Climate Progress

U.K. conservatives are nothing like their American counterparts. They have recognized the serious threat of global warming and the political (and economic) opportunity in addressing this most challenging of problems. As reported this week:

A Conservative Party advisory group proposed on Thursday a mix of taxes, bans and incentives to green the country’s economy in a bid to beat global warming….

“This is a blueprint for a green revolution,” said group leader and former environment minister John Gummer. “I see no contradiction between greenness and economic success. The green revolution can do for Britain what the industrial revolution did a couple of hundred years ago.”

The conservative plan includes a broad range of policies affecting every aspect of the economy:

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Political Junky likes Hell and High Water.

Giant battery to store wind power planned - Reuters. The British arm of a German utility is developing a giant battery to store intermittent wind power for times of high demand. “This is the holy grail of the wind industry,” said a spokesman. “The electrochemical technology is proven but we’re using a new mix of chemicals to overcome the difficulties that stopped previous attempts.”

Study Predicts Worse Air Pollution Days For Eastern U.S. Cities - AHN (global news agency). “If global warming continues unabated, more polluted air days are predicted for the summer for Cleveland, Columbus,” Washington, DC and several other eastern U.S. cities, according to a study by researchers at Yale, Johns Hopkins, Columbia and other universities. “Air pollution for these cities will worsen because of sudden increase in unsafe air days caused by ground-level ozone.” The study is “Heat Advisory: How Global Warming Causes More Bad Air Days.”

Governors seek action on global warming - USA Today. “We have a federal government that doesn’t seem to want to move as fast or as bold as many would like” on global warming, said Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN). Duh.

Scientists to build global network of underwater laboratories - International Herald Tribune. “Over the next five years, scientists from around the world will design and build a global network of underwater laboratories … that capitalizes on advances in satellite, Internet and sound wave technology…. [T]he Ocean Observatories Initiative will for the first time give scientists a permanent virtual presence in the sea…. [M]uch of the force behind the initiative stems from concern about global warming.

My most-visited post of the year had more than 15,000 readers and 100 comments. Here are some lessons learned:

[OK, regular readers of this blog, I am writing this mostly off-topic post in hopes of winning a blog post writing contest — but my ulterior motive is to bring in some new readers, who might make an insightful comment that changes your life, so bear with me!]

1. Put “must read” in the headline – it pulled you into this post, didn’t it? More seriously, the point is to be clear and blunt (and if you say, “must read” it better be a must read, else no one will come back). The full post headline was “Must read from Hansen: Stop the madness about the tiny revision in NASA’s temperature data!” Long accurate headlines are more compelling than short cryptic ones. I learned this tip from my Dad, who was a newspaper editor for 30 years.

2. Offer a strong, informed opinion on a topical subject. Obvious, I know, but important to mention nonetheless. The blogosphere was just erupting over NASA’s data revision (see, for instance, these posts by Realclimate and Planet Gore). I was able to weigh in with a position supported by the nation’s top climate scientist.

3. Use a compelling graphic your readers haven’t seen. Hansen had two terrific figures showing how insignificant the data revision really was — especially to global temperatures (see below). But he put them in PDF form so they weren’t very accessible. It took me a while to figure out how, but I cut and paste them into Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo, turned them into JPEGs, and reposted them. A number of other websites, like ThinkProgress, could then easily copy them and write their own posts, usually linking back here.

The figure underscores the main message of the post — in Hansen’s words, “the corrected and uncorrected curves are indistinguishable”:

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Lomborg is a champion cherry-picker when he isn’t just getting his facts wrong, as I argued in Part I. He has a deceptively misleading — and outright erroneous — discussion of sea level rise projections in Cool It. Let’s start with a few all-too-typical howlers:

Antarctica is generally soaking up more water than Greenland is shedding, as the IPCC predicts. The IPCC estimates that the very worst additional increase to be expected from Greenland could be 8 inches over the century, but this is possible only in a model where CO2 levels rise two to four times more than expected by 2100 (p. 64).

No, no, and no. First, as was widely reported back in 2006–and thus well known to Lomborg while writing Cool It–the first-ever gravity survey of the entire Antarctic ice sheet by NASA and German scientists using a satellite launched in 2002 found “Antarctica’s ice sheet decreased by 152 (plus or minus 80) cubic kilometers of ice annually between April 2002 and August 2005.” That’s as much water as the U.S. consumes in three months.

