Climate Climate & Energy

Global warming and the California wildfires

Global warming makes wildfires more likely and more destructive -- as many scientific studies have concluded. Why? Global warming leads to more intense droughts, hotter weather, earlier snowmelt (hence less humid late summers and early autumns), and more tree infestations (like the pine beetle). That means wildfires are a dangerous amplifying feedback, whereby global warming causes more wildfires, which release carbon dioxide, thereby accelerating global warming.

The climate-wildfire link should be a special concern in a country where wildfires have burned an area larger than the state of Idaho since 2000.

I write this as my San Diego relatives wait anxiously in their hotel room to find out if their Rancho Santa Fe home has been destroyed. This is a beautiful home that I lived in for a month when I moved to the area in the mid-1980s to study at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Can we say that the brutal San Diego wildfires were directly caused by global warming? Princeton's Michael Oppenheimer put it this way on NBC Nightly News Tuesday:

China has not officially endorsed a carbon price

As I mentioned yesterday, a new report from the InterAcademy Council advocates for a price on carbon (among many other things). I started reading it last night, and it’s fantastic — more on it later. The report was commissioned by China and Brazil. The foreword is by Lu Yongxiang, president of the Chinese Academy of […]

Pearce on Gore

Socially progressive publishing house Beacon has a new blog, Beacon Broadside, where its authors post. One of the first posts is from Fred Pearce, author of, among other books, With Speed and Violence: Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in Climate Change. It’s called "Al and Me,” and defends Gore against the charge that he exaggerated […]

Climate change signals in the Caucasus Mountains

The following is a guest essay from Eric Pallant, professor of environmental science at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pa., and codirector of the NATO Advanced Study Institute on Integrated Water Resources Management. He is reporting from the National Disasters and Water Security conference in Yerevan, Armenia.

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October 20, 2007

The last time there was dramatic climate change in Armenia, Noah built an ark, floated for 40 days and nights, and disembarked on Mount Ararat. Armenians insist they have a piece of his old boat in a local museum. Mount Ararat serves as a useful backdrop, snowcapped and picturesque, for the NATO meeting on Natural Disasters and Water Security.

Mount Ararat makes an appearance in the morning light. (Photo: Eric Pallant)

California delays lawsuit against EPA due to wildfires

Photo: Kevin Labianco The lawsuit California threatened to file against the U.S. EPA for delaying a pending decision on the state’s 2005 vehicle greenhouse-gas emissions law was not filed today as expected. It’s been stalled due to raging wildfires.

Stossel

Does John Stossel have the brains God gave a chicken wing? Most people say no. Some say yes. One thing’s for sure: the debate isn’t over!

The ocean carbon sink is saturating

The long-feared saturation of one the world's primary carbon sinks has apparently started. The BBC reports, "The amount of carbon dioxide being absorbed by the world's oceans has reduced."

After 10 years and more than 90,000 ship-based measurements of CO2 absorption, University of East Anglia researchers reached this stunning conclusion:

CO2 uptake halved between the mid-90s and 2000 to 2005.

The BBC writes: "Scientists believe global warming might get worse if the oceans soak up less of the greenhouse gas."

Sigh. Note to the BBC, you don't need a double hedge: If you're going to just say "might get worse" you surely can drop "Scientists believe." Frankly I doubt you can find many, if any, reputable scientists -- or even the few remaining deniers -- who would say that if the ocean sink saturates, global warming won't get worse. I would probably phrase it this way: Global warming will accelerate if the oceans soak up less of the greenhouse gas.

The researchers say, "it is a tremendous surprise and very worrying because there were grounds for believing that in time the ocean might become 'saturated' with our emissions -- unable to soak up any more."

Why is that bad news?

New report makes suggestions for sustainable energy future

Coal is the enemy of the human race, but don’t take our word for it: 15 national science academies pooh-pooh the evil black rock in their new report “Lighting the Way: Toward a Sustainable Energy Future.” The report also rah-rahs solar and wind power and energy efficiency, and is warily supportive of nuclear energy and […]

California wildfires continue to rage

In case you haven’t heard, there are some crazy fires going down in southern California. At the time of this posting, some 400,000 acres have burned, igniting more than 1,500 structures, including some 1,000 homes. An estimated 700,000 people have been evacuated; two have died. The White House has declared a state of emergency, and […]

James Lovelock’s terror masks the same old industrial-era thinking

In the new issue of Rolling Stone, Jeff Goodell has a profile of James Lovelock, father of the Gaia Hypothesis and foremost representative of the OMFG we’re all totally f*cked!!1! school of green thinking: In Lovelock’s view, the scale of the catastrophe that awaits us will soon become obvious. By 2020, droughts and other extreme […]