International Energy Agency:  “On planned policies, rising fossil energy use will lead to irreversible and potentially catastrophic climate change.”

“… we are on an even more dangerous track to an increase of 6°C [11°F]….  Delaying action is a false economy: for every $1 of investment in cleaner technology that is avoided in the power sector before 2020, an additional $4.30 would need to be spent after 2020 to compensate for the increased emissions.”

The International Energy Agency has issued yet another clarion call for urgent action on climate.  Their 2011 World Energy Outlook [WEO] release should end once and for all any notion that delay is the rational course for the nation and the world.

The UK Guardian‘s headline captures the urgency:

World headed for irreversible climate change in five years, IEA warns

If fossil fuel infrastructure is not rapidly changed, the world will ‘lose for ever’ the chance to avoid dangerous climate change

We must start aggressively deploying clean energy now through myriad policies, including a price on carbon.  That has been the conclusion of most authoritative studies, of course,  including the recent one by California’s independent state science and technology advisory panel (see “Study Confirms Optimal Climate Strategy: Deploy, Deploy, Deploy, Research and Develop, Deploy, Deploy, Deploy“).

The IEA report deserves the label “bombshell,” though, because for most of the past two decades, the IEA was the source of bland, conservative, business-as-usual analysis.  When I was Acting Assistant Secretary of Energy for energy efficiency and renewable energy in 1997, no one at DOE paid much attention to IEA reports.  And that perspective continued through most of the 2000s.

But in just the last few years they have woken up to the risks posed to peak oil — see IEA top economist warns (8/09): “We have to leave oil before oil leaves us” — and especially climate change. In releasing its 2009 WEO, the IEA warned, “The world will have to spend an extra $500 billion to cut carbon emissions for each year it delays implementing a major assault on global warming.”

Now the IEA has done the calculation a different way, concluding, “Delaying action is a false economy: for every $1 of investment in cleaner technology that is avoided in the power sector before 2020, an additional $4.30 would need to be spent after 2020 to compensate for the increased emissions.”  Those who counsel waiting for breakthrough technologies are urging us on a path that is unsustainable, irreversible, potentially catastrophic, and economically indefensible, according to the IEA.

The IEA is one of the few organizations in the world with a sophisticated enough global energy model to do credible (i.e non-hand-waving) projections of the cost of different emissions pathways and the costs of delaying efforts to achieve them.  Their 2008 analysis of the 2°C warming pathway demonstrated that the total shift in investment needed to stabilize at 450 ppm is only about 1.1% of GDP per year — and that is not a “cost” or hit to GDP, because much of that investment goes towards saving expensive fuel (see “IEA report: Climate Progress has the 450-ppm solution about right“).

The new analysis shows that because of soaring emissions, we are running out of time for the “450 Scenario.” We are at risk of irreversibly “locking in” dangerous warming — a point I agree with mostly, but not entirely:

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Powerful “Medicane” hits France

by Dr. Jeff Masters in a Wunderblog repost

The most powerful storm to affect the Bering Sea coast of Alaska in 37 years is pounding Alaska’s west coast and Eastern Siberia with hurricane-force winds, a destructive storm surge up to 7 feet high, waves up to 35 feet high, and blinding snow. Tin City on the west coast of Alaska north of Nome recorded sustained winds of 70 mph, gusting to 81 mph, at 1:55 am local time this morning, and hurricane-force winds are likely affecting much of the open waters of the Bering Sea.

Figure 1. Visible satellite image of the Bering Sea superstorm at 7 pm EST November 8, 2011. Image credit: National Weather Service.

A storm surge of 6 feet hit Nome, Alaska this morning, pushed inland by sustained winds that reached 45 mph, gusting to 61 mph. A even higher storm surge is predicted for this evening (Figure 3.) The last time Nome, Alaska saw a storm this strong was November 11 – 12 1974, when the city experienced sustained winds of 46 mph with gusts to 69 mph, a pressure that bottomed out at 969 mb, and a storm surge of 13 feet that pushed beach driftwood above the previous high storm tide mark set in 1913. The center of today’s storm moved ashore over eastern Siberia near 12 UTC with a central pressure of 945 mb. The storm has likely peaked in strength, and will gradually weaken as it moves northeast into the Arctic.

