Climate 411

This post is by Mark MacLeod, Director of Special Projects, Climate and Air Program.

Climate Vote 2007

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.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has already voted for a national global warming cap and trade bill. Twice, in fact.

And, as Majority Leader, Senator Reid has said all the right things, promoting global warming as one of the top 10 legislative priorities for this Congress and mentioning global warming repeatedly in press conferences and speeches.

However, the Senate has yet to vote on a global warming bill this year. In fact, no global warming bill has even made it out of committee, though Senators Warner and Lieberman have joined forces to make this happen.

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The author of today’s post, Sheryl Canter, is an Online Writer and Editorial Manager at Environmental Defense.

One reason that old-fashioned incandescent light bulbs are such a particularly poor idea in summer is that they put out a lot of heat compared to compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). If you’re air conditioning your home, incandescent lights will require your air conditioner to work harder because you’re basically heating and cooling the room at the same time.

Some people have translated this into the advice that incandescent light bulbs are good in winter because they supplement the heat to your home, making up for the additional energy they draw. I asked James Wang, Ph.D., a climate scientist at Environmental Defense, to calculate whether this was indeed true. His answer was no. Here’s why.

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The author of today’s post, Jeffery Greenblatt, Ph.D., is a scientist at Environmental Defense specializing in low-carbon energy technologies.

Consumers and businesses alike complain that it takes years for savings on energy bills to repay the up-front costs of energy efficiency. No longer. As the Wall Street Journal recently reported, lenders have discovered what energy analysts have known for years: loans for energy efficiency improvements are low-risk, because borrowers can "finance" these loans through lower energy payments.

Energy-efficient mortgages have been available for some time, but lenders didn’t promote them, and customers resisted the extra inspections and paperwork. Now to get home buyers interested, banks are offering incentives of $500-$1000 off closing costs. Everybody wins: consumers save money, lenders make a profit, and the atmosphere enjoys lower carbon emissions.

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The author of today’s post, Michael Oppenheimer, Ph.D., is the Albert G. Milbank Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs in the Woodrow Wilson School and the Department of Geosciences at Princeton University. He also serves as science advisor to Environmental Defense.

"In about a century, some of the places that make America what it is may be slowly erased" by rising sea levels, says an Associated Press news story from last week. In the map of Florida below, some of the most vulnerable areas – which include Cape Canaveral and a big chunk of Everglades National Park – are shown in red.

Source: University of Arizona’s Department of Geosciences.

It’s not just historic sites that are threatened, but people. Rising sea levels could displace millions in heavily populated coastal areas across the world.

Why are sea levels rising, and what do scientists project for the future?

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The author of today’s post, Sheryl Canter, is an Online Writer and Editorial Manager at Environmental Defense.

Why should your company take action to fight global warming? Shareholders want progress, investors are calling for transparency, national policy is coming, and waiting to act will be costly.

To help you get started, Environmental Defense has developed a hierarchy of effective actions called the "Four Cs" – conserve energy, convert to lower carbon energy, choose quality offsets, and call for action.

Here are the details.

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The author of today’s post, Derek Walker, is the Deputy Director of the State Climate Campaign at Environmental Defense.

We need federal legislation to solve the global warming crisis – there’s no doubt about that. But state and local governments don’t have to sit around waiting while the federal debate goes on – and many aren’t. States and cities across the country are taking the lead on a wide range of climate issues, demonstrating the political courage and policy innovation needed to protect our planet from the most dangerous effects of global warming.

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