Climate Progress

Delay = Dollars.

That is the message from many, even in the utility industry, as made clear in a recent New York Times article centered on the economic implications of postponing action on climate change. The rationale echoes what we learned from the Stern Review Report: “Staying the course”–continuing the U.S. policy of inaction–is expensive.

While seemingly unlikely as advocates of carbon pricing, smart utility companies realize that the financial risks in coming decades mandate some form of insurance policy now. That means taking small steps to prepare for a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade scheme and then to make necessary business adjustments.

James Rogers, chief executive of Duke Energy, says:

Climate change is real, and we clearly believe we are on a route to mandatory controls on carbon dioxide. And we need to start now because the longer we wait, the more difficult and expensive this is going to be.

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The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported today:

The average annual temperature for the contiguous U.S. will likely be the third warmest on record in 2006, according to scientists at the NOAA National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. The year is noted for widespread drought and record wildfires, as well as heavy precipitation and flooding in some parts of the country. Following the warmest year on record for the globe in 2005, the annual global temperature for 2006 is expected to be sixth warmest since recordkeeping began in 1880.

This was the warmest January on record and an especially warm winter overall — more evidence that we will be seeing fewer and fewer White Christmases.

Yet, much of the mainstream media does not consider any of this newsworthy. See if you can find any mention of these records in your local paper tomorrow. Let Climate Progress know — we certainly want to give credit to those reporters who do cover this subject.

Today we learned that 2006 was one of the hottest years in recorded history — just like every year for the past decade. The global warming alarm bells should be going off.

The Met Office, part of the UK’s Department of Defence, announced that 2006 will probably be the sixth warmest year since global records began in 1850. And the 10 hottest years all occurred in the past 12 years. In Britain, 2006 sees “the higest average temperature recorded since the Central England Temperature series began in 1659.”

It is no coincidence that 2006 was also a record-breaking season for wildfires in the American West. Like Katrina last year, this is just a glimpse of a world with global warming run amuck, a world of wildfires and floods — “Hell and High Water” — and a world that is our fate unless we finally take this challenge seriously.

The failure to take action on global warming really is a “War on White Christmas” — since, on our current path, most of the United States will be 10°F warmer (or more) by century’s end, making late December snowfall a distant memory for most Americans. Global Warming Deniers deserve a lump of coal in their stockings for their ongoing efforts to spread misinformation and delay action.

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The Senate Environment & Public Works climate hearing on December 6 was the swan song for James Inhofe (R-OK) as Committee Chair, so we would expect the specious arguments to fly. University of Oklahoma Professor David Deming did not disappoint. He began his closing statement claiming:

As far as I know, there isn’t a single person anywhere on earth that’s ever been killed by global warming. There is not a single species that’s gone extinct. In fact I’m not aware, really, of any deleterious effects whatsoever. It’s all speculation.

He couldn’t be more wrong.

As we learned in articles anticipating the release of Camille Parmesan’s “Ecological and Evolutionary Responses to Recent Climate Change,” climate change is happening at a rate so fast that species are unable to adapt and many have, in fact, gone extinct. That includes at least 70 species of tropical frogs.

Like our atmosphere, ecosystems and their inhabitants are highly delicate entities. No matter the vehemence with which some deny climate change, the ecological consequences are evident. In the words of Professor Douglas Futuyma, speaking with the Associated Press, “we are staring crisis in the face“.

It is speciousness–not species–that humans need to make extinct.

Refugees have no home, sometimes no citizenship, and in the case of climate refugees, not even refugee status.

Though climate refugees are not recognized under the Geneva Convention, their number almost certainly exceeds the number of officially-recognized refugees. This comes to light in an article from the Center for American Progress by Teresita Perez.

The devastation from Hurricane Katrina that caused thousands to relocate and rebuild foreshadows what our own country and the world may face regularly as climate change continues to intensify global weather patterns.

Making room for people who are fleeing increasingly severe natural disasters, or allowing them to simply switch high-risk locales, does not solve the problem. What we need to make room for are new policies and emerging solutions. What we need to switch is our stance on international climate treaties, the fuel in our cars, our light bulbs, our domestic climate policies….

Former goalkeeper David James goes green in an opinion piece titled, “Forget Joey’s arse - it’s wind turbines that matter.”

