The Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal to tighten the ozone standard for smog will have an unfortunate side effect: Because of a quirk of atmospheric chemistry, those measures will hasten global warming.

There’s no question that smog is a hazard that deserves attention. Lydia Wegman of the EPA says the new ozone limits would have significant health benefits.

Less smog means fewer asthma attacks, fewer kids in the hospital, fewer days of lost school, “and we also believe that we can reduce the risk of early death in people with heart and lung disease,” she says.

Here’s the tough part: The way many states and localities will reduce smog is by cracking down on the chemicals that produce ozone. And those include nitrogen oxides, or NOx.

Imagine lying on the beach, a good book in one hand, drink in another, feeling the cool breeze in your hair when suddenly, that breeze gets stronger and stronger and is accompanied by an unbearable loud noise that you think will shatter the windows of …

The ocean is swallowing their home – and it’s all due to the greenhouse gases emitted by oil, power and coal companies. So, the Alaska Native village of Kivalina wants Exxon, BP and others to pay the price for their sacrifice.
As the city of Kivalina makes plans to move two miles away because of the […]

Sometime around 2050 researchers estimate that the global population will level-out at nine billion people, adding over two billion more people to the planet. Since, one billion of the world’s population (more than one in seven) are currently going hungry—the largest number in all of history—scientists are struggling with how, not only to feed those who are hungry today, but also the additional two billion that will soon grace our planet. In a new paper, published in Science, researchers make recommendations on how the world may one day feed nine billion people—sustainably.

Gland, Switzerland: Sunday’s deadline for countries to lodge targets and details of emission reduction programs under the Copenhagen Accord, is the opportunity for nations that pushed the climate accord to show they are serious about it, WWF said yesterday.

“Currently, the Copenhagen Accord sets out one agreed goal – keeping the world below the two degrees Celsius danger threshold for global warming ,” said Kim Carstensen, leader of WWF’s global climate initiative.“Sunday is the self-imposed deadline for countries to lay out what they are actually going to do to keep the world out of the danger zone.”

Carstensen said that for the great majority countries this implied a considerable increase on commitments so far.

“Emissions reductions on the table at Copenhagen were clearly setting us up for a world three or more degrees warmer, even without taking into account various large loopholes allowing for dubious emissions reductions claims and double counting of claims,” Carstensen said.

WWF is looking for targets approaching the upper end of a 25-40 per cent range of emissions reductions on1990 levels by 2020 for developed nations. At the time of Copenhagen, only Norway with a 40 per cent reduction target, met this ambition level. Japan has announced that it puts a target of minus 25 per cent into the Accord, which is not far off the mark, while Australia this week disappointed by announcing it intended to stand by is five percent reduction target.

For the developed nations, who did the most to push the Copenhagen Accord, we fear that there is still a gross mismatch between their goal of keeping the world out of climate danger and the steps they are prepared to take to actually achieve this goal,” Carstensen said.

Major emerging economies – the BASIC Group of Brazil, South Africa, India and China – last weekend announced they intended to meet the January 31 deadline with more detail on voluntary mitigation programmes under the accord.

“This is a very helpful move from this group of major developing countries. We expect they will announce high levels of ambition and follow up urgently with clear national action plans meet this ambition”, Carstensen said.

WWF today released The Copenhagen Accord: A Stepping Stone analysing how the world might begin the journey from the political agreement of the Copenhagen Accord to an internationally binding climate treaty in Mexico City in December.

The global environment organisation also said it was still waiting on urgently required announcements under the accord on financial aid to help developing countries prevent and cope with climate change.

“There is a general awareness that the world failed to do what it needed to do in Copenhagen,” Carstensen said. “But climate change is not a problem that will go away but a problem that will get worse and more costly to deal with the longer we delay effective action.”

Climate change is hard to imagine since it is dealing with small changes over a long period of time. A new NASA Web site can help younger children understand how and why their planet is changing and what they can do to help keep it habitable. This website is called “Climate Kids”. It is geared toward students in grades 4 through 6 and has a multimedia rich website with games and humorous illustrations and animations to help break down the important issue of climate change.

When Joseph Stalin took control of one of the largest landmasses on Earth, he did not neglect to make his presence felt in even the most remote of its corners – resulting in one of the most horrific and destructive ‘creative’ projects of all time. In…

A sudden and unexplained drop in the amount of water vapor present high in the atmosphere almost a decade ago has substantially slowed the rate of warming at Earth’s surface in recent years, scientists say.

In late 2000 and early 2001, concentrations of water vapor in a narrow slice of the lower stratosphere dropped by 0.5 parts per million, or about 10 percent, and have remained relatively stable since then. Because the decline was noted by several types of instruments, including some on satellites and others lofted on balloons, the sharp decrease is presumed to be real, says Karen Rosenlof, a meteorologist at NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo.

U.S. farmers grew record-large corn and soy crops in 2009 but production in 2010 could be even bigger, aided by an El Nino weather pattern that is typically a boon to the Midwest but less so for growers in Australia and southeast Asia, a forecaster said on Thursday.

Allen Motew, meteorologist at QT Weather, forecast a dry U.S. spring, which should minimize problems at planting time, followed by a favorably wet summer growing season.

Of all the bacteria that we know by name, E. coli is among the most reviled – second only to, perhaps, methicillin-resistant staph (MRSA). It’s a nasty little bug, causing serious illness when transmitted to humans through food. But this deadly bacterium may just be the key to a new type of biofuel made from […]