Climate Progress

Well, maybe not my words, or Mayor Bloomberg’s or those of top scientists, but I think I have found someone’s who does: Opus’s from Bloom Country.

First, however, the lastest grim news from Fortune: “The ethanol boom is running out of gas as corn prices spike.” Yes, “plans for as many as 50 new ethanol plants have been shelved in recent months.” Why?

Spurred by an ethanol plant construction binge, corn prices have gone stratospheric, soaring from below $2 a bushel in 2006 to over $5.25 a bushel today. As a result, it’s become difficult for ethanol plants to make a healthy profit, even with oil at $100 a barrel.

If you can’t make money with oil at $100 a barrel, you are not much of an alternative fuel.

But I know what you’re thinking — if corn ethanol is so bad, what’s wrong with plants being scrapped? Well, the corn ethanol business is here to stay. The corn ethanol mandate from the most recent energy bill requires doubling supply from current levels. Fortune explains what that means:

What probably has changed permanently are ethanol economics. The days of cheap corn are over, and the industry’s new, lower profit margins clearly favor ethanol leader Archer Daniels Midland over all the smaller producers like Verasun, privately-held Poet Energy and the many, many farmer-owned ethanol cooperatives. ADM’s massive 200 million-gallon-a-year ethanol plants simply have better economies of scale than their 50-million-gallon-a-year rivals. And the fact some of ADM’s big plants run on coal instead of natural gas makes ADM’s cost advantage that much greater.

Just what we need, a shakeout that makes ADM richer and corn ethanol even dirtier.

So just how bad is corn ethanol? As bad as a movie reviewed by Opus:

George Phblat’s new film, ‘Benji Saves the Universe,’ has brought the word ‘BAD’ to new levels of badness. Bad acting. Bad effects. Bad everything. This film just oozed rottenness from every bad scene… Simply bad beyond all infinite dimensions of possible badness….

Well maybe not that bad, but Lord, it wasn’t good.

One last thing, as the blogging sustainable farmer Tom Philpott makes clear, the blame for this mess rests first and foremost on a certain big company. Rather than naming names, let’s just say its initials are an anagram for M.A.D.

According to a new index by Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA):

The cost of building a U.S. power plant has risen 130 percent since 2000, and 27 percent in the 12 months to October 2007 alone.

CERA’s Candida Scott explains most of the implications:

“These costs are beginning to act as a drag on the power industry’s ability to expand to meet growing North American demand, and leading to delays and postponements in the building of new power plants. As the cost of construction rises, firms may become reluctant to invest in new plants, or delay and postpone these projects, in turn constraining the growth of capacity.”

The real implication for policymakers: It is time to revise utility regulations (as Obama and Clinton both propose) to put energy efficiency on an equal footing (with decoupling and incentives), since it was the cheapest option in 2000, and now is even more cost effective.

The reason for the price rise is straightforward — demand, demand, demand:

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I have been asked this question about daylight saving time (DST) many times. I have long believed it was not an energy saver — even though that is how it is typically justified. Turns out there is quantitative proof.

For those who are interested in this relatively obscure issue — I doubt Congress would change DST on the basis of this or any other study — you can read a very good article in the Wall Street Journal. “Springing forward,” as we will do March 9, “may actually waste energy”:

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Avoiding climate catastrophe will probably require going to near-zero net emissions of greenhouse gases this century. That is the conclusion of a new paper in Geophysical Research Letters (subs. req’d) co-authored by one of my favorite climate scientists, Ken Caldeira, whose papers always merit attention. Here is the abstract:

Current international climate mitigation efforts aim to stabilize levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. However, human-induced climate warming will continue for many centuries, even after atmospheric CO₂ levels are stabilized. In this paper, we assess the CO₂ emissions requirements for global temperature stabilization within the next several centuries, using an Earth system model of intermediate complexity. We show first that a single pulse of carbon released into the atmosphere increases globally averaged surface temperature by an amount that remains approximately constant for several centuries, even in the absence of additional emissions. We then show that to hold climate constant at a given global temperature requires near-zero future carbon emissions. Our results suggest that future anthropogenic emissions would need to be eliminated in order to stabilize global-mean temperatures. As a consequence, any future anthropogenic emissions will commit the climate system to warming that is essentially irreversible on centennial timescales.

Since the rest of the article is behind a firewall, let me extract a couple of key findings:

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Just in case you thought conservatives might be warming up to climate action and clean energy with the impending nomination of John McCain as the GOP a standardbearer, uber-conservative columnist Bob Novak explains otherwise in a column titled, “How Not to Run for Vice President.”

