Irony can be so ironic.  A day after cancelling his keynote address at the Heartland climate denial conference because he felt “under the weather,” Republican Senator Jim Inhofe today insisted his sickness was due to a toxic algae bloom on the Grand Lake in Oklahoma where he has a home – joking to a local newspaper that “the environment strikes back” and ”Inhofe is attacked by the environment.”

“There is no question,” the Oklahoma Republican said, linking what he thought was a routine dive into the lake last Monday morning to a severe upper respiratory illness.

“That night, Monday night, I was just deathly sick.”

Inhofe and his wife, Kay, have had a home on the lake for decades, and he has never seen that kind of algae in the water previously.

Inhofe’s run-in with algae comes as his state deals with a record-setting heat wave and drought not seen since the 1930’s – creating perfect conditions for blue-green algal blooms that can cause respiratory problems, diarrhea, skin irritation and, in rare cases, death. In Texas, cattle have been dying from drinking blue-green algae that scientists explain have blossomed due to severe drought conditions.

A University of North Carolina researcher described the impact that extreme temperatures exacerbated by a changing climate could have on algae growth:

“It’s long been known that nutrient runoff contributes to cyanobacterial growth. Now scientists can factor in temperature and global warming,” said [Hans] Paerl, who, with Professor Jef Huisman from the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, explains the new realization in Science paper.

“As temperatures rise waters are more amenable to blooms,” Paerl said.

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by Rebecca Lefton

Airlines have undertaken a massive public relations campaign to green their image. But when it comes down to actually addressing the carbon pollution to mitigate climate change, the industry has staunchly opposed any action.

At a public debate yesterday, Nancy Young, VP of Environmental Affairs for the Air Transport Association of America, Inc. (ATA), spoke on behalf of U.S. airlines about their position on the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, saying that organization opposes the law.

The aviation sector accounts for around 13 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector, and aviation emissions are on track to quadruple by 2050 if left unchecked. The EU Emissions Trading System is the only legal framework attempting to address such a massive growth in emissions. Under the EU ETS, airlines that fly into or out of Europe will begin reducing global warming emissions in January 2012 (3 percent reduction from 2004-2006 levels in 2013 and 5 percent by 2020).

Major US airlines and the ATA are actively opposing the EU law.  In December 2009, American Airlines, Continental Airlines and United Airlines (Continental and United have since merged), and the ATA filed a lawsuit seeking to evade global warming pollution reductions under the EU ETS.  The suit, filed in the UK, has been referred to the European Court of Justice. The Court will hear ATA’s case on July 5, and a decision is expected near the year’s end.

ATA has said that it recognizes the need for airlines to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and that it supports efforts to do so, but the organization refuses to accept the only existing policy mechanism in place to reduce emissions.

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As fossil fuel pollution heats the planet, one of the casualties is the traditional celebration of the founding of the United States. The record droughts, floods, and storms fueled by global warming are causing widespread bans on fireworks and the cancellation of numerous municipal firework displays, even a celebration for our soldiers in Oklahoma:

There will be no fireworks this year exploding over Fort Sill in Lawton. The U.S. Army base’s Independence Day celebration and concert will go on as planned Saturday, but its fireworks have been canceled. A fire that started on a base firing range last week burned across 5,500 acres before it was contained. Thirteen homes were destroyed and 1,500 people had to be evacuated.

Firework shows from Texas to Massachusetts have been canceled because of the deadly climate conditions:

In Oklahoma, 36 counties suffering from extreme to exceptional drought have issued burn bans, which include a prohibition on fireworks except for public displays.

In Kansas, fireworks have been banned in Dodge City and surrounding rural areas due to the extreme drought.

In Louisiana, fireworks have been banned in Shreveport and neighboring Bossier because of extreme heat and drought.

In Texas, 170 counties have fireworks bans, including all of metropolitan Houston. Nearly all of Texas has burn bans as well. Because of the extreme drought, Fourth of July fireworks displays have been canceled in Texas towns large and small: San Antonio, Austin, Amarillo, Lubbock, Plainview, Magnolia, Tomball, DeSoto, Woodlands, Roman Forest, and Patton Village.

In Arizona, authorities have banned fireworks from Flagstaff in the north to Tucson, Douglas and Sierra Vista in the south.

In New Mexico, Gov. Susana Martinez (R-NM) has said that there is “absolutely no reason to buy, sell or use personal fireworks.” She has declared a “state of emergency in New Mexico regarding the use of fireworks.” Albertson’s, WalMart, and Smith’s stores have stopped selling fireworks in the state. Taos, with wildfires raging nearby, has canceled its fireworks display.

In Joplin, Missouri, where a devastating tornado hit on May 22, officials have banned fireworks because of the amount of combustible debris in the tornado’s path.

In Massachusetts, the historical recreation site Old Sturbridge Village has canceled its fireworks display because its fireworks launch site was flooded and alternative launch sites were damaged by tornadoes.

Austerity budgets are also killing Fourth of July celebrations, with fireworks displays canceled at Jones Beach in New York, in Chicago, Illinois, and in Shawnee, Oklahoma.

In 2008, the U.S. government placed the polar bear on the threatened species list because of the rapid decline in Arctic sea ice, becoming “the first to be designated as threatened because of global warming.”

But in 2008, media mega-star Sarah Palin was still the governor of Alaska. Fearing that protecting the polar bear would “cripple oil and gas development” off Alaska’s coasts, Palin — a well-worn climate science denier — sued the government to remove the species from the list. Palin pointed to the high population of polar bears in 2008 and dismissed climate models that predict continued loss of sea ice as “unreliable,” “uncertain,” and “unproven.”

