Fracking news roundup by rjs

Top climate scientists call for fracking ban in letter to Gov. Jerry Brown - (letter embedded) - Twenty of the nation's top climate scientists have sent a letter to Gov. Jerry Brown, telling him that his plans supporting increased use of the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," will increase pollution and run counter to his efforts to cut California's global warming emissions.  The letter is the latest example of the increased pressure that environmentalists and others concerned about climate change have been putting on Brown in recent months. Their argument: the governor can't say he wants to reduce global warming while expanding fossil fuel development in California. "If what we're trying to do is stop using the sky as a waste dump for our carbon pollution, and if we're trying to transform our energy system, the way to do that is not by expanding our fossil fuel infrastructure," said Ken Caldeira, an atmospheric scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science at Stanford University.  Caldeira signed the letter along with other prominent climate scientists, including James Hansen, the former head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies; Richard Houghton, acting president of Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts; and physicist Michael Mann, a professor of meteorology at Penn State University.  The letter called for Brown to place a moratorium on fracking, as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has done.

Coast Guard Proposal to Allow Barges to Haul Fracking Wastewater Draws Fire From Environmentalists - The U.S. Coast Guard released plans that would allow wastewater from shale gas to be shipped via barge in the nation’s rivers and waterways on October 30 — and those rules have kicked up a storm of controversy. The proposal is drawing fire from locals and environmentalists along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers who say the Coast Guard failed to examine the environmental impacts of a spill and is only giving the public 30 days to comment on the plan. Three million people get their water from the Ohio River, and further downstream, millions more rely on drinking water from the Mississippi. If the Coast Guard's proposed policy is approved, barges carrying 10,000 barrels of fracking wastewater would float downstream from northern Appalachia to Ohio, Texas and Louisiana. 

Environmentalists say a spill could be disastrous, because the wastewater would contaminate drinking water and the complicated brew of contaminants in fracking waste, which include corrosive salts and radioactive materials, would be nearly impossible to clean up. The billions of gallons of wastewater from fracking represent one of the biggest bottlenecks for the shale gas industry. Traditionally, oil and gas wastewater is disposed by pumping it underground using wastewater disposal wells, but the underground geology of northeastern states like Pennsylvania makes this far more difficult than in states like Texas, and Ohio has suffered a spate of earthquakes that federal researchers concluded were linked to these wastewater wells.

Colorado Town's Fracking Ban Results Change: 17 Votes In Favor - Broomfield, Colorado’s fracking ban isn’t assured victory, but the latest count is in its favor. While an election night tally had it losing by 13 votes, outstanding military and overseas ballots have flipped the outcome, with 17 votes in favor of the ban as of Thursday night. But that slim margin will trigger a recount, since Colorado law requires one if the margin of victory is within half a percent of the total number of votes cast on the winning side. With the latest count at 10,350 in favor of the ban and 10,333 against, a margin of fewer than 51 votes would be enough to trigger a recount. The recount could begin as early as Monday, said Michael Susek, Broomfield’s elections administrator. Three other Colorado towns, Fort Collins, Boulder, and Lafayette, passed similar measures on November 5th that would either ban or put a moratorium on fracking for five years. Broomfield’s measure would put a five-year ban on fracking if it passes.

Is Fracking A Civil Right? A New Court Case May Decide - Horizontal drilling, hydraulic fracturing, drilling for oil, exploring for natural gas: None of that is allowed in Mora County, New Mexico.  On April 29, the Mora County Commission made history and passed a first-of-its-kind ordinance banning the exploration and extraction of oil, natural gas, and hydrocarbons from its land. The ordinance, called the “Mora County Community Water Rights Local Self-Government Ordinance,” passed the commission on a 2-1 vote. “All Mora County residents possess the fundamental right and inalienable right to unpolluted natural water,” the ordinance says. “This right shall also include the right to energy practices that do not cause harm, and which do not threaten to cause harm, to people, communities, or the natural environment.”  But the ordinance may not last. A statewide oil and gas association and three Mora County landowners sued the county and its commissioners in federal court on Monday, claiming the ban on extracting natural resources violates three of their civil and Constitutional rights — including freedom of expression. The plaintiffs, led by the Independent Petroleum Organization, assert that Mora is using its purported environmental concerns as a veil for the real purpose of the ordinance, which they say is to “eliminate the constitutional rights and privileges of corporations.”

Fracking executive confirms: Homeland Security thinks fracktivists are terrorists - According to comments made by Mark Grawe, Chief Operating Officer at EagleRidge Energy (EagleRidge), Denton, Texas, residents who object to his company’s reckless operations way too close to their homes, schools and parks are terrorists worthy of inclusion on the Department of Homeland Security’s watch list. Wednesday night Grawe attended a Home Owners Association meeting in Mansfield where EagleRidge has drilled and fracked several wells very close to a neighborhood, schools and playgrounds.  Grawe went on to tell the Mansfield residents that some people in Denton are “preaching” civil disobedience and that they are on “the watch list” but not his watch list. When another resident asked whose watch list, Grawe said “Homeland Security.” The U.S. Department of Homeland Security Watchlist Service (WLS) is a database of known or suspected terrorists compiled by the Terrorists Screening Center (TSC).