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The League of Conservation Voters (LCV) has launched a new ad asking Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) to end subsidies for big oil. Brown has received $152,100 in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry, including $8,500 from Chevron, Conoco Phillips, and Exxon in the two weeks before his May 17 vote against S. 940, which would have killed some oil industry subsidies. The advertisement portrays a Brown-lookalike in his campaign gear of a Carhardt jacket, leaving oily marks as he wanders through Boston:

Scott Brown said he’s one of us. But there’s a growing stain on his record. Senator Brown’s taken over one hundred and fifty thousand dollars from big oil. And while Americans have been struggling at the pump, Senator Brown voted to keep giving oil companies billions in special government handouts. Sticking us with the bill, and a really big mess. Tell Senator Brown to vote to end tax breaks for Big Oil.

Watch it:

A new Public Policy Polling survey, conducted on behalf of LCV, finds that that 71 percent of those polled in Massachusetts think that tax breaks for oil companies should be eliminated, with only 18 percent in support of maintaining them.

It’s written and performed by the awesome Aussie group Men With Day Jobs:

Other humor from down under:

• Aussie climate scientists go all Beastie Boys on the deniers
• Funniest Denier Punking Ever: Lord Monckton Isn’t An Act by Sacha Baron Cohen, Is He?

As the political jostling over Department of Energy loan guarantees to clean energy companies continues, the hypocrisy keeps getting worse.

The latest is from Republican Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey, who co-wrote a letter to the Inspector General on Monday urging him to investigate a conditional commitment for a $730 million loan guarantee to a high-strength steel producer under the DOE’s Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing program.

His argument? That this high-strength, lightweight steel technology is too mature to need subsidies:

“Given the tremendous fiscal crisis that we find ourselves in today, it does not seem appropriate for the program to subsidize technologies that have already achieved commercial success through private-sector means.”

That’s quite a noble fiscal mission. However, this is coming from a Senator who has repeatedly voted to maintain tax breaks to the most profitable and commercially successful oil and gas companies in the world.

In the first three quarters of 2011 alone, the top five oil companies have brought in a staggering $101 billion in profits. But Senator Toomey, who says he’s against funding companies that have “achieved commercial success” due to the “tremendous fiscal crisis” has voted against repealing $21 billion in tax breaks over 10 years that could be used to close the deficit or fund clean energy.

In fact, Senator Toomey’s record has been so consistent, the American Petroleum Institute just issued a new ad praising him on his record:

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Will the airline industry push non-food based biofuels to scale? There are signs that the push is underway.

Earlier this week, United Airlines became the first air carrier in the U.S. to make a commercial flight using a 40% algae-based jet fuel from Solazyme. And today, Air Alaska is flying the nation’s second commercial biofuels flight, using a fuel containing a 20% cooking-oil-based feedstock produced by Dynamic Fuels. Air Alaska will be making 75 trips within the U.S. over the coming weeks using the cooking oil blend.

It’s not cheap though. The fuel used by Air Alaska is roughly six times more expensive than traditional jet fuel. But a spokeswoman for the Air Alaska, Megan Lawrence, tells Climate Progress that the company is looking at a suite of options to reduce emissions, and finding new fuels is one of them.

“We’re trying to show that there’s demand for the product,” she said. “We know that we have to get out in front of these issues.”

These two U.S. announcements come after a series of commercial flights around the world using a variety of non-food based biofuels. Over the last few months, air carriers in the Netherlands, UK, Germany, Finland, Mexico, Spain and China all flew commercial flights using a blend of advanced biofuels. The flights prove that biofuels are safe, and that airlines are getting serious about alternatives to petroleum fuels.

Biofuels reporter Jim Lane, who runs the site Biofuels Digest, thinks that the aviation industry could be a “quick win” for biofuel companies now reaching scale:

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by Kiley Kroh

Yesterday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced the Obama Administration’s highly anticipated plan for proposed offshore oil and gas leases from 2012-2017.  It focuses on exploration in the Gulf of Mexico and giving oil companies the chance to bid on drilling rights in Arctic waters, including the Beaufort and Chukchi seas and the Cook Inlet.

