Advertisement

April 12 News: McKibben Says The Planet’s Fever Is Spiking, But Antibodies Are Kicking In

Bill McKibben has a new article in Rolling Stone showing that the fight to keep us below two degrees C is not so one-sided anymore. Here’s the beginning but it’s worth a full read.

It got so hot in Australia in January that the weather service had to add two new colors to its charts. A few weeks later, at the other end of the planet, new data from the CryoSat-2 satellite showed 80 percent of Arctic sea ice has disappeared. We’re not breaking records anymore; we’re breaking the planet. In 50 years, no one will care about the fiscal cliff or the Euro crisis. They’ll just ask, “So the Arctic melted, and then what did you do?”

Here’s the good news: We’ll at least be able to say we fought.

After decades of scant organized response to climate change, a powerful movement is quickly emerging around the country and around the world, building on the work of scattered front-line organizers who’ve been fighting the fossil-fuel industry for decades. It has no great charismatic leader and no central organization; it battles on a thousand fronts. But taken together, it’s now big enough to matter, and it’s growing fast.

… as the planet runs its spiking fever, the antibodies are starting to kick in. We know what the future holds unless we resist. And so resist we will.

If Gina McCarthy gets confirmed to be the next EPA Administrator, she will have a “common-sense” approach to climate change. [Washington Post]

More reporting on the fact that much of recent warming has been going into the deep oceans. [NBC News, USA Today]

Chinese scientists have concluded that China’s fossil fuel consumption is directly linked to its rise in daily temperature spikes. [ABC News]

Advertisement

New U.S. electric installation was 100 percent renewable energy in March, and 82 percent for the full first quarter. [SustainableBusiness.com News]

The natural gas industry is making a bet that Russians would rather have natural gas vehicles than hybrids. [New York Times]

New Jersey is looking to cut funding for renewable energy projects, but increase funding for renewable energy storage projects. [CleanTechnica]

Expect the Interior Department to issue new rules on fracking disclosure and well integrity soon. [The Hill]