Ice-Free North Pole in '08?

The chances are greater than 50% that there will be no ice at the North Pole this summer, according to this article in The Independent (see excerpt below):

Seasoned polar scientists believe the chances of a totally ice-free North Pole this summer are greater than 50:50 because the normally thick ice formed over many years at the Pole has been blown away and replaced by huge swathes of thinner ice formed over a single year.
This one-year ice is highly vulnerable to melting during the summer months and satellite data coming in over recent weeks shows that the rate of melting is faster than last year, when there was an all-time record loss of summer sea ice at the Arctic.
"The issue is that, for the first time that I am aware of, the North Pole is covered with extensive first-year ice – ice that formed last autumn and winter. I'd say it's even-odds whether the North Pole melts out," said Dr Serreze.
Each summer the sea ice melts before reforming again during the long Arctic winter but the loss of sea ice last year was so extensive that much of the Arctic Ocean became open water, with the water-ice boundary coming just 700 miles away from the North Pole.
Interfaith Power and Light is a religious response to global warming with chapters in 26 states and Greater Washington, D.C. Find a link to your local chapter at http://www.theregenerationproject.org/State.Check out the National IPL Blog.

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$7 Gallon by 2010?

That's what Bradford Plummer is saying, according to an article in The New Republic. Check it out below
Via the WSJ's Keith Johnson, this new oil forecast from Jeff Rubin of CIBC World Markets is genuinely shocking, especially with its prediction of $7/gallon gas in the United States by 2010. There seems to be no way to avoid it: Saudi Arabia's pledge to pump out more crude amounts to a "pittance," China's decision to cut gas subsidies will barely move prices, and the most promising attempts to open up new supplies, in both the Canadian oil sands and Gulf of Mexico, have been plagued by overruns and delays. So, add it all up, and the effects on driving in the United States are going to be titanic:
Over the next four years, we are likely to witness the greatest mass exodus of vehicles off America’s highways in history. By 2012, there should be some 10 million fewer vehicles on American roadways than there are today—a decline that dwarfs all previous adjustments including those during the two OPEC oil shocks. ...
Our analysis suggests that about half of the number of cars coming off the road in the next four years will be from low income households who have access to public transit. At their current driving habits, filling up the tank will have risen from about 7% of their income to 20%, an increase that will see many start taking the bus.

Nearly 57 million car-owning households have "reasonable" access to some form of public transit, so that's where most of the shift will happen, but even then, it won't be easy—especially since transit systems are already overwhelmed (and facing budget shortfalls themselves because of high oil prices). And people in more remote—and especially rural—areas will be screwed.
Eventually, land-use patterns would start to change. Already people are starting to move out of the suburbs and closer to city centers in response to high gas prices, but it's another thing entirely for millions to abandon the vast car-oriented infrastructure we've erected over decades and try to adopt European-type living patterns in just a few short years. To put things in perspective, only about 5 percent of Americans used public transit to commute as of 2005, compared with about 50 percent in Japan and Europe, where pricey gas has long been a reality. It's not clear whether the United States could scale up that quickly by, say, 2012, though it sounds like, among other things, it would be a good idea to get started now. (Oh, and that's not even touching on the potential for stagflation if $7/gallon gas really is on the way.)
Interfaith Power and Light is a religious response to global warming with chapters in 26 states and Greater Washington, D.C. Find a link to your local chapter at http://www.theregenerationproject.org/State.Check out the National IPL Blog.
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Congregations Making a Difference

The National Council of Churches Eco-Justice Programs is highlighting churches doing things to protect creation. Read about it below:

In May, the call went out for stories to be submitted of what local congregations were doing across the country to protect God's Creation. The response included more than 50 submissions, covering a wide spectrum of activities including Children's Ministry, Green Building, Food and Faith, Energy Conservation, Alternative Transportation, Recycling, Environmental Justice, and Comprehensive Program, with the winner of each category receiving a $500 grant to continue their work. To view a collection of the stories submitted, click here.
The Manassas Church of the Brethren in Manassas, Virginia, is the winner of the Children's Ministry category, with their Junior BUGS program, imparting the message of Creation Care to the children of their congregation. The Madison Christian Community, an ecumenical partnership between Advent Lutheran Church and the Community of Hope in Madison, Wisconsin, won the Food and Faith category for their restorative justice gardening, reaching out to inmates in local prisons to teach horticulture.
In the Green Building Category, St. Marks Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach, California, was recognized as the Audubon Society's 'Greenest in the Nation', and built their new building with LEED standards in mind. For the Energy Conservation category, the award goes to First Grace United Methodist Church in New Orleans, Louisiana, for their work to conserve energy in their rebuilding efforts after Hurricane Katrina. "One of the most at-risk cities for the effects of global warming is New Orleans, and one of the biggest contributors is energy usage," says Sarah Fleming, one of the church volunteers.
Kern Road Mennonite Church, in South Bend, Indiana, has started the tradition of riding bikes to church, earning them the award in the Alternative Transportation category. "When one person starts something like this then the next thing you know you have a whole group of people," said Deanna Waggy, a church member. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, All People's Church has reclaimed a garden in an urban community, earning them the award in the Environmental Justice category.
For the Recycling category, Wesley United Methodist Church in Yakima, Washington, has kept more than 5 million pounds of trash out of the landfill through their community recycling program. And in the Comprehensive Program category, Maryland Presbyterian Church in Baltimore, Maryland, has, among other activities, reclaimed the wooded area around the church, and named environmental stewardship as a priority in everything the church does. "As our reputation for creation care grows, so has our congregation, which now attracts members from a 20-mile radius," said Bill Breaky, a church member. The church is currently preparing to install beehives at the rear of the woods. According to Breaky, "We look forward to the day when we can give jars of honey to visitors."
Congratulations to all our winners, and thanks so much to all of you who submitted stories for the contest, and keep filling us in on what you are doing in your congregations to better protect God's Creation!
Click here to send an email and tell about what you are doing.
To view a map and see what congregations in your part of the country are already doing, click here.

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Interfaith Power and Light is a religious response to global warming with chapters in 26 states and Greater Washington, D.C. Find a link to your local chapter at http://www.theregenerationproject.org/State.Check out the National IPL Blog.

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Republican Senator Pushes Renewables

A remarkable showdown is taking place in Congress this week, according to the Washington Post. See an excerpt of the story below:

A Republican senator from Nevada, home to the highest foreclosure rate in the nation, yesterday blocked an ambitious plan to help troubled borrowers save their homes, saying he will not permit the measure to go forward unless the Senate adds tax breaks to encourage the production of renewable energy.
The demand by Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) stalled a massive housing package with broad bipartisan support even as a report showed that new-home sales continued to tumble, underscoring the severity of the nation's housing slump. It also threw the Senate into chaos days before Congress is scheduled to leave town for the July 4 holiday, prompting Senate leaders to threaten to keep lawmakers in Washington through the weekend.
Late yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said the Senate is unlikely to take a final vote on the housing bill until next month. But the Senate will eventually approve the measure, he said, adding: "We need to finish housing. . . . With 8,500 houses going into foreclosure every day, we have an obligation to the American people."
Ensign said he would not back down from his demand to tack on more than $6 billion in tax breaks for producers of renewable energy, such as solar and wind power. The measure is popular with both parties -- Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) is a co-sponsor. But Senate Democrats oppose adding it to the housing bill because it is not accompanied by tax increases to make up for the lost revenue. Such an addition would ruin efforts to forge a compromise on the housing bill with the House, where 218 Democrats, a majority of the chamber, have signed a pledge to reject measures that increase the deficit.
Still, Ensign's insistence puts Democrats in the uncomfortable position of opposing renewable energy, a concept many of them ardently support.
That point was not lost on Ensign, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, who has been trying for weeks to attach the energy credits to a bill that has some hope of reaching the president's desk.
"Especially in an election year, very few things are actually going to make it into law and going to be signed by the president," he said. "The housing bill has a great chance of being signed into law. And that's why we're trying to get this renewable tax credit on this piece of legislation."
Ensign said the credits are critical to ending the nation's dependence on foreign oil and are important for his home state, where renewable-energy investments are becoming a major economic-development tool and source of jobs. Every quarter the tax credits remain off the books, he said, the nation and Nevada lose investment dollars and jobs that will never return.
Ensign acknowledged that his state also has been racked by the mortgage crisis and has led the nation in foreclosures for more than a year.

