Fueled by a warming climate, Colorado is experiencing its worst fire season in its history.

As researchers at Boulder’s National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) joined 32,000 other Coloradans in fleeing the fires, ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson spoke to the Council on Foreign Relations about the “manageable” risks of climate change:

Rex Tillerson said at a meeting at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York that climate change was a “great challenge,” but it could be solved by adapting to risks such as higher sea levels and changing conditions for agriculture.

“As a species that’s why we’re all still here: we have spent our entire existence adapting. So we will adapt to this,” he said. “It’s an engineering problem, and it has engineering solutions.”

Tillerson’s flippant remarks about “adapting” to the “manageable” consequences of climate change come at a time that Exxon is making record profits. In 2011, the company made $41.1 billion in profits, and Tillerson pulled in $34.9 million total compensation — a 20 percent raise from 2010.

A 2011 study found that “9 out of 10 top climate change deniers [were] linked with Exxon Mobil.” So it’s no surprise that Exxon’s CEO would spread misinformation on global warming.

Climate Progress is unaware of any serious climate scientists who think that global warming is “manageable” simply through adaptation if we listen to the do-nothing Exxon crowd and stay anywhere near our current emissions path. We know a great many who have written that the reverse is true (see below).

It’s also worth nothing that by mid-century, wildfires in the West  our projected to be far, far worse. Here’s the grim projection from a presentation made by the President’s science adviser Dr. John Holdren in Oslo in 2010:

We can barely manage the wildfires we have today. How exactly would much of the West “manage” a 4-fold to 6-fold increase in wildfires? And that’s just from a 1°C increase in temperatures. We could see 5 times that this century.

Tillerson pushed standard denialist obfuscation talking points:

He added: “In the IPCC reports … when you predict things like sea-level rise, you get numbers all over the map. If you take what I would call a reasonable scientific approach to that, we believe those consequences are manageable. They do require us to begin to spend more policy effort on adaptation.”

While it’s true that the IPCC and other analyses have reported a range of sea level rise and other impacts, much of that is due to the fact that they consider some very low emissions scenarios that would require aggressive action of a kind that Exxon has spent millions to stop. And the IPCC report was based on science and observations that is 6 years old — it ignored virtually any contribution to sea level rise this century from the disintegration of the great ice sheets. Now there is a widespread convergence of scientific analysis that says on the do-nothing path, sea level rise by 2100 is likely to be 3 feet and could be double that.

The key point is that the Exxon strategy – taking no serious action to reduce emissions —  eliminates most of the uncertainty concerning future emissions and makes catastrophic impacts all but a sure thing.

Read more

by Adam James and Bracken Hendricks

Americans have always prided themselves on thinking big. When it comes to energy, the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) has given big-thinkers everywhere a shot in the arm with a new study that concludes:

“Renewable energy sources, accessed with commercially available technologies, could adequately supply 80% of total U.S. electricity generation in 2050 while balancing supply and demand at the hourly level.”

This is a very big finding from one of the world’s most credible experts on advanced energy technologies. This detailed analysis makes clear that renewable energy is here, it is ready, and it can provide a very large share of the energy we need to run an advanced, prosperous and growing economy. The remaining question is whether we are ready to take the leadership to seize this opportunity.

Before we go into the high-level findings and some of the more impressive details, there are a few observations.

The first is on what the NREL study says about what we don’t need to hit 80 percent renewables.

We don’t need some crazy cool new technology or some groundbreaking invention. We aren’t waiting on the scientific community to make some breakthrough. Would revolutions in storage and batteries help us reach 100% renewable energy? Sure. But this 80 percent by 2050 target is possible with commercially available technology. That’s a big deal.

The second is about what this study shows we do need to make this renewable energy future a reality.

We need to transform our thinking about modernizing our electricity system — on everything from system planning and flexibility, to new business models and market rules. America needs to take the same approach it took with every other strategic infrastructure upgrade that unlocked economic growth in our past. From building railroads and highways to rural electrification, we focused our policies on capturing the scope and potential payoff of a major national project. That included providing the incentives to businesses and consumers through smart policy to lift all boats and increase economic productivity.

So before the dirty details: kudos to NREL for taking a look at what is possible and for laying out something visionary. The national debate on building a renewable energy future desperately needs to be re-focused and this report is a great step in that direction — making it clear that bold ambition is readily achievable.

Later this month, the Center for American Progress will also release a report on the convergence of renewable electricity, energy efficiency and smart grid technology, and how these technologies together represent a state change in our national energy infrastructure. Our piece on the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) revolution builds on NREL’s findings to lay out a framework for this national energy transformation.

High-Level Findings

The executive summary of the NREL report highlights a few key findings:

• Read more

Courtesy of William Lark Jr. and MIT

by Max Frankel

Next month, Senator Jeff Merkely (D-Oregon) will drive an all electric vehicle from Portland to Ashland — a distance of about 285 miles — to show off the viability EVs and Oregon’s new electric highway program.

