Word on the street is that Barack Obama plans to create a "climate czar" position to lead his administration's climate change and energy policies. But Al Gore, the most likely candidate, has already said that he doesn't want the job.
Perhaps Al Gore either didn't want to fill out that cumbersome questionnaire Obama is passing out to potential appointees, or saw the position as a demotion from vice president.
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Not only does the ice help regulate the earth's temperature, but it also sustains life by giving access to food to many Arctic creatures. Unfortunately, with the ice shelf melting at an alarming rate (about 10 percent per decade), it's having a deadly effect on the Polar Bears native to the region. Kassie Siegel, staff attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity explains:
The Arctic sea ice melt is a disaster for the polar bears.
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The UN has announced an "In-house Climate Change Initiative," which will begin by raising building temperatures by five degrees at the UN's headquarters in New York. The thermostat in the Secretariat building will be turned up to 77 degrees, and air conditioning turned off during the weekends.
During the month-long "Cool UN" experiment, engineers will test energy consumption and utility costs.
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A new report released by the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative states that consequences of climate change extend beyond environmental, and into issues of human rights, race, and class. The research group says that climate change is especially harmful to African Americans, and low-income individuals.
The report maintains: "Though far less responsible for climate change, African-Americans are significantly more vulnerable to its effects than non-Hispanic whites.
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California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill last week that would have required all future science textbooks to discuss climate change as a distinct subject. High school science material already includes the sometimes-controversial topic in the weather unit.
Governor Schwarzenegger explained that he supports teaching climate change in schools, but does not think state lawmakers should dictate specific curriculum.
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Some climate change models indicate that many of the planet's coastal regions will be underwater in the next 50 to 100 years. Deciding to put a positive spin on this rather dreary prediction, media production company Squint/Opera used a combination of photography and digital modeling and manipulation to create an altogether surprising vision of the future.
The company's images, which were presented as part of London Festival of Architecture 2008, show Londoners fishing from parking structures, playing near submerged sidewalks, and completing high dives from St.
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Architect Vincent Callebaut has designed a city that floats on the ocean and can house 50,000 people. Why? Given the projections for rising ocean levels due to melting ice caps, a lot of land, especially coastlines, will be under water in the 21st century.
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Los Angeles is considering a plan that will help residents fight global warming and spend less time in traffic — all for the low, low price of $90 a year.
Lawmakers want to ask LA voters to chose between an additional $.09/ gallon tax at the pump, or an additional registration fee around $90 a year. The registration fee would be higher for cars, trucks, and SUVs that produce more carbon emissions.
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Tonight from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. local time, major cities around the world are celebrating Earth Hour.
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Today in Norway, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault opened its doors to the first deposits of what will eventually be 100 million seeds from over 100 countries. Seeds such as maize, rice, wheat, cowpea, eggplant, lettuce, barley, and potato were some of the first deposits in the seed vault. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault contains the most diverse and comprehensive collection of food crop seeds in the world.
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