“Three simple numbers that add up to global catastrophe — and that make clear who the real enemy is”

CO2 emissions by fossil fuels [1 ppm CO2 ~ 2.12 GtC, where ppm is parts per million of CO2 in air and GtC isgigatons of carbon] via Hansen. Significantly exceeding 450 ppm risks several severe and irreversible warming impacts. [Estimated reserves and potentially recoverable resources are from U.S. EIA (2011) and German Advisory Council on Global Change (2011). We are headed toward 800 to 1,000+ ppm, which represents the near-certain destruction of modern civilization as we know it -- as the recent scientific literature makes chillingly clear.]

Climate hawk Bill McKibben has a terrific new piece in Rolling Stone, “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math.”

It is getting monster social media numbers of the kind usually reserved for pieces on HuffPost about Kim Kardashian in a bikini: 66k FaceBook likes and an astounding 6300 retweets. That means millions of people have likely been exposed to at least the headline and probably some of the opening text:

If the pictures of those towering wildfires in Colorado haven’t convinced you, or the size of your AC bill this summer, here are some hard numbers about climate change: June broke or tied 3,215 high-temperature records across the United States. That followed the warmest May on record for the Northern Hemisphere – the 327th consecutive month in which the temperature of the entire globe exceeded the 20th-century average, the odds of which occurring by simple chance were 3.7 x 10-99, a number considerably larger than the number of stars in the universe.

Meteorologists reported that this spring was the warmest ever recorded for our nation – in fact, it crushed the old record by so much that it represented the “largest temperature departure from average of any season on record.” The same week, Saudi authorities reported that it had rained in Mecca despite a temperature of 109 degrees, the hottest downpour in the planet’s history.

Not that our leaders seemed to notice….

The three key numbers are:

• The First Number: 2° Celsius [3.6° Fahrenheit]: The temperature rise we need to work as hard as possible to limit total warming to if we want to have our best chance of averting multiple catastrophes and amplifying carbon cycle feedbacks
• The Second Number: 565 Gigatons: “Scientists estimate that humans can pour roughly 565 more gigatons of carbon … into the atmosphere by midcentury and still have some reasonable hope of staying below two degrees. (‘Reasonable,’ in this case, means four chances in five, or somewhat worse odds than playing Russian roulette with a six-shooter.)”
• The Third Number: 2,795 Gigatons: “This number is the scariest of all – one that, for the first time, meshes the political and scientific dimensions of our dilemma…. The number describes the amount of carbon already contained in the proven coal and oil and gas reserves of the fossil-fuel companies, and the countries (think Venezuela or Kuwait) that act like fossil-fuel companies. In short, it’s the fossil fuel we’re currently planning to burn.

The figure above from James Hansen yields a moderately lower number, but the point is if we don’t we don’t leave most of the proven reserves in the ground — and all of the “potentially recoverable resource” — we are boiled brainless frogs.

McKibben writes too thoughtfully to summarize — and too eloquently to paraphrase. You should read the whole thing, which ends:

Read more

Recent drought and extreme heat in the U.S. has had a well-documented impact on people living in the West and Midwest. But another denizen of the American West is facing a dire threat.

The American Pika is a small, mountain-dwelling mammal sometimes referred to as the “mountain bunny of the Rockies.” And new evidence shows that Pikas are disappearing from the Great Basin in Nevada, Utah and California at an alarming rate.

The Pika is particularly sensitive to small changes in temperature, making it an interesting animal to study as researchers look at the impact of a warming planet.

A recent study of Pikas in the Great Basin found that the animals are fleeing their habitats for higher, cooler elevations at a rate 11 times faster than before the year 2000. “The low-elevation range boundary for this species is now moving upslope at an average rate of about 145 m per decade.” In Yosemite National Park, that number is closer to 150 meters:

“Pikas are shifting their range to higher elevations in response to increased warming, and thus, their suitable habitat is being reduced. In models designed to predict these patterns of loss, the importance of climatic factors has risen dramatically over the past decade.”

Extreme heat and drought has been particularly bad for the Pika. Moreover, localized extinctions of Pika populations in the Great Basin have “increased at five times the 20th century average in the last 10 years.”

In 2010, the Obama Administration opted not to include the Pika on the Endangered Species list because “while some pika populations in the West are declining, others are not.” The decision to not protect the Pika outraged some scientists interested in the plight of the furry, flower-eating relative of the rabbit:

“This is a political decision that ignores science and the law,” Shaye Wolf, a biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. “Scientific studies clearly show that the pika is disappearing from the American West due to climate change and needs the immediate protections of the Endangered Species Act to help prevent its extinction. The Interior Department has chosen to sit on its hands instead of taking meaningful action to protect our nation’s wildlife from climate change.”

