Speaking at the Heartland Institute’s climate denial conference in Chicago this afternoon, Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) said that labeling heat-trapping carbon dioxide a pollutant is “propaganda.”

Sensenbrenner is a long-time climate disinformer who says that the science of man-made global warming is an “international conspiracy.” He also happens to be Vice Chair of the House Committee on Space, Science and Technology.

Blatantly ignoring the “science” part of his committee responsibilities, the Congressman today attempted to argue against the basic physics of CO2 in the atmosphere:

“CO2 is a natural gas. Does this mean that all of us need to put catalytic converters on all our noses? The fact that people think CO2 is a pollutant … basically goes into propaganda.”

The so-called “radiative forcing” of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels has contributed enough heat in the atmosphere over the last century to equal roughly half a billion Hiroshima nuclear bombs each year. As one researcher explained: “When there’s more energy radiating down on the planet than there is radiating back out to space, something’s going to have to heat up.”

Rep. Sensenbrenner took his unscientific personal conclusions one step further, saying he believed CO2 would help “crop yields go up” and make it “easier to feed 7 billion people.”

“I’m not one of the people going around saying CO2 is bad for you,” he concluded.

In fact, scientists around the world are calling man-made global warming one of the biggest threats to agricultural production. In Texas, a brutal warming-driven drought cost farmers $7.5 billion last year; In Thailand, “weather whiplash” in 2010 devastated rice crops, causing $40 billion in lost economic productivity; and in Mexico, severe drought reduced agricultural output by 40% already this year.

These incidents came as world food prices hit record highs in 2011 due to a combination of extreme weather events and rising oil prices. In the lead-up to these global price spikes, 2010 was the warmest year on record globally — with 19 nations setting all-time heat records.

Sensenbrenner delivered his speech to a crowd of roughly 200 people at the Heartland Institute’s 7th annual international climate conference — a yearly gathering for the nation’s most active climate change disinformers. The Heartland Institute has come under fire in recent weeks for a disastrous billboard campaign linking people who understand human-caused global warming to mass murderers. Since the billboard was put up, 12 companies have pulled their support for Heartland in the lead-up to the conference.

Sensenbrenner ended his speech with an appropriate anecodote. He referenced New York Times Columnist Paul Krugman, who wrote in a 2009 column that climate deniers were practicing “treason against the planet.”

“Mr. Krugman, I plead guilty as charged,” boasted Sensenbrenner — a politician who helps oversee one of the most important scientific committees in Congress.

The crowd burst into gleeful laughter.

Sensenbrenner also assured the crowd that Mitt Romney would not take action on global warming. When asked by an attendee who said he was “scared to death” that Romney would change his stance on man-made global warming and support renewable energy, Sensenbrenner replied, ” I don’t think that’s true. I talked to Romney before the Wisconsin primary.”

JR: Climate science has long predicted an expansion of the tropical belt (colored band in figure below), which we’re now observing. At the same time, also as predicted, the subtropical dry zones are shifting poleward and getting drier (see for instance, this study and this one). And that means more “Dust-Bowlification,” which is a grave threat to food security. This observed expansion is happening faster than the climate models projected. A new study in Nature (subs. req’d) offers one possible explanation for this. What follows is a news release on the study.

by Iqbal Pittalwala, via UCR Today

Black carbon aerosols and tropospheric ozone, both manmade pollutants emitted predominantly in the Northern Hemisphere’s low- to mid-latitudes, are most likely pushing the boundary of the tropics further poleward in that hemisphere, new research by a team of scientists shows.

While stratospheric ozone depletion has already been shown to be the primary driver of the expansion of the tropics in the Southern Hemisphere, the researchers are the first to report that black carbon and tropospheric ozone are the most likely primary drivers of the tropical expansion observed in the Northern Hemisphere.

Led by climatologist Robert J. Allen, an assistant professor of Earth sciences at the University of California, Riverside, the research team notes that an unabated tropical belt expansion would impact large-scale atmospheric circulation, especially in the subtropics and mid-latitudes.

