Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Weather, Water, Energy 10-25-06

Lots of links tonight, but The Boy has a good series on Dylan below you need to spend your time here on so I'll just bulletpoint them:

  • Via Climate Progress, we hear from PricewaterhouseCoopers that, for the price of a small nick in one year's GDP, we can make the reductions necessary in our energy use, through efficiency and not new tech, to keep global warming at minimal levels. And remember that we're looking at trillions of dollars lost eventually if we don't do it. But PwC is well-known for its socialism and ignorance.
  • Finally might get some progress on global warming. Why? Lawsuits. Planned for car companies, Big Oil, utilities. All we need is Erin Brocovich.
  • 3/4ths of Europe's car brands will fail to meet an EU emissions target. (Ford looks like it will make it . . . there, but not here. What's up with that, you predictable, un-American SOBs?)
  • In England, a proposal to charge parking fees by car emissions. Wow.
  • You think 400 m. wood-burning stoves in developing nations might be contributing to global warming?
  • New, better dating of rock layers makes dating CO2 emissions and other global events of the time easier as well.
  • Climate change-->fungal disease-->dead frogs-->canary in coal mine?
  • Leading electric companies around the world call on gov'ts to adopt new sustainable energy and climate policies. Reaction to possible lawsuits? Don't they sort of have cards in their own hands?
  • One good thing about Australia's frugal new "attack" on global warming? The world's biggest space-age solar station.
  • Revising water management manuals may, may, keep GA, FL, and AL from each other's throats.
  • Think only our states are beginning to fret about water cheating? Try India and China. (Don't they have nukes?)
  • Speaking of China, it's entering a new (Europe-hurting) partnership with Russia to develop the latter's oil industry. Seems Europe hasn't been dealing on Russia's terms. (Just remember you and China don't have that great a history, Vlad.)
  • The British Foreign Secretary predicts more failed states with global warming (and zips Bushnev with praise of state efforts like CA's).
  • More than half of the world's coral reefs (reeves?) could die within 25 years, experts are warning. And blaming global warming at least in part.
  • Short-term coal mining or long-term state beauty? WV officials are trying to find a balance.
  • A crude oil pipeline proposed in ND could harm two major water resources there. Don't you just love these juxtapositions of our topics?
  • LA, on the other hand, may actually get some say on off-shore drilling and protecting its own coasts.
  • An ID court is hearing a case that could shut down water use in the eastern part of the state. Nice example of past decisions coming back to haunt and the hard choices that have to be made.
  • Two HA stories--one on the drought there (don't think of droughts in HA much, do you?) and the other on strategic planning that doesn't hold much hope for energy conservation there.
  • Finally, Al Gore reminds OR of the essential morality of combating global warming. (Question--would a moral nation even have to be reminded?)