Anybody who is paying the slightest bit of attention knows that Arctic summer sea ice is melting at a record pace because of warming of the atmosphere and the ocean. If you understand the idea of feedbacks, then you realize that increased summer ice melt leads to further ice melt because the earths albedo is reduced. Less ice means less solar radiation reflected back into space which, in turn, means further warming and even more melting of the ice.
Global warming’s effect on Arctic sea ice is also conditioned by atmospheric circulation, which can drive warmer winds and ocean currents into the Arctic Ocean. A recent paper published in Geophysical Research Letters, (abstract here and full article here-subscription required) suggests that since 2001 a significant change has taken place in atmospheric circulation patterns during the Arctic freezing season, which helps account for unusually high arctic surface air temperatures and increased sea-ice melt during the following summer.
[For an introduction to Arctic climatology and meteorology follow this link.]
Image right: NOAA photo of Arctic sea ice from spring 1950.
[2] The Arctic climate system change has conspicuously switched onto a fast track since the beginning of the 21st century. In particular, an extreme sea-ice coverage loss occurred in summer 2007 [e.g., Comiso et al., 2008]. Although these changes have been largely attributed to the greenhouse-gas-emissions-induced radiative forcing, the atmospheric circulation is the route by which global-warming-forcing exerts dynamic effects by driving sea-ice motions and exports, ocean currents and heat transport. The atmospheric circulation also determines formation and distribution of cloudiness as well as critically modulating surface radiative heat budgets. Accordingly, substantial Arctic climate system changes have been tightly associated, under conditions of global warming forcing, with the positively-polarized trend of the atmospheric circulation leading pattern, the Arctic/North Atlantic Oscillation (AO/NAO) [e.g., Rigor et al., 2002; Zhang et al., 2003].
[3] However, the AO/NAO has gone to neutral in the latest decade, clearly shifting away from the fast track of the changes, and unexpected from previous studies and global-warming-forced climate simulations [e.g., Thompson and Wallace, 1998; Osborn, 2004]. The driving role of the AO/NAO trend in underlying cryospheric, hydrospheric, and terrestrial subsystem changes has been substantially weakened [e.g., Maslanik et al., 2007]. Therefore, the rapid climate change signature in atmospheric circulations and its connection to other subsystem changes remain unclear.
Image below left: NASA photo of Arctic sea ice from June 2000.
Examining each time window, we found AO/NAO robustly represented the predominant variance (>20%) of atmospheric circulation variability; its tri-polar spatial pattern was retained until the early 21st century (Figure 1b). However, this persistence ended in 2001/02-2005/06. The previous tri-polar AO/NAO was transformed into a totally different dipole structure between the Eurasian Arctic coast and North Pacific. We propose that this new atmospheric circulation leading pattern – the Arctic Rapid change Pattern (ARP) – represents an unprecedented climate change signature, and plays a decisive role in driving recent rapid Arctic climate change.
Winter in the Arctic has long been determined by what researchers refer to as a “tri-polar” pattern. The interaction among the Icelandic Low, the Azores High and the subtropical high in the Pacific led to primarily east-west winds, a pattern which effectively blocked warmer air from moving northward into the Arctic region. [emphasis–JR]
But since the beginning of the decade, the patterns have changed. Now, a “dipolar” (bipolar) pattern has developed in which a high pressure system over Canada and a low pressure system over Siberia have the say. The result has been that Artic (sic) winds now blow north-south, meaning that warmer air from the south has no problem making its way into the Arctic region. [emphasis–JR] “It’s like a short-circuit,” says Rüdiger Gerdes, a scientist at the Alfred Webener Institute for Polar and Marine Research and one of the five authors of the study.
It’s important to understand that we are talking about a phenomenon that occurs during the Arctic freezing season. This is significant for the following summers sea-ice melt:
Results also suggest that the recent central Arctic warm anomaly in the freezing season is mainly attributable to enhanced heat transport associated with the ARP negative phase. The warmed atmosphere and accordingly thinned sea-ice would enhance the following melting season ice-albedo feedback.
According to the researchers, “The SAT [Surface Air Temperarture] anomaly reached 12.0°C in the 2005/06 winter relative to the 1958-97 average.”
This heightened temperature anomaly during the Arctic freezing season has continued according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
Air temperatures over the Arctic Ocean stayed warm through November, partly because of continued ocean-to-atmosphere heat transfer. However, some of the warmest anomalies were located well north of the open water areas seen in September. This regional pattern of warming points to the strong role of atmospheric circulation, pumping warm air into the region from the south. [emphasis–JR]
From 2001-2006 the ARP was in a negative phase with relatively high pressure over Siberia. In 2006-2007 it abruptly turned positive, which contributed to the record sea-ice melt of 2007. The authors of the study explain:
18] Starting in summer 2006, ARP quickly transitioned to the positive phase that persisted until summer 2007 (Figure 4a).[figure not included–JR]] While a surface heat surplus is continually maintained by enhanced atmospheric and oceanic heat transport from the North Pacific, the changed wind patterns pushed sea-ice back to the previously-warmed and ice-reduced North Atlantic side (Figure 4c). [figure not included–JR] The warmed ocean, increased solar radiation absorption in summer, and enhanced ice-albedo feedback due to previously-increased North Atlantic warm air and water intrusion and previously-reduced sea-ice cover maintained a persistent negative sea-ice anomaly over the North Atlantic Arctic (Figure 4c). [figure not included–JR] The reversed wind pattern also increased perennial-ice loss through Fram Strait. Simultaneously, the wind-stress-forced sea-ice redistribution favoured to empty the North Pacific Arctic. The positive-ARP-steered clear sky intensified surface solar radiation and albedo-feedback by the increased open ocean, and, in turn, contributed to vanishing sea ice cover over the North Pacific Arctic, which has been manifested by the weather forecast product and ice mass balance buoy [Perovich et al., 2008]. Taken together, the extreme loss of sea-ice area occurred.
The differences between sea-ice melt in 2006 when the ARP was in negative phase and the record-setting year of 2007 when it was in positive phase can be seen in the images below:
The decline of the AO/NAO and the rise or the ARP help to explain the increased melt rate of Arctic sea ice, but just how significant is the increase? According to James Overland from the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle:
Even if the Arctic circulation were to return to normal and would switch to the “dipolar” pattern just once in a decade, the situation would look grim, he said. “Each time we would see a loss of so much ice that it would be impossible to return to the initial state.” [emphasis–JR]
In other words, we have probably reached a tipping point from which there is now no turning back.
Gerdes and his co-authors fear that the changes in the Arctic could mean that a “new era of global-warming-forced climate change” has begun. [emphasis–JR] The volume of greenhouse gas emissions like CO2 and methane into the Earth’s atmosphere could have resulted in a permanent change in the global climate system.
If such is indeed the case, this will simply be one more instance in which Jim Hansen’s predictions have proven correct.
“In the case of Arctic Sea ice, we have already reached the point of no return,” [emphasis–JR] says the prominent American climate researcher James Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies at NASA.
Hey there in Poznan. Are you listening? Then stop your bickering and give us some real solutions.
Reuters reported today from the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Poznan, Poland that China and India have expressed concern that President-elect Obama’s proposal to restore US greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 is insufficient.
President-elect Barack Obama’s goals for curbing greenhouse gases to 2020 are inadequate to fight global warming, Chinese and Indian delegates told Reuters at U.N. climate talks on Wednesday.
Developing nations welcomed Obama’s plan for tougher goals than President George W. Bush but said Obama’s target of cutting U.S. greenhouse gas emissions back to 1990 levels by 2020 was not enough to avoid dangerous global warming.
“It’s more ambitious than President Bush but it is not enough to achieve the urgent, long-term goal of greenhouse gas reductions,” Tsinghua University’s He Jiankun, of the Chinese delegation, said on the sidelines of the December 1-12 talks.
“It’s not ambitious enough considering the Kyoto Protocol targets, but given the eight-year Bush administration it’s progress,” said Dinesh Patnaik, a director at the Indian Foreign Ministry.
The United States is isolated among industrialised nations in not ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, which obliges 37 developed nations to cut emissions by 2012 as a first step to avert more heatwaves, floods, droughts and rising sea levels.