Despite its status as a “Species of Least Concern,” the American Pika is clearly under threat. As droughts and heat waves like the ones we’ve seen recently become more frequent and intense, the American Pika will find it harder and harder to survive.

Sadly, the Pika won’t be alone in that regard. In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that “as global average temperature increase exceeds about 3.5°C [relative to 1980 to 1999], model projections suggest significant extinctions (40-70% of species assessed) around the globe.” If we don’t reduce emissions soon, we are headed to far higher warming.

– Max Frankel

Related Posts:

• Study finds “mass biodiversity collapse” at 900 ppm, and possibly a “threshold response … to relatively minor increases in CO2 concentration and/or global temperature.”
• Royal Society special issue: “There are very strong indications that the current rate of species extinctions far exceeds anything in the fossil record.”
• Nature Climate Change (9/11):  “The proportion of actual biodiversity loss should quite clearly be revised upwards: by 2080, more than 80% of genetic diversity within species may disappear in certain groups of organisms“

Two years after the Deepwater Horizon disaster, BP has mostly resumed normal operations in the Gulf of Mexico. But many animals in the Gulf haven’t gone back to normal.

Researchers have connected a recent dolphin die-off to the 2010 oil spill, which likely weakened dolphins for colder conditions in Gulf waters.

According to a study from scientists at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, published in PLoS ONE, 186 young dolphins washed ashore along Gulf coasts during a four-month period between January 1 and April 30 2011. This included 86 baby dolphins, which is six times more than the average.

University of Central Florida biologist and study researcher Graham Worthy said:

“Unfortunately, it was a ‘perfect storm’ that led to the dolphin deaths. The oil spill and cold water of 2010 had already put significant stress on their food resources. . . .   It appears the high volumes of cold freshwater coming from snowmelt water that pushed through Mobile Bay and Mississippi Sound in 2011 was the final blow.

Other studies have connected the massive dolphin die-off to the BP spill. Earlier this year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found that dolphins off the coast of Louisiana — an area significantly hit by the spill — have become seriously ill due to oil exposure. NOAA “found problems like drastically low weight, low blood sugar and, in some cases, cancer of the liver and lungs.”

Since Febrauary 2010 (two months before the spill) 754 marine mammals have washed onto the shore, 95 percent of which were dead. The actual death toll could be much higher since many bodies never wash up.

The BP disaster has hit other marine life, as well, causing eyeless shrimp and fish with lesions.

GOP leaders have a message for any Republicans who dare hold a nuanced position on loan guarantees and clean energy deployment: Be quiet and get back in line to “where they’re supposed to be.”

That’s the message from GOP energy and environmental adviser Mike McKenna, who has been helping House Republican leaders wrangle dissenting lawmakers who’ve expressed concerns about their party’s attempt to dismantle the loan guarantee program.

The conflict emerged after Cliff Stearns (R-FL) introduced a bill called the “No More Solyndras Act” designed to end loan guarantees for clean energy. Rather than toe the party line, a few critical-thinking Republicans said they would rather see the the program reformed to better protect taxpayers, not kill the whole thing.

That didn’t sit well with leaders in the party who have made the loan guarantee program a political target this election season. Politico reported on the defection with the GOP after the legislation was introduced:

The spat over the bill started last week when Barton told his fellow committee Republicans at a closed-door meeting on the Solyndra bill that he opposed ending the loan guarantee program.

Barton publicly expressed his opposition to killing the program for the first time the next day at a joint subcommittee hearing on the legislation.

“I don’t think we need to throw out the whole program. I think we can clean it up,” Barton said, calling for a series of reforms to prevent another Solyndra-like bankruptcy.

In the end, supporters of the measure expect that nearly all committee Republicans will rally behind the bill.

“It’s been an interesting thing, but I think at the end everybody’s going to end up where they’re supposed to be,” McKenna said.

Barton was joined by fellow Texas Republican Michael Burgess and Georgia Republican Phil Gingrey, who publicly said they supported reforming the program rather than ending it. Politico reported that three other Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee — Brian Bilbray, Mary Bono Mack, and Charlie Bass — also expressed concerns about the decision to kill loan guarantees.

It is perhaps no surprise that two Texas Republicans are being attacked for critical thinking — since the Texas GOP’s 2012 Platform actually opposes any teaching of “critical thinking skills.” The Platform contains a plank on “Knowledge-Based Education” that reads (on page 12 here):

Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.

None of that fancy “knowledge-based education” for Texas!