Shale’s Effect on Oil Supply Is Forecast to Be Brief - The boom in oil from shale formations in recent years has generated a lot of discussion that the United States could eventually return to energy self-sufficiency, but according to a report released Tuesday by the International Energy Agency, production of such oil in the United States and worldwide will provide only a temporary respite from reliance on the Middle East. The agency’s annual World Energy Outlook, released in London, said the world oil picture was being remade by oil from shale, known as light tight oil, along with new sources like Canadian oil sands, deepwater production off Brazil and the liquids that are produced with new supplies of natural gas. “But, by the mid-2020s, non-OPEC production starts to fall back and countries from the Middle East provide most of the increase in global supply,” the report said. A high market price for oil will help stimulate drilling for light tight oil, the report said, but the resource is finite, and the low-cost suppliers are in the Middle East. “There is a huge growth in light tight oil, that it will peak around 2020, and then it will plateau,” said Maria van der Hoeven, executive director of the International Energy Agency. The agency was founded in response to the Arab oil embargo of 1973-74, by oil-importing nations. The agency’s assessment of world supplies is consistent with an estimate by the United States Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration, which forecasts higher levels of American oil production from shale to continue until the late teens, and then slow rapidly.

IEA: Shale Boom is Only Temporary , We’ll Soon be Relying on the Middle East Again – Claims that the shale boom in the US will eventually see the country become energy self-sufficient seems to have received its biggest blow yet after the International Energy Agency, in its latestWorld Energy Outlook report, stated that shale oil will only be a temporary trend, and very soon the world will return to rely on the Middle East for its oil. The World Energy Outlook admitted that shale had transformed the global oil industry, and that the light tight oil produced was helping to usher in a new abundance of oil. High oil prices will drive further exploration and production of tight oil “but, by the mid-2020s, non-OPEC production starts to fall back and countries from the Middle East provide most of the increase in global supply.” We expect the Middle East will come back and be a very important producer and exporter of oil, just because there are huge resources of low-cost light oil. Light tight oil is not low-cost oil.” An earlier report released by the US Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration, also suggested that US tight oil production will be high until the end of the decade, and then quickly fall off. The NY Times wrote that the energy outlook has attempted to make predictions about the energy industry up until 2035, expecting no new energy breakthroughs, although it believes that costs will continue to fall for renewable energy. Supposedly by 2035 renewable energy will account for 18% of global energy produced, up from 13% in 2011, and that the growth would be even higher if it were not for the fact that many households are replacing wood (considered a renewable source) stoves for cooking or heating in favour of fossil fuels such as natural gas.

The Hub: Saint John end point of ‘Energy East’ readies for crude revolution -- “Our biggest competitors in North America come from the Gulf Coast and they all have access to this lower-cost midcontinent crude,” says Irving CEO Paul Browning. The company has booked capacity on Energy East, but won’t say how much. “When the pipeline arrives here and as we bring in other sources of this lower-cost crude, it allows us to be globally competitive and allows us to think about exporting our petroleum products, not just outside of Canada, but outside of North America,” Mr. Browning says. First, though, TransCanada must navigate an increasingly divided landscape. Energy East has won a measure of political support from provincial leaders in Alberta, New Brunswick and Ontario, yet the project is unfolding against a backdrop of deep public skepticism over pipelines. A rival plan to carry Alberta crude east, Enbridge Inc.’s Line 9 reversal and expansion, has been marred by controversy; federal regulators cancelled public hearings in Toronto this fall amid security concerns, forcing Enbridge to submit its final arguments in writing. Bigger proposals such as Keystone XL and Northern Gateway face an uncertain future.

Pipelines are Safer than Rail, Period -- After the Nov. 8 oil tank train derailment in Alabama, it is time to reconsider the approval of new pipeline construction in North America. Pipelines are the safest way of transporting oil and natural gas, and we need more of them, without delay. Every time I write this, the rail industry attacks me. Then, three or four months later, another rail accident involving hazardous materials hits the headlines. In Pickens County, Alabama, approximately 25 rail cars derailed, bursting into flames. The volume of oil spilled was fortunately contained by a beaver dam, which slowed the flow of oil. Rail cars burned for days, impeding the accident investigation. The latest accident comes four months after a rail accident in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, where the derailment of 73 rail cars carrying crude oil from North Dakota to Maine claimed 47 lives. Rail cars became detached from the parked engine, slid backwards into the town of Lac- Mégantic, and exploded. In both June and September, rail cars carrying flammable material derailed in Calgary, Alberta, where, fortunately, no lives were lost. If oil had been carried through pipelines instead of by rail, the accidents — and deaths — would have likely not occurred.

Massive Natural Gas Pipeline Explodes In Texas Town, Causing Evacuation Of 800 Residents - A massive explosion of a 10-inch Chevron natural gas pipeline near a drilling rig in Milford, Texas, led the company to ask law enforcement to evacuate the entire town on Thursday. Milford, in rural Ellis County, is about halfway between Dallas and Waco. The cause is still unknown, and the fire is expected to rage for another day. At 9:30 a.m. CST, huge gouts of flame shot into the air at a what appeared to be a drilling rig, according to local affiliate FOX 4. Black smoke was visible for at least 20 miles around. Some vehicles at the worksite appeared to be seriously damaged. No injuries have been reported so far. Chevron’s statement simply describes an “incident at a Chevron pipeline” and offered no further details.This shot, courtesy of local affiliate NBCDFW from a helicopter feed 5 miles away from Milford, shows the black cloud blotting out the sky.