Developing nations at the 187-nation meeting said rich nations should set even more ambitious targets, of cuts of 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 to shift from fossil fuels despite the financial crisis.
China and the United States are top emitters ahead of India and Russia. But U.S. emissions per capita are almost five times those of China and developing nations say the rich have spewed out most heat-trapping carbon since the Industrial Revolution.
The views of the Chinese and Indian delegates were echoed by others.
Earlier on Wednesday, a group of 43 small island states called for even tougher goals for cuts, saying that rising seas could wipe them off the map.
“We are not prepared to sign a suicide agreement,” said Selwin Hart of Barbados, a coordinator of the alliance of small island states, told Reuters at the 187-nation meeting.
They said that rich nations should cut emissions by 40 percent by 2020 below 1990 levels.
Last year the European Union announced a goal of cutting CO2 emissions by 20 per cent over 1990 levels as well as to produce 20% of its energy from renewable sources.
On the intersecting issues of climate and energy, the groups call for Congress to pass legislation in 2009 to cut emissions 35 percent below currently levels by 2020, and 80 percent below 1990 levels by midcentury. They also call for movement toward 100 percent clean electricity through “energy efficiency, modernizing the grid, and greatly expanding power generation from renewable energy resources.”
The groups making the recommendation were:
* American Rivers
* Center for International Environmental Law
* Clean Water Action
* Defenders of Wildlife
* Earth Justice
* Environment America
* Environmental Defense Fund
* Friends of the Earth
* Greenpeace
* Izaak Walton League
* League of Conservation Voters
* National Audubon Society
* National Parks Conservation Association
* National Tribal Environmental Council
* National Wildlife Federation
* Native American Rights Fund
* Natural Resources Defense Council
* Oceana
* Ocean Conservancy
* Pew Environment Group
* Physicians for Social Responsibility
* Population Connection
* Population Action International
* Rails-to-Trails Conservancy
* Sierra Club
* The Wilderness Society
* The Trust for Public Land
* Union of Concerned Scientists
* World Wildlife Fund.
Dr. James Hansen of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the world’s leading climate scientist is also concerned that anything less than immediate reductions will have disastrous consequences.
A practical global strategy almost surely requires a rising global price on CO2 emissions and phase-out of coal use except for cases where the CO2 is captured and sequestered. The carbon price should eliminate use of unconventional fossil fuels, unless, as is unlikely, the CO2 can be
captured. A reward system for improved agricultural and forestry practices that sequester carbon could remove the current CO2 overshoot. With simultaneous policies to reduce non-CO2 greenhouse gases, it appears still feasible to avert catastrophic climate change.
Present policies, with continued construction of coal-fired power plants without CO2 capture, suggest that decision-makers do not appreciate the gravity of the situation. We must begin to move now toward the era beyond fossil fuels. Continued growth of greenhouse gas emissions, for just another decade, practically eliminates the possibility of near-term return of atmospheric composition beneath the tipping level for catastrophic effects. [emphasis–JohnnyRook]
The most difficult task, phase-out over the next 20-25 years of coal use that does not capture CO2, is herculean, yet feasible when compared with the efforts that went into World War II. The stakes, for all life on the planet, surpass those of any previous crisis. The greatest danger is continued ignorance and denial, which could make tragic consequences unavoidable.
Other experts doubt whether it is feasible to do more than President-elect Obama has called for. Joe Romm at Climate Progress, who thinks that stabilization of C02 emissions at 450ppm rather than the 350ppm Hansen is calling for is the best we can do politically, writes:
I have already heard some enviros (sic) attack Obama for “only” going back to 1990 levels by 2020 — even though that is the same goal that Arnold Schwarzenegger has in California, which has had years to develop and employ more serious and aggressive strategies. In fact, getting back to 1990 levels will require all of the talent, eloquence, and magic PEBO has — and he’ll need the support and hard work of every last one of us.[emphasis Joe Romm]
(By the way, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), United States emissions are currently 16.7% above 1990 levels.)
How does one sort out who is right in this debate? What should be the goals of the developed countries, including the United States, for CO2 emissions reductions by 2020? Should we return to 1990 levels as Obama proposes for the United States and that Joe Romm says is the maximum that we can realistically expect to achieve politically? Or do we shoot for 20% reductions as the European Union is doing (not very successfully, one might add)? What about the 35% reduction that the coalition of 29 major environmental groups is calling for,or the 25% to 40% cuts that the Chinese and Indians are say are necessary? Is it feasible to cut emissions by 40%, as the island nations want?
{I assume that my readers have enough imagination to understand that one’s sense of urgency might be greater if much or all of your country is threatened by inundation from rising sea levels. According to the admittedly conservative IPCC 4th report even stablization at 450 will lead to at least a half meter of sea level rise by century’s end, effectively removing some low-lying nations form the map. Moreover, because of warming already in the pipeline at that point, the world will continue to warm and seas to rise even after that.}
What if Jim Hansen and Joe Romm are both right? What if Hansen’s right when he says that
“Continued growth of greenhouse gas emissions, for just another decade, practically eliminates the possibility of near-term return of atmospheric composition beneath the tipping level for catastrophic effects.”
and Joe Romm is right when he argues that:
In fact, getting back to 1990 levels will require all of the talent, eloquence, and magic PEBO has — and he’ll need the support and hard work of every last one of us.
The positions are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Returning to 1990 levels by 2020 could meet Hansen’s goal of stopping the rise in CO2 emissions within the decade depending on how fast we make the cuts (that is, we can’t let them rise until 2019 and then cut them–the process has to begin now.)
The problem that I see is that if the if Dr. Romm is right and a return to 1990 levels by 2020 is all that the Obama administration can feasibly do politically, then the US has no room to negotiate. If our maximum possible cuts are below what the rest of the world is calling for how can the United States provide the leadership on stopping Climaticide that the rest of the world is expecting from us?
Update 1: Check out this article from businessGreen.com to learn about the Contraction and Convergence proposal that Brazil is offering as a way to resolve the impasse between the developed and the developing countries.
Update 2: Joe Romm has an interesting, related post at Climate Progress: What will make Obama a great president, Part 2: A climate deal with China
Climaticide is a national security issue, potentially the biggest national security problem we face. Consequently, anyone concerned about global warming also needs to be concerned about the qualifications of the person who occupies the post of National Security Advisor. And, unfortunately, there are reasons for concern.
Yesterday, Barack Obama announced a number of cabinet post appointments, most prominent of which was Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. I am certain that Clinton’s appointment will cause some controversy, but it’s the appointment, of retired Wikipedia“>Marine Corps General James L. Jones as National Security Advisor that I wish to discuss today.
I have no problem with General Jones’s military qualifications, which appear to be outstanding. Rather it is his position on global warming and his ties to industry and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, an organization notorious for its opposition to taking serious action on Climaticide that concerns me.
General Jones is currently the head of a policy organization sponsored by the USCC known as the Institute for 21st Century Energy. Since its inception roughly 18 months ago the Institute has issued a number of papers on energy policy. These papers purport to put forth an energy plan for the United States, but in reality their recommendations are nothing more than an all-of-the-above list, which is usually nothing more than a paying of lip service to sustainable energy while keeping discussion of continued use of fossil fuels on the table. For more info see A. Siegel’s analysis here.
General Jones joined the Board of Directors of The Boeing Company on June 21, 2007. He serves on the company’s Audit and Finance Committees.
On May 28, 2008, General Jones was elected to the board of directors of Chevron Corporation.
The General was also a McCain advisor as A. Siegel has pointed out. Given General Jones’s close association with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the McCain campaign, which was completely hypocritical about its commitment to sustainable energy, one might be excused for having doubts about the sincerity of the General’s convictions when it comes to renewable, sustainable energy.
In an attempt to understand where General Jones stands not simply on energy policy but also on global warming (a term by the way, as far as I can tell, he never uses, I have gone through and read all the speeches (at least those available on the Institute’s web site) he has given since becoming head of the Institute for 21st Century Energy.
Below I give selections along with the speeches along with my commentary. I have not included the speeches in their entirety. Much of what the general says, in the abstract, would be acceptable to any climate activist. I have generally omitted such comments which the reader can find by going to the web site and reading the whole speech. Speeches are identified by the date on which they were given. My comments are in italics in parenthesis.
