One out of three counties across the contiguous U.S., says a recent study commissioned by the Natural Resources Defense Council, should brace for water shortages by mid-century as a result of human induced climate change. (Media credit/Comstock)

Climate change promises to have a very big impact on water supplies in the United States as well as around the world. A recent study commissioned by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a leading environmental group, and carried out by the consulting firm Tetra Tech found that one out of three counties across the contiguous U.S. should brace for water shortages by mid-century as a result of human induced climate change. The group found that 400 of these 1,100 or so counties will face “extremely high risks of water shortages.”

According to Tetra Tech’s analysis, parts of Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas will be hardest hit by warming-related water shortages. The agriculturally focused Great Plains and arid Southwest are at highest risk of increasing water demand outstripping fast dwindling supplies.

While the mechanisms behind this predicted dwindling of water supplies is complex, key factors include: rising sea levels and encroaching ocean water absorbing lower elevation freshwater sources; rising surface temperatures causing faster evaporation of existing reservoirs; and increasing wildfires stripping terrestrial landscapes of their ability to retain water in soils.

Researchers have already begun to notice dwindling water supplies across the American West in recent years, given less accumulation of snow in the region’s mountains as temperatures rise. According to a 2008 study out of the Scripps Institute for Oceanography and published in the journal Science, Western snowpack has been melting earlier than it did in the past thanks to global warming, leading to markedly longer dry periods through the late spring and summer months in states already suffering from extended droughts. Given that the length and strength of these changes over the last 50 years cannot be explained by natural variations, researchers believe human induced climate change is the culprit.

The upshot of these changes is that Americans of every stripe need to curtail their water usage—from farmers irrigating their crops to homeowners watering their lawns to you and I taking shorter showers and turning off the tap while brushing our teeth. Even more important, water and resource policy managers need to conceive of new paradigms for the management of freshwater reserves to make the most of what we do have. And all of us need to work together to cut down on the emissions of greenhouse gases that have led to global warming in the first place.

Analysts also worry that warming-related water shortages could erupt into conflict, especially in parts of the world where one country or group controls water resources needed by others across national borders, such as the Middle East where already five percent of the world’s population relies on just one percent of the world’s fresh water. Parts of Africa, India and Asia are also at risk for water-related conflicts. American policymakers hope that the situation won’t get that dire in the U.S., but only time will tell.

CONTACTS: NRDC, www.nrdc.org; Tetra Tech, www.tetratech.com; Scripps Institute for Oceanography, www.sio.ucds.edu.

Politics still stand in the way of efforts to limit U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Two efforts, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) of 2009 and the American Power Act of 2010, got tabled or failed to make it to the Senate floor for a vote. ACES was, however, passed by a narrow margin in the House of Representatives, the first time the legislative branch has called for sweeping climate legislation. (Media credit/Rachel Johnson via Flickr)

Our best hope to date for limits on greenhouse gas emissions in this country was 2009’s American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), a bill that called for the implementation of a “cap-and-trade” system to limit carbon dioxide emissions by capping overall emissions and allowing polluters to buy or sell greenhouse gas pollution credits—similar to what the European Union has been doing since 2005 to successfully reduce its own emissions—depending upon whether they were exceeding established limits or had succeeded in coming in below them.

According to the bill, U.S. businesses needing to pollute more could buy emissions credits on the open market; those able to reduce emissions could sell their pollution credits on the same trading floor. Thus there is a built-in incentive to reduce emissions: If you exceed pollution limits you have to keep buying costly credits; and if you can get below limits you can profit from the sale of credits for the difference.

Among the bill’s key provisions was a 17 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions below 2005 levels by 2020, with a mid-century goal of an 80 percent reduction. Also, billions of dollars would have gone to initiatives bolstering green transportation, energy efficiency and related research and development. The bill was approved by the House in June 2009 by a narrow 219-212 vote. But Senate Democrats decided they didn’t have enough votes to get a version of the bill passed, and tabled the discussion.

While ACES may not have made it into the law books, its passage by the House was significant as it represented the first time the legislative branch called for sweeping climate legislation. Also, the bill’s provisions served as a guideline for U.S. negotiators heading to Denmark later in 2009 for the COP15 international climate talks (although in the end nothing binding was agreed upon there).

Then, in May 2010 Senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman unveiled their own cap-and-trade climate bill for the Senate. Dubbed the American Power Act, it aimed to reduce overall U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by similar amounts as ACES. But with the nation still reeling from the effects of BP’s Gulf oil spill—the American Power Act include provisions for offshore drilling—and Senate Republicans leery of any climate legislation, the bill failed to make it to a floor vote. Some point the finger at a handful of Democratic Senators from coal-producing states for not supporting their party colleagues. Others say Obama wasn’t advocating strongly enough despite his campaign rhetoric on the topic.

“The best one could plausibly hope for in the next Congress, assuming only modest Republican gains, is some sort of weak cap on utility emissions, possibly with some weak oil saving measures, though that would still require Obama to do what he refused to do under more favorable political circumstances—push hard for a bill,” writes commentator Joe Romm of Think Progress, a liberal political blog. Romm adds that it’s inconceivable to think the next Congress would even contemplate strong climate or clean energy legislation “without Obama undergoing a major strategy change and taking a very strong leadership role in crafting the bill and lobbying for the bill and selling it to the public.”

CONTACTS: ACES, www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h2454/show; Think Progress, www.thinkprogress.org.

Climate change is causing substantial amounts of offshore sea ice to retreat at a record pace; it is a situation that does not bode well for the future of polar bears. (Getty Images)

It’s sad but true that life is getting harder for polar bears due to global warming. Polar bears live within the Arctic Circle and feed primarily on ringed seals. The bears’ feeding strategy involves swimming from the mainland to and between offshore ice floes, poaching seals as they come up to breathe at holes in the ice.

But climate change is heating up the atmosphere and substantial amounts of offshore sea ice are melting. The result is that bears must swim further and further out to sea in search of ice floes; some expend all of their energy in doing so and end up drowning. Scientists first noticed this deadly phenomenon in 2004 when they noticed four drowned polar bears in the Beaufort Sea off Alaska’s North Slope.

More recently, researchers from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) fitted several Alaskan polar bears with tracking collars to find out the extent of their travels and document how much trouble they are having hunting in a warmer Arctic. One of the bears, a mother with a yearling cub on her back, made what researchers are calling an “epic journey in search of food” during September-October 2008. “This bear swam continuously for 232 hours and 687 km and through waters that were 2-6 degrees C,” reports USGS research zoologist George M. Durner. “We are in awe that an animal that spends most of its time on the surface of sea ice could swim constantly for so long in water so cold.” During the rest of the two-month tracking period, the bear intermittently swam and walked on ice floes for another 1,200 miles.

But while the mama bear survived the ordeal, she lost 22 percent of her body fat during a crucial time of year for fattening up before a long winter’s hibernation. And her cub was not so fortunate. “It was simply more energetically costly for the yearling than the adult to make this long distance swim,” said Durner, whose findings were published in the January 2011 edition of Polar Biology. The case of this one polar bear and the failure of her offspring to survive in the new environmental conditions of the Arctic doesn’t bode well for the future of the species, especially as Arctic sea ice continues to retreat at a record pace.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which maintains the international “Red List” of threatened species, considers the polar bear “vulnerable” due to climate change-induced retreating sea ice. For its part, the U.S. government listed polar bears as “threatened” in 2008 under the Endangered Species Act. The IUCN website also points out that, while the polar bear has come to symbolize the impact of global warming on wildlife, many other species are similarly affected, including the ringed seal and well-known species like the beluga whale, arctic fox, koala and emperor penguin.

