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Climate News Roundup

Climate Change is Making Poison Ivy More Potent — Wall Streeet Journal. “The reason? Rising ambient carbon-dioxide levels create ideal conditions for the plant, producing bigger leaves, faster growth, hardier plants and oil that’s even more irritating.”U.S. Is Creating 3 Centers for Research on Biofuels — New York Times. “The three centers … with $125 million each in capital, will be in Oak Ridge, Tenn.; Madison, Wis.; and near Berkeley, Calif.”

Why Desalination Doesn’t Work (Yet) — LiveScience. “Current methods require about 14 kilowatt-hours of energy to produce 1,000 gallons of desalinated seawater.” If half of U.S. water consumption “came from desalination, the United States would need more than 100 extra electric power plants, each with a gigawatt of capacity.” Not a terrific solution for droughts driven by greenhouse gases from fossil fuel plants.Schwarzenegger says US must cut emissions before China does — Bloomberg. “We can’t go to India and China and say, “… we want you to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, when we are in fact the one that has 5 % of world population and emits 25 % of greenhouse gases,’’’ the governor said. “We have to show leadership.’’

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