Climate 411

How does cap and trade work?

This post is by Mark MacLeod, director of special projects for the national climate campaign at Environmental Defense.

Cap-and-trade is the structure of most of the global warming bills being considered by Congress.

The “cap” is the cornerstone of the policy. It is an absolute, nationwide limit on global warming pollution. Congress would most likely establish a cap measured as billions of tons of carbon dioxide (or equivalent) released into the atmosphere each year. Over time, the cap would be lowered to cut emissions enough to avoid the worst consequences of global warming. (See our earlier series for more on how much we need to cut.)

The “trade” part is a market that creates powerful incentives for companies to reduce pollution, and provides flexibility in how companies can meet the limits.

Here’s how it works:

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Posted in Climate Change Legislation, Economics / Read 7 Responses

Climate News: Hurricanes, Rainfall and Rainbow Trout

Guest blogger Lisa Moore, Ph.D., is a scientist in the Climate and Air Program.

Last week, Bill summarized two new studies about carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and ocean. This week brought three very different topics: hurricanes (quite timely, since today is the first day of the Atlantic hurricane season!), global rainfall patterns and rainbow trout.

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Posted in Extreme Weather, Plants & Animals / Comments are closed

Don't Fill Our Gas Tanks With Coal

Yesterday, The New York Times published an editorial about coal-to-liquid technology. Their warning against so-called energy solutions that actually worsen climate change is right on target.

For more, check out a post I wrote last month, about why coal-to-liquid technology is a bad idea.

Posted in Cars and Pollution / Read 1 Response

Is There a Link Between Hurricanes and Global Warming?

If you’re concerned about hurricanes and global warming and you’ve been reading the newspapers and magazines, you are probably confused.

Perhaps in an effort to be “balanced,” most stories in the media these days present a muddled picture. Cornelia Dean’s piece in the New York Times is a good case in point: a scientific paper is cited claiming a connection; another is cited claiming the opposite. The implication is that the science is inconclusive.

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Posted in Extreme Weather / Read 3 Responses

That Ocean Fertilization Idea

If you’re an avid follower of the news, you may have heard of a company called Planktos that’s trying to fight global warming and make a profit at the same time through a process called "ocean fertilization".

The concept is simple: phytoplankton (tiny one-celled algae) take up carbon dioxide (CO2) during photosynthesis. Fertilizing the ocean encourages growth of phytoplankton, and increases the rate at which CO2 is consumed – presumably leading to less CO2 in the atmosphere. Since ocean photosynthesis is often limited by lack of iron, the idea is to dump iron into the ocean and watch the phytoplankton bloom. Planktos sees this as an economic opportunity: Increase CO2 uptake in the ocean, and sell it as an offset to carbon emitters. (I talked more about how offsets work in a previous post on land-based offsets.)

Ocean fertilization may sound like a good idea, but it has some very serious problems. Here’s why.

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Posted in Oceans / Comments are closed

Climate News: May 25, 2007

In scanning the climate news each week, I come upon interesting items I’d like to share. This week I found some alarming new studies about carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere and ocean.

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Posted in News / Read 2 Responses