As a non-conservative, I know I can’t do justice to Novak’s “logic” by summarizing it, and I suspect many readers would think I was taking his argument out of context, since it seems so … well … judge for yourself. I’ll just reprint most of it in total:

Minnesota’s Republican governor, Tim Pawlenty, carefully prepared his plan for controlling greenhouse gas emissions to present it at the annual winter meeting of governors in Washington. That effort coincided with Pawlenty’s fast-rising prospects to become Sen. John McCain’s choice for vice president. But behind closed doors, governors from energy-producing states complained so vigorously that Pawlenty’s proposal was buried.

Pawlenty’s position as chairman of the National Governors Association may prove to be his undoing. While party insiders sing his praises as ideal to be McCain’s running mate, leading conservative Republican governors have been less than pleased with him. Pawlenty has collaborated with the association’s Democratic vice chairman, Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell, on a fat economic stimulus package as well as the energy proposal.

Hours after Pawlenty’s energy plan was derailed, McCain himself was privately urged by GOP governors not to appear to be anti-coal or anti-oil. The upshot of a busy Saturday at the J.W. Marriott Hotel downtown was that Pawlenty came across as somebody considerably different from what McCain needs to calm conservatives. He left the nation’s capital as a less attractive vice presidential possibility than he was when he arrived.

And they say progressives have litmus tests!! Apparently if you support strong government policies to save the next 50 generations from a ruined climate, that’s a non-starter. No doubt that’s why McCain continues to soft-pedal his climate rhetoric, repeatedly (and absurdly) claiming a cap-and-trade system is not a “mandate” — a word as verboten for conservatives as “evolution.” To the rest of the world, Pawlenty is a rock-solid conservative in a key swing state:

Pawlenty, 47, has long been talked about as a good fit for the 71-year-old McCain. He is the most conservative Minnesota governor since Theodore “Tightwad Ted” Christianson in the 1920s. Elected to two terms (albeit narrowly) in a slightly blue state, Pawlenty is seen by supporters as a plus for McCain in the Democratic Upper Midwest if added to the ticket.

He gets high grades from conservative fanciers of Republican horse flesh, such as Karl Rove, Ken Mehlman and Pawlenty’s fellow Minnesotan, Vin Weber. Anti-tax activist Grover Norquist approves of Pawlenty’s record, save for one hike in cigarette taxes.

But he has committed two apparently unpardonable conservative sins — he believes humans are changing the climate, and he won’t shill for coal and oil interests:

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When it comes to the climate, corporate talk is very cheap, as Business Week reminds us. Who in the climate community wasn’t excited with the announcement a year ago by a bunch of big companies launching the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP):

A diverse group of U.S.-based businesses and leading environmental organizations today called on the federal government to quickly enact strong national legislation to achieve significant reductions of greenhouse gas emissions. The group said any delay in action to control emissions increases the risk of unavoidable consequences that could necessitate even steeper reductions in the future.

OK, we were a bit suspicious when they let General “total crock of shit” Motors in.

But still they embraced stabilization at “at a carbon dioxide equivalent level between 450-550 parts per million” and a cut of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions of 10% to 30% within 15 years of enactment and 60% to 80% by 2050!

Now we learn from Business Week that “Despite their eco-rhetoric, some USCAP members are supporting efforts to undermine restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions.” Every silver lining has a cloud of pollution:

Three high-profile USCAP members–General Electric, Caterpillar, and Alcoa–also sit on the board of the Center for Energy & Economic Development (CEED), an Alexandria (Va.) group formed in 1992 that opposes regulations on greenhouse-gas emissions. In April, 2007, CEED’s board unanimously signed a position paper that, in part, described as “draconian” one federal climate bill that would require a 65% reduction in emissions by 2050….

And seven months after the launch of USCAP, seven months after Duke CEO James E. Rogers endorsed the USCAP’s efforts saying, “The science of climate warming is clear. We must act now.”

Duke joined Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (ABEC), a group hatched by CEED in 2000 that advocates expanded coal use. ABEC has tripled its budget this year, to $35 million, and is mounting campaigns to support construction of coal plants in several states

Duke itself is building two coal plants, even though, as Businessweek itself points out, “More coal-fired power plants would make USCAP’s proposals almost impossible to achieve.”

Time for the environmental groups who are part of USCAP — this means you NRDC and ED — to tell the member companies to practice what they preach or get out. To paraphrase Harry Truman, if you can’t stand the heat, stop warming the damn planet!

Everybody and their mother has already blogged on the anti-science declaration by GM Vice Chair But Lutz, who dismissed global warming as a “total crock of shit.”

I didn’t think I had much to add to the well-deserved trashing he received — until I looked up the word “crock.” Wikipedia explains:

Especially in engineering, a crock is a botched attempt or design to achieve something. An automobile with intentionally designed square wheels would be a crock.

Hmm. What car company makes crocks? Could it be a car company that has been losing market share for decades?

