IPCC (2001) graph illustrating how a shift and/or widening of a probability distribution of temperatures affects the probability of extremes. (Via RealClimate)

The full 592-page (!) IPCC extreme weather report is out. Like most Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports it has some value for people who don’t follow the science closely, which is to say the overwhelming majority of the media and policymakers.

Of course, the TV media ignored the summary report in November, so we will have to see if they pay any attention to this one now that the United States has just been through the most extreme winter heat wave in our recorded history.

But as Kevin Trenberth, one of the world’s leading experts on the link between climate change and extreme weather, put it to me in an email:

I have seen the chapter on the physical climate and I found it quite disappointing…. I don’t think it adds to AR4 [IPCC Fourth Assessment] much.

I agree with Trenberth that if, for instance, you want a more up to date and straightforward discussion of the impact of climate change on precipitation, you should just read his 2011 paper, “Changes in precipitation with climate change” (online here).

Indeed, the actual scientific literature from 2011 is generally more useful than this report — see “NOAA Study Finds Human-Caused Climate Change Already a Major Factor in More Frequent Mediterranean Droughts” and Hansen et al: “Extreme Heat Waves … in Texas and Oklahoma in 2011 and Moscow in 2010 Were ‘Caused’ by Global Warming.”

It is, as I wrote when the summary came out in November, the report is “Another Blown Chance to Explain the Catastrophes Coming If We Keep Doing Nothing.”  I also wrote that the summary has a good chart that hints at dust-bowlification, but is mostly silent on warming’s gravest threat to humanity.

The full report has more on drought, but fails to clearly describe what the literature now suggests is coming if we stay anywhere near our current emissions path. In 2010, the National Center for Atmospheric Research did a far more valuable literature review and analysis of what we face, which makes clear we risk multiple, devastating global droughts even on moderate emissions path.

In the case of extreme weather, my guess is that decades from now, people will look back on the staggering growth in off-the-charts “outlandish” extreme events in the past few years and conclude that a regime change had occurred in the climate. That change is probably a combination of the sharp loss in summer/fall Arctic sea ice and the sharp increase in ocean heat content.

We’re only in the past year or so seen analyses that demonstrate the human fingerprint in these uber-extreme events, including the studies above and these two:

• Nature Climate Change: Strong Evidence Manmade ‘Unprecedented Heat And Rainfall Extremes Are Here … Causing Intense Human Suffering’
• Study Finds 80% Chance Russia’s 2010 July Heat Record Would Not Have Occurred Without Climate Warming

So rather than citing this timely, but already out-of-date IPCC report, let me just repost below an excellent new piece from RealClimate by the authors of those two studies, who have been doing some of the best recent work in this area.

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by Adam James

Clean energy should play a central role in revitalizing our economy, putting Americans back to work, and keeping America on the cutting edge of innovation and growth. Recently a slew of misguided attacks on the merits of clean energy have exchanged petty partisanship for hard facts.

Here are the top six things you really need to know:

1. Clean energy is competitive with other types of energy
2. Clean energy creates three times more jobs than fossil fuels
3. Clean energy improves grid reliability
4. Clean energy investment has surpassed investments in fossil fuels
5. Investments in clean energy are cost effective
6. Fossil fuels have gotten 75 times more subsidies than clean energy

Here are the supporting details:

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More than 100 Lung Association staff members, volunteers, doctors, nurses and clean air advocates from 34 states across the country unfurled a giant Red Carriage banner on the Capitol steps, drawing attention to the devastating impact of air pollution on the health of children, in addition to sitting in on 150 meetings with key members of Congress. The Lung Association Red Carriage campaign has defended Clean Air Act rules designed to fight greenhouse pollution, smog, and toxic mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants.

The day of action also falls on the same day the House Energy and Power Subcommittee held a hearing on the GOP’s Gasoline Regulations Act of 2012, which would eliminate life-saving clean air protections that reduce toxic pollution in our air and make cars more fuel-efficient.

A recent Lung Association poll found that two-thirds of American voters support stricter EPA standards on pollution.

There were 3.1 million green jobs around the U.S. in 2010, according to new figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Those jobs — which accounted for 2.4 percent of nation-wide employment that year — represented a diverse range of opportunities in renewable energy, efficiency, pollution control, resource conservation and education.

But what kind of impact are those jobs having on the ground? In order to capture the importance of this emerging sector, various organizations are putting together documentary-style shorts on the environmental and economic value of green jobs.