While Senator Merkley’s trek is great PR for EVs and his support in congress is vital to the continued development of the next generation of vehicles, the future of the electric car isn’t just on the nation’s highways, but in the cities.

For the last few years, scientists and researchers at MIT have been working on a project called the CityCar. The CityCar represents a radical rethinking of the urban mobility paradigm — a shift from conventional vehicles operating in a cramped, polluted, dangerous environment to vehicles specifically optimized for urban centers.

What is the City Car?

As MIT describes, the CityCar is unlike any vehicle in production today. “It does not have a central engine and traditional power train, but is powered by four in-wheel electric motors. Each wheel unit contains drive motor (which also enables regenerative braking), steering, and suspension, and is independently digitally controlled.”

The decision to eschew a traditional motor and drive train allows the CityCar to do quite a few things that other cars can’t, like O-turns for instance. Since the wheels move independently, the car can also move sideways into parallel parking spaces. It also allows the body of the vehicle to be lightweight, safe, and spacious since it requires no large, clunky battery back.

Courtesy of Franco Vairani and Technology Review

Without a rigid drive shaft, MIT’s engineers had the freedom to allow the CityCar to fold in half — a revolutionary concept. When a CityCar arrives at its destination, it folds up, compacting itself into an area 1/2 its normal size, and stacks with other CityCars much the same way that grocery carts do. The driver then simply walks straight ahead and out of the vehicle. using this technique, between three and eight CityCars can fit into one conventional parking space.

The CityCar can then charge while in its compact, stacked form.

The front of the vehicle is the passenger compartment, which houses the joystick used to control the car. The joystick represents another innovation, a shift from mechanical control, like the steering wheel, to electric, “fly by wire” technology. “The rear compartment provides generous storage for baggage, groceries, and so on. When a CityCar folds, the baggage compartment remains level and low for easy access.” According to MIT:

Read more

With spending from interest groups up 1,100 percent since the last presidential campaign, the emerging fact checking industry has been busy.

Fact checkers have gotten so exasperated by all the ads, Glenn Kessler at the Washington Post recently lamented that “watching these ads is a depressing duty for The Fact Checker…. The erroneous assertions emerge … without any shame, labeled as ‘the truth’ or ‘fact.’”

And there’s a reason for all that exasperation. According to a new analysis from the Annenberg Public Policy Center, 85 percent of spending on presidential ads by the top spending conservative 501(c)(4) organizations went toward spots labeled “deceptive” by fact checkers. Third-party 501(c)(4) groups, commonly referred to as political action committees, do not have to disclose their donors.

As of June 1st, no Democratic 501(c)(4) organizations had spent any money on the presidential race.

The Annenberg analysis outlines the top four conservative interest groups funneling money into deceptive ads:

• American Energy Alliance, which champions free market energy policies and spent an estimated $3.3 million ($3,269,000) on deceptive presidential ads.

• Americans for Prosperity, founded by billionaire businessman and conservative activist David Koch to support lower taxes and limited government spending, spent an estimated $5 million ($5,018,000) on presidential ads containing deceptions.

• American Future Fund, a Republican-leaning group founded by longtime Iowa political operative Nick Ryan and headed by state Senator Sandra Greiner, spent an estimated $6.4 million ($6,365,930) on deceptive presidential ads.

• Crossroads GPS, a conservative public policy advocacy group advised by former Bush lieutenant Karl Rove and former RNC director Ed Gillespie, spent an estimated $10.3 million ($10,263,760) on deceptive presidential ads. The group is a companion organization to the super PAC American Crossroads.

A large share of those ads have been focused on energy — particularly on the solar company Solyndra. A Bloomberg analysis found that 81 percent attack ads against President Obama were related to energy in the first quarter of this year. Overall, negative ads are up 70 percent since the 2008 presidential election.

Behold the legacy of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision: A whole lot of lies and very little accountability.

Below is a video put together by FlackCheck.org documenting the extraordinary increase in deceptive ads:

Waldo Canyon Fire via twitpic

If a tree burns down in a globally-warmed forest but the media doesn’t report why, does it make a sound?

Record-setting heat waves, wildfires, and deluges  – at the same time —  just what climate scientists have been forecasting for decades. That’s why I titled my 2006 book Hell and High Water.

The scientific literature increasingly says it’s happening now goosed on by human emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases (see “Must-Read Trenberth: How To Relate Climate Extremes to Climate Change“). See also study (4/12) finds Arctic warming favors extreme, prolonged weather events “such as drought, flooding, cold spells and heat waves.” And see study (9/10) finds global warming is driving increased frequency of extreme wet or dry summer weather in southeast, so droughts and deluges are likely to get worse.

