global warming

If you've ever read Robert Fulghum's All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, you know that some of life's most important lessons were learned when we were young. One of them might save the world, sort of. As a kid you learned that light-colored surfaces reflect the sun's rays, while dark surfaces absorb them and warm up. Well, have you ever considered applying this simple technology to your home? Obama's energy secretary Steven Chu is pitching painting all rooftops white to curb global warming, saying that, "it’s the equivalent of reducing the carbon emissions due to all the cars on the road for 11 years," if not more. If that's not reason enough for you to paint it white (what do the Stones know?), consider that a reflective rooftop will reduce your air-conditioning costs this Summer, which in turn will also reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Cha-ching! The folks who built New Orleans's Superdome know what I'm talking about.
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I always thought cities won the CO2-reduction argument with their tiny apartments and efficient undergrounds. Turns out, I was right! Sort of.

In many countries, cities have much lower per person emission rates, compared to the national average.

The real culprit? Not the driving culture of rural areas, but the high-consumption lives wealthy countries lead. Wealth that (until last year?) started in low-CO2-emitting cities like New York, which only emits 7.1 tons of CO2 per person while the US average is 23.92.

But when you look to poorer countries, urban areas are the pollution centers. To see why, read more

Nevermore was the message scientists sent today in Coventry, England as a New Orleans-style funeral march was staged to mourn lost generations of the future. It comes on UK's Climate Change Day of Action when the protest leader, NASA's director of the Goddard Institute For Space Studies, said scientists have a moral obligation to become politically involved.

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President Obama has his hands full with the economy, Iraq, Afghanistan, and healthcare reform. Now, Denmark is piling a task on his to-do list. The Scandinavian country's minister for climate and energy said Obama must push through laws fighting global warming ASAP. If Congress manages to pass, say, a cap-and-trade law, the US would set a powerful example for developing countries.

International leaders will meet in Copenhagen this December with the intention of creating an alternative to the Kyoto agreement, a treaty George W. Bush refused to sign. Everybody's looking to Obama to signal that he will take on global warming, unlike his predecessor.

Would you like to see comprehensive environmental legislation passed by the end of the year?

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Due to a lengthy dry spell in Northern California this season, Sonoma and Mendocino counties face a potentially devastating drought. This water shortage poses an immediate threat to Russian River grape growers and the region's hospitality industry.

Local officials have warned residents that water usage cutbacks may be as high as 50 percent. The dry spell won't just be about brown lawns and dry pools. The first to weather the impact? The region's grape growers, who will be forced to reconsider whether or not to turn on the spigots for frost protection in March. In addition, the drought's effects will likely spill over to the entire region's hospitality industry, as restaurants would be facing restricted flow on water, and forced to ration water, which is used in everything from making drinks in-house to doing dishes and mopping the floor.

I find this news alarming, and can't help but think it's a direct result of global warming. Did it ever occur to you how much a climate change could impact a sector such as the restaurant or wine industry?

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