by Michael Kodas, via On Earth

In a little over a decade, the largest mountain pine beetle outbreak on record (by a factor of 10) has killed more than 70,000 square miles of Rocky Mountain forests — an area the size of Washington State. From above, the infested pine trees seem color-coded: green is healthy, red is dead, and after three or four years, the dead red needles fall off, leaving behind a graveyard of bare gray bark — or, if you’re worried about wildfires, what amounts to a field of 100-foot-tall matchsticks.

Colorado, already facing the most destructive wildfire season in state history, has 3.3 million acres of beetle-killed forests to worry about. No one doubts that dead and dying trees are a potential problem, but fears that the beetle infestation will fuel larger firestorms might be premature (at least in the short term). Across the West, some 40 scientific studies have failed to produce a clear picture of how millions of beetle-killed trees will burn.

One recent paper by researches at the U.S. Forest Service and University of Idaho predicts that during the “red phase” — when trees are dead but still have rust-colored needles — severe crown fires may burn through the treetops with greater speed and intensity than they would in healthy green forests. A study last year by ecologists with the U.S. Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Research Station showed that in beetle-infested forests, the red, dead needles ignite three times faster than their living counterparts, largely because they have 10 times less moisture and different chemistries than living, green needles.

The intensity of the crown fires in red, beetle-killed forests, the researchers predict, could also launch embers farther, thus spreading the fire faster over a greater territory. Another model shows that lower fuel moisture in the canopies of red and gray forests and dead trees that fell to the ground during and after the gray phase increased the intensity of ground fires, which allowed crown fires to erupt with less wind than they usually require. Other studies show that gray forests, in which the needles have fallen from the trees, are likely to slow down crown fires. Trees in those forests, however, have a great risk of “torching” — which means they burn individually with high, intense flames.

But other research contradicts the studies showing that beetle-killed forests are a cause for alarm.

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by John Atcheson

The Dog Stars, a debut novel by Peter Heller, succeeds on so many levels it’s almost frightening.

It is a piece of literary fiction that is likely to be a best seller.

It is a dystopic future tale that is nevertheless full of beauty.

It is a moving novel that illustrates the horror of climate change, without ever mentioning climate change.

Heller paints a grim picture of the world we are even now sculpting, populates it with people who are desperately violent or violently desperate, but leavens it with a triumph of the human spirit in the form of Hig, one of the most endearing and unlikely heroes to show up in fiction in a long time.

Hig, a pilot, lives in an abandoned airport in what appears to be an armed truce with his companion of nine years, a tough survivalist who refers to himself only as Bangley.  Their relationship seems, at first, strictly one of convenience.  Each contributes to the survivability of the other.  Bangley tackles the job of killing marauders with verve; Hig does so with reluctance.  He wants to believe in people, but it is a world which punishes people who do.

It is set sometime near the middle of this century. The natural world is in the process of being devastated by climate change and much of the world’s population has been killed by a pandemic.  Nine years have passed since Hig lost his wife, since the world crumpled into this chaos.

It is certainly one of the better novels addressing climate change out there, but as noted, it doesn’t once use the words climate change or global warming.  And therein lies its strength.  It reveals this new world without lecture, rancor or melodrama, and it does so through the eyes of a character we care about.  As a result, we aren’t beaten over the head with a message; we are exposed to a dramatic tragedy, which, as Whitehead put it, “… resides in the solemnity of the remorseless working of things.”

At the end of the day, fiction must stand on story, character and damn good writing to succeed.  When it does, it reaches us on a visceral level, and it can be a powerful way to move us.

Heller, an award winning writer for Outdoor Magazine, succeeds on all three levels in his first foray into fiction.

Too many of us, writing novels that include climate change as part of the story allow the facts to compromise the fiction.  Even great writers such as Ian McEwan fall into this trap. I recently published an eco-thriller centered on global warming, part of a trilogy – and I definitely wrestled with this issue.  Still do.

Heller doesn’t.  He transcends it. Yet no one reading this book could fail to be moved by it, and by the future Hig lives in.

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Non-hydro renewable electricity generation has nearly doubled since President Obama took office, reaching 5.75 percent of net electricity, according to figures from the Energy Information Administration.

In 2008, before Obama entered the White House, non-hydro resources like solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass represented just over 3 percent of generation. Today, they total nearly 6 percent.

Ken Bossong of the Sun Day Campaign has been meticulously following EIA generation figures over the years. In his assessment of the figures below, Bossong offers an historical perspective:

During 2008, the last full year of the Bush Administration, non-hydro renewables accounted for 3.06% of net electrical generation with an average monthly output of 10,508 gigawatthours. By mid-2012, the average monthly electrical generation from non-hydro renewables had grown by 78.70% to 18,777 gigawatthours. Comparing monthly electrical output in 2008 versus 2012, solar has expanded by 285.19%, wind by 171.72%, and geothermal by 13.53%. However, electrical generation from biomass dropped by 0.56%.

