Greenhouse Effect

The heat was unreal -- so blistering that a windowsill thermometer overlooking Olympic Boulevard in downtown Los Angeles blew its top when the mercury hit 130 degrees. People consumed so much water that parts of the city briefly ran dry. Four people died. Dozens were hospitalized. It was still 89 degrees at 1 a.m. The record hot spell did not occur in 2006, but 1955, long before scientists raised the prospect of global warming and climate change.

Leaders of the world's largest economies agreed late Friday to an accord on steps to curb greenhouse gas emissions, a deal hailed by President Obama as an "unprecedented breakthrough" in international negotiations but denounced by critics as too weak to avert the harshest effects of global warming. The agreement is not legally binding. But it would set the first emission limits for emerging powers India and China, along with new reduction targets for the United States, which never adopted the commitments of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

I have read many articles about the Greenhouse effect. It frightens me that despite constant warning by scientists, no concerted effort is being made by the nations of the world to prevent it. When we gamble on the validity of the Greenhouse effect, it's like playing Russian roulette. The Greenhouse gun is aimed at our world. Is the barrel loaded or empty? If nothing is done, we'll soon find out. BING LEE Laguna Niguel

International negotiators are quietly making progress here on steps to reduce "stealth" pollutants that contribute to climate change, including soot, refrigerants and methane gas, which together account for nearly as much greenhouse gas pollution as carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide, of course, is the poster gas for global warming. Disagreements over how to reduce its emission from cars, factories and power plants have dominated the Copenhagen climate talks so far. But carbon dioxide accounts for only half the world's greenhouse gas emissions.

Despite fears that the greenhouse effect is heating up Earth's atmosphere, temperature measurements taken by satellites show the planet has not warmed over the past decade, scientists reported today. Researchers from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and the University of Alabama in Huntsville said they found dramatic swings in monthly and yearly temperature patterns, but the average global temperature did not rise--or fall--in the 10-year period from 1979 through 1988.

It doesn't take a degree in meteorology to see that the White House is cooling off on global warming. The question is: Why? If this reflects only President Bush's customary caution, there is no harm done. Even if it reflects skepticism about being able to come up soon with precise measurements of anything as vast as the planetary atmosphere, there is no real cause to strip Bush of his environmental epaulets.

The chairman of the President's Council on Environmental Quality said Thursday that the Bush Administration is reconsidering a plan killed in the waning days of the Reagan White House that would have directed federal agencies to take account of the "greenhouse effect" in assessing the environmental impact of government actions.

Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley said Wednesday that he will ask mayors of sister cities overseas to reduce gas emissions in their areas to slow the global warming trend known as the "greenhouse effect." Bradley said he will fight the environmental phenomenon in Los Angeles by encouraging an ambitious tree-planting program and by taking measures to reduce the emission of gases that contribute to the warming trend.

A preliminary experiment suggests that "fertilizing" the southern oceans to enhance algae growth could reduce atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, tempering the greenhouse effect, researchers report in today's Nature. Growing algae would remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and, when the plants die, send it to the ocean floor. But the algae need added iron to grow.

Rae Kwon Chung glanced out the window of a terrace restaurant, down at hundreds of diplomats in suits and activists in T-shirts who milled happily in a grand atrium of Copenhagen's Bella Center. He frowned. His green tea cooled in the cup, barely sipped. "They're all obsessed with the deal and numbers," South Korea's climate-change ambassador said, explaining his frustrations with the negotiators and advocates assembled here to discuss carbon-emission cuts and forge what could be a landmark treaty on global warming.

Climate change conjures up factory smoke, corn ethanol, cap-and-trade, hybrid cars. It also evokes Al Gore, drowning polar bears, African famine and Hurricane Katrina. All these triggers and the issues they invoke, backed by mounting evidence of irreversible risks to humankind, will converge next week in Copenhagen. Our collective political will may yet secure the Earth's equilibrium through an overarching deal -- though short of a treaty -- by the end of the U.N. climate-change conference there.

China vowed Thursday to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by nearly half over the next decade, a move that environmentalists and the Obama administration hailed as a major, and perhaps decisive, development toward agreement on a comprehensive climate treaty. FOR THE RECORD China's climate promise: An article in Friday's Section A incorrectly stated that China had agreed to reduce its overall carbon dioxide emissions by 40% to 45% from 2005 levels by 2020. China actually promised Thursday to reduce its "carbon intensity," a measure of carbon dioxide emissions per unit of gross domestic product, by 40% to 45% by 2020, compared with 2005 levels.

When Greg Nickels became Seattle's mayor in 2002, global warming was hardly at the top of the municipal agenda. New York's World Trade Center had been attacked, and officials had to figure out how to protect their own city from terrorism. Boeing was laying off 30,000 machinists, so there was the declining regional economy to deal with. Surely the federal government would worry about climate change. Then came the winter of 2004, when the Cascade Mountains snowpack was so disastrously low that ski resorts -- facing their worst year on record -- laid off most of their employees.

The Environmental Protection Agency unveiled a detailed proposal Wednesday for using the government's regulatory powers to curb greenhouse gas emissions -- reassuring foreign allies of the U.S. commitment to fight climate change and warning Congress that the administration will act on its own if lawmakers fail to address the issue. The proposed regulations would apply to large-scale industrial sources of heat-trapping gases, including power plants, factories and refineries, but not to smaller sources such as new schools, as some critics of EPA action had feared.

The world's two biggest producers of greenhouse gases sought to build momentum Tuesday for stalled efforts to craft a global agreement to limit emissions, with China pledging to make sweeping changes by 2020 and President Obama exhorting world leaders to act to avert catastrophe. Critics of the two countries, which together produce 40% of the gases that cause global warming, were cheered by the cooperative tone from Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao at a United Nations summit in New York.

A group of Midwestern Democrats is pushing for tariffs on products from countries that don't limit greenhouse gas emissions, a controversial step that the legislators say is needed to help American manufacturers survive expected emissions restrictions here. The Democrats say the measure would level the playing field for U.S. factories, which will probably face increased energy costs due to global warming legislation backed by the Obama administration. The legislation narrowly passed in the House in June and is pending in the Senate.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has been worried about the cost of complying with Assembly Bill 32, a 2006 law that requires California to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. Last month, DWP officials decided to beef up their advocacy efforts in Sacramento by bringing in the author of the global warming bill, Los Angeles Democrat and former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez, to advise the department's team of lobbyists. That effort hit a roadblock last week after the five-member panel that oversees the DWP asked its executives to explain the need for a contract worth up to $2.4 million with Conservation Strategy Group, which serves as a lobbyist and bond advisor to the utility.