New analysis shows alarming increase in expected growth of China's carbon dioxide emissions
The growth in China's carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is far outpacing previous estimates, making the goal of stabilizing atmospheric greenhouse gases even more difficult, according to a new analysis by economists at the University of California, Berkeley, and UC San Diego.
Previous estimates, including those used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, say the region that includes China will see a 2.5 to 5 percent annual increase in CO2 emissions, the largest contributor to atmospheric greenhouse gases, between 2004 and 2010. The new UC analysis puts that annual growth rate for China to at least 11 percent for the same time period.
Frozen pipes never concern San Francisco residents, but Minnesotans insulate the pipes around their homes every winter. The West Nile virus scares many Californians but doesn't alarm Scandinavians at all. Where you are in the world goes a long way toward determining the things you worry about.
Some Californians shy away from using wood for fear of contributing to the deforestation so frequently associated with global warming. But relying on imported goods means burning fossil fuels to bring those goods to market, which increases greenhouse gas emissions. The arguments to promote "locally grown" are no more or less valid when considering one's consumption of lumber and other forest products.
By Bill Dennison, Cal Forestry alum & past president of the California Forestry Association
The U.S. Forest Service recently became the first federal agency to register with the California Climate Action Registry, a first step to track greenhouse gas emissions attributable to global climate change from U.S. Forest Service operations.
This op-ed, by Assistant Professor Max Auffhammer and UCSD economist Richard Carson, originally appeared in the Washington Post on August 2, 2007.
China is about to emerge as the world's leading emitter of greenhouse gases, a position the United States has held since 1890. Now is the time for China to take the lead in finding a way to reduce global emissions, which the United States has thus far failed to do. It should start by imposing a sizable tax on the carbon content of its fossil fuel consumption and by heading an effort among other major trading countries to do the same.
Six Nobel Laureates on climate crisis: "There is no time"
A campus colloquium on "Energy Self-Sufficiency in the 21st Century" recently took the global climate crisis as the starting point for a freewheeling discussion among some of the world's top thinkers. Issues covered included the urgent need to make conservation a national way of life, getting the U.S. public to accept nuclear reactors, and persuading the U.S. government to serve as a world leader in developing clean, renewable energy sources.
Looking out across an expanse of oak-grass savanna from the top of a 65-foot research tower near Ione in Amador County, biometeorologist Dennis Baldocchi [professor of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at] UC Berkeley sums up his part in the effort to get a more accurate picture of climate change.
"We want to see how the earth breathes, essentially," he said.
One of the pieces of the climate puzzle that hasn't come into focus yet is this flux of carbon between the earth and the atmosphere. How this interchange will be affected by changes in sunlight, temperature, rainfall and soil moisture is still a big gap in the climate models.
Relying on Berkeley research, California establishes groundbreaking carbon standard for fuels
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has issued an executive order calling for California to establish the world's first carbon standard for transportation fuels. (Read about it in the Governor's op-ed here.)
The University of California estimates our greenhouse gas emissions goals will increase our gross state product by $60 billion and create more than 20,000 new jobs. The time is now for America to transition to a clean-energy economy.... I am very pleased to be able to announce that California is leading the way.
Study of rotting leaves could lead to more accurate climate models
Over the past decade, in numerous field sites throughout the world, mesh bags of leaf and root litter sat exposed to the elements, day and night, throughout the four seasons, gradually rotting away.
Now, those bags of decomposing organic matter have allowed a research team led by scientists from CNR and Colorado State University to produce an elegant and simple set of equations to calculate the nitrogen released into the soil during decomposition, which in turn could significantly improve the accuracy of global climate change models.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's executive order to begin implementation of a market-based compliance program encouraging businesses to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions is clearly a step in the right direction toward cleaning our air of harmful carbon particulates. The next step is to make it financially attractive enough for businesses to comply with the program.
Reducing pollution could increase rice harvests in India
Reductions of human-generated air pollution could create unexpected agricultural benefits in one of the world's poorest regions, according to new research by Maximilian Auffhammer, assistant professor of agricultural resources and economics, and his collaborators.
High-elevation studies look at climate change in the Sierra
From the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle:
Some of the world's best evidence of global warming was buried under 18 feet of snow in the Sierra Nevada last winter, and [UC Berkeley Forestry alumna] Connie Millar was determined to dig it out.
Millar, a veteran field scientist for the U.S. Forest Service, sweated uphill with three colleagues on a July morning, headed deep into Lundy Canyon, just north of Mono Lake, one of the few access points to the Sierra crest along its rugged eastern flank....
This story also quotes Forestry alumnus Bob Coats.
A new report delivered to state legislators and led by ARE Professor David Roland-Host says that returning California greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, as envisioned by pending global warming legislation, could significantly stimulate the state economy.
Dramatic natural phenomena such as huricanes and heat waves have renewed the mainstream media's interest in global warming, and several excellent articles have recently feature UC Berkeley climate change scientists.
Two University of California, Berkeley, climate researchers have signed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to hear an appeal in a case that could force the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles. The lawsuit, brought against the federal government by the State of Massachusetts, seeks to slow the onset of global warming.
Eleven eminent scientists will speak on Friday, April 28 on topical energy issues at this day-long symposium honoring their colleague, California Energy Commissioner, UC Berkeley Professor Emeritus, and energy efficiency pioneer Arthur H. Rosenfeld, on the occasion of his 80th birthday. Rosenfeld has also just received the prestigious Enrico Fermi Award (press release here).
Sessions of The "Rosenfeld Effect" Energy Symposium will discuss the role of increased energy efficiency in California, in China, and on a global scale; the intersection of energy and safe drinking water in the developing world; the twin challenges of mitigating climate change and sustaining orderly markets in fluid fuels; how to turn good science into good politics; and defining, predicting, and coping with global warming.
There’s progress on the climate front. Suddenly the U.S. is waking to the reality of climate change as glaciers melt and seasons become more extreme. For California, predictions of declining snow packs and drier summers mean threats to urban water supplies and higher risk of wildfire. Across the country, states are taking the initiative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Frequent questions arise about the California Climate Action Registry and its Forest Protocols. Forest landowners are starting to learn more and examine how the Registry might benefit them. Some misconceptions have developed, thus a brief overview helps in understanding how the protocols work and the potential they offer to landowners, forests and the global environment.
Read the FAQ developed by visiting CNR faculty member Andrea Tuttle, former director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection:
With $1.6 million grant, new HydroWatch Center seeks full view of Earth's water cycle
Inez Fung, co-director of the Berkeley Institute of the Environment, and her research team have received $1.6 million from the W.M. Keck Foundation to establish the Keck HydroWatch Center at UC Berkeley.
Research undertaken at the HydroWatch Center will help scientists better understand the water cycle and predict its changes. Their aim is to dramatically expand the observations of all aspects of the water cycle by developing cost-effective, rapid-response, and accurate sensors and techniques to monitor water quality, quantity, and pathways.
Forest landowners playing role in fight against global warming
By Andrea Tuttle
California's forests have something to celebrate.
The first forest projects in California designed specifically to fight global warming were recently announced at the United Nations conference on climate change in Montreal. By registering in the California Climate Action Registry, the Garcia River Forest in Sonoma County and the Van Eck property in Humboldt show a new model for protecting natural resources.
The projects will reduce greenhouse gases and restore streams and roads, all while working to produce timber. Perhaps most surprising is that well-known environmental groups, including the Conservation Fund, the Pacific Forest Trust, the Nature Conservancy and the State Coastal Conservancy, will actually manage logging on these lands to save them and better the environment.
Overfishing may drive endangered seabird to rely upon lower quality food
The effects of overfishing may have driven marbled murrelets, an endangered seabird found along the Pacific coast, to increasingly rely upon less nutritious food sources, according to a new study by biologists at the University of California, Berkeley.
The results, to be published online by early March 2006 in the journal Conservation Biology, suggest that feeding further down the food web may have played a role in low levels of reproduction observed in contemporary murrelet populations, and has likely contributed to the seabirds' listing as an endangered species, the researchers said.
Looking out across an expanse of oak-grass savanna from the top of a 65-foot research tower near Ione in Amador County, 
The effects of overfishing may have driven marbled murrelets, an endangered seabird found along the Pacific coast, to increasingly rely upon less nutritious food sources, according to a new study by biologists at the University of California, Berkeley.