Forums: Greenhouse

Climate scientist Roger Pielke, Sr has noted that land surface temperature records (which comprise the vast majority of temperature records prior to the satellite era (1979-)) are unreliable due to land use changes and urban heat island effects, and that we should therefore look to ocean heat content changes as the most reliable metric for assessing global heating and cooling. The oceans cover 71% of the global surface area and hold at least 1000 times more heat than the atmosphere. Many have claimed that the 'missing heat' from 'anthropogenic global warming' has gone into the oceans, even though the heat...

While Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid desperately seeks a way to force a cap-and-trade energy bill through the Senate, folks in 10 northeastern states are getting a bitter taste of what such a program really means. In the case of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) that includes New Jersey New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, Delaware and Maryland, greed and secrecy appear to be the most dominant considerations. RGGI describes itself on its web site as “the first mandatory, market-based effort in the United States to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Ten Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states...

Eighteen months ago, Barack Obama took office pledging to deal with a “planet in peril.” His party held big majorities in Congress, and the House answered by passing a tough cap-and-trade bill. A massive climate conference in Copenhagen, with Obama at the center of the action, focused the world on the need to address global warming. Then came the nation’s worst-ever environmental disaster, an oil spill in the Gulf that put momentum behind environmentalists and scarred the image of big, polluting industries.

Up to 1,000 jobs at Bucyrus International Inc. and its suppliers could be in jeopardy as the result of a decision by the U.S. Export-Import Bank, funded by Congress, to deny several hundred million dollars in loan guarantees to a coal-fired power plant and mine in India. About 300 of those jobs are at the Bucyrus plant in South Milwaukee, where the company has 1,410 employees and its headquarters. The remaining jobs are spread across 13 states, including Illinois, Minnesota and Indiana. On Thursday, the Export-Import Bank denied financing for Reliance Power Ltd., an Indian power plant company, effectively wiping...

SÃO PAULO – In a heroic case of finding a silver lining in the bleakest of all situations, the European Union climate commissioner has concluded that the global economic crisis and recession actually provided a lucky break for everyone. Commissioner Connie Hedegaard says that the slowdown in economic activity will make it easier for the EU to achieve its 2020 goal of ensuring that greenhouse-gas emissions are 20% below their 1990 level. In fact, Hedegaard believes that cutting emissions has become so easy that European leaders should be more ambitious and unilaterally aim for a 30% reduction below the 1990...

The first trials of controversial sunshielding technology are being planned after the United Nations failed to secure agreement on cutting greenhouse gases. Bill Gates, the Microsoft billionaire, is funding research into machines to suck up ten tonnes of seawater every second and spray it upwards. This would seed vast banks of white clouds to reflect the Sun’s rays away from Earth.The British and American scientists involved do not intend to wait for international rules on technology that deliberately alters the climate. They believe that the weak outcome of December’s climate summit in Copenhagen means that emissions will continue to rise...

Rep. Tom McMillin, has introduced a resolution that would withdraw Michigan from the Midwestern Greenhouse Gas Reduction Accord. Similar resolutions will be introduced by legislators in Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota. Gov. Jennifer Granholm joined the governors of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, and Iowa and Kansas in signing the accord, which calls for a 20 percent reduction of CO2 emissions below 2005 levels by 2020 and would require extensive economic pain with little to no environmental gain. Significant CO2 emission reductions will lead to higher energy costs for both consumers and Michigan businesses, resulting in a loss of more jobs (particularly acute...

California voters will likely be asked in the November general election if the state's greenhouse gas law should be put on hold for rosier economic times.

WASHINGTON, March 19 (Reuters) - At least 15 U.S. states have sued the Environmental Protection Agency seeking to stop it from issuing rules controlling greenhouse gas emissions until it reexamines whether the pollution harms human health.