Okay, NOAA’s State of the Climate Report for November isn’t the Mayan meteorological forecast. And the Apocalypse isn’t quite “now.” But this part of the NOAA report is kind of ominous:

Including this November, the 10 warmest Novembers have occurred in the past 12 years. The 10 coolest Novembers on record all occurred prior to 1920. November 2012 also marks the 36^th consecutive November and 333^rd consecutive month with global temperature higher than the long-term average. The last month with a below average temperature was February 1985, nearly 28 years ago.

As Grist noted last month, “If you’re 27 or younger, you’ve never experienced a colder-than-average month.” In Minnesota’s fictional Lake Wobegon, “all the children are above average.” But with warming, it’s more like Wobegun, because it’s only going to get hotter and hotter — at an accelerating pace if we don’t reverse carbon pollution trends ASAP (see “We’re Already Topping Dust Bowl Temperatures — Imagine What’ll Happen If We Fail To Stop 10°F Warming“).

This is the temperature map for the first 11 months of the year:

Record warmth — easy to find (see “Record-Smashing Early December Assures 2012 Will Be Hottest In U.S. History“). Record cold, not so much.

As Grist dryly noted (and noting things dryly is how Grist made its bones):

August 2040 will (possibly) be the 666th straight month with higher-than-average global temperatures (somewhat undermining the concept of average). The map for that month will likely be a pure splotch of red, as Earth will have been consumed by hellfire. Please prepare appropriately.

So we are halfway to Hell (and High Water). Can’t say we weren’t warned.

H/t Scott Brophy

by Jim Shultz

If you wanted to design a global crisis that the world’s political systems would be particularly incapable of solving, it would be hard to do better than climate change.

Unlike a meltdown of the banking system or an attack from the sky, climate change does not come upon us suddenly and command our sense of urgency. It creeps closer towards us year-by-year as record heat, decimating storms, and historic ice melt.  Most of the measures proposed in response bear the uncomfortable feel of sacrifice – paying more for gas or living less large in our material possessions – and sacrifice does not make for good politics. Add in the powerful corporate machinery engaged in protecting coal and oil interests and it is little wonder that the political process is frozen.

As a result, the most significant and irreversible threat that our generation poses to the future is marked by an almost complete political incapacity to act. The only force with any chance of getting the political process to move is citizen action. But what kind, applied where, and with what aim?

Much has been written about the grim consequences of the climate crisis and much has been written as well about what, in an ideal political world, we should do to prevent those consequences. But the question that lingers unanswered is this: What can we do in the political world in which we actually live that can make a significant difference while there is still time?

Global Summitry, the Dead End

For more than a decade a major focus of citizen action on climate has been the pursuit of an international agreement that would bind nations to swift and significant reductions in carbon emissions. From Bonn to Doha, climate campaigners have traveled to UN summits demanding action. The appeal of a global agreement is clear – setting an international speed limit on global warming with every nation doing its part to meet that goal. It is also easy to see, unfortunately, why a serious agreement on carbon emissions has proven politically impossible to achieve.

A truly binding commitment on carbon emissions would require that the major carbon polluting countries in the world – the U.S., China, India and others – effectively surrender some measure of their sovereignty, over energy policy for example.  To believe that they will ever do so is, unfortunately, a fantasy. Their domestic politics would never allow it.  Simply consider the probabilities of President Obama signing such an accord and winning its approval in the U.S. Congress.

For moral and educational reasons it is still important to call on nations to act in these forums, but it is a serious strategic error to believe that global climate summitry will deliver anything approaching a binding and serious agreement to reduce emissions.  These summits remain important because they are setting policy on issues like financing for climate adaptation. But they are not where we need to wage the fight for substantial emissions cuts.

The reality is that the political decisions that will most determine the Earth’s ecological future are not going to be made internationally but nation-by-nation, state-by-state, and community-by-community. These are the places, far more than in international forums, where citizen action on climate must make its stand.

Targeting the Climate’s Enemy

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by Justin Guay

A few months back, Nancy Wimmer told us about Bangladesh’s solar success. In one of the poorest countries on earth, a renewable energy company, Grameen Shakti, is busy installing nearly 1,000 solar home systems each day. It turns out all that small-scale solar has achieved something quite big.

In November, Grameen Shakti hit one million Solar Home Systems installed. The company’s milestone reinforces a lesson that is increasingly clear: Whether it’s Germany, the U.S., or even China, distributed solar installations are driving the solar revolution.

The Bangladesh story is particularly exciting because Grameen has shattered the energy axioms on which the international policy community has relied for decades: that small-scale renewable energy is too expensive and not worth the effort. Wrong and wrong.

What Bangladesh does prove is that Carl Pope is right: deploying solar makes the most sense for off-grid areas where the economics are compelling and the need is great.

That’s what makes the next phase of the solar revolution even more exciting. Today we are talking about 1 million solar home systems in Bihar. But tomorrow we could easily be talking about tens of millions in either Bihar or Uttar Pradesh, Indian states that have off-grid populations larger than most European nations.