According to the latest issue of the monthly “Energy Infrastructure Update” published by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s Office of Energy Projects with data for the first half of 2012, 229 renewable energy projects accounted for more than 38% of new electrical generation capacity (not to be confused with actual generation). This includes 50 wind energy projects (2,367 MW), 111 solar energy projects (588 MW), 59 biomass projects (271 MW), 5 geothermal projects (87 MW), and 4 water power projects (11 MW).

New renewable energy electrical generating capacity was more than double that of coal (2 new units totaling 1,608 MW). No new nuclear capacity came on line during the first half of 2012. However, 40 new natural gas units came on line with 3,708 MW of capacity (42% of the total). Renewable energy sources now account for 14.76% of total installed operating generating capacity (water-8.66%; wind-4.30%, biomass-1.23%, geothermal-0.31%, solar**-0.26%). This is more than nuclear (9.16%) but less than natural gas (41.83%) and coal (29.66%). The balance comes from waste heat (0.07%).

As natural gas and renewable energy development has surged, net generation from coal has fallen substantially. According to the EIA figures, coal-fired electricity has dropped 20 percent since May of 2011. (The decline in domestic coal is mostly due to plants switching to natural gas, according to the EIA — not EPA regulations).

Obama himself acknowledged the surge in renewable energy yesterday during a campaign event at Colorado State University:

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Royal Dutch Shell is seeking permission to extend its Arctic drilling season as it struggles with the logistics of exploring untapped oil reserves beneath icy waters off Alaska. [Reuters]

Sea-ice cover in the Arctic Ocean reached a record low this week, dropping below the previous record set in 2007, the National Snow and Ice Data Center reported on Monday. It is expected to continue diminishing for at least the next week.

Long-term disappearance of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean has inspired development boosters to look to the area for new oil finds. So far, Shell has been the company with the most ambitious Arctic oil-exploration plans.

The usually ice-clogged Chukchi Sea is considered a promising but daunting frontier for oil drilling. The U.S. Department of Interior estimates the Chukchi holds over 15 million barrels of recoverable oil.

But remoteness and harsh conditions have hindered development. There have been only five wells drilled in the Chukchi, four of them by Shell, and all were abandoned.

Hurricane Isaac will continue pelting Louisiana with heavy rains today and tomorrow as it marches up the Gulf Coast, unleashing damaging 80 mile-per-hour winds and causing widespread flooding in New Orleans and other coastal cities. [USA Today]

Isaac’s high winds and rains, experts speculate, could also stir up remnant crude oil from the BP’s Deepwater Horizon spill — exposing more residents and wildlife to its potentially toxic effects. [Huffington Post]

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From a very early age, perhaps the age of five or six, I knew that when I grew up I should be a writer. Between the ages of about seventeen and twenty-four I tried to abandon this idea, but I did so with the consciousness that I was outraging my true nature and that sooner or later I should have to settle down and write books….

I knew that I had a facility with words and a power of facing unpleasant facts….

– George Orwell, “Why I write”

I joined the new media because the old media have failed us. They have utterly failed to force us to face unpleasant facts (see here and figure).

What I have learned most from the success of this blog, from the steady growth in page views and visitors and retweets and Facebook likes, along with the increasing number of websites that link to or reprint our posts, is that there is in fact a great hunger out there for the bluntest possible talk.

It is a hunger to learn the truth about the dire nature of our energy and climate situation, about the gravest preventable threat to our children and future generations, about the vast but still achievable scale of the solutions, about the forces in politics and media that impede action — a hunger to face unpleasant facts head on.

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Excerpted from America’s Finest News Service:

TAMPA, FL—With Tropical Storm Isaac’s torrential rains battering the Gulf Coast of Florida, Republican National Convention organizers raced to build a protective levee out of local poor people Monday in order to prevent the Tampa Bay Times Forum from flooding….

In a further attempt to assuage concerns about safety, [RNC Chair] Priebus confirmed that crews had already secured the convention site against high winds and debris by nailing hundreds of illegal immigrants over the arena’s windows.

Related Post:

• We Are All ‘Climate Test Dummies’ Now, Providing Data On How Humans Respond To Extreme Weather

By Jessica Goad

Mitt Romney recently released his energy plan, which focuses extensively on turning energy development on federal public lands over to the states.  If states are determined to aggressively push fossil energy development, giving oversight of mining and drilling to them could put some of our special places at risk. As the New York Times put it:

The purposes [of federal public lands], under established law, are various: recreation, preservation, resource development. States, as a rule, tend to be interested mainly in resource development. In the energy future envisioned by Mr. Romney, that is precisely what would prevail.

