Climate Change

In an April 4 letter ("Bush has already made climate change a priority issue"), Conrad Lautenbacher reveals the Bush administration's short-sighted views on both economic development and environmental safety. A recent conference sponsored by the Widener University School of Law ("Facing Climate Change: Tools and Opportunities for Pennsylvania"), called attention to success stories of U.S. companies and cities in reducing greenhouse gas emissions - and doing so profitably. In fact, many of the reductions went far beyond those called for by the Kyoto Protocol, which the Bush administration has failed to back.

More than 500 people from the region joined thousands of protesters Sunday in Washington, calling for strong action on climate change and a stop to the Keystone XL pipeline. The pipeline would transport oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast. Opponents say it would worsen climate change by encouraging further development of the tar-sands oil resource. They spent several hours in the bitter cold and a strong wind cheering, waving signs, listening to speakers, and marching around the White House, although President Obama was in Florida for a golf game.

WASHINGTON - On Dec. 5, 2007, EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson prepared to send the White House an extraordinary document. It declared that climate change imperiled the public welfare - a decision that would trigger the nation's first mandatory global-warming regulations. Johnson, a career scientist, knew that his draft would meet with resistance from antiregulatory ideologues at the White House, but he believed the science was solid. According to confidential records reviewed by The Inquirer, Johnson cited strong evidence: rises in sea level, extreme hot and cold days, ecosystem changes, melting glaciers, and more.

By Denis O'Brien and Jan Jarrett National climate-change legislation passed by the House in June will come before the Senate this fall. The final bill, if wisely crafted, will save families money, significantly reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and create millions of well-paying American jobs, including a significant number of green jobs right here in Pennsylvania. Climate change poses a profound threat to our national security, the environment, and the global economy.

New Jersey State Museum officials want you to imagine walruses swimming along the state's coastline and wooly, gray musk oxen roaming the terrain. That might seem like science fiction, but it's actually a look at New Jersey more than 100,000 years ago. And while those creatures are gone, officials say learning about them can provide a valuable lesson to children and adults visiting the exhibit "Rising Tide: Climate Change and New Jersey. " Yesterday, fourth graders bustled about the exhibit, their excited cries echoing off the tile floors.

Michael Mann, a Pennsylvania climate-change researcher caught in the flap surrounding e-mails hacked from a British university server, was cleared of wrongdoing by a U.S. agency that promotes science. Finding no "evidence of research misconduct," the Arlington, Va.-based National Science Foundation closed its inquiry into Mann, according to an Aug. 15 report from its inspector general. In February, Pennsylvania State University, where Mann is a professor of meteorology, exonerated him of suppressing or falsifying data, deleting e-mails, and misusing privileged information.

We would support legislation in Congress to address climate change if it were capable of accomplishing that goal. Unfortunately, despite the best intentions of its proponents, the bill known as Waxman-Markey would disable our ability to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions for at least a decade, hugely increasing the risk of irreversible climate calamity. We are speaking as individuals based on our more than 20 years of experience as public-sector environmental-enforcement attorneys, including extensive experience in California with the sort of cap-and-trade program now being proposed in Washington.

Carlos Pascual and Strobe Talbott of the Brookings Institution The world may have only seven years to start reducing the annual buildup in greenhouse-gas emissions that otherwise threatens global catastrophe within several decades. That means that between Inauguration Day in January 2009 and 2015, either John McCain or Barack Obama will face the most momentous political challenge of all time. Reflecting a consensus of hundreds of scientists around the world, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has affirmed that greenhouse-gas emissions are raising the Earth's temperature.

On Dec. 5, 2007, EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson prepared to send the White House an extraordinary document. It declared that climate change imperiled the public welfare - a decision that would trigger the nation's first mandatory global-warming regulations. Johnson, a career scientist, knew that his draft would meet with resistance from antiregulatory ideologues at the White House, but he believed the science was solid. According to confidential records reviewed by The Inquirer, Johnson cited strong evidence: rises in sea level, extreme hot and cold days, ecosystem changes, melting glaciers, and more.

