The California Energy Commission voted 5-0 that all new homes built in California will be required to have solar power installations beginning in 2020. California is the first state in the nation to implement such a requirement. According to a...
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The California Energy Commission voted 5-0 that all new homes built in California will be required to have solar power installations beginning in 2020. California is the first state in the nation to implement such a requirement.
According to a statement by the California Energy Commission, the implementation of the solar power requirement for new homes will cut energy use by 50% and “will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an amount equivalent to taking 115,000 fossil fuel cars off the road… Under the new standards, nonresidential buildings will use about 30 percent less energy due mainly to lighting upgrades.”
Documents released by the Commission estimate the new solar power building standards will raise the cost of new homes in California $10,000 on average, or about $40 per month over a 30-year mortgage; consumers could save an estimated $80 per month on heating, cooling, and lighting bills.  
Some experts contend that the new standards are not the most economical or effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. UC Berkeley Professor Severin Borenstein wrote a letter to the Commission stating that “the vast majority of energy economists believe that residential rooftop solar is a much more expensive way to move towards renewable energy than larger solar and wind installations… This [requirement] would be a very expensive way to expand renewables and would not be a cost effective practice that other states and countries could adopt to reduce their own greenhouse gas footprints.”
The new solar power rule adopted by the California Energy Commission must now go before the California Building Standards Commission sometime in October or November to be approved. According to NBC News, the California Building Standards Commission typically adopts the Energy Commission’s recommendations, and the solar power requirements will very likely be approved.

(via Solar Power Will Be Required on All New California Homes by 2020 - ProCon.org)

Source: procon.org

a coalition of Native American tribes and other activists began a blockade of the Dakota Access oil pipeline in North Dakota in an effort to stop its construction. The pipeline is being built by Energy Transfer Partners and, if completed, will run...
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a coalition of Native American tribes and other activists began a blockade of the Dakota Access oil pipeline in North Dakota in an effort to stop its construction. The pipeline is being built by Energy Transfer Partners and, if completed, will run 1,172 miles from the North Dakota Bakken oil fields to Patoka, Illinois. It is estimated the pipeline could carry between 470,000 to 570,000 barrels of oil per day.

Members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe initiated a protest encampment in April near where the pipeline is slated to cross under the Missouri River, about a half-mile upstream from the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. The encampment now includes thousands of people and representatives from nearly 90 Native American tribes from across the United States. Since the Aug. 10 blockade began, construction of the pipeline has been halted.

Ladonna Brave Bull Allard, landowner and director of the Camp of the Sacred Stones, says that the campers blocking the pipeline construction “are disappointed that the proposed 1,172 mile long pipeline slated to carry fracked oil from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota to Patoka, Illinois is ignoring pending legal action taken by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and other Oceti Sakowin tribes of the Lakota/ Dakota/ Nakota Nation in an effort to lay as much pipe as possible while ignoring treaty law, the Clean Water Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Historic Preservation Act, and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.”

According to the environmental assessment of the pipeline project, performed by Dakota Access, LLC, “[i]mpacts on the environment would be temporary and not significant,” and “[n]o known cultural resources would be impacted by the proposed Project.” Energy Transfer Partners, the company constructing the pipeline, states on its website that the “pipeline will enable domestically produced light sweet crude oil from North Dakota to reach major refining markets in a more direct, cost-effective, safer and environmentally responsible manner,” and that "increased domestic crude oil production translates into greater energy independence for the United States.”

In an Aug. 24 New York Times OP-ED, David Archambault II, Chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, wrote that the proposed pipeline route "crosses the Missouri River, which provides drinking water for millions of Americans and irrigation water for thousands of acres of farming and ranching lands… we need the public to see that in standing up for our rights, we do so on behalf of the millions of Americans who will be affected by this pipeline.”

According to Bill Gerhard, President of the Iowa State Building and Construction Trade Council, “[t]he last ditch efforts by opponents of the Dakota Access Pipeline threatens to kill the jobs of thousands of Iowans… Construction should be allowed to take place, as it was before, because the letter of the law was followed and this project was approved.”

Of the four major 2016 Presidential candidates, Green Party candidate Jill Stein has been the only one so far to comment on the Dakota Access pipeline. In an Aug. 24 press release, Stein stated, “we salute the courageous people of the Standing Rock Sioux reservation and their allies who are standing up to protect their land and our future on Earth from the poisonous fossil fuel industry and an economy that puts corporate profits over people and planet… Extreme weather exacerbated by climate change shows why we need to immediately say no to fossil fuel expansion, and say yes to wind, water and solar.”

Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump, though he has not publically commented on the Dakota Access pipeline, believes that “the whole push for renewable energy is being driven by the wrong motivation, the mistaken belief that global climate change is being caused by carbon emissions. If you don’t buy that–and I don’t–then what we have is really just an expensive way of making the tree-huggers feel good about themselves.”

(via Oil Pipeline Blocked in North Dakota by Native Americans and Other Activists)

Source: procon.org

2015 was the hottest year on record since temperature recordings began in 1880, according to global land and ocean surface temperature measurements from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NOAA reports that climate change “is...
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2015 was the hottest year on record since temperature recordings began in 1880, according to global land and ocean surface temperature measurements from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NOAA reports that climate change “is apparent now across our nation.”

Global temperatures in 2015 were 1.62°F above the 20th century average, beating out the previous record hot year of 2014. Fifteen of the 16 hottest years ever recorded have occurred since the year 2000 according to NOAA and NASA measurements.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) says the record-setting heat of 2015 was the result of a combination of the “exceptionally strong El Niño and global warming caused by greenhouse gases.” WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas stated that though the “power of El Niño will fade in the coming months,” the “impacts of human-induced climate change will be with us for many decades.”

However, according to Tom Harris, Executive Director of the International Climate Science Coalition, the earth temperature measurements that the NOAA and NASA base their claims of record setting temperatures on are meaningless…

Source: procon.org

Arctic Oil Drilling Given Final Approval by Obama Administration

image On Aug. 17, 2015 Shell received the final approval from the US Department of Interior to begin conducting exploratory oil drilling in the Chukchi Sea off the Northwest Alaskan coast. Shell had obtained and paid for the leases to drill during the previous administration of President George W. Bush.

In 2012, Shell attempted exploratory oil drilling activities in the Arctic, but was forced to discontinue its drilling program due to a series of accidents, including the loss of control and grounding of one of its oil drilling rigs.

The annual window of opportunity to drill in Arctic waters is short due to weather conditions, and normally takes place between July and October. Shell’s Arctic drilling operations this year are already behind schedule after a ship carrying emergency well-plugging equipment was damaged by an underwater shoal while in the Arctic. The ship had to return to harbor in Portland for repairs and was prevented from leaving Portland harbor for nearly two days in late July by Greenpeace activists who blocked the ships passage by repelling off the St. Johns Bridge.

Environmental activists were angered by the Obama administration’s approval of drilling in the Arctic. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, the drilling will “despoil our last pristine ocean and spew massive amounts of carbon pollution into our atmosphere… This wrong-headed decision also will expose the Arctic to the likelihood of catastrophic spills in ice-choked waters more than 1,000 miles from a Coast Guard base and other critical clean-up infrastructure.” The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management forecast “a 75% chance of one or more large spills occurring” over a 77-year oil extraction scenario.

Source: procon.org

Climate Change Threatens 50 Years of Global Health Gains, Says New Lancet Study - ProCon.org

image A new study published in the medical journal Lancetfound that the consequences of climate change“threatens to undermine the last half century of gains” in global healthcare. The study was conducted by theLancet’s Commission on Health and Climate Change, a group of more than 30 researchers from universities in the United Kingdom, Germany, China, Kenya, and Sweden. It was a follow-up study to the Commission’s 2009 report which similarly concluded that “[c]limate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century.”

The June 22, 2015 study was titled “Health and Climate Change: Policy Responses to Protect Public Health,” and it reported that climate change results in increased storms, droughts, floods, and heatwaves, which lead to reduced water quality, increased air pollution, changes in land use, and ecological changes, which can impact public health by leading to increases in mental illness, undernutrition, allergies, cardiovascular disease, infectious diseases, injuries, respiratory diseases, and poisoning. The authors cited concerns such as changing patterns in the spread of disease, food insecurity, and displacement as also being consequences of climate change and contributing factors to rising health problems. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that, between 2030 and 2050, an additional 250,000 people globally would die each year due to climate change.

According to the authors, climate change could contribute to an increase in dengue fever and malaria because rising temperatures and changes in rain patterns change the area in which mosquitos carrying the diseases are found. They said instances of cholera and other waterborne disease could also rise due to increased flooding, hurricanes, and weather events such as El Niño. In the United States specifically, they wrote that the mortality rate attributed to rising ozone levels is expected to rise by 4-5% by 2050.