Here are five places that could be at risk under a Romney energy plan:

-  Grand Canyon National Park:  Even though Interior Secretary Ken Salazar protected one million acres around the Grand Canyon from mining last January, the decision applied only to new claims.  About 3,500 existing uranium claims may still be valid, which could result in up to 11 uranium mines on Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service lands near the canyon.  Under a Romney energy plan, the decision to permit these new mines would be made by the state of Arizona and under its rules and regulations.  Arizona Governor Jan Brewer would likely give the go-ahead to new mining, as she called Salazar’s decision in January “excessive and unnecessary regulation.”  Watch a short documentary about the issue:

-  Bryce Canyon National Park:  A strip coal mine is currently being proposed on Bureau of Land Management lands ten miles from the park, but the National Park Service warned that it would “likely result in negative impacts to park resources and visitors” and especially to air quality and scenery.  Under the Romney energy plan, the state of Utah would be responsible for permitting and overseeing the new mine.  Chances are it would be permitted, as Utah already gave the go-ahead to a coal mine right next to the proposed one.  Additionally, in 2010, Utah Governor Gary Herbert (R) accepted a $10,000 political donation from the company interested in developing the new mine.  Watch a short video about the issue:

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When Mitt Romney campaigned at an Ohio coal mine earlier this month, he might not have realized that the miners were forced to be there — without pay — by the owner, Murray Energy.

That’s according to accounts from multiple coal miners, who sent anonymous letters to a local radio station criticizing Murray Energy for allegedly requiring all workers to take the day off, forgo pay, and attend a Romney campaign event.

“Just for the record, if we did not go, we knew what would happen,” wrote one miner.

In an interview with a talk radio show host, Murray Energy CFO Rob Moore denied allegations that workers were “forced,” choosing instead to use the word “mandatory.”

“Our managers communicated to our workforce that the attendance at the Romney event was mandatory, but no one was forced to attend,” Moore said. He confirmed that pay was docked for all the workers.

In another email read on air, a miner expressed frustration with being “forced” to attend the event, characterizing a culture of “intimidation” within Murray:

“No one likes to be forced to do anything, let alone without pay. I recall hearing a caller claiming that his $100,000 plus Murray salary was grounds for crapping if Murray says crap, or eating broccoli if Murray says to eat it. I say to that man: Many of us, though well educated or hard workers ourselves, do not make half, a third, or sometimes even a quarter of that pay. Had the event not been mandated, most of us probably would have still attended. We are grateful to have the chance to listen to our leaders or potential leaders first hand and to be a part of political history in the making. We do not appreciate being intimidated into exchanging our time for nothing.”

Listen to the entire segment here:

Romney campaigned with Bob Murray, CEO of the company, back in May.

Murray Energy is perhaps best known for operating the Crandall Canyon mine in Utah that collapsed in 2007, killing six miners and two rescue personnel. After that tragedy, reporters uncovered thousands of violations resulting in millions of dollars in fines at various mines owned by the company.
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by Kate Gordon

I’ve spent many years making the case that transitioning to a greener, more advanced energy economy will create jobs, spur economic growth and put America on a path toward global technological leadership.

But lately, I’ve been thinking that I’ve placed too much emphasis on the stuff side of this equation — the need for investment in the products that make up the greener economy, like the wind farms, smart grid systems and efficient cars — and not enough on the people side — the high-quality workforce that can actually dream up, make, and install all that stuff.

My colleague, Ann O’Leary, tends to focus her work on people more than on stuff, and she knows well that education and training are absolutely fundamental to any strategy for economic growth.

She has a new report out, jointly produced and co-authored by The Center for the Next Generation and the Center for American Progress, showing that our primary international competitors, China and India, are gearing up to seize a larger share of the future economy through greater investments in education.

That report, “The Competition That Really Matters,” compares U.S., Chinese and Indian investments in the next-generation workforce. The research shows that a highly ambitious commitment to education is the heart of economic revitalization in China and India, leading them to expand the number of children enrolled at all levels of the education system, producing up to five times as many college graduates each year.

Meanwhile, approximately 44 percent of American workers do not have any education beyond high school. By 2018, only 36 percent of jobs will be open to workers with a high school diploma, while 63 percent will require at least some form of post-secondary education. The math is simple. At this pace, we will fall well behind the competition — and forfeit lucrative jobs in the process.

What does this mean? Americans run the risk of consigning another generation to low-skill, low-wage jobs — and higher rates of poverty.

Given these sobering results, Ann and her co-authors, Donna Cooper and Adam Hersh, argue that the American education system needs a shot in the arm. They contend that we need to make human capital investments, especially in young people — and that investing in education will yield the highest rate of return.

I think they’re right, but I also think that for a green economy, we need to go a step further.

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The American Meteorological Society has updated and strengthened its statement on global warming.

