying something, considering that the World Bank has reported that 16 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world are Chinese." 03-09 -04-03-09 Scientists Admit Global Warming Is a Hoax...Not (Christian Science Monitor) "In an unprecedented move Wednesday, the Norwegian Nobel Committee rescinded the Peace Prize it awarded in 2007 to former US vice president Al Gore and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, amid overwhelming evidence that global warming is an elaborate hoax cooked up by Mr. Gore." "After revoking the 2007 prize from Gore and the IPCC, the Nobel committee retroactively awarded it to the more than 31,000 people who signed the Oregon Petition – an appeal challenging the notion that there exists a scientific consensus regarding global warming – 'for their efforts to pursue pure, objective science that is free from the influence of any special interest group.' " "The prize of about $1.53 million will be divided equally among the petition’s signatories, whose expertise ranges from astrology to Intelligent Design." Editor's Note: This article is an April's Fools Day joke, if it was not sufficiently obvious. 04-09 -04-14-09 Study: Global Warming Can Be Reduced (MSNBC News) "So what would the world's temperatures, and the planet, look like in 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions continued as is? And if they were cut by 70 percent?" Editor's Note: The assumptions in this study are more conservative, suggest substantially less damage, than other large scale studies cited in the Awesome Library. Other studies suggest that CO2 must be reduced in the atmosphere, not just added to the atmosphere more slowly, to avert a catastrophe. 04-09 -04-18-09 EPA: Greenhouse Gases Pose a Threat to Health (Time.com) "In detail, Thursday's decision means that any new air pollution permits for coal plants will require that Best Available Control Technology (BACT) be used to reduce CO2 emissions, the same criteria currently used for other pollutants, like sulfur dioxide or soot. BACT requires companies involved in power plants to use the best available technology to control pollutants — it's a tool to keep pollution controls up to date as both safety technology and our understanding of pollution impoves. In the past, CO2 wasn't affected by BACT because the EPA didn't recognize it as a pollutant. This decision changes that." 04-09 -06-27-09 What the Climate Bill Means for CO2 Emissions (Time.com) "To keep conservative Democrats on board — especially those in the coal-heavy Midwest and Southeast — Waxman and Markey allowed the bill to be watered down considerably, loosening the overall carbon cap and scaling back the renewable-energy standard. When the powerful farm lobby balked at the bill, it was changed to allow farmers to sell offsets from agriculture, such as no-till farming, which leaves carbon in the soil. Worse, oversight of the agricultural offsets was taken away from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and given to the Department of Agriculture, which isn't exactly a neutral party." "As a result, the bill will achieve most of its stated carbon cuts through offsets and through improving energy efficiency, rather than encouraging the growth of low-carbon renewable electricity." "Instead of investment flowing to new solar and wind companies, to electric cars and public transit, that money is likely to go to foreign offsets and farmers." 06-09 -07-09-09 G8 Summit to Tackle Food Supplies (BBC News) "Leaders of developed G8 nations are to unveil new efforts to boost food supplies to the hungry, during the final day of their summit in Italy." "They are expected to commit as much as $15bn (£9.2bn) to efforts to help poor nations develop their own agriculture." "On Thursday, the second day of talks, the summit focused on climate change." "Leaders from both developed and developing nations agreed that global temperatures should not rise more than 2C above 1900 levels." "That is the level above which, the UN says, the Earth's climate system would become dangerously unstable." 07-09 -07-29-09 Senate Passes Energy and Water Bill (NPR.org) "The Senate on Wednesday passed a $34.3 billion energy spending bill that backs up President Barack Obama's promise to close the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste facility in Nevada." 07-09 -08-31-07 Movie: The 11th Hour (11thhouraction.com) AL Gore states: "My friend Leonardo DiCaprio has just produced an amazing documentary on this subject. The film was created using over 150 hours of interviews with some of the brightest minds on the planet, including physicist Stephen Hawking and Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai. Moreover, Leo himself is very eloquent and persuasive in this movie. I recommend it highly." 08-07 -09-22-09 Leaders Meet on Climate Change (CNN New) "World leaders converge Tuesday in New York to focus on climate change, with the clock ticking down toward a summit this year in Denmark, where a global climate change pact is to be signed." "Chinese President Hu Jintao, U.S. President Barack Obama, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Rwandan President Paul Kagame are among the world leaders expected to speak Tuesday." "Roundtables are also planned, all with the overarching and generally accepted goal of limiting the rise of Earth's temperature to within 2 degrees Fahrenheit above its temperature before the industrial revolution." 09-09 -09-23-09 China, Not U.S., Stars at Climate Summit (MSNBC News) "Although some 100 world leaders met Tuesday for a U.N. climate summit, most of the attention was on just two — President Barack Obama and China's Hu Jintao. Both vowed to take the threat of rising seas, drought and deforestation seriously, but only one had some momentum behind him and it wasn't Obama." " 'China and India have announced very ambitious national climate change plans,' Yvo de Boer said. 'In the case of China, so ambitious that it could well become the front-runner in the fight to address climate change,' de Boer said. 'The big question mark is the U.S.' " 09-09 -12-11-08 Obama Picks His Environment and Energy Team (New York Times) "President-elect Barack Obama has selected his top energy and environmental advisers, including a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, presidential transition officials said Wednesday." 12-08 Projects Biochar Legislation (Biochar-International.org) "The biochar provisions in S.1884 promote commercial development of technologies that will simultaneously create clean, renewable energy from agricultural and forestry biomass products, while protecting and restoring soil resources and helping to address global climate change. Unlike most carbon-neutral biomass energy systems, biochar technology is carbon-negative: it removes net carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and stores it in the form of stable soil carbon 'sinks', improving soil fertility, water retention, productivity and crop yields." Editor's Note: Biochar elements of this bill have been reomoved. 06-09

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