Until Friday, the UN-sponsored climate conference in Copenhagen had been a rather dull affair, characterized as it was by the bickering of mid-level dignitaries and the usual menagerie of activists and hangers-on outside the convention center.

But on Friday, there was significant news.

An ad-hoc UN working group released a document that will likely serve as a starting point for negotiations when the big boys roll into town later this week.

The document proposes a deal in which industrial nations cut carbon-based emissions between 25 and 45% compared with 1990 levels by 2020, and major developing countries like China and India cut theirs over the same period by 15 to 30%.

In addition, all countries would reduce emissions by 50 to 95% by 2050.

The document skated over details like how much money rich countries would fork over to poor ones to help them cope with global warming, or what levels of global temperature increases would be deemed “tolerable.”

Still, it was a start.

Aside from survival of the planet as we know it, the economies of every nation on Earth could depend on the outcome of this agreement. Rifts have developed between developed and emerging economies and between the world’s 2 major carbon emitters, China and the US.

The 2 superpowers disagree about their obligations to fix the mess, and warily eye each other in advance of the battle for supremacy in Green technology, which seems certain to drive national economic success for the rest of the century, much as information technology has driven US economic success since the 1970s.

Costa Rican delegate Ricardo Ulate, described the skirmishes for the Washington Post  as “a game where a new economic hegemony is being developed.”

That may be, but what he’s seen so far is just the undercard.

The main event begins later this week, at which point heads of government from 60 countries will have arrived in Copenhagen.

“We’re getting into the big leagues,” said Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, vice president for global policy at Conservation International. “The heavyweights are coming.”

This week, the Senate will bicker over health reform, EHR vendors will continue their anxious wait for government agencies to release Meaningful Use criteria on which their financial viability depends, people  will continue arguing whether middle-aged women should get mammograms, and world leaders from 100 countries will convene in Copenhagen to hammer out a new agreement that prevents or at least slows down global warming.

There’s not much doubt which issue will have the most impact on the health of US citizens, at least those who are around 50-100 years from now.

In 1997, the global family of nations released a document known as the Kyoto protocol. Its goal was to reduce worldwide greenhouse gas emissions to levels 5.2% below those produced in 1990 by year-end, 2012.

Since then, 187 countries have signed the document, including China, Russia, India and every country in Europe. But Uncle Sam, the source of nearly one-third of the world’s carbon emissions, never did. 

In the absence of leadership from the world’s biggest offender, global carbon-dioxide emissions rose 33% since the treaty was signed.

That’s despite the ready availability of cheap, low-carbon technologies which can be deployed in both developed and developing nations. Electricity can be produced by wind and solar plants, hydropower and nuclear fission, and cars and trucks can run on electricity and biofuels.

Views on the matter of climate change are as divergent as can be. Some are convinced that life on the planet hangs in the balance: we must reach an accord in Copenhagen and make it stick in major offending countries like the US…or else. Others think the global warming is unrelated to human activity and is likely to self-correct in a century or two.

Nobody really knows whether global warming is man-made or how bad it will get, so it’s no wonder that it’s been hard to persuade people to spend money on a fix. It’s the mother of all externalities.

Yet as The Economist points out, this uncertainty is precisely why man needs to tackle global warming, now. If we knew that temperatures would rise by just a few degrees in the next century, then the argument to let things go would seem somewhat reasonable.

But the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was organized by the UN to develop evidence-based consensus on the matter, and which used every shred of evidence it could find, could do no better than give a range. It concluded that if things are left as they are, by the end of this century the average temperature on planet Earth will rise somewhere between 2-11ºF.

No sane person can argue that temperature elevations near the top end of this estimate would be anything less than catastrophic. More than a billion people would be displaced by coastal flooding, and at least that many would be severely affected by associated climate change.

But there’s some good news. Assuming humans approach the problem smartly (as discussed for example, here), the costs of averting that kind of catastrophe are not nearly as great as many think…about 1% of the world’s global economic output for the next several years.

On average, US homeowners spend about that percentage of their income insuring their homes. Heck, just last year, the world spent 5% of total global output bailing out the banking system.

The technology to control global warming is here. Global warming is a problem with unknown but potentially catastrophic consequences that can be averted with no worse than mild economic consequences. How could we not do this?

