I’d estimate it’s about 150 tons of carbon dioxide, some 10 times that of the average American. But someone should ask Senator McCain. After all, he says he wants to require all Americans to cut greenhouse gas emissions 60% to 70% by 2050.

As probably the whole country knows by now, John McCain does not know how many homes he owns. But the number seems to be between 7 and 12, depending on whether you count his Sedona ranch as one house or six.

Given how conservatives beat up Vice President Gore for the supposed energy excesses of his one Nashville home, I can’t wait until they start running TV ads attacking McCain’s climate hypocrisy. [Note to self: Don't hold your breath.] After all, McCain fashions himself as a leader on global warming, just like Gore, but his combined homes have a considerably larger square footage than Gore’s — and thus presumably a much larger energy use. That said, the energy use of McCain’s homes is infinitely less relevant than their greenhouse gas emissions (see “GOP Attack on Gore Makes No Sense At All“).

So what is the carbon footprint of McCain’s countless homes? Here is a rough estimate. Read more

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (R) has described Tropical Storm Fay as a “serious, catastrophic flooding event,” as it dumps “historic levels of rain with totals in excess of 20 inches already” in Brevard County. Fay is tracking over the entire state of Florida, devastating crops and causing hundreds of millions of dollars of damage. Jeff Masters tells Bloomberg that Fay is “reminiscent of Hurricane Irene,” which caused $800 million in damage less than ten years ago.

The National Wildlife Federation, which has been warning that global warming is worsening wildfires and floods, describes the triple threat of global warming-fueled tropical storms in a new report:

While Florida and Gulf Coast residents bear the brunt of Tropical Storm Fay, the latest science connecting hurricanes and global warming suggests more is yet to come: tropical storms are likely to bring higher wind speeds, more precipitation, and bigger storm surge in the coming decades.

Watch it:

As Dr. Staudt writes in the report, “Stronger hurricanes, heavier rainfall, and rising sea level: this is what global warming has in store for the U.S. Gulf and Atlantic coasts.”

Scientists are begging politicians to take action. Eight national scientific organizations are asking the next president — whoever it may be — to support $9 billion in new investments between 2010 and 2014 “for research and forecasting, saying about $2 trillion of U.S. economic output could be hurt by storms, floods and droughts.” The organizations — the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, The Weather Coalition, the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, the Consortium for Ocean Leadership, and the Alliance for Earth Observations — represent “thousands of experts in the public, private, and academic weather and climate enterprise.”

Across the United States and the rest of the planet, people are reeling from torrential rains: Read more

A: “Who knows?” and “It doesn’t really matter.” Much higher gasoline prices that are sustained for a long, long time are now inevitable.

The fundamentals in the oil market are that we are in the beginning stages of peak oil. Supply can no longer keep up with demand, which has kept soaring even in the face of record prices. The U.S. Energy Information Administration has the surprising statistics:

Preliminary data indicates that global consumption rose by roughly 500,000 barrels per day (bbl/d) during the first half of 2008 compared with year-earlier levels, as a 1.3-million bbl/d rise in consumption outside of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) was partially countered by an 800,000 bbl/d drop in U.S. consumption compared with year-earlier levels…. Total world oil consumption is expected to grow by a little over 1 million bbl/d during the second half of 2008 and by almost 1 million bbl/d in 2009 compared with year-earlier levels.

That’s right, even after “the largest half-year consumption decline in volume terms in the last 26 years” in this country, global demand continues to grow 1 million bbl/d each year. Why?

Read more

As part of their climate myth series, New Scientist cuts through the nonsense on what’s happened globally in the last decade:

In fact, the planet as a whole has warmed since 1998, even in the years when surface temperatures have fallen.

According to the dataset of the UK Met Office Hadley Centre (see figure), 1998 was the warmest year by far since records began, but since 2003 there has been slight cooling.

But according to the dataset of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (see figure), 2005 was the warmest since records began, with 1998 and 2007 tied in second place.

The difference between the two datasets goes to the core of why the planet has in fact been warming since 1998:

Read more

U.S. Lab Claims Solar Conversion Efficiency Record – EE Times. A 40.8 percent efficiency! It is prime time for world records… See the release at NREL’s webiste, here.

More use of CHP could dramatically improve energy efficiency, says report – Energy Efficiency News. Combined heat and power (CHP) is a proven, reliable, efficient and cost-effective technology — but is not being made full use of by all countries, according to a new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA). Full report here.

Making a Solar Cell Component without Using Fossil Fuels – Scientific American. Cleaner than clean energy: BioSolar creates new plastic backing for photovoltaic cells out of cotton and castor beans rather than petroleum products

Two Large Solar Plants Planned in California – New York Times.
Two California companies said Thursday that they would each build solar power plants that were 10 times bigger than the largest now in service, creating the first true utility-scale use of a technology now mostly confined to rooftop supplements to conventional power supplies.

Southern California Edison Signs 900MW Wind Deal – Earth2Tech
Southern California Edison announced it has signed a 20-year contract for 909 megawatts of wind power from DCE, an affiliate of Caithness Energy.

Read more