We’ve written extensively about how global warming worsened the impact of Superstorm Sandy.

Now a new article, “Superstorm Sandy: A Series of Unfortunate Events?” (PDF here) connects the dots even more explicitly:

Cornell and Rutgers researchers report in the March issue of Oceanography that the severe loss of summertime Arctic sea ice — attributed to greenhouse warming — appears to enhance Northern Hemisphere jet stream meandering, intensify Arctic air mass invasions toward middle latitudes, and increase the frequency of atmospheric blocking events like the one that steered Hurricane Sandy west into the densely populated New York City area.

Figure 1a. Atmospheric conditions during Hurricane Sandy’s transit along the eastern seaboard of the United States, including the invasion of cold Arctic air into the middle latitudes of North America and the high-pressure blocking pattern in the northwest Atlantic.

The piece notes “there is increasing evidence that the loss of summertime Arctic sea ice due to green- house warming stacks the deck in favor of”:

1. Larger amplitude meanders in the jet stream,
2. More frequent invasions of Arctic air masses into the middle latitudes, and
3. More frequent blocking events of the kind that steered Sandy to the west

Figure 1b. After the convergence of tropical and extra-tropical storm systems, the hybrid Superstorm Sandy made landfall in New Jersey and New York, bringing strong winds, storm surge, and flooding to areas near the coast and blizzard conditions to Appalachia.

So while this does appear to have been the perfect storm, we can, unfortunately, expect many more as we move toward ice-free arctic conditions in the coming years (see “Experts Warn ‘Near Ice-Free Arctic In Summer’ In A Decade If Volume Trends Continue“).

Related Posts:

• How Does Climate Change Make Superstorms Like Sandy More Destructive?
• Yes, Climate Change Contributed To Superstorm Sandy

Congressmen Jared Polis (D-CO) and Matt Cartwright (D-PA) yesterday introduced two bills that would repeal exemptions for oil and gas companies under the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act.  As a press release from the members noted, the bills were introduced:

… in order to ensure that the hydraulic fracking industry follows the same rules that other industries do in preserving our natural resources. This legislation is focused on ensuring the safety and the health of the communities where the hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, process is already taking place.

Polis’ bill, the “Bringing Reductions to Energy’s Airborne Toxic Health Effect (BREATHE) Act” (H.R. 1154) is based on the premise that oil and gas wells and their associated infrastructure can cause significant air pollution.  The bill would require companies to cumulatively account for air pollution from all of their wells in one area by requiring aggregate permits, rather than individual permits for each well.  The bill also adds hydrogen sulfide to the list of hazardous air pollutants regulated under the Clean Air Act.

Cartwright’s bill, the “Focused Reduction of Effluence and Stormwater Runoff Through Hydraulic Environmental Regulation (FRESHER) Act” (H.R. 1175), would require stormwater runoff permits for oil and gas construction and operations to protect surface water resources.  This is essential because rain causes runoff from fracking sites that can contain sediment and other pollutants which end up in nearby waters.  It would also mandate a study on the effects of oil and gas operations on surface water.

In additions to these exemptions from parts of the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, the oil and gas industry enjoys loopholes in a handful of other laws including the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Superfund Act, the Community Right to Know Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act.

At the same time oil and gas companies benefit from loopholes in laws designed to protect public health and the environment, they are making record profits.  Last year, the largest five oil companies–– BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell– made $118 billion in profits.  They also receive $2.4 billion in tax breaks every year, effectively making Americans pay twice for gasoline, both at the pump and through the U.S. Treasury.  Unfortunately, the House of Representatives seems set to continue this preferential treatment of the oil and gas industry.  Just this week, the House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) budget preserves tax breaks for oil companies while calling for the sell-off of public lands.  More benefits for big corporations, paid for by the middle class.