Some argue that, since it is illegal to engage in activities that could harm or kill threatened or endangered species, Americans should be forced to cut their greenhouse gas emissions to preserve polar bear habitat. While such a notion hasn’t forced many of us to voluntarily drive fewer miles or turn down our heat, it might be just what it will take the world’s largest land carnivore from going the way of the dodo.

CONTACT: IUCN, www.iucn.org/about/work/programmes/species/our_work/climate_change_and_species.

According to The Wilderness Society, American forests capture about one-tenth of the greenhouse gases put out by U.S. cars, factories and other sources. Pictured: Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. (Thinkstock)

Congress passed legislation not too long ago that protected a few million acres of wilderness areas, parks and wild rivers, in part to help offset climate change. But how does conserving land prevent global warming?

The legislation in question is called the Omnibus Public Land Management Act. It was passed by both houses of Congress and signed into law by President Obama in the spring of 2009. The Act protects some two million acres outright as wilderness in nine different states (California, Colorado, Idaho, Michigan, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Virginia and West Virginia) and requires the Bureau of Land Management to prioritize conservation on another 26 million acres of mostly Western lands. The bill also established three new national park units, a new national monument, three new national conservation areas, over 1,000 miles of national wild and scenic rivers, and four new national trails.

With provisions appealing to sportsmen and conservationists alike, the bill enjoyed broad support; drafters took into account requests from dozens of constituent groups in putting together the legislation. As such, it is one of the most significant expansions of U.S. wilderness protection in the past quarter century. “This legislation guarantees that we will not take our forests, rivers, oceans, national parks, monuments and wilderness areas for granted, but rather we will set them aside and guard their sanctity for everyone to share,” President Obama said upon signing the bill into law.

While the law doesn’t specifically address global warming in its language, environmentalists are overjoyed at the climate benefits that protecting so much land will bring. “Our forests store vast amounts of carbon in tree trunks, roots, leaves, dead wood and soils—a service that is becoming ever more essential as the threat of global climate change mounts due to the buildup of human-generated carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,” reports the nonprofit Wilderness Society.

Plants and trees utilize ground-level carbon dioxide as building blocks in photosynthesis. The more flora we leave growing naturally on the ground, the more greenhouse gas we can store (or “sequester”) there and prevent from drifting on up to the atmosphere where it can contribute to global warming.

“Although investments in energy efficiency and clean energy will provide the only permanent solutions to climate change, forest sequestration can buy us time to develop those alternatives,” says the Wilderness Society, adding that American forests currently capture the equivalent of about one-tenth of the greenhouse gases put out by U.S. cars, factories and other sources. In addition, forests provide other key environmental benefits such as cleansing our air and water.

In the absence of binding legislation mandating stricter carbon emissions standards, the Omnibus Public Land Management Act, given the climate-related benefits of land conservation, may well be the most significant global warming bill Congress has passed to date. And environmentalists might have to take what they can get: With Republicans now in control of the House and gaining ground in the Senate, dedicated climate legislation may be even more elusive than analysts thought even a year ago.

It can hardly be called a new development or a scientific breakthrough; in fact, it’s been around for millennia. Nearly 2000 years ago, farmers in the Amazon basin used it to create terra preta, once regaled by explorers as the most fertile and beautiful of foamy, luscious soil.

Yes, it’s what we now call biochar and it’s been gaining popularity in the scientific community for years. Recently, it was brought back into international spotlight as Britain’s government commissioned a study on biochar’s potential, and the US released a study saying that widespread use of the additive could result in a 12 per cent drop in global greenhouse emissions.

The product is quite simple. It’s a charcoal-like soil additive that consists of cooked biowastes, like wood chips and animal manure. When it’s added to soil, the carbon dioxide released from plants is locked up for thousands of years, instead of being released into our environment. The soil is pitch black as a result of the high concentration of carbon, and is much more fertile.

According to an article in a 2006 issue of Nature, "terra preta contrasts strongly with normal soil and in colour and produces much more vigorous crops."

If further studies come back with positive results, the only thing left to determine would be whether creating terra preta would release more emissions than would be saved by its use. Many scientists argue that exact point, outlined in a letter sent last year by environmental groups to various policy makers. Of course, that would make biochar more of a problem than a solution.

However, according to the same 2006 Nature article, "a hectare of metre-deep terra preta can contain 250 tonnes of carbon, as opposed to 100 tonnes in unimproved soils…The extra carbon is not just in the char — it’s also in the organic carbon and enhanced bacterial biomass that the char sustains." The scientist who conducted these trials, Bruno Glaser, as well as his colleagues in the industry, feel that carbon-friendly ways of production can and should be discovered, so the world can reap biochar’s potential.

Many scientists remain skeptical, but if the products ends up being all it’s expected to be, it will decrease the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere and help produce crops in soils that were previously polluted and lacking proper nutrients.

If biochar’s use can somehow be implemented in farms in our world’s more under-developed areas, it could prove to be a literal live saver. In the same Nature article, the author cites the remarkable results of a biochar vs. regular soil trial.

"Bruno Glaser…estimates that productivity of crops in terra preta is twice that of crops grown in nearby soils."

Further studies will determine whether biochar can be produced in low-emission methods. If it can, the result would be a simple, natural product that can potentially reduce emissions and increase food production in the forgotten and ignored corners of our world.

Two of today’s biggest social, moral and political issues — global warming and hunger — could be partially reversed because of innovations by Amazon tribes thousands of years ago.

For more information, go to http://biocharfund.org/

This article was also published at http://hunger-undernutrition.org.

Dear EarthTalk: The U.S. got socked with several major storms this past winter. Local weather reports never mentioned this as odd. But is it a sign of global warming? – R.A. Forbes, via e-mail 

Weather patterns and trends are notoriously unpredictable, varying due to a great many different inputs. While it’s true that snowier, stormier winters could be the result of global warming, many meteorologists believe that El Nino—a climate pattern involving warmer-than-usual sea temperatures across the tropical Pacific that affects weather all over the globe—is mainly to blame for this past winter’s ongoing white misery. 

According to Joe Bastardi, a meteorologist with the Pennsylvania-based AccuWeather forecasting service, the current El Nino—they occur once every three to seven years—has been "very strong, prompting many major blizzards for the mid-Atlantic region." By altering the intensity of the atmospheric jet stream, El Nino can force cold air from Northern Canada to push down into the United States, converting the moisture in clouds into falling snow as temperatures drop. 

Bastardi believes that El Nino is exacerbating an already ongoing trend of cooling in the Pacific that is part of natural cyclical patterns of heating and cooling unrelated to global warming. "When you get an El Ni±o with a cold Pacific, you get crazy winters in the East," he told National Geographic News. 

Of course, global warming could also be playing a role, according to Amanda Staudt, a climate scientist with the National Wildlife Federation. "It’s hard to determine global warming’s effect on any particular storm, but it’s highly unusual to have these really large winter storms in one winter," she says. "Oddball winter weather is yet another sign of how uncontrolled carbon pollution amounts to an unchecked experiment on people and nature." Staudt reports that warmer temperatures cause more water to evaporate off the oceans and settle in clouds in the sky, where it eventually falls back to the Earth’s surface as rain or, if temperatures are low enough, snow. 

The same types of atmospheric conditions have conspired at times to dump multiple feet of snow in the Great Lakes of the Midwest at unseasonable times. A 2003 study in the Journal of Climate found that as global temperatures have risen; the winter ice cover over the Great Lakes has decreased, leading in turn to more moisture in the atmosphere and snowier winters throughout the region. This is sometimes referred to as the "lake effect." 

