July saw 3,135 new daily high temperature records in the U.S. — over 100 per day. That overwhelmed new cold records by a factor of nearly 17 to 1, as this chart from Capital Climate shows.

For the year to date, new heat records are beating cold records by a remarkable 12 to 1, which trumps the pace of the last decade by more than a factor of 5!

I like the statistical aggregation across the country, since it gets us beyond the oft-repeated point that you can’t pin any one local record temperature on global warming. A 2009 analysis shows that the average ratio for the 2000s was 2.04-to-1, a sharp increase from previous decades. Lead author Dr. Gerald Meehl explained, “If temperatures were not warming, the number of record daily highs and lows being set each year would be approximately even.”

Many of the country’s leading meteorologists and climatologists — including NASA’s James Hansen — have looked at the data and concluded that like a baseball player on steroids, our climate system is breaking records at an unnatural pace.

One state in particular is ground-zero for global warming this summer, just as it was last summer (see my 8/11 post “Oklahoma Sees Hottest Average Temperature of Any State on Record“). And coincidentally, it is the home state of the Senate’s leading global warming denier.

Most of Oklahoma has experienced eight consecutive days with highs of 100° or more, and many regions, including Oklahoma City, have had a streak of 17 such days. Image credit: Oklahoma Mesonet (via Masters).

Meteorologist Dr. Jeff Masters had a good summary yesterday of the searing statistics and why “Oklahoma will likely endure another hellish day of extreme heat, dryness, and fires”:

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by Silvio Maracacci, via Clean Technica

As the federal government starts implementing an aggressive 54.5 mile-per-gallon (mpg) auto fuel efficiency standard, the importance of reducing gasoline consumption for a sustainable American economy and environment becomes clearer every day.

Combining Efficiency Standards and Fuel Fees

A new set of recommended vehicle efficiency standards and fuel fees from the ClimateWorks Foundation (CWF) and International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) reveals the route toward saving money and emissions. By continuously tightening vehicle performance standards and gradually increasing reasonable fuel fees, the report finds the United States could cut vehicle emissions 48 percent by 2030, while creating 190,000 jobs to build more efficient cars by 2020.

“As effective as performance standards and fees are when implemented as stand-alone policies, their complementary nature makes a combination of the two an almost textbook-perfect climate policy. Performance standards increase the fuel efficiency of the fleet, while high fuel and vehicle levies offset the resulting lower cost of driving and encourage consumers and
manufacturers to pursue ever more efficient technology options.”

Recent results have shown increasing fuel efficiency works. The CWF-ICCT report found the current 35.5 mpg by 2016 standard, set in April 2010, is expected to reduce vehicle emissions by 18 percent while saving every car owner $3,000 over the life of their vehicle.
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by Don Carr, via the Environmental Working Group

Even as extreme drought wreaks havoc on crops and communities across the Midwest, government officials are now confident that they can link recent bouts of extreme weather to man-made climate change. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration underscored that point in early July when it released research conducted by 378 scientists from 48 countries that “provides a detailed update on global climate indicators, notable weather events and other data collected by environmental monitoring stations and instruments on land, sea, ice and sky.”

Deputy NOAA Administrator Kathryn D. Sullivan Ph.D. summed it up this way:

Every weather event that happens now takes place in the context of a changing global environment.

Just a day after NOAA released its findings, in coordination with the American Meteorological Society, Reuters’ Chuck Abbott reported on the Department of Agriculture’s dire forecast for this year’s corn crop:

The worst Midwest drought in a quarter century is doing more damage to U.S. crops than previously expected, with the government on Wednesday slashing its estimate for what was supposed to be a record harvest.

Climate change affects agriculture more directly and profoundly than most other economic sectors. The Washington Post’s Brad Plumer has pointed out that while it’s hard to pinpoint climate change by itself as the cause of any particular drought, it’s certainly a big factor in how severe it gets. Meanwhile the danger from climate change-fueled droughts will only increase as America dithers about and polluting special interests continually block solutions.

The Dangerously Counterproductive Industrial Agriculture Lobby

It’s a sad irony to recall that three short years ago, the industrial agriculture lobby and its patrons in Congress helped scuttle the nation’s first attempt at serious climate legislation – the cap-and-trade proposal titled the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009.

The American Farm Bureau Federation, the largest agriculture lobby, vehemently opposed the bill. It went so far to as to embark on a public relations campaign called “Don’t Cap My Future.” Federation President Bob Stallman said then:

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by Lisa Huber, via the Rocky Mountain Institute

The recent shale gas boom has gained the reputation as our energy savior: clean, domestic, cheap, and plentiful. But, the attractiveness of today’s low natural gas price can cause us to overlook a serious risk: volatility.

Natural gas is one of the riskiest commodities around, historically bearing twice the volatility price risk of oil. While this is common knowledge among industry professionals and commodity traders, the long-term risk often goes ignored, despite previous attempts to put a price tag on volatility.

(For a more detailed assessment of this topic, download our discussion paper)

Why This Matters

According to RMI Chief Scientist Amory Lovins, “we must not set our sights too low and end up with a 20-year plan instead of a 21st century goal.” This logic on the importance of long-term strategy is the driving force behind RMI’s Reinventing Fire, a vision and roadmap for a 150 percent bigger 2050 U.S. economy requiring no oil, coal, or nuclear energy, and one-third less natural gas.

Without accounting for the volatility risk of natural gas, wholesale power-producing renewables don’t appear very competitive without the support of tax credits (expiring at the end of the year for wind) and renewable portfolio standards, whose incentives are less substantial than in the recent past. Investing in gas over wind without consideration of volatility would be like chasing yield without regard to risk—something a prudent investor would never dream of.

As U.S. natural gas supply grows and liquefied natural gas export terminals come online, our economy becomes more and more dependent on the success of shale; changes in natural gas prices could greatly impact the broader market. Historically speaking, natural gas tends to move opposite the market (that’s a negative beta for the finance geeks out there). As natural gas prices rise and the market falls (remember 2008?), consumers take a significant hit.

So how can we fairly compare power-generating technologies such as wind and gas? How can we make smart decisions at the utility level to select new resources that serve our energy needs today, without creating bigger cost issues just a few years down the road?

Step 1: Quantify Willingness to Pay

In order to properly compare natural gas with renewables, a volatility risk premium must be added to the price of natural gas. Wind, for example, is typically contracted over 20-30 years through power purchase agreements that offer price certainty for both the producer and consumer. Natural gas long-term contracts however are nearly non-existent due to regulatory constraints.

Adding an appropriate long-term risk premium to the price of natural gas would allow for apples-to-apples comparison of two very different cost structures and methods of power generation. But, quantifying that premium is the tricky part. There may indeed be value to diving down that deep, quantitative hole to model out scenarios that employ complicated option strategy pricing mechanisms and value-at-risk calculations, but that’s probably a task better left to this guy.

Instead, why not first look to what utilities are already paying to manage their natural gas exposure? Just like any organization that faces risk, utilities spend money on hedging (swaps, options, and other short-term contracts).

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