Here are its summary conclusions, “based on the peer-reviewed scientific literature and … consistent with the vast weight of current scientific understanding”:

There is unequivocal evidence that Earth’s lower atmosphere, ocean, and land surface are warming; sea level is rising; and snow cover, mountain glaciers, and Arctic sea ice are shrinking. The dominant cause of the warming since the 1950s is human activities. This scientific finding is based on a large and persuasive body of research. The observed warming will be irreversible for many years into the future, and even larger temperature increases will occur as greenhouse gases continue to accumulate in the atmosphere. Avoiding this future warming will require a large and rapid reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions. The ongoing warming will increase risks and stresses to human societies, economies, ecosystems, and wildlife through the 21st century and beyond, making it imperative that society respond to a changing climate. To inform decisions on adaptation and mitigation, it is critical that we improve our understanding of the global climate system and our ability to project future climate through continued and improved monitoring and research. This is especially true for smaller (seasonal and regional) scales and weather and climate extremes, and for important hydroclimatic variables such as precipitation and water availability.

Technological, economic, and policy choices in the near future will determine the extent of future impacts of climate change. Science-based decisions are seldom made in a context of absolute certainty. National and international policy discussions should include consideration of the best ways to both adapt to and mitigate climate change. Mitigation will reduce the amount of future climate change and the risk of impacts that are potentially large and dangerous. At the same time, some continued climate change is inevitable, and policy responses should include adaptation to climate change. Prudence dictates extreme care in accounting for our relationship with the only planet known to be capable of sustaining human life.

This new statement is considerably stronger than the 2007 one. That shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, given that it is based on scientific observation and analysis:

1. The scientific evidence for manmade global warming has gotten considerably stronger — see It’s “Extremely Likely That at Least 74% of Observed Warming Since 1950″ Was Manmade; It’s Highly Likely All of It Was (and links therein);
2. Many observed changes have occurred faster than the models — see the 2010 AAAS presentation that concluded: New scientific findings since the 2007 IPCC report are found to be more than twenty times as likely to indicate that global climate disruption is “worse than previously expected,” rather than “not as bad as previously expected”;
3. Projections of future changes have likewise become much more dire — see “An Illustrated Guide to the Science of Global Warming Impacts: How We Know Inaction Is the Gravest Threat Humanity Faces.”

Only anti-science deniers — pure rejectionists of rational thinking — can continue to encourage inaction in the face of this overwhelming body of evidence.

Here are some extended excerpts from the full statement:

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Here’s a factoid that people following the politics of energy may find interesting, but certainly not shocking: Of the top 25 CO2 emitting Congressional districts in 2009, 22 were Republican. That’s according to data released by the Center for Global Development, which tracked emissions from 60,000 power plants in the U.S. and around the world.

The top five CO2 emitting districts were all Republican, with percentage of fossil-based electricity in those areas ranging between 91 percent and 100 percent.

Given this trend, it’s not surprising that the National Republican platform on energy is almost entirely about supporting more fossil fuels — particularly coal — while completely ignoring the threat of climate change. The platform was just released this morning:

Coal is a low-cost and abundant energy source with hundreds of years of supply. We look toward the private sector’s development of new, state-of-the-art coal-fired plants that will be low-cost, environmentally responsible, and efficient. We also encourage research and development of advanced technologies in this sector, including coal-to-liquid, coal gasification, and related technologies for enhanced oil recovery. The current Administration—with a President who publicly threatened to bankrupt anyone who builds a coal-powered plant—seems determined to shut down coal production in the United States, even though there is no cost-effective substitute for it or for the hundreds of thousands of jobs that go with it as the nation’s largest source of electricity generation.

We will end the EPA’s war on coal and encourage the increased safe development in all regions of the nation’s coal resources, the jobs it produces, and the affordable, reliable energy that it provides for America. Further, we oppose any and all cap and trade legislation.

In fact, leading center-right economists determined in 2011 that “Coal-Fired Power Plants Have Air Pollution Damages Larger Than Their Value Added.” Factoring in the health and environmental impacts of burning coal would add “close to 17.8 cents/KWh of electricity generated.”

And a leading international energy economist, Fatih Birol of the International Energy Agency, recently warned that continuing use of coal and other carbon-intensive resources would have dramatic consequences: “As each year passes without clear signals to drive investment in clean energy, the ‘lock-in’ of high-carbon infrastructure is making it harder and more expensive to meet our energy security and climate goals,” he said.

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Last week, Mitt Romney unveiled a plan for “energy independence” by 2020, a proposal analysts called unrealistic, in part because he would roll back the same initiatives responsible for lowering U.S. foreign oil consumption.

Today, the Obama Administration is set to announce new rules that boost fuel efficiency to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, which would save 3 million barrels of oil per day, 2 billion metric tons of carbon pollution, and create 570,000 jobs by 2030.

Romney not only opposes these new rules, but he would undo existing standards requiring new cars reach an average of 35.5 MPG by 2016, the first improvement the fuel economy standards stalled for two decades. Last fall, Romney said he “would get the EPA out of its effort to manage carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles and trucks.” This spring, Romney blasted fuel economy standards again:

ROMNEY: In my view, the industry got in trouble because the UAW asked for too much, management gave too much and made other mistakes, and the government CAFE [Corporate Average Fuel Economy] standards hurt domestic automakers and provided a benefit to some of the foreign automakers.

