You might think an A-list business reporter for the NY Times would know basic economics. But not in the case of Joe Nocera.

His umpteenth confused post on the Keystone XL pipeline suggests that when he talks to people like, say, James Hansen, he doesn’t really listen:

On Monday, I finally spoke to Hansen. His knowledge and sincerity are easy to admire, even if his tactics are not. He told me he would like to see oil companies pay a fee, which would rise annually, based on carbon emissions. He said that such a tax could reduce emissions by 30 percent within 10 years. Well, maybe. But it would also likely make the expensive tar sands oil more viable. If you really want to eliminate expensive new fossil fuel sources, the best way is to lower the price of oil, which would render them uneconomical. But, of course, that wouldn’t exactly lower demand either.

#FAIL. Just how admirable is it to interview a world-class expert, mis-state his position, get the economics of his plan exactly backwards, and then disparage his tactics in the pages of the NY Times?

Hansen, as I would assume everyone knows, wants all fossil fuel providers to pay a fee, not just oil companies. Further, Hansen has published what he emailed Nocera:

An economic analysis indicates that a tax beginning at $15/tCO2 and rising $10/tCO2each year would reduce emissions in the U.S. by 30% within 10 years. Such a reduction is more than 10 times as great as the carbon content of tar sands oil carried by the proposed Keystone XL pipeline (830,000 barrels/day). Reduced oil demand would be nearly six times the pipeline capacity, thus rendering it superfluous.

How precisely would a high and rising CO2 tax make the dirty tar sands more viable? In an epic blunder of basic economics, Nocera has apparently confused a higher market price for oil — which would make the tar sands more viable — with what Hansen has actually proposed, a higher price to the consumer and businesses for using carbon-based fuels (but no direct change in the market price).

Ironically, Nocera’s economics are so backwards that he fails to realize that his final lines of snark are also utterly dead wrong. The carbon tax Hansen proposes would clearly lower demand for oil overall, and thus lower the price of oil, which would also undermine the tar sands viability.

And as Brad Plumer notes in his debunking, “No, a carbon tax wouldn’t be good for Canada’s tar sands,” tar sands oil “would be at an even greater disadvantage” since it “is more carbon-intensive than other types of crude, creating 14 percent to 17 percent more greenhouse-gas emissions over its lifespan.”

It is a sad commentary on the state of (lack of?) basic editing at the NY Times that it ran this error-riddled piece.

Finally, if you were seduced by Nocera’s “maybe” into wondering whether a CO2 price rising to $115/tCO2 in 2023 would cut U.S. CO2 emissions by 30%? Well, the Energy Information Administration says that a mere $25/tCO2 would cut CO2 emissions 20% in 10 years. So I think it is rather obvious that another $90/tCO2 on top of that would easily cut emissions 30% (especially since Hansen doesn’t want to stop the CO2 price rise after just 10 years).

As Hansen writes:

Joe Nocera was polite, but he does not understand basic economics.  If a rising price is placed on carbon, the tar sands will be left in the ground where they belong.

Hansen explains why he posted his email to Nocera: “Joe Nocera quoted a private comment from a note explaining that I could not promise I would be back in New York to meet him.  But he did not mention the contents of the e-mail that I sent him with information about the subject we were to discuss.  The entire e-mail is copied below.” In a cover email, Hansen explains, “Apologies to Bill McKibben for the comment that could be misconstrued — I do not question the efforts to wake up the public to the situation at hand, and pressure elected officials to serve the public interest, not special interests.”

Last year, Nocera took exception to my saying he joined “the climate ignorati,” asserting that I was casting him as a “global warming denier.” But as I noted at the time, the ignorati are, as Google reveals, “Elites who, despite their power, wealth, or influence, are prone to making serious errors when discussing science and other technical matters.” The shoe fits.

A secretive funding organization called Donors Trust spent the last decade funneling vast sums of money to an array of think tanks and activist groups, all dedicated to undermining the science of climate change and heading off the progress of climate policy. That’s according to reporting last week by The Guardian’s Suzanne Goldenberg and a recent analysis by Greenpeace.

