Posts tagged with ‘Climate Change’
Legislators in South Dakota seem bent on becoming anti-science pioneers. After a century of anti-evolution policies and legislation across the United States, the South Dakota legislature is set to become the only one in the nation to micromanage what teachers say about global warming.
“A wait-and-see policy,” on climate change, observed Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Dr. Joseph Romm on Wednesday, “may mean waiting until it’s too late.” Romm was speaking at a CAP event on “The Science of Climate Change,” and was joined by Dr. Chris Field, the director of the department of global ecology at the [...]
Christopher Field, Ph.D., is the director of the Department of Global Ecology at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, professor of biology and environmental earth system science at Stanford University, and the Working Group II Co-Chair for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The budget request for fiscal year 2011 that the Obama administration released on Monday includes foundational investments that will help the United States remain the leader among innovative nations.
In 2009, we saw a renewed engagement with ethical questions about how we regulate biotechnology, watched the conservative war on science continue on new fronts, and witnessed renewed commitments to grow U.S. prosperity with investments in science and technology.
Timeline: A Brief History of Stem Cell Research
One of our most popular features ever, this interactive timeline [...]
From 1992 until 2001, a special group of scientists collaborated with the U.S. intelligence community to use reconnaissance satellite imagery to study environmental change around the planet. Known as Medea, Measurements of Earth Data for Environmental Analysis, the project came to an abrupt end at the beginning of the Bush administration. The detailed pictures snapped [...]
It was a banner year for scientific progress and progressive science policy. But sadly, it was also the year for the rebirth of what is now a wide-ranging war on science.
An analysis of the warming in store, and the warming we can hope to prevent, shows that proposed policies will have to stretch to put us in a climate “safe zone”— especially for developing nations.
By Chris Mooney
Back in 2006, the year of the release of An Inconvenient Truth, it felt as though serious and irreversible progress had finally been made on the climate issue. The feeling continued in 2007, when Al Gore won the Nobel and the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change announced that global warming was “unequivocal” [...]
In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal editorial section, Daniel Henninger took exaggeration of the scandal over emails stolen from scientists at the University of East Anglia to new heights, arguing that the incident undermines the entire centuries-old scientific enterprise. But the column ignores both the current observable impact of climate change and scientific history, and is [...]
Chris Mooney contributes this post.
And now, the climate change deniers will claim a scalp.
Yesterday, climate researcher Phil Jones, director of the Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia in the UK—which is responsible for one of three important datasets tracking global temperature trends—announced he would be stepping aside pending an independent review [...]
A “plan B” focused on planetary control through geoengineering might turn out to be nothing but a mistaken notion.
There are compelling scientific arguments both for and against geoengineering our climate via ocean fertilization. But even if our best science indicates that ocean fertilization will succeed, there are clear ethical reasons to rule it out, as it can never meet with the scrutiny that most of us take to be emblematic of justified, right action.
The private sector can support a responsible approach to mitigating the potential effects of climate change by sharing what it knows.
The recent United States Global Change Research Program report warned U.S. citizens of more frequent heat waves, greater disease risks, and damage to the marine life in this country, but we should not forget about the consequences abroad. Depending on emissions scenarios, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that the average global surface temperature [...]
Conservatives try to expose what they claim is a case of science suppression by the Obama administration—and in the process demonstrate how little they know about science in the first place.
According to the recent report from the United States Global Change Research Program, rising greenhouse gas emissions will damage human health and welfare in regions across the country. Among the many changes climate change will bring are more frequent heat waves, greater risks for the spread of disease, and damage to the marine life and [...]
The Waxman-Markey bill’s progress to a first historic vote hasn’t been pretty—but it has been progress.
Better management and conservation efforts are needed to stave off a worsening water crisis.
The latest report from the U.S. Global Change Research Program is a comprehensive overview of climate change science, but it is also a clear warning about how global warming will make life harder for millions of Americans. The agricultural sector and water resources are two of the interlocking sectors singled out by the report, and [...]
The latest report from the Global Change Research Program tells us a lot about climate science, but it also tells us a lot about a government that is finally managing science for the benefit of its citizens.
Climate change knits energy and water policy together—a fact western states discover as reservoirs drop and rivers dwindle. The newly confirmed head of the Bureau, Michael Connor, steps into a job that no longer focuses on building dams, but now centers on river restoration and climate change adaptation.