Occupational exposure to bisphenol A (BPA) is associated with erectile dysfunction, loss of sexual desire and ejaculation difficulties, according to US and Chinese scientists. Their report is one of the first to show this negative association in humans. Numerous earlier studies had done so in animals.

BPA is chemically similar to estrogen. It is used to produce polycarbonate plastics, and can be found in baby bottles, water bottles and cans used to package food and beverages.

The chemical leaches from these products into food, and can be detected in the urine of nearly every American.

In animal studies, BPA had been associated with infertility, early onset of puberty, weight gain, cancer and diabetes.

Last summer, the FDA issued a provisional ruling that BPA is safe at levels found in the US population. That ruling was disputed by its own advisory panel. Many places including Canada have banned BPA from baby bottles.

De-Kun Li and colleagues studied 634 Chinese factory workers. Of these, 230 were exposed to high levels of BPA on the job, and 404 had no such occupational exposure.

The scientists measured BPA levels in the air and the worker’s food and in their urine as well. At the same time, they surveyed workers about sexual experiences.

Workers with occupational exposure to BPA had more than 4 times the risk of erectile dysfunction, were 4 times more likely to report low sexual desire, and were 7 times more likely to experience ejaculation difficulties. The risk of these problems increased with urinary BPA concentrations.

The factory workers’ urinary BPA levels were about 50 times higher than that found in US males.

“Critics dismissed the animal studies, saying, ‘Show us the human studies,’” Li told the Los Angeles Times. “Now we have a human study and this can’t be dismissed,” he added.

The study appears in Human Reproduction.

Only 72% of Americans believe global warming is happening, down from 80% just a year ago, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. 

The increased skepticism is derived mainly by people describing themselves as Republicans and independents.

Three years ago, 76% of Republican voters believed the phenomenon was real, but that has dropped to just 54% now.

The tail-off among independents was from 86% to 71%. Among democrats, the dip was from 92% to 86%.

Despite these evolving trends, a slight majority, 53% of respondents still support legislation that would cap emissions and institute trade pollution allowances. A similar number, 55% believe the US should cut carbon emissions regardless of whether developing countries like China and India choose to do so.

The increasing political divide on the issue is surfacing just as President Obama and congressional Democrats have stepped up efforts to enact new climate legislation and at least make a credible presence at next week’s global summit on the matter in Copenhagen. 

“It’s a sad state of affairs when science becomes subject to partisan politics,” Democratic pollster Mark Mellman told the Washington Post. “It can only be attributed to the sense that this issue has become part of a political battle.”

Amanda Feinberg, a retired secretary who lives in South Williamsport, Pa., told the Post she began changing her views on global warming shortly after Al Gore released his movie documentary on the subject, “An Inconvenient Truth.”

“He just seemed a little radical in his views,” said Feinberg, a Republican. “I don’t deny it’s happening, I just think it’s just an evolution of nature.”

Another Republican respondent, Lisa Woolcott doubted whether Americans would support policies that raised energy prices amid the current recession.

“I don’t think the public’s going to back it,” she said. “It’s all they can do to pay their electric bill and put gas in their cars. It’s like, let’s get through Thanksgiving and Christmas.”

In a finding that would be laughable if it weren’t so scary, scientists have determined that the chemicals which helped avoid a potential global environmental catastrophe—the hole in the ozone layer—are contributing to another one: global warming.

The compounds in question are hydrofluorocarbons, also known as HFCs.

They were introduced a decade ago as replacements for chlorofluorocarbons, ozone-depleting gases that had been used in refrigerators, air conditioners, and the production of foam insulation.

The ozone hole is shrinking all right, but hydrofluorocarbons are basically greenhouse gases on steroids: molecule for molecule, they have 5,000 times the heat-trapping power of carbon dioxide.

And unless we find replacements for the replacements, scientists warn these puppies can cancel out other efforts to combat global warming.

“Whatever targets you thought you were going to make,” David Fahey, a physicist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration told the Washington Post, “it will be undermined by the fact that you have . . . additional emissions that you hadn’t planned on.”