Whether or not this past winter’s storms were exacerbated by global warming, scientists maintain that we must keep in mind the difference between climate and weather. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), climate is the average of weather over at least three decades, which means that specific storms or even individual snowy winters, let alone other types of extreme weather, cannot be considered evidence of either the existence or nonexistence of global warming. 

CONTACTS: Accuweather, www.accuweather.com; National Wildlife Federation, www.nwf.org; Journal of Climate, journals.ametsoc.org/loi/clim; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), www.noaa.gov. 

SEND YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTIONS TO: EarthTalk®, c/o E — The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; earthtalk@emagazine.com. E is a nonprofit publication. Subscribe: www.emagazine.com/subscribe; Request a Free Trial Issue: www.emagazine.com/trial.

Dear EarthTalk: I’ve been hearing about the popularity of milk sold in bags (as opposed to plastic or cardboard cartons) in India, Europe and Canada. What are the environmental advantages to milk in bags, and do you think it will catch on in the U.S.? And what other options are out there for milk drinkers trying to be green?       – Paul Howe, San Francisco, CA 

It’s true that plastic milk bags—not the cartons or jugs we are used to here in the U.S.—are de rigueur in many parts of Europe, Latin America and India and are catching on fast in Canada, South Africa, China and elsewhere. They typically hold a liter of milk and are sold in three-packs. Most people snip off a corner of the milk bag and keep it upright in a pitcher in the fridge. When the last drop has been used up, the bags, which are made out of easily recycled high-density polyethylene, can be rinsed out and tossed in with other recycling. Best of all, they use 75 percent less plastic than similar capacity plastic milk jugs. 

The fact that milk bags are easy to recycle and use much less plastic (and as such are inexpensive) may be a big part of the reason for their popularity all over the world. They are more popular than ever in Great Britain today amid concerns that plastic milk jugs there are not being recycled at adequate levels. At least two of the UK’s largest grocery chains have switched over to milk bags in the last two years.  

Of course, detractors point out that milk bags are not as sturdy as plastic jugs—they can puncture or burst if too much pressure is applied. Also, they do not stand upright like harder containers and cannot be sealed once snipped open—and are thus more prone to spilling. Perhaps for these reasons, milk bags are losing market share in many regions of the former Soviet bloc, where they were for years the most common packaging for milk. Some analysts cite the so-called "lower shelf appeal" of milk bags as the reason, which might have something to do with why U.S. supermarkets haven’t yet been eager to embrace them. 

Of course, paper/cardboard (half-gallon) milk containers are also relatively friendly to the environment, especially if the empty boxes are worked into compost either at the residential or municipal level, or rinsed well and recycled. They tend to be more expensive than plastic jugs, though, as they cost more to make. Several companies are working on ways to employ recycled paper and cardboard into larger milk jugs while keeping costs comparable to inexpensive plastic jugs. And while most of us no longer employ milk delivery services to our homes, the glass bottles that they use (yes they still exist!)—and take back for reuse—may be the ultimate in eco-friendly milk storage, although driving the milk around and washing all the glass bottles are not the most eco-friendly activities.  

Perhaps the modern-day version of the milkman is the herd share, whereby regular folks contribute annually or monthly to a local dairy farm in exchange for a gallon of milk fresh from the cow every week. Many of the herd shares offered these days feature organic milk from grass-fed cows, giving eco-conscious consumers a way to help keep small farmers alive while enjoying milk they know is safe and healthy. To find a herd share to join in your area, check out the Local Chapters website page of the Weston A. Price Foundation, a charity that works to disseminate the research of whole foods nutrition pioneer Dr. Weston Price. 

CONTACTS: Weston A. Price Foundation, www.westonaprice.org; Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, www.ftcldf.org. 

SEND YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTIONS TO: EarthTalk®, c/o E — The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; earthtalk@emagazine.com. E is a nonprofit publication. Subscribe: www.emagazine.com/subscribe; Request a Free Trial Issue: www.emagazine.com/trial.

I’m as realistic as any other fair-minded person, especially on the topic of climate change, and unlike some I did not believe Copenhagen would be the backdrop upon which a herculean climate change document would be drafted. Change comes in small steps and since Kyoto failed with a bang, I knew Copenhagen would act as just the first stage in our ultimate goal to reduce emissions worldwide.

I live in Canada so I’m so very disappointed in what our Prime Minister is doing there. In short, he’s done everything by something. And that’s a travesty because we really suck when it comes to climate change. He opted to not deliver an address at the plenary session and has repeatedly suggested that developing countries hammer out a pact to reduce emissions before Canada.

That’s unfair. The developed world went through its industrial revolution with little regard for the environment, as it was not seen as a factor in those days. Now, as countries like India and China revolutionize, developed countries like Canada are demanding that they take action first? While of course those two powerhouses must act to reduce their emissions in some way, they cannot be expected to take the lead or draft a binding agreement now, just as the world is taking notice of their strides and unloading a great deal of respect on their leaders (see: White House Inaugural State Dinner). In the end, climate change is a political game.

Leaders must lead and as leaders of the world the developed nations must draft a BINDING agreement first. Copenhagen produced a non-binding agreement to limit global warming to 3.6 degrees Farenheit. While neither the United States, South Africa, India, Brazil or China, all signatories of the pact, stated how this goal would be acheived, it is a goal set and one that the UN has taken “note” of but not approved. It even includes developing nations.

Of course this non-binding pact is hardly better than a verbal agreement, and is far from “unprecedented” as President Obama stated. However, while it isn’t groundbreaking, it is a start, and Obama was correct in stating that it’s a big deal that major economies (the U.S., India and China) have agreed that climate change needs to be addressed.

Other developing countries have lambasted the deal, which does include a clause to commit $100 billion by 2020 to developing nations affected by global warming. The major downfall of the agreement is its lack of specific pollution reductions, which is one of the main ways to keep temperature rise to a minimum. A 3.6 degree cap on temperature rise won’t be honored if pollution reductions aren’t drafted and agreed upon in a BINDING agreement.

However in that agreement, the United States or some other developed country, will have to take the lead, unlike Harper suggests. And that is step two.

Dear EarthTalk: Is it true that the loss of the world’s peatlands is a major factor in the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. If so, what can be done about it? – Larissa S., Las Vegas, NV

Peatlands are wetland ecosystems that accumulate plant material to form layers of peat soil up to 60 feet thick. They can store, on average, 10 times more carbon dioxide (CO2), the leading greenhouse gas, than other ecosystems. As such, the world’s peat bogs represent an important “carbon sink”-a place where CO2 is stored below ground and can’t escape into the atmosphere and exacerbate global warming. When drained or burned, however, peat decomposes and the stored carbon gets released into the atmosphere.

A 2007 United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) study of the role peatlands play in human-induced climate change found that the world’s estimated 988 million acres of peatland (which represent about three percent of the world’s land and freshwater surface) are capable of storing some two trillion tons of CO2-equivalent to about 100 years worth of fossil fuel emissions.

As such, the widespread conversion of peat bogs into commercial uses around the world is serious cause for alarm. In Finland, Scotland and Ireland, peat is harvested on an industrial scale for use in power stations and for heating, cooking and use in domestic fireplaces.

But the problem is most urgent in countries like Indonesia and Malaysia, where economic hardships force people to drain peatlands to create farms and plantations. Marcel Silvius of the Dutch non-profit Wetlands International says that “annual peatland emissions from Southeast Asia far exceed fossil fuel contributions from major polluting countries.” He adds that Indonesia, now ranked 21st in the world in greenhouse gas emissions, would move to third place (behind the U.S. and China) if peatland losses were factored in.