Because the plan targets areas with known potential for oil and gas development where exploration is currently active, the administration is ruling out drilling along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts — including an area near Virginia that had been slated for exploration prior to the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

The Arctic lease sales are scheduled late in the 5-year period to allow for further scientific study and data collection, and longer term planning for spill response preparedness and infrastructure. Deputy Secretary David Hayes also indicated that any expansion of Arctic exploration should account for the “Arctic’s unique environmental resources and the social, cultural, and subsistence needs of Native Alaskan communities.”

With the nearest Coast Guard station over 1,000 miles away and with few proven techniques for oil spill cleanup in extreme Arctic conditions, a spill in the Beaufort or Chukchi seas could devastate the entire region. “If a major spill were to occur in Arctic waters, cleanup crews would have to spend, on average, three to five days of each week simply standing by, watching helplessly as the blowout or spill continued to foul fragile Arctic ecosystems,” said World Wildlife Federation program director Rob Powell.

“Opening additional areas of drilling in the Arctic when we so clearly lack adequate response capabilities just confirms that we have apparently learned nothing from the worst offshore oil spill in our nation’s history,” said Michael Conathan, CAP’s Director of Ocean Policy in a statement to National Journal. “As tragic as the Deepwater Horizon disaster was, we must recognize that it occurred in relatively benign environmental conditions. That will not be the case with any spill in the Arctic.”

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By Jessica Goad, Manager of Research and Outreach, Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Late last week Rep. Rick Berg (R-ND) and James Lankford (R-OK) introduced the “Regional Haze Federalism Act,” which would impede efforts by the Environmental Protection Agency to combat dirty haze that is polluting national parks and wilderness areas. Haze is caused by sunlight coming into contact with small particles of pollutants in the air, which can also harm humans by way of respiratory problems.

National parks such as the Great Smoky Mountains, Shenandoah, and Mesa Verde all suffer from haze pollution, which causes poor visibility and impedes two of the most important reasons these places attract hundreds of millions of visitors every year—fresh clean air and the views. As the EPA explains, “In eastern parks, average visual range has decreased from 90 miles to 15-25 miles. In the West, visual range has decreased from 140 miles to 35-90 miles.”

This map shows the 156 national parks, wilderness areas, and wildlife refuges that must receive protection from or alleviate haze pollution problems. To combat this pollution, all states must submit a plan for reducing that haze to the EPA. Usually these plans involve requiring dirty coal-fired power plants, refineries, or other industrial sources of emissions to add technologies that would clean up their pollution. If the plans fail to clean up the air quality in national parks, the EPA may reject them and implement its own haze plan. Both North Dakota and Oklahoma recently had their state plans rejected because they would not adequately reduce pollution, prompting these Congressmen to introduce this bill.

Berg explained the need for his bill as a way of fighting against the Obama administration and its “overreaching” EPA:

With each new overreaching, one-size-fits-none mandate, the Obama administration continues to burden the states with unnecessary costs and regulations that are hindering job creation. That’s why today I introduce the Regional Haze Federalism Act. This will rein in the Obama administration and prevent a federal takeover of state haze management. States like North Dakota continue to act responsibly to create well-researched plans and to implement EPA-mandated policies.

Watch it:

Berg’s argument is inaccurate—EPA’s actions are not a hostile takeover of state prerogatives to address haze, but a backstop authority if states fail to take care of their citizens’ public health and landscapes. Additionally, utilities have had many years to prepare for the implementation of the plans—the EPA’s Regional Haze Rule was finalized in 1999. Reduction of haze and parks and wilderness areas is a longstanding goal, not an under-the-radar effort by the Obama administration to usurp states’ rights.
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A composite of all the major global temperature records, going back to 1890 (the satellite records [RSS and UAH] only begin in the late 20th century). Via Skeptical Science.

by Shauna Theel, in a Media Matters cross-post

After ignoring for weeks a new study confirming the accuracy of previous global temperature records, the U.S. print edition of the Wall Street Journal covered the study in an article focusing on the “uncertain nature” of the temperature records.