Working in concert with its sister organization, Donors Capital Fund, Donors Trust provided critical funding to some of the leading lights in the climate denial campaign: From 2002 to 2010, Americans for Prosperity received $11 million from Donors Trust, the Heartland Institute received $13.5 million, and the American Enterprise Institute received more than $17 million.

In 2010 alone, Donors Trust dedicated $30 million — 46 percent of all its grants to conservative causes — to climate denial groups, 12 of which owe from 30 to 70 percent of their 2010 funding to the organization. Indeed, some may not have even existed absent the largess; the Donors Fund boosted the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow from a $600,000 operation to $3 million over the years, to cite just one example.

According to Goldenberg, the total contributions of Donors Trust from 2002 to 2010 dwarfs the amounts given by Exxon Mobil or even the Koch Foundation:

By 2010, the dark money amounted to $118m distributed to 102 think tanks or action groups which have a record of denying the existence of a human factor in climate change, or opposing environmental regulations.

The money flowed to Washington thinktanks embedded in Republican party politics, obscure policy forums in Alaska and Tennessee, contrarian scientists at Harvard and lesser institutions, even to buy up DVDs of a film attacking Al Gore.

Throw in Greenpeace’s numbers for 2011, and the total contributions rise to $146 million.

Donors Trust is a form of organization called donor-advised funds, which are apparently not uncommon in America. According to Goldenberg, donor-advised funds offer wealthy donors a good deal of advantages: “They are convenient, cheaper to run than a private foundation, offer tax breaks and are lawful.” They also allow contributors an unusual level of control over where their money ends up going, an advantage that helps combat the tendency for foundation money to “drift left,” as Whitney Ball, the president and CEO of Donors Trust, put it. Finally, in the case of Donors Trust at least, there is complete anonymity for contributors:

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Sojourners and Young Evangelicals for Climate Action at the rally. Credit: Sojourners

By Catherine Woodiwiss

Eighteen months after the first major protests in DC against the Keystone XL pipeline made headlines for weeks and saw hundreds of protestors arrested, Sunday’s”Forward on Climate” rally gathered the “NO XL” faithful for what organizers called the “biggest climate rally by far in history.”

And as with anti-Keystone protests past, faith groups lent visible support; their banners, prayers, and chants joining the estimated 40,000 peaceful protestors calling on President Obama to show climate leadership in his new term by vetoing the Keystone XL pipeline.

Kevin Mason, a young man with The Catholic Worker hospitality house in DC, saw protesting the pipeline as a matter of justice and solidarity. “One person is hurt, we all are hurt,” he said over chants of “That’s not kosher!” from the assembled crowd. “Charity and resistance go hand in hand. There’s a huge need to get back to the Genesis idea of stewardship and beloved community.”

Faith groups have grown bolder in their pro-environment positions, and are gaining some momentum in joining and helping shape protests against fracking and tar sands removal. The shift hasn’t been easy — climate change is still a challenging conversation in many faithful communities, and remains completely off the radar in others.

Yet in the last year alone, several new groups and initiatives like Young Evangelicals for Climate Action and the Interfaith Moral Action on Climate have sprung up, major faith mobilizers like Sojourners have more publicly stepped in, and longstanding interfaith climate organizing networks like Interfaith Power and Light have redoubled their efforts.

“It’s great to see this interfaith energy,” said George Hoguet, a former Catholic now part of The Stillworkers, an engaged Buddhist community in Pittsburgh. “It’s great — there needs to be more.”

Tim Kumfer, representing Interfaith Power & Light at the rally, expressed hope for the direction of faith involvement. “I’ve seen, even today – there are more and more young people here who are publicly identifying with faith, connecting it to this issue,” he said, noting a common disparity between young climate organizers and older interfaith activists. Increasingly at climate actions, Kumfer noted, “there’s all ages and denominations joining in.”