Wetlands International estimates that CO2 emissions from drained or burnt Indonesian peatlands alone total some two billion tons annually, equal to about 10 percent of the emissions resulting from burning coal, oil and natural gas. Similar amounts of CO2 are likely coming out of Malaysian peatlands as well.

The problem has worsened in recent years as surging global demand for timber, pulp and biofuel speeds up the conversion of otherwise-ignored peatlands to intensively managed tree farms and palm oil plantations. Silvius says that a ton of palm oil-Indonesia’s top export and the key ingredient in biodiesel fuel-grown on drained peatlands emits 20 times more CO2 than a ton of gasoline. Yet, he says, protection of peatlands may actually be one of the least costly ways to mitigate global warming, as it would cost less than seven cents ($US) per ton of avoided CO2.

“Just like a global phase out of old, energy guzzling light bulbs or a switch to hybrid cars,” says UNEP head Achim Steiner, “protecting and restoring peatlands is perhaps another key ‘low hanging fruit’ and among the most cost-effective options for climate change mitigation.” For its part, UNEP is stressing that countries should be allowed to count protecting peatlands as among their creditable efforts to reduce their carbon footprints as the world braces for global warming.

CONTACTS: UNEP, www.unep.org; Wetlands International, www.wetlands.org.

Dear EarthTalk: Has anyone been tracking whether climate change is causing more loss of human life as it gets more pronounced? — Gordon Gould, Compton, CA

Researchers believe that global warming is already responsible for some 150,000 deaths each year around the world, and fear that the number may well double by 2030 even if we start getting serious about emissions reductions today.

A team of health and climate scientists from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the University of Wisconsin at Madison published these findings last year in the prestigious, peer-reviewed science journal Nature. Besides killing people, global warming also contributes to some five million human illnesses every year, the researchers found. Some of the ways global warming negatively affects human health-especially in developing nations-include: speeding the spread of infectious diseases such as malaria and dengue fever; creating conditions that lead to potentially fatal malnutrition and diarrhea; and increasing the frequency and severity of heat waves, floods and other weather-related disasters.

Backing up WHO’s findings is a study by Stanford civil and environmental engineer, Mark Jacobson, showing a direct link between rising levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere and increased human mortality. He found that the added air pollution caused by each degree Celsius increase in temperature caused by CO2 leads to about 1,000 additional deaths in the U.S. and many more cases of respiratory illness and asthma. Jacobson estimates as many as 20,000 air-pollution related deaths may occur worldwide each year with each one degree Celsius increase.

“This is a cause and effect relationship, not just a correlation,” relates Jacobson. “The study was the first to specifically isolate CO2′s effect from that of other global-warming agents and to find quantitatively that chemical and meteorological changes due to CO2 itself increase mortality due to increased ozone, particles and carcinogens in the air.”

For their part, though, global warming skeptics such as atmospheric physicist Fred Singer maintain that cold weather snaps are responsible for more human deaths than warm temperatures and heat waves. “The elderly die in inadequately heated homes. People get skull fractures from falls on the ice. Men die of heart attacks while shoveling snow. People get colds, flu, pneumonia and other respiratory diseases. Infectious diseases proliferate. Hospital admissions rise.” Singer, founder of the Science and Environmental Policy Project, concludes that since global warming would raise maximum summer temperatures modestly while raising winter minimum temperatures significantly, it “should help reduce human death rates.”

A team of Harvard researchers found otherwise. Their July 2007 study, published in the peer-reviewed Occupational and Environment Medicine, found that global warming is likely to cause more deaths in summer because of higher temperatures, but not fewer deaths in milder winters. In analyzing weather data related to the deaths of 6.5 million people in 50 American cities between 1989 and 2000, the researchers found that during two-day cold snaps there was a 1.59 percent increase in deaths because of the extreme temperatures. But in similar periods of extremely hot weather, mortality rates increased 5.74 percent.

CONTACTS: WHO, www.who.int ; Science and Environmental Policy Project, www.sepp.org.

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Dear EarthTalk: I keep meeting people who say that human-induced global warming is only theory, that just as many scientists doubt it as believe it. Can you settle the score? — J. Proctor, London, UK

So-called “global warming skeptics” are indeed getting more vocal than ever, and banding together to show their solidarity against the scientific consensus that has concluded that global warming is caused by emissions from human activities.

Upwards of 800 skeptics (most of whom are not scientists) took part in the second annual International Conference on Climate Change-sponsored by the Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank-in March 2009. Keynote speaker and Massachusetts Institute of Technology meteorologist Richard Lindzen told the gathering that “there is no substantive basis for predictions of sizeable global warming due to observed increases in minor greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and chlorofluorocarbons.”

Most skeptics attribute global warming-few if any doubt any longer that the warming itself is occurring, given the worldwide rise in surface temperature-to natural cycles, not emissions from power plants, automobiles and other human activity. “The observational evidence…suggests that any warming from the growth of greenhouse gases is likely to be minor, difficult to detect above the natural fluctuations of the climate, and therefore inconsequential,” says atmospheric physicist Fred Singer, an outspoken global warming skeptic and founder of the advocacy-oriented Science and Environmental Policy Project.

But green leaders maintain that even if some warming is consistent with millennial cycles, something is triggering the current change. According to the nonprofit Environmental Defense, some possible (natural) explanations include increased output from the sun, increased absorption of the sun’s heat due to a change in the Earth’s reflectivity, or a change in the internal climate system that transfers heat to the atmosphere.

But scientists have not been able to validate any such reasons for the current warming trend, despite exhaustive efforts. And a raft of recent peer reviewed studies-many which take advantage of new satellite data-back up the claim that it is emissions from tailpipes, smokestacks (and now factory farmed food animals, which release methane) that are causing potentially irreparable damage to the environment.

To wit, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences declared in 2005 that “greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth’s atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise,” adding that “the scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action.” Other leading U.S. scientific bodies, including the American Meteorological Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Geophysical Union have issued concurring statements-placing the blame squarely on humans’ shoulders.

Also, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group of 600 leading climate scientists from 40 nations, says it is “very likely” (more than a 90 percent chance) that humans are causing a global temperature change that will reach between 3.2 and 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of this century.

CONTACTS: Heartland Institute, www.heartland.org; Science and Environmental Policy Project, www.sepp.org; U.S. National Academy of Sciences, www.nas.edu; IPCC, www.ipcc.ch.

Dear EarthTalk: Are elephant populations stable these days? – Reuben Perrin, Hartford, CT

Far from it. The double whammy of poaching (illegal hunting) and habitat loss has led to a dramatic decline in populations of both African and Asian elephants in recent decades. In 1930, there were between five and 10 million wild African elephants, plying the entire African continent in large bands. Just 60 years later, when they were added to the international list of critically endangered species, only about 600,000 were scattered across a few African countries. Today that number is likely less than 500,000.

While Asian elephants were never as numerous as their African counterparts, their population numbers have also dropped precipitously, from an estimated 200,000 a century ago to less than 40,000 today. Conservationists fear that unless demand dries up for ivory, and people stop moving into prime elephant habitat, the world’s largest land mammal could become just a memory within another hundred years.

Putting an end to habitat loss may be next to impossible as more and more people vie for fewer and fewer resources and move out further into the countryside, so conservationists working to save elephants tend to concentrate on reducing or eliminating poaching. While trophy hunting of elephants may have been big decades ago, today most elephant hunters are after the ivory in the tusks, which have been a hot commodity across Asia for years as raw material for highly prized and often ornate carvings. Despite elephants’ inclusion in Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in 1990-meaning the sale of tusks and other elephant parts is a violation of international law-poaching is bigger business than ever, with prices for ivory rising more than 16-fold in recent years.

