Losing Support

Posted on October 7, 2009 by Tara Holmes

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is losing popularity among U.S. corporations — fast. The Washington Post recently reported that Apple is revoking its membership in protest over the Chamber’s stance on global climate change, specifically its stance against congressional legislation that would reduce CO2 emissions. Other companies to recently pull out include Pacific Gas and Electric, PNM Resources, and Exelon. Nike resigned from the Chamber’s Board, but not its membership. Given Apple’s popularity as a computer giant, the news marks hightened attention to private sector influence over climate change policy and emission regulation.

Thomas J. Donohue, the Chamber’s president, commented that while the group supports federal climate change legislation, the cap-and-trade legislation passed by the House of Representatives was flawed since it does not require other polluting countries to act. Mother Jones Magazine offered a different take and reported on the Chamber’s past record of investing millions of dollars lobbying congress to oppose the Markey-Waxman bill and threatened to sue the EPA if they continued to regulate CO2 as a pollutant. Over the next few months, it will be interesting to watch if other companies follow suit and what impact that will have on the Chamber, as well as domestic climate legislation.

Making the Case

Posted on October 7, 2009 by JPierce

The New York times had an interesting op-ed last Monday by Paul Krugman, Cassandras of Climate Change. It contains a few quotable bits, but they’re large and the piece is short, so I’ll leave it to you dear reader to follow the link.

Krugman mentions Mr. Gore, and his film The Inconvenient Truth, which never quite seemed to live up to the hype… but I do have high hopes for The Age of Stupid, if it ever makes it into general distribution that is. To be honest though, what’s really been driving home a sense of urgency for me recently is PBS, specifically five year old re-runs of Scientific American Frontiers!

A recently aired segment in “Forever Wild?“, which I previously mentioned in passing, makes an excellent case for not mucking with the atmosphere. “Hot Times in Alaska” examines a number of disturbing changes well-underway that even those familiar with the global warming might not be aware of. And a third episode, “Hot Planet – Cold Comfort,” looks at the merits of another movie, The Day After Tomorrow.

All three episodes can be viewed for free online, and are worth reviewing in your spare time, or passing on to others who still don’t quite understand what all the fuss is about. “Hot Times” also happens to be showing Friday night at 9 on GBH Kids.

Climate Change Ranks Last in US Poll

Posted on September 28, 2009 by LGlick

While the evidence keeps piling up on the already devastating effects of climate change, a recent Bloomberg Poll rates climate change as dead last, with only 2% or respondents ranking climate change as the top issue facing our nation. It is clear that the economy and health care are vitally important issues to address, but the abysmally low ranking of climate change reflects the success of disinformation coming from industry and media that has sown confusion in the public on the science of climate change.

“Which of the following do you see as the most important issue facing the country right now? . . .”
			.
		%
	The economy	46
	Health care	23
	The federal budget deficit	16
	The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan	10
	Climate change	2
	Other (vol.)	1
	Unsure	2

Recent findings highlight that many people feel helpless about Climate Change, which leads to both apathy and inaction, and long term threats are difficult for people to assess. Climate change is an issue not easily understood by the public due to the complexities of the climate, feedback loops, and tipping points. At the current rate of greenhouse gas emissions, the MET Office Report estimates that another 4 degrees Celsius could be in the pipeline by 2060, leading to major droughts, sea level rise, and ecosystem collapse. The original proposal to keep the globe from warming by 2 degrees by the end of the century is now seen as a “lost cause”. With Copenhagen just two months away, it is important for the public to better understand climate science and its impacts.

Scientists Speak out on the Climate Emergency

Posted on September 26, 2009 by LGlick

Warningco2 Dr. Melanie Fitzpatrick, Climate Scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, shared sobering data with concerned citizens at a Cambridge City Council special meeting on September 24th, as part of the city’s efforts to better understand the climate change emergency and respond at a scale proportionate to the emergency and consistent with the city’s own Climate Protection goals for 2010. Dr. Fitzpatrick emphasized that climate change is now occurring faster than the worst predictions of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) models and cited evidence including that the melt season is lasting 1 week longer in the arctic, a 9% reduction per year in arctic sea ice, winters warming 4 degrees in the northern hemisphere, and record global sea temperatures for the last three months. Scientists are now estimating that some of the feared tipping points are decades away rather than centuries. If we were to stop emitting greenhouse gasses today, there is at least another 1 degree of warming in the pipeline and we could potentially see an additional 4-7 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of this century without major emission reductions.

While tipping point scenarios are still in the future, Dr. Jill Stein with the Physicians for Social Responsibility testified that there are already 300,000 deaths annually attributed to climate change due to record flooding, droughts, increased storm severity and occurrence, spread of infectious disease, and impacts to food and water supplies. For example, major flood events have increased four-fold in North America and six-fold in China compared to the century average. On a positive note, Dr. Stein related that by addressing climate change we will improve health and quality of life indices. The United States spends $2 trillion per year on medical expenses in which 75% goes to preventable chronic diseases. Investing in more walkable communities with local healthy food sources would reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve our collective health. Fighting climate change would require our economic and social systems to take a long term view when planning for today.

