One year ago today, the Supreme Court handed down an epochal decision in the global warming case Massachusetts vs. the Environmental Protection Agency, stating that the EPA had the responsibility to determine how to regulate carbon dioxide for its contribution to global warming. The EPA, led by administrator Stephen L. Johnson, has utterly failed to do so, prompting a series of Congressional investigations and new lawsuits.

Johnson’s adversaries marked the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision today by continuing to press their case. Officials of 18 states filed suit against the EPA for its continued inaction — their petition “asks the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to require the EPA to act within 60 days.” By a unanimous vote, the House Global Warming Committee issued subpoenas “for EPA documents showing the Agency’s progress in making the ‘endangerment’ finding and proposing national emissions standards.”

The Supreme Court decision mandated that the EPA:

• Declare whether greenhouse gases pose a threat to human health and need to be regulated;
• Make a decision on California’s Clean Air Act petition to regulate motor vehicle greenhouse gas emissions;
• Propose federal regulations for motor vehicle greenhouse emissions.

In the past year, EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson has only completed one of those tasks, by denying California’s waiver petition following the signing of the 2007 Energy Act in December.

Investigations by Congress, though repeatedly stymied by the agency, have determined that EPA staff actually worked vigorously last year to meet the Court mandate. In late fall Johnson brought the complete package with a health endangerment finding, approval of the California waiver, and motor vehicle regulations to the White House. After that, Johnson issued his waiver denial and all work at the EPA on the issue ceased. Henry Waxman, chair of the House Oversight Committee, has vigorously pursued documents related to the California waiver denial, even as the EPA responds to his subpoenas with document requests of their own.

Johnson’s latest act was to declare last week that the EPA would release an “Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking” asking for new round of comments, a delaying tactic promoted by a “memo from the Heritage Foundation.”

He is now fleeing to Australia with his top staff for two weeks to discuss the “ongoing environmental collaboration” between the countries — and fortuitously delay further Congressional hearings. The $280,000 trip is taxpayer-funded.

Suppose the prestigious journal Nature published an analysis of mine that they knew many people would disagree with. How would you feel if Nature then wrote an accompanying news story about the commentary that quoted people for and against my analysis, including another Senior Fellow from the Center for American Progress (CAP) raving about how important and brilliant my analysis was? You’d probably think that was kind of lame of them.

Now suppose the Nature article never mentioned that I was a CAP Senior Fellow or that my mysterious admirer was, either. No way, you say. No way a journal like Nature would ever do that. That would be like the New York Times asking a CAP Fellow to review my book and not mentioning the connection. Few things could be more inappropriate for a major publication. I have one word for you — “way!”

Yes, amazingly, Nature did just that — twice! — with the Pielke et al. piece that I have previously debunked. Here you can read the Pielke piece, “Dangerous Assumptions.” Note Pielke is identified at the end simply as “Roger Pielke Jr is in the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0488, USA.”

Online, Nature has an article (subs. req’d) “Climate challenge underestimated?” on the Pielke et al. piece in which we are told:

“The paper is a bombshell,” says Marty Hoffert, former chair of the Department of Applied Science at New York University. “It explodes the idea that sufficient technology exists to solve the climate and energy problem, and that global warming can be dealt with by market incentives.”

[I like Marty, but in fact the Pielke paper provides no evidence whatsoever to refute the two notions that "sufficient technology exists to solve the climate and energy problem, and that global warming can be dealt with by market incentives." It doesn't address those issues at all.]

In print, Nature has yet another news article on Pielke et al. — [so much coverage for so little substance] — optimistically titled “Are the IPCC scenarios ‘unachievable’?” (available here). As you can plainly see on the second page, we again hear the ever-so-unexpected praise from Hoffert:

Marty Hoffert, former chair of the Department of Applied Science, New York University:
“This analysis is long overdue. We’re under a delusion that we will solve the problem of climate change casually. But what we have — cap-and-trade systems and the like — is plainly insufficient. We need a massive engineering effort, the size of the Manhattan Project.”

[Note to Hoffert: A few people may have that delusion -- such as Senator McCain and his advisors -- but certainly not readers of this blog. And the engineering effort we need is much closer in size to all of World War II -- the Manhattan project is way too puny. Hoffert should know that.]