“If the tropics are moving poleward, then the subtropics will become even drier,” Allen said.  “If a poleward displacement of the mid-latitude storm tracks also occurs, this will shift mid-latitude precipitation poleward, impacting regional agriculture, economy, and society.”

Study results appear in the May 17 issue of Nature.

Observations show that the tropics have widened by 0.7 degrees latitude per decade, with warming from greenhouse gases also contributing to the expansion in both hemispheres. To study this expansion, the researchers first compared observational data with simulated data from climate models for 1979-1999.  The simulated data were generated by a collection of 20 climate models called the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project version 3 or “CMIP3.”

The researchers found that CMIP3 underestimates the observed 0.35 degrees latitude per decade expansion of the Northern Hemisphere tropics by about a third.  But when they included either black carbon or tropospheric ozone or both in CMIP3, the simulations mimicked observations better, suggesting that the pollutants were playing a role in the Northern Hemisphere tropical expansion.

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By Richard W. Caperton

We’ve all heard that wind energy is too expensive, and that massive investments in wind will drive up electricity rates for consumers.  This argument is based on the belief that wind energy is more expensive on a per kilowatt-hour basis than traditional fossil fuels.  While even this premise is up for debate (for example, wind is now the least expensive option for new generation for some utilities in the upper Midwest), the bigger problem is that this argument ignores how electricity markets actually work.

According to a study by Synapse Energy Economics that was released today, electricity markets are structured in such a way that wind power will actually lower wholesale power prices, which can ultimately reduce consumers’ electric bills.  The Synapse study, which was released at an event organized by Americans for a Clean Energy Grid, finds that making substantial investments in wind power (and the necessary transmission lines to bring that wind to market) could save the average Midwestern residential consumer as much as $200 per year in 2020.

The key to understanding how this works is something called “price suppression”.  In competitive power markets, like the one managed by the Midwest Independent System Operator (MISO), power is sold through an auction.  Generators bid in a certain amount of power at a certain price.  When the market is functioning properly, the price is always the marginal cost of operating the power plant.  For a natural gas plant, the marginal cost is primarily fuel, with some amount of labor and other expenses.  For a wind turbine, the marginal cost is effectively zero, since there’s no fuel cost and there are minimal other operating expenses.  MISO has a supply curve, ranging from very low marginal cost resources like wind, through nuclear and coal, and ultimately ending at very expensive power from inefficient peaking plants fired with natural gas.

In these power auctions, the “clearing price” is the price bid by the most expensive generator whose bid is accepted.  So, if the MISO market needs power from a costly peaking plant, the clearing price is very high.  Every generator receives the clearing price, no matter what price they bid into the auction.

The price suppression effect refers to the fact that when lower marginal cost resources come into the market, there’s less need for higher cost resources.  This reduces the clearing price, which is the price that utilities have to pay for wholesale power.  This is also known as the “merit order effect” and is described in more detail in a recent paper on Germany.

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Mark Boslough, via Skeptical Science

Climate change is debated in letters to the editor of hometown newspapers all over the world. In the Las Cruces, New Mexico, Sun-News, one reader recently cited “a 1996 paper by Kiegwin (sic) in Science which showed that, despite the present having a CO₂ concentration of 388 PPM, the present temperature is cooler than the average of the last 3,000 years, and that it was considerably warmer than today during the Medieval Warm Period, the Roman Warm Period, and the Holocene climate Optimum.” A few months later another reader asserted that “Keigwin, Science, 1996, shows present temperatures aren’t much different from the 3,000 year mean.”

Did the Keigwin paper really say that?  And how is it that two non-scientists from a mid-sized New Mexico city would be so confident that a scientific paper published a decade-and-a-half earlier supports their belief that the world was warmer during Medieval times?