9/30/08
We have demanded more energy, and then restricted energy exploration and production.
We have expressed concerns about possible brownouts or blackouts, and then opposed the construction of new power plants or transmission lines.
[Sounds like a call for oil and gas exploration and new coal-fired power plants.]
But for too many decades, the government has been taking energy options off the table. It has placed 85 percent of our oil and gas reserves off limits, underinvested in research needed to get clean energy sources into the marketplace, and constructed a regulatory framework that prevented new infrastructure from being built.
[Drill, Baby, Drill! By all means lets drill all our oil and gas reserves even though that will contribute to further global warming and do next to nothing to solve our energy problems.]
The United States can no longer afford this approach. We are at a turning point when it comes to energy. Global demand for energy will increase by more than 50 percent between now and 2030 – and by as much as 30 percent here in the United States. And we must find new, viable and clean sources of energy to meet this surge in demand.
These energy projections are based on a business as usual (BAU) scenario. Business as usual scenarios will lead to catastrophic climate change. Why would an organization proposing energy solutions even consider such a possibility?
This constant phasing-in and phasing-out of tax credits limits capital formation and investment in advancing these technologies. So we are recommending these credits be extended for eight years and then phased out over the succeeding four years. This will provide a steady window of certainty and opportunity, while also ensuring that these technologies ultimately succeed or not based on their own commercial merits.
[Remember this comment. Will come back to it in a minute.]
In addition to better developing and utilizing renewable energy sources, we need to better utilize some of the abundant traditional sources of energy that we have here in the United States.
[Can you say COAL children?]
Coal is currently responsible for generating more than half of our nation’s electricity. And at our current usage rates, there is enough coal in our reserves to last for well over 200 years.
[By which time CO2 will be at 2000ppm or more]
The challenge is using coal in an environmentally-responsible manner. To do that, we must develop carbon capture and storage technologiess that will allow us to use coal while minimizing air pollution and CO2 emissions.
This technology has great promise, but is also complex and expensive. So we are recommending increased support by both the federal government and the private sector for R & D into these technologies, so that their progress can be accelerated.
[Clean coal does not exist. At this point there are only a very few small-scale CCS demonstration projects going on world wide. It is unlikely to ever be commercially viable both because of economics (CCS destroys any economic advantage that coal might have) and technological problems. It would take infrastructure the size of our current oil extraction infrastructure to be feasible]
At the same time, we must also recognize that we cannot innovate or conserve our way out of this crisis. To fuel America’s economic growth, we’re going to need more oil and gas and we are going to need for a long time to come. And our economic and national security interests are going to be much better served if we have access to our abundant domestic sources.
[Again it’s Drill Baby Drill!]
Unfortunately, for several decades now, government policies have placed these resources off limits for exploration. Today the ban on accessing oil and gas resources of federal lands and off our shores expired in the Congress. This ban should permanently end and not be revived by the next Congress. In fact, the next Congress should adopt a much more strategic approach to the long-term solutions which the public rightfully demands.
[Drill for more fossil fuels. This is getting repetitive isn’t it?]
So our recommendations include making better use of the domestic resources on and off our shores with environmentally-responsible technology – and allowing states to share in royalties from such production. The way in which off shore drilling survived two recent hurricanes underscores just how advanced our technology has come towards ensuring that we can protect the environment in times of natural crisis.
[Oil exploration and consumption is the source of a man-made crisis. General Jones argues that we should feel encouraged to use fossil fuels by the fact that we can (supposedly) avoid oil spills during hurricanes, while ignoring the fact that consumption of those fuels contributes to the biggest crisis of all: Climaticide.]
Let us also be clear on one other point…any dialogue about diversifying our energy supplies must include nuclear energy, our nation’s largest emission-free source of electricity. The United States relies on nuclear power for 20 percent of its electricity, yet we haven’t licensed a new nuclear power facility in nearly 30 years.
To increase nuclear’s role, we must enhance the federal government’s partnership with the private sector. Our recommendations include expanding the existing federal loan guarantee program to support more than just two or three new plants. And we also need a responsible “back end” strategy so that our used fuel can be recycled and then safely disposed.
[Remember that above General Jones advocated extending tax credits for sustainable energy for eight years then phasing it out over 4 years. (Contrast this with European policies which guarantee rates for sustainable energy for 20 years for those installing solar panels, etc.) But now that the General is talking about nuclear energy he calls for “expanding the existing federal loan guarantee program” without mentioning time limits or phasing out periods. Wonder why that is? Oh, that’s right, he heads an organization sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.]
6-16-2008
Technology is the key to finding solutions. We must focus on the development and application of clean energy technologies both at home and abroad. Not just alternative sources, but technologies that allow us to continue to tap and use, in an environmentally sound manner, the tremendous reserves of oil, coal, and gas that exist around the globe.
[More fossil fuel use plus (did you get that “around the globe part?”) and by depending on foreign sources of energy, the “necessity” of maintaining our imperial military presence in the world. Have to protect those supply lines!]
5-20-2008
Our electricity sectors are heavily dependent on coal. Half of America’s electricity is generated from coal, and three-quarters of China’s. For that reason, we need to find new and affordable ways that will allow us to continue using coal in efficient and environmentally sound ways.
A common solution to reducing carbon emissions in the production of electricity is the increased use of nuclear power. The United States and China have much to gain by cooperating in the field of nuclear power. Specifically, we can work together by sharing information on nuclear power plant construction and operations, cooperating on parts and materials, and standardizing high quality assurance programs. We also need to move toward Generation IV reactors to reduce nuclear waste, the production of weapons-grade materials, and the long-run potential for uranium shortages.
[Generation IV reactors are decades away from commercial application and will contribute nothing to stopping global warming now, but now is precisely when we need to take action.]
Cooperative research and development is a necessary approach to obtain the technological innovations required to sustain economic growth and use energy more efficiently, at the same time as reducing the potential for harmful effects on the environment. Technology and equipment for increased efficiency and joint projects on renewables are necessary components of our strategies. To advance technological cooperation, for example, we need to address trade issues and examine tariffs and other trade barriers, which will be part of the discussion on the third panel tomorrow morning.
[Trade issues and tariffs do need to be addressed as Obama mentioned during the campaign, but this sounds like a call for reducing barriers to trade. What we need is renegotiate trade agreements so that they protect workers and the environment, and also (this doesn’t get talked about enough) so that tariffs can be imposed in the future on goods from nations that refuse to cooperate on international measures against global warming in the hopes of gaining a price advantage over more responsible nations.]
3-26-2008
The Institute is not engaging in the scientific debate over the reality or consequences of climate change; we accept the phenomenon that the earth is warming and that we must craft common-sense solutions to ensure a clean environment, as well as a strong economy.
[What scientific debate over “the reality of climate change?” The Institute’s sponsor, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has historically been one of the main groups involved in confusing the public by denying the reality of global warming. Now that that position is no longer tenable, they have turned to greenwashing. They still don’t seem to be able to just come out and admit that global warming is anthropogenic in origin.]
3-14-2008
Let me talk for a moment about climate change – a key aspect of energy security. There are more divergent points of view on the issue of climate than on any other issue I have confronted in my career. The Institute for 21st Century Energy is not challenging climate change science or the consequences of this phenomenon. The earth is warming and that we must craft common-sense solutions to address it. We believe that action should be taken in three areas:
[Another denialist/delayer way of stating the question. There supposedly are many divergent points of view, but in reality there are only two points of view: those of the climate scientists who study and understand the issues and those of their greedy and near-sighted corporate opponents and their confused ideologically-motivated supporters. Notice that once again the General does not recognize that global warming is caused by human beings. But if you’re unwilling to recognize the source of global warming, how can you adopt wise policies to deal with it?]
Energy supply and demand – Worldwide energy use is increasing twice as fast as energy production, so we have a big challenge ahead of us. Simply put, energy supplies will fall short of demand, meaning higher prices. We must develop a plan to deal with this gap between demand and supply. We can address this gap through technology, efficiency, expansion of existing sources, and developing alternative forms of energy. We must take advantage of all sources of energy, including the continued use of fossil fuels, for at least the foreseeable future. There is no single solution to providing adequate supplies of energy – we must rely on all possible sources.
[Apparently, although he calls for efficiency measures General Jones doesn’t believe they will work. So we will have to continue to rely on fossil fuels for the “foreseeable future”. How long might that be? Until those sources are exhausted, perhaps?]
Energy and the environment – We cannot have a realistic energy strategy without addressing the environment. We need a purposeful and rational approach, not a hysterical one, to manage the risk of climate change. And it must be global in scope. It is part of our leadership role in the world.
[Does the general mean all of us “hysterics” who keep pointing out that continuing to use fossil fuels for the “foreseeable future” will lead to catastrophic and irreversible climate change condemning future generations to untold misery and suffering?]
Energy technology – Technology is the key to finding solutions. We must focus on the development and application of clean energy technologies at home and abroad-including nuclear power. And not just alternative sources, but technologies that allow us to continue to tap and use, in an environmentally sound manner, the tremendous reserves of oil, coal, and gas that exist domestically and around the globe. We will include a comprehensive look at the state of our technologies as they relate to all formers of energy sources.
[There it is again, that mysterious “environmentally sound manner” in which we are going to use all those environmentally unsound “reserves of oil, coal and gas that exist domestically and around the globe”.]
This is a huge issue and, frankly, we at the Institute have not figured out yet how to tackle it. Consider the magnitude of infrastructure this country depends upon – 800,000 oil and natural gas wells, over 700 oil refineries, 25,000 wind turbines, 55,000 miles of oil pipelines, and 200,000 miles of power transmission lines. We need a plan to modernize, expand, and protect this country’s infrastructure.
[It was nice of the General to throw in the sop to wind turbines, but really, is expanding our 7800,000 oil and natural gas wells, 700 oil refineries and 55,000 miles of pipeline an energy plan for the 21st century? If so, it will be a 21st century in which atmospheric CO2 will certainly double by mid-century to 560ppp (from pre-industrial levels of of 280ppm) leading to the melting away of alpine glaciers, the disappearance of summer sea-ice, increased melting of Greenland and Antarctic ice, sea-level rise, extension of areas of drought and severe storms, further extinction of species, the spread of disease, acidification of the oceans and the creation of millions of climate refuges]
Energy security does not mean “energy independence,” although this is a popular slogan used by our politicians and it makes a great bumper sticker. “Energy independence” is a fantasy. We operate in a global economy and an international energy market. Thinking in terms of energy interdependence will lead to sounder and more realistic policies.
[Translated this means that we will continue to spend enormous sums on the military to protect the supply lines that bring us all those deadly but “necessary” fossil fuels from all over the world.]
6-12-2007
Energy Technology — We must also focus on the development and application of clean energy technologies at home and abroad–including nuclear power. And not just alternative sources, but technologies that allow us to continue to tap and use, in an environmentally sound manner, the tremendous reserves of oil, coal, and gas that exist here and across the globe.
First, we must maintain a strong economy and boost American jobs and competitiveness by iincreasing the nation’s energy supply from all sources–oil, gas, coal, nuclear, and alternative fuels and technologies.
[There’s another reference to alternative fuels, right after “oil, gas, coal, nuclear…”]
Rightly or wrongly, the United States has been seen internationally as the source of many energy-related problems, not the source of solutions. America has an exciting opportunity to lead the world to innovative solutions that would spur economic growth and clean the environment. We can be the champion of new technologies that foster greater energy efficiency, the development of viable alternatives, and cleaner and more effective methods to find, extract, and use of traditional energy sources. The Institute will provide the framework for helping to achieve these objectives.
[Rightly or wrongly? Rightly or wrongly? Once again, the general seems to be unable to utter the simple truths that might lend some credibility to what he is saying.]
Well, I’m certain that you’ve had enough by now. I know that there is a theory that Barack Obama is creating some sort of Team of Rivals cabinet, but how can one not be concerned about the appointment of someone like General James L. Jones to the post of National Security Advisor?
The principal problem with the solutions that General Jones and the Institute for 21st Century Energy propose is that they are wholly inadequate to solve the problem of Climaticide.. The relatively conservative estimates of the 4th IPCC report state that if we are to stablize emissions at 450ppm (which is 100ppm higher than James Hansen says is necessary if we are to avoid catastrophic consequences), GHG emissions must peak by 2020 and decline rapidly after that. This can be achieved only if we make a full-scale and rapid transition to sustainable energy sources. Thus it makes no sense to continue oil exploration at all, let alone subsidize it, as we will not be able to use the oil without threatening ourselves with climate disaster. Those resources should be invested in renewables and, perhaps, in some nuclear.
Additionally, do we really need someone in the NSA position who sits on the Chevron Board of Directors? I thought that one of the things the last election was about was getting rid of the oil guys. Do we need someone who heads The Institute for 21st Century Energy but speaks, despite all the greenwashing references to alternative energy, as if he’s actually the head of the Institute for 19th Century Energy? I don’t think so.
1. Greater leadership Worldwide, 48% of people believe governments should be playing a leading role in tackling climate change, but only 25% think they are doing so.
2. Direct action People want their governments to focus on ‘big issue’ direct actions such as increasing investment in renewable energy, halting deforestation, conserving water resources and protecting ecosystems.
3. A simple ‘fair sharing’ of global emission reductions The vast majority of people (78%) want their countries to take on at least their ‘fair share’ of emissions reductions, in proportion to their current share of global emissions.
INDIVIDUALS
A new study from HSBC Climate Partnership, a joint project of the international bank and climate NGOs such as the Climate Group, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Earthwatch Institute, and WWF, shows that people polled in 12 countries around the world (full report here) PDF want their governments and business leaders to do more to fight Climaticide.
The results of the group’s climate confidence monitor are based on an internet questionnaire presented to to 1,000 people each in 12 countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, Mexico, UK and the US. The survey was conducted between mid-September and early October 2008.This is particularly encouraging news given that poll respondents were interview during the months of September and October when news headlines were dominated by stories of the financial crisis.
Despite the looming prospect of a deep global recession, 43% of the 12,000 respondents of the survey chose climate change ahead of the global economy when asked about their current concerns. Worldwide, 77% of respondents wanted to see their governments cutting carbon by their fair share or more, in order to allow developing countries to grow their economies.
In summary, despite a global recession people want their governments to do more to stop Climaticide. That is indeed good news, but…
According to the BBC:
However, the numbers saying they would alter their lifestyles to reduce climate change had fallen in the year between the previous survey, in 2007, and this one. [From 60% to 50%–JR]
This still left sizable majorities in most of the developing countries polled – Brazil, India, Malaysia and Mexico – saying they were willing to make changes.
So, irony of ironies, despite the recession, people in developing countries are more willing to change their lifestyles to combat global warming than people in developed countries.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it. –Upton Sinclair
Maybe Sinclair should have added, “particularly in rich countries”.
Let me see, do we have a problem here? People want their governments to do more (including 72% of Americans) to stop global warming, but fewer of them, particularly in developed countries, want it to affect their lifestyle. Now how do they think that is going to happen, pray tell?
You’ll pardon me, though, if I’ve become a bit cynical about all of this. I have read or heard so many people saying,” We’re having a green revolution.” Of course, there is certainly a lot of green buzz out there. But whenever I hear that “we’re having a green revolution” line I can’t resist firing back: “Really? Really? A green revolution? Have you ever seen a revolution where no one got hurt? That’s the green revolution that we’re having.” In the green revolution we’re having, everyone’s a winner, nobody has to give up anything, and the adjective that most often modifies “green revolution” is “easy.” That’s not a revolution. That’s a party We’re actually having a green party. And, I have to say, it’s a lot of fun. I get invited to all the parties. But in America, at least, it is mostly a costume party. It’s all about looking green–and everyone’s a winner. There are no losers. The American farmers are winners. They’re green. They get to grow ethanol and garner huge government subsidies for doing so, even though it makes no real sense as a CO2-reduction strategy. Exxon-Mobil says it’s getting green and General Motors does too.
…
Coal companies are going green by renaming themselves “energy” companies and stressing how sequestration of CO2, something none of them has even done will give us “clean coal.” (pp. 205-206)
Let’s be completely honest here, it’s good news that people want their governments to do more and let’s hope that this sentiment translates into pressure on governments to walk their talk, which they’re increasingly failing to do, (more about that below) but there is no way that governments can stop global warming without us changing our lifestyles. It simply is impossible.
