Climate Change as a 'Big Forecast'?

Climatologists Fall Short as Public Educators

"I plead guilty. I don't think we've done as good a job as we could have done," said Michael Mann, a climatologist and professor at Penn State University.

Mann is one of the scientists whose private e-mails were hacked and quoted worldwide by climate change skeptics as proof that they were cooking the books and exaggerating the effects of climate change.

The November 2009 scandal, nicknamed "Climategate," threatened to derail the global summit in Copenhagen.

"I think the idea was to clog the works, to sort of engage in a last-minute smear campaign to distract policy makers," Mann said. "It's a smear campaign. Every inquiry that has been done that's looked at it said that these statements are being taken out of context and being used to misrepresent what scientists are actually saying."

A report by the British Parliament's Science and Technology Committee ultimately determined that the science was sound. "There's no serious debate in the scientific community about the reality of human caused climate change," Mann said.

The panel called on climate scientists to be more open in their work. Mann says it's not part of his job to convince Americans that climate change exists.

"I don't see my job as convincing anyone of anything," Mann said. "My job as a scientist is making sure that the public discourse is informed by an accurate understanding of the science."

That may be one reason doubting meteorologists have had such a huge opening to convince the public otherwise.

"When you offer a forecast day in and day out and you're right 95 percent of the time people are going to trust you and that is a beautiful thing," Cullen said.

Greenwire, April 22, 2010, By NOELLE STRAUB

Although the percentage of those favoring the green movement has declined about 10 percent since Gallup first measured it in 2000, it "remains high" at 61 percent, Gallup said.

A majority of Americans still agree that global warming is real, with 53 percent saying the effects of the problem have already begun or will do so in a few years, but that percentage is dwindling. And 48 percent of Americans now believe that the seriousness of global warming is generally exaggerated, up from 31 percent in 1997, when Gallup first asked the question.

But one major reason Americans may be less worried about environmental problems is that they perceive environmental conditions in the United States to be improving. Overall quality of the environment in the United States was rated "excellent" or "good" by 46 percent of those now surveyed, up from 39 percent in March 2009. Despite these shifts, the majority of 53 percent continue to rate current environmental conditions as only fair or poor.

A tough new proposal to regulate U.S. markets calls for top regulators and government officials to conduct a study on transparency in emerging U.S. carbon markets as part of the financial reform package.

The heads of the Treasury Department, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and other U.S. agencies would be required to study oversight of existing and prospective carbon markets, according to the proposal, part of a bill passed by the Senate Agriculture Committee this week.

The goal of the study is "to ensure an efficient, secure, and transparent carbon market, including oversight of spot markets and derivative markets," the bill said.

Senator Blanche Lincoln's Agriculture Committee voted to advance the bill this week. It will be merged with the Senate Banking Committee's financial reform package, expected to be debated next week, which will likely include a crackdown on the unregulated $450 trillion derivatives market.

Emerging carbon markets are either voluntary or regional because the U.S. government does not limit emissions of gases blamed for warming the planet, considered a requirement before the launch of a national market.

Ten states in the U.S. Northeast operate a carbon market on power plants. In addition, the Chicago Climate Exchange also runs voluntary carbon markets.

Some critics of carbon markets say that not all of the credits that are traded in them represent true emissions reductions.

Senators John Kerry, a Democrat, Lindsey Graham, a Republican and Joe Lieberman, an independent, hope to unveil a climate bill on Monday that is expected to include a carbon market on power plants beginning in 2012, which could be expanded to the manufacturers years later.

Other agency officials required to participate in the study would be the heads of the Agriculture Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Energy Information Administration, the independent statistics arm of the Department of Energy.

The interagency group would be required to submit a report to Congress on their study within six months after the report becomes law.

Jackson Riles Business, Lawmakers With Carbon Rules

Reuters, 23-Apr-10, By Ayesha Rascoe

From Texas lawmakers to top coal mining executives, a wide array of business and political interests would like to stop the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ambitious and solo plan to tackle climate change.

But standing in the way is an energetic former chemical engineer who has vowed to press ahead with a raft of changes that only Congress or the courts can block.

The first African-American to head EPA, Lisa Jackson is now the poster woman for 21st century environmentalism and standing firm against critics who say her agenda is too radical for an economy emerging from a steep recession.

"I'm sick of the same old tired arguments," Jackson said in an interview with Reuters at her Washington office. "I don't buy into this idea that we can't have economic progress...and we can't have a strong environment. I believe it's a false choice."

