Climate Progress

Who knew John Dingell (D-Michigan) would channel Al Gore (D-Earth)?

Greenwire reports (subs. req’d), the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee said of the climate bill he is working on:

We should set ambitious goals and targets for that legislation. It should stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations at levels that will avoid or avert large-scale climate change consequences. That will require a reduction in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions of between 60, and perhaps as much as 80, percent by 2050.

The rest of the story is below the fold:

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Kudos to New Scientist for taking on the skeptics. Here are the myths they debunk (that Slate’s Emily Yoffe would do well to read):

• Human CO₂ emissions are too tiny to matter

• We can’t do anything about climate change

• We can’t trust computer models of climate

• They predicted global cooling in the 1970s

• Chaotic systems are not predictable

• Mars and Pluto are warming too

• The ‘hockey stick’ graph has been proven wrong

• It was warmer during the Medieval period, with vineyards in England

• It’s been far warmer in the past, what’s the big deal?

• Global warming is due to the Sun, not humans

• Ice cores show CO₂ increases lag behind temperature rises, disproving the link to global warming

But wait, there’s many more debunked myths — the Global Warming Denyers have been a busy bunch lo these many years:

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The Washington Post wraps up its series on Dick Cheney with a long story about his role promoting pollution: “The vice president has intervened in many cases to undercut long-standing environmental rules for the benefit of business.”

His actions directly led to “the largest fish kill the West had ever seen, with tens of thousands of salmon rotting on the banks of the Klamath River.”

Be sure to read to the end to see Cheney’s role pushing a new rule to gut the Clean Air Act, causing EPA administrator Christine Whitman to resign.

I just couldn’t sign it,” she [Whitman] said. “The president has a right to have an administrator who could defend it, and I just couldn’t.”

A federal appeals court has since found that the rule change violated the Clean Air Act. In their ruling, the judges said that the administration had redefined the law in a way that could be valid “only in a Humpty-Dumpty world.”

A Humpty-Dumpty world created by the Vice President. Or perhaps he should be called the Head Vice President, for the torture he has put the country through.

Ecorazzi reports on Bruce Willis’s recent bit on David Letterman.

Willis poked fun at green celebrities with his wind turbine hat, boxer briefs made from recycled tires (”a little chaffing problem”) and plans for a new film inspired by Al Gore.

The video is here.

Greenwire says it was Southern utilities. A subscription is required, but I’ll post the whole article below the fold, as it were.

In brief, last week the Senate tried to require power companies to generate 15% of their electricity from renewable energy by 2020. That modest renewable portfolio standard (RPS) was killed by the combined efforts of utilities like the Tennessee Valley Authority, Southern Company, and Duke Energy.

The whole story is here:

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Climate Change is Making Poison Ivy More Potent - Wall Streeet Journal. “The reason? Rising ambient carbon-dioxide levels create ideal conditions for the plant, producing bigger leaves, faster growth, hardier plants and oil that’s even more irritating.”

U.S. Is Creating 3 Centers for Research on Biofuels - New York Times. “The three centers … with $125 million each in capital, will be in Oak Ridge, Tenn.; Madison, Wis.; and near Berkeley, Calif.”

Why Desalination Doesn’t Work (Yet) - LiveScience. “Current methods require about 14 kilowatt-hours of energy to produce 1,000 gallons of desalinated seawater.” If half of U.S. water consumption “came from desalination, the United States would need more than 100 extra electric power plants, each with a gigawatt of capacity.” Not a terrific solution for droughts driven by greenhouse gases from fossil fuel plants.

Schwarzenegger says US must cut emissions before China does - Bloomberg. “We can’t go to India and China and say, “… we want you to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, when we are in fact the one that has 5 % of world population and emits 25 % of greenhouse gases,”’ the governor said. “We have to show leadership.”

Absent a President Eisenhower actively seeking the advice of scientists, NASA’s James Hansen notes that scientists “can still try to provoke needed discussions in various ways.” Hansen’s way is to speak out in public as often as possible and to write prolifically.

Hansen has just posted, “How Can We Avert Dangerous Climate Change.” He explains:

It is a slightly edited version of recent congressional testimony to which I have added a number of references that I did not have time to compile prior to the testimony.

Here is the abstract:

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John Rigdon in the June 2007 Physics Today has a fascinating article on “Eisenhower, scientists, and Sputnik.” Here are James Hansen’s comments on the article:

President Eisenhower was arguably the last United States President to seek and value advice of scientists. As discussed by John Rigdon in June 2007 Physics Today, scientists played important roles in the World Wars, but they did not have substantial access to and influence upon policymakers. The brief window of influence under Eisenhower was in the wake of Sputnik, being preconditioned by Eisenhower’s tenure as President of Columbia University, where he grew to respect I.I. Rabi. Following Sputnik, Eisenhower established the President’s Science Advisory Committee with Rabi as chairman.

Rigdon describes a conversation of James Killian with Eisenhower in Walter Reed Hospital shortly before Eisenhower’s death, with the former President surrounded by instruments relevant to cardiac care, and his heartbeats visible on an oscilloscope. Eisenhower asked about “my scientists” and said “You know, Jim, this bunch of scientists was one of the few groups that I encountered in Washington who seemed to be there to help the country and not to help themselves.”

Rigdon is probably right about the lack of substantial influence of scientists on national policymakers today. Congress does not call on the National Academy of Sciences for broad assessment on how to deal with global climate change, nor does the President call on a Science Advisory Committee. Unless the public becomes sufficiently concerned to demand otherwise, it seems that special interests will continue to have undue sway in energy/climate policies.

Google got a lot of great press for its new plan to “voluntarily cut or offset all its greenhouse emissions by the end of the year.” But was it all deserved?

The Boston Globe reported the story as “Google aims to go carbon-neutral by end 2007. ” The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) reprinted the story, as did Greenwire and others. Buried in the story was this gem:

Separately, Google is planning to spend $600 million to build a data center in western Iowa that will receive power from a MidAmerican Energy Co. plant fired by coal, the fuel that emits the most carbon dioxide. A Google spokesman told Reuters all emissions from its Iowa project were accounted for in its carbon neutral plan.

Ouch! A company that wants to be green needs to take every cost-effective measure to reduce its own pollution before paying other people to reduce their pollution as an offset. In general, I am a fan of Google’s environmental action (and you can read all about what they are doing at their blog).

But carbon offsets are very over-rated (see here and even here). And coal plants last for more than 50 years. Worse, NASA’s James Hansen explains, “one quarter of the carbon dioxide (CO2) put in the air by burning fossil fuels will stay there ‘forever‘, more than 500 years.”

Data centers are electricity hogs, and Google should not be designing one that runs on coal power. You can’t go green by burning coal and buying offsets. A cutting-edge company like Google needs to do better!

The UN Environment Programme reports on the astonishing recent growth in clean energy funding. Here are the most quotable factoids:

Sustainable energy investment was $70.9 billion in 2006, an increase of 43% over 2005.

Venture capital and private equity have increased from $2.7 billion in 2005 to $7.1 billion in 2007.

Research and Development increased to $16.3 billion in 2006, from $13 billion in 2005.

New asset financing in renewable energy generating plants in 2006 was $27.9 billion, an increase of 23% over 2005.

Carbon funds now total $11.8 billion.

The investment climate changes as the planet’s climate changes. One conclusion is worth singling out:

Energy efficiency is a significant, but largely invisible market, which is now attracting an increasing share of the limelight as investors realise its role in addressing growing global energy demand.

Kudos to UNEP for not focusing purely on clean energy supply, as so many reports do.