Global Climate

Ban Ki-moon, the normally buttoned-up Secretary General of the United Nations, swept into Los Angeles during Oscar week playing the role of Hollywood pitchman. His message: Make global warming a hot issue. "I need your support," he told entertainment industry insiders during a daylong forum Tuesday that focused on recent heat waves, floods, fires and drought, which scientists link to human-induced climate change . "Animate these stories!" Ban pleaded. "Set them to music!

Much has been made about Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio's dedication to the poor. Almost immediately after becoming the 266th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church and renaming himself Pope Francis , the commentary began, some of it predicting his legacy before his first day on the job. “In the end, it is Pope Francis's standing as a Latin American and as an advocate of the poor that may well define him,” wrote the Washington Post's E.J....

The space shuttle Discovery and its six astronauts rocketed into orbit Friday on a mission that includes a laser show, the release and capture of a satellite and the first free-flying spacewalk in 10 years. The space shuttle lifted off nearly two hours late because of thunderstorms, rising from the launch pad at 3:23 p.m. PDT and piercing high wispy clouds as it arced out over the Atlantic. "It's time to fly," said launch controller Jeff Lauffer. Discovery's commander, Navy Capt.

My Op-Ed article on climate science and climate hype provoked plenty of online responses -- as pretty much anything touching on this very touchy subject inevitably will. Also quite predictably, several of the comments repeated critiques of mainstream climate science that have been raised and thoroughly debunked literally hundreds of times. Here's a sampling, along with my responses: "theblooms" writes:  "Anthropogenic Global Warming is FAR FROM PROVEN.  If the evidence is so damn clear-cut, then why did the East Anglia University Climate Research Unit cook the books and falsify the data?"

In the months ahead, volunteers with shovels, spades and seedlings will fan out across the country as part of an ambitious effort to boost the number of trees planted in America by at least a billion each year. The National Tree Initiative, a $175-million campaign, is intended to reverse--or at least slow--the rapid deforestation of America. So far, the Bush Administration seems pleased with the results.

When father-son scientists Dave and Ralph Keeling sit down at the piano and violin, they merge their minds in the flowing warmth of a Brahms sonata or the energy of a Beethoven. When they go their separate ways to their labs, it's the rhythm of the planet they feel. "The Earth is doing a beautiful, simple dance for us," said Ralph, fingers tracing waves in the air. "And we're watching."

Although Kuwaiti oil well fires are spewing as much as 2 million tons of carbon dioxide and 5,000 tons of soot into the air each day, natural cleansing processes will prevent a disastrous buildup of pollutants, a government-sponsored scientific team reported Monday. Participants in the study, coordinated by the National Science Foundation, agreed that the pall created by an estimated 500 oil wells fires still raging in Kuwait will have a substantial effect on weather in the Persian Gulf area.

General Motors Corp. said it has quit the Global Climate Coalition, a lobbying group that has led the opposition to a 1997 global warming treaty reached in Kyoto, Japan. Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler Corp. withdrew earlier.

Dozens of nations and international organizations endorsed a 10-year blueprint for a global climate watch system that would let governments share information about the Earth to assess climate change, forecast natural disasters and fight disease. The plan seeks to save billions of dollars and many lives lost due to drought or to diseases such as malaria.

California and the West, which have experienced a surge in wildfire during the last decade, can expect more of the same with global warming, according to a study published Tuesday. “A lot of the West, California included, really does look like it's headed into a more fire-prone future,” said Max Moritz, a UC Cooperative Extension wildfire specialist and lead author of a new paper that examined climate change's likely effects on global fire patterns. The American West will not be alone, according to the research, published in the journal Ecosphere.

California and the West, which have experienced a surge in wildfire during the last decade, can expect more of the same with global warming, according to a study published Tuesday. “A lot of the West, California included, really does look like it's headed into a more fire-prone future,” said Max Moritz, a UC Cooperative Extension wildfire specialist and lead author of a new paper that examined climate change's likely effects on global fire patterns. The American West will not be alone, according to the research, published in the journal Ecosphere.

Ban Ki-moon, the normally buttoned-up Secretary General of the United Nations, swept into Los Angeles during Oscar week playing the role of Hollywood pitchman. His message: Make global warming a hot issue. "I need your support," he told entertainment industry insiders during a daylong forum Tuesday that focused on recent heat waves, floods, fires and drought, which scientists link to human-induced climate change . "Animate these stories!" Ban pleaded. "Set them to music!

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday launched an international organization to tackle climate change with leaders from regional governments in Europe, South America, Africa, Asia and the United States. The failure to achieve an international climate pact in Copenhagen last year left many people discouraged, Schwarzenegger said, addressing several hundred delegates to a "climate summit" at UC Davis. But now, he added, "The sub-nationals should do their work.... The green revolution is moving forward full speed ahead without the international agreement.

Ice-covered volcanoes like the one in Iceland that brought European air traffic to a standstill are the center of an emerging branch of volcano science that seeks to answer important questions about climate change. Scientists believe the rocks created when volcanoes erupt beneath glaciers contain distinct chemical signatures that indicate the thickness of the ice that was above the volcanoes when they blew. By correlating the thickness with the age of the rocks, researchers can estimate the degree to which Earth was covered by glaciers thousands — or even millions — of years ago. That information is crucial to climatologists who want to understand how ice and temperature conspire to make the globe cool down or heat up. "In the big global climate models that they run on supercomputers, ice cover on the Earth is very important," said Ian Skilling, a volcanologist at the University of Pittsburgh.

We've been reserving judgment on last week's United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen because we're still trying to figure out what, exactly, happened. An acrimonious two-week negotiations marathon ended Saturday with a raucous final session in which delegates "noted" (but didn't exactly approve) an agreement seemingly thrown together at the last minute by representatives of the United States and four other big greenhouse-gas emitters. The pact, if you can call it that, has no binding targets, monitoring mechanisms or legal force.

After a long day of dire warnings and impassioned pleas about the world's changing climate, hundreds of Danes and visitors from around the globe bundled themselves against a damp cold Monday and filled the Copenhagen town square. They jumped with a live rock band, pedaled stationary bikes on display and gazed at a 65-foot rotating globe. At the party entrance hung a banner, stenciled in green with a play on words that summed up the crowd's mood: "Hopenhagen." The optimism grew from the opening of a much-hyped international climate summit in the Danish capital, even as friction continued among the vast array of government, environment and industry interests surrounding the negotiations.

"Global warming" articles are again in the news as summer heat records collapse and Ventura County swelters through weeks of 100-degree temperatures. Although it may feel as though the Earth is getting hotter, global warming is an inaccurate description of what is happening to our weather patterns. A better term is "global climate change."

ICF Inc., an environmental consulting firm, said it has won a three-year, $37-million contract with the Environmental Protection Agency to help the agency study global climate change. The Fairfax, Va., company said it will assist the EPA in analyzing the impact of global warming and depletion of the Earth's ozone layer on human health and the environment.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday declared that industrial greenhouse gases are a danger to human health and well-being, opening the way to broad new regulations to reduce carbon dioxide and other planet-heating gases. The finding could lead to far-reaching rules that are likely to heavily affect cars and trucks, which account for nearly a quarter of the nation's greenhouse gas emissions, and utilities, which are responsible for more than a third.

As President Obama pursues green infrastructure projects and other programs aimed at fighting climate change, he is eventually going to have to confront an unpleasant truth: None of it will matter unless the developing world, particularly China, does the same. With China having passed the U.S.