What would happen if a major hurricane made a direct hit on Houston and NASA’s Johnson Space Center? Researchers at the center for Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disasters, SSPEED, at Rice University in Houston have received a grant of $1.25 million to find out.

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West Virginia State Police today arrested at least 29 demonstrators, including government climate scientist Dr. James Hansen, actress Daryl Hannah, and 94 year-old former West Virginia Congressman Ken Hechler, for tresspassing on the property of a mountaintop removal coal mining company to protest the destructive practice.

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VIENNA, Austria, June 22, 2009 (ENS) – A tripling of investment in renewable energy coupled with stronger government policies are needed to allow a shift towards a low-carbon, environmentally friendly global economy with “green industry” at its core, delegates to a United Nations-backed conference heard today.

“The current global financial and economic crisis must be used to our advantage to bring about a green energy revolution,” said Kandeh Yumkella, director-general of the UN Industrial Development Organization, UNIDO, one of the conference organizers.

UNIDO Director-General Kandeh Yumkella opens the conference today in Vienna. (Photo courtesy UNIDO)

Yumkella was speaking at the opening of the three-day event in Vienna, “Towards an Integrated Energy Agenda Beyond 2020,” organized by UNIDO, the Austrian Government, the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, IIASA, and the Global Forum on Sustainable Energy.

“Promoting domestic and international policies that encourage green investment in the next decade should be a major priority for a climate deal to be concluded in Copenhagen,” stressed Yumkella, referring to the UN conference in December aimed at reaching an ambitious new greenhouse gas emission reduction agreement to succeed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which expires at the end of 2012.

The conference is designed to provide a framework to guide the path “towards a low-carbon global green economy powered by green industry,” Yumkella told some 500 government officials, energy and economics experts, and civil society representatives attending the gathering.

The conference marks the 10th anniversary of the Global Forum on Sustainable Energy, which facilitates dialogue between key players and encourages public-private cooperation in the field of sustainable energy.

“Vienna has become a dynamic hub for international efforts to promote peace, security and sustainable energy,” Austrian Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger told delegates.

“This conference reflects the strong commitment of Vienna based organizations to make the city of Vienna an international center of excellence in bringing forward the sustainable energy agenda,” he said.

The Austrian Development Cooperation has been supporting renewable energy projects in developing countries for many years, said Spindelegger, adding that Austrian science, technology institutions and companies are known to be at the leading edge of renewable energies and energy efficiency.

Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore, said that energy remains the “missing Millennium Development Goal,” referring to the set of anti-poverty targets world leaders have pledged to try to achieve by 2015.

Pachauri said that without an adequate supply of energy to the poor, there could be “no talk about eliminating poverty in the world.”

Two solar towers now generating power in Seville, Spain. The second came online June 19, 2009. (Photo courtesy Abengoa Solar)

IIASA Director Detlof von Winterfeldt presented the highlights of the new Global Energy Assessment, which he called the most comprehensive and integrated analysis of global energy challenges ever undertaken.

“We are facing a convergence of challenges that require a fundamental transformation of energy systems,” said von Winterfeldt. “Business-as-usual solutions are not an option.”

“The magnitude, pace, and scale of the impact of climate change is greater than predicted even as recently as a couple of years ago – the need to respond to this change is urgent,” he said.

A tripling of the current $350 billion annual investment in energy, over $100 billion of which is in renewable energy, is needed to meet global energy challenges, von Winterfeldt said.

He said an opportunity exists “in the several stimulus packages introduced by many countries in response to the global financial and economic crisis” to find the funding necessary for the shift towards a green economy.

Von Winterfeldt said it was untenable that today 2.4 billion people were without access to modern energy services. GEA early findings suggest that the cost of providing modern energy services for all is not only achievable but affordable in the medium term, if the political will exists.

Delegates also will discuss the role of the newly formed International Renewable Energy Agency, IRENA, which will advise both industrialized and developing countries on reducing their dependency on fossil fuels by promoting the rapid adoption of renewable energy worldwide.

IRENA was established in Bonn, Germany on January 26, 2009 by 75 countries.

The number of IRENA member states has jumped up to 100, the organization announced Friday. The number of people living in its member states and thus directly impacted by IRENA, rose to more than 3.2 billion people.

More countries are expected to join prior to the next meeting of IRENA’s signatory countries at the end of June in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. The United States and Australia are expected to join soon.

“IRENA displays a certain magnetic quality for all those, who have realized that renewable energies are the key to the world’s future energy supply,” said Hermann Scheer, president of EUROSOLAR and chair of the World Council for Renewable Energy.

“The number of more than three billion people in IRENA’s member countries is enormous,” said Scheer. “One day in the near future when fossil and nuclear energies are completely depleted, people worldwide will use renewable energy.”

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West Virgina officials have failed to abide by the federal Clean Water Act, instead deferring to the industries they are supposed to regulate, a coalition of environmental groups claims in a formal petition asking the federal government to take back control of discharge permitting and enforcement from the state.