Hydroflurocarbons now account for nearly 2% of US-based climate-warming emissions, according to the EPA.  Good old carbon dioxide, a byproduct of burning fossil fuels, is responsible for 85% of the problem. Methane, which comes from farm animals (don’t ask) and decomposing trash causes most of the rest.

But the HFC problem is growing rapidly. By 2050, scientists believe, HFCs in the atmosphere will be equivalent to about 6 years’ worth carbon dioxide emissions.

“You have this moment when you could nip this problem in the bud and avoid this very large growth of a dangerous chemical,” David Doniger, a policy director at the Natural Resources Defense Council’s climate center told the Post. “Now, in the next couple of years, is when you have to do this.”

Tian Lihua had just clocked in for work at a textile mill outside Jilin when she became nauseated, then dizzy. Moments later she passed out. In the next few days 1,200 of her co-workers developed medical issues ranging from seizures to shortness of breath and transient paralysis.

“When I came to, I could hear the doctors talking,” she told the New York Times last month. “They said I had a reaction to unknown substances.”

Tian and her colleagues believe those “unknown substances” had wafted downwind from the Jilin Connell Chemical Plant which makes aniline, a notoriously toxic chemical used to produce rubber, dyes,  polyurethane and herbicides.

Local hospitals began seeing befallen workers immediately after the plant opened this spring. On a bad day, so many workers showed up that the hospital was forced to put 2 in each bed.

The State Administration of Work Safety initially stated on its Web site that the cause was a “chemical leak,” but hours later the statement was pulled down.

Now, local health officials as well as those dispatched from Beijing contend the entire event is due to mass hysteria….psychological reactions on a massive scale to a presumed chemical exposure.

The officials have admonished the workers to “get a hold of their emotions” and get back to work, say afflicted individuals and their loved ones.

 “How could a psychological illness cause so much pain and misery?” asked 29 year-old Zhang Fusheng, who appeared to a Times reporter to be short of breath despite being hooked up to an oxygen mask. “My only wish is to get better so I can go back to work and take care of my family.”

The Ministry of Health in Beijing refused to release details of its investigation, but local officials insist they found no evidence of a toxic exposure.

The plant is partially owned by local government officials. Its president is Song Zhiping, who is also a representative to China’s legislative body, the National People’s Congress.

The “silent crisis” known as global warming already kills 300,000 people per year, and that number will double in just 2 decades, according to a report by the Global Humanitarian Forum.

The “Human Impact Report: Climate Change”  was released in anticipation of a meeting  of the United Nations Climate Conference to be held next winter.

The purpose of that conference will be to develop a post-Kyoto climate agreement.

“We are trying to get the world’s attention…climate change is not something waiting to happen. It is impacting seriously the lives of many people around the world,” Forum president Kofi Annan told CNN.

“This threat to our health…to food production… to security…raises political tensions. It will have people on the move — and they are on the move — and many more which will bring tensions,” Annan added.

The report states that the Earth’s atmosphere warmed 1.33 degrees Fahrenheit between 1906 and 2005. Most of the jump transpired in recent decades.

It projects that by the turn of the next century, the Earth’s atmospheric temperatures will jump a minimum of an additional 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit, “no matter what.”

“The suffering documented in this report is only the beginning.” The minimally expected rise, concluded the report, “would be catastrophic.”

Nearly all, 99%, of the 300,000 lives lost each year due to climate change are located in developing countries, which collectively produce about 1% of the world’s carbon emissions. Climate-related deaths due to malnutrition, diarrheal illnesses and malaria dwarf all other weather-related deaths.

The countries most vulnerable to global warming lie in a semi-arid belt extending from the Sahara/Sahel to the Middle East and Central Asia, as well as those in Sub-Saharan Africa, South and Southeast Asia, Latin America and the Arctic.

Australia was cited as the most vulnerable among first-world nations. It is already experiencing the worst 15-year drought in recorded history.

The report says developed countries need to contribute 100 times more funds than they currently devote to help developing nations fight the scourge.

Annan implored nations attending next winter’s meeting to reach a “global, effective, fair and binding” accord on climate change. Those talks could “well be the last chance for avoiding global catastrophe,” he told CNN.

Over 185 million Americans live under skies so polluted it endangers life, according to a report released last week by the American Lung Association.

