Climate Progress

#1. Pilates
#2. More blogging, less TV
#3. Less blogging, more time with daughter
[The more resolutions, the more chances I’ll keep a few.]
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Re #47. In case Climate Progress didn’t have enough to blog on in 2008, now comes this story from Energy Washington (subs. req’d, whole article below):

Coal Liquids Advocates Need Funding, Friends And Facts In 2008
The policy debate on the future of coal use in the United States will begin to heat up almost immediately in 2008, possibly as early as the State of the Union address and in response to an imminent EPA report that will likely find coal-to-liquids (CTL) a cleaner technology than first thought, say CTL industry sources. They will be pushing, alongside industrial energy consumers, for a way to carve out a place for coal at the climate bill table, say sources on the front lines of deliberations between industry, Congress and the administration on coal.

Everybody needs facts but CTL more than most, given its overwhelming negative impact on greenhouse gas emissions, water….

Bring on the facts (or, more likely, “facts”) Bush EPA and other CTL friends. Preemptively, I’m going to start this resolution early with a long list of related posts at the end.

The rest of the article is here:

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A recent Nature Geoscience study, “High rates of sea-level rise during the last interglacial period,” (subs. req’d) finds that sea levels could rise twice what the IPCC had project for 2100,. This confirms what many scientists have recently warned (and here), and it matches the conclusion of a study earlier this year in Science.

[As an aside, in one debate with a Denier — can’t remember who, they all kind of merge together — I was challenged: “Name one peer-reviewed study projecting sea level rise this century beyond the IPCC.” Well, now there are two from this year alone!]

For the record, five feet of sea level rise would submerge some 22,000 square miles of U.S. land just on the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts (farewell, southern Louisiana and Florida) — and displace more than 100 million people worldwide. And, of course, sea levels would just keep rising some 6 inches a decade, or, more likely, even faster next century than this century.

The researchers base their finding on their analysis of the rate of sea level rise during the last warm or interglacial period (the Eemian, about 120,000 years ago), when seas rose 1.6 meters (5 feet) per century. Why look at the rate of Eemian sea level rise? Becaause that’s the last time the planet was as warm as it soon will be again: “such rates of sea-level rise occurred when the global mean temperature was 2 ^°C higher than today, as expected again by AD 2100.”

Indeed, if we don’t reverse emissions’ trends very soon (and stay below 450 ppm of carbon dioxide), the planet might well warm 3^°C or more by 2100. The Eemian warming was driven by “changes in orbital parameters from today (greater obliquity and eccentricity, and perihelion), known as the Milankovitch cycle.” Current warming is driven by human emissions of greenhouse gases.

Here is the entire abstract from the article — note that the Eemian is also called “Marine Isotope Stage 5“:

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Shortly after the energy bill raised CAFE standards, EPA administrator Stephen Johnson announced the EPA was denying California’s application to regulate vehicle greenhouse gas emissions. This was widely reported in the traditional media, but the LA Times dug a little deeper and got more on the story than most. The LA Times also discovered that the EPA may be ignoring the May’s Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts v. EPA:

In response to a U.S. Supreme Court decision that the EPA could and probably should regulate greenhouse gases as a threat to public health, Johnson had promised to have his staff prepare by Dec. 31 a national proposal on how greenhouse gases from vehicles should be regulated.

Staff and other sources said the proposed standard cleared all EPA internal reviews and was forwarded to the Department of Transportation last week, before the energy bill was done.

But it is now unclear, when, if ever, such a proposed regulation will be issued.

Johnson ordered staff to stop work on the federal greenhouse gas proposal, said two sources inside and outside the agency.

The portion related to California’s waiver request is also worth reading:

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The nation’s top climate scientist, NASA’s James Hansen, apparently now believes “the safe upper limit for atmospheric CO2 is no more than 350 ppm,” according to an op-ed by the the great environmental writer Bill McKibben. Yet while preindustrial levels were 280, we’re now already at more than 380 and rising 2 ppm a year!

Like many people, in the 1990s I believed 550 was the target needed to avoid climate catastrophe — but now it’s clear that

1. 550 ppm would lead to the greatest disaster ever experienced by human civilization — returning us to temperatures last seen when sea levels were some 80 feet higher. This is especially true because….
2. Long before we hit 550, major carbon cycle feedbacks — the loss of carbon from the tundra and the Amazon, the saturation of the ocean sink (already beginning) would almost certainly kick in to high gear, inevitably pushing us to much, much higher CO2 levels (see here and here and my book).

Exactly when those feedbacks seriously kick in is the rub. No one knows for sure, but based on my review of the literature and interviews of leading climate scientists, somewhere between 400 and 500 ppm seems most likely. It could be lower, but it probably couldn’t be much higher.

So I, like the Center for American Progress and the world’s top climate scientists, now believe 450 ppm is the upper bound. That said, I have spent two decades managing, analyzing, researching, and writing about climate solutions and can state with some confidence that:

1. Staying below 450 ppm is technologically doable, but would be the greatest achievement in the history of the human race, by far. It would require a global effort sustained for decades comparable to what the U.S. did for just the few years of World War II (the biggest obstacle is not technological, but political — conservatives currently would never let progressives and moderates pursue such a strategy).
2. If 350 ppm is needed (and I’m not at all sure it is) then the deniers and delayers have won, since such a target is hopeless.

