Methane release from the not-so-perma-frost is the most dangerous amplifying feedback in the entire carbon cycle (see “NSIDC bombshell: Thawing permafrost feedback will turn Arctic from carbon sink to source in the 2020s, releasing 100 billion tons of carbon by 2100“).

Methane (CH₄) deserves attention it is such a highly potent greenhouse gas — 25-33 times more powerful than carbon dioxide (CO₂) over a 100-year time-horizon, but as much as 100 time more potent over 20 years, according to the latest research!

Last year I reported on a major study in Science that found the vast East Siberian Arctic Shelf methane stores appeared to be destabilizing and venting.  The normally staid National Science Foundation issued a press release warning “Release of even a fraction of the methane stored in the shelf could trigger abrupt climate warming.”

Now there is a new Geophysical Research Letters study on a paleoclimate analog that may be relevant to humanity today, “Methane and environmental change during the Paleocene”Eocene thermal maximum (PETM): Modeling the PETM onset as a two”stage event.”

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The Nieman journalism ‘watchdog’ at Harvard reposted my initial critique of Matthew Nisbet’s Climate Shift report with the headline, “Killing a false narrative before it takes hold.”

What’s been interesting to me is to see two kinds of reactions.  Many journalists have posted long discussions of the report, welcoming the debate without taking sides on all of the issues.  And that may be a reasonable role for journalists.

But scientists and science bloggers have generally taken a different view about what I do think are the many “false narratives” in the piece.  Here’s Tim Lambert (Deltoid) with his piece on “Ozone revisionism”

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Back in July 2008, Senate GOP blocked bill limiting oil speculation

I thought I would combine a couple of posts from my colleagues at Think Progress.  I’ll let you decide if there’s any connection.

I’ve never been one to say that speculators are the primary driver of oil price fluctuations, since we are at or near the peak in conventional oil production “” and that means oil prices will inevitably see higher highs and higher low.  But others think they are playing a significant role now — bigger than they did in the 2008 run-up (see Goldman Sachs says speculation behind much of recent oil price rise: “Net speculative positions are four times as high as in June 2008″).

If speculation is playing a bigger role, then, as TP explains, we know who is to blame and whoo is getting rich:

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Last Monday, union leader Richard Trumka joined thousands of youth climate activists to challenge the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s pollution of our nation’s politics. The chamber is the largest lobbying group in the country, promoting a right-wing corporate agenda that denies the threat of global warming pollution and promotes sending American jobs overseas. The activists, coming from the the Power Shift 2011 conference, were joined by the AFL-CIO president in a rally before the chamber’s headquarters on Lafayette Park, facing the White House. Students, like all of America’s workers, are facing the prospect of a terrible job market that rewards speculation and profiteering instead of clean-energy innovation. Trumka thanked the students and young Americans for “moving our national conversation where it has to go” by “fighting on the front lines”:

I don’t have to tell you that too many politicians and their corporate friends in Washington and state capitals across the country don’t care about jobs. They don’t care about the environment. They don’t care about our future. You see, they’re hell bent on pushing a destructive corporate political agenda. And that’s why what you’re doing is so critically important.

“You’re building power,” Trumka concluded to deafening cheers, “and you’re building political will to force our elected officials to consider the quality of the air we breathe, the food that we eat, the jobs that we have, the future we need for ourselves and our children.”

Coming out of Power Shift: the Briefcase Brigades are challenging Congress to help young people find work on April 27, and 350 is mobilizing businesses to tell everyone that “The Chamber Doesn’t Speak For Me.”

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Here’s an emerging conservative disinformation strategy:   Tout the pollution reduced by science-based EPA cap-and-trade programs, but don’t give any credit to science, EPA, or cap-and-trade.

The latest right-winger to push this meme is Steve Hayward of the American Enterprise Institute.  Back in 2009, he wrote “The brain waves of the American right continue to be erratic, when they are not flat-lining.”  Hayward’s brain isn’t flat-lining here — it’s working over-time in some Bizarro universe.

NRDC’s David Doniger has the amazing story in this Switchboard repost:

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Dumbest Guy in the Room: Donald Trump’s Energy Policy

As the rumor mill surrounding next year’s presidential election picks up steam, Donald Trump’s potential candidacy has received the nod from a few Republican Party stalwarts.  For his part, Trump appears to be courting party leaders by rolling out big-picture policy statements.  For example, in March, Trump proposed an extraordinarily straightforward energy policy for solving the short and long term energy woes of the United States.

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Richard W. Caperton, Kate Gordon , Bracken Hendricks, and Daniel J. Weiss in a CAP repost.

The United States is at risk of being left in the dust in the clean energy race. But we can catch up. A Clean Energy Standard, or CES, which mandates that electric utilities generate a certain percentage of their power from clean energy sources, is an essential first step.

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I love American success stories. Start-up companies that change the marketplace, inventors who create new technologies, and, of course, immigrants who make it big in Hollywood. That’s why I love the Clean Air Act, one of the most successful laws in American history. Over the last 40 years, it has made our air dramatically cleaner, saved hundreds of thousands of lives, and substantially boosted our economy.

In 1968, I came to California and didn’t know why my eyes were constantly filling with tears. I quickly learned about smog and bad-air days. These days, the air is much cleaner thanks to the Clean Air Act and technologies that resulted from it, such as catalytic converters on cars and particle traps on diesel exhaust. Those toxic smog days motivated everyone to act.

Today, I have tears in my eyes again, but for a very different reason. Some in Washington are threatening to pull the plug on this success.

That’s Arnold Schwarzenegger in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, “The Clean Air Act Keeps Us Healthy:  Congress can’t be trusted to interfere with the EPA’s scientific standards.”

Here’s more from the Republican who was governor of California from 2003 to 2011:

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