The world’s pre-eminent climate scientists produced a blunt assessment of the impact of global warming on the US yesterday, warning of droughts that could reduce the American south-west to a wasteland and heatwaves that could make life impossible even in northern cities. In an update on the latest science on climate change, the US Congress was told that melting snow pack could lead to severe drought from California to Oklahoma. In the midwest, diminishing rains and shrinking rivers were lowering water levels in the Great Lakes, even to the extent where it could affect shipping. ‘With severe drought from California to Oklahoma, a broad swath of the south-west is basically robbed of having a sustainable lifestyle,’ said Christopher Field, of the Carnegie Institution for Science. He went on to warn of scorching temperatures in an array of cities. Sacramento in California, for example, could face heatwaves for up to 100 days a year. ‘We are close to a threshold in a very large number of American cities where uncomfortable heatwaves make cities uninhabitable,’ Field told the Senate’s environment and public works committee. The warnings were the first time Congress had been directly confronted with the growing […]
Renewable resources such as wind and solar will provide enough baseload electricity to meet the needs of society in the near future, said a longtime energy conservation advocate. Roger Peters, national secretary to the board of the Canadian Renewable Energy Alliance, said new technology to harness the wind and sun will make reliance on renewable resources feasible by possibly 2020-30 and certainly by 2050. ‘In the debate over alternatives, renewable energy tends to get second shrift with the assumption that it can not provide the basic energy requirements we need, particularly on the power side, because the amount is too small, there isn’t enough power … because it’s too variable,’ Peters told the editorial board of the StarPhoenix on Tuesday. Peters said that assumption is unfair. As seen in other countries, renewable energy can compete on reliability, cost and other aspects against carbon capture and nuclear power. ‘In terms of the amount of renewable energy, a lot more renewable energy falls on the Earth than we could ever use — even commercially collect,’ said Peters. Renewable energy equals roughly 100 times the Earth’s annual consumption of electricity, he said. Saskatchewan is blessed with one of […]
SAN FRANCISCO — The San Francisco Chronicle joined the lengthening list of imperiled newspapers Tuesday as its owner set out to purge the payroll and slash other expenses in a last-ditch effort to reverse years of heavy losses. If it can’t reduce expenses dramatically within the next few weeks, the Hearst Corp. said it will close or sell the Chronicle, northern California’s largest newspaper with a paid weekday circulation of 339,430. Hearst didn’t specify a savings target nor a deadline for wringing out the expenses. A Hearst spokesman didn’t immediately respond to messages Tuesday. But management made it clear that the cost-cutting will require a significant number of layoffs. ‘Our current situation dictates that we accomplish these cost savings quickly,’ Chronicle Publisher Frank Vega wrote in a memo to the staff. ‘Business as usual is no longer an option.’ The Chronicle has given Hearst financial headaches since the New York-based company bought the newspaper in a complex deal valued at $660 million. The late 2000 acquisition proved to be ill-timed. Shortly after Hearst took control, the San Francisco Chronicle was hard hit by a high-tech bust that caused its advertising revenue to shrivel. […]
NEW YORK — Home prices tumbled by the steepest annual rate on record in the fourth quarter, two housing indexes showed Tuesday, and the pace of decline continued to gain speed in all but a handful of battered cities. The farther prices fall, the fewer homeowners may be able to qualify for President Barack Obama’s mortgage relief plan. Last week, the president estimated up to 5 million borrowers in good standing who don’t owe more than 105 percent of their home’s current value would be able to refinance into a lower interest-rate loan. Though details of the plan won’t be released until March 4, more than 10 million homeowners are already under water, meaning they owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. Nationally, home prices have receded to 2003-levels, and half of the metro areas in the 20-city Case-Shiller Home Price Index have lost more than 20 percent of their values from their peaks in 2006, including Las Vegas, Phoenix and Miami. ‘If they don’t get (the plan) into place very soon, it will be out of our reach to help these people,’ said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Economy.com. Americans […]
WASHINGTON, DC — The U.S. Supreme Court Monday declined to consider a Bush-era rule that would have allowed a cap-and-trade approach to mercury, a toxic heavy metal emitted by power plants that burn coal and oil. Power plants are the largest source of mercury in the nation. The Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the case invalidates the U.S. EPA’s so-called Clean Air Mercury Rule, which would have allowed dangerous levels of mercury pollution to persist under a weak cap-and-trade program that would not have taken full effect until after 2020. The Supreme Court in effect denied an appeal, filed last year by a coalition of utilities, seeking reversal of a federal court decision vacating the mercury rule. The original lawsuit that resulted in the February 2008 U.S. Court of Appeals ruling in favor of the states and environmental groups maintained that EPA illegally removed coal and oil-fired power plants from the list of regulated source categories under a section of the Clean Air Act that requires strict regulation of hazardous air pollutants, including mercury. Left standing is the ruling by the appeals court that upheld the lower court ruling and rebuked the Bush-era EPA […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
