by Jackie Weidman and Whitney Allen

On November 27th, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) announced the new and returning House committee chairmen (and yes, they are all men). Some of these congressmen will run committees with jurisdiction over federal climate, energy, and environmental programs.  This includes funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Clean Air Act, balancing the use of our public lands between energy production and recreation, and determining the infrastructure needs of a nation that now faces unpredictable extreme weather threats linked to climate change.

The vast majority of these chairmen voted for legislation that would dismantle EPA’s ability to limit industrial carbon pollution, and for retention of special tax breaks for the oil and gas industry. Oil and gas, coal, and electric utility companies have cozied up to many of these chairmen, giving them roughly $3.8 million in campaign contributions over the course of their careers.

Meanwhile, many climate-related extreme weather events have severely afflicted Americans over the past two years, including in their home states.  Record-breaking drought and heat waves, severe floods, and heavy storms wreaked havoc for the families living in the chairmens’ backyards.  Scientists predict that these weather events will become more frequent and/or severe if the industrial carbon pollution responsible for climate change remains unchecked.

Let’s take a look at some of the Republicans who will oversee federal climate, energy, and environmental programs over the next two years, as well as their campaign contributions from the industries responsible for most climate pollution:

Read more

by Katie Valentine

This summer’s historic drought hasn’t let up (in fact, it’s actually expanding in some areas) and it’s causing a lot of trouble in regions whose economies are driven by major bodies of water.

The drought, coupled with a seasonal dry period, has caused water levels on the Mississippi River to fall to near-record lows, which has hurt the Mississippi shipping industry badly. If water isn’t replenished soon (which doesn’t look likely, according to the NOAA Climate Prediction Center), the major waterway may be closed to cargo companies in the coming weeks. Right now, the river is about 13 feet deep in many places, which is 15 to 20 feet lower than normal. If it dips to around 9 feet – which National Weather Service hydrologists predict could happen by Dec. 9 – protruding rocks will make it nearly impossible for barges to pass. A closed Mississippi – or even closed portions – would mean companies would have to find other ways of shipping crops, fuel and other goods throughout the country.

These conditions have caused many members of congress and the business community to call on President Barack Obama to help Mississippi River shipping businesses get back to normal. They want the president to allow the Army Corps of Engineers to dynamite the rocky riverbed near two southern Illinois towns – Thebes and Grand Tower – to deepen the shipping channel, allowing ships to pass through on less water. They also want the Corps to stop reducing water flow from a Missouri River reservoir, which the Corps does each year to conserve water for the spring. Members of congress have sent a letter to the Army Corps of Engineers and spoken out about the issue, and on Tuesday, the American Petroleum Institute, National Association of Manufacturers, U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other trade groups and organizations sent a letter to President Obama, urging him to declare emergency in the region and calling for “immediate assistance in averting an economic catastrophe in the heartland.”

Ironically, many of these organizations have refused to acknowledge a growing problem behind the Mississippi’s water woes. Climate change will impact water levels in the U.S. for years to come: science has shown that a warming earth will likely lead to more frequent and more intense droughts like the one the U.S. is experiencing now.

“The drought that we are currently experiencing is consistent with an observed warmer climate,” said a group of Iowa scientists in a group statement earlier this month.

But these organizations actively fight against climate policy: the Chamber of Commerce, API and the National Association of Manufacturers were three of the major opponents of the EPA’s greenhouse gas regulations. In a statement on behalf of API and several other groups, National Association of Manufacturers CEO Jay Timmons called the final regulations “devastating” and “a setback for businesses.” Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue has had little regard for the dangers of climate change during his tenure; in January of this year, he called for expanded fracking, shale oil, and tar sands development in the U.S., saying that the country needs to use the hundreds of billions of tons of fossil fuels it contains under its surface.

The Mississippi River isn’t the only body of water that’s still being affected by the drought. The Great Lakes are also losing water: levels have fallen to near-record lows in Lakes Michigan and Huron, and water levels in Lakes Erie, Ontario and Superior are below average. Like on the Mississippi, shipping is a major industry in the Great Lakes region, and water levels have a major effect on its success.

Glen Nekvasil, vice president of the Lake Carriers’ Association, told the Wall Street Journal that the loss of water depth between this year and last means a 1,000-foot vessel is carrying about 1,200 to 1,500 fewer tons per load. The drought is also affecting other industries in the Great Lakes: low water levels in some places are causing marinas to be too shallow for boat docking, with the Army Corps of Engineers estimating that about 30 Great Lakes harbors will need attention in the next couple of years.

A recent Center for American Progress report, “Heavy Weather” indicates that droughts and heat waves in 2011-12 alone will cost the U.S. $40 to $88 billion. Jeff Masters of the Weather Underground reports that the damages could be as high as $150 billion.

With water levels down in many of America’s major waterways, it looks like the costs of this year’s drought will only increase.

Katie Valentine graduated from the University of Georgia with a degree in Journalism. She is currently an intern on the international policy team at the Center for American Progress.

Based on the new study in Science, this chart shows changes in global sea level due to ice sheet melting since 1992. The background image shows thickening (blue) and thinning (red) of Antarctica’s ice sheets over the same period. Credit: ESA/NASA/Planetary Visions via NBC.

