NEWS ABOUT: climate change
climate change stories: 394 news briefs
OPINION
Country's dire, polluted situation is forcing it to innovate
New York Times 3 hours, 52 minutes ago
(Newser Summary) -
How do you say “clean your clock” in Chinese? asks Thomas Friedman in the New York Times . Americans may soon find out, because China could outmaneuver us in the next great global industry: clean power technologies, warns Friedman. China’s been forced to go green in a hurry because often, “its people can’t breathe, fish, swim, drive, or even see because of pollution and climate change.”
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Warmer winters make evolutionary drive to grow do a U-turn
BBC Jul 3, 09 8:19 AM CDT
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Add it to the list of weird things blamed on climate change: smaller sheep. Scientists say Scotland's warmer winters explain why a wild herd on an uninhabited northern island are a full 5% smaller than they were in the '80s, the BBC reports. The theory says that only big sheep survived years ago because they had enough fat to survive the winter. Now that grass is available nearly all the time, even the little guys are passing their genes along.
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But House Democrat reportedly 'feeling much better now'
Associated Press Jul 1, 09 12:35 PM CDT
(AP Summary) -
A powerful House committee chairman with a central role in President Obama's global warming and health care legislation has been hospitalized. Democrat Henry Waxman was not feeling well yesterday and was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in his native Los Angeles for "routine testing," a spokeswoman said today.
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OPINION
'Pathetic' Waxman-Markey at least puts a price on carbon: Friedman
New York Times Jul 1, 09 7:07 AM CDT
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Waxman-Markey is a "pathetic" and "appalling" bill that totally fails to respond to the urgency of climate change—and it should be passed by the Senate and signed into law straight away, writes Thomas Friedman. For the New York Times columnist, the flawed legislation has one great virtue: it finally puts a price on carbon emissions, and "will usher in a new mind-set among consumers, investors, farmers, innovators and entrepreneurs that in time will make a big difference."
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ANSA (Italy) Jun 30, 09 2:51 PM CDT
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The Mediterranean Sea is in crisis because of global warming, according to Greenpeace. The group says its latest research documents the catastrophic effect climate change is having on the environmentally crucial body of water, which it dubs a “sea of hell.” Rising temperatures have sent foreign species like poison puffer fish into the water and coated the seabed with slime even as commercially important fish populations are drying up.
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Miami Herald Jun 29, 09 2:54 PM CDT
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The Florida Keys are in serious danger from rising ocean levels—and woefully unprepared to deal with the challenge, the Miami Herald reports. “South Florida is on the front line against sea-level rise in the United States, and the Florida Keys are ground zero,” a scientist said. In the best-case scenario, the Keys will lose $11 billion in real estate by 2100.
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OPINION
Minority's outsize power prevents real change: Tomasky
Guardian (UK) Jun 29, 09 10:27 AM CDT
(Newser Summary) -
Barack Obama's narrow victory last week, when the House passed the climate change bill by just 7 votes, raises the question of why it's so tough to get change enacted even when the president is popular and his party has majorities in both houses of Congress. The problem Democrats face is a structural flaw in Congress, writes Michael Tomasky in the Guardian , which keeps "the most progressive president in decades" from passing big legislation. The founders wanted a system of divided government, but now Congress is "checking and balancing to the point of paralysis."
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OPINION
Climate deniers worse than conspiracy theorists: Krugman
New York Times Jun 29, 09 9:52 AM CDT
(Newser Summary) -
Passing the climate change bill was a major accomplishment for the House, even in its watered-down form—but as Paul Krugman listened to the 212 members of Congress who voted no, "I couldn’t help thinking that I was watching a form of treason—treason against the planet." Despite unassailable proof that the world is changing even faster than expected, legislators are junking science, simply because they don't like what it entails.
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TALK SHOW ROUNDUP
Grassley says GOP 'won't be hoodwinked' on health care reform
The Hill Jun 28, 09 11:16 AM CDT
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With unemployment rates still rising, the White House isn’t ruling out the possibility of a second stimulus package, The Hill reports. On This Week , David Axelrod refused to “prejudge” the issue. But on Face the Nation , Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour countered, “The real long-term effect is very negative on interest rates, inflation, and the value of the dollar.”
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Dems OK legislation
by 7 votes after days
of intense talks
Associated Press Jun 26, 09 6:30 PM CDT
(AP Summary) -
In a triumph for President Barack Obama, the Democratic-controlled House narrowly passed sweeping legislation today calling for the nation's first-ever limits on pollution linked to global warming. The bill also aims to usher in a new era of cleaner, yet more costly energy. The vote was 219-212, capping months of negotiations and days of intense bargaining among Democrats.
