New IPCC Report: Greater Certainty of Human-Driven Global Warming, Impacts Are Speeding Up reports Joe Romm at Climate Progress. The likely heating with current runaway emissions will massively disrupt plants, animals, agriculture - and thus, us, notes Justin Gillis at the New York Times. Carbon emissions are a crime against our descendents.
The greenhouse gas effect, credit Sierra Club Florida
Carbon Catastrophe: Obama Administration To Sell 316 Million Tons Of Coal reports Jessica Goad at Climate Progress.When burned elsewhere, it will release 500+ billion tons of greenhouse gas CO2, equaling almost half the annual emissions of US vehicles. Thus, the US is a merchant of climate change, increasing coal consumption - AND carbon emissions and pollution - by proxy. A critic argues this effect is enough to undo all of Obama's other climate work. Finally, the coal is undersold, so we taxpayers are actually paying to burn it elsewhere.... OUCH!!!!!
It Keeps Getting Cheaper To Install Solar Panels In The US reports Matt Kasper and Ryan Koronowski at Climate Progress. Solar installation costs drop from 6-14% from 2011 to 2012. Meanwhile, solar panel prices have plummeted since 2008, causing an 80 percent price drop for most residential PV systems - and a surge in installation. Keep up the momentum, America!
Credit Dennis Schroeder/NREL
EPA Confirms Coal Ash Contaminates Water Across US, As House GOP Try To Stop Regulations reports Andrew Breiner at Climate Progress. Ash is polluting waters at nearly 40 sites, and EPA regulations will provide safeguards that an inadequate patchwork of state-level regulations fail to address. EPA: working for your health, while GOP gops it up...
Food Prices To Go Way Up, Thanks To Climate Change says a new study, reports Jeff Spross at Climate Progress. Prices will zoom up to 40% by 2050, with staple cereals like wheat and rice, which make up the majority of most diets, especially the poor, being especially affected. Not a pretty picture.
Credit Dan Norton
☼☼☼ On the Bright Side ☼☼☼
___________
OO Dive a Virtual Coral Reef, and Help Save It - see their plight yourselves, and help count the creatures for research with this new online project... your chance to be a scientist!!
OO Elon Musk's Hyperloop: San Francisco to Los Angeles in 30 minutes? via a futuristic solar-powered vehicle that will zip people between cities at near sonic speeds; the CA billionaire will build a prototype.
OO California's Energy Efficiency Model Can Help Meet the President's Climate Goals - CA has kept its energy usage stable, despite growing use of air conditioners, because it invests in energy efficiency.
--------------------------------------------------------
OO California Aims To 'Bottle Sunlight' In Energy Storage Push
OO California: An Army Test to Turn Trash into Gas, Efficiently - via a shower-stall sized waste gasifier which turns trash into hydrogen and synthetic natural gas that can be burned to generate electricity or made into ethanol or diesel fuel.
OO Californian Labs Chase A Dream Energy: Fuel From Sun And Water
☼☼☼
OO California's Carbon Trading System Is Going So Well They Sold Out Of Permits
OO CA Non-Profit Makes Solar Energy Available To Low Income Families -Grid Alternatives uses volunteers, and communities benefit.
OO New Jersey: Urban Marshes Valuable For Pulling Carbon Dioxide From The Air
Credit Mary Ellen Harte
OO In Texas, Nuclear Weapons Facility Will Host Largest Fed-Owned Wind Farm
OO Texas Claims Cheapest Solar Installations, As Prices Drop Nationwide
OO Texas: Chemical Plant Would Turn CO2 Emissions Into Products
☼☼☼
OO Students Fight To Lower Carbon Emissions on Campuses - from getting their institutions to divest from fossil fuels stocks to switching to clean energy.
OO To Help The Environment, Watch Sports At Your Neighborhood Bar
Attending events incurs far more carbon footprint than watching, especially with a group rather than alone.
via www.evwind.es
OO 'Liconomics': China's Green Revolution Arrives - China has changed course, announcing an ambitious new plan to push sustainable energy.
OO Solar Energy: China's 'Coal Capital' Hosts Asia's First Solar Residential Design Contest
OO Solar Manufacturers May Boost Capacity As Demand Surges In Asia
☼☼☼
OO Britain's Home-Grown Energy Revolution
OO UK: Squeezed Households Cut Energy Use By A Quarter As Prices Soar
OO Netherlands: Waste CO2 Could Be Source Of Power - Dutch scientists have a use for all the carbon dioxide that pours from the chimneys of fossil fuel-burning power stations: Harvest it for even more electricity.
☼☼☼
OO Supercapacitors Amp Up As An Alternative To Batteries
OO Mexico: Two Towns Ban Fishing, Up Coral Reef Tourism - to save their local fish stocks, and economies.