James Howard Kunstler has written an excellent essay on this topic over at AlterNet. Here’s an excerpt, but you really read the entire piece.
To be specific about this new economy, we’re going to have to make things again, and raise things out of the earth, locally, and trade these things for money of some kind that we earn through our own productive activities. Don’t make the mistake of thinking this is optional. The only other option is to go through a violent sociopolitical convulsion. We ought to know from prior examples in world history that this is not a desirable experience. So, to avoid that, we really have to put our shoulders to the wheel and get to work on things that matter, and do it at a scale that is consistent with what the world really has to offer right now, especially in terms of available energy.
CORPORATIONS
Of course, it’s not just your average American or European who doesn’t want to change his lifestyle that’s holding up action on Climaticide. For decades now corporations such as Exxon and Peabody Dirty Coal Energy have been waging an expensive propaganda war first to deny the reality of global warming, then when that became impossible, to delay action as long as possible. Recently, with the high price of oil and the financial meltdown they have stepped up their efforts. As A. Siegel has pointed out (by the way this is another article that needs to be read in it’s entirety):
Although, ostensibly, the Institute for 21’s Century Energy exists to engage in a discussion of energy policy, it is quite clearly at this point simply another industry front group fighting to keep the government from taking the necessary action against Climaticide, because, as we always know, it’s easier to keep doing things as they have always done them than change and give up profits (that is until a hurricane takes out New York or Los Angeles and all those corporate headquarters).
As I have pointed out elsewhere (see: The Big Lie: Exxon’s Interests are the Same as Yours) large corporations want to sucker you into thinking that your well-being depends on their well being, despite the fact that there is ample evidence to contradict such a position. The point that our, the citizens’, interests are different from those of multinational corporation is so patently obvious that even staid scientific journals like Nature feel obliged to run editorials on the subject.
Let’s summarize so far. People around the world want more government action to stop Climaticide except that in the developed world there is a pie-in-the-sky hope that it can happen without our having to change in any way how we live. Meanwhile corporations pour millions into greenwashing ads and lobbying efforts such as those of the aforementioned Institute for 21’s Century Energy.
GOVERNMENTS
But what about governments? According to the HSBC Climate Partnership poll, people around the world want their governments to do more to stop climate change. So, How are they doing? Not so well either it turns out.
In the US the Bush administration is doing everything in its power to undermine as many environmental regulations as it can before leaving office (nothing surprising there). Meanwhile the Europeans, who up until recently had held the moral high ground on the issue of Climaticide are fighting amongst themselves as the economic downtown creates an every nation for itself attitude.
An article in TerraDaily reports:
Battered by the economic headwinds and unable to hammer out a plan to fight global warming, Europe has ruined its ambition to lead the world at upcoming international climate talks in Poznan, Poland.
The European Union has fixed an ambitious triple objective for itself to achieve by 2020, the so-called 20-20-20 goals; a 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels, bringing renewable energy
use up to 20 percent of the total, and an overall cut of 20 percent in energy use.
So far so good, however while all 27 EU member states are happy to embrace the broad, overall goals, the devil is in the eco-detail, with countries keen to protect their own industries.
The polluter-pays principle is proving a tough pill to swallow, especially if the rest of the world is not being hit by the same restrictions.
Eyes are turning increasingly towards the US and emerging giants China and India to match the European objectives.[emphasis–JR]
The European plan imposes a doubly whammy on its industry; to cut down on polluting emissions and to buy allowances for the CO2 they do produce.
“We’ll have to show all our dexterity and ingenuity to find compromise solutions without jeopardising the plan’s main planks,” said EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas.
The EU’s biggest industrial power Germany, which is entering an election period, is the most difficult country to get on board, according to negotiators.
(It should be noted in further support of the notion that the laws of physics, chemistry and biology trump the laws of governments that the WWF has just released a new report in which it argues that whatever confronting Climaticide costs, it will be less than the cost of not confronting it. This report’s conclusions are in line with those reached by Nicholas Stern in 2006 when he concluded that not acting to halt global warming could cost the global economy nearly 5 trillion dollars. Meanwhile, Greenpeace estimates that coal use alone costs the world 360 billion euros in damage to human health and the environment. (And of course the longer we wait, the bigger the price tag gets).
Down Under the Australian government is feeling the pressure to restructure climate agreements in ways that they feel will do them less harm economically (everybody’s scared that someone else is going to get an advantage on them).
Canberra is pushing to change the rules for international climate change talks in Copenhagen next year to prevent rich developed countries, such as Singapore and South Korea, being required to do less because the Kyoto Protocol classifies them as developing.
Australia argues that the next global climate change deal should require binding economy-wide targets of developed countries, with unspecified binding “action” required of developing nations. But, in its submission to the UN ahead of next month’s meeting in Poznan, Poland, to prepare for the Copenhagen talks, the Australian Government says the Kyoto delineation of developed and developing is unfair.
To which Nobuo Tanaka, head of the International Energy Agency responded:
… countries such as Australia should not delay greenhouse measures due to the global financial crisis.
“It is not the case that the global financial crisis should delay measures to mitigate climate change because the cost will only get higher in the future,” Mr Tanaka said.
He warned oil prices could soar after the financial crisis and urged governments to spend some of their fiscal stimulus on renewable energy and energy efficiency projects.
The decision by the administration of Cristina Fernández to veto a law to protect Argentina’s glaciers — important reserves of freshwater — has caused deep concern among scientists and environmentalists who participated in writing the legislation.
“We worked closely with the legislators to get this law passed,” said a disappointed Ricardo Villalba, geoscientist and director of the Argentine government’s institute for snow and glacier research, IANIGLA.
“It’s difficult to understand what happened. The scientific community doesn’t want to slow economic development, but rather preserve freshwater sources in a region where the provinces rely on those reserves for consumption and irrigation,” Villalba, a member of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told Tierramérica.
The law would have affected projects like the Pascua Lama mine, which Canadian mining giant Barrick Gold is pursuing in the Andes in a border area between the western Argentine province of San Juan and the Chilean region of Atacama, to mine gold, silver and copper over the next 20 years.
Barrick’s investment in the project would be about 2.4 billion dollars, according to the latest estimates, and the mine would produce annually some 615,000 ounces of gold and 30 million ounces of silver, plus 5,000 tonnes of copper concentrate through leaching with cyanide to separate the metal from the ore.
The mining project has already been approved by both Chile and Argentina, despite the harm it would cause area glaciers and despite the strong resistance from residents on both sides of the border, who have been campaigning for years against mining and in favour of preserving the freshwater reserves.
BARACK OBAMA AND THE IMPORTANCE OF UNITED STATES LEADERSHIP
The page where the Argentina glacier story is reported has a sidebar with a picture of Barack Obama and the question Obama: A New Era? Let us hope so, because without US leadership we will fail to meet the challenge posed by Climaticide. Only Obama has the position and ability to convince and inspire the American people to accept the collective sacrifice that the conjunction of economic and climate crisis make necessary. And only an Obama administration committed to serious, science-based action on global warming will be able to rally the Europeans to overcome their infighting, which is a prerequisite to getting the Chinese and Indians on board.
On Monday, The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Poznań, Poland will begin . The Conference’s task is to do preparatory work for next year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen where the next stage of the Kyoto Protocol is to be worked out. Unfortunately, the Bush administration is still in power so the United States will fail to exercise the leadership that it needs to. This makes it that just that much more important for Obama to start to spend some (maybe a lot) of his political capital on confronting Climaticide starting immediately on January 20, 2009.
For those of us of living in the developed world in temperate climes, global warming can still seem abstract and far off both spatially and temporally, but there are places on the planet (and if you’re paying attention you realize that some of them actually are quite close to home) where the predicted (by the climate models all you denialists/deniers!) effects of our Climaticide are already being felt acutely. The powerful video below from an African climate activist clearly illustrates that fact.
I got to this video (made by a UK group called Christian Action) from the No New Coal web site. No New Coal is one of the many UK web sites opposed to E.ON’s new coal-fired power plant at Kingsnorth. The Kingsnorth anti-coal activists are some of the most motivated and active that I’m aware of. They serve as a model for other groups wishing to oppose new coal-fired power plants including here in the United States.
