Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Etc.: Warming oceans, wind power, rental cars and other recent global warming news


(Photo of ocean from Flickr and Ibrahim Adeeb)

Warming in one-third of the nation’s oceans is 2-4 times greater than projected in last year’s IPCC report. Climate change, overfishing and pollution are endangering marine animals and fisheries, according to the UN. (PlanetArk)

Global wind power is up 27% from last year. Germany still leads, with 25% of the total, but the U.S. came in second, showing a 5,244 MW increase. Experts attribute the jump in U.S. wind power to federal tax credits and renewable electricity standards in half the states, which require a percent of electricity to be generated from renewable sources. Iowa leads among the states, with 5.5% of its power coming from wind. (Greenwire)

Enterprise Rent-A-Car opened 4 “green” branches in Atlanta because of consumer demand, with 60% of the cars being hybrids, the company said. The nation’s largest rental car agency will have 4,000 hybrids out of a total fleet of 1.1 million. Hertz says it will soon have 3,500 hybrids; Avis 2,500. (Greenwire)

Clean technology investment slumped the first quarter of this year for North America, Europe and Israel. Total investment of $1.25 billion was up 42% over the same quarter last year, but down for the second quarter in a row. The peak was $1.74 billion last summer. (Greenwire)

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