The truth is the complete reverse, since higher mileage standards have prompted U.S. automakers to become competitive with efficient foreign cars, while reducing U.S. oil consumption by 2 million barrels per day by 2025. Romney’s own plan for “energy independence” uses Citigroup research based off the assumption that “‘the United States will continue with strict fuel economy standards that will lower its oil demand.” We’ll get even closer to that goal with 54.5 MPG standards.

These standards have helped revive the auto industry. Automotive News reported that new fuel-efficient vehicles are the key drivers of the 2012 increase in sales:

“The changeover to high-mpg models, in all segments is the key market driver this year. Dealers say it has been the release valve on pent-up demand as fuel prices soared.”

In addition, the new standards reduced U.S. gasoline consumption this year. The Energy Information Administration cites the improvements in fuel efficiency as one of these reasons, noting the standards “help reduce gasoline consumption, as more efficient vehicles use less fuel for each mile driven.”

Both the existing and proposed improvements in fuel economy have the support of domestic and nearly all foreign auto companies, the United Auto Workers, states, and other stakeholders.

Romney once supported fuel efficiency, by adopting California standards setting limits on carbon pollution from vehicles as Massachusetts governor. In 2002, he proposed tax breaks for fuel efficient cars and an excise tax for gas-guzzlers.

A few years later, Romney blasted achievable 35 MPG by 2016 standards as an “anvil” weighing down the industry. But since the auto industry bridge loans, and measures like CAFE standards, automakers have bounced back, with fuel efficient cars as a major driver of the 2012 increase in sales. The industry has created 139,000 jobs since 2009, with its strongest sales in the last quarter.

But Romney’s administration would allow our domestic auto industry to once again fall behind its competitors in the rest of the world. It would leave drivers vulnerable to oil and gasoline price spikes. And it would increase our demand for foreign oil imports. The only winners would be big oil companies and members of the OPEC oil cartel.

by Daniel J. Weiss and Jackie Weidman

The Obama administration is about to promulgate fuel-economy and carbon-pollution limits for 2017 to 2025 model cars. These essential standards will reduce oil use, save families money from lower gasoline purchases, create jobs, and reduce emissions responsible for climate change.

Under these new standards U.S. companies will produce vehicles that employ modern fuel-saving technologies and ensure that their cars remain competitive with foreign models during future oil and gasoline price shocks. Recent events reemphasize the importance of reducing dependence on oil with its volatile price. Gasoline prices are rising again due to supply concerns related to sanctions on Iranian oil. In addition, the anticipation of economic growth that increases demand could enable speculators to bid up oil prices^.

The new fuel-economy standards are one of several actions the Obama administration has taken to revive and strengthen the U.S. auto industry. The most prominent, of course, was the bridge loans granted to General Motors and Chrysler in March 2009 that enabled them to remain in business long enough to restructure, begin to innovate again, and return back to profitability.

One of the bailout stipulations was that the companies had to develop aggressive plans to return to viability by reducing costs and investing in energy-efficient cars. Both companies agreed to move toward a more fuel-efficient fleet. In a March 2009 press statement President Barack Obama described the bailout as a restructuring process that would create “a 21st century auto industry that is creating new jobs, unleashing new prosperity, and manufacturing the fuel-efficient cars and trucks that will carry us towards an energy-independent future.”

Because credit markets were frozen and the two companies were teetering on bankruptcy, no private lender would have come to their rescue. Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) noted that:

There was no one that could have picked up those pieces other than the federal government.

In a just-published book, The New New Deal, Time magazine reporter Michael Grunwald concluded that the auto-assistance program saved GM and Chrysler and prevented these two companies from dragging down the rest of the U.S. industry, particularly suppliers. He determined that:

His [Obama’s] overhaul of the auto industry would become a stunning success, minimizing taxpayer losses, avoiding erasure of countless jobs, and restoring the Big Three [Ford, GM, and Chrysler] to profitability.

In addition to the successful bridge loans there are five other major Obama administration policies that helped the auto industry and the nation by creating jobs, reducing oil use, saving families money, and cutting pollution:

• Fuel-economy and carbon-pollution standards for 2012 to 2016 model cars sparked job growth in automobile manufacturing and increased automobile sales.
• Fuel-economy and carbon-pollution standards for 2017 to 2025 model cars will double their fuel economy and reduce oil use by 2 million barrels per day.
• The Recovery Act invested in fuel-efficient vehicle research and development to spur job growth and increase international competitiveness.
• Federal loans helped convert factories to the production of fuel-efficient vehicles.
• The “Cash for Clunkers” program increased vehicle efficiency and helped save the auto industry by jump starting demand during the depths of the Great Recession.

We review these below.

