Climate 411

On Tuesday, the Senate banking committee held a hearing on how the federal government can improve public transportation options. Federal funding is badly needed. Ridership is skyrocketing due to gas prices, while services are being cut due to lack of funds.

A Wall Street Journal article on the issue summed up with a quote from our own Andy Darrell, vice president for Living Cities:

What we’re seeing around the country is that transit is underfunded and is having a really hard time meeting that demand," Mr. Darrell said. "Our government should be ready to meet that demand, to embrace it."

Read More »

What lives when public transportation is used, and dies when it’s not? Potentially all of us.

This message is hauntingly conveyed by a street art installation showing polar bears coming to life as a subway passes beneath them:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/Fdu6AD5Y3D0" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

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

I live in New York City, and when I started riding my bike to work last year, I became acquainted firsthand with the obstacles to using this most efficient and green mode of transport. Here’s the short list:

• No sheltered place to park my bike.
• No place to park my bike at all – other bikes chained to all available racks and poles.
• Rules against chaining bikes to city property like trees or poles.
• Theft of anything not locked down – seat, wheels, bell, bike rack, or the entire bike. (Check out this YouTube video: "How to Steal a Bike in NYC".)
• Drivers who ignore bike lanes and seem unaware of how easily they could kill a biker.
• Bikers who ignore traffic laws and come at you the wrong way in bike lanes.
• Car doors that open treacherously into bike lanes.
• Streets with no bike lanes at all.
• Jaywalkers who mistakenly think that bikes can stop as quickly and easily as cars.

Thankfully, help is on the way. New York City has turned decidedly pro-bike under Department of Transportation (DOT) Commissioner Jeannette Sadik-Khan. And the non-profit group America Bikes is helping to bring bike-friendly changes to communities across the country.

Read More »

At first I was excited to escape the inferno of August in Washington D.C. for a vacation in Maine, but after three straight days of rain I started to feel a certain amount of self-pity. On the fourth rainy morning, however, a visit to a farmer I used to work for quickly put my woes in perspective. The rain put a minor dent in my vacation, but it put a major dent in the growing season for Maine’s farmers.

Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont all have received exceptional amounts of rain this summer, seriously damaging certain crops. Maine’s raspberry and green bean crops were devastated, and livestock feed crops (grain and hay) could not be harvested due to the wet weather. Many farmers will be paying high prices to truck in feed to replace what was lost.

No particular weather event can be reliably ascribed to climate change. But as I talked to my farmer friend, I began to wonder if this summer’s wet weather was a glimpse into the future for farmers in the region.

Read More »

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.

Read More »

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?

Read More »