Climate Progress

If you average your net worth with Bill Gates’, you’re both billionaires.

What’s this got to do with global warming? When the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issues their Fourth Assessment Report early next year, the headline will be their forecast of global average temperature increases in 2100 (which has been widely misreported to be 2°-4.5°C, as noted).

This time around, the IPCC is trying to do a better job of looking at regional effects, but if the past is prologue, the press, politicians and policy-makers will center debates about how to respond to global warming on the global average temperature increases and the Global Warming Delayers will gleefully join them.

There are lots of problems with this. For one, Australian climatologist Barry Pittock (among others) has shown that the IPCC projections are almost certainly too low. Yet even if the IPCC’s global figures were accurate, they could do more to misinform than to inform. To understand why, we need to understand the power of “outliers” and the Black Swan.

As author Nassim Taleb notes notes, “A black swan is an outlier, an event that lies beyond the realm of normal expectations. Most people expect all swans to be white because that’s what their experience tells them; a black swan is by definition a surprise.”

The polar regions, which are warming up to three times as fast as the rest of the planet, are our black swan.

With increasing evidence that the warmed world faces the release of massive amounts of methane, a very potent greenhouse gas, from a superheated tundra, this particular black swan will drive what happens in the rest of the world.

If we continue to focus on “global averages,” the Fifth IPCC Assessment (circa 2013) is likely to be little more than an evaluation of how we could have been so wrong in Fourth Assessment, which largely ignores the impact of amplifying feedbacks from the tundra.

Apparently in Maine, you won’t be able to get news coverage of Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth until Kevin Costner’s infamous work of cinematic fiction is also a documentary.

The story in today’s New York Times defies logic even more than the script to Costner’s movie, but is far more worth a look:

At 2 TV Stations in Maine, What Al Gore’s Movie Says Isn’t News

How important is global warming in Maine? Not important enough for local television.

Michael Palmer, the general manager of television stations WVII and WFVX, ABC and Fox affiliates in Bangor, has told his joint staff of nine men and women that when “Bar Harbor is underwater, then we can do global warming stories.”

“Until then,” he added. “No more.”

Mr. Palmer laid out his policy in an e-mail message sent out during the summer. A copy was sent to The New York Times. Mr. Palmer did not respond to a phone message left with an employee of the stations nor to an e-mail message. But a former staff member confirmed the e-mail message that went out during the summer after the stations broadcast a live report from a movie theater in Maine where Al Gore’s movie on global warming, “An Inconvenient Truth,” was opening.

Mr. Palmer began his e-mail message: “I was wondering where we should send the bill for the live shot Friday at the theater for the Al Gore commercial we aired.”

Mr. Palmer said he wanted no more stories broadcast on global warming because: “a) we do local news, b) the issue evolved from hard science into hard politics and c) despite what you may have heard from the mainstream media, this science is far from conclusive.” Mr. Palmer said in his e-mail message to his operations manager and two women who served as a news anchor and a reporter that he placed “global warming stories in the same category as ‘the killer African bee scare’ from the 1970s or, more recently, the Y2K scare when everyone’s computer was going to self-destruct.”

Dr. James Hansen, the director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies at Columbia University, said in an interview yesterday that the station’s policy on coverage was irresponsible.

“If you wait until Bar Harbor is underwater, it’s too late,” Dr. Hansen said. “It won’t be just Bar Harbor that is underwater, but many places around the globe including parts of Florida, Bangladesh and the Nile Delta.”

A major new report warns that the cost of failing to take action on climate change could devastate the economy. As one British newspaper put it:

Sir Nicholas Stern, a former chief economist with the World Bank, will warn that governments need to tackle the problem head-on by cutting emissions or face economic ruin. The findings … will turn economic argument about global warming on its head by insisting that fighting global warming will save industrial nations money. The US refused to join the Kyoto protocol, the international agreement on greenhouse gas emissions, because George Bush said it would harm the economy.

The Stern report was commissioned by the British government. Sir David King, the government’s chief scientific adviser, called the 700-page report “the most detailed economic analysis that I think has yet been conducted.” Stern added:

“If no action is taken we will be faced with the kind of downturn that has not been seen since the great depression and the two world wars.”

The report notes that avoiding catastrophic climate change might cost countries 1% of gross domestic product (spent largely on clean energy technologies that have many other benefits such as reductions in urban smog), but failing to act could cost up to 20% of GDP as the world must deal with impacts such as massive flooding and hundreds of millions of environmental refugees.

