Co-author: “Unless we curb carbon emissions we risk mass extinctions, degrading coastal waters and encouraging outbreaks of toxic jellyfish and algae.”

A unique ‘natural laboratory’ in the Mediterranean Sea is revealing the effects of rising carbon dioxide levels on life in the oceans. The results show a bleak future for marine life as ocean acidity rises, and suggest that similar lowering of ocean pH levels may have been responsible for massive extinctions in the past.

That’s the opening (and headline) of a news release from the Geological Society of London.  The new study is “Modern seawater acidification: the response of foraminifera to high-CO₂ conditions in the Mediterranean Sea” (subs. reqd.) in the latest Journal of the Geological Society.

For background on ocean acidification, see Nature Geoscience: Oceans are acidifying 10 times faster today than 55 million years ago when a mass extinction of marine species occurred.

The study identified a tipping point at “mean pH 7.8″:

Read more

The one-time “Skeptical Environmentalist” now says, “man-made global warming exists” and “we have long moved on from any mainstream disagreements about the science of climate change.”

Climate ‘sceptic’ Bj¸rn Lomborg now believes global warming is one of world’s greatest threats

One of the world’s most prominent climate change sceptics has called for a $100bn fund to fight the effects of global warning, after rethinking his views on the severity of the threat.

That’s the UK Telegraph’s headline.

Bj¸rn Lomborg: the dissenting climate change voice who changed his tune

With his new book, Danish scientist Bj¸rn Lomborg has become an unlikely advocate for huge investment in fighting global warming….

That’s from the Guardian’s headline.

Read more

Upgrading just 40% of buildings would generate 625,000 jobs and cut U.S. energy bills up to $64 billion a year

Energy efficiency is THE core climate solution: The biggest low-carbon resource by far.  “Efficiency Works,” a major new report by Bracken Hendricks, Bill Campbell, Pen Goodale, finds that a straightforward set of policies aimed at upgrading just 40% of the residential and commercial building stock in the United States would:

• Create 625,000 sustained full-time jobs over a decade
• Spark $500 billion in new investments to upgrade 50 million homes and office buildings
• Generate as much as $64 billion a year in cost savings for U.S. ratepayers, freeing consumers to spend their money in more productive ways

What follows is a cross-post of the report summary.

Read more

Natural gas is beating up on coal

Coal has always been cheap and dirty. And the dirty part was justifiable because it was so cheap. Now, gas prices are dropping, threatening coal’s dominance in the North American energy market. Which means gas could take over before coal gets a chance to clean up its act.

Read more

The new review of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s by the InterAcademy Council offers some useful suggestions for improving the IPCC process and its reports.  Most of these are not new suggestions, see “The IPCC lowballs likely impacts with its instantly out-of-date reports and is clearly clueless on messaging “” should it be booted or just rebooted?”

In any case, as I wrote three years ago, I don’t think that continuing the IPCC process will have any meaningful impact on American climate policy.  The IPCC is simply not set up to provide intelligent messaging in the face of rapid climate change or in the face of the rapid disinformation effort.

I agreed with Dutch assessment of the IPCC: “Overall the summary conclusions are considered well founded and none were found to contain any significant errors.”  They foresee much higher sea-level-rise risk than IPCC — and urge IPCC to “to pay attention to ‘worst-case scenarios’. “  To have any serious value going forward, the IPCC must do a better job of spelling out both what we face if we stay anywhere near our current emissions path and the worst-case scenario.

The IAC Chair, economist Harold Shapiro of Princeton University, made the key point that:

Read more

Our guest blogger is CAP’s Daniel J. Weiss.

Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) wants to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from undertaking any efforts to reduce global warming pollution from stationary sources or additional reductions from vehicles for two years.   This would actually be a four year delay in pollution reductions because it takes two years for EPA to propose and finalize reduction standards.  This misguided bill puts public health in jeopardy, a risk we simply can’t afford.

Senator Rockefeller’s Stationary Source Regulations Delay Act, S. 3072, or “dirty air bill,” is solidly opposed by the public, according to a brand new poll for the NRDC Action Fund by the Benenson Strategy Group.  It polled 1,401 likely 2010 voters from August 10-15 and found:

Read more

Rapid melting threatens water supplies to millions

Many of Asia’s glaciers are retreating as a result of climate change.

This retreat impacts water supplies to millions of people, increases the likelihood of outburst floods that threaten life and property in nearby areas, and contributes to sea-level rise.

Talk about your well-timed studies — see “One-fifth of Pakistan is under water.”

The U.S. Geological Survey collaborated with 39 international scientists — “the most knowledgeable glaciologists for each geographic region covered” — on “The Glaciers of Asia,” which reports on “the status of glaciers throughout all of Asia, including Russia, China, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan.”

Here’s more of their release:

Read more