CLIMATE CHANGE

Just as John F. Kennedy set his sights on the moon, Al Gore is challenging the nation to produce every kilowatt of electricity through wind, sun and other Earth-friendly energy sources within 10 years, an audacious goal he hopes the next president will embrace.

This desolate, grand, forgotten arctic sea has suddenly come to the center of world attention for one reason: the pace of climate change is faster than expected. In the past 50 years, as much as half of summer sea ice has gone missing. Another few decades could mean that the ice disappears entirely.

CONSERVATION

With climate change increasingly threatening the survival of plants and animals, scientists say it may become necessary to move some species to save them. It's an idea that makes conservation biologists nervous.

Pope Benedict on Thursday told a huge gathering of young people that they were inheriting a planet whose resources had been scarred and squandered to fuel insatiable consumption.He told the young people, some of whom had come from island nations threatened by rising sea levels or drought-hit nations such as Australia, that protecting the environment was "of vital importance to humanity."

A More Flattering Shade of Green (NY Times)

CarbonRally.com offers a few dozen ways that individuals — or teams — can save energy.

Three major auto manufacturers are promising to reserve 300 new hybrid vehicles each month exclusively for the city as it replaces its entire fleet of yellow cabs.

Alaska: Turning the Power Back on in Juneau (NY Times)

Juneau’s trend toward energy conservation is diminishing now that the price of electric power has dropped.

I just finished a Skype video chat with about 80 people from the new Climate Protection Partnership within the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce. Over 150 companies, with something like 100,000 employees, have joined the group, which is committed to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions from the metropolitan region of some 2 million people. The session provided fresh evidence that progress on curbing energy demand and greenhouse gases may well come from the bottom up before it comes from the top down. The evidence cited by a participant involved Girl Scouts and school buses. What’s happening around “your dot” that gives you hope, or concern?

A group of bird lovers failed to delay the most recent step in Virginia's vast Interstate 495 expansion, despite a letter to the state's transportation secretary warning that the project would disrupt the habitat of a number of barn swallows and a blue-gray gnatcatcher.

"We want people to walk away understanding that soils are living, living breathing bodies," said exhibit curator Patrick Megonigal, a soil ecologist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater, Maryland; "think of it as the foundation of all the Earth's ecosystems." 

Concerned about fire safety, the city opposes a proposal that would continue to allow overnight camping.

The 60-foot tall Moreton Bay Fig is among a small handful of trees to be designated historic-cultural monuments in Los Angeles, said Ken Bernstein, manager of the Office of Historic Resources.

POLLUTION / DEGRADATION

More specifically, OSHA requires that employers provide employees with an acceptable level of indoor air quality, and the agency's written guidance states that employers must keep air contaminants within "permissible exposure limits." 

A large pothole was reported Wednesday night and continued to spread. Caltrans officials had hoped to reopen the lanes before noon, but now say they will be closed into the evening.

FOOD SAFETY

OIL PRICES 

American Airlines parent AMR and Delta Air Lines yesterday reported steep losses in the second quarter of the year, as the surging cost of oil began to push the industry into survival mode.

Car Buyers Downsize, but Spend Big on Options (NY Times)
People of all income levels are buying small cars but they are not scrimping on creature comforts.

ENERGY POLICY / EXPLORATION

Interior Dept. Opens 2.6 Million Alaskan Acres for Oil Exploration (NY Times)

The decision will open up for drilling much of the northeast section of the Northeast National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, holding an estimated 3.7 billion barrels of oil.

The House speaker is not budging in her opposition to offshore oil drilling, despite increasing pressure from Republicans and anxiety among her own Democratic colleagues.

SUSTAINABILITY

Video

Life (Mostly) Off the Grid (NY Times)

The Dervaes family is living the green life in Pasadena, Calif.

 

SOCIAL JUSTICE

Former President Clinton's foundation has signed pricing agreements with several suppliers involved in making a malaria-fighting drug in an effort to stabilize the medication's fluctuating costs and ensure more dependable availability.

U.S. Senate Votes to Increase Global AIDS Program’s Budget (NY Times)

The Senate voted on Wednesday to triple spending for a program that has treated and protected millions in Africa and elsewhere from AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. 

AND FURTHERMORE...

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