The report grades 900 US counties on an A to F scale for ozone (smog), annual particle pollution, and 24-hour particle pollution.

Cities ranking in the top 3 on ozone pollution were the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Riverside metropolitan area, Bakersfield and Visalia-Porterville.

The three cities also top the charts for year-round particle pollution, and follow just behind Pittsburgh-New Castle at the top of the list on 24-hour particle pollution.

Fargo, North Dakota came up cleanest in all categories.

“60% of Americans are breathing air dirty enough to send people to the emergency room, to shape how kids’ lungs develop, and to kill,” said ALA Chairman Stephen Nolan.

The ALA report indicates that 175 million Americans live in areas where there is a dangerous abundance of days in which unhealthy ozone levels are present. Ozone irritates the lungs like a bad sunburn. It triggers asthma and shortens life expectancy.

Particle pollution is the “most dangerous and deadly of the outdoor air pollutants,” according to the ALA, because it “can increase the risk of early death, heart attacks, strokes and emergency room visits for asthma and cardiovascular disease.”

One in 6 Americans lives in an area having unhealthy level of year-round fine particle pollution, and 30% reside in counties with unhealthy 24-hour levels, in which atmospheric fine particle concentrations spike to unhealthy levels for hours or even days.

“Air pollution can impair the lung function of even the healthiest people,” said Norman Edelman, the ALAs Chief Medical Officer, but “people with lung and heart disease (are) especially vulnerable,” he added.

In the run-up to the Summer Olympics, Chinese officials pressed mines and factories near Beijing to shutter or move elsewhere in an effort to assure the event would be held under blue skies.

Now, as China rushes to invest nearly $600 billion of stimulus money and shake off a rare economic slowdown caused by the Great Economic Crisis, its skies seem destined to turn smoggy once again. 

The Ministry of Environmental Protection has begun fast tracking hoards of industrial projects, almost completely trampling environmental reviews in the process.

In one 3-day period late last year for example, it green lighted 93 new projects worth $38 billion.

“This is the moment to decide whether we want to keep the old growth model or change it,” Ma Jun told the New York Times. “This new round of development might generate more pollution for the future,” understated the director of China’s Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs.

China’s brief industrial slump actually helped the country close in on environmental targets it had set years ago. Data from the second half of last year showed that China was on target to increase energy efficiency by 20% and to cut water and air pollution by 10% compared with 2005 levels

Meanwhile, the central government’s environmental movement, such as it is, remains plagued by bureaucracy, conflicts of interest and worse.

Take the strange case of Pan Yue. Pan had been the number 2 guy in China’s environment ministry and was by far the most outspoken green supporter within the Communist Party. For years he had led a rare public campaign against polluters and supported rigorous environmental inspections.

This angered provincial officials, state-owned companies and his current boss who eventually sidelined him, shook down his top aides and harassed his wife, according to people who confided in secrecy with the Times.

For the record, Pan chalked up his lower profile to an illness, and records show he had indeed been hospitalized for a time.

It’s not the first time Chinese party officials have wound up in the hospital after falling out of favor.

As birthrates in tropical countries drop and economic forces trigger migration toward cities, a funny thing is happening to the enormous swaths of farmland left behind.

They’re transforming back to what they were in the first place, tropical rain forests. 

And we’re not talking about a parcel of land the size of Granny’s Victory Garden, either.

In fact a recent report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates there are 2.1 billion acres of so-called “secondary” rain forest growing in the tropics right now.

That’s as big as the whole United States.

The pace of reforestation is phenomenal. Trees over 100 feet tall spring up within 15 years after land is abandoned, and in another 5 years a true rain-forest canopy forms once again.

According to the New York Times, for each acre of rain forest cut down today, 50 or so acres of secondary forest are growing on land that had recently been logged, farmed or damaged by natural disaster.

The unexpected development has actually triggered debate whether efforts to preserve first-growth rain forests are worth it or even necessary.

The good news is that secondary rain forests are avid carbon sinks just like their first-growth brethren. They will be an enormous help in blunting the greenhouse effects of carbon dioxide that continues to be released in prodigious amounts as a byproduct of burning fossil fuels and biomass.

