Polar bears can’t catch a break anywhere, least of all Fox News.

On Fox and Friends this morning, Fox Legal Analyst Peter Johnson Jr. was asked about last week’s ruling by the D.C. Circuit to uphold the decision to protect polar bears as a “threatened” species. He made the case that environmentalists use polar bears as a fundraising tool, and that the threat to polar bears may be imaginary:

JOHNSON: It really depends upon whether you believe the global warming is real, whether polar bears are actually threatened or not. This has become a big fundraising tool and it’s become a problem, too, for oil interests throughout the world because they have to act in a way that is very expensive in terms of making modifications.… So is global warming real or not real? I’ve heard a lot of people say it’s not really real.

Watch it:

Global warming is undoubtedly real. In fact, the real climate debate has shifted to how much climate scientists have actually underestimated global warming impacts.

With regard to polar bears, the court said that the Fish and Wildlife Service listed the polar bear correctly as “threatened”:

“The Listing Rule rests on a three-part thesis: the polar bear is dependent upon sea ice for its survival; sea ice is declining; and climatic changes have and will continue to dramatically reduce the extent and quality of Arctic sea ice to a degree sufficiently grave to jeopardize polar bear populations…. No part of this thesis is disputed and we find that FWS’s conclusion – that the polar bear is threatened within the meaning of the ESA – is reasonable and adequately supported by the record.” [Page 14]

It went on to say that 13 out of 14 peer reviewers found the rule generally “represented a thorough, clear, and balanced review of the best scientific information available from both published and unpublished sources of the current status of polar bears.”

Polar bears depend on sea ice for feeding. Arctic sea ice volume has collapsed. The question on threats to polar bears is not over whether general population estimates are stable. (Where there is sufficient data, many more subpopulations are decreasing than are increasing.) If Fox and Friends wants to get to the root of the issue, they should host a discussion about whether polar bears should be classified as “threatened” or “endangered.”

Polar bear ranges will only get more crowded by other animals. Under an incorrect-yet-ironic headline (“Study: Global Warming Helps Polar Bears,”) Fox News reported in January that many mammal species will expand their ranges northward as the Arctic warms. As the sea ice melts, the polar bears will surely welcome their new grizzly bear overlords from the south.

New Science Study Confirms ‘Hockey Stick’: The Rate Of Warming Since 1900 Is 50 Times Greater Than The Rate Of Cooling In Previous 5000 Years

Temperature change over past 11,300 years (in blue, via Science, 2013) plus projected warming this century on humanity’s current emissions path (in red, via recent literature).

A stable climate enabled the development of modern civilization, global agriculture, and a world that could sustain a vast population. Now, the most comprehensive “Reconstruction of Regional and Global Temperature for the Past 11,300 Years” ever done reveals just how stable the climate has been — and just how destabilizing manmade carbon pollution has been and will continue to be unless we dramatically reverse emissions trends.

Researchers at Oregon State University (OSU) and Harvard University published their findings today in the journal Science. Their funder, the National Science Foundation, explains in a news release:

With data from 73 ice and sediment core monitoring sites around the world, scientists have reconstructed Earth’s temperature history back to the end of the last Ice Age.

The analysis reveals that the planet today is warmer than it’s been during 70 to 80 percent of the last 11,300 years.

… during the last 5,000 years, the Earth on average cooled about 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit–until the last 100 years, when it warmed about 1.3 degrees F.

In short, thanks primarily to carbon pollution, the temperature is changing 50 times faster than it did during the time modern civilization and agriculture developed, a time when humans figured out where the climate conditions — and rivers and sea levels — were most suited for living and farming. We are headed for 7 to 11°F warming this century on our current emissions path — increasing the rate of change 5-fold yet again.

By the second half of this century we will have some 9 billion people, a large fraction of whom will be living in places that simply can’t sustain them —  either because it is too hot and/or dry, the land is no longer arable, their glacially fed rivers have dried up, or the seas have risen too much.

