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]