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Isaac was on the verge of becoming a full-blown hurricane Tuesday as it rolled over the Gulf of Mexico toward Louisiana, where residents of the low-lying coast left boarded-up homes for inland shelter while people in New Orleans waited behind levees fortified after Katrina. [Associated Press]

As tropical storm Isaac bears down on the Gulf Coast, there should be plenty of money — some $1.5 billion — in federal disaster aid coffers, thanks, in part, to a new system that budgets help for victims of hurricanes, tornadoes and floods before they occur. It’s a system that Paul Ryan, the Republican nominee-to-be for vice president, had hoped to scrap. [Washington Post]

The Republican platform slated for approval at the party’s convention includes expanded offshore oil-and-gas development, opening Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to drilling rigs, and thwarting Environmental Protection Agency climate change regulations. [The Hill]

While there are still a few prominent TV weather announcers who publicly question the overwhelming body of global warming science, the American Meteorological Society has updated its official position on climate change. [Summit County Citizens Voice]

Here at the top of the world, the news that Arctic sea ice has reached a new low — the smallest footprint since satellites began measuring it three decades ago — is not much of a surprise. [Los Angeles Times]

The House, controlled by Republicans, has already approved measures that would all but kill Pentagon spending on purchasing or investing in biofuels. A committee in the Senate, led by Democrats, has voted to save the program. The fight will heat up again when Congress takes up the Defense Department’s budget again in the fall. [New York Times]

Australia will scrap its planned floor price for carbon emissions and will link directly with the European Union’s emissions trading scheme by 2018, Climate Change Minister Greg Combet said on Tuesday. [Reuters]

This year’s fickle monsoon has played havoc with millions of Indian farmers. [Washington Post]

The 'Muskego Muck' fire in central Ohio.

The 12-month period from August 2011 to July 2012 was the hottest ever recorded for the U.S. So far this year, more than 27,000 high temperature records have been broken or tied — beating cold temperature records by 10 to 1. All the while, the U.S. has faced a barrage of record-breaking wildfires, powerful storms, and an historic drought that covers the majority of the country.

“You look out the window and you see climate change in action,” said Kevin Trenberth, a scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research in an interview this summer. Below are some ways that these extremes have manifested themselves around the country.

***

MARION, Ohio — Driving down the long, flat road in rural Ohio, I can see a grey mist rising above the soybean fields from three miles away.

But I know it’s not mist, it’s smoke.

I pull up to the field and get out of the car, sucking in the acrid smoke rising from the ground. It smells like burning plastic. Most of the vegetation has burned away and the ground is sinking in on itself. Black, cratered, and smoldering, the field looks like someone had just peppered it with heavy artillery.

A fire truck pulls up behind my vehicle and three men get out.

“What do you think about all of this?” asks Clint Canterbury, chief of the First Consolidated Fire District.

“What do you think about all of this?” I respond.

“I know it’s causing us a lot of headaches,” says Canterbury.

We are standing on the edge of a 15-acre underground fire that Canterbury’s team of firefighters hasn’t been able to extinguish. The field, which borders a 200-acre soybean farm, sits on top of a deep deposit of spongy peat, also known as “muskego muck.”

In late May, as temperatures rose into the 90’s – nearing record highs for the region at that time of year – Canterbury’s department got a call about a field fire. But after trying to put it out, they soon realized the fire was spreading underground, “burning layers off, sinking down, burning more layers, and causing new spots to pop up,” says Canterbury.

The lack of snow over the winter combined with the spring and summer heat waves dried out the muck, making it susceptible to burning. And when the local fire department found no evidence of a man-made fire, they concluded that it was spontaneous combustion.

“I’ve talked to a lot of old farmers and they say ‘we’ve never seen anything like this before,’” says Canterbury.

As summer unfolded, temperatures continued to rise, and little rain came, the problem just got worse. The fire is now burning five feet below ground at temperatures of up to 400 degrees Fahrenheit, feeding the dried sediment and sending a constant stream of acrid smoke into the air, day and night.

According to Canterbury, a boy across the street with asthma has had breathing problems because of the smoke.

“The smoke just lingers here. You can see it for miles and miles. We believe this could go on well into the winter — and if we don’t get much snow like last year, this could likely burn for years,” he says.

***

The impact of extreme heat on the Des Moines river.

OTTUMWA, Iowa — Mark Flammang, a fisheries biologist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, sits on the banks of the Des Moines River, surveying the water.

To his left, the low water levels have exposed large patches of sand. To his right, a hydropower facility sits idle, allowing only the minimum flow to pass through the dam. The temperatures are in the mid-90′s, a welcome change to the long period of 100-plus days in July that caused the river to overheat.

At one point in July — even with water levels four times higher than current levels — the temperature of the Des Moines River climbed to 97 degrees. And that created conditions for one of the biggest and longest fish kills in Iowa’s history.

“It was literally tens of thousands of fish. The kill started and it went on and on and on,” says Flammang. “We were following dead fish for well over a week.”

When it was over, approximately 37,000 shovelnose sturgeon and 12,000 channel catfish turned up dead, resulting in estimated economic losses of $10 million.

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On his radio show today, Rush Limbaugh suggested that the government manipulated hurricane forecasts in order to force Republicans to cancel a day of their national convention, saying the model “allows them to do it.”