Inspired by his former soccer club’s decision to install a wind turbine, James challenges environmentally-degrading rituals of sports fans such as trails of litter and long commutes to games.

He urges the sport to lead by example. He calls for energy-efficient lighting, recycling, and more park-and-ride or carpooling options. He calls on the international soccer Federation and fellow soccer players to set the precedent, possibly flaunting eco-friendly cars and striking “eco-friendly sponsorship deals.”

Getting outdoor sports fans more interested in the environment should be a natural since global warming is making summers more and more sweltering. England has been experiencing “the hottest year ever in the UK since records began in 1659.”

If any sector of the population is capable of aggressive rallying for a cause, sports fans definitely qualify. This article, which shows how to keep your eye on the most important “ball” of all–the Earth–is well worth a read.

The New York Times recently ran a brief but telling article on India’s monsoon season, writing explicitly about the connection between extreme weather and global warming, which they have not always done:

The frequency and intensity of rainstorms during India’s monsoon season has risen significantly since 1950, in concert with global warming, scientists report. An Indian climate research team describes the trend in the journal Science and predicts that further warming is likely to raise the risk of floods. The pattern was found by analyzing rain-gauge measurements. Over all, the total rainfall in June-to-September monsoons across central India had not appreciably changed, but more rain came in sudden bursts and less in light showers, the scientists said. “A substantial increase in hazards related to heavy rain is expected over central India in the future,” they added.

This is just one more piece of scientific evidence that global warming is affecting the world now. And that means even more extreme weather in the future if we keep increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.

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And by soar, we mean the rate of growth has more than doubled. In 2000, carbon dioxide emissions were rising less than 1% annually. Today they are rising more than 2.5% annually.

The world added 7.9 billion metric tons of carbon in 2005 alone, up from 6.8 billion in 2000. The news comes from an analysis by the Global Carbon Project that BBC reported on.

And while this news may not get the same headlines as the unfolding tragedy in Iraq, it is no less tragic. We need to decrease emissions to far below 2000 levels by 2050, to avoid catastrophic warming. The more we add now, the more we have to cut later–and the less time we have to achieve those cuts.

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Climate change is starting to affect Insurance companies, and the media is starting to notice. The Washington Post recently ran a long article expanding on the themes in a Plenty magazine piece.

The Post’s “A Dream Blown Away” describes some of the insurance industry’s lingo that sheds light on the conundrum companies are facing. For example:

‘Insufficient capacity’ and ‘the market won’t clear’ refer to climate risks so difficult to calculate that traditional commercial providers won’t sell you new insurance or renew your old insurance at any price.

Allstate insurance has suspended new coverage in Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens and Staten Island, even refusing to renew coverage in particularly vulnerable zones, according to the Post’s article. Why? they are worried about a

Category 3 [hurricane] funneling straight north up New York Harbor. Pushing a wall of water perhaps 15 feet tall up Broadway toward the second-story windows of Wall Street.

As global warming warms the Atlantic, hurricanes will last longer and travel further from the tropics, so Allstate’s fears are not unrealistic.

The bottom line: The insurance industry is not so much preparing as it is running from the problem, given its financial interests. Even so, at least they are aware of the problem and taking precautions–a lesson that delayers, deniers and policymakers need to learn.

The Senate’s leading global warming denier, James Inhofe, has decided to finish his chairmanship of the Environment & Public Works Committee with a hearing to attack the media for supposedly over-hyping global warming.

There are a lot of good reasons to hold a hearing on climate change and the media — but OVERreporting the story certainly isn’t one of them.

Media coverage of global warming has improved, thanks in large part to the work of people like Al Gore. Even so, many in the media continue to underreport what will certainly be the “Story of the Century,” as I discuss in Chapter 10 of my new book: Hell and High Water.

James Hansen, the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has said that there can no longer be genuine doubt that human-made gases are the dominant cause of observed warming. John Holdren, the President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science has warned that sea levels could rise seven to 14 feet by the end of this century.

By any reasonable standard, journalists, scientists, progressives, and advocates should be running around like their hair was on fire — not giving equal time to global warming delayers and deniers who have marginalized themselves from the mainstream of debate.