Memo to Nocera: You really need to issue a retraction and multiple apologies, rather than writing yet another error-riddled smear job on Hansen.

The good news is that I’m home from Johns Hopkins, sans pancreatic neuro-endocrine tumor, with a very good prognosis.

The bad news is NY Times business columnist Joe Nocera took this moment to utterly misrepresent two (!) posts of mine in a shameless effort to smear the nation’s top climatologist, James Hansen.

The ugly news is that, as we’ll see, Nocera’s whole approach to Hansen is like Clint Eastwood’s was to Obama this summer — an incoherent monologue full of misrepresentations, aimed at an invisible (straw) man.

Now, remember, Nocera is still unforgiven for his error-riddled February 19 column that mis-stated Hansen’s position, quoted a private email comment out of context, and made one of the most egregious economic errors ever seen in the NY Times. And Nocera had the gumption to rawhide Hansen’s Keystone tactics, whipping them for being “utterly boneheaded.”

Of course, to be forgiven, Nocera would have to retract all of his errors (not just most egregious one), rather than doubling down with yet another error-riddled column today, “A Scientist’s Misguided Crusade.”

You may wonder how I ended up in the line of fire here, especially since my name never actually appears in the piece. That’s because Nocera pulls a magnum force miscue here, one that is unique in my nearly 7 years of blogging: He hyperlinks to Climate Progress to back up his misguided smears not once, but twice. You might call that utterly boneheaded. Here is the rookie quote:

Yet what people hear from Hansen today is not so much his science but his broad, unscientific views on, say, the evils of oil companies. In 2008, he wrote a paper, the thesis of which was that runaway climate change would occur when carbon in the atmosphere reached 350 parts per million — a point it had already exceeded — unless it were quickly reduced. There are many climate change experts who disagree with this judgment — who believe that the 350 number is arbitrary and even meaningless. Yet an entire movement, 350.org, has been built around Hansen’s line in the sand.

Who are “the many climate change experts who disagree with” Hansen’s judgment? Why, they are just little ‘ole me, Joe Romm. Now, Joe N, you must know flattery will get you nowhere. Yes, I do like to think of myself as a climate change expert. But I am just one solitary person — or rather one person minus about 20% of my pancreas, but let’s give Nocera the benefit of the doubt and round up to one. Not “many,” though.

And the thing is that my post doesn’t say what Nocera says it does. It doesn’t say 350 “is arbitrary and even meaningless.” Here’s how it opens (emphasis added):

To James Hansen (and his fellow 350 ppm-ers):

You make a compelling case we must ultimately return atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide to 350 parts per million to avoid catastrophic climate impacts (see “Stabilize at 350 ppm or risk ice-free planet, warn NASA, Yale, Sheffield, Versailles, Boston et al“).

Doh! Say it isn’t so, Joe. This is not exactly a stinging indictment of 350 ppm.

As an aside, it is lame but not unheard of for bloggers to pull the “many experts disagree” trick (i.e. not name specific experts) and use a single link — but at least they usually link to someone who supports their view. But I’d say it is journalistic malpractice for someone writing an article that appears both online and in print to not name one expert — especially when their online column links to a post that actually undercuts what they claim.

As a double aside, it is precisely to avoid this problem that I tend to cite old posts of mine by full name —  so you know what the post is about and you can have high confidence it says what I claim it says (because after thousands of blog posts with probably tens of thousands of links, I know all to well that people rarely actually click on those links, which no doubt is what Nocera was counting on).

The point of my post is clear in the very next sentence:

But you have made an uncompelling case about how President-elect Obama should go about achieving 350 ppm in your new draft essay….

The post is primarily about the “how” — the policies needed to achieve 350 ppm and how difficult they would be to enact. I do say (emphasis added), “I am not entirely convinced that 350 ppm is needed this century from a purely scientific perspective.” But as the post makes clear, that was primarily about practicality — and, to repeat, this is hardly much of an indictment of 350.

Oh, but it gets worse. Click on the link for Nocera’s phrase “he wrote a paper” and that is also a link to Climate Progress!!! That had a sudden impact on me, as you can imagine. (I have taken screenshots of the original HTML code for the story, for those who worry about that sort of thing.)

