Climate Climate & Energy

We’ve Got Frenzy In Low Places

U.S. continues to stonewall climate progress ahead of G8 summit In the diplomatic scramble leading up to next week’s G8 summit, there are two sides: the Bush administration and the rest of the world. The burning issue, of course, is climate change. Following weeks of grumbling from both sides, leaked documents show that U.S. red […]

There’s a connection between energy waste and our military adventurousness, so let’s stop the draft

This is what every utility in America should be required to provide in return for that monthly service charge that makes people who conserve energy pay more per unit of juice than people who waste it.

Not so perma, not so frosty

Thanks to global warming, the permafrost is no longer very perma, nor very frosty. I've noted before about how the ultimate release of huge amounts of greenhouse gases formerly trapped in the tundra could create a "self-perpetuating climate time bomb." But we shouldn't ignore the severe local impacts.

Arctic sea ice and global thawing

Once again National Geographic Magazine has managed to knock my socks off, this time with its June '07 issue. Vanishing Sea Ice is journalist and photographer Paul Nicklen's touching homage to the Arctic and its wildlife through the lens of his camera: a decade-long documentary of its accelerating demise. Big Thaw, meanwhile, zooms out to the global level to tell how ice around the world is fast receding. Global warming-induced meltage is a familiar story by now, but new studies are showing that -- due to multiple positive feedback effects -- the decline is occurring more rapidly than scientists had anticipated. Which, as the article discusses, brings sea level rise and habitat loss to the visible horizon.

A point which I personally hadn't considered is the widespread fallout of mountain glacier melting:

The cost of acting first on climate change vs. the cost of not acting

"Lose-lose: the penalties of acting alone stall collective effort on climate change" is an article the Financial Times ran a while back. While the piece gives a panoramic analysis of the international prisoner's dilemma, there are two other angles that are missing. The first is the penalties of no one acting. According to the UK's environmental minister, the economic rationale for inaction is that the first country to act risks undergoing some degree of economic hardship. This, he explains, is "the last refuge of the deniers -- the idea that it's not worth anyone doing anything unless everyone does it."

Are Americans smart enough to learn from Australia’s crisis?

What if there was a country that was like America in many ways, such as the obstinate refusal of its government to acknowledge that pursuing economic growth at the expense of the environment is simply a way to commit suicide faster, a fondness for beer, and an enormous capacity to live the high energy lifestyle as if there was no tomorrow?

Could Americans learn anything from it?

Good stuff at WC

Two good posts on Worldchanging I’ve been meaning to call out: Jeremy Faludi makes the important point that control technologies are just as important as efficiency technologies. Control technologies allow us to control energy systems in a more fine-grained way, using only what we need — think occupancy sensors for lighting or continuously variable transmissions […]

On ‘scientific reticence’ and sea-level rise

Sea level rise of 5 meters in one century? Even if most scientists will not say so publicly, that catastrophe is a real possibility, according to the director of NASA's Goddard Institute Of Space Studies.

It may seem like I single Hansen out for recommended reading. But that's only because he:

• is the nation's top climatologist
• writes prolifically
• speaks with unusually bluntness for a scientist
• has been more right than just about any climate scientist

He has written a terrific piece for the open-access Environmental Research Letters on "Scientific Reticence and Sea Level Rise":

I suggest that a "scientific reticence" is inhibiting the communication of a threat of a potentially large sea level rise. Delay is dangerous because of system inertias that could create a situation with future sea level changes out of our control. I argue for calling together a panel of scientific leaders to hear evidence and issue a prompt plain-written report on current understanding of the sea level change issue.

I could not agree more. In researching my book Hell and High Water, many leading climate scientists spoke to me candidly off the record that they share Hansen's fear. Fortunately, more and more are speaking out.

Hansen is especially concerned that sea level rise is nonlinear:

A few random notes

For Gristers in Houston, you might be interested in this event.

A good friend of mine, Emmett Duffy, has started a new blog called The Natural Patriot. Emmett is a marine scientist at the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences. Check out his entry on what it means to be a Natural Patriot -- and add this blog to your RSS reader.

Wind-loss, wind-gain

On the heels of last week's apparent defeat of the proposed Hoosac Wind project in mountainous Western Massachusetts due to environmental (wetland) concerns, Massachusetts' new governor has put his voice behind further offshore wind projects. The timing is interesting.