Kerry on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group 2 Report

[ProSense]

5. Obama’s Plan to Curb Methane Emissions is a Big Step in Climate Fight

Obama’s Plan to Curb Methane Emissions is a Big Step in Climate Fight

NRDC: Strategy also will cut other toxic pollutants tied to oil, gas development

WASHINGTON (March 28, 2014) – The White House’s Interagency Methane Strategy to curb the emissions of this powerful greenhouse gas, released today, is a big step in the right direction, the Natural Resources Defense Council said.

The following is a statement by David Doniger, director of the Climate and Clean Air Program at NRDC:

“Methane is a potent heat-trapping pollutant, and we've long understood the urgency and importance of controlling it as a way to slow dangerous climate change. Curbing methane emissions is a key element in President Obama's Climate Action Plan and today's announcement is a big step in the right direction. Curbing methane also will help reduce other toxic pollutants associated with oil and gas development and other industries. But more needs to be done, and we look forward to working with the Obama Administration to establish effective methane leakage standards."

http://www.nrdc.org/media/2014/140328.asp

White House gets geeky on climate problem

By John Upton

To see how the world is changing around you, sometimes it helps to lose yourself online.

The White House is plunging into a new geeky approach to climate adaptation. It has consolidated online climate tools into a new hub, climate.data.gov, intended to help Americans understand how weather and sea levels will continue to change in their states and even their neighborhoods.

OK, so it’s not the most awesome online thing to happen since Google mastered search. But The New York Times explains some of the laudable ambition behind the effort:

In theory, … climate.data.gov … would be a powerful tool, allowing local governments or home and business owners to type in an address — as they do on sites like Google Earth — to quickly see how the projected rise in sea levels might increase the chance that their house will be flooded in the coming years. But in practice, until climate science and mapping applications can live up to the site’s ambitions, it will remain very much in its testing phase.

At the beginning, the website will serve chiefly as a clearinghouse for climate science data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the United States Geological Survey, the Defense Department and NASA, according to (White House advisers John) Holdren and (John) Podesta. The first batch of data will focus on coastal flooding and the rise in sea levels.

Average users will not be able to do much yet on their own. Instead, NASA and the NOAA will call on researchers and private companies to create software simulations illustrating the impact of sea level rise.

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UPDATE: Google, Microsoft, and Intel have all committed to help develop the climate.data.gov project. Microsoft will donate close to one terabyte of cloud storage space, as well as sponsor a competition for climate scientists to win a year of free access to cloud computing resources. Google, not to be outdone, will provide one petabyte (for those not caught up on their Greek: that’s one thousand terabytes) of cloud storage for climate change research data, and will help create a map of the Earth’s terrain in high resolution to illustrate the effects of climate change on the landscape. And Intel has planned hackathons that will bring together students in Chesapeake Bay, New Orleans, and San Jose to build apps to measure and track climate change using government data.

http://grist.org/news/white-house-gets-geeky-on-climate-problem/