Oct 30 2009

Climate Changes

Posted by: Kory Raftery

Several Stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:

It seems there is one thing politicians can agree on - it is likely that the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Denmark will not produce a treaty. Meantime, the BBC reported British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that European leaders had come to an agreement on what to offer other countries at December's UN conference in Copenhagen. Skeptics of the agreement argue European leaders are struggling over how much money to offer developing nations to fight the effects of global warming.  

While global warming is set to take center stage in Copenhagen, an article recently published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests you don't have to wait on global leaders to make an impact in the fight against climate change. The article conveys that simple changes such as upgrading heating and cooling technology, using more efficient vehicles and drying your laundry on a line for the next ten years could help the U.S. cut its carbon footprint by around 7.4 percent - which equates to 123 million metric tons of carbon and is more than the annual emissions produced by France.

According to a recent Reuters article, only five states have published a strategic climate change plan that includes a public health response. The five states with public health response plans included in their larger climate change plans are California, Maryland, New Hampshire, Virginia, and Washington. 28 states have published strategic climate change plans that do not include a public health response. 17 states and the District of Columbia have not published a strategic climate change plan. To read the full report, click here.

Many global warming skeptics say the Earth has actually cooled off in the past few years. New studies commissioned by Associated Press suggest that is not true. Scientists agree temperatures were hotter in 2005 than they were in 2008 - but a closer look at the numbers over the last ten years shows that temperatures have dipped, soared, fallen again and are now rising once more. Statisticians say that when sizing up climate change, it's important to look at moving averages of about 10 years. "To talk about global cooling at the end of the hottest decade the planet has experienced in many thousands of years is ridiculous," said Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution at Stanford.

© 2008 Pacific Gas and Electric Company. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms

"PG&E" refers to Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a subsidiary of PG&E Corporation.