New Scientist:

It's goodbye nuclear, hello renewables as Japan prepares to build the world's largest offshore wind farm this July.

By 2020, the plan is to build a total of 143 wind turbines on platforms 16 kilometres off the coast of Fukushima, home to the stricken Daiichi nuclear reactor that hit the headlines in March 2011 when it was damaged by an earthquake and tsunami.

The wind farm, which will generate 1 gigawatt of power once completed, is part of a national plan to increase renewable energy resources following the post-tsunami shutdown of the nation's 54 nuclear reactors. Only two have since come back online.

Let's for the sake of argument say we're witnessing a geologically breakneck, totally coincidental phenomenon that happens to concur with a planet building more and more highways:

Last year was the hottest on record for the contiguous United States, shattering the previous mark set in 1998 by a wide margin, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Tuesday.

The average temperature was 55.3 degrees, 1 degree above the previous record and 3.2 degrees more than the 20th-century average. Temperatures were above normal in every month between June 2011 and September 2012, a 16-month stretch that hasn’t occurred since the government began keeping such records in 1895.

Even if all those cars and use of fossil fuels are just one contributing factor to global warming—even then—wouldn't the global warming skeptics agree that, even if it's the least we can do, we should accelerate our shift to transportation that doesn't rely on as much fuel? Even if that helps just a little bit? Even if that means our city council has to—holy shit—not freeze our transit planning budget and stop deferring rail projects? You might expect them to do that. But, just like global warming, we're told, there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical.

Cleantechinca.com:

Supporters of the production tax credit for wind power can breathe a little easier, at least for now. Whatever else anybody says about the “fiscal cliff” legislation drama, in the end, our friends over at the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) are sure in a celebratory mood. The final bill, signed by President Obama late last night, includes a provision that extends the production tax credit for wind power for one year.
Not only that, it changes from providing tax credits only to projects completed by the end of the year, to providing tax credits to any project started by the end of the year.

One of the few things Mitt Romney made very clear during his campaign was his desire to cut this tax credit, which, for one, has proved to be beneficial for Iowa. Iowa voted strongly for Obama.

So, yeah, this climate change stuff has to be a hoax. I mean, really. Mittens, people!

Seattle Times:

Congratulations, Washington residents. For the first time ever, you are recycling more stuff than you are throwing away.

That’s the word today from Department of Ecology Director Ted Sturdevant, reporting that in 2011, state residents recycled 50.7 percent of their solid waste. It’s the first time a yearly result has topped the 50 percent goal set in a 1989 state law.

UPDATE: I have to give props to Spokane. I'm not going to hate.

Eds note: I meant to post this last Friday but didn't because, well.

Hundreds of protestors gathered at the Seattle Convention Center before last Thursday's packed public hearing on the proposed coal terminal outside of Bellingham, Washington. State and federal agencies are nearing the end of a four-month public comment period on the proposal before drafting their preliminary Environmental Impact Statement, which will seek to evaluate the proposal from a host of health, environmental, and economic angles (among others). The comment period closes on January 21; You can submit online comments here.

Now here's a melange of pictures and quotes from last Thursday's events:

Continue reading »

"If you’re 27 or younger, you’ve never experienced a colder-than-average month"

It's new and in Chicago

Chicago officials held a ribbon-cutting ceremony on “the greenest street in America,” a two-mile stretch of Cermak Road and Blue Island Avenue in the city’s Pilsen neighborhood. In addition to new pedestrian and bicycle features, the innovative new street surface will filter stormwater, helping to prevent the city’s combined sewers from overflowing.

• James Yamasaki

Thanks for running Jonathan Golob’s piece on global warming. I was glad you included a list of things that folks can do. Despite the cynicism, denial, and despair that such an article all too easily provokes, I’m not willing to give up.

Another thing that folks can do is lobby their representatives for a carbon tax. Citizens Climate Lobby is working on this at a national level. Their proposal would levy an annually rising fee on all carbon-based fuels at the source, pushing the market toward clean alternatives. The revenue would be returned to consumers to offset the rising price of fossil fuels, allowing them to choose whether to spend the money on carbon or non-carbon sources. Over time this will push the energy sector away from greenhouse-gas-producing fuels. Jim McDermott’s Managed Carbon Price Act and Pete Stark’s Save Our Climate Act both incorporate elements of this proposal, though they use some revenue for debt reduction.

Political pressure is indispensable for making the large-scale changes needed. I encourage folks to make their voices heard.

Davis Oldham
Seattle

Jonathan Golob's list of other things you can do right now is RIGHT HERE.

• James Yamasaki

People, even in the 1950s, understood on some level what a nuclear bombing would mean—and their sense only became clearer through the aboveground nuclear tests. By the Cuban missile crisis, a plurality understood that nuclear war would mean the end of humanity as we knew it.

Climate change, unfortunately, is not like a nuclear bomb in this regard. Even though scientists are generally as convinced about the consequences of climate change as they were about the consequences of splitting atoms over a large city, there is no political or cultural consensus to do anything about the problem. It's easy to see why: Climate change is a far-in-the-future calamity on a scale none of us can really comprehend. At least the poor fools in the 1950s, '60s, '70s, and '80s had the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to make sure there were no delay-inducing illusions.

Let this summer be our Hiroshima, then. Not just because of the heat, not just because of the fires, but because the last few scientifically relevant skeptics acknowledged what most of us already know: Climate change is real, it's happening, and it could destroy us all.

Read the whole thing RIGHT HERE.

Former Chinese NBA player Yao Ming:

Not 20 yards away, I saw the body of an elephant poached for its ivory three weeks ago. Its face had been cut off by poachers and its body scavenged by hyenas, scattering bones around the area. A sad mass of skin and bone. The smell was overwhelming and seemed to cling to us, even after we left.

I really was speechless. After seeing these animals up close and watching them interact in loving and protective family groups, it was heart wrenching and deeply depressing to see this one cruelly taken before its time.

Danny Westneat:

Eight years until "Glacier National Park" is just "National Park." The ice had been the lure to get the family to go see the great glaciers before they're gone. But I misjudged how far gone they already are. As did the scientists.

Just say it like it is:

"Global warming is melting the glaciers that give Glacier National Park its name," it says. "By 2030, they all could be gone."

See it with your own eyes...

The region's ice cover is now significantly lower than expected, says the Canadian Ice Service, with coverage on July 30th estimated at 33 per cent, compared to the 1981-2010 median of 79 per cent. Despite the melt, this part of the North-West passage may not yet be navigable.

Melting will continue as we head towards September, when annual ice cover is at its lowest.

At the current rate, 2012 is likely to see the greatest ice shrinkage since satellite records began, exceeding 2007's record low.