Climate News Live
April 2008 Archives
Less than 6 months ago, Congress passed, and the President signed into law, the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 which increased the mandated volumes of biofuels for transportation fuel. While once considered a solution to energy independence, these mandates are now raising concerns over their impact on the environment and food prices.
Across the country, ethanol plants are swallowing more and more of the nation's corn crop. This year, about a quarter of U.S. corn will go to feeding ethanol plants instead of poultry or livestock. That has helped farmers like Johnson, but it has boosted demand -- and prices -- for corn at the same time global grain demand is growing.
And it has linked food and fuel prices just as oil is rising to new records, pulling up the price of anything that can be poured into a gasoline tank. "The price of grain is now directly tied to the price of oil," says Lester Brown, president of Earth Policy Institute, a Washington research group. "We used to have a grain economy and a fuel economy. But now they're beginning to fuse."
Not everyone thinks it's fantastic. People who use corn to feed cattle, hogs and chickens are being squeezed by high corn prices. On Monday, Tyson Foods reported its first loss in six quarters and said that its corn and soybean costs would increase by $600 million this year. Those who are able, such as egg producers, are passing those high corn costs along to consumers. The wholesale price of eggs in the first quarter soared 40 percent from a year earlier, according to the Agriculture Department. Meanwhile, retail prices of countless food items, from cereal to sodas to salad dressing, are being nudged upward by more expensive ingredients such as corn syrup and cornstarch.
The Washington Post; April 30, 2008
Submitted by J. Andrews
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/04/25/eacures125.xml
The World Wildlife Fund recently reported that the number of animals, birds and water-dwelling species has dropped by almost one-third, a situation that is likely to be exasperated even more by Climate Change. A rich, biodiverse world is generally accepted as a good measure of the health of our planet and its ecosystems, and the loss of species triggers alarms as to the impacts of human demands on our world. Some observers have even warned that the extinctions of wildlife simply portend the end of our own species. One aspect of how that point of view may hold true is in a warning from scientists about lost opportunities to learn from Nature. Increasingly, scientists have been looking to the natural world for clues that could lead to new treatments for the diseases and maladies that affect people. But with the disappearance of so many species in recent years, many of these opportunities could be lost forever – and we wouldn't even know. Yet another reason to keep the world fit for human habitation, and in the process, make it healthy enough for the other fauna and flora with whom we share the planet to survive.
Their warning comes in a new book, Sustaining Life, which draws on the work of more than 100 experts. Published by Oxford University Press, it has been supported by the United Nations Environment Programe and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) - the world's largest global environment organisation.
According to the IUCN, 820 land and marine species have been killed off by human activity in the last 500 years.
The survival of a further 15,000 is in jeopardy as a result of habitat destruction, hunting and fishing, pollution, disease and climate change.
Telegraph UK; April 25, 2008
Submitted by R. Campbell
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/04/25/eacures125.xml
The World Wildlife Fund recently reported that the number of animals, birds and water-dwelling species has dropped by almost one-third, a situation that is likely to be exasperated even more by Climate Change. A rich, biodiverse world is generally accepted as a good measure of the health of our planet and its ecosystems, and the loss of species triggers alarms as to the impacts of human demands on our world. Some observers have even warned that the extinctions of wildlife simply portend the end of our own species. One aspect of how that point of view may hold true is in a warning from scientists about lost opportunities to learn from Nature. Increasingly, scientists have been looking to the natural world for clues that could lead to new treatments for the diseases and maladies that affect people. But with the disappearance of so many species in recent years, many of these opportunities could be lost forever – and we wouldn't even know. Yet another reason to keep the world fit for human habitation, and in the process, make it healthy enough for the other fauna and flora with whom we share the planet to survive.
Telegraph; 4/25/08
Submitted by R. Campbell
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120724425942086957.html
The International Monetary Fund recently released their economic assessment on mitigating climate change. Their conclusion: extremely aggressive targets will ultimately slow economic growth, a concern many Senators have over the upcoming cap-and-trade legislation.
The policies needed to reduce emissions by 60% from 2002 would leave the global economy about 2.6% smaller than it otherwise would be in 2040, the IMF projected. Even so, the global economy would grow to about 2.3 times its current size between 2007 and 2040, the IMF said.
"There are significant risks from climate change; damages could be severe," said IMF economist Natalia Tamirisa. "The costs of mitigation could be moderate provided that policies are well designed." The IMF highlighted the estimates on climate change in its flagship report, the semiannual World Economic Outlook released on Thursday.
When cap-and-trade hits the Senate floor in June or July, it will be quite a debate over the final overall target emissions reductions.
Wall Street Journal; April 4, 2008
Submitted by B. Shapiro
Last week, yet another scientific study reported "with high confidence" a link between human activities and a host of changes occuring around the world such as shrinking glaciers and longer growing seasons. These are but two of the symptoms reported by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change with greenhouse gas emissions deemed the likely culprit. Large and lasting effects on human affairs and the "web of life" on planet Earth are predicted for perhaps the rest of this century. But while we in the US fiddle, other countries around the world seem to be taking preventative action to deal with the consequences of global warming.