A major new international study reconciles “an ensemble of satellite altimetry, interferometry, and gravimetry data sets” to determine polar ice-sheet ice loss with the highest accuracy to date. The study, “A Reconciled Estimate of Ice-Sheet Mass Balance” (subs. req’d) was published in the journal Science Thursday.

The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory news release explains the study’s significance:

An international team of experts supported by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) has combined data from multiple satellites and aircraft to produce the most comprehensive and accurate assessment to date of ice sheet losses in Greenland and Antarctica and their contributions to sea level rise.

In a landmark study published Thursday in the journal Science, 47 researchers from 26 laboratories report the combined rate of melting for the ice sheets covering Greenland and Antarctica has increased during the last 20 years. Together, these ice sheets are losing more than three times as much ice each year (equivalent to sea level rise of 0.04 inches or 0.95 millimeters) as they were in the 1990s (equivalent to 0.01 inches or 0.27 millimeters). About two-thirds of the loss is coming from Greenland, with the rest from Antarctica….

“Both ice sheets appear to be losing more ice now than 20 years ago, but the pace of ice loss from Greenland is extraordinary, with nearly a five-fold increase since the mid-1990s,” [JPL's Erik] Ivins said. “In contrast, the overall loss of ice in Antarctica has remained fairly constant, with the data suggesting a 50-percent increase in Antarctic ice loss during the last decade.”

The NBC Evening News had a very good story on this study and the general acceleration of ice sheet melt:

The JPL release is accompanied by this remarkable photo:

Read more

When Big Oil’s lobby, the American Petroleum Institute, ramped up its election-year spending, API President Jack Gerard said “This is not about political party.”

But in addition to its misleading multi-million dollar public campaign, API also funneled at least half a million dollars through groups that ran attack ads against Democratic candidates.

That’s according to disclosures reported by Lee Fang at The Nation, which show that API used membership dues to finance several dark money groups:

• $50,000 to Americans for Prosperity’s 501(c)(4) group, which ran ads against President Obama and congressional Democrats.
• $412,969 to Coalition for American Jobs’ 501(c)(6) group, a front set up by API lobbyists to air ads for industry-friendly politicians, including former Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA).
• $25,000 to the Sixty Plus Association’s 501(c)(4), which ran ads against congressional Democrats.

Public relations were also a priority for the lobby in 2011. Fang notes that API spent over $68 million for a public relations firm’s services, $5.4 million at a “coalition building” firm, and $4 million at an advocacy firm connected to the Bush White House that “works with corporations to help them communicate with workers on how to vote.”

The oil industry has long-held ties to Republicans. Gerard, personally connected to Mitt Romney, was a rumored favorite for a cabinet appointment. The industry donates to Republican candidates 90 percent of the time. The Supreme Court Citizens United decision opened up another avenue for API to fund political advocacy, now allowing the trade association to quietly fund political ads.

After the election, spending on API-branded ads has only picked up pace. It has already spent $3 million on ads since November 6, including $600,000 in 2014 battlegrounds that aim to protect billions of dollars in oil tax breaks.

The stubborn U.S. drought that hit the Southeast and Midwest hard this summer isn’t letting up. According to the latest drought monitor, conditions have worsened slightly across the country, with “exceptional drought” conditions expanding from 38 percent of the lower-48 states to 42 percent. Those conditions could last into February.

The map below, which shows a wide swath of “extreme” and “exceptional” drought, has become a very familiar image over the last nine months:

The U.S. drought could be the most costly extreme weather event to hit the U.S. this year. In a 2012 marked by above-average wildfires in the West, record heat waves across most of the country, a massive superstorm that rocked the East Coast, and a surprise derecho that knocked out power to millions of Americans, that’s saying a lot. Jeff Masters at the Weather Underground reports that the drought could cost the economy between $75 billion to $150 billion, making it more expensive than Superstorm Sandy.

“The drought that we are currently experiencing is consistent with an observed warmer climate,” said a group of Iowa scientists in a group statement earlier this month. “Iowans are living with climate change now and it is already costing us money.”

According to a new analysis of extreme weather from the Center for American Progress, there have been at least seven extreme weather events in 2012 that have caused over $1 billion in damages. In September, The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that the first eight months of 2012 were the most extreme for weather ever recorded.

by Hannah Green

This August, power shortages in India that left 300 million in the dark made it very clear that one of the world’s fastest growing economies was facing an energy crisis. Less clear is how realistically to solve it. Many firms are looking for new sources of oil to fulfill India’s growing energy demands, but this could prove to be painfully expensive.  On the brighter side, solar energy and other renewable resources are already being rapidly harnessed in the non-Western world, and they are becoming cheaper and cheaper.

