Vermont Governor:  “We’ve got to get off fossil fuels as quickly as we know how, to make this planet livable for our children and our grandchildren.”

Below the jump is a guest post, “Surviving My Own Predictions: A Vermont Climate Scientist Faces Hurricane Irene.”

A house in Sharon, Vermont, that started out the week on the other side of this underpass, via Masters.

The storm of the century — at least for large parts of New England — is over.  But Irene’s 1-in-100 year deluge leaves devastation in its wake.   Meteorologist and former hurricane Hunter Dr. Jeff Masters summed it up this way yesterday:

Record flooding continues in the Northeast from Irene’s torrential rains. Hardest hit was Vermont, where heavy rains in the weeks prior to Irene’s arrival had left soils in the top 20% for moisture, historically. Irene dumped 5 – 8 inches of rain over large sections of Vermont, with a peak of 11.23″ at Mendo. The reading from Mendo was the greatest single-day rainfall in Vermont’s history…. beating the 9.92″ that fell at Mt. Mansfield on 9/17/1999 during the passage of Tropical Storm Floyd.

Governor Peter Shumlin (D-VT) spoke Tuesday about the danger human-caused climate change poses to his state and others:

I find it extraordinary that so many political leaders won’t actually talk about the relationship between climate change, fossil fuels, our continuing irrational exuberance about burning fossil fuels, in light of these storm patterns that we’ve been experiencing.

We had storms this spring that flooded our downtowns and put us through many of the same exercises that we’re going through right now. We didn’t used to get weather patterns like this in Vermont….

We in the colder states are going to see the results of climate change first…  Myself, Premier [Jean] Charest up in Quebec, Governor [Andrew] Cuomo over in New York, we understand that the flooding and the extraordinary weather patterns that we’re seeing are a result of our burnings of fossil fuel. We’ve got to get off fossil fuels as quickly as we know how, to make this planet livable for our children and our grandchildren.

What follows is a guest post by Dr. Elizabeth R. Sawin of Hartland, Vermont.  Sawin is Co-Director of Climate Interactive, a non-profit organization that creates computer simulations of climate and energy policy in the U.S. and around the world – ClimateInteractive.org.

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GOP presidential front runner Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (MN) new notion to drill for oil in the Florida Everglades is compelling the public, scientists, and even a few in her own party to raise their eyebrows at her “incredible faux pas.”

Ever resilient against the onslaught of facts, Bachmann doubled down on her call to drill the Everglades yesterday, stating “Let’s access this wonderful treasure trove of energy that God has given us in this country.” And for those inconvenient truthers who point out there’s no actual evidence of oil under the Everglades, Bachmann told Tampa Bay’s 10News that they’re nothing more than “radical environmentalists“:

Tuesday, a CBS reporter in Miami confronted Bachmann about her call for drilling, asking, “Why would you invade that natural resource with gas and oil drilling?” Bachmann responded, “Let’s access this wonderful treasure trove of energy that God has given us in this country. Let’s access it responsibly.”

Is there even any oil beneath the Everglades? 10News sat down with USF Geologist Dr. Albert Hine, and he told us, “There is no known evidence that there is a significant hydrocarbon deposit beneath the Everglades.”[...]

Bachmann hasn’t been deterred by any naysayers, telling 10News, “The radical environmentalists put up one road block after another to prevent accessing American energy. We also have oil in the Eastern Gulf region.”

Watch it:

The list of nay-saying “radical environmentalists” include: fellow presidential contender Mitt Romney, President George W. Bush, and his brother former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) — not to mention most Floridians. Indeed, fellow Tea Party leader Rep. Allen West (R-FL) promised yesterday to “straighten her out” against targeting “an incredible ecosystem.” Given Bacmann’s renewed obstinence, it’s a promise he’ll most likely fail to deliver on.

If you wonder why the public is so ill-informed about global warming, the following head-exploding story is illuminating.  The New York Times appears to be downplaying the role of climate change.  You be the judge.

A few weeks ago, some experts on public health and the hydrological cycle came out with a nuanced study in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene examining some recent theories as to why cholera outbreaks occur.

The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene put out a news release headlined:

Scientists pinpoint river flow associated with cholera outbreaks, not just global warming

Previously, some scientists had seen a correlation between sea surface temperature and cholera outbreaks in certain locations, like the coastal waters of the Bay of Bengal.  That puzzled the authors of this new study, “Warming Oceans, Phytoplankton, and River Discharge: Implications for Cholera Outbreaks” (PDF here) for two reasons:

1. High SSTs are normally associated with a decrease in phytoplankton — the authors cite 8 studies on this.  (See also, Nature Stunner: “Global warming blamed for 40% decline in the ocean’s phytoplankton”).
2. High-levels of phytoplankton are thought to lead to cholera outbreaks.  The causal agent of cholera hangs around with copepods, small crustaceans that feed on phytoplankton.  So it’s been theorized that “high levels of phytoplankton may lead to high numbers of cholera-containing copepods, increasing the likelihood of cholera epidemics in coastal human populations.”

