The price of climate change
The price of climate change
The US climate change bill in Congress won’t just save the environment – it will save us money in the long run
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- guardian.co.uk, Friday 26 June 2009 16.30 BST
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The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, better known as the Waxman-Markey bill, is likely to come up for a vote today in the House of Representatives. Most environmentalists, who earlier this year were worried that Barack Obama had too much on his plate to tackle climate change, are heartened to see the bill moving forward.
The bill includes renewable electricity standards, emissions reductions, a system for trading emissions permits and carbon offsets, investments in energy technology (unfortunately including “clean coal”) and energy efficiency standards. The bill sets target reductions of greenhouse gas emission of 42% by 2030 and more than 80% by 2050.
Rising sea level to submerge Louisiana coastline by 2100, study warns
Rising sea level to submerge Louisiana coastline by 2100, study warns
Scientists say between 10,000 and 13,500 square kilometres of coastal land around New Orleans will go underwater due to rising sea levels and subsidence
- guardian.co.uk, Monday 29 June 2009 12.33 BST
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Hurricane Katrina exposed the vulnerability of New Orleans and other low-lying areas of Louisiana.
A vast swath of the coastal lands around New Orleans will be underwater by the dawn of the next century because the rate of sediment deposit in the Mississippi delta can not keep up with rising sea levels, according to a study published today.
Between 10,000 and 13,500 square kilometres of coastal lands will drown due to rising sea levels and subsidence by 2100, a far greater loss than previous estimates.
Climate war could kill nearly all of us,leaving survivors in the Stone Age
Climate war could kill nearly all of us, leaving survivors in the Stone Age
We need a climate change ‘Churchill’ to lead us away from planet-wide devastation, writes James Lovelock in the latest edition of Conservation magazine, part of the Guardian Environment Networ
- guardian.co.uk, Monday 29 June 2009 12.18 BST
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‘We have enjoyed 12,000 years of climate peace since the last shift from a glacial age to an interglacial one,’ says Lovelock. Photograph: NASA/Corbis
In a small way, the plight of the British in 1940 resembles the state of the civilized world now. At that time we had had nearly a decade of the well-intentioned but quite wrong belief that peace was all that mattered.
Energy bills ‘too low’ to combat climate change
Energy bills ‘too low’ to combat climate change
Royal Society report says current government policy is not enough to pay for green technology
- The Guardian, Monday 29 June 2009
- Article history
Electricity meter. Photograph: David Sillitoe
Consumers will need to pay more for energy if the UK is to have any chance of developing the technologies needed to tackle climate change, according to a group of leading scientists and engineers.
In a Royal Society study to be published today, the experts said that the government must put research into alternatives to fossil fuel much higher among its priorities, and argued that current policy in the area was “half-hearted”.
China recruits algae to combat climate change
China recruits algae to combat climate change
Chinese firm behind ambitious plan to breed microalgae in greenhouse with the potential to absorb carbon emissions
Jonathan Watts in Langfang
The Guardian, Monday 29 June 2009
At ENN’s research campus, scientists are testing microalgae to clean up the back-end of a process to use coal more efficiently. Photograph: Jonathan Watts
The garish gunk coursing through a greenhouse filled with transparent pipes appears to belong on the set of a particularly slimy episode of Star Trek.
Multiplying rapidly as it flows through tubes, stacked 14 high in four long rows, the organism thickens and darkens like the bioweapon of a deranged scientist.
But this is not a science fiction horror story, it is one of humankind’s most ambitious attempts to recruit algae in the fight against climate change.