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Archive for June, 2008

Sorry, delayers & enablers, Part 2: Climate change means worse droughts for SW and world

Wednesday, June 25th, 2008

Part 1 presented the synopsis of the remarkable new U.S. Climate Change Science Program (aka the Bush Administration) report, Weather and Climate Extremes in a Changing Climate. One central point in the synopsis is

Droughts are becoming more severe in some regions, though there are no clear trends for North America as a whole…. Substantial areas of North America are likely to have more frequent droughts of greater severity.

Seems pretty clear, no? Dry areas will see more evaporation, hence less soil moisture (defined as precipitation minus evaporation), hence more drought. Further, many dry areas will see less precipitation under climate change (due to the expansion of the Hadley Cell and subtropics, see “Australia faces the “permanent dry” — as do we“).

Simply put, dry areas will get drier. The Bush report even summarizes a study I have written a lot about (see “The Century of Drought“):

For example, extreme drought increases from 1% of present day land area (by definition) to 30% by the end of the century in the Hadley Centre AOGCM’s A2 scenario.

[Note: The A2 scenario leads to atmospheric concentrations of CO2 of about 850 ppm by century's end. On our current path, we are headed beyond 1000 ppm (see here).]

On the other hand, climate change science projects also more overall precipitation because the atmosphere will contain more water vapor [see "Global warming causes deluges and flooding, just like the Midwest is seeing (again)"]. Simply put, wet areas will get wetter.

Obviously, a country like the United States will see some areas getting wetter and some areas getting drier, so we would expect to see no clear drought trend for the country as a whole, but much worse weather extremes in different places. Bad news. At least, to some.

But suppose you are a climate change ~~delayer~~ enabler like, oh, I don’t know, Roger Pielke, Jr. How would you summarize the report? Well, you would list a bunch of “remarkable conclusions” that “somehow did not seem to make it into the official press release,” including (remarkably):

Post by Joe in Extreme Weather | 3 Responses

Webcast hearing 9:30 am est: “National Security Implications of Global Climate Change.”

Wednesday, June 25th, 2008

Joint Hearing Between House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming and House Intelligence Community Management (ICM) Subcommittee

This hearing will be WEBCAST Live -please CLICK HERE to watch.

On Wednesday, June 25, the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming and the Intelligence Community Management (ICM) Subcommittee, will hold a joint hearing on “National Security Implications of Global Climate Change.” Members will hear and discuss the results of the first-ever U.S. Government analysis of the security threats posed by global warming.

WHAT: Joint Hearing on the National Security Implications of Global Warming

WHERE: 210 Cannon House Office Building, Washington, DC

WHEN: Wednesday, June 25, 2008, 9:30 AM

WITNESSES:

Post by Joe in International | 1 Response

McCain energy gimmick, Part 2 — The ill-defined, impractical “Clean Car Challenge”

Wednesday, June 25th, 2008

Part 1 discussed the pointless and hopelessly impractical $300 million battery prize proposed by the presumptive the GOP nominee. McCain also offered another hot gimmick this week:

My administration will issue a Clean Car Challenge to the automakers of America, in the form of a single and substantial tax credit based on the reduction of carbon emissions. For every automaker who can sell a zero-emissions car, we will commit a 5,000 dollar tax credit for each and every customer who buys that car. For other vehicles, whatever type they may be, the lower the carbon emissions, the higher the tax credit. And these large tax credits will be available to everyone — not just to those who have an accountant to explain it to them.

Now that is both silly and unmanageable. First off, a zero-emissions car would either be a pure electric vehicle or a hydrogen fuel cell car. Neither of those are the kind of near-term or even medium-term solution that we need, that we should encourage, or that we are likely to get (and whether they were actually zero-emissions would depend on how the hydrogen or electricity is made, as discussed below). The serious players are all pursuing plug-in hybrids, as they should be (see “This just in: Hydrogen fuel cell cars are still dead“). Those are not zero-emissions.

