Clean Air Policy

Global warming has been going on for so long that most people were not even born the last time the Earth was cooler than average in 1985 in a shift that is altering perceptions of a "normal" climate, scientists said. Decades of climate change bring risks that people will accept higher temperatures, with more heatwaves, downpours and droughts, as normal and complicate government plans to do more to cut emissions of greenhouse gas emissions.

Indonesia's complex rules on land use and the difficulty in prosecuting foreign businesses mean Singapore has its work cut out bringing companies to book under its new cross-border air pollution law. The bill, approved by parliament on Tuesday, has won praise from politicians and environmentalists as a bold move to tackle a decades-long problem of smoke from forest fires in neighboring Indonesia choking the city state.

Previously, I've written about the potential for a future smart grid, where homes with solar panels and batteries intelligently interconnect to form a cleaner, more-robust distributed power system.

Climate change means more wildfires and wildfire smoke helps further heat the atmosphere

Few tourists travel explicitly to see a city’s or country's mode of transportation, but I dare say that besides transport nerds such as myself, there are examples which qualify as must-see, including Japan's Shinkansen high-speed train, Lisbon's old tram system, and the streetcars of New Orleans, among others.

Raising beef uses 28 times more land, 11 times more water and six times more fertilizer than the average expenditures for other livestock. Cynthia Graber reports 

 

A new report shows that failing to combat global warming would dramatically increase the cost of such climate insurance

Satellite imaging reveals the need to change farming in South Asia as higher average temperatures hit

Moth eyes absorb almost all incident light, thus reducing reflection that predators would notice. Researchers have now used the moth eye structure as the basis of a highly efficient solar absorbing cell. Larry Greenemeier reports

 

The Kemper County Energy Facility will capture the CO2 that comes from gasifying coal

Beijing has closed the first of four large coal-fired power plants set to be de-commissioned as part of the city's efforts to cut air pollution, official news agency Xinhua reported on Wednesday, citing the local planning agency. Xinhua said the authorities had shut down the Gaojing Thermal Power Plant's six 100 megawatt generating units.

A new agreement between China and the U.S. may stimulate research on capturing CO2 pollution