Monthly Archives: April 2007

Part 1 of 5: More Acidic Oceans

By / Bio / Published: April 5, 2007

The second installment of the IPCC’s 4th Assessment on Climate Change, titled “Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability”, will be released on April 6, 2007. In recognition of this report, I’m doing a weekly series called “Climate Dangers You May Not Know About“.

1. More Acidic Oceans
2. Drinking Water and Disease
3. Shifts in Lifecycle Timing
4. Drought and Violence
5. Melting of the North Pole

Everyone knows that carbon dioxide (CO2) warms the globe. But many people don’t know about its other dangerous effect. The build-up of CO2 is undermining ocean life through “ocean acidification”. I’ll start by explaining why our oceans are becoming more acidic, and then illustrate why this is so dangerous to ocean life and our entire food chain.

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Posted in Oceans / Read 5 Responses

Can We Engineer Our Way Out?

By / Bio / Published: April 5, 2007

Yesterday I talked about the phenomenon of "global dimming", where pollution particles suspended in the atmosphere reflect sunlight back into space. Because they cause less sunlight to hit the Earth, these particles also cool the planet.

So here’s an idea for fighting global warming. Instead of trying to reduce greenhouse gas pollution – the root cause of the problem – why not use technology to counteract the effect of the pollution? For example, we could artificially add to the planet’s reflectivity so that the warming is cancelled by the cooling.

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Posted in Geoengineering / Read 5 Responses

What's Global Dimming?

By / Bio / Published: April 3, 2007

Last week, Vic asked about the phenomenon of "global dimming" and its effect on global warming. Good question. Here’s the answer.

"Dimming of the sun" or "global dimming" is not due to anything happening to the sun. It’s due to something happening on Earth that blocks the sun’s rays. Global dimming is important from a climate standpoint because less sunlight reaching the Earth creates a cooling effect.

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Posted in News / Read 4 Responses

Two Supreme Court Victories

By / Bio / Published: April 2, 2007

Planet Earth won a major victory in the Supreme Court today. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had maintained that regulation of greenhouse gases was beyond its authority. Today in a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court disagreed. For background on the case, see our article “Supreme Court Hears Global Warming Case” or the full text of the decision [PDF]. Environmental Defense was one of the petitioners in this case.

And that wasn’t the only Supreme Court victory today. The United States and Environmental Defense filed suit against Duke Energy for violating Clear Air Act rules when it renovated its plants, and today the Supreme Court agreed. For background on the case, see our article “Pivotal Clean Air Case Before Supreme Court” or the full text of the decision [PDF].
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Posted in Cars and Pollution / Read 3 Responses