The Scariest Real Estate Advertisement On Craigslist - An unusual real estate advertisement appeared on Craigslist Tuesday.  The ad starts as any listing for a rural area might, billing the property as “Heavily forested land with berry bushes and nut trees and hardwoods in rural mountainous setting with forks and creek.” But by the second sentence, it takes a surprising turn, describing land in Blaine, Kentucky that seemingly sits near or on several different dirty fuel projects:Free gas available and royalties. Somewhere between 80 and 125 acres. Surveyed. Lease unavailable… Radioactive soils, history of discharges to land and water including land farming, present discharges to protected waterways. Flooding due to Yatesville Dam hydrologic gate failures. Anyone with chemical sensitivies should not consider this property and its resulting oozing rashes consistent with chemical burns and breathing problems probably from air discharges from Abarta Gas Plant emmissions. This property is not suitable for farm animals, pets, children, adults, fishing, swimming, hiking or farm animals. Really, it’s not suitable for building or habitation. It’s not suitable for 4-wheeling or hunting as above ground corroded gathering lines that feed to the transmission line on the ridgetops are all combustible and highly flamable. Majestic old standing lumber is not safe to fell or remove due to the magnitude of the condemnation by the gathering field. The unmarked pipes are not maintained and pose a serious risk of leakage and spills. The abandoned crusty ones are very toxic.

Big Oil, Big Profits, Big Tax Breaks - Once again, it’s been a good quarter for Big Oil. The big five oil companies—BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell—reported $23 billion in combined profits for their third quarter of 2013. That’s $175,000 per minute. Together, these five companies earn more in one minute than 95 percent of Americans earn in a year. These profits were slightly lower this third quarter compared to 2012, primarily due to lower (but not low) oil and gasoline prices. Gasoline averaged $3.63 per gallon in the first 10 months of 2013, slightly less than last year’s record of $3.68 per gallon. Even though profits were lower, the big five companies continue to enrich their largest shareholders and senior executives by using a large share of profits to buy back their own stock. This past quarter, the combined buybacks of the companies (save ConocoPhillips) were nearly $10 billion, or 43 percent of the four companies’ total profits. In addition, these five companies are sitting on more than $71 billion in cash reserves. Big Oil is swimming in an endless river of profits and continues to invest millions of dollars to lobby Congress against eliminating their special tax breaks. Environment & Energy Daily reported on October 30 that: Oil and natural gas lobbyists have spent more than a year urging lawmakers to maintain targeted tax breaks for extracting and transporting their products, but there are signs of a growing fear within the industry that impending legislation to overhaul the tax code for the first time in a generation would eliminate most of those incentives in order to lower the top-line rate paid by all companies.

Top climate scientists call for fracking ban in letter to Gov. Jerry Brown

by Paul Rogers, Mercury News, November 12, 2013

Click photo to enlarge

Large hoses go from one hydraulic fracturing drill site to another as horses... ( Pat Sullivan )

Twenty of the nation's top climate scientists have sent a letter to Gov. Jerry Brown, telling him that his plans supporting increased use of the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," will increase pollution and run counter to his efforts to cut California's global warming emissions.

The letter is the latest example of the increased pressure that environmentalists and others concerned about climate change have been putting on Brown in recent months. Their argument: the governor can't say he wants to reduce global warming while expanding fossil fuel development in California.

"If what we're trying to do is stop using the sky as a waste dump for our carbon pollution, and if we're trying to transform our energy system, the way to do that is not by expanding our fossil fuel infrastructure," said Ken Caldeira, an atmospheric scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science at Stanford University.

Caldeira signed the letter along with other prominent climate scientists, including James Hansen, the former head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies; Richard Houghton, acting president of Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts; and physicist Michael Mann, a professor of meteorology at Penn State University.

The letter called for Brown to place a moratorium on fracking, as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has done.

"Shale gas and tight oil development is likely to worsen climate disruption, which would harm California's efforts to be a leader in reducing greenhouse gas emissions," it notes.

Brown did not respond Tuesday afternoon to a request for comment on the scientists' letter. But last month he said in response to question from this newspaper, "As you know, I signed legislation that will create the most comprehensive environmental analysis of fracking to date. It will take a year, year and a half, maybe a little longer. And I hope that all the people, critics and supporters alike, will participate and offer their best thoughts." [Did your BS detector's meter go off the scale?]

The oil industry criticized the scientists' letter.

"The authors of this letter, while clearly very respected in their fields, do not present an accurate or realistic picture of our energy needs and our energy future," said Tupper Hull, a spokesman for the Western States Petroleum Association in Sacramento.

"California is going to need petroleum-based energy for a long time, even as it transitions to a lower carbon future.''