The Boston Globe; April 5, 2008
Submitted by R. Campbell
Deafening broadsides have been fired recently as widely varying estimates of the cost to the US economy of implementing "cap and trade" Climate Change mitigation legislation have been released in the last few weeks. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was asked by US Senators Lieberman and Warner to estimate the economic cost of S. 2191, "America's Climate Security Act of 2007", the bill they co-sponsored aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions impacts. The EPA's analysis carefully spelled out its assumptions in reaching its conclusions, employing 10 scenarios which considered the development and availability of mitigating technologies and levels of international actions on Climate Change. Supporters of the legislation hailed the results of EPA's analysis as evidence that the caps proposed would not necessarily damage US economic growth prospects, pointing to results predicting minimal differences in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth for S. 2191 implementation versus a reference scenario without the bill. A "high-technology" adoption scenario is key in this view to meet Climate Change challenges, providing a technology lever to "robust" economic growth in the period considered. Meanwhile, opponents of the legislation urge a closer scrutiny of the EPA's analysis, seeing nearly a trillion dollars in annual costs by the year 2030 with a 44% increase in average electricity prices versus the reference case.
A second study funded by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and the American Council for Capital Formation (ACCF) assessing the economic costs of S. 2191 was released. The independent study conducted by the Science Applications International Corporation concluded harsher impacts on the nation's GDP would ensue from passage of the legislation, predicting annual declines in GDP rising to as much as $669 billion by 2030 with electricity price increases as high as 129%.
Both the NAM-ACCF and the EPA conclusions hinge on the costs and availability of new technologies to address Climate Change. The EPA's most "optimistic" scenarios foresee the near-term development and deployment of significant new nuclear capacity, and the capability of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) from fossil-fueled power facilities. Some experts predict that deployable CCS technology is nigh on hand; others say it's 20 to 30 years Apraway. Similarly, the first new nuclear plants in the US will take years to permit and build; wider deployment may take many years beyond that. For these technology options to have even the glimmer of a chance of being ready in the near future requires significant investments and funding decisions to be made to assure the timely deployment of first commercial plants in-service, so that lessons can be learned and technological advances made to bring down costs for subsequent generations of power plants. Likewise, incentives are needed for optimization of current renewable energy technologies to bring down their costs so that these can meet their potential. A host of varying infrastructure to support new power generation and carbon sequestration capacity must be also be sited, permitted and constructed. Thus, Climate Change mitigation will come with considerable up-front costs; but scientists and academics warn that the real costs of inaction on global warming could be even greater.
April 4, 2008
Submitted by R. Campbell
The slow pace in utilizing renewable fuels should provide even more incentive for Congress to act on a renewable energy tax package that has been stalled for months. Several credits, set to expire at the end of this year, need to be renewed to demonstrate the Federal government's commitment to utilizing renewable fuels…
"Renewable energy is not replacing fossil fuels as quickly as scientists forecast — leading to a serious underestimation of what still needs to be done to stabilize the world's climate, according to a new analysis.
"Enormous advances in energy technology will be needed to stabilize atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentrations at acceptable levels," said Roger Pielke Jr. of the University of Colorado at Boulder and his colleagues, writing in today's edition of Nature.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President Al Gore, expected that people around the world would be using more renewable energy, reducing global dependence on the fossil fuels generating greenhouse gases.
The Denver Post; April 3, 2008
Submitted by J. Andrews
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7327393.stm
Lancaster University scientists have destroyed the credibility of a prominent theory used by human-caused global warming deniers: they have proven that the cycles of solar activity have no link to climate change.
[Dr. Harrison] showed that over the last 20 years, solar activity has been slowly declining, which should have led to a drop in global temperatures if the theory was correct.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in its vast assessment of climate science last year, concluded that since temperatures began rising rapidly in the 1970s, the contribution of humankind's greenhouse gas emissions has outweighed that of solar variability by a factor of about 13 to one.
The case for significant climate change legislation grows...
BBC; April 3, 2008
Submitted by B. Shapiro
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7327393.stm
Lancaster University scientists have destroyed the credibility of a prominent theory used by human-caused global warming deniers: they have proven that the cycles of solar activity have no link to climate change.
[Dr. Harrison] showed that over the last 20 years, solar activity has been slowly declining, which should have led to a drop in global temperatures if the theory was correct.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in its vast assessment of climate science last year, concluded that since temperatures began rising rapidly in the 1970s, the contribution of humankind's greenhouse gas emissions has outweighed that of solar variability by a factor of about 13 to one.
The case for significant climate change legislation grows...
BBC; April 3, 2008
Submitted by B. Shapiro
http://gas2.org/2008/04/02/worlds-first-commercially-viable-cellulosic-ethanol-plant-online-2009/
The calls for ethanol to replace gasoline as the new fuel of choice has dwindled in recent months as the debate renews over food-for-fuel and the true lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions of corn-based ethanol. While some argue that ethanol is going the way of Betamax, LaserDisc and HD-DVD, today's announcement by Range Fuels breathes new life into the possibility of ethanol as an embraced transportation fuel.
Range Fuels Inc. announced yesterday it has secured over $100 million in Series B funding, an investment that could make it the first company to seriously commercialize cellulosic ethanol. The first phase of construction will produce 20 million gallons of mixed alcohols per year by 2009, and has the potential to expand to up to 120 million gallons.
Range Fuels says their facility will break down any type of plant material (eg agricultural waste or wood chips) by a two-step thermochemical process. This differs from competing methods of producing cellulosic ethanol, which involve breakdown of plant material with heat and/or acid, and treating it with costly ($0.50/gallon) enzymes.
Cellulosic ethanol is chemically similar to corn-based ethanol, but is produced from the highly-abundant structural material of plants called lignocellulose, eliminating the food-for-fuel conundrum.
Gas2.org; April 2, 2008
Submitted by B. Shapiro