“The hurricane center is the regime; the hurricane center is the Commerce Department. It’s the government. It’s Obama,” said Limbaugh.

In reality, the National Hurricane Center forecast is, roughly, what you get if “you average together the track forecasts from” several models, most of which are done by other organizations, in some cases other countries. Obama would have more luck using his apparently omniscient powers to alter the course of the hurricane itself than somehow trying to rejigger the storm tracks from all these different models, which are publicly available and updated continuously.

Limbaugh communicated his absurd theory on this imaginary scheme while simultaneously claiming “I’m not alleging conspiracy.”

His latest conspiracy theory matches the absurdity of his claim from last July, when he said the heat index was “manufactured by the government” in order to convince the American people that it’s hotter outside.

Listen to Limbaugh’s paranoid rant on hurricane forecasting:

Here’s part of the full transcript:

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This visualization shows the extent of Arctic sea ice on Aug. 26, 2012, the day the sea ice dipped to its smallest extent ever recorded in more than three decades of satellite measurements…. The line on the image shows the average minimum extent from the period covering 1979-2010, as measured by satellites. Every summer the Arctic ice cap melts down to what scientists call its “minimum” before colder weather builds the ice cover back up. The size of this minimum remains in a long-term decline. The extent on Aug. 26. 2012 broke the previous record set on Sept. 18, 2007. But the 2012 melt season could still continue for several weeks. Image credit: NASA

News via the University of Colorado Boulder

The blanket of sea ice floating on the Arctic Ocean melted to its lowest extent ever recorded since satellites began measuring it in 1979, according to the University of Colorado Boulder’s National Snow and Ice Data Center.

On Aug. 26, the Arctic sea ice extent fell to 1.58 million square miles, or 4.10 million square kilometers. The number is 27,000 square miles, or 70,000 square kilometers below the record low daily sea ice extent set Sept. 18, 2007.  Since the summer Arctic sea ice minimum normally does not occur until the melt season ends in mid- to late September, the CU-Boulder research team expects the sea ice extent to continue to dwindle for the next two or three weeks, said Walt Meier, an NSID scientist.

“It’s a little surprising to see the 2012 Arctic sea ice extent in August dip below the record low 2007 sea ice extent in September,” he said.  “It’s likely we are going to surpass the record decline by a fair amount this year by the time all is said and done.”

On Sept. 18, 2007, the September minimum extent of Arctic sea ice shattered all satellite records, reaching a five-day running average of 1.61 million square miles, or 4.17 million square kilometers.  Compared to the long-term minimum average from 1979 to 2000, the 2007 minimum extent was lower by about a million square miles — an area about the same as Alaska and Texas combined, or 10 United Kingdoms.

While a large Arctic storm in early August appears to have helped to break up some of the 2012 sea ice and helped it to melt more quickly, the decline seen in in recent years is well outside the range of natural climate variability, said Meier. Most scientists believe the shrinking Arctic sea ice is tied to warming temperatures caused by an increase in human-produced greenhouse gases pumped into Earth’s atmosphere.

CU-Boulder researchers say the old, thick multi-year ice that used to dominate the Arctic region has been replaced by young, thin ice that has survived only one or two melt seasons — ice which now makes up about 80 percent of the ice cover.  Since 1979, the September Arctic sea ice extent has declined by 12 percent per decade.

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by Bracken Hendricks and Adam James

In a political season dominated by divisive electoral politics and obstructionist legislative strategies, the future of America’s energy policy has been a casualty, caught in the political crossfire.

Whether debating drilling for oil on public lands, extending the production tax credit for wind energy, or the role of fossil fuel subsidies in an “all of the above” energy plan, federal policy makers are scoring lots of political points but coming up short on building a durable foundation for transformative energy innovation.

No matter who wins the election this November, the fact remains that in order to govern well the next President and Congress will have to place energy innovation at the center of any plans for economic growth.

There is one simple reason for this.  The energy sector is already changing rapidly and radically beneath our feet, right now. It is being driven by disruptive technologies that are fundamentally altering the old ways of doing business. Utilities can’t wait to plan for future growth and reliability; they must place their bets on tomorrow’s smart energy technologies today. Banks need to put capital to work right now in infrastructure investments, as a hedge against inflation, to earn stable returns for the pensioners whose savings they manage. And upstart companies are already building new, wired, and IT enabled technology businesses to tap the hundreds of billions of dollars of energy we waste each year as a new market for growth.

These changes are durable, structural, and the result of technology innovation.  Together, they are building the foundation for a fundamentally different, more efficient, and more productive economy. Only Washington seems to lag behind the curve in understanding this state-change that is underway in our energy grid.