Some countries, such as Tanzania and Kenya, are working hard to hold up their end of the CITES agreement, hiring patrols of young men-some of them former poachers themselves-to monitor local elephant populations and enforce national and international laws against killing these and other endangered species. Conservation groups like the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) are working hand-in-hand with local officials to improve elephant habitat and keep poachers at bay. These organizations hope that the people in these regions can learn how to bring in revenues from tourism instead of hunting.

But elsewhere governments are not as committed to the ivory ban, let alone to following laws imposed by outsiders. Government officials in Zimbabwe, South Africa and Botswana, for example, argue that trade in ivory should be regulated, not prohibited. They maintain that countries that are managing their elephants well should be allowed to sell ivory in order to pay for conservation measures.

In part to test such waters, the first legal sale of ivory in a decade took place in October 2008, despite protests from conservationists. Buyers, mostly from China and Japan, eagerly snatched up some 100 tons of stockpiled elephant tusks-no elephants were killed recently or illegally for the sale-with the proceeds going to groups working to save the elephant and its habitat. But with the legal ivory sale has come an uptick in elephant poaching, leaving conservationists with that “one step forward, two steps back” feeling.

CONTACTS: CITES, www.cites.org; AWF, www.awf.org; WCS, www.wcs.org.

SEND YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTIONS TO: EarthTalk, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; earthtalk@emagazine.com. Read past columns at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/archives.php. EarthTalk is now a book! Details and order information at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalkbook.

Dear EarthTalk: I’m a musician and am curious about what the guitar industry is doing to ensure that the wood it uses is not destroying forests. — Chris Wiedemann, Ronkonkoma, NY

Though it has not received a lot of press to date, the industry is on the case-in part for the sake of its own survival, and thanks to the hard work of a handful of green groups, guitar makers and wood suppliers.

In 1996, Gibson, one of the world’s premier guitar brands, became the first in the industry to make some of its instruments using wood certified as “sustainably harvested” by the non-profit Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). By 2006, some 42 percent of the wood purchased by the company for its Gibson USA electric guitars came from FSC-certified sources. By 2012, Gibson expects to increase that to 80 percent.

Gibson isn’t the only instrument maker greening up its footprint: Taylor, Fender, Martin, Guild, Walden and Yamaha, along with Gibson, have signed on as partners with the Music Wood Coalition, a project of the leading environmental non-profit Greenpeace. The coalition, which is also made up of a half-dozen tonewood suppliers, hopes its efforts will protect threatened forest habitats and safeguard the future of trees critical in manufacturing instruments of all kinds. Eco-advocates and guitar makers alike fear that the spruce, maple, mahogany, ebony and rosewood trees that have been the foundation of the wooden instrument industry for years are being cut down faster than they can be replaced.

The coalition’s initial focus is on halting the aggressive deforestation going on in Southeast Alaska. Greenpeace has been in talks with Sealaska Timber Corporation, one of the biggest logging operations in Alaska, to get 190,000 acres of the company’s privately owned Southeast Alaska timberland-a prime source of Sitka spruce, a wood coveted by instrument makers for its use in guitar soundboards-certified by FSC. Greenpeace Forest Campaign Coordinator Scott Paul views getting these forestlands certified as an important win-win opportunity for Sealaska, which wants to maintain a viable income stream, and for instrument makers who need a dependable source of resonant, durable and beautiful woods.

“These [private] lands are going to be logged,” says Paul. But with FSC oversight, he says, the forests can be managed sustainably. And the process is already underway, with the first part of the two-step certification process already completed. “Our goal is to create a demand…for FSC certified ‘good wood’ as the only acceptable music wood from the North American coastal temperate rainforest,” adds Paul.

Guitar makers know that the woods they’ve used for years might not continue to be had at the quantities and low prices they’re used to, but they are willing to adapt: “Alternative woods are the key to successful guitars,” says Bob Taylor of Taylor Guitars, which has been a pioneer in the use of exotic and sustainably harvested tonewoods in their high quality acoustic guitars. “But the market needs to go there all together.”

Tradition is a huge driving force, agrees Paul. “Players expect a spruce soundboard, a mahogany neck, an ebony or rosewood bridge.” There needs to be a leap of faith in changing markets, he says, where people are becoming more environmentally conscious.

CONTACTS: Gibson USA, www.gibson.com; Forest Stewardship Council, www.fscus.org; Greenpeace Music Wood Coalition, www.musicwood.org; Taylor Guitars, www.taylorguitars.com.

SEND YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTIONS TO: EarthTalk, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; earthtalk@emagazine.com. Read past columns at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/archives.php. EarthTalk is now a book! Details and ordering information at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalkbook.

EarthTalk^TM
From the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine

Dear EarthTalk: What are some of the leading proposed technological fixes for staving off global warming, and how feasible are they? — James Harris, Columbus, Ohio

While most of the world fixates on how to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases we emit into the atmosphere, scientists and engineers around the world are busy working on various “geo-engineering” technologies-many of which are highly theoretical-to mitigate global warming and its effects. Many scientists oppose using new technology to fix problems created by old technology, but others view it as a quick and relatively inexpensive way to solve humankind’s most vexing environmental problem.

One of the theories proposed for reducing global warming involves deflecting heat away from the Earth’s surface with solar shields or satellites with movable reflectors. Computer models suggest that blocking eight percent of the sun’s Earth-bound radiation would effectively counteract the warming effect of our CO2 pollution. The idea was inspired by the cooling effects of large volcanic eruptions-such as Mt. Pinatubo in 1991-that blast sulfate particles into the stratosphere. These particles reflect part of the sun’s radiation back into space, reducing the amount of heat that reaches the atmosphere.

Another technological fix involves “sequestration,” the storage of CO2 either deep underground or deep in the ocean. Some of the nation’s largest utilities, which are also “washing” coal to filter out impurities, are working on ways to capture the CO2 they emit and store it miles below the Earth’s surface. Costs of such technologies have been prohibitive, but new regulations could force the issue in the near term.

Another leading theory, “ocean fertilization,” entails scattering iron powder throughout the world’s seas, providing nutrients to boost the amount of phytoplankton that thrive in the water’s upper layers. Through photosynthesis, these plants absorb CO2, which in theory stays with them when they die and fall to the ocean floor. Initial experiments have not lived up to the hype, however, but more research is underway.

Yet another take on altering the seas for the sake of the climate, “engineered weathering,” entails replacing some of the oceans’ carbonic acid with hydrochloric acid. This, the theory goes, accelerates the underwater storage of CO2 otherwise destined for the atmosphere. According to Harvard Earth and Planetary Science Ph.D. Kurt Zenz House, engineered weathering “dramatically accelerates a cleaning process that nature herself uses for greenhouse gas accumulation.”

While the cost of many of these so-called “geo-engineering” fixes would not necessarily be prohibitive in light of the cost of transforming our global energy economy, the risks of unintended consequences weigh heavily on even the researchers proposing them. “Personally, as a citizen not a scientist, I don’t like geo-engineering because of the high environmental risk,” Ken Caldeira, a researcher at California’s Carnegie Institution of Washington, told New Scientist. “It’s toying with poorly understood complex systems.” But he also wonders: “Is it better to let the Greenland ice sheet collapse and let the polar bears drown their way to extinction, or to spray some sulphur particles in the stratosphere?”

CONTACTS: New Scientist, www.newscientist.com; Science Daily,

SEND YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTIONS TO: EarthTalk, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; earthtalk@emagazine.com. Read past columns at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/archives.php. EarthTalk is now a book! Details and ordering information at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalkbook.