Although the Obama administration has said it would prefer that Congress address global warming through legislation, Jackson's agency could play a sweeping role in transitioning the United States to a low carbon economy if Congress is unable to get its act together.

Just a few months into the new administration, EPA issued a historic finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health, which compels the agency to regulate carbon under the Clean Air Act.

But this doesn't sit well with groups such as the National Mining Association, who argue that the EPA is ill-equipped to handle the enormous task of limiting greenhouse gases.

The agency said it will "tailor" its carbon reduction rules to affect only the largest polluters, but many industry groups believe this narrow rule would not survive court challenges and the damage will be felt more widely.

"Once you start the truck down the hill, it's hard to stop it," said Carol Raulston, a mining association spokeswoman.

Critics warn that if the so-called tailoring rule is struck down by the courts, the EPA will be forced to impose cumbersome and costly rules on virtually every source of greenhouse gases -- from churches to schools and coal plants to farms.

And there is growing concern that Congress will not be able to pass a climate bill, because of the haggling between Republicans and Democrats.

NIGHTMARE SCENARIO?

Jackson, a self-described pragmatist with a master's degree in chemical engineering from Princeton University, disputes these claims. She said the point of the tailoring rule is to avoid the "nightmare scenario" envisioned by opponents where the agency regulates everything in sight.

"When it comes out you'll see that we're making good on our word," Jackson said of the rule to be released by May.

Born in Pennsylvania in 1962, Jackson was adopted and raised in the impoverished lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, Louisiana. She is no stranger to the energy industry, working summers at a big oil company in her youth.

"I'm an environmentalist who worked three summers in a row for Shell Oil Company in gas plants and oil field work. I don't see those in any way as mutually exclusive," she added.

As an engineer, Jackson said she strongly believes technological innovations can play a major role in helping to solve the clean energy problem.

Jackson worked at the EPA for 16 years before eventually becoming the Commissioner of New Jersey's Department of Environmental Protection.

JACKSON'S CHEERING FANS

After years of feeling like outcasts at the EPA, environmentalists say they have found a true champion with Jackson now at the helm of the EPA.

"It's so invigorating to see the Environmental Protection Agency back on its feet and doing it's job again," said David Doniger, a policy director at the Natural Resources Defense Council's climate center.

Since coming to office, Jackson has impressed environmentalists by tightening standards for mountaintop mining, proposing new air quality rules, and approving California's request to crack down on vehicle emissions.

Doniger noted Jackson received a standing ovation last year when she spoke to environmentalists at the Copenhagen climate meeting shortly after finalizing the agency's greenhouse gas decision .

"I hadn't experienced anything quite like that," Doniger said. "She was a rock star at Copenhagen."

Green groups also herald the administration's effectiveness in pushing the nation's ailing auto industry to begin producing more fuel efficient vehicles, striking a deal with automakers last year to impose the first U.S. greenhouse gas emissions rules on vehicles.

EPA administrators have the challenge of following science and the law and keeping politicians happy, said Sierra Club chairman Carl Pope. "It is not easy and nobody has ever done it as well as she is doing it," he added.
World Bank Chief Urges Action To Save Wild Tigers

Reuters, 23-Apr-10, By Lesley Wroughton

World Bank President Robert Zoellick called on Wednesday for joint action among countries and organizations to save the dwindling numbers of wild tigers from extinction.

There are barely 3,500 tigers left in the wild. Their declining numbers are blamed largely on poaching and the slow destruction of their natural habitat by deforestation.

"2010, the Year of the Tiger, must be the year in which we take joint action to save this majestic species," Zoellick said at a photo exhibition by the National Geographic Museum, which focuses on the plight of endangered tigers and other big cats.

Zoellick has a personal passion for the conservation of wild tigers. Visitors to his office at the World Bank headquarters in Washington are directed to a table map showing the decline of wild tigers in the world, with troubled areas shaded in red and orange.

The World Bank, whose mission is to reduce global poverty, sees its role as trying to improve conditions in developing countries, which in turn would help to preserve the tigers' habitat.

Through the "Global Tiger Initiative," an alliance of governments and more than 30 international agencies, the World Bank has been working with countries such as India and Nepal to set aside more land for tiger habitat.

In South-East Asia the bank is working with groups to address the black market for body parts from tigers, common in countries like as China.

