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Hansen on fossil fuels

On tar sands, oil shale, the like, and global warming:

"If we use unconventional fossil fuels then there's no hope."

On the Bush-McCain plan for offshore oil drilling:

"It's just a crazy thing to do."

-- Dr. James Hansen, speaking at a National Press Club luncheon, which honored him and commemorated the 20th anniversary of the landmark 1988 Senate hearing on global warming.

Josh Dorner Politics

Agriculture and energy solutions to avoid the fate of North Korea

John Feffer has a good article over at Asia Times Online.

It points out the deep danger we're in -- how teetery both the world and America's food and energy systems are. It is well worth a read, particularly because of its clear articulation of the bind we're in -- the strategies we've used in the past to get out of disaster will only accelerate collapse in the long-term.. The tools we're using to get more food out of the ground take food from the future.

Sharon Astyk Climate & Energy

The new testimony before Congress

The following is a guest post from climate scientist James Hansen, taken from his briefing to the House Select Committee on Energy Independence & Global Warming.

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My presentation today is exactly 20 years after my June 23, 1988 testimony to Congress, which alerted the public that global warming was underway. There are striking similarities between then and now, but one big difference.

Again a wide gap has developed between what is understood about global warming by the relevant scientific community and what is known by policymakers and the public. Now, as then, frank assessment of scientific data yields conclusions that are shocking to the body politic. Now, as then, I can assert that these conclusions have a certainty exceeding 99 percent.

The difference is that now we have used up all slack in the schedule for actions needed to defuse the global warming time bomb. The next president and Congress must define a course next year in which the United States exerts leadership commensurate with our responsibility for the present dangerous situation.

Otherwise it will become impractical to constrain atmospheric carbon dioxide, the greenhouse-gas produced in burning fossil fuels, to a level that prevents the climate system from passing tipping points that lead to disastrous climate changes that spiral dynamically out of humanity's control.

Changes needed to preserve creation, the planet on which civilization developed, are clear. But the changes have been blocked by special interests, focused on short-term profits, who hold sway in Washington and other capitals.

I argue that a path yielding energy independence and a healthier environment is, barely, still possible. It requires a transformative change of direction in Washington in the next year.

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On 23 June 1988 I testified to a hearing, chaired by Sen. Tim Wirth (D-Colo.), that the Earth had entered a long-term warming trend and that human-made greenhouse-gases almost surely were responsible. I noted that global warming enhanced both extremes of the water cycle, meaning stronger droughts and forest fires, on the one hand, but also heavier rains and floods.

My testimony two decades ago was greeted with skepticism. But while skepticism is the lifeblood of science, it can confuse the public. As scientists examine a topic from all perspectives, it may appear that nothing is known with confidence. But from such broad open-minded study of all data, valid conclusions can be drawn.

My conclusions in 1988 were built on a wide range of inputs from basic physics, planetary studies, observations of on-going changes, and climate models. The evidence was strong enough that I could say it was time to "stop waffling." I was sure that time would bring the scientific community to a similar consensus, as it has.

While international recognition of global warming was swift, actions have faltered. The U.S. refused to place limits on its emissions, and developing countries such as China and India rapidly increased their emissions.

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Grist staff Climate & Energy

S&P cites automakers’ cashflow concerns

Originally posted at the NDN Blog.

While news about high fuel prices this past week centered on disingenuous calls by President Bush and others to drill our way out of the crisis, perhaps the most significant -- and ominous event -- was the barely publicized action by S&P Friday to place the Big Three U.S. automakers on a credit watch. In taking the action, S&P cited "renewed concerns about the three car makers' future cash flows."

Given Ford's preexisting troubles -- accentuated by its announcement last week as well that it is postponing relaunch of its star vehicle, the F150 truck -- Chrysler's uncertain future under private equity management, and GM's plummeting market share, the announcement raises real questions about the survival of the U.S. auto industry.