What the new study found was that in the Bay of Bengal and other large river basins -‑ the Orinoco (in South America), the Congo, and the Amazon — “The positive relationship between phytoplankton blooms and ocean temperature is related to large river discharges,” said Shafiqul Islam, PhD, the lead investigator of the study and a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Tufts.  The rivers discharge “terrestrial nutrients.”

The release notes:

But Islam said that global warming may play a role in other ways in outbreaks of cholera, including contributing to droughts and high salinity intrusion in the dry season and floods in the wet season. Both of those conditions have been found also to contribute to cholera epidemics, as published recently in the journal Water Resources Research. “If river flows are more turbulent, if droughts are more severe, if flood is more severe, cholera is more severe,” he said. “But cholera may not have direct linkage with rising sea surface temperatures.”

Okay, so the main result of the study is that cholera outbreaks may not be causally linked with rising SSTs — though the authors can’t make a definitive statement on that (if you actually talk to them).  But cholera outbreaks have been appear to be linked to extreme flooding as well as extreme drought, both of which, of course, have been projected — and even observed — to increase because of climate change!

So what is the headline of the New York Times story?

Seriously.

The news release doesn’t say this at all — quite the reverse.  The study doesn’t say this — if you read it.  Nor do the authors — quite the reverse.   I had an extended interview with Islam yesterday, and, to be clear, he explains that this study simply can’t say whether or not there is a linkage between warmer SSTs and cholera.  But his work does suggest that the kind of extreme weather linked to climate change is a culprit in outbreaks.  Note — “a culprit,” not the only one.

The New York Times appears to have read the news release, but decided to run with its own perverse narrative.  I say that based on the final paragraph of the Times story, which is lifted from the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene release:

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In an interview with energyNOW!, Energy Secretary Steven Chu indicated that he may support the Keystone XL oil pipeline. Touting the project’s benefits, he said, “It’s not perfect, but it’s a trade off.” And, he said, having Canada supply oil to the U.S. is “much more comforting than to have other countries supply our oil.”

On the same day energyNOW! published an excerpt from the interview, set to air in September, Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman (R) asked President Obama to oppose the oil pipeline project. In a letter to Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, he outlined his concerns about having TransCanada’s pipeline cross part of Nebraska’s Ogallala Aquifer. “Maintaining and protecting Nebraska’s water supply is very important to me and the residents of Nebraska,” Heineman said in the letter. “This resources is the lifeblood of Nebraska’s agriculture industry.”

A State Department study reported that a pipeline would only “affect a limited area of the aquifer around the spill site,” an assertion with which Heineman said he disagreed.

While the the damage Hurricane Irene left in its wake is still being talled, it is already projected to be one of the top 10 costliest disasters in U.S. history. Estimates put the cost at $7 billion to $10 billion after the storm knocked out power, destroyed crops, and flooded towns throughout the East Coast.

But the cost of the Texas drought, which climate change pushed to extremes, may be greater economic disaster. Earlier this month, Texas Agrilife Extension Service estimated losses to be at $5.2 billion — already greater than the $4.1 billion of losses from the 2006 drought. “This drought is just strangling our agricultural economy,” professor Travis Miller, of Texas A&M University’s Department of Soil and Crop Sciences. Losses, told TIME Magazine.

The extended heat wave that has exacerbated the drought is expected to break soon, but without rain, farmers will have no relief before planting winter wheat in September or October. Texas produces one-third of winter wheat in the U.S., so analysts expect price increases if there is not enough rain for the wheat crop. Already from the summer, Texas, which produces 55 percent of U.S. cotton, has lost half its cotton crop. And scant summer rain has led to a scarce hay crop, so some ranchers are selling off cattle herds because they can’t afford to continue providing feed and water. The short-term price in beef may drop, but the long-term implications of losing entire herds will push up the price soon enough.

And the outlook for rain could remain bleak for Texas and states across the southern Plains that could use some of the deluge Irene dumped on the northeast:

Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and New Mexico have been caught in a heat wave that feeds on the drought, according to Texas State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon. As sunlight hits the ground, Nielsen-Gammon says, it evaporates any moisture in the soil and raises the temperature of the soil. With no moisture, the ground is a virtual hot plate, adding to the misery. [...]