But guess what — both Hoffert and Pielke are in fact Fellows at the Breakthrough Institute (as you can see here). Gosh, Hoffert thinks Pielke’s stuff is great. Who would have ever guessed? And what is the Breakthrough Institute? Why it’s the brainchild of everybody’s favorite technology-breakthrough lovers, Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus. [Note to Shellenberger and Nordhaus: Your love of technology breakthroughs appears to be unrequited.]

So shame on Nature for quoting Hoffert in praise of Pielke in the first place and double shame for not letting readers know they work at the same place–a place that happens to be dedicated to promoting the very (mistaken) idea at the center of Pielke’s piece (namely that “Enormous advances in energy technology will be needed to stabilize atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations at acceptable levels”).

The usually thoughtful journal Nature has just published a pointless and misleading if not outright dangerous commentary by delayer-1000 du jour, Roger Pielke, Jr., along with Christopher Green, who, as we’ve seen, is another aspiring delayer.

It will be no surprise to learn the central point of their essay, ironically titled “Dangerous Assumptions” (available here or here with a subscription) is “Enormous advances in energy technology will be needed to stabilize atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations at acceptable levels,” which is otherwise known as the technology trap or the standard “Technology, technology, blah, blah, blah” delayer message developed by Frank Luntz and perfected by Bush/Lomborg/Gingrich.

The Pielke et al. analysis is certainly confusing , which is not surprising given the subject matter is arcane — what the appropriate baseline is for emissions scenarios in climate models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). What is surprising is that Nature would run a piece that comes to a conclusion that is not only completely at odds with its own analysis, it’s a complete reversal from the conclusion of standard delayer analyses just a few years ago:

Five years ago the American Enterprise Institute “proved” that the lowest IPCC emissions projection is too high, and they backed up their conclusion with actual 1990s data, whereas Pielke, Wigley, and Green have “proven” that the highest IPCC emissions projection is too low, and they backed up their conclusion with actual data from this decade.

Hard to believe, but true. And they say you can’t make this stuff up. Well, maybe you can’t. But the delayers can.

This piece is an embarrassment to Nature‘s reputation as a leader on climate issues, and it suggests that the editors (and reviewers) didn’t actually understand what they were reading.

In this post I will endeavor to explain what’s so incredibly pointless about the piece, flawed about the analysis, embarrassing and misguided about the conclusion — all the regular readers of this blog know why the technology trap is dangerous (it leads to delay, which is fatal to the planet’s livability). This can’t be done briefly. You should probably read my recent posts “Is 450 ppm (or less) politically possible?” and, possibly, “The adaptation trap 2: The not-so-honest-broker” first. Oh, and you should actually read the Pielke article. Come on, you know you are hot for this baseline analysis stuff. Trust me, you won’t believe what these guys try to get away with.

POINTLESS PIECE

Actually, it is pretty easy to explain why the piece is pointless, much easier than, say, explaining why Nature published it. First, the authors never bother to explain what greenhouse gas (GHG) concentration target they believe is needed to avoid dangerous warming. We are many years past the time anybody needs to read another essay on why stabilizing atmospheric GHG concentrations is really, really, really hard — with no discussion whatsoever of 1) why failing to stabilize well below, say, 700 parts per million of CO2 ppm is really, really, really suicidal and 2) what is in fact an appropriate target and how do we get there. So what is the point of the piece? To convince people the situation is hopeless? [Nature actually runs a side piece on the commentary titled, "Are the IPCC scenarios 'unachievable'? (subs. req'd) -- and people call me an alarmist!]

Second, what’s “new” about the piece, at least in the authors’ minds, is that “the size of this technology challenge has been seriously underestimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), diverting attention from policies that could directly stimulate technological innovation.” But the first half of this sentence, to the extent it’s true, is well known by every energy and technology modeling expert I know. I myself blogged on this very point two days ago in the 450 ppm post. This is a tough friggin’ problem, and the IPCC is a body that inherently understates things. Alert the media! No, seriously, alert the media because they don’t seem to know the IPCC understates things.

