(Image: Igor Semiletov, University of Alaska Fairbanks)

Prodigious plumes of planet-warming methane are bubbling from sediments across a broad region of Arctic seafloor previously thought to be sealed by permafrost, new analyses indicate. The resulting increase of methane gas in the atmosphere may accelerate climate warming, scientists say.

Read More: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/03/fears-of-undersea-methane-leaks-already-coming-true/

The Newstand in Bellingham. (Photo: Bob Simmons)

By Ted Van Dyk | Crosscut.com | March 03, 2010

President Obama is disclosing his end-game strategy for his health-care legislative proposals. Like so many political events, his announcement is provoking a flood of analysis and commentary by media and think-tank types who both know and don’t know what they are talking about.

This raises questions about the information sources to which we refer and trust.

Read on: http://crosscut.com/2010/03/03/media/19636/?utm_source=Crosscut+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=5310889433-Crosscut_E_mail_3_3_20103_3_2010&utm_medium=email

Image: 2009 (c) Nancy Battaglia

Yet because of a recent onslaught of attacks on the science of climate change, fewer Americans now believe humans are warming the planet than did just a few years ago.

The doubters of climate science have launched an enormously clever — and effective — campaign, and it’s worth trying to understand how they’ve done it. The best analogy is perhaps the O.J. Simpson trial.

Read on: http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2010/03/the_oj_tactic_climate_change_s.html

[Bill McKibben is an author, environmentalist, and activist. In 1988, he wrote The End of Nature, the first book for a common audience about global warming. He is the co-founder of 350.org, an international climate campaign that organized the most widespread day of action on global warming in history.] ]]> http://www.rcareygersten.com/the-o-j-tactic-climate-change-skeptics-sound-like-simpsons-lawyers-if-the-winter-glove-wont-fit-you-must-acquit/feed/ 0 http://www.rcareygersten.com/waiting-to-inhale-deep-ocean-low-oxygen-zones-spreading-to-shallower-coastal-waters/ http://www.rcareygersten.com/waiting-to-inhale-deep-ocean-low-oxygen-zones-spreading-to-shallower-coastal-waters/#comments Wed, 24 Feb 2010 19:58:55 +0000 Carey http://www.rcareygersten.com/?p=1127 Oxygen-deprived areas in the world’s oceans usually found in deeper water are moving up to offshore areas and threatening coastal marine ecosystems by spurring the die-off of some species and overpopulation of others

By Michael Tennesen | Scientific American | February 23, 2010

CONTINENTAL CREEP: Hypoxic seawater from the deep ocean is moving into shallower near-shore environments off the Oregon coast, threatening or killing marine species that make their home there. (iStockPhoto)

The hypoxic seawater is distinct from the well-known “dead zones” that form at the mouths of the Mississippi and other rivers around the world. Those areas result from agricultural runoff, which lead to algae blooms that consume oxygen. Rather, the Pacific Northwest problem is broader and more mysterious.

Read on: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=low-oxygen-ocean-coastal

by Corby Kummer | Atlantic Monthly | March 2010

(IMAGE CREDIT: ELI MEIR KAPLAN)

BUY MY FOOD at Walmart? No thanks. Until recently, I had been to exactly one Walmart in my life, at the insistence of a friend I was visiting in Natchez, Mississippi, about 10 years ago. It was one of the sights, she said. Up and down the aisles we went, properly impressed by the endless rows and endless abundance. Not the produce section. I saw rows of prepackaged, plastic-trapped fruits and vegetables. I would never think of shopping there.

Not even if I could get environmentally correct food. Walmart’s move into organics was then getting under way, but it just seemed cynical—a way to grab market share while driving small stores and farmers out of business. Then, last year, the market for organic milk started to go down along with the economy, and dairy farmers in Vermont and other states, who had made big investments in organic certification, began losing contracts and selling their farms. A guaranteed large buyer of organic milk began to look more attractive. And friends started telling me I needed to look seriously at Walmart’s efforts to sell sustainably raised food.

Read on: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/201003/walmart-local-produce

It’s been apparent for some time that the public is not understanding the potential magnitude of the threat of climate change. The percentage of Americans saying it’s even taking place was recently measured at 57 percent, down 14 points since October 2008, according to what appears to be a series of climate stories running this week on National Public Radio. (Recall that we’ve described before how even expert “skeptics” admit the warming is taking place; that big chunks of the public misses that is remarkable.)

So would calling climate change “the climate crisis” make a difference? That’s the contention of cognitive linguist George Lakoff, who was featured on one NPR segment. Lakoff says people think of the “climate” as something positive. And “change” is not bad. “Global warming?” Maybe that’s an even worse term, Lakoff tells host Guy Raz…

Read on: http://invw.org/2010/02/whats-in-a-name-when-the-issue-is-climate-change-plenty-linguist-says/

By Harris Meyer | Crosscut.com | February 18, 2010

Refillable wines, at Whole Foods in London (Image: Flickr)

Wine drinkers in many Pacific Northwest towns get frustrated that there’s no place to recycle the heavy glass bottles that hold their beloved vino. In Europe, people go to their local winery and cheaply fill a jug with fresh table wine for the week. Inspired by that tradition, two Northwest winemakers have begun selling wine in reusable liter bottles that local customers can return for refills. Besides giving you a virtuous buzz, it’s a good deal for a solid, relatively inexpensive house wine.

Read on: http://crosscut.com/2010/02/18/food/19605/?utm_source=Crosscut+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=81e21f53ba-Crosscut_E_mail_2_18_102_18_2010&utm_medium=email

A view of loading operations from the bridge of the Eugen Maersk at Bremerhaven, Germany. (Image: Gordon Welters for The New York Times)

It took more than a month for the container ship Ebba Maersk to steam from Germany to Guangdong, China, where it unloaded cargo on a recent Friday — a week longer than it did two years ago.

But for the owner, the Danish shipping giant Maersk, that counts as progress.

In a global culture dominated by speed, from overnight package delivery to bullet trains to fast-cash withdrawals, the company has seized on a sales pitch that may startle some hard-driving corporate customers: Slow is better.

By halving its top cruising speed over the last two years, Maersk cut fuel consumption on major routes by as much as 30 percent, greatly reducing costs. But the company also achieved an equal cut in the ships’ emissions of greenhouse gases.

Read on: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/17/business/energy-environment/17speed.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

(Image: sharloch/Flickr)

The California coast has seen fewer foggy days in the last century, threatening the health of the region’s majestic redwood trees.

Over the last century, new research suggests the average daily fog has decreased more than three hours, causing the coast redwoods to lose more water in the dry summer season, leaving them more susceptible to drought.

“Redwoods are an iconic species and we all love them, but I think it’s important to note that lots and lots of species depend on fog,” said climate scientist Phil Duffy of Climate Central in Palo Alto, California, who was not involved in the study. “So if you really do increase or decrease the fog, then that will have effects on whole entire ecosystems in these coastal hills.”

Read on: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/02/fog-decrease-threatens-coastal-redwoods/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+wired/index+(Wired:+Index+3+(Top+Stories+2))&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher

A new housing development in Lathrop in 2006. One in eight houses in the town are now in some stage of foreclosure. (Photo by Jim Wilson/The New York Times)

Dirty flags advertise rock-bottom discounts on empty starter mansions. On the ground, foreclosure signs are tagged with gang graffiti. Empty lots are untended, cratered with mud puddles from the winter storms that have hammered California’s San Joaquin Valley.

Nobody is home in the cities of the future.

Read on: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/10/slumburbia/?th&emc=th