Hurricanes Katrina and Rita added to Global Greenhouse Gas Buildup

New satellite imaging has revealed that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita produced the largest single forestry disaster on record in the nation -- an essentially unreported ecological catastrophe that killed or severely damaged about 320 million trees in Mississippi and Louisiana.

The die-off, caused initially by wind and later by weeks-long pooling of stagnant water, was so massive that researchers say it will add significantly to the global greenhouse gas buildup -- ultimately putting as much carbon from dying vegetation into the air as the rest of the nation's forests take out in a year of photosynthesis.

In addition, the downing of so many trees has opened vast and sometimes fragile tracts to several aggressive and fast-growing exotic species that are already squeezing out more environmentally productive native species.

Efforts to limit the damage have been handicapped by the ineffectiveness of a $504 million federal program to help Gulf Coast landowners replant and fight the invasive species. Congress appropriated the money in 2005 -- the year the hurricanes hit -- and added to it in 2007. But officials acknowledge that the program got off to a slow start and only about $70 million has been promised or dispensed so far. Local advocates said onerous bureaucratic hurdles and low compensation rates are major reasons why.

Gore, Schwarzenegger to push Climate Forum

Former Vice President Al Gore and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will take part in a bipartisan presidential forum on energy and climate change next month in New Hampshire, shortly ahead of the state's first-in-the-nation primary.

Gore, who has been the target of several Democratic grass-roots efforts to persuade him to run for president, has said he has no plans to become a candidate, but hasn't firmly shut the door to a bid. Schwarzenegger, a Republican and native of Austria who is prohibited by the Constitution from becoming president, had previously signaled his intention to play a role in the 2008 contest by drawing attention to issues of special interest, including global warming.

A spokesman for Schwarzenegger confirmed the forum after Arizona Sen. John McCain, a GOP presidential candidate, mentioned it Thursday during a news conference in Sacramento, Calif.

Schwarzenegger spokesman Adam Mendelsohn says the forum is still being planned, but candidates from both major parties are expected to attend. Gore — who won the popular vote for president in 2000, but lost the electoral vote count through a Supreme Court decision — will handle the Democratic candidates at the forum, while Schwarzenegger will handle the Republicans.

Zoo Urges Bush to save Polar Bears

Brookfield Zoo's three polar bears are popular attractions -- massive beasts which, tossing toys and buckets into their exhibit pool, sometimes act like kids at the beach.

But, zoo president Stuart Strahl said Wednesday, "We do not want zoos to be the only place where people can see polar bears."

A report by government scientists is predicting that two-thirds of the world's 22,000 polar bears -- and all of those in Alaska -- will disappear by 2050, mostly due to arctic ice cap melting caused by global warming.

As Brookfield's bears frolicked behind them, Strahl and National Resources Defense Council official Andrew Wetzler urged the Bush administration to classify polar bears as a "threatened" species. That designation would require the government to develop a survival plan, including ways to address overall global warming and greenhouse gasses, said Wetzler.

Under legal pressure by the council and other environmental groups, the Interior Department has agreed to consider the designation and is expected to rule in January.

Brookfield's bears were born in captivity but wild polar bears this summer saw a record reduction in their sea ice habitat. Over the last 30 years, sea ice on the Arctic Ocean has shrunk by more than 1 million square miles, or about 17 times the size of Illinois, according to the NRDC.

"If we don't take action now, our generation, and our children's generation, will be the last generations to see polar bears in the wild,'' said Wetzler.

Some say that putting the bears under the Endangered Species Act would be premature. "The listing of a currently healthy species based entirely on highly speculative and uncertain climate and ice [forecasts] . . . would be unprecedented," Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin wrote in a letter to the Interior Department.

Alaska officials also say oil and gas operations, current conservation plans and bear hunting for food by native Alaskans also could be threatened under the proposed polar bear designation.

UN Panel's Global Warming Report May Win U.S. Support

American officials are planning to back a new United Nations document that says governments and businesses will have to spend billions of dollars a year to reduce global warming and adapt to its effects.

The report will be discussed this week at a meeting of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, the group of scientists producing the most detailed study yet of global warming. The group's recommendation will guide talks in Bali, Indonesia next month of the UN body charged with writing a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, an international accord that set carbon gas emission limits for some countries.

By agreeing with the draft document, a copy of which was obtained by Bloomberg, the U.S. is indicating a need for faster action to slow climate change. As the largest emitter of gases blamed for global warming, the U.S. is seen by other nations as critical to the creation of a new worldwide response when the Kyoto agreement expires in 2012.

The Left and Right Debate on Global Warming

For many years, the battle over what to think and do about human-caused climate change and fossil fuels has been waged mostly as a yelling match between the political and environmental left and the right.

The left says global warming is a real-time crisis requiring swift curbs on smokestack and tailpipe gases that trap heat, and that big oil, big coal and antiregulatory conservatives are trashing the planet.

The right says global warming is somewhere between a hoax and a minor irritant, and argues that liberals’ thirst for top-down regulations will drive American wealth to developing countries and turn off the fossil-fueled engine powering the economy.

Some books mirror the divide, like the recent “Field Notes from a Catastrophe,” built on a trio of articles in The New Yorker by Elizabeth Kolbert, and “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming” by Chris Horner, a lawyer for the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Ms. Kolbert sounds a strong warning call, and Mr. Horner’s book fits with the position of the institute, a libertarian and largely industry-backed group that strongly opposes limits on greenhouse gases.

But in three other recent books, there seems to be a bit of a warming trend between the two camps. Instead of bashing old foes, the authors, all influential voices in the climate debate with roots on the left or the right, tend to chide their own political brethren and urge a move to the pragmatic center on climate and energy.

All have received mixed reviews and generated heated Internet debate — perhaps because they do not bolster any one agenda in a world where energy and environmental policies are still forged mainly in the same way Doctor Dolittle’s two-headed pushmi-pullyu walked. (It didn’t move much.)

One such book comes from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, one of the most polarizing forces in politics a decade ago.

In “A Contract With the Earth,” Mr. Gingrich, with his co-author Terry L. Maple (a professor of psychology at Georgia Tech and president of the Palm Beach Zoo), has written a manifesto challenging conservatives not just to grudgingly accept, but to embrace, the idea that a healthy environment is necessary for a healthy democracy and economy.

Scientists trying to pinpoint Global Warming forecasts

Moving on from the risk of global warming, scientists are now looking for ways to pinpoint the areas set to be affected by climate change, to help countries plan everything from new crops to hydropower dams.

Billion-dollar investments, ranging from irrigation and flood defences to the site of wind farms or ski resorts, could hinge on assessments about how much drier, wetter, windier or warmer a particular area will become.

But scientists warn precision may never be possible. Climate is so chaotic and the variables so difficult to compute that even the best model will be far from perfect in estimating what the future holds.

Thousands of Australians rally on Climate Change

Tens of thousands of people rallied in protests around Australia on Sunday, calling on political parties to take stronger action over global warming.

The Walk Against Warming rallies, held in capital cities and about 50 country towns, aimed to draw attention to the issue of climate change in the final weeks of campaigning for the Nov. 24 general election.

Nature Conservation Council executive director Cate Faehrmann said early estimates were that up to 150,000 people had marched in protests around Australia.

She told reporters that protesters wanted the parties to show a stronger commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and said a near-term target of cutting emissions by 30 percent by 2020 was needed. The Labor opposition has set a 2050 emissions target.