Second, the IPCC clearly states “models [of sea level rise] used to date do not include uncertainties in climate-carbon cycle feedbacks nor do they include the full effect of changes in ice sheet flow.” Indeed, the IPCC goes out of its way to make clear that its projections exclude “future rapid dynamical changes in ice flow”–changes we are already seeing in both Greenland and Antarctica (subs. req’d). So the “very worst additional increase” possible from Greenland is much more than 8 inches. The IPCC explicitly says “larger values cannot be excluded.”

And this “very worst additional increase” does not require “CO2 levels rise two to four times more than expected by 2100.” It applies to the standard range of IPCC scenarios — and as I have written, since 2000, carbon dioxide emissions have grown faster than any IPCC model had projected.

This all goes beyond cherry-picking and sloppiness — it is outright deception. And Cool It has much more intellectually dishonesty.

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The new issue of Science has a terrific article that underscores many of the points I have been making here. Its central argument is that the scientific consensus most likely underestimates future climate change impacts, especially in the crucial area of sea level rise and carbon cycle feedbacks.

The authors are highly credible, led by Princeton’s Michael Oppenheimer, one of the most widely-published climate experts. I will excerpt the article here at length (subs. req’d):

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In a major victory for the climate yesterday:

A federal judge in Vermont on Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2007, has rejected automakers’ claims that new state emissions standards designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are pre-empted by federal law and that technology can’t be developed to meet them.

The standards require a 30% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from cars and trucks by 2016, which translates to an average fuel economy for cars and light trucks of nearly 44 miles per gallon. In the conclusion to his 240-page ruling, Judge William Sessions III, smacked the automakers upside their collective heads:

“History suggests that the ingenuity of the industry, once put in gear, responds admirably to most technological challenges. In light of the public statements of industry representatives, (the) history of compliance with previous technological challenges, and the state of the record, the court remains unconvinced automakers cannot meet the challenges of Vermont and California’s GHG regulations.”

In your face, Big Three! During the 16-day trial, NASA’s James Hansen was one of the expert witnesses. He sent out an e-mail today noting, “It was a special experience to see the team that made the case for Vermont, and a pleasure to see that they got their just desserts.”

As yet more evidence of Hansen’s position as a leading climate scientist, the judge relied heavily on the NASA scientist for his opinion. For those who want a good non-technical translation of Hansen’s argument, read pages 31-37 (excerpted below). There is also a fascinating explanation (pages 38-47) by the judge on why he rejects plaintiffs’ assertion that Hansen’s testimony is not reliable or relevant, in spite of the best effort of the plaintiffs’ rebuttal expert, famed denier Dr. John Christy — yes, it is utterly pathetic that the car companies would bring this guy as an expert witness to rebut Hansen; it really shows how little they care about the planet’s future. I will return to this explanation in the debunking of Lomborg.

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With all the bad news about mortgages, it is time for some good news: Mortgages that promote energy efficiency are on the rise.

The basic idea is simple. If you make your home more energy efficient, you reduce your monthly energy bill. And that means you have more money to pay your mortgage, and are less likely to default, so lenders are wisely encouraging this:

The Wall Street Journal (subs. req’d) has a very good article on this:

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About a week ago, Climate Progress posted on the three major hurdles for an Energy Bill to succeed in this Congress: substantive, procedural and presidential hurdles.

Since then, policymakers have fallen pessimistic and frankly so.

Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont.) has stated, “I don’t know if there is going to be an energy bill conference.” (E&E Daily, subs. req’d) Because the content of the two bills is so drastically different, the chance of conferencing one energy bill while Congress also struggles with the housing market crisis and the Iraq war (among others) is quickly dimming.

Procedurally, policymakers could choose one of two routes:

1) Still try to conference the energy bill, even though folks on the Hill don’t expect conference leaders to be appointed until late October, at the earliest; or

2) Rework legislation outside the conference. Basically, that means passing another bill that mirrors an existing one, but this option is subject to the political delayer’s blab tactic - too much talk, and no time for action (i.e. Senate filibuster).

Oil hits $80 a barrell, climate change is accelerating, and we can’t get legislation to push efficiency, renewables, and fuel economy? What have we elected these bozos for??

But what would you expect from an oil company?

And I’m not just saying this because I only scored 10,156th out of 46,810 players on my third try.

On the postive side, the game seems to push energy efficiency and renewable energy.

On the minus side, Chrevon — and The Economist – seem unaware that hydrogen is not a primary energy source. Also, they include oil shale, which is an even less likely energy source than hydrogen, if that’s possible.