Brown has generally won high marks from environmental groups over his 40-year political career. He signed legislation requiring California utilities to generate 33% of their electricity from solar, wind and other renewable resources by 2020, for example. Last month, he appeared at an event in San Francisco to announce a pact with the governors of the states of Washington and Oregon and the premier of British Columbia to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

But he has come under increasing criticism -- and public protests -- this fall from opponents of fracking, the practice in which oil and gas companies inject water, sand and chemicals into the ground to fracture underground rock formations and release huge amounts of fossil fuels.

In September, Brown signed SB 4, a bill by state Sen. Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills, that requires companies that conduct fracking operations in California to notify all nearby property owners, obtain a permit from the state, conduct groundwater testing and disclose the chemicals they are using. The law takes effect in 2015. Opponents say that water pollution and increased air and climate emissions from fracking require a moratorium, particularly in the Monterey Shale, an area that stretches from Bakersfield to Monterey and holds billions of dollars of shale oil that could be recovered from increased fracking.

Paul Rogers covers resources and environmental issues. Contact him at 408-920-5045. Follow him at Twitter.com/PaulRogersS
http://www.mercurynews.com/science-environment/ci_24509392/top-climate-scientists-call-fracking-ban-letter-gov

Ken Caldeira: No such thing as "allowable CO2 emissions" -- only "dangerous CO2 emissions"

Time: “Why the Coming Budget Crisis May Be the Worst”

UK Guardian: “IPCC: 30 years to climate calamity if we carry on blowing the carbon budget”

The Washington establishment and the media have been mesmerized into inaction by a short-term budget crisis — funding the continued operation of the government. But it is the continued operation of a livable climate that should have their full attention.

Decades from now, our children won’t be fretting over the inanity of the GOP shutting down the government because of their implacable opposition to giving health security to millions of uninsured Americans. Rather, they will be struggling to secure the health and well-being of billions of people in a Dust-Bowlified world ruined by their parents’ greed and myopia.

On Friday, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its latest assessment of how humans are destroying a livable climate. As we discussed, it was yet another dire prognosis — 9 °F Warming For U.S., Faster Sea Rise, More Extreme Weather, Permafrost Collapse. It should have spurred an immediate global move toward deep cuts in carbon pollution.

Instead, U.S. opinion makers steering the ship of state went right back to arguing about whether the deck chairs [infirmary beds?] should have been rearranged in the manner approved by President Obama, Congress, and the Supreme Court.

Our inaction on climate is primarily the fault of the disinformers and obstructionists — and those in the media who enable them — but the IPCC certainly deserves some amount of blame for its poor communication skills and flat learning curve.

The UK Guardian, in its IPCC piece (cited above), writes:

But the most controversial finding of the report was its “carbon budget.” Participants told the Guardian this was the last part of the summary to be decided, and the subject of hours of heated discussions in the early hours of Friday morning. Some countries were concerned that including the numbers would have political repercussions.

The scientists found that to hold warming to 2 C, total emissions cannot exceed 1,000 gigatons of carbon. Yet by 2011, more than half of that total “allowance” – 531 gigatons – had already been emitted.

To ensure the budget is not exceeded, governments and businesses may have to leave valuable fossil fuel reserves unexploited. “There’s a finite amount of carbon you can burn if you don’t want to go over 2 C,” Stocker told the Guardian. “That implies if there is more than that [in fossil fuel reserves], that you leave some of that carbon in the ground.”

This raises key questions of how to allocate the remaining “carbon budget” fairly among countries, an issue that some climate negotiators fear could wreck the UN climate talks, which are supposed to culminate in a global agreement on emissions in 2015.

“To ensure the budget is not exceeded, governments and businesses may have to leave valuable fossil fuel reserves unexploited.” They “may have to”? Try “must.” Is there any other subject than climate change where the media feel obliged to hedge even the most obvious statements?

As an aside, the fossil fuel reserves that must remain unexploited are “valuable” only in a world that actually doesn’t accept the climate science reviewed in the IPCC report. The sentence would read more accurately this way: “To ensure the budget is not exceeded, governments and businesses must leave climate-destroying fossil fuel reserves unexploited.”

Climatologist Ken Caldeira emailed me with an even greater concern about the way this issue is being framed, pointing to the same UK Guardian piece:

There is some noise around the idea that it useful to think about some amount of “allowable CO2 emissions budget” that would keep the world under 2 C of global warming.

This concept is dangerous for two reasons:

1. There are no such things as an “allowable CO2 emissions.” There are only “damaging CO2 emissions” or “dangerous CO2 emissions.” Every CO2 emission causes additional damage and creates additional risk. Causing additional damage and creating additional risk with our CO2 emissions should not be allowed.

2. If you look at how our politicians operate, if you tell them you have a budget of XYZ, they will spend XYZ. Politicians will reason: “If we’re not over budget, what’s to stop us to spending? Let the guys down the road deal with it when the budget has been exceeded.” The CO2 emissions budget framing is a recipe for delaying concrete action now.

We should be framing the issue around what we need to do today: stop building things with tailpipes and smokestacks and start retiring the things we have already built that do have tailpipes and smokestacks. Stop using the sky as a waste dump for our CO2 emission.

