Climate Climate & Energy

Sobering dispatches from Alaska

The melting and erosion of permafrost is probably the most visible manifestation of climate change in Alaska.

Photo: Seth Kantner, www.kapvikphotography.com

Author and photographer Seth Kantner has a new blog that shares his observations of a changing Arctic in words and images. From trees invading the tundra and freakish weather to the hair-raising loss of the permafrost, it's a must-read. His phenomenal book Ordinary Wolves (one of my favorites of the last 10 years) takes place in the town of Kotzebue on the northwest coast of Alaska (where he's from), where the tundra is literally melting away from underfoot and into the sea.

Revisiting the climate-science funding question

In the public climate change debate, one often hears the argument that scientists are making hysterical claims about climate change in order to get funding. I already blogged about how the argument fails the "common sense" test, but I think this issue deserves another post.

Kerry Emanual and Chris Landsea, two of the major players in the debate over the connection between climate change and hurricanes, have visited A&M in the last three weeks and both gave seminars in my department. It is clear from their two talks that there is a vigorous scientific debate going on about the connection. After seeing both of them present their case, it is clear that this is an incredibly difficult problem and that no firm conclusions can be drawn at the present time. I certainly expect future research will shed more light on this question.

So let's evaluate the hypothesis that the scientific community is fabricating hysterical and frightening results to bump up funding. If that were so, why is there an active debate about the climate change-hurricane connection? Shouldn't the hurricane community fabricate the result that hurricanes and climate change are related? According to the skeptics, this would result in increased funding.

Here is what I conclude about this:

The case for a sustainability emergency

The pressure to soft-pedal is very, very high. I know because I feel it. I'm tempted. I do not wish to be dismissed as an apocalyptic. So when I read, in this fine and even astonishing report, that "politics as usual" must be cast aside, and quickly, there's something in me that balks.

After all, the mainline debate at Bali was about a "25-40% cut by 2020" for the developed countries. Isn't this enough? Doesn't it tell us that we're already moving as quickly as we can? Must we call for emergency mobilization? Must we seek to put all "available and necessary resources" at the service of a global crash program to stabilize the climate?

Nuclear power and fossil fuels face water crises and other problems

This post is by ClimateProgress guest blogger Bill Becker, executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project.

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It has not been a good year so far for King Coal, Big Oil, and whatever nickname we give to the nuclear energy industry.

Two weeks ago, TIME reported that nuclear plants in the southeastern U.S. may be forced to cut power production or temporarily shut down later this year because the year-long drought has left too little water to cool the reactors.

There already has been one drought-related shutdown in Alabama. And while officials aren't yet predicting brownouts, utilities will be forced to buy expensive replacement power from other places, leading to "shockingly high electric bills for millions of southerners."

Unfortunately, the Southeast is precisely where the nuclear energy industry has been looking as the best location for new power plants, in part because they believe there is less public resistance there. We'll see how the public feels when those "shockingly high electric bills" arrive in the mail.

The South's problems are not unique. The Associated Press reports that 24 of the nation's 104 nukes are in areas experiencing the most severe drought.

Then came an email from the chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell to his staff, predicting that the production of conventional oil supplies won't be able to keep pace with world demand after 2015 -- a mere seven years from now.

That's very bad news for oil-dependent economies, including ours. Five of the last seven recessions in the U.S. economy have been preceded by big increases in the price of oil (PDF), and today's oil prices are one of the factors being blamed for the economic slowdown and possible recession we're experiencing now. The email from Shell's Jeroen van der Veer suggests that unless we figure out how to replace conventional oil or how to stop economic development and population growth around the world, high oil prices are here to stay. It's the old law of supply and demand.

Way better than oil dependence

Conservatives love energy independence and nuclear power. In other news (sub rqd): Russia could earn more than $5 billion selling nuclear fuel to U.S. utilities over the next 10 years under an agreement it reached Friday with the Bush administration. The Commerce Department deal allows Russia to sell low-enriched uranium and other uranium products directly […]

Scientists identify ecological systems most at risk from climate change

Scientists have identified the ecological systems most at risk from climate change in a study published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers warned that within 100 years, a series of tipping points could occur that will significantly alter important ecological systems. Most at risk, according to the study: […]

Nelly, reimagined

Jenny Owen Youngs covers “It’s Getting Hot In Here,” gives it an eco-bent:

Climate change mitigation in fewer than seven words

In response to David's challenge, I decided to summarize not only the problem of global warming, but the solution, in fewer than seven words. I cheated, of course -- each word is an acronym (one stolen from David), with a phrase behind it and an accompanying elevator speech.

The elevator speeches follow:

XTRA-COOL: (XTRA Carbon Out Of Our Lives)

Fossil fuels, logging, and industrial agriculture all emit carbon and other greenhouse gases, and turn the atmosphere into a garbage dump for those emissions. It turns out that we have filled up all that dump space we can use safely; the overflow is already causing disasters, and continued emissions will lead to catastrophes, including famine, flooding, diseases, and mass deaths from climate extremes. To prevent as much of this as possible, we need to stop the extra carbon emissions by phasing out the use of fossil fuels, and switching to more sustainable forestry and agriculture.

Green energy projects bloom in California

Right on the heels of Tappergate, The New York Times comes out with a couple of articles exploring the economic benefits of fighting global warming. As is evident to anyone but a Taphole, the energy business is the largest business there ever is or was or will be, and therein lies not only enormous money-making opportunities but jobs, jobs, jobs. These things, we hear, are good for the economy.

So, take California, which decided to get serious about developing a solar industry. The state committed $3 billion in declining incentives over a 10-year period, and in return leveraged a lot more than that in private equity. Venture capitalists have put $625 million into California solar companies in 2007 alone. Manufacturers are feverishly commercializing new technologies, and if you can spell solar you can get a job out here.

So, how does an enterprising young state get a piece of that action? I'm glad you asked. Last Wednesday, in Denver, with Governor Ritter on hand, we released a report that we developed with the Center for American Progress titled "Developing State Photovoltaic Markets" (PDF). It's a blueprint for making a solar market work. The premise here is that the key to lowering solar's costs -- and generating good jobs while you are at it -- is creating markets. The folks at NREL have done a great job in developing the technology; photovoltaics work great. Government R&D efforts should be redoubled, but using policy to open markets will leverage orders of magnitude more in private equity and further accelerate solar's entry into the mainstream.

Secondly, without an extension of the federal investment tax credit, everything we are trying to do gets 30 percent harder -- and it's quite hard enough as it is, thank you very much. There's a great argument to be made for putting an extension in the financial stimulus package, as the Senate is currently considering. Congress, if you are reading this, won't you please consider a very easy action that will jumpstart the economy, fight global warming, and establish energy independence all at the same time? These things are popular with voters, we hear.

Vaporware

It’s a few days old now, but don’t miss Tyler Hamilton’s column on CCS in the Toronto Star. It focuses on Canada, but the story is basically the same: despite all the talk and hype, carbon capture and storage is a long, long way off, subject to enormous logistics problems, and uncertain to succeed even […]