Study underestimates impacts with conservative assumptions

Figure:  Carbon emission (in billions of tons of carbon a year) from thawing permafrost.

The thaw and release of carbon currently frozen in permafrost will increase atmospheric CO2 concentrations and amplify surface warming to initiate a positive permafrost carbon feedback (PCF) on climate…. [Our] estimate may be low because it does not account for amplified surface warming due to the PCF itself….  We predict that the PCF will change the arctic from a carbon sink to a source after the mid-2020s and is strong enough to cancel 42-88% of the total global land sink. The thaw and decay of permafrost carbon is irreversible and accounting for the PCF will require larger reductions in fossil fuel emissions to reach a target atmospheric CO2 concentration.

That’s the stunning conclusion from “Amount and timing of permafrost carbon release in response to climate warming” (subs. req’d), a major new study in Tellus by NOAA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).  As we’ll see, the figure above is almost certainly too conservative post-2080.

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The EPA and its science-based safeguards are the “thin green line” that protects your children from the corporate polluters who want to poison the air and water and oceans and climate.  This ThinkProgress cross-post (with video compilation) reveals just how many GOP extremists want to end that protection.

For the past 40 years, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has played a key role in protecting our nation’s air, lands, and water from polluters. Now, if a growing chorus of Republicans get their way, the EPA’s days could be numbered.

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Last night, Congressman Mike Pompeo (R-Koch) proposed an amendment to the Continuing Resolution (H.R. 1) that would “sharply cut funding for an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) program that collects data on industrial greenhouse gas emissions.” The $8.4 million cut would leave funding for the registry at $3.2 million, unless the EPA shifts funds from another program to the registry.

Toeing a fine line between conspiracy theorist and Koch Industries profit protector, Pompeo took the house floor where “he called the registry part of an EPA plot to destroy U.S. jobs“:

EPA would, I am sure, tell you that they are simply collecting a little bit of data on greenhouse gases, that this registry is simply a very innocent effort to learn a little bit more about who is emitting greenhouse gases — who or what.

But this data is the very foundation of the EPA’s effort to pursue its radical anti-jobs agenda. Indeed, continuing the greenhouse gas registry at currently funded levels will permit the EPA regulatory nose inside the job-destroying tent. We cannot head down this path.

The amendment passed in a 239-185 vote.

Despite the Koch-approved rhetoric, even fellow Republicans found the bill to be poorly crafted. Congressman Mike Simpson (R-ID) – who apparently is incredibly frightened by the EPA’s quest to keep our air clean — originally supported the amendment, but after talking to businesses, decided to vote nay, because the business community “told him the greenhouse gas registry was a useful compliance tool for them.”

Pompeo is the congressman “spawned by ‘Kochtopus‘” and “essentially a subsidiary of the Koch brothers’ business empire.” He made his fortune off of a Koch backed company, sidled up to Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity in his 2010 campaign, signed the AFP anti-climate change pledge, took more campaign contributions from Koch Industries than any other candidate in 2010, and hired on an ex-Koch lobbyist to be his chief of staff. In fact, Koch Industries even ranked at top of Pompeo’s campaign contribution list, outpacing the second top contributor by $60,000.

So it’s no surprise that the Congressman from Koch took to the House floor to champion one of Koch Industries’ top causes – stripping the EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gases. Pompeo earned a plush position on the House Energy and Commerce Committee From Koch, and quickly went to work to do the big polluter’s bidding.

Sure the National Academy of Sciences says the median annual area burned by wildfires is projected to jump 200% to 500% in Montana by mid-century.  And sure warming-driven bark beetles are infesting and destroying the trees around Helena now, as Marketplace reported.  But while some merely want to deny the reality of human-caused climate change and the danger it poses, others actually want to pass laws asserting it doesn’t exist.

WonkRoom’s Brad Johnson has the exclusive interview with one such uber-denier.

A bill has been introduced in the Montana state legislature to declare global warming a “natural occurrence and human activity has not accelerated it,” and that it is “beneficial to the welfare and business climate of Montana.” State Rep. Joe Read (R-MT), a farmer and emergency firefighter who unseated a Democratic incumbent in the climate zombie wave of 2010, introduced HB 549 “to ensure economic development in Montana”:

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By CAP’s Valeri Vasquez, CAP Energy Policy Special Assistant.

On February 15, the Obama Administration made clear that it would veto a continuing budget resolution that slashes public health protection and other essential programs.  Meanwhile, at Tuesday’s White House press conference, President Obama referenced scalpels and machetes to illustrate his well-honed point about trimming the discretionary budget.

In a strongly-worded statement of administration policy, the White House said that

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Gasland Attack Group ‘Energy In Depth’ Was Created By Major Oil and Gas Companies According to Industry Memo

DeSmogBlog has uncovered an industry memo revealing that ‘Energy In Depth’ is hardly comprised of the mom-and-pop “small, independent oil and natural gas producers” it claims to represent.  In fact, the industry memo we found, entitled “Hydraulic Fracturing Under Attack,” shows that Energy In Depth “would not be possible without the early financial commitments” of major oil and gas interests including BP, Halliburton, Chevron, Shell, XTO Energy (now owned by ExxonMobil), and several other huge oil and gas companies that provided significant funding early on and presumably still fund the group’s efforts.

