With the winds of winter wandering into Ithaca, Oct. 22 may seem like an odd day to reflect on global warming and Cornell’s sustainability efforts. But despite the coming cold, students, faculty and staff will congregate today on Ho Plaza to celebrate the Seventh Annual Campus Sustainability Day. They will reflect on the University’s sustainability efforts, celebrate what has been accomplished, examine possibilities of what is next and begin to turn those possibilities into reality. We do this with good reason and imperative.

It’s official: climate cynicism is the new global warming. That’s right folks, you heard it here first. We are witnessing the biggest cultural shift since Jake Gyllenhaal made the cowboy hat queer.

What is climate cynicism, you ask? Well, like political cynicism, it involves rejecting any facts, data or expert opinions on an important issue facing our global society, and attributing all debate to partisan bickering. It’s a lot like the healthcare debate, only replace “evil money grubbing HMOs” with “Carbon Dioxide,” and “pinko-commie liberal congressman” with “Nobel laureates.”

Science, like economics, is a matter of opinion and thus best left to all those senators who don’t run around Ivy League Universities flaunting their PhDs.

While scientists around the world sweat the steady growth of climate change, Professor Johannes Lehmann, crop and soil sciences, and his researchers have turned up the heat to produce biochar – a fine-grained residue that may simultaneously improve soil health and curb harmful greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Biochar is the organic matter left over after pyrolysis—a slow-burn conducted in the absence of oxygen. This process confines much of the carbon that might otherwise contribute to the formation of carbon dioxide, a prevalent GHG.

No, the Gulf Steam is not coming to a stop, but major changes are taking place in the world’s oceans, according to the author of a recent Cornell study. Prof. Charles Greene, earth and atmospheric sciences, was the leading author of an oceanography study recently published in the journal Ecology.

The study examined trends in global climate and the major oceans surrounding North America.

Polar ice is part of a positive feedback loop that exacerbates climate changes. As temperature increases, ice melts. Since ice is white, Arctic melting decreases the reflectivity of the Earth. As a result, more solar radiation gets absorbed, further increasing temperatures and perpetuating the cycle. The opposite is true for temperature decreases.

TOYAKO, Japan (AP) -- President Bush encountered resistance on his climate-change policy as he and other world leaders sought to strike a balance between framing a deal on global warming while coping with inflation and slumping economic growth.

Building a consensus was not proving easy for him as the Group of Eight economic powers planned to turn its attention Tuesday to global warming, soaring food and fuel costs and world conflicts.