Second, “the lower the carbon emissions, the higher the tax credit” is absurd. Once again, Senator McCain and his energy advisers betray how little they understand the issues involved. Let’s look at the two most plausible reduced-emissions fuels: biofuels and electricity. Each of them would be both a bureaucrat’s and an accountant’s nightmare.

Post by Joe in Politics | 9 Responses

Just-in-Time Energy Revolution

Tuesday, June 24th, 2008

We are standing at the threshold of a revolution in the world energy economy. Or, so we might hope after reading this week’s Economist.

The tell-tale signs of that revolution are documented in a 14-page special section on “The Future of Energy.”

The Economist, a magazine that calls itself a newspaper, began publishing in 1843 to “take part in a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress.”

Its special energy section (June 21-27 edition) delivers a bit of both. But it contains plenty of information that ought to be circulated far beyond the periodical’s regular readership.

The feature’s bottom line (liberally paraphrased) is this:

Post by Bill Becker in Solutions | 12 Responses

Wired magazine jumps the shark once too often and is eaten alive (along with Chris Mooney and geo-engineering)

Tuesday, June 24th, 2008

Wired magazine used to be the place to go for the latest in technology. But now it covers any sexy techy idea, no matter how impractical.

Given that we all have limited time, Wired should be off every technophile’s must-read list and replaced by Technology Review, which has revamped its stodgy old self and become what once Wired aspired to be.

For me, this started with the absurd cover story by Peter Schwartz 5 years ago, “How Hydrogen Can Save America,” which claimed “What we need is a massive, Apollo-scale effort [$100 billion over ten years] to unlock the potential of hydrogen, a virtually unlimited source of power.” Uhh, no. Hydrogen is an energy carrier, not a source — except for the sun, of course, and if we really want to harness its power we should be placing big bets on solar energy. Try instead my Technology Review piece “The Last Car You Would Ever Buy — Literally.”

Recently Wired published their most misinformed piece, “Inconvenient Truths: Get Ready to Rethink What It Means to Be Green.” RealClimate beat me to the punch debunking Wired’s bizarre analyses in favor of using air-conditioning and against protecting old-growth forests or buying a Prius (see “Wired Magazine’s Incoherent Truths“). They didn’t debunk Wired’s claim, “Face It. Nukes Are the Most Climate-Friendly Industrial-Scale Form of Energy,” perhaps because it is so obviously absurd (see The Self-Limiting Future of Nuclear Power).

Now Wired has fallen into the tank containing sharks with lasers by publishing Chris Mooney’s bizarre paeon to geo-engineering and the late Edward Teller and his protégé Lowell Wood — famed uber-hawkish promoters of all things dubious.

Post by Joe in Media | 22 Responses

Even the Wall Street Journal is baffled by McCain’s “all over the map” energy policies

Tuesday, June 24th, 2008

When even the nation’s premier business newspaper is confused about your conflicting economic positions, your campaign has jumped the shark. I’d like to think the WSJ read my post on the presumptive GOP nominee’s doubletalk strategy: “Memo to media: McCain doubletalks to woo conservatives and independents at the same time.”

The WSJ really nails McCain. They trot out a variety of euphemisms for “inconsistent” or “baffling” or “incomprehensible” — the favorite journalistic phrase in this regard being “defies easy categorization”:

Senator’s Broad Range Of Energy Policies Defies Categories

Sen. John McCain is putting energy policy at the center of his presidential campaign, embracing a diverse array of positions that defies easy categorization.

He is for more oil drilling and also for alternatives to oil. He wants to drill off the coasts but not in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He supports subsidies for nuclear power and clean-coal technology, but has opposed them for ethanol, solar and wind power.

He wants to lower gasoline prices by temporarily suspending the federal gas tax. But he wants to raise the price of gas with a cap-and-trade system that punishes polluting industries.

In environmentally conscious Portland, Ore., he praised wind power. In Texas oil country he supported more drilling. In rural Missouri he urged more nuclear power. In California he praised fuel-efficiency standards.

An expert from the center-right think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies is even more blunt:

Post by Joe in Media, Politics | 14 Responses

EIA says offshore drilling will have “insignificant” impact on prices. Saudis just proved EIA’s point.