On a personal note: reading the above article reminded me of a conversation that I had with a nurse’s aid from Eritrea during my last hospitalization. He explained to me that in the area (up in the mountains away from the coast) where he used to live, traditionally they had been able to raise two harvests a year. The first was dependent on heavy spring rains. The second, the fall harvest was more subtle: it depended on dew that collected on the plants during the night and that was sufficient with proper care to water certain crops. For several years now these autumn crops have failed because, unlike in the past, the area now receives strong dry winds in the fall which dry out the dew. Now I can’t tell you for certain that Climaticide is the culprit here, but changes in atmospheric winds is one of the predictions made by the climate modelers and the Horn of Africa is one of the areas where such changes are supposed to occur.
The appearance of the rifts is consistent with ice shelf behavior just before a breakup. See: When Ice Shelves Collapse: A Brief Tutorial As the ice shelf is floating, it’s collapse will not directly contribute to sea-level rise, but recent research has shown that removal of ice shelves is the major factor contributing to ice sheet movement. The Wilkins ice shelf is an anomaly that formed from sea ice and has little inflow from the ice sheet, so it’s demise is unlikely to contribute much to movement of the ice sheet. In most cases however, ice shelves serve as stoppers on the movement of the ice sheets behind them. Warming air (the Antarctic ice shelf has warmed 2.5 degree Celsius in the last 50 years) and warming sea water cause melting of the ice shelf. When the ice shelf, which is anchored to the seabed at its terminus breaks up, the stopper is removed and the ice sheet is free to move. Historically, movement has increased up to 8 times in the wake of ice shelf collapse.
The image below from the National Snow and Ice Data Center shows the ice shelf and Charcot and Latady Islands (between -70 and -71 degrees on the left hand side) before the the earlier breakups this year, which reduced the ice shelf to the narrow finger that it is now.
The Wilkins ice shelf seems unlikely to survive the Antarctic summer which is beginning now. Amazingly, the earlier breakups this year occurred during the Antarctic Winter.
If you are alarmed by this news, (and you should be) allow me to remind you that today is the final day for comments to be made to the EPA on whether it should regulate CO2 as a danger to human health. I would encourage you to follow this direct link and sign the petition. You can see my post on this topic here.
I received the following email from the We Campaign today and thought that I would repost it here in the hopes that some of my fellow Kossacks would take the time to sign Repower America’s petition to the EPA calling on it to regulate CO2 pollution as a danger to our health and the health of the climate we depend on. Please take a moment and sign now. (It’s really easy). The deadline for comments ends Friday.
Thanks, Johnny Rook
Tell the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide pollution.
Friday is the last day to voice your opinion on whether the EPA — the Environmental Protection Agency — should regulate carbon dioxide pollution, the primary cause of the climate crisis. This is a big deal.
Of course, special interests — like the oil and coal lobbies — are working overtime to defeat a positive ruling and have already gotten thousands of comments submitted in opposition.
Most people don’t know about this opportunity for public comment, so your voice can make a real difference. And with a new president in the White House, it’s likely that someone will actually be listening. Submit your public comment to the EPA here.
In April 2007 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to regulate carbon dioxide if it is harming our health and welfare. After more than a year of delay, the EPA is finally now requesting public comments on whether carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping pollutants are endangering our health and our climate.
Join us, and send a message about how crucial it is to reduce harmful carbon dioxide pollution. That you expect the EPA to use its powers to protect our health and welfare. That we can “Repower America” by using energy sources that don’t emit carbon dioxide, and make the switch to 100% clean electricity. And that the solutions to the climate crisis are the same ones needed to address our economic and security challenges.
The EPA is taking public comment, before making a ruling.
This is our chance to go on the public record — all the comments will be posted on the EPA’s website. To post your public comment, just go here.
For nearly eight years, the Bush administration has done nothing to address the growing threats we face from global warming. Hurricanes are getting stronger, the North polar icecap is melting, and we’ve suffered through intense droughts, floods and killer heat waves.
The deadline is November 28th. Let’s help end the era of delay.
A few days ago, Dr. James Hansen of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and perhaps the world’s leading climate scientist, released a draft of a paper entitled Tell Barack Obama the Truth–The Whole Truth (PDF).
In response, another highly respected scientist, physicist and former acting assistant secretary of energy for energy efficiency and renewable energy in the Clinton administration, Joe Romm responded to Hansen on his blog Climate Progress with the post:An Open Letter to James Hansen on the real truth about stabilizing at 350 ppm
To give you some sense of perspective, this is the Climaticide equivalent of the Ali-Frazier fight. We are talking heavyweights here.
Now, before any denialist/delayer starts salivating about a disagreement between such high-level specialists let me make it clear that the disagreement between the Hansen and Romm is NOT about climate science but rather about the policy decisions necessary to stop global warming before catastrophic consequences are inevitable.
Hansen has argued and he has quite a lot of support that we must reduce CO2 levels in the atmosphere to under 350 ppm (see technical paper–Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?here: (remember the pre-industrial level was 280 ppm) if we are to avoid all sorts of disastrous consequences, but most specifically wide-scale species extinction and catastrophic sea-level rise.
Romm thinks that Hansen is probably right about this, but that it is politically impossible and technologically extremely challenging, to make the changes that Hansen recommends (complete phasing out of coal use that does not include Carbon Capture and Storage by 2030) fast enough to achieve this goal by 2050. Romm thinks that we should shoot for 450 ppm by 2050 and that even that is going to be extremely difficult to pull off, again principally for political reasons, and secondly for technological ones (the scale of the operation).
Anyone seriously interested in global warming should read both Hansen’s paper and Romm’s response in their entirety. The papers are not particularly technical, have lots of links to more information and can be understood by any reasonably intelligent person. The disagreements have to do, as already stated with how much we can get done how fast, but also include policy questions of carbon tax vs. cap and trade, the role of nuclear power, whether consumers should receive a dividend to offset the price increases from any carbon tax, how much of the change can be carried out by the free market and how much will require government direction and investment in infrastructure-all vital questions that need to be debated, now more than ever because we will soon have a president who appears willing to take action on climate change, although, at this point, probably not enough.
The Scale of the Solution…
The policy questions are interesting, and, I repeat, you should read both articles, but, at this point, the real significance for the public at large is not whose policies are correct, (if you’re not truly an expert, I don’t think you can even attempt to make that decision) but rather what both authors acknowledge: the effort required to solve the crisis is going to be enormous., more enormous than most people can even imagine and that includes most people already interested in the issue.
First Hansen:
The most difficult task, phase-out over the next 20-25 years of coal use that does not capture CO2, is Herculean, yet feasible when compared with the efforts that went into WWII.
Romm is even more emphatic when he quotes from his own book Hell and High Water to make the point
This national (and global) reindustrialization effort would be on the scale of what we did in WWII, except it would last far longer. [emphasis–JR] “In nine months, the entire capacity of the prolific automobile industry had been converted to the production of tanks, guns, planes and bombs,” explains Doris Kearns Goodwin in her 1994 book on the World War II homefront, No Ordinary Time. “The industry that once built 4 million cars a year was now building three fourths of the nation’s aircraft engines, one half of all tanks, and one third of all machine guns.”
The scale of the effort was astonishing. The physicist Edward Teller tells the story of how Niels Bohr had insisted in 1939 that making a nuclear bomb would take an enormous national effort, one without any precedent. When Bohr came to see the huge Los Alamos facility years later, he said to Teller. “You see, I told you it couldn’t be done without turning the whole economy into a factory. You have done just that.” And we did it in under five years.
But of course we had been attacked at Pearl Harbor, the world was at war, and the entire country was united against a common enemy. This made possible tax increases, rationing of items like tires and gasoline, comprehensive wage and price controls, a War Production Board with broad powers (it could mandate what clothing could be made for civilians), and a Controlled Material Plan that set allotments of critical materials (steel, copper, and aluminum) for different contractors.
So both experts agree that in order to stop Climaticide we are going to need an effort on the scale of WWII and not just for five years but probably for several decades. This will not be an easy sell.
is Bigger Than Most of us Realize.
In his most recent book, Hot, Flat and Crowded, Thomas Friedman describes picking up a copy of Working Mother magazine at the doctor’s office with an article entitled: 205 Easy Ways to Save the Earth (November 2007). Intrigued, he went home and Googled easy ways to save the earth and found a cornucopia of books and magazine articles on the subject ranging from commonplace titles such as 10 Painless Ways to Save the Planet and Easy Ways to Go Green to the more arcane 10 Ways to Save the Earth (and Money) in Under a Minute and Top Ten Ways to Green Up Your Sex Life. (pp 203-204)
Friedman goes on to recognize that greater public consciousness of the environment and specifically Climaticide is a good thing, but he is very uncomfortable by the constant repetition of the word “easy.”
You’ll pardon me, though, if I’ve become a bit cynical about all of this. I have read or heard so many people saying,” We’re having a green revolution.” Of course, there is certainly a lot of green buzz out there. But whenever I hear that “we’re having a green revolution” line I can’t resist firing back: “Really? Really? A green revolution? Have you ever seen a revolution where no one got hurt? That’s the green revolution that we’re having.” In the green revolution we’re having, everyone’s a winner, nobody has to give up anythng, and the adjective that most often modifies “green revolution” is “easy.” That’s not a revolution. That’s a party We’re actually having a green party. And, I have to say, it’s a lot of fun. I get invited to all the parties. But in America, at least, it is mostly a costume party. It’s all about looking green–and everyone’s a winner. There are no losers. The American farmers are winners. They’re green. They get to grow ethanol and garner huge government subsidies for doing so, even though it makes no real sense as a CO2-reduction strategy. Exxon-Mobil says it’s getting green and General Motors does too.
…
Coal companies are going green by renaming themselves “energy” companies and stressing how sequestration of CO2, something none of them has even done will give us “clean coal.” (pp. 205-206)
Friedman further emphasizes this (which is the same point that Hansen and Romm are making, despite their policy disagreements) by quote Professor Michael Maniates of Allegheny College who wrote in the Washington Post (November 22, 2007):
Although each [book about easy ways to go green] offers familiar advice (‘reuse scrap paper before recycling” or “take shorter showers”) it’s what’s left unsaid by these books that’s intriguing. Three assertions permeate the pages: (1) We should look for easy cost-effective things to do in our private lives as consumers, since that’s where we have the most power and control; these are the best things to do because (2) if we all do them the cumulative effect of these individual choices will be a safe planet, which is fortunate indeed because (3) we, by nature, aren’t terribly interested in doing anything that isn’t private, individualistic, cost-effective and, above all else, easy.
Maniates continues:
The hard facts are these. If we sum up the easy cost-effective, eco-efficiency measures we should all embrace, the best we get is a slowing of the growth of environmental damage…Obsessing over recycling and installing a few special light bulbs won’t cut it. We need to be looking at fundamental change in our energy, transportation and agricultural systems rather than technological tweeking on the margins, and this means change and costs that our current and would-be leaders seem afraid to discuss. [Remember this was written before the election–JR] Which is a pity since Americans are at their best when they’re struggling together, and sometimes with one another, toward difficult goals… Surely we must do the easy things. They slow the damage and themselves become enabling symbols of empathy for future generations. But we cannot permit our leaders to sell us short. To stop at “easy” is to say that the best we can do is accept an uninspired politics of guilt around a parade of uncoordinated individual action.(pp 207-208)
As Peter Gleick, of the Pacific Institute has pointed out “we have not agreed as a society on what being ‘green’ actually means,” which leads Friedman to note this “opens a door to everyone claiming to be green, without any benchmarks.” (p. 207) [see my post Growing Movement Debunks Greenwashing Ads)
Socolow and Pascala’s Wedges
Both Friedman and Romm make reference to Socolow and Pascala’s stabilization wedges. Romm’s article provides links to articles (technical and non-technical) on the wedges as well as his analysis of technical issues related to them. Romm explains
Wedges are strategies that reduce emissions steadily until they achieve a 1 GtC/year saving — in 50 years in Princeton’s original framework, but for those in a hurry like all of us now are, it must be less.
In other words for each wedge adopted at the end of 50 years we would be saving 1 gigaton of carbon per year. When they originally expounded the idea Socolow and Pascala calculated that we would need to have carried out 7 wedges by 2050 in order to stabilize CO2 emission. Romm calculates that to achieve Hansen’s goal of ending coal use (that doesn’t employ CC) by 2030 would require 8 wedges that would have to be completed within 20 years (2010-2030), which would make a difficult task even more difficult. To make the whole concept clearer here are some wedges that Romm proposes we might try to realize in order to achieve Hansen’s goal. (These are not necessarily part of Socolow and Pascala’s original 15 wedges.)
Here is one possible list of all the (20-year) wedges the world must achieve simultaneously starting almost immediately:
* 1.5 wedges of concentrated solar thermal — ~2500 GW peak.
* 1.5 of wind power — 1.5 million large (2 MW peak) wind turbines
* 2 of efficiency — buildings, industry, and cogeneration/heat-recovery for a total of 10 to 13 million GW-hrs.
* 1 of nuclear power — 700 GW
* 1 of solar photovoltaics — 2000 GW peak [or less PV and some geothermal, hydro, and biomass]
* 1 wedge of vehicle efficiency — all cars 60 mpg, with no increase in miles traveled per vehicle.
* 1 of forestry — End all tropical deforestation.
(Joe has actually listed nine here so that if you don’t like one for some reason, you can throw it out.)
Again, my point in providing this detail is not to discuss the merits of the individual wedges being proposed, but to demonstrate the magnitude of the changes that will be required. Even if you agree with Romm that Hansen’s plan is too ambitious and politcally impossible it doesn’t change the basic situation that we face. We will have some extra time to carry out a complete societal revolution but, because we will have waited until mid-century to stabilize emissions, we will be stabilizing them at 450 ppm instead of 350 ppm. Both Romm and Hansen are in agreement that 450 ppm cannot be the final stabilization level because it leaves us exposed to the danger of passing tipping points that might take us to 700 or even 1000 ppm which would be an utter disaster. So at that point we will have to find a way to remove CO2 that is already in the atmosphere.
Why I Write These Posts
Occasionally, someone tells me that my posts are depressing because what I am describing (either the problem or the solution) seems overwhelming. My intention is never to depress anyone or to make them feel powerless, but I do understand how one might feel that way. I write what I write because I can’t write any other way.
It has been clear to me for a long time now that the challenge we face is enormous, the greatest humanity has ever faced. To write anything that makes it seem smaller or less significant feels somehow less than honest. This is not to criticize how other people approach the problem. I believe that there is room for individual action and collective, governmental action. I am hopeful that President Obama will inspire us to join together to solve this problem, but I also believe that we have to be informed and ready to back him up and perhaps push him and his administration farther than they might feel comfortable going if they were uncertain about whether they had widespread public support.
I don’t see any dichotomy between personal and political action. Rather, I believe that in a democracy, making a commitment to political action is one of the highest forms of personal action. I hope that the information contained in this post will help to inspire readers to join in the upcoming struggle to save the only climate human civilization has ever known as well as the lives of untold numbers of future generations, human or otherwise, for whom this planet is will be their only home.
You can’t call something a revolution when the maximum changes that are politically feasible still fall well short of the minimum to start making even a dent in the problem. The challenges posed by the Energy-Climate Ear “can’t be solved at the level of current political thinking,” said Hal Harvey, an energy expert at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. “You cannot solve a problem from the same level of thinking that created it.” [Friedman p. 215]
Does your blood pressure go up when you see those disinformation ads (you know, the ones by the American Petroleum Institute, American Coalition for Clean Coal Electicity, Conoco, Dow Chemical, Shell, BP, General Motors, Chevron, etc?), which are usually narrated either by some enthusiastic, idealistic company scientist telling you about how excited she/he is to be working on some project that will enable us to hand a better world to our children, or a montage of serious, but gently smiling faces, which stare resolutely but insipidly into the camera while uttering high-sounding but completely vacuous platitudes?
Does it make you retch because you know that behind those smiling faces these corporate liars are in reality emitting huge amounts of greenhouse gases and other pollutants, lobbying against solutions to global warming, and hoping you’ll be stupid enough to let them continue to make billions by doing business as usual until we all have cancer and the climate is destroyed?
Well, good, because that means you are still thinking, and if you’re still thinking you’re far less likely to be taken in by greenwashing. And people are starting to fight back.
