Climate Change

Tim Greiner of Pure Strategies talked about how supplier scorecards with questions about energy can help companies track energy consumption and energy performance as energy reduction metrics.

If you want to know what climate change will bring to the Earth’s aridlands, look to the North American Southwest. Better yet, talk to landscape ecologist Craig Allen, who has been working to understand and conserve New Mexico’s Jemez Mountains for 30-plus years, and who is featured in A Great Aridness, William deBuys’ well-researched new book on the region’s ongoing transformation. Read the full review

To see how thoroughly the concept of ecosystem services — the economic analysis of the natural world’s intersection with human endeavors — is embedded in climate change research, check out this forecast from a group led by researchers at Duke University and the Environmental Defense Fund.

Ecosystem services play a crucial role in sustaining human well-being and economic viability. People benefit substantially from the delivery of ecosystem services, for which substitutes usually are costly or unavailable. Climate change will substantially alter or eliminate certain ecosystem services in the future. To better understand the consequences of climate change and to develop effective means of adapting to them, it is critical that we improve our understanding of the links between climate, ecosystem service production, and the economy.

Despite this year’s unusually warm and dry January, winter in the Bay Area is often cold and wet, and that means higher heating bills. “Many Oakland homeowners are thinking about heating bills again, and how drafty their homes are,” said the City of Oakland’s sustainability coordinator Garrett Fitzgerald. “This is a great time to go ahead and make those improvements that will make their homes more comfortable and more affordable.”

“The two go together in an overall plan, and that overall plan is for the University to support students, faculty and staff to be purchasing better hybrid or electric vehicles,” said Harold Glasser, Executive Director of the Office of Sustainability. Read the story

What will cost $7 billion; will snake across the country from Alberta to the Gulf Coast, carrying 700,000 barrels a day of Canadian crude oil; and seems (at least from the animated assertions of Congressional Republicans and the American Petroleum Institute) a perfect solution for the flagging U.S. economy? Answer: TransCanada’s Keystone oil sands pipeline expansion project. Imagine a river of dirty oil running right through the country’s mid-section. Read the entire piece

When you talk to climate scientists about winners and losers, a few words come up over and over again: could, might, maybe. According to University of Arizona environmental economist Derek Lemoine, local climate-change patterns are difficult to predict because uncertainties in the global model “are compounded when considering smaller scales.” Read the full story

Amber Pairis, Climate Change Adviser of the State of California Department of Fish and Game, said the release of the public draft of the NFWPCAS is a major milestone for natural resources adaptation and clearly illustrates how state, federal, and tribal entities are working together to create a collective vision for how they respond.