Dr. Kevin Trenberth, former head of the Climate Analysis Section of the National Center for Atmospheric Research told the NY Times, “It’s not the right question to ask if this storm or that storm is due to global warming, or is it natural variability. Nowadays, there’s always an element of both.” At the same time, the wildfires in the west, which include the most destructive wildfire in Colorado history, are being fueled by climate change.

UPDATE: After flying over the Waldo Canyon blaze, Governor John Hickenlooper said:

“It was like looking at the worst movie set you could imagine. It’s almost surreal. You look at that, and it’s like nothing I’ve seen before.“

But here’s the PBS story, “Tropical Storm Debby Saturates Florida, Extreme Heat Fans Fires in Colorado,” with nary a mention of global warming. Same for the ABC Evening News story last night on the Colorado fires and Midwest heatwave (“we’re rivaling some of the warmest temperatures on the planet right now”) and their morning story (“temperatures never seen before in that region”). Same for the ABC Evening News story last night on the Florida floods (over two feet of rain in places — “disaster by a million raindrops” and don’t miss the part about the snakes and balls of fire ants in the water!).

ABC now even has an “extreme weather team.” It would be great if they included some experts discussing how global warming has “juiced” the climate, as if it were on steroids, as, for instance, ClimateWire (subs. req’d) did in its story, “Minn. floods, early tropical storms fuel questions about changing climate”:

Read more

by Adam James and Bracken Hendricks

Yesterday, the Obama Administration’s Better Buildings Challenge announced almost 300 million square feet in new building energy upgrades, along with new public tax guidance streamlining the use of Qualified Energy Conservation Bonds.

A bit of background. The Better Buildings Initiative was launched by President Obama on February 3, 2011 with the aim of making commercial buildings 20 percent more efficient by 2020.  This would reduce energy bills for these businesses by $40 billion per year and create 114,000 new jobs — particularly in the construction and manufacturing sector. The unique program builds public-private partnerships by challenging the private sector to act, and supporting them with tax and other incentives.

The Center for America Progress worked closely with President Obama and President Clinton in crafting this challenge for public and private partnerships, in developing the initial rounds of commitments, and in helping to launch the program. We’re gratified to see this innovative effort take hold and continue to scale as an enduring legacy of the Obama administration, as it undertakes the work of market transformation in earnest.

Last year at the Clinton Global Initiative, commercial partners announced commitments from 60 major private sector partners, totaling about 1.6 billion square feet of commercial and industrial space. It also included 300 manufacturing plants.

Additionally, nearly $2 billion in financial commitments were put forward to help structure innovative financial products to meet real estate retrofit needs. This included an unlikely coalition between the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.  In total, these commitments would generate $1.4 billion in savings and energy costs. To top it off, the President mandated $2 billion in federal building energy upgrades utilizing Energy Savings Performance Contracts to retrofit public buildings — promising improvements to tax incentives to streamline investment.

Yesterday, the Obama Administration delivered. The 300 million square feet in building upgrades will amount to about $300 million in estimated investments, and bring the number of public and private sector partners to more than 100. The Administration also kept their promise on tax incentives, with their guidance on Qualified Energy Conservation Bonds.

A Qualified Energy Conservation Bond is issued by a state or local government when 100 percent of the project proceeds are used for “qualified conservation purposes.” Qualified conservation includes capital expenditures that reduce energy consumption by 20 percent or that help green community programs. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act raised the national bond volume cap from $800 million to $3.2 billion. These funds were then allocated based on population.

The guidance issued by the Treasury department yesterday makes a few important clarifications.

The first clarification was on what qualifies as a “capital expenditure for energy conservation purposes,” giving property managers more clarity on what kind of expenditures are tax-exempt. The second clarification was on how to measure the 20 percent reduction in energy consumption. The third was on what qualifies as a Green Community Program

This guidance creates certainty for investors and policymakers and sets the stage for a wave of new investments in commercial efficiency.

These clarifications are important because unclear guidelines left these bonds drastically under-utilized. As of May, only 20 percent of the bonds had been issued, with 33 states not touching their allocations. That leaves about $2.5 billion to be spent. While the $300 million in private sector commitments in building upgrades is a massive sum, the Treasury Department’s guidance may open the floodgates for that $2.5 billion in capital for local governments — thus reducing energy consumption, and creating jobs.

Adam James is a Special Assistant at the Center for American Progress; Bracken Hendricks is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress

With virtually no infrastructure available to clean up an oil spill in the sensitive Arctic, the Obama Administration is still pushing to get offshore drilling projects developed in the region.

What’s the messaging strategy from the Administration? Trust Shell.

Talking to reporters about exploration permits for Arctic waters yesterday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar summed up the Administration’s approach: “I believe there’s not going to be an oil spill.”