These are things that we can hold politicians accountable to today. Trying to hold politicians to a budget that will be reached 30 years in the future is a recipe for disaster.

If our current crop of politicians is any indication, it is unreasonable to expect politicians to feel constrained by something that might happens 30 years from now, long after they have left office.

The key point is that every CO2 emission is bad; the budget for “allowable CO2 emissions” should be zero.

When I emit CO2, I am transgressing against nature and future generations. It is not something allowed; it is a violation.

As long as we are still building CO2-emitting devices, the politicians are failing, and we must hold them accountable for their failure today, not 30 years into the future.

A key flaw in the carbon budget framing is that most people — including most opinion makers and politicians — don’t understand that that avoiding catastrophic global warming requires stabilizing carbon dioxide concentrations, not emissions (see here), which means emissions have to become zero when the budget is expended.

The metaphor is also flawed because people naturally have a mental model that you can afford to exceed your budget as long as you make up for whatever you borrow. People may think we can easily pull CO2 out of the air at that point (assuming they think about 30 years from now at all).

People understand that we can solve our federal budget crisis any time we want to. And, of course, we can just pass a simple law that increases the ceiling on the national debt, as we have many times in the past. But solving the carbon budget crisis requires immediate action — and doing things utterly different than what we have done in the past.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/09/30/2699121/real-budget-crisis-co2/

Nation’s Top Climate Scientists Urge President Obama to Reject Keystone XL Pipeline

For immediate release, January 15, 2013, 350.org

OAKLAND CA -- Eighteen of the nation’s top climate scientists released a letter to President Obama today urging him to say no to the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. 

“Eighteen months ago some of us wrote you about the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, explaining why in our opinion its construction ran counter to both national and planetary interests,"  wrote the scientists. "Nothing that has happened since has changed that evaluation; indeed, the year of review that you asked for on the project made it clear exactly how pressing the climate issue really is."

Indeed the past year has shown that climate change is here. A few months after Superstorm Sandy flooded parts of the Northeast, NOAA announced last week that the average temperature for 2012 was 55.3 degrees Fahrenheit, 3.2 degrees above normal and a full degree higher than the previous warmest year recorded -- 1988. 

The State Department is expected to soon release its supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) required for the northern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline. The department’s previous pipeline EIS downplayed climate risks by arguing that the tar sands would be developed with or without Keystone XL and therefore the project had no responsibility for the additional greenhouse gas emissions that come from burning tar sands oil. 

But two of Canada's largest banks, TD Economics and CIBC, have recently said that without added capacity, "Canada's oil industry is facing a serious challenge to its long-term growth" and that “Canada needs pipe — and lots of it — to avoid the opportunity cost of stranding over a million barrels a day of potential crude oil growth.”

The Obama Administrations has promised action on climate change but if KXL is approved, the Administration would be actively supporting and encouraging the growth of an industry which has demonstrably serious effects on climate.

Thousands of concerned citizens will come to Washington, DC on February 17th, President's Day weekend, to oppose the Keystone XL pipeline. Rally information is at www.350.org/presidentsday.

### 

1. Full text of the letter: 

Dear Mr. President,

You take office for the second time at a critical moment. As you may know, the U.S. has just recorded the hottest year in its history, beating the old mark by a full degree; the same year that saw the deep Midwest drought, and the fury of Hurricane Sandy, also witnessed the rapid and unprecedented melt of the Arctic ice pack. 

If we are to restrain the rise in the planet's temperature, it will require strong action from, among others, the planet's sole superpower. Some of that work will be difficult, requiring the cooperation of Congress. But other steps are relatively easy.

Eighteen months ago some of us wrote you about the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, explaining why in our opinion its construction ran counter to both national and planetary interests. Nothing that has happened since has changed that evaluation; indeed, the year of review that you asked for on the project made it clear exactly how pressing the climate issue really is. 

We hope, as scientists, that you will demonstrate the seriousness of your climate convictions by refusing to permit Keystone XL; to do otherwise would be to undermine your legacy.

Thank you,

James Hansen, Research Scientist, The International Research Institute for Climate and Society, The Earth Institute, Columbia University

Ralph Keeling, Director, Scripps CO2 Program Scripps Institution of Oceanography

John Harte, Professor of Ecosystem Sciences, University of California

Jason E. Box, Professor, Byrd Polar Research Center

John Abraham, Associate Professor, School of Engineering, University of St. Thomas

Ken Caldeira, Senior Scientist. Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution

Michael MacCracken, Chief Scientist for Climate Change Programs, Climate Institute

Michael E. Mann, Professor of Meteorology, Director, Earth System Science Center, The Pennsylvania State University

James McCarthy, Alexander Agassiz Professor of Biological Oceanography, Harvard University

Michael Oppenheimer, Albert G. Milbank Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School and Department of Geosciences, Princeton University

Raymond T. Pierrehumbert, Louis Block Professor in the Geophysical Sciences, The University of Chicago

Richard Somerville, Distinguished Professor Emeritus and Research Professor, Scripps Institution of Oceanography

George M. Woodwell, Founder, Director Emeritus, and Senior Scientist, Woods Hole Research Center

