Carbon emissions are trapping extra energy in our atmosphere, and with extra energy come more extremes: higher sea levels, dryer droughts, hotter heat waves, and heavier, wetter storms.

We need a crash program in this country right now to re-engineer the nation’s infrastructure to cope with and prepare for the climate disruptions that we have already ensured with the carbon we’ve already put into the atmosphere, as well as an immediate, aggressive transformation of our energy production, economy and society to reduce the amount of carbon we’ll put into the atmosphere in the future.

The above science-based statements by MSNBC’s Chris Hayes should be widely accepted across the political spectrum. They should serve as the basis for a political debate about how best to act.

But that’s not where we are, thanks in large part to the most successful disinformation campaign in history along with fossil-fuel funded politics and a fatally docile media.

And so Hayes continued his post-Sandy plea:

This is as fundamental, as elemental as human endeavors get. The story of civilization is the long tale of crusaders for order battling the unceasing reality of chaos. And it is a kind of miracle that we have succeeded as much as we have, that airplanes fly through the air, and roads plunge beneath the water and the entire teeming latticework of human life exists in the manifold improbable places it does. But it is the grand irony that in imposing this improbable order on the world, we’ve released millions of years of stored up carbon into the atmosphere, which is now altering the climate and threatening the very monuments of civilization that we so cherish.

We absolutely have it within us, collectively, to beat back the forces of chaos once again. But we must choose to do so. And the time for choosing is now. You are either on the side of your fellow citizens and residents of this planet, or you are on the side of the storms as yet unnamed.

You cannot be neutral.

Which side are you on?

Watch it:

So, which side are you on?

by Jessica Goad

Local regulation of oil and gas drilling was thrust into the spotlight this election when Longmont, Colorado banned drilling within its city limits.  The decision was closely watched by the energy industry because of its implications for other communities across the country.

As the head of the Western Energy Alliance, an industry group against the ban put it, “We can’t afford that particular issue to get out of the barn at Longmont.”

Which is why recent comments from Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) are noteworthy. Landrieu, one of the biggest drilling advocates in Congress, has taken $940,174 in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry since 1996. However, at a forum sponsored by America’s Natural Gas Alliance, Landrieu said that the industry should respect local communities and understand that some places should be set off-limits to drilling:

There should be drilling zones and non-drilling zones. Just because, you know, if there was gold in the National Mall, the largest gold mine in the world, we would not allow mining in the Mall.  So sometimes I think the industry—as much as I’m an advocate for it—can get a little over its heels on this.

I don’t know what, again, the issues are, but I would not be so quick to condemn that town for making that decision. Although I realize the governor’s made a statement, and this and that.  But I think we do have to be sensitive to local land use issues.  And if we all find that balance—there’s plenty of land, trust me, in the United States of America.  There are plenty of places that you can drill, you don’t have to drill on every square inch of land in every situation.  And I think we have to be a lot smarter about where we drill, how we drill.

Watch it:

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One of the world’s biggest mining firms says that extreme weather caused by climate change is already impacting some of its assets, thus forcing the company to re-evaluate its investments in the coal sector.

Speaking to investors and analysts on Monday, the Chief Executive of BHP Billiton’s coal division explained how the company is reinforcing infrastructure around its coal export terminal in Queensland, Australia because of increases in extreme weather that threaten the facility.

BHP Billiton is one of the largest producers of aluminum, copper, thermal coal, metallurgical coal, nickel, silver and uranium. The Australian company also owns and operates the Hay Point Services Coal Terminal, a coal facility that makes up a large portion of the biggest coal port in the world.

And now that facility is under threat from intensifying extreme weather, says BHP executive Marcus Randolph. His comments were reported in the Australian Financial Review after the company’s presentation on its sustainability strategy:

“As we see more cyclone-related events . . . the vulnerability of one of these facilities to a cyclone is quite high,” he said. “So we built a model saying this is how we see this impacting what the economics would be and used that with our board of directors to rebuild the facility to be more durable to climate change.”

Mr Randolph said the decision was taken after cyclone Yasi hit further north in Queensland in February 2011. “If cyclone Yasi had hit Hay Point, we would have lost that facility,” he said. “So it is a recognition that as these cyclones become more severe, we need to have facilities that are more able to withstand them.”

Simply reinforcing a coal export facility with extra jetties to withstand an increase in extreme weather caused by carbon pollution from the coal that the company wants to continue exporting isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement for sustainability. But this plain-spoken admission that climate change is having a measurable impact now — without trying muddle the science — is very unique for a coal company.