This meaning of crock may well derive from “Norwegian krake, sickly animal, and Middle Dutch kraecke, broken-down horse” — yet another perfect metaphor for General Motors.

How can a global manufacturing and technology company run by someone who doesn’t believe in science — and if you think global warming is a “crock of shit” then you definitely do not believe in science — succeed in the advanced car market of the 21st century? The question answer itself.

Memos Show Pressure on EPA Chief - Associated Press; Internal memos apparently show inner-agency pressure on EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson to either grant the California tailpipe waiver or resign. Still, EPA spokespeople stand in defense of Johnson, so the past memos may not have much weight. The memos are resurfacing as part of an investigation by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) into the EPA’s decision. See also the LA Times and Reuters.

Gas Prices Soar, Posing a Threat to Family Budget - New York Times. “The effect of high oil prices today could be the difference between having a recession and not having a recession,” said Kenneth S. Rogoff, a Harvard economist. [JR: Thank you very much, President George “no energy strategy and no Iraq reconstronstruction strategy” Bush.]

Noah’s Ark For Crop Seeds Opens In Arctic Norway - Reuters. Norwegians have started a vault of seeds for food crops - “100 million seeds from more than 100 countries have been sent for safekeeping at the $10 million facility which holds 268,000 seed samples, each from a different farm or field.” The vaults can survive even the worst-case global warming scenario. [JR: If only the same were true for most species on this planet….]

China’s Olympic Water Province Faces Severe Drought - PlanetArk. Will the athletes go thirsty?! Probably not, but the flux of people to Beijing this summer will put loads of stress on the already short water resources…

Few places on earth are more vulnerable to climate change than the oceans. Every passing year provides more and more evidence that serious impacts from human-caused global warming are here now. The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

Peering into the murky depths, Jane Lubchenco searched for sea life, but all she saw were signs of death.

Video images scanned from the seafloor revealed a boneyard of crab skeletons, dead fish and other marine life smothered under a white mat of bacteria. At times, the camera’s unblinking eye revealed nothing - a barren undersea desert in waters renowned for their bounty of Dungeness crabs and fat rockfish.

“We couldn’t believe our eyes,” Lubchenco said, recalling her initial impression of the carnage brought about by oxygen-starved waters. “It was so overwhelming and depressing. It appeared that everything that couldn’t swim or scuttle away had died.”

Upon further study, Lubchenco and other marine ecologists at Oregon State University concluded that that the undersea plague appears to be a symptom of global warming. In a study published in the journal Science, the researchers note how these low-oxygen waters have expanded north into Washington and crept south as far as the California state line. And, they appear to be as regular as the tides, a cycle that has repeated itself every summer and fall since 2002.

I will post the link to the Science article below with the abstract. The SF Chronicle explains:

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Salon liked my post “How do we really know humans are causing global warming?” but wanted something more in-depth and … serious. The result is “The cold truth about climate change: Deniers say there’s no consensus about global warming. Well, there’s not. There’s well-tested science and real-world observations [that are much more worrisome].”

James Hansen read the first draft and wrote me back, “Very important for the public to understand this — why has nobody articulated this already?” I don’t know the answer. All I can say is that while I was writing the article, the central point dawned on me:

The more I write about global warming, the more I realize I share some things in common with the doubters and deniers who populate the blogosphere and the conservative movement. Like them, I am dubious about the process used by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to write its reports. Like them, I am skeptical of the so-called consensus on climate science as reflected in the IPCC reports. Like them, I disagree with people who say “the science is settled.” But that’s where the agreement ends.

The science isn’t settled — it’s unsettling, and getting more so every year as the scientific community learns more about the catastrophic consequences of uncontrolled greenhouse gas emissions.

The big difference I have with the doubters is that they believe the IPCC reports seriously overstate the impact of human emissions on the climate — whereas the actual observed climate data clearly show they dramatically understate the impact.

I point out many instances of this in the article. For instance, “The recent [Arctic] sea-ice retreat is larger than in any of the (19) IPCC [climate] models” — and that was a Norwegian expert in 2005. Since then, the Arctic retreat has stunned scientists by accelerating, losing an area equal to Texas and California just last summer

The Salon article also discusses why I think “the scientific community, the progressive community, environmentalists and media are making a serious mistake by using the word ‘consensus’ to describe the shared understanding scientists have about the every-worsening impacts that human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are having on this planet.” Part of the reason is that “When scientists and others say there is a consensus, many if not most people probably hear ‘consensus of opinion’ ” whereas, as I explain, “science doesn’t work by consensus of opinion. Science is in many respects the exact opposite of decision by consensus.”

Another reason is that the IPCC ‘consensus’ clearly understates what we face from uncontrolled greenhouse gas emissions. As the article concludes:

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