The World Meteorological Organization reported today that:

The amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere reached a new high in 2010 since pre-industrial time and the rate of increase has accelerated, according to the World Meteorological Organization’s Greenhouse Gas Bulletin….Between 1990 and 2010, according to the report, there was a 29% increase in radiative forcing — the warming effect on our climate system — from greenhouse gases. Carbon dioxide accounted for 80% of this increase.

This report on record CO2 levels (analogous to the level of water in a bathtub) comes on the heels of a record surge in CO2 emissions (analogous to the water coming out of the faucet) — see Biggest Jump Ever in Global Warming Pollution in 2010.

The speed up in the growth rate of CO2 levels is obviously worrisome (although it was predicted by climate science):

Between 2009 and 2010, its atmospheric abundance increased by 2.3 parts per million – higher than the average for both the 1990s (1.5 parts per million) and the past decade (2.0 parts per million).

For about 10,000 years before the start of the industrial era in the mid-18th century, atmospheric carbon dioxide remained almost constant at around 280 parts per million.

We are disrupting at an accelerating pace what had been a very stable climate system for the entirety of human civilization.  Not very bright.

The other worrisome aspect of the surge in GHG is return of growth in methane, a highly potent GHG.  The WMO reports:

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Fox News pundit Bill O’Reilly likes to say he operates in a “no spin zone.” So when O’Reilly proclaimed recently that he wanted to install solar on his Long Island home, dozens of solar companies in New York took him at his word.

Speaking on his show to Alan Colmes last week, O’Reilly said he was ready to buy a solar system, but that he couldn’t find anyone in the area to do it: “There’s nowhere, no one,” he exclaimed.

Well, today, his predicament is solved. A group of 60 New York-based solar companies have signed an open letter to Mr. O’Reilly explaining that they’d be more than willing to help him make an investment in solar:

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Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) is challenging the American Petroleum Institute to defend its claim that unregulated drilling would lead to a million-job bonanza. The ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee responded to recent API ads touting the promise of a “million jobs” if the oil industry gets to drill everywhere from the Arctic refuge to the Atlantic coast, and build tar sands pipelines from Canada to Texas like the Keystone XL project. Watch their ad:

API’s ads are based on a commissioned study by Wood Mackenzie that uses questionable methodology and unrealistic assumptions. Markey cited his office’s recent study that found from 2005 to 2010, Exxon, BP, Chevron, and Shell dumped 11,200 U.S. employees while raking in $546 billion in profits. With Big Oil’s record of destroying jobs even while drilling more, Markey asked why the future should be any different:

It appears the oil lobby got what they paid for: cooked numbers to justify their untenable policy positions. When the top five oil companies shed thousands of jobs over the last five years, and companies aren’t even taking advantage of most drilling opportunities offered to them, it seems to me creating a million jobs doesn’t even have a million-to-one chance of happening.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics said in their most recent career guide that “[n]ew drilling and extraction techniques allow for more efficient production from a reduced number of drill sites. As a result, employment in oil and gas extraction is expected to decline by 16 percent through 2018.” There were 161,600 people employed in oil and gas extraction in 2008 — that is expected to decline to less than 136,000 this decade.

“Solar energy has doubled its American jobs in the last two years, going from 50,000 jobs in 2009 to 100,000 jobs in 2010,” Markey writes. “Wind energy now employs 75,000 American workers.”

Markey asked for answers to his questions from API by Dec. 1.

Advocates for feed-in tariffs (FITs) have long claimed that the policy is the fastest, most efficient method for deploying renewable energy. One need only look at the rapid adoption rates in European countries to see their effectiveness.

FITs require utilities to purchase renewable electricity from system owners over a certain period of time, typically 15-20 years. The rates are calculated to ensure a specific rate of return for different technologies. By providing a guaranteed contract for the electricity over the life of the system, project financing is often simpler and less expensive than a tax-credit or renewable energy credit system.

Here’s one more experience that advocates say favors FITs: In just three years since Gainesville, Florida adopted the policy for solar PV, the city has deployed almost 7.3 megawatts of systems. That means that this city of 100,000 people has more solar deployed per capita than California — a state with solar incentives in place for more than a decade.

FIT expert Paul Gipe put together this chart showing where Gainesville stacks up with other areas of the world:

Officials at the municipal utility running the program, Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU), say that by the end of the year, cumulative installed solar capacity will be generating about 1.5 million kilowatt-hours per month. That’s enough electricity to service roughly 1,600 average American homes.