Interfaith Power and Light is a religious response to global warming with chapters in 26 states and Greater Washington, D.C. Find a link to your local chapter at http://www.theregenerationproject.org/State.Check out the National IPL Blog.
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World's Dirtiest Cities

Check out the photos and text at Popsci.com. I've personally been to two of the top ten. What's your score?

Interfaith Power and Light is a religious response to global warming with chapters in 26 states and Greater Washington, D.C. Find a link to your local chapter at http://www.theregenerationproject.org/State.Check out the National IPL Blog.

Find discounts on energy saving products at http://www.shopipl.org/

Home Depot Recycles CFLs

Good news for users of compact fluorescent bulbs--all Home Depot locations will now offer recycling services, according to the New York Times. (See excerpt below.)

Home Depot, the nation’s second-largest retailer, will announce on Tuesday that it will take back old compact fluorescents in all 1,973 of its stores in the United States, creating the nation’s most widespread recycling program for the bulbs.
“We kept hearing from the community that there was a little bit of concern about mercury in the C.F.L.’s,” said Ron Jarvis, Home Depot’s senior vice president for environmental innovation, using the industry abbreviation for the bulbs. “And if the C.F.L.’s were in their house, how could they dispose of them?”
Until now, consumers had to seek out local hazardous waste programs or smaller retail chains willing to collect the bulbs for recycling, like Ikea and True Value. Some consumers have waited for retailers like Wal-Mart to have a designated recycling day. Others bought kits to mail the bulbs to a recycling facility.
The Environmental Protection Agency has been looking into putting bulb drop-off boxes at post offices, said Jim Berlow, director of the agency’s hazardous waste minimization and management division.
But those plans are not final, and across most of the country, recycling the bulbs has been inconvenient at best. Industry professionals estimate that the recycling rate is around 2 percent.

Interfaith Power and Light is a religious response to global warming with chapters in 26 states and Greater Washington, D.C. Find a link to your local chapter at http://www.theregenerationproject.org/State.Check out the National IPL Blog. Find discounts on energy saving products at http://www.shopipl.org/

Seas rising and warming

According to this entry in the New York Times "Dot Earth" blog, the world's oceans are rising and getting warmer faster than expected. (See excerpt below):

The study, by Australian and American researchers, reviewed millions of measurements of ocean temperatures taken using a particular instrument on submarines and other vessels over four decades. The researchers found a subtle error that, when fixed, shows that the rate at which seas warmed and rose between 1961 and 2003 was about 50 percent greater than previous estimates.

Interfaith Power and Light is a religious response to global warming with chapters in 26 states and Greater Washington, D.C. Find a link to your local chapter at http://www.theregenerationproject.org/State.Check out the National IPL Blog.
Find discounts on energy saving products at http://www.shopipl.org/

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes

In today's Washington Post columnist Dana Millbank takes a look at a congressional hearing aimed at dealing with rising incidents of food contamination. See an excerpt below:

The tomatoes attacked us brutally and without warning. Yesterday, our leaders struck back against the pernicious produce.
"As we hold this hearing, grocers and restaurants nationwide have been pulling tomatoes from the shelves and menus," announced Rep. John Shimkus, the ranking Republican member of the House Commerce subcommittee assigned to skewer the tomatoes.
One hundred sixty-seven people have been sickened by salmonella-tainted tomatoes -- and that's not the worst of it. "I tried to get a BLT sandwich in the cloakroom yesterday, and no tomato!" Shimkus recounted. "I had a BL sandwich."
Now THIS is war! And the more they talked about it, the more members of the panel realized that the Global War on Tomatoes would have to be broadened. Other freedom-hating foods are trying to kill us, too.
"We can see tomatoes, spinach, grapes, mushrooms, seafood and dozens of other items which have gone on to poison and sicken the American consumer," complained Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.).
"Jars of Peter Pan peanut butter containing salmonella, cans of green beans containing botulism, spinach tainted with E. coli, poisoned pot pies," rejoined Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.). "The largest meat recall in the history of our country. . . . Salmonella was found in Puffed Rice and Puffed Wheat cereals. . . . Tainted cantaloupes."
Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) was losing her appetite. "The longer you sit on this committee, the more depressed you get, because the issues never get resolved and crop up again and again," she said, betraying no sign that her "crop" pun was intentional.
It was one of the scarier moments in horticulture since the 1978 B movie "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes," in which mutant fruits turned against humanity. And there was no escaping the horror yesterday, even on lunch break in the Rayburn cafeteria downstairs from the hearing room. "Because your health and safety is our first priority, we have followed the FDA warning by removing the tomato varieties of concern," a sign above the salad bar announced.