The bad news is that secondary rainforests are probably not going to save the jaguars, tapirs and thousands of bird and invertebrate species that are headed for extinction due to the wonton destruction of primeval rainforests.

The animals have no way to access the new growth.

As many as 50% of all rain forest species remain threatened despite these heartening developments.

Man-made atmospheric brown clouds have dimmed the skies over hundreds of Asian cities 25% in 30 years. A particularly nasty, 2-mile thick layer of soot, sulfates, toxic aerosols and carcinogens blankets South Asia these days, especially in winter.

We know quite a lot about the South Asian brown cloud. For example, we know it costs China, Japan and Korea $5 billion per year in crop damage and we know it causes 340,000 excess deaths per year from cardiovascular and respiratory disease.

But one thing we didn’t know until now was what caused it.

And for what it’s worth, most people who had ventured an opinion on the matter guessed incorrectly.

If Stockholm University’s Orjan Gustafsson and colleagues are to be believed, that is.

Scientists had debated for decades whether the South Asian brown cloud arose primarily from burning fossil fuels in cars and power plants or from burning wood, dung and related biomass for agriculture, deforestation and cooking.

The smart money had been on the former.

Then, in 2006, Gustafsson’s team secured some high-grade atmospheric soot from the South Asian cloud and tested it for carbon-14, a clever thing to do since the radioactive substance has a half-life of 5,700 years and therefore would not be present in fossil fuels created several million years ago.

What they found was a ton of C-14 in the samples, indicating that a good 2/3 of the brown cloud came from biomass combustion.
 
The paper is in Science. The conclusion is that regulating agricultural burning and using better cooking technology might do more to brighten the day for 2 the billion people living under the South Asian brown cloud than restricting cars or building clean coal power plants.

In a report released last week, the Environmental Protection Agency, US Geological Survey and other federal agencies concluded that rising sea levels triggered by global warming threatens coastal wetlands and barrier islands and in the Middle Atlantic States.
 
The report said the rate of rise in sea level is accelerating in part because of melting ice sheets and glaciers, and also because warmer water takes up more space.

Middle Atlantic States are especially at risk because much of their infrastructure has been placed at or near sea level and because the area is hit frequently by major storms.

The report, available here, mentions that in the last century, coastal erosion occurred at between 2.4 and 4.4 millimeters per year, or roughly one foot for the 100 year period. But “it is virtually certain,” according to the report, that the pace of this erosion will double in the 21st century.

Barrier islands, coastal waterways and spits are unlikely to withstand this sea rise. “It is likely that some barrier islands in this region will cross a threshold,” and start disintegrating, according to the report, which mentioned in particular the islands of North Carolina’s Outer Banks.

The report’s prediction of rising sea levels supports an earlier prediction by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations-based initiative. The Panel believes the seas will rise as much as 2 feet in this century.

In less-developed areas, coastal wetlands might survive the sea level rise by moving to higher ground. But in the Middle Atlantic States, a dense mixture of buildings and roads renders inland migration impossible.

Last week, the Department of the Interior concluded that a proposed 24 square-mile wind farm 5 miles off Cape Cod posed no threat to the environment.

The conclusion represented a victory for the Cape Wind project, which wants to become the nation’s first offshore wind farm.

Many Cape residents, including Senator Edward Kennedy oppose the project on grounds that it would hurt wildlife and tourism, not to mention mess with the views from certain family compounds in Hyannis.

Cape Wind would cost $1 billion to build. It would include 130 turbines rising 440 feet above Nantucket Sound. On clear days, turbines would be visible a half inch above the horizon.

The project’s contractor is Energy Management Inc. Its president, Jim Gordon hopes construction can begin this year and that Cape Wind can produce electricity in 3 years.

 “We think this wind farm is going to be embraced by…Cape Cod (and)…the nation” Gordon told the New York Times.  “It has already encouraged other states to look at developing…coastal wind resources.”

So now it’s up to the Big O administration to rule on the decision. If it favors Cape Wind, it’s free and clear to lease an appropriate part of the Sound to Energy Management.

Except maybe not so fast. Turns out the FAA has to decide whether the farm would interfere with airplane radar, and the Coast Guard needs to assure it doesn’t mess with marine radar.

