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Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Texas Keystone XL protesters still there!!!! Please give generously
Monday, December 24, 2012
RJ Sigmund: Got gas? Bakken oil wells flaring natgas, as seen from space
got gas? oil well flaring as seen from space
below are pictures of the upper Midwest and Texas excerpted from the Earth at Night, which are cloud-free night images created from the Suomi NPP, a new NASA and NOAA satellite…encircled in the top photo is the light given off from flaring oil wells in the Bakken shale formation of N. Dakota and eastern Montana; the lower photo shows Texas at night, with the flaring from the oil fields in the Eagle Ford Shale region of Texas shown between the two red lines, with lights from major cities also marked for contrast...
when the oil shale is fracked, not only oil is liberated from the rock, but also a large amount of trapped natural gas, mostly methane, is released…with the energy value of the oil worth as much as 30 times that of the gas, the exploitation companies want no part of the delay involved in capturing the cheaper gas, and would rather burn it off than build the infrastructure to capture and transport to where it could be used; this gas ‘flaring’ is shown in the video from a well in N Dakota below…
as you can hear, the sound of that flaring is not unlike a jet engine, rattling neighbors, who can neither sleep nor use their yards…in addition to the waste of $110 million worth useful natural gas each year, this flaring is adding more than two million tons of carbon pollution to the atmosphere each year from N Dakota alone, where more than 100 million cubic feet of natural gas is flared this way each day, which is enough to heat half a million homes each day, more than the population of Minneapolis, which you can also see nearby in the top photo above…
http://marketwatch666.blogspot.com/2012/12/got-gas-oil-well-flaring-from-space.htmlSunday, December 23, 2012
FBI calls peaceful OWS protesters "domestic terrorists" -- throws Constitution out the windwo
Free Speech and the Right to Assemble apparently no longer exist
A masked protester celebrating the one-year anniversary of the Occupy Movement marches in the financial district Monday, Sept. 17, 2012, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)
by Alice Hines, Huffington Post, December 23, 2012
According to internal documents newly released by the FBI, the agency spearheaded a nationwide law enforcement effort to investigate and monitor the Occupy Wall Street movement. In certain documents, divisions of the FBI refer to the Occupy Wall Street protests as a "criminal activity" or even "domestic terrorism."
The internal papers were obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice fund via a Freedom of Information Act Request. The fund, a legal nonprofit that focuses on civil rights, says it believes the 112 pages of documents, available for public viewing on its website, are only "the tip of the iceberg."
"This production ... is a window into the nationwide scope of the FBI’s surveillance, monitoring, and reporting on peaceful protestors organizing with the Occupy movement," wrote Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, the fund's executive director, in a press release Saturday.
According to the documents, the FBI coordinated extensively with private companies, including banks, that feared they could be affected by Occupy protests. Occupy, which took root in New York City's Zuccotti Park in September 2011 and spread to cities across the country, targeted corporations and other forces it believed to perpetuate social inequality. The FBI's investigation included the movement's manifestations in New York; Milwaukee; Indianapolis; Anchorage, Alaska; Jacksonville, Fla.; Richmond, Va.; and Memphis, Tenn., among others.
The FBI did not immediately respond to The Huffington Post's requests for comment Sunday.
In September, the Northern California chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union obtained documents that detailed the FBI's surveillance of the Occupy movement in that region. At the time, the FBI told the San Francisco Chronicle that its investigations were being performed in a way that "respects liberty and privacy and avoids unnecessary intrusions into the lives of law-abiding people."
According to the new documents, the FBI began meeting with representatives of the New York Stock Exchange and other businesses as early as August 2011, a month before the Zuccotti Park protests.
In Jackson, Miss., the local FBI office attended a meeting with private banks and the police to discuss a "National Bad Bank Sit-In-Day" protest in December 2011.
The documents are heavily redacted, a point that the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund considers to be evidence of the FBI's attempt to withhold relevant information. The fund is filing an appeal to obtain further details of the FBI's investigation, according to the release.
James Hansen: Storms of My Grandchildren's Opa
I refer not to Sandy, although it too was our storm1 -- and my recent op-ed in The Guardian reminds people of the implications of Sandy for public policies.
I refer rather to a little tempest following an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, which described my remarks at the Commonwealth Club on 4 December. My criticism of ineffectual cap-and-trade-with-offsets was not a condemnation of the total California climate law, and I noted that California has done much better than the U.S. as a whole in limiting emissions. Indeed, my point was that the fate of the planet, and our children's lives, depends on people in places such as California and parts of Europe, people who have an inkling of the climate threat that we are up against, supporting an approach that will actually work.
"Actually work" means an approach with the potential to phase out most fossil fuels fast enough to leave most coal and unconventional fossil fuel (tar sands, tar shale, fracked gas) in the ground.
Background: Unhelpful Prognostications
Prognostications asserting "we are already committed to X °C global warming; if we don't agree on international goals for emission reductions we will soon be committed to Y °C, where Y > X" are not very helpful. They have about as much effect on decision-makers as a fart in a hurricane.
X and Y keep changing, but X °C is already so large that we would pass tipping points sufficient to guarantee an unfolding disastrous path to a different planet, one with a bleak future for young people and other life on the planet. And never mind that an international approach based on caps, goals and promises is worth about as much as the paper the Kyoto Protocol was printed on.
Presented with such a prognostication you might say: Hey, wait a minute, we don't need a complex unworkable cap approach or a carbon tax. We need a simple honest flat across-the-board fee on the carbon content of fossil fuels, collected from fossil fuel companies at the domestic mine or port of entry, the fee gradually rising over time, the funds distributed 100% to the public, equal amounts to all legal residents, not one dime to the government, no enlargement of government. Such a "fee-and-dividend" system would cause fossil fuel CO2 emissions to rapidly decline; most coal and unconventional fossil fuels would be left in the ground. For example, economic modeling for the U.S. shows that a $10/ton CO2 fee, rising $10 each year, would reduce emissions 30% after a decade -- more that a factor of 10 greater than the oil carried by the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, rendering that pipeline superfluous.
Business and Jobs
Business leaders, such as Jim Rogers of Duke Power, say that what they need is knowledge of the carbon price and a general sense of how it will change. If we give them that, our captains-of-industry can be a huge part of the solution.
We have tremendous potential for innovation that will be spurred once there is a rising carbon price. New products, more jobs. As the carbon price rises, tipping points will be reached where low-carbon or no-carbon alternatives phase in rapidly, leaving fossil fuels in the ground.
Of course, many other actions are needed. We need energy R&D. We need building standards, we should not produce electronic goods that draw energy even when not in use, etc. Such things will be easier to achieve, and partly self-enforced, by an underlying steadily rising carbon price.
Politics
I gave a talk to international labor leaders. When I noted that fee-and-dividend would let the market place, rather than government bureaucrats, make decisions, one of them said "that's libertarian!" So it is, with a small l.
After I gave a talk at one of Grover Norquist's meetings (on-the-record portion), one participant said "that's income redistribution!" Yes, fee-and-dividend is populist. Low-income people can gain by limiting their emissions. People with multiple houses, or who fly around the world a lot, will pay more in increased prices than they obtain in the dividend -- but they can afford that.
Fee-and-dividend is democratic -- treating everybody equally -- as well as libertarian and populist.
Wait a minute, you say, collecting a fee from fossil fuel companies, making fossil fuels pay their honest cost to society, is not realistic. There are a lot of people making money off fossil fuels or planning to make money off the pipeline. American politicians are well-oiled and coal-fired, we can't get such a plan through the government.
Presidential Leadership
Unrealistic? What if President Obama, when he was first elected and had 70% approval, had chosen to have fireside chats, informing the public that a rising carbon price was needed for national security, energy independence, economic stimulation, and preserving a good life for
young people and our fellow species on the planet? With 60% of the people getting more in their dividends than they pay in increased prices, he would have been a populist President. He could have taken the matter to the public. His party controlled the House and Senate.
President Obama chose not to do that in his first term. He gave minimal support to a cap-and-trade-with-offsets proposition, which would have made little actual reduction in U.S. emissions and was ineffectual globally. Unless he faces up squarely and effectively to the greatest practical
and moral issue of the 21st century, he forfeits his chance to be a great president.
International Implementation
Cap-and-trade-with-offsets is the Kyoto Protocol approach, in which countries are begged to join and set emissions targets. When they fail to meet their target, they withdraw from the Protocol.
China will not accept a cap on their emissions. Why should they? The U.S. is responsible for 27% of the fossil fuel CO2 in the air today. China's responsibility is just approaching 10%. However, their population is more than three times that of the U.S., so they have used only 10% of a fair cap. By the time they reach that cap, we will all be doomed.
Why would China put a fee on carbon? Lots of reasons. They do not want to develop the addiction that plagues the U.S. They have heavy air and water pollution from fossil fuels, which is very costly and has the public upset. They are among the most vulnerable nations to climate change, including sea level rise. China has a long history and is capable of taking a long view. The fact that the worst climate impacts will be visited on future generations will not likely cause China to "discount" future climate effects and heap consequences on the young.
Only a few nations need agree on a carbon fee. They will place a border duty on products from countries that do not have an equivalent carbon fee. They can also rebate to their manufacturers the carbon fee covering the fraction of their production that is exported to nations without the carbon fee. This approach provides a tremendous incentive for other nations to adopt a similar domestic carbon fee, so they can collect it themselves rather than lose it as a border duty.
Border tariff adjustments are not unique to fee-and-dividend. However, the flat cross-the-board fee on carbon, a reasonably well-defined number, makes international implementation simpler, as revealed via objective comparison's in Shi-Ling Hsu's book "The Case for a Carbon Tax."
Criticisms of Fee-and-Dividend
A common criticism is that low income people will waste the dividend, e.g., buying powerball tickets. I come from a low income family, my father a tenant farmer educated to 8th grade, with seven children. We would not have wasted the money. Nor would most low income families.
Of course a minority of people will waste the money. You can't legislate against foolishness. But note that even in such cases the money will soon be back in the economy.
The second criticism of fee-and-dividend is that it is better to tax fossil fuels and let the government invest the money in clean energies. Uh, you mean the government can make the best decisions about winning technologies? That should be an easy call.
We already have a situation in which even advanced nuclear power development is being financed privately, e.g., by Bill Gates. Quietly, despite the failure of our government to require fossil fuels to have an honest price, very exciting advances are being made in many technologies, even, believe it or not, carbon capture. These technologies, including energy efficiency, will spread like wildfire once a rising carbon fee begins to be collected and distributed, so that fossil fuels begin to pay their true costs and the public has the funds at their disposal.
Government has a role in R&D (e.g., the excellent ARPA-E program) and assuring that new technologies are safe, but those departments already exist, funded by existing taxes.
Nor should the fee be used to pay down the national debt. The public is not stupid. If the money is thrown into government coffers, regardless of how its use is described, the public will know it is being used to support big government. The only way the public will allow a continually rising price on carbon is if the money goes to them, so that they can deal with increasing fossil fuel prices. The rallying cry should be "100 percent or fight!"
Governors and Mayors
I am sorry if my remarks at the Commonwealth Club (reported out of
context) were interpreted as criticism of people who have worked hard to reduce fossil fuel emissions. My remarks were not intended that way, nor were they interpreted as such by the Governor. I acknowledged the success of California in limiting their emissions relative to that of other states, and I made it clear that my remarks were about ineffectual policies, not people.
In addition to several governors, a number of mayors, perhaps most notably Republican Mayor Bloomberg in New York City, have been vocal about climate change and effective in reducing emissions. Helped by a flagging national economy, this has reduced United States emissions a few percent, which is a significant improvement compared with continued emissions growth.
However, the science has made crystal clear that these efforts and policies are not enough. We must pursue policies that can lead to global emissions reductions and a phase-out of reliance on fossil fuels, such that most remaining coal and unconventional fossil fuels are left in the ground.
Cap-and-Trade vs. Carbon Fee
A crucial point is that we need policies that reduce emissions as rapidly as practical. Cap-and-trade, even if it were applied across-the-board on all fossil fuels at the source (it is not) and even if applied across the nation (it will not be; can you imagine the Texas Governor's response if the California Governor called and asked him to follow suit?), would provide no prospect of the rapid reduction of global emissions needed to cause most fossil fuels to be left in the ground.
Why not? Cap-and-trade, to the extent it reduces emissions some places, reduces demand for fossil fuels, lowers their global price, thus encouraging their use elsewhere. At best, this slightly slows the burning of fossil fuels, which is little help. Fossil fuel CO2 emissions stay in the ocean-atmosphere system for millennia. Most fossil fuel carbon must be left in the ground.
In contrast, a carbon fee can more readily be made universal [cf. discussion above and Hsu's "Case for a Carbon Tax"]. If the funds are distributed 100% to the public, the public will allow the fee to rise to high levels, in contrast to the relatively ineffectual carbon price characterizing cap-and-trade or a pure carbon tax. Resulting reduction in fossil fuel use under a rising carbon fee causes demand to drop, and the net price that producers receive falls (because the fee portion goes to the public). This causes rapid loss of market for costly fuels (tar sands, tar shale). Most coal, as the carbon fee rises, also will be left in the ground or used only with carbon capture.
Summary
An honest, gradually rising, price on carbon, making fossil fuels pay their costs to society, including externalities, makes economic sense and is needed for rapid phase-down of fossil fuels. Other things are needed, but the base requirement is an across-the-board universal carbon fee.
Scientists should not accept fossil fuel scenarios foisted on us by compliant government agencies. Instead, we should help define carbon emission scenarios that avoid growing regional climate extremes and climate tipping points that can cause disintegration of ice sheets and large-scale extermination of species. Those government agencies, virtual arms of the fossil fuel industry, have a bad record in projecting energy requirements. Even in the U.S., with little effort to control energy use growth during the past few decades, reality forces energy agencies to continually revise downward their projections (cf. Fig. 3 in "Storms of My Grandchildren").
We must stanch a pervasive defeatism that is about. Humanity is not a bunch of lemmings marching unstoppably toward a cliff. There is such a thing as free will. It seems that many people have slipped into an unhelpful resignation, ultimately leading to a way of thinking that accepts fossil fuel industry propaganda.
People please wake up! For the sake of young people, future generations, and other life on our planet, don't settle for what some "experts" say is the best we can do. In fact, we can move on to clean energies and energy efficiency, but only if we are wise enough to put an honest rising price on carbon emissions. It is equally clear, I submit, that the public will only allow an adequate rising price on carbon if the system is simple and transparent with the proceeds distributed to the public. That will provide the public with the resources required to make the needed changes as we move to cleaner energies and a bright future that preserves the planet and life that we know.
James Hansen, December 13, 2012
_______________
1It was a bit eerie. When the power went out (not restored for almost a week) we were in pitch dark except for candles and a battery powered lantern. Soon we heard thunderous noise as the railings around our second floor flat roof (deck) were blown off and crashed to the ground. The next morning we found four large trees blown over, one of them leaning against the house -- their root systems pulled out of ground that was too soggy to hold them. Similarly, because of the soft rain-soaked ground, large sections of the stockade fence separating our property from the road were blown down, as were sections of the fence around the horse pasture. Windows in the barn were blown out, but the solar panels were unharmed. Storm power and damage supposedly vary with the cube of wind speed, so amping up of the winds by the unusually warm coastal waters probably had a big effect. We live in eastern Pennsylvania and are thus buffered from Atlantic storms by New Jersey, but this was a marginal hurricane imbedded in a frontal storm that can affect a huge area. These kind of storms, as described in Storms of My Grandchildren, will become far stronger if we allow Greenland to begin to melt fast enough to cool the North Atlantic Ocean.
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/
I refer rather to a little tempest following an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, which described my remarks at the Commonwealth Club on 4 December. My criticism of ineffectual cap-and-trade-with-offsets was not a condemnation of the total California climate law, and I noted that California has done much better than the U.S. as a whole in limiting emissions. Indeed, my point was that the fate of the planet, and our children's lives, depends on people in places such as California and parts of Europe, people who have an inkling of the climate threat that we are up against, supporting an approach that will actually work.
"Actually work" means an approach with the potential to phase out most fossil fuels fast enough to leave most coal and unconventional fossil fuel (tar sands, tar shale, fracked gas) in the ground.
Background: Unhelpful Prognostications
Prognostications asserting "we are already committed to X °C global warming; if we don't agree on international goals for emission reductions we will soon be committed to Y °C, where Y > X" are not very helpful. They have about as much effect on decision-makers as a fart in a hurricane.
X and Y keep changing, but X °C is already so large that we would pass tipping points sufficient to guarantee an unfolding disastrous path to a different planet, one with a bleak future for young people and other life on the planet. And never mind that an international approach based on caps, goals and promises is worth about as much as the paper the Kyoto Protocol was printed on.
Presented with such a prognostication you might say: Hey, wait a minute, we don't need a complex unworkable cap approach or a carbon tax. We need a simple honest flat across-the-board fee on the carbon content of fossil fuels, collected from fossil fuel companies at the domestic mine or port of entry, the fee gradually rising over time, the funds distributed 100% to the public, equal amounts to all legal residents, not one dime to the government, no enlargement of government. Such a "fee-and-dividend" system would cause fossil fuel CO2 emissions to rapidly decline; most coal and unconventional fossil fuels would be left in the ground. For example, economic modeling for the U.S. shows that a $10/ton CO2 fee, rising $10 each year, would reduce emissions 30% after a decade -- more that a factor of 10 greater than the oil carried by the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, rendering that pipeline superfluous.
Business and Jobs
Business leaders, such as Jim Rogers of Duke Power, say that what they need is knowledge of the carbon price and a general sense of how it will change. If we give them that, our captains-of-industry can be a huge part of the solution.
We have tremendous potential for innovation that will be spurred once there is a rising carbon price. New products, more jobs. As the carbon price rises, tipping points will be reached where low-carbon or no-carbon alternatives phase in rapidly, leaving fossil fuels in the ground.
Of course, many other actions are needed. We need energy R&D. We need building standards, we should not produce electronic goods that draw energy even when not in use, etc. Such things will be easier to achieve, and partly self-enforced, by an underlying steadily rising carbon price.
Politics
I gave a talk to international labor leaders. When I noted that fee-and-dividend would let the market place, rather than government bureaucrats, make decisions, one of them said "that's libertarian!" So it is, with a small l.
After I gave a talk at one of Grover Norquist's meetings (on-the-record portion), one participant said "that's income redistribution!" Yes, fee-and-dividend is populist. Low-income people can gain by limiting their emissions. People with multiple houses, or who fly around the world a lot, will pay more in increased prices than they obtain in the dividend -- but they can afford that.
Fee-and-dividend is democratic -- treating everybody equally -- as well as libertarian and populist.
Wait a minute, you say, collecting a fee from fossil fuel companies, making fossil fuels pay their honest cost to society, is not realistic. There are a lot of people making money off fossil fuels or planning to make money off the pipeline. American politicians are well-oiled and coal-fired, we can't get such a plan through the government.
Presidential Leadership
Unrealistic? What if President Obama, when he was first elected and had 70% approval, had chosen to have fireside chats, informing the public that a rising carbon price was needed for national security, energy independence, economic stimulation, and preserving a good life for
young people and our fellow species on the planet? With 60% of the people getting more in their dividends than they pay in increased prices, he would have been a populist President. He could have taken the matter to the public. His party controlled the House and Senate.
President Obama chose not to do that in his first term. He gave minimal support to a cap-and-trade-with-offsets proposition, which would have made little actual reduction in U.S. emissions and was ineffectual globally. Unless he faces up squarely and effectively to the greatest practical
and moral issue of the 21st century, he forfeits his chance to be a great president.
International Implementation
Cap-and-trade-with-offsets is the Kyoto Protocol approach, in which countries are begged to join and set emissions targets. When they fail to meet their target, they withdraw from the Protocol.
China will not accept a cap on their emissions. Why should they? The U.S. is responsible for 27% of the fossil fuel CO2 in the air today. China's responsibility is just approaching 10%. However, their population is more than three times that of the U.S., so they have used only 10% of a fair cap. By the time they reach that cap, we will all be doomed.
Why would China put a fee on carbon? Lots of reasons. They do not want to develop the addiction that plagues the U.S. They have heavy air and water pollution from fossil fuels, which is very costly and has the public upset. They are among the most vulnerable nations to climate change, including sea level rise. China has a long history and is capable of taking a long view. The fact that the worst climate impacts will be visited on future generations will not likely cause China to "discount" future climate effects and heap consequences on the young.
Only a few nations need agree on a carbon fee. They will place a border duty on products from countries that do not have an equivalent carbon fee. They can also rebate to their manufacturers the carbon fee covering the fraction of their production that is exported to nations without the carbon fee. This approach provides a tremendous incentive for other nations to adopt a similar domestic carbon fee, so they can collect it themselves rather than lose it as a border duty.
Border tariff adjustments are not unique to fee-and-dividend. However, the flat cross-the-board fee on carbon, a reasonably well-defined number, makes international implementation simpler, as revealed via objective comparison's in Shi-Ling Hsu's book "The Case for a Carbon Tax."
Criticisms of Fee-and-Dividend
A common criticism is that low income people will waste the dividend, e.g., buying powerball tickets. I come from a low income family, my father a tenant farmer educated to 8th grade, with seven children. We would not have wasted the money. Nor would most low income families.
Of course a minority of people will waste the money. You can't legislate against foolishness. But note that even in such cases the money will soon be back in the economy.
The second criticism of fee-and-dividend is that it is better to tax fossil fuels and let the government invest the money in clean energies. Uh, you mean the government can make the best decisions about winning technologies? That should be an easy call.
We already have a situation in which even advanced nuclear power development is being financed privately, e.g., by Bill Gates. Quietly, despite the failure of our government to require fossil fuels to have an honest price, very exciting advances are being made in many technologies, even, believe it or not, carbon capture. These technologies, including energy efficiency, will spread like wildfire once a rising carbon fee begins to be collected and distributed, so that fossil fuels begin to pay their true costs and the public has the funds at their disposal.
Government has a role in R&D (e.g., the excellent ARPA-E program) and assuring that new technologies are safe, but those departments already exist, funded by existing taxes.
Nor should the fee be used to pay down the national debt. The public is not stupid. If the money is thrown into government coffers, regardless of how its use is described, the public will know it is being used to support big government. The only way the public will allow a continually rising price on carbon is if the money goes to them, so that they can deal with increasing fossil fuel prices. The rallying cry should be "100 percent or fight!"
Governors and Mayors
I am sorry if my remarks at the Commonwealth Club (reported out of
context) were interpreted as criticism of people who have worked hard to reduce fossil fuel emissions. My remarks were not intended that way, nor were they interpreted as such by the Governor. I acknowledged the success of California in limiting their emissions relative to that of other states, and I made it clear that my remarks were about ineffectual policies, not people.
In addition to several governors, a number of mayors, perhaps most notably Republican Mayor Bloomberg in New York City, have been vocal about climate change and effective in reducing emissions. Helped by a flagging national economy, this has reduced United States emissions a few percent, which is a significant improvement compared with continued emissions growth.
However, the science has made crystal clear that these efforts and policies are not enough. We must pursue policies that can lead to global emissions reductions and a phase-out of reliance on fossil fuels, such that most remaining coal and unconventional fossil fuels are left in the ground.
Cap-and-Trade vs. Carbon Fee
A crucial point is that we need policies that reduce emissions as rapidly as practical. Cap-and-trade, even if it were applied across-the-board on all fossil fuels at the source (it is not) and even if applied across the nation (it will not be; can you imagine the Texas Governor's response if the California Governor called and asked him to follow suit?), would provide no prospect of the rapid reduction of global emissions needed to cause most fossil fuels to be left in the ground.
Why not? Cap-and-trade, to the extent it reduces emissions some places, reduces demand for fossil fuels, lowers their global price, thus encouraging their use elsewhere. At best, this slightly slows the burning of fossil fuels, which is little help. Fossil fuel CO2 emissions stay in the ocean-atmosphere system for millennia. Most fossil fuel carbon must be left in the ground.
In contrast, a carbon fee can more readily be made universal [cf. discussion above and Hsu's "Case for a Carbon Tax"]. If the funds are distributed 100% to the public, the public will allow the fee to rise to high levels, in contrast to the relatively ineffectual carbon price characterizing cap-and-trade or a pure carbon tax. Resulting reduction in fossil fuel use under a rising carbon fee causes demand to drop, and the net price that producers receive falls (because the fee portion goes to the public). This causes rapid loss of market for costly fuels (tar sands, tar shale). Most coal, as the carbon fee rises, also will be left in the ground or used only with carbon capture.
Summary
An honest, gradually rising, price on carbon, making fossil fuels pay their costs to society, including externalities, makes economic sense and is needed for rapid phase-down of fossil fuels. Other things are needed, but the base requirement is an across-the-board universal carbon fee.
Scientists should not accept fossil fuel scenarios foisted on us by compliant government agencies. Instead, we should help define carbon emission scenarios that avoid growing regional climate extremes and climate tipping points that can cause disintegration of ice sheets and large-scale extermination of species. Those government agencies, virtual arms of the fossil fuel industry, have a bad record in projecting energy requirements. Even in the U.S., with little effort to control energy use growth during the past few decades, reality forces energy agencies to continually revise downward their projections (cf. Fig. 3 in "Storms of My Grandchildren").
We must stanch a pervasive defeatism that is about. Humanity is not a bunch of lemmings marching unstoppably toward a cliff. There is such a thing as free will. It seems that many people have slipped into an unhelpful resignation, ultimately leading to a way of thinking that accepts fossil fuel industry propaganda.
People please wake up! For the sake of young people, future generations, and other life on our planet, don't settle for what some "experts" say is the best we can do. In fact, we can move on to clean energies and energy efficiency, but only if we are wise enough to put an honest rising price on carbon emissions. It is equally clear, I submit, that the public will only allow an adequate rising price on carbon if the system is simple and transparent with the proceeds distributed to the public. That will provide the public with the resources required to make the needed changes as we move to cleaner energies and a bright future that preserves the planet and life that we know.
James Hansen, December 13, 2012
_______________
1It was a bit eerie. When the power went out (not restored for almost a week) we were in pitch dark except for candles and a battery powered lantern. Soon we heard thunderous noise as the railings around our second floor flat roof (deck) were blown off and crashed to the ground. The next morning we found four large trees blown over, one of them leaning against the house -- their root systems pulled out of ground that was too soggy to hold them. Similarly, because of the soft rain-soaked ground, large sections of the stockade fence separating our property from the road were blown down, as were sections of the fence around the horse pasture. Windows in the barn were blown out, but the solar panels were unharmed. Storm power and damage supposedly vary with the cube of wind speed, so amping up of the winds by the unusually warm coastal waters probably had a big effect. We live in eastern Pennsylvania and are thus buffered from Atlantic storms by New Jersey, but this was a marginal hurricane imbedded in a frontal storm that can affect a huge area. These kind of storms, as described in Storms of My Grandchildren, will become far stronger if we allow Greenland to begin to melt fast enough to cool the North Atlantic Ocean.
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/
Climate Change and Intergenerational Evil (James Hansen: fossil-fuels executives should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature)
Readers, I don't normally post such lengthy YouTube videos, but this one is special and contains excerpts from David Roberts TED Talk and important clips of James Hansen. It is a game-changing video, IMO, and should be spread widely. Please pass on the link. Thank you. Tenney
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=a1HpkCiOaiI
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Seth Borenstein: Extreme forecast dead-on in 2012: Hot and either too dry or too wet, just as experts warned
by Seth Borenstein, Associated Press, December 20, 2012
WASHINGTON – As 2012 began, winter in the U.S. went AWOL. Spring and summer arrived early with wildfires, blistering heat and drought. And fall hit the eastern third of the country with the ferocity of Superstorm Sandy.
This past year's weather was deadly, costly and record-breaking everywhere — but especially in the United States.
If that sounds familiar, it should. The previous year also was one for the record books.
"We've had two years now of some angry events," said Deke Arndt, U.S. National Climatic Data Center monitoring chief. "I'm hoping that 2013 is really boring."
In 2012 many of the warnings scientists have made about global warming went from dry studies in scientific journals to real-life video played before our eyes: Record melting of the ice in the Arctic Ocean. U.S. cities baking at 95 degrees or hotter.
Widespread drought. Flooding. Storm surge inundating swaths of New York City.
All of that was predicted years ago by climate scientists and all of that happened in 2012.
"What was predicted was there would be more of these things," said Michel Jarraud, secretary general for the World Meteorological Organization.
Globally, five countries this year set heat records, but none set cold records. 2012 is on track to be the warmest year on record in the United States. Worldwide, the average through November suggests it will be the eighth warmest since global record-keeping began in 1880.
July was the hottest month in record-keeping U.S. history, averaging 77.6 degrees. Over the year, more than 69,000 local heat records were set — including 356 locations in 34 states that hit their highest-ever temperature mark.
America's heartland lurched from one extreme to the other without stopping at "normal." Historic flooding in 2011 gave way to devastating drought in 2012.
"The normal has changed, I guess," said U.S. National Weather Service acting director Laura Furgione. "The normal is extreme."
While much of the U.S. struggled with drought that conjured memories of the Dust Bowl, parts of Africa, Russia, Pakistan, Colombia, Australia and China dealt with the other extreme: deadly and expensive flooding.
But the most troubling climate development this year was the melting at the top of the world, Jarraud said. Summer sea ice in the Arctic shrank to 18% below the previous record low. The normally ice-packed Arctic passages were open to shipping much of the summer, more than ever before, and a giant Russian tanker carrying liquefied natural gas made a delivery that way to prove how valuable this route has become, said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
Also in Greenland, 97% of the surface ice sheet had some melting. Changes in the Arctic alter the rest of the world's weather and "melting of the ice means an amplifying of the warming," Jarraud said.
There were other weather extremes no one predicted: A European winter cold snap that killed more than 800 people. A bizarre summer windstorm called a derecho in the U.S. mid-Atlantic that left millions without power. Antarctic sea ice that inched to a record high. More than a foot of post-Thanksgiving rain in the western U.S. Super Typhoon Bopha, which killed hundreds of people in the Philippines and was the southernmost storm of its kind.
The United States has had "some quiet years while the rest of the world was quite wild," but that's not the case this year, Arndt said. Insurance giant Munich Re in a report this fall concluded: "Nowhere in the world is the rising number of annual natural catastrophes more evident than in North America."
In 2011, the United States set a record with 14 billion-dollar weather disasters. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has a preliminary count of 11 such disasters this year. And NOAA's official climate extreme index, which tallies disasters and rare events like super-hot days, is on pace to set its own record.
Arndt points to the geographic heart of America, the Mississippi River, as emblematic.
On May 6, 2011, the Mississippi River at New Madrid, Mo., crested at its highest point on record. Less than 16 months later on August 30, 2012, the same spot on the river was more than 53 feet lower, hitting an all-time low water mark.
The U.S. went through the same lurching extremes on tornadoes. Those storms killed 553 people last year, Furgione said. This year began with many tornadoes, then in April they just stopped. April to November, normal tornado season, saw the fewest F1 or stronger tornadoes in the U.S. ever.
"Every year is bringing different types of extreme weather and climate events," NOAA chief Jane Lubchenco said. "All storms today are happening in a climate-altered world."
Not everything is connected to man-made global warming, climate scientists say. Some, like tornadoes, have no scientifically discernible connection. Others, like the East Coast superstorm, will be studied to see if climate change is a cause, although scientists say rising sea levels clearly worsened flooding. They are more convinced that the heat waves of last summer are connected to global warming.
These are "clearly not freak events," but "systemic changes," said climate scientist Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute in Germany. "With all the extremes that, really, every year in the last 10 years have struck different parts of the globe, more and more people absolutely realize that climate change is here and already hitting us."
In 1988, NASA scientist James Hansen, sometimes called the godfather of global warming science, ran computer models that predicted the decade of the 2010s would see many more 95-degree or hotter days and much fewer subfreezing days. This year made Hansen's predictions seemed like underestimates. For example, he predicted that in the 2010s Memphis would have on average 26 days of more than 95 degrees. This year there were 47.
Scientists — both those studying global warming and those studying hurricanes — have warned for more than a decade about a hurricane with big storm surge hitting New York City and flooding the subways. That happened with Sandy. Though it was never a major hurricane, it stretched across nearly 1,000 miles in the U.S., bringing storm surges, power outages to millions and even snow. Sandy killed more than 125 people in the United States and at least 70 in the Caribbean.
For decades, scientists have predicted extensive droughts from global warming. This year, the drought of 2012 was so extensive that nearly 2,300 counties — in almost every state — were declared agriculture disasters. At one point this summer more than 65% of the Lower 48 was suffering from drought.
And with lack of water, came fire, something also mentioned as more likely in scientific reports about global warming. Fire season in the United States came earlier than normal and lasted longer, officials said. Nearly 9.2 million acres — an area bigger than the state of Maryland — have been burned by wildfire, the third most since accurate record keeping began in 1960.
"Take any one of these events in isolation, it might be possible to yell 'fluke!' Take them collectively, it provides confirmation of precisely what climate scientists predicted would happen decades ago if we proceeded with business-as-usual fossil fuel burning, as we have," Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann said in an email. "And this year especially is a cautionary tale. What we view today as unprecedented extreme weather will become the new normal in a matter of decades if we proceed with business-as-usual."
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/2012-another-record-setter-fits-climate-forecasts
Error-Riddled WSJ Matt Ridley Piece Lowballs Climate Change, Discredits Wall Street Journal. World Faces 10°F Warming. By Joe Romm on Dec 20, 2012
by Joe Romm, Climate Progress, December 20, 2012
Leading Scientists Debunk Ridley Piece, Even Climatologist Cited By Ridley Says He “Is Just Plain Wrong About Future Warming”
Memo to media, deniers: “Climate sensitivity” is NOT the same as projected future warming!
Projected warming even with (an unlikely) low climate sensitivity of between 1.5 °C and 2.0 °C from Michael Ring et al., 2012. A WSJ op-ed that cites this work absurdly concludes “Evidence points to a further rise of just 1 °C by 2100.” Not even close.
Every major projection of future warming makes clear that if we keep listening to the falsehoods of the anti-science crowd and keep taking no serious action to reduce carbon pollution we face catastrophic 9-11 °F [5-6 °C] warming over most of the U.S. (see literature review here).
The Wall Street Journal, however, has published a piece, “Cooling Down the Fears of Climate Change,” that (falsely) asserts observations suggest global warming will be so low as to “be benificial.” This risible piece by Matt Ridley is so riddled with basic math and science errors it raises the question of how the Journal can possibly maintain its reputation as a credible source of news and financial analysis.
Ridley and the Journal apparently don’t know the difference between water vapor and clouds. They don’t understand the basic concept of climate sensitivity. And they can’t do simple math. Naturally, the climate deniers have embraced this nonsense and spread it across the Internet.
I wasn’t going to waste time with the umpteenth debunking of the Wall Street Journal's nonsense — especially a piece written by someone whose “family leases land for coal mining”! But one of Ridley’s many basic mistakes is often seen in the media — the confusion of the “climate sensitivity” (to a doubling of CO2 levels to 560 parts per million) with projected warming (from actual greenhouse gas levels projected for this century plus carbon cycle feedbacks). That confusion needs clearing up (again).
First, though, let me start by quoting some of the country’s leading climate experts in an excellent debunking piece by Media Matters, “WSJ’s Climate ‘Dynamite’ Is A Dude":
[A]s John Abraham, an IPCC reviewer and the director of the Climate Science Rapid Response Team, put it to Media Matters: the column “has such elementary errors in it that [it] casts doubt on the author’s understanding of any aspects of climate change.”… Boston University’s Robert Kaufmann, lead author of a 2011 sulfur emissions study [wrote]:I know of no evidence that would suggest that the temperature effects of sulfur emissions are small. This conclusion is totally at odds with my peer-reviewed publication in the area, which indicate that sulfur emissions have a significant effect on temperature.With regard to the feedback effect of water vapor: Kevin Trenberth, a scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research, told Media Matters in an email: “water vapor effects are well established as an amplifier (strong positive feedback).” Abraham further noted that Ridley has apparently confused water vapor with clouds, whose effects are not as well understood. He said, “it is very clear water vapor … is an amplifying effect. It is a very strong warmer for the climate” and challenged Ridley to name the anonymous scientist who gave him his information.With regard to the rate of ocean heat absorption, Trenberth wrote: “On the contrary there is now very good evidence that a LOT of heat is going into the deep ocean in unprecedented ways, which completely undermines this sort of argument. OHC [Ocean Heat Content] keeps increasing at a fairly steady rate, just as sea level keeps going up.”
A good discussion of the latest science on ocean heat content can be found here.
To expand on what Abraham said, it is head-exploding and self-discrediting for Ridley and the Wall Street Journal to print this for millions to read:
And then, as one Nobel Prize-winning physicist with a senior role in combating climate change admitted to me the other day: “We don’t even know the sign” of water vapor’s effect—in other words, whether it speeds up or slows down a warming of the atmosphere.Climate models are known to poorly simulate clouds, and given clouds’ very strong effect on the climate system—some types cooling the Earth either by shading it or by transporting heat up and cold down in thunderstorms, and others warming the Earth by blocking outgoing radiation—it remains highly plausible that there is no net positive feedback from water vapor.
An unnamed physicist? Seriously, WSJ? What’s next? “A guy I met in an underground parking lot”?
If Ridley did in fact talk to a Nobel prize-winning physicist then that person almost certainly did not make the mistake Ridley did and confuse “water vapor’s effect” — where we most certainly know the sign (it speeds up warming) — with clouds' effects (where there is a tad more uncertainty). Yet even in that case, the new IPCC draft report, upon which Ridley makes all his claims finds:
Various feedbacks associated with water vapour can now be quantified, and together they are assessed to be very likely positive and therefore to amplify climate changes. The net radiative feedback due to all cloud types is likely positive.
Ridley and the WSJ cite on their behalf recent work by Ring and Schlesinger to help make the case that we face a warming of only another 1 °C this century for a total cumulative warning of under 2 °C:
Michael Ring and Michael Schlesinger of the University of Illinois, using the most trustworthy temperature record, also estimate 1.6 °C [climate sensitivity].
The problem is that Ridley apparently doesn’t have the first clue what the climate sensitivity means, which is a key reason why Dr. Schlesinger has written a letter to the WSJ (below) explaining
“In his article, Mr. Ridley is just plain wrong about future global warming.”
It bears repeating that the amount of warming we are going to subject our children and countless future generations to depends primarily on three factors:
- The so-called “equilibrium climate sensitivity” – the sensitivity of the climate to fast feedbacks like sea ice and water vapor — or how much warming you get if we only double CO2 emissions to 560 ppm and there are no major “slow” feedbacks. We know the fast feedbacks, like water vapor, are strong by themselves (see Study: Water-vapor feedback is “strong and positive,” so we face “warming of several degrees Celsius” and Skeptical Science piece here).
- The real-world slower (decade-scale) feedbacks, such as tundra melt (see “Carbon Feedback From Thawing Permafrost Will Likely Add 0.4–1.5 °F To Total Global Warming By 2100."
- The actual CO2 concentration level we are likely to hit, which is far beyond 550 ppm (see U.S. media largely ignores latest warning from climate scientists: “Recent observations confirm … the worst-case IPCC scenario trajectories are being realised” — 1000 ppm).
Given that the anti-science, pro-pollution forces seem to be succeeding in their fight to keep us on our current emissions path, it’s no surprise that multiple recent analyses conclude that we face a temperature rise that is far, far beyond dangerous (see links below).
Schlesinger’s full letter to the WSJ is:
In “Cooling Down the Fears of Climate Change” (WSJ, 19 December 2012), Matt Ridley mentions the findings of my Climate Research Group’s paper “Causes of the Warming Observed Since the 19th Century” (http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?paperID=24283).In his article, Mr. Ridley is just plain wrong about future global warming.In our paper “A Fair Plan to Safeguard Earth’s Climate” (http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?paperID=20038), we show that by the middle of this century the warming will exceed the 2 °C (3.6 °F) maximum allowed by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to “prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.”In that paper and its sequel, “A Revised Fair Plan to Safeguard Earth’s Climate” (http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?paperID=23864), we phase out the emission of greenhouse gases this century such that the cumulative greenhouse-gas emissions by the Developing and Developed Countries are equal. Both Plans keep global warming below the UNFCCC allowable maximum of 2 °C.
Schlesinger sent an email around to some journalists and scientists that included a figure from his work, which I posted at the top. Schlesinger notes that an aggressive program of carbon mitigation can limit warming to 2 °C and avoid the worst impacts.
It is worth pointing out that there is a healthy debate about Schlesinger’s low estimate (see here). Kevin Trenberth, for one, says the analysis is not correct.
Indeed, Trenberth coauthored a major new study of actual observations of relative humidity that finds “that warming is likely to be on the high side of current projections … projecting a global temperature rise for doubled carbon dioxide of more than 7 degrees F” — see “Science Stunner: Observations Support Predictions Of Extreme Warming And Worse Droughts This Century.”
And Schlesinger himself says it would be unwise to plan on a low sensitivity given the very real risks that it is not so low. I queried Schlesinger about whether his analysis included the feedback from the permafrost. He wrote me back:
What will most likely happen is … permanent outgassing of carbon dioxide from permafrost and methane from clathrates/hydrates. As you know, methane is a greenhouse gas that is 23 times more potent, molecule for molecule, than carbon dioxide. If we hedge not against this outgassing, it’s game over.My Climate Research Group is now writing a paper about sea-level rise throughout this century.You and the world want not to know about this.In the scheme of things, we human beings are not a very intelligent species.All species have a finite lifetime.Most species do not self exterminate.While this is a bit hyperbolic, it may not be far from the truth.
So I think it is quite safe to say that it is irresponsible and indefensible to quote Schlesinger’s work in an article that nonsensically concludes the “net effect [of global warming] on the planet may actually be beneficial.”