Jessica is the Manager of Research and Outreach for the Public Lands Project at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

By Graham Readfearn, via DeSmogBlog

Anti-wind farm activists around the world have created a silent bogeyman they claim can cause everything from sickness and headaches to herpes, kidney damage and cancers.

This “infrasound” exists at frequencies too low for the human ear to detect but is present almost everywhere from offices and roadsides to waves tumbling on ocean beaches. These low frequencies can crawl menacingly from the back of your kitchen fridge or from your heart beating.

Despite the ubiquitous nature of infrasound, anti-wind farm groups such as Australia’s Waubra Foundation like people to think that it’s only inaudible infrasound from wind turbines which might send residents to their sick beds.

But two new studies suggest the cause of health complaints by people living near wind farms could in fact be down to the scare campaign of the anti-wind groups and reports about such scares in the media.

The first study, “Can Expectations Produce Symptoms From Infrasound Associated With Wind Turbines?” was published earlier this month in Health Psychology — a journal of the American Psychological Association.

The researchers from the University of Auckland in New Zealand wanted to find out if simply exposing people to warnings that turbines might make you ill was enough to cause them to report typical symptoms such as headaches and nausea.

Using 54 people, the researchers showed half the group five minutes of footage of people complaining that wind farms had made them ill. Some of the footage was taken from this Australian Broadcasting Corporation report (watch it here) into “Waubra disease” where residents were filmed complaining about a wind farm at Waubra in Victoria. Footage was also taken from this CTV Network report from Canada about a wind farm in Ontario.

This group was called the “high expectancy group” because the information they were given had led them to expect they might experience certain symptoms if exposed to infrasound. The other half of the group was shown interviews with experts stating that the science showed infrasound could not directly cause health problems.

The researchers then told each person they were going to be exposed to two 10-minute periods of infrasound in a special acoustic room when, in fact, for one of those periods they would be exposed to no sound at all, or “sham infrasound” as the researchers describe it. So what happened?

The response from the “high expectancy” group was to report that the “infrasound” had caused them to experience more symptoms which were more intense. This was the case whether they were exposed to sham infrasound or genuine infrasound. The report explains that “the number of symptoms reported and the intensity of the symptom experienced during listening sessions were not affected by exposure to infrasound but were influenced by expectancy group allocation.”

In the low expectancy group, the infrasound and sham infrasound had little to no effect. In other words, the study found that if a person is told that wind turbines will make them ill then they are likely to report symptoms, regardless of whether they are exposed to infrasound or not.

Clearly, this points the finger at anti-wind farm campaigns as a potential cause of people’s symptoms, rather than “infrasound” from turbines. The research added: “The importance of findings in this study is that symptom expectations were created by viewing TV material readily available on the Internet, indicating the potential for such expectations to be created outside of the laboratory in real-world settings.”

Writing about her research on The Conversation, lead author Fiona Crichton says:

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What do you call a future of dangerous pollution, catastrophic extreme weather events, giveaways to Big Oil companies, and even greater reliance on fossil fuels? If you’re House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI), you call it “The Path to Prosperity.”

Not coincidentally, that’s the name of the fiscal year 2014 budget plan Rep. Ryan released yesterday. It contains so many false or misleading attacks on clean energy that you could be forgiven for thinking that some of it just sounds, well — ridiculous. He decries support for so-called special interests; he claims that there have been billions of dollars in failed loans; and he asserts that energy prices are being raised arbitrarily.

His proposal makes clean energy sound terrible. Fortunately, however, none of it is true. The reality is that clean energy is the real “path to prosperity,” and the Ryan plan would take us down exactly the wrong road.

While we shouldn’t hold out much hope that Rep. Ryan will ever change his tune on clean energy, it’s important to know just how wrong he is. There are three key facts about clean energy that he chooses to simply ignore, which leads to the terrible policy recommendations in his budget.

Fact No. 1: Americans of all stripes support clean energy, not fossil fuels.