Just consider that the majority of home owners purchase fire insurance, even though your risk of fire loss is very low– less than 1 percent or 1 fire in every 250 years. Under our current greenhouse gas emission rates, the chance of a catastrophic tipping point occurring like Amazonian desertification, Greenland Ice sheet melt, or the disruption of the Indian Monsoon now has a fifty percent chance of happening which would have devastating effects on the economic and social welfare of millions of people. Dr. Ackerman, Environmental Economist with the Stockholm Environmental Institute at Tufts University pointed out that to delay action would have disastrous socio-economic consequences for civilization. Dr Ackerman summarized four key ways to view long term economic questions:

Your grandchildren are Important! Current economic analysis has a high discount rate for future generations. This would be equivalent to saying that your prodigy is more important than your grand or great grandchildren.
If you insure your home and car for relatively low risk harm, we should invest in higher level risk like climate change.
Some things do not have dollar values. What is the value of a life or an ecosystem? Under the Clinton administration a human life was valued at $6,000 and the Bush administration lowered it to $4,000.
It is better to spend your money on prevention rather than treatment. Climate prevention could be spent on creating green jobs, developing new technology and industry.

Dr. John Sterman, an economist with the Sloan School of Management at MIT concluded that we should not wait to see the major impacts from Climate Change, as the stakes are too high and we will have likely triggered major tipping points. Dr. Sterman and the other panelists agreed that climate change can not be fought primarily with high tech solutions, but must include social participation that finds creative solutions both at the national and local level. Dr. Sterman in collaboration with Sustainability Institute, Ventana Systems, and MIT has developed a climate simulation to help you use a scientifically rigorous model to set a goal for CO₂ in the atmosphere, explore what it will take to reach that goal and to empower you to share those insights with others via graphs and explanation in order to make such actions happen. Discover Climate Interactive, their online community that creates, shares, and uses credible models, accessible simulations, and related media in order to improve the way leaders and citizens around the world think about the climate.

Let’s Bury It?

Posted on September 23, 2009 by Tara Holmes

In New Haven, West Virginia, the Mountaineer Power Plant is about to embark on the world’s first attempt to capture and bury CO₂ from a coal-fired power plant (NYTimes). As early as this week, fluid CO₂ will be pumped into sandstone 7,800 feet underground and then into dolomite 400 feet below that; the liquid carbon dioxide is 30 to 40 feet high and hundreds of yards in length. The plan is to inject 100,000 tons annually for two to five years with the possibility of capturing 90% if Congress finds the technology economically feasible.

Initially sparked by political pressure to limit the amount of CO₂ released into the atmosphere, these plants are now faced with skeptics, scientists and environmentalists alike, who are concerned about the safety and long-term impact this new process could have. Specifically, CO₂ that’s injected into the Earth can filter into the ground water increasing the levels of carbonic acid. Other skeptics are concerned about the long-term pressure that could build as a result, leading to increased earthquakes. The EPA has discounted the risk. Either way, the bigger picture amounts to our continued dependence on fossil fuels for global energy. Until Congress understands the benefit of renewable energy both as a power source and economic stimulant, we will instead be faced with daunting and frightening “solutions” to climate change—like the one taking place in New Haven, WV—which are anything but.

Cambridge Climate Emergency Hearing: September 24th

Posted on September 23, 2009 by LGlick

The Cambridge City Council is holding a special meeting on the Climate Emergency at City Hall on Thursday, September 24th at 5:30pm and will be broadcast on Cambridge cable TV channel 8. This proceeds the council passing a policy order resolution recognizing the existence of a climate emergency on May 11, 2009. The resolution obligates the city of Cambridge to lead in responding to Climate Change and to direct the appropriate city departments to increase the City’s responses to a scale proportionate to the emergency and consistent with the city’s own Climate Protection goals for 2010 and beyond. A seven minute clip from the Cambridge city council hearing can be viewed on CCTV.

The city of Cambridge has taken a proactive role in addressing climate change and in December 2002 it adopted the Climate Protection Plan with the goal of reducing the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) city-wide 20% below 1990 levels by 2010. Despite the efforts of City staff and others the City has fallen short of this goal. The Climate Emergency Hearing provides the opportunity for experts to weigh in on the current state of climate change and potential ways the city can address the crisis.

Speakers will include Dr. Melanie Fitzpatrick of the Union of Concerned Scientists, Dr. Jill Stein of Physicians for Social Responsibility, Dr. Frank Ackerman of the Stockholm Environmental Institute at Tufts University and Dr. John Sterman of MIT Sloan School of Management. Scientists will discuss the mounting evidence of climate change exceeding the worst-case IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) scenario projections and the increasing risk of abrupt or irreversible climatic shifts.

