Are You Ready for More?

In a world of climate change, freak storms are the new normal. Why we’re unprepared for the harrowing future.

Those are the headlines from a recent Newsweek piece.  And the extreme weather keeps coming — from more record flooding in the MidWest,  a record-smashing deluge in California, and devastating heat, drought and wild fires in the Southwest:

Figure 1. Active wildfires and smoke as visualized at 9am EDT June 7, 2011 using our wundermap for the U.S. with the Fire layer turned on. Smoke from the Wallow fire and Horseshoe Two fire in Arizona extended more than 1,000 miles, covering most of the Midwest.  [Via Masters]

The PBS NewsHour had a good show on the link between extreme weather and climate change (video here), which included this:

DR. JEFF MASTERS, meteorologist: We have never seen a year like this before….

KATHARINE HAYHOE, climate scientist: As it gets warmer, the air can hold more water vapor. So whenever a storm comes through, there’s more water available to that storm, whether it’s rainfall in the summer or even snowfall in the winter.

We’re also seeing shifts in our weather patterns and circulation patterns. So, some places that are already quite dry are getting dryer. Other places that are already quite wet are getting wetter. And some places can even experience increases in heavy rainfall events and droughts at the same time, because if a lot of the water vapor comes down in a few storms then you have a longer dry period in between before you get the next one.

For a review of the recent scientific literature, see “Two seminal Nature papers join growing body of evidence that human emissions fuel extreme weather, flooding that harm humans and the environment.“  For a discussion of the tornado-climate link, see “Tornadoes, extreme weather, and climate change.”  For another head-exploding move from the GOP climate zombies, see Brad Johnson’s post at TP Green:  “As Floods And Fires Mount, House Forbids FEMA, Coast Guard From Preparing For Climate Disasters.”

UPDATE:  I am adding two reader comments, from CAP’s Western expert, Tom Kenworthy, and from Joan Savage with a link to the uber-fires in Russia.

I can’t keep up with all the record-smashing extreme weather the country is being ravaged by, so I’m going to excerpt a couple of recent posts from former Hurricane Hunter Masters:

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Stephen Lacey and Tyce Herrman continue our series on agriculture, energy use and climate change.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) released a report last month showing that one third of the world’s food is wasted each year.  Considering that it takes about 10 calories of fossil fuels to produce one calorie of food in America, that’s a lot of energy — and greenhouse gases — for nothing.

Huge amounts of the resources used in food production are used in vain, and that the greenhouse gas emissions caused by production of food that gets lost or wasted are also emissions in vain … Food losses represent a waste of resources used in production such as land, water, energy and inputs. Producing food that will not be consumed leads to unnecessary CO2 emissions in addition to loss of economic value of the food produced.

An earlier Climate Progress post on the FAO report addressed the climate and energy implications of food waste – billions of pounds of edible food that are thrown out on the consumer end of the food chain, mostly in developed countries.

The other side of this problem, food loss, occurs primarily in developing countries due to inadequate infrastructure for harvesting and distributing food. (A recent report from Oxfam found that changing food distribution practices in developing countries is one of the most important factors in feeding the world’s projected 9 billion people, stabilizing food prices and addressing climate change by 2030.)

In the FAO report, Assistant Director General Maria Helena Semedo points out that food losses “could meet the minimum annual food requirements of at least 48 million people.”

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This is NOT another story about the death of the climate bill.  That headline comes from the print edition of the Washington Post [though I added "DC"].  The story begins:

Live eco-conscious, die eco-conscious. People who drive hybrid cars, recycle, compost and eat vegetarian are showing increased interest in leaving this world in an equally Earth-friendly way: a green burial.

“Baby boomers who define themselves as environmentalists don’t want to go out with a final act of pollution,” says Joe Sehee, executive director of the Green Burial Council, headquartered in Santa Fe, N.M. “A lot of people find solace in returning to the earth naturally.”

The WashPost would not devote 1200 words of its Tuesday “Health & Science” section to “Taking a green approach to death” if it were not an important story.  Certainly there aren’t any other major environmental stories the newspaper read by most top politicians and policymakers should be focusing on now, are there?

How serious is this story?  Well the Post feels obliged to include this paragraph:

Some think green burials are mostly hype.

“There’s an industry joke that more people attend green burial seminars than get buried green,” says Mark Matthews, president of the Cremation Association of North America.

That’s the requisite “balance.”  If  this had been a global warming story, they would have had a quote from a denier working for some trade association calling the whole thing a hoax.

Climate Progress focuses on how we might avert catastrophic global warming by  sharply reducing greenhouse gases, which left unchecked would lead to countless untimely deaths, none of them terribly green.  But I do include “going green” articles, so if you happen to be interested in a green burial, here’s some detail:

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The International Energy Agency has just issued a special report titled, “Are We Entering a Golden Age of Gas?”  The answer to that question is “yes” only if you are a natural gas producer who doesn’t care much about humanity.  For the rest of us, the report makes clear natural gas by itself does nothing to avert catastrophic climate change.  Quite the reverse.

