| More hot air on climate change from world leaders? President Obama gave his first major speech on climate change today at the United Nations, part of a special session convened by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. The reason for the session? Lack of speed in international negotiations to address climate change.You can see the president's speech here: [More] rss.sciam.com |
Obama and (climate) change: Indian edition The U.S. launched this week a historic program to advance clean energy in India --where simply moving the 40 percent of the South Asian nation's citizens who still burn coal, dung or wood to electricity could deliver major improvements for development, clean air and climate. Last week, it was a similar historic program to advance clean energy with China as well as a shared commitment to meaningful steps as part of the upcoming Copenhagen climate talks. And, to top it off, Obama has announced plans to swing by the talks on Dec. 9 as well as to publicly commit to U.S. emission reductions "in the range of 17 percent below 2005 levels in 2020 and ultimately in line with final U.S. energy and climate legislation." [More] rss.sciam.com |
Despite Climategate, IPPC Mostly Underestimates Climate Change Lost in the coverage of the so-called climategate email controversy is a key point about the IPCC’s track record of climate change estimates. James McCarthy is on the faculty of the Harvard Medical School Center for Health and the Global Environment. He spoke February 21st at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Diego:“If you were to go back and map the IPCC projection for sea level rise and temperature in 1990, look at it in 1995, look at it in 2000. In retrospect you would find that they were conservative. So we talk about errors. If you were to do two ledgers--here are IPCC overestimates, here are IPCC underestimates--over the 20 or so years that these assessments have been running, the underestimate ledger would be much larger than the overestimate. Even with glitches--clearly erroneous editing or sloppy editing that led to these erroneous statements that got us in trouble recently.” [More] rss.sciam.com |
Public Effort Averts Death for a Mystical Place Red Rock State Park is still recovering from its near-death experience brought on by a state budget spiraling down into the abyss. nytimes.com |
Mean-Girl Bullying Trickles Down to Grade School Mean-girl bullying used to set in over fifth-grade sleepover parties, but now the warfare increasingly permeates the early elementary school years. nytimes.com |