Climate Progress

You know your party has run out of ideas when the media writes post-election stories headlined, “ENERGY POLICY: GOP message likely to remain the same as party looks to rebuild” (subs. req’d).

The motto of the conservative movement stagnation is apparently “They have learned nothing, and they have forgotten nothing.” According to the story:

But several prominent party officials said they believe the GOP’s message is fundamentally sound when it comes to energy policy, pointing to that issue as one of the few political bright spots in recent years.

No, seriously, this is not another Onion article. “Several prominent party officials” apparently are convinced that “Drill baby, drill” is “one of the few political bright spots” for the party. And you thought Sarah Palin was scary?

It shows you just how out of touch GOP leaders are from the imminent reality of peak oil and irreversible, catastrophic climate change — although, as we have seen, the entire GOP electorate is similarly out of touch (see “64% of GOP voters say Palin is their top choice for 2012, 69% say Palin helped McCain.”

The article is full of this kind of self-deception, which traditionally marks a party and an ideology in decline. So the whole piece is worth excerpting if for no other reason than its anthropological value to the FHA (Future Historians of America):

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The good news: We can avoid multimeter sea level rise, the loss of the inland glaciers that provide water to a billion people, rapid expansion of the subtropical deserts, and mass extinctions — each of which is all-but inevitable on our current path of unrestrained greenhouse gas emissions.

The not-so-good news: We will probably need an ultimate target of 350 ppm (or lower) for atmospheric carbon dioxide — if you accept the analysis of ten leading climate scientists from around the world.

And yes, the authors of “Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?” in The Open Atmospheric Science Journal are painfully aware we’re already at 385 ppm and rising 2 ppm a year. That is why they propose the self-described “Herculean” task of phasing out coal use that does not capture CO2 “over the next 20-25.” And that requires a global CO2 emissions profile that looks something like this:

[Note to Hansen et al: Big pet peeve — I think you confuse the general reader by labeling your y-axis “CO2 Emissions” while expressing the units in billion metric tons of carbon. This helps foster errors in the media and elsewhere (see “The biggest source of mistakes: C vs. CO2“).]

Actually, even the ultra-sharp emissions cuts depicted in the figure won’t do the trick. We would still need “reforestation of degraded land and improved agricultural practices that retain soil carbon” (aka biochar to the rescue) to “lower atmospheric CO2 by as much as 50 ppm.”

More not-so-good news: That kind of emission reduction isn’t going to happen, not even under President Obama, not even close. Heck, I doubt it would happen under a President Hansen. We just are not going to see 350 ppm this century. Unfortunately, the authors “infer from the Cenozoic data that CO2 was the dominant Cenozoic forcing, that CO2 was only ~450 ppm when Antarctica glaciated, and that glaciation is reversible.”

That is, if we stabilize at 450 ppm (or higher) we risk returning the planet to conditions when it was largely ice free, when sea levels were higher by 70 meters — more than 200 feet! Yet, “Equilibrium sea level rise for today’s 385 ppm CO2 is at least several meters, judging from paleoclimate history.” Equally worrisome,

Theory and models indicate that subtropical regions expand poleward with global warming. Data reveal a 4-degree latitudinal shift already, larger than model predictions, yielding increased aridity in southern United States, the Mediterranean region, Australia and parts of Africa. Impacts of this climate shift support the conclusion that 385 ppm CO2 is already deleterious.

In short, widespread desertification and coastal flooding, Hell and High Water, is nigh (see also “Is 450 ppm politically possible? Part 0: The alternative is humanity’s self-destruction“).

Some slightly good news: The paper does suffer from one inherent analytical weakness that makes it (a tad) less dire than it appears.

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The Nobel laureate has a big article in today’s New York Times, “The Climate for Change,” which opens:

THE inspiring and transformative choice by the American people to elect Barack Obama as our 44th president lays the foundation for another fateful choice that he — and we — must make this January to begin an emergency rescue of human civilization from the imminent and rapidly growing threat posed by the climate crisis.

Gore lays out his specific vision for this emergency rescue, and for dealing with peak oil, but not before dissing “clean coal” (Gore’s quotes), which he labels “too imaginary to make a difference in protecting either our national security or the global climate.” Here, here! (see “Is coal with carbon capture and storage a core climate solution?“). He explains:

… there is little investment and not a single large-scale demonstration project in the United States for capturing and safely burying all of this pollution. If the coal industry can make good on this promise, then I’m all for it. But until that day comes, we simply cannot any longer base the strategy for human survival on a cynical and self-interested illusion.

Gore then lays out his 5-part plan for transitioning to a renewable energy economy:

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As Jeff Master, our favorite meteorologist and hurricane blogger, wrote yesterday:

This year is now the only hurricane season on record in the Atlantic that has featured major hurricanes in five separate months. The only year to feature major hurricanes in four separate months was 2005, and many years have had major hurricanes in three separate months. This year’s record-setting fivesome were Hurricane Bertha in July, Hurricane Gustav in August, Hurricane Ike in September, Hurricane Omar in October, and Hurricane Paloma in November.

Because global warming will be cooking the Atlantic hurricane forming region year-round for the foreseeable future, we can expect this deadly record to be repeated many times. A recent study offered “the firmest evidence so far that global warming will significantly increase the intensity of the most extreme storms worldwide” (see “Nature: Hurricanes ARE getting fiercer — and it’s going to get much worse“).

