Climate Climate & Energy

Nice way of life. Shame if something happened to it.

According to ACCCE, if we don’t use coal, we’ll have to wave goodbye to the American way of life:

Science: Geo-engineering scheme damages the ozone layer

Science has published a major new study, "The Sensitivity of Polar Ozone Depletion to Proposed Geoengineering Schemes" ($ub. req'd). The study finds:

The large burden of sulfate aerosols injected into the stratosphere by the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 cooled Earth and enhanced the destruction of polar ozone in the subsequent few years. The continuous injection of sulfur into the stratosphere has been suggested as a "geoengineering" scheme to counteract global warming. We use an empirical relationship between ozone depletion and chlorine activation to estimate how this approach might influence polar ozone. An injection of sulfur large enough to compensate for surface warming caused by the doubling of atmospheric CO2 would strongly increase the extent of Arctic ozone depletion during the present century for cold winters and would cause a considerable delay, between 30 and 70 years, in the expected recovery of the Antarctic ozone hole.

Of course, this geo-engineering scheme has lots of other problems. An earlier study noted:

Amnesty International: forced labor in Brazil’s sugarcane fields

As the case for corn-based ethanol unravels, a lot of pundits and green-minded investors have settled on a new panacea: ethanol from sugar cane, which thrives in the tropics. Thomas Friedman has been blustering about it for years now; Richard Branson recently hinted he might start investing in it. Sugarcane is a deeply ironic crop […]

New report calls for climate action, but not everyone’s listening

With more coastline than any state in the lower 48 and about a tenth of its economy ($65 billion a year) based on tourism, Florida has more to lose than any other state from the threats of global warming. Rising sea levels creep closer to coastal development. Warmer tropics fuel stronger hurricanes. And higher ocean temperatures kill coral and harm fish populations, threatening the state's $4.5 billion sportfishing industry.

Plenty of reasons that a report released yesterday should serve as a call to action on preparing for inevitable changes from global warming and cutting emissions now to avoid the worst impacts. Preparing for a Sea Change in Florida was produced by a broad coalition of environmental groups.

The report makes several key recommendations:

What a ranking of cities can tell us — and what it can’t

There's a big carbon footprint report out yesterday from Brookings. It ranks cities [PDF] according to their per capita carbon emissions. Sort of, anyway.

Before I pick on it a little, I guess I should mention that Pacific Northwest cities do exceptionally well. Out of the 100 cities in the analysis, Portland ranks 3rd, Boise is 5th, and Seattle 6th. There's very little difference between them.

That's wonderful and all, but the analysis only covers about 50 percent of emissions. It excludes, for instance, commercial and industrial energy, maritime and aviation emissions, and some other significant pieces of the pie.

More than 1,700 scientists and economists call for deep cuts in U.S. emissions

You know how some wackadoo rightwing group is always touting a new list of scientists who don’t believe in global warming? And it always turns out the list is populated with a bunch of random people who either don’t know they’re on it or don’t have the first bit of expertise on the subject? Well, […]

Humanity’s fate is not tied to coal’s

The clean coal PR push is looking more and more hollow. In The NYT, Matt Wald paints a grim picture: cost overruns, technological uncertainty, waning support from utilities, and a mess of unanswered questions about everything from security to legal liability. But one assumption running through the article needs to be exposed and unequivocally rejected. […]

Heinberg raises doubts about coal reserves

Energy analyst Richard Heinberg is working on a book about coal, tentatively titled Coal’s Future/Earth’s Fate, to be published by Post Carbon Press in spring 2009. It’s sure to be vital reading for anyone interested in tracking, understanding, and battling the enemy of the human race. Happily, Heinberg is publishing working drafts of various parts […]

U.S. public transit overwhelmed by increased ridership, higher fuel costs

Public transit agencies across the United States are lately encountering a curious double-bind: ridership has increased quickly and dramatically, straining current capacity, and at the same time, significantly higher fuel costs have stretched many transit budgets too far. If the current ridership boom had taken hold when fuel prices were much lower, transit agencies would […]

Two scientists offer a grim preview of where humanity is headed

Feel like you’re just not depressed enough today? Read the last bit of this Dot Earth post: During a break, I asked [Nobel prize-winning atmospheric chemist Dr. F. Sherwood] Rowland two quick questions. The first: Given the nature of the climate and energy challenges, what is his best guess for the peak concentration of carbon […]