Category: What's HOT in Global Warming
By Bruce E. Johansen
Describing the heat wave across the eastern two-thirds of the United States at the end of March, weather watchers nearly ran out of adjectives. Across the U.S. in March, more than 7,000 record highs were set, 25 for each record low. During the third week of March, the temperature broke 90 in Michigan. It hit 91 in Omaha March 31, April 1, and April 2—a spectacular 40 degrees above average. It was 67 at 6:00 a.m. April 2, a usual mid-summer morning. March ended 16 degrees above average in Omaha, a record.
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By Bruce E. Johansen
How do fossil fuels keep a leash on our political system?
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by Bruce Johansen
Like anyone else, I can draw some joy out of a sunny, mild day in the middle of January. We take enough punishment in Nebraska to deserve a few of them. But nearly a month of them, back to back (from mid-December, 2011 to at least mid-January, 2012)? Dare I rain—or snow, sleet and hail—on this parade?
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by Bruce Johansen
A friend, Professor Henry D'Souza (who is well-known around Nebraskans for Peace), told me that he had watched parts of the Unicameral hearings on the Keystone XL Pipeline. He remarked at how limited the focus of the hearings seemed to be, as if we are dealing mainly with a routing issue for the pipeline, not the larger issue, the introduction of a whole new (and very large) pool of fossil fuels, by way of Alberta’s tar sands.
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BY BRUCE E. JOHANSEN
The proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline, which would carry about 830,000 barrels a day at full capacity, has been catching a lot of grief locally because it could spill oil that might ruin our underground water supply. That much is true. But the environmental cost of the pipeline does not stop there. The oil that will be transported is refined from tar sands, mainly from Alberta, which combine all the worst attributes of fossil fuels: spill potential, the carbon footprint of coal, and the environmental damage of coal strip mining. Tar sands are, briefly stated, a triple environmental atrocity—enough to send a thinking person to a bicycle.
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