Climatologist Slams Media for “Silent Summer”:  Poor Coverage of Link Between Extreme Weather and Human-Caused Climate Change

The nation’s top climatologist, NASA’s James Hansen, has a new paper out — and he has been speaking out.  At 350.org’s Moving Planet event in New York on Saturday, he said:

“Climate change — human-made global warming — is happening.  It is already having noticeable impacts…. If we stay on with business as usual, the southern U.S. will become almost uninhabitable.”

Hard to argue with that.

The combination of extreme heat, constant Dust-Bowl conditions in the Southwest and South central, the whipsawing from drought to deluge in the Southeast, and decade after decade of sea level rise will create nearly intolerable conditions by century’s end (see “An Illustrated Guide to the Science of Global Warming Impact”).  Conditions might look a lot like this:

Oops, that’s the US Drought Monitor for Texas this week!  Dark red is “exceptional drought” (covering 86% of the state) — virtually no rain for a year.  Red is “extreme drought” (covering 97% of the state) — a Palmer Drought Severity Index of -4 or worse.

Imagine what it will be like when much of the South is like this most of the time (other than the occasional record-smashing deluge) — and temperatures are some 9°F to 11°F warmer on average.  It will be the great repopulation of the North.

Hansen also has a new paper out on climate change in which he says:

It is time for all of us to get Tea-Party-angry about what our political system has become and about the intergenerational injustice being perpetrated on young people.

Again, no argument here.

The most interesting part of the paper is his critique of the media coverage (“Silent Summer”), his discussion of the intimidation of climate scientists, and a tantalizing introduction to a forthcoming analysis on extreme weather and attribution to human emissions.  Also, he doesn’t like the phrase “global weirding.”  Here are the highlights:

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A new economic analysis of the costs of pollution to the United States finds that coal power is harming the economy. In the American Economic Review article “Environmental Accounting for Pollution in the United States Economy,” economists Nicholas Z. Muller, Robert Mendelsohn, and William Nordhaus model the physical and economic consequences of emissions of six major pollutants (sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, ammonia, fine particulate matter, and coarse particulate matter) from the country’s 10,000 pollution sources. They estimate the “gross external damages” (GED) from the sickness and death caused by the pollution, and compare that to the value added to the economy:

Solid waste combustion, sewage treatment, stone quarrying, marinas, and oil and coal-fired power plants have air pollution damages larger than their value added. . .

Coal plants are responsible for more than one-fourth of GED [gross external damages] from the entire US economy. The damages attributed to this industry are larger than the combined GED due to the three next most polluting industries: crop production, $15 billion/year, livestock production, $15 billion/year, and construction of roadways and bridges, $13 billion/ year.

“Five industries stand out as large air polluters,” the authors write, “coal-fired power plants, crop production, truck transportation, livestock production, and highway-street-bridge construction.”

When the authors add in highly conservative estimates of the cost of carbon dioxide pollution, they find that “the damages caused by oil- and coal-fired power plants are between 30 and 40 percent higher.” With an estimated social cost of carbon — a damage estimate of global warming pollution — of $65 (far less than other estimates), the GED for coal-fired generators is 4.7 cents/kWh.

In other words, instead of being “cheap” and “affordable,” coal is actually the costliest fuel for electricity.

“The findings show that, contrary to current political mythology, coal is underregulated,” Legal Planet’s Dan Farber comments. “On average, the harm produced by burning the coal is over twice as high as the market price of the electricity. In other words, some of the electricity production would flunk a cost-benefit analysis. This means that we’re either not using enough pollution controls or we’re just overusing coal as a fuel.”

“Dow Corning invested $5 billion dollars to create a platform to innovate in the solar industry. And that’s a significant investment in the U.S. that generates jobs, innovation and in the green building space.“

In covering the Solyndra media circus, the press has been infatuated with the politics of clean energy. So they’ve often missed — or misreported — the most important story about the business community’s support of a sector that has had “explosive” jobs growth since 2003, as a recent Brookings Institution report found.

Last week, on the same day House Republicans held a hearing called “How Obama’s Green Energy Agenda is Killing Jobs,” the Solar Decathlon opened up in Washington with only passing mention in the popular press. The event, which highlights the most innovative green building techniques using commercially-available technologies, is a showcase of the world’s top young talent in this budding sector.

Apparently that’s too much of a “feel-good” story. Leaving Decathlon coverage mostly to the trade press, major publications focused instead on the nonsensical Congressional attacks against clean energy.

But as House leaders issued a report last week calling green jobs a “propaganda tool” that supports a “political ideology,” members of leading international companies shrugged off the political attacks. Instead of paying attention to the political theater in Congress, they gathered at the Decathlon to talk about why efficiency and renewables are a such an important part of business.  Climate Progress spoke to a number of them for this story.

