11th-Hour Series: E.P.A. Decides CO2 Not a Pollutant

Late yesterday, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson issued a memo declaring that “[o]fficials weighing federal applications by utilities to build new coal-fired power plants cannot consider their greenhouse gas output.” “The current concerns over global climate change should not drive E.P.A. into adopting an unworkable policy of requiring emission controls” in these cases, Johnson said.

As you may know, last year The Supreme Court ruled  that the EPA could regulate carbon dioxide, the most prevalent greenhouse gas, under existing law. Then last month, EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board, ruled that the EPA should consider CO2 in limiting permits for new coal-fired power plants, forcing new and proposed plants to address their carbon dioxide emissions. Well, that ruling has now been overruled. John Walke, lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council said, “It’s a marvel to behold an E.P.A. action that so utterly disdains global warming responsibility and disdains the law at the same time.”

Coal plant opponents list several in late stages of the approval process that could be affected by the decision. Vickie Patton, deputy general counsel of the Environmental Defense Fund, estimated that as much as 8,000 megawatts of new coal-fired power plants that could win swifter approval as a result of the ruling.

Lisa Jackson, whom Obama has nominated as Mr. Johnson’s successor, has the opportunity to go through a rule-making and see how to deal with the issue, but  the ruling could also tie the hands of President-elect Barack Obama, who has indicated that he wants heat-trapping gases to be regulated.

UN Climate Change Conference falters, defers

Prez Elect Obama’s Green Team nominations came just after the United Nations’ annual climate change conference sputtered to an indecisive close at Poznań, Poland last week, failing to set ambitious new goals to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Al Gore rallied future hope saying, “To those who are fearful that it is too difficult to conclude this process with a new treaty by the deadline that has been established for one year from now in Copenhagen, I say it can be done, it must be done. Let’s finish this process at Copenhagen. Don’t take the pressure off. Let’s make sure that we succeed.”

Bill McKibben, a leading environmentalist, was one of the first to describe global warming as an emerging environmental crisis in his 1989 book The End of Nature. His latest book is called Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future. He is also co-founder of the environmental mobilization campaign called 350.org. The number 350 refers to calls for a new global target to reduce carbon dioxide levels to no more than 350 parts per million. Just returning from Poland where he attended the UN climate change conference in Poznan, he comments on the changing paradigm as the seriousness of the situation is setting in:

The politics of this, as opposed to the policy, is finally starting to change as more and more people begin to realize that we’re way deeper into the climate problem than we thought.
First thing that happened was that the small island nations and less-developed countries of the world, the first and most vulnerable victims to climate change, sharpened their rhetoric considerably. They started talking about survivability and asking other nations, many of which complied, to sign a pledge saying that whatever they did, they would try to build a climate policy that allowed all nations of the world to survive, not to sink beneath the rising seas or the expanding deserts. I mean, we’re seriously talking, in the not-too-distant future, about hauling flags down outside the UN, because those countries no longer exist. That began to sharpen, the rhetoric.

The other thing that happened—was a part of Gore’s speech, that got him by far the longest and lustiest round of applause—was when he said—and this was an [enormous] breakthrough—that we have to start aiming for 350 parts per million CO2. That sounds like a small technical change from 415 parts per million, the current goal, but in fact it changes every aspect of this debate. Since we’re already past 350—we’re at about 387 parts per million now; that’s why the Arctic is melting—it means that we have to treat this as the full-on emergency that it is, not one more problem on a long list, but the absolute central keystone problem that we have to go to work on in the most impassioned way right now.

Now, look, the momentum of the talks is such that they’ll kind of drag on in their current form for a while towards Copenhagen next December. But I think that the reality of the world’s—the reality of the physics and chemistry in the atmosphere is beginning to overtake the political reality that’s been the main feature of these talks. We’re going to see a much sharpened, much heightened debate with a lot more people getting a lot angrier and demanding actual change.

read more from Democracy Now.org
Al Gore endorses 350 for the planet – read the story…
pingback on 350 is now the most important number on the planet

This Is Reality

the This Is Reality – Come Clean on Clean Coal Campaign: There is no such thing as “clean”coal

This Is Reality|these are The Facts

Make.Me.Sustainable. =>starting now

Mission

We live in a period of profound environmental crisis, but it is not too late to change the course. The future of our planet hinges on the choices we make everyday. MakeMeSustainable is unique in our capacity to provide individuals and businesses with the tools necessary to identify and accomplish sustainable goals. We will help you track your energy consumption and environmental impact, allowing you to see the effects of strategies as simple as changing a light bulb. As a community we can realize an environmentally responsible and economically rewarding future. Together, we can change the course.

