26 Climate Myths Debunked

Climate Progress:

Kudos to New Scientist for taking on the skeptics. Here are the myths they debunk (that Slate’s Emily Yoffe would do well to read):

• Human CO₂ emissions are too tiny to matter

• We can’t do anything about climate change

• We can’t trust computer models of climate

• They predicted global cooling in the 1970s

• Chaotic systems are not predictable

• Mars and Pluto are warming too

• The ‘hockey stick’ graph has been proven wrong

• It was warmer during the Medieval period, with vineyards in England

• It’s been far warmer in the past, what’s the big deal?

• Global warming is due to the Sun, not humans

• Ice cores show CO₂ increases lag behind temperature rises, disproving the link to global warming

But wait, there’s many more debunked myths — the Global Warming Denyers have been a busy bunch lo these many years:

• It’s all due to cosmic rays

• We are simply recovering from the Little Ice Age

• It’s too cold where I live - warming will be great

• CO₂ isn’t the most important greenhouse gas

• The lower atmosphere is cooling, not warming

• Antarctica is getting cooler, not warmer, disproving global warming

• The oceans are cooling

• The cooling after 1940 shows CO₂ does not cause warming

• Warming will cause an ice age in Europe

• Ice cores show CO₂ rising as temperatures fell

• Many leading scientists question climate change

• It’s all a conspiracy

• Hurricane Katrina was caused by global warming

• Higher CO₂ levels will boost plant growth and food production

• Polar bear numbers are increasing

Paper or Plastic : The Best Answer May be “Neither”

E MAGAZINE.COM: "

Each year, Americans use more than 100 billion plastic shopping bags, consuming an estimated 12 million barrels of oil. After a very short working life, these bags retire to landfills where they take 500 or more years to break down, or become litter that clogs storm drains and threatens marine wildlife.... According to Reusablebags.com, four of five shopping bags are made from plastic, and the average American family accumulates 60 of these “free” bags in only four trips to the grocery store. More than 90 percent of plastic bags are simply thrown away. Arthur Liu, account executive at EPI Environmental Products, says the plastic bags in landfills take up space and don’t allow food and other garbage inside them to break down with the help of oxygen.

exclusivelygreenmarket.com has a wide selection of BioBags, Tote bags and cotton shopping bags. Any of these bags are a great way for you to stop using plastic bags and start to clean up the environment.

Climate Progress Person of the Year

Climate Progress: Until last week, this long-beloved annual traditional of Climate Progress seemed to be a lock for one person — Nobel laureate, itinerant educator, and media superstar Al Gore. Sadly, he only makes first runner up this year. Similar to Time magazine, our Person of the Year is awarded to the person or group who “for better or for worse … has done the most to influence the events of the year” in the climate arena.

By single-handedly stopping any international action on climate at Bali, by stopping California from regulating tailpipe greenhouse gas emissions, by forcing Congress to drop almost all non-oil-related provisions to cut GHGs from the energy bill — all in one week! — one man proved his unchallenged high-impact misleadership on the issue of the century: Dick Cheney George Bush.

Grim climate change report spurs UN call for 'breakthrough'

AFP: "The Nobel-winning IPCC group of climate scientists on Saturday issued their starkest warning yet on global warming, prompting a UN demand for politicians to smash the deadlock on tackling the worsening threat.

In a panorama of the evidence, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) declared that the impact of global warming could be "abrupt or irreversible" and no country would be spared."

Climate science: Sceptical about bias

BBC NEWS: "Stefan Rahmstorf from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, who is something of an anti-hero to sceptics' groups as he believes IPCC projections of sea-level rise are far too conservative, had heard this argument before, and he wrote in telling me it was far from convincing.

"How likely is it that my funding would suffer if I found a good alternative explanation for the observed global warming, or that I would have trouble publishing it (assuming it would be methodologically sound, of course)?" he asked.

"Quite the contrary, I would see it as path to certain fame! Scientists always strive to find something radically new and different - just reconfirming what is already quite well-known is boring, and certainly will not get you the Nobel Prize.

Office Depot Launches Nationwide, In-Store Tech Recycling Program

Environmental Leader: "Office Depot has launched a new “Tech Recycling Service” available at all of its 1,100-plus retail store locations in North America. The program, which was piloted in 2006 in approximately 100 stores in the U.S., has resulted in the recycling of more than 108,000 pounds of technology."

Staples First Major Retailer to Accept E-waste

Earth 911: " Staples, Inc., the world’s largest office products company, today announced that it now makes it easy to recycle used computers and other office technology at any Staples store nationwide, becoming the first national retailer to offer computer recycling in stores every day.