For more information see http://greencambridge.wikispaces.com/Calendar+of+Events

Carbon Release Inventory

Posted on September 23, 2009 by JPierce

After releasing a report on the issue on Monday, yesterday the EPA finalized rules that require the nation’s largest polluters to report on carbon emissions. The program is similar to the established Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) program, which has been an immensely useful tool for researchers and watchdog groups, and also demonstrated to reduce emissions without further regulation. However, the picture is of course not as simple as that, some feel that the regulations have too many loopholes.

Meanwhile, NewScientist recently noted that if we shared more, we’d need less stuff and that this would dramatically decrease our impact on the environment; economies of scale, et cetera.

CAFE oh, yay?

Posted on September 16, 2009 by JPierce

Yesterday afternoon the Obama administration released a proposal for new CAFE standards of 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016, up from the current 27.5 MPG. Soon the average automobile may finally get significantly better mileage than the Model T. Still, under these regulations, cars sold on the American market in 2016 will consume use more gas than Chinese cars from 2005! It is worth noting though, that since Ford’s time vehicle safety has improved, and most drivers have ridiculous amounts of horsepower to spare.

The 250 grams per mile of carbon dioxide limit the proposal puts forth is not a restriction at all. This comes to 19.42 pounds per gallon for 35.5 MPG vehicles, the same quantity of emissions as the EPA currently reports for a gallon of gasoline. In other words, at its current value it is redundant, and simply another way of saying 35.5 MPG. However, this needn’t be the case if gasoline formulations were to change.

Lastly, here’s some coverage of events leading up to the announcement, and some interesting graphs of DOT and EIA fleet fuel economy; this is real-world MPG, and is therefore affected by driving practices, weather, etc.

Biosphere 1: The Great Experiment

Posted on September 15, 2009 by JPierce

Laymen can have a tough time following complex stories such as climate change, particularly when the media and opponents characterize new findings or revisions as examples of uncertainty, rather than of science as evidence-based consensus building. This false discord is often then used to lend weight to “alternative” views. The American public is not unique in this regard, and recently Australian climate scientists have had to cope with similar issues as parliament began debating their own climate legislation.

Contributing to this problem, is a general lack of awareness of what the current state of climate research is. Models and geoclimatic records—like tree or ice cores—seem to receive the most coverage, as well as speculation based on freak weather events, even though weather is not climate. This is somewhat understandable if one still truly believes there is a debate about the existence of rising CO₂ and a related warming trend, yet there is not. Consequently, the wide variety of direct experimentation on the effects of these phenomena receives little attention.

After unforeseen difficulties in regulating its atmosphere caused the initial experiment at Biosphere 2 to be closed down, administration of the facility was passed on to Columbia University and now the University of Arizona. Both universities have used the space to conduct unique experiments (video link) into the effects of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide on a variety of ecosystems, and the news is not good.

Yet whether or not “US crop yields will wilt in heat,” it is indisputable that burning fossil fuels produces CO₂. Meanwhile, scientists continue to gather evidence that “carbon fertilization,” or increased plant growth due to greater availability of carbon dioxide, many not be the boon we might hope for. Just last month, a paper was released indicating that the nutritional quality of wheat decreases when grown under high CO₂ conditions. The more we learn, the more it becomes clear that we’re running great risks by treating the atmosphere as a limitless garbage dump.

On a related note, Presidential science advisor John Holdren recently gave a nice interview at New Scientist, wherein he answers many questions about ACES and global warming.

350: The new Climate Target?

Posted on September 2, 2009 by LGlick

Photo by John Quigley

NASA Climate Scientist James Hanson and national climate activist Bill McKibben are pushing to move the climate debate from keeping global emissions from surpassing the original danger zone of 450 parts per million as recommended by the IPCC, to instead recognize 350 parts per million as the new limit that should not be passed. Their recommendations come from recent findings by James Hanson, that indicates that climate change is happening faster than expected and feedback loops have a greater impact on climate than originally hypothesized. At 450 parts per million, we potentially run the risk of returning the planet to conditions when it was largely ice-free, when sea levels were higher by more than 200 feet.

The 350 movement is gaining steam with a top UN Scientist signing on in support. Currently, CO2 emissions are now at 387 parts per million and it is expected by 2100 emissions could reach between 400 and 1,000 parts per million. To get back to 350 parts per million, industry, governments, and individuals will have to go way beyond the proposed reductions which are already meeting incredible resistance here in the US and overseas.

To learn more about the movement visit 350.org and on October 24th individuals and groups across the globe are taking action to build public awareness on the importance of 350 ppm and leveraging meaningful political change. The city of Cambridge has also recently passed a resolution recognizing the climate change emergency. Cambridge residents can weigh in on climate change at the Climate Emergency Forum on September 17 at the Cambridge Community Center at 7 PM and a city council hearing scheduled for September 24th.

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