Climate Climate & Energy

Another silly debate around the IPCC report

News stories have been reporting that the IPCC will make a statement about the relation between global warming and hurricanes:

During marathon meetings in Paris, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change approved language that said an increase in hurricane and tropical cyclone strength since 1970 "more likely than not" can be attributed to man-made global warming, according to Leonard Fields of Barbados and Cedric Nelom of Surinam.

The blogosphere is already awash with discussion about this (see here and here), and I expect all the usual suspects to weigh in on this soon.

Frankly, My Dear, We Don’t Want These Dams

Federal decision may be first step toward dam removal on the Klamath River Four hydroelectric dams along the Oregon-California border must ease fish passage to earn license renewal, says the Bush administration. The decision may spur the largest dam-removal project in history, as installation of fish ladders and other devices could cost far more than […]

Fetch Me Another Rouge Taureau

Scientists, officials hash out climate report wording in Paris Call it the cram session from hell: about 500 scientists and officials are spending the week cooped up in Paris, undertaking a word-by-word edit of a major report on climate change. The first installment of the fourth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, due Friday, is […]

It’s all about inequality

Blogging about the new Elizabeth Kolbert article in the New Yorker, David writes:

But then, there's the nagging thought. Lovins can always talk and explain and persuade better than we can -- he's a friggin' genius -- but the intuitive question keeps returning: if there were so many errors, and so much benefit to be gained by correcting them, and it's all so easy ... why isn't it happening? Something doesn't fit.

Roberts quotes Kolbert expressing similar thoughts:

Lovins's promise that apparently intractable problems -- oil dependence, global warming, nuclear proliferation -- can be profitably resolved is both the great appeal of his approach and its biggest liability. Much of what he recommends sounds just too good to be true, the econometric version of "Shed pounds by eating chocolate!"

This is a good question, and one of my early posts on this blog partially answered it. Energy demand has low long-term price elasticity (PDF). (That's economic jargon for, "people tend to overlook a lot of profitable opportunities to save energy.") That, in turn, implies that Amory Lovins has spotted something real. We have overlooked, over a period of decades, profitable opportunities at market prices -- opportunities that were profitable even without carbon taxes or emissions caps. "Market failure" is not a strong enough term for a system that could consistently go so wrong.

Umbra on trusting scientists

Hi Umbra, We’ve had some bizarre weather in New England, and more and more people are wondering if it’s due to global warming. On NBC News, they had a 30-year veteran of NOAA state flatly that it’s not global warming, it’s El Niño. As a greenie/leftie I got angry, thinking here goes the MSM denying […]

And it ain’t pretty

Read this and weep. When we have the Governor, the Lt. Governor, the Speaker of the House, and a senior member of the Texas legislature denying the truth of global warming, we are in bad trouble.

I wrote and sent in this letter in response to the article:

Only if you ignore fossil fuel emissions

(Part of the How to Talk to a Global Warming Skeptic guide)

Objection: The United States absorbs more CO2 into its land than it emits into the air. The world should be grateful.

Answer: As often the case, at the heart of this talking point is a grain of truth. But it does not serve the purpose for which it's been enlisted. According to the U.S. Department of Energy land-use changes in the U.S. between 1952 and 1992 have resulted in a net absorption of CO2. But this is only true of natural CO2 -- the natural flux of CO2 into and out of forests and peat bogs and soil, as well as carbon that's been sequestered as lumber and other wood products. These fluxes are actually much larger than anthropogenic emissions, but they go both ways, whereas fossil fuel burning only emits carbon.

More adventures in Utah

I first heard about Sundance’s renegade biofuels enthusiasts via email. The folks from Freedom Fuels, a new documentary about biofuels, were in town for Sundance — well, roaming town that is. They weren’t actually in the festival, but they were there to screen their movie regardless, traveling around town in a biodiesel-powered school bus showing […]

Osama bin Warming

Climate change could lead to terrorism, security experts warn Irony alert: as President Bush dwells on terrorism while barely acknowledging climate change, it turns out that climate change may lead to terrorism. The consequences of global warming could aggravate the already-ridiculous divide between the haves and have-nots, put 30 million people at risk of famine […]

Once subsidies and tariffs are removed, watch out

So, Bush wants massive new ethanol subsidies. He wants 35 billion gallons of "renewable and alternative fuels" — the vast bulk of which will be corn ethanol — online by 2017. Right now, there’s basically no opposition to this push. It’s got support from industry (mainly Big Corn and Big Auto), legislators from both parties, […]