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At a House Natural Resources Committee hearing on the dangers of drilling the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Rep. Don Young (R-AK) exploded with rage. The hearing, with witnesses requested by the Democratic minority, was scheduled by Republicans for Friday afternoon. “I call it garbage, Dr. Rice,” Young said, addressing his comments to Dr. Douglas Brinkley, a historian at Rice University. When Brinkley corrected his name, Young grew even more apoplectic, saying, “I can call you anything I want if you sit in that chair.”

YOUNG: If you ever want want to see an exercise in futility … That side has already made up its mind and this side has already made up its mind. I call it garbage, Dr. Rice, it comes from the mouth –

BRINKLEY: It’s Dr. Brinkley. Rice is a university –

YOUNG: Well, okay, I can call you anything I want if you sit in that chair. You just be quiet! You be quiet!

Watch it:

After Young’s irate outburst, Committee chairman Doc Hastings (R-WA) castigated Dr. Brinkley for interrupting the Alaska congressman and disrupting the “comity” of the hearing.

“The Arctic plain is really nothing,” Young continued, calling Dr. Brinkley “elitist.” “You can go on all the pontifigurds you want . . . I’m really pissed.”

“Some people love money more than their homeland or where they live,” Dr. Brinkley said later, rebuking Young for his hatred of the undrilled Alaskan wilderness.

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Science-averse Republicans have once again blocked the establishment of a National Climate Service by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, moving from denial of man-made climate change to the denial of climate itself. “I’m very concerned that NOAA has taken steps to form what amounts to a shadow climate service operation,” House science committee chair Ralph Hall (R-TX) cried in September. At a hearing in June, Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) blasted the budget-neutral plan to consolidate NOAA’s existing, widely dispersed, climate capabilities under a single management structure as “propaganda services.” In the committee report submitted by appropriations chair Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) for the 2012 budget, the National Climate Service is expressly forbidden:

The National Climate Service would have allowed NOAA to meet America’s rising demand for authoritative and timely climate information. Tea Party Republicans successfully included a rider preventing its establishment in the FY 2011 continuing resolution. The reorganization would have significantly boosted the agency’s efficiency, strengthen science across NOAA, and improve delivery of vital weather and climate forecasts – at no additional cost to the taxpayer.

Nothing less than the full mobilization of the nation’s resources will allow us to survive the changing threats of our polluted climate. However, the Republican Party now has a policy of science denial. The formation of this service threatens the know-nothings who deny that the fossil fuel industry is creating a dangerous world — so they are preventing the government from protecting the American people.

by Richard Caperton

Readers of the Washington Post in the last few days were treated to one of the more egregious examples of why the paper appears so schizophrenic on climate and energy.

On the one hand, readers learn that “Climate Change Means More Frequent Droughts, Floods to Come,” which accurately notes that, “this year has already set a record in terms of billion-dollar disasters for the United States, according to the National Climatic Data Center, with at least 10 disasters so far approaching a total of $50 billion.”

On the other hand, though, readers were treated to a broadside against clean energy from the editorial board. Before going further, let me remind you that clean energy deployment is the only way we will avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change. There are no other solutions. So, the Post’s editorial board would condemn the world to a miserable future of “hell and high water.”

In fact, the paper published an editorial, “A bad month for climate-change skeptics,” the very next day (!) that states:

The U.S. debate on global warming remains fancifully divorced from the scientific discussion. President Obama hardly ever mentions climate change. Republicans’ behavior is much more embarrassing: GOP presidential candidates often dismiss the warnings of experts in favor of conspiracy-drenched denial. The debate should no longer be about whether the world is warming or whether there is reason to act. It must be about how to respond.

And so how embarrassing is it that the Post trashes clean energy funding in an editorial Friday — while never once mentioning climate change, which  of course is a key reason for funding solar energy — and then Saturday says we must be talking about how to respond to climate change!

Here’s some point-by-point debunking of the attack on clean energy.

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When the comedic actress Kristen Wiig came up with the idea to ban breathing in order to stabilize CO2 emissions, she probably didn’t expect a leading Republican presidential candidate to take it seriously.

But sure enough, in pushing his flip flop on climate change to an extreme degree, Mitt Romney did exactly that at a campaign stop last week:

“I’m all in favor of eliminating pollution,” Romney said. “Now I know there is also a movement to say that carbon dioxide should be guided or should be managed by the Environmental Protection Agency. I disagree with that.