"Part of what this is about is getting people not to see development and conservation as opposing poles but how you can try to connect them together," Zoellick told Reuters Insider Television.

"By working with the countries in the developing world, that's the best chance to save this species, which after all is in the developing world."

A World Bank report in 2008 warned that "if current trends persist, tigers are likely to be the first species of large predator to vanish in historic times."

A summit in September in Vladivostok, Russia, will try to push for conservation commitments for the world's remaining tigers.

They may all look similar, but killer whales, also known as orcas, include several distinct species, according to genetic evidence published on Thursday.

Tissue samples from 139 killer whales from around the world point to at least three distinct species, the researchers report in the journal Genome Research.

Researchers had suspected this may be the case -- the distinctive black-and-white or gray-and-white mammals have subtle differences in their markings and also in feeding behavior.

Orcas as a group are not considered an endangered species, but some designated populations of the predators are. A new species designation could change this and affect conservation efforts.

One of the newly designated species preys on seals in the Antarctic while another eats fish, said Phillip Morin of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, California, who led the research.

His team sequenced the DNA from the whales' mitochondria, a part of the cell that holds just a portion of the DNA. Mitochondrial DNA is passed down with very few changes from mother to offspring.

New sequencing methods finally made it possible to do so, Morin said in a statement.

"The genetic makeup of mitochondria in killer whales, like other cetaceans, changes very little over time, which makes it difficult to detect any differentiation in recently evolved species without looking at the entire genome," he said.

"But by using a relatively new method called highly parallel sequencing to map the entire genome of the cell's mitochondria from a worldwide sample of killer whales, we were able to see clear differences among the species."

The 139 whales whose DNA was sequenced came from the North Pacific, the North Atlantic and Antarctica.

The genetic evidence suggests two different species in Antarctica and also separates out mammal-eating "transient" killer whales in the North Pacific.

Other types of orca may also be separate species or subspecies, but it will take additional analysis to be sure, the researchers said.

NOAA has designated a population of killer whales that lives in the Pacific off the coast of Washington state as endangered.

If "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore's Oscar-winning 2006 film on global warming, left audiences depressed about the planet's future, a new film from the same executive producers is designed to lift spirits.

"Climate of Change" premieres at New York's Tribeca Film Festival Thursday -- Earth Day -- and focuses on the efforts by individuals from around the world to reduce their personal carbon footprint while fighting business interests they say threaten the environment.

"I wouldn't exactly call it a feel-good film about climate change, but the idea was not to make a film that was scary," film director Brian Hill told Reuters. "We've got people doing something, people reacting to the kind of messages in films like 'An Inconvenient Truth.'"

The film, produced in part by Participant Media, which produced the Al Gore film, features a group of schoolchildren in Patna, India, explaining how they intend to change the world by protesting the use of plastic.

It also shows a community in Papua, New Guinea, that has banned commercial logging, a group in the U.S. state of West Virginia that is fighting to end mountaintop removal by coal companies, and an organization in Togo that is teaching women to use ovens powered by the sun.

"Climate of Change," narrated by actress Tilda Swinton, argues that average people must work to reduce their own carbon emissions since some industrialized nations and large companies refuse to take significant steps.

"It would be great, and probably more useful in the long run, if governments would get involved," Hill said. "I don't think any government has really decided to tackle it in any forthright and bold manner, which is what you really need."

World leaders are due to meet in Mexico in November for the latest round of climate change talks, but observers say they are skeptical about how far the biggest carbon emitters will agree to go.

The U.S. Congress is also considering legislation to reduce emissions of so-called greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. But the likelihood of passage this year is slim.

Hill said the experience of making the film has changed his behavior: "I'm forever going around the house, turning lights out."
Ocean Chemistry Changing At 'Unprecedented Rate'

Reuters, 23-Apr-10, By Deborah Zabarenko

Carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming are also turning the oceans more acidic at the fastest pace in hundreds of thousands of years, the National Research Council reported Thursday.

"The chemistry of the ocean is changing at an unprecedented rate and magnitude due to anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions," the council said. "The rate of change exceeds any known to have occurred for at least the past hundreds of thousands of years."

Ocean acidification eats away at coral reefs, interferes with some fish species' ability to find their homes and can hurt commercial shellfish like mussels and oysters and keep them from forming their protective shells.

Corrosion happens when carbon dioxide is stored in the oceans and reacts with sea water to form carbonic acid. Unless carbon dioxide emissions are curbed, oceans will grow more acidic, the report said.

