In light of the sustained drought, Governor Mary Fallin today asked all Oklahomans to set aside time this Sunday, July 17, to pray for rain.

That was two week ago.  The result is that Oklahoma went from the drought condition below on the right below to the one on the left in just two short weeks:

Yes, in a mere two weeks, another 30% of the state went into extreme or exceptional drought!  Now the entire state is under severe drought or worse.

For some reason, science-denying southern Republican governors keep returning to one particular ineffectual ‘adaptation’ strategy:  “Texas Drought Now Far, Far Worse Than When Gov. Rick Perry Issued Proclamation Calling on All Texans to Pray for Rain“ (7/15/11).

And speaking of Gov. Perry, who apparently is edging closer and closer to a presidential run, his state has been utterly devastated since his proclamation.  Texas A&M reports:

As Texas continues to bake in record heat, the drought news for the state continues to be bleak – Texas is now in the midst of its most severe one-year drought on record, according to John Nielsen-Gammon, the Texas State Climatologist and professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University….

Nielsen-Gammon explains [,] “Never before has so little rain been recorded prior to and during the primary growing season for crops, plants and warm-season grasses.”

The Texas drought monitor is as shockingly blood-red as its reservoirs:

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Texas is now in its worst-ever one-year drought, according to John Nielsen-Gammon, the Texas State Climatologist and professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University. The epic heat wave and lack of rainfall is baking Texas dry, leaving the nation’s second largest agricultural producer reeling. The records set for Texas tell the story of a polluted climate killing the state:

– Hottest month ever (July)

– Hottest July ever, average temperature 87.2°F (previous record 86.5°F in 1998)

– Hottest June ever (fifth hottest month ever), average temperature 85.2°F

– Least year-to-date precipitation, 6.53 inches (historical average 16.03 inches; previous record 9.36 inches in 1917)

– Driest consecutive 8, 9, and 10 months, 7.25 inches 8.35 inches, and 9.17 inches respectively

– Driest 12 months ending in July, 15.16 inches (previous record 16.46 inches in 1925)

– 99.93 percent of the state is in some level of drought

– 73.49 percent of the state is in exceptional drought

“These statistics rank the current drought as the most severe one-year drought ever for Texas,” Nielsen-Gammon explains. “Never before has so little rain been recorded prior to and during the primary growing season for crops, plants and warm-season grasses.”

In coming years, the climate is expected to worsen for Texas, in large part because of the fossilized carbon extracted from underneath the now-dying land. “Triple-digit temperatures will be the norm in Texas within a few decades, and 115-degree heat won’t be surprising,” Nielsen-Gammon warned last year.

With major cuts to funding for federal clean energy programs coming over the next decade, the industry will need to lay out some clear priorities for the coming years. How can the industry balance the need to deploy projects with existing technologies while helping spur more innovation for new technologies and business models?

Energy Secretary Steven Chu recognizes the immense challenge that coming budget cuts will represent. In an interview with ClimateWire, Chu explained his new approach to helping deploy renewables and efficiency:

“Now, since the amount of money one is going to have for doing these things is not going to be at Recovery Act scale, but we have a large deficit,” he said, “It is very important we work towards reducing this deficit. So where’s the best dollars and how could they be most highly leveraged?”

Over the past year and a half, Chu said, he’s begun gearing DOE’s machinery — some parts smoothly, some parts with more resistance — toward a new strategy.

As he summarizes it: “It’s taking a more business approach to what is really happening.”

The perfect example of a more business-oriented approach is the SunShot Initiative – a program that encourages companies and municipalities to compete head-to-head in order to drive down costs in installation, permitting and manufacturing. By offering rewards in different areas of innovation, the competitive process creates a “multiplier effect” for developing new technologies and business models with the goal of driving down the installed cost of solar 75% by 2020.

In order to make the most of funds, competitive programs will be necessary, says Chu:

“This is in part because the amount of funds we expect going forward on some of these deployment things just won’t be there,” he said. “But fundamentally, it may not even be necessary if you get the right business models.”

It’s nice to know we have a forward-thinking energy secretary at the helm during one of the biggest boom-bust political cycles for clean energy in our history. But we still need some core programs that will provide financiers with the certainty they need to help deploy proven technologies.

We reached out to a variety of companies and analysts in the renewables and efficiency space and asked them for their top priorities. These explicitly excluded a price on carbon or a renewable energy standard – two incredibly important components that are unlikely to get traction in the near term. This is far from an exhaustive list, but simply an overview of what respondents answered.

Here are the top five:

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GOP presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty (R-MN) stopped by the Miami Herald during his “press-palooza” in Florida this week to offer his thoughts on immigration, gay marriage, and the debt ceiling. When it came to global warming, the once-strong proponent of cap-and-trade legislation reiterated that his hard reversal on the policy came from his belief that the science behind climate change is “based on unreliable conclusions.” When asked if he even believed there was “man-made climate change,” Pawlenty informed the Herald — and the climate researcher they checked with — that most, if not all, climate change occurs “because of natural causes“:

Pawlenty: “It’s something we have to look to the science on. The weight of the evidence is that most of it, maybe all of it, is because of natural causes. But to the extent there is some element of human behavior causing some of it – that’s what the scientific debate is about. That’s why we’ve seen all this back and forth between some of those prominent scientists in the world arguing about that very point.”

Q: There is a strong case for man-made climate change, according to a University of Miami climate researcher I’ve spoken to. You don’t agree with him?

Pawlenty: “There’s lots of layers to it. But at least as to any potential man-made contribution to it, it’s fair to say the science is in dispute. There’s a lot of people who say the majority of the scientists think this way. And there’s a minority that way. And you count the number of scientists versus the quality of scientists and the like. But I think it’s fair to say that, as to whether and how much – if any – is attributable to human behavior, there’s dispute and controversy over it….. Cap and trade I thought is a ham-fisted, expensive, job-rui[n]ng economy-stifling approach.”

Incidentally, Pawlenty was once the “driving force” behind the so-called “ham-fisted” cap-and-trade policy when he was Minnesota’s governor. Back-peddling fast from his former position, Pawlenty has chucked actual science out of the window. Unlike the ideologically-driven delusions on whichhe now relies, actual facts do indeed point to human activity as a cause of climate change.

Our guest blogger is Kiley Kroh, associate director for Ocean Communications at the Center for American Progress.

After numerous accusations of Royal Dutch Shell covering up its oil spills in Nigeria, a landmark study released today by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) found that cleaning up five decades of spills in the region could require “the world’s most wide-ranging and long term oil clean-up exercise ever undertaken.” The highly anticipated report estimated that the damage wrought by Shell, by far the largest operator in the region, and other companies in the Niger Delta will cost an initial $1 billion and could take up to 30 years to complete.

UNEP’s analysis found that most of the oil spill sites the companies claim to have cleaned up are still highly contaminated and that emergency measures be taken to warn communities. The report identifies several severe public health and environmental threats – including soil contamination reaching more than five meters deep in many areas and, in Nisisoken Ogale, “researchers found 8cm of refined oil floating on ground water that served community wells.” Shell was ejected from the communities in 1994 for widespread pollution, but oil spills have continued to occur “in alarming regularity.”

The announcement comes on the heels of yesterday’s revelation that Shell would accept responsibility for two massive oil spills that have devastated a Nigerian community of 69,000 in the Ogoniland region and completely destroyed their livelihoods. According to the Guardian, experts who studied video footage of the spills estimate their combined impact could be as large as the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster, which spewed nearly 11 million gallons of oil into the Alaska coastline, and could take at least 20 years to clean up. Shell has previously maintained that less than 40,000 gallons were spilled.

The spills occurred in 2008 and 2009, contaminating a large stretch of rivers and waterways, and no attempt has been made to clean up any of the oil. A statement from the oil giant, however, claims that “SPDC (Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria) has always acknowledged that the two spills which affected the Bodo community, and which are the subject of this legal action, were operational…SPDC is committed to cleaning up all spills when they occur, no matter what the cause.”

With oil built up on creek sides and washing in and out with the tide, the impact on this fishing community has been catastrophic. Despite Shell’s acknowledgement of liability, their response to the Bodo people has been “insulting”:

According to the communities in Bodo, in two years the company has offered only £3,500 together with 50 bags of rice, 50 bags of beans and a few cartons of sugar, tomatoes and groundnut oil.

This from the company that just last week announced second-quarter profits of $8 billion, a 77 percent jump from the same period a year ago, bringing their total profits in the first six months of 2011 to an astonishing $14.9 billion.

The implications of Shell’s actions in Nigeria extend beyond the region alone. The president of Royal Dutch Shell’s U.S. operations is increasingly confident that the company’s proposal to drill in the harsh Arctic will be approved as early as 2012, despite a top Coast Guard officer’s recent testimony asserting that the U.S. government is not prepared to respond to a spill in Arctic waters. An oil spill in the untested Arctic is far more likely than any other place in the world, and the oil giant’s disdain for the Nigerian people does not bode well for the Native Alaskan communities that stand to be devastated by a spill.

Fox News repeatedly criticized a SpongeBob SquarePants book and video about manmade global warming because “they did not tell kids that that is actually a disputed fact.” In reality, it is not controversial among the mainstream scientific community that humans are changing the climate.

The cartoonish hominids who pretend to be journalists on Fox News have a new villain — SpongeBob SquarePants.  Why are they incensed at the high-energy invertebrate?  Because he understands climate science, that human emissions are warming the planet, and would like to explain that to the children whose climate will be destroyed by the professional deniers like Fox.

Fox News believes this is a “disputed fact” –  we’ll set aside the oxymoronic phrase “disputed fact” and merely note that for the National Academy of Sciences, it is a “settled fact.”

Of course, we learned last year that Fox News boss Bill Sammon ordered staff to cast doubt on even the most established science: “We should refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question.”  Hmm.  Maybe he isn’t a Sammon, but an octopus, specifically Squidward Tentacles.

If you watch the video –  which I don’t recommend without several head vises –  it is interesting to note that SpongeBob is only concerned about warming.  In fact, the far greater threat to ocean life is ocean acidification.

Last year, a Nature Geoscience study found our oceans are acidifying 10 times faster today than 55 million years ago when a mass extinction of marine species occurred.  Also, last year the Geological Society reported that acidifying oceans spell marine biological meltdown “by end of century.”  And some of the world’s top marine scientists reported in June that acidification, warming, and human activity have put the world’s oceans in ‘shocking’ decline with the ‘speeds of many negative changes … tracking the worst-case scenarios.’

But Murdoch’s Fox News  doesn’t care about ocean life — fictitious or real.  They care only about pushing their  corporatist,  pro-pollution, anti-science agenda.

Here’s more on their assault on the famous sponge who lives in a pineapple under the sea, from Media Matters:

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I am going on vacation over the next 10 days, which means I’ll only be working a few hours a day.  Just kidding.  I probably won’t even be blogging 2 hours a day.

The good news is that Stephen Lacey and the trusty CAP staff and interns will keep delivering high-quality content in my absence.

But if  any of you have suggestions for some good recent blog posts or stories that merit reposting, please put the URL in the comments.  I already have a few Skeptical Science pieces I intend to run, but I’ve been a bit busy to scour the blogosphere for the other gems.  Bring ‘em.

 

Below are old comments from the earlier Facebook commenting system:

• Guy Dauncey · Friends with Lily Riahi

Possible blog… Is 100% Renewable Energy Possible for Japan?

http://www.earthfuture.com/files/japangreenpath/

3 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 5 at 1:31pm

Prokaryotes – · Top Commenter (signed in using Hotmail)

Ha ha, you will be online all day :D (just kiddding) Climate Hawks need vacation and time outs from time to time! Not an easy task to report about this stuff and everything…

3 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 4 at 3:43pm

Mike twotwo · Top Commenter (signed in using Hotmail)

COLLEGE STATION, Aug. 4, 2011 – As Texas continues to bake in record heat, the drought news for the state continues to be bleak – Texas is now in the midst of its most severe one-year drought on record, according to John Nielsen-Gammon, the Texas State Climatologist and professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University. http://tamunews.tamu.edu/2011/08/04/texas-drought-officially-the-worst-ever/

2 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 4 at 1:39pm

John Tucker · Top Commenter · Tulane University

There are a few warnings of rolling blackouts in Texas and Oklahoma now from high consumption. Tomorrow a large geomagnetic storm is expected to hit. ( http://spaceweather.com/ ) Not predicted strong enough to cause blackouts but at least raising the possibility of such an occurrence at a unfortunate time. ( http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2011/08/110803-solar-flare-storm-electricity-grid-risk/ )

1 · Like · Reply · August 4 at 4:43pm

Joe Solomon · Burlington, Vermont

currently on the homepage of Al Jazeera… “New pipeline to challenge Obama’s promises” by Bill McKibben, http://t.co/x79yNY7 by the looks of it, the 2-weeks of Tar Sands Action civil disobedience at the White House later this month is going to be big stuff.

2 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 4 at 4:47pm

Nicholas Berini · Hoboken, New Jersey

Tim Dechristopher!

http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/2011/07/statement-to-court-by-tim-dechristopher.html

1 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 4 at 1:57pm

Dana Nuccitelli · Top Commenter · West Sacramento, California

A little shameless self-promotion, but I thought the Skeptical Science post on Loehle and Scafetta’s paper was pretty good.
http://skepticalscience.com/loehle-and-scafetta-play-spencers-curve-fitting-game.html

1 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 5 at 12:27am

Cherie B Palumbos · Portland Community College

Well have good vaKay {:>).

1 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 4 at 1:12pm

Ted (signed in using Hotmail)

Comment on new system: I dislike that the old printable version is no longer available.

That system was great for a couple things: Printing onto standard paper to show other people and give your work more exposure.

Also the list of all links at the bottom was invaluable.
…See More

Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 8 at 1:59pm

Christopher Winter · University of Iowa

http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/175535-interior-backs-shells-arctic-offshore-drilling-plan-

The Hill — Interior Department backs Arctic drilling.

Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 6 at 4:36pm

Paul Magnus · Top Commenter

The Power struggle down under…
http://tinyurl.com/3wztkey
Opposition frontbencher Malcolm Turnbull has hit out against climate change sceptics on his side of politics, saying there has been a war on science that contradicts common sense.

Nissan wants you to power your house with your electric car.
…See More

Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 4 at 1:02pm

Christopher Winter · University of Iowa

http://www.desdemonadespair.net/2011/08/russia-forests-burn-for-second.html

Russian forests burn for second successive year, breaking last year’s record 1 million hectares.
Posted by Jim — Tuesday, August 09, 2011.

Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 10 at 4:52pm

Christopher Winter · University of Iowa

About Congressman Henry Waxman’s letter to Energy Secretary Steven Chu requesting a campaign for global warming literacy in America.

http://globalwarmingisreal.com/2011/08/03/education-campaign-to-combat-climate-change-denial/

Education Campaign to Combat Climate Change Denial.
By Richard Matthews — 3 August 2011.

Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 6 at 2:41pm

Michael Pettengill · Earlham College

Any thing tying the high SO emissions from Asia (China and India) to the US drought?

I recall some paper or reporting tying the US SO emission in the 60s and 70s to the West Africa drought, along with the cooling around that time. As I recall the basic theory was something like the SO nucleates water vapor reflecting energy from sun back into space, cooling to reduce vaporizing oceans and also promoting rains before the moisture is carried over the Africa continent.

Asian coal burning has gone through several phases of burning without pollution control, adding controls to clean up local air, and then another nation repeats the cycle. But the report that China has had a rapid surge 7-10 years ago, and the incredible drought in parts of the West and South like those I read about year after year in Africa just make me wonder if there is a connection.

Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 5 at 2:13am

Thomas A. Lewis · Romney, West Virginia

IMHO, this was pretty fair…

http://www.dailyimpact.net/2011/08/01/a-new-tragedy-of-the-commons-water-banks/

Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 5 at 8:22am

Joan Savage · Top Commenter · SUNY-ESF

After Joe Romm’s vacation I’d appreciate his take on recent scientific papers that look at the amplitude of ENSO variability. Unless one of the Energy Interns has a doctorate in geophysics (and I don’t myself) it can wait.

Li et al. 2011. Interdecadal modulation of El Niño amplitude during the past millennium. Nature Climate Change.

T Zhang et al. 2011. Physics of US surface temperature response to ENSO.
(available in pdf) Journal of Climate.

Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 4 at 4:27pm

When Congress comes back from summer break, expect a major push from Republicans to stop new air toxics standards proposed by the EPA. One of the top scare tactics from opponents is to claim that if these rules are put into place, the lights will go out.

Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski is making that argument this week – using an informal analysis from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on potential coal-plant closures to claim that retirements “could have drastic consequences for many parts of the country.”

The FERC document suggests that 40 GW of coal capacity are “likely” to be retired, and that 41 GW are “very likely” to be retired if EPA standards are put in place. While FERC admits that a formal analysis still needs to be completed, the numbers are consistent with other projections.

Even on the high side, however, there is already enough excess natural gas capacity to make up for all the coal-plant closures:

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Wednesday, Shell claimed responsibility for two oil spills dating back to 2008.  And these are not your run of the mill destructive oil spills — they are estimated to exceed the 11 million gallons spilled in the Exxon Valdez disaster. Until yesterday, Shell had claimed less than 40,000 gallons had been spilled in Nigeria … off by a factor of 275.

The claim comes after years of class-action lawsuit from the people of Bodo in Ogoniland, a region in the Niger Delta of Southern Nigeria.  Shell could be facing hundreds of millions of dollars in fines.

The trouble with oil in Nigeria started in 1956, when oil was first discovered. (See the Guardian for a history of oil in Nigeria).  How devastating has the oil industry been to Nigeria?  As a 2010 article by  the Guardian’s environment editor explained:

With 606 oilfields, the Niger delta supplies 40% of all the crude the United States imports and is the world capital of oil pollution. Life expectancy in its rural communities, half of which have no access to clean water, has fallen to little more than 40 years over the past two generations….

It is impossible to know how much oil is spilled in the Niger delta each year because the companies and the government keep that secret. However, two major independent investigations over the past four years suggest that as much is spilled at sea, in the swamps and on land every year as has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico so far.

One report, compiled by WWF UK, the World Conservation Union and representatives from the Nigerian federal government and the Nigerian Conservation Foundation, calculated in 2006 that up to 1.5m tons of oil – 50 times the pollution unleashed in the Exxon Valdez tanker disaster in Alaska – has been spilled in the delta over the past half century. Last year Amnesty calculated that the equivalent of at least 9m barrels of oil was spilled and accused the oil companies of a human rights outrage.

According to Nigerian federal government figures, there were more than 7,000 spills between 1970 and 2000, and there are 2,000 official major spillages sites, many going back decades, with thousands of smaller ones still waiting to be cleared up. More than 1,000 spill cases have been filed against Shell alone.

While we are often focused on spills on American soil, from Alaska, to Montana, to Florida, to the proposed tar sands pipeline, we cannot forget that oil is a global problem — a problem that requires a global push for renewable energies solution.

–Tyce Herrman

Philips’s prize-winning bulb uses just 9.7 watts to match the light output of a 60-watt incandescent. It lasts 25,000 hours, compared with 1,000 to 2,000 for an incandescent.

“A $10 price is when these lamps will take off,” Mr. Crawford [CEO of Philips Lighting North America] said. “That is absolutely achievable in five to six years.”

Philips Wins Energy Department’s Lighting Prize

Philips, the Netherlands-based consumer electronics giant, is now $10 million richer, having just won the L Prize, awarded by the federal Department of Energy in a contest to invent the next generation of solid-state lighting.

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Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA) has reintroduced legislation to help prepare our nation’s water supply against the damages of global warming. Greenhouse pollution from burning fossil fuels is destabilizing our hydrologic cycle, worsening droughts and floods and increasing sea level rise, while drastic cuts are being made on the maintenance of our aging water infrastructure. Capps’ bill, the Water System Resiliency and Sustainability Act of 2011 (HR 2738), will “establish a new Environmental Protection Agency competitive grant program to help drinking water, wastewater and stormwater utilities prepare for the impacts of climate-related risks on their operations.” Capps explained why the legislation is needed in a statement:

As we suffer through severe droughts, more intense rainfall and flooding, and sea level rise along the coast, the nation’s drinking water, wastewater and stormwater infrastructure is coming under increasing levels of stress. In the face of these costly challenges, and to help our nation’s water agencies continue delivering safe and uninterrupted water services to the communities that rely upon them, we must begin planning now. That’s why I’ve introduced the Water System Resiliency and Sustainability Act, which will help jump-start this critical local planning and create new jobs updating water infrastructure to meet the significant challenges posed by climate change.

“The funds would be awarded to owners or operators of water systems based on their vulnerability to climate-related risks and the number of users who would benefit from their proposals to manage those risks,” E&E News summarizes. “The legislation would authorize $50 million a year for the matching grant program through 2016.”

Capps, who introduced similar legislation in 2009, worked on the bill with the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies, the National Association of Clean Water Agencies, environmental organizations and other stakeholders. The bill has 11 Democratic co-sponsors, and Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) is expected to introduce companion legislation in the Senate.

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

UK sails ahead in offshore wind power generation

The UK has sailed ahead in offshore wind power generation in the past six months, building more offshore windfarms than any other country in the world, and accounting for almost all of the turbines erected in European waters this year.

Of only 108 offshore turbines built around Europe’s coastline from January to June, a whopping 101 were built around the UK, with only six built in Germany, and a single one in Norway, according to estimates published on Wednesday by the trade body European Wind Energy Association (EWEA).

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