Yes, Nocera doesn’t even link to the original paper — he links to my discussion of it. Flattering, I suppose, but it certainly does entitle me to explain what Hansen et al meant — and it ain’t what Nocera says. It is not about how “runaway climate change would occur when carbon in the atmosphere reached 350 parts per million.” It is about how 450 ppm may be a tipping point “such that change proceeds out of our control.”

As I explain:

Read more

The Australian government’s Climate Commission — an independent panel of experts set up by the government but not subject to its direction or oversight — issued a new report on Monday labeling Australia’s latest summer season the “Angry Summer” in honor of the rash of brush fires, heat waves, torrential rains and flooding that pounded the country.

“Australia has always been… a land of extremes,” the report said, but global warming of 0.8 degrees Celsius over the last 100 years and the resulting climate change is now driving the extreme weather to new heights. “All extreme weather events are now occurring in a climate system that is warmer and moister than it was 50 years ago,” the report warned. “The basic features of the climate system have now shifted and are continuing to shift.”

At least 123 weather records were broken during the 90-day time frame examined by the report, including the hottest summer since record-keeping began in 1910, the hottest day for Australia as a whole ever recorded, and the hottest seven consecutive days ever recorded. The commission ran through the severity and influencing factors of each form of extreme weather Australia has seen:

• Record-Breaking Heat: Australia has only seen 21 days in 102 years in which the average maximum temperature for the whole country exceeded 39 degrees Celsius, and eight of them hit this summer. On top of that, the record-breaking heat occurred in the absence of an El Niño — the 12 to 18-month periods of warm, dry conditions that cyclically roll through — which usually has accompanied Australia’s previous hottest summers. Even the small shift in Australia’s average temperature of 0.9 degrees Celsius that’s occurred since 1910 can have profound effects on the severity and frequency of hot weather, as it alters the distribution of extreme weather’s likelihood.
• Brush fires: As many as 40 brush fires tore through Tasmania this summer, destroying around 25,000 hectares of land, 200 properties, and 21 businesses. Other rashes of fires hit New South Wales and Victoria. Climate change can leave soil and plant life drier while extending the life of the fire season. In fact, the Forest Fire Danger Index, the numerical gauge used to assess the threat of brush fires, had to be extended on the high end in 2009 due to the increase in extreme weather.
• Heavy rain and flooding: Unusually heavy rains triggered severe flooding in areas of New South Wales and Queensland this summer, breaking many daily rainfall records throughout the area. The most impressive was the one-day rainfall averaged over the Burnett catchment, which beat out the previous record by almost 70 percent. By raising ocean and air temperatures, climate change increases evaporation and moisture content in the air, resulting in heavier individual rainfalls even as overall precipitation goes down in many areas.

Other extreme weather events Australia dealt with this past summer include tornadoes that touched in Bundaberg and other Queensland townships, as well as two tropical cyclones that hit the north and northwestern coasts of the country.
Read more

Cross-posted from Huffington Post

The following video is a compact and emotionally moving overview of the problem and solutions to climate change. It’s designed to be a quick and compelling way to get up to speed on the issue and help others do the same.

In 2012 the dangers of human-caused climate disturbance became undeniable, making this the fundamental moral issue of our time. The following features clips from the world’s most respected climate scientist, NASA’s James Hansen, and two key advocates for systemic change: Bill McKibben and David Roberts.

This 49-minute video teaches the basic science and explains key climate dynamics of lag time and tipping points in ways that all age groups can grasp. Richly illustrated with images of this year’s unprecedented retreat of Arctic sea ice and the near-total surface layer melt of the Greenland ice cap, this video also includes footage of the Colorado Springs wildfire, the midwestern drought, the mile-high Arizona dust-storm, Hurricane Sandy, and other climate turning points frighteningly evident in 2012.

The call-to-action excerpts by Hansen and McKibben are overlaid with compelling images of civil resistance (including Hansen’s three arrests) and enthusiastic public participation in 350.org events. The latter included worldwide rallies to voice support for reducing CO2 in the atmosphere back down to 350 parts per million, and McKibben’s autumn 2012 “Do the Math Tour,” which spread the news that there’s five times more carbon in already discovered fossil fuel reserves than could be burned without exceeding the 2 degree Celsius threshold of additional warming that’s widely regarded as the maximum “safe” limit.

