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On 'mitigating' coal damage

This NYT editorial on the mythiness of "clean coal" is most welcome, but the conclusion rubs me the wrong way:

But coal remains an inherently dirty fuel, and a huge contributor to not only ground-level pollution -- including acid rain and smog -- but also global warming. The sooner the country understands that, the closer it will be to mitigating the damage.

If coal is inherently dirty, why should we confine our ambitions to "mitigating the damage"? Why not try to stop using it?

You never see this when people talk about oil. When people rehearse the damage oil is doing to our atmosphere, our land, and our geopolitical posture, they do not finish by meekly calling on Americans to clean up the messes. They say we should reduce and eventually eliminate our use of oil.

Why is coal different?

I know, I know, it's domestic, but domestic poison still kills. It's got to be more than that, no?

We need to cut emissions faster than 80 percent by 2050, but how fast?

For a long time, the climate science consensus suggested that to avoid increased average surface temperatures beyond those to which our civilization could adapt, we need to reduce emissions 80 percent by 2050. (No one suggested we stop there, but that goal was advocated as a way to avoid tipping points.)

There were voices from the beginning arguing that this was too slow a phase-out. But as Joe Romm has argued, the consensus-seeking nature of the IPCC process tends to downplay and ignore real dangers. It has become obvious that we need to reduce emissions faster than the conventional wisdom of a few years ago suggested.

For example, the rate at which the oceans absorb CO2 has slowed drastically as they become saturated. This suggests another tipping point looms: when the oceans begin to release the CO2 they contain, they'll become a source rather than a sink. At any rate, if the ability of nature to absorb our emissions has dropped, we have to cut emissions more than we would have.

Similarly, the ice caps are melting at a much faster rate than mainstream predictions suggested. Because water reflects less heat than ice, this is another cooling mechanism that has been reduced. Again, we have to cut those emissions faster than we planned.

How fast do we need to cut emissions?

Cataloging the unintended consequences and effects of gene tinkering

Here's a new database, Nontarget.org, that catalogs the unintended (nontarget) effects of the uncontrolled experiment being conducted with all life on earth: that is, GMOs.

When foreign genes are introduced into an organism, creating a transgenic organism or GMO, the results are almost always unpredictable. As the site says, "The intended result may or may not be achieved in any given case, but the one almost sure thing is that unintended results -- nontarget effects -- will also be achieved ... These facts have been, and are being, widely reported in the scientific literature. While they are correcting our understanding in important ways, they are not at all controversial."

New kids' book teaches about climate science without being scary

Ms. Frizzle is nowhere in sight, but this kids' book about climate science is doing just fine. How We Know What We Know About Our Changing Climate: Scientists and Kids Explore Global Warming, by Lynne Cherry and Gary Braasch, has netted a slew of awards, including being deemed one of the best middle-grade science books of the year by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The book, which features Braasch's photography, encourages kids to observe their surroundings and participate in climate science research -- without drenching them in doom. It offers upbeat real-life tales of students in three U.S. states and Puerto Rico tracking their local weather and connecting that to the Earth's atmosphere, as well as tips on how to live more greenly, like avoiding bottled water and eating less meat. Grist board member Bill McKibben called it "empowering!" -- and the man doesn't lie.

Peek inside the book here. And keep your eyes out for a series of related short videos, being produced by Lynne Cherry, that put the spotlight on kids shrinking the carbon footprint of their communities.

Green Corps

I once bought Nancy Skinner (then executive director of the Climate Group, now my state assemblywoman) a coffee in exchange for hiring advice. Her latte's worth of wisdom: Don't stop interviewing until you find a campaigner -- someone who knows how to rally people behind an idea and make change happen.

If you want to be that kind of person, I can think of no better path than to join Green Corps. Some of the best campaigners I know came out of their training program -- Vote Solar's Claudia Eyzaguirre and Bernadette Del Chiaro of Environment California immediately come to mind. Their alumni parties are like the who's who of the progressive movement. Applications are due soon, so get on it ...

A closer look at current U.S. CO2 pricing

Kevin Drum over at Mother Jones blogged on my recent Grist post, joining my mom in the list of people who publicly praise my math skills. Thanks!

Much more interestingly, he raises this question:

Are we wiling to charge [a price for CO2 emissions] openly, with the carbon charges going to the public, [or] inside a complex giveaway to a favored corporation?

(The question is in response to my estimate here that the recently passed Illinois Clean Coal Portfolio Standards Act represents an implicit $300-$500-per-ton payment in the name of CO2 reduction.)

It's a great question because the truth is that under current federal and state policy, we do pay people for their actions to reduce CO2. But we do so in a horribly inconsistent way, providing not only inconsistency between technologies and "favored corporations," but also wild disparities in price.