Recent studies have built on research showing that climate change will have damaging consequences for human health. In his article today, “Global Ailing,” contributor Jeremy Jacquot looks back over existing work and outlines the latest science, stressing the importance of past warnings about the impact of global warming on public well being.
Here’s a look at [...]
Research begun in the 1990s is relevant now more than ever, and what we know about the relationship between health and climate will be crucial as communities adapt to a warming world.
The 2009 Atlantic hurricane season begins this week—but forecasts of a tamer year should make us raise our guard, not lower it.
How do you feel about global warming? New public opinion research maps the connections Americans feel to the issue along a spectrum from most concerned and motivated to least concerned and motivated. The majority of those surveyed, 51 percent, say they are “alarmed” or “concerned.” Here’s a visual breakdown after the jump:
The eight years of the Bush administration were a bad time for scientific integrity in government research. Grifo, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, says we must focus on protecting government researchers, making science-based policymaking more transparent, and monitoring potential abuses.
Recently revealed documents just add to the evidence that sowing doubt about global warming seems to have been in part a political strategy.
Congressional action on climate change may be the preferred method for mitigating the impact of global warming and moving the United States to a clean energy economy, but the Environmental Protection Agency just turned up the pressure to act. Administrator Lisa Jaskson just announced that carbon dioxide is among six greenhouse gases that “contribute to [...]
Three key “knobs” that our leaders can use to fine tune their climate policies—the role of EPA, the payment of dividends, and the auctioning of permits—will make it easier to achieve legislative or policy victory. And if they get the bass, volume, and tone just right, they can still win.
The short newsbreak available at the moment seems like a small portion of a longer forthcoming feature, but the wire focused on the OSTP director’s comments on geoengineering:
John Holdren told The Associated Press in his first interview since being confirmed last month that the idea of geoengineering the climate is being discussed. One such extreme [...]
Science policymakers must balance inherent scientific uncertainty about the specific consequences of climate change with the broader need for action. And insurance companies now have to take note.
The titanic issues that surround the prospect of modifying the planet, currently off the radar for most Americans, could come up in a very big way in the relatively near future. We need leaders to start talking to the public before that happens.
Global warming deniers believe selective anecdotes about anomalous local weather refute the fact there is a globally averaged warming trend.
A flood of recent reports indicate that as a result of global warming, oceans levels are creeping upward far faster than originally predicted. Coastal residents around the world must adapt, and poor nations will need swift help.
Climate change will alter the Chesapeake Bay in ways that undermine important assumptions about resource management and restoration. Public agencies involved in bay protection do not need to wait for new authorities to address these issues.
Here’s a look back at the most popular features we ran in the past year. Some of them dealt with major controversies over political interference with science at the Environmental Protection Agency, the teaching of creationism, and access to reproductive health services. Others tackled challenges of a networked world, or considered how policy can better harness the talents of a burgeoning scientific workforce.
President-elect Obama’s pick for White House science adviser, John Holdren, has received numerous barbs from critics of progressive climate policy. Unfortunately, the attacks are a distraction from the real problems facing the planet.
A thumbnail of advances in science that will have long-lasting impacts on science policy—or advances in science policy that we predict will have long-lasting impacts on science.
Major news outlets have been reporting since yesterday afternoon that Steven Chu is President-elect Obama’s choice to head the Department of Energy. Chu currently directs the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where he has led a drive to develop clean and renewable sources of energy to combat global climate change. If confirmed, he would be the first Nobel laureate in the cabinet to go into the job with a medal in hand.
Scientists are now worried about is the degree to which carbon sinks could shrink, or carbon sources could grow, in response to the rapid increase in anthropogenic CO2 emissions.
There’s much for scientists to like about Barack Obama’s plans for science policy—but will he make it a priority, and what about the money?
Open access publishing is great, but what if you can’t capture your research in words? Over at the Chronicle’s Wired Campus blog, Jeffery Young reports that in order to expand the reach and accessibility of their historical elections mapping project, digital historians at the University of Richmond moved their data from an in-house system to two platforms familiar to many web surfers: Google Maps and Google Earth.
Science projects dangers to people and their well-being, including severe natural disasters, the spread of disease, loss of coastal communities, and declining crop and fish yields.
In the general absence of defined heat island policies, more environmental construction enables heat island mitigation, but often as a byproduct. A look at how urban areas bake and how green building technologies can cool them.
Because plants and soils act as major carbon sinks, any reduction in their ability to draw down and store CO2 could have dramatic consequences for the climate. As things stand, ecosystems are already struggling to keep up with the meteoric growth in emissions over the past few decades.