The authors propose a “rapid phase out of coal from the global energy mix” to safeguard against an increase in cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. The authors state that a reduction in fossil fuel emissions will not only cut respiratory diseases but will also contribute to…

Source: procon.org

Climate Change Study Shows Most Americans Believe in Global Warming but Not Human Causation

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According to a study published in Nature Climate Change, a majority (63%) of Americans believeglobal warming is happening.  The same study also found that 48% of Americans think that human activity is primarily responsible for global warming, 35% believe natural changes are the main cause of global warming, and 17% were unsure or did not respond.

The statistical model was generated by a team of researchers from Yale and Utah State Universities who put together data from 12 nationally representative opinion surveys conducted between 2008 and 2013. In total, the study analyzed responses from 13,000 individuals across the United States.

The study found that 52% of Americans are “worried about global warming,” and 51% believe global warming “will harm people in the US.”

Although fewer than half of Americans (48%) believe that human activity is primarily responsible for global warming, more than half of Americans (77%) believe the government should fund research into renewable energy sources and 74% believe the government should regulate CO2 as a pollutant. In addition, 63% of Americans believe that there should be “strict limits on existing coal-fired power plants.”

Source: procon.org

With so much controversy and partisan spin over the Keystone XL Pipeline, we knew that people just wanted a nonpartisan information source for this issue. Our resource gives people both sides of the Keystone XL Pipeline debate so they can become better informed and make up their own minds.

keystone xl pipelineProCon.org expanded its pro and con research about the proposedKeystone XL Pipeline. The pipeline, if completed, would transport oil extracted from tar sands in Alberta, Canada, through several US states, and ultimately to the Texas Gulf region.

The updated ProCon.org resource presents statements from authoritative sources in the debate over “Should the United States authorize the Keystone XL Pipeline to import tar sand oil from Canada?”

All statements are fully sourced and include a biography of the person or organization being quoted.

In addition to the expert statements, the updated ProCon.org resource contains:

* Keystone XL Pipeline Environmental Review by US State Department - featuring the final environmental impact statement released on January 31, 2014.

* President Obama’s Statements on Keystone XL Pipeline - featuring President Obama’s veto threat of the Keystone XL Pipeline Act on January 6, 2015.

* Keystone XL Pipeline Act (S.1) - including the text of the bill and the latest actions in Congress.

New Keystone XL Pipeline Pros and Cons

Source: procon.org

New Study Says Climate Change Impacted by Meat Consumption

A new report published in the journal Nature Climate Changeestimates that maintaining current food production and consumption levels could increase greenhouse gas emissions up to 80% above 2009 levels by 2050. As the world population rises toward 9.6 billion and the demand for meat increases as more developing countries adopt a Western diet, meat production could have global climate change consequences. 

Global meat production hit an all-time high in 2013 at 308.5 million tons, and is expected to keep growing. According to the study, meat production is considered to contribute to climate change in a number of ways. First, livestock convert plant feed to meat at a relatively inefficient rate of less than 3 percent. This causes more and more arable land to be taken up with producing livestock feed instead of producing crops for direct human consumption. Second, the authors say that expanded food production “is a main driver of biodiversity loss,” and that by 2050, cropland will have expanded by 42%, fertilizer use will increase by 45% and the land mass of tropical forests will reduce by 10%. Finally, the meat industry relies heavily on cows, which further increase greenhouse gas emissions by producing methane through enteric fermentation (aka farts and burps). 

To assess methods to combat this scenario, the researchers ran three scenarios, including: (1) a closing of “yield gaps,” where farmers achieve the highest crop yields possible; (2) halving food waste, which can be responsible for the loss of one third to one half of food produced every year; and (3) a global reduction in meat consumption. Projecting a reduced demand for meat turned out to have the largest potential effect on the environment, dropping greenhouse gas emissions 48% from their 2009 levels.

Climate Change Is Impacting the United States Now

Melting Arctic Ice in SummerThe National Climate Assessment, a report produced by a group of more than 300 experts and a 60-member Federal Advisory Committee, concluded that human-induced “climate change is happening now.”

The report, released on May 6, 2014, details how climate change "impacts are visible in every state,“ including increased heat, drought, insect outbreaks, and wildfires in the Southwest, receding glaciers and thawing permafrost in Alaska, increased coral bleaching and disease outbreaks in Hawaii, coastal flooding, intense rain and snow events in the Northeast, and increased risk of extreme events such as hurricanes in the Southeast.