Climate Solutions has put together a great Solutions Stories series. The Center for American Progress is working on its own profile of green jobs in key states (with more to be released soon). And Green For All has rolled out a series of stories from cities around the country. There’s activity happening everywhere — it’s nearly impossible to capture all of it.

This latest Green For All video from Kansas City shows how grassroots much of the activity is, creating real jobs that create direct local benefits:

Associated Press Investigation: There is “no statistical correlation between how much oil comes out of U.S. wells and the price at the pump.”

by Daniel J. Weiss, Rebecca Leber, and Jackie Weidman

CLAIM: “More domestic production is critical to putting downward pressure on gasoline prices — supply matters.” – Jack Gerard, American Petroleum Institute President and CEO, March 26, 2012

TRUTH: To test whether more U.S. domestic production would lower gasoline prices, the Associated Press just completed an exhaustive analysis of 36 years of monthly U.S. oil production and gasoline price data. AP found that there is:

“No statistical correlation between how much oil comes out of U.S. wells and the price at the pump. If more domestic oil drilling worked as politicians say, you’d now be paying about $2 a gallon for gasoline. Instead, you’re paying the highest prices ever for March.”

An organization set up by API, “Energy Tomorrow,” actually acknowledges that oil prices are set on a global market, with many different factors affecting its price. Most of these elements are beyond control of the United States.

“Crude oil prices are set globally through the daily interactions of thousands of buyers and sellers in both physical and futures markets, and reflect participants’ knowledge and expectations of demand and supply. In addition to economic growth and geopolitical risks, other factors, including weather events, inventories, exchange rates, investments, spare capacity, OPEC production decisions and non-OPEC supply growth all figure into the price of crude oil.”

U.S. oil production is not listed as one of the factors affecting price.

CLAIM: “Opposition to higher energy taxes is rising among the public. A recent ‘What is America Thinking on Energy Issues’ poll showed that 76 percent of voters think that higher energy taxes could equal higher gas prices.” – Jack Gerard, API President and CEO, March 26, 2012

TRUTH: A Center for American Progress Action Fund poll conducted March 10-13, 2012 by Hart Research provided respondents with fourteen policy options asked which “would help a lot to address the issue of gasoline?”  The following option was chosen by 55 percent of the respondents:

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“The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) today issued an approval of Shell Gulf of Mexico, Inc.’s Oil Spill Response Plan for the Beaufort Sea,” the Department of Interior agency tasked with approving oil spill plans has announced. Shell plans to drill up to four shallow water exploration wells in Alaska’s Beaufort Sea this summer, beginning on July 1. The expansion of offshore drilling into the dangerous and fragile Arctic seas not only threatens that ecosystem with unmanageable disaster, but represents a reckless disregard for the urgency of decarbonizing the global economy to avoid the risk of unstoppable global warming.

by Adam James

Last week, the White House unveiled a new program called the Green Button Initiative. So what the heck is the Green Button?

Quite literally, it is a green button on a utility’s website that allows consumers to download their energy consumption data in an easy-to-understand format. There are two exciting outcomes from this industry-led initiative:

• For the first time, consumers can have the kind of access to their energy data that they have with online banking. This will allow people to save money while easing the demand-side burden on the grid.
• This neatly sidesteps the legal questions around 3^rd party access to information since customers can now transmit data themselves directly to innovative energy management companies.

Before going into too much detail on these two points, it is helpful to put this breakthrough in context. The Green Button is a milestone in a much larger story about transparency and empowering citizens, a narrative which resonates with Americans who want to build a future around sustainability and equity.

Seeing the Big Picture

Rewind to January 20^th, 2009. A newly minted President Obama unveiled his top priorities for America that boldly included a commitment to transparency, participation, and collaboration within the Government. This was one of his campaign pledges that helped bring younger voters to the ballot box.

In August 2010, President Obama announced the creation of the “blue button” which allows individuals to download their personalized healthcare information. This was a huge step forward for cutting through red tape and increasing Americans’ access to the information that would make their lives easier.

In September 2011, Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra challenged the energy industry to create a “green button” and enhance consumer access to energy consumption data. This recommendation followed the basic trajectory of the Framework for a 21^st Century Grid put forward in June 2011, which urged the adoption of policies which would help consumers “save energy, ensure privacy, and shrink bills.”

The launch of the “green button” marks a broad commitment from the Obama Administration to open and transparent government, and for building a sustainable energy future.

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65% of Americans favor more regulation of fracking
72% of Ohio residents favor a state moratorium on fracking

by Tom Kenworthy

At the Wall Street Journal’s recent ECO:nomics conference, the chief executive of Atlas Energy LP was asked how fracking had become a four-letter word. Edward E. Cohen’s response: “I think when we talk about the natural-gas industry losing the PR war, that is not correct.”

If that is typical of how the natural gas industry is interpreting public opinion on hydraulic fracturing and the development of shale gas, then it’s got its head in a borehole.

Recent polling gives a more realistic picture of the public’s broad and deep concerns about the technique that is widely used, in conjunction with horizontal drilling, to stimulate production from oil and gas wells. The practice involves  pumping a combination of water, sand and chemicals underground at high pressure to crack rock formations and release oil and gas.

A Bloomberg News poll conducted earlier this month, for example, found that 65% of Americans favor more regulation of fracking and only 18% favor less regulation. The survey of 1,002 adults had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1%.

In Ohio, a January poll conducted by Quinnipiac University found that 72% of Ohio residents favor a moratorium on fracking in their state until the process is better understood. Ohio has been the site of a series of earthquakes which the Ohio Department of Natural Resources said in early March were most likely caused by the underground injection of wastewater produced during fracking of natural gas wells.

At the Wall Street Journal conference, Chesapeake Energy Corp. CEO Aubrey K. McClendon appeared to adopt the same no problemo attitude. “I fracked 15,000 wells,” he said. “Ninety-nine percent of American gas is fracked, and it has been for 50 years. [Today there are] 1.2 million wells. Where are the 1.2 million disasters?”

Someone should tell McClendon it doesn’t take a disaster rate of 100%. It only takes a few. Like the one in Pennsylvania where his own company was fined $900,000 by regulators for causing the methane contamination of the water supplies of 16 families.

Tom Kenworthy is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress working on the Public Lands team.

The oil lobby group American Petroleum Institute launched ads in Massachusetts late last week on behalf of Koch-funded candidate Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), as part of its $2 million national campaign to protect oil subsidies.

Unfortunately for Brown, the ads violate the “People’s Pledge” he made with Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren earlier this year, banning outside group spending in the race. Elizabeth Warren’s campaign manager Mindy Myers noted the oil-subsidy ads “are funded by big oil and clearly support Brown’s position”:

It has come to our attention that the American Petroleum Institute has been running radio and print ads to support Senator Scott Brown’s position on tax breaks for big oil companies. Given Senator Brown’s past vote in support of these tax breaks, and the fact that these ads are funded by big oil and clearly support Brown’s position on this issue, this is a violation of the People’s Pledge.

According to the agreement, when an ad runs the candidate who benefits must donate the sum to charity. This is already the second time Brown has cut a check because of outside groups supporting his campaign.

In addition to Massachusetts, API has run similar ads in six states to protect the industry’s billions in tax loopholes. In the ad, API falsely claims that raising taxes leads to higher prices at the pump, though a Congressional Research Service memo determines that eliminating tax breaks for big oil companies would have negligible impact.

The API ad ostensibly urged Brown to oppose a Senate bill repealing Big Oil’s tax breaks — a position he’s already taken. Brown already voted against repealing these subsidies last year.

The Warren-Brown deal may minimize dirty Super PAC tactics in their own race, but it doesn’t prevent outside group interests from dictating Brown’s voting record. Koch Industries has donated $15,250 to Brown’s campaign this cycle, and he’s taken in close to $200,000 from oil and gas during his career. Before he voted against the oil subsidy repeal last year, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Exxon contributed to Brown’s campaign.

by Carl Pope, via The Huffington Post

The Republicans should be careful. Their current naïve faith — that high gasoline prices on a Democratic president’s watch gives them a political edge — overlooks their own profound vulnerability, and seems to be based primarily on the (not entirely unwarranted) assumption that the president will parry, rather than thrusting at their own weak spots.

Begin with the blame game. High oil prices are largely the direct and inexorable result of the utter failure of successive American governments of both parties to take long term steps to reduce the market power of the oil cartel since 1972. So the unwillingness of the American political system to confront the power of international oil is the culprit. Everything else is short-term noise.

