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.