2013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #26B

21 percent of homes emit 50 percent of CO2
Alberta floods a wake up call to dangers of extreme weather
Big Oil's big lies about alternative energy
Coal industry fuels opposition to emissions regulations
Global warming worsened Australia's record hot summer
Heat wave may threaten world's hottest temp. record
Obama asks American voters to declare on climate change
Obama is right on climate change
The myriad benefits of a carbon tax
While Congress sleeps

21 percent of homes emit 50 percent of CO2

Not all homes pollute equally—even in the relatively homogeneous world of a mid-sized town in Switzerland. A study of a village of 3,000 finds that 21 percent of households belched half the town's greenhouse gases. The biggest factors running up the carbon tabs of the disproportionate polluters: the size of their houses and the length of their commutes. Airline travel wasn't factored into this research.

Alberta floods a wake up call to dangers of extreme weather

The Alberta floods are Canada’s Hurricane Sandy moment, and should be a catalyst for badly needed changes to limit future damage from extreme weather, say experts on climate change adaptation.

“In many cases, the standards for where and how we build are completely out of date with a climatically changed future,” said Ian Mauro, Canada Research Chair in human dimension and environmental change at Mount Allison University. The Alberta floods, he said, should be a wake-up call that “we need to seriously rethink how we build structures, where we build structures and how we manage in emergency situations.”

Big Oil's big lies about alternative energy

As President Obama calls for greater investments in alternatives, the biggest energy companies are doubling down on riskier, more destructive oil sources.

Coal industry fuels opposition to emissions regulations

In the wake of President Barack Obama's climate change speech delivered Tuesday, some coal companies have already begun firing back.

Power companies throughout the nation, along with a number of (mostly GOP) lawmakers supporting the coal industry's interests, criticized Obama's calls for increased regulations on carbon emissions. They're no strangers to attacking proposals coming from the president -- and they back up their statements with their political giving.

According to the money trail, the coal industry has consistently given to Republicans.

Global warming worsened Australia's record hot summer

Human-caused global warming played a role in making this past summer Australia's hottest on record, a new study suggests.

The summer of 2012-2013 probably won't retain its title for long; researchers say record-breaking scorching summers are five times more likely to occur now in Australia due to climate change.

"Our research has shown that, due to greenhouse gas emissions, these types of extreme summers will become even more frequent and more severe in the future," study author Sophie Lewis of the University of Melbourne said in a statement.

Heat Wave May Threaten World’s Hottest Temp. Record

A brutal and potentially historic heat wave is in store for the West as parts of Nevada, Arizona and California may get dangerously hot temperatures starting Thursday and lasting through next week. In fact, by the end of the heat wave, we may see a record tied or broken for the hottest temperature ever recorded on Earth.

The furnace-like heat is coming courtesy of a “stuck” weather pattern that is setting up across the U.S. and Canada. Starting this weekend, the jet stream — a fast-moving river of air at airliner altitudes that is responsible for steering weather systems — will form the shape of a massive, slithering snake with what meteorologists refer to as a deep “ridge” across the Western states, and an equally deep trough seting up across the Central and Eastern states.

Obama asks American voters to declare on climate change

President Barack Obama is urging Americans to make climate change a political litmus test, asking them to declare they won't vote for any politicians who don't protect future generations from environmental devastation.

Obama says Americans are already paying the price for climate change, including in lost lives and hundreds of billions of dollars. He says America will be judged as a people and a nation by how it responds.

Obama is right on climate change

The goals President Barack Obama set out Tuesday in his Climate Action Plan -- including cutting pollution from coal plants and aggressively pursuing clean energy alternatives -- won't solve all the challenges of climate change, but they are a big first step in protecting the planet from its worst effects. Getting serious about solutions is critically important, especially now and especially for the United States.

Tepid, timid

THIS is an unusually busy moment in the unhappy history of efforts to curb climate change. In two weeks at the end of June the world’s three biggest polluters unveiled carbon-reducing measures. In China and America these are more ambitious than previous policies. But they fall far short of what is needed to rein in the relentless rise in global carbon emissions.

The myriad benefits of a carbon tax

Few goals in Washington have more bipartisan support, at least in theory, than cleaning up the tax code. Republicans and Democrats say they want a system that is simpler, fairer and more efficient. Put simply, they want a system with fewer special tax breaks and lower rates.

Yet one of the best ideas for advancing all of those goals – and also heading off catastrophic climate change — isn’t even on the table. I refer to a carbon tax, which would impose a price on emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

While Congress sleeps

IN THE full glare of Washington’s summer sunshine, Barack Obama unveiled what he called “a co-ordinated assault on a changing climate” on June 25th. He promised to deploy almost every green weapon at his disposal, from better insulation in public buildings to loan guarantees for clean energy. To engage the enemy as quickly as possible, he is relying solely on authority already granted to him by Congress. Yet most of the munitions in his atmospheric arsenal are less than fearsome—and Congress, which could provide reinforcements, prefers not to.