WSJ Eventually Prints Article About Study — Only To Downplay It

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Other stories below: Global Wind Power Investments to Total $820 Billion Through 2017; The Developing World Leading on Climate Change?

EPA chief under first Bush laments GOP shift on environment

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency under former President George H.W. Bush on Tuesday called on Republicans to defend clean-air regulations from “demagogic assaults” by members of Congress.

“It’s time once again to put on battle gear, to charge out and remind the country that Republicans, whose party has an admirable record on environmental issues going back to Teddy Roosevelt, in fact still do care about asthma and allergies, about the effects on the young, the ill and the elderly of particulates and hot polluted air, about hospital admissions and lung impairment,” William Reilly said in prepared remarks at a summit on the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act.

Reilly was instrumental in the Clean Air Act amendments, which were aimed at limiting acid rain and air pollution. Reilly called the effort “George H.W. Bush’s monumental contribution to the environment.”

But about 20 years later, Republicans in Congress are targeting the Clean Air Act and EPA efforts to impose a slew of new regulations aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, mercury emissions and other air pollutants.

Reilly, a Republican, defended EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson’s clean-air agenda.

“These rules are grounded in the best available science, and what’s more, given the priority we all hold for the economy, they will result in job creation as companies acquire and install pollution controls,” he said.

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Natural gas fracking companies are treating the campaign to expand drilling in Pennsylvania like a military campaign, using “psy ops” to quell the “insurgency” of environmental, economic, and health concerns. Audio tapes recorded by the Oil & Gas Accountability Project at a Houston oil industry conference reveal the wartime mindset of the frackers, a CNBC report reveals:

In a session entitled “Designing a Media Relations Strategy To Overcome Concerns Surrounding Hydraulic Fracturing,” Range Resources communications director Matt Pitzarella spoke about “overcoming stakeholder concerns” about the fracking process.

“We have several former psy ops folks that work for us at Range because they’re very comfortable in dealing with localized issues and local governments,” Pitzarella said. “Really all they do is spend most of their time helping folks develop local ordinances and things like that. But very much having that understanding of psy ops in the Army and in the Middle East has applied very helpfully here for us in Pennsylvania.”

At another session, Matt Carmichael, the manager of external affairs for Anadarko Petroleum, spoke on the topic of “Understanding How Unconventional Oil & Gas Operators are Developing a Comprehensive Media Relations Strategy to Engage Stakeholders and Educate the Public.”

He said he had several recommendations for the oil industry media professionals at the event, one of which, he said, involved the military.

“Download the U.S. Army-slash-Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Manual, because we are dealing with an insurgency,” Carmichael said. “There’s a lot of good lessons in there and coming from a military background, I found the insight in that extremely remarkable.”

Dairy farmers in Pennsylvania have grown concerned by the unregulated boom in fracking, with problems including “questionable leases favoring gas companies, liens on property, mortgage conflicts, heavy truck traffic, social disintegration, loss of agricultural land, ground water contamination, increased community and farming costs, loss of tourism.” Families in Dimock, PA, are still dealing with contaminated water from fracking damages two years ago.

While it is a very good thing that drilling companies are hiring U.S. veterans, they need to remember that Pennsylvania is not actually a battlefield. Even though he is using “psy ops,” Range’s Pitzarella does seem to understand that. “You’re not dealing with insurgents, you’re dealing with regular people who live in towns and want to know what you’re doing,” he told CNBC.

So, is the U.S. really broke? We are the richest nation in the world, right?

But those riches aren’t exactly creating healthy, equitable wealth.  The money is going to the 1% for bailouts and to subsidize the “dinosaur economy.”  Our wealth is continuing to prop up a “throw away economy,” says Annie Leonard, host of the popular internet film “The Story of Stuff.”

Leonard is back with a new piece, “The Story of Broke.” The film looks at the amount of subsidies used to prop up a dirty, inefficient economy and energy system — creating the appearance of the country being “broke.”

According to Leonard, it’s not that we’re broke. It’s that the system is broken.