Mauri Pelto, Department of Environmental Science, Nichols College

David Archer, Professor, Department of Geophysical Sciences, The University of Chicago

Dr. Ted Scambos, Lead Scientist, National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado at Boulder

Terry L. Root, Senior Fellow, Stanford University

Alan Robock, Professor II, Distinguished Professor, Department of Environmental Sciences, Rutgers University

Affiliations are listed for identification purposes only. 

http://www.350.org/scientists-call-president-reject-keystone-xl-pipeline

David Spratt: Serious talk about geo-engineering better than pious hand-wringing about 2 degrees

by David Spratt, Climate Code Red, November 22, 2012

Cambridge professor and Arctic expert Peter Wadhams

ABC TV's Lateline programme is schedule to discuss climate geo-engineering tonight, a debate that is long overdue.
     Suggesting that climate geo-engineering – such as top-of-atmosphere sulfate injections to reduce incoming solar radiation as a temporary measure until the world gets its act together to avoid the big global warming tipping points – might be necessary is as popular in the environment and climate movements as farting in the middle of a slow movement at a concert.
     Almost everybody is keen to rail against it, such as Climate Authority member Clive Hamilton in The Philosophy of Geoengineering. I have yet to hear a climate or environment advocacy group in Australia even say that we should at least consider the issues on their merits.
      There's lots of reasons to be worried about the ideas – and reasons why we need to consider them – as has been canvassed recently in Nature, on the BBC, on NPR, in the Guardian, and in many scientific papers including here,  here, here and here, for example.
     Yet some of those most willing to consider it are those scientists who seem most aware and forthright about where global warming is heading and why, when all things are considered, geo-engineering appears to be the least-worst option.
    For example, Chuck Greene, Bruce Monger, Mark Huntley find in Geoengineering: The Inescapable Truth of Getting to 350 that: "After evaluating the challenge of stabilizing CO2 concentration at 350 ppm, we conclude that society will only be successful in meeting this goal by supplementing aggressive reductions in greenhouse gas emissions with geoengineering." So what's the choice?
    Ken Caldeira of the Caldeira Lab at Stanford says  we need to look closely at geo-engineering and pioneered research in the area. Discussion of his work may be found here, here, here and here, just for starters.
    Geo-engineering is no substitute for zero emissions and carbon drawdown, it has as yet not-fully-known side effects, there are huge political and governance issues, and some in the fossil fuel industry have shown an interest. All true. And it won't deal with ocean acidification even if it can slow global warming by reducing incoming solar radiation.
     But without it, we are screwed. Take professor Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University, who is a world-leading authority on the Arctic and is scheduled to appear in tonight's "Lateline." We told his story in Big call: Cambridge prof. predicts Arctic summer sea ice “all gone by 2015”on 30 August this year as the Arctic melted dramatically.
     Wadhams, who heads the Arctic Methane Emergency Group, recently gave an off-the-cuff description of what is going to happen in the Arctic, as nations and political leaders fiddle and the planet burns: 

• Summer sea ice disappears, except perhaps for small multiyear remnant north of Greenland and Ellesmere Island, by 2015-16.
• By 2020 the ice free season lasts at least a month and by 2030 has extended to 3 months.
• September sea surface temperatures are already elevated by 6-7 °C over continental shelves of Arctic. As shrink back continues, the newly exposed surface water over abyssal depths warms up less in a single summer (say 2-3 °C) because of deeper surface water layer (150 m) than over a shelf (50 m).
• The 6-7 °C warming over the shelves causes offshore permafrost to shrink back and vanish over about 10 years. During this time there is elevated methane emission from offshore and from onshore warming, and global warming rates increase by about 50%.
• Result is that bad effects forecast for end of century (4 °C warming worldwide, 10 °C in Arctic) actually occur by about 2060. Speed of change is catastrophic for agriculture; warfare and population crashes ensue.

The current level of greenhouses gases is just over 450 parts per million carbon dioxide equivalent, enough for two degrees of warming. Losing the Arctic sea-ice in summer will add another half a degree, as I discussed recently in "After the Arctic big melt: A hotter planet."
     And that's without any more greenhouse gas emissions, which are now churning into the atmosphere at a record rate.  Two degrees is not a safe target, but without regional geo-engineering over the Arctic it now seems out of reach. So what's the choice?
     As NASA climate science chief Jim Hansen keeps on telling us, it is hard to argue that anything above the Holocene maximum (of around 0.5 degrees above the pre-industrial temperature) can preserve a safe climate, and that we have already gone too far.  The notion that 1.5 °C is a safe target is out the window, and even 1 °C looks like an unacceptably high risk.

    In recent rivetting and disturbing presentations here and here, Professor Kevin Anderson has shown that the 2 °C target now requires advanced-economy, high-polluting nations like Australia to reduce emissions by 10-20% per year if there is to be an equitable global effort to get there. [This concurs with Copenhagen reality check: 25% by 2020 isn't in the ball park.] And that's assuming the Arctic warming does not feed back into the system.