Oceans absorb about one-third of all human-generated carbon dioxide emissions, including those from burning fossil fuels, cement production and deforestation, the report said.

The increase in acidity is 0.1 points on the 14-point pH scale, which means this indicator has changed more since the start of the Industrial Revolution than at any time in the last 800,000 years, according to the report.

The council's report recommended setting up an observing network to monitor the oceans over the long term.

"A global network of robust and sustained chemical and biological observations will be necessary to establish a baseline and to detect and predict changes attributable to acidification," the report said.

ACID OCEANS AND 'AVATAR'

Scientists have been studying this growing phenomenon for years, but ocean acidification is generally a low priority at international and U.S. discussions of climate change.

A new compromise U.S. Senate bill targeting carbon dioxide emissions is expected to be unveiled on April 26.

Ocean acidification was center stage at a congressional hearing Thursday, the 40th anniversary of Earth Day in the United States.

"This increase in (ocean) acidity threatens to decimate entire species, including those that are at the foundation of the marine food chain," Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey told a Commerce Committee panel. "If that occurs, the consequences are devastating."

Lautenberg said that in New Jersey, Atlantic coast businesses generate $50 billion a year and account for one of every six jobs in the state.

Sigourney Weaver, a star of the environmental-themed film "Avatar" and narrator of the documentary "Acid Test" about ocean acidification, testified about its dangers. She said people seem more aware of the problem now than they did six months ago.

"I think that the science is so indisputable and easy to understand and ... we've already run out of time to discuss this," Weaver said by telephone after her testimony. "Now we have to take action."

Senators Struggling Over Climate Compromise

Reuters, 23-Apr-10, By Richard Cowan

U.S. senators writing a massive climate-change bill struggled on Thursday over how to reduce carbon dioxide pollution in the transportation sector, Senator Lindsey Graham said, adding that he did not yet know whether a measure would be ready by Monday.

"The transportation sector is a problem," Graham told reporters. "We're just dealing with that."

Graham, a Republican, has been collaborating with Democratic Senator John Kerry and independent Senator Joseph Lieberman on a bill they hope to sketch out on Monday, but which will face an uphill fight this year.

Asked whether the trio will be able to meet that deadline, Graham responded, "I don't know yet."

The fight over how Congress should reduce pollution that scientists blame for global warming was unfolding as environmentalists celebrated the 40th anniversary of Earth Day.

"Earth Day 2010 must be a reflection point that helps make this the year the Senate passes comprehensive climate and energy legislation," Kerry said in a statement.

He called it "our last and best shot" at finding 60 votes needed in the Senate for controversial bills such as this one to clear procedural hurdles.

Kerry, Graham and Lieberman had been looking at a "linked fee" on motor fuels, applied after oil is refined, as a way of handling the transportation part of the climate bill.

That fee would have been linked to the price of carbon pollution permits for electric power utilities that would be traded on a regulated market.

But according to sources, there was strong backlash from other senators to the idea of a "fee," which opponents would label a tax on consumers that they would pay at the gasoline pump.

Some environmental sources have told Reuters that the three senators have been looking at a substitute idea -- one that would have oil refiners buying pollution "allowances" that are based on the carbon content of their fuels.

'LOOKING AT OTHER WAYS'

Senators would not confirm that and Graham refused to discuss any new details.

But he said, "we're looking at other ways," instead of the linked fee.

"It's one thing for oil and gas companies to be OK" with a transportation sector pollution-reduction scheme, "but what if you're actually driving a truck and that's the way you make a living. How does it effect you," he said.

Lawmakers are always gun-shy about any legislation that is perceived to be raising taxes, especially as they face elections in November for one-third of the Senate and the entire House of Representatives.

Carol Browner, President Barack Obama's top energy and climate adviser, said in a discussion on the White House website that Kerry, Graham and Lieberman will "present" their bill on Monday. "We are working with them and are very encouraged by this bipartisan group and the progress they are making," she said.

Whenever the compromise bill is unveiled, it is expected to spark a spirited discussion among senators, corporate lobbyists and environmentalists.

Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer of California, who helped write a climate change bill last year that Kerry, Graham and Lieberman are building upon, was asked whether she could support the new proposal if it does not protect climate-control initiatives already in place in her state.

"We're very optimistic about how the bill will look vis-a-vis my state," Boxer said, but adding she had not yet seen the text of the Kerry-Graham-Lieberman bill.

