Greater Yellowstone in Peril: the Threats of Climate Disruption

The Rocky Mountain Climate Organization | Greater Yellowstone Coalition / by Stephen Saunders, Dan Findlay, Tom Easley and Scott Christensen http://bit.ly/ny4DuV [From the Idaho State Journal]  Summers in Yellowstone National Park could average 9.7 degrees hotter in the next 60-90 years, making them as hot as the Los Angeles suburb of Culver City and precipitating [...]

Pew Report Critical of USGS Report on Arctic Drilling

Pew Environment Group http://bit.ly/nTesGW [From a Greenwire article by Phil Taylor, sub. req'd]   A U.S. Geological Survey report last summer on the nation’s capacity to assess impacts from oil and gas drilling in the Arctic Ocean was credible and unbiased but failed to identify which scientific gaps are most important to fill, according to a [...]

Report on the First Quadrennial Technology Review

US DOE http://cms.doe.gov/sites/prod/files/ReportOnTheFirstQTR.pdf [From a Greenwire article by Katie Howell]  The Energy Department is shifting its technology research priorities after an internal review found the agency was too heavily focused on developing energy technologies that are decades away from widespread deployment. “We need to consider the current energy landscape, where we are heading, where we [...]

Danger in the Air: Unhealthy Air Days in 2010 and 2011

Environment America / by Courtney Abrams http://bit.ly/rbz1oL [From Press Release]  As the U.S. House of Representatives considers a bill (H.R. 2401) this week that would roll back Clean Air Act protections for smog, Environment America released a new report, Danger in the Air: Unhealthy Air Days in 2010 and 2011. According to the report, ten [...]

Database: Outdoor Air Pollution in Cities

WHO http://bit.ly/pjnsG9 (database) http://bit.ly/pMjqz1 (press release) [From Website] Air pollution is reaching levels that threaten people’s health according to air quality data released today by WHO. The information includes data from nearly 1100 cities across 91 countries, including capital cities and cities with more than 100 000 residents.

Resource Efficiency-Economics and Outlook for Asia and the Pacific

UN Environment Programme | CSIRO http://www.unep.org/ROAP/ [Website]   To prosper over the remainder of the 21st Century, the countries of the Asia Pacific need a new “green” industrial revolution to drive dramatic improvements in resource efficiency, according to a major international report to be released in Canberra next week. The report, Resource Efficiency-Economics and Outlook for [...]

Recommended Research Priorities for the Qatar Foundation’s Environment and Energy Research Institute

RAND-Qatar Policy / by Nidhi Kalra, et al. http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG1106.html [From Summary]  …This book recommends applied research priorities for the new institution and reports on a survey of related research institutions in the region. The authors identified 14 priority research topics that QF should consider for the institute: natural gas and petroleum production and processing, carbon capture [...]

World Disasters Report 2011

International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies http://www.ifrc.org/PageFiles/89755/Photos/307000-WDR-2011-FINAL-email-1.pdf In addition to disaster data (in the annex) this year’s report focuses on food insecurity, malnutrition and hunger-related humanitarian challenges. [H/T: Full Text Reports]

Is Infrastructure Capital Productive? a Dynamic Heterogeneous Approach

World Bank / by Cesar Calderon, Enrique Moral-Benito and Luis Serven http://bit.ly/qeJZzh [Summary] This paper offers an empirical evaluation of the output contribution of infrastructure. Drawing from a large data set on infrastructure stocks covering 88 countries and spanning the years 1960-2000, and using a panel time-series approach, the paper estimates a long-run aggregate production [...]

The Combined Effect of the Obama EPA Rules

Economic Policy Institute / by Isaac Shapiro http://www.epi.org/publication/combined-effect-obama-epa-rules/ [Website] The Combined Effect of the Obama EPA Rules, the only comprehensive tally of the combined costs and benefits of the new major Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rules, debunks arguments that their cumulative impact would harm the struggling economy. The paper, by Economic Policy Institute (EPI) Director [...]