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MakeMeSustainable was created to fill the void between how we feel about our environment and what we do about it. We bring you the tools to take action. Our Carbon and Energy Portfolio Manager enables you to visualize and contextualize your individual impact. MMS’ sustainable solutions empower you to act upon your knowledge. We can help you to become a more environmentally conscious and efficient individual or business. MMS empowers you to spread the word and encourage friends, family, and co-workers to join the collective effort.

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As individuals it is difficult to visualize our impact on a larger scale. MMS wants to create a community of people concerned with their environmental footprint in order to network, spread the word and effectively mitigate their individual and communal impact. The MMS Community is a forum for discussion, a means for disseminating information on sustainable living and a virtual space to network with other concerned individuals and businesses on a local, regional and national scale. The MMS Community’s functionality continues to increase every day and with every user that signs up.

http://makemesustainable.com

Acidified Ocean Solutions: Opensourcing Geoengineering

Perhaps you heard the report on NPR yesterday, that the Pacific Ocean around Tatoosh Island, WA are becoming acidic 10 times faster than expected.

Cquestrate has an idea to reduce carbonic acid in the ocean, thereby reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere… but they need our help.

What do you think about this idea? Are there drawbacks? Is it feasible?

• First, you heat limestone to a very high temperature, until it breaks down into lime and carbon dioxide.
• Then you put the lime into the sea, where it reacts with carbon dioxide dissolved in the seawater.

The important point is that when you put lime into seawater it absorbs almost twice as much carbon dioxide as is produced by the breaking down of the limestone in the first place.

This has the effect of reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It also helps to prevent ocean acidification, another problem caused by the increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

If done on a large enough scale it would be possible to reduce carbon dioxide levels back to what they were before the Industrial Revolution.

Visit the Cquestrate site to provide your thoughts along with many others.

Wired blog article

No More New Coal-Fired Power Plants?

Amidst last Thursday’s EPA announcement, that it would not grant any new construction permits for coal-fired power plants until it could make sense of what is necessary to limit CO₂ emissions, what does this mean for the future of coal?

In 2007, fossil sources accounted for 80% of US energy demand: Coal (25%), natural gas (21%), petroleum (34%), nuclear (6.5%), hydro (2.2%), and biomass and waste (11%). Only 0.4% of global energy demand is met by geothermal, solar and wind.

100 mpg 2.5 ton 1959 Lincoln Continental Mk IV convertible

Leave it to the radical hippie-liberal Neil Young and motor mechanic Jonathan Goodwin (and not Detroit) to reconstruct the original engine of a 2.5 ton 1959 Lincoln Continental Mk IV convertible into a new series-hybrid system. The car has gone from getting 9 miles to the gallon to now achieving around 100 miles to the gallon, and has been accepted as an entrant in the Automobile X Prize competition.

http://www.lincvolt.com/

Neil also offers some advice on the site as to how to save a major automobile company.

350 is now the most important number on the planet

The bills are coming due. And not just, or even mainly, the bills from a failed Bush presidency, but the bills from 200 years of burning fossil fuel. Twenty years ago when we started worrying about global warming, we thought we’d have a generation to pay those bills off. But we were wrong — the planet was more finely balanced than we’d realized. The melting Arctic is the call from the repo man. As NASA climate scientist James Hansen has said,

If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleo-climate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO₂ [in the atmosphere] will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm [parts per million] to at most 350 ppm.

from “President Obama’s Big Climate Challenge” by Bill McKibben…

350.org

Carbon Footprint Calculator(s)

How much CO₂ your lifestyle creates is called your “carbon footprint.” Home energy use, cars, and airplanes are how most of us produce carbon. Is your footprint average? Answer a few easy questions to learn your shoe size. Check yours now >. Here is a more precise one from the US EPA.

Sharpest climate change in 5000 years?

After having studied the Arctic and North Atlantic ecosystem, researchers from Cornell University published their results Thursday concluding that the recent warming trend counts as the most dramatic climate change since the onset of human civilization 5,000 years ago.

Read the full story at the new Yahoo! GREEN blog.