As of June 2012, 31 percent of India’s energy came from renewable resources, including hydroelectric power, while only 9 percent of the United States’ did as of the end of 2011. In a 2009 McKinsey & Company survey, India was rated the top producer of solar energy in the world, just above the United States, with an annual yield of 1,700 to 1,900 kilowatt hours per kilowatt peak (kWh/KWp). However, demand for energy in India will only continue to grow, and the question is whether energy will continue to come mainly from fossil fuels or from renewable energy sources

Many hope so. Current local and imported supplies of gas and coal in India are insufficient to fulfill energy demands, and both investing in sufficient imported fossil fuels to keep India electrified or extracting new natural gas sources will hurt the Indian economy, according to a report by Boston Consulting Group. Hunting for shale gas is a risky and expensive venture, and creating Liquid Natural Gas facilities to ease the transport of imported oil would also require an investment of $12 – $25 billion. However, hydroelectric, wind, and solar power sectors are all growing. Hydroelectric power already accounts for 19 percent of India’s electricity, but at the moment less than half of available hydroelectric resources are being exploited.  Several solar power initiatives by state governments and the department of renewable resources are currently at work in India, the largest of which is the Jawarhal Nehru National Solar Mission, launched in 2010. The goal of the $19 billion plan is to harness 20,000 MW of grid power solar energy and 2000 MW of off-the-grid solar energy by 2020.

Part of the reason that solar power is becoming so affordable for India is that the demand for it is decreasing in the West. China’s solar power industry has recently faced an excess manufacturing capacity because of EU cutbacks on solar subsidies. That’s bad news for China, but good news for the Indian solar industry.

A report by the environmental research firm Clean Edge and non-profit Co-op America shows that 10 percent of United States energy could potentially come from solar power by 2025, but only a small fraction of that potential is actually in development.  Due to its larger land mass and smaller population, the United States has the potential to create much more solar energy than India does, and its energy demand continues to be much higher than India’s, despite having a quarter of India’s population. However, if current American and Indian government initiatives proceed as planned, the United States will likely continue to remain behind India as a producer of solar energy by 2030.

There are several reasons why renewable energy sources are growing faster in India in the short term than they are in the United States and Europe. India can’t afford to rely on expensive and unreliable fossil fuel imports the way that richer countries with solid infrastructure in place for traditional energy resources can. For rich countries to switch to renewable energy requires a choice: keep the infrastructure that’s in place and continue to use non-renewable energy (cheaper in the short term) or make the comparatively expensive switch to renewable energy.  In India, on the other hand, villages that are still off the grid have only to choose the option that is cheaper from the ground up.  It is often cheaper to install new solar energy plants than it is to connect to the existing grid in India. Thousands of Indian villages have already been newly electrified with solar power. In some villages that don’t yet have full electricity, small solar cells are a significantly cheaper and safer replacement for kerosene cells. Finally, other concerns, such as aesthetics, continue to impede the construction of renewable energy plants in the United States and Europe.  In India such things are given little consideration.

Countries that are making room for renewable energy now may well benefit in the long term. Recently there has been speculation as to whether India can keep up the rapid economic growth that has taken the world by storm in the past few years. It’s true that in the short term growth is slowing down. But long-term factors like energy blackouts, energy access, and global warming might eventually see India moving ahead once again. In coming years, leaders in renewable energy might not be those countries most capable of producing it, but those who can least afford not to.

Hannah Green covers economic and foreign policy issues, especially in South Asia and the Middle East.  She recently received her B.A. in history from Northwestern University, and is living Lucknow, India, where she studies Urdu and Hindi.

Another day, another (accurate) apocalyptic review of climate science. Joining recent articles in the New York Times and New Scientist is a terrific piece in Scientific American by science writer John Carey.

Carey has collected an assortment of epic quotes and nightmare scenarios from leading climatologists. As he explains (behind a paywall):

The latest data from across the globe show that the planet is changing faster than expected. More sea ice around the Arctic Ocean is disappearing than had been forecast. Regions of permafrost across Alaska and Siberia are spewing out more methane, the potent greenhouse gas, than models had predicted. Ice shelves in West Antarctica are breaking up more quickly than once thought possible, and the glaciers they held back on adjacent land are sliding faster into the sea. Extreme weather events, such as floods and the heat wave that gripped much of the U.S. in the summer of 2012 are on the rise, too. The conclusion? “As scientists, we cannot say that if we stay below two degrees of warming everything will be fine,” says Stefan Rahmstorf, a professor of physics of the oceans at the University of Potsdam in Germany.

Looks like the 350 ppm crowd was right all along!

The X factors that may be pushing the earth into an era of rapid climate change are long-hypothesized feedback loops that may be starting to kick in. Less sea ice, for example, allows the sun to warm the ocean water more, which melts even more sea ice. Greater permafrost melting puts more CO2 and methane into the atmosphere, which in turn causes further permafrost melting, and so on.

The potential for faster feedbacks has turned some scientists into vocal Cassandras.

Well, let’s hope faster feedbacks haven’t turned climatologists into Cassandras. That would mean we are doomed to be seduced by the Trojan horse of fossil fuels with the civilization-destroying carbon pollution hiding inside, to extend the metaphor (see “Will Sandy Be Short For Cassandra, Another Warning We Ignore?“).

This isn’t the only blunt climate article in Scientific American. They just published:

Climate Change Threatens to Create a Second Dust Bowl

Rising temperatures, persistent drought, and depleted aquifers on the southern Great Plains could set the stage for a disaster similar to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, scientists say

Anyone who saw the grim, gripping Ken Burns documentary on the original Dust Bowl knows how disastrous that would be (see also “My Nature Piece On Dust-Bowlification And the Grave Threat It Poses to Food Security“).

