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Climate Progress

Sea levels may rise 3 times faster than IPCC estimated, could hit 6 feet by 2100

By Joe Romm on Dec 9, 2009 at 10:15 pm

IF we don’t get off our current emissions path

Sea levels may rise three times faster than the official predictions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the global average sea level may increase by as much as 1.9 metres (6ft 3in) by 2100, scientists said yesterday.

The new assessment comes just one week after another international scientific body concluded that the IPCC had been too conservative in estimating a maximum of 59 centimetres of sea level rise this century as a result of global warming.

That’s the UK’s Independent reporting on a new study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, “Global sea level linked to global temperature” (open access), by Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Martin Vermeer of Helsinki University of Technology in Finland.

The figure above is from the study, with the caption, “Projection of sea-level rise from 1990 to 2100, based on IPCC temperature projections for three different emission scenarios (labeled on right…). The sea-level range projected in the IPCC AR4 [Fourth Assessment Report, 2007] for these scenarios is shown for comparison in the bars on the bottom right. Also shown is the observations-based annual global sea-level data (red).”

We are currently on the A1F1 emissions trajectory (see “U.S. media largely ignores latest warning from climate scientists: “Recent observations confirm “¦ the worst-case IPCC scenario trajectories (or even worse) are being realised” “” 1000 ppm“), though I am hopeful that the agreement coming out of Copenhagen coupled with the bipartisan U.S. climate bill will take us off that trajectory.

But the bottom line is that if we listen to the anti-scientific ideologues urging inaction, the midrange sea level rise projection is now about 5 feet by century’s end.  And that is consistent with many other recent studies –see, for instance, Startling new sea level rise research: “Most likely” 0.8 to 2.0 meters by 2100.

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Climate Progress

Automakers: Reduce Emissions By Letting The Market Dictate Which Technologies Can Succeed

By Guest Blogger on Dec 9, 2009 at 8:30 pm

Our guest blogger is Dave McCurdy, President and CEO of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.

Disclosure: The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers is currently running paid advertisements on ThinkProgress.

carsAs negotiations between world leaders in Copenhagen hit full swing, the auto industry supports efforts to build a comprehensive, global framework for reducing greenhouse gas emissions sustainably. Automakers are already reinventing the automobile, introducing new technologies that dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase fuel economy including fuel cell, electric, hydrogen, clean diesel, advanced biofuels and more.

However, in the transportation sector, for these efforts to be successful, the technology winners and losers cannot be pre-ordained. There is no “silver bullet” technology that will by itself alleviate our dependence on fossil fuels and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, a diverse, global, and economy-wide set of energy solutions is needed.

Doing so will encourage competition and innovation among automakers, as well as provide consumers the world over with a continued ability to buy the types of vehicles they need for family, business and leisure. A global, economy-wide system of carbon reductions will also avoid generating conflicting standards from different regulatory bodies and provide automakers much needed certainty for long-term product planning.

In their discussions, world leaders should consider that it does not make sense to craft another future just as singularly dependent on one type of transportation technology as the current is on carbon based fuels.

While it is clear that reducing carbon emissions is a necessity, government’s role should not be to dictate which technologies are ultimately available to the consumer. Instead, government should evaluate our starting point and determine a satisfactory end point, but let the global market dictate what path to take between the two.
By developing these sound long-term end points, governments can thereby provide clarity and direction for businesses over the long haul -especially important given how fundamental a shift we are talking about.

The auto industry has already begun taking major steps to achieve significant carbon reductions in a relatively short period of time, but no one can predict the future or know which greenhouse gas- reducing transportation technologies will be successful. If automakers are regulatorily forced into researching and developing a handful of technologies to address climate concerns while ignoring all others, the world will miss a never before seen chance to spur transportation innovation, provide consumers with a multitude of choices, and develop a truly sustainable global carbon reduction framework.

Politics

Beck: We Should ‘Just Abolish Medicare’

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Dec 9, 2009 at 7:30 pm

Glenn Beck Yesterday, Senate Democrats working on health care reform reached a compromise on the public option that will create a network of nonprofit insurers and allow Americans between the ages of 55 and 64 to buy into Medicare. The right has hypocritically opposed a government-run public-option while simultaneously defending Medicare. On his radio show today, Fox News host Glenn Beck called Medicare what it is — a “government-run health care plan.”

