Climate 411

This post is by Steve Cochran, director of the national climate campaign at Environmental Defense Fund.

Ohio Senator George Voinovich today proposed to address the rapidly escalating threat of climate change by delaying meaningful federal action to control greenhouse gas emissions, obstructing existing state programs, and allowing U.S. global warming pollution to increase for decades to come.

This proposal can be summed up in one word: bankrupt. It’s a detailed prescription for doing nothing. If you think climate change is a hoax, this is your bill.

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

An article in this week’s Nature predicts that Europe and North America will cool slightly over the next decade. No, this doesn’t mean that global warming has stopped.

The new paper describes a climate model that makes short-term (decadal) predictions based on ocean dynamics. The decade-long cooling is just a temporary offset to warming from human activity. After it passes, temperatures will begin climbing again. By 2030, the model forecasts the same global temperatures as the IPCC.

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

The Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act is scheduled for Senate debate and vote the first week in June. We’re closer than we’ve ever been to passing legislation but we still have a long way to go (see our previous post, How a Bill Moves Through Congress).

The next month will be crucial, as we talk to senators who are still on the fence. Many are leaders whose management skills will be put to the test.

Who are they? Read our 10 Senators to Watch page to find out.

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

Last week, NOAA released some disheartening numbers: both CO₂ and methane increased sharply last year. Growth rates are increasing (see graph to the right).

The CO₂ numbers weren’t a surprise. A paper with similar findings was published last November by a team that included a NOAA scientist. I wrote a blog post summarizing the study, which analyzed the reasons behind the trend (see Rise of Atmospheric Carbon is Accelerating).

The methane numbers, however, were disturbing. Until this year, methane levels have been essentially unchanged since 1998.

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This post is by Britt Lundgren, an agricultural policy specialist at Environmental Defense Fund.

You may have heard about the gridlock over the 2008 Farm Bill, which was supposed to have been signed into law already, but hasn’t yet. Versions of the bill have passed both the House and the Senate. Now the bill is "in conference" to resolve differences over new spending and offsets to pay for the bill.

It’s unclear whether the conference will produce a bill that the President will sign. The President has repeatedly threatened a veto, saying he wants more reform of our antiquated system of crop subsidies (a point on which we strongly concur – see my guest post on Grist).

Still, there is much we stand to lose if Congress and the President can’t agree on a good a new Farm Bill. The 2008 bill includes significant new funding for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s voluntary conservation incentives programs and renewable energy programs.

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

Today, at noon Eastern Time, Environmental Defense Fund President Fred Krupp will participate in a live online discussion on the Washington Post Web site.

The discussion, on Fred’s new book Earth: The Sequel, will last for one hour. You can go to the site before the discussion starts to read about the book and submit questions or comments.

If you participate, tell us how it went!