“You couldn’t ask for a more surprising source for our basic message: coal causes climate change, climate changes creates more extreme weather, more extreme weather will force us to make huge new investments in trying to protect ourselves,” said Carl Pope, former executive director of the Sierra Club, in an email.

In his presentation, Randolph made another stunning comment about the need to address carbon pollution by clearly stating that there is an “absolute ceiling” on emissions that can be pumped into the atmosphere:

BHP’s internal target over the next four years is to maintain its greenhouse gas emissions below 2006 levels, adjusted for material acquisitions and divestments. Mr Randolph said the target would stay even if a future government repealed the carbon tax.

“If you look at the targets . . . there is not a qualifier saying it is okay to emit more greenhouse gases if the carbon tax is eliminated,” he said. “An absolute ceiling is an absolute ceiling. Even if there isn’t a carbon tax, it still needs to be an issue we devote a lot of attention to.”

Just one month before, Randolph — the chief executive of the company’s coal division — told the Australian Financial Review that he believes the market for coal is going to decline because of environmental constraints, and that “frankly it should”:

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Two new papers tie a recent increase in significant earthquakes to reinjection of wastewater fluids from unconventional oil and gas drilling. The first study notes “significant earthquakes are increasingly occurring within the United States midcontinent.” In the specific case of Oklahoma, a Magnitude “5.7 earthquake and a prolific sequence of related events … were likely triggered by fluid injection.”

The second study, of the Raton Basin of Southern Colorado/Northern New Mexico by a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) team, concludes ”the majority, if not all of the earthquakes since August 2001 have been triggered by the deep injection of wastewater related to the production of natural gas from the coal-bed methane field here.”

Both studies are being presented at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union this week (program with abstracts here).

These studies, together with other recent findings, make a strong case that we need national regulations on wastewater injection to prevent induced earthquakes.

BACKGROUND

As hydraulic fracturing has exploded onto the scene, it has increasingly been connected to earthquakes. Some quakes may be caused by the original fracking — that is, by injecting a fluid mixture into the earth to release natural gas (or oil). More appear to be caused by reinjecting the resulting brine deep underground.

In August 2011, a USGS report examined a cluster of earthquakes in Oklahoma and reported:

Our analysis showed that shortly after hydraulic fracturing began small earthquakes started occurring, and more than 50 were identified, of which 43 were large enough to be located. Most of these earthquakes occurred within a 24 hour period after hydraulic fracturing operations had ceased.

In November 2011, a British shale gas developer found it was “highly probable” its fracturing operations caused minor quakes.

In March 2012, Ohio oil and gas regulators said “A dozen earthquakes in northeastern Ohio were almost certainly induced by injection of gas-drilling wastewater into the earth.”

In April, the USGS delivered a paper at the annual meeting of the Seismological Society of America that noted “a remarkable increase in the rate of [magnitude 3.0] and greater earthquakes is currently in progress” in the U.S. midcontinent. The USGS scientists pointed out that ”a naturally-occurring rate change of this magnitude is unprecedented outside of volcanic settings or in the absence of a main shock, of which there were neither in this region.” They concluded:

While the seismicity rate changes described here are almost certainly manmade, it remains to be determined how they are related to either changes in extraction methodologies or the rate of oil and gas production.

Now the USGS is building on that work in an invited paper presented this week, “Present Triggered Seismicity Sequence in the Raton Basin of Southern Colorado/Northern New Mexico.” Here is the abstract:

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This brief was originally published at the World Meteorological Organization.

The years 2001–2011 were all among the  warmest on record, and, according to the World Meteorological Organization, the first ten months indicate that 2012 will most likely be no exception despite the cooling influence of La Niña early in the year.

WMO’s provisional annual statement on the state of the global climate also highlighted the unprecedented melt of the Arctic sea ice and multiple weather and climate extremes which affected many parts of the world. It was released today to inform negotiators at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Doha, Qatar.

January-October 2012 has been the ninth warmest such period since records began in 1850. The global land and ocean surface temperature for the period was about 0.45°C (0.81°F) above the corresponding 1961–1990 average of 14.2°C, according to the statement.

The year began with a weak-to-moderate strength La Niña, which had developed in October 2011. The presence of a La Niña during the start of a year tends to have a cooling influence on global temperatures, and this year was no different. After the end of the La Niña in April 2012, the global land and ocean temperatures rose increasingly above the long-term average with each consecutive month. The six-month average of May–October 2012 was among the four warmest such periods on record.

“Naturally occurring climate variability due to phenomena such as El Niño and La Niña impact on temperatures and precipitation on a seasonal to annual scale. But they do not alter the underlying long-term trend of rising temperatures due to climate change as a result of human activities,” said WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud.

