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"Globally, the average number of major weather-related catastrophes such as windstorms, floods or droughts is now three times as high as at the beginning of the 1980s. Losses have risen even more, with average increases of 11 percent per year since 1980, the reinsurance company Munich Re says in a statement.
"Something must be done."
Progress Energy announced that by the end of 2017, the company intends to permanently shut down all of its remaining N.C. coal-fired power plants that do not have flue-gas desulfurization controls (scrubbers) because it is too expensive to fit them with the required pollution controls.
Are the climate skeptics increasingly winning the battle for public opinion? On the very eve of the Copenhagen conference, there are signs that they are—and that environmental groups are allowing them to do.
Polls on both sides of the Atlantic over the last weeks indicate that fewer people now believe that global warming is taking place or that humanity is responsible.
Offers on the table ahead of the Copenhagen climate change talks are only "a few billion tonnes" short of the scale of annual CO2 emission cuts required to meet 2020 environment targets, Lord Stern said today.
He acknowledged there was a "significant way to go" but insisted: "It is possible to get there."
Superb advertising campaign in Copenhagen Airport where today's world leaders are writing apologetic notes from a possible future where they didn't act to prevent climate change
"Despite an economic crisis dubbed the “great recession,” carbon emissions grew last year by two percent, to a total of 8.7 billions of carbon. Last year, every person in the world produced an average of 1.3 tons of carbon, according to a report by the Global Carbon Project. During 2000 to 2008, the growth rate of atmospheric carbon increased 1.9 parts per million (ppm) a year, up from 1.3 ppm during 1970 to 1979."
"Using gravity measurement data from the NASA/German Aerospace Center's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission, a team of scientists from the University of Texas at Austin has found that the East Antarctic ice sheet-home to about 90 percent of Earth's solid fresh water and previously considered stable-may have begun to lose ice.
The team used Grace data to estimate Antarctica's ice mass between 2002 and 2009. Their results, published Nov. 22 in the journal Nature Geoscience, found that the East Antarctic ice sheet is losing mass, mostly in coastal regions, at an estimated rate of 57 gigatonnes a year. A gigatonne is one billion metric tons, or more than 2.2 trillion pounds. The ice loss there may have begun as early as 2006. The study also confirmed previous results showing that West Antarctica is losing about 132 gigatonnes of ice per year."
"Research by Macquarie University alerts Australian wine growers to consider new varieties of grapes to fend off the impact of climate change"
"Take all the power stations in the United States. Together, they produce almost 1000 gigawatts of electricity - enough to boil several billion kettles simultaneously.
Now imagine building another five power stations for every one that already exists in the United States. That is about the amount of electricity generation that the world is on track to add over the next 20 years. And three-quarters of the new stations will use fossil fuels."
Around 12,800 years ago the northern hemisphere was hit by the Younger Dryas mini ice age, or "Big Freeze". It was triggered by the slowdown of the Gulf Stream, led to the decline of the Clovis culture in North America, and lasted around 1300 years.
Until now, it was thought that the mini ice age took a decade or so to take hold. Not so, say William Patterson of the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada, and his colleagues.
They show that at the start of the Big Freeze, temperatures plummeted and lake productivity stopped within months, or a year at most. "It would be like taking Ireland today and moving it up to Svalbard" in the Arctic,"
At SEMA 2009, AMP=D changed every hot rodders' perception of performance and innovation. AMP=D introduced their all-electric powered '33 Hot Rod. With 300+ hp [horse power] and over 660 foot pounds of torque in a 2400 pound car, it will stay with the best of the gasoline-powered Hot Rods.
machines designed to change humans, as the persuasive technology group of Stanford University, California, calls them, could save us huge amounts of energy and money.
"In Lima, Peru, more than 1.3 million people have no access to drinking water. The citizens without it are in the poorest areas, where water trucked in can cost nine times as much as it does in richer areas. So, citizens have had to either make do without running water, or, with the help of a German NGO, make dew into drinking water. "
"Dean Miller, an Australian fur seal biologist, was the first person to spot the large white object floating past Macquarie island in the far south-west corner of the Pacific Ocean.
"I've never seen anything like it. We looked out to the horizon and just saw this huge floating island of ice," Miller told the Australian Antarctic division. "It was a monumental moment for me as it was the first iceberg I have seen."
Estimated to be about 50m high – from the waterline – and 500m long, the iceberg is now about five miles (8km) off the north-west of Macquarie island, halfway between New Zealand and Antarctica south-west corner of the Pacific Ocean."
"When we think about forests and climate change, we tend to think about tropical forests. This is not without undue reason – some of the highest rates of deforestation are happening in Central and South America, Africa, and Asia Pacific. But one source of carbon, which happens to be the world’s largest terrestrial storehouse of carbon, has been mostly overlooked in international climate discussions to date. I’m talking, of course, about the boreal forest."
"With climate change legislation finally appearing to be making some headway in the U.S., and with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) having recently issued regulations mandating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reporting by high-emitting U.S. companies, a new report from Ethical Investment Research Services (EIRIS) entitled "2009 Climate Change Tracker: North America" arrives at an opportune moment. EIRIS is a global provider of research into corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance."
The overall IT sector faces with regards to traceability through our supply chain and the activities underway at Hewlett Packard
"As recently as August, the largest lithium battery recycler in North America — Toxco — snagged a $9.5 million grant from the Department of Energy to build out battery recycling capacity in Ohio and pledged to provide “end of life management” for advanced vehicle batteries “in a safe and environmentally sound manner.” But this weekend multiple explosions and a major fire at the company’s Trail, British Columbia recycling facility can be fairly called bad advertising for that business."
Another superb debunking of the SuperFreakonomics book
"Helix Wind announced Wednesday that it's beginning a trial run in Southern California to see if its wind turbines might be useful for powering cell phone towers.
The manufacturer is becoming known for its small vertical-axis wind turbines that can generate electricity with winds as low as 10 mph, as well as its unique business model to finance them."
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