Joseph J. Romm's Blog, page 1087

United States joins alliance to promote clean cooking in developing countries

Indian men sell dung cakes to villagers in New Dehli that are commonly used as cooking fuel in rural India (in this AP photo). Cookstoves that use dung and other biomass as fuel give off toxic smoke and are believed to contribute to climate change.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced Tuesday an impressive collaboration at the Clinton Global Initiative that brings together U.S. agencies and the United Nations Foundation to form the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves. The...

NSIDC director: "The volume of ice left in the Arctic likely reached the lowest ever level this month." - Serreze: "I stand by my previous statements that the Arctic summer sea ice cover is in a death spiral. It's not going to recover."

"We are proud of being the first sailing vessel, together with "Peter 1st", that ever has sailed through both the Northeast and Northwest Passage in one short Arctic summer."

This amazing Arctic melt season is finally coming to an end.  We just about equaled 2008 for the second lowest sea ice extent and area.  But volume matters more — and here it looks like we're setting the record.

We've seen that National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) scientists have tracked a sharp drop in oldest...

Exclusive: Former correspondent and editor explains the drop in quality of BBC's climate coverage - Shocker: For 2011, BBC has "explicitly parked climate change in the category 'Done That Already, Nothing New to Say'."

This past Monday night, discussing climate change at a very poorly-attended (as usual, when the subject is global warming or peak oil) screening at the Frontline Journalists' Club in London of the movie Collapse with Michael Ruppert — yes, flawed, but with much sound analysis about oil and energy — I heard from a former BBC producer colleague that internal editorial discussions now under way at the BBC on planning next year's news agenda have in fact explicitly parked climate change...

Energy and Global Warming News for September 22: Warmer oceans feed hurricanes; Volt battery trade-in market; Developing nations to get clean-burning stoves

A trade-in market for the Volt battery?

When the Chevy Volt hits dealerships next month, it will have a 16-kilowatt-hour battery that will power the car for 40 miles, General Motors says. Like most rechargeable batteries, the one in the Volt will slowly lose its abiltiy to store energy, though; G.M. will give the battery a warranty for eight years and 100,000 miles, although it says it should last 10 years.

At that point, its storage capacity will be down to roughly 10 kilowatt-hours...

Tar sands: Still dirty after all these years

X-axis is the range of potential resource in billions of barrels. Y-axis is grams of Carbon per MegaJoule of final fuel.

On Sunday, I wrote about how Lindsey Graham had drunk the tar sands Kool-Aid: "It is less carbon intensive than oil we find in California," extraction "really blends in with the natural habitat."

David Sands of the Government of Alberta pointed out in the comments that CERA had done a study supporting the view that that the tar sands were not overly carbon intensive.  U...

Bill Clinton: Save America's economy with clean energy (and save the planet)

Wonk Room is covering the Clinton Global Initiative.  This is a cross-post by Brad Johnson.

President Bill Clinton believes the "number one thing" to restore the American economy is clean, efficient energy. In a blogger roundtable at the beginning of his Clinton Global Initiative in New York City, Clinton told us his "favorite ideas" for making the green economy a political and economic reality:

One: Federal loan guarantees for building energy efficiency retrofits

Two: Renewable energy...

A Thousand Cuts

The Center for American Progress put out a fascinating report on what reducing the federal budget deficit through large spending cuts could really look like.  These are not recommendations from CAP, but an effort to challenge to conservatives who always say we need to cut spending, but never get specific. They can either own the cuts the report has outlined, or propose their own, but they need to offer some details or else they're just "deficit peacocks," who pretend to be hawkish on...

Climate disruption caused by global warming driven by human emissions of greenhouse gases - By any other name, it's still Hell and High Water

Last week Fox News and other conservative media outlets tried once again to fabricate controversy over climate science when they pounced on a presentation made by the President's science adviser Dr. John Holdren in Oslo. In it, Holdren makes the case (for the umpteenth time) that it's time to move past the oversimplified term "global warming" and start facing the painful reality that without sharply reducing our carbon pollution, we face something more akin to a "global climate disruption."

Sa...

Climate scientists eviscerate Lord Monckton's attempt to disinform the U.S. Congress - "Here, a number of top climate scientists have thoroughly refuted all of Mr. Monckton's major assertions, clearly demonstrating a number of obvious and elementary errors

A group of five scientists solicited responses from more than twenty world-class climate scientists to the May 6th testimony by Christopher Monckton to the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. These climate scientists "… have thoroughly refuted all of Mr. Monckton's major assertions, clearly demonstrating a number of obvious and elementary errors," the report says. "We encourage the U.S. Congress to give careful consideration to the implications this document has...

Climate scientists eviscerate Lord Monckton's attempt to disinform the U.S. Congress - "Here, a number of top climate scientists have thoroughly refuted all of Mr. Monckton's major assertions, clearly demonstrating a number of obvious and elementary errors

A group of five scientists solicited responses from more than twenty world-class climate scientists to the May 6th testimony by Christopher Monckton to the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. These climate scientists "… have thoroughly refuted all of Mr. Monckton's major assertions, clearly demonstrating a number of obvious and elementary errors," the report says. "We encourage the U.S. Congress to give careful consideration to the implications this document has...