Climate 411

This post is by Sheryl Canter, an Online Writer and Editorial Manager at Environmental Defense.

We’re sorry that many of you had trouble getting to our pages in recent weeks. Over the long weekend, we switched to a new service that is more reliable and offers more features.

While the pages should be much faster now, there is one remaining inconvenience: If you have registered to post comments, you will need to re-register. We think everything is working smoothly (thank you, Porter!), but if you notice any other problems, please let us know.

We’re glad to have the page-loading troubles behind us, and thanks for your patience.

This post is by Carol Andress, Economic Development Specialist at Environmental Defense.

Operation Climate Vote

This post is part of a series on the work of the Environmental Defense Action Fund to enact an effective climate law. You can help by writing to Congress.

The U.S. House of Representatives is back in session this week, and they have some important work to do.

Last month, the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act (CSA) was passed out of committee in the Senate. This means that the bill now can be considered by the full Senate – an important step. But for a bill to become law in this country it has to be passed by both the House and Senate, and the House has not yet moved on climate legislation. (See our previous post for more on the legislative process.)

Before the break, the House was preoccupied with the energy bill, but that’s now been passed. Next up should be climate legislation, and support is building for it. Here’s what House members have been saying:

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This post is by Sheryl Canter, an Online Writer and Editorial Manager at Environmental Defense.

Yesterday, the New York Times ran a story about light bulbs. If you only read the beginning of the article, you might think it was saying that compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) have poor quality light. But in fact, its conclusion – after testing a wide array of bulbs – was that some are better than others.

It’s true – some are better than others. For information on CFLs and how they differ, check out our online guide, How to Pick a Better Bulb.

This post is by Sheryl Canter, an Online Writer and Editorial Manager at Environmental Defense.

When you save water, you save energy – and vice versa. Carbon calculators can give you some idea of your carbon footprint, but most don’t take into account your water usage. How much water do you use? Now you can find out.

A new Web site, H₂O Conserve, offers an H₂O Calculator. I tried it, and it said I used 479.88 gallons per day (I do?). The average American uses 1189.3 gallons of water per day, so I guess it’s not as bad as it sounds.

The site also includes a comprehensive tips section for learning how to use less water.

This post is by James Wang, Ph.D., a climate scientist at Environmental Defense.

Climate change denier and U.S. Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla) published a report just before Christmas with the headline: "Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007." Does that leave you surprised and wondering? It shouldn’t. It’s a shocker of a headline, but the report itself doesn’t back up the claim.

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This post is by Eric Holst, Manager, Center for Conservation Incentives, Environmental Defense.

Everyone can do something to help stop global warming. Here’s an example…

When California passed the Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32), California rice growers wanted to explore ways to lower their net emissions. But exactly how to go about doing this wasn’t clear, so Environmental Defense teamed up with the California Rice Commission to work on the challenge.

As in other sectors of agriculture, rice farms both produce greenhouse gas emissions (mainly in the form of methane) and sequester carbon in field vegetation and soils. Our two-year project, launched in October, seeks to develop precise techniques – voluntarily implemented – to reduce emissions and increase sequestration, and to quantify emission benefits.

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