As TPM notes:

Elsewhere in the document, the platform stipulates that “[e]very Republican is responsible for implementing this platform.”

Under these standards, Texas Republicans Barton and Burgess were way out of line.

The loan guarantee program was established in 2005 under the George W. Bush Administration. The program is designed to help bridge the “Valley of Death” by providing government backing of private loans for first-of-a-kind projects and innovative technologies. By guaranteeing that the government pays back the loan if a recipient cannot, the program helps leverage private financing that would otherwise not be available.

Many Republicans — including the three top House leaders who’ve trumped up the Solyndra bankruptcy — have been very supportive of loan guarantees. In 2007, House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton requested adding $4 billion to the program for new nuclear power projects; House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa pushed loan guarantees for nuclear projects in 2010; and Cliff Stearns, Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, requested loan guarantees for an innovative biofuels facility in his home state.

Why? Because these lawmakers understood that the program could fill in a major financing gap.

Since the three different loan guarantee programs were established, they have helped draw private financing for the world’s largest wind farm, some of the world’s largest solar plants, and the first nuclear power project in the U.S. in more than 30 years. Loan guarantees have financed 32 projects across 20 states, helping leverage $20 billion in private capital and create 22,000 jobs.

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The drought currently hitting the U.S. has expanded across 64 percent of the country — with 42 percent of the country facing severe drought conditions.

High temperatures and a lack of rain are crippling corn, wheat and soy crops. Since May 31st, corn futures have shot up by 48.5 percent, wheat prices have climbed 46.5 percent, and soybean futures have risen by 31.2 percent. The price of ethanol has also risen by 25 percent since the beginning of the year.

The map below, crafted by Farm Futures and Kansas State University using satellite images, shows how poor this year’s crop yields are compared to last year. Green is healthy biomass development and brown is unhealthy:

You can find other satellite images here.

By Max Frankel

The multi-billion dollar American sports industry may not be the most polluting industry, but it is among the most visible.

With over 60 percent of Americans identifying themselves as sports fans, the greening of the sporting world could serve as model for a wide swath of people.

The White House seems to agree. Last week, government officials teamed up with environmental groups and sporting professionals to promote sustainability in sports. At an event held at the White House, representatives from Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League, and the National Football League, including members of multiple teams, participated in a sports and sustainability discussion. The event was conducted in collaboration with the National Resources Defense Council.

The discussion comes as more teams and leagues are thinking seriously about how to reduce energy use and waste, while also building their brands.

Earlier this month, Major League Baseball held its All Star game in Kansas City. In preparation for the event, the MLB purchased renewable energy offset credits from the Bonneville Environmental Foundation for the 120,000 KWh of electricity it was going to use during All Star weekend festivities. It also purchased credits for the 600,000 gallons of water it planed to use.

Climate Progress has criticized the use of renewable energy credits that don’t spur new development of clean energy. However, many teams are doing a better job than just relying simply on offsets.

Read more

Manmade climate change is the main driver behind the unexpected emergence of a group of bacteria in northern Europe which can cause gastroenteritis, new research by a group of international experts shows. [Reuters]

“The big apparent increases that we’ve seen in cases during heat wave years … tend to indicate that climate change is indeed driving infections,” Craig Baker-Austin at the UK-based Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, one of the authors of the study, told Reuters.

Climate studies show that rising greenhouse gas emissions made global average surface temperatures increase by about 0.17 degrees Celsius a decade from 1980 to 2010.

It is home to a quarter of the planet’s oil and natural gas reserves, yet humans have hardly touched these resources in the far north. But in a few days that could change dramatically if Shell receives approval to drill for oil in the Arctic. [Guardian]

New restrictions for cruise ships — which will phase out the world’s dirtiest transportation fuel in U.S. waters — represent one of the Obama administration’s most ambitious, and least-noticed, anti-pollution programs. [Washington Post]

Some of North America’s most vulnerable mammals are definitely feeling the heat of global warming, as  localized pika extinctions in the Great Basin have increased at five times the 20th century average in the last 10 years. [Summit County Citizen's Voice]

Coal-fired power is being replaced by renewable energy and gas in Australia, but it will remain the dominant source of electricity for years to come, Federal Opposition resources spokesman Ian Macfarlane said on Monday. [Sunshine Coast Daily]

Scotland said it will cut subsidies for onshore wind power by 10 percent to end uncertainty about support for the industry after the U.K. government last week delayed a decision on funding. [Bloomberg]

Japanese authorities are investigating subcontractors on suspicion they forced workers at the tsunami-hit nuclear plant to underreport their instrument readings so they could stay on the job longer. [Guardian]