First, let’s review Keigwin (1996).   The title “The Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period in the Sargasso Sea” might provide the first clue that it isn’t about global temperatures, but about one location on Earth:  the Sargasso Sea.  What Keigwin did was to use oxygen isotope measurements in plankton skeletons from sediment cores as a proxy to reconstruct the sea surface temperature (SST) of the past 3000 years.   The cores were collected in 1990, and were divided into 50- to 100-year segments.  In the absence of mixing or bioturbation from below, the mid-point of the most recent 50-year thick sample, whose value would represent the most recent paleotemperature, would be 1965.  In a perfect world, the bottom of the segment would date to 1940.  However, sediments in the real world are never completely undisturbed.  It is very likely that the most recent segment contained shells from the early 1900s or even from the previous century.  That means the last paleotemperature is really an average that probably includes values from before automobiles and light bulbs were invented.

Keigwin published a graph, as Figure 4b (K4B), of his best estimate of the resulting time series:

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What is perhaps the last play the tragically — not comically — reckless oil company BP should sponsor?

Seriously, what oil company has made more flagrant errors than BP?

I don’t know what PR genius came up with this idea, but here is the oil giant, oblivious to the irony, announcing on their website:

Directed by Amir Nizar Zuabi, The Comedy of Errors, supported by BP as the Founding Presenting Partner of the World Shakespeare Festival, plays in the Roundhouse in Camden, as part of the What Country Friends Is This? trilogy.

This epic trilogy of Shakespeare’s shipwreck plays, exploring love, loss and reunion, is performed by one company of actors.

Yes, the Comedy of Errors is a “shipwreck” play. Well, the BP disaster certainly looked like a shipwreck — but did a lot more damage:

And let’s not forget the irony that “BP had central role in the Exxon Valdez disaster,” a true shipwreck.

Of course, according to Big Oil and drilling advocates in Congress, BP should be sponsoring Much Ado About Nothing instead (see “Five Reasons We Can’t Forget About The BP Oil Disaster“).

In the fight against climate change, we often think about the big problems like coal-based electricity, car-centric transportation, and energy-sucking buildings. But there’s equally important problem we need to address for environmental and human-health reasons: biomass cookstoves.

In fact, the use of biomass-based cookstoves in developing countries represents a triple threat: They contribute to severe deforestation, they help accelerate short-term global warming by emitting “black carbon,” and they cause millions of deaths from respiratory illness each year.

Many NGO’s, international development organizations, and entrepreneurs have started taking on this problem — helping accelerate the use of alternative cooking methods to reduce harmful emissions.

In Mozambique, locally-produced ethanol from waste cassava may be one answer.

Two companies, CleanStar Ventures and Novozymes, have formed a biofuels operation in the country to support local farmers, cut back on deforestation, and provide a cleaner-burning fuel for local residents. The venture, called CleanStar Mozambique, was announced late last week. It’s designed to help phase out charcoal in the country — a resource used for cooking that has resulted in the decline of nearly one third of Africa’s forests.

By 2014 the venture will involve 2,000 smallholders over 10,000 acres (4,000 hectares), supply 20% of Maputo households with a clean and cheaper alternative to charcoal and thus protect 9,000 acres of indigenous forests per year. The company will also employ approximately 1,000 people in Mozambique. From a commercial standpoint, CSM is replicable and scalable across large parts of the developing world, offering the promise of widespread development impacts and significant reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions. By helping establish proof-of-concept in Mozambique, Novozymes intends to catalyze the development of agriculture, food and ethanol industries in developing countries, creating new, sustainable, bio-based markets.

Indeed, with support for biofuels in developed countries waning due of a combination of commercialization problems, political backlash, and environmental concerns, companies like Novozymes are looking for opportunities in new markets. Supplying ethanol for cookstoves offers a much easier market to penetrate than petroleum fuels.

Watch the film below to see how the CleanStar Mozambique harnesses the power of local farmers to develop a more sustainable fuels industry — cutting back on deforestation, reducing black carbon, and protecting people’s health.

This is one of the most important fronts in addressing climate change today.

The coal industry and their Republican allies are looking to bury Obama under coal issues, Politico reports. American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity unveiled video attacks on his coal record the past week, as coal donors flock to Romney, who’s taken $187,750 in campaign cash through March 31.

