Klimaatverandering 109

Global Warming Is Speeding Up Ocean Waves
NewScientist.com

Gigantic ocean waves, spanning hundreds of kilometres from crest to crest, have been speeding up thanks to global warming, a new model suggests.
Geophysicists predict that as the ocean surface warms, these so-called planetary waves should speed up. To test this idea, John Fyfe and Oleg Saenko at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada, modelled the changes to ocean wave patterns over the 20th and 21st centuries.
"We were really surprised at how quickly the ocean responded to temperature change," Fyfe says. According to the model, global warming has already increased the speed of the waves, but no one noticed because satellites have not been monitoring their speeds for long enough, he says. The model also shows that by the end of the 21st century, the waves will be a further 20 to 40 per cent faster compared with pre-industrial speeds (Geophysical Research Letters, vol 34, p L10706).
"We knew we'd see an effect, but we didn't think it would be significant for at least another two centuries," Fyfe says. The faster planetary waves will have an effect on global weather, he adds.

Zie: http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/061207EC.shtml

'Congress Turns to Energy, and Lobbyists Arrive
By Edmund L. Andrews
The New York Times

Washington - Having tried and failed to overhaul the nation's immigration laws last week, Congress begins what some say is an even more divisive project this week: taming America's thirst for oil.
With gasoline prices hovering near all-time highs, the Senate on Monday began debating a sprawling energy bill that has already kicked off an epic lobbying war by huge industries, some of them in conflict with one another: car companies, oil companies, electric utilities, coal producers and corn farmers, to name a few.
Industry groups have raced to sign up influential lawmakers and are nervously calculating how much regulation they might have to accept from the Democratic majority in Congress.
"This is going to be harder than immigration," said John B. Breaux, a former Democratic senator from Louisiana who is representing Cerberus Capital Management, the private equity firm that recently took control of the Chrysler Corporation. "This is going to be the mother of all bills. By that I mean, any one portion of it is important enough to affect completion of the whole bill."
Detroit's automakers are lobbying hard against tough fuel economy standards, but they support increased production of ethanol and other alternative fuels.
But Charles W. Stenholm, a former Democratic representative from Texas, is lobbying on behalf of oil producers and cattle farmers against big subsidies for corn-based ethanol.
The Senate bill, as well as a similar measure in the House, would force automakers to increase the fuel economy of their cars and light trucks. It would require a huge expansion of alternative fuels for cars and trucks as well as electric power plants. And it is expected to offer as much as $25 billion in tax breaks over 10 years to promote those fuels.
"Bold steps and big ideas," Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, said in a speech on Monday. "The Democratic plan is all about harnessing power: the clear, renewable power that exists literally all around us."
Senate leaders have allotted up to two weeks for debate, but that may not be enough. It took the Republican-controlled Congress four years to pass the last major energy bill, in 2005, and even that measure almost died because of fights over a peripheral issue involving a fuel additive.
This time, Democrats are emphasizing renewable fuels, as opposed to the Republican focus on increased oil production.
But lawmakers from both parties are drafting scores of proposed amendments, many of which would tilt the competitive advantage of one industry over another, and some would cost taxpayers billions of dollars.'



Lees verder: http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/061207EA.shtml Of:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/12/washington/12energy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin