Developing genetically modified trees and plants could capture billions of tons of carbon from the atmosphere annually and reduce the impacts of global warming, a new U.S. study says. In the study, researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory explore methods of enhancing the processes by which plants sequester
Tag:
global warming
On Friday, Sept. 23, the California Air Resources Board (ARB) – in the absence of a California Legislature vote on the issue – approved a greenhouse gas reduction target of 33 percent for 2020 for the Los Angeles and greater San Francisco Bay areas – a target originally set by AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act in 2006.
This spring the Barack Obama administration took a first step toward achieving a nation-wide fleet of (comparably) green vehicles. The administration officially confirmed that by the model year 2016, the US car fleet must measure up to an average fuel economy standard of 35.5 miles per gallon. The announcement marked the first time fuel
Modeling for climate change is an extremely complex process because Earth’s climate is so complex. It is an interrelated system that involves the atmosphere, biosphere, land, and oceans. A change in one can cause a chain reaction in all the others. By studying ancient climate change patterns, scientists are better able to predict what might happen in future events. However, one factor that
(Reuters) – About 45 nations met on Thursday to seek ways to raise billions of dollars in aid to help the poor combat climate change as the United Nations warned them of a long haul to slow global warming.
Environment ministers and senior officials in Geneva were reviewing whether rich
In an upcoming book, high-profile global warming skeptic Bjorn Lomborg acknowledges that rising temperatures are “undoubtedly one of the chief concerns facing the world today” and calls for investing $100 billion annually to deal with climate change. Lomborg, who has attacked environmentalists and the media for exaggerating the threat of global
The Obama administration is frustrating environmentalists by urging the US Supreme Court to vacate a decision by Federal Court of Appeals that Climate Change is a public nuisance. In a brief filed on Tuesday, by Solicitor General Neal Katyal on behalf of the Tennessee Valley Authority, the administration asked the court to vacate the decision that allows groups
(Reuters) – Aid promises from rich nations to help poor countries slow global warming are reaching the $30 billion goal agreed in Copenhagen but analysts say much of that is old funding dressed up as new pledges.
Officially, the promises total $29.8 billion, Reuters calculations show, apparently meeting a pledge of “new and additional”
News from the Northern Hemisphere is grim: A record heat wave in Russia has led to fires that covering a thousand square miles and enveloped Moscow in smoke. Meanwhile, a chunk of ice four times the size of Manhattan broke off of Greenland. Global warming? Uh, just maybe. But are they related?
The best way to slow the rapid decline in Arctic sea ice is to reduce soot emissions from burning fossil fuels, wood, and dung. This is the conclusion of a Stanford University study published today in the Journal of Geophysical Research (Atmospheres).
The paper, authored by Mark Z. Jacobson,
(Reuters) – Democrats in the U.S. Senate aim to debate in late July a bill clamping down on offshore oil drilling practices and fostering more alternative energy use, but no decision has been made on whether to include controversial climate change provisions, aides said on Friday.
As the Gulf of Mexico oil spill entered its 81st day with BP still unable to plug its leaking undersea well, the Senate was planning a two-week debate on an energy and environmental bill that could start as early as July 19.
For years, free-market fundamentalists opposed to government regulation have sought to create doubt in the public’s mind about the dangers of smoking, acid rain, and ozone depletion. Now they have turned those same tactics on the issue of global warming and on climate scientists, with significant success.
In recent months, a group called the Cooler Heads Coalition — a creation of the Washington-based Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) — has fostered a public image of climate science as a criminal conspiracy. The CEI itself has accused NASA, the largest funder of climate science, of faking important climate data sets. In February, U.S. Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, whose positions are frequently cited and promoted by CEI, called for a criminal investigation of 17 climate scientists from a variety of institutions for allegedly falsifying or distorting data used in taxpayer-funded research.
In the wake of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, 71 percent of Americans say President Obama and Congress should make developing clean sources of energy a high priority, an 11 percent increase since January, according to a new poll. The poll, conducted by Yale University and George Mason University, also revealed that 77 percent of Americans support regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant.
On Thursday, the U.S. Senate will vote on a resolution by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) that would block
As global warming intensifies, demands for human manipulation of the climate system are likely to grow. But carrying out geoengineering plans could prove daunting, as conflicts erupt over the unintended regional consequences of climate intervention and over who is entitled to deploy climate-altering technologies.
Last month, J. Craig Venter announced that his team had successfully developed the first self-replicating cell to be controlled entirely by synthetic DNA. Not artificial life exactly, but certainly something different: a synthetic cell in which humans had intervened deliberately with the express purpose of changing the genetic structure and characteristics of a natural organism.