But the politics of the issue are mostly about this short-term noise. Public attitudes this season are focusing the blame in places that ought to worry the Republicans. The last time oil prices spiked, during the Bush Administration, the public blamed the oil companies first and the White House second.

But this time the oil companies are being linked to speculation and manipulation of the markets — 38 percent of the public in a recent National Journal poll blamed “the manipulation of prices by large energy companies.” Another 28 percent thought tensions in the Mideast were to blame. Only 14 percent blamed Obama — 5 percent Congressional Republicans. (Other polls have found Congress more culpable than Obama, but none has found Obama to be primary focus of public anger. Indeed, 44 percent of respondents in another recent poll expressed greater faith in Obama on the issue.)

Why should this set of attitudes worry Republican candidates this year? Well, there is the potentially toxic fact that they are widely seen by the public as too close to the oil industry, an attitude likely to be reinforced as the media covers the sources of campaign money during the rest of the year, since Republicans get 88 percent of oil industry dollars, and have already raked in $14 million.

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The Senate continued debate Monday afternoon on Sen. Robert Menendez’s (D-N.J.) bill repealing $2 billion in tax breaks to Big Oil. The debate has given major recipients of Big Oil money the chance to defend a profitable industry, while it skims even higher profits from record gas prices.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, for instance, has the most money of any senator from oil and gas this cycle. He’s the No. 8 recipient in oil and gas career contributions in Congress, taking over $1.15 million during his tenure.

Republicans like McConnell, who said a debate on oil subsidies is a “waste of the public’s time,” used one debunked myth after another yesterday afternoon:

LIE: More Domestic Drilling Would Lower Gas Prices: McConnell claimed Republicans have the “solution” to gas prices while Democrats are lacking. The GOP’s answers include Keystone XL pipeline and drilling, neither of which lower prices.

FACT: More Drilling Increases Big Oil Profits: Experts note that production doesn’t impact gas prices; if it did, our current eight-year high in domestic energy gas prices would mean $2 gas. An Associated Press statistical analysis finds absolutely no support that drilling lowers gas prices. Neither would Keystone XL help Americans at the pump; it would only send prices higher. The pipeline “risks raising prices as much as 20 cents a gallon in the Midwest, Great Plains and Rocky Mountains,” according to a 2010 Canadian report.

LIE: Big Oil Tax Breaks Promote Drilling.: Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) said taxes are an “inconvenient fact” that “lead to lower production.” “As we tax these energy companies it is sure not going to lead them to produce things that are more affordable more abundant in fact it will have the resulting impact of impacting negatively the prices on American consumers,” she said.

FACT: Big Oil Tax Breaks Increase Big Oil Profits.: A Congressional Research Service report from May 2011 found that the repeal of five key oil industry tax breaks would lead to little or no increase of gasoline prices. Experts like oil industry analyst Tom Kloza agree that it would have no impact.

Americans know that “oil companies that want to make too much profit” deserve the most blame for higher gas prices, a new Reuters poll found. Republican senators are working to increase the $137 billion in profits the Big Five oil companies sucked from working families last year, instead of helping their constituents.

Other stories below: GOP running out of gas on Solyndra; What if July beats heat records the way March just did?

North Sea gas cloud forces evacuations

A cloud of explosive natural gas boiling out of the North Sea off the coast of Scotland has forced the evacuation of a second rig and forced coastguards to set up an exclusion zone to ward off ships and aircraft.

French oil firm Total said the leak was the most serious problem it had faced in the North Sea in a decade of drilling, adding that it was taking “all possible measures” to try to identify the source and cause of the leak and to bring it under control.

“It’s not going to be solved straightforwardly – it will take at least a few days,” a Total spokesman said, adding that experts were being flown in from around the world to help stop the leak.

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The Subcommittee on Energy and Power has scheduled the eighteenth day of its hearing on “The American Energy Initiative” on Wednesday, March 28, 2012, at 9:45 a.m. in room 2123 of the Rayburn House Office Building. This day of the hearing will focus on legislative responses to rising gasoline prices.

You should be able to watch the hearing here. I doubt I will be on before noon, and it is a crowded second panel.

Interestingly, the very first Congressional hearing that I testified at when I was acting principal deputy assistant secretary in DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy was on March 14, 1996 and concerned the outlook for rising oil prices and what to do about it.

My full testimony (with charts) is here. My favorite new chart, from this post, is:

Here is the summary of my testimony.

My testimony will provide analysis and data to support 6 key points:

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