Climate 411

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.

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

Earlier this month I posted about problems with a Pew poll that found a majority of Americans now favor expanding oil drilling over protecting the environment. I suggested that the results were misleading, biased by the questions Pew asked. A new poll released last week confirms this.

When asked whether government’s priority should be "invest in new energy technology" or "expand exploration and drilling", a full 76 percent said "invest in new energy technology" should be the priority.

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

This week, seven U.S. governors and four Canadian premiers – partners in the fast-growing Western Climate Initiative (WCI) – released a draft design for what would be the largest cap-and-trade market for global warming pollution in North America. The outcome of many public workshops, the draft caps emissions for utilities and industry by 2012, and adds caps for residential, commercial and transportation sources by 2015.

WCI will present the draft at a stakeholder workshop and webinar in San Diego next week. Environmental Defense Fund experts Derek Walker, Jamie Fine and Martha Roberts will be there to speak in favor of a firm, binding emissions limit that declines over time, strict standards for offsets, and to remind participants of the economic benefits of action.

This post is by Michael Replogle, Transportation Director at Environmental Defense Fund.

Today, the New York City MTA proposed another fare and toll hike to manage a projected $900 million deficit next year. To avoid service cuts, according to WNYC, MTA head Lee Sander is "going begging everywhere, to Governor Paterson, Mayor Bloomberg, the federal government, and riders."

But in many other cities across the country, service cuts due to budget shortfalls are unavoidable. Ironically, communities are cutting services just when use of public transit is at a 50-year high due to skyrocketing gasoline prices (see map).

To avoid cutting these crucially important services, public transit systems urgently need federal help.

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