Tropical cyclones are threshold events: If sea surface temperatures are below 80°F (26.5°C), they do not form. Some analysis even suggests there is a sea surface temperature “threshold [close to 83°F] necessary for the development of major hurricanes” (see “Why global warming means killer storms worse than Katrina and Gustav, Part 1“).

Global warming may thus actually cause some hurricanes and some major hurricanes to develop that otherwise would not have (by raising sea surface temperatures above the necessary threshold at the right place or time).

The Wikipedia discussion of the current Atlantic hurricane season notes:

Although not an El Niño or La Niña year, 2008 is the second most destructive [Atlantic hurricane] season on record, behind only the 2005 season, with up to 52 billion in damage.

And, of course, the season isn’t over — the devastation from Paloma is just beginning to be calculated, and more hurricanes may yet develop. Masters notes that Paloma is an unusually strong storm for this late in the season:

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E&E Daily (subs. req’d) reports:

Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) and some of his core supporters pushed back yesterday against Rep. Henry Waxman’s (D-CA) coup attempt to take away the powerful chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

“If someone is asking about John Dingell’s job, he has it, he’s going to keep it and he’s doing well,” Dingell told reporters following a meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and the CEOs of U.S. auto manufacturing companies.

Whoa! Since when has John Dingell stopped talking about John Dingell in the first-person? I’m also getting a Rumsfeldian vibe here, with John Dingell asking John Dingell questions that John Dingell then answers — “Is it [post-war Iraq] going to be as efficient as a dictatorship? No. Is it going to be vastly more desirable? You bet.” For the record, that is a figure of speech, anthypophora. But I digress.

Here are more excerpts from the story for those interested in the war between these stars:

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No, this isn’t another story from The Onion. It is the finding of a serious new poll by Rassmussen Reports, one of the country’s top pollsters, who was exceedingly accurate in this election. So, as I wrote two weeks ago, we may yet see Palin In 2012: Backed by Big Oil.

Ninety-one percent (91%) of Republicans have a favorable view of Palin, including 65% who say their view is Very Favorable. Only eight percent (8%) have an unfavorable view of her, including three percent (3%) Very Unfavorable.

When asked to choose among some of the GOP’s top names for their choice for the party’s 2012 presidential nominee, 64% say Palin. The next closest contenders are two former governors and unsuccessful challengers for the presidential nomination this year — Mike Huckabee of Arkansas with 12% support and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts with 11%.

Three other sitting governors — Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Charlie Crist of Florida and Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota — all pull low single-digit support.

Hard to believe GOP voters could be so out of touch with reality. Then again, maybe it isn’t that hard to believe. They voted for Bush — twice! — after all. And only 42% of Republicans believe “the effects of global warming have already begun” (see “The Deniers are winning, but only with the GOP“).

Here’s more amazing news from Rasmussen:

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Wired reports:

Darrin Morgan, who oversees strategy development and execution for Boeing’s Sustainable Biofuels Program, told Wired.com that the company expects a bio-fuel blend jet fuel to be certified sometime within the next three years, at which point it would be cleared for use in commercial jets.

Morgan says that while algae holds great promise, it is a family of fuels called synthetic paraffinic kerosene, which includes those distilled from the oils of Helianthus (sunflowers) and jatropha, that are closest to becoming certified. “We think it’s going to happen in three to five years,” Morgan says of the certification process. “Faster than most people thought.”

That is substantially faster than many had been saying. Jatropha oil is certainly among the hottest forms of next generation biofuels being explored. It doesn’t need to compete with food crops since it can be grown in the harsh climates with little water.

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Robert Pollin has issued a direct rebuttal, “Green Investments and Jobs,” to the Heritage Foundation’s lame “debunking” of Green Recovery, a study Pollin co-authored for the the Center for American Progress. My line-by-line response to the disanalysis by Heritage’s Donald Kreutzer is here.

Pollin, Co-Director of the Political Economy Research Institute at U. Mass-Amherst, concludes:

Public investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy can overturn the long-held conventional wisdom reflected in Kreutzer’s critique, which claims we can have a green economy or a growing economy, but not both. In fact, green public investments to fight global warming are both a powerful engine of job creation and a necessary instrument for achieving environmental sustainability.

Pollin has included a summary of his basic arguments that is well worth reading:

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OK, maybe Premier Wen didn’t say that last part:

BEIJING (AFP) — Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said Friday that rich nations should alter their lifestyles to help tackle global warming, at the start of a two-day meeting on climate change, state media reported.

“The developed countries have a responsibility and an obligation to respond to global climate change by altering their unsustainable way of life,” Wen was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency.

Snap! And yet … and yet … I confess the first thing that popped into my head when I read that admonition was this Onion story:

Chinese Factory Worker Can’t Believe The Shit He Makes For Americans

FENGHUA, CHINA–Chen Hsien, an employee of Fenghua Ningbo Plastic Works Ltd., a plastics factory that manufactures lightweight household items for Western markets, expressed his disbelief Monday over the “sheer amount of shit Americans will buy.”

“Often, when we’re assigned a new order for, say, ’salad shooters,’ I will say to myself, ‘There’s no way that anyone will ever buy these,’ …. One month later, we will receive an order for the same product, but three times the quantity. How can anyone have a need for such useless shit?”

… “I hear that Americans can buy anything they want, and I believe it, judging from the things I’ve made for them,” Chen said. “And I also hear that, when they no longer want an item, they simply throw it away. So wasteful and contemptible.”

I titled Chapter 9 of my book “The U.S.-China Suicide Pact on Climate,” noting:

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