The so-called paper of record ran a major story Tuesday on the country’s most infamous climate-driven pest, “Bark Beetles Kill Millions of Acres of Trees in West.” Great story, other than neglecting to mention climate change. It’d be like an article on an outbreak of avian flu that left out any discussion of birds
The NYT did get the grim, superficial facts of the story right:
From New Mexico to British Columbia, the region’s signature pine forests are succumbing to a huge infestation of mountain pine beetles that are turning a blanket of green forest into a blanket of rust red. Montana has lost a million acres of trees to the beetles, and in northern Colorado and southern Wyoming the situation is worse.
“We’re seeing exponential growth of the infestation,” said Clint Kyhl, director of a Forest Service incident management team in Laramie, Wyo., that was set up to deal with the threat of fire from dead forests. Increased construction of homes in forest areas over the last 20 years makes the problem worse.
Yeah, home building is the cause of this problem — that’s why in Alaska, “over three million acres of forest land has been devastated by the beetle,” as senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) described in a May 2006 speech on climate change. Seriously, that is pretty much the only explanation the NYT story offers, although the accompanying video does inch much closer to the truth, strangely enough.
E&E News (subs. req’d) has the breaking story on the political pugilistic prizefight to police pollution:
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) scored a slim opening round win today in his bid to take the gavel of the House Energy and Commerce Committee from Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.).
Waxman captured a majority of support from the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, a group heavily tilted toward allies of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). The final tally was 25-22, according to Steering Committee co-Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.)
So this was definitely not a knockout, but more of a split decision by the judges. The bad news for Waxman is that he scored a close win in a Pelosi-friendly group that is more liberal than the Democratic caucus as a whole.
To win the chairmanship, Waxman, a 17-term lawmaker from Beverly Hills, still needs a majority vote from the entire House Democratic Caucus. A secret-ballot vote is scheduled for 9 a.m tomorrow among approximately 260 Democrats who will serve in the 111th Congress — and a heavy dose of lobbying from both sides is expected before then.
The prize remains a big one, which is why this is a major prizefight:
The victor will play an important role over the next two years in moving President-elect Barack Obama’s energy, environment and health care agenda.
Given that this report is just out, I’m assuming they have sorted out the data entry issues that briefly caused problems for NASA (see here and here). Also worth noting from the NCDC report:
According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, the October 2008 Northern Hemisphere sea ice extent, which is measured from passive microwave instruments onboard NOAA satellites, was the third least October sea ice extent on record, behind 2007 and 2006. Average ice extent during October 2008 was 8.4 million square kilometers, which is 9.5 percent below the 1979-2000 average. Sea ice extent for October has decreased at a rate of 5.4 percent per decade, since satellite records began in 1979.
Since interest in the monthly temperature reports is so keen these days, let me repeat the key points from my an earlier post on the monthly data. While the monthly data doesn’t tell us much about the climate, the peer-reviewed scientific literature has a couple of interesting forecasts for the next decade:
Assuming this story is real — I’ll let those who can translate Chinese check out the original source, which, of course, could also be wrong — the US government isn’t going to let this happen.
But I’m gonna print this because the non-primary source, The Truth About Cars, is pretty credible, and because I can put this under the category (gallow) humor:
The first rule of journalism: Do NOT talk about journalism.
No, that isn’t it. The first rule of journalism is “If your mother says she loves you, check it out,” which is to say never rely on any non-primary sources, especially other journalists. So this recent post — Schwarzenegger mandates 33% renewables by 2030 — isn’t right because this story isn’t.
Schwarzenegger’s Executive Order is here, and it clearly states:
There is no lack of ideas for what President Obama and the 111th Congress should do to address three of the most pressing issues they will face when they take office in January — global climate change, the energy crisis, and economic transformation. It may be winter in Washington, D.C., but it’s springtime in national politics. Policy agendas are blooming like cherry blossoms.
For example, last week alone, Washington, D.C. was introduced to three comprehensive plans to address economy, energy and climate. Two were issued by the Center for American Progress, headed by John Podesta, co-chair of President-elect Obama’s transition team, including an excellent strategy for green recovery by Bracken Hendricks and Benjamin Goldstein.