Dear EarthTalk: What’s happening with wild populations of cheetahs, the fastest land animals on Earth? — Eduardo Ramirez, Braintree, MA

Due to its plight in recent decades, the cheetah, which can reach speeds of 70 miles per hour, is considered one of the world’s most endangered species by the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

A hundred years ago some 100,000 wild cheetahs inhabited 44 or more countries throughout Africa and Asia. According to the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF), a Namibia-based non-profit organization, today the species exists in only two dozen of those countries-including areas of North Africa, the Sahel, East Africa and southern Africa-with worldwide population numbers now between 12,000 and 15,000 individuals living in small groups. In addition, about 150-200 of the fast cats live in the wild in Iran (where they are known as the Asiatic Cheetah), their forebears having been brought in from Africa in the early 20^th century.

The chief threats to the cheetah’s existence are loss of habitat, poaching and hunting (their hide and trophies can command top dollar), and getting shot by livestock farmers. Decline of gazelles, wildebeests, impalas and other preferred prey species (also due to hunting and habitat loss) is a factor, too.

According to CCF, throughout Africa cheetah numbers are dwindling even within protected wildlife reserves due to increased competition from other larger predators like lions and hyenas. As a result, most protected areas are unable to maintain viable cheetah populations, so individual cats tend to fan out beyond wildlife reserves, placing them in greater danger of conflict with humans. Those cheetahs that do survive in the wild come from a smaller, less diverse gene pool, leaving them susceptible to disease and predation in their own right. Furthermore, captive breeding has proven tricky, and wildlife biologists are not optimistic that such efforts can have a measurable positive impact on the cheetah’s future.

Cheetahs have lean bodies, long legs, a large heart and expansive lungs. And with these features come additional speed; perhaps this is why the cheetah is often referred to as the “greyhound” of the cats. In fact, some say a cheetah looks like a “dog with a cat’s head.” But with weaker jaws and smaller teeth than other large predators, cheetahs have difficulty protecting their kills, let alone their own cubs. This has meant that population numbers for wild cheetahs are falling faster than for other big cats.

The cheetah’s future may look dim, but conservationists have been working to lessen the decline in some areas. For instance, CCF began educating livestock farmers around Namibia in the early 1990s about how to prevent cheetahs from preying on their livestock without resorting to the rifle. As a result of these education efforts, along with stronger enforcement of endangered species and anti-poaching laws, cheetah populations in that country stabilized-now some 2,500-3,000 cheetahs make their home in Namibia-after having fallen to half that the previous decade. Clearly more such efforts are needed.

CONTACTS: Cheetah Conservation Fund, www.cheetah.org; Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), www.cites.org.

GOT AN ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTION? Send it to: EarthTalk, c/o E/The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; submit it at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/thisweek/, or e-mail: earthtalk@emagazine.com. Read past columns at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/archives.php.

EarthTalk^TM
From the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine

Dear EarthTalk: Don’t all these huge snow and ice storms across the country mean that the globe isn’t really warming? I’ve never seen such a winter! — Mark Franklin, Helena, MT

On the surface it certainly can appear that way. But just because some of us are suffering through a particularly cold and snowy winter doesn’t refute the fact that the globe is warming as we continue to pump carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 1997. And the National Atmospheric and Oceanographic Administration (NOAA) reports that recent decades have been the warmest since at least around 1000 AD, and that the warming we’ve seen since the late 19^th century is unprecedented over the last 1,000 years.

“You can’t tell much about the climate or where it’s headed by focusing on a particularly frigid day, or season, or year, even,” writes Eoin O’Carroll of the Christian Science Monitor. “It’s all in the long-term trends,” concurs Dr. Gavin Schmidt, a climatologist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

Most scientists agree that we need to differentiate between weather and climate. The NOAA defines climate as the average of weather over at least a 30-year period. So periodic aberrations-like the harsh winter storms ravaging the Southeast and other parts of the country this winter-do not call the science of human-induced global warming into question.

The flip side of the question, of course, is whether global warming is at least partly to blame for especially harsh winter weather. As we pointed out in a recent EarthTalk column, warmer temperatures in the winter of 2006 caused Lake Erie to not freeze for the first time in its history. This actually led to increased snowfalls because more evaporating water from the lake was available for precipitation.

But while more extreme weather events of all kinds-from snowstorms to hurricanes to droughts-are likely side effects of a climate in transition, most scientists maintain that any year-to-year variation in weather cannot be linked directly to either a warming or cooling climate.

Even most global warming skeptics agree that a specific cold snap or freak storm doesn’t have any bearing on whether or not the climate problem is real. One such skeptic, Jimmy Hogan of the Rational Environmentalist website writes, “If we are throwing out anecdotal evidence that refutes global warming we must at the same time throw out anecdotal evidence that supports it.” He cites environmental groups holding up Hurricane Katrina as proof of global warming as one example of the latter.

If nothing else, we should all keep in mind that every time we turn up the thermostat this winter to combat the cold, we are contributing to global warming by consuming more fossil fuel power. Until we can shift our economy over to greener energy sources, global warming will be a problem, regardless of how warm or cold it is outside.

CONTACTS: NASA, www.nasa.gov; NOAA, www.noaa.gov.

GOT AN ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTION? Send it to: EarthTalk, c/o E/The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; submit it at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/thisweek/, or e-mail: earthtalk@emagazine.com. Read past columns at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/archives.php.

So here’s the general opinion. Once the human race (that is you and I) stops polluting the earth and saves energy, the effects of global warming will stop and slowly begin to reverse, hopefully so soon that close, future generations will have the right (since it is a right not a privilege to enjoy the world) to bask in the glory of all earth has to offer, in normal climate and normal circumstances.

Well, according to several American scientists, this future, the one I’ve laid out and hope comes into fruition, probably won’t. Not for a long time. Even if we start saving the planet now.

Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration say that because of the way carbon dioxide lingers in the atmosphere, sea level rise and severe droughts may be a problem for up to 1,000 years.

This is how, according to IHT, the researchers described the problem. Right now, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide is about 385 ppm. It will almost inevitably reach 450 ppm soon, and it is highly likely that it will reach 600 ppm before mid century, that is, around 2050. That is if our consumption of fossil fuel is anything close to what it is today. Greed may allow that.

When the concentration reaches 450 ppm, researchers say that coastal areas will be threatened by rising sea levels and that the Southwestern U.S., Southern Europe, North Africa and Western Australia could experience up to 10 per cent less rainfall, which could result in major droughts.

At 600 ppm, those same areas could experience 15 per cent less rain.

In 1850, scientists say that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was around 280 ppm, a level that had not been exceeded in at least the previous 800,000 years.

Scientists also say that the report isn’t meant to suggest that it’s too late to do anything. Way to be optimistic?

Dear EarthTalk: A friend of mine in Connecticut raves about the “Green Drinks” events she attends there every month to meet up with other eco-interested locals. How can I find out if there are any such gatherings in my area? — Janet McIntosh, Dubuque, Iowa

Every month green-minded people in 460-plus cities around the world meet up at informal social gatherings called Green Drinks. Started in 1989 in London by Edwin Datschefski and friends, the concept has spread like wildfire, with some 350 different Green Drinks chapters worldwide today. The events are designed to be low-key, unstructured and welcoming of all viewpoints on environmental topics. Many participants have found jobs, made friends, developed new ideas, done deals and had moments of serendipity and inspiration at various Green Drinks events.