OO Germany Breaks Its Own Record For Solar Power Generation
OO Arab News Service Bests US Media In Covering Latest IPCC Climate Change Report
OO Media Slammed For Under-Coverage of Major NOAA Report On Climate Change's 'New Normal'
☼☼☼
***** US Climate Change News *****
_____________
OO US Blackouts Are Becoming More Common due to increasing severe weather, feds say.
OO Utilities Are Afraid Of Rooftop Solar - as rooftop solar booms, utilities' profits decline with declining energy demand
OO Mosquitoes Are Bad This Summer - in parts of the US, where the extreme weather whiplash of 'drought then deluge' is perfect for breeding mosquitoes; they spread diseases like the sometimes lethal West Nile virus (nearly 300 US citizens died from it in 2012) and are becoming resistant to pesticides. Expect more mozzies as cc continues....
Tiger mosquito eating. Credit: James Gathany
OO New Jersey: Warmer Winters Bring Asian Tiger Mosquitoes which can harbor more than 30 viruses that can be dangerous to humans.
OO New Jersey: As Temperatures Rise, Pests And Invasive Plants Thrive
OO New York: Greenwich Stilt Houses Foreshadow Impact Of New FEMA Maps
<><><><>
OO Louisiana: Invasive 'Swamp Rats' to Spread As Winters Warm
OO Louisiana: Fossil Fuel Mining Causing Giant Sinkhole
OO Ohio: Climate Change Hurting Yellow Perch Reproduction - there goes fried perch...
Yellow perch in habitat. Credit: Dave Brenner
OO Changes In Store As Ohio Warms - Bugs are lasting longer, birds are moving north and ice fishing on Lake Erie is becoming a lot more difficult.
OO Illinois: Natural Gas Pipeline Causes Cornfield To Explode
OO Nevada: Sin City Runs Dry: Drought in The Land of Fountains
<><><><>
OO Texas: Ample Oil, No Water - as the fracking boom sucks away precious underground water, leaving cattle dead, farms bone-dry and people thirsty.
OO Texas: Tough Times in Drought-Parched Texas for Rice Farms, Visiting Ducks - the five-year drought has wreaked havoc on the $374 million rice industry, and alarming the state's $204 million waterfowl hunting industry.
OO Arid Southwest Cities' Plea: We've Got a Drought, So Lose The Lawn - offering incentives and disincentives to do so.
OO Decade-Plus Drought Threatens West
OO Wildfire Alert Heightened As Blazes Char US West - 51 large wildfires are currently burning across the US.
OO California: Drought Causing Silicon Valley Water Problems
<><><><>
OO California: Sacramento To Be Partly Inundated As Sea Rises
OO CA Honored Health Expert Says Climate Change Is Biggest Threat - from heat rashes and stroke, to spreading diseases and starvation, climate change promises it all.
OO Fires, Smoke, Floods Are Drawbacks Of Alaska's Hot Summer
**** Poly-Ticks ****
OO Keystone Foes Protest At State Department Over Flawed Analysis
OO Keystone Decision Seen As Climate Change Test For Obama Abroad
☼☼☼Acting Like You Care: The XL Keystone pipeline will make possible far more climate change, but President Obama might okay it anyway. Credo, 350.org and others are asking people to stand up and be counted as nonviolent resisters or help in other ways. I did. If you ever wanted to do something big for your future, now's your chance - here. 
OO Obama Becomes Third President To Install Solar Panels On White House Grounds
OO Obama Administration Rushes To Expand Fracking On Public Lands, Despite Frightening Evidence
OO Beyond Keystone XL: Three Little-Known Controversial Pipelines
<><><><>
OO Obama Group: 'Gravity Exists. The Earth Is Round. Climate Change Is Happening' says Organizing for Action, the advocacy group born from President Obama's reelection campaign.
OO On Climate Change, Obama, EPA Plan Action Without Congress
OO White House Calls For Increased Energy Grid Spending - it desperately needs upgrading, especially to incorporate the increasing use of clean energy.
<><><><>
OO Foes Of Obama Climate Policy Prepare Battle Over Cost Of Carbon
OO GOP Legal Group Petitions Energy Department To Downplay Social Cost Of Carbon
OO House GOP Plans Mega-Hearing On Climate Change - now this should be interesting...
<><><><>
OO Unfair Share: How Oil And Gas Drillers Avoid Paying Royalties
OO Sick Of Deepwater Horizon Disaster, BP Gets Aggressive With Lawsuits
OO Lawsuit: ALEC-Tied Legislators Stripped Important Passages From Renewable Energy Bill against voters' wishes.
<><><><>
Via the University of East Anglia Climate Change webpage
<<<< Climate Change Round the World >>>>
______________
OO Category 6 Hurricane Equivalent Already Occurred on Earth - in 1979 says Weather Nation, Climate Matters Meteorologist Paul Douglas, who notes that naturally extending the hurricane categories, a 1979 hurricane was the equivalent of a category 6 one. Al Gore is right, in principal.
