Climate Climate & Energy

Many offset critics appear to be shadowboxing

I’ve been watching the public debate over carbon offsets out of the corner of my eye for some time, and have formed a general impression, which I would like at long last to get off my chest. Offset critics often strike a moralistic tone, comparing offsets to medieval "indulgences." Let’s be clear: That rhetorical gimmick […]

Climate skeptics lose even more credibility

The first half of 2007 is the warmest Jan-June period on record, +0.79°C above the long-term average (from NASA GISS data, via QuarkSoup.net).

For those who question the consensus on climate change, see the collection of proconsensus statements at Logical Science (hat tip: Michael Tobis). Just recently, my department (the Dept. of Atmospheric Sciences at Texas A&M University) unanimously adopted a statement endorsing the primary conclusions of the IPCC reports. See the statement here.

In the scientific community, virtually no one believes that solar variations are the dominant driver of climate over the last few decades. However, among skeptics, this has been one of the last remaining shreds of hope for a non-human cause of climate change. New research, however, validates the doubt of the scientific community:

Writing in Proceedings of the Royal Society A, a journal of Britain's de-facto academy of sciences, the team said that the Sun had been less active since 1985, even though global temperatures have continued to rise.

"Over the past 20 years, all the trends in the Sun that could have had an influence on the Earth's climate have been in the opposite direction to that required to explain the observed rise in global mean temperatures," they write.

It’s Not the Sun

Sun is not causing current global warming, researchers confirm Attention all ye who think the sun might be a primary cause of climate change, and all ye who know someone who thinks that: No. It’s not the sun. Researchers have published a study of the last century of solar activity, finding that the sun’s output […]

Frankly, Madeira, We Don’t Want a Dam

Brazil gives go-ahead to controversial dams in Amazon Brazil has given the preliminary OK for two hydroelectric dams to be built on a major Amazon River tributary. Business leaders, who say the dams will provide much-needed energy, are impressed; greens, who see the project as a disaster waiting to happen, are depressed. Proponents say the […]

Crist Almighty

Florida governor to enact big energy and emission plans What’s the greenest state in the U.S.? By Friday, it could be Florida. Republican Gov. Charlie Crist is hosting a two-day climate summit in Miami, and will wrap up the event by signing three sweeping eco-executive orders. His plans include adopting California’s strict vehicle-emissions law, making […]

Globalization of the fuel vs. fuel debate

Last Thursday, Canada's Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, announced substantial subsidies to boost Canada's production of biofuels. Under its "ecoENERGY for Biofuels" program, the government will provide up to C$ 1.5 billion (US$ 1.4 billion) in the form of incentives over nine years to producers of renewable alternatives to gasoline and diesel fuel.

"With leading-edge technology and abundant supplies of grains, oilseeds, and other feedstocks, Canada is uniquely positioned to become a global leader in the production of biofuels," said the prime minister.

Today, the BBC ran a story explaining that, in part thanks to the increasing diversion of Canadian durum wheat into biofuels, supplies of this very special grain are getting tight. The result: the price of pasta, one of Italy's staple foods, is forecast to go up by about 20 percent this autumn.

Send me your questions before tomorrow

Tomorrow, I’m interviewing Amory Lovins, Cofounder, Chairman, and Chief Scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute. I suppose Lovins needs no introduction here, but if you want a compact summary of his contributions, Wikipedia’s got a decent entry. If you’d like to read some of his stuff, check out Winning the Oil Endgame, which promises a […]

Blue plus green equals sustainability

Manufacturing can be a source of pollution, and the iconic image of manufacturing is the smokestack hurling smoke into the atmosphere. But in order to create a sustainable economy, we're going to have to manufacture the necessary windmills, solar energy systems, trains, and electric vehicles. We have a negative demonstration of the necessity of manufacturing in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, in an article entitled "Alternative Energy Hurt By a Windmill Shortage" (attention web surfers: the Wall Street Journal is free all day today!):

The race to build new sources of alternative energy from the wind is running into a formidable obstacle: not enough windmills.

In recent years, improved technology has made it possible to build bigger, more efficient windmills. That, combined with surging political support for renewable energy, has driven up demand. Now, makers can't keep up -- mostly because they can't get the parts they need fast enough.

It turns out that mostly European utilities have locked up the consumption of most of the wind turbine builders in the world, so if in particular a small U.S. utility wants to expand its wind power base, it has one alternative: sell itself to a European utility. The wind turbine manufacturing capacity in the U.S. is so small that much of our wind turbine industry could soon be mostly European:

Trees are good for a lot of things; carbon offsetting isn’t one of them

The first rule of offsets, according to Joseph Romm, is "no trees." This is a pretty good rule, as these thing go. The TerraPass offset portfolio contains no tree-planting projects, despite the fact that most consumers love trees and the fact that tree-planting projects are typically cheaper than offsets from renewable energy projects.

So if trees are both consumer-friendly and cost-effective, why avoid them? There are lots of reasons, and Romm chooses to focus on one of the more minor ones: a recent study suggesting that trees outside of tropical zones actually cause a net increase in global warming by absorbing sunlight.

Rocking the Cradle of Democracy

Energy debate leads to unprecedented government shutdown in Pennsylvania More than 24,000 state workers in Pennsylvania are back on the job today, after a fierce debate over budget issues — including transportation and clean energy — led Gov. Ed Rendell (D) to enact an unprecedented partial government shutdown yesterday. At a late-night press conference, Rendell […]