How would either of these states be able to replicate such an awe-inspiring feat? Because they have the exact same ingredients for success: a robust rural banking sector (Micro Finance through Grameen Shakti for Bangladesh, State Banks for India); a demonstrated need (large numbers of un-electrified people); and policy support (World Bank finance for Bangladesh and Chief Ministers whose political futures are increasingly reliant on clean energy access in India).

In fact the next phase is already here; A distributed clean energy revolution is brewing in Bihar and the next distributed solar hotbed is developing in Uttar Pradesh. While billions are squandered on a failed grid extension approach that is destroying the climate and displacing local communities, the political leaders of these states, responsible for hundreds of millions of un-electrified people, are getting very serious about off-grid, decentralized clean energy solutions.

So here’s our policy lesson in a nutshell: Bangladesh is the world’s demonstration case for an off-grid clean energy access plan that delivers. Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are the next phase that will take this approach to scale. Maybe then the message that small solar is big will finally sink in.

Justin Guay leads Sierra Club’s International program. This piece was originally published at the Sierra Club and was reprinted with permission.

by Daniel J. Weiss and Jackie Weidman

The tragic and devastating superstorm Sandy is only the latest in a long list of extreme weather events that have devastated the United States in recent years. In the past two years alone, we suffered from at least 21 floods, droughts, heat waves, wildfires, and severe storms that each caused at least $1 billion in damages. These events took at least 1,021 lives and caused up to $174 billion in total damages.

Many scientists believe that extreme weather events will grow in frequency and/or severity over the coming decades due to climate change. Yet our communities remain vulnerable to them, putting our citizens and our economy at risk. Middle- and lower-income households are frequently affected by these events at disproportionate rates.

To help communities reduce their vulnerability to extreme weather, we propose the creation of a “community resilience fund,” dedicated solely to providing financial and technical assistance to vulnerable communities hit by extreme weather events. With Congress about to debate funding for disaster relief for the states most affected by Sandy, it may be even harder to convince some members of Congress to support revenue to reduce damages from future storms and other extreme weather events. We therefore urge President Barack Obama to appoint a bipartisan, blue-ribbon panel to design this dedicated fund and to identify and recommend ways to pay for it.

Here’s why we need a community resilience fund, as well as the proposal to establish a panel to design it.

Extreme weather related to climate change is the new normal

The United States has experienced extremely high numbers of devastating floods, heavy storms, droughts, heat waves, and wildfires over the past few years. In 2010 the president made a record 81 “major disaster declarations,” which enable states damaged from extreme weather events to seek federal disaster assistance. This was more than twice as many as the annual average over the previous 60 years.

In 2011 the agency made 99 major disaster declarations—a new record. This year, Climate Central reports that, “For the third straight season, there were 19 named storms in the Atlantic, which is the third-highest level of storm activity observed since 1851.” Sandy was the second-costliest hurricane in U.S. history, surpassed only by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Climate change will continue to increase the frequency and severity of extreme weather events. Kevin E. Trenberth, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, recently noted that:

All weather events are affected by climate change because the environment in which they occur is warmer and moister than it used to be.

The warm moist air is readily advected onto land and caught up in weather systems as part of the hydrological cycle, where it contributes to more intense precipitation events that are widely observed to be occurring.

For more on the link between climate change and extreme weather, see our recent report, “Heavy Weather: How Climate Destruction Harms Middle- and Lower-Income Americans.”

Tristate governors seek funds for Sandy recovery, future resilience efforts

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Even after causing more than a dozen spills in 2011 from its newest tar sands pipeline — including a six story “geyser” of crude — Canadian energy developer TransCanada claimed its planned Keystone XL pipeline would “exceed” safety standards.

But according to a new investigation of TransCanada’s development plans, the company does not plan to use advanced spill prevention technologies on a section of pipeline that would cross an underground reservoir providing nearly 30 percent of America’s irrigation water.

InsideClimate News reported this week that TransCanada would only use standard leak detection technologies across a 19-mile stretch of the pristine Ogallala Aquifer, making bigger leaks more likely:

The leak detection technology that will be used on the Keystone XL, for instance, is standard for the nation’s crude oil pipelines and rarely detects leaks smaller than 1 percent of the pipeline’s flow. The Keystone will have a capacity of 29 million gallons per day—so a spill would have to reach 294,000 gallons per day to trigger its leak detection technology.

The Keystone XL also won’t get two other safeguards found on the 19-mile stretch of the pipeline over Austin’s aquifer: a concrete cap that protects the Longhorn from construction-related punctures, and daily aerial or foot patrols to check for tiny spills that might seep to the surface.

Experts interviewed by InsideClimate News estimate it would cost less than $10 million—roughly 0.2 percent of the Keystone’s $5.3 billion budget—to add external sensor cables, a concrete cap and extra patrols to the 20 miles of the pipeline in Nebraska where a spill would be most disastrous. The water table in that area lies less than 20 feet below the surface and provides ranchers with a steady supply of fresh water.