Staples makes it easy for customers to recycle e-waste by simply bringing their used computers, monitors, laptops, printers, faxes and all-in-ones to any U.S. Staples store, where the equipment will be recycled in accordance with environmental laws. All brands will be accepted, regardless of whether or not the equipment was purchased at Staples, for a fee of $10 per large item. Staples is working with Amandi Services, one of the country’s most experienced and innovative electronics recyclers, to handle recycling of the equipment, following standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Going green at the White House

NBC Green is Universal

NBC Green is Universal: "NBC Universal's new 'Green is Universal' campaign kicks off Nov. 4th with a week of green-themed programming aimed at entertaining, informing and empowering Americans to lead greener lives."

Are China’s Carbon Emissions China’s?

Climate Progress: The United States and other nations that trade heavily with China are indirectly responsible for nearly a quarter of China’s carbon emissions, according to a briefing note issued late Friday by the U.K.’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.

Last week, we wrote about a new study showing that global carbon emissions in 2006 were 35 percent above the 1990 baseline set down in the Kyoto Protocol. For some time, head-scratching over a successor treaty to Kyoto has occupied climate scientists and economists. This task is becoming much more difficult as it becomes clear that carbon-emissions trends may not belong to individual nations at all, but the fluid trade systems that weave them together. “[Research] suggests that a focus on emissions within national borders may miss the point,” the Tyndall authors write.

Policies in Need of Californication

Climate Progress: "Paul Krugman’s editorial in the New York Times

Behind this claim lies the assumption, explicit or implicit, that any substantial cut in energy use would require a drastic change in the way we live. To be fair, some people in the conservation movement seem to share that assumption.

But the assumption is false. Let me tell you about a real-world counterexample: an advanced economy that has managed to combine rising living standards with a substantial decline in per capita energy consumption, and managed to keep total carbon dioxide emissions more or less flat for two decades, even as both its economy and its population grew rapidly. And it achieved all this without fundamentally changing a lifestyle centered on automobiles and single-family houses.

The name of the economy? California.

Nobel Winner on Global Warming

Florida-Size Arctic Ice Melts in Week

ABC News: An area of Arctic sea ice the size of Florida has melted away in just the last six days as melting at the top of the planet continues at a record rate.

2007 has already broken the record for the lowest amount of sea ice ever recorded, say scientists, smashing the old record set in 2005.

Currently, there are about 1.63 million square miles of Arctic ice, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo. That is well below the record of 2.05 million square miles set two summers ago and could drop even lower before the final numbers are in.

Energy Sources: Pa.'s clean machine

www.tradingmarkets.com: Indeed, the United States needs an energy direction, and plenty of people are ready to lead the way -- starting with PennFuture's 33 award winners last week.

Towns like Upper Dublin and firms like Restaurant Taquet and Studioeec are purchasing 100 percent clean wind power. The Philadelphia Eagles are setting a corporate example by reimbursing employees who buy wind power.

Green construction projects, such as the Friends Center in Philadelphia, demonstrate it's possible to become fossil-fuel free, produce zero global-warming gases, and recycle water.

The Great Valley School District and Kraft Bus Companies have retrofitted school buses with pollution filters and fill their tanks with biodiesel.

Landfills in Lancaster and Lebanon Counties are turning waste and methane into electricity.

The United Jewish Federation of Pittsburgh is educating the community on the benefits of compact fluorescent light bulbs.

CEO Economic Update: Worst drought in over 113 years

CEO Economic Update: "Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina and Florida have had less rain than at any time since records began in 1894."

Falls Lake looks more like a river, or rather a ribbon of water at the bottom of a canyon. As water levels are 8 feet below normal. Leaving Raleigh with about 100 days of water.

Atlanta has about 90 days of water left as Lake Lanier is drying out and the Corps are required to discharge water to support agriculture (oysters) downstream. Currently Lanier is discharging
10x the amount it is receiving as Lanier must make up for the entire water system's shortage.

Other metro areas are even worse off, with an estimated 4 week's worth of water.

Environmental group Friends of the Earth Action endorses Edwards

The Boston Globe: "'We are endorsing John Edwards because we believe he is the candidate most committed, and best prepared to halt global warming and promote a healthy, livable planet for our families and our future,' said Brent Blackwelder, president of Friends of the Earth Action."

Congratulations to Al Gore

Exclusively Green, LLC would like to congratulate Al Gore on winning the Nobel Peace prize. We are very happy to see this kind of attention being given to Global Warming and we wish him much success in bringing even more attention and solutions to help solve the biggest issue people will ever have to deal with.

Al Gore on winning the Nobel Prize:

We’re going to donate 100 percent of the proceeds of this award to the Alliance for Climate Protection. That amount is very small compared to the enormous challenge that lies ahead and the Alliance for Climate Protection headed by Cathy Zoi is organizing a massive grassroots movement and a mass advertising campaign all focused together on trying to change the way people think in our country and all around the world about the urgency of the climate crisis.

It is the most dangerous challenge we’ve ever faced, but it’s also the greatest opportunity that we have ever had to make changes that we should be making for other reasons anyway. This is a change to elevate global consciousness about the challenges that we face now.