Rising Temperatures Could Lessen Home Field Advantage Over Warm Weather Rivals

Washington, DC—As Americans gear up for Sunday’s Super Bowl, Environment America today highlighted how global warming could affect the future success of the Patriots, Giants and other cold weather teams across the country. Specifically, the group highlighted the threat of rising winter temperatures lessening the cold weather that has historically given cold weather teams an edge over warm weather rivals.

While numerous studies have documented the many serious ways in which global warming could harm the country’s environment, economy and quality of life, from more severe heat waves to the spread of infectious diseases, today’s event was intended to show how even the game of football could be altered.

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http://www.environmentamerica.org/news-releases/global-warming-solutions/global-warming-solutions/could-global-warming-threaten-the-patriots-and-giants-edge

“The polar bear should not be the focus,” Hall said after he testified at a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing. “The focus should be global climate change and global warming, and how we address aspects of that, and that is, greenhouse gas emissions. As a world community we need to be doing that, and in the United States, we need to be doing that.”

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http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/25885.html 

Ice loss in Antarctica increased by 75 percent in the last 10 years due to a speed-up in the flow of its glaciers and is now nearly as great as that observed in Greenland, according to a new, comprehensive study by UC Irvine and NASA scientists.

Global warming ranks far down the concerns of the world’s biggest companies, despite world leaders’ hopes that they will pioneer solutions to the impending climate crisis, a startling survey will reveal this week.

Nearly nine in 10 of them do not rate it as a priority, says the study, which canvassed more than 500 big businesses in Britain, the US, Germany, Japan, India and China. Nearly twice as many see climate change as imposing costs on their business as those who believe it presents an opportunity to make money. And the report’s publishers believe that big business will concentrate even less on climate change as the world economy deteriorates.

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http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/big-business-says-addressing-climate-change-rates-very-low-on-agenda-774648.html

The U.S. Department of Energy, frustrated by ballooning costs for an ambitious plan to build a virtually emissions-free power plant, told federal lawmakers Tuesday it plans to pull its support for the $1.8 billion project in Illinois, lawmakers said.

The Energy Department would not publicly divulge its intentions about the plant, dubbed FutureGen, or discuss what was said during the private meeting with lawmakers, saying only that it planned an announcement within days.

But some lawmakers who attended the briefing later insisted that any departure from building the coal-fired, 275-megawatt prototype power plant anywhere other than the central Illinois town of Mattoon would be unacceptable — and grounds for a possibly nasty congressional fight.

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http://www.trib.com/articles/2008/01/30/news/wyoming/d49877b2c915972c872573df007fcba3.txt