Yale and George Mason Universities surveyed 2,164 Americans last fall about their “climate change beliefs, attitudes, policy preferences, and actions.” Details will be posted at midnight Tuesday here. Here is a first look:

• 92 percent supported more funding for research on renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind power;
• 85 percent supported tax rebates for people buying energy efficient vehicles or solar panels;
• 80 percent said the government should regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant;
• 69 percent of Americans said the United States should sign an international treaty that requires the U.S. to cut its emissions of carbon dioxide 90% by the year 2050.

Americans say they are prepared to incure significant costs, as the figure above shows. In fact, they “support policies that would personally cost them more,” specifically (emphasis in original):

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After growing 19% in 2006 and 62% in 2007, world solar photovoltaic (PV) market installations exploded by 110% last year to a staggering 5.95 GW, according to Solarbuzz’s Annual Report, Marketbuzz 2009:

Europe accounted for 82% of world demand in 2008. Spain’s 285% growth pushed Germany into second place in the market ranking, while the US advanced to [a very distant] number three. Rapid growth in Korea allowed it to become the fourth largest market, closely followed by Italy and Japan.

And who is the leading producer of PV cells?

China and Taiwan continued to increase their share of global solar cell production, rising to 44% in 2008 from 35% in 2007.

Yes, the United States created the solar cell industry and literally launched it into space 50 years ago. And, yes, solar PV is going to be one of the largest job-creating industries of the century, projected to grow “from a $20 billion industry in 2007 to $74 billion by 2017.”

And, yes, today America has precisely zero of the top ten PV plants (down from 1 last year), with our market share having plummeted in the past decade, as the figure below makes all too painfully clear:

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Battery advances seems to be flowing as fast as electrons-magnetic waves these days — and super fast charging batteries may hit the market in as little as 2 to 3 years. And that’s critical because the car of the very near future, plug in hybrids, are a core climate solution. And electricity is the only alternative fuel that can lead to energy independence.

Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology report in a March 12 Nature article, “Battery materials for ultrafast charging and discharging” (subs. req’d):

It is typically believed that in electrochemical systems very high power rates can only be achieved with supercapacitors, which trade high power for low energy density as they only store energy by surface adsorption reactions of charged species on an electrode material. Here we show that batteries which obtain high energy density by storing charge in the bulk of a material can also achieve ultrahigh discharge rates, comparable to those of supercapacitors…. A rate capability equivalent to full battery discharge in 10–20 s can be achieved.

The ability to charge and discharge batteries in a matter of seconds rather than hours may make possible new technological applications and induce lifestyle changes.

Impressive. You can read the M.I.T. release here. One of the biggest benefits to plug in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) and electric vehicles is one not discussed by the researchers. As EV World editor Bill Moore explains:

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In the last two years, our scientific understanding of business-as-usual projections for global warming has changed dramatically (see “M.I.T. doubles its projection of global warming by 2100 to 5.1°C” and “Hadley Center projects 5-7°C warming by 2100“). Yet, much of the U.S. public — especially conservatives — remain in the dark about just how dire the situation is (see “Gallup poll shows catastrophic failure of media, conservatives still easily duped by deniers“).

Why? Because the U.S. media is largely ignoring the story. Case in point: Where was the coverage of the Copenhagen Climate Science Congress, attended by 2000 scientists, which concluded with this Key Message #1:

Recent observations confirm that, given high rates of observed emissions, the worst-case IPCC scenario trajectories (or even worse) are being realized. For many key parameters, the climate system is already moving beyond the patterns of natural variability within which our society and economy have developed and thrived. These parameters include global mean surface temperature, sea-level rise, ocean and ice sheet dynamics, ocean acidification, and extreme climatic events. There is a significant risk that many of the trends will accelerate, leading to an increasing risk of abrupt or irreversible climatic shifts.

What is the worst-case IPCC scenario trajectory? That would be A1F1 (the red dotted line in the figure below from figure SPM-3 of the 2001 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Synthesis Report):

The A1F1 scenario takes us to atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide of 1000 ppm in 2100 — otherwise known as the end of human civilization as we have known it. Actually it’s worse than that. The 2001 IPCC report largely failed to model amplifying carbon cycle feedbacks. The 2007 IPCC report, which began to consider such feedbacks, warns that even averaging 11 GtC (billion metric tons of carbon) a year this century could take us to 1000 ppm (see “Nature publishes my climate analysis and solution“). The A1F1 scenario averages well above 15 GtC a year through 2100 as you can see from the figure on the left.

Energy Daily (subs. req’d) notes of the U.S. media non-coverage of Copenhagen:

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The headline is from a remarkable story in last week’s Energy Daily (subs. req’d):

In a preview of a likely GOP strategy in the coming congressional battle over global warming legislation, Republican members of the House subcommittee charged with crafting the legislation last week blasted the use of greenhouse gas emissions offsets–a controversial mechanism for reducing compliance costs that is strongly supported by utilities and other U.S. industry sectors.

Now you know something is fishy when House Republicans have the exact same position as Climate Progress (see “You can call a rip-offset a CDM project, but it’s still a rip-offset“).

So what is their gambit in opposing the cost containment measure that is most popular among their own big-polluting constituents? Energy Daily explains:

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London is underwater, New Orleans won’t be rebuilt a third time, the arctic is ice free, and agriculture is failing, which leads to global food riots and ultimately the collapse of civilization…. This is the premise of the new crowd-funded British independent film The Age of Stupid.

Set in 2055, the film portrays a post-apocalyptic world ravaged by the worst impacts of climate change, and looks back at the critical period between 2005 and 2015 to examine why we didn’t save ourselves when we still had the chance.

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