Senator says "Global Warming Bill Needs Work"

A bipartisan Senate bill to limit greenhouse gases will have a hard time getting the 60 votes needed to overcome parliamentary roadblocks unless it addresses some of industry's concerns, a Republican senator said Friday.

Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, told reporters that a requirement in the bill to cut heat-trapping emissions by 15 percent by 2020 can't be met without a push to develop new technologies such as ways to capture carbon dioxide from coal-burning power plants.

"Technology should be driving all this," said Voinovich. He said he favors action to address global warming, but that any bill should include incentives to develop the technologies — such as carbon capture from power plants — needed to meet the emission-reduction mandates.

Legislation introduced last week by Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and John Warner, R-Va., would require that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from power plants, industrial facilities and transportation be cut by 70 percent by mid-century.

Cotton Crop management to become more complicated

Climate change through global warming may increase photosynthesis, leading to increased vegetative growth in cotton but not necessarily resulting in greater production of lint. Global warming may increase salt concentrations in soils, thus changing nutrient availability. Insects may spread to more areas, diseases may become more common and crop management will become more complicated.

The cost of production may continue to rise, and the development of new technologies may be crucial. Environmental regulations may become stricter, possibly resulting in higher costs to produce cotton. Agricultural policies, domestic and international, may tend to be complicated and far-reaching. Cotton growers may have to make many strategic business decisions because of climate change.

Climate expert says drought ,., flooding threatens Texas

A top climate scientist warned Wednesday that Texas faces a dual threat from floods and drought if global warming is left unchecked.

James Hansen, in Houston to speak before the Progressive Forum on Wednesday night, said predictions made two decades ago about the effects of a warming world are now beginning to come true.

"Texas is in the line of fire for double-barreled climate impacts," said Hansen, who heads the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. "What we said in the 1980s, and is beginning to come true now, is that both ends of the hydrological cycle get intensified by global warming."

A warmer climate increases evaporation, he said. It both sucks moisture from the ground, intensifying drought, and increases atmospheric humidity, which causes more rain to fall during extreme events.

Hansen gained attention in the 1980s by testifying to congressional committees about the perils of global warming and again in 2005 and 2006 by claiming that NASA administrators sought to influence his public statements about the causes of climate change. Because of this, he is arguably the world's most well-known climate researcher.

On Wednesday, Hansen again spoke out on a political issue. He expressed concerns about an Associated Press report that the White House had significantly edited a draft of testimony prepared for a Senate hearing on the impact of climate change.

The White House denied that it had "watered down" the congressional testimony that Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, had given Tuesday to the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

"The whole idea of democracy that our Founding Fathers had was that the public is educated, and that they are informed honestly," Hansen said.

Health Concerns Spur U.S. Senate to Global Warming Action

Amid growing evidence that scientists have underestimated the pace of global warming, public health experts on Tuesday urged U.S. lawmakers to support efforts to better understand the human health impacts from climate change.


"Climate change is a global health crisis," Michael McCally, a public health physician and executive director of Physicians for Social Responsibility told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

Scientists predict climate change will increase heat waves, fires, flooding, hurricanes and drought - all of which adversely impact human health, McCally said.

Furthermore, a warming climate also has the potential to decrease air quality, negatively impact the quantity and quality of fresh water supplies and increase vector, food and water-borne diseases.

Carbon Dioxide Levels Rising Faster Than Predicted, Study Says

Carbon dioxide is collecting in the atmosphere faster than forecast as the use of dirtier fuels increases worldwide, an Australian-led team of scientists said.

Rising levels of the main gas blamed for climate change threatens to accelerate global warming, the researchers said. The study builds on previous findings and may lead to a change in the way scientists predict climate change.

The growth rate of carbon dioxide, or CO2, emissions has averaged 3.3 percent a year since 2000, compared with 1.1 percent in the 1990s, according to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The rate rose 35 percent more than scientists had anticipated based on economic growth, said Corinne Le Quere, one of the authors of the paper.

China attaches importance to global warming

China attaches great importance to climate change and has always been a responsible player combating global warming, delegates at the 17th Party congress said, ahead of a number of international meetings addressing the problem.

Party General Secretary Hu Jintao said at the congress that all countries "should assist and cooperate with each other in conservation efforts to take good care of the Earth, our only home".

For the first time the CPC has added global environmental issues to its political report at the congress, setting out the country's top priorities in the following five years. The Party leadership has also put domestic environmental protection and energy reduction high on the agenda.

The Sea Change in Global Warming

Fresh fears about global warming were raised yesterday by a study which found that the oceans seem to be losing their ability to absorb carbon dioxide.

Oceans normally act as a "sink" for the gas by absorbing it through natural processes.

But a report by British scientists has concluded CO2 levels in the North Atlantic have halved in ten years.

One of the authors, Professor Andrew Watson, of East Anglia university, said this could increase global warming by leaving more CO2 in the atmosphere.

He said: "We suspect that the 'sink' is much more sensitive to changes in climate than we had expected.

"If you have a series of relatively warm winters, the ocean surface doesn't cool so much, you don't get so much sub-surface water formed and so the CO2 is not being taken down into the deep water."

The scientists recorded the Atlantic's CO2 levels by taking readings from water collected by thousands of ships which crossed the ocean between 1995 and 2005.

One proposal to increase oceans' ability to absorb CO2 is to create a network of pipes to improve the circulation of water far below the surface.

But Prof Watson said he was sceptical about the long-term impact of such a scheme.