My wife, science writer Connie Barlow, and I introduce each of the clips and share our experience of “waking up” in December 2012 to the terrifying prospect of climate catastrophe, which is happening faster than scientists had projected only a few years ago. (I refer to it as my “climate change come-to-Jesus moment”.)

Our extemporaneous storytelling of which aspects of the 2012 climate-change news and statistics rocked us out of complacency is an invitation for viewers to likewise make a shift in outlook and priorities.

Among the most emotionally moving footage is the the portion of James Hansen’s 2012 TED Talk, “Why I Must Speak Out about Climate Change,” where he explains that his love for his grandchildren, coupled with his formidable knowledge of the science, compelled him to speak out against, what he perceives as, “intergenerational injustice.”

We produced this video mix for precisely the same reason. As members of the generational cohort now in power, we exhort fellow “boomers” to awaken to the “generational evil” that will become our sad legacy if we continue with business as usual, focusing irresponsibly on our own comfort and security while expecting future generations to deal with the horrendous conditions that our own complacency will produce.

– Rev. Michael Dowd is a religious naturalist, evidential mystic, big history evangelist, and author of ‘Thank God for Evolution.’

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa intends to sign two agreements that will get the city off of coal-generated electricity entirely by 2025, according to reports flagged on Monday by the Sierra Club. Currently, the the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) relies on two coal-fired power plants — Intermountain Power Plant in Delta, Utah and the Navajo Generating Station in northern Arizona — for about 39 percent of its power.

Villaraigosa made the announcement last week at a green cities event sponsored by UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, just days after the “Forward On Climate” rallies brought tens of thousands of people out across the country to protest both the Keystone XL pipeline and the general lack of policy momentum to fight climate change — including 2,000 protestors in front of Los Angeles City Hall.

“We’ll be out of Navajo, 2015. Intermountain looks like 2025,” Villaraigosa said. “It will be a big deal.”

About 39 percent of L.A.’s power comes from the two out-of-state coal plants now. The Navajo Generating Station in Arizona represents around a third of LA’s coal-fired power; the Intermountain Power Plant in Utah produces about two-thirds of that power, which along with natural gas remains cheaper than less-polluting renewable energy like geothermal, solar and wind power.

During his second inaugural address in 2009, Villaraigosa announced plans for L.A. to eliminate coal from its energy portfolio by the year 2020. Subsequent shakeups at the top of the Department of Water and Power, a bruising political battle over a “carbon tax” and related energy rate increases slowed progress toward that goal.

Villaraigosa’s timeline for the Navajo plant matches up with recommendations put forward by the LADWP in its 2012 Integrated Resources Plan.

Getting a city of 4 million people off of coal-generated electricity, especially when it accounts for almost 40 percent of their total energy supply, was always going to be a heavy lift. So it’s no surprise the original 2020 goal fell short. A late 2011 report from the LADWP recommended scaling back that target, and Villaraigosa eventually agreed to pursue 33 percent renewables by 2020.

At the same time, Los Angeles actually hit another one of its recent environmental goals: getting 20 percent of its power from renewable sources in 2010. That same LADWP report warned that success could be temporary, with renewables falling back to 13 percent of L.A.’s portfolio in 2015 if further investments weren’t made. Hopefully, the $2.5 billion California voters decided to set aside in the 2012 elections for energy efficiency projects will help bring the complementary goal of more energy from renewables closer to realization.

By Julius Fischer

The companies and trade associations in the Business Council for Sustainable Energy (BCSE) a few days ago agreed that tackling climate change will revitalize U.S. industry and grow the U.S. economy by expanding the use of clean technologies. The group released a number of recommendations regarding action the federal government can take to address climate change, in response to an open letter the Bicameral Task Force on Climate Change sent on January 31 to the National Association of Clean Air Agencies (NACAA) and others.

In its original letter, the Task Force stated that “the window to prevent catastrophic climate change is rapidly closing,” and asked for suggestions on how federal agencies could reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve resilience to climate change. It also requested ideas for how Congress could strengthen federal agencies in their response to climate change.

