Science
1 Video to Watch This Week: Stewart Brand's 4 environmental heresies
Published July 21, 2009 @ 08:14PM PT
One of the founders of the modern environmental movement, Stewart Brand, has been reconsidering his positions on a few mundane matters related to preserving the environment, feeding the exploding human population, and stabilizing the climate.
Brand has been incalculably influential in American environmental and internet cultures. In just a few examples: Brand helped catalyze the early years of the sustainable communities and DIY movements in the late Sixties and early Seventies with the Whole Earth Catalog, a compendium of tools, reviews, and information. Brand uttered his famous aphorism, "Information wants to be free. Information also wants to be expensive," at the inaugural Hackers Conference in 1984, an event he co-founded to gather together the early pioneers of the computer revolution. And he co-founded one of the earliest of influential online communities, The WELL, way back in 1985.
So if he now thinks slums will be drivers of green innovation, and micronuclear reactors and geo-engineering are crucial to stopping global warming, it's worth paying attention.
Fatalistic Friday: Crumbling Arctic glacier, 43 new coal plants, more
Published July 17, 2009 @ 05:45PM PT
Above: Researcher Alun Hubbard discusses the break up of the ice at the edge of the Petermann glacier, Greenland
Breaking Bad: A 5-billion-metric-ton hunk of ice is "poised" to break away from the largest glacier in the northern hemisphere, say independent scientists working with enviro-advocacy group Greenpeace. The researchers are observing the glacier from the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise.
If and when the Manhattan-sized "tongue" of ice detaches from the Petermann glacier, on Greenland's northwest coast, the mass of land-bound ice behind it may flow downhill and melt more quickly. It's the introduction of this landbound freshwater ice into the world's seas that will likely lead to rises in sea levels.
"Ocean warming currents are circulating around the fjord here and eroding the underbelly of Petermann glacier at an incredible rate, which is 25 times that of the surface melt," Dr Alun Hubbard, a glaciologist at the University Of Wales. (The Sydney Morning Herald, New Scientist)
Coooooooal! A coal plant construction "bubble" will result in 43 new coal plants in the US in the next five years -- and none of them will be regulated by the climate legislation currently being debated in Congress. The 43 are permitted, near construction, or already being built, and thus will fall under the federal designation "progressing projects," and evade caps on their carbon dioxide pollution. "The 43 progressing plants are projected to add four times that generating capacity – 22,236 MW – in the coming five years. Collectively, they will produce more than 150 million tons of new CO2 emissions every year for many decades." (SolveClimate)
Pond Scum of the Earth: Depending on your point of view, it's either great news or awful news that petro-giant ExxonMobil is investing more than half a million dollars in developing biofuel from algae. In a partnership with biotech entrepreneur Craig Ventner's Synthetic Genomics, Exxon will sink $600 million into deriving biofuel from the slimy green stuff. Algae is considered a hot prospect for biofuel development, since no one eats it. (Associated Press)
A View to a Risk: The head of the Nigerian equivalent of FEMA says that the nation is extremely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Mohammed Audu-Bida "said the climate change had already manifested in the country with sea level rise leading to coastal and marine erosion and flooding, particularly in South- South and South-West, and bleaching of coral reefs along the coastal zone. The NEMA boss warned that with certain percentage of the population living within the coast and most cities concentrated along the coastline, the vulnerability to marine-induced disasters from tidal waves and storm surges would also increase." (This Day online)
The Vanishing:"The song of the skylark is the quintessential sound of an English summer," reports the Daily Mail. "But now, because of global warming, it faces being drowned out - by the chirrup of crickets." Skylark populations in England have dropped by 53%, since 1970. Populations two species of crickets once found only on the Sceptered Isle's southernmost tips have grown sixfold, meanwhile, and extended their range northward. (Daily Mail)
Sink or Swim Sink: Indonesia's Environment Minister says that developing nations like India, Brazil and China will destroy archepelagic nations if they don't agree to binding 2020 targets for cutting heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions. ""The countries have even been unable to set the target for emission reduction in 2050," said Rachmat Witoelar this past Tuesday. "While these countries are hesitant to take real action, island countries will probably disappear from the world map." (Jakarta Post)
Chu & Locke Challenge, Collaborate With China on Global Warming
Published July 16, 2009 @ 07:53PM PT
Above: US Commerce Secretary Gary Locke (2nd from R) and Secretary of Energy Steven Chu (1st from R) visit the US Futurehouse Zero-Net-Energy Healthy House in Beijing, July 16, 2009. Via China Daily
Energy Secretary Steven Chu and other Obama administration officials have been in China, talking about energy and climate policy with their Chinese counterparts. Judging from the reports, there are some positive signs that the world's two largest greenhouse gas polluters are talking in earnest about joint efforts to cut carbon emissions and conserve energy.
The New York Times reports that Dr. Chu made some public criticisms of China's global warming stance at a Wednesday speech at Tsinghua University, China’s leading science and engineering school. More Chinese would be displaced by rising sea levels due to global warming than anywhere else in the world, he said, and called upon the country to do more to cut its greenhouse gas pollution. And at another presentation, Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke cautioned that “Fifty years from now, we do not want the world to lay the blame for environmental catastrophe at the feet of China.”