Beck attacked the new compromise and proposed a simple solution of his own — “abolish Medicare”:

CO-HOST: This is unbelievable, because the whole thing with the public option, is we were saying this is going to be like Medicare, they just want to make a big — make another Medicare program. And then they said no, public option is just competition.

BECK: And, wait wait wait. And I also said why don’t you just abolish Medicare, because it’s so wildly corrupt and out of control. It’s so inefficient, it is so bad and there’s $47 billion in suspected wrong payments, okay, in Medicare. So what are they saying — now remember, what we’re going to do — the compromise is we’re going to expand Medicare. That way there won’t be a public option, we’ll just — which doesn’t make any sense — we’re going to expand Medicare.

Listen:

Medicare is actually more efficient than private health insurance and would be better at controlling costs than weaker public option plans. And while Republicans strongly opposed Medicare when it was created under President Johnson, it has become popular over time. When Rep. Anthony Wiener (D-NY) introduced an amendment to eliminate Medicare in July — urging conservatives to “put-up or shut-up” about their objection to government-run health care. Not a single member of Congress voted in favor.

Moreover, Medicare is hugely successful. Before it came into being, more than one in four seniors lacked health care and a third lived in poverty. Now every American over 65 has access to quality care. A Commonwealth Fund study found that people with Medicare “report fewer problems obtaining medical care, and less financial hardship due to medical bills, and higher overall satisfaction with their coverage,” compared to people with employer-provided care. 56 percent of Medicare beneficiaries rate their coverage a 9 or 10 on a scale of 10 while only 40 percent with private insurance do so.

Economy

Banks Blame Borrowers For Lack Of Progress On Mortgage Modifications

By Pat Garofalo on Dec 9, 2009 at 7:00 pm

mortgageagreeYesterday, the House Financial Services Committee held a hearing to examine problems with the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), which is the cornerstone of the administration’s Making Home Affordable program. HAMP has sputtered since its inception, with trial mortgage modifications not even keeping up with new foreclosure starts.

One of the main factors holding back HAMP is that servicers have been dragging their feet in getting eligible borrowers into the program (partially because there is no disincentive to gumming things up), and then failing to turn trial modifications into permanent ones. To try and get to the bottom of things, the committee brought representatives of Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase in to testify, and both banks claimed that, actually, the problem is borrowers can’t get their documents together:

JP Morgan Chase: The focus of our immediate attention is finding ways to assist the 51 borrowers out of 100 that are missing some or all of the documentation required under HAMP or where the documents are incomplete, not current enough or otherwise not acceptable under the HAMP rules.

Bank of America: Bank of America has approximately 65,000 customers who have made more than three trial modification payments on time and their modifications are set to expire on December 31, 2009. Unfortunately, 50,000 have either not submitted some or all of the required documents or have submitted all their required documents, but the documents reveal discrepancies that require an additional response from the customer. It is unclear why this has happened to such a high degree.

As ProPublica’s Paul Kiel pointed out, “the data from servicers should be viewed with skepticism, given another clear trend: Banks and other mortgage servicers are themselves not very good at managing documents.” Indeed, stories abound about workers submitting their documents, only to be run in circles by the servicers and asked to resubmit.

But there’s not just anecdotal evidence showing that some banks are having trouble navigating the program. After all, there are very large differences between different servicers in the program, with some, like Saxon and CitiMortgage, getting upwards of 40 percent of eligible borrowers into the program, while others struggle.

Bank of America has been participating in HAMP since April, but has trial modifications on just 14 percent of its eligible mortgages. Wachovia has trials on only 3 percent. US Bank, meanwhile, signed up for the program in September, yet has 15 percent of its borrowers in trial modifications.

Are Saxon’s, US Bank’s, and Citi’s borrowers just a lot more responsible than BofA’s or Wachovia’s? I find that hard to believe. BofA’s dumping the blame onto borrowers for its shoddy stats (though it did cite “shortcomings in document maintenance” as an exacerbating cause) is particularly galling, because, as Andrew Jakabovics and I reported, the bank is siphoning potentially HAMP-eligible borrowers into its own private modification program, in violation of its contract with Treasury.

