Energy efficiency: The elusive negawatt
The Economist, May 8, 2008
Almost all blueprints for tackling global warming assume that energy efficiency will have a huge role to play. Some think tanks project it can give us nearly half of the cuts in emissions needed to keep the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere below 550 parts per million and many studies show that it can also be quite profitable. However, investors, businesses, and households aren't chomping at the bit, mostly due to market distortions and failures that discourage investment in efficiency. Several states and countries, and the new energy services sector are finding some creative ways to tackle this challenge.

Tornado's Gifts: Greensburg Rebuilds, Revitalizes
NPR, May 4, 2008
One year after an F5 tornado flattened the town of Greensburg, Kansas the town is committed to rebuilding the city to "LEED Platinum" standards, the highest standard awarded by the U.S. Green Building Council. Even the John Deere dealership, which is making the store here a national model for the way dealerships should be built, is going Platinum.

Nike wins climate change recognition
Portland Business Journal, May, 7, 2008
The second Climate Counts Company Scorecard has recognized Nike Inc. for its commitment to fighting climate change. Nike outscored 55 companies to claim the top spot on the list, which examined the climate change policies of several major companies, including IBM, Anheuser-Busch and General Electric. Overall, 84 percent of the 56 companies improved their climate change policy in the past year, according to the report. Burger King, Darden Restaurants, Jones Apparel Group and Wendy's, however, earned zero points.

Westchester Green Map Aids County Global Warming Task Force Plans
ESRI, Winter 2008
As part of the Westchester Co. Global Warming Task Force effort the Westchester County GIS department has created an online Green Map ( http://greenmap.westchestergov.com/Home.htm ) that allows residents to go online and easily find locations that support green practices such as tire disposal and cell phone recycling sites, bus routes, bike trails, and energy star retailers and information on green events, local laws, and programs.

New Grant to Expand Climate Change Education for Children
New Paltz Times, May 1, 2008
The Mohonk Preserve has been awarded a $20,000 grant from HSBC Bank to expand its field studies on the impact of climate change on the plants and animals of the Shawangunk Ridge. The grant will help educators formalize new components for the K-6 curriculum to tie natural history lessons to environmental change, with a specific focus on changing migration, population and breeding patterns of birds. HSBC employees from regional branches will also join Preserve researchers during the annual bird counts and help track the nesting and breeding of endangered raptors at the Preserve.

Fighting to Save the Planet, at School
NY Times, May 4, 2008
Sixth graders from Seven Bridges Middle School in Chappaqua organized a protest last week encouraging classmates to ride the bus because of their concerns about global warming. Their school club, Kids Against Pollution, organized the protest to reduce cars dropping off and picking up kids by 50% by the end of the week. Aaron Kohn, 11, said that he had watched the movie "Waterworld," about a future in which the polar ice caps have melted and most of the planet is underwater, and then researched on the Internet reasons the earth could flood. When he read about global warming, Aaron said, he got scared. Sarah Jane Weil, 11, said she is an animal lover and was upset by predictions that in her lifetime polar bears might become extinct as a result of global warming. Olivia Sacker, 11, said she used to want to be a veterinarian when she grows up but now wants to be an environmentalist because she is worried about the health of the planet.

MTA Begins Voluntarily Reporting Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Empire State News, May 9, 2008
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) announced that it has become one of the founding members of The Climate Registry. As a member of The Climate Registry, the MTA has agreed to measure, independently verify and publicly report its greenhouse gas emissions on an annual basis using the Climate Registry General Reporting Protocol. The protocol is based on the internationally recognized greenhouse gas measurement standards of the World Resources Institute and World Business Council on Sustainability.

Nature's carbon balance confirmed
BBC, April 28, 2008
The May issue of Nature Geoscience includes a joint study by the University of Hawaii and the Carnegie Institution confirming a long believed theory that over millions of years CO2 levels in the atmosphere have been moderated by a natural feedback system. Carbon spewed out by volcanoes is removed from the air by rock weathering and transported to the ocean floor. Using evidence from an Antarctic ice core, the team calculated that over a period of 610,000 years the long-term change in atmospheric CO2 concentration was just 22 parts per million (ppm), although there were larger fluctuations associated with the transitions between glacial and interglacial conditions. By comparison, two centuries of human industry have raised levels by about 100 ppm - a speed of rise about 14,000 times faster.

In a New Climate Model, Short-Term Cooling in a Warmer World
NY Times, May 1, 2008
On May 1, the journal Nature published a study by a team from the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Kiel, Germany, predicting a slight cooling of Europe and North America due to a temporary weakening of the ocean current which regulates global temperatures, masking the effects of human-induced climate change. The researchers said global warming may enter into a "lull" period until 2015, due to an expected cyclical change in the Gulf Stream. However, the scientists predict the Earth will once again enter into a warming phase after 2015, once the currents revert to a more warming trend. Natural variations can also amplify warming, and that is likely to happen in future decades as well, experts say.

Georgia Wetlands Offer Cure for Drought
NPR, May 1, 2008
One town of drought-stricken Georgia has no water worries at all. Over the last two decades they've created a unique water treatment system that cleans treated wastewater with a series of wetlands and reservoirs. The system cost about half that of a traditional sewage treatment plant to construct but, requires lots of land. Ten million gallons of water is recycled each year and flows back into the reservior clean enough for drinking. The only complaint from neighbors is about the wild nightlife, especially frogs.

New Breed Of Supercomputers Proposed To Improve Climate Change Prediction Accuracy
ScienceDaily, May 7, 2008
Three researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have proposed an innovative way to improve global climate change predictions by building a supercomputer with low-power embedded microprocessors, an approach that would overcome limitations posed by today's conventional supercomputers. The scientists set out to establish a practical estimate for building a supercomputer capable of creating climate models at 1-kilometer (km) scale, a resolution not available from existing models, requiring a supercomputer that is 1,000 times more powerful than what is available today. They ended up with an alternative design that is projected to consume less than 4 megawatts of power and achieve a peak performance of 200 petaflops (floating point operations per second, who knew?) for the relatively small cost (supercomputer budget-speaking) of $75 million to construct.

The NYC DEP Climate Change Program Assessment and Action Plan
A Report Based on the Ongoing Work of the DEP Climate Change Task Force; May 2008, Report 1