“It’s the core of the business,” explained Jim Pauley, senior vice president for government affairs at Schneider Electric, in an interview with Climate Progress. “It’s what we do.”

Schneider Electric is a leading international company providing technologies for electricity management — deploying everything from back-up systems for data centers to lighting control units in homes. Schneider is also managing the micro-grid that supports the homes at the Solar Decathlon.

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by Cole Mellino

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the agency that manages federal land and oversees thousands of oil and gas drilling operations, is considering whether or not to approve a proposed drilling operation of over 125 wells in Desolation Canyon – a remote canyon in northeastern Utah enjoyed by a variety of outdoor enthusiasts.

Proponents of drilling argue that it will create jobs. But at whose expense?

A recent study from the Center for American Progress outlines a compelling case for job creation by protecting public lands. The myriad employment opportunities from forest and water management, restoration and recreation are an important piece of sustainable economic development in the U.S.

Outdoor enthusiasts in Utah agree. There has been a major groundswell of concern in the state in response to the proposed drilling in Desolation Canyon.

“Utah’s outdoor recreation industry adds $4 billion to Utah’s economy, supports 65,000 jobs, and generates about $300 million in annual state sales tax revenue,” according  to Peter Metcalf, founder and CEO of Black Diamond Equipment, an outdoor sporting company.

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At the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting, ThinkProgress Green interviewed Zack Rosenburg, the CEO and co-founder of St. Bernard Project. His non-profit organization has been rebuilding homes and lives in New Orleans after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. So far, the St. Bernard Project has rebuilt 405 houses with 36,000 volunteers, provided mental health services, and has created local jobs for unemployed residents and returning veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

With climate disasters on the rise, improving disaster preparedness and resilience is a critical need. Rosenburg believes that the existing, bureaucratic structure for disaster relief needs to be revamped drastically to be much more efficient, rapid, and responsive, because “time matters in disaster recovery.” The project still has 130 families on their waiting list for home rebuilding in New Orleans. There are 10,000 American families that are still displaced from that disaster, and 200 families are still living in FEMA trailers. The project has also been asked by the city of Joplin, MO to take over the construction part of their recovery from the devastating tornado.

“Disaster recovery in America is broken,” said Rosenburg.

Watch the interview:

Rosenburg was at CGI as a guest of Toyota. In an interesting partnership, Toyota engineers are teaching the St. Bernard Project to build houses quicker, more efficiently, and cheaper, applying the business practices Toyota uses with its automobile construction. This contribution from the Toyota Foundation compares to the kind of business consulting that companies like McKinsey provide at high cost, usually out of reach to small non-profits.

The St. Bernard Project is not alone in its mission. At the Solar Decathlon now taking place on the National Mall, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign team has built Re_home, designed explicitly to be a permanent residence prefabricated for rapid response to disaster situations. Green construction also fits the philosophy of trying to reduce the risk of disasters before they start, in part by reducing the greenhouse pollution that is making our weather more extreme.

“I’m really proud of the Obama administration in taking a much more aggressive and proactive role in dealing with these inevitable disasters,” Rosenburg said. He is also hopeful for the future, inspired by the outpouring of help from around the country. “America wants America to be whole,” he believes.

Read more coverage of the Clinton Global Initiative from ThinkProgress.
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In dozens of focus groups we have conducted this month across the country on a wide variety of subjects, when voters are asked where they would like new jobs in their state to come from, the first words out of their mouths are almost always the same – clean energy and related technology.  Voters believe that the clean energy economy is here and is growing, and they want their state to have a part of it.

As the Wall Street Journal reported today, “The Solyndra episode has generated reams of press coverage and fodder for political speeches, but this hasn’t changed voters views on clean energy, new research from a pair of Democratic and Republican pollsters suggests.”

Note that the language explicitly talks about  public investment to create “clean energy jobs” or “green jobs.” The poll itself is here, and concluded:

When presented with arguments that attempt to use Solyndra to indict public investments in clean energy more broadly, voters reject them.

The numbers are 60% to 32% for independents.  Heck, the numbers are 63% to 31% for “Republicans who do not identify with the Tea Party.”  The numbers are also 56% to 35% for all GOP women.  What does that tell you about the tea party?

Why do non-Tea-Party voters reject such arguments?  Because they understand very broadly that the future is clean energy.  Indeed, it’s kind of obvious that jobs in the clean energy fuels  of the 21st century that never run out are sustainable, while jobs in the dirty energy industries of the 20th century are not.