We’ve already debunked the myth that EPA regulations threaten jobs, and the facts do not back the industry’s case for a “war on coal”:

While the Obama administration and the EPA may be taking a harder look at mountain top removal mining permits, a quick look at coal mining employment in West Virginia reveals that since Obama took office in the winter of 2009 coal mining employment has grown by over 1,500 jobs or by 7.4%. If we measure from the end of the national recession in June 2009 (or the 2nd Quarter of 2009) to the third-quarter of 2011 (the latest available data), employment in the coal mining industry has grown by 3,100. For comparison, total employment in West Virginia has only grown by 2.9% over this period.

Looking over the last two decades, annual West Virginia coal mining employment was higher in 2011 than at anytime over the last 17 years, according to Workforce West Virginia. In 1995, there were 22,669 workers employed in coal mining (SIC Code 12) compared to 22,693 during the first three quarters of 2011 (NAICS Code 2121). If you include coal mining support activities (NAICS 213113) – which are separated out when the Census switched to using NACIS Codes in 2001 – employment in coal mining was at 24,515 in 2011 compared to 22,669 in 1995. Any way you look at it, coal mining employment is at a two-decade high.

This all being said, the rise in coal mining jobs has very little to do with the actions of the Obama administration and the EPA. The rise in coal mining employment over this period is due more to the recent spike in coal prices from 2005 to 2011, steady decline of productivity, and the counter-cyclical nature of the energy industry during recessions. While there is a good chance that coal employment will be lower in 2012 do to a decline in customer demand for West Virginia coal – which is reflected in the 2012 drop in coal spot prices – this again will not be related to actions by the Obama administration.

As Ken notes in his blog, if we can move past the rhetoric and political confusion regarding the plight of the coal industry in our state we might be able to chart a better economic course for our future.

One year after a deadly tornado devastated their city, President Barack Obama praised the residents of Joplin, Mo., for a spirit of perseverance and resiliency that he said could serve as a model for a nation still grinding its way through tough economic times. [CBS]

The federal energy loan program that has created headaches for President Barack Obama has a Mitt Romney connection. Cathy Tripodi of FaegreBD Consulting lobbies on behalf of Abound Solar, a company that was awarded a $400 million loan guarantee through the same Department of Energy program that aided Solyndra, the now-bankrupt California company that included an Obama bundler as an investor. Tripodi is a bundler for Romney. [iWatch News]

Israel’s Arava Power said on Tuesday it secured 780 million shekels ($204 million) in funding to build eight medium-sized solar energy fields – the largest financial closing in the country’s solar power industry. [Reuters]

Environmental advocates were among dozens of witnesses lining up to testify Monday on a bill laying out Ohio’s new regulations for horizontal shale drilling and the use of renewable energy. [AP]

The leaders of nearly two dozen environmental groups called on President Obama to attend next month’s Rio+20 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, underscoring the uncertainty that continues to cloud the historic meeting. [Washington Post]

by Rick Piltz, via Climate Science Watch

Jonathan Koomey’s new book, Cold Cash, Cool Climate: Science-Based Advice for Ecological Entrepreneurs, offers a concise, compelling analysis of why innovative entrepreneurial approaches are needed in order to limit global climate change, and to improve the quality of life while doing so.  Koomey’s analysis has more integrity than those who promote energy alternatives while evading the daunting constraints that follow from climate science, and opens into a creative and integrative way of thinking about paths forward. Highly recommended.

See Koomey’s blog for a forthcoming series of posts on key ideas from the book.

Cold Cash, Cool Climate is intended primarily for entrepreneurial innovators looking for opportunities to start companies, not primarily for the science community, policy advocates, and policymakers.  Its scope and intended audience is a bit different from our usual beat at Climate Science Watch.  But I see in this book much that is on target in terms of our concern for connecting climate research with policymaking, advocacy, and action.

Chapter 1 lays out the basic argument and approach of the book.  “Why focus on entrepreneurs?” Koomey asks.  Government bureaucracies, big business, and academia are institutionally conservative.  But “if we are to stabilize the earth’s climate, it is rapid change that we need, and not just rapid technological change. We also need people and institutions to alter their behavior, and to do so in short order.” The people most comfortable with this are “those who carry the entrepreneurial spirit.”

