Climate & Weather

Source:  Jeremy Struhar, Product Manager, Encentiv Energy

If your house were on fire, what would you save?

Working with the Natural Resources Defense Council, Walmart and H&M, two of the world's largest clothing retailers, have committed to working with their Chinese textile suppliers to reduce water, energy, and chemical use in their supply chains. Walmart announced its work with NRDC's Clean by Design project at the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) today, helping strategically selected mills adopt Clean by Design practices. H&M initiated a similar agreement with NRDC in mid-September.

A new analysis finds that Lake Tanganyika, the second oldest and the second-deepest lake in the world, is warmer than it has been in more than 1,500 years.

At first glance, you might not even notice the dead fish in the picture above -- there are too many of them. But no, that's not a gravely parking lot. It's a section of the Mississippi River that has been clogged with thousands of dead fish in the wake of the BP Gulf spill. And while investigation as to the cause of the mass fish kill is still underway, there are fears that new toxins in the water from spilled oil or chemical dispersants have played a role.

On August 5, an ice island four times the size of Manhattan broke off of a Greenland glacier and started floating toward the Nares Strait, the body of water that separates western Greenland from far northeastern Canada's Ellsemere Island.

Yesterday and today are code orange unhealthy air alert days in the Washington, DC, region where I live. The 95+ degree temperatures and excessive ground-level ozone create extremely unhealthy air – especially for kids, senior citizens, and people with pre-existing health conditions.

These aren't the first days this summer where we've had these warnings, and I know that the Washington, DC, region is not alone in its unhealthy air warnings.

Congress is having a hard time passing new laws to limit greenhouse gas pollution and spur clean energy innovation. Congressional legislation, however, is not the US government's only option.

The latest line from the Canadian government is that tar sands greenhouse gas emissions are going down. This is misleading to say the least. The real story, as told by the Pembina Institute in a recent briefing note, is that tar sands is a dirty business that no amount of greenwashing can make appear clean.

A minority of Senators has blocked the United States Senate from protecting our children’s and our country’s future. Because of their denial and obstructionism, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said yesterday that the Senate cannot take up comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation at this time.

This is an abject failure, one that rests in the hands of the Senate Republican Leadership and a small cluster of Democratic Senators.