Coral Gables Environment, Politics and Government
May 16, 2011 Leave a comment
In low-lying Florida, where 95 percent of the population lives within 35 miles of its 1,200 miles of coastline, a swelling of the tides could cause serious problems. So what is Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection doing about dealing with climate change?
“DEP is not pursuing any programs or projects regarding climate change,” an agency spokeswoman said in an e-mail to the St. Petersburg Times last week.
May 16, 2011 Leave a comment
Local and regional authorities have decided that climate change and global warming are not relevant for public policy. Even Miami and Coral Gables leaders should start thinking about the evident impact on our town.
NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies has released its monthly global temperature data. It reveals that there is no April in the temperature record before 2005 that was warmer than April 2010.
And that’s in spite of the fact that we are still in the tail end of a major La Niña and just coming out of “the deepest solar minimum in nearly a century.” April 2011 is surpassed in warmth only by 2005, 2007, and 2010. It tied with 2002 and just beat 1998.
via NASA: April tied for 4th hottest on record globally « Climate Progress.
February 3, 2011 Leave a comment
ProPublica recently published a report that challenged assertions that natural gas was much cleaner than coal. Reporter Abrahm Lustgarten found out that “gas may be as little as 25 percent cleaner than coal, or perhaps even less.”
via Abrahm Lustgarten Answers the Question, “How Clean Is Natural Gas?” – ProPublica.
January 31, 2011 Leave a comment
Because of emerging country growth, the great recession did not cut carbon emissions. These data are an interesting view of the future.
The deepest recession since the 1930s has failed to reverse rising global carbon emissions, as plummeting industrial output in the west was offset by the continuing rapid expansion of China and a handful of other emerging economies, new statistics for 2009 show.
While US emissions fell substantially in 2009, to levels not seen since 1995-96, China surged ahead with an increase of more than 13% on the previous year – the equivalent of adding the yearly emissions of Germany, Greece and Peru combined.
Europe, Russia, Canada and South Africa saw their emissions dip, and India has risen to third place in the league table, with the strong growth in its carbon output driven by a ramping-up of coal burning to generate power.
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