NASA: The Arctic Methane Bomb Fuse Is Burning, reports Alan Buis at NASA (Natl Atmospheric & Space Admin). Field data show permafrost, vast frozen polar areas storing vast amounts of carbon, warming even faster than the dramatically warming Arctic air, and "amazing and troubling" unpredicted releases of greenhouse gases (methane, CO2). Imagine what will happen when the Arctic planetary heat shield (summer ice) finally disappears - you won't have to wait long...
This map will change as more permafrost melts, pouring vast amounts of more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and further speeding up global warming. Credit: NASA
Emission Cuts Lead To Cleaner California Air says a new study, reports Peter Fimrite at the San Francisco Chronicle. Cutting diesel emissions have drastically reduced the amount of global warming air pollutants, although legal challenges loom reports Maria Gallucci at InsideClimate News .... Still, I'm breathing easier already - way to go, California!
World Can't Afford to Wait for a New Climate Treaty says the world's foremost energy organization, the International Energy Agency, reports Fiona Harvey at the UK Guardian. Greenhouse gases are rising so fast that delaying action will set the planet on a catastrophic warming of 10o F by century's end. Sing along now: "And we'll all fry together, from the blasted bloomin' weather..."
Quote of the Week Candidate:
"Climate Change ... is the greatest moral crisis of our time."
OO Joe Romm, Feb 27, 2013, "The New Abolitionists: Global Warming Is The Great Moral Crisis Of Our Time," Climate Progress.
No More Cheap Food, As People & Climate Change Increase says a new UN study, reports Katie Valentine at Climate Progress. As human populations continue to zoom and climate change further cuts food production, prices will continue to increase - and yes, more people will starve, a very cruel, ineffective way to control population growth.
3 Ridiculously Simple Efficiency Measures Would Slow Climate Change notes a recent IEA analysis, reports Stephen Lacey at GreenTech Media. Adopt better efficiency standards for: 1) Indian and Chinese motors 2) Chinese heating and cooling systems, and 3) appliances and lighting worldwide. Save energy, money and the world! Sounds good to me.... Why don't we have an international energy efficiency treaty?
US Hurricane Season Lengthening; First 2013 Storm a Record Smasher reports Wunderground Weather Underground weatherman (try THAT 3x fast!) Jeff Masters at the Wunderground. He notes that over the past 2 decades, more early and late storms are occurring, which are correlated with warmer ocean surface temperatures of the sort predicted under global warming...
A pretty precipitation picture of a not-so-pretty recent storm, Andrea, which smashed records... Credit NOAA via Climate Progress
☼☼☼ On the Bright Side ☼☼☼
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OO Don't Get Overwhelmed by Climate Change -- Get Active!
OO Comment While You Can: the public comment period on the new fracking rules on public lands has been extended 60 days.
OO Shareholders Vote Loudly About Climate Concerns to Utility
Credit Mary Ellen Harte
OO Green Groups, Tea Party Pressure Utility to Expand Solar Source
OO Elite Flyers Pressure United Airlines To Act On Climate Change - a group of United Airlines' most frequent flyers, including billionaire investor Tom Steyer, called on the big airline to stop blocking climate change actions. Yessssss!!!!!
OO US, China Aim To Phase Down Use Of Potent Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) - developed as substitutes for outlawed CFCs used in refrigeration and air conditioners, HFCs production and leakage into the atmosphere spiked, but HFCs are also potent greenhouse gases, so this is good news...
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OO Australia Broke Clean Energy Records in 2013 investing $4.2 billion in clean energy, creating 24,000 jobs, and getting up to 13 percent total power from clean energy sources
OO US Wind Industry Managed to Thrive in 2012 - despite uncertainty about the future of the wind production tax credit.
OO US Installs Record 723 Megawatts of Solar PV in Q1 2013
Credit Dennis Schroeder/NREL
OO New Mexico Gets Solar Power Purchase Agreement That's Cheaper Than Coal
OO TV Weathermen, Climate Scientists Starting to Converge on Climate Change
OO TV Weatherman's Epiphany on Climate Change - we're in desperate need of more epiphanies....
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OO Bloomberg Estimates 113 Gigawatts In Untapped Geothermal Capacity Worldwide
OO China To Cut Coal Use In Key Industrial Regions
OO China: Continues To Emit Less Carbon Per Unit Electricity
Via Climate Consensus Blog at the UK Guardian
OO US Carbon Emissions Fell To Lowest Level Since Mid-1990s
OO Solar Energy International Starting Scholarship Plan In Solar Jobs For Military Veterans
OO Renewables Growth Shifts To Developing Nations With Record Growth In Solar, Wind - UN Reports - which can be accessed here...
