In December 2008, our Michael Haederle reported on a study from West Antarctica that used ice cores to understand the relationship between carbon dioxide and climate change. One of the goals of that project was to compare the Antarctic ice to that from Greenland in the Northern Hemisphere, where scientists have been drilling ice cores since 1971. In the latest news from Greenland, an international team of 300 scientists and students drilling in the ice sheets of the northwest part of the country reached bedrock — at 1.5 miles deep — on July 27 after two years of work. (In Antarctica, ... Read More
The Pearls of La Paz
July 6, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
In La Paz in Baja California, our Kiri blogger attends the Waterkeeper Alliance conference and learns about hopes for improving coastal areas. Location: Near the beach at Balandra, southeast of La Paz; a bay and wetland complex that was submitted for protected area status by La Paz residents. Conditions: Hot and dry winds are gusty at night and calm during the morning. The water is cool and pleasant for swimming. Isla Espiritu Santo glimmers in the horizon as sailboats go by. Discussion: La Paz was once rich in pearls. Expeditions financed by Hernán Cortés in the 1530s came back ... Read More
The Great Floods of Mulegé
June 22, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
Voyage of Kiri blogger Kristian Beadle sees firshand the effects of water from the sky impacting water on the ground. Location: At the river mouth in Mulegé, a town on the fourth largest oasis in Baja. The green river winds past palm trees before opening into the Sea of Cortéz. Conditions: Humid with the buzz of crickets and mosquitoes. Bougainvilleas and trees filter the morning light. Discussion: "The water was up to here," said Saul Davis, pointing above his head at a mark on the wall. "There was mud everywhere." Davis is the charismatic owner of a small market in Mulegé, a town ... Read More
On Second Thought
June 16, 2010 • By • 1 Comment
In a June 10 story on the government’s latest International Energy Outlook, Miller-McCune mischaracterized the proposed American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 as being “roughly in line with the recommendations of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.” As writer Robert Jereski pointed out to us, the House bill falls well short of those targets, which were designed to avoid runaway climate change. In 2007, the panel warned that in order to avoid the worst consequences of global warming, the U.S. and other industrialized countries must reduce their greenhouse gas ... Read More
Energy Outlook Offers Grim Fossil Fuel Forecast
June 10, 2010 • By • 5 Comments
As the U.S. Senate today debates whether to bar the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases, it's worth considering what would happen if every country in the world failed to pass laws and policies curbing the use of fossil fuels. The latest International Energy Outlook, an annual forecast by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, provides a cautionary "what if" for the global energy future if current policies remain unchanged. Driven by population and economic growth in developing countries, the world in 2035 would be more dependent on fossil fuels than ever, ... Read More
There’s No Negotiating With Nature
December 18, 2009 • By • 3 Comments
Global warming has recently been subjected to a media blitz, thanks both to the international climate conference in Copenhagen, and the controversy surrounding the online publication of filched e-mails between a number of leading climate scientists. Lost in the clamor were two new reports, which, in their separate ways, serve to illustrate a gap that has grown up between the physics and politics of climate change. Even as polls indicate slackening concern among Americans about global warming, evidence shows that the greenhouse effect is rapidly intensifying. The studies in question ... Read More
A Second Life For Orbiting Carbon Observatory?
December 8, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
A Taurus launch vehicle rose from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base in late February, ferrying the Orbital Carbon Observatory into space. The rocket streaked toward an orbit 705 miles above the Earth; from there the OCO and its single scientific instrument were to deploy to look back at the planet's surface, producing complete carbon dioxide maps of Earth every 16 days for two years. Minutes into the flight, something went wrong. The satellite failed to shed its protective faring as it neared orbital velocity. Weighed down by the shielding material, the satellite never made it to ... Read More
Vulcan Logic and the Missing Sink
November 8, 2009 • By • 1 Comment
The daily carbon dioxide emissions report probably doesn't come up very often at America's dining room tables, but Kevin Gurney and researchers from the Vulcan Project hope to soon see that change. Gurney leads Purdue University's Vulcan Project, which has produced the nation's first county-by-county, hour-by-hour snapshot of CO2 emissions. With Vulcan — named after the Roman god of fire and funded by the federal government through the North American Carbon Program — it is possible to peer, literally, into your own backyard (or your neighbor's) to see how your local area is contributing ... Read More
Concrete Solutions for Climate Change
November 7, 2009 • By • 2 Comments
Is it possible green shoots are starting to appear in the concrete jungle? That's the prospect being dangled by California's Calera Corporation, which claims a concrete-making process that is not only carbon neutral but potentially carbon negative. "What we're doing is cheaper and less energy intensive than any other option out there," says CEO Brent Constantz, a consulting professor at Stanford University's Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences. Among efforts to stem the tide of global warming, scientists are researching ways to capture and sequester carbon dioxide with ... Read More
Berkeley’s Ray of Hope Gets Brighter
October 20, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
Berkeley's stab at making solar installations affordable for homeowners has seen Vice President Joe Biden pinning it up as a model for a national effort. As Matt Jenkins explained in his profile of Berkley's Francisco DeVries in the July-August issue of Miller-McCune magazine, the California city's program fronts homeowners the money to install the rather costly solar setups through a special utility district bond. The homeowners, presumably using money saved on their subsequent power bills, pays off the cost in an extra charge on their property tax bill. (DeVries, who had been a city ... Read More