Carey’s piece lays out one of the main reasons climate scientists are concerned about abrupt, catastrophic change driven by greenhouse gases — it has happened in the past:

Read more

What did it feel like to publish a book on the future of cleantech in the U.S. just as the sector became a target in national politics?

“It was pretty tense there for a while. We were holding our breath,” says Ron Pernick, managing director of the market research firm Clean Edge and co-author of the new book, Cleantech Nation.

Forget about selling books. This is an industry that Pernick, along with his co-author and Clean Edge co-founder Clint Wilder, lives and breathes. And for people who’ve watched the industry grow from lab-scale tinkering to a full-on industrial powerhouse, the vicious attacks were, well, insulting.

“It was very disconcerting to all of us to watch the amount of money that came from entrenched interests and helped influence a very strong partisan line attacking and marginalizing the industry,” says Pernick. “But it backfired. It didn’t work.”

In 2007, about a year after I started covering this sector, Pernick and Wilder released their first book, Cleantech Revolution. It was one of the best resources out there on activity in the public and private sectors. At that time, cleantech was just becoming a mainstream term in investment circles. It was also right around the time when some of the biggest industrial companies started making strategic investments in renewables, smart grid technologies, and advanced transport.

Driven by concerns about climate and bi-partisan support for diversifying our energy mix, 2004 through 2011 was a period of incredible growth in cleantech. In 2004, global clean energy investments amounted to $53.5 billion. In 2011, global investments reached $260 billion — surpassing fossil fuel investments for the first time and marking the trillionth dollar put into the sector.

But in the last 18 months, the turbulence that has always defined the clean energy sector intensified: Countries have pulled back financial support due to economic struggles; venture capitalists have changed investment strategies after realizing the amount of capital required to scale; once-promising companies have fallen in dramatic fashion due to intensifying competition; and a new unconventional fossil fuel boom in the U.S. driven by fracking has deflated some of the bipartisan enthusiasm for renewables.

If Cleantech Revolution marked the first era of major growth, then Cleantech Nation marks the second: one filled with even greater political uncertainties and market risks, but even greater rewards as the sector continues to expand. For anyone who wants to understand the scope of investment activity underway in cleantech — along with the political imperative for encouraging growth in the sector — Cleantech Nation is a good read.

My biggest gripe with Pernick and Wilder’s new book is that it focuses almost entirely on the positive stories when there are so many important lessons to be learned from countries over-investing in certain sectors, companies being too optimistic in their technologies or market forecasts, and the realities of how political ideology can present enormous barriers. The authors touch on these a bit in the book, but mostly breeze over them in favor of success stories.

As a book designed to provide a forward-thinking framework for policy making and corporate planning, I suppose that makes sense. Indeed, it does provide a detailed look at the forces driving the sector — from CEOs, to mayors, to venture capitalists, to the biggest countries in the world — and wraps them together into an action plan for capturing the sector’s value in America.

Post-election, as we come out of an intense period defending the industry, it’s time for proponents to go on the offense. Cleantech Nation provides a blueprint for a potential game plan to get the job done.

I spoke with Ron Pernick about the post-election environment for cleantech and about what excites him about the next phase of growth. Below is an excerpt from our interview:

Read more

by Jessica Goad

A report released today by the economic consulting firm Headwaters Economics adds to the growing body of evidence that protecting public lands is good for the economy and jobs.

“West is Best:  How Public Lands in the West Create a Competitive Economic Advantage,” outlines how public lands in the American West allow the region to boast a higher quality of life, thus attracting entrepreneurs who help the region experience higher growth rates in employment, population, and personal income compared to the rest of the country as a whole.

The report discusses in detail how the West’s economy has been changing rapidly over the last few decades, shifting from one based upon resource extraction to one primarily supported by service industries like health care, technology, and finance.

Companies in these highly-competitive service sectors (where most of the West’s job growth has been) are constantly looking to attract new talent and workers by advertising one of the region’s most important competitive advantages: that it has a higher quality of life because it offers places to play like national parks, monuments, and wilderness areas.

As one CEO put it:

We actively leverage our location and the outdoors to attract and retain our employees…For our employees, taking time to get outdoors is re-energizing. It builds passion and commitment, and is critical to creativity and innovation—this is where the best work happens. It’s also a competitive edge for us since not all companies work this way.

The West has seen incredible growth in terms of jobs; between 1970 and 2010, employment grew by 152 percent compared to only 78 percent in the rest of the country.  Both population and personal income growth mirror this trend, as seen in the chart below:

The authors of the report note: “As the West’s economy shifts toward a knowledge-based economy, new research shows that protected federal public lands support faster rates of job growth and are correlated with higher levels of per capita income.”

A number of previous studies have shown how protected public lands are good for the economy.  Last spring, Headwaters Economics determined that jobs in Western non-metro counties containing significant amounts of protected public lands increased by more than 300 percent over the last 40 years, compared to just 80 percent for counties without any protected places.