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OO LED Bulb Maker Revolutionizes Home Lighting - with the price, appearance and efficiency of its LED bulbs.
OO Cuba Girds For Climate Change By Reclaiming Coasts - by protecting from rampant development, sand dunes and mangrove swamps, the best natural protection against rising seas
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***** US Climate Change News *****
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OO Heat Waves, As Climate Change Increases, Prove More Deadly For Poor, Minorities - and kill more US citizens yearly than tornadoes, hurricanes, floods and lightning combined.
OO Pennsylvania: 90% Live in Counties Hit By Weather Disasters Since 2007
OO Florida: Endangered Coral Reefs Die As Waters Warm And Turn Acidic
Overheated corals will "bleach" white as they evacuate vital microbes before they die. Credit: Dan Norton via the Coral Reef Alliance
OO Farmers Exploiting Conservation Subsidies To Use More Water, Not Less as farmers use water more efficiently, they expand acreage, using more water, depleting plummeting aquifers even faster...
OO Sequester Forces NOAA to Cut Satellite Data Rather Than Weather Jobs meaning that the US suffers from decreasing available climate data as climate change worsens...
OO Wildfire Smoke A Rising US Health Concern With Climate Change - as more wildfires add to air pollution under climate change
Credit: Forecast the Facts
OO American West Becoming Increasingly Dusty - as so-called "dust emissions" - including giant dust storms like those of the Dust Bowl era - have increased in the past 17 years, says a new study.
OO US Scores Record Increase in Climate Change Production with record 2012 growth in fossil fuels production.
OO New York City, 2050: 800,000 Residents, 25% of City, Could Be In Flood Zone - says a new study, and Mayor Bloomberg
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OO Drillers Silence US Water Complaints With Cash - across the US, shading the damage from public eyes ... sounds like bribing the few to delude the many, doesn't it?
OO Texas: Oilfield Town Runs Out Of Water From Drought And Drilling -and the residents are pretty "P. O. -ed" - wait til they find out it gets worse with further climate change... or will they think it's the work of an avenging God?
OO Midwest: As Drought Turns To Flood, Farmers Get 'Weather Whiplash' - In the past three years, there's been flooding, then record-setting drought, and now flooding again, thought to be caused by changing jet stream patterns.
Courtesy of Forecast the Facts
OO Drought Causing US Beef Prices to Skyrocket - enjoy that last hamburger...
OO Tropical Diseases Gaining Foothold in Warmer US exacting significant economic tolls and burdening health care systems.
OO White House Doubles Cost Of Carbon Pollution To The Public - for projects like the Keystone XL but critics say it still low-balls today's price for tomorrow's warming.
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OO Water Levels Fall In Great Lakes, Impedes Shipping from drought and other factors imperiling a $34 billion shipping industry and that could send ominous ripples throughout the economy.
OO California Tops US Clean Energy Scoreboard with Hawaii and Oregon placing 2nd and 3rd, but surprising dark horses include low-scoring Texas, which still produces up to 50% of the wind energy generated by clean energy nation Germany... check it out...
OO Midwest Slammed By Extreme High Winds, Large Hail, And Rain - from a long string of thunderstorms that spun off some tornadoes, and the storm cell has now reached the Mid-Atlantic.
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OO House GOP Wants To Vastly Increase Fossil Fuel Development On Public Lands
OO Corporate Sustainability Spending Increase Not Enough To Create Sustainable Businesses
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<<<< Climate Change Round the World >>>>
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OO Canada: Climate Change Damaging Shellfish Industry
OO Japan: Once In A Century Floods Due Every Ten Years - Study
OO Central Europe: Once-In-Lifetime Disastrous Flooding Re-Occurs Within Past Decade
Courtesty of NOAA
OO CO2 Emissions Rose In 2012 To Highest Level Yet - IEA Report putting the planet on course for temperature increases well above international climate goals
OO Need to Leave Most Fossil Fuels Untapped to Avoid Catastrophic Climate Change - IEA Report
OO Canada: Catastrophic Oil Spill Threatens Canada's "Amazon" River Basin said an expert Panel highlighting the risks to the Mackenzie River Basin from climate change and tar sand mining
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OO Sunnier Spain Means More Solar Power, Desertification and Health Risks - Study as cloud cover decreases over Spain
OO Climate Change Threatens North Sea Oil And Gas Output - from increasingly intense storms caused by global warming
OO British Columbians Fear Expanding Coal Industry Poses Health Hazards
Courtesy of Forecast The Facts
OO Korea Energy Conservation Effort Hit By Heat Wave
OO China's Coastal Goods Consumption Drives Most of Production Pollution In Its Heartland - Study - as the rising consumption of the coastal wealthy drives up to 80% of the CO2 pollution produced from the goods produced in China's interior.