“I exhale carbon dioxide,” he added. “I don’t want those guys following me around with a meter to see if I’m breathing too hard.”

Even in jest, Romney’s comparison of human exhalation of CO2 and the burning of 300-million-year-old carbon is so incredibly ludicrous, it is a punch line in itself. The former Massachusetts governor, who once backed efforts to combat climate change, has now joined the ranks of the most extreme climate deniers.

One can imagine the climate strategy meetings taking place within the Romney campaign. Does Kristen Wiig have inside information?

(Note the video below is part of a longer skit produced about the Clinton Global Initiative, which we covered. If you haven’t seen the whole piece, it’s worth your time.)

by Cole Mellino

The concept of “a wild law,” which grants equal rights to nature, is based on the idea that humans do not have an explicit right to destroy our natural environment. Under wild law, natural ecosystems’ rights supersede the interests of any one species (including humans). Obviously, this idea can be incredibly controversial. Even in Bolivia, where they’ve amended their constitution to give nature equal rights to people, they are still working out the details.

Bolivia amended its constitution after pressure from its large indigenous population who places the environment and the earth deity, Pachamama, at the center of all life. But what this means in practical terms, such as how to address the serious environmental problems caused by mining for raw materials in the Andean nation, is yet to be determined. Bolivians hope that this will give their country the power to hold mining companies accountable and force them to adhere to stricter environmental standards.

Research by glaciologist Edson Ramirez of San Andres University in the capital city, La Paz, suggests temperatures have been rising steadily for 60 years and started to accelerate in 1979. They are now on course to rise a further 3.5-4C over the next 100 years. This would turn much of Bolivia into a desert.

Most glaciers below 5,000m are expected to disappear completely within 20 years, leaving Bolivia with a much smaller ice cap. Scientists say this will lead to a crisis in farming and water shortages in cities such as La Paz and El Alto.

Ecuador, which has a large indigenous population, has also amended its constitution to grant rights to nature. But like in Bolivia, the law has not stopped oil companies from destroying their natural landscape.

Even though these laws are mostly abstract, their existence helps elevate a debate about the relationship between people and nature. Bolivia’s Foreign Minister, David Choquehuanca, puts it well:

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AP Photo/Scott Heppell

by Michael Conathan

Last Tuesday, two letters about the New England groundfishery, which includes 12 bottom-dwelling species such as cod, haddock, and flounders, landed on desks in Washington, D.C. One focused on the past, the other on the future. But taken together, they illuminate a disconnect among distinct portions of the fishing industry and some of the politicians who represent them. And while one requested declaration of a “fishery resource disaster,” a much larger potential disaster still looms on the horizon.

A letter from Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick to Secretary of Commerce John Bryson, supported by Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Scott Brown (R-MA), as well as by Massachusetts Reps. Barney Frank, John Tierney, Bill Keating, and Ed Markey, cites both a loss of fishing revenue and consolidation of operations in the groundfishery that left 109 fewer vessels fishing for groundfish in 2010 than in 2009. Patrick’s letter focuses particularly on a group of small-boat fishermen operating outside the major ports of New Bedford and Gloucester, and asks for $21 million to alleviate the disaster.

Gov. Patrick blamed this situation squarely on the transition to a new “catch share”-style management system that regulators implemented in the groundfishery in 2010. This system allocates percentages of the total amount of fish that can be caught to fishermen who join collective groups known as “sectors” based on how many fish each fisherman has caught in the past. They are then permitted to trade allocation to others within or outside their sector. The fear is that such trading will result in excessive consolidation of too many fish in too few hands.

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Other stories below: Africa Leads Climate Push as its People Go Hungry; Easy Loans Now a Burden for Chinese Solar Firms?

AP Photo/Chris Gardner

Beware climate change risk from aircon, fridge gases-UN

Soaring use of man-made gases used in refrigerators, air conditioners and fire extinguishers risks speeding up global warming and industry should adopt alternatives, a U.N. report said on Monday.

In the most dire forecast, unless governments and industry act to limit the growth, the annual emissions of hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, by 2050 could equate to pumping nearly 9 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere — about a third of mankind’s CO2 emissions now.

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The Onion has a hilarious “American Voices” on the recent news about emissions:

Global greenhouse gas emissions saw their biggest single-year jump ever between 2009 and 2010, exceeding worst-case scenario projections with an increase of 564 million tons. What do you think?

Yes, “Strong-Nitric Operator” is a real job.

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