Referring to its recently released Sustainable Energy in America 2013 Factbook, BCSE replied that comprehensive market-based legislation would be the “optimal policy,” but recommended a number of measures that can be taken in the meantime. Many of the BCSE’s suggestions for action concern the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), including:

• Use the flexibility under Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act to allow existing power plants to achieve target emission rates.
• Use an output-based approach to setting emissions standards for New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) of greenhouse gases.

Aside from suggestions for the EPA, BCSE also recommended measures that the Department of Energy (DOE), the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the federal government, and Congress can and should take, including:

• DOE should implement efficiency measures, including appliance and equipment standards, manufactured housing efficiency standards, and previously announced programs for commercial buildings.
• The federal government should follow through on commitments made in the White House Executive Order 13514, including making greater use of federal performance contracting, aggregating procurements within federal agencies, between federal agencies, and leveraged with state and local government procurements, and clarify that Combined Heat and Power (CHP) qualifies under this executive order.
• Federal agencies should support efforts to strengthen the smart grid, especially distributed generation at disaster centers, hospitals, etc., and should implement and update climate change adaptation plans to improve resilience.
• Congress should continue to support research, development and deployment of homegrown and clean energy sources. More specifically Congress should support funding for energy efficiency (of buildings, industrial technologies, vehicles, and advanced manufacturing), and the “wise, safe and efficient” development of natural gas.

BCSE called for Congress and federal agencies to continue supporting successful technologies and programs like CHP, smart grid, and efficiency measures. The Council also urged federal agencies to follow through on previous commitments and exercise the authority provided to them by Congress to implement existing provisions, such as those in the SAVE Act. Combined together, these recommendations would allow for “significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.”

Julius Fischer is an intern with the Energy Team at Center for American Progress.

According to a new study, something as small as a light icebreaker could go in the Arctic Ocean by the middle of the century, including straight over the North Pole, thanks to the ongoing effects of climate change. [NBC]

Ordinary vessels, which account for more than 99 percent of shipping traffic, could easily navigate the Northern Sea Route along the Russian coastline and, in some years, even find a route through the fabled Northwest Passage… the temptation is likely to prove irresistible to some shipping companies and adventurous tourists, which opens up new concerns about search and rescue infrastructure, the environmental impact from increased shipping traffic and the potential for oil spills, among other issues.

[Laurence C. Smith, a geographer and sea ice expert at the University of California, Los Angeles] and graduate student Scott Stephenson used the output of climate models to chart the fastest, most efficient, and realistic routes through the Arctic for different classes of ships that will become possible as more sea ice disappears each summer.[...]

The new findings, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, indicate shipping companies willing to invest in light icebreaker technology, known as Polar Class 6 vessels, can avoid those fees by going over the North Pole or through the Northwest Passage.

Regular ships, too, will be able to navigate at least some of these routes unescorted. And, “it doesn’t matter whether we get serious about curbing the growth of greenhouse gas emissions or not,” Smith said. “Either way, the result is the same. The ice will thin sufficiently.”

The Mid-Atlantic states are bracing for a high-impact, heavy snowstorm starting late Tuesday and lasting through Wednesday. The storm has the potential to end Washington, D.C.’s longest snow drought on record. [Climate Central]

Ernest Moniz, President Obama’s new nominee for the Energy Department has argued that natural gas can serve as a “bridge fuel” to a lower-carbon future, rankling some in the environmental community. [WaPo]

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has announced he will sign two agreements that will render the city’s energy use coal-free by 2025. [Sierra Club]

A new op-ed in the Financial Times predicts peak oil demand could hit at less than 100 million barrels per day before 2020 and perhaps at a lower level even sooner. [FT]

The biological onset of spring could arrive up to five weeks earlier by 2100 in the northern U.S. than it does today, significantly altering ecosystems from Florida to Maine, according to a paper published in Geophysical Research Letters. [Climate Central]

An environmental group has told the European Union that it should ban the use of United Nations-approved carbon offsets from its emissions-trading system by 2020. [Bloomberg]

Climate change was a major driver behind a string of heat waves, bush fires, torrential rains, and floods that hit large sections of Australia in recent months, according to a report issued Monday by the government’s Climate Commission. [NYTimes]