The US fears that Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest crude oil exporter, may not have enough reserves to prevent oil prices escalating, confidential cables from its embassy in Riyadh show.

The cables, released by WikiLeaks, urge Washington to take seriously a warning from a senior Saudi government oil executive that the kingdom’s crude oil reserves may have been overstated by as much as 300bn barrels – nearly 40%.

That we are close to a peak in global oil production should not be a surprise to anyone (see World’s top energy economist warns peak oil threatens recovery, urges immediate action: “We have to leave oil before oil leaves us” and German military study warns of peak oil crisis and Peak oil production coming sooner than expected).

The bombshell is that the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh understands this and that it “now questions how much the Saudis can now substantively influence the crude markets over the long term.”  Who persuaded them of this is equally remarkable — Sadad al-Husseini, “a geologist and former head of exploration at the Saudi oil monopoly Aramco,” who says he isn’t in the peak oil camp but sounds on awful lot like those of us who are.

Consider the first cable, from December 2007:

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The view from our future home.

Republicans have a new idea: instead of wasting time protecting this planet, let’s figure out how to escape it.

Over a hundred years ago, scientists started warning that the unconstrained burning of fossil fuels could make planet Earth uninhabitable for human civilization. Since then, we have spewed billions of tons of greenhouse pollution into the atmosphere, acidifying the oceans, devastating ecosystems, and intensifying catastrophic weather. Fortunately, scientists have also found that the strategy of reducing pollution would unleash an economic revolution with clean energy and keep our planet friendly to the human race. Many of these scientists work for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA), which has a billion-dollar budget for studying the “natural and man-made changes in our environment” that “affect the habitability of our planet.”

However, Republicans in Congress find the clean energy pathway unreasonable, arguing the costs of reducing our toxic dependence on coal and oil would be too great. Perhaps stung by accusations that they are simply the Party of No, a group of House Republicans have now put forward an alternate strategy to avoiding disastrous global warming: the first step being to scrap NASA’s world-leading climate science research funding, and direct it instead into sending people into unpolluted outer space:

Global warming funding presents an opportunity to reduce spending without unduly impacting NASA’s core human spaceflight mission. With your help, we can reorient NASA’s mission back toward human spaceflight by reducing funding for climate change research and reallocating those funds to NASA’s human spaceflight accounts, all while moving overall discretionary spending toward 2008 levels.

The signatories of this Abandon Earth letter to House Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers (R-KY) and Commerce, Justice, and Science Subcommittee Chairman Frank Wolf (R-VA) are Reps. Sandy Adams (R-FL), Rob Bishop (R-UT), Mo Brooks (R-AL), Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), Pete Olson (R-TX) and Bill Posey (R-FL), all from districts that play a role in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) manned spaceflight program. As they are currently on planet Earth, they are also all from districts threatened by the effects of global warming.

Although the signatories don’t explicitly state that the goal of shifting funding from climate research into manned spaceflight is to find a new home for the 350 million people of the United States, one can only assume that they support that goal. Signatory Mo Brooks (R-AL), the new subcommittee chair for the House science committee’s panel on basic research and education, told ScienceInsider that “I haven’t seen anything that convinces me” that greenhouse emissions should be reduced, and will hold hearings about cutting as much of the U.S. climate research budget as possible.

As they are responsible politicians who worry about “[f]uture generations of Americans,” they surely don’t intend to stick our children with catastrophic sea level rise, summer-long heat waves of over 100 degrees, superfueled storms and floods, intense droughts, desertification, and mass species extinction without offering them a Planet B:

Space is the ultimate high ground and nations such as China, Russia, and India are anxious to seize the mantle of space supremacy should we decide to cede it. We must not put ourselves in the position of watching Chinese astronauts planting their flag on the moon while we sit earthbound by our own shortsightedness. Future generations of Americans deserve better.

The Planet-B Republicans rightfully recognize that the moon — without an atmosphere or liquid water — would lead to serious resource competition between the 6 billion people now on this planet, perhaps with China the greatest threat to our post-Earth plans. Although China does have a growing space program, its government is primarily investing in the “save this planet first” strategy, spending twice as much as the United States on clean technology, establishing mandatory standards for renewable energy production, mandatory energy efficiency standards, and mandatory fuel economy standards.