Per the Wall Street Journal,
"The developed world did make the problem, I admit that," Mr. Chu said in the speech to students of China's top science and engineering school. "But the developing world can make it much worse."
Clearly this trip won't be the final word in US-China sparring ahead of Decembers climate treaty talks in Copenhagen. As the Journal's Environmental Capital blog notes, "The WSJ headlined its article 'Chu Warns China on Emissions.' China Daily’s headline? 'Steven Chu: U.S. Ready to Lead on Climate Change.'"
Still, announcements coming out of the meeting include a energy research partnership to focus on (per a DOE statement) "building energy efficiency, clean coal including carbon capture and storage, and clean vehicles," and a joint agreement on developing energy efficient homes.
Chu sounded an optimistic note toward the end of the trip, reports Keith Bradsher in The New York Times:
Mr. Chu and Mr. Locke both said on Thursday afternoon that after speaking with senior Chinese officials, they were confident China shared the desire of the United States to address climate change. “We both recognize it’s a long journey,” Mr. Chu said.
He said that China’s broad effort in areas like renewable energy make it more likely that an agreement can be reached in December at the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen. The goal of those talks is to negotiate a global treaty to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which imposed no emission limits on China or developing countries. The United States never ratified that accord.
After visiting a power plant that also produces central heat for homes, Mr. Chu said, “I am optimistic of what is going to happen in Copenhagen.”
China Daily's headline: China-US climate teamwork evolving.
Fatalistic Friday: Americans still confused about global warming
Published July 10, 2009 @ 01:43PM PT
A recipe for climate disruption:
- Take the American public
- Add 10-plus years of slick global warming disinformation campaigns aimed at both pubilc and journalists
- Season with gaps in science education
Stir vigorously to blend.
The result: A populace that -- at the same time it's burning enormous quantities of oil and coal, which produces most of the excess heat-trapping greenhouse gas pollution in the atmosphere -- remains uncertain, doubtful, and sometimes significantly misinformed when it comes to both the science and the reality of global warming.
Serves one planet, badly.
There's apparently a huge gap between what scientists understand about human-propelled global warming, and what the public understands. According to the latest Pew Research Center science survey (done jointly with the American Association for the Advancement of Science), 35% of the public believes that "scientists do not generally agree" that the earth is getting warmer because of human activity. That is, just over a third of adult Americans believe there is still significant disagreement among scientists about the extent of human-propelled global warming. (This number is up from 29% in Pew's 2006 survey.)
However, Pew found that among scientists, 84% agree that human activities, such as burning fossil fuels, are primarily what's causing the Earth's surface temperature to rise. Put another way, with more than 8 in 10 scientists agreeing on both the reality and the causes of climate change, there is no longer "significant disagreement" in the field.
However, just 49% of the public agree that human activities are changing the climate.
These findings demonstrate just how big a challenge sits before political leaders, journalists, scientists, educators, and fellow citizens to educate the public, and get effective clean energy and climate policies enacted in the US.
The survey reveals some upbeat trends as well: Pew found that the public holds scientists in high esteem. "84% of Americans agree that science is having a mostly positive effect on society, and that this belief holds strong across every major demographic category, including 88% of Republicans and 83% of Evangelicals," writes "Framing Science" blogger Matthew Nisbett in his excellent summary of this portion of the survey.
"When asked to evaluate various professions, roughly 70% of Americans answer that scientists 'contribute a lot' to society compared to 38% for journalists, 23% for lawyers, 40% for clergy, and 21% for business executives. Only members of the military (84%) and teachers (77%) rate higher in public admiration and esteem," Nisbett writes.
This suggests that if and as scientists comment publicly on the reality of global warming, what's causing it, and how to slow it down, a plurality of Americans will believe them.
That leaves it up to my reviled profession to do more fair and accurate reporting on these issues, too.
Suggest a story to Stop Global Warming
Published July 10, 2009 @ 08:01AM PT
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Inhofe Watch: Senator Demands Investigation of EPA Non-Scandal
Published July 07, 2009 @ 04:31PM PT
Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.) has called for a criminal investigation into charges that the Environmental Protection Agency squelched employees who disagreed with its endangerment finding: that human-caused carbon dioxide as the primary cause of climate change.
Sen. Inhofe, a long-time denier of human-propelled climate change, told Fox News last week that under the Obama administration,
[EPA officials] have been suppressing science and coming out with what they want people to say. You might remember — I talked to you about it on this station. When I first realized that this thing was a hoax and I made the statement that the notion that man-made gases, anthropogenic gases, CO2 cause global warming, it is probably the greatest hoax ever perpetrated.
As I noted in a post earlier today, about Senator John Barrasso (R-Wy.)'s similar performance at this morning's hearing of the Environment and Public Works Committee, this strikes me as a weird case of transference; since, under the Bush administration, global warming science demonstrably was suppressed, and scientists squelched, and these senators stood by and watched.