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NEW YORK, New York, June 19, 2009 (ENS) - Crowds moving past the corner of 33rd Street and 7th Avenue outside Madison Square Garden and Penn Station in New York City can now keep track of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations on a new giant digital billboard.

The 70-foot-tall carbon counter keeps a running total of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases as part of a climate change awareness and education initiative sponsored by Deutsche Bank Climate Change Advisors group.

Kevin Parker, global head of Deutsche Bank’s Asset Management Division and a member of Deutsche Bank’s Group Executive Committee, flipped the switch on the world’s first scientifically valid, real-time carbon counter at a rainy ceremony Thursday morning.

Carbon counter at the corner of 33rd St. and 7th Avenue in New York City. (Photo courtesy Deutsche Bank)

“Carbon in the atmosphere has reached an 800,000-year high,” said Parker. “We can’t see greenhouse gases, so it is easy to forget that they are accumulating rapidly.”

“It will be a huge task to bring global emissions under control and my hope is that putting this data in the public view will spur both governments and markets to move us more quickly to a low-carbon economy,” Parker said. “The science shows that unless this trend is addressed now there is a growing likelihood of increased warming and more severe disruptions for economies and societies.”

Parker said the display is not a just message for New York City or for the United States, but for everyone around the world. The belief that information catalyzes action underpins the Carbon Counter’s creation.

The numbers on the Carbon Counter are based on measurements developed by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that include all long-lived greenhouse gases covered under the Kyoto and Montreal Protocols - a total of 24 gases, excluding ozone and aerosols.

“The Carbon Counter is a bold new experiment in communicating climate science to the public,” said Ronald Prinn, professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT. “With climate change in the news around the world, it is useful to have an up-to-date estimate of a single integrating number expressing the trends in the long-lived greenhouse gases contributing to that change.”

“This number can help convey how fast these greenhouse gases are increasing, and the progress, or lack thereof, in slowing the rate of increase,” Prinn said.

The current quantity of long-lived greenhouse gases in the atmosphere as shown by the Carbon Counter is 3.64 trillion metric tons, increasing by approximately two billion metric tons per month.

According to an evolving consensus of scientists, as this trend continues there is an increasing probability that a series of macro-climatic shifts will set up a self-sustaining cycle of rapid climate change.

The number on the Carbon Counter is based on global measurements, Prim explained. “It shows the total estimated tonnage of these gases expressed as their equivalent amounts of carbon dioxide, with seasonal and other natural cyclical variations removed to more clearly reveal the underlying long term trends driven by human and other activity. It is indeed a number to watch.”

Using work from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2007 Fourth Assessment Report as a starting point, greenhouse gases are tracked by equipment operated in dozens of locations around the world by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA’s Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment, run by Prinn.

The carbon counter’s real-time display is a running projection of the current quantities based on the latest measurements available. The projection is recalibrated every month as new data are received.

The Carbon Counter sign is carbon neutral. Low-risk carbon credits are in place to offset its energy use, while the digital numbers are displayed by 40,960 low-energy light emitting diodes, LEDs.

The Carbon Counter Number is available 24 hours a day at http://www.know-the-number.com/ and updates will be available at http://twitter.com/knowthenumber.

A panel discussion on climate change held Thursday to mark the launch featured climate change experts Robert Socolow of Princeton University, John Reilly of MIT, Tim Wirth of the UN Foundation, Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University and Fred Krupp from the Environmental Defense Fund.

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LIMA, Peru, June 19, 2009 (ENS) – A 10-week protest by Peru’s Amazonian indigenous groups against legislation that facilitates development in their region ended yesterday after the Peruvian Congress repealed two legislative decrees. Leaders of the Peruvian Rainforest Inter-Ethnic Development Association, AIDESEP, called upon thousands of indigenous protesters to lift blockades of two highways and return to their villages.

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WASHINGTON, DC, June 18, 2009 (ENS) - The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works approved six water-related bills today, including the controversial Clean Water Restoration Act, S. 787.

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BRUSSELS, Belgium, June 17, 2009 (ENS) - The European Commission and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency agreed today to implement new higher energy-efficiency specifications for computers, copiers and printers under the EU-US Energy Star Programme.

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WASHINGTON, DC, June 12, 2009 (ENS) - The number of jobs in America’s emerging clean energy economy grew about 2.5 times faster than overall jobs between 1998 and 2007, finds a report released Wednesday by The Pew Charitable Trusts. Included in Pew’s definition of the clean energy economy are jobs as diverse as engineers, plumbers, administrative assistants, construction workers, machine setters, marketing consultants, teachers and many others, with annual incomes ranging from $21,000 to $111,000.

Pew developed a clear definition of the clean energy economy and conducted the first-ever hard count across all 50 states of the actual jobs, companies and venture capital investments that supply the growing market demand for environmentally friendly products and services.

The survey found that jobs in the clean energy economy grew at a national rate of 9.1 percent, while traditional jobs grew by only 3.7 percent between 1998 and 2007.