The Ryan budget proposal makes it sound like no one in America besides the Obama administration supports clean energy. But that is simply not the case. In a poll of four swing states — Colorado, Iowa, Ohio, and Virginia — taken after the November 2012 election, more than 70 percent of voters supported continued government investments in clean energy.

Americans support these investments because they know that these are the clean, renewable energy sources of the future. That’s why the government needs to invest in these emerging technologies now as opposed to continuing to subsidize the fossil fuels of the past.

Rep. Ryan’s budget would spend more on dirty fossil fuels than on clean efficiency and renewable power. There’s no reason for the government to be spending anything at all on mature fossil-fuel technologies. How can Rep. Ryan ignore the century’s worth of tax breaks for fossil-fuel companies, which dwarf the recent investments in clean energy? In fact, according to a report by DBL Investors, the oil-and-gas industry received almost 100 times as much federal support as renewables between 1918 and 2009.

While Rep. Ryan writes that “[the Obama administration] pours money into its favored industries,” the fact is that the administration is doing exactly what the American public wants it to do: supporting a transition to a clean energy future by investing in emerging technologies.

Fact No. 2: Clean energy investments are sound investments.

Fortunately, investments in clean energy are good sound investments for the government to make.

Much of the Ryan budget is dedicated to slandering companies that received loan guarantees from the Department of Energy. According to Rep. Ryan, “Many of the administration’s loan-guarantee projects have failed.” The fact, though, is that the overwhelming majority of loan-guarantee recipients are thriving and will pay back the government with interest. Just last week, for example, electric-vehicle manufacturer Tesla reported that it will pay back its government loan a full five years ahead of schedule.

In fact, the entire loan-guarantee program for advanced energy technologies is healthy. Just last year, Herb Allison, the national finance chair of Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) 2000 presidential campaign, conducted an analysis of the entire program’s portfolio and concluded that it will cost taxpayers $2 billion less than initially expected.
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Some news that has the National Association of Manufacturers “very freaked out”:

President Barack Obama is preparing to tell all federal agencies for the first time that they have to consider the impact on global warming before approving major projects, from pipelines to highways.

This would impact initiatives such as the planned Port of Morrow coal export facility, the Keystone pipeline, LNG export facilities, highways, and drilling leases. With the House GOP standing in the way of nearly all legislation impacting climate, this would be the executive branch using a Nixon-era law meant to get agencies to weigh the impact of projects on clean air, water, and lands. [Bloomberg]

In a speech planned at Argonne National Laboratory, President Obama will urge congressional action on his $2 billion 10-year Energy Security Trust to fund clean energy transportation research. [LA Times]

At CPAC yesterday, Sen. Marco Rubio attacked “closed-minded” people who “love to preach about the certainty of science with regards to our climate” but do not think the idea that life begins at conception is an “absolute fact.” [Huffington Post]

Former GOP Rep. Bob Inglis pitches a carbon tax as a market approach that accounts for “the true cost of the fuels we use”without growing the size of government and practices reasonable risk avoidance. [Washington Post]

In alarming news for the fragility of the Arctic ice pack, a large fractures have appeared in the wake of a large storm north of Alaska and Canada. [Climate Central]

The budget released last night by Senate Democrats contains funding for climate adaptation, smart grid technology, energy research, and mass transit. [E&E News]

Sens Hoeven and Baucus introduced legislation that would give Congress the power to approve the Keystone pipeline yesterday. [Reuters]

After a review from the Dept. of the Interior found that it was not remotely prepared for harsh conditions, Shell is barred from returning to the Arctic to drill for oil. [Guardian]

Californians have installed 1.5 gigawatts of rooftop solar — which is as much power generated by three medium-sized coal-fired power plants. [LA Times]

A study found that the sickness that wind farm opponents talk about could be more placebo than fact. [Guardian]

The Vatican accepts the reality of climate change, and thinks that everyone should do something about it before it’s too late. [Catholic Online]