OO Why The World Bank Is Taking On Climate Change - The organization believes that increased drought, extreme storms, and rising sea levels are significant threats to economies worldwide.
OO Coastal Cities Face $1 Trillion Floods By 2050
<><><><>
OO The Surprisingly Large Energy Footprint Of The Digital Economy - it accounts for 10% of total energy demand.
OO 2013 Planetary Deficit Began August 20 - past this day, we are taking more resources than the planet can give this year - and each year we're growing a bigger resource deficit.
OO Global air-conditioning: Are we cooling our way to a warmer planet?
<><><><>
OO Africa: Rejuvenating Rains Don't Come To Namibian Desert The worst drought in three decades has families selling assets such as livestock, eating less, and migrating to cities to find work.
OO The Planet's Strongest Storm So Far Tore Through The Philippines
OO Dozens Die In North Asia Heat Wave As Power Supply Strained
OO UK: Mega Heatwaves To Become The Norm Over Next Decade
OO Ecuador's President Abandons No-Drilling Plan For Rainforest - due to lack of international support.
OO Europe's Forests Nearing Carbon Saturation, Study Finds threatening one of the continent's main defenses against global warming.
<><><><>
OO Russia Evacuates 19,000 From Flooded Far East Russian - authorities have evacuated more than 19,000 people from unprecedented floods that have devastated crops in the country's Far East, officials said Monday, as rescue workers warned of worse to come.
OO What's Making The Floods Worse In Manila? Manila has been hit by ever-worsening floods. Population growth, inadequate infrastructure, corruption, deforestation and even trash build-up combine to exacerbate the impact.
OO Hot Summer In Canada Helps Invasive Fruit Fly
Credit Rhett Butler at mongabay
OO Deforestation Zooming in Amazon - destroying more of the valuable carbon storing rainforests; a 100 percent surge in clearing forest was detected last summer.
OO How Climate Change Became A Major Factor In Australia's Upcoming Election
Ten Global Warming Indicators. Credit NOAA
<><><><>
(((((((( Seeking the Science ))))))))
__________
OO Why Earth Won't Have A Runaway Greenhouse Effect Like Venus - but it doesn't have to, to sink our civilization, as the next item shows...
OO Climate Change Toppled Ancient Civilizations A changing climate may have been the reason for the rise and fall of many of Bronze Age Europe's civilizations.
OO Australia: Massive 2012 Floods Briefly Slowed Sea Level Rise
<><><><>
OO Himalayas to Be Wetter And Warmer Over Next Century
OO Extreme Heat Waves to Quadruple by 2040, study says
OO Study Downplaying Warming Effect on Jet Stream Flawed - the study uses data from the past 30 years, while the effect on the jetstream has only been observable in the past 15, a critic argues.
<><><><>
OO NY City Marshes Indicates A 500-Yr Drought Within Past 1,500 Years - and might hold clues to future ones.
OO Hotter, Drier Conditions Forcing Desert Plants To Migrate uphill, and threatens current uphill plants and animals, which have no where to go.
OO Krill Face Greater Risks in Warming Antarctic Waters - and so does the major food chain based on it.
Credit Mary Ellen Harte
OO UK Butterflies, Others, Approaching Adaptation Limit To Early Spring - study; beyond that, they will decline, and so will the birds and others that depend on them.
OO Can extreme weather make climate change worse? Probably, says a study, by damaging an ecosystem so that it stops absorbing carbon; such damage is being seen.
OO Extreme Heat May Aggravate Gastrointestinal Problems
<><><><>
@@@ Climate Change in the Media @@@
__________
Via Climate Nexus
OO @@ WEEKLY CLIMATE CHANGE VIDEO SERIES!! @@ Entitled "In Case You Missed It" via the good folks at Climate Nexus on Vimeo - select headlines delivered in less than 90 seconds with good graphics. Cool watching -- spread the word!!
@@ At Last, a Green Radio Show to counter the Lush Bimbaugh wasteland. Check out On the Green Front with Betsy Rosenberg at Progressive Radio Network to keep updated on climate change, and other green topics.
@@ Video: America's Dangerous Pipelines - the title says it all; compelling ....
To help you understand just what science does and does NOT do, check this out!
Every day is Earth Day, folks, as I was reminded by these late summer wildflowers I photographed a few weeks ago. Making the U.S. a global clean energy leader will ensure a heck of a lot more jobs, and a clean, safe future. If you'd like to join the increasing numbers of people who want to TELL Congress that they will vote for clean energy candidates you can do so here. It's our way of letting Congress know there's a strong clean energy voting bloc out there. For more detailed summaries of the above and other climate change items, audio podcasts and texts are freely available.
