And should IPCC chief Pachauri stay or go?

I don’t know what value the IPCC now provides.  But then, I had the exact same concern back in December 2007 (see “Time to shut down the IPCC?“).

As I wrote back then, “I am a fan of what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has done “” and they certainly deserve the Nobel Prize.”  But even back then I didn’t see a lot of value in the IPCC going forward, as I wrote in long column at Salon.com, “Desperate times, desperate scientists“:

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Ken Cuccinelli

Virginia is claiming that global warming is “unreliable, unverifiable and doctored” science, but the state’s climatologists aren’t buying it. Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R-VA) — a former state senator and corporate attorney — has joined Texas and right-wing industry groups in challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger the public. In a press conference announcing this petition, Cuccinelli claimed that hacked “Climategate” emails prove a conspiracy by scientists involved with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to replace real science with “political science.” His efforts to block “job-destroying regulations based on unverifiable and unrepeatable so-called science” are supported by Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA):

It’s very clear the process by which this was undertaken was not one that was set up to reach an objective conclusion. This wasn’t the pursuit of truth. It was political science, not science in the typical sense of the word. . . . While we’re open to seeing where honest, unbiased science leads us in the climate policy arena, we are not prepared to stand by while EPA proceeds to implement job-destroying regulations based on unverifiable and unrepeatable so-called science.

If there is such a conspiracy, it has corrupted Cuccinelli’s own state. In email interviews with the Wonk Room, several scientists at the University of Virginia Department of Environmental Sciences, which runs the Virginia Climatology Office, made it clear that they believe Cuccinelli’s extreme claims are without merit.

Palaeoclimatologist William Ruddiman, professor emeritus, University of Virginia — and author of Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum: How Humans Took Control of Climate and Earth’s Climate: Past and Future — is “confident” of the facts of manmade global warming, and that our emissions of greenhouse gases “carry great risk”:

As a mainstream climate scientist, I am confident about the following facts:

—Earth has warmed by 0.7-0.8C since the late 1800′s.
—Greenhouse gas concentrations began rising near 1850 and have been rising since then.
—Most of the warming since the middle/late 1800′s, and the vast majority of it since 1970, has been caused by greenhouse-gas increases.
—Given this history, and with the current rate of gas emissions, future climate will likely be warmer (probably much warmer than any climate of the last few tens of millions of years).

Actions that produce climates greatly different from today carry great risk. And at this point we are headed in that direction.

Atmospheric scientist Jennie Moody, research associate professor, University of Virginia, has concluded that “the public welfare is threatened by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions,” based on her own research and knowledge of the science:

There is nothing in my own research, or my understanding of the science of climate change that would give me reason to believe that EPA’s finding of endangerment is not based on sound science. To rephrase this, I would say that my knowledge gained through regular scholarship (reading of the literature in my field, I have a Ph.D. in atmospheric science (meteorology) and a minor in chemistry) and to a lesser extent from my own research in facts leads me to conclude that the public welfare is threatened by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.

Wildlife biologist Michael Erwin, research professor, University of Virginia, who feels “there is no question” about the link between greenhouse gases and sea level rise, warns of the consequences to the state of Virginia:

The issue of relative sea level rise is a real concern, especially in the mid Atlantic region (from New Jersey to North Carolina, and including Chesapeake Bay) and the Louisiana-Mississippi coast. The combination of eustatic sea level rise and subsidence in both areas is substantial, resulting in inundation of many wetlands, and erosion of many small marsh islands; it appears that most models predict an even more rapid rate of sea level rise in the next century. This has major implications to the wildlife species that depend on marshes, as well as human infrastructure in these densely populated areas.

Are they part of the conspiracy? Are they being duped by even-more-clever scientists? Or is the threat of accumulating man-made greenhouse gases real, as scientists have been warning for decades? We report, you decide.

Unrestricted burning of fossil fuels threatens a new wave of die-offs

Marine life face some of the worst impacts.  We now know that global warming is “capable of wrecking the marine ecosystem and depriving future generations of the harvest of the seas” (see 2009 Nature Geoscience study concludes ocean dead zones “devoid of fish and seafood” are poised to expand and “remain for thousands of years”).

The acidification of the ocean in particular is a grave threat  — for links to primary sources and recent studies, see “Imagine a World without Fish: Deadly ocean acidification “” hard to deny, harder to geo-engineer, but not hard to stop” (and below).

A new Nature Geoscience study, “Past constraints on the vulnerability of marine calcifiers to massive carbon dioxide release” (subs. req’d) provides a truly ominous warning.  The release from the researchers at the University of Bristol is “Rate of ocean acidification the fastest in 65 million years.”

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On his optimism for a climate bill: “There are half a dozen to a dozen” GOP Senators in play.

First, the main findings of IPCC over the years, have they been seriously cast in doubt? No….

On balance if you look at all the things the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the body of experts convened by the United Nations to advise governments in responding to global warming] has been doing over the last number of years, they were trying very hard to put in all the peer-reviewed serious stuff. I’ve actually always felt that they were taking a somewhat conservative stand on many issues and for justifiable reasons….

They should be able to say that this is serious science and take a somewhat conservative view. If you look at the climate sceptics, I would have to say honestly, what standard are they being held to? It’s very asymmetric. They get to say anything they want. In the end, the core of science is deeply self checking.

That’s Energy Secretary Steven Chu in his new interview with the Financial Times (regis. req’d).

While the media has gone back to giving equal time to even the most discredited “skeptics,” the Nobel Prize winner in physics understands the difference between real scientists, who sometimes make small, unintentional mistakes but are self checking and self-correcting, and the anti-science disinformers (and their allies in the right-wing media) who just “get to say anything they want,” who intentionally mislead, but keep getting quoted over and over again by the media (see “N.Y. Times and Elisabeth Rosenthal Face Credibility Siege over Unbalanced Climate Coverage“).

Chu pushed back against FT’s repeated efforts to get him to say the IPCC crossed some imaginary line and it’s effort to label cap and trade now “dead”:

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This is a daily summary of stories on energy and climate.

ADB May Start $100 Million Clean-Energy Venture Capital Fund

The Asian Development Bank may raise at least $100 million more in venture capital to invest in developers of advanced clean-energy technologies in the region.

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This repost comes from economists at E3 Network: Eban Goodstein, Kristen Sheeran, Director, Peter Dorman, Jonathan Isham, and John Laitner.

I. Addressing Climate Change Can Lead to Net Job Growth in the United States

Many economists believe that due to the global downturn, the US will experience high rates of unemployment (>6%) for a number of years to come. However, a steady shift toward climate protection will likely boost net job growth in the US:

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Our guest blogger is Tina Ramos, Special Assistant for Energy Policy at the Center for American Progress.

This week marks the one year anniversary of the signing of American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009 (ARRA) and the release of The Vice President’s Annual Report to the President on Progress Implementing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.  This morning President Obama noted that ARRA investments have already created 200,000 jobs in the clean energy and construction sectors.  Obama discussed job creation from ARRA in further detail:

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