For instance, suppose you're getting $0.03 per kWh from your state renewable portfolio standard. Those kWh displace -- on average -- 1,300 lb per MWh of U.S. power, and you are therefore being paid $46 per ton of CO2 you reduce. CO2 reduction is not the only justification for RPS policies, but would we ever have an RPS if we didn't care about CO2? I doubt it.

The good news there is that people are, today, being paid in the U.S. for reducing CO2. But is there any rhyme or reason to their price? And is it at all consistent with what others are getting for the same environmental service?

More math below the fold.

The idiocy of crowds or, rather, the idiocy of (crowded) debates

Once again, three climate activists who are not terribly good at debating agreed to participate in a decidedly unscientific format against people who mostly make stuff up. And what a shock, it had a bad outcome -- although this one seems to be partly a result of gaming the vote as much as anything else.

In 2007, it was the now-infamous climate science debate, broadcast by NPR on the proposition "Global warming is not a crisis." The pro-science side lost to the anti-science make-stuff-up side (Michael Crichton, Richard Lindzen, Philip Stott) on that one.

So you can imagine what happened when the debate proposition moved over to economics, "Major Reductions in Carbon Emissions Are Not Worth the Money" -- especially with the 'pro' (i.e. delayer) side handled by three world-class economist-loving liars make-stuff-uppers: Bjorn Lomborg, Peter Huber, and Stott (details here, transcript here [PDF] and, for true masochists, NPR audio here).

(Note No. 1 to all pro-climate-action debaters: It is very hard to win a staged debate with people who make stuff up. It is next to impossible to do so if they are skilled debaters. And you are guaranteed to lose if it isn't a one-on-one debate. Why? The only way to out-debate somebody who makes stuff up is to call them out on it. And if they keep doing it, you have to keep calling them out. Even the most skilled debater has difficulty publicly questioning the honesty and integrity of opponent again and again (which is why you rarely see anyone attempt it). But you'll never convince an audience that multiple 'experts' are making stuff up.)

The final result of this absurdly unscientific and meaningless activity was preordained. It was also so bogus that even the organization that put on the pointless debate actually acknowledged in its own press release (here) that part of the audience (the conservatives, of course) gamed the system:

Deep thought

Reliance on oil brings a stream of calls to "break our addiction" and find "alternative sources." Reliance on coal brings a stream of paeans to the importance of coal.

A sandstorm of renewable energy news from the World Future Energy Summit

Abu Dhabi hosted its second World Future Energy Summit earlier this week, with some 16,000 business leaders, green-tech researchers and politicians bravely forgoing northern winters for the Persian Gulf state's subtropic sun. Judging by news reports, attendees forgot the world economy is supposed to be in a panicky, keep-your-money-in-your-mattress mode, and instead engaged in a three-day fiesta of deal-making and bold renewable energy announcements. Here's a run-down:

* The host city pledged that 7 percent of its energy would come from renewable sources by 2020, up from zero today.

* GE announced plans for its Ecomagination Centre, an R&D showcase of wind, solar, water purification, and energy efficiency technologies. It will be built in Masdar City, Abu Dhabi's car-free, carbon-neutral metropolis powered completely by renewable energy. The capital of the United Arab Emirates used the summit to show off the $22 billion Masdar project, which is under construction.

* Hometown English-language newspaper The National framed the summit as a coming-out party for solar power, saying the industry has been growing "much faster than official institutions and the public think":

Long dismissed as a peripheral contributor to the world's energy matrix, technologies harnessing the sun's energy are now benefitting from billions of dollars of investment, which has rapidly increased their efficiency and cut their costs.

That optimism doesn't jibe with dire reports of the U.S. solar industry faltering amid the credit crisis and declining oil prices. But consider that the Emirates have the distinct advantages of year-round sun and the crazy amounts of oil money that enable underwater hotels, man-made islands and a $63,000 per capita income in Abu Dhabi. A $15 billion solar investment from the Masdar initiative won't hurt the local industry either.

* Several news outlets noted the unlikelihood of the oil-rich emirates becoming renewable energy leaders, including Time's Bryan Walsh, who sees it as a logical diversification strategy:

In the long term, developers of renewables know they'll win. Climate change aside, the simple fact that energy demand will continue growing rapidly once the downturn has ended means that new supplies will be needed. And no one including oil giants of the Middle East believe that fossil fuels alone will meet that gap.

Carbon price volatility is a real issue

Both The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal were at it this week, flogging stories about how falling carbon prices are threatening clean technology. I've written before about how easy it is to get distracted by carbon prices, which, under cap-and-trade, are more of a symptom of a broader issue, not a cause.

The Journal piece is fairly defensible. The Times piece is fairly hopeless:

Another blow to the sector is the tumbling price of permits for emitting carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas. In countries where emitters must buy these permits, like those in the European Union, low prices mean emitters have fewer incentives to make their production process more efficient or move to less greenhouse gas intensive fuels.