Additionally, the Small Business Majority recently conducted a poll in which small business owners agreed that creating new national parks and monuments would have a positive impact on jobs and the economy by a 4-1 margin.  And, a study from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined that in many regions of the U.S. home values are higher when they are sited closer to wildlife refuge.

And yet not all policymakers are heeding the advice of such analyses. For example, on Monday, Republicans Rob Bishop (UT) and Steve Pearce (NM) sent a letter to House Speaker John Boehner calling for the selling off or transferring of public lands (“divesting the federal government of its vast landholdings”) as a way to reduce the deficit. And Bishop has previously stated that national monuments and wilderness areas are a “detriment” to local economies.

Jessica is the Manager of Research and Outreach for the Public Lands Project at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

by Mark Trexler

As a risk management professional, I worry about getting caught unprepared for risk events I should have reasonably foreseen.  So we have mini survival kits in each car, we’ve scanned all the family photos so they can’t be lost in a fire, and we have taken photos of everything we need for potential insurance purposes (all stored off-site).

And then there’s “The Big One” – the 9.0 earthquake the seismologists say is overdue here in the Pacific Northwest, which would (or, more accurately, will…..) wreak absolute havoc on infrastructure (and, in all likelihood, my house, which is built on the side of a hill).  We’ve made sure that the house is properly bolted down, so it might not simply surf down the hill, and we’ve purchased earthquake insurance.

Our next project was to put together the recommended emergency kit with water, food, and other critical supplies for the aftermath of the earthquake.  We certainly hope that FEMA will be at the door soon after an earthquake, or at least make food and shelter available nearby.  But if The Big One hits, we could easily be on our own for days or weeks (sound familiar in the aftermath of Super Storm Sandy?).  Given that fact, how can I as a responsible risk professional be without an earthquake emergency kit?

Unfortunately, the problem is a little more complicated than simply recognizing the risk of a major earthquake.  A freeze-dried food salesman related the following comment he had heard at a recent home show: “Why should I buy your freeze-dried foods?  I have guns.  In an emergency I’ll just come and take your food!”  That puts a whole new spin on managing earthquake risk!  No longer is it just the earthquake, it’s the social fallout, and the impact of the social fallout on the utility of the risk management measure being considered.

Do we need to add guns and ammunition to my earthquake kit, and learn how to use them?  That’s an entirely different risk management calculation.  Maybe we should drop the whole idea of worrying about that earthquake preparedness kit, and assume it will work out for the best.  Because after all, even in the worst case we won’t be in any worse shape than our neighbors.

What’s interesting about this chain of thinking about personal risk management is how closely it parallels a lot of corporate thinking about climate change and corporate climate risk.  It’s common to hear the following explanation for the relatively low priority often given to climate risk (whether policy risk or actual climate impacts):

Read more

Most of the attacks against Susan Rice, Obama’s supposed top pick for Secretary of State, have come from Republicans. But now the left — mainly groups opposed to developing Canadian tar sands — may have some reasons to question Rice.

According to a report from OnEarth Magazine, Rice has millions of dollars tied up in top Canadian energy companies — including TransCanada, the company pushing for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

The 1,700 mile Keystone XL pipeline would pipe carbon-intensive tar sands crude from Alberta to refineries in the Gulf of Mexico. Because the pipeline crosses international borders, its approval falls under the jurisdiction of the State Department. That means Rice — or any other candidate tapped to head the State Department — would be responsible for approving or rejecting the project.

Here’s what the OnEarth investigation of Rice’s finances found:

Rice’s financial holdings could raise questions about her status as a neutral decision maker. The current U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Rice owns stock valued between $300,000 and $600,000 in TransCanada, the company seeking a federal permit to transport tar sands crude 1,700 miles to refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast, crossing fragile Midwest ecosystems and the largest freshwater aquifer in North America.

Beyond that, according to financial disclosure reports, about a third of Rice’s personal net worth is tied up in oil producers, pipeline operators, and related energy industries north of the 49th parallel — including companies with poor environmental and safety records on both U.S. and Canadian soil. Rice and her husband own at least $1.25 million worth of stock in four of Canada’s eight leading oil producers, as ranked by Forbes magazine. That includes Enbridge, which spilled more than a million gallons of toxic bitumen into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River in 2010 – the largest inland oil spill in U.S. history.

Rice also has smaller stakes in several other big Canadian energy firms, as well as the country’s transportation companies and coal-fired utilities. Another 20 percent or so of her personal wealth is derived from investments in five Canadian banks. These are some of the institutions that provide loans and financial backing to TransCanada and its competitors for tar sands extraction and major infrastructure projects, such as Keystone XL and Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, which would stretch 700 miles from Alberta to the Canadian coast.

And also this:

Read more

This is the second in a three-part post about what the Atlantic Coast can learn in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy from victims of other natural disasters. You can read part one here.

by Bill Becker

In 1993, flooding on the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers produced one of the country’s worst natural disasters at the time, killing 50 people and causing $15 billion in damages.  Hundreds of flood control levees failed in nine Midwestern states.  Parts of the region remained underwater for five months.