Koomey provides a strong, science-based rationale for the need for rapid change to limit global climatic disruption. The power elite in Washington is failing to act with anything like the needed sense of urgency.  Throughout, Koomey ties the needed changes, including a fundamental transformation of the energy system, to the problem of climate change – the science of climate change, the reality of climate change, the implications of climate change. The need to reduce carbon emissions, to limit atmospheric concentrations, to limit global warming, is the fundamental driver of the need for rapid technological, institutional, and behavioral change.  I’m happy to see an analysis with this framing that does not cop out by trying to disconnect the push for clean energy from an explicit focus on climate disruption as a driver.  And, as Koomey shows, the findings of climate science do much to frame and constrain the problem of developing solutions to limit climatic disruption.

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by Jeffrey Cavanagh

During this weekend’s G-8 summit hosted by President Obama at Camp David, leaders from the Group of Eight nations endorsed a new plan to combat “short-lived climate polluters,” with a focus on methane, black carbon, and hydroflurocarbons (HFCs).

According to the Camp David Declaration — the official communiqué endorsed by all G-8 leaders at the end of the summit — short-lived pollutants significantly contribute to global warming, and limiting their release will help prevent a substantial number of premature deaths around the world:

Recognizing the impact of short-lived climate pollutants on near-term climate change, agricultural productivity, and human health, we support, as a means of promoting increased ambition and complementary to other CO2 and GHG emission reduction efforts, comprehensive actions to reduce these pollutants, which, according to UNEP and others, account for over thirty percent of near-term global warming as well as 2 million premature deaths a year.

The Group of Eight nations will now join the Climate and Clean Air Coalition to Reduce Short-lived Climate Pollutants, a partnership originally launched by the United States, with Bangladesh, Canada, Ghana, Mexico and Sweden, in February of this year. Additional G-8 members to the Coalition will include France, Germany, Britain, Italy, Japan, and Russia.

Unlike carbon dioxide, which can remain in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, climate pollutants such as methane, black carbon, and HFCs are generally much shorter lived; however they are much more effective at raising global temperatures.

Methane, a shorter-living gas, is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 100-year period, and has contributed to roughly 50 percent of tropospheric ozone helping warm the planet. HFCs, a common refrigerant, are thousands of times more potent. Black carbon — or soot — lands on ice caps and glaciers, increasing melting and preventing the reflection of sunlight. Reducing these short-lived pollutants will help countries meet near-term international climate change goals.

The G-8 operates with an “imperative” to promote economic growth and create jobs, and the group’s willingness to address climate change and short-lived pollutants rightly suggests that fighting climate change by curbing greenhouse gasses can also facilitate economic growth.

According to a White House fact sheet released during the summit, fostering sustainable economic development is “essential” for addressing both the challenges of climate change as well as international economic insecurity:

The development of and universal access to environmentally safe, sustainable, secure, and affordable sources of energy is essential to global economic growth and to their overall efforts to address climate change.

G-8 leaders also agreed to support initiatives of the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM), a collaborative effort of 23 countries that brings together the world’s major carbon emitters in a smaller forum than the UNFCCC. G-8 countries agreed to build on current initiatives in the CEM, which already cover 90 percent of clean energy investment and 80 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, including the Super-efficient Equipment and Appliances Deployment (SEAD) initiative and working through the CEM to share best practices for efficient energy management in industry and government. Additional G-8 support for the CEM’s 21^st Century Power Partnership will enhance high-volume renewable energy and smart-grid technology development, as part of the 20-country International Smart Grid Action Network.

The G-8’s decision to reduce short-lived pollutants represents another, effective approach in combination with broader efforts to address carbon dioxide. Reducing these pollutants will save lives and help curb near-term global warming. That’s a win-win for everyone.

Jeffrey Cavanagh is an intern with the international climate team at the Center for American Progress.