China surpasses US as top carbon polluter China has already surpassed the United States as the world's largest carbon polluter, the authors of a California study said Tuesday. "Our best forecast has Chinas CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions correctly surpassing the United States in 2006 rather than 2020 as previously anticipated," said the study by researchers at the University of California. The report, written by economic professors Maximilian Aufhammer of UC Berkeley and Richard Carson of UC San Diego, is to be published next month in the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management. Researchers compiled information about the use of fossil fuels in various Chinese provinces and forecast an 11 percent annual growth of carbon emissions from 2004 to 2010. Previous estimates had set the growth rate at 2.5 to five percent. The spike in air pollution by China has largely cancelled out efforts by other countries' attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emmissions in accordance with the Kyoto Protocol, the authors said.
Bush proposes new climate change strategy President Bush called for a halt Wednesday in the growth of greenhouse gases by 2025, acknowledging the need to head off serious climate change. The plan came under fire immediately from environmentalists and congressional Democrats who favor mandatory emission cuts, a position also held by all three presidential contenders. Bush in a Rose Garden address for the first time set a specific target date for U.S. climate pollution reductions and said he was ready to commit to a binding international agreement on long-term reductions as long as other countries such as China do the same. "There is a wrong way and a right way to approach reducing greenhouse gas emissions," Bush said, making clear that he opposes a Senate measure that would impose mandatory limits on greenhouse gases beginning in five years, followed by annual reductions. "Bad legislation would impose tremendous costs on our economy and American families without accomplishing the important climate change goals we share," the president said. He said he envisions a "comprehensive blend of market incentives and regulations" that would encourage clean and efficient energy technologies. And he singled out the electric utility industry, saying power plants need to stabilize carbon dioxide pollution within 15 years and reduce them after that....
The Green Zone It must have seemed a good idea at the time, this attempt to blunt the global warming agenda and head off a regulatory train wreck. But President Bush's announcement Wednesday of a plan to halt growth in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2025, while not embracing all the enviro groups want, legitimizes their argument that global warming is caused by humans and an imminent threat to mankind. As Christopher Horner, author of "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming," says: "All this accomplished was to legitimize the agenda, wrench the political center of the issue far to the left, and leave some very good men and women out there hanging." It also comes at a time when an increasing number of scientists are giving warming theories a cold shoulder. Timothy Patterson, professor of geology and director of the Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Centre of Canada's Carleton University, says that "CO2 variations show little correlation with our planet's climate on long, medium and even short-time scales." Rather, he says, "I and the first-class scientists I work with are consistently finding excellent correlations between the regular fluctuations of the sun and earthly climate. This is not surprising. The sun and the stars are the ultimate source of energy on this planet." But it's not nice to blame Mother Nature when you have the Industrial Revolution and the internal combustion engine as convenient scapegoats....
Justices to rule on water cooling The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear an environmental case in which utility companies want to revive an industry-friendly regulation put in place by the Bush administration. The dispute with environmental groups revolves around the harm companies cause when they draw water from rivers and lakes to cool electric-generating equipment, then return it to the waterway. The process kills aquatic life. The Environmental Protection Agency allowed the industry to forgo the most expensive solution: installing closed-cycle cooling systems, which would cost billions of dollars at 550 generating units around the country. The rule allowed the companies to decide how to comply with the Clean Water Act by conducting cost-benefit analyses of the available options. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City ruled against the companies. The appeals court called into question the EPA's conclusion that closed-cycle cooling costs could not be reasonably borne by the industry....
Do Colleges Need Green Czars? At a recent gathering in College Park, Md., for the Smart and Sustainable Campuses Conference, business officers joined campus planners and the latest subgroup to make its presence felt: campus sustainability coordinators. Five years earlier, those coordinators would have had little to no representation at such an event. But as colleges commit to reducing their carbon footprints, a growing number are introducing or redefining a staff position to organize the efforts. Julian Dautremont-Smith, associate director of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, estimates that there are as many as 150 college sustainability officers, with more being hired every week....