When flood waters finally began to subside, pubic television aired a movie about Soldiers Grove’s relocation to higher ground (see Part 1).  People in several of the communities destroyed by “The Great Flood of 1993” saw the movie and tracked me down where I was working at the time — the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) — to ask for advice as they considered moving out of the floodplain.

I assembled some of the country’s best experts in sustainable community design and development. We selected two communities – Valmeyer, Il., and Pattonsburg, MO. – and held town-hall meetings to help residents identify what they wanted their villages to be like in the future.  We helped them develop master plans for recovery that incorporated sustainable designs and technologies.

Both communities eventually moved to higher ground and incorporated “green” features.  A web site described the process in Valmeyer:

With funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, a Sustainable Redevelopment Team of national experts was assembled to help the town learn about and incorporate sustainable technologies into their new town’s design. The group met three times with residents, concluding with a weekend community planning session in June 1994. Later that summer,

workshops were offered on passive solar design and ground-source heat pumps.

Seeds planted during those sessions resulted in a number of steps taken to make the new Valmeyer a resource-efficient community.

With financial incentives from the state, homeowners incorporated energy efficiency features as they rebuilt. Some homes used passive solar design; others installed geothermal heat pumps. The fire hall is a model of energy efficiency and renewable energy. Energy efficiency measures in Valmeyer’s new school were expected to save $35,000 a year.

Back at DOE, my bosses and I created a “Center of Excellence for Sustainable Development” to provide similar help to other communities.  One was Arkadelphia, AR, population 10,000. In the spring of 1997, an F-4 tornado tore through buildings and infrastructure across 60 of its blocks. Six people were killed, nearly 100 were injured, and more than 150 residences were destroyed. In the city’s business district, the tornado destroyed or damaged 45 businesses and 16 public buildings.

In the aftermath of the disaster, President Clinton toured the city and asked its residents, “What would you like this community to look like in 25 years?” His question changed the context of the city’s recovery from rebuilding the way it was to rebuilding the way it wanted to be.

Read more

Campaigners threatened to sue the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Wednesday in an effort to push Barack Obama to make good on his re-election promise to act on climate change. [Guardian]

As President Obama approaches the start of his second term, the country faces a growing list of climate and weather-related challenges. How the Obama administration handles these issues, and more, will help determine how resilient the U.S. will become in the face of weather and climate extremes. [Climate Central]

The Senate on Wednesday gave the green light to the Pentagon’s investment in green energy. [Washington Post]

The United States government has temporarily banned the British oil company BP from new federal contracts, citing the company’s “lack of business integrity.” [New York Times]

The Exxon Mobil station on 2nd Street and Avenue C became an impromptu movie theater last night, as a coalition of climate-change activists projected a short film about Hurricane Sandy recovery onto the wall above it. [The Village Voice]

An area of Arctic sea ice bigger than the United States melted this year, according the U.N. weather agency, which said the dramatic decline illustrates that climate change is happening “before our eyes.” [Washington Post]

As the nations of the world struggle in Doha to agree even modest targets to tackle global warming, the cuts needed in rising greenhouse gas emissions grow ever deeper, more costly and less likely to be achieved. [Reuters]

This year is likely to be the ninth warmest on record, with global temperatures in 2012 cooler than the average for the past decade owing to the effects of La Niña weather patterns early in the year. [Guardian]

In the December edition of the scientific journal BioScience, scientists detail how climate change has been affecting — and could further change — a forest ecosystem in New Hampshire. [Poughkeepsie Journal]

A bipartisan group of legislators said Wednesday that the failure to expand a critical subsidy for renewable energy could cost Americans tens of thousands of manufacturing and construction jobs. [Associated Press]

A new study, “Comparing climate projections to observations up to 2011,” confirms that climate change is happening as fast — and in some cases faster — than climate models had projected. The news release explains:

The rate of sea-level rise in the past decades is greater than projected by the latest assessments of the IPCC, while global temperature increases in good agreement with its best estimates. This is shown by a study now published in the journal Environmental Research Letters. Stefan Rahmstorf from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and his colleagues compare climate projections to actual observations from 1990 up to 2011. That sea level is rising faster than expected could mean that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) sea-level rise projections for the future may be biased low as well, their results suggest.

As Dr. Rahmstorf notes, “the new findings highlight that the IPCC is far from being alarmist and in fact in some cases rather underestimates possible risks.”

The oceans are rising 60 per cent faster than the IPCC’s latest best estimates, according to the new research. The researchers compared those estimates to satellite data of observed sea-level rise. ” Satellites have a much better coverage of the globe than tide gauges and are able to measure much more accurately by using radar waves and their reflection from the sea surface,” explains Anny Cazenave from LEGOS. While the IPCC projected sea-level rise to be at a rate of 2 mm per year, satellite data recorded a rate of 3.2 mm per year.

Figure: Sea level measured by satellite altimeter (red with linear trend line) … and reconstructed from tide gauges (orange, monthly data from Church and White (2011))…. The scenarios of the IPCC are shown in blue (third assessment) and green (fourth assessment); the former have been published starting in the year 1990 and the latter from 2000.

The release notes, “The increased rate of sea-level rise is unlikely to be caused by a temporary episode of ice discharge from the ice sheets in Greenland or Antarctica or other internal variabilities in the climate system, according to the study, because it correlates very well with the increase in global temperature.”

