Climate Change News Roundup
Pig manure oil used to pave highways.
A portion of the outer road on Interstate 44 on the way to Six Flags near St. Louis, Mo., recently was paved with pig manure oil, which is used as a binder in the asphalt. It's a test project.
[W]hen they transported the hot product, it smelled odd at first - like burned coffee - but not after they rolled out the asphalt.
"Everyone who was out there would put their nose to the ground and smell it where we had our binder, and where we did not have our hog binder (the bio-oil from the swine manure), and people couldn't tell the difference."
Tonight's stories include: More eco poo, libel lawsuit against newspaper for printing falsehoods on climate change, state retires coal-fired power, GOP bill to nix eco analysis of climate change impacts, poll shows climate change pressing issue around world (but not in U.S.), calls for global climate court, and federal report on diseases occurring now linked to climate change.
Amtrak trials first cow-powered train: Biodiesel is made from cow fat now used in soap or animal feed, cutting carbon emissions and improving air quality.
US rail operator Amtrak may have given the term "cattle car" a whole new meaning with the first test of a biodiesel train that runs on beef byproducts. [T]he state-owned rail company has begun operating its daily Heartland Flyer train, travelling between Oklahoma City and Forth Worth, using B20 biodiesel fuel.
The fuel, which mixes 80 per cent diesel with 20 per cent biofuel, cuts both hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide emissions by 10 per cent, according to the company, which said that the fuel also reduces particulates by 15 per cent and sulphates by 20 per cent compared to standard diesel fuels.
Whale poo could help oceans absorb CO2.
Whale droppings have emerged as a natural ocean fertilizer that could help combat global warming by allowing the Southern Ocean to absorb more carbon dioxide, Australian scientists have found.
New research from the Australian Antarctic Division suggests whales naturally fertilize surface waters with iron-rich whale excrement, allowing the whole ecosystem to send more carbon down into deep waters.
"The plants love it and it actually becomes a way of taking carbon out of the atmosphere," Antarctic scientist Steve Nicol told Reuters, adding the droppings appear as a plume of solids and liquids.
Speaking of poop, climate change deniers have long pushed lies, misinformation – Now, Climate scientist files libel lawsuit against newspaper for "grossly irresponsible falsehoods". (48-page Statement of Claim.)
One of the world's leading climate scientists has launched a libel lawsuit against a Canadian newspaper for publishing articles that he says "poison" the debate on global warming.
In a case with potentially huge consequences for online publishers, ... Weaver says the articles, published at the height of several recent controversies over the reliability of climate science in recent months, contain "grossly irresponsible falsehoods".
...The four articles, published from December to February, claimed that Weaver cherrypicked data to support his climate research, and that he tried to blame the "evil fossil fuel" industry for break-ins at his office in 2008 to divert attention from reported mistakes in the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, on which he was lead author.
This is not the first action of scientists fighting back against media stories containing inaccurate, misleading and distorted coverage about climate change:
A leading scientist has made an official complaint to the Press Complaints Commission over an "inaccurate, misleading and distorted" newspaper story about a supposed mistake made by the UN's panel on global warming.
Simon Lewis, an expert on tropical forests at the University of Leeds, says the story, published by the Sunday Times in January, is wrong and should be corrected.
He says the story is misleading because it gives the impression that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) made a false claim in its 2007 report that reduced rainfall could wipe out up to 40% of the Amazon rainforest. The Sunday Times story was widely followed up across the world, and, in the wake of the discovery of a high-profile blunder by the IPCC over the likely melting of Himalayan glaciers, helped fuel claims that the IPCC was flawed and its conclusions unreliable.
CLIMATE CHANGE & ENERGY
- Colorado Law Will Retire or Retrofit Coal-Fired Power.
Colorado Governor Bill Ritter on Monday signed into law the Colorado Clean Air-Clean Jobs Act--legislation that requires Xcel Energy (NYSE: XEL) to cut nitrogen oxide emissions by up to 80% from several Front Range coal plants by the end of 2017, most likely sooner.
Xcel will work with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to submit a plan to the Public Utilities Commission by Aug. 15, detailing how it will retire or retrofit 900 megawatts (MW) of coal-fired capacity. Xcel will give primary consideration to replacing or repowering those plants with natural gas, renewables, greater efficiencies and other cleaner energy sources.