Keystone XL is a proposed 1,200 mile pipeline that would carry tar sands crude from Alberta, Canada to refineries in the Gulf Coast for sale into the global market. The pipeline has been a central target of environmental groups because of concerns about its impact on local water quality and contribution to global warming.

Tar sands crude requires an enormous amount of energy and water to mine and process — making it up to 80 percent more carbon-intensive than conventional crude. NASA climatologist James Hansen calls development of tar sands “game over” for the climate.

Local worries about the impact of a tar sands oil spill have also sparked a movement in Nebraska banding environmentalists, farmers, and other landowners together in an effort to stop the project:

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by Michael Werz and Arpita Bhattacharyya

Climate change is likely to constrain natural resources, drive migration both domestically and internationally, and exacerbate tensions globally into 2030, according to a new National Intelligence Council “Global Trends 2030” analysis.

The report examines multiple emerging global trends and highlights areas in which climate change will be a key factor. Food, water, and energy demands will increase as populations rise and climate change will further constrain these resources.

“Dramatic and unforeseen changes already are occurring at a faster rate than expected. Most scientists are not confident of being able to predict such events. Rapid changes in precipitation patterns – such as monsoons in India and the rest of Asia – could sharply disrupt that region’s ability to feed its population.”

And the report states that changes in resource availability and weather patterns will also likely influence migration:

“Internal migration – which will be at even higher levels than international migration – will be driven by rapid urbanization in the developing world and, in some countries toward the end of our time frame, by environmental factors and the impact of climate change. Climate-change-driven migration is likely to affect Africa and Asia far more than other continents because of dependence on agriculture in Africa and parts of Asia and because of greater susceptibility in Asia to extreme weather events.”

These findings reflect the research of last month’s Center for American Progress publication on “Climate Change, Migration, and Conflict in South Asia,” which examines the role of climate change as it intersects with migration and security at the national level in India and Bangladesh. The research zeroes in more closely on northeast India and Bangladesh to demonstrate the interlocking tensions that might face the population there and across all of South Asia.

Previous publications in CAP’s Climate, Migration, and Security Project looked at the Arc of Tension — an area covering Nigeria, Niger, Algeria, and Morocco that will face climate-related security challenges as a contiguous region.

The results strengthen the argument of a recent National Intelligence Assessment concluding that, over the next two or three decades, vulnerable regions (particularly sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia) will face the prospect of food shortages, water crises, and catastrophic flooding driven by climate change. In addition, the depletion of groundwater in agricultural areas will pose risks to national and global food markets in the next decade, threatening social disruption.

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Americans for Prosperity, the Tea Party organization founded and partly funded by the oil billionaire Koch Brothers, is leading the charge against federal renewable energy investments — even while vigorously defending permanent tax subsidies for the oil and gas industry.

So AFP’s mock Christmas card featuring the stingy, cranky Ebenezer Scrooge disparaging wind tax credits illustrates the organization’s stance perfectly:

While voters overwhelmingly back government support of renewable energy and a transition away from fossil fuels, Americans for Prosperity sits scowling in the dark, attempting to protect the fossil fuel industry’s subsidies under the guise of the “free market.”

AFP is known for its cheesy campaigns. This election season, the group sold drivers $1.84-per-gallon gas in key swing states in an attempt to convince voters that President Obama was responsible for the increase in the price of gasoline. Of course, presidents don’t set gas prices — and “apathetic voters” weren’t swayed by the campaign.

And over the summer, AFP bussed in conservatives to protest a gathering where children were flying kites in support of wind power. Yes, the group actually protested children flying kites.

This Christmas card is the very definition of Poe’s Law.

A leading lobby group, Energy in Depth, has put out a “cheat sheet” of pro-fracking talking points to counter any bad publicity that may arise following the release of the new Matt Damon film, Promised Land. [Guardian]

Outgoing Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) has some advice for the next Congress: The era of big energy bills is over. [The Hill]

The U.S. Department of Energy announced it will invest $29 million in solar projects in an effort to boost the nation’s renewable energy sector. [Penn Energy]

One name seems to be popping up increasingly in the chatter about possible picks to replace the likely departing Steven Chu as secretary of energy: Tom Steyer, head of Farallon Capital Management, one of the world’s biggest hedge funds. [Washington Post]

It’s official: Johnson Controls has filed an appeal to the bankruptcy court sale that saw it lose its bid for A123’s assets to Chinese auto equipment giant Wanxiang. [Greentech Media]

Barge operators along a key stretch of the Mississippi River braced Monday for months of restricted shipping as crews prepared to begin blasting large rock formations that are impeding navigation on the drought-plagued waterway. [Associated Press]

The quiet collapse of the most basic principle of UN climate negotiations in Doha – that all decisions should be taken only with complete consensus of 194 countries party to the convention — has troubled India and other developing countries. [Times of India]

An explosion of car use has made fast-growing Asian cities the epicentre of global air pollution and become, along with obesity, the world’s fastest growing cause of death according to a major study of global diseases. [Guardian]