But U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan backed the government scientists’ finding this week “that global warming is threatening the survival of the polar bear.” In a 116-page opinion, Sullivan dismissed Palin and hunting groups’ arguments as “nothing more than competing views about policy and science” and ruled on the side of science:

Notwithstanding a handful of references to uncertainty that appear in record documents, Joint Plaintiffs have failed to persuade this Court that FWS [U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service] implemented the ESA [Endangered Species Act] “haphazardly.” Accordingly, the Court concludes that FWS did not act arbitrarily in relying on and drawing reasonable conclusions from the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] reports and climate models in making its listing determination for the polar bear.

Under the judge’s ruling, the polar bear is still listed as “threatened,” not “endangered,” on the endangered species list. The U.S. Justice Department stated yesterday that “it was pleased that the court agreed with its argument that the decision was based on the science available at the time.”

The Center for Biological Diversity, however, noted after the decision that “even if polar bears could be considered only threatened in 2008, they are clearly endangered today.” While the estimated population of Arctic polar bears in 2008 stood at 20,000 to 25,000, the U.S. Geological Survey predicted that “two thirds of the world’s polar bears will disappear in the next 50 years because of a decline in Arctic sea ice.” Indeed, “climate change has turned some polar bears into cannibals as global warming melts their Arctic ice hunting grounds.”

Regardless of the facts, Palin said in a 2009 op-ed that she “took a stand against politicized science” in this case and “stood by my view that adding a healthy species to the endangered list under the guise of ‘climate change impacts’ was an abuse of the Endangered Species Act.”

As the largest wildfire in Arizona history still burns, the Las Conchas wildfire is becoming the largest wildfire in New Mexico history.

“Recent experience down here suggests that what we’re looking at in the last few decades is at least as severe and maybe more so than anything we’ve seen since the last Ice Age,” Grant Meyer, a geologist at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque tells the Christian Science Monitor. In addition to a buildup of fuels from forestry practices, “part of it as well – and the data are very good on this – it’s climatic warming” as human industrial activity and land-use changes have pumped increasing amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. “A long-term average decline in annual snow pack, which provides the bulk of the region’s water, along with rising average temperatures have lengthened the fire season and dried out the fuel.”

“As firefighters we’re seeing extreme fire behavior and the kind of growth we haven’t seen in our careers,” Jerome McDonald of the Southwest Area Incident Management Team said. “We have seen fire behavior we’ve never seen down here, and it’s really aggressive,” says Los Alamos fire chief Donald Tucker.

Meanwhile, the one real atmospheric scientist brought in for a debate says “there’s not a lot of science here” but “there’s definitely paranoia here.”

It’s one thing to use absurd charts and phony science language to try to mislead people into believing the data that human activity isn’t causing climate change. But to claim that the “ecological impact” of mining and burning fossil fuels is “not negative” is a stretch for even the most hard-nosed denier.

Apparently not for the Heartland Institute. In an interview at the International Climate Change Conference – a gathering place for a colorful community of climate deniers – Heartland President Joe Bast declared his support for fossil fuel dependency after mockingly suggesting that the energy from opening and closing a refrigerator door would produce more electricity than wind and solar:

Bast’s idea for the energy future isn’t proven renewables, but the insignificant energy created by opening and closing refrigerator doors? He couldn’t make it any clearer that the Heartland Institute is a fringe group out to fight clean energy. (In fact in a later session at the conference, Bast exclaimed that there’s “beauty” in “black power.”)

Regarding his assertion that there’s no negative ecological impact to relying on fossil fuels — that one rivals his 2006 quote on second-hand smoking that “no victim of cancer, heart disease, etc. can ‘prove’ his or her cancer or heart disease was caused by exposure to secondhand smoke.”

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Sound the alarm. It’s a scientist’s job to alert the public to the threats of climate change.

James Risbey, an atmospheric and marine researcher at CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, explains why it’s not “alarmist” to describe the threat of climate change to the public and how the climate system will respond to half measures.  This is a repost from The Conversation.

With many issues to be considered in setting a climate policy one can end up wondering what the role of climate science is in all this.

After all, climate science doesn’t tell us what to do. It doesn’t tell us whether to have a carbon price or where it should be set. Those decisions ultimately involve a range of normative and deliberative issues which are beyond the scope of climatology.

Climatology can tell us, however, what is likely to happen if we don’t act, or if we don’t act with sufficient speed to keep total emissions within specific carbon allocations.

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—Dominique Browning, in an EDF cross-post

Recently, I attended the kickoff for an EDF Climate Corps training session in Boston. Sitting in a classroom full of disconcertingly young and bright MBA students, we were presented with this question:

Do you know the difference between energy conservation and energy efficiency?

Here’s a test: Which actions have to do with efficiency?

1. Installing solar panels
2. Using different bulbs for the same amount of light
3. Wearing sweaters
4. Using the best technology
5. Making fewer copies of documents
6. Properly using existing equipment
7. Installing sensors for lights

There was a buzz as the students responded. Hands went tentatively up and down. But within 15 minutes, they (and I) were getting it — the key to one of EDF’s most innovative projects is helping companies maximize energy efficiency.

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A round-up of climate and energy news. Please post other stories below.

First Solar Wins Loan Help

The U.S. Energy Department said it is offering to guarantee about $4.5 billion in loans for First Solar Inc. to finance three renewable energy projects in California that the solar-panel maker is developing.

The government’s conditional offer to support the projects drew funds from the stimulus-funded loan guarantee program, which expires on Sept. 30 and currently has less than 25% of its funds remaining.

Once built, First Solar, of Tempe, Ariz., said that two of the projects would be the largest capacity solar-panel farms in the world.

First Solar’s California plan includes two 550-megawatt plants in Riverside and San Luis Obispo counties that will be supported by $1.88 billion and $1.93 billion in loans, respectively, according to the Energy Department.

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