As sea level rises, storm surges worsen, coastal populations are put at risk, and salt water infiltrates rich deltas. For more on likely future sea level rise, see “New Studies on Sea Level Rise Make Clear We Must Act Now” and “JPL bombshell: Polar ice sheet mass loss is speeding up, on pace for 1 foot sea level rise by 2050.”

On the subject of global warming, the release explains:

“Global temperature continues to rise at the rate that was projected in the last two IPCC Reports. This shows again that global warming has not slowed down or is lagging behind the projections,” Rahmstorf says. Five global land and ocean temperature series were averaged and compared to IPCC projections by the scientists from Potsdam, the Laboratoire d’Etudes en Géophysique et Océanographie Spatiales (LEGOS) in France and the US based Tempo Analytics. To allow for a more accurate comparison with projections, the scientists accounted for short-term temperature variations due to El Niño events, solar variability and volcanic eruptions. The results confirm that global warming, which was predicted by scientists in the 1960s and 1970s as a consequence of increasing greenhouse concentrations, continues unabated at a rate of 0.16 °C per decade and follows IPCC projections closely.

Figure. Observed annual global temperature, unadjusted (pink) and adjusted for short-term variations due to solar variability, volcanoes and ENSO (red) as in Foster and Rahmstorf (2011). 12-months running averages are shown as well as linear trend lines, and compared to the scenarios of the IPCC (blue range and lines from the third assessment, green from the fourth assessment report). Projections are aligned in the graph so that they start (in 1990 and 2000, respectively) on the linear trend line of the (adjusted) observational data.

For more on the 2011 study, see “Study of ‘True Global Warming Signal’ Finds ‘Remarkably Steady’ Rate of Manmade Warming Since 1979.

James Balog/AP

by Sally Steenland

For several years now, increased pollution from greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has been fueling extreme weather across the globe. Droughts, floods, wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, and heat waves: Our planet’s weather report is starting to sound like the biblical plagues.

Last month was the 331st month in a row where temperatures rose above the 20th century average. Just this year, the United States suffered “two record heat waves, a record drought, [and] an above-average fire season.”

Then, just before Halloween this year, Hurricane Sandy roared up the East Coast and battered parts of the Midwest. With its ferocious winds and hammering rains, Sandy knocked out power, flooded homes and businesses, triggered fires, tore down trees, and devastated neighborhoods. More than 100 people died. Sandy is estimated to cost around   $50 billion in damages Just one week after Sandy hit, another storm ravaged the East Coast—only this time it was a blizzard that inflicted even more damage on the communities ravaged by the hurricane and further hampered efforts to restore power and rebuild homes and businesses.

Concerns about climate change and global warming used to be a bipartisan affair. Republican Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsay Graham (R-SC) previously supported a tax on greenhouse gases—known as cap and trade—as did many Democratic lawmakers. Even 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney took global warming seriously and supported cap-and-trade policies when he was governor of Massachusetts.

So what happened?

Read more

This YouTube video of a self-described climate skeptic was posted earlier this week and picked up yesterday over at Take Part. After watching the new film “Chasing Ice,” in which a former climate skeptic documents the decline of glaciers around the world, 59-year old Lolly Hellman said she completely changed her perspective on the problem of global warming:

“There must be something I can do … to help our children, to help my grandchildren…. I thought it [global warming] was bullshit … and that is because I listened, I believed Bill O’Reilly … and I saw this movie and now I will apologize to anyone I ever talked into not believing in global warming.”

The video was filmed by Justin Kanew, who told me he filmed it outside the movie theater and that Hellman “was on the verge of tears. The film had an effect on a number of people.”

And here’s what Kanew wrote today on his YouTube page:

People have been asking me if this video is set up. I promise it isn’t. I was at the theater helping with the release of the movie all weekend, mostly managing the guest list. Many people came out of the movie emotional, but none as emotional as this lady. She started talking to me in a very real way, with tears in her eyes, essentially apologizing to me for her previous position on the subject and letting me know she was a Fox/O’Reilly watcher who just had her mind changed by the movie. It occurred to me that that was a pretty powerful moment, and one you don’t see every day, so I asked her if she would mind telling me that on video. She said she wouldn’t, so I pulled out my camera, and what you see here happened.

The production company behind “Chasing Ice” sent out the video in a promotion for its film earlier today.

Related posts:

• Republicans Tired Of Climate Change Deniers Launch Initiative For Global Warming Action, Carbon Price
• A Message From A Republican Meteorologist On Climate Change

On election night, polluter-backed candidates lost in some of the most expensive races targeted by polluters, despite outside ad spending that tallied to $270 million.

The American Petroleum Institute already has 2014 in its sights, and it is spending aggressively to protect the oil industry’s multi-billion-dollar tax breaks. Three weeks since election day, API has spent $3 million on TV ads, according to a ThinkProgress analysis of Kantar Media’s CMAG data. That is already $1 million more than what API spent in the final two months of the election, as part of its “I’m an Energy Voter” campaign.