Some people might say that ramping up interplanetary travel from the 12 men who walked on the moon to millions or billions of people, while figuring out how to terraform lifeless planets when we’re failing to keep our own climate stable, in a few decades is a higher risk, more costly endeavor than increasing energy efficiency and renewable energy by one or two percentage points a year. Although those people would be technically correct, they would also be failing to appreciate the total awesomeness of the Abandon Earth plan.

I am happy to report that ClimateProgress will be hiring a Reporter/Blogger.  That will effectively double the full-time staff at CP, which is good news for both me and you.

I am quite excited about the opportunity for CP to cover more of the story of the century — and to gain the ability to do investigative reporting.

The full job description is here and below.  Please circulate this job description to anyone you know who you think is qualified and interested.

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SCE’s proposed contracts for 250 MW of solar PV projects come in below price of natural gas

We hear it every day: “Solar is too expensive.” Well, not according to the California utility Southern California Edison.

In a recent filing to the state’s Public Utilities Commission, SCE asked for approval of 20 solar PV projects worth 250 MW – all of which are expected to generate a total of 567 GWh of electricity for less than the price of natural gas.

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FAO also warns floods and heavy rains in Southern Afria “threaten food security”

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization issued an alert Tuesday that a severe drought was threatening the wheat crop in China, the world’s largest wheat producer, and was even resulting in shortages of drinking water for people and livestock.

The state-run news media in China warned Monday that the country’s major agricultural regions were facing their worst drought in 60 years and said Tuesday that Shandong Province, a cornerstone of Chinese grain production, was bracing for its worst drought in 200 years unless substantial precipitation came by the end of this month.

World wheat prices are already surging and have been widely cited as one reason for protests in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world.

As Craig Fugate, who heads the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency, put it in December, “The term ’100-year event’ really lost its meaning this year.”

The climate impact deniers are having a field day.  With record-smashing extreme weather around the globe destroying crops and helping to run up food prices, there are more and more opportunities to deny that human-caused climate change is actually having any impacts that one would ever have to adapt to (see Munich Re: “The only plausible explanation for the rise in weather-related catastrophes is climate change“).

While some quote irrelevant decades-old data, the world is suffering from the fact that we are beyond the carrying capacity of the planet in many arenas — and close to the edge on others — according to scientists.  That means when we have the hottest and wettest year on record — and multiple extreme events — the global food system will be pushed to the breaking point.

As agricultural economist Lester Brown said yesterday, “I think we are seeing some of the early effects of climate change on food security.”  In the same story, retired vice admiral Dennis McGinn, a member of the military board of advisors of the Center for Naval Analysis, said “The adverse effects of bad weather caused by climate change act as a threat multiplier for instability in critical parts of the world.”

The FAO also warned yesterday, “rising waters threaten food security“: Read more

In hearing, Upton stars as Cheney, powered by Koch Industries

By CAPAF’s Daniel J. Weiss

On the eve of the new House Energy and Commerce Committee’s hearing (watch live here at 9:30 am) on legislation to block EPA from setting standards to reduce carbon dioxide pollution, Ranking Member Henry Waxman (D-CA) released a January 2008 letter from then EPA Administrator Steven Johnson to President George W. Bush.  Johnson’s letter told President Bush that the administration must make an “endangerment finding” that carbon pollution endangers public health and the environment.  He also told the president to use EPA’s authority under the Clean Air Act to reduce this pollution.

The Supreme Court’s Massachusetts v EPA decision still requires a response. That case combined with the latest science of climate change requires the Agency to propose a positive endangerment finding”¦.  the state of the latest climate change science does not permit a negative finding, nor does it permit a credible finding that we need to wait for more research.

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Why boosting our health boosts our economy, too

By CAP’s Susan Lyon and Kate Gordon

Efforts to stop the Environmental Protection Agency from doing its job would stifle job creation, hamper economic growth, and thwart the passage and implementation of rules meant to safeguard Americans, the air we breathe, and the water we drink. Yet hostile voices in Congress are currently trying to do just that. Top dirty energy lobbyists such as the Koch Brothers are allying with conservatives in Congress to make the EPA their top target. They don’t realize, though, that they are advocating for an outdated, 20th century economy instead of an innovative 21st century one.

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Here is the testimony of David G. Hawkins, Director of Climate Programs for the Natural Resources Defense Council, to the House Subcommittee on Energy and Power in their hearing on repealing US EPA’s Finding that Greenhouse Gases Endanger Public Health and Welfare and Repealing Clean Air Act and Certain State Authorities Relating to Greenhouse Gases.