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OPINION
Demand government cash to take action
Washington Post Jun 26, 09 7:49 AM CDT
(Newser Summary) -
Farmers are among those facing the highest risk from global warming—storms, droughts and swarms of insect pests are coming their way—yet “true to form,” they’re not interested in backing a bill to fight it without reaping even more government cash, sputters Steven Pearlstein in the Washington Post . What he calls "the world's most selfish lobby" is opposing the House cap-and-trade bill up for a vote today, even though farms are exempted, because it might raise their fuel and fertilizer costs, and they want the government to pick up the tab.
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House votes tomorrow on measure to cut greenhouse gases
The Hill Jun 25, 09 12:35 PM CDT
(Newser Summary) -
Al Gore is engaging in phone diplomacy today as the House prepares to vote on a landmark climate bill tomorrow. Original plans called for the former VP to appear in person, but Nancy Pelosi says lawmakers are close enough to an agreement that it's not necessary. Others offer a less optimistic take, telling the Hill the vote is so close, Pelosi needs Gore to wheedle recalcitrant Democrats one by one rather than wasting time traveling.
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Speaker may need GOP backing
The Hill Jun 24, 09 4:23 AM CDT
(Newser Summary) -
Nancy Pelosi has scheduled a vote this Friday on a controversial climate change bill despite the strong reservations of some Democrats, the Hill reports. Farmbelt lawmakers fear that the sprawling bill's measures to curb emissions will put a disproportionate burden on their states with no reward. The House speaker and other top Democrats have been looking for a compromise deal as well as for votes from centrist Republicans.
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Prehistoric glacier's rapid meltdown could happen again: researchers
LiveScience Jun 22, 09 5:20 AM CDT
(Newser Summary) -
New data about a prehistoric Canadian glacier that rapidly vanished is giving scientists a stronger model to predict the radical effects of climate change. It's very possible that the same conditions could quickly shrink today's larger ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, prompting sea levels to soar in a "geographic instant," LiveScience reports. Greenland's Jakobshavn glacier so far is behaving most like the ancient glacier.
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Associated Press Jun 21, 09 3:01 PM CDT
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Vermont dairy farmers are changing their cows’ diets in an effort to fight climate change, the AP reports. Milk production accounts for 2% of the country’s greenhouse gases, the vast majority of which comes from the methane-rich burps of cattle. Now, 16 farms working with Stonyfield Farm Inc. are feeding their cows a gas-reducing mix of flaxseed, alfalfa, and grasses instead of soy and corn.
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New tests suggest humans aren't to blame for extinction of prehistoric pachyderms
Guardian (UK) Jun 18, 09 9:46 AM CDT
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British scientists believe climate change did more than spear-wielding humans to wipe out the woolly mammoth in Europe, the Guardian reports. New tests have revealed that the mammoths roamed northern Europe until 14,000 years ago, much later than had been thought. Researchers believe the animals died out as the warming post-Ice Age climate slowly turned the grasslands they thrived in into forests.
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Mainland US could be 7-11 degrees warmer by 2090
Time Jun 17, 09 1:30 PM CDT
(Newser Summary) -
Climate change has already brought warmer winters to the Midwest and rising sea levels—and barring quick intervention, the mainland US could heat up 7 to 11.5 degrees by 2090, says a new report to Congress by federal agencies and universities. The report holds no new research, Time notes, but surveys what’s happened and what’s ahead, reminding us that “if we don't act soon, the consequences are likely to be catastrophic,” writes Bryan Walsh.
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Associated Press Jun 14, 09 7:35 PM CDT
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Argentina's Perito Moreno glacier is one of only a few ice fields worldwide that have withstood rising global temperatures. Nourished by Andean snowmelt, the glacier constantly grows even as it spawns icebergs the size of apartment buildings into a frigid lake, maintaining a nearly perfect equilibrium since measurements began more than a century ago. "We're not sure why this happens," one glacialist said.
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OPINION
Washington Post Jun 13, 09 12:31 PM CDT
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It’s drastic and potentially dangerous, but we absolutely must research geoengineering as a potential fix for climate change, writes Samuel Thernstrom in the Washington Post. Many climate scientists believe that attempts to mitigate climate change by reducing emissions are too little, too late. But preliminary evidence shows that geoengineering could work “quickly, effectively and affordably, three attributes no other climate policy can claim.”
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Country could be world's leader in clean energy by 2020
Guardian (UK) Jun 10, 09 8:31 AM CDT
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China is on course to obtain 20% of its energy from wind and solar sources by 2020—a transformation that would make the country the world leader in renewables. Beijing is ramping up its targets for clean energy, helped by the $590 billion stimulus package passed last year, a senior government official told the Guardian . "Due to the impact of global financial crisis, people are all talking about green and sustainable development," he said.
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