In India, battling global warming one stove at a time.
| It’s Getting Hot in Copenhagen Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Copenhagen today as part of a global protest to demand governments across the world agree a binding new global deal to tackle climate change. The march and rally in the Danish capital, the world’s largest ever protest about global warming, comes at the halfway point of the United Nations’ climate summit in the city. |
| UN document shows Copenhagen summit falling short. Carbon emissions cuts pledged at U.N. climate talks would put the world on “an unsustainable pathway” toward average global warming 50 percent higher than industrial countries want, a confidential U.N. draft document obtained by The Associated Press showed Thursday. |
| Amazon losing ability to curb global warming. The Amazon’s “flying rivers” may be ebbing, and in turn drying out the Amazon’s diverse ecological and economic resources and the region’s ability to absorb carbon dioxide and curb global warming, an expert said this week at the Copenhagen climate conference. |
| Ski Industry on the Front Lines of Global Warming Over the past 16 years, the ski season has been steadily shrinking — despite the fact resorts dramatically have improved their snowmaking, expanding it over a wider area and investing in technology that allows them to make snow at warmer temperatures. But according to the National Ski Areas Association, Western ski resorts have been losing nearly a day of skiing a year since 1990. Whether you call it global warming or climate change, warming temperatures — last week’s cold snap notwithstanding — are having a serious long-range effect on skiing. |
| Worlds Largest Wind Farm to Be Built in the US The United States has steadily outsourced record-breaking feats of engineering over the years, or stood by as other countries have eagerly grasped trophies for the worlds tallest building, biggest dam, longest bridge, or what have you. Which is why it is comforting to learn a Worlds [ ]est is staying in America: Caithness Energy will begin construction next year in Oregon on the worlds biggest wind farm, with 845 MW of capacity. |
| 1968 scuba tank helps climate research. Scientists started to take air samples only a few decades ago. But now that archive of air has unexpectedly been extended by a decade because of an astute former scuba diver who never throws anything away. |
| The vanishing snow of Mount Kenya. About a century ago, there were over 18 glaciers on the mountain. But today there are only 11, and four of them are a pale shadow of what they were 30 years ago, thanks to the effect of global warming and climate change. |
| In India, battling global warming one stove at a time. It is sunny most mornings in Khairatpur, but you can hardly tell, at least not until some time after everyone’s had breakfast. The soot from incomplete combustion of wood or cow dung causes not only lung disease, but global warming. |
| Sea levels set to rise more than expected due to ‘deeply surprising’ Greenland melt A new study by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program estimates that the sea will rise by 0.5 to 1.5 meters by 2100, threatening coastal cities and flooding island nations. This is double the predicted rise estimated by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on climate Change (IPCC) in 2007, which did not incorporate sea level rise due to the melting of Greenland and Antarctica’s ice sheets. |
| Obama arrives at climate talks, seeking to wrest a deal. President Obama arrived in Copenhagen on Friday morning, bent on applying a combination of muscle and personal charm to secure a climate change agreement involving nearly 200 countries. |
| Dairy Pollution Sparks ‘Manure War’ in New Mexico The New Mexico Environment Department reports that two-thirds of the state’s 150 dairies are contaminating groundwater with excess nitrogen from cattle excrement. Either the waste lagoons are leaking, or manure is being applied too heavily on farmland. |
| Copenhagen climate talks suspended in Africa-led protest, Then Resumed The main sessions of UN climate talks in Copenhagen were suspended on Monday in a protest led by African nations and the developing countries accusing rich countries of trying to wreck the existing UN Kyoto Protocol. “This is a walk-out over process and form, not a walkout over substance, and that’s regrettable,” Australian Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said of the action. African nations later said they would return to the talks on Monday, allowing the negotiations to resume, after winning assurances that the conference put more focus on extending the existing Kyoto Protocol. “We’re going back,” Pa Ousman Jarju from the delegation of Gambia, told Reuters. The protest held up the talks that had been due to start at 1030 GMT. |