The UK Guardian‘s story put it well:

Natural gas is not the “panacea” to solve climate change that fossil fuel industry lobbyists have been claiming, according to new research from the International Energy Agency.

Reliance on gas would lead the world to a 3.5C temperature rise, according to the IEA. At such a level, global warming could run out of control, deserts would take over in southern Africa, Australia and the western US, and sea level rises could engulf small island states.

Not exactly a champagne moment.

UPDATE:  I’ve added a featured comment (and link) by Tyler Hamilton, business columnist at The Toronto Star.

Ironically, the IEA report is built around what it calls “The Golden Age of Gas Scenario (GAS Scenario)” — except, of course,  the acronym for “Golden Age of Gas Scenario” should be GAG Scenario not GAS Scenario.  And GAG is exactly what the planet would do if the dash to gas becomes our primary energy policy, rather than a high and rising price for CO2.

The reason is clear.  Absent a high CO2 price, gas displaces as much low-carbon electricity as it does high-carbon coal.  That was precisely the point made by Nobuo Tanaka, executive director of the IEA, at a London press conference:

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The controversial Keystone XL pipeline project, intended to pump Canadian tar sands oil to Gulf Coast distributors, has hit a major roadblock on its pathway to federal approval. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a scathing review of the U.S. Department of State’s draft analysis of the pipeline’s environmental impacts, calling it “insufficient” for the second year in a row. EPA has identified numerous flaws and omissions in the State Department’s Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement (SDEIS), ranging from oil spills to greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution:

As explained in this letter, we have a number of concerns regarding the potential environmental impacts of the proposed Project, as well as the level of analysis and information provided concerning those impacts. Our concerns include the potential impacts to groundwater resources from spills, as well as effects on emission levels at refineries in the Gulf Coast. In addition. we are concerned about levels of GHG emissions associated with the proposed Project, and whether appropriate mitigation measures to reduce these emissions are being considered. Moreover, the SDEIS does not contain sufficient information to fully assess the environmental impacts of the proposed Project, including potential impacts to groundwater resources and communities that could be affected by potential increases in refinery emissions.

The EPA letter specifies these risks with TransCanada’s Keystone XL project, which would bring 830,000 barrels of tar sands per day to Gulf Coast refineries:

– Oil Spills: The pipeline project puts the Ogallala aquifer, the Missouri River, and minority, low-income, and tribal communities at risk from oil spills. The existing Keystone pipeline has frequent problems, including two spills in the last month.

– Increased Refinery Pollution: The pipeline project will significantly increase Gulf Coast refinery production, putting in particular the community of Port Arthur, Texas, at risk of new air pollution.

– Global Warming Pollution: Annual lifecycle GHG emissions, the EPA believes, may be even higher than the State Department’s estimate of 12 to 23 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent. Over the pipeline’s 50-year lifespan, that could add up to over one billion metric tons of global warming pollution. The draft analysis fails to use social cost of carbon estimates to analyze the damages that would be caused by that much pollution.

– Wetlands Destruction: There will be several hundred acres of wetlands affected along the pipeline route.

– Migratory Birds: The pipeline project puts numerous species of migratory birds at risk.

The State Department will now begin work on a final environmental impact statement. Although President Barack Obama has let Secretary of State Hillary Clinton take the lead on the question of approving the Keystone XL pipeline, this Cabinet-level conflict will likely have to resolved within the White House. The president himself will probably need to take a stand on whether this project, which poses dire risks to our health and security, but promises massive profits for the oil industry, is in the national interest.

The Climate Progress news round-up is a daily look at the top climate and energy news from around the web. Do you have interesting stories to share? Post them in the comments below.

S. Korea Aims to Create 1.5 Million Jobs From ‘Green Energy’

The South Korean government and businesses aim to bolster their share in the world’s renewable energy market to 18 percent by 2030, and create 1.5 million jobs to cut reliance on fossil fuels.

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China says it will stop giving preferential treatment to domestic wind companies, which may make it easier for American manufacturers to compete with rapidly-growing Chinese firms. As USA Today reports:

The World Trade Organization prohibits government programs that give preferences to companies using local products, such as China’s program of “indigenous innovation.” The wind power grants ranged from $6 million to $22 million, Kirk’s office says. “This outcome helps ensure fairness for American clean technology companies and workers,” Kirk says.

James Bacchus, a former World Trade Organization chief judge and member of Congress, says these types of trade subsidies “stand out as a sore thumb. They are patently illegal.”