We could keep that warming close to 4°F — and avoid the worst consequences — but only with immediate action.

This research vindicates the work of Michael Mann and others showing that recent warming is unprecedented in magnitude, speed, and cause during the past 2000 years — the so-called Hockey Stick — and in fact extends that back to at least 4000 years ago. I should say “vindicates for the umpteenth time” (see “Yet More Studies Back Hockey Stick“).

Lead author Shaun Marcott of OSU told NPR that the paleoclimate data reveal just how unprecedented our current warming is: “It’s really the rates of change here that’s amazing and atypical.” He noted to the AP, “Even in the ice age the global temperature never changed this quickly.”

And the rate of warming is what matters most, as Mann noted in an email to me:

This is an important paper. The key take home conclusion is that the rate and magnitude of recent global warmth appears unprecedented for *at least* the past 4K and the rate *at least* the past 11K. We know that there were periods in the past that were warmer than today, for example the early Cretaceous period 100 million yr ago. The real issue, from a climate change impacts point of view, is the rate of change—because that’s what challenges our adaptive capacity. And this paper suggests that the current rate has no precedent as far back as we can go w/ any confidence—11 kyr arguably, based on this study.

Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist at Texas Tech University, told the AP:

We have, through human emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases, indefinitely delayed the onset of the next ice age and are now heading into an unknown future where humans control the thermostat of the planet.

Unfortunately, we have decided to change the setting on the thermostat from “Very Stable, Don’t Adjust” to “Hell and High Water.” It is the single most self-destructive act humanity has ever undertaken, but there is still time to aggressively slash emissions and aim for a setting of “Dangerous, But Probably Not Fatal.”

By Tom Kenworthy and Shiva Polefka

Sally Jewell, President Obama’s nominee to head the Department of Interior and former CEO of recreation equipment giant REI, told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee today during her confirmation hearing that balance is a critical component of managing our nation’s public lands and waters.  She noted that the billions of dollars Americans spend on outdoor recreation:

…underscore the important balance that the Department of the Interior must maintain to ensure that our public lands and waters are managed wisely, using the best science available, to harness their economic potential while preserving their multiple uses for future generations.

Just last month, former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt urged the Obama administration to put land conservation and energy development on “equal ground” by protecting one acre of public land for every one leased to the oil and gas industry.  To date, the Obama administration has skewed heavily in favor of the oil and gas industry, leasing 2.5 acres of public lands for drilling for every one permanently protected.

Jewell also deftly sidestepped potential controversies over public lands management.  Pressed to defend her previous support for a price on carbon, for example, she stated the Obama administration has “no proposals on the table around this issue.” Nevertheless, she also promised to tap the “vast” experience and skills of the department to help the U.S. better understand and prepare for the impacts of climate change, which will include worsening storms, droughts, sea level rise and ocean acidification associated with greenhouse gas emissions.

She made a point of using her experience as a petroleum engineer with Mobil Oil Corporation to blunt Republican criticism of Obama administration energy policies.  Pushed by Republicans on their claims that the administration has stymied oil and gas production on federal lands, she said that while development on public lands is important, there are “complexities” in the market that have driven “production on private lands to the forefront.” That was a recognition that the shale formations underpinning recent oil and gas booms mostly exist under nonfederal lands, as a new study shows.

After summarizing her career, including 19 years as a banker and CEO of a multi-billion dollar corporation, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) asked Jewell: “How’d you get appointed by this administration? It sounds like someone a Republican president would appoint.”

Jewell said she strongly supports the president’s “all of the above” energy strategy for public lands and the Outer Continental Shelf. But she also said conservation is a fundamental task of the department, which oversees some hundreds of millions of acres of  “our parks, forests, deserts, rivers and seashores”– America’s “crown jewels,” as she put it.