“The extent of Arctic sea ice reached a new record low. The alarming rate of its melt this year highlighted the far-reaching changes taking place on Earth’s oceans and biosphere.  Climate change is taking place before our eyes and will continue to do so as a result of the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which have risen constantly and again reached new records,” added Mr Jarraud.

The Arctic reached its lowest annual sea ice extent since the start of satellite records on 16 September at 3.41 million square kilometers. This was 18% less than the previous record low of 18 September, 2007. The 2012 minimum extent was 49 percent or nearly 3.3 million square kilometers (nearly the size of India) below the 1979–2000 average minimum. Some 11.83 million square kilometers of Arctic ice melted between March and September 2012.

WMO will release a 10-year report on the state of the climate, “2001-2010, A Decade of Extremes” on 4 December 2012. It was produced in partnership with other United Nations and international agencies and highlights the warming trend for the entire planet, its continents and oceans during the past decade, with an indication of its impacts on health, food security and socio-economic development.

Highlights of 2012 provisional statement

Temperatures:

Read more

by Whitney Allen

In the wake of Superstorm Sandy, New Yorkers overwhelmingly acknowledge that the storm was linked to climate change. A new poll from Siena Research Institute found that voters connect recent extreme storms to a changing climate by a 69-24 percent margin.

The results are similar throughout the state. In every region of New York, at least 63 percent of voters say that the extreme weather of 2011 and 2012 demonstrates that climate change in action. More than two thirds of independents and nearly half of Republicans also say that Superstorm Sandy was the result of climate change.

“I think part of learning from this is the recognition that climate change is a reality, extreme weather is a reality, it is a reality that we are vulnerable,” said New York Governor Andrew Cuomo last month as he was surveying the damage from the powerful storm.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg reiterated his concerns — even endorsing President Obama for re-election because of his willingness to deal with climate change.

The Siena poll backs up a recent pos-election survey by Zogby Analytics that showed 2012 extreme weather — which featured two heat waves, a record drought, above-average wildfires, and two powerful storms that knocked out power to millions — had a “dramatic impact” on voter perception of climate change:

“These results show the dramatic impact 2012′s extreme weather has had across party lines, with half of Republicans, 73 percent of independents and 82 percent of Democrats saying they’re worried about the growing cost and risks of extreme weather disasters fueled by climate change.

“It’s a major change from our December 2009 poll, which showed two-thirds of Republicans and nearly half of political independents saying they were ‘not at all concerned’ about global climate change and global warming. The political climate has shifted and members of Congress need to catch up with their constituents.”

A new report from the Center for American Progress shows that there were at least seven extreme weather events in 2012 costing over $1 billion — disproportionately impacting low and middle- income people. However, even though more Americans are linking these extreme weather events to climate change, many of the up-and-coming Republican leaders in the House of Representatives deny the problem exists or have fought to prevent action.

Senate Democrats are attempting to force a vote on climate change through an amendment to the defense authorization bill. Its submission shows that Democrats might be looking for chances to put Republicans on the record on climate change, especially in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. [The Hill]

A year after floodwaters eroded sections of the Missouri River basin, exposing two petroleum pipelines and triggering their rupture, federal records suggest the same thing could happen to dozens of others. [Wall Street Journal]

Led by its hot-selling Prius line of hybrids, Toyota Motor Corp. posted November hybrid vehicle sales of 24,682 in the U.S., a 29% increase over the same month last year. [Los Angeles Times]

The West is taking a brief break from storms on Monday after a parade of strong weather systems dumped nearly 2 feet of rain, at least 40 inches of snow, and brought strong winds equivalent to a Category 4 strength hurricane to parts of California, Oregon and Washington through Sunday. [Climate Central]

Whether rich countries should compensate vulnerable communities for the “loss and damage” caused by events linked to climate change has emerged as a major new issue for developing countries in the UN talks that have just entered their second week in Doha. [Guardian]

In Doha, the talks have been slowed by wrangling over financial aid to help poor countries cope with global warming and how to divide carbon emissions rights until 2020 when a new planned climate treaty is supposed to enter force. Calls are now intensifying to include fossil fuel subsidies as a key part of the discussion. [Associated Press]

The largest solar power plant in Africa will be built in Ghana, the British company behind the plan said on Tuesday. [Guardian]

Typhoon Bopha, the strongest tropical storm to hit the Philippines this year, has slammed into a southern island, killing at least six people, destroying homes, cutting power and forcing the cancellation of flights and ferry services, officials said. [Al Jazeera]