Climate modelers work with the data they have and play a role in understanding the complexities of the Earth’s environments. But to adapt to future climate changes, we have to invest in their predictive tools.
Abrupt climate changes happen. To better understand these potential threats to humanity, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Biological and Environmental Research recently launched the Investigation of the Magnitudes and Probabilities of Abrupt Climate Transitions program.
Some scientists are suggesting that marine algae are responding to manmade temperature increases by generating dimethylsulfide, a gas that forms reflective clouds. The cycle is important to understand, but a geoengineering solution that exploits it will not solve our problems.
No one is expecting an executive order mandating federal regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act between now and January, but it is promising to have the Senate Committee on Environmental and Policy Works addressing the issue this morning.
We risk losing what makes the world’s oceans a valuable natural resource: their rich biodiversity. It’s time to get the concept on the cultural radar.
Here’s a roundup of some of the science and technology policy events happening around Washington D.C. from September 15 to September 19.
We should use hurricanes to discuss global warming, but we have to do it with rigorous fidelity to the current state of scientific understanding.
If we’re focusing attention on storms in 2008, then let’s also pay serious attention to oft-neglected matters of hurricane preparedness policy.
Climate change is driving average temperatures upward, and the unmistakable long-term trend is toward a warmer, drier West. Firefighting alone can’t contend with growing fire danger; investment in strategic fuel reduction is the key.
Corporations typically underestimate their carbon footprints by an average of 75 percent, according to a new study from Carnegie Mellon researchers. One of the major blind spots is in calculating the total greenhouse gas emissions from myriad supply chain inputs, as opposed to the direct emissions involved in primary operations.
This week on the EPA’s Greenversations blog: “Why do you use a gasoline, electric, battery-operated, or push lawn mower?” It’s an apt question, as personal decisions about lawn grooming implements are connected to matters of climate and energy.
The National Center for Atmospheric Research has shut down a program that helps developing nations predict and prepare for natural disasters such as droughts, floods, and cyclones, Andrew Revkin reports in
The New York Times. The program, called the Center for Capacity Building, was created in 2004.
Like an unstable canoe that tips without warning, sudden climate changes can bring dramatic and unpredictable ecosystem transformations. If an abrupt change hit, would it doom our best efforts to save the planet?
How many more sordid tales concerning the Environmental Protection Agency can actually come out before November?
Former Time magazine-reporter-turned-environmental-policy-analyst Eric Roston will make his Colbert Report debut tonight talking about his new book, The Carbon Age.
Science Progress featured an interview with Roston earlier this month that ranged across the various scientific fields connected by the carbon atom.
Randy Olson’s new global warming mockumentary,
Sizzle, burns into your mind a lesson about how to reach broader audiences with science.
Could a mad scientist-like approach to reversing climate change provide our only remaining hope? A close look at geoengineering schemes.
Suing companies that pump greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere for damage to cities and states proved difficult a few years ago. But the latest court rulings could set the stage for a climactic battle over who pays for overheating the planet.
Carbon fuels evolutionary systems and climate change—and the story of this element cuts across a wide swath of scientific fields, underscoring much of the research that’s changing the way we think about everyday life.
The Pentagon’s dismissal of the EPA’s demand that it clean up Fort Meade and two Air Force bases is just the latest chapter in the saga of the administration’s denial and inaction on environmental and climate protection.
According to Lord Nicholas Stern, the cost of ignoring climate change is higher than the cost of acting to mitigate it. He also says he underestimated the danger of inaction in his previous report.
Human activity, from farming to energy generation, is upsetting ocean ecosystems and creating massive “dead zones” off our coasts. Unchecked, the number of such zones around the world will continue to grow.
Fast-growing western states are making the link between land use and water management by taking a hard look at the reliability of water sources for new development.
A growing body of research demonstrates that global waters are absorbing massive amounts of carbon dioxide, threatening species at the bottom of the food chain. So why are we still paying so little attention to climate change’s elephant in the room?
Now even the Bush administration basically admits that it misused and suppressed global warming information and the scientists who purvey it. Is the battle finally over?
Though well understood, the challenges presented by the changing nitrogen cycle remain under-appreciated. A global integrated approach will be needed to mitigate its future impacts on the climate, ecosystem biodiversity, and human health.
Metropolitan areas are more energy-efficient than areas of less-dense development, according to a new analysis from the Brookings Institution; they also have smaller per-capita carbon emissions. Here’s a new mashup comparing the per-capita transportation emissions across the 100 metro areas in the study.
