Climate 411

This post is by Lisa Moore, Ph.D., a scientist in the Climate and Air program at Environmental Defense Fund.

Have you ever spent time scrolling through NASA’s image gallery? Some of the pictures are mesmerizing. I particularly like the "Blue Marble" image of the Earth (at right), which was stitched together using satellite data.

Satellites provide more than pretty pictures. Our ability to understand and predict climate change depends on continuous high-quality satellite data.

Unfortunately, this critical data stream is threatened by budget cuts and lack of political support. In 2005, the National Academies assessed the situation and deemed it "alarming". Three years later, the outlook has not improved.

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This post is by Lisa Moore, Ph.D., a scientist in the Climate and Air program at Environmental Defense Fund.

What does wildlife conservation mean to you? Setting aside land? Restoring habitat? Reducing local stresses to species or ecosystems? These are the conventional methods. But because of rapid climate change, scientists in a recent paper say this may not be enough:

[T]he future for many species and ecosystems is so bleak that assisted colonization might be their best chance.

Assisted colonization – moving species to sites where they aren’t native – is a high-risk suggestion. There are many cases, for example, where introduced species have become invasive and wreaked havoc on native ecosystems. So why would some of the world’s leading biologists make such a suggestion?

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This post is by Sheryl Canter, an online writer and editorial manager at Environmental Defense Fund.

Yesterday we sent an email to our action network asking how people were coping with high oil prices. The response on our sister blog, the Green Room, was enthusiastic – over 600 comments! Here are some of our favorites, organized by topic:

Strategies to Increase Gas Mileage

From Ann:

I’ve been driving 60 mph on the highway and have seen a dramatic improvement in my gas mileage. I’m getting 38-40 mpg in my Toyota Camry on the highway! Drive 60 when you go.

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This post is by Lisa Moore, Ph.D., a scientist in the Climate and Air program at Environmental Defense Fund.

In 1992, the world’s nations gathered to negotiate the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The 192 nations that ratified this treaty – including the U.S. – agreed to the following objective:

[T]o … prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system… within a time-frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner.

The definition of "dangerous" is a social and political judgment that is informed by science. But even if we all agreed on which outcomes we wanted to avoid, scientists couldn’t say precisely how much we have to cut emissions to achieve these outcomes. We have good best estimates, but there’s always a degree of scientific uncertainty.

Here’s why.

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This post is by Sheryl Canter, an online writer and editorial manager at Environmental Defense Fund.

We’ve posted several articles recently about the transportation crisis in this country – a painful combination of astronomical gas prices, inadequate public transit, and bike challenges in some cities. Well, okay, we haven’t posted about biking yet, but we will soon!

Our Transportation by the Numbers list puts the situation in high relief. For example, did you know that 20 percent of public transit agencies in the U.S. are cutting services due to budget constraints, and 46 percent of Americans have no access to public transit at all? Use of public transit is at a 50-year high due to soaring gas prices, and yet services are being cut. Something is wrong with this picture!

Do you have a public transit story to tell? Tell us how you’re coping with crowded parking at commuter train stations, crowded buses and trains, or whatever else is happening in your area. We’d love to hear your experiences. I’ll be posting about my bike challenges in New York City in the next week or two.

This post is by Sheryl Canter, an online writer and editorial manager at Environmental Defense Fund.

Two weeks ago, Lisa Moore posted about a dangerous suggestion from Congress and producer groups to allow the penalty-free release of up to 24 million acres from the Conservation Reserve Program so the land could be put back into crop production.

Yesterday, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer decided again it. Good call! From Sara Hopper, EDF’s director of agricultural policy:

Secretary Schafer should be commended for resisting calls to gut the nation’s oldest and most successful farm conservation program. Putting millions of CRP acres back into intensive crop production would have resulted in the loss of billions of dollars in taxpayer investments in conservation and caused untold environmental damage, while only minimally boosting crop production and providing little, if any, relief from rising commodity prices.