Joseph J. Romm's Blog, page 1123

Energy and Global Warming News for August 23rd: Self-cleaning technology from Mars can keep terrestrial solar panels dust free; China closes factories as green deadline looms

Self-Cleaning Technology from Mars Can Keep Terrestrial Solar Panels Dust Free

Find dusting those tables and dressers a chore or a bore? Dread washing the windows? Imagine keeping dust and grime off objects spread out over an area of 25 to 50 football fields. That's the problem facing companies that deploy large-scale solar power installations, and scientists have now presented the development of one solution — self-dusting solar panels ― based on technology developed for space missions...

Register now for National Clean Energy Summit 3.0: Investing in American Jobs

Register here for National Clean Energy Summit 3.0, and view daylong agenda here. By Sarah Busch, intern with CAP's Energy Opportunity team.

The third annual National Clean Energy Summit is coming to Las Vegas on September 7.  The Center for American Progress Action Fund, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas are coming together to host the summit at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas campus again this year.  This year, it will focus on what is n...

Stopping Proposition 23: Five things you can do to fight global warming and advance clean energy

People are always asking me what they can do right now on behalf of the climate and clean energy.

Perhaps the top near-term priority is to defeat the fossil fuel-funded Prop 23 effort to repeal California's clean energy climate laws this November.

Here are five things you can do to win this fight:

Visit the "No on 23″ website, learn the facts & sign up:  www.StopDirtyEnergyProp.com.Educate yourself on how California's climate & energy laws have created companies & jobs: 

Every GOP New Hampshire Senate candidate is a global warming denier

NH GOP Senate candidates (l-r): Jim Bender, Gerard Beloin, Bill Binnie, Kelly Ayotte, Dennis Lamare and Ovide Lamontagne

Every single Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) is a global warming denier.  Wonk Room Brad Johnson  has the story in this cross-post.

Appearing at a debate hosted by the Seacoast Republican Women in Portsmouth, NH on Wednesday, the six candidates — from millionaire businessmen Bill Binnie and Jim Bender to former...

American Renewable Energy Day streaming live

Watch here.

I may be a last-minute addition to a panel at 12 pm ET on new media and messaging,  moderated by Richard Greene of Home Tree Radio, that includes  James Cameron.

Sorry I didn't post earlier on this but I've been on vacation and then got a last-minute invite to come to Aspen.

Species extinctions happening before our eyes

This post was originally published in Skeptical Science.

In the past, research has predicted that global warming could lead to the extinction of more than one-fifth of animal and plant species. This research has largely been based on theoretical models. However, now observations can confirm whether reality matches theory. The paper Erosion of Lizard Diversity by Climate Change and Altered Thermal Niches (Sinervo 2010) compares global observations of lizard populations from 1975 to present...

Climate change is bad for business

Look no further than today to get a glimpse of what the future holds if we continue with business as usual: Record temperatures in the United States, Europe, and Canada; wildfires and hurricanes in Russia; and flooding in Pakistan and China. Climate change is here and there's more to come. Thousands of lives have been lost, and millions of people have been displaced from these recent disasters. But the economic tolls are also hurting businesses.  CAP's Rebecca Lefton and Richard W...

Energy and Global Warming News for August 20th: Renewables account for 18% of EU's power; Offshore wind power approved in New Jersey; Swiss Re warns Caribbean storm damage costs may rise 50% with global warming; 5 races to watch this fall

Europe's Brisk Energy Transition

Europe's evolution toward a heavier reliance on renewable energy is nicely documented in a report released this week by Eurostat, the European Union's statistics agency. The study, "Statistical Aspects of the Energy Economy in 2009," provides a wealth of interesting detail without a lot of editorializing.

From 2008 to 2009 alone, the use of renewable energy in the European Union increased 8.3 percent. As I've reported as part of our continuing series,

A Conversation with Eric Pooley about The Climate War

Eric Pooley has written a spell-binding political thriller about who killed the climate bill and how they did it. It's called THE CLIMATE WAR. Journalist Francesca Rheannon interviewed him for the radio show, Writers Voice. Pooley largely blames the fossil fuel lobby and its PR men for the failure to get a climate bill through the Congress. But in this excerpt from the full interview, he also points the finger at the White House.

Eric Pooley: When I started this book, I thought I was going to ...

Science shocker: Drought drives decade-long decline in plant growth - This could drive an amplifying feedback, undermine biofuels strategy

Earth has done an ecological about-face: Global plant productivity that once flourished under warming temperatures and a lengthened growing season is now on the decline, struck by the stress of drought.

NASA-funded researchers Maosheng Zhao and Steven Running, of the University of Montana in Missoula, discovered the global shift during an analysis of NASA satellite data. Compared with a six-percent increase spanning two earlier decades, the recent ten-year decline is slight — just...