Global Warming Update

AlASKA GLACIERS MELT, HASTEN RISE IN SEA LEVEL

By Jim Lobe

(ENS) - A study published recently in Science magazine says Alaska's glaciers are melting more quickly than previously believed. Moreover, the resulting meltwater is hastening the rise in sea level, according to a team of University of Alaska researchers. "The rate of thinning has doubled in the past five years, compared to the 40 years before," said Anthony Arendt, of the university's Geophysical Institute, the study's main author. "It's a big deal if those rates have been underestimated," said Tom Janetos, an expert at the Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment. More than 100 million people live on land within one meter (three feet) of sea level, and storm surges can devastate coral reefs and low-lying islands and coastlines around the world. "The greater the rise and the faster it occurs, the greater the impact will be on human population," said Benjamin Preston, a researcher at the Washington DC-based Pew Center on Global Climate Change. The warmer atmosphere appears to have caused more rain and snowfall, less sea ice, and faster melting of the West Antarctic ice sheet. Declining salinity could affect major ocean currents, such as the Gulf Stream, which warms the waters and climate of the North Atlantic region. One theory suggests that a large flow of fresh water into the North Atlantic could reverse the Gulf Stream, causing an abrupt plunge in water and air temperatures in northeastern North America and northwestern Europe.

HISTORIC CALIF RULING ON CO2 EMISSIONS FROM CARS

By Cat Lazaroff

(ENS) - California has become the first state in the nation to regulate emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from motor vehicles. The state's air quality will develop standards for tailpipe emissions of CO2, beginning in model year 2009. The law is aimed at reducing the global warming impacts of carbon emissions from vehicles and could prompt similar legislation in other states.

"This is the first law in America to substantively address the greatest environmental challenge of the 21st century," said Gov. Gray Davis. "In time, every state - and hopefully every country - will act to protect future generations from the threat of global warming. For California, that time is now."

The standards developed by the state will apply to automakers' fleet averages, rather than each individual vehicle, and carmakers will be able to partially achieve the standards by reducing pollution from non-vehicle sources, including automobile factories.

"The technology is available. It's affordable. And it's widely utilized in other countries," Davis explained. "We're merely asking business to do what business does best: innovate, compete, find solutions to problems and do it in a way that strengthens the economy. Opponents of this bill say the sky is falling," Davis explained. "But they said it about unleaded gasoline. They said it about catalytic converters. They said it about seat belts and air bags. But the sky is not falling. It's just getting a whole lot cleaner."

California ranks second in the nation - behind Texas - in overall emissions of CO2, the most common greenhouse gas. Most of California's emissions of CO2 come from transportation and almost 40 percent is from passenger vehicles.

In June, researchers from several California universities released a study documenting that global warming could reduce the state's supplies of fresh drinking water and make remaining supplies less predictable. Other experts warn of increased wildfire risk, added strain on the electric grid, and deterioration in air quality from the changing climate.

"You don't have to look far to see where California could be affected by global warming," Davis said. "From our seaside communities to our low lying agricultural land, we could be affected by a relatively small rise in sea level. California's snowpack, our state's greatest natural reservoir, is already less reliable than it was just a few decades ago. We know the costs if we don't act. This legislation is based four-square on sound science. Global warming is no longer a theory. It's an urgent reality."

"This is a dramatic breakthrough," said a spokesman at the Davis Suzuki Foundation, an environmental group in Canada. "This is the single biggest initiative on global warming ever taken in North America. And if California can do it, so can Canada."

BUSH OPPOSES RENEWABLE ENERGY REQUIREMENT

(ENS) - The Bush administration opposes a provision of the Senate energy bill that would require utilities to produce 10 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2020. The provision would require major electric companies to increase sales of electricity from wind, solar and other renewable sources from two percent today to about 10 percent by 2020. This would result in a quadrupling, by 2020, of the amount of clean, renewable energy produced. The 74,000 megawatts of renewable energy that would be online by 2020 would be enough to power about 53 million homes.

"Bush's opposition to the renewable electricity standard makes no sense given that its own study shows that the renewable electricity standard would actually save consumers billions of dollars," said a spokesman for the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). "The administration is catering to big utilities that want to continue dishing out the same old mix of dirty fossil fuels," he said. "The summer air conditioning and smog season is a stark reminder of the need to develop clean energy sources."

Twelve states, including Texas, have already enacted their own renewable electricity standards. "Because of the Texas renewable electricity standard that President [George W.] Bush signed when he was governor of Texas, the amount of wind turbines built in Texas last year was more than those built in the entire US in any year," the UCS spokesman added. "It's a shame that Bush won't support the clean air, consumer savings and energy security benefits that renewable energy could provide on the national level."

When the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Colorado was launched in 1977, electricity produced by solar photovoltaic systems cost several dollars a kilowatt-hour. Today the cost is 20 to 25 cents a kilowatt-hour. Wind energy in 1977 cost about 40 cents per kilowatt hour. It can now be produced for four to five cents per kilowatt hour, and is the fastest growing source of energy in the world. NREL is a leading research facility for biomass power, biofuels, geothermal energy, hydrogen, fuel cells, distributed power, hybrid vehicles, advanced vehicle design, fuels utilization and building energy technologies.