Of course, there are bound to be borrowers who can’t get their documents together and therefore fall out of the program. But it’s completely irresponsible for the banks to pass the buck onto borrowers, when they can’t get their own houses in order. And this could all be remedied by the implementation of mandatory mediation programs, which require a servicer to actually meet with a borrower before finalizing a foreclosure. Oftentimes, mediation sessions result in a borrower previously thought to be ineligible for HAMP discovering that an administrative error has been made, and that he or she does in fact qualify.

Climate Progress

The antidote to Sarah “fiddle while Nome burns” Palin: Alaska teen testifies on climate change

By Joe Romm on Dec 9, 2009 at 6:32 pm

Gore rebuts Palin in NBC interview, Palin “publishes her crazy” on Facebook

That’s Cheryl Lockwood of Alaska Youth for Environmental Action testifying at a 2007 hearing, “Youth Leadership on Climate Change” of The Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.  At the time, Limbaugh mocked her for crying, as Media Matters discussed:

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Alyssa

Literary All-Stars

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Dec 9, 2009 at 6:17 pm

By Rachael

Maybe it’s just because I work at the magazine that first published alot of these folks, but I’m really enjoying the new Literary World Series t-shirts by Brooklyn company Novel-T. As they say, “Jerseys are a great way to show support for your heroes–if your heroes happen to be athletes. What if your heroes are found in the bookstore instead of the ballpark? What if books are your game?” (They sound like me giving my Words are Power! speech when I was an English teacher.)

But seriously, there is some excellent gift potential here. How about this for your lethargic, but oh-so-literate little brother?

What’s more, for every shirt purchased, Novel-T will donate a dollar to 826NYC, a nonprofit focused on developing student writing that was started by Dave Eggers. 826 also operates the wonderful superhero store in Park Slope. Go say hi to my friend Ballard.

(Embarrassing – when I saw the “Whitman” one, my first thought was “Dick.” Too much Mad Men…)

Images by Novel-T

Yglesias

Endgame

By Matthew Yglesias on Dec 9, 2009 at 6:14 pm

I need you to be better than me:

— Depression economics: some basic fiscal arithmetic.

— The risks of carbon tariffs.

— Memo to NBA players: Don’t go play for Portland if you’re hoping to avoid injuries.

— Crazy talk in Memphis of spending less on subsidized parking garages and more on fixing sidewalks. Next thing you know people will be engaged in modest amounts of mild physical activity on a daily basis, with catastrophic public health consequences.

— Now that Jon Kyl’s predictions of a presidential cave on START have proven false, will he apologize?

— Actual military operations in Afghanistan don’t seem to follow population-centric principles discussed in Washington.

— Helpful table of vampire traits.

Here’s Thao and the Get Down Stay Down, “Know Better Learn Faster”—straight outta Falls Church.

Politics

Activists Decried As ‘Hitler Youth’ For Crashing Americans For Prosperity’s Global Warming Event In Copenhagen

By Zaid Jilani on Dec 9, 2009 at 6:10 pm

One of the most notorious climate change denial groups is Americans for Prosperity (AFP), which is largely funded by fossil-fuel industry interests. In the past, it has been part of the “Hot Air Tour” where it sent staffers to 40 cities in hot air balloons to try to convince the public that climate change is not happening.

AFP’s latest venture to try to deny the science of global warming and obstruct any real action on climate change has been to extend its “Hot Air” tour to Copenhagen, Denmark, where the United Nations Climate Change Conference is being held. Yet as the astroturf deniers conducted their alternative conference today (to five attendees), they were surprised by the presence of nearly 50 youth activists from the United States who entered the event to call out AFP’s junk science and dirty agenda:

The students entered the event in small groups, joining a paltry audience of five conference attendees, who had come to hear climate denier Lord Christopher Monckton speak about the Copenhagen climate negotiations. After the first five minutes of the event, student representatives from SustainUS, the Sierra Student Coalition, the Cascade Climate Network, and other American youth NGOs displayed banners reading “Climate Disaster Ahead” and “Clean Energy Now.” After security agents at the event took the banners, the young attendees began a chant of “Real Americans for Prosperity are Americans for Clean Energy.” [...]