Greenpeace has four criteria for determining if something is greenwashing or not:
Dirty Business – Touting an environmental program or product, while the corporation’s product or core business is inherently polluting or unsustainable. For example, if a company brags about its boutique green R&D projects but the majority of spending and investment reinforces old, unsustainable, polluting practices.
Ad Bluster – Using targeted advertising and public relations campaigns to exaggerate an environmental achievement in order to divert attention away from environmental problems or if it spends more money advertising an environmental achievement than actually doing it. For example, if a company were to do a million dollar ad campaign about a clean up that cost less.
Political Spin – Advertising or speaking about corporate “green” commitments while lobbying against pending or current environmental laws and regulations. For example, if advertising or public statements are used to emphasize corporate environmental responsibility in the midst of legislative pressure or legal action.
It’s the Law, Stupid! – Advertising or branding a product with environmental achievements that are already required or mandated by existing laws. For example, if an industry or company has been forced to change a product, clean up its pollution or protect an endangered species, then uses PR campaigns to make such action look proactive or voluntary.
As it turns out you don’t have to be a passive victim of greenwashing. There are a couple of web sites to which you can submit ads that you consider to be greenwashing where they will be scrutinized and their claims analyzed and debunked.
The first of the two sites is run by Greenpeace itself. On the site you can view videos of greenwashing television advertising and read greenwashing print ads, as well as read analysis and comments and submit comments of your own.
You can go directly to the videos here. They also have print ads on a different page.
The second site, run by faculty at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communications, The Greenwashing Index is similar. It has lots of videos of greenwashing ads (and print ads also) user comments, and gives registered members the option of rating the videos on a scale of 1-5 according to how much greenwashing is going on.
Both of these sites are worth spending a few minutes checking out because they’ll make you more sensitive to greenwashing when you see it, read it, or hear it.
Some consumer and environmental organizations have responded to the greenwashing ads with ads of their own. The first one below is from the Sierra Club and it debunks many of the coal companies’ claims regarding the economics and environmental friendliness of coal.
This second ad, which I love, is from FreeLoveForum and is a parody of actual greenwashing ads. My concern is that if one doesn’t already recognize greenwashing ads as deceitful and manipulative, they might have a little trouble grasping the irony in this one.
What else can you do? Write and complain to the networks that run these ads: CNN and MSNBC are terrible, as are the major networks. It seems to me that there might also be possible legal action that could be taken against the companies who sponsor such ads. Surely, the FCC has some responsibility to protect the public from the lies that these ads contain. Didn’t there used to be some rule about truth in advertising?
If you need any further evidence of how far we still need to go in raising public awareness of the dangers of Climaticide, look no further than the progressive blogosphere’s level of interest this last week in the debate over whether Joe Lieberman should retain his Chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee versus it’s interest in the debate over whether Henry Waxman should replace John Dingell as chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Allow me to state up front that I am no friend of Joe Lieberman whom I regard as a sleazy, dishonest, self-promoting, power-hungry traitor to the Democratic Party. On the policy front I think he’s a warmonger. I, like so many others, assumed that he would lose his committee chairmanship and was surprised to learn that Obama favored keeping him on. I can now say that I think I understand Obama’s reasoning (Lieberman, as I see it, no longer has any independent existence–he is a marionette at the end of Obama’s strings and if he fails to carry out Obama’s policies I have no doubt that those strings will be cut and he will be dispatched to the dustbin) although only time will show if this truly is a viable way to get the 60-vote majority that we wanted in the Senate. Obama clearly saw Lieberman as potentially useful. For the time being I am willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt.
While I understand that there was legitimate interest in the Lieberman story, I do think that the reaction was overblown. Frankly, I found it depressing how much more attention was given in the progressive blogosphere to the question of whether Joe Lieberman should have retained his Chairmanship than was given to Waxman’s fight to wrest the Energy and Commerce Committee chairmanship from Dingell. For days expressions of outrage dominated the conversation as post after post was cranked out on how retaining Lieberman was “a betrayal of the electorate.” As an example, a quick search of the Daily Kos web site (Stories and Diaries) for the last week reveals 430 posts which reference Lieberman while only 36 results are returned with references to Waxman.
Waxman
Contrast the Lieberman situation with that of Waxman, where Obama also probably played a role in the final outcome. As the Washington Post explained regarding the vote to replace Dingell with Waxman:
Democrats also read the signals coming from the president-elect’s transition office, which this week announced the intention to name Philip Schiliro, a longtime aide to Mr. Waxman, as the White House director of Congressional relations.
I consider the replacement by Henry Waxman of Dingell (D-General Motors), who has for decades fought higher CAFE standards and served, essentially as a surrogate in DC for the Big Three Automakers, to be essential if we are to move rapidly to stop Climaticide and adopt a sustainable energy policy (not to mention make progress on universal health care). Waxman is a very effective legislator and he gets it when it comes to climate change. By contrast with Lieberman, there was no way to make Dingell useful. His cozy relationship with the Detroit automakers and his declining health made him an impediment to change in this vital area. Defenders of the status quo (amazing that there are any, isn’t it?) recognize the significance of Waxman’s victory.
Some in the industry quaked at the ascension of Mr. Waxman, whom they consider an “irrational environmental zealot,” in the words of David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich.
The fact is that is more important for Dingell to have obtained the chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee than it was for Lieberman to lose the Homeland Security Chairmanship partly for the political reasons I have given above, but most importantly because Climaticide is a more important issue than any issue that Lieberman is going to deal with as chair of Homeland Security.
Now before you start calling for my head, please understand that I am NOT being dismissive about homeland security (although I despise the term which I think has fascist overtones–when did anyone in the United States speak of the United States as the “Homeland” before George W. Bush?), which I regard as one of a number of extremely important issues, including but not limited to, ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, health care, the economic crisis, the energy crisis, corruption and the role of corporations in government, restoring civil liberties, education, poverty, gay and lesbian rights, a host of other environmental problems, etc. But ALL of those problems occur within the context of Climaticide and any success that we have in solving them will be utterly nullified if we fail to stop global warming.
I am a cancer patient with a very poor prognosis, but that does not keep me from recognizing that enacting universal health care will ultimately be meaningless if C02 emissions continue to rise unchecked and we pass tipping points beyond which human civilization on any scale becomes impossible. Please do not misunderstand me. I am saying that the climate crisis is of primary importance NOT that we have to postpone dealing with these other problems until the climate crisis is solved.
We need to work on all these problems. In reality most of them are related to Climaticide and to each other. What I am saying is that a problem that if left unresolved will lead to, drought, flooding, famine, the spread of disease, the extinction of up to 2/3 of the worlds species, reduced agricultural production, the cutting off of drinking water for hundreds of millions of people, sea-level rise, the acidification of the oceans and collapse of the fishing industry, the desertification of 1/3 of the planet, the deaths of hundreds of millions and untold suffering for billions more who will become climate refugees (many of whom will be crossing our own borders in numbers that will make our current immigration problems look tiny by comparison) deserves to command far more of our attention than it currently does.
So, what is one to make of the fact that so much more attention has been paid to the Lieberman case than to the Waxman case? I can only conclude, that even in the progressive blogosphere most people still do not understand the significance of Climaticide. They do not to recognize how extreme and urgent are the measures that must be taken to combat it nor how severe the consequences will be if we fail, because the reality is that to stop Climaticide nothing short of a revolution in how we live is going to be necessary. (See Thomas Friedman’s Flat, Hot and Crowded to learn more about the magnitude of the changes required.)
But if educated, politically committed people don’t show much interest in global warming, how can we expect the “average person” who isn’t educated and interested in politics to do so? How can we expect those “average persons” to study and learn about global warming when on Daily Kos posts on the climate crisis get 20 comments while posts on Joe Lieberman or Sarah Palin get 500? How can we expect them to study and learn when the latest scientific research on how fast the climate is changing is never on the front page of Daily Kos unless it can be tied in with some politicians stupidity?
Here’s the plain, simple truth: at this point, Climaticide is Politics. We ignore that fact at our peril.
"A very popular error: having the courage of one's convictions; rather it is a matter of having the courage for an attack on one's convictions." -- Friedrich Nietzsche
Johnny Rook's Climaticide Chronicles 
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