In a new Center for American Progress report released today called “The Networked Energy Web,” we argue that this upheaval in the energy sector can best be understood as the next wave of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) revolution.  Just as previous waves of technological change in wireless communications or digital data management brought with them fundamentally different engineering approaches, new business models, and ultimately dramatically changed industry structures, so too a new wave of growth, restructuring, and reinvestment are coming as our 19^th century energy infrastructure collides with 21^st century information management tools.  In this paper we offer a framework for understanding the fundamental differences between coming energy networks and our historical electricity grid, and we show how this network will unleash dramatic new efficiencies for the economy and important benefits for consumers.

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by Michael Conathan

It’s tough sledding in the oil business these days. Federal subsidies integral to keeping quarterly profit margins in the double-digit billions are constantly under attack, meaning the industry must hand out millions in campaign donations to keep them in place.

Gasoline prices plummeted almost two whole percentage points in the second quarter of this year. And, for proponents who want to see every square inch of the U.S. open to drilling, the Department of Interior didn’t do enough when it granted access to 75 percent of all offshore deposits to the oil industry.

The latest slap in the face is that the Department of Interior has become such a stickler about drilling safety that Shell Oil has been forced to request a two-week extension of its proposed drilling season in the Arctic Ocean’s Chukchi Sea.

It’s like regulators remember some kind of horrible accident that happened just a couple years ago or something. Except that these operations would be carried out in a region with no infrastructure, no permanent response capacity, and virtually no significant scientific knowledge about how oil will behave in freezing conditions — deficiencies exposed in a video released last week by the Center for American Progress.

Why the need for the extension? While sea ice in the region has lingered later than anyone expected — striking considering that Arctic sea ice in general is at an all-time low – the areas of the Beaufort and Chukchi where Shell plans to drill have until recently remained too ice-choked to allow safe navigation of drilling ships and equipment.

But Interior Secretary Ken Salazar stated unequivocally earlier this month, if a key piece of Shell’s drill response equipment had managed to pass Coast Guard inspection, “[Shell] may already be up there today.”

In other words, the company’s reason to request an extension is the same proffered by any college student who partied a little too much, slacked off on his research, and overslept. They just didn’t get it done. So now, their solution is to ask the government to let them drill longer into winter.

Let’s get this straight. The main reason for the delay is that the company couldn’t make its own ships shipshape. The secondary reason is that there was too much ice. So Shell’s solution is to operate later into the fall, even though the government has already told them it’s not safe. At that time of year, it will be darker more often, the weather in the region is increasingly unpredictable, and temperatures will be dropping — meaning there’s likely to be more ice.

As the Los Angeles Times reported:

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Latest storm track for Isaac

The good news: Tropical storm Isaac veered away from Tampa. The bad news: It is taking aim at New Orleans and is on a path to deliver that beleaguered city a dangerous deluge and serious storm surge on the seventh anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

Fortunately, Isaac does not appear likely to make landfall stronger than a strong Category 1 hurricane.  Unfortunately, it is a large, slow-moving storm and poses real dangers that have already led to evacuation orders for parts of Plaquemines Parish, Jefferson Parish, and St. Charles Parish.

As meteorologist and former hurricane hunter Dr. Jeff Masters explained this morning, “The latest 8-day precipitation forecast from the GFS model calls for 10 – 20 inches of rain over much of Louisiana.” The  biggest damage is expected to come from the storm surge, which could exceed 10 feet in places. Masters expects that based on its size and trajectory, “Isaac’s storm surge will be about 30% higher than the typical surge one would expect based on the maximum wind speeds.” He discusses the new levee system and concludes, “I expect New Orleans’ new flood defenses will be able to hold back Isaac’s surge, but areas outside the levees are at risk of heavy storm surge damage.”

A good place to capture the mood of New Orleans and the latest updates on the storm is The Times-Picayune website, nola.com. Here’s the front-page noon Monday:

I wonder if the editors were being intentionally ironic by running that headline below an ad for the musical, Les Misérables. The citizens of  New Orleans must feel as if hurricanes are hounding them like Inspector Javert.

Sadly, because of the obstructionism of one political party in particular, the most intense Gulf storms are all but certain to become increasingly destructive in the coming years. As Kevin Trenberth, former head of Climate Analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, explained in the journal Climatic Change this year:

The answer to the oft-asked question of whether an event is caused by climate change is that it is the wrong question. 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 air is on average warmer and moister than it was prior to about 1970 and in turn has likely led to a 5–10 % effect on precipitation and storms that is greatly amplified in extremes. 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.

Global warming fuels more intense deluges from major storms like hurricanes. At the same time, warming-driven sea level rise makes storm surges more destructive. The latest studies find that staying near our current greenhouse emissions emissions path, leads to a foot of sea level rise by mid-century and over 40 inches of sea level rise by 2100 and then seas continue to rise 7 inches or more a decade!

Since much of New Orleans is already below sea level, its battle against deluges and storm surges represents the warming-driven future for all coastal cities in Hurricane Alley.

Since my brother lost his home in Katrina, and that ultimately led to my launching this blog on the one-year anniversary of Katrina, I follow hurricanes and hurricane science closely.

Here is an excerpt from my book, Hell and High Water, about Katrina and what is to come:

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