Interfaith Power and Light is a religious response to global warming with chapters in 26 states and Greater Washington, D.C. Find a link to your local chapter at http://www.theregenerationproject.org/State.Check out the National IPL Blog.

Find discounts on energy saving products at http://www.shopipl.org/

Rhode Island Moves Toward Renewable Energy

According to this article in the Providence (Rhode Island) Journal, Rhode Island is going green. Read an excerpt below:

BY TIMOTHY C. BARMANN and KATHERINE GREGGJournal Staff Writers

State Rep. David Segal, D-Providence, answers questions from his House colleagues as his alternate-energy bill is debated.
The Providence Journal / Connie Grosch
PROVIDENCE — The Rhode Island Senate last night passed a series of energy bills designed to encourage and embrace renewable energy projects, both large and small, in order to make the state less dependent on electricity produced by traditional fossil fuels.
The House of Representatives approved one of its own and started debate on another. But in this corner of the State House, the debate escalated into allegations the bill had been stuffed “chock-full” with so many “treats” that it had been turned into the legislative equivalent of a piñata, and then rammed through a House committee without the opportunity for public comment on the potential added costs to ratepayers.
The House will resume its alternative-energy debate today, with passionate advocates on both sides.
Supporters of the legislation said it would spark development of small-scale renewable-energy projects, foster private investment in large-scale wind and solar projects, stabilize electricity prices, and at the same time spur economic development within the state.
Environmental advocates, who helped craft the bills, said enacting the laws would thrust Rhode Island into the forefront of renewable energy development in New England.
The centerpiece of the legislation is a bill that would require National Grid to enter into long-term contracts with renewable-energy developers to purchase their electricity. That requirement would give assurance to prospective developers that there would be a customer for the electricity produced by the project. Such assurance, the developers have said, is needed to borrow money to build renewable energy projects.
On the House side, some legislators were not convinced the bills were a good idea, and suggested that the General Assembly should take more time to study the potential impacts, such as how the bills might affect electricity rates.
“These are very complicated subjects which tend to be overwhelmed by emotional appeals to the ‘need to do something’ about alternative energy,” said Rep. Laurence Ehrhardt, R-North Kingstown.
The most significant energy bill, which passed the Senate yesterday, requires National Grid to enter into “commercially reasonable” long-term contracts to buy renewable energy from developers who plan to build large-scale renewable-energy projects. The company would be required to buy at least 5 percent of the power it delivers to Rhode Island, and the contracts would last 10 to 15 years, or even longer with approval by the Public Utilities Commission.

Interfaith Power and Light is a religious response to global warming with chapters in 26 states and Greater Washington, D.C. Find a link to your local chapter at http://www.theregenerationproject.org/State.Check out the National IPL Blog.
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Green Energy in Middletown, CT

Landfill Gas Project Moves Forward

Middletown’s Common Council unanimously approved an agreement with business partners gathered by the Jonah Center for Earth and Art to move forward on the landfill gas project.

What are the environmental benefits of this project?

Assuming methane emissions of 150 cubic feet per minute (a reasonable estimate), flaring the gas to destroy the methane would reduce annual greenhouse gas emission equivalent to removing 2900 cars from the road. Utilizing this same methane to fuel a 350 KW generator would be equivalent to reducing annual greenhouse gas emissions from an additional 2800 passenger vehicles or powering 280 homes for one year. (Source, U.S. EPA Landfill Methane Outreach Program).

Endurant Energy LLC (Oak Terrace, IL) is the “developer;” Environmental Credit Corporation (State College, PA) will market the greenhouse gas reduction credits; William Charles Waste Companies (Rockford, IL) will determine the best location for the wells. Highland Power (Brockton, MA) will arrange for the local test well drilling. This initial phase of the project will determine the amount and quality of the gas emerging from the landfill. If there is sufficient gas, a 350 kW electricity generator will be installed to supply power to the grid.
Interfaith Power and Light is a religious response to global warming with chapters in 26 states and Greater Washington, D.C. Find a link to your local chapter at http://www.theregenerationproject.org/State.Check out the National IPL Blog.
Find discounts on energy saving products at http://www.shopipl.org/