The Presidential Climate Action Plan (PCAP) was released during a standing-room only briefing on Capitol Hill, after two years of gestation at the University of Colorado. PCAP contains more than 180 proposals for President Obama and the next Congress, across 18 topics, ranging from natural resource stewardship to public health and from farm policy to zero-carbon buildings and transportation systems. All were designed for action during President Obama’s honeymoon period — the six months in which a new president traditionally sets the tone of his administration, between inauguration and the August congressional recess.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens has lost his bid for a seventh term. The longest-serving Republican in the history of the Senate trailed Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich by 3,724 votes after Tuesday’s count.
That’s an insurmountable lead with only about 2,500 overseas ballots left to be counted.
Stevens, who turned 85 Tuesday, also revealed that he will not ask President George W. Bush to give him a pardon for his seven felony convictions.
It is judgment day, deniers and delayers. There is a new sheriff coming to town, and he isn’t an anti-scientific stooge like the current one or his boss VP.
President-elect Barack Obama gave ringing remarks to the governors climate summit:
“My presidency will mark a new chapter in America’s leadership on climate change that will strengthen our security and create millions of new jobs in the process. That will start with a federal cap and trade system. We will establish strong annual targets that set us on a course to reduce emissions to their 1990 levels by 2020 and reduce them an additional 80% by 2050. Further, we will invest $15 billion each year to catalyze private sector efforts to build a clean energy future. We will invest in solar power, wind power, and next generation biofuels. We will tap nuclear power, while making sure it’s safe. And we will develop clean coal technologies.
I have already heard some enviros attack Obama for “only” going back to 1990 levels by 2020 — even though that is the same goal that Arnold Schwarzenegger has in California, which has had years to develop and employ more serious and aggressive strategies. In fact, getting back to 1990 levels will require all of the talent, eloquence, and magic PEBO has — and he’ll need the support and hard work of every last one of us.
Some enviros are also attacking Obama for spending any money to try to develop clean coal. Certainly clean coal has no prospect whatsoever of helping achieve 2020 goals, and probably not even 2030 goals, but gasifed coal and biomass with carbon capture and storage may be a critical element of a long-term effort to get back to 350 ppm.
Anyway, enough with what the snipers and kibitzers have to say. Here are Obama’s full remarks:
RealClimate has a great post, “Mind the Gap!” that explains some of the confusion about recent temperature trends.
Two key datasets, from the UK’s Hadley Centre and NASA show warming, as I’ve noted before. But “there are no permanent weather stations in the Arctic Ocean, the place on Earth that has been warming fastest. The Hadley record simply excludes this area, whereas the NASA version assumes its surface temperature is the same as that of the nearest land-based stations.” Even so, the Hadley data clearly show the planet is warming, see “Hadley Center to deniers: We are STILL warming.”
It is possible to reconstruct the recent warming in the Arctic and use that to fill in the gaps. The National Weather Service’s National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) has done just such a reanalysis:
As RealClimate explains: “The animated figure shows the temperature difference between the two 5-year periods 1999-2003 and 2004-2008. Such results do not show the long-term trends, but it’s a fact that there have been high temperatures in the Arctic during the recent years.”
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday signed an executive order that would speed up renewable energy development and require 33 percent of utilities’ electrical power to come from renewable sources by 2030.
The governor is aiming to use Executive Order S-14-08 to compel two state agencies, the California Energy Commission and the Department of Fish and Game, to work more closely on dealing with conflicts between renewable energy developers and environmentalists over building power plants and transmission lines (see California Lukewarm to Sunrise Powerlink).
This executive order will maintain California’s dual leadership in the renewable power and energy efficiency.
As California goes, so goes the nation. Under Obama, you can expect a much stronger federal renewable portfolio standard and expedited transmission line siting and permitting.
There is no lack of ideas for what President Obama and the 111th Congress should do to address three of the most pressing issues they will face when they take office in January — global climate change, the energy crisis, and economic transformation. It may be winter in Washington, D.C., but it’s springtime in national politics. Policy agendas are blooming like cherry blossoms.
