Climate 411

Earth: The Trailer

By Sheryl Canter / Published: March 6, 2008

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

There’s a new book coming out on Monday that explores the hopeful side of global warming. Huh? What’s that?

It’s called "Earth: The Sequel", written by Fred Krupp (president of EDF) and Miriam Horn, and it’s all about emerging technology in the fight to stop global warming. There are trillions of dollars pouring into clean energy solutions, and people are doing such cool things.

You can learn more about the book from an informative video narrated by Fred. You also can pre-order the book from here.

Posted in Energy / Comments are closed

Risky Coal and the Cost of Inaction

By Sheryl Canter / Published: March 5, 2008

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

Here are a couple of interesting news stories I came across this week:

Risks in Financing Coal. Last month, we posted about how banks are considering the risks in financing coal plants. Seems the federal government is considering the risks, too.  BusinessWeek reports that the federal government is "suspending a major loan program for coal-fired power plants in rural communities, saying the uncertainties of climate change and rising construction costs make the loans too risky."

Act Now or Pay More Later. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has issued a new report on how much it will cost to fix the environment – including (but not limited to) such problems as global warming. According to the Associated Press, the report says, "We need forward-looking policies today to avoid high costs of inaction or delayed action over the longer term." This agrees with other recent studies on the subject (see the University of Maryland, Tufts University, and McKinsey & Company).

Posted in What Others are Saying / Comments are closed

Phone Calls from the Congressional Budget Office

By Nat Keohane / Published: March 4, 2008

Nat KeohaneThis post is by Nat Keohane, Ph.D., Director of Economic Policy and Analysis at the Environmental Defense Fund.

My February 21 post, CBO Report: The Real Story, caught the attention of the folks at the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Last Wednesday, I received a call from Terry Dinan, the senior analyst at CBO who wrote the report. A little while later I got a second call, this time from Peter Orszag, the Director of CBO.

In particular, they didn’t like the attention-grabbing paragraph at the top that said:

…a careful reading reveals the report to be a theoretical exercise with no real-world relevance. It highlights the drawbacks of a version of cap-and-trade that no one advocates, and bases its efficiency analysis on a faulty premise.

I stand by what I wrote, as I’ll explain in a moment. But a call from the Director of CBO is fairly attention-getting, as well. Moreover, Dinan and Orszag are smart and well-respected economists, and my conversations with them helped to sharpen my own thinking. So I thought I’d explain a couple of points in more detail.

Read More »

Posted in Economics / Read 3 Responses

Sequestering Carbon Deep Within the Earth

By Scott Anderson / Published: March 3, 2008

Scott AndersonThis post is by Scott Anderson, an attorney and senior policy advisor at the Environmental Defense Fund. It’s the second in a three-part series on carbon sequestration – storing carbon or carbon dioxide (CO2) in soils, trees, geological formations, and oceans.

1. Biological Sequestration
2. Geological Sequestration
3. Ocean Sequestration

To stop global warming, the U.S. must substantially move away from carbon-emitting fossil fuels to clean renewable energy. But a transition of this magnitude takes time. Right now this country is heavily dependent on coal for electricity, and traditional coal plants are none too clean.

How do we stop global warming while renewable technologies to meet our energy needs are still under development? Part of the answer may lie in an emerging transition technology called Carbon dioxide (CO2) Capture and Storage (CCS). The idea behind CCS is to capture the CO2 from industrial processes like coal plants, and then store it in deep geological formations.

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Posted in Geoengineering / Read 12 Responses

2 Key Climate Terms to Know

By Lisa Moore / Published: February 29, 2008

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

Scientists use some technical terms in discussing climate change that can cause confusion. Two that are especially useful to know are "forcing" and "feedback".

You’ll hear these terms a lot in discussions of how human activity impacts climate – and especially when the topic turns to the melting Arctic. If you know what they mean, you’ll have a much better understanding of the dynamics behind climate change.

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Posted in Basic Science of Global Warming / Read 6 Responses

Did Global Warming Stop in January?

By Lisa Moore / Published: February 27, 2008

Lisa MooreThis 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.

Monthly Average Global Temperature Variation

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

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Posted in News / Read 28 Responses