In the U.S. alone, different Green Drinks events are held in 223 cities every month. The New York City chapter is the biggest in the world, with an invite list topping 10,000 people and typical attendance in the hundreds. Green Drinks events are also popular in the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Poland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Japan, New Zealand, Chile, Puerto Rico and Australia. Melbourne, Australia currently holds the record for the world’s biggest Green Drinks event, with more than 1,700 participants showing up on the first night of the city’s February 2007 Sustainable Living Festival.

“People from different fields come together with a mutual interest in environmental issues and cross-pollinate and drink in a very low-key social atmosphere,” says Margaret Lydecker, who started New York City’s Green Drinks chapter in 2002 and currently serves as the U.S. point-person for the events. Lydecker-who has personally helped start upwards of 100 different chapters, including one in Kabul, Afghanistan-says the events have been a big catalyst for connectivity, community, collaboration and change in the environmental sector in New York and beyond.

In the U.S. and Canada, most mid-sized and large cities already have thriving Green Drinks chapters. You can likely find one somewhere near you, wherever you live, by searching under the “Find City” link on the GreenDrinks.org website, and clicking through until you get a schedule of upcoming events in your particular city. If there isn’t yet a Green Drinks chapter in your region, by all means start a new one.

Heather Burns-DeMelo, who had started a local/green happenings website for Connecticut called CTgreenscene.com, was inspired by Lydecker in 2007 to start a Green Drinks chapter where she lives in Connecticut’s Fairfield County so that green-minded people in the area could connect in person. “The web is great,” she says, “but face-to-face is key to growing the movement.”

According to Burns-DeMelo, setting up the chapter was easy-she just emailed Green Drinks founder Datschefski from the greendrinks.org website with a request to start a new chapter-but getting people to come to the initial events was more challenging. She and friends set up sign-up tables at local community events, found a restaurant willing to host, sent a press release to local papers, hung fliers and posted notices on her website and others. The hard work paid off: 65 people showed up at the first event on a gloomy Wednesday night, and the chapter has been growing by leaps and bounds ever since.

CONTACT: Green Drinks, www.greendrinks.org.

Countless teenagers all over the globe do their part to aid Earth’s ailing environment.‚  They take shorter showers, walk instead of drive and sometimes even sit in total darkness for a full hour.‚  But what compels them to do such things?

“Teens want to be current,” said Navita Dyal, a second-year student at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.‚  She believes saving the environment has become more of a trend for younger people than a true passion.

“What’s more current than global warming?‚  Celebrities are all over the Internet and TV hawking their opinions and their message.‚  How can the youths, who look up to these people, not follow?” she said.

Dyal believes the Hollywood stars and starlets, who endorse environmental campaigns like Global Cool and Earth Hour, do so with the intent to spark a cultural change.

“There are actors like Rosario Dawson and Josh Hartnett who support Global Cool” she explains.‚  “Celebrities of that magnitude can endorse anything and legions of teens follow.‚  That’s the point, they know they have so much influence.”

Earth Day Canada President Jed Goldberg believes that while teens don’t want to be left out of the current cultural shift, some participate because they truly worry about the current state of the world.

“Generation Y, and the latter part of generation X, have the opportunity now to save the planet from environmental destruction” he said.‚  “There is a genuine concern about the consequences of climate change.”

Josh Garfinkel, a senior campaigner at Earthroots, a grassroots campaign committed to protecting Ontario’s environment, says youths make up a large part of the “go green” movement, especially here in Toronto.‚  They participate and volunteer with his organization and many like it more now than ever before.

“In particular it’s the 15 to 30-year-old volunteers that are very are keen on reversing that typical trait of apathy among our government” he said.

That “apathy” is the current Canadian government’s disregard for environmental reform, especially their indifferent attitude toward the Kyoto Protocol, something with which Garfinkel says Earthroots volunteers are “very irritated.”

“They are kind of annoyed with how some people just don’t understand the effect that little things can have on the environment” Garfinkel said of his volunteers, who are also fed up with the uninterested attitudes of everyday citizens.

“People don’t really get what it means when a chunk of ice the size of Manhattan breaks off an ice shelf.‚  Nor do they understand its impact.”

Dyal is also irritated with ordinary Canadians.

“Some of the people who participate in Earth Hour drive around on a daily basis in big SUV’s.‚  If they truly cared about the environment they wouldn’t be driving Cadillac Escalades, tearing it apart” she said.‚ ‚  “It’s a bit of an oxymoron.‚  They think shutting the lights off for a day justifies their lifestyle.‚  It doesn’t.”

Much of the problem lies in education.‚  Goldberg believes that while global warming is a hot topic, society doesn’t really understand its potential impact because of ignorance on the parts of the school system and the media around the world.

“People don’t really get what it means when a chunk of ice the size of Manhattan breaks off an ice shelf.‚  Nor do they understand its impact” he said.‚  “People just think it’s unbelievable that one piece of ice that big can suddenly crack off.‚  And that’s the extent of their interest.”

Dyal agrees that people don’t know enough about the issue itself.

“People need to be more educated on what the actual problem is.‚  All we hear is global warming this and global warming that, but it’s not often that we hear specifics” she said.‚  “I think that would help but if people want to do things like drink fair trade coffee just because of Jennifer Aniston then so be it.”

Regardless of all the factors that influence youths and others to help out, Goldberg is just thankful people are actively involved in environmental campaigns.

“I don’t care what their motivation is.‚  The important thing is that there are actually people out there who are engaged and dedicated to helping” he said. “There are many apathetic youths, but when I see teens with a genuine care for the environment, it makes me happy.‚  Helping the environment, no matter what the cause, is all that matters.”

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick has issued a challenge to businesses: reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 10 percent over the next three years.‚  And a prominent group of Massachusetts businesses said they will accept his challenge.

The Governor’s Clean Energy Challenge, developed by the New England Clean Energy Council and the Massachusetts High Technology Council in cooperation with the state’s electric and natural gas utilities, will offer recognition to participants who meet or exceed the 10 percent target.

“I offer the Challenge to everyone to do their part to dramatically reduce their own greenhouse gas emissions through energy efficiency measures, innovative energy technology products, and the use of renewable sources,” said Governor Patrick, who announced the Challenge at the New England Clean Energy Council 1st Annual Green Tie Gala in Boston this week. “As in any competition, there will be recognition for extraordinary accomplishment and leadership.‚  But this is a contest in which everyone who participates will be a winner.”

Millipore and Pfizer accepted aims to inspire action by businesses, municipalities, and residents to reduce their energy consumption in an effort to combat climate change.

“Millipore is pleased to take the Governor up on his challenge of reducing greenhouse emissions because it is important to our company and the environment,” said Millipore President & CEO Martin Madaus. “We appreciate the Governor’s leadership in positioning Massachusetts and its employers ahead of the curve when it comes to the adoption of clean energy technologies and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. This is a critical program for the Commonwealth’s environmental and economic health, but also for the quality of life of its 6 million residents.”

Other companies that are considering participating in the Challenge and serving as mentors to other companies are members of Massachusetts High Tech Council’s Sustainable Energy Program, a component of the technology trade group’s 10-year-old energy aggregation program, which includes forward-thinking energy consumers like Boston Scientific and Varian Semiconductor. Participants will work with utilities NSTAR, National Grid, and Western Massachusetts Electric.

Clean energy advocates praised the program. ‚ 

“Massachusetts is in position to lead the way toward a clean energy future for the Commonwealth, the nation, and the world, and to capitalize on it in terms of innovation, entrepreneurship, and jobs,” said Nick d’Arbeloff, executive director of the New England Clean Energy Council. “The Governor’s Clean Energy Challenge is a way to focus attention and effort on both the environmental imperative and the economic opportunity.”