In 2011, Keystone XL protests helped prompt a delay from the Administration on pipeline construction. This time, protestors want a full stop, and took their message directly to the man they see as the ultimate decider: the newly re-elected President.

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So I go to read a Washington Post story online, “Climate change could burn a hole in the government’s finances, GAO says.” And there is this banner ad mocking humanity’s primary hope of avoiding climate catastrophe:

“Energy Tomorrow is brought to you by the American Petroleum Institute (API),” in case you were wondering.

We all need to “imagine life without fossil fuels,” since that is where we will are going to end up this century one way or another:

1. Either we will make the decision by choice fast enough to stabilize near  2°C (3.6°F) warming to avoid the very worst impacts — and that means the rich countries in particular will be essentially off fossil fuels by mid-century (see “Study Confirms Optimal Climate Strategy: Deploy, Deploy, Deploy, Research and Develop, Deploy, Deploy, Deploy.”
2. Or we will be forced off fossil fuels soon after that by the ever-worsening reality of climate change — when we realize that we are headed toward 10+°F warming and a planet with a carrying capacity far below 9 billion (see “An Illustrated Guide to the Science of Global Warming Impacts“).

[Carbon capture and storage might enable the continued use of some fossil fuels until they run out, though it probably won't be a decisive player in the solution and in any case wouldn't save Big Oil.]

As the WashPost article explains:

As climate change leads to more frequent and destructive natural disasters and threatens crop yields, bridges and other infrastructure, the federal government faces big financial risks that it is poorly positioned to address, auditors said Thursday.

Try imagining life with more frequent and destructive natural disasters and threatened crop yields. It isn’t hard to do (see “We’re Already Topping Dust Bowl Temperatures — Imagine What’ll Happen If We Fail To Stop 10°F Warming.”

Now it appears the API ad is just appearing in rotation, but I did come across it again for another climate article:

The story on Tom Steyer (who is also on the CAP board) explains:

Steyer is convinced that global greenhouse gas emissions will have to begin to fall within the next few years or the world will suffer catastrophic consequences. But when he talks to many in his circle — including business leaders and prominent politicians — he finds them oblivious to what he sees as a monumental threat.

So yes this is a story about a billionaire investor who can imagine life without fossil fuels — and the business leaders who are oblivious to climate reality.

In short, the Washington Post is explaining that influential people are oblivious to a threat that the Washington Post runs ads regularly mocking.  You can’t make this stuff up (unless you are a fossil-fuel-funded denier, of course).

by Dominique Browning Via from Slow Love Life

Depending on who is counting, about 35,000 to 50,000 people showed up in a freezing cold and windy Washington D.C. for the largest climate march in history on Sunday, February 17.

It was one of the most inspiring events I have ever attended, and I’ve been trying to sort out why, exactly–beyond the incredible contact buzz of the crowds, the flags, the banners, the costumes.

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Climate scientists and publishing earth scientists overwhelmingly understand humans are causing global warming (via CSW)

By Brian Angliss via Scholars and Rogues. [For another debunking, see Climate Nexus‘s “James Taylor misinterprets study by 180 degrees”]

James Taylor, managing editor of The Heartland Institute’s Environment & Climate News, recently wrote a Forbes blog post about a new study of professional engineers and geoscientists involved in Alberta, Canada’s petroleum industry. According to the authors of the study, however, Taylor got most of the details in his post wrong, and Taylor has not corrected or retracted the blog post even though his errors have been pointed out to him. Furthermore, Taylor republished his deceptive and dishonest post at The Heartland Institute this morning, three days after the study’s authors corrected Taylor. Taylor has a made a habit of distorting scientific studies in the past — his new blog post is no different.