My name is David Hawkins.  I am Director of Climate Programs at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).  NRDC is a nonprofit organization of scientists, lawyers and environmental specialists dedicated to protecting public health and the environment.  Founded in 1970, NRDC has more than 1.2 million members and online activists nationwide, served from offices in New York, Washington, Los Angeles and San Francisco, Chicago and Beijing.  During the presidency of Jimmy Carter I had the privilege of serving as Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation at the US Environmental Protection Agency where I was responsible for developing pollution standards under the Clean Air Act authorities that would be affected by the draft legislation.

Last week Chairmen Upton and Whitfield released draft legislation that would, among other things-

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With contributions from Noreen Nielsen, Energy Communications Director for Progressive Media at the Center for American Progress.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee, now under Republican control, is holding a hearing right now to discuss blocking the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to reduce global warming pollution. Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY), who has received $9,000 from Koch Industries since 2008, will chair the subcommittee hearing on the Upton-Inhofe “Energy Tax Prevention Act,” hatched at a secret meeting between the bill’s sponsors and polluter lobbyists. The Republican witness list is a cavalcade of the nation’s worst polluters and oil-funded ideologues:

– Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s 2010 campaign was heavily funded by some of Texas’s largest industries, with most coming from people connected to oil and gas interests. Abbott, who has received $40,000 from Koch Industries and $10,000 from ExxonMobil, sued the Obama administration to end an offshore oil-drilling moratorium instituted following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and has taken the EPA to court three times in the past year, accusing climate scientists of “lying, falsification, cover-ups, et cetera.”

– National Black Chamber of Commerce president Harry Alford has received $425,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998. The study NBCC commissioned from Charles River Associates to attack the Waxman-Markey climate bill made false assumptions to generate artificially high costs for clean energy action.

– Lonnie Carter is president of Santee Cooper, a coal-powered utility that is the largest single mercury polluter in South Carolina. Santee Cooper is also a top consumer of mountaintop removal coal.

– Steve Cousins is vice president of Lion Oil, which ranks 27th on the list of top 100 facilities releasing chemicals such as nitrous oxides, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter, carbon monoxide, and benzene into the environment. Cousins is a climate denier, questioning whether human activity is responsible for global warming.

– Peter Glaser of Troutman Sanders LLP works with the Washington Legal Foundation, which has received $325,000 from ExxonMobil and $1,255,000 from Koch Industries since 1997. Glaser has fought on behalf of carbon polluters for years, opposing the Supreme Court’s Massachusetts v. EPA decision.

– Fred Harnack represents the U.S. Steel Corporation, which ranks 19th on the 2010 Political Economy Research Institute Toxic 100 Air Polluters list.

– Illinois Farm Bureau president Phillip Nelson has a history of attacking air and water safeguards, while supporting big polluting mega-farms. Agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland, headquartered in Decatur, IL, is seventh on the 2010 Political Economy Research Institute Toxic 100 Air Polluters list.

– James Pearce is the environmental general manager for FMC Corp., which had to pay the largest civil penalty ever obtained under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act for repeatedly violating the hazardous waste law at its phosphorus production facility in Pocatello, Idaho.

– Steve Rowlan is the environmental general manager at Nucor Corp., which is 24th on the 2010 Political Economy Research Institute Toxic 100 Air Polluters list.

– Margo Thorning is the vice president and chief economist for the American Council for Capital Formation (ACCF). ACCF has received $215,000 from Koch foundations and nearly $1.7 million from ExxonMobil. Even with artificially negative assumptions, ACCF’s study of Waxman-Markey found that 20 million new jobs would be created by 2030.

Self-proclaimed “climate-denier-in-chief ” Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), one of the draft legislation sponsors, will also testify at the hearing. Inhofe’s top lifetime contributor is Koch Industries, which has given him $86,650 since 1989.

Read The House Energy And Commerce Committee From Koch for much more.

For her birthday this year, Administrator of the EPA Lisa Jackson received a big pair of boxing gloves.  Not your average birthday present, the gloves were presented by Leo Gerard, President of United Steel Workers Union, as he introduced her at the Green Jobs Good Jobs Conference yesterday morning.  He warned her that during the next year of her life, she’d have to put up a tough fight to protect her EPA initiatives, but not to worry because the labor unions and the environmental organizations were all in her corner of the ring.

The size and enthusiasm of the Good Jobs Green Jobs Conference seemed testimony to Gerard’s declaration of support.  CAPAF’s Lisbeth Kaufman has the story.

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