Apple’s data centers now use 100% renewable energy, including solar, wind and geothermal energy — the company no longer powers any of its operations with coal or other fossil fuels. In fact, last December, Apple powered up a 100-acre solar farm adjacent to a North Carolina data center. Using fuel cells made by Bloom Energy Corp., which generates energy from biogases, Apple is able to generate 60% of all the energy it needs to run the data center onsite. Read more about it from Bloomberg, here.
The news can be harrowing these days for environmental advocates working on climate change issues, of which this is obviously a thoroughly tiny aspect. This stuff is important enough, though, that even modest good news and developments should keep making the rounds.
Rapid Arctic sea ice loss is probably the most visible indicator of global climate change; it leads to shifts in ecosystems and economic access, and potentially impacts weather throughout the northern hemisphere.James Overland, of the NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory • Speaking on summertime Arctic ice levels, and how they portend the future of climate change. According to Overland, the time when the Arctic will see a nearly ice-free summer is creeping faster than expected — likely in advance of 2050, and perhaps sometime over the next two decades. His full report, authored with NOAA colleague Muyin Wang, was published online for Geophysical Research Letters, and is available to read here. source
From our just-released report on attitudes towards global warming, climate change and the Keystone XL Pipeline.
It’s worth remembering that the Democratic coalition isn’t unified on the causes of climate change to nearly the extent they are on the question of its existence. After all, it isn’t just a cabal of northeastern, urban liberals — it’s also the party of coal-state senators and representatives like Senator Joe Manchin.
Now is not the time to gut these new job-creating innovations… today, no area holds more promise than our investments in American energy. After years of talking about it, we’re poised to finally control our own energy future. …But for the sake of our children, we must do more to combat climate change.President Obama, segueing from praising increases in American oil and gas production, to speaking more solmenly of the dangers of climate change. Obama cited the recent glut of hottest years on record, and referenced numerous, unusually forceful weather incidents – Superstorm Sandy among them – as reasons he will seek to wield executive power to act on climate reforms, even if congress passes.
We don’t, in a sensible world, want to hand on an increasingly dysfunctional world to our grandchildren, to leave them with the real problem. I don’t want to be confronted by my future grandchild and (have) them say: ‘Why didn’t you do something?’Prince Charles • On the issue of climate change and why he doesn’t want his soon-to-be-born grandson to question why he didn’t do more about it.
This is not where we wanted to be at the end of the meeting, I assure you. It certainly isn’t where we need to be in order to prevent islands from going under and other unimaginable impacts.Kieren Keke, Foreign Minister of Nauru • Speaking on the agreement at a UN conference in Qatar today to extend provisions of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change through 2020. This may sound hopeful on its face, but the agreement is far short of of the level of coordination needed to impact the changing climate, as it only covers about 15% of global emissions. Canada, Russia, New Zealand, and Japan (where, notably, Kyoto is located) all opted out of the deal. A major sticking point in the negotiations — how new emissions standards would impact wealthy, industrialized nations versus developing ones, and securing funding from the richer states to help the poorer meet those marks. The conference reaffirmed a pledge to come to a global treaty by 2015, a lofty goal considering the competing interests involved, and also not a delay anybody like the minister quoted above wants to consider. For tiny islands like Nauru or Kiribati, the climate change debate isn’t just academic. source
This has been a vindication of Dr. Monnett in that they found no scientific misconduct or anything related to his scientific work that merited any sort of discipline or personnel action.Jeff Ruch, director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility • Speaking on the case of Dr. Charles Monnett, who had been under investigation by the Obama administration for the past two and a half years. First the investigation focused on suspicion he had falsified data in a 2004 article relating to climate change, and the plight of polar bears exhausting themselves swimming between too-distant ice sheets, thus risking drowning. They then examined whether Monnett had improperly awarded research contracts, of which he was also cleared. In the end, a minor reprimand for sending government information without authorization was all the ordeal would yield – info that was later used in court to block the interior department from approving new oil drilling by Shell. To Jeff Ruch’s mind, this fact was central to the effort against Monnett by the Obama administration: “[The reprimand] reads as if it was motivated by attempts during the Obama years to clog leaks and root out environmental dissidents inside the department of interior having to do with Arctic drilling.” source
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A Climate Change Adventure: The Arctic’s Melting, So These Guys Sailed Across It
Every winter, like clockwork, the sea ice that covers the Arctic thickens and grows. And then every summer, the Earth tilts its Northern Pole toward the sun and some of that ice melts away.