“Sir Nicholas believes a window of 10 to 15 years exists to save the global economy from severe damage - but after that it will be too late.” Since America is both the biggest polluter and the biggest roadblock to international action, and since our President steadfastly refuses to take serious action, that means we really have a window of 7 to 12 years, and that means the fate of the planet will be in the hands the next president.

Let’s hope he or she understands the central lesson of the Stern report: The cost of an inaction on climate far, far exceeds the cost of action.

Every state will suffer the harsh effects of global warming if we fail to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. So every state should take action to reduce those emissions.

We have already seen this with California, and Arizona’s governor Janet Napolitano last month signed an executive order that “establishes a statewide goal to reduce Arizona’s future GHG emissions to the 2000 emissions level by the year 2020, and to 50% below the 2000 level by 2040.”

Why not simply wait for action from President Bush? The ABC news headline summed up part of the answer to that question: “Arizona seeks to bypass Bush on CO2 emissions.” Equally important, the state faces many potentially dangerous climate impacts. The state is particularly vulnerable to climate change because it is already so hot and dry and drought-prone.

So if it wishes to avoid the trend for desertification that global warming is likely to bring, it needs to take action itself. Kudos for doing so.

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has issued a major report making clear that it is possible to avoid catastrophic warming while maintaining economic growth — and that energy efficiency is the key.

The report, “The World in 2050: Implications of global growth for carbon emissions and climate change policy,” deserves attention because it comes from one of the largest mainstream consulting companies in the world.

The world’s goal MUST be to keep warming to at most 2°C warming from pre-industrial levels and that requires a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from current levels by 2050. The two key questions that any economic report must answer are 1) what is the best way to achieve these cuts and 2) what is the cost of action?

The strategy for achieving these reductions can be found in the figure on the right (click to expand). Whatever your favorite supply-side solution (renewables, nuclear, capturing and sequestering carbon dioxide from fossil fuel plants), the key lesson from that chart is that the biggest contributor comes from accelerated use of energy efficiency (better lighting, heating, cooling, electric motors, and the like).

What is the cost? John Hawksworth, head of macroeconomics at PwC’s UK firm, explains:

“Our analysis suggests that there are technologically feasible and relatively low-cost options for controlling carbon emissions to the atmosphere. Estimates suggest that the level of GDP might be reduced by no more than around 2-3% in 2050 if this strategy was followed, equivalent to sacrificing only around a year of economic growth for the sake of reducing carbon emissions in 2050 by around 60% compared to our baseline scenario”.

Seems like a reasonable price to avoid trillions of dollars in climate damages this century alone.

The Bush administration has once again walked away from the most cost-effective strategy for reducing future pollution.

“An Energy Ruling That’s Simply Hot Air,” is how the Washington Post put it:

A proposed “energy conservation standard” that the [Energy] department unveiled Oct. 6 moved the energy-efficiency needle almost imperceptibly for home gas furnaces — to 80 percent from 78 percent, the standard set in 1989. The agency rejected an option to raise the standard to 90 percent, which would have saved more energy and trimmed heating bills for consumers in colder climates.

The only thing missing from this excellent story is an explanation of why the best way to reduce future pollution is to use energy more efficiently (since that avoids generating the pollution in the first place). The Bush administration keeps repeating that technology is the solution to our energy and pollution problems – but the only technology the Bush administration seems interested in is long-term, breakthrough technology.

The two problems with the wait-for-breakthroughs strategy is 1) we no longer have time to wait for new technologies (at least if we want to avoid catastrophic warming) and 2) It is a delusion to think that newer technologies can automatically outcompete existing technologies with their vested political interests and well-established delivery channels.

Once new technology becomes existing technology, the Bush administration seems to lose complete interest in it. After all, this energy standard for new efficient furnace technology was strongly supported “by both energy conservation groups and some manufacturers.

If the only technologies this administration supports are hypothetical future technologies or existing technologies that have no political opposition whatsoever, then it is difficult to understand what their solution to pollution is.

Tragically, governing conservatives in Canada have put off serious action on reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for decades. Not only are they walking away from their commitments under the Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to six percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

They have proposed a bill that would “apply intensity-based targets until 2020, allowing emissions to continue to rise until then” — copying the Bush administration strategy discussed earlier in a post that explains what intensity-based targets are and why they are meaningless.

Yes, that means they are taking a [maple]-leaf from our conservatives, to mix metaphors. (Too bad they have chosen not to emulate British Conservatives, who are for more aggressive action than Kyoto, not less).