The night Meghan Wren got stranded by floodwaters and had to sleep in her car, she knew it was time for a reckoning. She had been driving to her waterfront home along the Delaware Bay in South Jersey. As she crossed the wide marsh in the dark, the water rose quickly. It became too deep - ahead and behind. She had to stop and wait. To her, no longer were climate-change predictions an abstract idea. Sea level has been rising, taking her waterfront with it. "This isn't something that's coming," she later told a group of bay shore residents and officials.

Climate change will lead poor women to opt for "sex work, transactional sex, and early marriage" warns a resolution proposed last week in Congress. Introduced by a group of Democrats, the resolution calls on both the House and Senate to recognize how women will be disproportionately affected by global warming. Women are "the first to feel the immediate and adverse effects of social environmental and economic stress on their families and communities," the document states, adding that 60 to 80 percent of farmers in developing countries are women.

Framing immigrants' identity In one sense, it's true - as a recent Inquirer editorial stated - that we shouldn't call people in this country illegal immigrants ("We can't even agree on what to call them," April 20). They are not immigrants, any more than someone who steals merchandise is a shopper. The correct description would be illegal alien - a foreign national living here against the law - despite sneers from advocates of open borders that this suggests they are from another planet.

The night Meghan Wren got stranded by floodwaters and had to sleep in her car, she knew it was time for a reckoning. She had been driving to her waterfront home along the Delaware Bay in South Jersey. As she crossed the wide marsh in the dark, the water rose quickly. It became too deep - ahead and behind. She had to stop and wait. To her, no longer were climate-change predictions an abstract idea. Sea level has been rising, taking her waterfront with it. "This isn't something that's coming," she later told a group of bay shore residents and officials.

The Philadelphia Zoo's new children's area - its largest construction project ever - is a place where sheep have four horns and trained chickens will turn a light on and off. A place where a kid can climb opposite a monkey, watch a bug walk on water, and get eyeball-to-antenna with ants. "It will be a game-changer," said Marina Haynes, curator of the new KidZooU. "Until now, the children's zoos have had a simple focus - the barnyard, the backyard, and pets," she said. The zoo's new $33.3 million children's area, which took nearly two years to build and opens Saturday, is taking a more sophisticated approach.

City bankruptcy challenge nixed SACRAMENTO, Calif. - The city of Stockton, Calif., can continue in bankruptcy after a federal judge Monday rejected legal challenges by Wall Street creditors. The ruling by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Klein means that the city of more than 290,000 residents can continue to seek protection from its creditors as the largest city in America to declare bankruptcy. In his 90-minute "finding of facts," Klein portrayed Stockton has having negotiated in good faith with creditors that insured a city pension bond and issued bonds for a downtown redevelopment, including a sports arena.

THE NEWEST entry in the growing list of global-warming documentaries opens, horror-movie-style, with dramatic footage of lightning storms, floodwaters, wildfires and drought-strangled fields, as though weather itself were something new and terrifying. The statistics come later, suggesting that extremes of climate are, in fact, occurring more widely and frequently, and that they're the result of human activity. But to grab your attention, the film starts with scare tactics. What, you were expecting a calmly reasoned argument from a film called "Greedy Lying Bastards"?

The newest entry in the growing list of global-warming documentaries opens, horror-movie-style, with dramatic footage of lightning storms, floodwaters, wildfires, and drought-strangled fields, as though weather itself were something new and terrifying. The statistics come later, suggesting that extremes of weather are, in fact, occurring more widely and frequently, and that they're the result of human activity. But, to grab your attention, the film starts with scare tactics. What?

By Denis Hayes How Barack Obama addresses the climate crisis will determine whether he is remembered as a good president, or a great one. More than four years ago, after a long bitter primary campaign, a weary candidate Obama told a St. Paul crowd that "generations would look back" and say "this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow, and our planet began to heal. " As president, his attempts to pass a cap-and-trade law were crushed by almost-unanimous partisan opposition in Congress.

More than 500 people from the region joined thousands of protesters Sunday in Washington, calling for strong action on climate change and a stop to the Keystone XL pipeline. The pipeline would transport oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast. Opponents say it would worsen climate change by encouraging further development of the tar-sands oil resource. They spent several hours in the bitter cold and a strong wind cheering, waving signs, listening to speakers, and marching around the White House, although President Obama was in Florida for a golf game.