Third, the authors never bother to explain why the clause I put in boldface is true, probably because they know it isn’t. The IPCC’s recent report, though an understatement of the climate problem certainly does NOT divert attention from the policies needed to avoid castrophe. This clause by itself is an embarrassment to Nature (and nature, for that matter)–the IPCC authors are literally begging for action, far more genuine action than Pielke et al advocate (see here and here)! Indeed, Pielke et al. seem to be begging for inaction, but I digress. If the clause were true and if Pielke et al. did explain why, the piece might have a useful point to make. But, as we’ve seen and we’ll see again, this is characteristic of Pielke’s work — he doesn’t define terms specifically enough to make policy-relevant conclusions. “Innovation” can potentially encompass aspects of both R&D and deployment (see below). Since this paper doesn’t define the word “innovation,” it is very hard to tell what precisely the authors’ point is (other than to lead us into the technology trap).

MISLEADING ANALYSIS

So what does the article say? The article focuses on the nearly three dozen (!) reference scenarios of future GHG emissions that the IPCC uses. These reference scenarios imagine very different worlds, with varying degrees of economic and population growth, energy technology, fossil fuel use, and sustainability efforts. [Note: This is probably one of the dumbest things the IPCC ever did -- it confuses the heck out of everybody, and I myself have to go to a reference book every time I see someone modeling a different scenario, like A2 or B1 or A1F1 -- yes, A1F1.]

Let me also repeat their definition of a key term:

Decarbonization of the global energy system depends mainly on reductions in energy intensity and carbon intensity. These result from technological changes that improve energy efficency and/or replace carbon-emitting systems with ones that have lower (or no) net emissions.

[Actually, most people I know separate "energy efficiency" (achieving the same energy services using less energy) from "decarbonization" (using fuels that generate less carbon per unit of energy provided), but that is a small point, and, in fact, Pielke et al. mostly treat them separately.]

The central analytical finding of the article:

Read more

In January 2006, the Nevada utility company Sierra Pacific Resources announced plans to build a 1500 MW coal-fired power plant in Ely, Nevada. A report released yesterday by Innovest Strategic Value Advisers finds that Sierra Pacific, like Sunflower Electric in Kansas, is exposing its shareholders and ratepayers to “significant financial and environmental risk” by banking its future on coal. The $5 billion project, already the subject of cost overruns and delays, would nearly triple Sierra Pacific’s coal use and double its greenhouse gas output.

Even as other utilities join coalitions calling for mandatory reductions in greenhouse gases, the report explains:

Sierra Pacific continues to focus its resource planning on new coal-fired generation has yet to develop a voluntary greenhouse gas reduction policy, and does not account for the potential price of carbon in its resource planning. The company’s failure to incorporate climate related risks and opportunities into its strategy will create significant financial risks for shareholders and ratepayers.

Sierra’s coal plans, the report says, fit into “a historical trend in which Sierra Pacific has relied on shifting risk between investors and ratepayers.”

Nevada, with its rapidly-growing population and a surfeit of both fossil and renewable energy resources, is choosing now between competing visions of America’s energy future. Last year, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) called for an immediate moratorium on coal-fired power plants in Nevada and introduced the Clean Renewable Energy and Economic Development Incentives Act (S. 1531), which would grant an additional $10 billion in Federal financing of high-voltage transmission lines, but only to those that carry at least 75 percent renewable electricity. This legislation would effectively block new coal plant projects like the Ely plant while offering major support to renewable electricity development.

A new article by the Center for American Progress (CAP) makes clear that the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, S. 2191 would be a boon to affordable, job-creating renewable energy. The article, by CAP’s Daniel J. Weiss and Alexandra Kougentakis explains how the bill would

make significant reductions in the carbon dioxide pollution that causes global warming as well as turbo charge investments in clean energy technologies such as wind, solar, and geothermal. It would provide direct assistance for renewable energy, as well as create economic incentives for utilities to invest in clean, carbon-free energy technologies instead of continued reliance on dirty fossil fuels. The boost for renewable energy would create thousands of new jobs in the clean energy industry.

The article also points out that

The EPA just released a study that found that the bill’s global warming pollution reductions would have almost no effect on long-term economic growth, and only a small effect on electricity prices and jobs. The same claims that opponents are making now were made about the acid rain control program 20 years ago–claims that were all proven wrong.

The CAP article discusses the bill at length and how it would affect renewable energy and job creation in this country. It is well worth reading.

See also Delayers cry wolf with same old Garbage In, Garbage Out economic model.