Climate 411

Our guest blogger, Sheryl Canter, is an Online Writer and Editorial Manager at Environmental Defense.

If you have a garden, you know the climate is warming. In temperate zones, the last frost in spring comes earlier, and the first frost in fall comes later. The longer growing season may allow you to grow vegetables you never could grow before. But you also may have noticed your weeds are more aggressive, insect pests are more of a problem, and pollen plagues you all summer long. You’re not imagining things!

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In large cities such as New York, buildings account for most of the greenhouse gas emissions. The William J. Clinton Foundation has developed a plan to reduce energy usage in buildings, and organized an international coalition of banks and 16 of the world’s largest cities to implement it. Billions of dollars have been pledged to address the problem. For details, read the story in the International Herald Tribune.

Today’s Guest Blogger, Lisa Moore, is a scientist in the Climate and Air Program.

The fiery centers of volcanoes burn carbon-containing rocks from deep within the earth, and thus emit the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO₂). There are a fair number of volcanoes in this world, all emitting CO₂, so couldn’t this be the cause of global warming?

In a word, no. Here’s how scientists know that climate change is not from volcanic activity.

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We have a book coming out next month. I don’t expect it to be a bestseller – it’s pretty technical – but the topic is important. The book, titled Harnessing Farms and Forests in the Low Carbon Economy, is a road map for producing carbon offsets based on land management practices. Let me explain.

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Erica Rowell, today’s guest blogger, is a Web Editor and Producer at Environmental Defense, and our resident expert on light bulbs.

Ever stop to wonder why, since the mid-1990’s, traffic lights don’t seem to burn out? They can’t be using old-fashioned incandescent bulbs – those burn out all the time. Maybe they switched to longer-lasting compact fluorescent lights (CFLs)? Nope. Today’s stop lights use light-emitting diodes (LEDs).

LEDs last 35,000 to 50,000 hours – five times longer than the average CFL, and 50 times longer than an incandescent bulb. In fact, because the technology is so different, they don’t really ever burn out. They just get dimmer over time – a long time. Today’s LEDs produce more light per watt than conventional bulbs but they’re not quite as efficient as CFLs… yet. On the plus side, unlike CFLs they contain no mercury whatsoever.

You can find LEDs in all kinds of places – flashlights, television remotes, car headlights, flat screen displays, exit signs and even holiday lights, just to name a few. So, thinking of buying some LED light bulbs?

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Today’s Guest Blogger, Lisa Moore, is a scientist in the Climate and Air Program.

There’s a new site on Yahoo! that can calculate how much your carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions go down when you try their energy saving tips. It’s fun to use, and I especially appreciate the snazzy interactive features because I know how hard people worked to build it. My colleagues and I provided the Yahoo! design team with the data they use in their calculations.

I hope you’ll visit the site to see how simple changes in your house and car can save energy and lower emissions. But first, let me take you behind the scenes to the complicated world of carbon calculation.

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