Why the economic side of the global warming debate needs a more balanced ledger.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration released new numbers this week on U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from energy sources, and it turns out that our surprising 1.3 percent emissions decrease in 2006 was, indeed, a fluke caused by a milder winter and summer.
The Environmental Protection Agency identifies key steps to cope with the shrinking Rocky Mountain snow mass and subsequently depleted sources of water in the West.
Ramping up computing power for climate modeling can help researchers better understand and predict meteorological phenomena around the world, answer policy questions about the impact of climate change, and save lives from natural catastrophes.
Two writers claim there is no assault on the scientific information that informs public policy and don’t even bother engaging the facts of the case.
Death tolls continue to rise, a product of poverty, poor infrastructure, and a negligent government. Better forecasting for the North Indian region would be a start for protecting citizens from future cyclones. Democracy in Burma probably wouldn’t hurt, either.
There has been a near-complete breakdown at our central environmental regulatory agency under the Bush administration.
David Goldston wants to ask the big questions about federal science policy. Can the research establishment become unsustainably large? Are scientists always an asset to Congress? And what are the problems with current methods of creating science policy?
We desperately need to adapt our coastal infrastructure to climate change.
Progressive thinking takes a new turn in western water management, as states across the region, in cooperation with federal agencies, act to fix damaged rivers, lakes, and wetlands.
After last week’s industry-led field hearing in North Dakota on carbon capture and sequestration, a Monday briefing on CCS hosted by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee was a breath of fresh air, with representatives from the scientific community and the UK.
When are Americans finally going to get accurate, timely information–not to mention action–from their government about global warming risks to the Gulf Coast and elsewhere? Part I of a two-part column series.
The Bush administration appeals court ruling on mercury pollution; the EPA faces congressional subpoena in wrangle over emissions regulations; Greenwire profiles CDC whistleblower; Tech companies call for increased H-1B visa cap; Al Gore launches new climate awareness campaign.
Two new studies on the potential economic effects of the Lieberman Warner bill appeared late last week. Both are only based on the potential of current technologies, and both of them will prove to be totally wrong.
The Heartland Institute gathered a group of skeptics of global warming in New York City during Mar. 2 through Mar. 4. The conference speakers criticized the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Al Gore, the two winners of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.
Provisions in the Lieberman-Warner bill would allow companies to meet some of their emissions targets by purchasing “offset” credits from reductions in emissions not covered under cap-and-trade. But current offsets markets are unregulated and unreliable. Hayes explains how to regulate offsets that will enable verifiable emissions cuts.
Two new studies highlight the need for tight environmental standards for biofuels to help us solve global warming.
Experts testify that auction would foster green job growth, offset higher energy prices for low-income consumers, and fund R&D in alternative energy sources and technology.
Europe revises biofuels standards, NSF Science and Engineering Indicators in global context, and sub-national regions lead the world in climate policy.
Three stories focusing on innovation and on the impact of climate change demonstrate the difficulty of fairly distributing the costs, risks, and benefits of technologies.
Is the NIH monitoring conflicts of interest?; EPA won’t explain itself on nixing state emissions caps; controversial framing of new MRSA study; new paths to energy-efficient electronics.
The National Research Council of the National Academies convened a symposium Wednesday to explore approaches among “Future Directions in Research at the Intersection of the Physical and Life Sciences.” The intersections up for discussion ranged across the research spectrum: from synthetic biology to geoengineering to bioterrorism.
Senator John Kerry compares the decision to address carbon emissions with economic and policy reforms to Pascal’s Wager. “If we’re wrong,” he explained this morning at an event hosted by the Center for American Progress Action Fund, “we still have global development, clean air, a stronger economy here at home, healthier citizens, and no more addiction to the foreign oil that funds despots and terrorists.”
A profile of Shinya Yamanaka; developing a malaria vaccine; providing an overdose antidote to heroin addicts; the Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speeches.
The House Oversight Committee on Bush Administration interference with climate science; Atlantis grounded; framing nanotech; sex difference in math and science; Nobel Peace Prize ceremonies; VCs doubtful on carbon regulation from the government.
Transparency for global health data; the legal status of embryos; the Bali Climate Declaration by Scientists; genome research open access; U.S. science education.
Atlantis launch moved; Facebook address online privacy concerns; energy and climate legislation makes headway in Congress; regulating airline emissions; commercial ventures to the moon.