She called the 1906 Antiquities Act, used by 16 different presidents to create national monuments, “a very important avenue” to expand conservation lands. And she called the Land and Water Conservation Fund that funnels federal dollars to land acquisition efforts across the U.S. “a brilliant piece of legislation” that has been “critical in every county across the country.”

There are a number of controversial issues that Jewell will be responsible for determining over the next few years.  For example, while Shell has temporarily suspended its oil exploration efforts in the Arctic after being overwhelmed by mishaps and safety equipment failures, it and other oil companies are planning offshore drilling in the Arctic in 2014.  Jewell will have to determine whether the basic scientific understanding and oil spill response capacity exist to ensure Arctic Ocean drilling can occur safely.  Many signs indicate that they do not.

Meanwhile, off America’s eastern seaboard, Jewell will oversee the launch of an American offshore wind energy industry, which promises immense economic benefits and will be a vital component to further reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.  While she professed her support of offshore wind at today’s hearing, real advancement of the industry will require her leadership to further streamline the permitting process through the “Smart from the Start” program begun by outgoing Secretary Salazar.

Tom Kenworthy is a Senior Fellow for the Public Lands Team and Shiva Polefka is a Research Associate for the Ocean Program at Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Rex Tillerson, Exxon Mobil’s CEO, recently spoke with Charlie Rose. The two covered a number of topics, from Tillerson’s less than generous opinion of the Keystone XL protests, to a carbon tax versus cap-and-trade, to his pessimistic view of renewable energy’s chances of displacing fossil fuels anytime soon. [Businessweek]

Why have environmental groups made Keystone such a priority?

There’s a segment of the environmental groups that’s very concerned about the burning of fossil fuels. In a sort of obtuse way, they took a view that if they could prevent the transport of crude oil from Canada to the U.S., then that would throw an obstacle in the way of future developments. I think they probably misjudged Canada’s resolve.

Where do you stand on a carbon tax?

At some point policymakers will get around to dealing with additional policies around climate in ways to incentivize certain behaviors. There are different models, one of which is cap-and-trade, which Europe has been trying now with not a lot of success. If you’re going to undertake a policy with those characteristics, a carbon tax is much more straightforward. It’s much simpler to administer, and it doesn’t leave itself open to as much gaming.

How much longer do you think we’ll be burning fossil fuels?

When coal came into the picture, it took about 50 or 60 years to displace timber. Then crude oil was found, and it took 60, 70 years, and then natural gas. So it takes 100 years or more for some new breakthrough in energy to become the dominant source. Most people have difficulty coming to grips with the sheer enormity of energy consumption. If we look at our energy outlook, at things like renewable wind, solar, biofuels, we have those sources over the next 30 years growing 700 to 800 percent. But in the year 2040, they’ll supply just 1 percent.

The failure to accurately predict Snowquester’s effects in the I-95 corridor offers lessons in communicating risk and uncertainty, which can be applied to both weather and climate forecasting. [Climate Central]

Legislation requiring that schools teach “both the strengths and weaknesses of” climate change science has died in the Kansas state legislature. [Slate]

As the nor’easter that dumped 2 feet of snow on areas of the inland Mid-Atlantic on Wednesday moves slowly out to sea, the National Weather Service is predicting moderate to major coastal flooding along the New England coast. [Climate Central]

As the coal industry declines, many of its retirees are left with crippling ailments after years of working in the mines, and many of the union benefits they’ve built up over decades are now at risk of vanishing. [WaPo]

According to an update to the U.S. Drought Monitor, drought expanded in Florida and West Texas, where several weeks of low rainfall have allowed already dry conditions to intensify. [Climate Central]

Energy poverty has left more than 1 billion people in developing countries without access to adequate healthcare. Staff are often forced to treat emergencies in the dark, and often go without vaccine storage or sterilization. [The Guardian]

National carbon cap-and-trade measures will play a bigger role in climate-change efforts as the importance of offset mechanisms started by the United Nations wanes, the head of an emissions trading lobby said. [Bloomberg]