Sources have told Reuters that the bill will preempt some of the climate-control efforts of states and regions, while giving them latitude to continue their own energy-efficiency efforts.

But Democratic Senator Carl Levin, who represents the automobile manufacturing state of Michigan, told reporters that his support for a compromise climate bill would vanish unless there is a strong federal standard for controlling carbon pollution emissions.

If California gets an exemption, Levin told reporters, "That's the end of it for me ... that's not a national standard" if California wins a waiver, he said.

Reuters, April 23, 2010; By Christopher Michaud

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Art collectors, environmentalists and celebrities packed the salesroom at Christie's on Thursday, the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day, and spent nearly $2 million at the Green Auction benefiting the environment.

A round of golf with former President Bill Clinton, a painting by Damien Hirst, a Girard-Perregaux white gold and diamond watch and 18 other lots drew spirited bidding from anonymous buyers as well as stars such as Salma Hayek and Chevy Chase, who served as emcee.

Edward Dolman, chief executive of Christie's International, called the event "a wonderfully appropriate way to celebrate Earth Day," adding that the response had been breathtaking.

"I like to think that we are one of the first to get seriously into recycling," he quipped in reference to the 244-year-old auction house's history of selling and reselling art and other fine collectibles.

Proceeds from the live auction, a companion silent online sale and related fund-raising events collectively known as "A Bid to Save the Earth" will be divided among the non-profit environmental groups Natural Resources Defense Council, the Central Park Conservancy, Oceana and Conservation International.

Other stars on hand included Sam Waterston and Ted Danson, along with newsmen Brian Williams and Matt Lauer, and Candice Bergen, who donated a tour of Central Park with the actress followed by lunch.

A few items, including a trip to Botswana for six guided by National Geographic's editor in chief, went as high as $150,000, while spirited bidding drove the price for golfing with Clinton to $80,000. Bids totaled just over $1.5 million.

The silent auction (www.abidtosavetheearth.org) has drawn bids well in excess of $500,000 and could top $1 million or more by May 6, when it finishes.

Up for grabs are tennis lessons with John McEnroe, dinner and theater with actress Sigourney Weaver and a day on the set with Australian actor Hugh Jackman. A behind-the-scenes tour with Simon Doonen of Manhattan department store Barneys' legendary holiday window displays, along with lunch and a $5,000 gift card, has soared to $37,500.

With participation from quarters as far-reaching as Deutsche Bank, NBC Universal and retailers Target and Barneys, officials said the Green Auction reflected increasing understanding that business concerns are closely tied to environmental issues, and that the two need not be opposing forces.

Christie's waived all fees and commissions for the sale, and in a green nod did not print a catalog. And the event's "red carpet" was not red -- it was green.

"The Green Auction is a call to action," Dolman said before the auction.

Paddle raises, in which bidders made donations ranging from $5,000 to $50,000 to one of the environmental groups, took in another half million dollars, while cellphone users were encouraged to text GOGREEN to phone number 20222 to make a $10 donation.
Like Sept.11, volcano plane ban may hold climate clue

Reuters, April 23, 2010; By Alister Doyle

OSLO (Reuters) - Plane-free skies over Europe during Iceland's volcanic eruption may yield rare clues about how flights stoke climate change, adding to evidence from a closure of U.S. airspace after September 11, 2001, experts say.

The climate effects of jet fuel burned at high altitude are poorly understood, partly because scientists cannot often compare plane-free skies with days when many regions are criss-crossed by white vapor trails.

Scientists will pore over European temperature records, satellite images and other data from days when flights were grounded by ash -- trying to isolate any effect of a lack of planes from the sun-dimming effect of Iceland's volcanic cloud.

"The presence of volcanic ash makes this event much more challenging to analyze," said David Travis, of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, who found that an absence of vapor trails influenced U.S. temperatures after the September 11 attacks.

One possibility was to study areas of Europe where ash was minimal and flights were canceled mainly as a precaution. "But this becomes very challenging to measure," he told Reuters.

Progress in figuring out the impact of planes might make it easier to include aviation in any U.N. climate deal -- international flights are exempt from emissions curbs under the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol for combating climate change until 2012.

CARBON

That might in turn push up ticket prices if flights include a penalty for emissions. Flights in Europe emitted 186 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2007, the European Environment Agency said, more than the total emissions of Belgium.

No one wants disasters that close airspace but scientists will seize on European data from days of clear skies, said Gunnar Myhre of the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo.

