This post is by James Wang, Ph.D., a climate scientist at Environmental Defense.

The wildfires in California prompted the largest mass evacuation in California history, destroying half a million acres and over 1500 homes. People are saying that global warming may have played a part in the severity of the blazes. But where is the connection? And how can global warming cause both floods and droughts?

Satellite photo of California wildfires. Source: NASA.

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This post is by Sheryl Canter, an Online Writer and Editorial Manager at Environmental Defense.

In Sunday's New York Times, there was an editorial by Thomas Friedman that (among other things) talked about how the role of the Weather Channel has evolved over time. Weather used to be about "acts of God" - nobody's fault. But more and more lately we are wondering if extreme weather events are acts of man, not God - our fault. And so, Friedman says, the Weather Channel, formerly a politics-free zone, is "slowly morphing into the news channel."

Towards this end, the Weather Channel has recently launched a new Web site called Forecast Earth. It's a great resource.

This post is by John Balbus, M.D., Chief Health Scientist at Environmental Defense.

Dr. Julie L. Gerberding, Director of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), gave written testimony to a Senate committee this week. The statement she gave was a full six pages shorter than originally planned because of deep cuts made by the White House.

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This post is by Rev. Sally Bingham, president of The Regeneration Project and the Interfaith Power and Light campaign. She also serves on the Board of Trustees at Environmental Defense.

I have maintained for years that climate change is the most serious moral issue of our time, but at first few believed me or took it to heart. Having just returned from a week of traveling and giving talks on a religious response to global warming, I'm more encouraged than ever that we will solve this problem before we destroy ourselves.

Things have shifted in the last several months, and it's a refreshing, hopeful time. More people are coming to events to find solutions, rather than to question the science. The most frequently asked question is, "What can we do?" Now that the religious voice is at the table with other solution seekers, I am very hopeful that we will stop the warming trend.

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This post is by Mark MacLeod, Director of Special Projects, Climate and Air Program, Environmental Defense.

Climate Vote 2007

Part of a series on the work of the Environmental Defense Action Fund to enact an effective climate law. You can help by writing to Congress.

For those who don't live and breathe the legislative process, the political maneuverings on Capitol Hill can be very confusing. Politicians often introduce bills for no other reason than to carve out space in the political debate. These marker bills set the parameters of debate and give politicians space to define their positions.

Eventually, ideas from many of these marker bills may be pieced together in a single legislative vehicle around which the legislative process begins to coalesce. There are clear signs that we have reached this stage with the Lieberman-Warner America's Climate Security Act (ACSA).

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This post is by Sheryl Canter, an Online Writer and Editorial Manager at Environmental Defense.

Here are some interesting articles I came across recently:

Inconvenient Youths - Wall Street Journal
Amusing article about how 4- and 8-year-olds are educating their parents about climate change and pestering them to take action.

America's Greenest States - Forbes Magazine
A ranking of the states based on six equally-weighted categories: carbon footprint, air quality, water quality, hazardous waste management, policy initiatives and energy consumption. See how your state fared.

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This post is by Bill Petty, National Field Director at Environmental Defense.

Climate Vote 2007

Part of a series on the work of the Environmental Defense Action Fund to enact an effective climate law. You can help by writing to Congress.

Environmental Defense works hard to educate members of Congress about global warming, and motivate them to take action. The House is a particular challenge because, unlike the Senate, the House has never voted on global warming legislation. So to build a grassroots field campaign to win a majority in the House, we had to start from scratch.

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This post is by James Wang, Ph.D., a climate scientist at Environmental Defense.

A study by Weaver et al., published this month in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, reports that "All emission targets considered with less than 60% global reduction by 2050 break the 2.0°C threshold warming this century…." (They mean 2.0°C above the pre-industrial temperature, equivalent to 2.3°F above today's temperature. For more on threshold temperatures, see "How Warm is Too Warm?") Even more disturbing, they say, "Even when emissions are stabilized at 90% below present levels at 2050, this threshold is eventually broken."

That makes all our efforts seem hopeless. But are they right? In a word, no. Here's why.

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This post is by Lisa Moore, Ph.D., a scientist in the Climate and Air program at Environmental Defense.

Yesterday's New York Times Magazine had an article aptly titled "The Future is Drying Up", about the threats that climate change and booming populations pose to precious water resources in western states. Usually when we think of water and climate change we think of rising sea levels, but climate change is also causing drops in drinking water supplies.

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This post is by Michael Oppenheimer, Ph.D., the Albert G. Milbank Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs in the Woodrow Wilson School and the Department of Geosciences at Princeton University. He also serves as science advisor to Environmental Defense.

We're already seeing environmental changes from global warming, and some key ones are occurring more quickly than scientists expected. Consequently, many experts from diverse disciplines are uncomfortable with the slow pace of governments in addressing this issue. The growing sense of urgency arises from two concerns:

• Earth's climate system may be rapidly approaching a point of no return where large, irreversible and destructive changes, like the gradual disintegration of an ice sheet, become inevitable.
• To achieve any given temperature goal, the longer we delay action, the steeper emissions reductions will need to be. It's easier to cut emissions gradually than it is to slash them drastically.

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