Climate Climate & Energy

Climate change may force California endemic plants to migrate or die

Climate change is expected to significantly affect California’s endemic plants over the next century as temperatures rise and rainfall patterns change, according to a new study published in the journal PLoS One. Up to two-thirds of the state’s unique plants could be wiped out in their current ranges by century’s end and will have to […]

Offshore drilling has an ‘insignificant’ effect on oil prices

I am glad that so many in the energy debate have picked up on one of the two messages from my previous post (see "EIA to McCain: Drop offshore [drilling]").

But in listening to the radio and TV debates, I realize that some people have the impression that U.S. Energy Information Administration said offshore drilling might eventually lower oil prices. It did not. It found that allowing offshore drilling would have no significant effect on prices as far out into the future as the analysis projected.

Business consulting firm projects robust growth for solar and grid parity in many locations by 2020

McKinsey has a great new analysis piece: “The economics of solar power.” Overall it’s extremely optimistic, saying that despite uncertainties around technology and policy, growth in the solar sector is all but certain to be robust. Here’s a interesting chart. The size of the yellow ball is the size of the solar market in TWh. […]

Even U.S. government says human emissions are changing climate

The U.S. Climate Change Science Program (a.k.a. the Bush Administration) has issued a must-read report, Weather and Climate Extremes in a Changing Climate. It wouldn't be must-read or even big news if it weren't for the fact that

• Many environmentalists stopped talking about the extreme weather/global warming link a decade ago.
• The deniers, the delayers, and of course the Roger Pielkes of the world have pushed back against any claims that climate change is driving the extreme weather we see today. (as Chico Marx (dressed as Groucho) said "Who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?")
• The media has been brow-beaten by the deniers into downplaying the connection. The journalist Ross Gelbspan has a long discussion of this in his great 2004 book, Boiling Point -- I will blog on this later.
• The Midwest is experiencing the second "500-year flood" in 13 years. (Don't worry, big media, it's all just a big coincidence like the deniers keep saying.)

CNN and clean coal

Virginia’s disappearing mountain Eden

As I reported last week, I'm in Appalachia, Va. to attend a hearing by the Virginia Air Resources Board about whether or not Virginia will permit Dominion Power to build a dirty, coal-fired power plant. It's Eden in the Mountains here -- miles and miles of green, forested mountains in every direction. Inside the forests, it's even better. My wife and I went on a hike through old growth hemlock groves (and did a trail-cleaning service project in the nearby Jefferson National Forest) with naturalist and activist Anna Hess of the Clinch Coalition and learned that this region is the most bio-diverse in the mainland United States, with different little endangered salamanders creeping around the top of every mountain and old growth hemlock groves around many corners.

Development in waste-heat-to-electricity technology

Here's a 200 year old idea with merit: A Stirling engine, modified to capture the waste heat of industrial processes to make electricity. Gar noted Stirling Energy Systems' efforts in this vein to make electricity from solar thermal collectors using a Stirling engine a year ago, but instead of the sun, a startup in my neighborhood, ReGen, is developing a Stirling that will specialize in using the low to moderate heat generated by landfill gas systems, paper mills, steel mills, chemical and petroleum refining facilities, glass ovens, cement plants, and similar locations:

Refrigeration without electricity

Here’s Adam Grossner’s brief TED talk, on his effort to create a refrigerator that doesn’t use electricity: (thanks LL!)

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.

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.

-----

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.

---

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.

---