A bulk of the spending, $600,000, targets specific senators over Big Oil’s $4 billion annual tax breaks, all of whom are up for reelection in 2014. All but two voted in March to end oil subsidies, a vote blocked by 47 senators who have taken more than $23.5 million from the oil and gas industry.

Here is an example of one ad directed at Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA):

NARRATOR: America spoke loudly. Clearly, we want a commonsense plan to help people succeed. Senator Mark Warner can make energy a big part of improving our economy. He can choose economic growth and American jobs, not slow them with job-killing energy taxes. Let’s take advantage of America’s energy resources to power growth. American energy – not higher taxes on energy – will create jobs. Let’s get to work.

Ending the industry’s tax breaks would not affect Americans’ gas prices, or kill jobs. Factcheck.org writes that “nonpartisan congressional analysts and industry experts say higher taxes would have little or no effect on gasoline prices.” And at the same time oil enjoyed low tax rates and earned high profits, Exxon, Shell, and BP still shed 17,500 jobs.

ExxonMobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips have paid federal tax rates well below the 35 percent top corporate rate. ExxonMobil, for instance, paid a 13 percent tax rate in 2011, after drilling deductions and benefits, and 14 percent on average between 2008 and 2010.
Read more

by Graham Readfearn, via DeSmogBlog

A British MP revealed to be holding $400,000 worth of share options in an oil firm while sitting on an influential parliamentary climate change committee is also being paid $300 an hour to advise an Indian company building a coal fired power station, DeSmogBlog has discovered.

Veteran Conservative MP Peter Lilley has billed the New Delhi-based Ferro Alloys Corporation Limited (FACOR) for at least 220 hours of consultancy advice and is still working for the group.

It emerged in The Guardian last week that self-described “global lukewarmist” Mr Lilley, a director with Tethys Petroleum, was also holding $400,000 worth of share options in the company which is drilling for oil and gas in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

As The Guardian reported, Mr Lilley is also paid by Tethys to attend meetings and provide advice and has received about £47,000 (US$75,000) in the past year.

The UK Parliament’s register of members’ financial interests shows that in the period from January to June this year, Mr Lilley racked up 228 hours of work for Tethys, FACOR and IDOX plc, a document management company where he is also a director.

The register shows how Mr Lilley was paid £37,696 (US$60,360) for 220 hours of “advice on the management and flotation of a power generating subsidiary” by Ferro Alloys Corporation Limited between July 2011 and June 2012.

FACOR is building a 100MW coal fired power station at Randia in the state of Orissa in eastern India to provide electricity to its ferro alloys plant, with excess power being sold to the grid.

Mr Lilley’s latest payment from FACOR suggests an hourly rate of £187 (US$300). The payments from Tethys and FACOR come on top of Mr Lilley’s annual MP’s salary of £65,738 (US$105,000).

Mr Lilley has recently been appointed to the UK Parliament’s Energy and Climate Change Committee, which examines the policies of the government’s Department of Energy and Climate Change.

Environment groups criticised the appointment, which has been seen as a sign that “anti-green” forces were gaining hold on the UK’s Conservative Party.

In a response to questions from me, Mr Lilley confirmed his work with FACOR was continuing. I asked if his work with the oil and coal sectors represented a conflict of interest, “given your position on the climate committee in a parliament as internationally influential as the UK.” I also pointed out that the “peer reviewed literature would suggest that coal power is detrimental to the climate”.

In a feisty and provocative response, Mr Lilley said:

Read more

Climate advocates celebrated after winning nearly every Congressional race they targeted during the national elections, including four of the “Flat Earth Five” climate deniers in the House of Representatives. But with the balance of power essentially the same in Washington, many rightly worried that little would change moving into the 113th Congress.

Case in point: yesterday’s nomination of Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX) to chair the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology — a body with jurisdiction over many laboratories, NASA, the National Science Foundation, and the National Weather Service.

Smith is a climate skeptic who has taken to the House floor to rant against scientists and journalists “determined to advance the idea of human-made global warming.” Here’s Smith in a 2009 speech after scientists’ emails were hacked from a server at the University of East Anglia:

“We now know that prominent scientists were so determined to advance the idea of human-made global warming that they worked together to hide contradictory temperature data. But for two weeks, none of the networks gave the scandal any coverage on their evening news programs. And when they finally did cover it, their reporting was largely slanted in favor of global warming alarmists. The networks have shown a steady pattern of bias on climate change. During a six-month period, four out of five network news reports failed to acknowledge any dissenting opinions about global warming, according to a Business and Media Institute study. The networks should tell Americans the truth, rather than hide the facts.

In fact, independent reviews found that climate scientists neither hid nor tampered with data.

Compared to the outgoing chair of the committee — Texas Republican Ralph Hall — Smith has been a bit more “moderate” in his skepticism of climate change. Last year, Hall said he doesn’t “think we can control what God controls” and explained that he wasn’t concerned about global warming because he’s “really more fearful of freezing,” even though “I don’t have any science to prove that.”

Smith acknowledges on his website that the climate is changing; however, he does not mention the overwhelming consensus within the scientific community that humans are responsible.

Over his political career, Smith has received $500,000 from oil and gas. And just last year, he received $10,000 from Koch industries.