Courts Issue 2 More Important Greenhouse Gas Rulings. By Jennifer Koons, Greenwire, October 19, 2009. “Less than a month after a federal appeals court in New York issued a historic ruling regarding citizen and government enforcement of greenhouse gas emissions, decisions in two similar cases have come down. Their divergent results could have immediate implications for future climate change lawsuits… Together, the rulings ‘represent mounting legal authority that the Constitution is not a barrier to climate tort litigation,’ said Bruce Myers of the Environmental Law Institute.”
Obama to Give Senate Climate Bill a Push With MIT Speech, NYTimes. President Obama will try to push the Senate climate bill forward Friday (October 23) with an energy-themed speech at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, just days before the start of a marathon series of hearings featuring testimony from top administration officials.. . . Also on Friday — U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson plans to release the agency’s economic and environmental analysis of the climate bill (S. 1733 (pdf)) from Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).
With the EPA analysis in hand, Boxer is set to begin a three-day series of hearings in her Environment and Public Works Committee on Tuesday, Oct. 27, with testimony from Kerry, Jackson, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Jon Wellinghoff.
Germany Considers Reversing Law to Phase Out Nuclear Plants. By Judy Dempsey, NYTimes.”Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives want to prolong the life of Germany’s nuclear reactors by overturning a law aimed at phasing out atomic energy by the 2020s, according to a party working document. In a country in which the public is deeply opposed to nuclear power but obsessed with climate protection, [like the U.S., minus the "obsessed with climate protection" part] Mrs. Merkel will have to persuade even her supporters that prolonging the life of the 17 power plants is necessary until there are sufficient alternative sources of clean energy to replace the plants once they are closed.”
It’s Happening: Huge carbon traps of methane are melting in the Arctic.
Methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2, and it’s being released from previously-frozen methane slush on the seafloor. “250 Methane plumes have been discovered rising from the Arctic Ocean seafloor near west Spitzbergen. The most likely cause is warm water entering the Arctic, destabilizing methane clathrates – “methane slush” – on the seafloor.”
The release of methane from clathrates like these has been hypothesized to be the trigger of the Paleocene thermal maximum, the warmest climate since the Mesozoic, the age of the dinosaurs.” The oceans have been warming rapidly. Ocean temperatures broke the all time record for warmth for July. The global ocean surface temperature for July 2009 was the warmest on record, 1.06 degrees F (0.59 degree C) above the 20th century average of 61.5 degrees F (16.4 degrees C). This broke the previous July record set in 1998. The July ocean surface temperature departure of 1.06 degrees F from the long-term average equals last month’s value, which was also a record. Warming waters are entering the Arctic. The largest sea surface temperature anomalies are in the Arctic.
Methane clathrates are not just found in the cold deep Arctic. Enormous quantities of methane clathrates are located in the Carolina trough offshore of the Carolinas. Warming oceans could destabilize these huge methane deposits. The quantities of methane stored in clathrates are massive.
Read more here.
More news:
New findings show increased ocean acidification in Alaska waters — (ScienceCentric) The same things that make Alaska’s marine waters among the most productive in the world may also make them the most vulnerable to ocean acidification. According to new findings by a University of Alaska Fairbanks scientist, Alaska’s oceans are becoming increasingly acidic, which could damage Alaska’s king crab and salmon fisheries. Oceanographer Jeremy Mathis returned from a cruise armed with seawater samples collected from the depths of the Gulf of Alaska last spring. When he tested the samples’ acidity in his lab, the results showed that ocean acidification is likely more severe and is happening more rapidly in Alaska than in tropical waters. The results also matched his recent findings in the Chukchi and Bering Seas. ‘It seems like everywhere we look in Alaska’s coastal oceans, we see signs of increased ocean acidification,’ said Mathis. Often referred to as the ‘sister problem to climate change,’ ocean acidification is a term to describe increasing acidity in the world’s oceans. The ocean absorbs carbon dioxide from the air. As the ocean absorbs more carbon dioxide, seawater becomes more acidic. Scientists estimate that the ocean is 25 percent more acidic today than it was 300 years ago.
Moving Forward On Smart Grid (Greenbiz.com) Today’s power grid in America is a relic of the 20th Century. The idea behind smart grid is to inject a two-way information layer into the electricity distribution process. Smart grid components include advanced home meters, new grid management techniques and software. At the home or business, smart grid can aid conservation by showing customers their power usage and offering real-time choices about when they use electricity. Scaling up, smart grids allow utility managers to constrain peak load requirements through a combination of consumer incentives and accurate diagnosis of demand. Ultimately, smart grid technologies can open the door for more plug-in electric cars and vehicles. Click here to download the Smart Grid study PDF.