“Clean energy creates jobs,” says Rachel Barge, a 24-year-old entrepreneur from San Francisco, CA who was the first young person to raise her voice at the event, “These climate action delayers and science deniers are stealing bold, new economic opportunities from the American public.”

As the protesters continued to chant, one of the AFP speakers, Lord Monckton, called the activists “Hitler Youth” and “Nazis.” Watch it:

Phil Kerpen, the policy director of Americans for Prosperity, distanced himself from Monckton’s comments. Kerpen wrote on Twitter, “DO NOT approve.”

Health

Dorgan’s Drug Importation Legislation: A Round About Way Of Lowering Drug Prices

By Igor Volsky on Dec 9, 2009 at 6:10 pm

Yesterday, Sen Byron Dorgan (D-ND) officially introduced a bipartisan amendment to allow Americans to import foreign drugs. “My goal isn’t to ask the American people to buy their prescription drugs overseas, my goal is that if we allow the American people to do that, the pharmaceutical industry would be required to re-price their drugs in the country,” Dorgan said, stressing that “the American people pay the highest drug prices in the world for brand name prescription drugs.”

In other words, rather than regulating the pharmaceutical industry domestically, Dorgan wants to rely on foreign regulations. It’s a round about way of getting at the problem of skyrocketing drug prices — but it makes for effective political rhetoric.

From Dorgan’s rather convincing explanation of the problem:

- Drug prices increased 9.3% this year, during a period of national deflation.

- The industry creates demand for drugs through ubiquitous advertising, and then increases prices for American consumers.

- Americans pay 3 to 4 times more for brand name drugs than consumers in Europe and Canada.

- A substantial number of the drugs developed and produced by the pharmaceutical industry were developed at the National Institute of Health.

Watch a compilation of Dorgan’s presentation:

It’s an argument for letting someone else fix the drug price problem. But if policy makers can iron-out the logistical and safety issues (and lawmakers are reluctant to take on the drug industry), why not try it? After all, even President Obama and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel supported reimportation.

Now, Obama’s Food and Drug Administration opposes it. The Dorgan amendment “would be logistically challenging to implement and resource intensive. In addition, there are significant safety concerns,” FDA administrator Margaret Hamburg wrote in a letter. Dorgan contends that some FDA-approved drugs are already manufactured at FDA-approved foreign plants and that 40% of active ingredients in American drugs are important from India and China.

Ultimately, if the administration wants to retain the industry’s support for broader health care reform, that’s understandable. But it must also take this opportunity do something to address rising drug costs and the disparity in pricing.

Yglesias

The Reimportation Farce

By Matthew Yglesias on Dec 9, 2009 at 5:28 pm

Blog_Healthcare_Canada

Today the Senate spent a lot of time discussing by far the most ridiculous perennial of health care politics, the idea of “reimporting” prescription drugs from Canada. Pharmaceuticals are patented, so the general idea of a pharmaceutical company is to charge a lot more than the marginal cost of producing a pill for each pill. That’s how they recoup their R&D expenses and provide profits for the company. But by the same token, if a country adopts a law that says “if you want to sell Drug X in this country, you can only charge $X for it” then $X can be quite low and it’s still worthwhile for drug companies to make the stuff available. This is what most countries, including Canada, do but we don’t do it hear in the United States.

Consequently, people who live in states near the Canadian border have tended to notice that drugs are much cheaper in Canada and sometimes want to go to Canada to buy cheap prescriptions. There are various legal rules against doing this in the United States and a lot of wrangling over the issue, including today’s effort to give the federal blessing to reimportation. Bizarrely, Senators like Olympia Snowe, David Vitter, Chuck Grassley, and John McCain who are firmly against the public option are favorably disposed to this kind of proxy socialism.

It’s bizarre and it’s actually pernicious. There are some very real questions to raise about whether our current patent-based system is the best way to incentivize pharmaceutical R&D. But to consider shifting to another system that would allow for cheaper pill sales at pharmacies without sacrificing innovation, congress would need to face up to what it’s doing, which is considering whether or not it wants to impose price controls. This Canada stuff is a weird distraction from the actual issue about patents, price controls, R&D, deadweight loss, etc.

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