In 2008, I will devote a fair amount of ink bits to laying out the solution (there really is only one), but to understand why 450 is so hard, and 350 all but inconceivable, let’s look at the odd way McKibben describes the solution:

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The triumph, for yet another year, of those who want to split the difference and, basically, do nothing (i.e. those whose key climate strategy is to invest in good ‘ole technology or at least to say they want to invest in technology) — this means you President Bush, Newt Gingrich, Bjørn Lomborg, OPEC (!), Shellenberger and Nordhaus (depending on what day you happen to catch them), and possibly Andy Revkin (and maybe even E. O. Wilson — say it ain’t so!)

By the way, the (lame) outcome of the energy bill ought to make VERY clear that funding clean energy technology at the level it deserves ($10+ billion a year) is NOT politically easier than regulating carbon (contrary to what Shellenberger and Nordhaus keep saying).

Conservatives hate both strategies — and we will certainly need the money from the auctioning of carbon permits to pay for the technology, since it is now clearer than ever that such money won’t come from 1) raising taxes [as if] or 2) shifting money away from huge government oil subsidies even when oil is at $90+ a barrel!

Happy New Year!

Everyone at Bali cheered when the Papua New Guinea delegate dissed the Bush team:

“We seek your leadership. But if for some reason you are not willing to lead, leave it to the rest of us. Please get out of the way.”

Oh, snap! [Sorry, couldn’t resist one last 2007 Daily Show-ism]

Now comes the heartbreaking news:

Malaysian company Vitroplant has been granted necessary permits by the PNG government to begin clearing 70% of the rainforests on biodiversity rich Woodlark Island, some 60,000 hectares, in order to establish a massive plantation of oil palm trees.

And the whole island is only 80,000 hectares!

True, no American is really in a position to criticize another country’s climate self-destructiveness, especially one that isn’t violating any international treaty. But PNG held itself out as a moral leader on the issue. Can’t they wait a couple of years until the international community figures out how to value preserving tropical forests? Especially since a majority of the island’s 6,000 residents “reportedly oppose the project, and were not even aware of it until after its approval.”

Shame on you, Papua New Guinea. You shouldn’t be lecturing any other country about climate policy.

Related Posts:

• For Peat’s Sake, Stop the Palm Oil Madness
• Peatlands and the Emissions they Reap
• Report: Palm Oil Drives Deforestation
• Can Biofuels Be Made Sustainably?
• The Debut of Deforestation Diesel

Okay, reports that China might be ready to freeze greenhouse gas emissions were very premature. The government just released a 44-page report on energy resources. The bottom line:

China promised Wednesday to develop renewable energy for its fast-growing economy but warned that coal consumption will grow dramatically and avoided embracing binding limits on its greenhouse gas emissions.

The report said China will expand measures to exploit its abundant coal reserves — a step that will help to reduce reliance on imported fuel but could sharply raise greenhouse gas outputs.

Our next President will certainly have her or his hands full trying to reign in our emissions and theirs in time to save the planet’s livability.

So I was checking my web stats in preparation for my annual report, and what day do you think saw the most number of visits (5012) to this website in the past 4 months?

Hint: It was this month.

Second hint: It had nothing to do with what I posted that day — since I didn’t actually post anything that day!

Yes, Christmas Day.

Not sure what that means — I did think I might get some readers, so I put up a couple of interesting posts on the 24th.

Thoughts/interpretations/snarky comments are, as always, welcome.

(I will try to post something interesting on New Year’s Day for readers taking it easy after a hard-partying night.)

Corn ethanol has many flaws and is, at best, not a substantial climate solution, as we’ve seen. Now Science magazine has published a letter from William F. Laurance of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute casting yet more doubt on our corn ethanol strategy. I reprint it here in its entirety, with references and notes:

The United States is the world’s leading producer of soy. However, many U.S. farmers are shifting from soy to corn (maize) in order to qualify for generous government subsidies intended to promote biofuel production (1); since 2006, U.S. corn production has risen 19% while soy production has fallen by 15% (2). This in turn is helping to drive a major increase in global soy prices (3), which have nearly doubled in the past 14 months.

The rising price for soy has important consequences for Amazonian forests and savanna-woodlands (4). In Brazil, the world’s second-leading soy producer, deforestation rates (5) and especially fire incidence (6) have increased sharply in recent months in the main soy- and beef-producing states in Amazonia (and not in states with little soy production). Although dry weather is a contributing factor, these increases are widely attributed to rising soy and beef prices (5, 7), and studies suggest a strong link between Amazonian deforestation and soy demand (8, 9).

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As with The Best of Climate Progress — Winter 2007, I’m hoping to save new readers time by culling the archives myself. It’s my version of a clip show:

• One more Hansen (et al.) must read — What is “dangerous” human interference with climate?
• The growth rate of carbon emissions has TRIPLED
• U.S. Media Duped by Bush, Foreign Media not Fooled
• 2006: Second Most Extreme Weather Ever
• GM Volts to the Lead
• Congress should say NO to coal-to-diesel
• AP & MSNBC: Climate Progress Knows its Crap
• Don’t Discount the Stern Review
• 26 Climate Myths Debunked

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