Episode 13 of Dr. Joylette Portlock’s YouTube series Don’t Just Sit There – Do Something! In this episode Dr. Portlock looks at “old king coal,” the dirtiest of of fossil fuels and the source of much of the world’s energy generation. Even though coal use is declining in America, primarily from the explosion natural gas fracking, coal consumption continues to expand globally. Portlock also looks at the myth of clean coal and prospects for carbon capture and sequestration (CSS) technology. As with all her videos, Portlock offers ideas for actions we can take, including finding local sources of clean energy and urging President Obama to make sure the EPA finalizes standards to limit carbon emissions from new power plants.
Arctic Ocean Rapidly Acidifying
After three years of ongoing research by an international team of scientists, a study commissioned by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme for a first-ever comprehensiveRead More
EarthTalk: Climate Change and Hawaii’s Coral Reefs
EarthTalk® is a weekly environmental column made available to our readers from the editors of E/The Environmental Magazine Dear EarthTalk: What’s the prognosis for Hawaii’sRead More
Worldwide Efforts to Combat Drought, Desertification to Take Shape in Namibia This Year
High-level representatives from 195 nations party to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification,, along with civic and environmental groups, will meet in Windhoek to assess progress and plan for future actions to address desertification, land degradation and drought, issues that now affect 168 nations at a cost of some $490 billion, not to mention the loss of lives, health, livelihoods, biodiversity and ecosystems.
The Promise of Climate Change Education Standards
“In order to learn the nature of the myriad things, you must know that although they may look round or square, the other features ofRead More
US Insurance Industry Ill-Prepared to Deal with Climate Change Risk, Impacts
Eleven extreme weather events took place in the US in 2012. Each left at least $1 billion in damages in their wake. Besides the costRead More
The Growth of Efficient Buildings
The area of building efficiency affords tremendous opportunities for both economic growth and reduced environmental impacts. Buildings are the single largest emitters of greenhouse gases.Read More
Environmental Success Stories: Mercury, SLCPs and Many More
The overwhelming number of environmental calamities we face overshadows environmental success stories and this undermines efforts to build support for ecological action. People concerned aboutRead More
Video Friday: A Historical Perspective on Climate Change
I’ve noticed increased activity in the “twittersphere” this week trumpeting many of the well-worn memes of climate denial, apparently due to Barack Obama’s mention of climateRead More
Meeting the Climate Challenge: Cities Plan for Worst and Hope for the Best
At the national and international level climate action is stalled under the unyielding weight of factionalism and meeting the diverse agenda of a global community. AtRead More
New Support for the Interconnectedness of the Environment and the Economy
Two new reports reiterate the scientific veracity of anthropogenic climate change while reinforcing the interconnectedness of the economy and the environment. The World Economic ForumRead More
The Water-Energy Nexus in a Climate-Changed World
Editor’s note: This post is a finalist in Masdar’s Engage blogging contest as part of Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week. Special thanks to Tim Hurst and Nick Aster. The water-energyRead More
Crafting a Positive Environmental Narrative
Positive narratives may be our best hope for fostering desperately needed environmental action. Decades of ecological warnings have failed to produce the necessary societal changes. The enthrallingRead More
Pessimism is Impeding Environmental Advocacy
While it is easy to understand why so many environmentally concerned people are fearful and pessimistic, these attitudes detract from the goal of improving our environment. Fear is well warranted, weRead More
40 Eco-Apps that Put Technology to Work for the Environment
Technology may not be a panacea to solve the climate crisis, but green applications (eco-apps) are helping to drive awareness and foster responsible action. ThereRead More
Archive for Coal
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Anthropogenic US greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) amounted to a CO2-equivalent 6,702.3 million metric tons in 2011, down 1.6 percent from 2010 and 6.9 percent below 2005 levels. Longer term, US GHG emissions have increased at an annual average rate of 0.4 percent since 1990, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) 18th annual US Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks (Inventory) report, which was released April 15.
A decrease in the carbon intensity of fuels used in electricity generation due to increased use of natural gas as opposed to coal, a “significant increase in hydropower” generation, and “relatively mild winter conditions, especially in the South Atlantic Region of the US” were the main factors underlying the drop in national GHG emissions in 2011, according to the EPA’s “The Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2011.”
Longer term trends from 1990 through 2011 were attributed to lower emissions from electricity generation, higher vehicle fuel efficiency and less in the way of miles traveled, and year-to-year changes in weather patterns. Read More→
Despite record amounts being spent to propagandize the coal industry and the ridiculous concept of “clean coal”, United States coal consumption has gone down. Sort of.
A recent report from the Energy Information Administration indicates the U.S.’s relative consumption has gone done, while the world consumption continues to rise at a nauseating rate. This matters in a couple ways. U.S. has typically driven fossil fuel consumption globally – so this is a step in the right direction. However the aggregate amount of greenhouse gasses distributed into the atmosphere is what will make or break the environmental future for our children. Countries like China continue to grow at exponential rates, those not seen since America’s industrial revolution.
Why am I not doing backflips about the U.S. dropping coal consumption? Because the U.S. could stop coal’d-turkey (get it?) and if other countries continue at the same clip, we will still all have black marks under our noses and our children will cough like the Swammy Swans in Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax.
Read More→
GlobalWarmingisReal contributor Anders Hellum-Alexander wraps-up and comments on the climate and environmental news headlines for the past week:
- The legal repercussions from the Gulf Oil Spill are coming to fruition for BP; the money they will pay out money to the US government will in turn be funneled to states like Florida so they can fund environmental restoration efforts.
- Peak Oil theory is often interpreted to mean that we are running out of oil in the near future. A more accurate historical interpretation is that we are running out of easy to find and extract oil. But, the fact is that we do not know what is out there, we may find easy to extract, low sulfur oil. As an environmentalist, that is not the point, the point is that there is a huge negative impact during extraction, refinement and use. Someone once famously said something about the stone age that we can apply to the age of oil: the stone age did not end because we ran out of stones.
- The price of natural gas is low right now, but like oil it will not stay low forever. With the Northeast of the US reliant on natural gas any fluctuation in price is felt by homeowners, and without alternatives they are stuck with whatever comes their way. This arrangement is not an ideal of capitalism or the “free market.” A mixed energy system is what we need and renewable energy is what can diversify our energy sources and stabilize prices.
- Natural gas extraction is not clean and results in a lot of leakage into the environment. A natural gas well in the Gulf of Mexico is leaking out of control, it started back in early February. Read More→
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) February 5 published a second year of Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP) data on its website, offering the public insight into an expanded set of more granular nationwide GHG emissions compiled by sector, by greenhouse gas, and by geographic region down to the state and county level.
“Transparency ensures a better informed public, which leads to a better protected environment,” Gina McCarthy, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation was quoted in a press release. “With this second data release, communities, businesses and others can track and compare facilities’ greenhouse gas emissions and identify opportunities to cut pollution, minimize wasted energy, and save money.” Read More→
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