In an otherwise fascinating story on the growing “icebreaker gap” in the rapidly defrosting Arctic Ocean, NYT reporter Andy Revkin writes:

“Even with the increasing summer retreats of sea ice, which many polar scientists say probably are being driven in part by global warming caused by humans, there will always be enough ice in certain parts of the Arctic to require icebreakers.”

I do not view a quadruple-hedged climate impact attribution as acceptable for a major media outlet: “many” and “polar” and “probably” and “in part”!!!!

It isn’t just “many polar scientists” who say this, it is pretty much “the overwhelming majority of climate scientists” — especially because he threw in two more hedges “probably are being driven in part.” Heck, with those two hedges, you could probably just drop “many polar” and say “which scientists say probably are being driven in part by global warming caused by humans.”

Second, “always” is forever, but ice isn’t, especially since on our current greenhouse gas emissions path, we may see more than 5°C global warming this century (see “Is 450 ppm politically possible? Part 0: The alternative is humanity’s self-destruction“). Had Revkin said “there will always be enough ice in certain parts of the Arctic during some parts of the year,” that I think would be something many polar scientists would probably agree with [in part]. But as is now written, I think not.

NOTE TO MEDIA ON HEDGING CLIMATE SCIENCE

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The conservative periodical American Spectator has published a piece by Andrew Cline, editorial page editor of the Manchester Union Leader, which argues that lifting the offshore drilling moratorium would “lower oil company profits“:

But Republicans have a golden opportunity here to turn the tables back on the Democrats. All they have to do is give a basic economics lesson every chance they get. The American people aren’t stupid; they will get it. The lesson is this:

If the Democrats really wanted to cut the profits of Big Oil, they would vote to…increase the supply of oil! Oil company profits are so high because the price of oil is so high. The price is so high because demand is so much higher than supply. Allowing oil companies to drill for more oil will increase supply, which will lower prices, which will lower oil company profits!

By this logic, the CEOs of oil companies should be fired for violating their fiduciary duty to their shareholders, since they are the ones leading the call for expanded drilling:

Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson said it’s “nonsensical” to oppose lifting domestic drilling moratoria.

Shell CEO John Hofmeister said the offshore moratorium “has denied U.S. oil companies the opportunity to produce more hydrocarbons.”

ConocoPhillips CEO James Mulva called for lifting the offshore moratorium, saying, “We cannot just wish fossil fuels away.”

Chevron CEO David O’Reilly said Bush should have “lifted the moratorium with a presidential order.”

Cline’s argument is embarrassingly nonsensical. If we pretended for a minute that proven U.S. oil reserves could magically be multiplied overnight by ten times to match U.S. demand, the money flowing into the coffers of oil companies wouldn’t change, since their profits are a product of both price and production. The decrease in price would be balanced by the increase in production. That’s the “basic economics lesson.”

Of course, even if the moratoria were lifted today, and even if oil companies could fast-track exploration and drilling, the oil found would only change U.S. production by a few percent — not 100, 1,000 or 10,000 percent — and would have little to no impact on oil prices.

The oil companies and those paid to promote their agenda are the only ones who would benefit from lifting the moratoria. Big Oil will use the additional leases to pad their inventories, and in decades sell the oil on the global market. And the oil-fueled right wing will continue to peddle their propaganda.

UPDATE: Newt Gingrich (ASWF) also thinks oil CEOs should be fired:

There are only three sure things in life — death, taxes, and you won’t be buying a hydrogen fuel cell car. Sadly, the US Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy has not gotten any of the memos (see “The Last Car You Would Ever Buy — Literally” and “This just in: Hydrogen fuel cell cars are still dead“).]

As GreenCarCongress reports:

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has selected 10 cost-shared hydrogen storage research and development projects to receive up to $15.3 million over five years, subject to annual appropriations.

The selected projects seek to develop hydrogen storage technologies to enable fuel cell vehicles to meet customer expectations for longer driving range and performance. The projects include development of novel hydrogen storage materials, development of efficient methods for regeneration of hydrogen storage materials, and approaches to increase hydrogen binding energies to enable room temperature hydrogen storage.

It would be difficult for “fuel cell vehicles to meet customer expectations for longer driving range and performance” given that there are no customers for fuel cell vehicles nor are there going to be any time soon and I mean soon in the sense of Hell-freezes-over soon.

I predict that by the end of the first term of the next president — whoever he is — the hydrogen fuel cell budget will be cut in half. If it were up to me, it would be cut 90% or more. Depending on what you include, the current budget is close to $300 million a year. All of that money should be shifted towards developing advanced batteries and cellulosic ethanol — and deploying plug-in hybrids.

This latest DOE announcement shows just how bad an investment hydrogen technology has become for taxpayers:

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