Tuesday, June 24th, 2008

I am glad that so many in the energy debate have picked up on one of the two messages from my previous post (see EIA bombshell: Offshore drilling “would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030″).

But in listening to the radio and TV debates, I realize that some people have the impression that U.S. Energy Information Administration said offshore drilling might eventually lower oil prices. It did not. It found that allowing offshore drilling would have no significant effect on prices as far out into the future as the analysis projected.

Why should it lower prices? Offshore drilling is projected by EIA to deliver less extra annual oil production in 2030 than Saudi Arabia announced it would add this year, an announcement that had no significant impact whatsoever on oil prices. [In fact, oil prices actually went up -- see yesterday's AP story, "Oil prices rise despite Saudi vow to pump more."]

It is worth nothing that the EIA report “Impacts of Increased Access to Oil and Natural Gas Resources in the Lower 48 Federal Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) is quite analytically substantive and made relatively optimistic assumptions:

Post by Joe in Economics | 3 Responses

Sorry, deniers & delayers, Part 1: Even U.S gov says human emissions are changing the climate

Monday, June 23rd, 2008

The U.S. Climate Change Science Program (aka the Bush Administration) has issued a must-read report, Weather and Climate Extremes in a Changing Climate. It wouldn’t be must read or even big news if it weren’t for the fact that

Many environmentalists stopped talking about the extreme weather/global warming link a decade ago.
The deniers, the delayers, and of course the Roger Pielkes of the world have pushed back against any claims that climate change is driving the extreme weather we see today [as Chico Marx (dressed as Groucho) said "Who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?"]
The media has been brow-beaten by the deniers into downplaying the connection. The journalist Ross Gelbspan has a long discussion of this in his great 2004 book, Boiling Point — I will blog on this later.
The Midwest is experiencing the second “500-year flood” in 13 years. [Don't worry, big media, it's all just a big coincidence like the deniers keep saying.]

This report is really an “I told you so” from NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center and Tom Karl in particular, who has been a real leader in this area, helping to create the still rarely-discussed Climate Extremes Index (see “Global warming causes deluges and flooding, just like the Midwest is seeing (again).”

If you don’t read the whole report, at least read the synopsis:

Post by Joe in Extreme Weather | 17 Responses

Drilling off-shore is a “crazy thing” says Hansen on 20th anniversary of his famous testimony

Monday, June 23rd, 2008

Twenty years ago today, before he became America’s top climate scientist, NASA’s James Hansen was among the first to warn Congress and the nation about the dangers of human-caused global warming. For a new analysis of that testimony, see Grist here.

Hansen just spoke at the National Press Club, which I attended. He is also giving a briefing to the House Select Committee on Energy Independence & Global Warming. Looks like C-SPAN will skip both. Sad.

You can see look at his presentation and recent postings on his website. Here are some words of wisdom I took from his speech today:

Post by Joe in Science | 46 Responses

McCain proposes another energy gimmick, Part 1 — pointless battery prize. Is this another $300M to ExxonMobil?

Monday, June 23rd, 2008

Conservative presidential hopeful John McCain has offered yet more proof he doesn’t understand energy — and more opportunity for the media to salivate over his faux “maverick-ness”:

John McCain hopes to solve the country’s energy crisis with cold hard cash.

The Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting is proposing a $300 million government prize to whomever can develop an automobile battery that far surpasses existing technology….

McCain said such a device should deliver power at 30 percent of current costs and have “the size, capacity, cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars.”

This idea is almost as bad and almost as cynical as the gas tax holiday (see “Gas tax holiday is cynical and indefensible“).

POINTLESS: First off, every energy and car company on the planet knows they’ll get rich by improving batteries. The world is probably spending $1 billion a year in this quest. This $300 million prize is a pointless gimmick, just a cynical move to get some good PR.

