Climate Climate & Energy

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.

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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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EDF chief rejects oil drilling as response to energy woes

This is a response to this post.

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I had the pleasure of appearing on PBS' Charlie Rose last week for a wide-ranging conversation about climate change and how we can reinvent our energy economy with cap-and-trade. As Grist readers know, EDF has been pushing hard for a strong cap on greenhouse gases to fight global warming and help break our addiction to oil.

 

The Midwest will suffer if we don’t change our approach to flood protection

We've heard a lot this week about how the floods in the Midwest might be an act of humans -- or an act of City Council, as one Iowan leader put it. We can start the futile cycle of fighting Mother Nature again if we want to: spend billions of dollars on levees and flood control infrastructure, encouraging development of river floodplains and low-lying wetlands, then watch those homes and businesses be overrun by flood water.

 

A Cambridge physicist’s cooling summer treat

Download "Sustainable Energy -- Without the hot air" for free. You'll be glad you did.

Solar thermal can save us, but it needs public clamor

[Editor's note: When this post was originally run, the phrase "100 miles by 100 miles" was changed to "100 square miles," which is very different. The article has now been corrected (or rather, unmiscorrected) and the appropriate intern flogged; our apologies to Ted and Alex.]

This post was coauthored with Alex Carlin, organizer of Let's Go Solar and instigator of the recent Environment America study (PDF), "On the Rise: Solar Thermal Power and the Fight Against Global Warming."

Every day more people are finally hearing about what Joe Romm calls "the solar power you don't hear about" -- solar thermal power, utility-scale arrays of mirrors that create heat (and then electricity) so efficiently that they can do everything a coal plant can do except melt the South Pole.

Without any special promotion, solar thermal (concentrating solar power, or CSP) will eventually grow into a major supplier of our electric grid, simply because, according to the California Energy Commission, it is an increasingly economical technology with per kilowatt-hour costs estimated to be 27 percent lower than new integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) coal plants with carbon capture-and-storage -- 12.7 cents/kWh for CSP versus 17.3 cents/kwh for IGCC plus CCS.

The technology is moving forward, with five plants already operational, eight under construction, and 20 more announced. Several of these plants include on-site thermal storage, an option that makes CSP a reliable source of baseload power.

The problem is the timeline of global warming. If we take seriously what the science is telling us, we must conclude that CSP has arrived in the nick of time. James Hansen's latest team effort (PDF) tells us that earth has had many eras with ice-free North and South Poles. The report concludes: "If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed ... CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm." On the other hand, if we continue to burn coal for our electric power, those poles will melt, sending sea levels so high that cities like New York and Miami would have no chance to survive.

You probably already knew that, but did you know this? Just 100 miles by 100 miles of CSP installations would supply 100 percent of the U.S. electric grid. That's being conservative: Ausra's chairman David Mills pegs the figure at 92 miles by 92 miles. Put similar installations in Morocco for Europe and the Gobi desert for China and we have our golden opportunity -- our last chance -- of keeping those poles under ice and our cities above water.

How much land is 100 miles by 100 miles?

Lake Chad now one-tenth of its 1972 size

Satellite images show Lake Chad one-tenth the size it was in 1972, not even 40 years ago. Lake Chad used to be the world's sixth-largest lake, but its resources have been diverted for human use or affected by rainfall such that its been almost entirely depleted in a very short amount of time:

Americans drove less in April 2008

April 2008 saw another sharp drop in vehicle miles traveled (VMT) according to the Federal Highway Administration's monthly report on "Traffic Volume Trends" (PDF). This follows, "the sharpest yearly drop for any month in FHWA history" in March (see here).

I was compelled to blog on this because of the incredibly astute media coverage by AFP, "worldwide news agency," which wins the "Duh!" award for the month:

Observers surmise a possible link between the declining number of miles driven and rising US gasoline prices.

Greenland can warm 2-4°C in one year

A new article in Science Express (PDF)($ub. req'd), "High-Resolution Greenland Ice Core Data Show Abrupt Climate Change Happens in Few Years," examines, "The last two abrupt warmings at the onset of our present warm interglacial period." The article explores the underlying causes of ...

... abrupt shifts of northern hemisphere atmospheric circulation resulting in 2-4°K changes in Greenland moisture source temperature from one year to the next.

The article concludes that

... polar atmospheric circulation can shift in 1-3 years resulting in decadal to centennial scale changes from cold stadials to warm interstadials/interglacials associated with astounding Greenland temperature changes of 10°K. Neither the magnitude of such shifts nor their abruptnesses are currently captured by state of the art climate models.

The time to act is yesterday.

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

On Charlie Rose, EDF leader Fred Krupp endorses domestic drilling for new oil

EDF chief Fred Krupp appeared on the Charlie Rose show yesterday. For the most part, it was the usual stumping for cap-and-trade. However, Rose pushed him on the question of whether, in the short-term, we need to drill for new oil. After quite a bit of dodging and weaving, Krupp, rather startlingly, said we should […]