Our leaders thought fracking would save our climate. They were wrong.
Global warming is, in the end, not about the noisy political battles here on the planet’s surface. It actually happens in constant, silent interactions in the atmosphere, where the molecular structure of certain gases traps heat that would otherwise radiate back out to space. If you get the chemistry wrong, it doesn’t matter how many landmark climate agreements you sign or how many speeches you give. And it appears the United States may have gotten the chemistry wrong. Really wrong.
An artistic rendering of Pacific NorthWest LNG’s proposed LNG export terminal on Lelu Island.
“The project would result in 5.28 million tonnes of CO2 per year … a marked increase of greenhouse gas emissions both at the provincial (8.5 per cent increase) and national (0.75 per cent increase) level,”
When Premier Christy Clark dismissed opponents of resource developments in B.C. as the “forces of no,” she singled out for specific criticism those aligned against the proposed LNG facility at Lelu Island, near Prince Rupert.
Energy use per person was on track to rise sixfold by 2050 across the world, according to researchers from Queensland and Griffith universities Photograph: Kevin Frayer/Getty Images
The world is on track to reach dangerous levels of global warming much sooner than expected, according to new Australian research that highlights the alarming implications of rising energy demand.
More than 100 Canadian and U.S. scientists have concluded a federal environmental assessment of the $12-billion Pacific NorthWest LNG terminal is "scientifically flawed" and represents an "insufficient base for a decision."
October 5, 2015 - French wine lovers have always taken their soil very seriously. But now the country’s government has introduced fresh reasons for the rest of the world to pay attention to their terroir.
Green illusions: The dirty secrets of clean energy and the future of environmentalism,
by Ozzie Zehner
Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2012
437 pages, $29.95 ISBN-978-0-8032-3775-9 (paper)
West coast of Greenland. The fastest glacier in the world, Jakobshaven Isbrae, moving at 150 feet per day, dumps ice from the Greenland Ice Sheet into Disko Bay. (Photo: Bruce Melton)
Hope and failure coexist in the Paris climate agreement. One may want to curse or cheer the deal, but it is history now, and we have to get on with it. The agreement provides an opportunity to assess our ecological progress and prepare to be effective in the future.
