Good News, Bad News

Which do you want first?

Personally, I like to face the bad up front, so...

...a UN report released on Thursday concludes that a three kilometer high Atmospheric Brown Cloud (ABC) consisting of soot and other man-made particles stretches from the Arabian Peninsula to China and the Western Pacific Ocean, occasionally reaching as far as California and Oregon. It aggravates greenhouse gas-induced climate change in some situations/locations (notably the Hindu Kush-Himalaya-Tibetan glaciers that provide the head-waters for the region's major river systems), and is responsible for a 10-25 percent decrease in natural light in Beijing, Karachi, Shanghai, and New Delhi as sunlight is absorbed by the dark soot particles hanging above the cities.

• ABCs result from unsustainable burning of fossil fuels and inefficient combustion of biomass and deforestation, which produce both soot and greenhouse gases.
  
• Smaller ABCs exist over North America, Europe, southern Africa, and the Amazon Basin.
  

The worst part is that particles in the ABC are actually deflecting some greenhouse gases, effectively masking the impacts of climate change. Consequently, if the clouds were eliminated without making drastic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, it could trigger a rapid global temperature rise of as much as two degree celsuis (surpassing what many scientists consider a "crucial and dangerous" threshold).

Scary, huh? I'll bet you're ready for the good news now.

Greg Haegele of the Sierra Club reported on Treehugger yesterday that the EPA's Environmental Appeals Board (EAB) ruled that the EPA can limit carbon dioxide emissions from new coal-fired power plants.

The decision means that all new and proposed coal plants nationwide must go back and address their carbon dioxide emissions -- the source of 30% of our nation's global warming pollution. The decision will halt virtually all new coal plant development until EPA decides how to address global warming pollution from coal plants.

Looks like the EPA might finally be regaining some of its original wasta...