"There will be initiatives," he said, adding that it was hard to separate ash from industrial pollution.

Travis's 2002 study found that an absence of condensation trails during the September 11-14 closure of U.S. airspace to commercial flights after the suicide hijacker attacks led to bigger swings in daily temperatures.

That was evidence that jets affect temperatures, but did not say if contrails were boosting climate change or not.

The U.N. panel of climate experts reckons that aviation is damaging the climate and that non-carbon factors -- such as nitrogen oxides, soot or contrails -- may have an effect 2 to 4 times as great as carbon dioxide alone.

The current European Union emissions trading scheme only covers carbon dioxide, and wants more studies. "All the impacts of aviation should be addressed to the extent possible," European Commission spokeswoman Maria Kokkonen said.

High clouds -- such as contrails or cirrus clouds -- tend to trap heat, preventing it escaping from the thin atmosphere. By contrast, lower clouds usually dampen climate change since their white tops are better at reflecting sunlight.

Reuters, April 23, 2010; 12:45 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama has no plans to reconsider his proposal for new offshore oil drilling in the aftermath of an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the White House said on Friday.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the administration had taken swift action to ensure the safety of workers and the environment after the spill, which on Thursday measured one mile by five miles.

Asked whether Obama had second thoughts on offshore drilling, Gibbs said, "No."

Obama still believes that "we have to have a comprehensive solution to our energy problems," and the spill did not open up new questions about his drilling plan, he said.

"We've taken swift action to ensure the safety of those that are there and to ensure the safety to the environment by capping the exploratory well," Gibbs said.

"We need the increased production. The president still continues to believe the great majority of that can be done safely, securely and without any harm to the environment," he said.

Oil appears not to be flowing from the sunken drilling rig and damaged well in the Gulf of Mexico, but hope was dimming as search continued for 11 workers missing in the disaster, the U.S. Coast Guard said on Friday.

The Transocean Ltd Deepwater Horizon sank Thursday after burning since Tuesday following an explosion while trying to temporarily cap a new well drilled for BP Plc 42 miles southeast of Venice, Louisiana.

The Washington Post, April 23, 2010; By Bill Gates and Chad Holliday

This country runs on innovation. The American success story -- from Ben Franklin's bifocals to Thomas Edison's light bulb to Henry Ford's assembly line to today's advanced microprocessors -- is all about inventing our future. The companies we ran, Microsoft and DuPont, were successful because they invested deeply in new technologies and new ideas.

But our country is neglecting a field central to our national prospect and security: energy. Although the information technology and pharmaceutical industries spend 5 to 15 percent of their revenue on research and development each year, U.S. companies' spending on energy R&D has averaged only about one-quarter of 1 percent of revenue over the past 15 years.

And despite talk about the need for "21st-century" energy sources, federal spending on clean energy research -- less than $3 billion -- is also relatively small. Compare that with roughly $30 billion that the U.S. government annually spends on health research and $80 billion on defense research and development.

As many have noted, an energy future built on yesterday's technology threatens to leave people exposed to price shocks (hurting Americans and devastating the world's poor) and would exacerbate our national security problems and increase our trade deficit, given our dependence on costly foreign oil. The science is also clear that without significant efforts to tackle the climate issue, the effects of warming will grow, undermining agriculture, making droughts and floods more common and more severe, and eventually destroying ecosystems.

We need a vigorous strategy to invent our future and ensure its safety and prosperity. In the realm of energy, as with medicine and national defense, that requires a public commitment.

Why can't the private sector do this? What makes energy different from, say, electronics? Three things.

First, there are profound public interests in having more energy options. Our national security, economic health and environment are at issue. These are not primary motivations for private-sector investments, but they merit a public commitment.

Second, the nature of the energy business requires a public commitment. A new generation of television technology might cost $10 million to develop. Because those TVs can be built on existing assembly lines, that risk-reward calculus makes business sense. But a new electric power source can cost several billion dollars to develop and still carry the risk of failure. That investment does not compute for most companies.

Third, the turnover in our power system is very slow. Power plants last 50 years or more, and they are very cheap to run once built, meaning there is little market for new models.

It is understandable, then, why private-sector investments in clean energy technology are so small. Yet, while it may make sense for individual companies to make these choices, accepting the status quo would condemn our country to very bad options.