NOT HOW TECHNOLOGY WORKS: You don’t just invent a battery that has the “cost … to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars.” That requires mass production, hundreds of thousands if not millions of batteries produced a year, to get the economies of scale and the benefits of the manufacturing learning curve. When you “invent” the batttery, you do a spreadsheet on what mass production costs would be. It would be a bureaucratic nightmare to try to figure out who would win this. Does the money go to the most plausible spreadsheet?

HASN’T EXXONMOBIL ALREADY SOLVED THIS PROBLEM?

Post by Joe in Politics, Solutions | 18 Responses

Colombia hosts cocaine summit to find cause of price rise, Bush says cause is inadequate supply

Sunday, June 22nd, 2008

Since when do we deal with our addiction by going to summits hosted by drug suppliers? Yet here is the Washington Post:

Saudi Arabian Oil Summit Hopes to Isolate Cause of Price Rise

JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia, June 21 — Leaders from oil-producing and oil-consuming nations will meet here Sunday to try to pinpoint the reasons behind the rise in oil prices, which have doubled over the past year, and to find ways to bring them down.

You cannot make this stuff up. I can “pinpoint” the reason prices are high. We are addicted to your product, just like the president said. We will pay any price you charge and do nothing whatsoever to break the addiction. Heck, we will even go to a summit you host to talk about anything but our addiction.

U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman, representing the world’s top oil consumer, said Saturday that insufficient oil production is driving the soaring crude prices. Oil production has not kept up with increasing demand from developing countries including China and India, Bodman said.

Has your head exploded yet? Is Big Media that gullible? Don’t answer that second question. Is the energy secretary unaware that we still use twice as much oil as China and India combined? Is he unaware supply is limited but that his boss has blocked most efforts to reduce demand? (See “Peak Oil? Bring it on!“)

Question for the Energy Secretary: What country’s insatiable thirst for oil imports is most responsible for the tightening world market from 1995 to 2004?

Post by Joe in Media, Politics | 5 Responses

Banking on a Clean Future?

Sunday, June 22nd, 2008

Then you probably shouldn’t turn to the World Bank, according to David Wheeler from the Center for Global Development. Last week, Wheeler testified before the House as to why the World Bank, with its current state and practices, is not the ideal candidate to oversee the Clean Tech Fund.

President Bush created and authorized $400 million for the Clean Tech Fund to work through the World Bank to finance the additional costs of deploying clean energy technologies. A rare effort by this Administration, the fund aims to be multilateral, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and engage developing countries.

But as Climate Progress has noted previously, critics do not agree that the World Bank is the best avenue for this effort. It’s large and bureaucratic, and its interests are not always aligned with the (clean) purpose of this fund, as the World Bank also heavily funds coal plants. (Talk about mixed market signals.)

David Wheeler, mentioned above, led the critical cries at a House hearing last week. You can read the details of his testimony at the CGD blog (and watch a quick video), in addition to a forthcoming report by Wheeler and a colleague on the potential of solar thermal in contrast to coal-fired plants.

Post by Kari in Economics | 3 Responses

Climate News Roundup

Saturday, June 21st, 2008

Companies get OK to annoy polar bears – Associated Press. “Less than a month after declaring polar bears a threatened species because of global warming, the Bush administration is giving oil companies permission to annoy and potentially harm them in the pursuit of oil and natural gas. The Fish and Wildlife Service issued regulations this week providing legal protection to seven oil companies planning to search for oil and gas in the Chukchi Sea off the northwestern coast of Alaska if “small numbers” of polar bears or Pacific walruses are incidentally harmed by their activities.”

Bristol to be Britain’s first cycling city – The Telegraph. “As the Government looks to persuade people to use two wheels rather than four, Bristol will be the first city to get a bicycle rental scheme, similar to the Velib system which has been a runaway success in Paris. Commuters who use bikes will also get access to somewhere to have a shower and get changed before going to work.”

Petrol prices pinching post office – Associated Press. The U.S. Post Office is feeling the pinch at the pump–”every time the price of gasoline goes up a penny it costs the Postal Service $8 million.” To counter the rising gas prices, the Post Office is buying gas in bulk, packing mail more tightly, and reviving walking as a mail-delivery method.

