RECOMMENDED READING

EPA Sued Over Ocean Acidification

"An environmental group is suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, seeking to have Washington coastal waters listed as impaired because carbon dioxide is making the ocean more acidic. The Center for Biological Diversity said the EPA has failed to consider how ocean acidification is adversely affecting water quality and marine animals." [AP -Seattle Post Intelligencer]

Desalination in California a Reality

"The biggest seawater desalination plant in the Western Hemisphere, north of San Diego, can begin construction by year's end after a six-year effort to win regulators' approval...The $300 million facility will produce 50 million gallons of drinking water daily, enough for 110,000 households." [Reuters]

21st Century Dust Bowl in the West?

"Dust storms accelerated by a warming climate have covered the Rocky Mountains with dirt whose heat-trapping properties have caused snowpacks to melt weeks earlier than normal, worrying officials in Colorado about drastic water shortages by late summer." [Greenwire - New York Times]

VISUAL

Photos of LA Traffic

[GOOD]

DEBATE

An environmental journalist and a clean coal spokesman square off.

"Is there such as thing as “clean coal”? 

Joe Lucas: Of course there is. Our opponents like to claim that we invented the term, when in fact clean coal (which is short for clean coal technology) has been an accepted term-of-art for several decades now.

David Roberts: No. When coal is mined, it destroys the land and surrounding communities. When coal is washed, it produces millions of tons a year of toxic, water-polluting slurry. When coal is burned, it produces millions of tons a year of toxic ash and periodic disasters like the December spill in Tennessee. Coal combustion produces mercury and particulate pollution that leads to some 24,000 premature deaths a year and billions in healthcare costs, with pregnant mothers and young children particularly at risk.   [NOW on PBS]