By 2007, more than 68,200 businesses across all 50 states and the District of Columbia accounted for about 770,000 jobs that achieve the double bottom line of economic growth and environmental sustainability, the report finds.

Now, the clean energy sector is ready to expand, driven by increasing consumer demand, venture capital infusions, and federal and state policy reforms, the report concludes.

National Wind Technology Center employee Garth Johnson works in the hub of a wind turbine rotor. December 2006. (Photo by Lee Fingerish courtesy NREL)

“The clean energy economy is poised for explosive growth,” said Lori Grange, interim deputy director of the Pew Center on the States. “These jobs are driving economic growth and environmental sustainability at a time when America needs both. There is a potential competitive advantage for federal and state policy leaders who act now to spur jobs, businesses and investments in the clean energy sector.”

There was a similar pattern at the state level, where job growth in the clean energy economy outperformed overall job growth in 38 states and the District of Columbia during the same period - between 1998 and 2007.

“The Pew Charitable Trusts report illuminates how the clean energy economy is a strong and important part of New Mexico’s and America’s economy,” said New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, a Democrat. “Over the past six years, my administration has pursued clean energy policies ranging from a strong renewable portfolio standard to a robust set of clean energy tax incentives. For America to lead the global clean energy economy we need Congress to follow the lead of states like New Mexico and pass comprehensive policies that spur innovation and economic growth.”

America’s clean energy economy has grown despite a lack of sustained government support in the past decade. By 2007, more than 68,200 businesses across all 50 states and the District of Columbia accounted for about 770,000 jobs.

By comparison, the fossil-fuel sector — including utilities, coal mining and oil and gas extraction, industries that have received significant government investment — included about 1.27 million workers in 2007.

Pew’s definition of the clean energy economy is based on research and input from experts in the field, including an advisory panel convened to help guide the study.

According to Pew, “a clean energy economy generates jobs, businesses and investments while expanding clean energy production, increasing energy efficiency, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, waste and pollution, and conserving water and other natural resources.”

The definition provides a framework for tracking jobs, investments and economic growth over time and allowing the public and private sector to evaluate the effectiveness of policy choices and investments.

Florida Governor Charlie Crist, a Republican, says the Pew report demonstrates what his administration has known for a long time. “Embracing a clean energy future for Florida will produce a vital new economic sector with new job opportunities across the Sunshine State while protecting our environment and increasing our energy security,” said the governor. “The measures we’ve taken to increase renewable energy, energy efficiency, and biofuel production in Florida are attracting new capital and creating new jobs.”

Venture capital investment in clean technology crossed the $1 billion threshold in 2005 and continued to grow substantially, reaching a total of about $12.6 billion by the end of 2008, the report finds.

In 2008, investors directed $5.9 billion into American businesses in the clean energy economy. This figure represents a 48 percent increase over 2007 investment totals and accounts for 15 percent of all global venture capital investments.

Tennessee is one of the states that is benefitting from some of these investments.

“Tennessee has worked hard to be a leader in the clean energy sector and it’s clear from the Pew report that our efforts are yielding dividends in job creation,” said Governor Phil Bredesen, a Democrat. “Expanding our focus on energy efficiency, renewable power production and other clean energy activities is helping jumpstart our state’s economy, and it happens to be the right thing to do for the environment.”

States will receive a major infusion of federal funds through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which allocates nearly $85 billion in direct spending and tax incentives for energy and transportation programs.

Despite receiving Recovery Act funds, state fiscal conditions deteriorated for nearly every state during fiscal 2009, according to a report from the National Governors Association and the National Association of State Budget Officers released June 4.

Still, every state offers some form of financial incentive to drive its clean energy economy.

Twenty-three states have adopted regional initiatives to reduce the global warming pollution from power plants, 46 states offer some form of tax incentive to encourage residents and corporations to use renewable energy or adopt energy efficiency systems and equipment, and 29 states and the District of Columbia have established renewable portfolio standards, which require electricity providers to supply a minimum amount of power from renewable energy sources.

It is possible to reach for the clean energy brass ring and miss. Illinois, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania have large clean energy economies that are losing jobs. Difficult economic conditions have led to a net loss of these jobs in these four states during the past 10 years.

Still, overall the clean energy economy is moving ahead.

“There is bipartisan support and a growing market demand for transitioning to the clean energy economy,” said Phyllis Cuttino, director, U.S. Global Warming Campaign, at the Pew Environment Group.

“Americans understand the transition is good for the overall economy, is creating new opportunities for jobs and business growth, and helps protect our national security by reducing our dependence on foreign oil,” Cuttino said.

Clean energy legislation is moving in the House of Representatives, and Cuttino says that’s what the country needs. She said, “Congress and the Obama administration can and must produce energy and global warming legislation that creates jobs, enhances energy independence and sustains our environment.”

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Pakistan has initiated a massive hydropower project in its administrative part of Kashmir without fulfilling basic environmental obligations required for such development projects.

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At least 10,000 more properties in residential neighborhoods of Evansville will be tested for lead and arsenic contamination in the soil of their yards, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 5 announced today.

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