NJ weighs bill encouraging alternative farm energy – Associated Press. “New Jersey lawmakers are contemplating a bill that defines solar and wind energy generation as agricultural activity. State Sen. Bob Smith, who is sponsoring the bill, acknowledged his bill is an “attempt to think outside the box when it comes to farming.”

Fuel strike leads to localised rationing – The Telegraph. “Fuel rationing has been introduced in parts of Britain as the impact of the Shell tankers drivers’ strike intensifies. Several independent retailers in the West Country have imposed limits as low as £10 as they wait for new stocks to arrive; 647 [gas stations] have either run dry completely or had to turn away motorists looking for diesel or petrol.”

Post by Kari in Climate Progress | 6 Responses

Lake Chad now more like Pond Chad

Friday, June 20th, 2008

Satellite images show Lake Chad one-tenth the size it was in 1972, not even 40 years ago. Lake Chad used to be the world’s sixth-largest lake, but its resources have been diverted for human use or affected by rainfall such that its been almost entirely depleted in a very short amount of time.

In the IPCC’s 2007 report on impacts, vulnerability and adaptation in Africa, there is no specific mention of Lake Chad. But staring at these satellite images one can’t help but wonder how global warming, which is expected to cause drastic changes to the hydrological cycle (drought, rainfall, water levels, etc.), especially in Africa, will accelerate or contribute to the already scarce resources that this map demonstrates is quite the stark reality.

Post by Kari in Extreme Weather | 77 Responses

U.S. driving down 4.5 billion miles in April

Friday, June 20th, 2008

April 2008 saw another sharp drop in vehicle miles traveled (aka VMT) according to the Federal Highway Administration’s monthly report on “Traffic Volume Trends.” This follows “the sharpest yearly drop for any month in FHWA history” in March (see here).

I was compelled to blog on this because of the incredibly astute media coverage by AFP, “worldwide news agency,” which wins the “Duh!” award for the month:

Observers surmise a possible link between the declining number of miles driven and rising US gasoline prices.

Wouldn’t want the ever-cautious media to leap to any conclusions. [Note to AFP: Observers surmise a possible link between the declining number of readers for big media and the rising blandness of your/their coverage.]

As it becomes increasingly clear that high gasoline prices are not a fluke, Americans are adjusting their driving habits. The longer prices stay high — or go even higher — the more people will start to make permanent adjustments in their driving — and then, ultimately, in where they live and so on.

Here are the details from the April report:

Post by Joe in Economics | 11 Responses

Science: Greenland can warm 2-4°C in one year!

Thursday, June 19th, 2008

A new article in Science Express, “High-Resolution Greenland Ice Core Data Show Abrupt Climate Change Happens in Few Years” (subs. req’d) examines “The last two abrupt warmings at the onset of our present warm interglacial period.” The article explores the underlying causes of

… abrupt shifts of northern hemisphere atmospheric circulation resulting in 2-4°K changes in Greenland moisture source temperature from one year to the next.

The article concludes that

… polar atmospheric circulation can shift in 1-3 years resulting in decadal to centennial scale changes from cold stadials to warm interstadials/interglacials associated with astounding Greenland temperature changes of 10°K. Neither the magnitude of such shifts nor their abruptnesses are currently captured by state of the art climate models.

The time to act is yesterday.

Post by Joe in Science | 18 Responses

Off topic: How many months between July and December?

Thursday, June 19th, 2008

So I was reading yet another article on Tiger’s season-ending injury, when I came across this line:

Given Woods’s dedication, the seven months between July and December offer plenty of time to rehabilitate successfully.

Can someone make the New York Times’ math work out? Or do they mean Tiger has figured out how to slow down time?

At least let me know what time tonight they fix this.

If you want to know how Tiger wins major tournaments, go here.

Post by Joe in Climate Progress | 3 Responses

Nature publishes my climate analysis and solution

Thursday, June 19th, 2008

Here is perhaps my most succinct and citable explanation of why “Both national and global climate policy must redirect its focus from setting a price on carbon to promoting the rapid deployment of clean technologies” (online here, ~~subs. req’d~~).

