Climate Climate & Energy

The ‘hell’ before the ‘high water’ in the U.S.

I just wanted to alert Grist readers to an excellent post at The Oil Drum called "Fire and Rain: The Consequences of Changing Climate on Rainfall, Wildfire and Agriculture." The author points out that "Current climate change predictions for much of the West show increased precipitation in the winter or spring, along with earlier and drier summers." To summarize his post, the drier summers will have profound impacts on the forests, grasslands, and agricultural areas.

It seems that many kinds of trees are very delicately attuned to particular patterns of precipitation and temperature; changes lead to weakening, disease, and then "megafires" that are much more destructive than "normal" fires. The author discusses the biggest fires in American history, over 100 years ago, that seem to have been caused by the massive deforestation then occurring. A question I have is, is the dessication of the American West similar to the accelerating dessication of the Amazon, both the result of deforestation?

The post also discusses the plight of agricultural areas; basically, you're damned if you depend on rainfall that will be decreasing during the summer, and you're damned if you depend on irrigation, because the aquifers and mountain ice packs are decreasing. He details the effects on grains and other agricultural produce. I didn't know that potatoes, orchards, and vegetables all depend on irrigation for most of their water needs.

I realize that modeling the long-term behavior of the climate is hard enough, but it seems to me that it would be important to model the effects of those changes on our local ecosystems as well.

Mary Matalin calls global warming ‘a largely unscientific hoax’

Mary Matalin, conservative operative and wife of liberal operative James Carville, explained on CNN today why conservatives don't like McCain's views on global warming: It's "a largely unscientific hoax." Oh, well, then never mind.

Her husband takes a different view (duh): "What we need to do, as a party, is try our best to focus on those two issues, energy independence and global warming, above the other environmental and energy issues out there."

So to him, global warming is the top environmental issue. To her it is a hoax. If they can be married, why can't the Sunnis and Shiites live in harmony?

Grid, grid, grid

Tyler Hamilton speak. You listen.

United Nations calls climate change a matter of human rights

If climate change is a “largely unscientific hoax” and “political concoction” (in the words of Republican strategist Mary Matalin), it’s a hoax and concoction that could threaten the rights of millions of people. Or so said the United Nations deputy high commissioner for human rights this week. “Ultimately climate change may affect the very right […]

Gas pricing, Big Oil, and carbon pricing

Apropos of British Columbia's big announcement, I have some ranting to get off my chest. One of the most frustrating things about U.S. climate policy is the reflexive fear that if we ever raise the price of gas -- or of driving generally -- people will riot in the streets or something. This makes it exceedingly difficult to rearrange the economy away from oil and its carbon contents.

But, of course, the price of gas keeps rising anyway. In fact, crude oil prices have more than tripled over the last half-dozen years, with futures closing above $100 recently.

To be sure, there's a silver lining to higher prices: they really do dampen demand, despite what you hear all the time. But it's a silver lining to a dark and ugly cloud: high energy prices mean that consumers are taking it on the chin -- and especially low-income consumers. And worse, all the revenue from the high prices goes to the energy companies. If prices had risen because of taxes or carbon fees, then the public could be reaping the windfall that big oil is raking in now.

For a decade, lawmakers have balked at the prospect of $20-per-ton carbon taxes (a figure that is sometimes kicked around as a price that would get us on the right track). Eighty dollars per ton sets off screaming and wailing. But those figures translate into an additional 20 to 78 cents, respectively, per gallon at the pump. In the time that we've all been afraid of those comparatively modest figures, the price at the pump has jumped $2 or more.

We could have been intentional about getting ourselves off oil, and about protecting consumers from price spikes. But instead, we've opted for the expensive and volatile route: we'll do nothing and hope for the best.

Now let's just hope we can figure out a cap-and-trade program that doesn't send any price signal to drivers.

How to make the case against coal

Synapse Energy Economics has recently put together a report for NRDC that ought to be required reading for anyone who objects to dirty or expensive power (e.g., coal-fired, central station power). The report, entitled "The Risks of Participating in the AMPGS Coal Plant" (PDF), is ostensibly only about a specific 960MW plant that AMP wants to build in Ohio. But their report speaks volumes about the larger economic and environmental challenges to coal-fired central station power, and provides a wealth of hard data to those who (admittedly, like me) believe that we have vastly cheaper and cleaner options to serve our growing power needs.

It is also notable for its self-restraint, arguing against the plant in purely economic rather than moral terms. For this reason among others, it ought to be mandatory reading for any environmentalist looking for a framework to support cleaner power.

Two huge power plants offer different paths forward

In Sweetwater, Texas, a company called Tenaska has applied to build what will be the nation’s first bona fide "clean coal" plant — an IGCC plant that will capture and sequester CO2 emissions. (Said emissions will be used to pump more oil out of the Permian Basin oil fields, which will then be burned and […]

There was no consensus about global cooling in the ’70s, says study

The scientific consensus in the 1970s about “global cooling” is a beloved argument of global-warming skeptics — and little more, says a survey of scientific literature between 1965 and 1979. During that time period, seven peer-reviewed articles supported global cooling, while 44 predicted global warming. “There was no scientific consensus in the 1970s that the […]

China kicks off the coal-to-liquids rush

Looks like China is about to uncork the CTL genie, opening a plant to produce liquid fuel from coal. This won’t be the last: A study last year by the Chinese Academy of Sciences said: “Production of liquid fuels from coal is practically the most feasible route to cope with the dilemma in oil supply.” […]

Giant pythons could spread in southern U.S., say feds

You may think you’re prepared for climate change — solar-powered fan, flood insurance, nostalgic polar-bear picture, check, check, check — but are you prepared for 20-foot, 250-pound snakes? Giant Burmese pythons could find some one-third of the United States to be habitable climate by 2100, according to a new map published by the U.S. Geological […]