The only way Solyndra could undermine the public’s hunger for clean energy, the only way Solyndra could stop the inevitable march of clean energy in this country is if progressive politicians somehow become cowed by the Denier Industrial Complex’s disinformation campaign and fail to champion what the public is clamoring for

Every progressive should memorize — and every Democratic politicians should read daily — the core findings of this poll:

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by Kiley Kroh

Rather than being “job killers” that displace people working in the fossil fuel sector, clean energy investments are important ways to leverage the expertise of skills of workers in conventional energy.

A new report from Scottish Enterprise, The Guide to Offshore Wind and Oil and Gas Capability, finds exactly that.

By leveraging oil industry know-how, substantial cost reductions can be made in offshore wind. The report highlights the opportunities and benefits for the oil and gas sector to diversify into offshore wind development and estimates that over the average life cycle of a generic offshore wind farm, the oil and gas sector could deliver $517 million of savings. By leveraging the skills and knowledge from the oil sector, the researchers estimate that offshore wind costs could be cut by a fifth in just a few years.

Scotland aims to generate an ambitious 100 percent of domestic electricity consumption from renewable energy sources by 2020. And by announcing a $54 million offshore wind development fund yesterday, Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond aims to do nothing less than foster “a new industrial revolution” based on renewable energy. Salmond predicted 130,000 jobs will be created in the low carbon sector in Scotland by 2020 – double the current number.

Offshore wind is a key component of this low carbon power shift – a dramatic transition that might leave many in the fossil fuel sector fearing for their jobs. However, the study shows that workforce development gained through decades of investing in an oil and gas industry would not be lost in a transition to low carbon economy. Rather, those jobs would be applicable and beneficial to helping develop large scale industrial projects like offshore wind.

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The American Enterprise Institute’s Kenneth Green is vying to be the Charlie Sheen of the denial crowd.   He said in a 2008 speech, “For the last decade, warming peaked, and has recently declined: we’re back to the average temperatures that prevailed in 1978.”  Not.  Not even close.

He also said “No matter what you’ve been told, the technology to significantly reduce emissions is decades away and extremely costly.”  Not (see World’s Engineers: “The Technology Needed to Cut the World’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions by 85% by 2050 Already Exists”).

But in some sense that’s all standard denier fare.  Green went the full Sheen in reply to a recent Chris Mooney column on how “Today’s Right is Overwhelmingly More Anti-Science Than Today’s Left.”

Sheen Green wrote “Obama’s science team is composed almost exclusively of environmental radicals” (!) and he even played the “card-carrying socialist” card.

What follows is Mooney taking the sheen off of Green at Science Progress:

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Ironic Politico Caption:  “The blogosphere has proven a fertile ground for anti-EPA rumors and accusations.”

So there is another nonsensical falsehood being pushed by the Denier Industrial Complex.  As Media Matters writes:

“EPA explained in a court brief that by phasing in greenhouse gas regulations and focusing on large sources of emissions, the agency avoids a scenario in which 230,000 new workers would be required. Somehow, the Daily Caller‘s Matthew Boyle concluded from this that “The EPA is asking taxpayers to fund up to 230,000 new government workers.” Other conservative media outlets, including Fox News, repeated Boyle’s false report.”

It is notoriously hard to debunk such lies because  the very act of repeating the lie makes it more likely people will remember it, according to much social science research, which I discuss here.  As but one example,  “when people find a claim familiar because of prior exposure but do not recall the original context or source of the claim, they tend to think that the claim is true,” according to a 2005 journal article, “How Warnings about False Claims Become Recommendations,” which concluded

Telling people that a consumer claim is false can make them misremember it as true.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to debunk lies.  But you have to be very careful about how you do it.

One thing you should obviously never do is simply repeat the lie in your headline as if it might possible be true, which is what the Politico did with this story:

Rumors of EPA’s $21B expansion sets Web ablaze

The problem with the repetition of the lie in the headline is two-fold.  First, even in a print newspaper, the majority of people probably don’t get past the headline.  On the internet, I estimate headlines are probably seen by at least 10 to 20 times as many people as read even half the story — through retweets of the headline and FaceBook likes (where FB reposts part of the headline and the opening graf or so) and content farms that just grab the headline.

Second, there isn’t even a negation.  What major media outlet puts a rumor it knows to be false in the headline?  And yes, the Politico knows the story to be false, for those who actually get to the second paragraph in this fast-surfing age:

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Laureates call on Harper to halt tar sands expansion

Eight Nobel peace laureates on Wednesday urged Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in an open letter to halt the expansion of the Alberta oil sands.

“Further exploitation of the tar sands will dramatically increase the amount of greenhouse gas emissions being produced in North America,” said the letter, signed by South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Iran’s Shirin Ebadi, Jodi Williams of the United States, and others.

“It will also ultimately make turning the clock back on climate change impossible.”

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