- Seattle utility leads national LED street light effort.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced that Seattle City Light, Seattle's publicly owned power utility, has been selected to lead a national effort to guide municipalities in evaluating light emitting diode (LED) street lights.
Interest in LED street lighting is rapidly increasing country-wide, fueled in part by cities aiming to replace existing street lighting with energy efficient LEDs, which can significantly reduce energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions.
CLIMATE CHANGE POLITICS
- Senate Republicans Led By Inhofe Move to Bar NEPA Analysis of Climate Change Impacts.
The bill says the National Environmental Policy Act should not be used to document, predict or mitigate the climate effects of specific federal actions. Under the measure, NEPA reviews could not consider the greenhouse gas emissions of a proposed federal project nor climate change effects as related to the proposal's design, environmental impacts, or mitigation or adaptation measures.
The senators say assessing the climate change impacts of individual projects would provide no meaningful information for the public but instead would encourage more bureaucratic delays and litigation "designed to change NEPA into a global warming prevention statute." They claim the guidance could block road construction, delay domestic energy production and hurt job creation, while their bill would ensure federal agencies won't engage in "costly, and ultimately useless" reviews.
- Poll: City dwellers globally (except U.S.) cite climate change as most pressing global issue: "Residents of U.S. cities, however, ranked the economy as the biggest global issue, closely followed by terrorism with climate change ranking third.
- Global warming ballot initiative: Teamsters and cities weigh in.
The California Teamsters, one of the state's most powerful unions, Friday joined opponents of a proposed ballot initiative to delay enforcement of the Global Warming Solutions Act. The Teamsters, representing more than 250,000 union members in California, is the first major union to officially oppose the measure, which is backed by a group of oil companies, Republican legislators and conservative activists.
... The California Trucking Assn. last week endorsed the ballot measure, which proponents are calling the California Jobs Initiative.
- Grassroots Cochabamba summit calls for international climate court to punish climate crimes. (video at link)
The conference - which was attended by 30,000 people, according to the organisers, including NGOs, scientists, as well as union and government delegations - resolved to push for proposals that keep fossil fuels in the ground, protect indigenous rights, and reject plans to pay countries not to cut down forests through schemes like Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (Redd).
See also, US government "politely declined to send as much as a low-level observer to the historic summit."
See also, World Referendum, Climate Justice Tribunal: "A world people's referendum on climate change will be held in April 2011 for the earth's peoples to decide how to address this global problem."
WATER & NATURAL RESOURCES
- All the tees in China: Golf boom threatens rainforest: "With its 1,000-year-old trees, Hainan was a rare conservation success. But now fairways stretch as far as the eye can see." (video at link)
The jungles of the Diaolou Mountains do not, at first sight, appear a very inviting location for a golf resort.
...For the park's managers, the temptation is now too great to resist. "We are sitting on a goldmine. Within five years, we'll have at least two five-star hotels, dozens of town houses, a conference centre and a 36-hole golf club."
- In the long run, all that ash can be a good thing.
Volcano ash can wreck jet engines, poison freshwater lakes and damage lungs. But it helps fertilize oceans, volcano researchers and marine chemists say.
... A study published in 2001 noted that the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been on a constant rise except during two periods when the rate leveled off: from 1963 to 1965, after an eruption of the Mt. Agung volcano in Bali, Indonesia, and from 1991 to 1993, after the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo on the island of Luzon in the Philippines.
FOOD & HEALTH
- Federal report on 11 key categories of diseases/health impacts from climate change.
A Federal inter-agency report released today reviews eleven key categories of diseases and other health consequences that are occurring or will occur due to climate change.
- Climate change impacts hit women and children hard.
Air pollution can aggravate symptoms of cardiovascular and lung disease, and can increase blood pressure in women 50 and older more so than in their male counterparts. Indoor pollution has been named a "silent killer" among women. Approximately 1.5 women die annually as they inhale poisonous gases while cooking or heating their homes. Post-menopausal women who were exposed to lead early in life often suffer bone loss. This exposure also releases lead into the blood stream, which can precipitate kidney failure. Nearly half of all people in developing countries suffer from health problems caused by water and sanitation deficits -- and most of them are women.
SUSTAINABILITY & CONSUMPTION