Nowadays everything is eco-something. There are hybrid cars, organic veggies, solar powered homes and many more to list. However, as consumers it is hard to get involved in a complete lifestyle of eco-friendly-isim. What if you rent, or cannot buy a hybrid car or don’t have a Whole Foods close to your neighborhood?

A simple solution may be to change the way you dress. With many designers creating eco-friendly lines it is a little bit easier to shop consciously and help the planet. One of such designers is Damali Ayo, who opened her online clothing store on May 5 ready to create a difference without draining your pockets.

"I love to make people feel sexy without being uncomfortable. I love making clothes and designs that people want to touch, in that way CROW tries to bring people together. I also love function. Clothes have to work well as well as look good, all of this goes into CROW," said Ayo, owner of CROW eco-friendly clothing.

CROW is one of the latest stores that opened on-line. In comparison with other sites though, Ayo’s products are made of 100 percent sustainable materials like soy, organic cotton, bamboo, hemp and lyocell. Her signature design, a crow, is featured in various shirts over the color “clay”; as said on the site it is a grey that “reminds us that whenever two opposite colors are mixed, the result is grey. We use this new grey clay to shape our world to be exactly what we want it to be.”

Although her business plan seems peachy, Ayo still has to run a business after all. Since other designers and labels compete with the new eco-friendly products CROW staffers aim to maintain a "we-can-do-it" attitude. Although they respect other fashion businesses views, the team wishes designers stayed away from conventional cotton use for example, which employs near-slave labor as Ayo said.

If more designers used sustainable fabrics there could be, as the owner explains, "a difference in environmental issues, in community issues, and create more options in fabrics that are accessible and affordable to all of us."

Currently Ayo buys sustainable fabrics that cost more than simple-cotton based ones, something that she says is frustrating. A general change in using sustainable materials would help the environment, those who work in producing it and customers that want long-lasting and fashionable products.

"The kind of company I run is the kind that truly believes ‘everything is possible’ as our shirts say. I knew that selling sustainable garments wasn’t enough- I wanted to combine all the new ideas in fashion with my ideas about business and create a dream model of ‘how to be.’ CROW strives to be that," Ayo said.

Because of this desire to do good and stand out, CROW engages in a distinctive way of recycling, reusing or composting fabric scraps, patterns and thread. Its "scrapology" line also reinvents leftovers into one-of-a-kind pieces and the company insists on using cold-water washable materials that are still soft and shapely after line drying. All production and assembly work is done by local sewers, both to offset CO2 emissions and to stimulate local economies; if you want to join the recycling circle CROW’s cradle-to-cradle system takes back all clothing that can be composted or sent back to the company to be reused through their donation system.

Another concept that makes this line different from others is that shoppers can actually name their own price for the items, much like bidding on airplane tickets. Some prices range from $75 to $15 and, as the owner claims, people pay the higher prices for the items.

"We offer a sliding scale pricing and excellent product- that resulted in people feeling welcomed and often paying the upper end of the range because what we offer is of such high quality. Customers are engaged in the process of capitalism, we invest in them and they invest in us," Ayo explained.

With a background in art, having degrees and jobs in the fine arts, Ayo has been prepared to launch CROW and face the highly critical fashion world. At the moment she is the main designer, but through her connections in the art field she is in the search of new talent. Looking to create unique graphics that can give her business even more distinction. Because she wants to give back and help other up-an-coming artists she has also decided to donate a percentage of her sales to Art Now grants which go to artists striving for social change.

As the clothing website says, this line is "perfect for fashionistas with a conscience, and green gods and goddesses, as well as those just wondering how they can look hot while still helping to slow global warming,.. Style and sustainability can coexist."

As thing develop Ayo wants to look for retail space, where not only clothing will be available. CROW was created to start a community where people actually care about you. "We want to see you healthy, eating well, learning cool stuff and expanding who you are as a person. It’s no longer an us- them model of commerce it’s a ‘we’ model." And when the first store is opened? "I’ll be teaching yoga to our staff," Ayo added happily.

Currently there are shirts, dresses, male dress shirts and eclectic accessories that are sure to embellish any outfit. Many ideas are still in the works and new designs being prepared for future seasons, possibly with more male items to offer as well. "So many designers are afraid of menswear, which is crazy to me. Men are delicious! I love to dress them," said the designer.

Janisse Ray, an outdoor recreation enthusiast in Danville, Vermont, got so frustrated when the West River hadn’t frozen by last January that she donned a wet suit and floated downstream in an inner tube, holding aloft a sign that said "Where’s winter?"

Where indeed? The January/February 2008 issue of E — The Environmental Magazine (now posted at www.emagazine.com) reports that climate change is already affecting many of our most beloved winter sports, from ice-skating to skiing to maple sugaring. It’s not surprising, considering that 2006 was the warmest year on record in the U.S., and 1998 was the second warmest. While winter is still highly unpredictable (a week before E’s issue made it to newsstands, the country was hit with epic snowfalls and low temperatures) the warming trend is clear.

E’s cover package also includes some colorful reminiscing about the historic snowfalls many of us remember from childhood, plus an SOS from some of the country’s leading winter athletes, who are having to venture far and wide to find seasonal snow. Pro snowboarder Gretchen Bleiler, who has won more halfpipe competitions than any other female snowboarder, is watching the shorter, milder winters in her hometown of Aspen, Colorado, the deteriorating snowbanks on worldwide slopes and the last-minute cancellations of major snowboarding events.

"We moved to Aspen when I was 10," says Bleiler. "I remember the first year we went to school there were avalanche danger days. The snow would rise so high in the valley. Then this past season they had to cancel the Grand Prix in New Jersey because it was too warm to even make snow."

By the end of the century, temperatures in the Northeastern states are likely to rise by eight to 12 degrees Fahrenheit (at which time snow-covered days will have been reduced to half of what we traditionally experience). A 2007 Northeast Climate Impacts Assessment report, prepared by the Union of Concerned Scientists, says that under some higher-emission scenarios, "Only western Maine is projected to retain a reliable ski season by the end of the century, and only northern New Hampshire would support a snowmobiling season longer than two months."

Consider these facts:

• Snowmobile sales slid 12 percent in the most recent accounting from the International Snowmobile Manufacturers Association. Total sales of 79,814 in 2006 contrasted sharply with the 170,325 sold in 1997.
• Cliff Brown of the University of New Hampshire notes that the state had 65 downhill ski areas in the 1970s, but only 20 remain. New Hampshire winters warmed 3.8 degrees Fahrenheit in the 20th century, and snowmaking alone hasn’t saved the day, especially for the low-lying family facilities. The surviving resorts, Brown says, are larger, tend to be corporate owned, and are located at higher elevations. To stay in business, the resorts have also diversified from skiing. On a recent fall day, the lower slopes at Bromley Mountain in southern Vermont looked more like an amusement park than a ski area.
• Northern New England’s climate was once ideal for maple sugaring, but as temperatures rise the industry is inexorably migrating north. Over the past four decades, the traditional mid-February to April maple sugaring season has slowly gotten shorter. According to a University of Vermont study, it now starts a week early and ends 10 days early, with a net loss of three production days. Long-time tappers worry that, by 2100, there may no longer be a maple sugar industry in New England.

The warming changes already visible are, to cite a particularly apt cliche, "the tip of the iceberg." In the next few decades, global warming will be shaped by many different factors, with relatively unpredictable results. But the scientific consensus is near unanimous that the loss of predictable and comforting winter patterns will be a major consequence. Nostalgia for snowy winters past and "the way it was" will be a major growth industry, even as skiing, skating, snowman building and maple syrup-making gradually recede into our collective memory.

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