Climate & Weather

What’s really behind the changing public opinion about global warming? The climate science denier has done its best to point to the problematic e-mails from the University of East Anglia and recent discoveries of two or three mistakes in the several-thousand page IPCC reports to as the reason.

According to Gallup Poll results released on Tuesday, Americans aren't worrying as much as usual about environmental issues. Between March 4 and March 7, Gallup polled over 1000 American adults, asking them if they were concerned with any of eight environmental issues:

An independent advertising watchdog group in the UK is unhappy with a government-sponsored ad campaign focused on the dangers of climate change. The Advertising Standards Authority claims to have fielded over 1000 complaints about the ads, and they worry that the ads will be distressing to children.

There is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere now than there was at this time last year. Scientists in northern Norway have been taking measurements for the past two weeks, and they've found that carbon dioxide now makes up 393.71 parts per million of the atmosphere. It made up 393.17 parts per million last year.

I spend a lot of my working hours fighting to pass clean energy and climate legislation that will reduce America’s global warming pollution. But I also take steps in my personal life to cut down my own carbon emissions. I stopped eating red meat and stick with vegetarian options most of the week, I installed compact florescent light bulbs, I signed up for renewable power through my utility Con Edison, and I take public transit to work.

On Tuesday, in an official letter to the UNFCCC signed by China’s climate negotiator Su Wei, China officially expressed its willingness to be associated with the Copenhagen Accord.

Yesterday, India agreed to join the world’s major emitters as one of the countries formally listed under the Copenhagen Accord. India submitted voluntary domestic actions to the United Nations in January, but it remained unclear if it would join the international agreement.

The New York Times published an article on Tuesday about the 30 US Senators that are "on the fence" about climate legislation.

Last week, the California Air Resources Board adopted a measure designed to achieve a 70% reduction in sulfur hexaflouride emissions by the year 2020.

I read a few interesting climate change pieces over the weekend. Taken together, they reflect the political struggle to pass comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation now. But only one captures what is at stake for America and our future: Al Gore’ New York Times op-ed.