This is why we have joined other concerned business leaders -- including Norm Augustine, former chairman of Lockheed Martin; Ursula Burns, chief executive of Xerox; John Doerr, partner at Kleiner Perkins; Jeff Immelt, chief executive of GE; and Tim Solso, chairman of Cummins -- to create the American Energy Innovation Council.

There is vast opportunity in energy. Prices are declining in solar energy and wind, and they could fall further with new technology. There is a critical need for better electricity storage technologies to enable electric vehicles and very-large-scale renewable energy. Advanced nuclear power could burn non-enriched uranium -- which the world has in vast quantities. New efficiency technologies can cut energy demand by half or more in dozens of applications -- in cars, buildings and some industrial processes.

And this list just scratches the surface. Vigorous federal commitments to new energy technology would bring these options to commercial viability.

Our country has great assets to bring to the challenge. Our research universities are among the best in the world, and our federal energy laboratories have brilliant scientists capable of delivering breakthroughs.

But we need to rethink the scale and urgency of the energy endeavor. The federal government must invest more and be smarter about the innovation process.

In a few months our group will offer detailed recommendations to strengthen and reform American energy innovation. As we develop recommendations, we are reaching out to leaders in business, government and academia, as well as experts in science and technology. Eventually we plan to advocate to Congress, the White House and others. We are pleased that energy innovation has never become politicized because Republicans, Democrats and independents share a common interest in scientific breakthroughs that improve people's lives. We are confident that this spirit will be reflected in these discussions.

The core force of innovation -- vision, experimentation and wise investments -- has led to thousands of breakthroughs that benefit us all. A serious commitment to innovation can be transformative, as we saw with the effort to replace chlorofluorocarbons two decades ago. We need the same serious commitment in the energy sector to developing the original American energy supply: innovation.

Bill Gates is chairman of Microsoft Corp. Chad Holliday was chairman and chief executive of DuPont from 1998 to 2009.

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ROWA MEDIA UPDATE

THE ENVIRONMENT IN THE NEWS

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Oman

Earth, Regional Environment Day observed
SALALAH — The Directorate General of Environment and Climate Affairs in Dhofar Governorate yesterday marked Earth and Regional Environment Day. The programme of the event included a number of lectures addressing school children in the wilayats of Salalah by specialists at the Directorate General of Environment and Climate Affairs in Dhofar.

The lectures dealt with the current environmental challenges facing the world and their implications to human communities in terms of water shortage, desertification, spread of diseases and epidemics, high temperatures, the increase of storms and natural disasters and marine pollution.

The lecturers also highlighted the Omani laws and legislations on environment conservation. The programme, which runs through April 26, also includes cleanliness campaigns mapping coral reefs and work camps. Earth Day activities started in 1970 and it aims at protecting ecosystems and emphasise awareness about the current challenges facing the earth since the beginning of the 3rd millennium. — ONA
http://main.omanobserver.om/node/7343


Jordan

AZRAQ WETLAND - Environmentalists are calling on concerned parties to designate the Aphanius Sirhani fish Jordan’s national fish, saying it is unique to the Azraq Wetland Reserve.

Named after Wadi Al Sirhan in Azraq, the six-centimetre fish is the only vertebrate species native to Jordan, according to the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature (RSCN), and was previously thought to be extinct.

During the 1960s and 1970s, studies indicated that the Sirhani fish was present in “endless” numbers.

However by 1989, following indiscriminate water pumping from the Azraq Oasis, the fish was categorised as “in danger of extinction”, the RSCN said.

“Pumping water in huge amounts caused the oasis to dry out, and the Sirhani fish lost its natural habitat,” Director of Azraq Wetland Reserve Omar Shoshan said on Thursday.

He indicated that by the mid-1990s, the species was believed extinct, but in 2000 it was rediscovered in very low numbers.

The Sirhani fish was then added to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List with a status of critically endangered.

In a bid to reintroduce the Sirhani fish into the wetland, the RSCN started a conservation project in 2000, which succeeded in raising the numbers from a few scores to hundreds of thousands at present, Shoshan noted.

“Now, we aim to turn it into the Kingdom’s national fish,” he said.

The head of the nature reservation at the Ministry of Environment, Hussein Shahin, said that the ministry is considering the proposal, adding that the uniqueness of the fish is worth the designation as Jordan’s national fish.

“The black iris is our national flower, the pink bird is our national bird and the malloul oak is our national tree… we want the Sirhani to be our national fish,” Shahin said.

http://www.jordantimes.com/?news=25990

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