With bold language and take-charge rhetoric, the White House on Tuesday unveiled its plan to cut U.S. carbon emissions by roughly one third over the next decade, a goal that environmentalists say is commendable but is not enough to keep global warming beneath the critical 2°C threshold. Submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) ahead of a midnight …
Do biofuel policies seek to cut emissions by cutting food?
A study published today in the journal Science found that government biofuel policies rely on reductions in food consumption to generate greenhouse gas savings. Shrinking the amount of food that people and livestock eat decreases the amount of carbon dioxide that they breathe out or excrete as waste. The reduction in food available for consumption, rather than any inherent fuel efficiency, drives …
Sustainable living means making big changes, so why can’t we face up to it?
Despite the significant risks for human and non-human life, greenhouse gas emissions (GhG) are still rising. Something has to give – and that something would appear more significant than those with the power to stimulate change are willing to admit. The UK government’s Global Calculator is a good example. This recently released tool allows us to model the compatibility of our food, travel, housing and work …
Death of US Coal Exemplifies Need for Paradigm Shift for Global Energy System
A new report released Tuesday by the London-based Carbon Tracker Initiative warns that the crash of U.S. coal markets is but a harbinger of things to come for all fossil fuel investments. The report, The U.S. Coal Crash – Evidence for Structural Change (pdf), found that the slump in coal prices has forced more than two dozen U.S. coal companies into bankruptcy …
No longer a conspiracy: Company now offering cloud seeding services to control the weather
It’s no longer a conspiracy theory. The most wealthy and powerful can control regional weather patterns using cloud seeding technology. The sky has literally become a sandbox, a playground, and the world’s elite have access to technology allowing them to use the weather to their advantage. The controversial practice of cloud seeding to control weather is indeed moving out of …
Applauding Themselves to Death: Why the UN climate talks have wasted 23 years
If you visit the website of the UN body that oversees the world’s climate negotiations(1), you will find dozens of pictures, taken across 20 years, of people clapping. These photos should be of interest to anthropologists and psychologists. For they show hundreds of intelligent, educated, well-paid and elegantly-dressed people wasting their lives. The celebratory nature of the images testifies to …
Geopolitical Swelling in Ukraine
Ukraine is facing two realities today. It can turn into a functioning country, the way it was before February 22, 2014, or it can continue to be a failed nation, governed by out-of-control politicians. The main requirement for Ukraine to become a successfully functioning state requires that the country turns into a buffer zone, or as political scientists, John Mearshimer, …
Our Planet’s Lungs Are Dying
Trees are like our planet’s lungs. Every second of every day, they’re absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere, and converting it into energy. In fact, according to a study by researchers at NASA, each year, tropical rainforests absorb a staggering 1.4 billion metric tons of CO2 from Earth’s atmosphere. Through the process of photosynthesis, they’re “inhaling” that CO2, and keeping it …
New Study Shows California Droughts Driven by Climate Change and Here to Stay
The increasingly frequent and severe droughts that have punished California over the past two decades—including the current record-breaking one—are primarily the result of human-caused climate change and will likely grow even worse, scientists at Stanford University warn. Published in Monday’s issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the new research analyzes historical records, as well as computer simulations of global …
Poll: Majority of Americans Agree Fighting Climate Change a ‘Moral Obligation’
A majority of Americans believe they are “morally obligated” to fight climate change, a new poll byReuters/IPSOS has found. Of the 2,827 people surveyed in the poll, 66 percent said world leaders are ethically bound to reduce carbon emissions, while 72 percent believed that responsibility lay with themselves as well. In addition, 64 percent believe that rising greenhouse gases, which drive climate …