Environment | WPN World People News

Climate is changing rapidly and its effects already are being felt. The impacts will grow and will profoundly affect us, our kids, grandkids and subsequent generations; and will affect wildlife and everything else we care about. Our challenge: to slow climate change, to reduce our vulnerability and to adapt.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the most significant of the greenhouse gases, accounting for over 80 percent of climate change pollution. Atmospheric levels of CO2 are now higher than at any time in the past 420,000 years. And the changes we are witnessing - and those that are predicted - are largely due to human behavior.

SEATTLE, Wash. -- Observed the last full week of June, National Lightning Safety Awareness Week not only helps get safety messages out in time for the Fourth of July, but also signals summer as lightning season. Outside is the most dangerous place to be during a lightning or thunderstorm and more people are outside during the summer. According to Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Acting Regional Administrator Dennis Hunsinger, lightning strikes and high winds associated with thunderstorms also increase the risk of wildfires.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today announced it had completed air quality testing outside 63 schools in 22 states and at two tribal schools. The testing was done as part of an unprecedented school air monitoring initiative announced by EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson last year to protect children from toxic air pollution around schools. EPA experts will now analyze the data to understand whether air quality at these schools poses long-term health concerns for children.

NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver and German Aerospace Center (DLR) Executive Board Chairman Johann-Dietrich Wörner signed an agreement Thursday during a bilateral meeting in Berlin to extend the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (Grace) mission through the end of its on-orbit life, which is expected in 2015

Oil on water has many appearances. In this photo-image, acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite on June 7, 2010, at least part of the oil slick is pale gray. A large area of oil is southeast of the Mississippi Delta, at the site of the leaking British Petroleum well. Traces of thick oil are also visible farther north.

WASHINGTON – In remarks today at EPA’s 2010 Small Business Environmental Conference, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson outlined the impact of a so-called “resolution of disapproval” of the EPA’s endangerment finding in the Senate. Administrator Jackson discussed how this resolution would undermine EPA’s common-sense approach to addressing climate change, move America a “big step backward in the race for clean energy” and “double down on the energy and environmental policies that feed our oil addiction.”

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has withdrawn the Emission Comparable Fuels (ECF) Rule, a rule that was finalized in December 2008. The rule sought to remove regulatory costs by reclassifying fuels that would otherwise be regulated as hazardous waste, but generate emissions similar to fuel oil when burned.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is making available up to $10 million in grants to local governments to establish and carry out initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Under the Climate Showcase Communities program, EPA expects to award approximately 25 cooperative agreements ranging from $100,000 to $500,000, with approximately five percent of the funds ($500,000) being made available specifically for tribal governments.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today that stand-alone data centers and buildings that house large data centers can now earn the Energy Star label. To earn the label, data centers must be in the top 25 percent of their peers in energy efficiency according to EPA’s energy performance scale. By improving efficiency, centers can save energy and money and help fight climate change.