Domestic car sales were already down about two million vehicles this year from their high in 2006 before the current fuel crisis. Plummeting sales and oceans of red ink -- as customers struggling under the weight of sky-high consumer debt payments and declining wages eschew the gas guzzling stars of only two years ago -- threaten the U.S. auto industry's very existence. The potential collapse of the Big Three -- still the second largest employer in the country after the government -- calls into question the very essence of the American way of life.

Michael Moynihan Technology

Thoughts on the 20th anniversary of James Hansen’s historic Congressional testimony

In Greek mythology, Cassandra was given the gift of prophecy -- of seeing the future. But she was also cursed to have no one believe her. For far too many years, Dr. James Hansen has been a modern-day Cassandra. Gifted with a scientific training that allowed him to see the forces at work that are warming the planet, for too many years he was also not believed by many who chose to ignore or deny the scientific reality of global warming.

Today, it is my pleasure to welcome Dr. James Hansen back to Capitol Hill on this 23rd of June 2008. It was twenty years ago today in 1988 that Dr. Hansen first came to Congress to deliver his message about global warming. He stated: "The greenhouse effect has been detected, and it is changing our climate now."

Dr. Hansen, who currently serves as the director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and a professor of the Earth and Environmental Sciences Department at Columbia University, is a pioneer in modeling research and showed rising greenhouse gas levels would cause "temperature changes sufficiently large to have major impacts on people and other parts of the biosphere."

Dr. Hansen has been more than just a leader within the global warming research community. He has served as a spokesperson communicating the global warming science to the public. Dr. Hansen has stood up to pressure to change the tone of his scientific research for political reasons in order to ensure that the pubic receives the most accurate information possible about climate change.

Over the past twenty years, the body of evidence Dr. Hansen and his colleagues began has only continued to grow. It recently resulted in the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report showing how rising concentrations of man made pollutants are changing the climate of our planet. The debate is over. Global warming is here. Dr. Hansen was right.

Ed Markey Politics

Snippets from the news

• Supreme Court will hear Navy challenge to whale-protecting order. • Obama campaign closely linked with ethanol. • Converted plug-in hybrid catches fire. • Students green up college curricula. • World’s biggest solar plant goes online. • Machu Picchu at risk from tourists.

Grist staff Uncategorized

Hansen marks 20th anniversary of landmark testimony to Congress with renewed call to action

James Hansen. Photo: nasa.gov It was a sweltering June 23 in Washington, D.C., when climatologist James Hansen, head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, appeared before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to testify about his certainty that the record high temperatures were the result of human activity. That was 20 years […]

Kate Sheppard Politics

French capital will implement electric-car-sharing program

Having successfully implemented a bike–sharing program, Paris is revving up plans to provide electric cars that residents can pick up and drop off anywhere in the city. Mayor Bertrand Delanoë announced that 4,000 electric cars will be made available by the end of the next year at 700 pickup points. “There will be a computerized […]

Grist staff Cities

Will California’s climate change regulations mandate maximum emission reductions?

[This post is follow-up to a David Roberts post from Jan. '08: "What does California's climate bill mandate?"]

Sometime later this month, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) will release its draft "Scoping Plan" on implementation of the state's Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB 32), which requires that statewide GHG emissions be reduced to or below 1990-level emissions by 2020.

AB 32 also requires that the regulations "achieve the maximum technologically feasible and cost-effective greenhouse gas emission reductions." Furthermore, the regulations must be designed "in a manner that is equitable, seeks to minimize costs and maximize the total benefits to California, and encourages early action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions".

The law authorizes a variety of regulatory measures, but CARB's Scoping Plan effort has focused primarily on cap-and-trade, following the precedent set by the U.S. Acid Rain program. Cap-and-trade can be effective at achieving a specific emission target at minimum cost -- but how does the requirement for maximum emission reductions fit in with this approach?

Ken Johnson Politics

EDF chief rejects oil drilling as response to energy woes

This is a response to this post.