No doubt Canadian conservatives would argue that they are far different from American conservatives, since “in the long term,” the government says it “would seek to cut emissions 45 to 65 percent by 2050.”

But how do you cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2050 if you are already 30% higher than 1990 levels, and will be higher still by 2020? California has set itself on the right path — aiming to return greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, which then sets the stage for the kind of deep cuts that the planet really needs — 50% to 80% reductions by 2050 from 1990 levels.

Canada’s conservatives make those goals virtually unattainable, joining American conservatives in dramatically increasing the prospects for catastrophic climate change. As the anthem goes, “O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.”

The print edition of the Post I received today has a major story in the business section titled “The Petroleum Paradox: As Prices Retreat, Interest in New Energy Sources Wanes.” The online edition you can access has a different spin: “A Down Market’s Ripple Effect: If Oil Prices Fall, Will Interest in New Energy Sources Wane?”

The original headline makes no sense — it is not a “paradox” that when the price of a product drops, its competition suffers in the marketplace. That would simply be considered an economic truism.

As for the original sub-headline, the story doesn’t actually provide very much evidence for this–mainly because it isn’t really true, at least for investment in clean energy (as opposed to investment in conventional and unconventional oil, which is what the article mainly focuses on). As but one of thousands of examples, solar energy is experiencing a massive and growing investment by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs as the L.A. Times reported today, and “The industry is expected to grow from $11 billion in 2005 to $51 billion in 2015.”

The online sub-head is much more accurate, since it poses the issue as a question. But even here, the headline is far from perfect, since it replaces “Paradox” with “Ripple Effect,” again implying this disinvestment in clean energy sources has somehow begun in earnest. I’m not saying that lower oil prices won’t discourage some investors, and perhaps will discourage some buyers of fuel-efficient cars (although I don’t really consider fuel-efficient cars count as a new energy source).

But the entire market for clean energy is exploding around the world as more as more people understand the driving force for clean energy will increasingly be the urgent need to take action on climate change. The best recent report on this is “American Energy: The Renewable Path to Energy Security,” by the Center for American Progress and the Worldwatch Institute.

Seriously — how does one of the smartest columnists in the country write an entire piece on the U.S. oil habit and never once mention global warming?

The point of the article by Robert J. Samuelson is summarized in its headline: “An Oil Habit America Cannot Break.” He writes: On energy, we’re disproving even this cynical axiom. Our main energy problem is our huge dependence on imported oil.”

He then spends a great deal of time explaining why the situation is hopeless either politically (because no solution is currently acceptable) or practically (because as he sees it, no politically plausible solution could possibly make a serious dent in our rising oil consumption). This is all summarized in the penultimate paragraph of the article:

So we probably won’t do much about our oil habit. Any realistic proposal would ignite a firestorm of protest. Environmentalists would denounce more drilling. Auto companies would protest new fuel economy standards. Most important, the public would denounce a steep energy tax, even if it were introduced gradually with most proceeds rebated by lowering other taxes (as is desirable). And these unpleasant steps would merely reduce our dependence from what it would otherwise be. It’s a hard case to make.

Samuelson couldn’t be more wrong. I know for 100% certainty that we will do a great deal about our oil habit, because before 2020, most everyone (including him) will understand that failure to cut US oil consumption 50% by 2050 will inevitably lead to a series of dire and irreversible consequences costing trillions of dollars, including returning the earth to temperatures when sea levels were 80 feet higher.

Now, Samuelson may not believe this now, but our top climate scientists do. To write an entire article on oil and never even mention climate means he just doesn’t get it.

Montana governor Brian Schweitzer announced a major coal-to-liquids plant last week. The process is a very old (and expensive) one used by the Germans in World War II and subsequently by the South Africans.

Coal is the most carbon-intensive fuel. The more you burn, the worse for the climate — and making diesel out of coal generates almost twice as much total greenhouse gases as simply making diesel out of crude oil — unless you can find some way of capturing the carbon dioxide and storing it forever. The media coverage states:

Schweitzer said the plant will be equipped to capture carbon dioxide for storage underground. The coal’s mercury, sulfur and particulate matter will be removed, he said. Fix said the handling of carbon dioxide is of particular concern because of the potential for releases to heighten global climate change.

Let’s hope this is not political language that needs to be parsed — “will be equipped to” is not the same thing as simply “will.”

I am not a big fan of this idea. I co-authored an op-ed a few months ago for the Billing’s Gazette spelling out my arguments with Ron Erickson, a retired professor of chemistry and environmental studies at the University of Montana and a former representative in the Montana Legislature. Here it is:

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