Also pending is an investigation by the inspector general at the Department of the Interior which was requested by locals who raised concerns about procedural issues in the review.

Project advocates believe Cape Wind can supply 75% of the electricity required by the Cape, Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard while cutting emissions by an amount equal to that produced by 175,000 cars. Detractors say it will double electricity costs.

Amid the unfolding economic crisis, VC investment in clean tech dropped 35% in Q4 2008 when compared to the previous quarter. It was the sharpest fall in 2 years.

A total of $1.7 billion was invested in clean tech during Q4 according to the San Francisco-based market tracking company Cleantech Group.

(Hat tip: Gooz) Clean tech includes solar, clean coal, wind and other technologies that help control industrial pollution and emissions.

Officials at Cleantech Group believe the dropoff is likely to persist through Q1 of this year, but remain optimistic that investment will pick up especially since the Big O indicated he wants to invest heavily in the sector.

“The fundamentals are still strong when it comes to clean tech,” Brian Fan told the Wall Street Journal. Cleantech’s senior director of research added “we know the world has to get off coal and has to replace oil.”

Despite the Q4 downturn, VC investments in the space rose 38% for the year, to an all-time high of $8.4 billion. These numbers have risen every year since 2001 when investments totaled $506.8 million.

There were 241 disclosed investment rounds in the sector in 2008. The most frequent investors were Khosla Ventures (21 separate investments) and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (18).

Solar power accounted for 40% of the investment in the space, followed by biofuels, transportation and wind.

Many of the larger investments during Q4 2008 were sunk into so-called thin-film solar companies, which produce solar panels from materials other than silicon and are hence notably cheaper.

The key component of solar panels is silicon, but the stuff is expensive so producers are always tempted to utilize less of it.

In fact the latest generation of panels features silicon layers no more than 2 microns thick. Earlier generations were 100 times thicker.

The problem is that thinner cells are less efficient, and these new ones produce 20% less electricity per unit area than the older ones.

But Kylie Catchpole, from Canberra’s Australian National University and Albert Polman, from the Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics in Amsterdam might have solved the problem.

All they did was add a few silver atoms to those thin silicon panels.

When sunlight strikes the silver atoms, it excites their electrons. A moment later, they fall back to an unexcited state and release light of their own.

If the silver atoms are arrayed correctly along the silicon layers of a solar panel, that light runs along the surface of the layer rather than penetrating through it.

This has the effect of maximizing the photoelectric effects of whatever small amounts of silicon may be present in the cell.

The scientists write in Optics Express that their silver bullet increases the efficiency of the thin silicon cells to a point where they produce approximately as much electricity as the more expensive, earlier generation panels.

And yes silver is itself expensive, but the new technique uses so little of it, it adds only a few pennies to the price.

Before China’s market reforms of ’78 and the consequent economic growth, Liukuaizhuang was a quiet, nondescript village 100 miles from Beijing.  But the expansion was wholly unregulated and now there is a price to pay.

Liukuaizhuang is circled by dozens of chemical, paint and rubber factories, all built in the last 30 years. Every one of them has poisoned the air and water ceaselessly since the day it opened.

One in fifty residents of Liukuaizhuang has been diagnosed with cancer in the last decade. That’s 10 times higher than the national rate.

“They asked in the hospital whether my family had a history of cancer. I said: ‘No, in the last three generations no one had it’,” one villager told Reuters, while pointing to x-rays of his metastatic disease.

Local Communist Party official Huo Junwei legitimizes the concern. “The factories were not far from homes and to a certain degree influenced the normal life of the villagers,” he conceded.

“(But) we think figures provided by individuals exaggerate pollution problems in our area. For several years we have been looking into whether there is a link between cancer and chemical production and have not yet got a scientific answer.”

That whitewash aside, things got so ugly in Liukuaizhuang that government officials quietly began a pollution crackdown in 2003.

It may be too late in that, “Pollutants including heavy metals like mercury and lead have already got into the food chain,” Gao Zhong, a water pollution expert, told Reuters.

Too late for many perhaps, so aspirations naturally turn to the children and grandchildren.

“Of course I am worried, but what is the use of being worried?” said a lung cancer patient. “We have to save our concern for the next generation.”