The work they are championing, by economists Alan Carlin and John Davidson of EPA's National Center for Environmental Economics, has not withstood scientific scrutiny. NASA climatologist Gavin Schmidt describes it as "a ragbag collection of un-peer reviewed web pages, an unhealthy dose of sunstroke, a dash of astrology and more cherries than you can poke a cocktail stick at." Carlin was allowed to submit it for inclusion in the endangerment finding, and EPA rejected it on its scientific merits.
Unfortunately, a couple traditional news outlets that ought to know better, CBS News and The New York Times, fell back on old habits of "he said, she said" style global warming reporting. Each has devoted some space to this story, while failing to question the motivations of the Competitive Enterprise Institute in trying to whip up some controversy around the Carlin/Davidson document. CEI is a free-market advocacy think tank that's long opposed curbing greenhouse gas pollution and disputed the reality of global warming.
If Sens. Inhofe and Barrasso had their way, we would soon see thousands millions of taxpayer dollars devoted to an investigation into why bad science was not included in an EPA decision.
Think of all that money going into clean tech research and development, instead!
Boxer, Jackson Blast Sen. Barrasso's "Suppressed EPA Memo" Meme
Published July 07, 2009 @ 10:57AM PT
Did you hear the one about how the Obama administration is fostering a "culture of secrecy and suppression" of science?
That was the claim made by Senator John Barrasso (R-Wy.). At this morning's hearing of the Environment and Public Works Committee, Sen. Barrasso spent most of his time projecting onto the Obama administration a phenomenon he didn't seem to mind when it was actually practiced by the Bush-Cheney administration: censorship of scientific data on climate change, and suppression of the words and works of federal employees.
While Democratic and some of his GOP colleagues spent the morning discussing how to take action on clean energy and global warming with four members of the Obama cabinet, Sen. Barrasso tried to hamstring the hearing. He charged that an EPA economist was squelched from above when he disagreed with the agency's endangerment finding on carbon dioxide.
"What I've seen so far is an administration that is saying, yes we can hide the truth, yes we can hide the facts, and yes we can intimidate career government employees," said Sen. Barrasso.
Calling the accusation of censoring science "a brutal charge to levy," Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), the committee chair, addressed it to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson.
"I will be brief, because I think this committee has more important and substantive issues to deal with," said Ms. Jackson.
Citing materials released by the free-market advocacy think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute, including an exchange of emails between the EPA staffer at the creamy center of this story and his managers, Jackson stated that the "facts do not justify the CEI release."
The EPA employee, economist Alan Carlin, was given permission and encouraged to speak his mind, and find peer-reviewed work to back up his disagreement to the EPA's finding, she said. "I personally instructed staff that Carlin should feel free to circulate [his] memo to anyone he wished," Jackson said, adding, "I don't believe process debates like this are serving the American people" by finding solutions to clean energy generation and ways to stop global warming.
As Grist reporter Jonathan Hiskes has written, there's nothing to speak of to this conspiracy allegation by Sen. Barrasso and others on the right. "EPA Press Secretary Adora Andy noted that Carlin’s education and work expertise are largely in economics, not climatology," says Hiskes. "That’s why his comments on climate science were not included" in the endangerment finding.
Carlin's own report does not back up CEI's allegations, says Hiskes, and recycles several well-debunked global warming hoaxes: that the science is so rapidly evolving that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's reports cannot be trusted; that the globe is really cooling; that the mass of Greenland's ice cap is stable; and others.
The science in the document doesn't hold up. NASA climatologist Gavin Schmidt wrote on RealClimate (and Hiskes reposted to Grist, as I'm reposting here):
...what solid peer reviewed science do they cite for support? A heavily-criticised blog posting showing that there are bi-decadal periods in climate data and that this proves it was the sun wot done it. The work of an award-winning astrologer (one Theodor Landscheidt, who also thought that the rise of Hitler and Stalin were due to cosmic cycles), a classic Courtillot paper we've discussed before, the aforementioned FoS web page, another web page run by Doug Hoyt, a paper by Garth Paltridge reporting on artifacts in the NCEP reanalysis of water vapour that are in contradiction to every other reanalysis, direct observations and satellite data, a complete reprint of another un-peer reviewed paper by William Gray, a nonsense paper by Miskolczi etc. etc.
I'm not quite sure how this is supposed to compete with the four rounds of international scientific and governmental review of the IPCC or the rounds of review of the CCSP reports ...
...Finally, they end up with the oddest claim in the submission: That because human welfare has increased over the twentieth century at a time when CO2 was increasing, this somehow implies that no amount of CO2 increases can ever cause a danger to human society. This is just boneheadly stupid.
So in summary, what we have is a ragbag collection of un-peer reviewed web pages, an unhealthy dose of sunstroke, a dash of astrology and more cherries than you can poke a cocktail stick at. Seriously, if that's the best they can do, the EPA's ruling is on pretty safe ground.
There are many really substantive critiques to make of the House clean energy and climate legislation, and whatever version the Senate will eventually take up. These policies warrant serious discussion and consideration in Congress.
Instead, Sen. Barrasso is falling down on the job. He is using falsehoods to try and block much-needed debates of and advancements on energy and climate policy, instead of engaging on the real issues. It's a mystery why his constituents don't demand better.