Really?

Shell has faced more legal prosecutions for safety and environmental transgressions than any other major oil company drilling offshore in the North Sea.

And let’s remember, the Arctic is a place where the Coast Guard has warned “if [a spill] were to happen … we’d have nothing. We’re starting from ground zero today.”

Heck, even one of the world’s largest insurance pools refuses to back offshore drilling operations in the Arctic, saying the environment is “highly sensitive to damage” and that the risk is “hard to manage.”

Discussing the technique of foreshadowing, Russian playwright Anton Chekhov once wrote: “If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired.”

As we see in the graphic below, Obama already proved himself a master of foreshadowing in the lead up to the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Let’s hope Salazar doesn’t do the same. (Hat tip to Greenpeace’s Joe Smyth for the image).

Golson, via Flickr

by KC Golden, via the GRIP blog

When the political class focuses on the perils of fossil fuel dependence, they almost always use the word “foreign” before “oil”.  This is redundant.  Oil is inherently foreign.  All of it.

Oil is foreign to democracy. In an election cycle flooded by unrestricted political money, oil money stands out as the biggest gusher.  The Supreme Court struck down Montana’s law limiting corporate spending on campaigns yesterday, so the blowout of oil’s influence will remain uncapped for the foreseeable future.   In America and around the world, oil and freedom do not mix.  Because it concentrates wealth, facilitates abuse of power, breeds dependence, and crushes democracy, oil is fundamentally foreign to the American creed.

Oil is foreign to the atmosphere, air, and water. Burning oil releases about 85 billion pounds of CO2 to the atmosphere per day, all of which has been foreign to our climate for many millions of years.  The planet that existed when that carbon was aloft was a very different place, as foreign as, oh, Jurassic Park.  And some oil doesn’t get burned because it leaks out along the way, causing the waterways of home to turn toxic, hostile, and foreign (see Inside Climate’s blockbuster story on the underreported ”Dilbit Disaster” in Michigan.)

Oil is foreign to economic security. The U.S. has less than 5% of the world’s population, about 2% of proven conventional oil reserves, and consumes about 20% of the oil produced.  Prices are set on world markets and heavily influenced by oilogopolistic producers, regardless of where the oil comes from.  Those producers have us over a barrel as long as we need the stuff.

Oil is foreign to local economic vitality. The overwhelming majority of Americans live in communities that are hemorrhaging economic resources in order to pay for oil.  Here in King County Washington, for example, our economy will lose north of $5 billion this year to fetch oil – roughly the size of the entire County budget.  A tiny handful of Americans live in communities where oil brings in more money than it sucks out.

Oil is foreign to the intergenerational contract. Any economic value derived from expanded oil trafficking is confiscated from the many generations who will have to pay the exorbitant costs of living in an unstable climate.  They will not be amused.  Estimates of the economic value of unchecked climate change are enormous but fuzzy; there is no satisfying way to monetize the intergenerational abuse.

Regardless of where they poke the holes, oil is not yours.  It’s not mine.  It’s ExxonMobil’s and OPEC’s and the Koch’s.  Wherever the next fix happens to come from, they will use it to extract record profits, destroy the climate, and maul our democracy.

Drill here, drill there, it doesn’t matter. The whole damned business is foreign to our national interests, to our values, to our future.

KC Golden writes for the GRIP blog. This piece was originally published at the GRIP blog and was reprinted with permission.

A round-up of the top climate and energy news.

The Obama administration, moving swiftly on the president’s promise to expedite the southernmost portion of the disputed Keystone XL pipeline, has granted construction permits for part of the route passing through Texas, officials said on Tuesday. [New York Times]

The key question is whether this progress will continue. Will U.S. carbon emissions keep falling? Or were the past five years just a weird blip? [Wonk Blog]

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Tuesday that it was “highly likely” that the agency would grant Shell permits to begin drilling exploratory wells off the North Slope of Alaska as early as next month. [New York Times]

Firefighters again will battle inferno-like conditions on Wednesday as they try to tame an explosive wildfire that has already chased some 32,000 residents from their homes near Colorado Springs, Colorado. [CNN]

Vacation homes and commercial properties in flood-prone areas could see their flood-insurance premiums more than double over a four-year period under a bill poised to clear the Senate this week. [Wall Street Journal]

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, whose administration has called solar power an economic “albatross,” is expected to sign legislation that would increase the amount of solar energy state utilities must buy. [Bloomberg]

Solar panel manufacturers face three more years of tough conditions until the market shuts down excess production capacity, according to a new report issued on Tuesday by renewable power consultancy GTM Research. [Reuters]

Controversial plans to build a major coal-fired power station in Ayrshire using unproven “clean coal” technology have been abandoned, to the delight of environmental campaigners. [Guardian]