A new study in Geophysical Research Letters (subs. req’d) led by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory finds:

… the ice sheet was losing 110 ± 70 Gt/yr [billion tons/year] in the 1960s, 30 ± 50 Gt/yr or near balance in the 1970s–1980s, and 97 ± 47 Gt/yr in 1996 increasing rapidly to 267 ± 38 Gt/yr in 2007.

How much is 267 billion metric tons of water? It’s enough to supply the city of Los Angeles with fresh water for more than 50 years. Hmm. That gives me — or at least the Greenland Home Rule government — an idea.

Yes, why should all that water only go to submerging the great coastal cities of the world when (a tiny fraction of) it could go to slaking the thirst of all the people who live in the great cities of the world that don’t get submerged.

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The Sierra Club has launched CoalIsNotTheAnswer.org, which debunks the multimillion propaganda campaign by the American Council for Clean Coal Electricity to greenwash coal.

The coal industry has spent over $40 million on misleading advertising that touts coal as the next great thing to solve the energy crisis. It’s time for a reality check. We will not stand by idly as they spew their propaganda.

The Sierra Club’s website and the accompanying video brilliantly eviscerate ACCCE’s lies. Watch it:

The Sierra Club’s campaign joins earlier efforts to combat the propaganda coming from this greenhouse pollution industry. Greenpeace, the Rainforest Action Network, and DeSmogBlog teamed up to launch Coal Is Dirty.com back in May.

See also some of the Wonk Room’s exposure of the truth about coal since this site’s launch in March: Read more

The Wonk Room recently pointed out that Sen. John McCain’s plan to achieve energy independence by doubling our use of nuclear power is a pipe dream, since the U.S. nuclear industry must import over 90% of its uranium. The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) shot back on its Shopfloor blog, writing about the promise of southwest Virginia’s Pittsylvania uranium deposits:

How so, with a resource like the Pittsylvania ore available? Unless, of course, you expect environmentalists to block mining and nuclear power as they have in the past, in the process guaranteeing continued energy insecurity.

NAM quotes their friends Jack Spencer and Nicolas Loris at the conservative Heritage Foundation, who claims the Pittsylvania site has “110 million pounds of uranium,” enough to “supply all 104 nuclear reactors in the United States, which provide 20 percent of the nation’s electricity, for two years.” While NAM attacks “environmentalists,” Heritage prefers blaming “government bureaucrats” for preventing access to a “safe, affordable, clean energy source” – the language right-wing wordmeister Frank Luntz constructed to describe a dangerously toxic energy source.

In fact:

NAM’s Nuclear Obsession Guarantees ‘Energy Insecurity.’ The U.S. consumes one quarter of the world oil supply, but has only two percent of global reserves. The U.S. uranium position is eerily similar: “The U.S. has about 3 percent-4 percent of the world’s known uranium and produces about 4.3 percent of the world’s supply despite operating about one-quarter of the world’s commercial power reactors.” [EIA 1/29/07, 6/9/08] [Heritage Foundation, 3/25/08]

The Threat Of Uranium Mining In Virginia Is Real. “Enormous quantities of radioactive waste are generated by uranium mining and milling, with only 2 to 4 pounds of concentrated uranium oxide yellow cake obtained from each ton of ore taken out of the ground.” “Most domestic uranium mining occurs in the arid waste, where the radioactive waste is less likely to contaminate runoff. But the Virginia uranium mining would occur in a place with four times the annual rainfall of the west – 40-60 inches annually. This rainfall dramatically increases the risk of radioactive runoff contaminating drinking water.” [Piedmont Environmental Council]

Why are NAM and Heritage promoting Pittsylvania uranium as a “safe” solution to “energy security” despite the facts? Could it be because there’s a huge pile of money at stake? The Pittsylvania deposits are worth upwards of $10 billion for Virginia Uranium, the private company that owns the mining rights — and is selling the project with an army of lobbyists as a “safe” solution for “energy independence.”

UPDATE: Jack Spencer writes in: Read more

When experts talk about how global warming will increase the risk of disease, we usually hear about tropical diseases — dengue fever, malaria, and anything that could be carried by a mosquito (see “Science: Extreme rains supercharged by warming“). We don’t think about our own backyards or street sewers and water resources in the U.S..

As a recent Washington Post article reports, however, we should. As temperatures increase and continental rainfall also gets warmer, waterborne diseases will flourish and without major infrastructure upgrades, our exposure to the diseases will likewise grow.

Simply from increased frequency and severity of torrential downpours, disease will be able to attack us from a growing number of fronts – at the beach, in our drinking water, from our sewers, in seafood, after a mosquito bite. The WaPo article focuses on how urban infrastructure systems are not prepared to handle the weather forecast – the rains will overflow sewer systems and threaten to mix sewage, storm water, and drinking water.

The article reports, “From 1948 to 1994, heavy rainfall was correlated with more than half of the nation’s outbreaks of waterborne illness, according to a 1991 study commissioned by the Environmental Protection Agency.” The article’s examples include:

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This post will serve as an introduction to climate solutions as well as a gateway to my ongoing series on the core solutions.

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That headline from The Times of London is featured in a terrific new ad from the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund:

Still, you can’t say the Governor’s efforts to accelerate the extinction of Ursus maritimus means that she has no positive feelings toward them, since she does wears a polar bear pin, as part of her new $150,000 wardrobe.

Defenders of Wildlife (DoW) received a lot of attention and online contributions after their previous ad drew attention to Palin’s policy to slaughter wolves from helicopters (see Palin “champions … savagery”). On the new ad, DoW explains:

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