Ironically — or, rather, tragically — if the world listens to anti-science disinformation like Ridley’s piece in the WSJ, if it continues taking little action to reduce carbon pollution, then that would guarantee catastrophic impacts even in the unlikely event the equilibrium climate sensitivity is low.
Related Posts:
- Hadley Center: “Catastrophic” 5-7 °C warming by 2100 on current emissions path
- M.I.T. doubles its 2095 warming projection to 10 °F — with 866 ppm and Arctic warming of 20 °F
- Our hellish future: Definitive NOAA-led report on U.S. climate impacts warns of scorching 9 to 11 °F warming over most of inland U.S. by 2090 with Kansas above 90 °F some 120 days a year — and that isn’t the worst case, it’s business as usual!“
- Climate Sensitivity Higher Than We Thought, Researchers Find
- Yes, Deniers And Confusionists, The IEA And Others Warn Of Some 11°F Warming by 2100 If We Keep Listening To You
- “The Copenhagen Diagnosis” warns “Without significant mitigation, the report says global mean warming could reach as high as 7 degrees Celsius by 2100.”
Michael Schlesinger: WSJ Wrong About Future Global Warming
In “Cooling Down the Fears of Climate Change” (WSJ, 19 December 2012), Matt Ridley mentions the findings of my Climate Research Group’s paper “Causes of the Warming Observed Since the 19th Century”
(http://www.scirp.org/
In his article, Mr. Ridley is just plain wrong about future global warming.
In our paper "A Fair Plan to Safeguard Earth’s Climate” (http://www.scirp.org/journal/
In that paper and its sequel, "A Revised Fair Plan to Safeguard Earth's Climate" (http://www.scirp.org/journal/
Michael Schlesinger, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Michael Schlesinger, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
WSJ's Climate "Dynamite" Is A Dud
by Max Greenberg, Media Matters, December 20, 2012
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Matt Ridley attempted to cast doubt on the severity of manmade climate change, arguing that future warming will be modest and "good" for the planet. But experts say the author flubbed the science, and continue to project that the earth will warm between 2 and 4.5 degrees Celsius (or about 3.5 to 8 degrees Fahrenheit), unless mitigating action is taken.
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Matt Ridley attempted to cast doubt on the severity of manmade climate change, arguing that future warming will be modest and "good" for the planet. But experts say the author flubbed the science, and continue to project that the earth will warm between 2 and 4.5 degrees Celsius (or about 3.5 to 8 degrees Fahrenheit), unless mitigating action is taken.
Ridley's argument goes something like this: climate models are "unproven." Therefore, it is now possible to rely solely on "observations" -- which show that temperatures are "no higher than they were 16 years ago"--to determine that a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide by the end of the century would cause modest warming. Further, that amount of warming would be a "net good."
Putting aside the fact that Ridley cites a "semiretired successful financier" and an unnamed scientist to support his claims, his arguments are not well-founded. Or, as John Abraham, an IPCC reviewer and the director of the Climate Science Rapid Response Team, put it to Media Matters: the column "has such elementary errors in it that [it] casts doubt on the author's understanding of any aspects of climate change."
Let's look at each of those errors, one by one.
First, Ridley wrongly argues that three variables factored into current climate models are overstated (and thus that climate models are "unproven"). In fact, experts agree that the impacts of each variable that Ridley cites -- the cooling effect of aerosols (or particles in the air); the rate of heat absorption by the world's oceans; and the role of water vapor in amplifying climate change -- are unambiguous.
With regard to aerosols: Abraham told Media Matters: "it is very clear [they] have a cooling impact," adding, "I don't know of any reputable scientist that would dispute that." Boston University's Robert Kaufmann, lead author of a 2011 sulfur emissions study, agreed:
I know of no evidence that would suggest that the temperature effect of sulfur emissions are small. This conclusion is totally at odds with my peer reviewed publication in the area, which indicate that sulfur emissions have a significant effect on temperature.
With regard to the feedback effect of water vapor: Kevin Trenberth, a scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research, told Media Matters in an email: "water vapor effects are well established as an amplifier (strong positive feedback)." Abraham further noted that Ridley has apparently confused water vapor with clouds, whose effects are not as well understood. He said, "it is very clear water vapor...is an amplifying effect. It is a very strong warmer for the climate" and challenged Ridley to name the anonymous scientist who gave him his information.
With regard to the rate of ocean heat absorption: Trenberth wrote: "On the contrary there is now very good evidence that a LOT of heat is going into the deep ocean in unprecedented ways, which completely undermines this sort of argument. OHC [Ocean Heat Content] keeps increasing at a fairly steady rate, just as sea level keeps going up." Abraham, who has done extensive research on ocean heating, agreed, saying: "oceans are absorbing a tremendous amount of energy...whoever said [the ocean's heat absorption rate is down] has no basis in fact...he's making [stuff] up."
As this chart from Skeptical Science shows, the rate of ocean heat absorption remains high:
Ridley goes on to cite inadequate variables to claim that temperatures have not risen in 16 years. While surface warming over that period has indeed been slight, surface temperatures make up only a fraction of global warming - the effect of which has been felt most significantly in the world's oceans since about 1960. As a 2011 graphic illustrates, the oceans have heat capacity far greater than the atmosphere, and thus absorb a massive percentage of global warming:
Finally, Ridley is just plain wrong to claim that future warming will be mild or even helpful. When contacted by Media Matters, scientists were blunt. Trenberth wrote "There is now widespread agreement that stopping global mean [temperature] increase at 2 [degrees] °C [3.6 °F] is impossible. Rather 3 [degrees] °C [5.4 °F] will be difficult." Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M, conceded that estimates of climate sensitivity for doubled carbon cover a range of outcomes, but wrote in an email that "the IPCC's canonical range gives about the right probability distribution: 2-4.5 °C [3.6-8.1 °F] is the likely range, with values below 1.5 °C [2.7 °F] being very unlikely."
http://mediamatters.org/mobile/blog/2012/12/20/wsjs-climate-dynamite-is-a-dud/191923
http://mediamatters.org/mobile/blog/2012/12/20/wsjs-climate-dynamite-is-a-dud/191923
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