Climate 411

This post is by Tony Kreindler, Media Director for the National Climate Campaign at Environmental Defense Fund.

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.

We’re closer than ever to passing national climate legislation:

• Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) predicts a Senate floor vote in June.
• House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-MI) signals he’ll circulate a bill in April.
• House Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher (D-VA) says there’s a 50-50 chance of passing climate legislation this year.

But we need to maintain grassroots pressure to keep legislators focused on the need to pass a bill this year.

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

Earth: The Sequel, the new book by EDF President Fred Krupp and Miriam Horn, is filled with interesting facts. Here are ten numbers that may surprise you.

Government Dollars

China spends 200 times more on solar energy than does the U.S., and the U.S. spends six times more on subsidies to the gas and oil industries than it does on renewable energy research. Hmmm…

• $6 billion – Amount the federal government gives to the oil and gas industries each year in subsidies and tax benefits, page 11.
• $1 billion – Amount the federal government spends each year on research into renewable sources of energy (this is less than ExxonMobil earns in a single day), page 11.
• $200 billion – Amount China has committed to invest in utility-scale solar power, page 65.

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

On Monday, the Washington Post reported that new studies say carbon output must be near zero to avert danger. They referred to two recent studies, one published in Geophysical Research Letters and one in the journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles.

I asked the scientists here at EDF about this. It turns out what’s missing from the Washington Post article is the time frame. Yes, we have to bring emissions to near zero, but it doesn’t have to be tomorrow. And moreover, this isn’t news!

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

January 2008 was the coldest month in several years, according to the scientific groups that track global temperature. Is it true, as DailyTech concludes, that January’s cold "wipes out a century of warming"? Has global warming stopped?

In a word, no. A single month does not make for a climate trend. Let’s look at the data.

Source: Raw data from the U.K.’s Met Office Hadley Centre (see description of data).

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

In a comment on my Global Warming Crib Sheet, johnmashey asked if I could say something about the lifetimes of greenhouse gases – that is, how long different greenhouse gases stay in the atmosphere. Great idea! Here’s a whole post on it.

Many people don’t realize that the greenhouse gases we emit can stay in the atmosphere for decades, centuries or even millennia. That’s why it’s so important that we cap emissions as soon as possible.

Here’s a table showing a selection of greenhouse gases, their global warming potential (GWP), and their lifetimes:

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

The science behind global warming is, well, science, and it can get pretty technical. By how many degrees has the globe already warmed? How much more can it warm before we’re in trouble? How much carbon dioxide is in the air now, and how much more can we afford to emit before risking climate catastrophe? Which are the most important greenhouse gases? And what do all those funny abbreviations mean?

Below you will find a handy crib sheet that gives you all these numbers and more.

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