According to the 2014 report, US average temperature has increased by 1.3°F to 1.9°F since 1895, and is projected to rise another 2°F to 4°F over the next decade. Specific examples of climate change impacts from the report include a 70% increase in the amount of rain falling in heavy storm events in the Northeast between 1958 and 2010, and the possibility that Arctic summer sea ice may "virtually disappear before mid-century.” In Puerto Rico, the coastline near Rincòn is eroding at a rate of 3.3 feet per year, and coastal areas in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas already have average annual losses that total $14 billion due to hurricane winds, land shifting, and sea level rise.

Under a 1990 Congressional mandate, the National Climate Assessment report is to be published once every four years. The conclusions of the 2014 National Climate Assessment provided support for President Obama’s Climate Action Plan released in June 2013. In an interview about the assessment report, Obama stated that climate change “is not some distant problem of the future. This is a problem that is affecting Americans right now. Whether it means increased flooding, greater vulnerability to drought, more severe wildfires — all these things are having an impact on Americans as we speak.”

Scientists Agree That Climate Change Caused By Humans

imageOn Mar. 18, 2014 the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society, released a public warning on the dangers posed by climate change in its report, “What We Know: The Reality, Risks and Response to Climate Change.”

The new report focuses on three messages. The first is that “climate scientists agree: climate change is happening here and now.” The second is that “we are at risk of pushing our climate system toward abrupt, unpredictable, and potentially irreversible changes with highly damaging impacts.” The third is being that “the sooner we act, the lower the risk and cost. And there is much we can do.” According to the report, “97% of climate scientists have concluded that humans are changing the climate.”

However, some scientists question the idea that human-caused global warming could potentially have catastrophic impacts on the earth. Richard Lindzen, PhD, a Fellow at the AAAS who was not involved with the report, stated in an Oct. 19, 2013 CATO Institute publication that “the fact that greenhouse gases have increased over the past 200 years or so, and that their greenhouse impact is already about 80% of what one expects from a doubling of CO2 are all perfectly consistent with there being no serious problem. Even the text of the IPCC Scientific Assessment agrees that catastrophic consequences are highly unlikely.”

Is Human Activity a Substantial Cause of Global Climate Change?

Is Human Activity a Substantial Cause of Global Climate Change?The US National Academies of Science, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and many others, say that greenhouse gas levels are rising due to human activities such as burning fossil fuels and deforestation which are causing significant climate changes including global warming, loss of sea ice, glacier retreat, more intense heat waves, stronger hurricanes, and more droughts. They contend that climate change requires immediate international action to prevent dire consequences.

The Heartland Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, and many others, argue that human-generated greenhouse gas emissions are too small to substantially change the earth’s climate. They contend that our forests and oceans are capable of absorbing these small increases, and that 20th century warming has resulted from natural processes including fluctuations in the sun’s heat and ocean currents. They say that global climate change is based on bunk science and scare tactics. Read more…

Climate Change Not the Cause of 2012 Drought, According to New NOAA Study

2012 DroughtOn Mar. 20, 2013, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)Drought Task Force released a new study which found that the 2012 Great Plains drought, the worst US drought since record keeping began in 1895, was the result of “natural variations in weather patterns” and was not caused by “human-induced climate change.”

The 2012 drought, which affected Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota and North Dakota, had previously been widely attributed to climate change.  In his 2013 State of the Union Address President Barack Obama warned that “we can choose to believe that hurricane Sandy, and the most severe drought in decades, and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen were all just a freak coincidence. Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science - and act before it’s too late." 

Dr. Martin Hoerling, senior author for the new NOAA report, "An Interpretation of the Origins of the 2012 Central Great Plains Drought,” stated that although he is an “advocate of global warming… the science also tells that every drought that’s occurring isn’t a result of climate change.”

Is human activity a substantial cause of global climate change?

Is human activity a substantial cause of global climate change?The US National Academies of Science, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and many others, say that greenhouse gas levels are rising due to human activities such as burning fossil fuels and deforestation which are causing significant climate changes including global warming, loss of sea ice, glacier retreat, more intense heat waves, stronger hurricanes, and more droughts. They contend that climate change requires immediate international action to prevent dire consequences.

The Heartland Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, and many others, argue that human-generated greenhouse gas emissions are too small to substantially change the earth’s climate. They contend that our forests and oceans are capable of absorbing these small increases, and that 20th century warming has resulted from natural processes including fluctuations in the sun’s heat and ocean currents. They say that global climate change is based on bunk science and scare tactics. Read more…