This comes after the United Steelworkers Union filed a complaint last December with the U.S. trade representative, saying that China’s $216 billion in subsidies that specifically benefit domestic companies over foreign companies made it very difficult to compete. The U.S. government’s response:

“These subsidies effectively operate as a barrier to U.S. exports to China. Opening markets by removing barriers to our exports is a core element of the President’s trade strategy. Our decision today, along with the two other WTO cases that we recently filed against China, underscores our commitment to ensuring a level playing field with China for American workers and businesses.”

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The EPA is currently considering new regulations of toxic chemicals, heavy metals and, of course, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from power plants. But these proposed regulations have spawned an aggressive group of opponents who claim that any new rules on power plant emissions would hurt businesses, drive up rates, destroy jobs and damage the economy –false claims, as we discussed yesterday (see “Turns out Cleaning up Mercury and Coal Ash are Good for Health, Not Bad for the Economy”). So why does this group have so much sway in the public debate? According to a must-read new study from Media Matters, reposted here, the choices of guests on television networks over the last two years has been very heavily skewed toward opponents.

Media Matters analyzed television news guests who discussed the Environmental Protection Agency’s role in regulating greenhouse gas emissions from December 2009 through April 2011. Driven largely by Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network, results show that in 76 percent of those appearances, the guest was opposed to EPA regulations while 18 percent were in favor. Of the appearances by elected officials, 86 percent were Republican. Only one guest in 17 months of coverage across nine news outlets was a climate scientist — industry-funded Patrick Michaels. Read more

We all want to do the right thing. And for many of us, the only way to purchase clean energy is through Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) – a certificate that represents the environmental value of one megawatt-hour of electricity. In buying a REC, you are paying a project owner (or a broker) a little bit of money so that you can claim the clean benefit of the electricity produced. But as we’ve pointed out before (See: “Good RECs Versus Bad RECs”), those “benefits” may be doing nothing to increase investment in renewable energy and lower carbon emissions.

Guest blogger Auden Schendler, a sustainability expert who’s written on RECs for us before, dives back into the subject and makes some recommendations for businesses and consumers considering a purchase. So, are your RECs bringing new generation online?

UPDATE:  Schendler responds to comments.

If you are serious about solving climate change, you need to figure out how to clean up your power supply. That’s because efficiency can only take you so far: we can’t achieve the kinds of emissions reductions required to stabilize climate through efficiency alone. Cutting your demand in a home or business by 30% would be an outrageous victory. But you still have to deal with the remaining 70% of your carbon footprint.

That’s why so many major entities, from Intel to Carnegie Mellon University,  the State of Illinois to the Air Force, are buying vast quantities of Renewable Energy Certificates, or RECs, which are a surrogate for clean power, the only obvious way to purchase carbon free electricity  for your business.

The problem with RECs is that for the most part, they don’t drive change and don’t represent carbon reductions in the atmosphere. This issue has been daylighted in great detail over several years by Ben Elgin at Bloomberg and by me in Harvard Business Review.

The reason RECs typically don’t drive change is that at the prices people are willing to pay, the REC component of a clean energy deal isn’t material to project financing. As offset expert Mark Trexler once told me: “The question of whether a new wind farm gets built is usually a function of natural gas prices, falling technology prices, and federal tax incentives, rather than being a function of REC sales.”

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IDAHO FALLS, ID—Speaking unto an audience of anti-immigration advocates, global-warming deniers, and members of the Tea Party Nation, former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin gave forth utterances Monday that reportedly opened the sixth seal of the Book of the Apocalypse.

Those Palin supporters not swallowed up by sudden fissures in the earth’s crust remained to chant anti-Democratic slogans.

Long-time commentor Prokaryotes directs us to classic humor from America’s Finest News Service.   Hmm, maybe this is why global warming manifests itself as Hell and High Water (see “Great Texas Drought” drives record wildfires as record deluge drives Mississippi floods).

Here’s more from this 2010 gem by The Onion:

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Japan hasn’t built a major industrial geothermal facility since the 1990’s. But as the country looks beyond nuclear power after the Fukashima disaster, utilizing abundant geothermal resources is the perfect way to make up for a lagging supply of baseload electricity.

Located on the so-called Ring of Fire – the most seismically active area in the world – Japan has an abundance of hot water that can be used for electricity production. A new report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance suggests the country has about 23.5 GW of potential. However, accessing those resources may require a change to regulations that make it difficult to develop new geothermal power plants:

Projects are hindered by regulations including a ban on drilling wells in natural parks, which contain about 82 percent of Japan’s estimated 23.5 gigawatts of geothermal resources, according to the report by Tokyo-based analyst Yugo Nakamura. A gigawatt is about equal to the output of a new atomic reactor.

Opposition to development also comes from Japan’s “onsen,” or hot-spring owners, concerned that the use of underground hot water to generate electricity may harm their businesses.

This may cause conflicts between conservation groups, tourism-based businesses and power plant developers. But after reviewing the economic and public health toll of the Fukashima accident, the benefits of safe, renewable geothermal power may outweigh concerns about developing power plants on public lands. Read more