True, I didn’t think I would appear in Nature again. But Nature online asked me for my critique of the Boxer-Lieberman-Warner Bill bill, and they were open to a big-picture commentary based on the latest climate science. They even ran with a modified version of my proposed wedges solution (see below, longer version here). The central conclusion of the paper is the major theme of this blog:

The latest science suggests that national and global climate policy is seriously misdirected. We must aim at achieving average annual carbon dioxide emissions of less than 5 GtC [5 billion metric tons of carbon] this century or risk the catastrophe of reaching atmospheric concentrations of 1,000 p.p.m. A carbon price set by a cap-and-trade system is a useful component of a longer-term climate strategy. Implementing such a system, however, is secondary to adopting a national and global strategy to stop building new traditional coal-fired plants while starting to deploy existing and near-term low-carbon technologies as fast as is humanly possible.

What are the “series of aggressive strategies for technology deployment” we need?

… tax credits, loan guarantees or other incentives for low-carbon technology, demonstration projects of technologies such as carbon capture and storage, a standard for electricity generation involving renewable or low-carbon options, a low-carbon fuel standard, tougher standards for fuel economy and appliances, and utility regulations that create a profit for investments in efficiency. These are all features of the climate plan of the Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama, but are not part of the announced climate strategy of Republican presidential nominee John McCain, whose plan starts by allowing unlimited offsets.

I am especially delighted that they created a figure for me of the wedges (click to enlarge):

Post by Joe in Science, Solutions | 14 Responses

Note to media: Please ignore biased Rasmussen polling on offshore oil drilling

Thursday, June 19th, 2008

Rasmussen reports did a poll that they tout as showing “67% Support Offshore Drilling.”

Given the biased way they did the poll (details here), I’m surprised the number was so low.

The first question they asked: “How concerned are you about rising gas and energy prices?”

Pretty much everybody is concerned. Duh. But in a flawed poll, almost a push poll, the point of the first question is to get people thinking about about the pain of gasoline prices, rather than, say, the coastal environment or global warming.

Second question: “In order to reduce the price of gas, should drilling be allowed in offshore oil wells off the coasts of California, Florida, and other states?”

I kid you not. That was the question. And Rasmussen is supposedly a serious polling firm. I’m just surprised that only 67% answered that loaded question “yes.”

Why not just ask, “In order to reduce the price of gas, should we elect John McCain who wants drilling offshore — did we mention that would reduce the incredibly high price of gasoline that you are paying?” How about somebody do a poll where the question in “In order to risk our precious coastlines, which provide great economic value to the country, should we allow offshore drilling even though the Bush administration projects that would not significantly change oil production or prices through the year 2030 and beyond?”

If you base a question on a false or leading assumption, your poll results are meaningless. Offshore drilling would probably never have a significant impact on oil production or prices according to the Bush administration’s own economic and energy analysts, as I have blogged (see EIA bombshell: Offshore drilling “would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030″).

Not surprisingly, in what is the equivalent of a push poll, after a question from the pollster that strongly implies offshore drilling would reduce gasoline prices, Rasmussen then absurdly asks:

Post by Joe in Media | 9 Responses

The Last Car You Would Ever Buy — Literally

Thursday, June 19th, 2008

Technology Review asked me to comment about the hype over the new Honda fuel cell car, which the company optimistically calls “the world’s first hydrogen-powered fuel-cell vehicle intended for mass production.” The key word here is “intended.” Here it is:

Would you buy a car that costs 10 times as much as a hybrid gasoline-electric, like the Prius? What if I told you it had half the range of the hybrid? What if I told you most cities didn’t have a single hydrogen fueling station? Not interested yet? This should be the deal closer: what if I told you it wouldn’t have lower greenhouse-gas emissions than the hybrid?

Other than the traditional media, which is as distracted by shiny new objects as my 16-month-old daughter, nobody should get terribly excited when a car company rolls out its wildly impractical next-generation hydrogen car. Too many miracles are required for it to be a marketplace winner.

Post by Joe in Solutions | 16 Responses