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Obama going to Copenhagen climate summit
USA Today
11/25/2009
President Obama will go to Copenhagen next month, a White House official said Wednesday, to participate in a long-anticipated, high-stakes global climate summit.
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California offers cap-and-trade plan
Los Angeles Times
11/24/2009
California Tuesday issued the nation's first blueprint for a broad-based cap-and-trade program to control global warming emissions. The pioneering effort would cap greenhouse gases emitted by more than 600 power plants, refineries, cement plants, and other big factories.
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Energy push spurs shift in US science
Wall Street Journal
11/24/2009
The Obama administration's push to solve the nation's energy problems, a massive federal program that rivals the Manhattan Project, is spurring a once-in-a-generation shift in US science.
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WA 'biorefinery' to cut recycling costs, carbon footprint
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
11/24/2009
A biorefinery that aims to turn yard and food waste, sewage waste, and trash from construction, demolition and land clearing into renewable energy is coming to Eastern Washington, creating green jobs and cutting recycling costs.
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OSU report finds shrinking snowpack, healthy forests
Oregonian
11/24/2009
Snowpack in some of the Oregon Cascade Range is dwindling, but western Oregon's Douglas fir forests appear unchanged, according to an analysis of climate change by researchers at Oregon State University.
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US to set emissions target before climate talks
New York Times
11/23/2009
The United States will propose a near-term target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions before the United Nations climate change summit in Copenhagen next month, a senior administration official said Monday.
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Earth's greenhouse gases reach record highs
CBC BC
11/23/2009
Greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere reached record highs in 2008, with carbon dioxide levels increasing faster than previously, the UN weather agency said Monday in Geneva. Levels of greenhouse gases, believed to be responsible for global warming, have been rising every year since detailed records started being kept in 1998, the World Meteorological Organization said.
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Conservation is key to dealing with CA's water woes
Los Angeles Times
11/24/2009
As climate change, environmental constraints and growth continue to tighten the valve on California's water supplies, the rest of the state is going to feel the pinch too. Not just during droughts but all the time. The reason is simple. Compared to building new reservoirs, recycling or seawater desalination, conservation is one of the cheapest, quickest and least environmentally damaging ways for the state to get more water.
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Western senators sponsor bill to attack pine beetles
San Francisco Chronicle
11/23/2009
More than 2.5 million acres of pine trees in northern Colorado and southern Wyoming have been killed by tiny beetles that burrow under the bark and lay their eggs, turning the green needles to the color of rust as they feed on the tree and restrict its ability to draw water.
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Green redemption
The Economist
11/24/2009
Depending on how you view it, climate change is either the biggest problem mankind faces or its greatest financial opportunity. For example, McKinsey has become known as a climate-change consultant, thanks to its greenhouse gas "cost abatement curve" showing the relative opportunity costs of different abatement activities.
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Views: Signs of hope in our energy future
New York Times
11/24/2009
Is the economic, social and physical deterioration that has caused so much misery in the Motor City a sign of what's in store for larger and larger segments of the United States? Or are there new industries waiting in the wings with new jobs and bright new prospects for whole new generations of American dreamers?
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Study sees transit saving CA's energy, cutting greenhouse gas
Sacramento Bee
11/24/2009
A new study says Californians could save billions each year and cut greenhouse gas emissions by developing neighborhoods within easy access of public transportation.
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Life in the slow city
Living on Earth
11/22/2009
With no fast food restaurants or big box stores, the bicycle and pedestrian friendly Cowichan Bay in British Columbia has become North America's first Slow City. An offshoot of the Slow Food movement, it's a quiet resistance to drive-thru homogenization.
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Frozen salmon better for the planet
Oregonian
11/22/2009
Frozen salmon is better for the planet than fresh, because it takes so much less energy to make it to your dinner plate than catching fish and flying them to markets around the world. The findings of a study by Portland-based EcoTrust may fly against conventional assumptions that fresh is always better.
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Fatal attraction in acidifying oceans
BBC News
11/22/2009
Ocean acidification could cause fish to become "fatally attracted" to their predators, according to scientists. A team studying the effects of acidification - caused by dissolved carbon dioxide - on ocean reefs found that it leaves fish unable to smell danger.
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Climate change speeds up since 1997 Kyoto accord
Seattle Times
11/23/2009
Since the 1997 Kyoto international accord to fight global warming, climate change has worsened and accelerated - beyond some of the grimmest warnings made back then.
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Do it for the polar bears!
Washington Post
11/22/2009
For marketers, climate guilt isn't the easiest thing to sell. Part of the audience thinks climate change is fake, fuzzy or too far in the future to care about. And another segment of the audience believe in climate change so fervently that they're too paralyzed or resigned to respond to new messages. So can you change all these minds with an ad?
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Shoppers buy green despite tough economy
Reuters
11/22/2009
Despite the worst US recession in decades, sales of organic and sustainable products have continued to grow, experts say, with shoppers willing to spend a few more dollars in a bid to become more green.
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Canada needs 40 years to stabilize greenhouse gases
Kelowna.com
11/22/2009
Acting on climate change is urgent, but Canada needs 40 years to succeed in its own part of a global plan to stabilize the emissions that are warming the atmosphere, the country's top environment official said.
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Views: The Senate’s duty on climate
New York Times
11/22/2009
We cannot rewrite the Bush years any more than we can persuade the Chinese of the merits of a binding treaty to control greenhouse gases. What the United States can do is assume responsibility for its own emissions, and this the US Senate has manifestly failed to do.
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Review: An inconvenient solution
The Nation
11/22/2009
Occasionally, truth be told, Al Gore's book Our Choice verges on the nerdy. Taken as a whole, however, this is the most comprehensive and well-informed survey anyone has ever done of what we need to do to get off fossil fuel, writes Bill McKibben.
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Eugene seeks to sustain ‘green’ manager’s future
Eugene Register Guard
11/23/2009
When Eugene’s first sustainability manager left her job last summer, environmentalists thought the city would quickly find a replacement to lead the city’s quest for a greener future. But that hasn't happened.
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US companies making carbon cuts
San Francisco Chronicle
11/19/2009
A survey of 90 big US companies found that most were addressing climate change, either by cutting energy use, measuring greenhouse gas emissions, adopting policies to cut emissions, or pushing for federal legislation to do the same.
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Forests fight climate change on two fronts
Oregon Public Broadcasting
11/19/2009
And at a hearing on Capitol Hill, forest officials and lawmakers discussed ways that federal forestland could help combat climate change on at least two fronts.
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Views: Sliding backward on climate change
Oregonian
11/19/2009
Portland may be at the edge of the continent, but in so many ways it's right at the center of Al Gore's green thinking.
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