| The U.S. Must Prioritize Its Carbon Strategy [Extended version] The House of Representatives passed the American Climate and Energy Security Act in June and sent it to the Senate. The House bill, running to 1,428 pages, aspires in one breathtaking stroke to take on renewable energy, carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), nuclear power, electric vehicles, carbon cap-and-trade, power transmission, energy efficiency and climate adaptation. It ranges from grand vision to minuscule details such as technical specifications on lighting fixtures.What’s missing in this sprawling draft is prioritization. The bill rightly recognizes that America and the rest of the world require a fundamental overhaul in energy technology and use. The insecurity of global oil supply lines, the growing global scarcity of conventional fossil fuels and the urgency to reduce carbon emissions all point to the need for a fundamental energy overhaul. Yet to accomplish such a worldwide, fundamental energy overhaul, we will need to keep our eye on the big picture--the technology systems that will make a large and lasting difference--and not get mired in excruciating details. [More] rss.sciam.com |
New recipe looks back for how to feed the world When it comes to feeding Earth's masses of people who regularly go hungry, a few things are clear: communism's large-scale, collective farms don't work and breeding for specific traits in staple crops can boost yields, sometimes significantly. After all, two of the most significant agricultural successes of the past 50 years--a period marked by explosive population growth--were the redistribution of land in China to 160 million peasant families and the " Green Revolution " touched off by Norman Borlaug 's pioneering work with wheat. [More] rss.sciam.com |
Fixing the Broken Government Policy Process The breakdown of the Washington policy process has four manifestations. First is a chronic inability to focus beyond the next election. “Shovel-ready” projects squeeze out attention to vital longer-term strategies that may require a decade or more. Second, most key decisions are made in congressional backrooms through negotiations with lobbyists, who simultaneously fund the congressional campaigns. Third, technical expertise is largely ignored or bypassed, while expert communities such as climate scientists are falsely and recklessly derided by the Wall Street Journal as a conspiratorial interest group chasing federal grants. Fourth, there is little way for the public to track and comment on complex policy proposals working their way through Congress or federal agencies.These failings take a special toll on the challenges of sustainable development because there is no quick fix, for example, for the challenge of large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Instead of getting long-term strategies for adopting low-carbon energy sources, upgrading the power grid, encouraging electric transportation and so on, we are getting cash for clunkers, subsidies for corn-based ethanol, and other ineffective and highly costly nonsolutions delivered by large-scale lobbying. [More] rss.sciam.com |
First Defendant’s Trial in 2007 Newark Triple Murder Begins Three years after a sensational playground murder, a defendant who admits he was there but says he was just a witness faces trial. nytimes.com |
Are Frogs Injurious Species? Should the sale of frogs and other amphibians be restricted to prevent the further spread of the deadly chytrid fungus? That's the question the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is asking, and they want your input.The chytrid fungus ( Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, or Bd ) has spread around the globe since it was first observed in 1999, putting thousands of amphibian species at risk of extinction. It has already caused the expatriation or extinction of at least 200 species . One of the primary causes of the spread of chytrid fungus is interstate and international trade, for either the pet or restaurant industries, according to Kerry Kriger, founder of Save the Frogs!, a Santa Cruz, Calif.–based foundation . [More] Chytridiomycota - Amphibian - California - Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis - Species rss.sciam.com |