    None of this, of course, is mentioned in polite company when people tut-tut about the latest report from the World Bank, or whomever, showing we are heading for 4 degrees, accompanied by vague exhortations to hold to 2 degrees, without ever honestly talking about what that means.
     As Anderson points out, even holding warming to 4 degrees requires emissions peaking by 2020 a 3.5% p.a. reduction in CO2 from energy from then on.  Meanwhile Australia's emissions will be greater in 2020 than now due to dodgy carbon permit imports, as the prime minister and the climate minister oversee the massive expansion of coal exports and LNG, all the while mouthing platitudes about a 2-degree target.
     Their policies are not consistent with two degrees, but with four.
     In his presentations, Anderson has pointed out that

For 4 °C global mean surface temperature (that means)
      5-6 °C global land mean
            … and increase °C on the hottest days of:
                6-8 °C in China
                     8-10 °C in Central Europe
                          10-12 °C in New York

 He says that "In low latitudes 4 °C gives up to 40% reduction in maize and rice as population heads towards 9 billion by 2050" and concludes that:

There is a widespread view that a 4 °C future is incompatible with an organised global community, is likely to be beyond ‘adaptation’, is devastating to the majority of eco-systems and has a high probability of not being stable (i.e., 4 °C would be an interim temperature on the way to a much higher equilibrium level).

If the Arctic sea-ice goes in a few years and events unfurl as Wadhams and the peer-reviewed science suggests, 4 degrees will  be difficult to avoid, to put it politely.
     Then it will be too late to talk about geo-engineering, and the billion or so people left on a hot planet will be wishing like crazy we had taken the idea more seriously. Not because it's win-win, but because our collective stupidity over the last two decades now makes it the least-worst option.

http://www.climatecodered.org/2012/11/serious-talk-about-geo-engineering.html

"Management of trade-offs in geoengineering through optimal choice of non-uniform radiative forcing," by Douglas G. MacMartin, David W. Keith, Ben Kravitz & Ken Caldeira, Nature Climate Change, doi:10.1038/nclimate1722

Nature Climate Change, 2(10) (October 2012); doi:10.1038/nclimate1722

Management of trade-offs in geoengineering through optimal choice of non-uniform radiative forcing

Douglas G. MacMartin, David W. Keith, Ben Kravitz and Ken Caldeira

Abstract

Solar radiation management could be used to offset some or all anthropogenic radiative forcing, with the goal of reducing some of the associated climatic change^{1, 2}. However, the degree of compensation will vary, with residual climate changes larger in some regions than others. Similarly, the insolation reduction that best compensates climate changes in one region may not be the same as for another, leading to concerns about equity³. Here we show that optimizing the latitudinal and seasonal distribution of solar reduction can improve the fidelity with which solar radiation management offsets anthropogenic climate change. Using the HadCM3L general circulation model, we explore several trade-offs. First, residual temperature and precipitation changes in the worst-off region can be reduced by 30% relative to uniform solar reduction, with only a modest impact on global root-mean-square changes; this has implications for moderating regional inequalities. Second, the same root-mean-square residual climate changes can be obtained with up to 30% less insolation reduction, implying that it may be possible to reduce solar radiation management side-effects and risks (for example, ozone depletion if stratospheric sulphate aerosols are used). Finally, allowing spatial and temporal variability increases the range of trade-offs to be considered, raising the question of how to weight different objectives.

http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1722.html

James Samenow, WaPo: So-called blockbuster climate change studies by Richard Muller and Anthony Watts prove little

So-called blockbuster climate change studies prove little

by Jason Samenow, The Washington Post, July 30, 2012

Over the weekend, two groups released so-called “game-changing” climate change studies.

The first, led by “converted skeptic” University of California-Berkeley professor Richard Muller, claims almost all of the warming observed in modern times is due to human activities. The second, led by blogger Anthony Watts, in an apparent attempt to diminish the impact of the Muller paper, argues warming in the U.S. since 1979 is about half the amount calculated by NOAA.

Both studies staged high-profile releases and represent concerted efforts to influence public perception about what we know about climate science. But neither has been published in a peer-reviewed publication, and there is cause to question their legitimacy.

Muller summarized the results of his group’s study in an exclusive op-ed in The New York Times. Consider these key excerpts:

Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause.

and...

How definite is the attribution to humans? The carbon dioxide curve gives a better match than anything else we’ve tried. Its magnitude is consistent with the calculated greenhouse effect — extra warming from trapped heat radiation. These facts don’t prove causality and they shouldn’t end skepticism, but they raise the bar: to be considered seriously, an alternative explanation must match the data at least as well as carbon dioxide does.

and...

Science is that narrow realm of knowledge that, in principle, is universally accepted. I embarked on this analysis to answer questions that, to my mind, had not been answered. I hope that the Berkeley Earth analysis will help settle the scientific debate regarding global warming and its human causes.

Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann said Muller’s work essentially confirmed results from existing studies, adding little new to our state of knowledge. The Muller study results, Mann said (on his Facebook page): “...demonstrate what scientists have known with some degree of confidence for nearly two decades: that the globe is indeed warming, and that this warming can only be explained by human-caused increases in greenhouse gas concentrations.”

Similarly, Stanford climate scientist Ken Caldeira told Climate Progress: “I am glad that Muller et al have taken a look at the data and have come to essentially the same conclusion that nearly everyone else had come to more than a decade ago.”

