Due to climate change our seas and oceans are getting warmer. And now scientists have confirmed that a warmer temperature in the waters will create stronger storms, such as Katrina in 2005 and the more recent hurricane Ike.

“If the seas continue to warm, we can expect to see stronger storms in the future,” James Elsner of Florida State University said.

(more…)

Just in time for Al Gore’s major renewable energy challenge Florida’s Public Service Commission has “unanimously and enthusiastically” approved plans to build USA’s largest commercial solar-power plant (so far, we hope). Two other facilities also got the green light by the committee and are due to go online around 2009.

SunPower has been chosen to construct the three solar plants in the state of Florida. Howard Wenger, senior vice president, global business units for SunPower, said that “these agreements confirm the growing trend in the U.S. to build solar power plants at a scale rivaling those in market-leading countries such as Germany and Spain.”

(more…)

The Guardian shows some rather striking images from photographs and computer models that shows the ‘before and after’ of how both nature and humans are making an impact on the planet.

The images show the effect of deforestation in Bolivia and Madagascar, how dams change the surrounding landscapes in Turkey and how rising sea levels will affect Florida. But one of the most powerful images is probably the one that shows how Lake Chad, once one of the largest lakes in Africa, has shrink to 5% its former size due to a warmer climate.

The images comes from a newly released book called “Fragile Earth: Views of a Changing World“.

Some other pictures worth checking out are “Our destructive impact on the planet” and “How Spain will be affected by climate change“.

Is Florida already feeling the early effects of global warming? Can we safely say that Florida is sinking into the ocean? The rumors I heard as a child, that such a thing could happen, seemed like folklore. If you listen to the many experts on the subject though, that seems to be the case. Beans that I’m a citizen of the Sunshine state, as one would imagine, this issue is of great concern to me.

In this article, we will look at the severe impacts that have yet to hit us. There were conclusions layed out in an October 2001 scientific study published
by NRDC in conjunction with research scientists at Florida universitie. The study found that the far-reaching effects of global warming will transform Florida’s climate, coastline and treasured natural areas. Such impacts will hit in ways that are expected to profoundly affect the state’s economy, agriculture, and ultimately, the health of its people.

(more…)