OO Tanzania: Commercial Farms, Climate Shifts Dry Out River Basin making it harder for people there to keep their crops and animals alive; tensions are rising between farmers, herders and businesses.
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OO UK: Farmers Fail To Feed UK After Extreme Weather Hits Wheat Crop
OO UK: Extreme Weather Kills One Third Of UK's Bee Colonies
OO Pakistan Wilts Under Record Heat Wave with temperatures reaching as high as 51 degrees Celsius (124 F) and making almost every function of daily life a nearly intolerable struggle.
OO Pakistan: Climate Change May Be Making Children Sick
OO Germany: Floods May Be A Sign Of Climate Change
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(((((((( Seeking the Science ))))))))
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OO How Climate Change Makes Wildfires Worse - by creating longer, warmer, drier seasons, increasing the probability of lightning and humans starting fires. Colorado had a record-breaking 2012 wildfire season of 4000+ fires
OO Squid Imperiled By Rising Ocean Acidity
OO Corals Recover Slowly from Ocean Warming, Maybe Too Slowly For Future Warming
Credit: Rhett Butler at Mongabay
OO Warm Ocean, Not Icebergs, Causing Most of Antarctic Ice Shelves' Mass Loss
OO Africa: Rising CO2 Causes Woody Growth Surge In Savannah, Threatening Grassland Animals and in other arid areas globally studies indicate
OO Africa: Worse Drought In 1980s Tied To North Hemispheric Pollution - Study Aerosols from US and European coal-burning factories from the '60s to '80s cooled the entire Northern Hemisphere, shifting tropical rain bands south, drying out the Sahel.
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OO Greenland Ice Melts Faster As It Darkens, from soot deposited by fossil fuel and wood burning, and global-warming-induced wildfires
OO Central Europe Floods Portend A Wet Future as the continent's climate gets stormier.
OO Migrating Elk Dwindling Because Of Climate Change, Predators - Study indicates that climate change and human interference favor animals that stay put.
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OO Deforestation Just Got Dirtier - as research suggests that harvesting forests releases more carbon than previously thought, thanks to deforestation's disturbance of the soil.
OO As Arctic Ice Melts, Disease Spreads. Warming temperatures appears to be allowing the spread of diseases among animals in the Arctic...
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To help you understand just what science does and does NOT do, check this out!
@@@ Climate Change in the Media @@@
Via Climate Nexus
OO @@ WEEKLY CLIMATE CHANGE VIDEO SERIES!! @@ Entitled "In Case You Missed It" via the good folks at Climate Nexus on Vimeo - select headlines delivered in less than 90 seconds with good graphics. Cool watching -- spread the word!!
@@ For Laughs: Kochify the News: : where you can take your Koch stamp, and click on any LA times story to give it that unique Koch bros twist.... A way to imagine what the LAT would look like under Koch ownership!
@@ Free Online Library of Science Books - search "climate" in the Earth Sciences section for climate change books... bookmark this one...
@@ Can't wait for the next record-smashing hurricane? Check out A DAZZLING VIDEO OF HURRICANE SANDY'S WINDS from NASA
@@ Farming in India and Climate Change - Traditional Seeds Work Best - Indian farmers find, which are much more drought tolerant and less expensive to grow, than the engineered seeds of the Green Revolution. Fascinatin' footage...
@@ Climate Change and the Tibetan Plateau - a slideshow of the change undergoing that massive ecosystem...
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☼☼☼Acting Like You Care: The XL Keystone pipeline will make possible far more climate change, but President Obama might okay it anyway. Credo, 350.org and others are asking people to stand up and be counted as nonviolent resisters or help in other ways. I did. If you ever wanted to do something big for your future, now's your chance - here. 
Every day is Earth Day, folks, as I was reminded by this Luna moth that Elise Davies so generously shared with me. Making the U.S. a global clean energy leader will ensure a heck of a lot more jobs, and a clean, safe future. If you'd like to join the increasing numbers of people who want to TELL Congress that they will vote for clean energy candidates you can do so here. It's our way of letting Congress know there's a strong clean energy voting bloc out there. For more detailed summaries of the above and other climate change items, audio podcasts and texts are freely available.