Mann and Caldeira’s colleague, Ben Santer, a climate scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, was less kind, arguing Muller’s tactic of releasing his study’s results before acceptance into a peer-reviewed journal could backfire. He told The Los Angeles Times:

“I think [Muller] can do great harm to the broader debate. Imagine this scenario: that he makes these great claims and the papers aren’t published? This (op-ed) is in the spirit of publicity, not the spirit of science.”

Regarding this claim that the release of results prior to official publication was an act of showmanship rather than science, Elizabeth Muller -- co-founder and executive director of the Berkeley project and Richard Muller’s daughter -- responded that the results were too important to withold and that the pre-release invites greater opportunity for constructive feedback from colleagues. She offered this defense to The Los Angeles Times:

I believe the findings in our papers are too important to wait for the year or longer that it could take to complete the journal review process. We believe in traditional peer review; we welcome feedback [from] the public and any scientists who are interested in taking the time to make thoughtful comments. Our papers have received scrutiny by dozens of top scientists, not just the two or three that typically are called upon by journalists.

But this defense rings hollow. The only difference between Muller’s results and the conclusions of the existing scientific assessment literature (such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is that Muller asserts “nearly all” of the recent warming is due to human activities over a longer timeframe whereas existing literature says “most” over a shorter timeframe. The claim that this single study was “too important” to hold back -- especially in light of scores of other important studies which received no such pre-publication fanfare -- reeks of arrogance on the part of the author team.

Just as the process for releasing the Muller et al. results was challenged, so too was the substance. Georgia Tech atmospheric science professor Judith Curry, who characterizes herself as a “lukewarmer” (someone who believes humans are warming the climate but to an uncertain degree), was not at all swayed by Muller’s analysis. She wrote in her blog:

In my opinion, their analysis is way over simplistic and not at all convincing . There is broad agreement that greenhouse gas emissions have contributed to the warming in the latter half of the 20th century; the big question is how much of this warming can be attributed to greenhouse gas emissions. I dont think this question can be answered by the simple curve fitting used in this paper...

Irrespective of the flaws in Muller’s analysis or its merits -- grabbing headlines in The New York Times prior to peer review represents an enormous tactical mistake. Peer review is the primary pillar of scientific legitimacy. Without it, a study has little to support it -- which brings us to the Watts study.

Watts justified the release of his team’s new study prior to peer review -- not coincidentally -- using Muller’s rationale that pre-publication would attract more critical eyeballs to help bulletproof his work. But like Muller, Watts’ actions speak more to a publicity-motivated intent. On Friday, Watts halted all publication on his high-traffic [no, it is not high traffic] blog Friday pending a “major announcement” Sunday afternoon presumably to build suspense ahead of the study’s release.

And no doubt the timing of the release of the Watts paper -- the same day Muller’s New York Times op-ed ran -- was purposeful to divert attention from Muller’s study. (Watts admits as much on his blog: “About a week ago I learned Muller was going to release and do the media blitz...Added anxiety.”)

So what was the message of the Watts et al. study? Here’s what the press release says:

The new analysis demonstrates that reported 1979-2008 U.S. temperature trends are spuriously doubled, with 92% of that over-estimation resulting from erroneous NOAA adjustments...

In other words, Watts is asserting the U.S. temperature trends you’ve seen reported from NOAA about warming in the last few decades are inflated due to flawed adjustments made to temperature records. The unadjusted highest quality temperature records in the U.S., Watts claims, demonstrate about half the warming as NOAA’s adjusted data.

Roger Pielke, Sr., a Colorado State climate scientist who has expressed skepticism about NOAA’s temperature records, showered the Watts analysis with praise:

“This paper is a game changer, in my view, with respect to the use of the land surface temperature anomalies as part of the diagnosis of global warming,” he blogged.

If it seems surprising Pielke, Sr., would offer such unqualified praise before this work had been peer reviewed, it turns out he was not an impartial player. Watts acknowledges Pielke, Sr., for help “with edits and citations.”

Science blogger David Appell had it exactly right when he said the Watts paper is “exactly the kind of paper that most needs peer review: based on a lot of judgements and classifications and nitty gritty details...”

Furthermore, given the serious accusations Watts et al. make about the integrity of NOAA’s temperature analysis, it’s critical NOAA be given the opportunity to respond just as they did the last time Watts issued such a challenge in 2009. NOAA’s U.S. temperature record has been painstakingly constructed by many scientists over many years and many peer-reviewed publications support its methodologies.

The Muller and Watts studies no doubt represent a lot of hard work and may eventually prove to be valuable contributions to science. But we should reserve judgment on their significance.

And this new effort by these scientists to grab attention for studies that have not yet been vetted by other, independent scientists is disturbing and unproductive. It’s a disingenuous attempt to score points on a highly polarized scientific issue.

My advice? Ignore these publicity stunts and pay no attention to these studies until they have passed peer review. And even studies that have been peer reviewed should be viewed with a certain amount of skepticism until they have been confirmed in multiple subsequent studies and stood the test of time.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/post/so-called-blockbuster-climate-change-studies-prove-little/2012/07/30/gJQAZZNMKX_blog.html