Taylor claims in his post that a study of over a thousand professional geoscientists and engineers in Alberta is somehow representative of all scientists in the world. But the authors of the study, Lianne Lefsrud and Renate Meyer, wrote in a response at Forbes (full comment reproduced below) that

First and foremost, our study is not a representative survey. Although our data set is large and diverse enough for our research questions, it cannot be used for generalizations such as “respondents believe …” or “scientists don’t believe …” (emphasis added)

Taylor’s post is based almost entirely on the incorrect claim that the study’s results are representative. There is no mention that all the study’s respondents were only in Alberta, Canada. There is no mention that they’re all members of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA). There is no mention that the membership of APEGA is predominantly employed by the Alberta petroleum industry and its regulators. And there is no mention that the authors repeatedly and specifically write in their study that their results are not applicable beyond the respondents and members of APEGA. As the study’s authors say, their results are not representative of scientists in general.

Furthermore, Taylor fails to mention fact that 84% of respondents were actually engineers, not scientists. Yet Taylor incorrectly claims in the title itself that the survey applies to the “majority of scientists.” Engineers are only mentioned three times in the first four paragraphs and once more in the conclusion, yet Taylor generalizes “geoscientists and engineers” to just “scientists” 19 times. Given that Taylor quoted extensively from passages throughout the 24 page study, it is not realistic that he could have missed the authors’ repeated warnings about the non-representativeness of the study. As such, his failures to mention key points are not merely deceptive, they’re dishonest as well.

Taylor distorts the study in other ways too. He distorts the purpose of the study, implying that it’s a study of the beliefs of the respondents. According to the paper, the study is about the worldview(s) of the respondents, tactics and strategies they use when arguing with others, and how they justify their own claims to have expert opinions on climate science. Worldviews, tactics/strategies, and justifications are related to beliefs, but they are not the same.

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A warmer atmosphere due to climate change can hold, and dump, more moisture. And two soon-to-be-published studies demonstrate how there can be more giant blizzards yet less snow overall each year. [WaPo]

The United States has been walloped by twice as many of the most extreme snowstorms in the past 50 years than in the previous 60 years, according to an upcoming study on extreme weather by leading federal and university climate scientists. This also fits with a dramatic upward trend in extreme winter precipitation — both rain and snow — in the Northeastern U.S. charted by the National Climatic Data Center.

Yet the Global Snow Lab at Rutgers University says spring snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere has shrunk on average by 1 million square miles in the past 45 years.

And an upcoming study in the Journal of Climate says computer models predict annual global snowfall to shrink by more than a foot in the next 50 years. The study’s author said most people live in parts of the United States that are likely to see annual snowfall drop between 30 percent and 70 percent by the end of the century….

Ten climate scientists say the idea of less snow and more blizzards makes sense: A warmer world is likely to decrease the overall amount of snow falling each year and shrink the snow season. But when it is cold enough for a snowstorm to hit, the slightly warmer air is often carrying more moisture, producing potentially historic blizzards.

“Strong snowstorms thrive on the ragged edge of temperature — warm enough for the air to hold lots of moisture, meaning lots of precipitation, but just cold enough for it to fall as snow,” said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center. “Increasingly, it seems that we’re on that ragged edge.”

[Related Post: Historic Blizzard Poised to Strike New England: What Role Is Climate Change Playing?]

According to researchers at Rice University, air pollution causes heart attacks and death, especially when the pollutants include ozone and particulate matter, and more often in the summer time when ozone levels are higher. [Forbes]

BP will go to trial next work over civil claims made against it by Gulf Coast states, businesses, individuals and the federal government for environmental-related damages due to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. [WSJ]

New York Times public editor knocks Tesla article for poor judgment and imprecise notes. Also suggests Tesla was remiss in not emphasizing the need to maximize the car’s range. [NYTimes]

The U.N. said today that the Arctic needs to be better protected from a rush for natural resources, brought on as melting ice makes mineral and energy exploration easier. [The Guardian]

Scientists are sounding the alarm that sea level rise, storms, and higher temperatures due to climate change pose a growing threat to marine turtle populations. [Times of India]

The European Union will vote today on whether to cut a record surplus of emissions permits from their carbon trading scheme, which has driven carbon prices to an all-time low. [Bloomberg]

Turkey is hoping to find shale gas reserves big enough to reduce its energy import dependency, and is in talks with foreign firms about widening exploration. [Reuters]