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By CAPAF’s Daniel J. Weiss and Valeri Vasquez

President Barack Obama’s proposed fiscal year 2012 budget reaffirms his commitment to American innovation and ingenuity by proposing to increase investments in energy efficiency, renewable energy technologies, science, and clean energy research, development, and deployment. This stands in sharp contrast to the House Republican Appropriations Committee’s continuing resolution for the remainder of 2011, which slashes vital programs that would increase our economic competitiveness and create long-term growth. The president’s budget would win the future while the House Republicans’ plan would lose it (see table).

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At Senate EPW hearing, witnesses call for transition to a clean energy world

This week’s Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) hearing entitled “Green Jobs and Trade,” hosted by the ‘Green Jobs and the New Economy’ subcommittee, was a call to arms for growing our clean energy economy.  CAP intern Lee Hamill has the story.

Conservatives and progressives alike agreed that we need to enhance America’s international competitiveness in jobs, trade, manufacturing, and innovation:  The question is what the rules of the game should be.

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A bill has been introduced in the Montana state legislature to declare global warming a “natural occurrence and human activity has not accelerated it,” and that it is “beneficial to the welfare and business climate of Montana.” State Rep. Joe Read (R-MT), a farmer and emergency firefighter who unseated a Democratic incumbent in the climate zombie wave of 2010, introduced HB 549 “to ensure economic development in Montana”:

The legislature finds that to ensure economic development in Montana and the appropriate management of Montana’s natural resources it is necessary to adopt a public policy regarding global warming.

(2) The legislature finds:

(a) global warming is beneficial to the welfare and business climate of Montana;

(b) reasonable amounts of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere have no verifiable impacts on the environment; and

(c) global warming is a natural occurrence and human activity has not accelerated it.

In an exclusive interview with the Wonk Room, the 55-year-old first-time legislator graciously explained why he filed this bill to outlaw science, which even he admitted was a “radical” act. Unlike the man who tried to get the Indiana legislature to redefine pi for a crank mathematical “proof” in 1897, Read’s motivation is primarily ideological. Read did not consult any climate scientists in the drafting of this bill, he said, relying instead on his own experience and understanding of the issues at play:

We can’t wait for this issue to be settled. So the legislature is going to come in, and prevent something that potentially could destroy the economy of Montana and the United States.

Read has also introduced a companion bill that asserts federal greenhouse pollution limits violate the Tenth Amendment (HB 550), modeled after Arizona’s so-called Freedom To Breathe Act. Both bills are scheduled for hearings this Friday, February 18, in the Helena, Montana capitol building.

Read said his anti-science bills are motivated by his desire to protect the state of Montana from an intrusive federal government, whose laws threaten the “progressive extraction policy” of the resource-rich state. He also expressed his anger at “outside sources” who are “attacking our infrastructure projects by lawsuits.” In recent years, Montana environmentalists have had mixed success challenging coal plant construction and coal strip mines.

Read also explained why he chose to write a set of scientific conclusions into law that go against the last 150 years of climate research and the political consensus of every government in the world:

Sometimes you have to do fairly radical things to address a federal government.

Climate policy, he believes, is essentially an attempt to steer money and control into the federal government, which has been dictating the direction of climate science research for decades. He rejects the counsel of scientists like the University of Montana’s Dr. Steve Running, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scientists whose research on global warming finds that the “only solution that adds up on a global scale is reduced emissions.”

“The purpose of this whole issue of carbon credits and pushing the agenda of global warming,” Read told the Wonk Room, “is about directing levies and fees for carbon credits so the federal government gets an income source.”

Faced with the prospect of regulation, the fossil fuel industry has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the last thirty years to cast doubt on long-established scientific conclusions. However, Read believes the “science is being skewed” by the “federal goverment” through the grant process, which manipulates most scientists to deliver findings that support governmental power:

The science is driven by grant money. It’s all on the side for writing studies that global warming is happening. There’s nothing on the side that says I wish to write a paper that global warming is not an issue. Money has been flowing into the grant purse.

The peer-review process, he feels, does not insulate the scientific field from corruption, because it’s the “same group” of scientists receiving the same funding.

If you follow the money, the science has been pushed toward where the money is coming from. The money is coming from the federal government. I believe global science is an ideal, not a true science.

Unable to trust the expert opinion of climate scientists — including Montana’s own experts, who warn of drought, infestation, wildfires and “large economic impacts” — Read goes by his own instincts to judge how over a trillion tons of carbon dioxide might influence the global climate system.

“I’ve come to the belief about climate change,” he said, “that man is very ineffective in instigating that change except in a regional area.” He believes his state is sitting pretty, even if man-made global warming isn’t a scientific conspiracy:

Our weather is not going to change drastically. Even if it does get warmer, we’re going to have a longer growing season. It could be very beneficial to the state of Montana. Why are we going to stop this progress?

Read dismissed the changes that have happened to Montana — Glacier National Park has lost 83 percent of its glaciers, seasons have shifted, insect outbreaks have devastated forests — arguing that there has been recent “cooling” that counters those signs of harmful change.

“As a citizen legislature, we are inclined to believe with the sun on our hands and our face,” he said, “and we’re not seeing the global warming.”

When asked why he believed it is possible that the global institution of science could be so corrupt as to merit his renunciation in his first act as a legislator, he grew philosophical, concluding:

Every human has an agenda and most of them cannot recognize their own agenda until you get deep down into their soul.

(H/T Josh Roseneau)