Climate scientists warned this week about another of the effects of greenhouse gas emission. The Guardian has details. "Human pollution is turning the seas into acid so quickly that the coming decades will recreate conditions not seen on Earth since the time of the dinosaurs," scientists from Bristol University announced yesterday at a conference in Italy.  Climate scientists are meeting this week to update to the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and to prepare for the "international negotiations in Copenhagen in December, where officials will try to hammer out a successor to the Kyoto protocol".

A British company, Solar Botanic, has developed an artificial tree with leaves that each generate tiny amounts of energy as they flap back and forth in the wind and capture heat from the sun. The "nanoleaf", which looks much like what you see on well-designed fake trees, converts the mechanical stresses from wind blowing across it to the petiole, twig and branch and, from there, to one's house or business or into the grid.  In addition, the nanoleaf absorbs the heat from the sun and converts the thermal radiation into electricity, even after the sun has set. 

PepsiCo recently hired experts to conduct a carbon life cycle analysis on their Tropicana products, including orange juice.  Much to their surprise, "it wasn't running the factory or transporting the heavy juice containers, but the nitrogen fertilizers, which require natural gas to make and can turn into a potent greenhouse gas, that were the primary contributor," according to Wendy Gordon, founder of "The Green Guide" in an article at Huffington Post.

Steven Chu, new Energy Secretary, warns about the impact of global warming in California by the end of this century.  "We're looking at a scenario where there's no more agriculture in California," Chu says in an article in the LA Times this week.

He suggests that California's vaunted agricultural lands and vineyards could vanish with the disappearance of 90% of the Sierra snowpack.  Not that California's cities would do much better.  Chu said that the hope lies in educating the public on the dangers of complacency. 

On average, the planet as a whole warmed 0.6°C in 50 years and the cities warmed by up to 2.0-3.0°C.  Antarctica, as secluded as any place on the planet, has not escaped the heat, despite there being no research to back that up.  Now we do.  A new study by Eric Steig of the University of Washington and a few of his colleagues used satellite data to show that on average the entire continent warmed by 0.5°C between 1957 and 2006.  An article by Catherine Brahic in the New Scientist describes the difficulties scientists have had.   

A large group of NW Environmental organizations are hosting a set of three seminars entitled, Seeking Sustainable Solutions: Linking our Health, our Environment, our Economy, our Communities.  Here's the line up:

1.  Energy and Water in the West: Priorities for a Healthy Washington - Feb. 11.  Michael Hightower, Sandia National Lab, and Joan Crooks, Washington Environmental Council

2.  Intersection of Climate Change and Water: Local Perspective on a Global Problem - March 25.  Philip Mote, UW Climate Impacts Group, and Steve Malloch, National Wildlife Federation

3.  Exploring Energy & Design: Smart Solutions for the Built Environment - May 13.  Alan Durning, Sightline Institute, and Jason McLennan, Cascadia Region Green Building Council