So far this year, [Texas] has recorded about 7.5 in. of rain, Nielsen-Gammon says. “That’s 40% of our normal rainfall. The previous drought was 69% of normal.” He gives the state a 50% chance of lower-than-normal precipitation this winter. If the La Niña effect — cool water temperatures in the equatorial Pacific waters — kicks in later this year, those odds get tougher and go to 75% or 80% for a dry winter, Nielsen-Gammon says.

As the greenhouse gas-fueled weather, from fiercer droughts to stronger hurricanes, continues to create more extreme weather, the U.S. will continue having to tally the high economic costs from the damage caused by these natural disasters.

Note to self: When going on national television to talk about something really important, make sure I have a firm grasp of what it is I’m talking about.

Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, who has shown to have a very loose grasp on climate science and energy, might do himself a favor by sticking to that rule.

On last night’s O’Reilly Factor on Fox News, Krauthammer grossly oversimplified the environmental regulations he was mindlessly railing against — explaining that the Environmental Protection Agency’s new rules to regulate coal ash, air toxics and mercury were simply an attempt to regulate carbon emissions. In fact, they are a series of rules — not all finalized — that would regulate a host of toxic pollution from coal plants, with carbon emissions being possible piece.

In turn, host Bill O’Reilly took the bait, explaining that “Look, you have to have a certain amount of carbon emissions, and if you go over it, you can’t burn any more fuel. That’s it.”

Watch it: (The EPA regulations portion of the segment starts at 3 minutes).

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The Chart of the Month comes from the Wall Street Journal:

“The figure reflects a huge surge in U.S. oil drilling, up nearly 60% in the past year and the highest total since at least 1987, when oil services company  Baker Hughes Inc. began keeping track,” notes the WSJ.

Poor Barack Obama, he opens up the country to a drilling spree — and naturally progressives are pissed because, well, we care about things like clean air, clean water, and a livable climate.

But conservatives are strangely ungrateful, too!  They blame Obama’s supposed anti-drilling policies.  So Mitt Romney said earlier this year, “People are hurting, gasoline’s expensive and the policies of this administration that have focused solely on green technologies are not keeping the cost of gasoline down.”

Darn you Barack Obama for only quadrupling the number of oil drilling rigs in the US!

The fact is oil prices soared despite both record drilling and the highest domestic oil production levels in almost a decade.  It should be obvious that yet more drilling can’t have any significant impact on oil prices — particularly since the U.S. Energy Information Administration has been making that precise point for years now (see EIA: Full offshore drilling will not lower gasoline prices at all in 2020 and only 3 cents in 2030!).

Here is an update from a chart we did earlier this year of U.S. oil production using EIA data, including the first 6 months of this year:

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The Australian is the country’s biggest-selling national newspaper.  It is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, which “also owns the sole dailies in Brisbane, Adelaide, Hobart and Darwin and the most popular metropolitan dailies in Sydney and Melbourne.”

Michael Ashley investigates the national paper’s “seriously warped” op-ed policy in this extended excerpt.

[R]eality becomes so distorted that The Australian was able to state earlier this month, “it is in keeping with this newspaper’s rationalist pedigree that we have long accepted the peer-reviewed science on anthropogenic climate change,” while at the same time engaging in a campaign to misrepresent and distort climate science.

Other editorials have made it clear that The Australian believes it is treating its readers as mature adults who should be able to make up their own minds based on arguments from “both sides” of the debate.

The problem is that on one side of the debate you have 97% of the world’s published climate scientists and the world’s major scientific organisations, and on the other side you have fools.

Excuse my bluntness, but it is past time to acknowledge that the science underpinning anthropogenic climate change is rock solid. The sceptics have had the time and opportunity to come with up a convincing case, but their best efforts read like arguments that NASA faked the moon landing.

My colleagues working in the climate sciences have largely given up trying to correct the constant stream of misinformation from The Australian, in frustration.

The Australian’s anti-science campaign takes many forms.

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Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed from retired rear admiral Robert James, who called the military’s push to develop domestic renewable energy “a fad.”

But if you listen to Navy Secretary Ray Mabus explain the importance of cleaning up the military’s supply chain, it’s clear those efforts are anything but a fad — they’re a natural part of a technological progression that the military has undertaken for over 150 years.

Secretary Mabus’ approach to sourcing 50 percent of its energy from renewable resources has nothing to do with politics or satisfying the desire to look “green.” It’s all about logistics.

“It makes us a better military,” he explained in an interview with Climate Progress at yesterday’s National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas. And beyond saving money and saving lives, Secretary Mabus believes it’s the Navy’s responsibility to understand the impact that climate change will have on operations – both through adaptation and mitigation:

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