But not all of it. Even in the summer months, many of the northern channels and passages that connect the Atlantic to the Pacific are blocked off by ice. For centuries European explorers searched for a passage unsuccessfully, until 1906 when an expedition led by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen made it across. Since then, better boat and navigation technology have enabled more regular crossings, but the most northern routes have remained off-limits for all but the strongest, diesel-powered, extra-fortified, ice-breaking boats.
Until this year, when three men made the complete Northwest crossing through the M’Clure strait (the northernmost of the direct routes) in the Belzebub II — a sailboat with no fortification. Previously, the only boats that had made it through M’Clure were ice-breakers, and none had been able to complete the pass through Viscount Melville Sound after shooting through M’Clure. Usually only either the sound or the straight are open to boats, but not both at once.
Read more. [Image: Belzebub II]
Badass much?
Today in icebreakers.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mawxzkK7gw1qcokc4o1_500.jpg)
A Climate Change Adventure: The Arctic’s Melting, So These Guys Sailed Across It
Every winter, like clockwork, the sea ice that covers the Arctic thickens and grows. And then every summer, the Earth tilts its Northern Pole toward the sun and some of that ice melts away.
But not all of it. Even in the summer months, many of the northern channels and passages that connect the Atlantic to the Pacific are blocked off by ice. For centuries European explorers searched for a passage unsuccessfully, until 1906 when an expedition led by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen made it across. Since then, better boat and navigation technology have enabled more regular crossings, but the most northern routes have remained off-limits for all but the strongest, diesel-powered, extra-fortified, ice-breaking boats.
Until this year, when three men made the complete Northwest crossing through the M’Clure strait (the northernmost of the direct routes) in the Belzebub II — a sailboat with no fortification. Previously, the only boats that had made it through M’Clure were ice-breakers, and none had been able to complete the pass through Viscount Melville Sound after shooting through M’Clure. Usually only either the sound or the straight are open to boats, but not both at once.
Read more. [Image: Belzebub II]
Badass much?
Today in icebreakers.
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Obama, no climate change denier: ”And yes, my plan will continue to reduce the carbon pollution that is heating our planet – because climate change is not a hoax. More droughts and floods and wildfires are not a joke. They’re a threat to our children’s future. And in this election, you can do something about it.”
» Some evidence in his favor: In a groundbreaking 1988 study, Hansen claimed that by the 2010s, Washington DC would become so warm that it’d have nine days of heat above 95 degrees per year. So far this year, the District has had 23 days that hit this mark — and now he says he underestimated his own work.
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Tarmac melts, causing flight cancellations at USA’s capital airport, Reagan National, Washington DC. This demonstrates the need for climate adaptation of America’s (rather embarrassing) infrastructure.
Via NYC Aviation FB.
Yes, those are sunken-in wheels. Holy wow.
Phil — Just a quick note to encourage you to do the right thing and shoot yourself in the head. Don’t waste any more time, do it today. It is truly the greatest contribution to life that you will ever make.A note sent to climate scientist Phil Jones • Suggesting he kill himself for his work on climate change. Jones, a scientist at the center University of East Anglia, was one of the people at the center of “Climategate,” a controversy that climate change skeptics used to call into question the basic tenets of climate change. Journalist James Delingpole, one of the skeptics who spearheaded Climategate, called into question the idea that Jones got death threats, so an environmentalist checked with the university — and got back eight pages worth of death threats. Wowza.
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