Climate Change

This year, the United States is participating in the Group of Eight environment ministers meeting in Sicily, Italy; the goal is to replace the 1998 Kyoto Protocol and draft a new agreement to regulate carbon emissions.

“The U.S. government now fully acknowledges the urgency and complexity of climate-change challenges,” Lisa Jackson, the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), told reporters last week. “And we know full well that a meaningful U.S. response to this challenge is absolutely essential.”

Nearly 40 years ago, Congress passed legislation to control air pollution and clean up our skies. The Clean Air Act and its subsequent revisions have been widely successful at cleaning up the atmosphere and improving the quality of the air we breathe. After nearly a half-century of new scientific inquiry and discovery, we have a better understanding of the natural world. We need to update our laws to recognize and regulate anthropogenic carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases for what they truly are: pollutants.

New research that builds on data collected more than three decades ago demonstrates that lizards living in tropical forests in Central and South America and the Caribbean could be in serious peril from rising temperatures associated with climate change.In fact, those forest lizards appear to tolerate a much narrower range of survivable temperatures than do their relatives at higher latitudes and are actually less tolerant of high temperatures, said Raymond Huey, a University of Washington biology professor.

Across the country yesterday, college campuses opened up a dialogue on climate change as part of a National Teach-In. And for many schools, this meant opening up lecture halls as well. At Seattle University, a 400-level engineering class (normally reserved for dedicated students in that major) spent the hour discussing effective energy solutions; lit majors, history professors, and everyone in between were invited to join.

Environmental enthusiasts from across the UW campus gathered in the HUB for the “Save the Earth Social,” hosted by the UW Green’s Coalition. The social was an effort to bring many of the environmentally active groups on campus together for an opportunity to network with one another. In addition to environmental groups such as SEED and UW Earth Club, members from Young Democrats, WashPIRG and ASUW were in attendance as well.

In the next two months, an energetic team of faculty, staff and students from all three [UW] campuses, coming together as the Climate Action Team, will be developing the first draft of a blueprint for deepening the UW's commitment to sustainability. Around the end of March, the team will release a draft Climate Action Plan, intended to sketch out the major issues and hard decisions that the UW must make if it is to become a carbon-neutral university and one that is increasingly emphasizing sustainability in its teaching and research.

This Thursday, February 5th, UW will be hosting a videoconference with our senator, Maria Cantwell, to tell Washington, D.C. we must act now to stop climate change. This is a really unique opportunity to meet face-to-face (or face-to-screen?) with our elected official - let's make sure she gets the message loud and clear. Come represent UW in this important dialogue.

Making bales with 30 percent of global crop residues -- the stalks and such left after harvesting -- and then sinking the bales into the deep ocean could reduce the build up of global carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by up to 15 percent a year, according to just published calculations.

Forget ice sheets melting and sea levels rising. Global warming's biggest threat may be heat that wilts crop production across much of the globe, says a UW scientist.

The Puget Sound Environmental Inventory produced an inventory of the activities and capabilities of the UW in the Puget Sound watershed to: