Susana Martinez, New Mexico’s new Republican governor, has suspended plans to limit greenhouse gas emissions across the state. According to the New York Times, a rule to reduce statewide emissions by 3% per year is probably now history, since it was not recorded in the state registry last week. The Times...
In The News
Know Your Carbon Cycle?
January 11, 2011 |
ScienceDaily
Do you know how carbon moves through the atmosphere, oceans, and biosphere? ScienceDaily reports that according to research by Michigan State University scientists, most college students don’t. A study led by Laurel Hartley, a former MSU postdoctoral researcher, evaluated how well over 500 U.S. college...
Report Lists SW Desert as Endangered Ecosystem
January 11, 2011 |
Endangered Species Coalition
The advocacy group Endangered Species Coalition has put together a list of the top ten endangered ecosystems in the U.S., which includes the southwestern desert. The group’s scientific advisory panel considered...
Dry December for AZ, NM; More Expected
January 7, 2011 |
CLIMAS
The December Southwest Climate Outlook for Arizona and New Mexico, produced by the University ofArizona’s CLIMAS program, reported that drought conditions expanded over the previous month to about 95 percent in both states. The latest...
Local Governments Offer Successful Sustainability Strategies
January 7, 2011 |
ICMA
International City/County Management Association (ICMA), a leadership and management association focused on local government, recently published Getting Smart About Climate Change, a 32-page report that offers “nine...
Most Wastewater Treatment Plants Exempt from GHG Reporting
January 7, 2011 |
Water Environment Research Foundation
Not surprisingly, wastewater treatment facilities that remove nutrients through biological processes emit a considerable amount of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide as part of the treatment process. Quantifying that release has been important in light of recent new greenhouse gas reporting requirement of U.S...
California Moves Forward with Cap-and-Trade
January 4, 2011 |
California Air Resources Board
In December, the California Air Resources Board voted 9-1 to cap greenhouse gas emissions in the state. The new cap-and-trade program will begin in 2012, when an emissions cap will be set at the level forecast for that year. According to the ARB press release, the emissions cap...
12th Century Drought Serves as Worst-Case Scenario for Future SW Climate
January 4, 2011 |
Proceedings of the National Academy of Science
From 1146-1155 AD, the Southwest experienced a drought unprecedented in the last 1200 years. In a new report published in PNAS, Connie Woodhouse at the University of Arizona and her coauthors demonstrate that this drought can serve as analogue for the strength of future droughts across the region. The strength of this 12th...
Southwest Must Reduce Water Demand to Survive Drier Future
January 4, 2011 |
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Ensuring sustainable water supplies requires residents of the Southwest to start managing their water supplies more effectively, reports several papers in PNAS.
According to an article by John Sabo and colleagues, current water management and usage is unsustainable across the West. Testing the claims posed 20 years...
EPA Begins to Regulate Greenhouse Gases
January 4, 2011 |
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Starting this week, the U.S. EPA begins to regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as it does other pollutants, due to their key role in driving global climate change. The new regulations will only pertain to the largest emitters—those releasing more than 100,000 tons of CO2-...